The Nation March 29, 2013

Nigeria’s widest circulating newspaper

Court overrules Ondo tribunal

Imo deputy governor Agbaso impeached

NEWS Page 7

•ACN’s, Oke’s petitions back

•Witness kidnapped

NEWS Page 8

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VOL. 8, NO. 2442 FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2013

N150.00

THE 5TH BOLA TINUBU COLLOQUIUM

•Asiwaju Tinubu (centre), his wife Oluremi (third right), at the Colloquium at MUSON Centre, Onikan, Lagos...yesterday. With them (from left) are: Oyeneyin, Wellington, Mrs. Abiola-Costello, PHOTO: OMOSEHIN MOSES Bukar and Edun

Soyinka: Nigeria on the brink Tinubu seeks amnesty with justice for Boko Haram Fashola, Sanusi call for change

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OBEL laureate Prof.

Wole Soyinka warned yesterday that Nigeria is on the brink.

If the leadership fails to halt the growing insecurity, said the playwright, it may end in a civil war.

The National Leader of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, faulted the Federal Government’s handling of the Boko Haram crisis and

My problem with the government right now, especially the President of this nation, is that he doesn’t seem to realise it.

He has not taken the people of this nation into confidence

By Eric Ikhilae, Joseph Jibueze and Miriam Ekene-Okoro

suggested “a carrot and stick approach”.

Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi faulted the current political arrangement, where

people without known pedigrees find their way into public offices. He suggested a review to enthrone the best.

Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to make

Fuel subsidy stays, says Presidency

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HERE is no plan to remove the subsidy on petroleum products, the Presidency said yesterday.

President Goodluck Jonathan, at a March 19 event in Lagos, spoke of his administration’s plan to remove the subsidy after consultations with Nigerians.

Jonathan, who spoke at the Nigerian Summit 2013, organised by The Economic Conference, said subsidy of products constitutes a waste of resources that should be

From Gbade Ogunwale, Abuja

channelled elswhere.

Apparently thinking that the Federal Government may remove the subsidy on April 1, workers’ umbrella bodies - the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) have scheduled a protest for April 10.

But, the government said yesterday that there was no such plans.

Continued on page 2

public the process for mergers to ensure that parties willing to fuse together do so easily. This, he said, will prevent unnecessary acrimony and reduce the cost of elections.

They all spoke in Lagos at the fifth edition of “The Bola Tinu-

’

bu Colloquium” held as part of activities marking the former Lagos Governor’s 61st birthday.

The theme was “Beyond mergers: A national movement for change. A new generation speaks”.

Other speakers were young

professionals —members of the new generation.

They includeManaging Director, Frontier Capital Limited, Femi Edun; Chief Executive Officer, Venia Consulting, Kolawole Oyeneyin; lawyer Myani Bukar; musician Olubankole Wellington (Banky W) and Special Adviser to Ogun State Governor on Millenium Development Goals Mrs. Hafsat AbiolaContinued on page 2 •UP SCHOOL: From left: Alake of Egbaland, Oba Adedotun Gbadebo (CFR), an old student of Ibadan Grammar School with the Chairman, Globacom Limited, Dr. Mike Adenuga Jr. (GCON) and former Senate President Dr. Ken Nnamani (GCON), both old students and centenary awardees of the school, at the inauguration of an ultra-modern ICT centre donated by Dr. Adenuga to the school as part of its centenary anniversary in Ibadan…yesterday.

PHOTO: FEMI ILESANMI

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THE NATION FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2013

NEWS Soyinka: Nigeria on the brink

Reps bar Jonathan from funding SEC From Victor Oluwasegun and Dele Anofi, Abuja

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Continued from page 1

Costello.

Soyinka particularly faulted the way President Goodluck Jonathan appears to be treating the threat posed by the Boko Haram insurgency.

“Let’s face it. This nation is on the brink. There are those who don’t understand this, who won’t accept this. I feel very sorry that they will wake up and find out that we have fallen over the brink. It is not what we envisaged during our struggle for independence.

“It is not what we envisaged when we struggled to overthrow dictatorship and install the rights and dignity of human beings and citizens in the society. But, whether we like it or not, it has come upon us.

“My problem with the government right now, especially the President of this nation, is that he doesn’t seem to realise it.

“He has not taken the people of this nation into confidence.

By now, it is my belief that the President should be addressing the nation - and in great details - explaining why, if he agrees, that this nation is at war and that certain things have to be done to ensure that we pull back from this second round of what is moving towards a civil war. That, of course, is if he and his government accept this.

“By now, we should be tightening our belts in many different directions. By now, we should never have persuaded ourselves to see what is happening in the North as being confined in the North. It has been obvious all along that this is not a Northern affair alone; no!

“I read in the papers the other day that some cells have been found, trying to blow up Lagos.

My reaction was what is new about that?, We have said this ages before on various lecture podia, that wait a minute, it is happening there, but believe me, it is happening every where.

“And this consciousness should have been imparted to Nigerian citizens from the very beginning, at least two years ago. So that everyone understands that the problem we are facing right now is not just regional. It is national, it is a humanistic problem.

“I remember the four horsemen of the apocalypse. I can’t remember precisely what they were, but I know they were plagues. There is the fifth. And it is called Boko Haram. That is the kind of language that the leadership of this nation should be imparting to Nigerian citizens today,” Soyinka said.

•Tinubu and wife Oluremi (centre) cutting the 61st birthday anniversary cake at Museum Centre, Onikan, Lagos...yesterday. With them from left are: Governors Fayemi (Ekiti), Aregbesola (Osun), Fashola (Lagos), Amosun (Ogun), CBN Governor Sanusi and Fashola’s wife Dame Abimbola PHOTOS: OMOSEHIN MOSES AND ISSAC AYODELE

Jonathan greets Tinubu From Augustine Ehikioya, Abuja

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RESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan yesterday identified with former Lagos governor and Action Congress of Nigeria (AC N) National leader Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who turns 61 today.

In a statement issued by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, the President prayed for many more years of fulfilment and God’s continued guide, guard and prosperity for Tinubu.

The statement reads: “President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has felicitated with former Lagos State governor and chieftain of the Action Congress of Nigeria, (ACN), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, on the occasion of his 61st birthday anniversary which comes up tomorrow.”

In a letter to Asiwaju Tinubu, on behalf of himself and the Federal Government, the President said: “It is my prayer that Almighty God continues to guide, guard and prosper you even as He blesses you with many more years of fulfillment.”

In Tinubu’s view, Nigeria is drfting apart because “we have leadership that is dividing us more and more every day”.

He called for value reorientation among the leadership and suggested a reversal to the old national anthem that deemphasises differences.

“We must question ourselves in Nigeria. I disagree with my brother and friend Sanusi Lamido Sanusi who says youth may form your own party. Politics is not economic policy where you can change a bank note.

“If only to merge, some people are already forging names, and trying to prevent the creation of APC. You can imagine what you will go through.Come and join us. You see, with a wife like this (pointing to Oluremi standing behind him), is politics not sexy? Join us, it’s sexy here on our side.

“On your side, it is a challenge that you have to face. It’s not a question about age. We have seen example of age.

“The present President is a young man, but he has been appointing an 83-year-old man to be chairman, not just of board

of trustees, but of Ports Authority where high decisions, articulated, modern, 21st century information technology are needed. How do you modernise? So, youth belong here.

“We can see the live tweets of this event. So, it’s not about age. There are a lot of educated relics. I have not seen anything higher than Ph.D in the academic curriculum of universities. So, we have a Ph.D man (holder) there now.

“What will do it for you is strong determination, perseverance, courage and boldness. If we fail to join the movement, we’ll fail to continue to interrogate our leaders, and fail to do what you did during the oil subsidy removal.”

On security, Tinubu said: “No nation has fought a religious war and survived it. It is no winner, no loser. We’ll end up coming to the table to discuss. Therefore, it’s a clarion call: we must find those who are responsible for the bloodshed, but we must apply justice.

“Those with human blood in their hands must be brought to justice. But we cannot throw away the question of amnesty.

•Comrade Oshiomhole...yesterday •Prof. Soyinka...yesterday

It’s a carrot-and-stick approach.

And we used it before. Surrender your guns; we give you money for it. Why can’t we do it again?”

The CBN Governor, who took over from Soyinka as chairman of the event, argued that it was wrong to assess a nation’s economy in isolation of the wellbeing of the people.

“What is destroying this country is that people are corrupt and doing nothing. We need to be asking, as civil society, what are we doing?

“One governor asked a minister publicly, ‘in the years you have been minister of so, so ministry, please tell me one project you have completed’. I have been reading the newspapers everyday to see the projects completed by that minister. I have not seen one.

“Now, this is not a question that a governor should be asking a minister. It is a question that Nigerians should be asking their public officers. How can you be a governor or minister for four years and not be able to stand up and say this is what I have done.

“And you know what will happen? After the elections, the same ministers will go through

a process that is supposed to be a screening process, and they will stand there on national TV, and talk about what they did as ministers, and they will end up saying nothing. And they will be unanimously confirmed.

“We are a country which has absolutely no regard for merit and competence. We talk about federal character. There must be a minister from every state.

I have talked about this over and over again.

“What is the connection or relationship between the number of states in the federation and the number of ministries we should have at the federal level?

“It is so unintelligent. So, you must have 36 ministers whether or not you need 30 ministries. Plus another six from different geo-political zones. And the only qualification to be a minister is that you should come from a state and should have attempted WASCE. “In other countries, it is assumed that before someone is even proposed for public office, he would have to show certain skills,” Sanusi said.

Continued on page 5

No plan to remove fuel subsidy, says Presidency Continued from page 1

The President’s Special Assistant on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe yesterday explained why his boss broached the idea of subsidy removal at the Lagos event.

According to him, it was only an “intellectual contribution” to discussions by the President at the Summit.

He said sufficient provision had already been made for fuel subsidy in the 2013 Budget.

“Therefore, there is no cause to assume that the President will act against the budget he presented to the National Assembly.”

Okupe added that the administration would always engaged the various stakeholders in dialogue on issues relating to the oil and gas industry, with the view to reaching consensus on such issues.

The statement said: “Contrary to speculations in the media and assumption by certain groups within the polity, the Presidency has stated that the removal of oil subsidy is not on the table of the transformation agenda of the President.

“A statement made by President Jonathan at the recent Economic Summit held in Lagos was a frank, intellectual and

well articulated contribution by the President to the discussion on the Nigerian economy and not an indication that government was planning to remove subsidy from petroleum products.

“The President and this administration are not insensitive to the plight of the Nigerian masses and will continue to pursue and execute policies and programmes that are in the overall interest of majority of Nigerians and that will bring the greatest good to the greatest number of our teeming population.

“While noting that Nigeria

spends about N1 trillion, an equivalent of about 20 per cent of the national budget on fuel subsidy, government remains committed to the welfare of the common man who unfortunately does not benefit optimally from the subsidy regime.

“Finally, for the avoidance of doubt and at the risk of being repetitive, this administration is not considering the issue of removal of fuel subsidy in the nearest future and will continue to dialogue with all stakeholders with a view to reaching sustainable consensus on all issues involved in the proper management of the nation’s oil and gas industry.”

•President Jonathan

AWMAKERS are insisting that Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) boss Aruma Otteh must go.

The House of Representatives said yesterday that President Goodluck Jonathan has no right to fund SEC operations from public coffers “or even private sources”.

In a March 27, 2013 memo despatched by the Moruf AkinderuFatai-led House Committee on Legislative Compliance to the Executive en-route Finance Minister Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the House insisted on the zero allocation given to the SEC. Copies of the memo were sent to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, the SEC Board and the Commission’s Director of Finance and Administration.

The letter reads: “You will recall that the Securities and Exchange Commission had submitted its budgetary proposals for 2013 to the House.

“You will also recall that no approval was returned to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“Further to this and, most importantly, the National Assembly has vide the 2013 Appropriation Act, Item 9, Part E, Clause 10 stated thus: All revenue however described, including all fees received, fines, grants, budgetary provisions and all internally and externally generated revenue shall not be spent by the Security and Exchange Commission for recurrent or Capital purposes or for any other matters, nor liabilities thereon incurred, except with Prior Appropriation and Approval by the National Assembly.

“The net effect of the National Assembly’s resolution item 9 Part E Clause 10 of 2013 Appropriation Act, it is ultra vires for any authority or person (Mr. President inclusive) to finance the operations of Securities and Exchange Commission from public coffers or even private sources.”

The memo advised the SEC “to refrain from making any expenditure until a budget has been approved by the National Assembly for that purpose.

“You may also not source and spend any monies whatsoever as this will be a clear infringement of the Constitution and shall be viewed as such,” the House Committee warned.

Airports jammed

By Kelvin Osa-Okunbor, Airport Correspondent

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ASSENGER traffic and flight operations were at their peak yesterday at both the old and new domestic terminals of the Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMIA), Ikeja, Lagos. Tickets were sold out.

Many airport workers walked from the Ikeja bus stop for as long as the traffic snarl lasted.

Most airlines, including Arik Air were fully booked.

The airline’s competitor – Aero Contractors — has suspended its operations due to the strike by its workers.

Other airlines, including Medview, IRS Airlines, Chanchangi Airlines, as well as Overland Airways, also had their flights fully booked.

As of midnight, hundreds of passengers were still waiting at the Abuja airport.

ADVERT HOTLINES: 08023006969, 08052592524 NEWSROOM: LAGOS – 01-8962807, ABUJA – 07028105302 COMPLAINTS: 01-8930678

THE NATION FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2013

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THE NATION FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2013

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NEWS CHINUALUMOGU ACHEBE (1930 -2013)

Achebe: •Rivers State Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi (left), Prof. Nimi Briggs, former Petroleum Minister Odein Ajumogobia, and Commissioner for Water Resources, Patricia Simon-Hart at the Rivers State water development conference in Port Harcourt ... on Wednessday

The ‘father’ of African literature set the template for the darker peoples of the world to tell their own stories, writes Percy Zvomuya in Mail & Guardian

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• Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson (second left), his Deputy, Rear Admiral Gboribiogha John Jonah (right), Minister of Niger Delta Affairs Godsday Orubebe (second right) and Minster of State for Niger Delta Affairs, Arch.Darius Ishaku when the ministers visited the governor at the Government House in Yenagoa.

•Director-General, National Lottery Regulatory Commission, Dr. Peter Igho (left), Chairperson , House of Representatives Committee on Diaspora , Hon. Abike Dabiri-Erewa, Hon. Ajibola Famurewa and Khabeeb Mustapha, during the PHOTO: ABAYOMI FAYESE Diaspora Committee's working visit to the commission in Abuja... yesterday.

•Niger State Acting Chief Judge, Justice Fati Abubakar (left), taking the oath of office before Governor Babangida Aliyu (right) and other top government functionaries in Minna....yesterday.

NTHILLS of the Savannah (1987), the last novel the late Chinua Achebe wrote, has a chapter with the title Impetuous Son. The impetuous son is Ikem Osodi, poet and newspaperman, a character drawn from the skeleton of Achebe’s friend, the poet Christopher Okigbo, a victim of the Biafran War for independence.

Okigbo died in battle when he was 37; Achebe died at the ripe age of 82.

From his mid-20s right into his 80s, Achebe wrote novels, poems and essays. There was the bestselling Things Fall Apart (1958); the monumental Arrow of God (1964); two tomes on corruption in the post colony — A Man of the People (1966) and No Longer At Ease (1960) — poetry and short stories. His essays — more like meditations — include the magisterial Hopes and Impediments (1988); The Trouble with Nigeria (1983), an irate missive to his compatriots; The Education of a British-Protected Child (2009), a melding of the essay form with the autobiography; and his last book, a proper memoir, There Was a Country (2012).

Achebe was essentially a writer of tragedies: his main protagonists are the playthings of an unforgiving fate, always hurtling towards a sad end. Tragic yet beautiful heroes bestride his oeuvre: there is Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart; Obika and his father Ezeulu in Arrow of God; Obi in No Longer At Ease; and Ikem and Chris in Anthills of the Savannah.

Of all the characters in Achebe’s works, Obika is the novelist’s proto-typical character. The “handsomest young man in Umuachala and perhaps in all of Umuaro”, Obika is also rash and foolish. He never backs away from a fight. A signature sentence is when he tells a court -messenger of the powerful white administrator to “go and eat shit”. He dies before his wife gives birth to their first child; it’s the fate, coincidentally, that befalls Ikem and Chris in Anthills of the Savannah.

Typical of Obika’s rashness, one day he gets into a verbal duel about “the amount of palm wine a good drinker could take without losing knowledge of himself”. Of course, after a bellyful, he and his friend sleep into the early hours, overpowered by the sap of the palm tree.

But happily for us, unlike his most inspired creations, Achebe lived long enough to build an oeuvre, nay, a testament, that will stand on its own for centuries to come.

Beyond the war and the warrior No other passage in all of Achebe’s writing encapsulates what he was about as much as a section in Anthills of the Savannah about “why the story is chief”. A wise old man explains to his Abazon kinsmen that: “To some of us the Owner of the World has apportioned the gift to tell their fellows that the time to get up has finally come. To others

• The late Prof. Achebe

He gives the eagerness to rise when they hear the call; to rise with racing blood and put on their garbs of war and go to the boundary of their town to engage the invading enemy boldly in battle. And then there are those whose part is to wait and when the struggle is ended, to take over and recount its story.”

The lecture continues: “The sounding of the battle drum is important; the fierce waging of the war itself is important; and the telling of the story afterwards — each is important in its own way. I tell you there is not one of them we could do without. But if you ask me which of them takes the eagle feather, I will say boldly: the story … so why do I say that the story is chief among his fellows? ...

Because it is only the story [that] can continue beyond the war and the warrior. It is the story that outlives the sound of the war drums and the exploits of brave warriors. It is the story, not the others, that saves our progeny from blundering like blind beggars into the spikes of the cactus fence. The story is our escort, without it we are blind.”

His work was essentially about telling the black man and the black woman that their past was not one long night from which the white man rescued them. In his much quoted essay The Novelist as Teacher, in the collection Hopes and Impediments, he wrote that he wants to “help my society regain belief in itself and put away the complexes of the years of denigration and selfabasement”.

For Achebe, no other writer encapsulated “the Western project” as much as Joseph Conrad. Writing in a 1975 essay, An Image of Africa, Achebe argued that the novel Heart of Darkness “projects the image of Africa as ‘the other world’, an antithesis of Europe and therefore of civilization”. Conrad’s descendants still walk among us. And Achebe returned to confront them in the essay Africa’s Tarnished Name, in The Education of a British-Educated Child.

“The vast arsenal of derogatory images of Africa amassed to defend the slave trade and, later, colonisation gave the world a literary tradition that is now, happily, defunct, but also a particular way of looking (or, rather, not looking) at Africa and Africans that endures, alas, into our own day,” Achebe wrote. Even though the sensational “African” novels that were popular in the 19th century have trickled to a “virtual stop, their centuries-old obsession with lurid and degrading stereotypes of Africa has been bequeathed to the cinema, to journalism, to certain varieties of anthropology, even to humanitarianism and missionary work itself”. Who can ever forget the

THE NATION FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2013

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NEWS CHINUALUMOGU ACHEBE (1930-2013)

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Without the story we are blind

• Onuzo

• Wainaina

• Adichie

• Gordimer

Gordimer, Wainaina, Adichie pay tribute to Achebe on BBC

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HE British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) yesterday aired a programme eulogising the late Prof. Chinua Achebe.

South Africa’s Nadine Gordimer, Kenya’s Binyavanga Wainaina , Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Chibundu Onuzo shared their thoughts on the late Achebe in the documentary.

It said: “The special programme (is) to celebrate one of the 20th century’s most important and best-loved authors - the Nigerian Chinua Achebe - whose death at the age of 82 has saddened readers around the world. Although he apparently

didn’t like the phrase, Achebe was often described as “the father of modern African literature” and certainly his first novel - Things Fall Apart, published when he was still in his twenties - launched a whole new literary generation, not least because it was a story of Africa told by an African. That book confronted the psychological and cultural damage caused by colonisation.”

The BBC said the late Achebe over the years addressed the corruption of post independence Nigerian politics, and the nightmare of military dictatorship.

Economist’s 2000 cover that indicted Africa as “The Hopeless Continent”, or how Africans on brochures from nongovernmental organisations or on television are still the poster children of misery?

verts to Christianity in Nigeria, Achebe naturally took the side of the white man until much later.

When he eventually revised his own prejudices against the “uncivilised” black, he “realised that I had to be a writer. I had to be that historian. It’s not one man’s job. It’s not one person’s job. But it is something we have to do, so that the story of the hunt will also reflect the agony, the travail — the bravery, even, of the lions,” he said in an interview with the Paris Review.

This is not the place to mourn Achebe; his long life has been exem-

Glorifying the hunter Achebe started studying medicine at the University of Ibadan before discovering his love for literature — to its eternal shame, the University of Cambridge wouldn’t accept him for postgraduate studies. When he started studying literature at the university’s college in Ibadan, Achebe complained about Joyce

Cary’s racist novel, Mr Johnson, until an outraged white lecturer said to him: “Why don’t you write your own novel?” He did just that — turning out the classic Things Fall Apart.

Achebe is the perfect embodiment of the proverb: “Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”

Yet he was a typical colonial child, raised on a literature in which the black person was the savage, a menace to the peace of the white man.

As a child of one of the earliest con-

plary. Perhaps more than anyone else — and this explains the moniker “Achebe: father of African literature” — he set the template for the darker peoples of the world to own and tell their own stories.

Unlike the impetuous and tragic characters that people his own novels, Achebe lived long enough — even surviving a car accident that resulted in him being wheelchairbound from his 60s — to tell and remind us, and the rest of the world, about the black person’s humanity.

Even though for the last few decades Achebe had to live in the United

States for medical reasons, one could never doubt his enduring commitment to the continent of his birth.

As someone wrote elsewhere, instead of celebrating his birthdays on the Hudson River, it would have been a more enriching experience — for him and for us — if the griotelder had handed out those nuggets of wisdom by the Niger, Limpopo or Congo rivers.

The Nobel Prize for Literature, perhaps the grandest acknowledgement, sadly eluded him. Maybe Achebe’s project was too radical for those good people in Stockholm. Yet adulation continued to come his way; the simplest and perhaps most profound praise came in 1990 at his 60th birthday celebrations in Nigeria from his friend, the American scholar and novelist Michael Thelwell. In his keynote speech, Thelwell spoke of Achebe as “eagle on iroko”. The master of the sky and West Africa’s largest tree (considered sacred and therefore not to be chopped down).

Those two metaphors say it all.

Nigeria on the brink, says Soyinka at Tinubu Colloquium Continued from page 2

He urged the youth to be inquisitive, engage the nation’s leaders and get involved in political activities so that they could help bring about the needed change.

Sanusi argued that the youth could effect the change the nation desires if they could organise themselves and form a political party. He noted that with their current population, they could displace the current old political players.

Fashola faulted the political arrangement in the country, noting that as things are now, it will be difficult for the ruling party to be displaced and the needed change brought about.

He said such would only be possible if the merger being planned by the opposition succeeds, thereby narrowing down the gap between the ruling party and the opposition.

“In India, the difference between the opposition and the party in power is so thin. So, the party in government disconnects with its people at its own peril. It’s out at the next election. So, that is the capacity for change that the merger that is on the horizon brings.

The only thing that I can say to the regulator of that process is that I have looked at the provisions for merger as well.

“It is the same oil money that passes through our hands that passes through the leaders of Dubai.

Therefore, although the guidelines are there, the question to ask is what does a party that needs to merge do?

Should it keep its name and hide it because some people will hijack it?

“Or should it get a trademark and patent first? In my view, the regulator owes a duty to this society to ensure that the provision for mergers have a real chance of being actualised. And in that way, it will save itself the agony of re-registering parties and deregistering them, because once it midwifes one merger, the possibility for strengthening political alliances becomes real.

“The cost of election in that sense will come down. Ballot papers will stop looking like a long sheet for pool betting.

“I think, therefore, that the signs coming out now are very refreshing and I hope that as we look on beyond mergers, we’ll see that the birth of mergers will give us a new national movement for change that will include a very strong positioning for this generation, the generation of tomorrow that are here today.”

At the event anchored by Lagos

State’s Attorney General Ade Ipaye were ACN National Chairman Chief Bisi Akande, the party’s chieftain, Tom Ikimi, Senator Buka Abba Ibrahim, Senator Chris Ngige, Senator Abu Ibrahim and Senator OlorunnimbeMamora.

There were also governors – Comrade Adams Oshiomhole (Edo), Rauf Aregbesola (Osun), Dr. Kayode Fayemi (Ekiti) and Senator Ibikunle Amosun (Ogun), former governors Segun Osoba (Ogun) Otunba Niyi Adebayo (Ekiti), Donald Duke (Cross River) and Abubakar Audu (Kogi).

Otthers include Oba Rilwan Akiolu of Lagos, Gen. Alani Akinrinade, Ayo Opadokun, Chief Molade Okoya-Thomas, rights activist and lawyer Femi Falana (SAN).

Oyeneyin, who spoke passionately on the topic, “Beyond MergerResponsibility of Older generation to the younger generation said many youths were angry with the country our leaders left for us.

To him, the situation is like a time bomb waiting to explode - if nothing is done to address it.

“We are a generation that have never witness a good Nigeria and I speak for myself and people within my age bracket. We have kept so

much in our heart as young people and I think time has come for us to speak out, Oyeneyin said.

He said it is sad that a country with youth population of 67 million, the present political structure is built in such a way that the youth have been cut off from governance.

He said change would come if young people are brought on board, considering that they have the intellectual and human capacity.

He also charged the leaders to kill the mentality that youth are leaders of tomorrow. “Tomorrow is already here,” Oyeneyin said.

He said the youth must be part of the ideology, stressing that they must not be left out in decision making.

Mrs Abiola-Costello, who spoke on “Millenium Development Goals- where is Nigeria,” said the country was lagging behind in the implementation of the eight goals, but, in her view, the Southwestern states have done so well compared to their counterparts from other region.

Wellington urged the youth to be involved in the political process, by first, registering to vote, and actually voting for the right candidates.

It is either they do that, he said, or they sit back and let someone else “steal your voice”.

He said the youth should continue to protest peacefully against misrule, using social media (also new media) as a tool. “Become fully involved in the political process. Use whatever voice or platform you have constructively,” Wellington said.

Bukar argued that most internal conflicts where citizens kill one another often arise from countries’ inability to effectively define who a citizen is.

He praised the effort of the National Assembly to replace state of origin with residency in the Constitution.

“Indigineship should be replaced with residency; Federal Character principle should be done away with. Land ownership should be revisited,” Bukar said.

He urged the youths to be interested in, and involve in the task of nation building.

He praised the attempt by the opposition to form a formidable party, but warned that they should be interested in the country’s growth, failing which the youths will cease to collaborate with them.

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THE NATION FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2013

NEWS OLUWOLE AWOLOWO (1942 - 2013) Ladoja, Arisekola eulogise publisher

Jonathan, Amosun, others condole with Awolowo family

From Bisi Oladele, Ibadan

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ORMER Oyo State Governor Rashidi Ladoja and the Aare Musulumi of Yoruba land, Alhaji AbdulAzeez Arisekola-Alao, yesterday paid tributes to the late Chief Oluwole Awolowo.

They described his death as shocking and a great loss to Yoruba land.

In a statement by his media aide, Mr Lanre Latinwo, Ladoja said: “I am astonished to receive the news of the sudden departure of Chief Oluwole Awolowo. The Unbreakable has finally succumbed to the final home call of his creator. He was not just the son of our revered late sage but also the anchorman of Awolowo dynasty who carved a niche for himself politically when he contested and won an election in 1979 into the Lagos State House of Assembly representing Apapa Constituency and served meritoriously as a legislator.”

In a statement in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, Aare Musulumi of Yorubaland Alhaji Arisekola-Alaa said he received with heavy heart the demise of his “very dear brother and friend.”

He added: “Though painful and devastating, death is inevitable for mortals. It is more than a tragedy to lose Egbon Wole. His public relations was second to none. He was a very nice a man, a rallying point. Myself and Egbon Wole have been together for almost 50 years.

“I recalled when he joined Politics.

He won in Apapa Local Government.

He was a very nice and honest man.”

He described his death as the will of God.

Lanlehin shocked From Oseheye Okwuofu, Ibadan

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HE news of the death of the only surviving son of the late sage and the Publisher of the Tribune titles, Chief Oluwole Awolowo, has been described as most shocking, regrettable and disheartening.

The Vice-Chairman, Senate Committee on National Planning, Economic Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Olufemi Lanlehin, yesterday said he was shocked by the death of Chief Oluwole Awolowo.

In a statement in Ibadan by his media aide, Olawale Sadare, the senator said: “An average Nigerian, who cherishes good name and enviable track record of service, resourcefulness and patriotism, would naturally be pained at anytime the legendary Obafemi Awolowo family is in grief.

“Besides, Chief Oluwole Awolowo who, until his demise on Wednesday, was the patriarch of the Awolowo family, carved a niche for himself through a personal record of simplicity, responsibility and godliness. This helped him in the successful piloting of the Tribune titles.

“However, his death at the age of 70 years has created another vacuum which will be extremely difficult to fill...”

NUJ mourns From Faith Yahaya, Abuja

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HE Nigeria Union of Journalist (NUJ) has expressed shock over the death of the publisher of Nigerian Tribune titles, Chief Oluwole Awolowo.

In a statement by its Senior Assistant National Secretary, Gbenga Bamidele, the union said: “The national secretariat of the NUJ receives the news of the passage of the publisher/Vice-Chairman of African Newspapers of Nigeria (ANN) Plc and publishers of the Tribune titles, Chief Oluwole Awolowo, with shock.

“The scion of the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo family died on Wednesday in …London.

“We commiserate with the family of Chief Obafemi Awolowo and the management and workers of the Tribune titles on this irreparable loss…”

ment and the people of the State of Osun, I offer our heartfelt condolences to the entire Awolowo family, the government and people of Ogun State, the Tribune titles' management, the Awolowo political family, the Southwest and Nigeria. We pray that Almighty God give his soul eternal rest."

ground to get into his head.

"He made himself available to whoever needed his attention and served humanity to the best of his ability.

"On behalf of the government and the good people of Ekiti State, I condole with the Awolowo family, the Tribune family, the Ikenne community and the entire Yoruba race on this great loss."

Oshiomhole condoles with family, Tribune

I’ve lost a brother, says Uduaghan

Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole yesterday condoled with Mama Awolowo on the death of her last son.

In a statement in Benin, the state capital, by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr Peter Okhiria, the governor said: "I learnt with rude shock and grief news of the death of your son and scion of the Awolowo family, Chief Oluwole Awolowo. On behalf of the people and Government of Edo State, I offer my heartfelt condolences.

"We share in the grief and pain of the Awolowo family at this very difficult period, knowing how closely knit the family is. "...While we commiserate with his immediate family, we pray God to grant them the fortitude to bear the loss."

Delta State Governor Emmanuel Eweta Uduaghan expressed shock at Oluwole Awolowo's death.

The governor said he has lost an elder brother.

In a statement by his Press Secretary, Felix Ofou, the governor said: "Not once throughout my continued encounter with him did he betray emotions of being born with a silver spoon. Unless you are told, you won't know he was the son of the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo. He was simple, humble and very focused. He was not one to be associated with triviality."

The governor noted that the late cleric and religious columnist cemented his (governor's) relationship with Mama Awolowo to the extent that he is among the few recognised by the matriarch as one of her children.

"It is against this backdrop that I am concerned about the impact of the death on Mama. Though she has demonstrated strong and unqualified resilience in the face of adversity, I am bothered at this twist of fate," he said.

Uduaghan condoled with Mama H. I. D., the Awolowo family, the Nigerian Tribune, the Ogun State Government and all those affected by the death.

He prayed God to grant repose for the soul of the deceased.

By Our Reporters

‘Decades after the death of his father, Chief Oluwole Awolowo did his best to keep the kite of the African Newspaper of Nigeria, publishers of the Nigerian Tribune, flying’ •The late Awolowo

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RESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan and several eminent Nigerians yesterday visited the Ikenne, Ogun State, home of the Awolowos to commiserate with the family on the death of the publisher of Nigerian Tribune titles, Chief Oluwole Awolowo.

They condoled with the matriarch of the Awolowo dynasty, Chief Hannah Idowu Dideolu Awolowo.

Oluwole died at Wellington Hospital, St. Johnswood, London, on Wednesday night. He was 70.

The President was represented by his Special Adviser on Policy and Strategy, Mr Oronto Douglas.

The sympathisers included Ogun State Governor Ibikunle Amosun; former Justice Minister and AttorneyGeneral of the Federation, Prince Bola Ajibola; Alakene of Ikenne-Remo, Oba Adeyinka Onakade; representatives of the Ooni of Ife, led by Apetumodu of Ipetumodu, Oba Elijah Adegoke; frontline politician, Sir Olaniwun Ajayi; Justice Owolabi Sonoiki (rtd); eminent lawyer, Chief G. O. K. Ajayi; former Chief of general Staff, Gen. Oladipo Diya (rtd); Prof Timothy Ogunlesi and Ogun State Secretary of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Alhaji Abimbola Awofeso.

Others are former Ogun State Governor Gbenga Daniel and his wife; Olufunke, among others.

In the condolence register, Dr Jonathan said Oluwole was “a great son of Nigeria is gone. Adieu, our leader and brother”.

Amosun wrote: “I really don’t know what to say or write. Despite our grief, we thank the good Lord. He gives and takes. We cannot question or query God. “May the good grant you eternal rest and may we continue to give Mama good health and may He comfort Mama and the rest of the Awolowo family, biological and political.

Adieu.”

Mark: The Unbreakable has pass on Senate President David Mark, former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, governors and other prominent Nigerians yesterday mourned the death of the publisher of Nigerian Tribune titles, Chief Oluwole Awolowo.

Mark described Oluwole's death as a painful exit.

In a condolence message to Ogun State Government and the Awolowo family, the Senate President said the news of the cleric's death was saddening.

He noted that the late publisher was an "erudite administrator who lived a godly life with love and passion for humanity".

Mark added: "I recall with nostalgia the tenacity of purpose portrayed by late Evangelist Oluwole. He never discriminated against friends, workers and even relations.

"When the mantle of leadership fell on his shoulder, even at early stage of life, he stood firm and made a great impact.

"The Unbreakable, as he was fondly

called by associates, has passed on. We are pained and saddened, but what can we do? This is purely the will of God Almighty, as death is an inevitable end of all mortals. We have once again lost a rare gem, kind, considerate and selfless Nigerian."

In a statement in Abuja by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Kola Ologbondiyan, the Senate President sympathised with Ogun State Government and the Awolowo family. He prayed God to grant the soul of the deceased eternal rest.

He was a man of peace, says Atiku Atiku Abubakar described the late Oluwole Awolowo as a peaceful person, who did his best to keep the kite of Awolowo's heritage flying decades after the death of the late sage.

The former Vice-President noted that Oluwole's death is a loss not only to the Awolowo family but also to all supporters of the Awolowo dynasty.

In a statement in Abuja by his media office, the frontline politician described the deceased as a man who was at peace with his God and fellow humans.

"Decades after the death of his father, Chief Oluwole Awolowo did his best to keep the kite of the African Newspaper of Nigeria, publishers of the Nigerian Tribune, flying. He will be remembered as a man of peace, who was committed to his family," the Turaki Adamawa added.

He prayed Almighty God to grant the Awolowo family, particularly its matriarch, Chief H. I. D. Awolowo, the fortitude to bear the loss.

Aregbesola: his death a big blow to Southwest Osun State Governor Rauf Aregbesola said the death of the last son of the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, was a big blow not only to the immediate family but also to the entire Awolowo political dynasty, the Southwest and Nigeria.

In a statement yesterday in Osogbo, the state capital, by the Director, Bureau of Communications and Strategy, Office of the Governor, Mr. Semiu Okanlawon, the governor said Chief Oluwole Awolowo's death came as a rude shock.

He noted that the late Oluwole proved that he was a successful businessman, administrator and leader of people.

Aregbesola said: "During his life time, Chief Oluwole Awolowo was a shrewd businessman, who excelled in that calling; an astute administrator, a devout family man and a firm believer in selfless service to his people.

"He was a rallying point in the dynasty of the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo. For many years after the departure of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, he remained a pillar of strength to Mama Awolowo, performing, so to speak, the role of son and father figure to the matriarch.

"On behalf of myself, the govern-

Ajimobi: he demystified wealth Oyo State Governor Abiola Ajimobi described Oluwole's death as shocking and a great loss to Yorubaland.

In a statement in Ibadan, the state capital, by his Special Adviser on Media, Dr. Festus Adedayo, the governor said: "Chief Oluwole Awolowo's passage, shortly after the demise of his sister, Mrs. Ayo Soyode, is a great blow to a Yorubaland, which will not forget in a hurry the footsteps of development and leadership offered the Southwest and indeed Yorubaland by their father and the father of us all. He was a jolly good fellow who desired the good of the Yoruba nation and worked for a return to a path of peaceful nationhood."

Ajimobi commiserated with Chief H. I. D. Awolowo, urging her to take solace in the fact that the late Oluwole touched several lives.

He added: "Though shocking and irreparable, his death should not be turned into mourning but a celebration of the great time he spent here on earth. He was one son of a famous leader who demystified wealth and status by associating with the lowly.

He drove himself all through, no matter how long the journey was, and enjoyed lifting the children of the poor."

Fayemi extols his virtues Ekiti State Governor Kayode Fayemi expressed shock on the death of the Nigerian Tribune titles' publisher.

In a statement in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital, by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Olayinka Oyebode, the governor regretted that death has robbed the Awolowo clan of a shining star who had been a motivator of the family since the demise of Chief Obafemi Awolowo.

Fayemi noted that Oluwole's death became more painful because the family had not recovered from the death of the publisher's sister, Mrs. Soyode, who passed on about two years ago.

The governor credited Oluwole with the nurturing of the Nigerian Tribune, a big media empire which has endured for over 60 years.

He said: "Chief Wole Awolowo was a colourful politician who gave effective and purposeful representation to the good people of Apapa Constituency in the Lagos State House of Assembly in the Second Republic.

"His humility was legendary and he never allowed his privileged back-

Ahmed sad Kwara State Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed described the death as sad, unfortunate and shocking.

In a statement in Ilorin, the state capital, by his Chief Press Secretary, Alhaji Abdulwahab Oba, the governor said: "The postulations of the late Chief Oluwole Awolowo in the last couple of years in his column Oba Lectern, (in Nigerian Tribune) though a Christian column, are didactic, inspiring and forthright in a manner that it instills in the reader the quest for up rightness."

Mimiko consoles Awo matriach Ondo State Governor Olusegun Mimiko said: "May I, on behalf of my family and the good people of Ondo State, commiserate with the Awolowo family, both nuclear and extended, biological and political, on the loss of Chief Oluwole Awolowo.

"His death is saddening and made more so by the fact that he is survived by an aged, loving mother, Mama Awolowo. We can only pray that the good Lord grant the family the needed strength to bear this unfortunate loss."

He was a gentleman, says Fashola Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola (SAN) described the deceased as a good leader and gentleman.

In a statement by his Chief Press Secretary Hakeem Bello, the governor said: “It is indeed saddening that Chief Oluwole Awolowo would pass on at this time when he is most needed to continue to provide the needed support to the family, especially to the matriarch of the Awolowo dynasty, Chief Hannah Awolowo, who turned 97 recently...”

THE NATION FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2013

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NEWS

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Appeal Court restores Ondo ACN’s, Oke’s, CPC’s petitions

HE Court of Appeal sitting in Akure, the Ondo State capital, yesterday set aside the ruling of the Justice Andovar Kaka’n led Governorship Election Petition Tribunal in the consolidated petition of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC).

The five-man Appeal Panel, led by Justice Tijani Abdullahi, in a unanimous judgment, allowed parts of the appeal of the ACN, PDP and CPC, but dismissed the appeal of the Accord candidate, Mr. Olawale Ojo James.

It restored several paragraphs of the ACN’s petition, wherein the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was alleged to

From Damisi Ojo and Leke Akeredolu, Akure

have manipulated the 2012 voters’ register.

The paragraphs were earlier struck out by the lower tribunal.

The court also allowed the ACN to challenge the election results in Okitipupa and Ilaje local governments, which were won by the PDP. The lower tribunal had ruled that ACN could not challenge the result since PDP won in those councils.

The Appeal Court restored all paragraphs of the PDP candidate’s (Mr. Olusola Oke’s) petition, where PDP was mentioned.

It ruled over the submission of counsel to Governor

Olusegun Mimiko and the LP, Mr. Wole Olanipekun (SAN) and Yusuf Ali (SAN), challenging the competence of the Appeal Court to entertain the case of the PDP. The Appeal Court said there are repetitions in the first and second respondents’ grounds.

It restored paragraphs 38, 45, 46, 47, 54, 56, 58, 60, 64, 66, 67, 68 of the PDP’s petition, but said the tribunal was right to have struck out paragraphs 10, 13, 36, 40, 42, 55, 57.

The court dismissed cross appeals on the case.

It upheld the dismissal of the petition by the Accord’s candidate, Mr. Olawale Ojo, saying it lacks merit.

The court ordered the tribunal to hear the petition of the CPC and its candidate, Prince Olusoji Ehinlanwo, but affirmed that paragraphs 10, 11, 33, 37, 38, 40, 41 and 59, which contain generic terms, were rightly struck out by the tribunal.

It said the tribunal acted within the law by striking out paragraphs of the CPC’s petition where criminal allegations were made against unidentified people, who were not joined in the petition.

Speaking with reporters after the sitting, ACN’s counsel Titiloye Charles praised the Appeal Court for standing by the principle of fair hearing.

He said the paragraphs re-

2014: ‘PDP is planning to rig Ekiti election’

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HE Chairman of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in Ekiti State, Chief Jide Awe, has alleged that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is planning to rig the 2014 governorship election.

Speaking with reporters yesterday in his office in AdoEkiti, the state capital, Awe said PDP gave the hint in a statement by its National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur.

He said: “The declaration by Tukur that the 2015 general elections would be a war in

From Sulaiman Salawudeen, Ado-Ekiti

Nigeria is an indication that PDP was planning to rig the 2014 election in Ekiti.

“Such a statement is unbecoming of the chairman of a ruling party, especially at a time when the country is facing security challenges.

“I wonder how a party that has been in power for 14 years can still be dependent on force as a method of retaining power.

“This indicates that the party

has failed in its responsibilities to the people and is desirous of covering a past of failure.”

Awe cautioned Tukur and the PDP against “declaring war on Nigerians because of their selfish interests”.

He said the State PDP Chairman, Chief Makanjuola Ogundipe, also boasted that “his party would pull all strings to wrestle power from Governor Kayode Fayemi in 2014”.

Awe said: “We are going to fight them with the last blood

Equating Mimiko with Awolowo reckless, Ondo PDP tells Maku

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HE Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ondo State has criticised a statement credited to the Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, at the inauguration of the Kaadi Igbe Ayo in Akure, the state capital.

The minister compared Governor Olusegun Mimiko with the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo.

In a statement by its spokesman, Mr. Wale Ozogoro, PDP said: “It is most embarrassing to compare the late Awolowo with Mimiko, who has not paid workers’ salary since January.

“Awolowo is an epitome of social welfarism, which is in total contrast to Mimiko, who belongs to the school of Nigeria Oligarchy Capitalist Movement.

From Damisi Ojo, Akure

“Awolowo provided free education at all levels while Mimiko did not only increase school fees at the Adekunle Ajasin University (AAU), Akungba-Akoko, and Rufus Giwa Polytechnic, Owo, but introduced sundry fees in secondary and primary schools across the state.

“The party expects the minister to appraise the importance of this colossal waste of resources on the life of an average Ondo person. We urge the minister to take his Good Governance Tour around Ondo, particularly the interior, and let us see if his so-called comparison will stand the test of time.

“Awolowo is an embodiment of service and never had the opportunity of collecting over N700 billion from the Federa-

tion Account. He generated revenue from cocoa, which was the mainstay of the Southwest’s economy and used it for monumental development.

“Instead of comparing Mimiko with Awolowo, the minister should have maintained a golden silence until his tour of the state.

The Mimiko administration has wasted over N1 billion on this futile project. It is gallivanting around and showcasing market stalls as the best things that ever happened to our dear state, while infrastructural facilities are decaying.

“PDP is confident that the Election Petition Tribunal will uphold justice and sack the interlopers from the Government House. All these make-believe and hypermedia propaganda will soon be history in Ondo State and Maku will be a witness.”

Man to die by hanging in Ekiti

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N Ekiti State High Court sitting in AdoEkiti, the state capital, yesterday sentenced a man, Usman Sule, to death by hang-

From Sulaiman Salawudeen, Ado-Ekiti

ing for murdering his housemate, Mallam Mohamed Sheu, in Aramoko-Ekiti.

Justice John Adeyeye found the accused guilty based on “the overwhelming evidence provided by the prosecution”.

Osun Assembly passes N234b budget into law

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HE Osun State House of Assembly has passed the proposed N234 billion 2013 budget into law.

In a statement by his media aide, Mr. Goke Butika, the Speaker, Najeem Salaam, said after Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) defended their budgets, the House increased the N183 billion proposed by Governor Rauf Aregbesola to N234 billion.

Salaam praised the governor for implementing last year’s budget above average, adding that the government has intervened in all sectors.

He said: “Before Aregbesola assumed office, the budget was a mere annual ritual with empty noise, but with the massive projects that were rolled out last year, our people have found reason again to look forward to the budget.

From Adesoji Adeniyi, Osogbo

“When the governor implemented his projects, people who earlier said he had no programme changed tunes and said the projects were too much. People were confounded about the non-availability of resources and ongoing projects. That is the power of financial engineering by a visionary leader.”

Salaam urged MDAs to abide by the budget.

The Chairman of the House Committee on Finance and Appropriation, Mr. Kamil Oyedele, said some neglected areas and under-estimated projects were responsible for the increase in the budget sum.

Oyedele said the executive and legislative arms of government arrived at the new figure together.

Capital expenditure got N167,886,486,580 (71.7 per cent) and recurrent expenditure, 28.3 per cent.

in our veins to prevent rigging.

Ogundipe and his cohorts should not be emboldened by Tukur’s encouragement. Ekitti is no Odi. “Declaring an election a war is worse than unbecoming of the chairman of a ruling party.”

He urged the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega, to ensure that the elections are free and fair.

The ACN Chairman cautioned the President against withdrawing oil subsidy, saying such a move would exacerbate the already worrisome condition of the people.

stored to the ACN’s petition would boost the party’s chances of getting a positive ruling at the tribunal.

Mimiko’s counsel Eyitayo Jedege said: “Do not forget that there is a court higher than the Court of Appeal. We may challenge the ruling, but the decision will be taken by the council of lawyers constituted for the tribunal.”

In a statement by its Publicity Secretary, Mr. Rotimi Agbede, the ACN hailed the judgment.

It said: “We hail the Appellate Court for its judgment on the appeal of the ACN and Akeredolu, which restored the original petition at the tribunal.

“The ruling has no doubt put a final nail on the coffin of Mimiko’s illegal stay in the Government House. We praise the courage of the judges in upholding the truth and preserving the sanctity

•Akeredolu

of the judiciary, even in the face of corruption.

“The ruling of these respected jurists signalled the end of the road for the respondents’ legal teams, who were hoping to cling to the ruling of the lower tribunal on the paragraphs to salvage their incurably bad case.”

Osun to enforce sanitation

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NVIRONMENTAL officers in Osun State will henceforth go from house-to-house during the bi-monthly sanitation on Saturday to ensure that residents clean their homes.

The Head of Enforcement and Monitoring, Osun Waste Management Agency, Prince Abiodun Fatusin, told reporters in Osogbo, the Osun State capital, that the aim of restricting movement during sanitation has been defeated because residents remain indoors instead of cleaning their environment.

Fatusin said from the next

From Adesoji Adeniyi, Osogbo

sanitation day, environmental officers would go from street-to-street with mobile courts to sanction defaulters.

He said the sanitation in markets and commercial centres from 7 to 10am on Thursdays has been successful.

Urging the people to always keep their surroundings clean, Fatunsin said the Nigeria Metrological Agency (NMA) has predicted heavy rainfall this year and the waterways must be kept clean to prevent flooding.

THE NATION FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2013

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NEWS

Imo Assembly impeaches Agbaso •COS cleared as deputy governor •Witness abducted •Family hires forensic experts

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MBATTLED Imo State Deputy Governor Jude Agbaso yesterday lost the battle to stop his impeachment.

The House of Assembly impeached him.

The action, which caught the deputy governor unawares, followed the decision of the seven-man probe panel inaugurated by the Chief Judge, Justice Benjamin Njemanze, to continue with the investigation of the fraud allegation against Agbaso.

Of the 27 members of the House, 23 endorsed the impeachment motion, which was moved by the Majority Leader, Adaku Ihuoma, representing Ahiazu Mbaise Constituency.

It was seconded by Pat Ekeji, the Minority Leader, representing Aboh Mbaise.

The Speaker, Benjamin Uwajumogu, ruled in favour of the impeachment.

The Chief of Staff to Governor Rochas Okorocha, Eze Madumere, was cleared as the new deputy governor, following a letter of nomination forwarded to the House by the governor.

The atmosphere within the Assembly Complex was tense as mobile policemen cordoned off the roads leading to the premises.

Efforts to reach Agbaso were abortive as his mobile phone rang repeatedly without response.

Agbaso had earlier snubbed the seven-man probe panel.

In a letter submitted to the panel on his behalf by a lawyer, Emperor Iwuala, Agbaso said the panel was not only illegally constituted but also unlawfully inaugurated by the Chief Judge.

The letter said two law suits on the impeachment proceedings were still in court.

The letter reads: “Though I have not been served any summons as stipulated by law, I wish to draw your attention to the pendency of two law suits instituted by me at the Imo State High Court, Owerri Judicial Division, touching and concerning the purported impeachment proceedings against me.

“From the foregoing, it is clear that I am not only challenging the purported steps or actions leading to the constitution of your panel but also challenging the appointment/ constitution of your panel by the chief judge.

“Since we are in a constitutional democracy, all activities and or proceedings of your panel ought to automatically terminate or be suspended as a mark of respect to the Imo State High Court before which the aforesaid suits are pending.

“Furthermore, since the matters you have been directed to investigate are subjudice, your panel should

Court dismisses suit From Okodili Ndidi, Owerri

Former Imo State Deputy Governor Jude Agbaso yesterday lost the bid to stop his impeachment by the House of Assembly, when an Owerri High Court struck out the suit for lack of jurisdiction.

Justice Florence Duruohaigwe said after going through the submissions of the respondents, including the Speaker, Benjamin Uwajumogu and members of the Ad-Hoc Committee as well as the Chief Judge, Justice Benjamin Njemanze, she was convinced that Agbaso was given a fair hearing by the committee that investigated the road contract abandonment.

She noted that from the submissions, the former deputy governor was duly invited by the committee and he appeared before it more than once and wondered what amounted to a breach of right to fair hearing which the applicant wanted the court to enforce.

Justice Duruohaigwe said the prayer by the applicant to order the bank, allegedly used for the transaction to produce a statement of account, was not relevant to the suit and therefore refused to grant the prayer.

According to her, the court has the competence to hear the matter of right but since the entire matter is inextricably tied to his impeachment, the court lacked the jurisdiction to continue with it. She, therefore, struck out the matter.

She said she ruled on the matter although the court had no jurisdiction because “if the matter goes to Appeal they will have the benefit of my input on the matter.”

The House’s Counsel, Adeniyi Akintola (SAN), insisted that the court does not have the jurisdiction to hear the matter. The Chief Judge’s counsel, Soronadi Njoku, said the court should strike out the case.

But Agbaso’s counsel Patrick Ikwueto (SAN) urged the court to enforce the right to fair hearing which the Ad-Hoc Committee denied his client.

•Martin Agbaso speaking at the briefing... yesterday. With him is the Eze PHOTO: NAN Igbo, Ikeja, Uche Dimgba.

From Okodili Ndidi, Owerri and Emmanuel Oladesu, Group Political Editor

respect the pendency of these suits, allow the law to take its course and or allow the legal and judicial processes to run their full courses.

“Doing otherwise will be tantamount to pre-empting the decision of the high court in the two pending suits.”

The panel was also informed that a witness, Joseph Dina, who was

summoned with Agbaso and who is also the MD of JPROS International Nig. Ltd, the construction company in the centre of the alleged fraud, was abducted earlier in the morning.

A lawyer, who appeared on his behalf, Giles Ugwunweze, said: “My client could not make it to the panel because he was taken away by gunmen this morning.

“His whereabouts is yet unknown but the panel can rely on his written statement to proceed.”

The House’s counsel, Adeniyi Akintola (SAN), urged the panel to overrule Agbaso’s letter and continue with the proceeding.

He said the panel was not joined in any of the two suits cited in the letter.

Akintola said one of the suits has been dismissed by the high court for lack of jurisdiction.

The Chairman of the Panel, Justice Godday Emeka Ihekire, said it would continue with the proceeding because the deputy governor’s letter lacks merit.

Agbaso’s family has hired forensic experts to trace the alleged bribery money purportedly paid to him.

His elder brother, Martin, has petitioned the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), State Security Services (SSS) and the police to investigate the allegation.

He said: “The Agbaso family has hired a team of professional investigators to unravel the truth. The findings of the team are revealing and astonishing.”

The elder Agbaso, who reaffirmed his brother’s innocence, told reporters in Lagos that the allegation was part of the plot to dent the image of the Agbaso political family.

He said the alleged bribe had been traced by forensic experts to banks in Lebanon and Dubai, stressing that Dina never paid any money into the deputy governor’s account.

Martin said his younger brother is not associated with the GTBank and UBA accounts into which the N458 million was paid.

The elder Agbaso alleged that the money had been traced to the accounts of three companies.

He alleged that one of Governor Rochas Okorocha’s aides is a director of one of the companies.

Martin said the House Committee failed to identify the directors, subscribers and signatories to the bank accounts, into which the bribe was allegedly paid.

“My brother, the deputy governor, is being vilified, harassed and humiliated for an offence he knows nothing about.

“My brother is innocent. He is not in a position to receive any bribe. My brother has no role in contract award.

“We have forwarded petitions to the appropriate authorities for investigation.

“They thought they could intimidate my brother to resign. Nigerians cannot be taken for a ride again.

They have the power to impeach the deputy governor, but they don’t have any power to dent the image of our family. What is important to us is to protect the family name.”

Court upholds ex-NANS president’s election

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HE Court of Appeal has upheld the election of a former President of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), Tony Nwoye, as the elected member of the House of Representatives for Anambra East/West Federal Constituency.

The Court of Appeal, Enugu Division, gave the judgment on Wednesday when it threw out the application of the incumbent, Ameke Chriscato Ikechukwu.

Ikechukwu filed an appeal challenging the judgment of Justice P. F. Olayiwola of the Federal High Court, Awka, on July 13, last year, which declared Nwoye as the validly nominated candidate for the April 2011 poll.

In the enrolling order served on

From Yusuf Alli, Managing Editor, Northern Operations

the House of Representatives yesterday, Justice E. Agim of the Court of Appeal, said: “The appeal lacks merit and is accordingly dismissed.

“That there shall be cost of N30,000 in favour of the first respondent(Nwoye).”

Nwoye was declared the winner of the election into Anambra East/ West Federal Constituency by the Federal High Court, Awka, on July 13, last year.

The court compelled the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to recognise Nwoye as the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP’s) candidate, instead of Ikechukwu.

Based on the judgment, INEC, on July 16, last year, issued a Certificate of Return to Nwoye.

But Ikechukwu filed a motion for a stay of execution at the Court of Appeal.

The Court of Appeal, on February 27, struck out the application for lack of prosecution.

Ikechukwu, however, went ahead with the substantive case at the Court of Appeal by asking the appellate court to declare him the real PDP candidate.

He also asked the Court of Appeal to upturn the July 13, last year, judgment of the Federal High Court.

The appellate court, however, insisted on Wednesday that Nwoye was the PDP candidate and should

be sworn in accordingly.

It was gathered that Ikechukwu has approached the Supreme Court.

He is asking for a stay of execution of the judgment of the Federal High Court of last year.

Nwoye yesterday said the fact that Ikechukwu is in the Supreme Court should not stop his inauguration by the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

He said: “The fact that Chriscato has filed a stay of execution at the Supreme Court does not in any way stop my swearing in.

“The Speaker and the Clerk of the House are not parties in the Court of Appeal judgment and the application for stay at the Supreme Court. They do not have any business with the stay.”

Bayelsa to demolish property THE Bayelsa State Government has said the property owned by the state in Lagos, which is alleged to be terrorists’ hideout, will be demolished.

The Commissioner for Information, Markson Fefegha, said officials of the Ministry of Works have been sent to begin the process.

“The Government has ordered for the demolition of the building.

We are rebuilding it. A team of engineers from the Ministry of Works have been sent to Lagos.

“The state has no knowledge of terrorists’ presence there.”

Fefegha said its Information Management Committee is aimed at putting in place a functional information machinery in the state.

1,000 ‘ejected’ from Cameroon From Nicholas Kalu, Calabar

OVER 1,000 Nigerians, who chose to remain in the ceded Bakassi Peninsula, have alleged that they were maltreated and ejected by Cameroonian authorities.

The spokesman for the displaced people, who are camped at Akwa Ikot Eyo in Akpabuyo, Asuquo Etim Asuquo, said the incident occurred on March 7, when the Cameroonian authorities invaded their settlements, accusing them of militancy.

Asuquo said: “Several people were arrested and taken away by the Cameroonian authorities and we don’t know their fate.

“We are longing to go back to the settlements but Nigeria should work out modalities for our safety with the Cameroonian authorities.

“When they came, many of us were away fishing; others had gone to the farm. Those who were at home were manhandled and arrested. Some were even killed,” he said.

The Chairman of Bakassi Local Government, Ekpo Ekpo Bassey, said the local government was disturbed by the development as it shares a boundary with Cameroon.

He said such cases and other security challenges were rampant in the area.

Delta DPP office razed From Okungbowa Aiwerie, Asaba

PROPERTY worth millions of Naira were on Wednesday night destroyed in an inferno at the office of the Delta State Chairman of the Democratic Peoples Party (DPP), Tony Ezeagwu.

Last year, the DPP secretariat in Asaba was burgled.

The fire, which started at 11pm, razed the office. No other office in the bungalow housing the office was affected by the fire.

Ezeagwu estimated the damage at N25 million.

Although the cause of the fire was yet to be ascertained, the DPP boss attributed it to the handiwork of arsonists, who are bent on frustrating him as the voice of the opposition in the state.

“It is funny the way it happened because this could not have been an electrical fault as the cables of the photocopiers and the airconditioners were not burnt.

“If it was an electrical fault, the fire would have started from the cables but the cables were not touched.

“I suspect that fuel was sprinkled through the window before they did the damage.

“They have to pull down the protector to go in to put out the fire, which did not spread to other offices in the building,” Ezeagwu said.

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COMMENTARY EDITORIALS

FROM OTHER LANDS

Okah’s imprisonment • This is good for anti-terrorism efforts

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HE sentencing of Nigerian militant Henry Okah to 24 years in jail for terrorism-related activities by a South African court is heartwarming. It is also interesting, against the background that President Goodluck Jonathan had originally exonerated his (Okah’s) Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) from involvement in twin car bombings at Eagle Square, Abuja, during the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Nigeria’s independence on October 1, 2010. Justice Neels Claaseen, who delivered the sentence in the South Guateng High Court in Johannesburg, said there was “overwhelming evidence” linking Okah with MEND which claimed responsibility for the bombings.

While reacting to the Abuja bomb attacks, in which 12 people were killed and 36 others injured, Jonathan had said: “Let me also use this opportunity to reassure Nigerians that what happened yesterday (October 1) had nothing, I have to repeat, had nothing to do with the Niger Delta. People just used the name of MEND to camouflage criminality and terrorism.” He also said, while the incident was still under investigation, “What happened yesterday was a terrorist act and MEND was just used as a straw; MEND is not a terrorist group.”

However, it became clear that Jonathan’s conclusions were based on ethnic sentiment, and perhaps political calculations, when he argued that “It is erroneous to think that my people who have been agitating for good living will deliberately blow up the opportunity they have now.” He was referring to the fact that his ascendancy to the presidency was the first time an individual from the country’s oil-rich Niger Delta would be occu-

pying that seat.

Interestingly, the incident took an unexpected twist with the arrest of Okah in South Africa. According to Okah in an interview, “On Saturday morning, just a day after the attack, a very close associate of President Jonathan called me and explained to me that there had been a bombing in Nigeria and that President Jonathan wanted me to reach out to the group, MEND, and get them to retract the earlier statement they had issued claiming the attacks.”

He said further, “They wanted to blame the attacks on northerners who are trying to fight against him (Jonathan) to come back as president and if this was done, I was not going to have any problems with the South African government. I declined to do this and a few hours later, I was arrested. It was based on their belief that I was going to do that, that Jonathan issued a statement saying that MEND did not carry out the attack.”

Indeed, these conflicting statements by Jonathan and Okah are thought-provoking, and there are observations, not entirely unfounded, that Okah’s trial and conviction were “politically motivated.” However, it is strange that, given the seriousness of the charges against him, Okah declined to testify in his own defence, but claimed that he was innocent and his trial unfair. He alleged that the Nigerian government blocked about 20 witnesses from travelling to South Africa to give evidence in his favour.

Okah’s conviction for 13-count charges was also related to another two car explosions in Warri, Delta State, in March 2010, for which MEND also claimed responsibility, and alleged “threat to the Nigerian government.”

Not surprisingly, the development has generated intense interest across the country, particularly Justice Claaseen’s reasoning that the bombings “were targeted at embarrassing President Goodluck Jonathan,” which sounds like a political statement. Furthermore, although South African law allows trial of alleged terrorists arrested or resident in the country, no matter where their acts were committed, it is amazing and unjustifiable that Okah was also sentenced for threatening South Africa, based on warnings from MEND. The group had, on account of Okah’s trial, threatened to attack MTN Group Ltd and SacOil Holding Ltd, which are of South African origin and doing business in Nigeria.

While Okah has a right of appeal, which he is likely to exercise, the entire episode seems puzzling in certain aspects. However, the gray areas do not detract from the desirability of counter-terrorism efforts and the need to make the world a safer place.

‘While Okah has a right of appeal, which he is likely to exercise, the entire episode seems puzzling in certain aspects. However, the gray areas do not detract from the desirability of counter-terrorism efforts and the need to make the world a safer place’

Bayelsa’s rumour mongers •Dickson’s proposed ‘dem say, dem say’ law is anathema to democracy and free speech

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OMEHOW, the anti-rumour law being proposed by Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State, is eerily reminiscent of the infamous Decree 4 of 1984. Among that decree’s notorious provisions was that truth was no defence for whoever was charged under it. That law, like this proposed Bayelsa one, was a press gag law, tailored to root out from the media, any nonofficial news, even if the scoop - as it is called in basic journalism - is accurate and more credible than the doctored ‘government news’.

Now if Decree 4 was outrageous under a military regime with its glorified impunity and outlawry, Governor Dickson’s pet anti-’dem say, dem say journalism’ proposed law must not even be contem-

‘Now if Decree 4 was outrageous under a military regime with its glorified impunity and outlawry, Governor Dickson’s pet anti-’dem say, dem say journalism’ proposed law must not even be contemplated in a democracy, for it so rudely assaults its key tenets: free speech and free press. That the proposed law was announced with all the conviction at the governor’s disposal only underscores the paradox of running a democracy without democrats!’

plated in a democracy, for it so rudely assaults its key tenets: free speech and free press. That the proposed law was announced with all the conviction at the governor’s disposal only underscores the paradox of running a democracy without democrats!

But let us get something clear. Our stand in this editorial does not in any way support sloppy, lazy or vengeful journalism which dreams up vengeful rumours and recklessly proceeds to canonise such malice in print, thus subjecting the victim to untold mental and psychological torture.

Any journalist guilty of that is a clear and present danger to the democratic order and should face the music after lawful trial.

But not even the existence of such journalists justifies an omnibus law which, ab initio, ripples through and through with bad faith.

To start with, from the constitutional point of view, it is doubtful if the proposed law can stand the muster. It only takes someone to test the validity of the proposed law in court, juxtaposed against the constitutional provision of free speech; and the whole experiment could come crushing down. Besides, if our laws have enough provisions to punish libel and allied offences, why does the Dickson government need an omnibus law to punish “rumours”?

In any case, how does the Bayelsa government prove something is a ‘rumour’ in print?

That it is not true? But what if it is, does it still remain a rumour? Can the law convict for ‘true rumour’ (in the terminology of a vengeful government) which never-

theless is legitimate news scoops and speculations, as was the case with The Guardian duo of Tunde Thompson and Nduka Irabor, jailed under Decree 4?

Or is a news rumour just because it did not emanate from government’s official channels? If that were to be so, what would happen to the usual robust Nigerian press, under a so-called democracy?

Truth be told: the Bayelsa gambit is nothing but trivialisation of governance and a proposed mockery of the law-making process. It ought to be decried by every rightthinking person that wishes Nigerian democracy well. It should be stopped forthwith.

In any case, rumours flare when the government wilfully represses information or tries to cover up its seedy news. Instead of embarking on an omnibus and dangerous law therefore, the Bayelsa State government should level with the people on its activities.

It is a legitimate and patriotic duty of the media to uncover shenanigans in government. Not even the threat of a newfangled gag law can stop that - or else our democracy is doomed.

Bayelsa State , under Seriake Dickson, is lugging a measure of notoriety when triviality in governance is the issue. The Dickson government, un-blushed, announced with pomp the appointment of a sitting First Lady as permanent secretary, even if that appointment is as absurd as they come. Now, it is on a quixotic mission to punish ‘rumours’ in print, whatever that means. Governor Dickson should get real and quit chasing shadows. There are more pressing issues for a serious and focused government than chasing rumour mongers.

Google settlement highlights technology’s vulnerabilities

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ETWEEN 2008 and 2010, Google collected bits of personal data — e-mails, Web sites visited and other sensitive material — from unsecured WiFi networks around the world. All its employees needed to gather it were commercially available antennae and some open-source software.

The company says that it didn’t mean to collect people’s sensitive information. It was assembling imagery and location data for its innovative Street View feature, which allows users to stand, virtually, on practically any street corner after just a few mouse clicks. It relied on unencrypted WiFi signals to help match images with locations. But, in the process, its roaming information-gatherers dug into unsecured data streams, gathering far more than they needed for Street View.

This month, Google settled with attorneys general from 38 states and the District, who were jointly investigating the company. It committed to paying $7 million, destroying as soon as possible the personal information it took and implementing a 10-year privacy program. More important than these results, though, is the lingering fact that Google — apparently without meaning to — easily accessed all sorts of information that WiFi users were broadcasting. Technology creates new possibilities — and new vulnerabilities. Americans need to appreciate both.

Law enforcement can do only so much to keep up, even if the law were heavily weighted toward privacy protection. It’s relatively easy to investigate a big company that has a lot of cars rolling around collecting data. It’s much harder for the authorities to stop a lone antenna-bearing snooper in a van outside your house. The best defense is locking your home WiFi network.

There is already plenty of hand-wringing about what people put on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Teens share party photos they might find embarrassing — even professionally damaging — years later, if they forget to take them down. College students comment on the severity of their hangovers.

Members of Congress accidentally press the wrong button on Twitter, and inappropriate images of themselves zoom around the Internet — in their case, indelibly. But it’s not some mysterious phenomenon when material posted in a public forum becomes subject to public scrutiny. There is only so much privacy any reasonable person — or unreasoning teen — can expect there.

Critics are preemptively raising similar concerns about Google Glass, a somewhat conspicuous new eyepiece that allows users to take photos, record sounds and take video, perhaps without raising quite the attention that a cellphone camera would. The worry could well be overblown, for now. When the same gadget is small enough to fit onto a contact lens, Americans will have to get used to more of what they do in public being on the (electronic) record.

Google’s data-gathering provides a slightly different lesson: The most heralded challenges to personal privacy are not the only ones Americans should care about. The advance of technology also results in tools that threaten privacy in less obvious ways, to which most Americans might not pay nearly as much — or any — attention.

- Washington Post

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CARTOON & LETTERS

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IR: Sometime last year, an aggregation of rebel groups going by the name ‘Seleka coalition’ overran several towns in the Central African Republic. Government troops were no match for them as they easily brushed aside their feeble resistance. They were soon at the gate of the capital, Bangui, and threatening to take it when a ceasefire was brokered.

That ceasefire eventually collapsed.

On March 24, they sacked the presidential palace and sent the president, Francois Bozize fleeing for his life. This incident is not peculiar to CAR; in fact it could have happened in many other countries in Africa. Why? Since the middle of the twentieth century when most countries in Africa got their independence the continent has hardly at any point been strife-free. If it is not outright civil war, then it is some rebel or insurgent activity. When it appears one is about to be contained, another flares up somewhere else. It may not be necessary to start listing all the hot spots in the continent but suffice it to say that only very few countries in Africa can be said to be entirely crisis-free. Why is this so, are we cursed with a life of perpetual conflict? No! We are

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Rebellion and leadership failure in Africa not cursed, we are the cause.

It is true that post-colonial African states by their very nature are susceptible to conflicts. The conflicts, however, are not unavoidable. They are largely products of leadership failure. At the root of most conflicts in Africa are injustice and poverty. Many African rul-

ers through their actions drive their people deep into poverty; they perpetrate horrendous injustices on the populace or section of the populace for which they cannot legally seek redress. When a man who is wronged has no hope of getting justice from a system then he might want to take justice for himself.

It is also true that some of the conflicts in Africa might have been engineered and stoked by foreigners. But people cannot wake up and start fighting their government for absolutely no cause. They must at least have a reason. Unfortunately many African governments through abysmal leadership read-

Ban secondary education abroad

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IR: The falling standard of education in the country has been a source of worry to stakeholders and other interest groups in the education industry. Every year the country continues to receive shocking news of mass failure by students in WAEC, NECO and other exams. More worrisome is that

among the few candidates that are able to break even, only a handful of them score credit in core subjects, especially English and Mathematics. In the last NECO exam not up to 25% of the candidates who sat for the exam recorded credits in English and Mathematics. This is a sorry situation.

The reason why the ugly trend has remained unabated is because the children and wards of the politicians and other prominent persons in the country send their children abroad to study; only children of the middle class and the poor study in our public schools and because of this they are not directly

‘My Oga at the top’

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IR: I wish to agree with Abraham Lincoln in the letter to his son’s teacher that for every scoundrel there is a hero; for every enemy there is a friend.

He said that the bullies are the easiest to lick and Achebe said that there is nothing to fear from the man who shouts. What is the hope of a nation when most of the custodians of hope are not fixing the breaches well?

Obafaiye Shem, the commandant of Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps (NSCDC Lagos State was interviewed at channel television station on March 2, and he was asked to give the official website of the NSCDC. It became obvious that the person being interviewed could not give any correct answer. The mistake was that he wanted to play on the intelligence of the audience. Lincoln says it is good to learn how to lose but to enjoy winning. If he didn’t know the answer to the question, he could frankly say that he could not give

ily present their people with ample reasons to rebel. What foreigners merely do is assist the rebels with tools for their rebellion.

If African leaders would be fairer in their dealings with their people and place greater premium on justice and the rule of law, then fewer people would have cause to rebel.

If African leaders would stop mouthing empty promises but assiduously work to make living worthwhile for their people then fewer youths would want to risk their lives as rebels. Justice, rule of law and improved standard of living remain the only recipe for a more peaceful Africa.

• Nnoli Chidiebere Aba, Abia State.

one for now and promise to find out and release it later since it was necessary to give the real website.

The interviewers who seemed to have known his ignorant state kept asking him the same question. But who was the ‘Oga at the top’ being referred to? We may organise a party and feast on his grammatical inaccuracy if the basic requirement for his post is English proficiency and not his physical ability. Why should proficiency in language not be a requirement? Is pidgin not be used in the army? Are all students after SSCE presentable? Are we all exempted from flaws and malpractices?

The major issue is that many people believe he is not good, he is ignorant, he did not know the website, and they seem to be right.

However, the noise, the singing and dancing and mocking of ‘Oga at the Top’ is like a hungry and angry dog biting a stone. Many people derive pleasure in the seasonal criticism on speech-making

and issues that are not invaluable to the society. ‘My Oga at The Top’ is germane to the society if we had focused on the effect of nepotism, education system structure and flaws of agencies rather then biting the nails of a person whose world is a microcosm of Nigeria.

Can we ignore the fact that it is the misplaced priority at the prime such as desperation to get a certificate rather than ability, degree rather than career, knowledge, fame and any –how-wealth rather than profitable and defendable skills that culminates into unqualified officials (as many as we may have) in this country today? Was there not a time some NYSC members could not recite the national anthem? Are such not at the top?

While we cannot continue to celebrate mediocrity, we must be realistic to the truth about the involvement of many of us in corruption. Many managers and directors of companies with captivating speech ability that could tame souls

had always (and still) loot billions as ‘national cake’ or ‘company cake’ There are many issues that affect us but we ignore them and seem compromised to the fate of helplessness. Bombing and terrorism, immunity of the legislators, pardoning the heroes of corruption, profligacy, examination malpractices, unemployment, fixed-party system, and so on are rampant. Do we not know that we have National Association for Unemployed Youths in Nigeria?

But what is the purpose of social criticism in a place where the voices of the people never move the rulers (not leaders)? What is the purpose of social comments when it reduces nothing of what is intended? What is the essence of social criticism when it is not effective to cause social change or check corruption?

What gain have we when we ignore the main and bite the vain?

• Samuel Kuye Oladimeji University of Lagos

affected about whatever goes on in our schools.

The situation in our public schools today is worrisome.

More than 50% of the teachers have lost interest in teaching.

This group of teachers have sidelines which occupy their school hours thereby affecting their presence in the classroom.

On the other hand, the students have thrown reading to the wind.

Instead of making books their closest companion they resort to playing with their cell phones which they manipulate in the class while lessons are going on.

They also indulge in watching home videos and pornographic films.

So it is only when children of politicians, ministers, governors and other bigwigs study locally that the poor performance of students in examinations could be viewed seriously and a lasting solution effected.

Because they do not have any stake in our education system, even though they appear to have, that is why they are paying lip service to the whole issue.

Once their children and wards begin to study in our public schools, teachers would sit up and there would be a fierce competition among the students, Against this backdrop, I suggest that secondary education abroad should be banned.

• Nkemakolam Gabriel Port Harcourt

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COMMENTS

Gods and clay toys (1)

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DIOTS as fragile as clay toys evolve into out-sized heroes and gods, on our watch. But even gods grow out abandoned, writes the late Christopher Okigbo.

I would say, “writers too.” But not Chinua Achebe. Achebe died and Africa mourns. The novelist whose engaging literature taught the world to read and understand from an African perspective died at 82 and his demise is felt across literary tropes and political cultures.

In Nigeria, Achebe’s death reignites a seductive dirge; a ritual culture of requiem and colourful superlatives. Politicians froth with doctored and hardly-felt regret around their over-fattened lips and literary buffs compose tributes with obscene and overwhelming lyricism. Yet none is perhaps as impressive as the mainstream media’s glorification of Chinua Achebe.

At his death, Achebe not only made “cover page,” he commandeered the first five pages of many a flagship newspaper. And he didn’t have to spend a dime to achieve such impressive feat. What height politicians and conglomerates burn a fortune to attain, he used mere words and a fertile imagination to ascend.

Alive, Achebe lightened many a thunder by his words; in death, he commands seductive shrieks of wonder and appreciation. Such is the quality of life and manhood of Chinua Achebe. It doesn’t matter how skewed or alluring he was in politics and candour, everybody remembers Achebe as one good thing that happened to Nigerian

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literature. In his death, the world relives his quality as a man and African.

How do journalists die? How do journalists live to be precise? Do we merit such honour and appreciation like we confer on Chinua Achebe? Do we at least merit the passing tribute of a sigh at our demise? Is there such person amongst us that excites interminable tributes, poetry and superlatives like Chinua Achebe?

The time for pleasuring ourselves will soon be over and like failures eternally condemned to self-fellate, on ego and all that vanity ever gives; many of us will pass in spasms of insignificance and self-love. The world has seen the swollen belly of our pride; it is nothing to write home about.

Nothing excites, nothing moves, nothing encourages anyone to go to bat for our cancerous pride.

We have failed to become worthier than our bylines. And our bylines aren’t really worth much to be precise. Yet every time we see it, we feel like some gift. Gift to whom? Gift indeed. How narcissistic can we get? We, whose answers to national riddles have become trite. We, who bandy inappropriate cliché as solution to avoidable conflict pretend to be worth more than disposable pawns in the scheme of things.

A simple lust is yet our woe; the lust for unearned riches and selflove. It drives many a practicing journalist beneath the bounds of ethics and above it. But no matter how significant we pretend to be, we are actually worth nothing in

IGERIA is in a season of violence bombing, kidnapping, armed robbery, ritual sacrifice, economic and political insecurity, corruption, and spiritual enterprise. A couple of weeks ago, within 24 hours in different parts of the country, 164 were feared dead in Niger Delta boat mishap, 55 in Kogi boat mishap, 38 in boat mishap in Rivers state and over 60 others in bomb explosion in Kano.

The history and litany of violence in Nigeria especially after the colonial slavery, inter-tribal wars, the 1914 amalgamation, 1966 civil war and many others is littered with too much blood. Beginning from October 19, 1986, a harvest of bomb blast continues to spread. In 1994, the sporadic violence around the villages in Jos under a climate of ethnic, social, and religious tensions left over 2000 dead. Nigeria’s violent history continued into the 21st century with the February 2000 and September 2001 slaughter of thousands in Kaduna over the introduction of Shari’ah law, and a spree of church and mosque destructions and burnings in Jos respectively. It is on record that in November 2008, disputed local elections triggered clashes between Muslim and Christian youth in Jos. Hundreds died. In April 2011, riots following the controversial election of Christian President Goodluck Jonathan killed an estimated 800 people.

Thousands more have died in 2012 since Boko Haram militants urged Christians to leave the north. The bomb explosion near a church in Kaduna on Easter Sunday, April 8, 2012 is among the Boko Haram’s violent jihad against Christians that pushed the country into seventh place in annual rankings of the countries implicated by terrorism by the Global Terrorism Index.

The Anglican Archbishop of Jos, Most Rev Dr Benjamin Kwashi provides a first hand experience and information about some causes of violence in Nigeria. According to Archbishop Kwashi ‘what seems to be a recurring decimal is that over time, those who have in past used violence to settle

the eyes of our benefactors and “friends in high places.”

This is some truth we love to ignore simply because it’s therapeutic to do so. Every journalist on the beat is on a string to some puppeteer. Be it on Crime, Politics, Business, Aviation, Entertainment and Society beat, everybody kowtows to the wiles of some contemptible deep-pocket, to the detriment of society and journalism practice.

But many of us would never admit this much; rather we love to argue that we “operate on a higher level.” We have learnt to claim that by virtue of “quality journalism” that we practice, we get to hobnob daily with “the crème-de-la-crème of Nigeria’s high society.” And thus is the ultimate fulfillment to many of us.

It is however, fascinating to note that many of us are actually kept on a leash by our so-called “high society,” like dogs. Our so-called “clients,” benefactors or friends in high places do not think much of us.

That is why they agree to an interview and request for the interview questions in advance. They think many of us are incapable of normal conversation and informed questions and follow-up questions hence their robotic repetition of what their “personal assistants” or “media person” tell them to say.

That is why they prefer an email interview but get their “media person” to write the answers. That is why they agree to a two-hour interview session and shorten it to 15 minutes on the spot.

Our so-called “big friends” in high society liken the Nigerian journalist to scum of the earth, that is why they invite journalists to their offices for an interview session only to keep them waiting for two or three hours in order to tell them that they can only do the interview if they can grant full copy approval before publication. That is why they invite journalists to their events only to tell security operatives on site to prevent them from getting into the venue. The embarrassment and shame will encourage humility and show the journalist who’s boss.

I do not know why an average journalist needs to blindly believe that he can attain relevance only by courting and serving as publicity pawn to his so-called “friends in high places.” It’s amazing to see journalists engage in heated altercation and fisticuff over accusations of “stealing” and “courting” of each other’s “friends in high places.”

Many of us are a pathetic fraud.

We make a show of friendship and intimacy with our so-called privileged friends although the latter do not consider us worthier than ver-

‘How do journalists die? How do journalists live to be precise? Do we merit such honour and appreciation like we confer on Chinua Achebe? Do we at least merit the passing tribute of a sigh at our demise? Is there such person amongst us that excites interminable tributes, poetry and superlatives like Chinua Achebe?’

min or intolerable hacks. Many of us have nothing to say, do we? We have no more stories to tell or hope to offer to folk who still wander to the newsstands hopes aglow, every day, seeking answers to timeless conundrums on the pages of our colourful prints.

What answers can we give? What remedy can we flaunt past the trite banalities we haughtily couch as columns, and most times, “Our Stand?” But the readers hardly know better. They never know better and those that think they do would buy into our finest delusion as long as they can identify with it and as long as it fetes their vanities while they do the spirited waltz in the intellectual trash can of public discourse.

Talk is still cheap. It is yet the proverbial staple that keeps compatriots who know no better, glued to our sensational news prints. Still they seek answers but we have no answers to give, do we? Just more sensation and rhetoric.

Nobody actually learns from us anymore. Every journalist is seen as an attack dog or junkyard dog for a variety of interests and “high society.” Having pretended to have answers to everything, we have no more answers to give. And our l usual alternatives are tainted by our vanities and grief; twin-miseries for which we have no tongue.

Every day we see that we are not ready for the travails of the inflamed distance. We know the darkness of our practice and the perversions in our hearts and yet pay lip-service to evolving a practice worthy of the humane and the heroic. This is not to deny the existence of the few good ones among us but their paltry band isn’t enough balm to soothe our practice’s festering sores.

• To be continued…

The Cross in a season of violence

By Deji Okegbile political issues, economic issues, social matters, inter-tribal disagreement, or any issue for that matter, now continue to use that same path of violence and cover it up with religion.’ Professor Toyin Falola explained this leadership manipulative behaviour as the chief causes behind the major cases of violence in 1980s, and 90s, including the Maitatsine, Kano, Bauchi, Kaduna, and Katsina riots. The problem is that Nigeria is at the risk of professionalism and careerism that dominates its politics and leadership and this continues to poison the prospect of real representation in leadership, thereby threatening the promises of godliness and democratic government. The honourable elites are behaving dishonourably, milking the system especially the oil money to the tune of 48 trillion naira in the past 12 years, and promoting corruption for their personal gain while public anger grows. Without any sign of repentance and accountability, plans on how to remove the fuel subsidy and how to spend over 100 million dollars on the Centenary city plan are going on regardless of mass youth unemployment and lack of social amenities. Indeed, oppression can make a saint mad in Nigeria. In developed countries, government functions as the agent of the people, in Nigeria the people are treated as the agent of the government, hence millions of our youth becomes idle hands ready to be hired and used to settle political and economic issues, and religious disagreements.

Nigeria is gradually becoming a spiritual and political lost Eden, but the Good News is that there is a Cross that can break the ‘it’s never been this bad before’ syndrome over the affairs of the nation. In church history, the cross has functioned in violent ways.

Constantine’s vision of the cross at the eve of the battle at the Milvian Bridge in the fourth century was for military power and control. The Crusaders in the Middle Ages, the Conquistadors in the 15 th and 16 th centuries have used the Cross as an excuse also for military power and forms of violence. However, the Cross is primarily a symbol that brings hope for the forgiveness of sins and possibility of a new life to those whose hearts have been moved to encounter Jesus Christ. The theology behind the Cross is about grace, giving, self-sacrifice rather than killing or taking others as captives. The cross is an assurance that in the midst of violence and destruction, God is in control over the affairs of Nigeria. While love moved Jesus Christ to be lifted up and to die on the Cross, then raising him up in resurrection, hatred through corruption, bad and greedy leadership, and violence is moving thousands to die in Nigeria. Sin leaves a stain. If Nigeria is to overcome its season of violence and move on after shedding the blood of innocent souls, we need to participate in an act of cleansing.

The crucifixion of Jesus Christ on the Cross is the act of reconciliation between man and God. The major reason behind the violence and corruption in Nigeria is that many are blind and unable to recognize God’s holy place in creation, fall, and redemption. Nigeria’s soil is polluted with too much blood and the nation can only be restored through contact with something holy and clean. This is the message behind the Cross upon which Jesus Christ died and the starting point for the unity and healing of the land (Heb. 2:17).

The Cross in a season of violence points to the power of forgiveness that ‘takes control away from the oppressor and give power back to the victim who can then release the oppressor.’ Rev Tom Stuckey, a former, President of British Methodism explained that the cross shows that justice comes before power. According to him, the message of the

Cross ‘reveals humankind’s obsession with power … oppressive dictatorships, unaccountable hierarchical institutions and faceless bureaucracies.’ The Cross in a season of violence is telling Nigerians that, just as Judas destroyed himself, every dragon and powers behind the violence – Boko Haram, corruption, and kidnappings in Nigeria ‘will ultimately destroy themselves through their own self-aggrandizement.’ The Cross is devoid of arrogance, but a startling display of love and hope that, in the midst of dark corruption, frames our existence with new meaning. Nigeria is a nation where people do irreparable damage to themselves, and to others, in the struggle to get rich or climb to the top, even in the church. Nigeria is like Judas, where people, especially the leadership embrace the darkness of nothingness and self/national destruct. Judas’ whole life was based on illusion, love of money, a loss of sense of self-worth and points towards the path of hell. The message of the Cross points to the new tree of life – not a tree of violence or death, a precious fountain, free for all, a healing stream that flows from Calvary’s mountain for the healing of a corrupt nation overwhelmed with violence. To the church, the Cross in a season of violence represents the pattern of the Christian life, discipleship, crucifixion of self will, and the willingness for moral and spiritual reorientation as the evidence of God’s touch of grace rather than the present celebrity and personality culture.

The church must stop exchanging the shame, weakness, and foolishness of the Cross for material and human glory. The Cross which points to a sense of hope in a season of violence calls for watching and waiting in prayer, hoping and trusting until Nigeria reaches the golden strand. The gate of hell will not prevail over Nigeria. Happy Easter.

• Very Rev Dr Okegbile lectures at Methodist Theological Institute, Sagamu.

THE NATION FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2013

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COMMENTS ‘As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them’—John F. Kennedy

Y

ESTERDAY was another birthday of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, foremost national leader of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) - and perhaps in weeks ahead, that of the All Progressives Congress (APC). The birthday, as usual, was celebrated with another welcome ritual; a lecture for which the Muson Centre, Lagos, seems to have become the natural host. It has remained an annual event since the irrepressible fighter for the downtrodden left power as governor of the state in 2007.

In contemporary age, no former governor or president commands the kind of political respect people accord Tinubu across the country. It could be justifiably asserted that very rarely do we have people being celebrated years after leaving power. The man is an exception to the Yoruba proverb: ‘kosi yago fun elesin ana,’ meaning, yesterday’s horsemen command no reverence. What his mostly political associates, admirers and followers across the land celebrated yesterday was not just his birthday but the momentous impacts his accumulated years of experience as a politician have had on Nigeria’s political firmament.

The painful reality in the country is that for 14 years, the type of government that we practise could be aptly described as a civilian - not a truly representative democracy.

And whatever misgivings some people might have against him, the fact remains indubitable that Tinubu has been playing a crucial role in ensuring that the nation has in place what can be genuinely called a legitimate constitutional government. He has implacably championed the enthronement of real democracy in the South-west, as least.

Even now, he is fighting more relentlessly to extend genuine democratic frontiers to the entire country through the APC. Whoever accomplishes the towering stature that Tinubu has attained in the headship pecking order of this country must look forward to the type of approbation that the Asiwaju of Lagos and Jagaban Borgu has received so far. After all, it was William Arthur Ward that opined a long time ago that: ‘Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.’ Nigerians, not only from the South-west but the

W

HEN reality struck me smack in the face, I could not cry; I actually laughed out loud as if to say, Nigeria, “I dey laugh o!” To think that Nigeria, a crumbling entity actually sent troops to Mali to quell insurgency! On a second thought, it occurred to me that our presence in Mali is not altogether altruistic; it is largely because there is some dollars to share. I will not discuss here, the number of military trucks, armoured personnel carriers and assault rifles Nigeria to make her fit to embark on a foreign peace mission. The question today is that is Nigeria truly more stable than Mali? Is it more secure, is it better governed and better led?

Reality check

Not that one didn’t have an inkling of the dire situation the polity in enmeshed in especially under President Goodluck Jonathan’s watch, but reality dealt me a dirtier slap when I read a report of a terrorist attack in Yobe state last Monday. Let me present the report verbatim as carried by National Mirror newspaper(Tuesday, March 26, 2013, page47): “Gunmen yesterday morning attacked the Bara Divisional Police Station in Yobe State killing one police man.

“Bara is the headquarters of Gulani Local Government Area of the state.

“Sources said that the attack began at about 1:00 am and lasted for about two and half hours.

“The attackers burnt the police station and went away with the three cars parked in the premises.

“The Yobe State Commissioner of Police, Mr Sanusi Rufai who confirmed the incident to journalists in Damaturu, the state capital, said though the police station was burnt with rocket propelled launcher and explosive devices, the attack was repelled by security operatives .

“He also said that the police man killed was a corporal, adding that the slain victim was slaughtered by the gunmen in his residence at about 5:00 am after the attack on the police station.

“The attackers, according to the police boss, also destroyed MTN and Glo telecoms masts.

“The gunmen also carted away three local government vehicles.

“The commissioner, however, said no arrests had been made in connection with the attack and no individual or group had claimed responsibility.”

This attack comes exactly one week after

Asiwaju and the spirit of gratitude

• Tinubu

entire country fully expressed their appreciation for Tinubu at yesterday’s birthday lecture. They wrapped their gift and gave it to the man through this annual event that has contributed immensely to the states’ and national discourses.

Nigerian in this age and challenging political time, must show more gratitude to a person like Tinubu because his likes make us happy by standing up courageously to federal and the ruling People’s Democratic Party(PDP) tyranny. People like him are the pillar of succour for the majority because they are the charming gardeners that give hope to our hopeless state of despair thereby making our souls blossom in the process.

Whatever his inadequacies as a human be-

ing( all of us are fallible), the man has proved, beyond every iota of doubt in today’s Nigeria that he is a risk taker, and in life, it is hackneyed that anyone that would not take risk cannot go far.

Who is Tinubu? Tinubu is that man who surmounted the challenges of his humble beginning to be a model in Nigeria and African politics. When life seemed to beat him down, he fought back gallantly. When all hope looked forlorn, he dared and triumphed. In darkness, he illuminated his life and those of many others that met him. Any time things are tough and difficult, he dares to be tougher. During periods of infliction of injustice in this federation, his voice of courage usually stands out. More importantly, when his friends and fellow countrymen and women are in distress or need, he always lends a helping hand. Most of those whose paths cross his must smile before leaving. He was never tired as he keeps going and surmounting all vicissitudes, mostly contrived by his political adversaries.

What some Nigerians are doing to Tinubu through this annual celebration of his person deserves high commendation. Mostly in the geo-political regions across the country, people wait till the exit of their great sons and daughters before celebrating them.

Rather than give recognition to well deserving citizens, it is only accorded, especially in traditional and official quarters, to men of shady characters. No wonder, there are several of such men and women holding

EXPRESSO STEVE OSUJI

SMS O8181624757, email:steve.osuji@yahoo.com

Like Mali, like Nigeria the massive devastation of the New Luxury Bus Park in Sabon Gari, Kano, also in the Northwest of Nigeria. Yobe is a vast swath of border state. So are Borno, Adamawa, Taraba, Jigawa, Zamfara, Sokoto, Kebbi, Niger, kwara and even Oyo and Ogun. These states deserve special security attention, to say the least. From the account of the attacks in Yobe, it is obvious any notion of security in Nigeria is merely a ruse; we seem to be living by sheer Grace. For such a sensitive state where attacks have been rampant in the last two years, security is still virtually nonexistent. This explains why a gang of hoodlums would operate for four hours (1pm to 5am), sacking police station, LGA office, damaging telecoms facilities and driving away with about six vehicles without a trace; they could have had breakfast if they wanted.

Stories like Yobe’s are happening everyday across Nigeria. Last Friday, in Ganye town which is the headquarters of Ganye LGA in Adamawa State, gunmen stormed the Ganye Prisons, overpowered a combined team of Mobile Police, soldiers and other armed forces to free about 127 prisoners.

About 25 people lay dead after the attack including the deputy comptroller in charge of the prison, Mallam Baba Musa. In Benue, the Tivs and the Nomadic Fulani are engaged in a killing spree; kwara, Ebonyi, Cross River, are theatres of communal wars with security agent over-powered and in retreat. Plateau State’s matter is a full-fledged debacle where perhaps, more Nigerians have been slaughtered than cattle in the last 10 years. Just last

Tuesday, 28 people were killed and several villages razed in an overnight raid in Ryom Local Council. As has always been the case, Ryom could have been a jungle or the centre of the Kalahari Desert for there was no sign of government or security presence as the blood fest went on. In the south-south and south-east parts of the country, kidnappers and ritualists reign as security agencies wish they would be left alone.

Where there is no government The reality that should be poking sticks into our eyes is that this entity has buckled terribly. Henry Okah, master-mind of the Abuja the bomber was tried and jailed in South Africa last Tuesday; James Ibori, was jailed in London recently but hardly any high profile criminal can be convicted or jailed in today’s Nigeria because our leaders have been castrated by corruption and our institutions suborned. The reality that most of us are wont to deny is that all else has failed in Nigeria except the stream of oil revenues that our leaders steal and fritter away as soon as they are earned.

Our reality, which we tend deny, is that there is hardly any governance going on in Nigeria today. Yes, we see some governors and ministers deigning to do some work but they are not governing; they are merely executing odd, oft ill-conceived projects.

Governance by a simple definition is working the institution, not working the helmsman. Therefore, while there are a few projects going on in some towns and city centres, a vast swath of space is overlooked along with

very important government positions or acting as big-time government contractors and agents today. This grimy attitude has been elevated to the level of a national credo. Take for instance, the demise of Chinua Achebe, that great Nigerian writer in far away United States that has elicited the best of superlatives, especially from government circles.

When the man was alive, nothing was done by successive administrations to show gratitude to him or even to give hope to him that Nigeria, after his demise, will be a better place for all to live in. Our country pretended to be oblivious of former United States’ President, John F. Kennedy’s words that ‘…the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.’

Just because the nation cannot live by her appreciation, nothing was done to celebrate late Obafemi Awolowo when he was alive.

The same thing applies to Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe. The two were rather vilified in their life time by leaders that impute wrong political meanings to whatever action that they took at the period. Even now, nothing seems to have changed.

Even if nothing has been done before to celebrate our icons in different fields of human endeavour, the successes from the annual celebration of Tinubu and the lessons from Achebe’s death in exile, far away from a thankless country called Nigeria, should be a wake-up call to the need for the nation and her people to imbibe the spirit of showing gratitude to worthy men amongst us while still alive.

The leadership of the nation should work out plans on how to give sustained recognition to the deserving. I am not referring to the award of national honours that has become something for every Tom, Dick and Harry with the exception of the very few that are usually lumped together with questionable honourees. Nigeria needs to nationally celebrate icons like Nobel laureate Professor Wole Soyinka; the nation must accord unconditional respects and recognitions to former Commonwealth of Nations’ scribe, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, and ambassador par excellence, Alhaji Maitama Sule, amongst others. These accomplished Nigerians are our pride as a nation and their celebration should not be left for private concerns to undertake always. Here’s wishing the Lion of Bourdillon, plenteous happy returns of yesterday. larger population. Most of the 774 LGAs across the land are untouched, ungoverned and famished. Hardly any socio-economic activities go on there as the state governors hijack and squander the funds meant for this tier.

Again, our unspoken reality is that our hinterlands are so withered and wasted that any band of boys with as many as six assault rifles could seize a chunk of the country and have the police, army, airforce running helterskelter in their usual reactionary mode. Such is our reality and our predicament. Our naked reality is that Nigeria is no better than Mali today and if we knew any better, the UN should be considering a standby troop for Nigeria before the last few cords snap. Our REAL reality is that the current leadership lacks the capacity to pull the chestnuts out of the fire. Our leaders are only single-minded about holding power; what a pity, blind people desperate to rule a dead country.

FEED BACK: Re: Kano Blast: Second pogrom I refer to your Expresso column of Friday March 22. Islam has nothing to do with terrorism. Christianity is the bloodiest religion on earth, ask the Jews. No Muslim is happy with what is happening in the North and we pray that God will expose those behind Boko Haram.

Mr. Steve do you know that some Christians were arrested trying to bomb their own church? Boko Haram is killing everybody, Hausa, Muslims included. I have lost brothers and sisters to Boko Haram. These people are not Muslims for God’s sakes; we are not happy and we do not support Boko Haram. 07066580774.

Stevo, great article you served us today on the Kano blasts. But it is very glaring that you are an ‘Igbo chauvinist’. You portrayed it as if Igbos are the only traders in Nigeria. For your information, there are other tribes (Yoruba, Tiv, even Hausa)in the buses and even in the park. Try to be more Nigerian in your write-ups as opposed to being a tribal jingoist. Taiwo 07038561808 Have you identified the victims? If not, stop insulting the memories of other non-Igbo victims of this senseless mayhem. 08035963413 You wrote well on the Kano blasts but you forgot your Christian brothers in the middle belt and other parts of the North as per creation of a new country. Barr Adam Smith kure, KDHA, 08067139490.

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THE NATION FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2013

PEOPLE THE NATION

A SIX-PAGE SECTION ON SOCIETY

Bishop David Oyedepo of Winners Chapel has given out his daughter’s hand in marriage to Stephen Adekola Ogah, a member of the church. The well attended event was held at the Covenant University, Canaanland, Ota, Ogun State. WALE ADEPOJU reports.

Oyedepo’s daughter’s day I

T was a celebration of love at Covenant University, Canaanland, Ota, Ogun State last Saturday as Love Jesutobi, daughter of Bishop David Oyedepo of Winners Chapel got married to Stephen Adekola Ogah, a member of the church.

Guests defied the traffic gridlock on the Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway to attend what some people dubbed the wedding of the year.

The ambience was inviting. The Covenant University Chapel was tastefully decorated and the atmosphere was cool.

Bishop Oyedepo and wife, Faith wore brown striped Aso Oke with cap and headgear to match. Mr and Mrs Ogah were dressed in similar attire.

The hall was packed full; the church members were not left out. Everything was orderly.

Dressed in a black suit, the groom, Stephen with his men walked into the hall, smiling.

Beaming and acknowledging cheers from well-wishers and friends, Love also walked into the hall. She sat beside her man.

The officiating Minister, Pastor David Abioye, urged the couple to tolerate each other.

In his message entitled: Growing together in marriage, he charged them to live in love and harmony.

He said: “Man and wife should blend, grease and be appreciative of each other.”

Quoting from Proverbs 16 and Genesis 2:21, he said, a simple “I love you” can stimulate excitement because ‘love covers multitude of sins.”

He said the couple should learn to apologise to each other anytime one wronged the other because nobody is above mistake.

Abioye recommended appreciation, affection and apology, which he called the “three As” as necessary tool for a successful marriage.

Pastor Paul Eneche, referred the couple to the book of Ephesians, stressing that it contains God’s words that the Holy Spirit will honour as they stand in them in faith.

He said: “The world has the idea that marriage is simply a legal contract but at the same time, it is a spiritual contract. When the word of God between two born again believers is spoken, the power of God goes into operation.”

He charged wives to submit to their husbands. Husbands should love their wives as Christ loved the church that He gave Himself for it.

The couple took their marital vows, exchanged rings and were joined together as man and wife. They also took the Holy Communion.

Reading from the book of Deuteronomy 28:1-3, the pastor blessed the couple and laid hands on them to impart them with grace. He then presented them as a new couple.

The newlyweds were later joined by family and friends for photographs.

Some top government officials attended the event. Top among them was Governor of Delta State, Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan, who said he would have been absent but for the insistence of his wife; Deputy Governors of Lagos and Osun states, Mrs Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire and Mrs Titi Laoye-Tomori; Mrs Sarah Sosan and wife of Lagos State Governor, Mrs Abimbola Fashola.

There were also guests from outside the country, especially Pastor Kenneth Haggin Jnr from the United States.

The Christian clergy was well represented. In attendance were: Bishop Faith Idahosa; Bishop Mike Bamidele; Businessman, Mr Jimoh Ibrahim; Pastor Femi Emmanuel of Living Spring Church and Pastor David Ibiyiomie of Salvation Ministries, among others.

•The couple Love and Stephen

•More pictures on page 22

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THE NATION FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2013

SOCIETY OYEDEPO’S DAUGHTER’S DAY

•From left: Groom's Mother, Mrs Ogah; Bride's father, Bishop Oyedepo; the couple Stephen and Love; Brides mother, Faith and Groom's Father Mr Ogah

•Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim (left) and Bishop Mike Afolabi

•Mrs Laoye-Tomori

•Mrs Sosan (right) and Mrs Fola Ogunsoye

•Mrs Olufunso Amosun

•Governor Uduaghan and Mrs Fashola

•Pastor Ibiyeomi (left) and Pastor Eneche

•Pastor Taiwo Odukoya and wife Nomthi

PHOTOS: OLUWASEGUN RAPHAEL

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THE NATION FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2013

SOCIETY Two bankers – Folasade Makanju and Mandela Oniemola –have tied the nuptial knot at Surulere Baptist Church, Yaba, Lagos Mainland. TAJUDEEN ADEBANJO writes.

Union of bankers M

ANDELA Abolaji Oniemola met former Miss Folasade Olayinka Makanju at Diamond Bank headquarters in Lagos during an inhouse training five years ago.

Folasade's charisma and maturity were all Mandela needed to single her out for friendship among participants at the training.

After four years of friendship, Mandela proposed to Folasade about a year ago.

Last Saturday, the lovebirds consumated their marriage at the Surulere Baptist Church, Yaba, Lagos Mainland.

They were joined by family members, colleagues and well-wishers.

Many of the guests shone in torquoise and royal blue lace. Some elderly men were in white Agbada.

Mandela looked cute in a white shirt, blue bow tie, black suit and pair of shoes.

His bride, Folasade appeared stunning in a white flowing wedding gown, white necklace, ear rings and wrist watch.

The solemnisation was conducted by Reverend Michael Afolabi. Other officiating ministers assisted him to coordinate the programme.

With the processional hymn To God be the Glory, the bride joined her husband and others waiting for the ceremony to start.

After taking their seats, hymns of praise followed.

Members of the church choir lifted the hall with gospel songs.

After pledging to take each other as husband and wife, the officiating minister joined them together.

Pastor Afolabi urged them to uphold the marital vows.

Mutual love and understanding, he said, are hallmarks of a successful home.

The church service also featured signing of the marriage register, thanksgiving, presentation of certificate and recessional hymn.

There was a photograph session with the couple outside the church before the wedding train moved to Eagle Club, Adeniran Ogunsanya Street, Surulere for the reception.

There, the couple took time for guests to settle down to arrange another photograph session with the groom's men and bride's maids.

Son of Evangelist Ebenezer Obey-Fabiyi, the Miliki crooner, Tolu was on the band stand.

He and his Miliki Extra band thrilled the gathering.

Also, Abiola Atanda popularly known as Madam Kofo, who anchored the reception was at her best.

The couple were led into the hall by the bridal train and some guests.

As they danced into the hall, many stretched their necks. Others stood to watch them.

Mrs Funmilola Coker delivered the opening prayer before chairman on the occasion, Prof Adebayo Williams, a renowned essayist, took over.

Prof Williams, who shelved his programme in far away Florida, United States on that day to attend the ceremony, described it as "great."

According to him, such event can only be organised by great people.

•Prof Williams with the couple, Mandela and Folasade

•Bride’s parents, Mr and Mrs Makanju

•Madam Kofo

•Groom’s parents, Dr Duro Oniemola and his wife, Elizabeth

•Mr Akin Kekere-Ekun

•Alhaja Kekere-Ekun

•Former Editor, The Punch Newspaper, Mr Dayo Wright (left) and Prof Tunde Makanju

He congratulated the parents of the couple.

Prof Williams had a few words of commendation for the musician who he noted is taking after his legendary father.

He wished the couple success in their marital journey.

Prof Williams supervised the cutting of the cake.

The Chief bride's maid, Oluwatosin John picked the bouquet thrown by the bride. She was congratulated by her fiancée, Olayiwola Akerele.

Folasade's brother, Tunde Makanju gave the vote of thanks before the couple took to the dance floor.

They were joined by family members and guests who sprayed them with new naira notes.

Mandela thanked the guests for making the day special.

He described Folasade as a straight forward person, honest and a good planner with a strong will to achieve whatever she sets out for.

"I do not think I can find any other woman; she is made to complement my weak parts and very natural," he said.

"This atmosphere is great; I am overwhelmed," said the bride.

Folasade said: "He is an awesome person; I could not wait for this day.

When God says somebody is the person, it cannot be changed. He is a gentleman, God-fearing and hardworking."

The bride's father, Mr Oluwatoyin Makanju urged them to live as one and always love each other.

The groom's mother, Mrs Oniemola prayed for the couple to live and see their children getting married.

•Justice Adiat Subair

•Alhaji Mukadas Fuja PHOTOS: ABIODUN WILLIAMS

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SOCIETY The Cathedral Church of St Andrew’s, Diocese of Amichi in Anambra State, has elevated some of its priests. Some prominent people were also honoured on the occasion, reports ODOGWU EMEKA ODOGWU

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ANY in attendance were well-heeled members of the society.

The arrival of former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor Prof Charles Soludo; former House of Representatives member Prince Nicholas Ukachukwu; former Deputy Governor of Anambra State Dr Okey Udeh; former Chairman of Police Service Commission , Chief Simon Okeke, among others indicated that it was a big event.

Bishop Ephraim Ikeakor, the Anglican Bishop of Amichi Diocese presided. He was assisted by other priests.

No fewer than 4,300 people attended the service where three priests were elevated to Canons.

Also, 70 people were made diocesan Lay Readers. The Lay Readers stole the show when they came out in their dazzling white.

Very early that Sunday, the Cathedral Church of St Andrew’s, Amichi had started filling up with people. By 10am, the bishop, his wife, Dame Nkem Ikeakor led the procession to the altar. They were followed by over 40 priests, lay readers and the choir. Some of the awardees were already seated adjacent to the sanctuary.

The day was set aside for the promotion of Revd Samson Chukwudi Ikedinma, Revd Kenechukwu Anyakaoha and Revd Oliver Chugbo to Canons in the order of the church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion.

There was joy in the archdeaconries in Amichi Diocese as over 70 new lay leaders were also admitted in the diocese. The lay readers were drawn from Osumenyi Archdeaconry, Cathedral Deanery, Ezinifite Archdeaconry, Amichi Archdeaconry, Amichi West Archdeaconry, Ekwulumili Archdeaconry and Ebenato Archdeaconry.

In his homily, the Bishop, Ikeakor congratulated the celebrators on their elevation.

The cathedral also served as the venue of the award. It was filled to capacity as Soludo, Udeh, Ukachukwu and Okeke among

A call to serve •Cross-section of the Priests

•Bishop Ikeakor with commissioner for Lands and Survey Mr Okoli Akirika

others, bagged awards. It was in recognition of their contributions to the growth and development of the church and humanity in their various fields of endevour.

The Prelate also appraised the Sure Anchor Newspaper awardees for their immense contributions in the society emphasising that the award is not for fund raising but for their contributions to better the lots of mankind. He urged every Christian to ensure that they fulfill the ministry God assigned to them before death. “Every position occupied by any person has a pre-determined agenda that must be accomplished,” he noted.

Bishop Ikeakor further explained that Sure Anchor Newspaper was floated to take the gospel to the nooks and crannies of the

country and beyond. On the content of the paper, he assured that the publication is not political and will not engage in publishing controversial issues. “We will furnish the people with information based on truth,” he assured.

Governor of Anambra State Mr Peter Obi, who was the special guest of Honour at the occasion said that the government in the spirit of ANIDS shall aid in circulation of the paper in all the ministries within the state.

Obi, represented by the Commissioner for Lands and Survey, Mr. Okoli Akirika, noted that the importance of the paper in the dissemination of the gospel cannot be overstressed and advised the editorial team to ensure that their information is anchored on truth before

•Bishop Ikedinma with ex-police service commission Chief Simon Okeke

publication.

Earlier in his address, the Editorin-Chief of the Newspaper, Reverend Canon Chukwuebuka Chukwuemeka, said the paper is committed to the demonstration of journalistic best practice from a Christian perspective as their slogan is “journalism anchored on truth.”

“As a faith based media organisation, it is top priority for us to put the gospel on the newsstand, through a professionally balanced editorial content…”

Canon Chukwuebuka, therefore, solicited for the support of everyone through advert subscription which he said will sustain the paper.

Soludo, who was given an Integrity and Visionary leadership

award thanked the Amichi Diocese for recognising him and charged the newly appointed canons to stay steadfast to the oath they have taken and serve God and humanity.

Other awardees include: Dr Chidi Anyaegbu, Dr Dan Chukwudozie and Prince Nicolas Ukachukwu who got Great Achiever award. For the merit award of excellence, Chief Leo Okoye, Sir Okey Udeh, Sir Emma Okoli, Chief Tony Okoye, Igwe Kenneth Orizu, Igwe G.O Ezechukwu, Simon Okeke, Michael Agazie and Sir Levi Chidolue.

Also awarded were Chief Sir S.N Ukachukwu, Igwe Wisdom Onebunne, Igwe John Nwosu, Sir Ben Emeka, Dr Eddy Agbasimelo, Engr Chike Emenike and Paul Owulu.

FUNERAL OF ONIMOLE OF LAGOS, CHIEF KAYODE ADESHINA ONIMOLE IN LAGOS

•The widow, Mrs Matilda Onimole, with Senator Olorunnimbe Mamora.

•From left: Former Osun State Military Administrator Gen Leo Ajiborisha (rtd); former Ogun State Governor Aremo Olusegun Osoba and his wife, Derin PHOTOS : MUYIWA HASSAN

25 FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2013

Vol 4. No. 1795

Our life changing stories, by raffle winners The three of them were tenants and suddenly their fortunes changed.

They became landlords, courtesy of Maltina, a brand from the stable of the Nigerian Breweries (NB) Plc which gave them houses in Lekki, Lagos, in the Maltina Sharing Happiness promo.

RAJI ROTIMI SOLOMON writes.

T

HREE consumers of Maltina, from the stable of Nigerian Breweries Plc, have praised the brand for their life-changing fortunes.

Last year, Maltina undertook a National Consumer Promotions tagged “Maltina Sharing Happiness promo”, where it promised to give five furnished homes and millions of Naira to consumers.

This promise has been fulfilled as the winners have been presented with the keys to the houses at separate events.

Rev. Philip Terhemba Abur, Oluwashola Akinsanya and Adeyinka Adeola were among the five that won a furnished threebedroom apartment each at Lekki, Lagos, last year. They said it was difficult to believe that a brand can just give out houses to consumers with virtually no strings attached.

Rev Phillip Abur, a Makurdi, Benue State born cleric said Maltina did what he never expected. “I must say that anytime I relive the time I got the phone call that I had won a house, cold shivers run down my spine because it sounded unbelievable - considering the chronic housing issue in Nigeria today. Ever since I won the house I have become an advocate of the brand and will continue to be. They sure deserve commendation”.

Oluwashola Akinsanya, an electrician based in Irolu Remo in

•Moses-Edewor (left) receiving the key to his new house from the Marketing Director, Nigerian Breweries, Walter Drenth.

Ogun State said the brand is simply amazing. “I was on a PHCN pole fixing an electrical fault for a client when I got the call that I had won a house, I almost jumped down from the pole, but I had to restrain myself. I want to thank Maltina because I no longer pay house rent. I now channel the money towards the development of my business which has grown significantly since last year.

“Eight years ago I was in Lagos living with my older brother. The condition we were living was deplorable. I was staying with my brother, his wife and six children in a single room. It became so tough that my brother had to send me back home because he could no longer cater for me; that was when I started an internship on electric repairs.”

He stressed that there was no way he could have imagined that his brother’s gesture, which he saw then as cruel is a projection for him to come back one day, not as a tenant in Lagos but a home owner.

Oluwasola said his doubt over the issue is gone. “I always live with the fear that somebody will come one day and say get out!

But I know that will not happen because Maltina is a trusted brand.”

The story is not different with Adeyinka Adeola from Mbiama in Rivers State who completed his secondary school education a few months before becoming a proud home owner. He praised Maltina, on behalf of his family for making his dream come true.

“It is still unbelievable that I

could be in Mbiama and win a wonderful home in Lagos. Now that we no longer pay house rent I can comfortably continue with my higher education.”

Against the backdrop of scepticism regarding consumer promotions in the country, the brand put in place all necessary measures to ensure that the process of giving out the homes were as transparent as possible given the fact that the draws and presentations were done on national television with the winners contacted on screen to the full glare of Nigerians. Apart from those that won houses, five other consumers won a million naira each while others won cash prizes and other brand collaterals.

As the brand gears up for its

‘I always live with the fear that somebody will come one day and say, get out! But I know that will not happen because Maltina is a trusted brand. It is still unbelievable that I could be in Mbiama and win a wonderful home in Lagos. Now that we no longer pay house rent, I can comfortably continue with my higher education’

next consumer engagement activation, Mrs. Ngozi Nkwoji, Senior Brand Manager, Maltina once more reiterated the fact that the brand is all about “sharing happiness” and family bonding. “The Maltina story has always been the story of sharing, friendship, trust, togetherness and faithfulness and good time with loved ones. It is all about bringing people together in an atmosphere of friendship. And what better way of bringing people together than by providing them with what makes living worthwhile and enjoyable, that is the brand promise we stand upon.”

The Maltina brand has been noted for exploring creative avenues to consistently engage and reward its consumers. One of these creative consumer engagement platforms is the popular and highly rated Maltina Dance All (MDA) TV reality show, a platform for sharing happiness, promoting nourished and energetic people and strong family values and bonding.

Since 1976, Maltina has consistently satisfied its consumers with high quality natural malt drink, fortified with essential vitamins and minerals. It is the first and only malt drink officially endorsed by the Nutrition Society Nigeria.

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THE NATION FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2013

SHOPPING

27

THE NATION

FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2013

e-mail: shoppingthenation@hotmail.com.

Website:- http://www.thenationonlineng.net

Shopping@thenationonlineng.net

•Shoppers at The Palms

All for Easter T

HE crucifixion of Jesus Christ is being commemorated worldwide today. On Easter Sunday and Monday, Christians will celebrate His resurrection. As usual, sellers and shoppers are in the thick of it all.

As a Christian festival observed across the world with immense splendour, people have the opportunities to meet their relations, friends and relive cherished moments amid feasting.

To some, it is a time to celebrate special occasions such as marriages, house warming and others.

Alongside the get-together, gifts play an important role. The modern markets and

For christendom, Easter is a significant event. It marks the death and resurrection of Christ. To celebrate the event, many have gone shopping in preparation for hosting families and friends. TONIA ‘DIYAN reports the situation in Lagos and how shoppers feel. malls are flooded with various gifts.

Recreation parks, museums, cinemas, shopping malls and other tourist attractions will simmer as people will take advantage of the public holiday to spend time with their families and loved ones.

During festivities, it is assumed that economic activities usually witness upsurge, which result in upward adjustment of prices of consumer goods. Some natural factors have also affected buying and selling.

Higher food prices continue to reflect the impact of recent floods on the production of farm products, resulting in difficulty in moving these food products to markets across the

country, Competition in the market is another major factor observed, but the reason for such during periods like this, is the notion of this is our time to make more money.

There is no doubt that increase in prices of commodities always pinch shoppers at every festive season. Prices of most needed goods like foodstuffs, clothing, shoes, household items and gifts, among other things, are often increased for traders’ selfish gains.

They believe it is during such festive periods like Easter that businesses boom the more; hence, they usually take advantage of such opportunity to smile to the bank.

A buyer, Mrs. Emmanuella Ukomadu, told The Nation Shopping: “Since I have been coming to Mile 12 market to buy foodstuffs during festive periods like this, prices of foodstuffs are always on the high side. I think it is because of the high demand by more people who prefer to buy goods than when there is no festival; that always forces the prices to up and people seem to be used to that.”

Traditionally, sales pick up by higher percentage during festive seasons starting from a week to the celebration, when many would have started shopping.

•Continued on page 28

MY SHOPPING

Funfair for kids @ Easter Page 29

Personalised Easter gifts

Page 28

THE NATION FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2013

28

SHOPPING

All for Easter •Continued from page 27 However, members of the lower class normally delay theirs till the last minute of the celebration for economic reasons, but traders and retailers are aware that current prices are deterring consumers from making big purchases.

Information from Ikeja City Mall, The Palms, Mega Plaza, Adeniran Ogunsanya Shopping Mall as well as markets like Ile- Epo foodstuff market, Daleko rice market, Mile 12 food stuff market, Oshodi and Lagos Island markets, Ifo farm markets, Mushin Ojuwoye market and the abattoir at Agege, shows that prices of food items, beverages, clothes, gifts items, toiletries and other household goods have either increased significantly or their quantity have reduced.

Despite the fear of price hike, buyers who patronise shopping malls have little fear as most retailers at malls operate discount sales, especially during festive periods like this. But customers who want to make bulk purchase of food items for the celebration may not find shopping malls ideal.

Therefore, to encourage sales, some of these retail shops have launched attractive sales promo to drive sales this season.

A cross session of buyers, who spoke with The Nation Shopping at Ikeja City Mall expressed their fears.

A stock broker in Lagos, Mrs. Cynthia Ihianacho, said: “You know shopping at malls during festive period is more of a family thing.

If we need to buy food items for a party, you know this place is not the best to buy cartons of frozen chicken. You have to go to the open market like Ketu and Mile 12. But you can come here to shop for convenience goods. Or bring your family here to have lunch and pick one or two convenience goods at a good discount,” she said.

Also, an accountant with Meristem Insurance, Mr Adekoya Shoaga said: “Most retail chains like Shoprite operate on the best low price policy.

There is no sales increase panic during festive periods unlike the open market for staple foods, where speculations lead to price increase. But rather, most retail chains compete through price war. That is why they come up with one sales bonanza or the other during festive periods. I am not worried at all.”

Meanwhile, a sales agent with Shoprite confirmed that there are still sluggish sales despite price slash and discount. The kinds of people who patronise are classy, trendy and upwardly mobile. But they only constitute a small fraction of the entire population. “If more people irrespective of status will come here to shop, then sales will be encouraging. We expect boom this Easter,” she said.

A visit to some of the major markets in Lagos shows there is increment in virtually all the prices of commodities. For example a 50 kilogramme of Thai parboiled rice has jumped from N7,000 to between N12,000 and N13, 000. Also, the half bag (25 kilogramme) of the same product which

•Shoppers preparing for Easter

was previously sold for between N3,500 and N3,000 now sells for between N6,500 and N6,000. A full bag of Mama Gold rice has increased from between N9,000 to N12,000 and N13,000 in most cases in the market, while the 25 kilogramme of the same product now goes for N6,000 and N6,500 depending on the markets.

Shoppers have continued to groan under hike in commodities’ prices since December last year.

According to the Secretary of Daleko rice market, Mr Biodun Amuwa, the conditions of Nigerian roads, hike in transport fares and pump prices of fuel, which has become a tradition in the country, among other things are major reasons why there is hike in the prices of commodities, saying that it has got nothing to do with festive seasons. “People only misunderstand things. Even when prices are stable but quantity is reduced, they still attribute it to the festive season. Traders can only sell what they buy,” he said.

Confirming this, a rice dealer at the market, Mr Musiliu Gbadamosi told The Nation Shopping that the constant increase in the prices of rice is caused by high transport fare as well as the increase in demand by the people. According to him: “The increase as you have observed isn’t our making and we are not happy about it, because many people believe we normally increase the prices to make more gains during festival, it is not so”.

“We do not just increase the prices of goods just like that; the problem is that during festive periods, there is increase in transport fares in conveying these goods from the north to Lagos. We all know the situation of fuel in this country and for us to cover the unit cost of

these goods, including the transport fares; we have to increase their prices so that we don’t lose”, he emphasized.

According to another trader, a vegetable oil dealer at Mushin Ojuwoye market, Lagos, Mrs. Rafiat Balogun said that five litres of Sous vegetable oil cost N1,400, as against N1,200. She, however, said the price of Turkey oil did not increase, attributing the stable price to large quantity of old stock in her stall. Onions has been compared to gold in the recent past with the continued reduction in its quantity. According to traders, this is also attributed to the high transport fares and security crisis in Bauchi, and Borno states, which are part of the major onions producing states. Malam Abubakar Yusuf, one of the onion sellers at the Mile 12 food stuffs market said: “A big bag of onions, now attracts between N18,000 and N23,000 with a reduced quantity. Tomatoes like other soup ingredients are not left out of the price hike.”

Alhaji Malik Usman, a tomatoes seller also at Mile 12 food stuff market said a basket of tomatoes is sold for N4,500 and N5,000 as against N3,500 and N3,800.

Providing an explanation to the rise in prices of onions and tomatoes, a trader at the market, Malam Bala Umar, said it is caused by high cost of transportation. Also at Daleko market, it was gathered that a bowl of beans sold for N400 has risen to N550 because of easter celebrations.

Other staple foods like Semovita and locally made groundnut oil are not left out as their prices have increased from N950 to N1,200 and from N200 per bottle to N300 per bottle.

The story was not any different for other food

items known for their relatively cheaper rates in the market, but which have witnessed an increase this season. For instance, live chickens, which earlier were sold between N800 and N1,000 depending on their sizes; goes for between N2,000 and N2,500.

However, the price of frozen chicken is expected to increase this season as a result of import restrictions. Mrs. Taiwo Folorunsho, who sells frozen chicken at the Ilupeju model market in Lagos, said Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) tends to impose more restrictions during festive seasons and as a result, the cost of settling them is expected to be passed to buyers. A carton of chicken has moved from N5,500 to N7,200 and we expect more price increase this Easter period”.

But the prices of meat differs, depending on the size; a big goat cost about N25,000 while a small goat which used to cost N10,000 is now sold for N15,000.

Though, Lagosians are complaining about the high cost of food items. But in spite of the complaints, there appears to be no significant drop in patronage of these food items because people have to feed to celebrate Easter. According to some food stuffs traders, business is booming and more people are coming for foodstuffs as they can’t do without it, whether during festivity or not.

A consumer behaviour specialist, Mr Tola Odusote advised that consumers should prioritise their needs and make the best purchase decisions within their limited resources during festive periods. He advised that people should operate within their limited resources to avoid cash crunch after the celebration when money is always scarce to attend to family needs.

Easter seems to revolve around children. Getting Easter gifts for adults can, at times, be difficult.

Why shouldn’t grown-ups enjoy Easter presents too? TONIA ‘DIYAN asks.

Personalised Easter gifts

P

ERSONALISED easter gifts are becoming a phenomenon. Therefore, if you’re seeking unusual Easter gift ideas for your loved ones, You can have tailor-made clothes for someone special with their names printed on the label.

A personalised wine pack is ideal for those who enjoy tasty wine; they are perfect for treating someone in luxurious style. They go well with engraved glasses, a lovely Easter greeting card or a red velvet rose if presented to a woman. Personalising the label of the wine bottle with the recipient’s name together with a thoughtful message is also a unique idea.

This gift will exude romance.

A personalised message is not a bad idea.

You don’t have to go out of your way when the means is not sufficient, recharge your phone and send personalised text messages to your loved ones. Surprisingly, messages like this stick more in the memories of your friends.

You could buy some souvenirs and personalise them. Items like mugs, handkerchiefs, face towels; pens, carrier bags, etc are good ideas of souvenirs that are quite affordable,

especially when you buy them in bulk.

A well-crafted personalised Easter basket is the perfect gift idea for a family. It is the best way to convey your feeling and to express yourself. You can utilise your own artistic skills in making one don’t forget to use bright colours to give it a touch of boldness.

An automatic egg cooker is a lovely piece. It’s not always easy to cook a perfect hardboiled egg. So, automatic egg cookers could make an ideal gift for the Easter. It can cook several eggs at a time. The cooker will turn off automatically when the egg is boiled.

Searching for a perfect centerpiece to decorate your dinner table, the Easter egg ornament tree is outstanding. You are able to confidently choose an ornate Easter egg display tree. These crackle glass eggs blend perfectly using the festive mood of the celebration.

A silver cross pendant blends perfectly using the religious tone of the festival. It can make a classic gift because of its elegance and timelessness.

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SHOPPING

Funfair for kids @ Easter Kids’ Kloset created an open shopping environment . The intention was for exclusive Easter shopping for children. It was tagged ‘Open shop Easter sale and fun day.’ It took place at Victoria Island in Lagos.TAIBAT IDOWU was there.

K

IDS wears of all kinds of designs and brands were on display. Quality was the watchword.

It was the Open shop Easter sale and fun day, organised by Kids’ Kloset.

Children were able to choose from various clothes, shoes and toys. They also had all kinds of toys and fun gadgets to while away time with as their parents were busy doing the shopping. Only a few children were willing to go through the shopping exercise with their parents as the atmosphere was very a inviting one for them.

Kids were presented gifts items, face painting and pop corn as they arrived.

Some children spoke to The Nation Shopping of their experiences. Asope Badejo said ‘Kids’ Kloset’ is a shop that deals with various kids clothes, and she advised her friends to come with their parents to get theirs. “This is where we have clothes and shoes for kids of any age and delicious sumptuous sweets.

We are also given painting and gifts items which contain more surprise bags than those given in our schools and parties.

Sofiat Olabintan said: “It is a beautiful place where kids can have nice and beautiful clothes and shoes to match.

Stephanie Ndu said she wants other kids who couldn’t make this edition, to look forward to the next one. “Clothes here are amazing, I love them.”

Parents also spoke of the good quality attached to the products on display.

Aside good quality, Mrs. Edem Babalola, talked of affordability of products. “products here are quite affordable. The organisers are not capitalising on the fact that the festive season is here, they are very liberal with prices.

Mrs. Bankole Oniru also attested to good and quality products. As a parent, if you want your kids to stand out, this is the right place to be.”

•Wares on display at the Arena

The Arena Shopping Complex was crowded last weekend as shoppers trooped there in preparation for the Easter. TAIBAT IDOWU reports.

The Arena in Easter mood

S

HOPPERS had a similar reason for visiting the complex. Most of them said they were buying to prepare for the Easter celebration. People bought things according to how much they could afford.

The Arena stocks different kinds of products, such as food stuffs, baby accessories, fruit, vegetables, shoes, meat, phones etc. Common items are quite affordable as well as available.

A shopper, Mrs. Ajayi Gbemisola is a staunch catholic who doesn’t take chances. “I cherish the Easter festival as a good catholic. I am here to buy some clothes for my children. I will be doing some shopping for myself before I leave the market,” she said.

Miss Esther Egedu was at the market to

•Kids at the funfair

buy clothes and to make her hair. “I will include bag, shoes, and jewelries.”

Mrs. Badejo Alabi was at the market to buy foodstuff “I came to buy food stuff.

Prices are affordable and the environment is neat.

Another shopper, Mrs. Ajayi Bisola was at the market to buy live chickens “I have bought all the things I need before now. I am buying live chicken now. These two big ones cost N2,500,” she said.

Miss Chioma Oyenka visited the place to buy clothes “I am here to buy clothes especially the fairly used clothes they are mostly cheaper and neat and this market stocks new designs,” she said.

For Mrs. Mary Kalu new clothes are expensive, “so, I settle for the fairly used ones which much more less expensive.”

Displaced traders at Daleko Market are blaming the demolition of their stalls for the hike in prices of goods, especially rice. Is that really the case? TAIBAT IDOWU reports.

High price, result of demolition

T

HE Lagos State government, in its bid to sanitise Daleko market, recently demolished some illegal kiosks in front of the market, claiming some are too close to the main road, while others are causing hindrance at the market entrance.

Traders are, therefore, lamenting the increment in rice price blaming it on the recent demolition. They said they are no longer patronised by shoppers who used to buy bags of rice in large quantity. Traders said a bag of rice used to cost N7000, now it is sold for between N10,000 and 12,000 depending on the type. The hike in rice price now make shoppers go for Cotonou rice instead. “Cotonou rice is cheaper but of low quantity” said Mr. shola Bashorun, one of the traders in the market, identifies the Cotonou rice Rosase, Lion king and Pure. Mama Gold which is one of the best cost N13,000.

The reason for the demolition is to ensure traders stay within the market compound and are orderly. Some traders are not happy with the new look of the market because they earn their living from these demolished kiosk.

Some of the displacesd traders have relocated, while others have resolved in trading in their various homes because they can’t afford shop rent claiming that rent is on the high side.

•Daleko new look

Mrs. Aina Olaiya is one of the displaced traders who can no longer sell, because there is no space for her and her goods. “I have been here managing for years. But now that the government doesn’t want attachments outside the market, I am left helpless,” she said.

Mrs. Sufiat Adekoya said the govern-

ment should have provided an alternative for them before displacing them “I have no husband that feeds me. It is from this petty trade that I feed my children and send them to school. Now that we have been sent packing where will I get money to feed and send my children to school?.

Government should have given us another

space rather than sending us away,” she said.

Mr. Kola Animashaun is a ticket seller.

He lamented while speaking with The Nation Shopping saying that he no longer has people to sell ticket to as the kiosk owners seen outside the market used to be his clients.

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34

COMMENTARY

FEMI ABBAS ON

I

T cannot be strange to regular reciters of the Qur’an that there are 114 chapters in that sacred book. Out of these, six chapters are dedicated to the animal kingdom, three of which are specifically dedicated to insects. They are chapters 16, 27 and 29 which are dedicated to ‘The BEE’, ‘The ANT’ and ‘The SPIDER’ respectively.

Each of these chapters is particularly symbolic of the purpose to which it is dedicated. But it takes only those who can reason to comprehend them. However, our immediate concern here is the insect called ‘BEE’ about which Qur’an 16, verse 68 quoted in this column last week is explicit thus: “And your Lord revealed to the bee (saying): Build your homes in the mountains, in the trees and in the hives which men shall make for you. Feed on every kind of fruit and follow the trodden path of your Lord’. “From its belly comes forth a fluid of many hues as healing (fluid) for mankind. Surely in this, there is a sign for those who can reason….”

Honey is like a message. No one can gain access to a message except through the messenger. And the messenger, in this case, is the bee. To appreciate the value of honey and other bee products, it is necessary to know something about the life of the bees.

Bees are social insects living a communal life under an organised and disciplined government. Bees have male and female genders. Their males are called drones.

Their females are known as workers. They all live together in an abode called hive.

Such hive may be wild or man-made.

Though people had been harvesting honey for thousands of years, it was not until 1851 that the idea of a definite man-made hive came into existence. In that year, an America apiarist, Lorenzo Lorrain Langstroth, discovered the principle of ‘bee space’ and designed a man-made hive that came to be named after him (Langstroth). According to his discovery, bees leave spaces of about 0.6 cm (about 0.23 inches) between wax combs. Thus, Langstroth’s discovery made it possible to remove individual frames from a beehive and to harvest honey and wax without destroying the colony. It also became possible to control diseases in the hive and to maintain a larger number of colonies. (A colony is a hive effectively occupied by bees while an apiary is a place where hives are sited and kept by an apiarist).

Man-made hives are of three types. These are Langstroth, Kenyan top bar and Tanzanian top bar. Kenyan and Tanzanian top bars are similar in shape and outlook. The one was designed in Kenya while the other was designed in Tanzania in the 1950s and 1962 early 1960s. Each of the Kenyan and Tanzanian hives can contain an average of 20 litres of honey. Langstroth on the other hand can contain as much as between 38 and 40 litres because of its double chamber capacity. To get the bees to occupy a hive, what apiarists do is to bate such hives. And to bate the hive, some pure, genuine honey is added to a piece of beeswax and put at the entrance of the hive. Once this is done, the bees will come in their hundreds to colonise the hive. Thus, it becomes a colony.

Bees are governed by a female monarch called ‘the Queen’. To choose a Queen, a group of kingmakers in the hive meet to select some fertilised eggs shortly before those eggs are hatched and give them royal incubation. When they are hatched and become princesses, they are then fed with a special food called Royal Jelly to accelerate their growth and facilitate their longevity.

After about 16 weeks, one of them is chosen and made the Queen while the rest are either taken out into new hives as Queens or left altogether to slug it out among themselves in a battle of survival. In such a situation, whichever of them emerges as overall winner retains the crown as the Queen of that particular hive. The other fertilised eggs not specially selected for the same purpose are left to grow naturally until they become worker bees.

Drones are the male bees produced from unfertilised eggs. They neither sting nor work. They are idle in the hive except for mating with an emerging queen which they do only once in a lifetime. As soon as they finish mating, the drones fall down and die as they have completed their destined duty.

The queen also mates only once in a lifetime but she does not die as a result. Drones are very few in any hive since the unfertilised eggs that produce them are scantily laid by the Queen. They constitute less than one per cent of the hive population. The other drones which do not participate in mating only loiter around the

Femabbas@yahoo.com 08122697498

The insect that heals

•A bee

hive and feed freely from the labour of the workers. Their population is invariably determined by the Queen which lays very few big and unfertilised eggs from which the drones are produced. The worker bees are produced from smaller but fertilised eggs.

Only one Queen can be found in a hive at any given time. And she has no deputy. If two or more Queens should meet in the same hive, they will engage in a fight of survival killing one another until only one (the strongest) is left to reign.

By the natural culture of the bees, the Queen neither mates inside her own hive nor mated by the drones from the same hive. This is similar to the principle of endogamy (marriage within the same family) which is culturally prohibited in most African clans.

When it is time for the Queen bee to mate, she produces a glandular secretion with which she sends out a powerful pheromone into the air to alert the drones in other hives that she is ready for mating. A meeting is then arranged by the worker bees, between her and some interested drones, to mate with the Queen. And the mating is done in the air.

To breed new bees, the Queen bee lays unfertilised eggs in the larger chambers of the bee comb while she lays fertilised ones in the small chambers of the comb. The eggs in the larger chambers are meant for the production of the drones while those in the smaller chambers are meant for the production of the workers. This is because the drones are naturally bigger in size than the workers. Both chambers are expertly designed in the honeycomb by the worker bees for the purpose of breeding. One of the mysteries of the beehives is the building of the honeycomb by the bees. Researchers in the field of apitherapy know that the bees use wax to build honeycomb but they are still puzzled by the natural skill with which those tiny insects do it. An attempt by those researchers to manufacture similar honeycomb as a means of assisting the bees in reducing their workload has proved abortive as the bees have shunned such artificial comb. Honeycomb is a mass of hexagonal cells built by the honeybees in their nest to contain their larvae and store honey and pollen.

Worker bees are classified into groups for the purpose of carrying out specific duties assigned to them. Some go out every morning to scout for flower nectars with which to produce honey. Some are assigned to the duty of picking resin with which to produce propolis. Some others are charged with fetching water to be used in the hive. All of them travel out in groups of hundreds into the wild vegetations or plantations every morning as a matter of duty. For carrying out such duties, they are called foragers.

Among the other multitude others remaining in or around the hive, some are responsible for guarding the hive against any foreign attack or aggression. They are the security officers. Some are assigned to carrying

out the conversion to honey of the flower nectars brought into the hive by the foragers. Those are the corporate cooks in the hive.

Some engage permanently in fanning the interior of the hive with their tiny wings to reduce the heat and neutralise the humidity therein. Those are the ventilators. Some specialise in converting to propolis the resin brought by the foragers. Those are the pharmacists or apothecaries. Some are assigned to the Queen’s kitchen as special cooks and prepare royal jelly for the Queen which is the latter’s exclusive food. Those are the Queen’s royal chefs. Some are kept at the entrance of the hive for monitoring the environment and for passing any gathered information to the busy workers. Those are the informants. Some are put in charge of nursing the young bees into adults. They are the foster mothers. Some are assigned to the building and maintenance of the honeycomb.

Those are the colony architects and builders. Some are assigned to sterilising the interior of the hive with propolis and to ceiling any leakages therein as well as to embalming any predators that stray into the hive after such predators might have been stung to death to prevent any outbreak of epidemic in the hive. Those are the sanitary inspectors. All of these duties are carried out by the female bees called worker bees.

In the performance of their duties, some foragers do alert others about the discovery of sources of raw materials like nectar and pollen in the visited vegetations by doing a “waggle” dance, which explains the direction and distance of those raw materials. If the source is within the range of 100 meters from the hive, the bees dance in a circular shape. If it is further away than 100 meters, they dance in figure 8 shape. Worker bees, by their nature, do travel very far in search of water or raw materials needed to carry out their assigned duties in the hive. And they follow the principle of ‘esprit de corps’ in carrying out such duties.

This great division of labour is a daily routine which enables perfection to be attained in the hive. And all these activities are centrally co-ordinated by the Queen bee from her palatial chamber. The Queen bee herself is about three times bigger in size than the worker bee. She lays an average of about 2,000 eggs per day. And she lives about 40 times longer than those other bees because of the exclusive diet of Royal Jelly which she takes every day. The average lifespan of an ordinary bee is six weeks. That of the Queen bee is two and a half years but she can live for as long as six years depending on the conduciveness of her royal environment.

When the Queen bee becomes old or weak and can no longer lay enough eggs (of between 1,500 and 2,000 per day) with which to sustain the population of the hive, the kingmakers in the hive meet and decide to depose her by jointly stinging her to death.

Then, she is replaced with a new, vibrant Queen.

The drones (male bees) cannot sting because they are naturally not endowed to do that by virtue of the infertile eggs from which they are produced. Stinging is part of the duties of the worker bees. And each of them can sting only once in a lifetime. No bee can sting twice. That is why they move in groups when they are going for attack on an enemy. Stinging bees are like suicide bombers. They die in less than 30 minutes after they had stung. However, by virtue of her position and the special food she eats, the Queen can sting many times without any fear of death.

It must be noted that the bees work and produce honey and other products for them-

selves and not for human consumption.

Honey is the food of the bees. They work during the dry season and never in the rainy season because they cannot cope with the wind and storm which often accompany rains. Thus, during the rainy season, they concentrate on taking care of the Queen and on nursing of the younger bees. Therefore, the food which they had stored during the dry season is what they consume during the raining season. It takes an average bee about 21 days to grow into an adult from the egg status while it takes the Queen about 16 day to develop from the egg status to the royal status of a Queen.

Bees have as much friendly stinging as they have of hostile stinging. Their friendly stinging is for healing purposes. Their hostile stinging is like missiles reserved for attack on enemies. The natural sac in which their venom is kept at the tail end of their abdomen is called ‘ovipositor’. Bees also have three ways of communicating among themselves. These are through buzzing by the collective clapping of their wings; through pheromone released by the Queen and through certain dancing styles. They have eight of such dancing styles each with comprehensible connotation. The number of honey bees inhabiting a hive at a time may range from 10,000 to 100,000 depending on the size of the hive and its proximity to the needed raw materials.

The Queen bee mates with about six to eight drones, only once in a lifetime. And this is done over a period of two to seven days. And she must fly to at least a height of 20 metres in the air before mating. This is to maintain royal privacy and avoid unnecessary disturbance. There are about 20,000 species of bees in the world. But the most prominent ones in relation to human life are seven. These are Bumble Bees; Carpenter Bees; Honey Bees; Killer Bees; Ground Bees and Yellow Jackets Bees. Some worker bees are stingless. But generally, the world of bees is a wonderful one. It takes those who know it to appreciate its value. Without bees, there will be neither crops nor farmers. No amount of narration here can expose all about the communal life of the bees. Their story is inexhaustible.

Identifying genuine honey

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OLLOWING the publication of an article in this column last Friday entitled ‘The Prophet’s Medicine’, many readers of this column (not less than 401, as of last Tuesday when this piece was being put together), have called yours sincerely or sent messages wanting to know how genuine honey can be recognised. This column has no choice but to oblige since readers, like customers, are kings and queens.

A genuine honey can be recognized in two simple ways thus: (1) By dropping a little quantity of honey in a transparent glass of water. It should ordinarily go straight to the bottom of the water and stay there without mixing with the water. If it mixes, consider it as either debased or not genuine.

(2) By dropping a little quantity of honey on a small portion of sand (not soil). It should ordinarily stay on top of such sand without sinking. If it sinks then it is not genuine.

There are other ways by which genuine honey is tested. But those two ways should suffice for now. The idea that ants do not go near a genuine honey has no basis. Ants will go for anything sweet anywhere. The only reason why ants are careful about honey is its gummy nature. Ants have six legs. If they are not careful about their approach to honey they may get trapped in it. Thus, when the ants want to consume honey, they put only two legs forward and retain the other four backwards to enable escape getting trapped in gummy honey.

Besides, consummation of honey by human beings has rules and regulations. For instance honey should not be put in any hot substance like tea or pap. Such substance should be allowed to cool down to a warm level before honey can be added to it. Otherwise, one will merely be consuming the fructose in honey and not the vital properties like enzymes in it which are of high benefit to the body system.

Finally, looking at the communal life of the bees as well as the style of government in the beehive, no sensible person will disagree with an Arab poet who once coined a couplet part of which reads thus: “.....And in every creature, there is a natural sign confirming not only the true existence of Allah but also His indisputable oneness”. God bless the readers of ‘THE MESSAGE’.

THE NATION FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2013

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SOCIETY

A great man at 63 The Pen Society, family members and friends have celebrated the leader of Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG), Hon. Olawale Oshun, on his 63rd birthday.

PRECIOUS IGBONWELUNDU reports.

I

T was to be a bithday party but it turned out to be an evening of variety as the youths and children who gathered at the National Library in Yaba, Lagos Mainland, entertained guests with scinctilating performances. Members of the audience marvelled at the children’s sense of history following an educative cultural dance by a group, Footprints of Africa.

It was all to celebrate the 63rd birthday of former House of Representatives member, Olawale Oshun. The event was organised by a literary group, The Pen Society. It started with a competition between pupils from seven primary and secondary schools around Yaba on social media use and abuse.

After the interactive sessions, came the colourful display of rich cultural heritage by the young dancers who through their music and steps, educated the audience that life is a market place where different destinies meet as well as the need to be diligent and prudent.

The birthday cake was cut and books were donated to the best three participating schools. The dance group got cash gifts.

In attendance were Oshun’s wife, Anthonia, his brother, Oluwole and Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) stalwarts like Essien Omolola; Jimoh Kamal; Jide Jimoh; Bola Linda-John and Rauf Ayodeji, who all paid glowing tributes to the celebrator.

Others include poets, Uche Nwadinuju and Bob Eket and singer, Eda Otto staged brilliant performances to honour the icon.

Linda-John, who is the leader, Yaba, Local Council Development Area (LCDA) said Oshun means a lot to them. ‘‘Baba is our father, leader and mentor. He is everything to us. We really appreciate him and I am happy to be here to

•The celebrator Hon Oshun; assisted by his wife, Anthonia, The proprietor Lihan school Onike, Mrs Tokunbo Johnson and her pupils to cut the cake

celebrate him. I have to cancel so many things to be here for Baba.

I pray that God will keep him safe for us, be with him and when he is 70 years, we all shall be around to celebrate him in good health.”

Ayodeji, a former secretary of Yaba LCDA, described Oshun as a lover of children, adding that he is a good example of a people’s leader. He described the celebrator as a book lover; a writer who has public undisguised romance with books. ‘‘Baba, in spite of his numerous achievements, remains a humble man. He is shown us that a good political leader must be rooted with his people at the grassroots.

He is always thinking of programmes that will enhance the wellbeing of his people. ‘‘He is a wonderful leader and that is why I am always happy to be associated with him.’’

Drama, poems and debates were held by the children to illustrate the misuse of social media by teenagers and the effects of such unguided use on the society.

A moved, Oshun said his generation has failed the youths.

He said: ‘‘When we were very young, the basic training we had was to respect our elders. If you respect your elders they will pray for you and bless you. ‘‘We have to change our society and values. We have failed our children. That is why they talk about uninspired youth. From the parents, political, economic, business, religious and traditional spheres, we have failed to show discipline for our children to pick and learn correct values so as to be inspired. ‘‘But, as children, you also have the responsibility to discipline and train yourselves because you all know what is wrong or right. So, it is both ways, we have the responsibility to lead you and show

• The celebrator, Oshun (second left) assisted by his wife, Anthonia; Chief Executive Officer Network Information Technology, Mr Olubiyi Ismail (left) and Hon Oshun to cut the cake PHOTOS: SOLOMON ADEOLA

you the correct path but you also have to include self effort to be inspired. ‘‘You know that you can make a thing better; that is why you are talking about your love for Nigeria, the same Nigeria that has not inspired you. ‘‘I am elated that these children, many of whom do not know me or have not even heard my name came here today to honour me.

They would have spent their time on something else, but they decided to come here to learn something. ‘‘The whole essence of the engagement is to challenge the children to be what they aspire to become. This to me is a kind of

PRIZE GIVING NIGHT

•From left: Aare of Ife Muyiwa Omisade; Mrs Funmilayo Obisan; Mr Tunji Adeyemo; Mrs Ruth OmajuwaOluwatosin; Senator Olorogun Pelix Iloru and Major-Gen Olayinka Sule (rtd) during the Ladys Captain Prize Giving Night at Ikeja Golf Club, Ikeja, Lagos

mentorship programme to make sure that our children are inspired to greater heights.”

Oshun who said God has been good to him, added that he had a good childhood, sound education and working life. ‘‘Having children around is creative. I love children so much, they have exceptional qualities.

They grow to meet and surpass you. Today, I can tell you that I gained a lot from their discussions and interactions. Their thinking surpasses my generation and they are more superior in their arguments.’’

Asked why he has not written books for children, Oshun said: ‘‘you can only have a generation

addressing its own issues. Let children write for themselves. All I can do is pray that you do not allow people who will lead you badly. You should be upright, say your minds and express your feelings at all times. I have written for my generation and so, I will allow you to address your generation.’’

Oshun advised the children to be prepared to go into politics after they must have attained their career status. He said that if they allow politics in the hands of bad people as his generation did, they will have dangerous people governing them. ‘‘By the time I went into politics, I could look people in the face because I could do without politics,’’ Oshun said.

WEDDING

Former Miss Christiana Emmanuel and her beau Isah Habibu during their wedding at Ibadan, Oyo State

THE NATION FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2013

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SOCIETY 43RD BIRTHDAY OF LAGOS HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY CHIEF WHIP DR ABDURRASAQ BALOGUN IN AGUDA , LAGOS MAINLAND

•Member Lagos State House of Assembly Hon Kabir Lawal flanked by Hon Hakeem Bamgbola and Hon Omobolanle Akinyemi-Obe

•The celebrator, Dr Balogun assisted by his wife, Kudirat and Secretary to the Lagos State Government Dr Idiat Adebule (left) to cut the cake

•Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education Mrs Omolara Erogbogbo

•Hon Olugbenga Oyebode

WHAT AND WHERE

MARRIAGE

Concert

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N Easter Sunday, the Apostolic Faith Church will hold its Easter Concert at the Great Tabernacle of the Campground in Anthony Village, Lagos.

There will be music and orchestra from the classical choir.

Summit

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WESOME Treasures NonGovernmental Organisation and the National Women’s Prayer Summit (NWPS) will tomorrow hold a summit on peace, prosperity and progress at the Agip Hall of the Muson Centre, Lagos. There, they will decree positive change on the society.

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Wedding

HE engagement ceremony and nikah between Fatimah Biodun Balogun and Yusuf Omotayo Onilogbo will hold at the Anchor Events Place, Agidingbi, Ikeja.

•The late Robiat

Burial

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HE final burial of Madam Robiat Odegbami Adebari Lawal will be held tomorrow at her home town Itori, Ewekoro Local Government Area of Ogun State

Wedding

Obsequies

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HE remains of the mother of Professor Emeritus, Jide Osuntokun, Chief Mrs Hanah Folorunso Osuntokun will be interred next Friday at Saint Michael Anglican Church, Okemesi-Ekiti. A reception will hold on the grounds of St Paul’s African Primary School, Okemesi-Ekiti.

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OMORROW, at the GOFAMINT Church, Ibadan, Ruth Oluwaseun Agboola will wed her beau Emmanuel Oluwamuyiwa Adeniran. Reception follows at the same venue.

Birthday

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ROPHET Niyi Olowoporoku will today mark his 47th birthday at The Love of Christ Church, Ebute-Metta, Lagos

Nikah

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HE Aqdun Nikah between AbdulHakeem Ahmod Dairo and Hawau Umar will hold on Sunday at Iyana, Iyesi, Ota, Ogun State.

F •Samuel Alao of The Nation and his lovebird former Miss Opeyemi Adewoyin cutting their wedding cake at Ibadan, Oyo State capital

•Osuntokun

Burial

INAL burial of the Babarere of Okunland, Pa Peter Bamisaiye Omofe will hold at his residence in Okoro Gbede in Kogi State tomorrow. It will be followed by a thanksgiving service at C A C Oke-Alafia Okoro-Gbede.

THE NATION FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2013

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THE NATION FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2013

•Sunday Mba

Mba may break Nigeria’s league transfer record •As Warri Wolves demand N12m

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FCON star, Sunday Mba could break the Nigeria league transfer record as Warri Wolves want Rangers to pay them 12 million ($75,000) for him.

Izu Azuka is believed to have commanded the biggest transfer fee in the domestic league thus far when he joined Sunshine Stars as a free agent two seasons ago for about nine million Naira.

A committee set up by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has ruled that Mba is a player of Warri Wolves and Rangers would have to pay a transfer fee on the player to have him.

Both clubs are expected to on Thursday agree on a fee transfer fee for the player who has made known his wish to move to Rangers.

“Wolves asking price is reasonable because we all know he would go for far more to a club in Europe in the summer and so Rangers could make a huge profit from this transaction,” a top official informed MTNFootball.com Several European clubs including Bayer Leverkusen in the German Bundesliga have indicated interest in the 24-year-old attacking midfielder, who shone at last month’s Africa Cup of Nations in South Africa.

The former Nigeria schoolboy international scored a tournamentdefining winner against favourites cote d’Ivoire in the quarterfinal of the AFCON and followed it up with the championship winner against Burkina Faso in the final.

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THE NATION FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2013

POLITICS ASIWAJU’S 61ST BIRTHDAY In this foreword to a book on the collection of speeches by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the activist-scholar, PROF. ADEBAYO WILLIAMS reviews the contributions of the former Lagos State governor to the socio-economic and political development of the country.

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HIS collection of speeches by one of the most important and extraordinary pub lic figures of this era is timely in several respects. First, the speeches offer a rare glimpse into the inner workings of a man of power who is also a man of ideas. Second, they are a powerful tribute and testimony to the extraordinary transformative capacity of ideas and their ability to shape human destiny. Finally, they are a veritable witness to history as it unfolds before our very eyes.

The tragedy of post-colonial Africa is the acute disjuncture and divorce between men of power and men of ideas. The men of ideas are hardly interested in power, while the men of power are hardly interested in the pursuit of transformative knowledge. The result has been a tragic glorification of brute force within the context of accelerating poverty and underdevelopment. Knowledge resents power and power disdains knowledge. Yet because knowledge is power, poverty of knowledge can never lead to knowledge of poverty.

In an increasingly knowledge-based modern society, politics of the mind is the mind of politics. It is at the realm of ideas that the battle for society is won and lost. Armies of ideas clash relentlessly in the vast Homeric battle field of human consciousness. Old, outworn political deities and notions of human progress are discarded and given a swift burial. New heroes are born in the mind of men only for them to eventually meet the same fate.

Of all Nigerian contemporary politicians, none is more aware of this brutal reality of modern politics as permanent intellectual warfare than the two-term governor of Lagos state. Always searching for fresh ideas, always hungry for new facts, in him the notable intellectual meets the exceptional politician. The man of ideas meshes seamlessly with the man of action producing a perfect symmetry.

Quick on his feat, tirelessly improvising, brilliantly manouevering, constantly outflanking, tactically adventurous but at the same time wonderfully alert to political ambush and danger, Bola Ahmed Tinubu is unarguably the greatest political revelation of his generation. Such a rise to stardom within so short a time is unheard off and is the stuff of fiction. While his friends and many of his contemporaries are pleasantly surprised, his political adversaries are stunned by the swiftness and precision of his ascendancy. How could this have happened, they ask in dazed disbelief.

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HE progressives will roll out the drums today to celebrate the 61st birthday of the Action Congress of Nigeri (ACN) National Leader Asiwaji Bola Tinubu in Lagos.

Senator Tinubu is a rare gift to the polity. He is a n intelligent politician, strategist, crowd puller and pride of Yorubaland and Nigeria.

There is no evidence to show that he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. But he has attained fame and greatness by the dint of hardwork.

Tinubu conquered poverty in the course of his life struggles. However, more significantly, he had conquered the poverty of ideas.

The Asiwaju of Lagos is a trader in ideas and reality. Pragmatic and shrewd, his strength lies in his powers of ideas and commitment to the lofty goals of life.

Senator Tinubu has a robust antecedents in the corporate world where he had succeeded before crossing the bridge to politics.

When he joined the frey, he was a hungry politician. He came as a need breed. But he was a new breed with a difference. When many politicians were compromised in the Third Republic, Tinubu could not be cowed. He defended the cause of man and became a man of the people. As a senator and governor, he lived to expectation. It is gratifying that Governor Babatunde Fashola (SAN) has continued to build on the foundation he laid as the third executive governor of

•Asiwaju Tinubu and wife, Senator Oluremi

The mind of a maestro It is clear that we are dealing with a political phenomenon. The ultimate genius lies in the ability to mask genius. Tinubu hides his political genius so well that it is easy to mistake him for a garden variety or run of the mill politician. That is only part of a deadly camouflage which has led the heedless and the feckless to their political Waterloo.

It is obvious that we have on our hand a man of extraordinary political talents. Like a natural or complete footballer, the former senator of the Third Republic and two-term governor of the Fourth Republic, is at home anywhere on the field, defending with fluency and going on the offensive with fluidity and facility. This is total politics, reminiscent of the total football of the Dutch maestros of the seventies.

If total football is the nearest thing to intellectual soccer, with total politics we come to politics as both political and intellectual mobilization with horizontal and vertical

deployments of men and material going on simultaneously. It is a punitively absorbing game requiring nerve-wracking concentration, phenomenal discipline and psychological stamina. A momentary lapse of concentration can prove fatal.

It has been famously observed that people make history but not under the circumstances of their choice. To this must be added the fact that peculiar circumstances always throw up peculiar individuals to do the bidding of history. It is the triumph of naïve idealism to imagine that while you can borrow and adapt visions and ideals from the past, you can also borrow its personages and personalities.

Those who throw up their arms in anger and frustration, claiming that this is not the kind of politics—or politicians—they are used to are merely viewing history through the aperture of some superannuated epochs.

While working and fighting towards the ideal, the wise strategist takes politics as it is and not as it ought to be. This is the key to the

Tinubu phenomenon.

You cannot step into the same river twice, and you cannot fight new battles with old weapons. Whether we like it or not, protracted military rule has eventuated in the militarization of politics in Nigeria. The military are past masters of the game of surprise, camouflage and dangerous deception. With their military wiles and politics of exhaustion, they left the old political class panting and grasping for breath. They eventually succeeded in sending them to political Golgotha. But in Tinubu, a man who could have been a remarkable native generalissimo in an earlier incarnation, they met more than their match. He is truly the last man standing. Without him and his band of faithful comrades in arms, the entire west would have been turned into a garrison of militarized and militant mediocrity.

It is in the realm of deploying ideas to capture popular imagination that Tinubu has proved himself vastly superior. The resulting innovations in practical governance as seen in Lagos state, the gains of the strategic duel with the federal authorities in the battle ground of proper federalism have become a monument to visionary imagination in politics.

This collection of speeches has emphatically demonstrated why knowledge of artillery is no match for the artillery of knowledge. Great ideas will always trump great brute force. In these remarkable speeches, we could hear Tinubu boldly staking out his position on crucial national issues; vigorously enunciating his vision and mission in politics and preparing to defend them with all that is available to him. Sometimes he is punitively proactive such as when he managed to insinuate the critical issue of electoral reform into national consciousness through the instrumentality of CODER. A few times, he casts a retrospective glance at the past in order to refine and clarify the great issues of the moment. Occasionally, he takes a direct plunge through critical interventions in national controversies such as the Fuel Subsidy Withdrawal, Sovereign Wealth Fund etc.

Taken together or individually, these speeches are a rare glimpse into the mind of a political grandmaster. They are in effect something of a maestro’s manifesto and a covenant of faith with the people of Nigeria. It is just as well that Bola Ahmed Tinubu was born in the month of March. A maestro is on the march in Nigeria. I warmly recommend these nuggets of gold from a constantly probing mind and the vast redemptive resources it is capable of generating.

‘A rare gift to the polity’ In this piece, Lagos State Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) chieftain Dele Ekelojumati examines the leadership virtues of Senator Bola Tinubu, who clocks 61 today.

Lagos State.

The emergence of Asiwaju has confirmed that at no time would Yoruba lack leadership. The late Chief Obafemi Awolowo led the race and his records are still the benchmark. At critical times, the late Chief Adekunle Ajasin and Senator Abraham Adesanya also led the race without blemish. Today, without any fear of contradiction, Tinubu is forging ahead from where these leaders stopped.

The former Lagos State governor played a leading role in the restoration of the stolen mandates in the Southwest. It was the baseline for restoring the lost glory of the region. Thus, when it had become increasingly difficult for the power that be to enslave the region again, they resorted to blackmail, saying that “the Southwest is too important,

too sophisticated and too educated to be in the hand of rascals”.

Tinubu is a fighter for justice and equity. He had dare the former President, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo (rtd) by creating additional 37 councils in Lagos State. For 23 months, the federal government seized the allocations to the councils in the Centre of Excellence. But through creative financial ingenuity, the state and councils survived the heat.

Today, the councils are bringing the dividends of democracy to the doorsteps of Lagosians.

Tinubu has described himself as a financial surgeon. It is an understatement. From the N600m monthy internally generated revenue inherited from the military government, Tinubu jerked it up to billions of naira. He computer-

ised the civil service, introduced capacity-building programmes, and attempted the independent power project, which was frustrated by the federal government.

Tinubu is a cultured democrat. But he has also led the way in raising the national question. He is a political evangelist; resolute, vibrant, and restless in preaching the enduring creed of the progressives.

He is a staunch defender of true fiscal federalism, electoral reform, Sovereign National Conference, state police and restructuring of the polity.

Tinubu is conscious of the fact that these would remain a dream, unless the progressives are in power.

Thus, he is the key figure in the merger of the like-minded opposition political parties. His followers believe that this is a challenging

‘When he joined the frey, he was a hungry politician. He came as a need breed. But he was a new breed with a difference. When many politicians were compromised in the Third Republic, Tinubu could not be cowed. He defended the cause of man and became a man of the people. As a senator and governor, he lived to expectation’

moment for the leader and his compatriots. But since they are in the service of the people, the wish of the people will triumph.

Tinubu’s legacies in Lagos are imperishable. They will always be defended by rational progressive leadership in the state.

The state is not assailed by the collective amnesia. In education, infrastructural development, urban renewal, agriculture, housing, environment, road management, rural development, security, and health, he made his mark and set the pace.

As a bridge builder among the old breed politicians, the new breed and the technocrats, he has hunted for talents and used human resources to fuel the fire of development.

Tinubu is an advocate of regional integration. He is distressed by the turn of events in the Southwest. He had suggested the same regional collaboration to other regions as an ingridient of national development that had been ignored in the past.

Tinubu is a detribalised Nigerian.

As the governor of Lagos State, he gave non-indigenes opportunities to thrive. Thus, in the state, there is no cry about marginalisation. Even, Igbo and Hausa served in the cabinet at the state and local governments as commissioners, special advisers, special assistants, supervisory councillors, councillors and board members.

As the leader celebrates his bithday, we, his followers, wish him many happy returns of the year.

THE NATION FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2013

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AGRO-BUSINESS

Lack of forms hinders farmers’ registration T

HE ongoing registration of farmers has ran into hitch in some parts of the coun-

try.

The exercise, it was learnt is being hindered by lack of forms.

In Lagos,Akwa Ibom and Oyo States, farmers are complaining of insufficient forms.

Speaking with The Nation, the Commissioner for Agriculture and Cooperatives, Prince Gbolahan Lawal said he was aware of the problem and has reported to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The Lagos State Chairman, Fadama Farmers Association, Ahaji Abiodun Oyenekan said lack of forms was a major issue.

A top official of the Ministry of Agriculture in Akwa Ibom said

Stories by Daniel Essiet, Agric Correspondent

his ministry is seeking help from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture so lack of forms will not hamper the success of the exercise.

He said the state would have provided alternative forms to registered farmers but the Federal Government insisted on the use of the special designed forms for the exercise.

Similar problems were reported in Oyo State.

The Programme Corodinator, Farmers Development Union (FADU), Mr. Victor Olowe said registration has started in the state but that farmers don’t have sufficient forms.

Observers have advised the government to ensure a hitch-free ex-

ecution of the farmers’ registration.

They insist that a pragmatic approach is required to ensure the effective registration of farmers in all the country’s 774 local government areas in the country.

They also cited a media report which alleged that registration forms for the exercise, that ought to be free, were sold openly to farmers during the first phase of the exercise.

Reports said the exercise witnessed a low turnout of farmers.

The exercise, which started on March 19 is expected to last for three weeks. The registration officers said they were forced to abandon their posts to embark on a house-to-house canvassing before farmers could come. Some of the farmers, however, blamed the situation on inadequate awareness and

the failure of the past registration exercises to yield any fruitful results.

The farmers equally blamed the authority for not giving preference to the farmers at the grassroots as regards publicity. Majority of the local farmers are not duly informed, and the right communication channel and strategy was not adopted to get the attention of the farmers, especially at the grassroots.

Observers said farmers’ apathy toward the exercise was as a result of poor level of education and exposure.

Speaking at a forum, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development , Dr. Akinwumi Adesina sunderscored the need for the registration of farmers ,adding only genuine farmers registered on the

database would have access to subsidised seeds and fertilisers under the Growth Enhancement Support Scheme (GES).

He maintained that only the special forms will be used for the exercise.

The minister said that the forms would enable the information supplied by the farmers to be quickly scanned and sent to the ministry’s databank.

“With the form, information can be quickly processed and sent directly to the ministry’s database; the idea is to have the information of real farmers in a single file folder.

“We intend to deliver our farmers completely from the hands of shylocks; this battle of farmers’ deliverance started in 2012 when we developed the GES scheme.

60 equipment hiring centres coming

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•From left: Chief Operating Officer,Centre for Cocoa Development Initiatives(CDI), Oghenerobo Adhuze; President, World Cocoa Foundation(WCF), Bill Guyton; President, Cocoa Association of Nigeria, Sayina Riman, and Publicity Secretary , Godwin Ukwu, during a visit to WCFheadquarters in the United States.

Investment in mechanisation crucial to agricultural development, says expert H OW can agriculture productivity be enhanced?

It is by increased investment in mechanisation,says the Execuive Director, Centre for Agricultural Mechanisation, Mr Ike Azogu.

He spoke during the commissioning of newly completed projects and equipment in Ilorin,Kwara State.

Azogu said improving on the use of agric mechanies is important as the sector has all of the necessary preconditions for contributing to a sufficient and sustainable food supply.

Azogu said the centre is ready to initiate and institute programmes that will empower the existing farmers on how to improve their current levels of production and productivity.

He said the farm sector needs support for increased land productivity and that appropriate mechanisation must be part of an agricultural growth strategy.

He added that agricul-tural sector’s potential in rural development lies in increasing productivity through appropriate modernization ofthe production techniques, and mechanised systems to make them operational and profitable.

To help the tractor programme of the government, the Executive Director said the centre has set up a tractortest track,the largest in Sub-Saharan Africa. Tractors ,brought into the country will be tested to ensure sub standard prod-

•Azogu

ucts are not sold to farmers.

He said the centre is promoting sawah based rice farming,which has the potential of stimulating the long awaited green revolution.

Sawah refers to man-made improved rice fields with demarcated bounded, puddle and leveled rice fields with water inlets and outlets, which can be connected to various irrigation facilities such as irrigation canals, ponds, springs or pumps.

Azogu said the Sawah rice eco technology is in colloboration with Kinki University of technology,Japan. It was instituted in NCAM.

He said the technique would leads to high yields and sustainable production irrespective of fertiliser use.

Azogu said the rice production system ensures the attainment of rice self sufficiency within the shortest possible period.

He said yields between 6-4 to 7-2 tonnes per hectare have been achieved in farmers fields.

Azogu said the technology will support farmers to cultivate more rice annually.

He said farmers have become successful by adopting the Sawah technology and stressed that based on the success of the project, the centre is extending it to other parts of the country.

According to him, since the introduction of the Sawah technology, there has been lots of improvement in the lives of rice farmers.

The NCAM boss therefore appealed to the government to support the project to make it acceptable to all farmers.

He said the institute is currently is working with the Jatropha Farmers Association in the development of jatropha bio diesel, which is stimulating global renewable energy interest .

According to him ,the institute has recorded modest achievement by designing and producing a bio diesel stove.”We have also developed a Jatropha sheller, oil press and filter.This project must be properly funded as it is the farmers fuel hope for the future.”

HE Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina has unveiled plans to establish 60 private sector-driven Agricultural Equipment Hiring Enterprises (AEHE) in some states.

Adesina said the move became imperative to enable farmers have access to farm mechanisation services in the 2013 season and to improve right to affordable mechanised services.

He disclosed this at a forum in Ilorin.

Adesina said: “A private sector-driven equipment hiring scheme is being introduced, to improve the access of farmers to affordable mechanised services.

This mechanisation service delivery will be all inclusive-covering land development (trees removal, stump removal, and de-stoning) land preparation, tillage operation, harvesting, transportation, construction of rural roads, tractor rehabilitation, threshing, processing, value addition, etc.

“To ensure that farmers have access to farm mechanised ser-

From: Olugbenga Adanikin, Abuja

vices in the 2013 season, agric ministry will establish 60 private sector-driven AEHE in priority sites across the country. The enterprise will be equipped with 300 units of tractors and 1590 planting, harvest and post harvest agricultural equipment to provide immediate mechanisation service support to farmers in this areas.”

To facilitate financing of the centres, Adesina noted that the Ministry will be providing about N3.5 billion in partnership with the Bank of Agriculture (BOA) and private sectors.

He revealed that the annual registration of five million farmers for 2013 Growth Enhancement Support (GES) Scheme has commenced.

The Minister said the GES will be expanded to provide subsidised farm mechanisation services for the registered farmers, stressing that farmers will receive their supports through phones apart from fertilisers and improved seeds.

Kogi to harvest more rice

•Bolarin

K

OGI State government is producing 50 metric tonnes of rice this dry season, the Commissioner for Agriculture, Dr Olufemi Bolarin has said.

He said farmers would harvest additional metric tonnes of rice under early planting programme involving 6525 hectares of crop land.

Bolarin told The Nation that the state was implementing a comprehensive early planting programme where farmers in rice producing areas will expand their production in line with the target to lift Kogi to the position of aleading producer of rice in the country.

Traditionally, the state produces 60 percent of its annual palay production during the wet season cropping and 40 percent during the dry season cropping.

He said the agriculture programme is on the right track in meeting the challenges to make the state rice-sufficient one.

According to him, the direction of the State’s agricultural policy will therefore be to maintain the food security while at the same time reducing the deficit in specific food grain items by increasing the area under cultivation and productivity.

He said the state’s agricultural policy accords high priority to application of bio-technology for improving supply of improved seeds, fertilisers and insecticides.

For helping farmers, Bolarin said the state plans to empower farmers to use improved implements and tractors at fair price.

He said the government is determined to increase agricultural production in a sustainable manner while setting up farm estates to help farmers and to increase areas under cultivation for key cash crops.

Diversification of the cropping pattern, the commissioner noted, is an important tenet of the policy.

THE NATION FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2013

49

BUSINESS NEWS

Banks to begin free COT in 2016

F

ROM 2016, banks’ customer will enjoy free Commission on Turnover (COT) on their transactions.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) made this known in its ‘Revised Guide to Bank Charges’ released yesterday, which takes effect on April 1, 2013.

The report, first issued in 2004, was meant to provide a standard for the application of charges in the banking industry, and to minimise conflicts between banks and their customers. The revised policy will serve as a regulation on applicable charges for banking services and products offered to customers.

CBN Acting Director, Financial Policy and Regulation, I.T. Nwaoha, said in a

• Offshore ATM withdrawal fee drops to N240

By Collins Nweze

circular to banks and discount houses that COT applies to customer-induced debit transactions on current accounts. He said the banking watchdog has begun a gradual phase-out of COT from N3 per mille in 2013; N2 per mille in 2014; N1 per mille in 2015 and zero per cent per mille in 2016.

He said loan repayment from current or savings account will attract zero COT, while there is no charge attached to debits representing transfer to other accounts in the same name.

The CBN advised banks not to charge COT on returned outward clearing cheques, reversal of transactions and bank-induced debits. He said part of the review is that offshore Automated Teller Ma-

chines (ATMs) transactions have been reduced from N1, 000 to N240. He said that loan defaulters will, henceforth, pay one per cent flat fee.

The CBN chief said savings deposit accounts would attract a minimum of 30 per cent of the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) yearly while term deposit accounts’ rates are negotiable.

Besides, he said the local currency loans should be ne-

gotiable and reflect the riskbased pricing model. Also, when there is a change in agreed rate, the customer must be notified within five business days in advance of the application of the new rate. He said interest on authorised excess over draft is negotiable and should equally reflect risk-based pricing model.

According to the apex bank, rates for drawing against uncleared effects, equipment leasing and discountable instrument are negotiable.

Electricity: Fed Govt targets 315,000mw in 2030

W

ITH a projected population of 300million in Nigeria by 2030, the Federal Government yesterday launched an energy master

From John Ofikhenua, Abuja

plan that would put the country on the path of achieving a 315, 113 MegaWatts of electricity generation in 17 years.

Declaring open a one day sensitisation workshop and public presentation of the Renewable Master Plan organised by the Energy Commission of Nigeria (ECN), the Minister of

Science and Technology, Prof Okon Bassey, said the second edition of the Renewable Master Plan (REMP) was an improvement on the first which was undertaken in 2005.

RMAFC decries non-remittance of revenue From Nduka Chiejina (Asst. Editor), Abuja

T

HE Revenue Mobilisa tion Allocation and Fis cal Commission (RMAFC) is unhappy that some agencies are not remitting revenue into the Federation Account.

Its Chairman, Elias Mbam, who frowned at the practice, also decried the indiscriminate and illegal deductions from the Special Fund Account comprising the Development of Natural Resources Account, Ecology Account and the Stabilisation Account, held in trust by the Federal Government.

In a statement, the Head, Public Relations, RMAFC, Ibrahim Mohammed,said Mbam made these observations yesterday in Abuja at a National Revenue Summit organised by the Economic Research and Policy Development Initiative.

Mbam, who was represented by the Director, Planning, Research and Statistics, Simeon Nwate, expressed disgust at the unhealthy practice of some revenue generating agencies that fail to fully remit generated revenues into the Federation Account for distribution to the three tiers of government.

Interbank rates ease on T-bill

I

NTERBANK lending rates eased to an average of 10.25 per cent this week, from 10.66 per cent last week due to a big cash inflow from matured treasury bills, traders said yesterday.

They said over N260 billion ($1.6 bln) were repaid this week, boosting liquidity to help lower the cost of borrowing between banks.

“We have over 500 billion naira cash balance,” one dealer told Reuters, pointing out that the interbank market opened on Thursday with a cash balance of about N240 billion in addition to the N260 billion from matured treasury bills.

Aero to recall 655 workers From Onyedi Ojiabor, Asst.

Editor, Kelvin Osa Okunbor and Sanni Onogu, Abuja

T

HE management of Aero Airlines has agreed to recall 655 workers it recently sacked under controversial circumstances, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Aviation, Senator Hope Uzodinma, has said.

He spoke yesterday in Abuja after his committee met with the management of the airline and other aviation stakeholders.

He said the airlines’ management agreed to recall all sacked staff and thereafter conduct an appraisal in three weeks. It was further resolved that affected staff who do not meet the requirement as stipulated by Aero Contractors would be laid off and paid their severance entitlements.

The affected workers had accused the firm of highhandness.

50

THE NATION FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2013

EQUITIES NIGERIAN STOCK EXCHANGE DAILY SUMMARY AS AT 28-03-13

Shareholders okay Transcorp’s N15b rights issue for power

S

HAREHOLDERS of Transnational Corporation of Nigeria (Transcorp) Plc have approved plan by the conglomerate to raise some N15 billion through a rights issue of 13 billion ordinary shares of 50 kobo each.

At the extraordinary general meeting in Lagos, the owners of the company mandated their board of directors to “float a rights issue in such proportion, at such time, for such consideration and upon such terms and conditions as the directors may deem fit.”

To create room for the new issue, shareholders also approved the increase in the conglomerate’s authorised share capital from N18 billion to N22.55 billion ordinary through the creation of 9 billion new ordinary shares of 50 kobo each.

Transcorp currently has 25.81 billion ordinary shares outstanding on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).

Chairman, Transnational Corporation of Nigeria (Transcorp) Plc, Mr. Tony Elumelu, said the company will raise N15 billion to fi-

By Taofik Salako & Tonia Osundolire

nance its power business and drive other strategic business expansions.

According to him, the net proceeds from the rights issue would be combined with loans from banks to seek a lower interest rate for the conglomerate’s Ughelli Power Plant.

Transcorp Consortium had emerged the highest and preferred bidder for the Ughelli Power Plc under the Federal Government’s power privatisation exercise. It offered $300 million for the power firm. The Transcorp consortium included companies such as Wood Rock; Symbion Power LLC, USA; Medea Development; PSL Engineering and Control and Thomassen Services and Contracting Company.

Elumelu added that part of the net proceeds would also be used to drive existing business units including its upstream oil business and hotel business. Transcorp jointly owns an oil lease with Johannesburg-based SacOil

Holding Limited and London-based Energy Equity Resources Limited.

Transcorp had recently caused the revision of the terms of partnership in its Oil Processing License 281 (OPL 281) in Nigeria. The revised terms were said to be as a result of a change of control in Transcorp as the conglomerate sought to fully take responsibility for the operation of the block in its bid to become a leading Nigerian indigenous oil and gas upstream company with production.

Often cited in relation to the boom in the telecommunications sector, most analysts perceive the power firms as cash cows that would not only generate power but significant returns for investors. The monopolistic nature of the system and centrality of the success of the privatization to government’s transformation agenda confer enormous advantages on the power companies.

Elumelu had recently said the conglomerate has commenced the execution of its expansion plans to fully utilise the massive unutilised land on its Transcorp Hilton Abuja site and roll out new hotels across major economic centres in Nigeria such as Lagos and Port Harcourt.

NIGERIAN STOCK EXCHANGE DAILY SUMMARY AS AT 28-03-13

THE NATION FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2013

51

MONEY LINK

RenCap: equities may return 35% in 2013

I

NVESTORS in the Nigerian capital market may get 35 per cent Return on Investment (RoI) at the end of this year, Renaissance Capital (RenCap), an investment and research firm has forecast.

In an emailed report obtained by The Nation, the firm disclosed that Nigerian banks have cheaper valuations than most lenders in the SubSaharan Africa (SSA), which face more net interest margin (NIM) pressure from falling rates.

It explained that the 35 per cent base-case total return expectation for the Nigerian equity market

Stories by Collins Nweze

over the next year is the culmination of a seven per cent forward price earnings (PE), eight per cent forward dividend yield (DY) and 20 per cent expected earnings growth.

RenCap said the Nigerian equity market looks superior to other markets in the Sub-Saharan Africa on valuation, profitability and earnings metrics. “Although the Nigerian earnings yield gap (EYG) is still favouring debt over equities at the moment, the recent sharp decline in Nigerian bond yields is becoming

increasingly positive for equities.

Local support for the Nigerian equity market should also be forthcoming in 2013 from the elimination of VAT and stamp duties and from Nigeria’s sovereign wealth fund (SWF),” it said.

The research firm said there is both pull and push factors for global capital that make investment in Africa’s financial markets attractive from a risk-reward perspective. It listed the fundamental reasons for investing in Africa’s equity and debt markets as the continent’s positive structural demographic dividend; rapid

urbanisation; improving political stability; commodity wealth; the broadening of its economies beyond commodities; improving regional integration; positive macroeconomic settings and the deepening of its financial markets.

Others include the diversification benefits of Africa’s relatively low (and often negative) correlation with developed and emerging markets (EM), the attractive relative valuations of African equities and debt, and the relatively poor implied risk-return opportunities in developed markets (DM).

Access Bank promotes gender empowerment

A

CCESS Bank Plc has reiterated its support of gender empowerment and equality.

Head, Group Human Resources, Bolaji Agbede said this at the International Women’s Day commemorative event organised by the Women Empowerment Principles Leadership Group (WEPLG), which coincided with the 5th edition of the Equality Means Business meeting in New York.

According to a statement made available to The Nation, she the highlighted several initiatives the bank is implementing to boost women empowerment and gender equality within the organisation.

In her presentation during the feedback session to the United Nations Secretary General, Mr. Ban Ki Moon on the 2013 WEPs, Agbede listed the creation of Access Women Network as one of the organisational initiatives created to support and encourage women in the employment of the Bank.

She said: “Outside Access Bank’s strong intermediation role in pro-

viding funding and training for women entrepreneurs through our partnership with the International Finance Corporation, we are equally aware of the challenges of career women and growing women, and consequently created the Access Women Network platform for women within our organisation to help them attain their personal goals and aspirations through mentoring and support”.

She also added that as “the only Nigerian bank that has signed on

to the Women Empowerment Principles (WEPs) launched in 2009, Access Bank has continued to demonstrate leadership in the area of Women Empowerment.

We have adopted the principles in the development of our Sustainability Report and developed gender focused community initiatives and would continue to support the WEPs Leadership Group as a signatory to the Principles by encouraging other organisations in Nigeria to sign on to the principles”.

•Access Bank CEO, Aigboje Aig-Imoukuede

IASeminars, Deloitte Nigeria partner on IFRS training

I

ASeminars, a UK-based company specialising in international accounting seminars around the world) and Akintola Williams Deloitte have announced their collaboration in training courses on International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). ”IASeminars is proud to be working with Deloitte to service the IFRS

training needs of Nigeria and of the wider African market. Having provided IFRS and other financial training over the last 10 years to many clients in Europe and North America, we look forward to being of service to an African clientele,” said Marc Gardiner, CEO of IASeminars said in a statement.

Also, Oduware Uwadiae, Partner -

IFRS Services, Deloitte West & Central Africa said his firm is pleased to be working with IASeminars to provide a comprehensive range of IFRS training solutions. “Our technical IFRS knowledge added to the IASeminars international training expertise represents a premium IFRS education opportunity for the West African market,” he said.

FGN BONDS Amount N

Rate %

M/Date

3-Year 5-Year 5-Year

35m 35m 35m

11.039 12.23 13.19

19-05-2014 18-05-2016 19-05-2016

WHOLESALE DUTCH AUCTION SYSTEM Amount Amount Offered ($) Demanded ($) 350m 150m 350m 138m

MANAGED FUNDS

NIDF NESF

Price Loss 2754.67 447.80

350m

INTERBANK RATES 7.9-10% 10-11%

PRIMARY MARKET AUCTION (T-BILLS) Tenor 91-Day 182-Day 1-Year

Amount 30m 46.7m 50m

Rate % 10.96 9.62 12.34

Date 28-04-2012 “ 14-04-2012

GAINERS AS AT 27-2-13

SYMBOL

O/PRICE

C/PRICE

CHANGE

UNITYBNK TRANSCORP TOTAL JOHNHOLT LIVESTOCK CCNN AGLEVENT IKEJAHOTEL VITAFOAM EVANSMED

0.79 1.41 161.00 1.63 2.55 10.00 1.63 0.90 3.50 1.70

0.84 1.49 169.05 1.71 2.67 10.44 1.70 0.93 3.61 1.75

0.05 0.08 8.05 0.08 0.12 0.44 0.07 0.03 0.11 0.05

ROYALEX MAYBAKER AFRIPRUD JAPAULOIL IPWA FTNCOCOA NEM WAPIC NAHCO RTBRISCOE

O/PRICE 0.84 2.30 1.70 0.68 0.71 0.55 0.87 1.43 7.70 2.25

C/PRICE 0.76 2.19 1.62 0.65 0.68 0.53 0.84 1.39 7.49 2.19

Current Before

2-7-12 27-6-12

113m

155.7

22-6-12

C u r r e n t CUV Start After %

NGN USD NGN GBP

147.6000 239.4810

149.7100 244.0123

150.7100 245.6422

-2.11 -2.57

NGN EUR NIGERIA INTER BANK (S/N) (S/N) Bureau de Change (S/N) Parallel Market

212.4997

207.9023

209.2910

-1.51

149.7450

154.0000

154.3000

-3.04

152.0000

153.0000

155.5000

-2.30

153.0000

154.0000

156.0000

-1.96

DISCOUNT WINDOW Feb. ’11

July ’11

July ’12

MPR

6.50%

6.50%

12%

Standing Lending Rate ,, Deposit Rate ,, Liquidity Ratio Cash Return Rate Inflation Rate

8.50% 4.50% 25.00% 1.00% 12.10%

8.50% 4.50% 25.00% 2.00% 12.10%

9.50% 5.50% 30.00% 2.00% 11.8%

NIBOR Tenor 7 Days 30 Days 60 Days 150 Days

NSE CAP Index

27-10-11 N6.5236tr 20,607.37

Date

Rate (Previous) 4 Mar, 2012 9.0417 9.6667 11.2917 12.1250

Rate (Currency) 6, Mar, 2012 10.17% 11.46% 11.96% 12.54%

28-10-11 N6.617tr 20,903.16

% Change -1.44% -1.44%

MEMORANDUM QUOTATIONS Name

CHANGE 0.08 0.11 0.08 0.03 0.03 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.21 0.06

Exchange Rate (N) 155.2 155.8

CAPITAL MARKET INDEX Year Start Offer

LOSERS AS AT 27-2-13

SYMBOL

113m

Amount Sold ($) 150m 138m

EXHANGE RATE 6-03-12 Currency

OBB Rate Call Rate

S

IX winners have emerged in Guaranty Trust Bank Plc (GTBank) ongoing ‘GTCrea8’ e-savers promo for undergraduates.

The winners according to a statementm emerged from six regions namely- Lagos, Abuja, South-east, South-west, Port Harcourt and Northern region, at a draw held in Lagos.

Speaking yesterday during the draw held in Lagos, an official from the bank’s Communications and External Affairs Department, Oyinade Adegite said the winners were rewarded with bedside fridge, an ipod touch, a galaxy Samsung tab 2, Samsung notebook, blackberry phone and a LED television.

She said the promo was designed to encourage students to save. According to her, all that is required to participate and benefit from the promo is for students in tertiary institutions to open a GTCrea8 e-savers account and conduct a minimum of three transactions monthly on alternate banking channels such as Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), Point of Sale (PoS) and internet banking.

They also need to maintain a minimum account balance of N5,000 for six consecutive months to qualify for the grand finale. “The essence of the promo is to promote both a savings culture and an increased adoption of the use of alternate banking channels amongst Nigerian students,” she said.

She said the bank is also organizing several ongoing events on campuses across the six geopolitical zones in the country where students will have the opportunity to instantly win Nokia phones over a six month period.

DATA BANK

Tenor

Initial Current Quotation Price Market N8250.00 5495.33 N1000.00 N552.20

‘GTCrea8’ e-Savers promo produces new winners

Offer Price

Bid Price

ARM AGGRESSIVE GROWTH 9.17 KAKAWA GUARANTEED 1.00 STANBIC IBTC GUARANTE 138.34 AFRINVEST W.A. EQUITY FUND 147.76 LOTUS CAPITAL HALAL 0.80 BGL SAPPHIRE FUND 1.14 BGL NUBIAN FUND 1.10 FBN MONEY MARKET FUND 100.00 FBN FIXED INCOME FUND 1,000.00 NIGERIA INTERNATIONAL DEB. 1,783.73 PARAMOUNT EQUITY FUND 15.58 CONTINENTAL UNIT TRUST 1.39 CENTRE-POINT UNIT TRUST 1.87 STANBIC IBTC NIG EQUITY 10,855.53 • ARM AGGRESSIVE • KAKAWA GUARANTEED • STANBIC IBTC GUARANTE • AFRINVEST W.A. EQUITY FUND

9.08 1.00 137.92 147.18 0.78 1.14 1.09 100.00 1,000.00 1,779.06 14.82 1.33 1.80 10,528.92

Movement

OPEN BUY BACK

Bank P/Court

Previous 04 July, 2012

Current 07, Aug, 2012

8.5000 8.0833

8.5000 8.0833

Movement

52

THE NATION FRIDAY, MARCH 29 , 2013

NEWS Council poll: Okene youths petition PDP over candidate

Niger appoints ex-First Lady as Chief Judge From Jide Orintunsin, Minna

•’Allegations are false’

N

IGER State Governor Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu has approved the appointment of a former First Lady, Justice Fati Lami Abubakar, as the Acting Chief Judge of Niger State.

She takes over from retiring Chief Judge, Justice Jibrin Ndatsu Ndajiwo.

The Chief Judge is proceeding on retirement, having attained the mandatory retirement age of 65.

Approving Justice Abubakar’s appointment, the governor said his action was in conformity with Section 271 (4) of the 1999 Constitution.

The appointment was contained in a statement signed by Aliyu’s Chief Press Secretary, Malam Danladi Ndayebo.

Anxiety as aircraft makes air return

T

HERE was anxiety yesterday at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos when a Royal Air Maroc Boeing 737800 aircraft made an air return.

The aircraft was said to have developed fault about one hour after take-off.

About 100 passengers were on board. Among them was the National President of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Malam Mohammed Garba.

Garba, who spoke with reporters on the phone, thanked God for sparing their lives.

He said he, eight NUJ executive members and other passengers boarded the aircraft in Lagos on their way to Casablanca, Morocco, en-route Cotonou in Benin Republic.

“We were travelling aboard a Boeing 737-800 aircraft belonging to Royal Air Maroc and made an emergency landing early on Thursday at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos, due to a technical fault.

“My brother, it was a very sad experience as we noticed from the take-off that the aircraft seemed to be shaking.

“I was leading eight other journalists from Nigeria to the Federation of African Journalists (FAJ) congress in Casablanca, Morocco.

“As soon as we were airborne, the aircraft could not attain the normal altitude expected of a plane that was going on an international journey.

“The pilot, after trying his best, announced to the passengers— after an hour— that he had to do an air return to Lagos.

“We thank God that all the passengers that boarded the aircraft are alive.”

Garba, who hailed the effective communication between the pilot and the control tower in Lagos, however, said the aircraft also found it difficult to land in Lagos.

He said the aircraft, which came from Casablanca en-route Cotonou to Lagos, reportedly had a similar problem on its earlier trip.

The NUJ president, however, could not ascertain the number of passengers on board.

He advised the Federal Ministry of Aviation and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to do more in regulating aircraft coming to Africa, and Nigeria in particular.

From Augustine Ehikioya, Abuja

A

•From left: Governor Aliyu Wamakko of Sokoto State; Secretary-General, Muslim World League, Dr. Abdullahi Bini Abdul; and Sultan of Sokoto, Abubakar Sa’ad III, being conducted round the League’s Office in Sokoto...yesterday.

24 killed in Plateau as gunmen, STF clash

T

WENTY-FOUR people were killed yesterday in Plateau State in a bloody clash between gunmen suspected to be Fulani mercenaries from Chad and Niger, who came to attack the Berom.

An eyewitness said the suspected mercenaries, who attacked two villages in Bokkos Local Government, killed residents in the midnight attack on Mangor and Matol communities.

From Yusufu Aminu Idegu, Jos

The source said while the Special Task Force (STF)) on Jos crises code-named ‘Operation safe haven’ repelled the gunmen, inhabitants of the invaded villages regrouped and attacked the Fulani living in their communities.

The villagers reportedly believed that the mercenaries, who attacked them, were hired by the resident Fulani

and they must be made to pay for the killings.

The eyewitness said during the battle between men of the STF and the mercenaries, six of them were killed and the gunmen killed two mobile police officers attached to the STF. The Nation learnt that the gun duel, which lasted several hours, scared residents as they stayed indoors.

Confirming the incident, STF spokesman Navy Lt.

Akpa said two mobile policemen attached to the command were killed, adding that STF operatives also killed six of the gunmen.

A lawmaker representing Bokkos Constituency in the House of Assembly, Titus Alam, who also confirmed the attack, hailed the STF for repelling the gunmen.

He urged the residents to be calm as investigations are on to arrest the culprits.

JTF intercepts arms, explosives in Kano

S

ECURITY operatives yesterday in Kano impounded a large consignment of arms and ammunition in three raids carried out by the Joint Task Force (JTF).

Three suspected bomb factories in Sharada, Gaida Ajawa on the Eastern Byepass and Mariri were discovered by the JTF. Spokesman for the task force, Captain Ikedichi Iweha, in a statement yesterday said the three buildings that served as bomb factories for the terrorists had been demolished and eight suspected terrorists were in the custody of the military.

Weapons intercepted during the raid, according to Captain Iweha, included six AK 47 rifles, General Purpose machine guns, SMG magazine, PPK pistol, two

•Eight suspects arrested From Kolade Adeyemi, Kano

smoke guns and 189 rounds of AK 47 ammunition.

Other items were 43 rounds of 5.56 mm ammunition, eight rounds of 9mm for PKK pistols, 15 hand-held Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), containers of liquid chemical substance and 11 bags of nitrate fertilisers.

Connecting wires and other materials for making IEDs were also impounded.

JTF said among the eight suspected terrorists was the sect’s bomb-making specialist, who it said was arrested at the Farm Centre.

JTF’s statement reads: “Following the series of cordon-and-search operations being carried out by JTF in Kano, it wishes to inform the

public that in the early hours of this morning, March 28, a combined team of operatives stormed a building at Geida Ajawa on Kano-Western Bye-pass being used as an armoury by terrorists and assorted dangerous weapons were uncovered.

“You may have observed that there has been a rise in recent times in the activities of terrorists in the state. This may not be unconnected with the influx of terrorists fleeing from Maiduguri, Damaturu and Potiskum as a result of pressure being mounted on them by JTF operatives in these areas.”

Captain Iweha said more worrisome is the fact that the terrorists secure accommodation easily in Panshikara, Mariri, Farawa, Hotoro,

Sharada and other parts of the city, despite appeals by the JTF to property owners to desist from renting out their houses to terrorists.

He said JTF would not allow Kano to be used as a haven for terrorists and restated the resolve of the task force to pull down any property found to accommodate terrorists, in addition to arresting the owners of such property, who would be treated as accomplices.

He assured the public that security had been strengthened, while the war against terrorism had been intensified to usher in a violent-free Easter celebration.

On Wednesday, the police intercepted a bomb-laden vehicle suspected to have been primed for a suicide mission.

Kwara ACN, PDP trade words over sale of property

K

WARA State Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) yesterday accused the government of selling a state-owned chalet renovated at N1billon to a former governor at N8million.

The Chairman of ACN Stakeholders in the state, Dr. Sa’ad Omo’ya, spoke in Ilorin at a meeting of party members.

He said: “Besides that the resources allocated to the local government stratum have continued to be di-

From Adekunle Jimoh, Ilorin

verted, the incommensurable value of development to statutory allocations from the federation account is a potent area by which Kwarans know that they have been defrauded.

“The heavy looting of the state resources has continued to stagnate physical transformation and human growth.

For instance, a civil servant on GL 15 in the state earns N53,000 per month, while his

counterpart in Osun State earns N120,000.

“Kwarans should continue to be on the lookout.

We have no other state to claim and the continuous diversion of collectivelyowned property by individuals will leave no value for the coming generations.”

The government via the Senior Special Adviser to Governor AbdulFatah Ahmed, Dr. Muideen Akorede, said: “The allegations levelled against the

government by this fringe Kwara ACN group are baseless and untrue.

“We deny the claims contained in the statement and challenge this group to provide documented evidence of these unfounded allegations or stop trying to mislead the people of Kwara State. The Ahmed administration is too focused on delivering effective governance to allow itself to be distracted by this disinformation campaign.”

HEAD of the council poll in Kogi State, the youth wing of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Okene Local Government has petitioned the party’s national secretariat on the candidature of Ahmed Salau Ogembe.

In the petition dated March 19 and addressed to the National Chairman of the party, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, the youth alleged a plot to impose Ogembe as the PDP chairmanship candidate in the council in the election scheduled for May. The youth wing Secretary, Abdul Abdullahi, who signed the petition, alleged that the primary election where Ogembe purportedly emerged, was done at a secret venue by his loyalists and not within the local government headquarters.

The other nine aspirants for the ticket, he said, boycotted the primaries as it was held outside the local government headquarters.

The petition reads: “It has become very important to communicate you through this medium to salvage our great party from losing one of the most vital local governments in the country controlled by our great party.

“It will interest you to know sir that nearly a decade of Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP’s) reign in Okene Local Government, we encountered a very serious acceptance damages that almost wiped away the presence of our great party in the area as a result of imposition in the 2008 local government chairmanship election.”

Reacting to the allegations on the telephone, Ogembe refuted them. He said: “It is not correct. It is just a frame-up to undermine my person because of the forthcoming local government election.”

Oyebode: I wasn’t assaulted

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PROFESSOR of Law and Chairman, Office of the International Relations, Partnerships and Prospects, University of Lagos, Akin Oyebode, has denied a report that he was assaulted by one Yinka Gbadebo during his tenure as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ado-Ekiti, now Ekiti State University.

In a statement, Oyebode said: “My attention has been drawn to your publication of March 21, 2013, alleging that while I was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ado-Ekiti (UNAD) (now Ekiti State University), I was physically assaulted by one Yinka Gbadebo, “Please be informed that never was I assaulted during my tenure by any student.

The story was simply a concoction from the writer’s imagination.”

THE NATION FRIDAY MARCH 29, 2013

53

NEWS

FOREIGN NEWS

Why Obasanjo didn’t pardon Diya, by Babatope

Mandela ‘responding positively to treatment’ F

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FORMER Transport Minister, Chief Ebenezer Babatope, yesterday gave insight into why the former Chief of General Staff in the Gen. Sani Abacha government, Lt-Gen. Oladipo Diya, was not granted state pardon by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration.

Both Obasanjo and Diya were arrested, tried by a military tribunal, and found guilty of conspiring with others to violently topple the Abacha government.

They were subsequently sentenced to death. But following pressures from several quarters within and outside Nigeria, the death penalty was communed to life imprisonment. Providence also intervened and brought the duo out of prison.

President Goodluck Jonathan recently pardoned Diya, his colleagues and former Bayelsa State Governor Diepriye Alamieyeseigha.

Babatope spoke yesterday in Odogbolu, Ogun State, Diya’s home town, on: Nigeria and the challenge of democracy. It was at the second annual lecture series in honour of Lt-Gen. Diya (rtd).

He said Obasanjo was afraid of Diya’s image at the time.

According to him, granting Diya state pardon would “dwarf” the former President’s stature Babatope said: “I want to say this to you, the pardon granted to Gen Diya, why was it not done by the previous government? The previous government was also a beneficiary of the pardon

CAN to Fed Govt: prosecute Boko Haram sponsors From Bukola Amusan, Abuja

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HE Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) yesterday urged the Federal Government to prosecute alleged Boko Haram sponsors to check the spate of killings in the North.

The association advised the government to strengthen the nation’s immigration policy because a large number of terror gang members are alleged to be from neighbouring countries.

CAN Secretary General, Rev Musa Asake, who addressed reporters in Abuja, also advised church leaders to strengthen security around their places of worship during the Easter celebration.

Asake condemned the massive attack on churches across the country, saying: “It is pertinent to bring the attention of the world to the horrendous evil carried out

by Fulani militia and other haters of Christianity on our members in many states in the North.

“However, as I speak, not a single mosque has been affected by the Boko Haram activities in Yobe State; no single church or private school owned by Christian is standing. They have all been destroyed by Boko Haram while many of the operators were killed or made to flee the state.”

From Ernest Nwokolo, Abeokuta

of Nigerian system. It was because somebody believed that the image of Dipo will dwarf his own, if he were to be given pardon.”

“I am not saying it because I have anything against the man, I have commended him for the establishment of ICPC and EFCC but I say it that some certain things are wrong and we must be ready to change.

“So I am saying today that the Alamieyeseigha pardon should be condoned by Nigerian people because what happened to Alamieyesegha was the discreet and selective justice. Go and read the book of Dr. Peter Odili, the former governor of Rivers State. He told us how he was to be hounded into prison simply because he had shown interest in being the president of the country.

“Giving pardon to Diya is giving recognision to the fact that this country must have proper reconciliation.

Somebody did not think about that. We allow demons to walk on the streets free of charge.

“So while praising former president for what he did, we are saying he ought to have done what President

•Diya

Goodluck Jonathan has done in the pardoning of Oladipo Diya.”

“We must commend for president Obasanjo for establishing the EFCC and ICPC. He did very good things by establishing these anticorruption organisations.

“I am happy that nobody has quarrelled with the pardon given to Gen. Diya and his colleagues but people have been quarrelling about Alamieyeseigha. I don’t know Mr. Alamieyeseigha under the sun, I don’t know who he is but I am guided by the fact that the pardon given to Ala in particular must have been given by government because of the fact available to them.

‘We were forced to make statements against Atuche’

By Adebisi Onanuga

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WO bank officials arraigned alongside former Managing Director of Bank PHB, Mr Francis Atuche, over allegations of forgery of a company’s board resolution, yesterday told a Lagos High Court, Ikeja, that they were forced to make false statements against the former bank chief to keep their jobs.

The statements are among their affidavits in support of the bail applications they filed before the court presided over by Justice Adeniyi Onigbanjo.

Joachim Nnosiri and Uguru Onyike were arraigned with Atuche on a nine-count charge of forgery, conspiracy and use of forged board resolutions belonging to Futureview Securities Limited, Tradjeck Limited and Extra Oil Limited.

They agreed to change their statements because of the promise by an official of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) “to use us as prosecution witnesses against Atuche”.

The defendants stated through their lawyers in the 10-paragraph affidavits deposed to separately and dated March 26, 2013, that they were forced to change their statements to say that the documents were given to them by Atuche.

Joachim, for instance, in his affidavit stated that he was intimidated and threatened by the chief Inspector of the bank, Mr. Waidi Gbadamosi, the chief security officer and other senior officers of my bank for insisting that the documents were found in their department.

EFCC is mere tool in President’s hands, says Nnamani

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ORMER Senate President Ken Nnamani yesterday said the law that created the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has made it a mere tool in the hands of the President.

Nnamani spoke in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, when he delivered the centenary lecture of Ibadan Grammar School, entitled: Nigeria’s transformation and the leadership lessons from contemporary issues of national interest.

The former Senate president, who called for independence of the anti graft agency, said the law establishing the EFCC still leaves a hole.

He said: “The anti-corruption agencies in the country should be given the freedom to do their job without interference. Unfortunately, there

From Oseheye Okwuofu, Ibadan

is a big lacuna in the law that created the EFCC. “Unlike the ICPC, where the chairman can be fired by the President only with the consent of two-thirds majority of the National Assembly, the EFCC boss can unilaterally get fired by the President.

“When we were in the Senate, we made conscious effort to reverse the law. We noticed that the EFCC was a mere tool in the hand of the President.

We passed the bill but it was not signed into law.

“I am seizing this opportunity to urge the present Senate to revisit the issue to put the anti-graft war in good stead. The present Senate should look into the law establishing the EFCC with a view to reviewing it.”

ORMER South African President Nelson Mandela is “responding positively” to treatment for the recurrence of a lung infection, the presidency says.

A statement said the 94year-old anti-apartheid leader remained under treatment and observation having been admitted into hospital just before midnight Wednesday.

A presidential spokesman told the BBC that Mr Mandela was conscious and was receiving the best possible medical treatment.

“I think we need to be clear that the doctors are attending to Madiba [Mr Mandela] on a continuous basis,” spokesman Mac Maharaj said.

“They prefer to act on the side of caution, and the mo-

ment they felt there was a recurrence of the lung infection, they felt that it warranted immediate hospitalisation given his age and given his history.”

However, the BBC’s Andrew Harding in South Africa says the abrupt nature of Mr Mandela’s late-night admission is likely to raise concerns.

The presidency has not identified the hospital where he is being treated.

The government statement said President Jacob Zuma wished Mr Mandela a speedy recovery.

“We appeal to the people of South Africa and the world to pray for our beloved Madiba

and his family and to keep them in their thoughts. We have full confidence in the medical team and know that they will do everything possible to ensure recovery,” President Zuma said.

The former president is often fondly referred to by his clan name, Madiba.

The governing African National Congress also called for prayers for the former leader.

“During these trying times we wish President Mandela well and for his family to be strong,” the ANC said in a statement.

It is the fourth time Mr Mandela has been admitted to hospital in just over two years.

UN lifts Somalia light weapon ban

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HE Somali government expects to get its first shipment of light

weapons within two months after the United Nations partially lifted an arms embargo to strengthen security forces fighting al Qaeda-linked militants, Somalia’s president said.

Aware of international wariness about sending arms to a volatile country already awash in weapons, President Hassan

Sheikh Mohamud said he knew the world was closely watching how his government would manage a fresh inflow of arms.

“We take full responsibility. The world is looking at us and monitoring us,” Mohamud said in an interview in Doha on Wednesday after taking part in his first Arab summit focused on Syria and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

He described as “really use-

Syria: 15 killed in varsity attack

M

ful” the U.N. Security Council resolution earlier this month to allow sales of weapons such as automatic assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

While the United States had supported the move, other Security Council members were wary about completely lifting the ban on a country where al Shabaab militants are still able to launch major attacks.

The Security Council imposed the embargo on Somalia in 1992 to cut the flow of weapons to feuding warlords, who a year earlier had ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and plunged the country into civil war.

ORTAR shells slammed into a cafeteria at Damascus University yesterday, killing at least 15 people and wounding 20 in what was the deadliest in a string of such attacks on President Bashar Assad’s seat of power, state media and officials said. Rebels began firing shells at the capital earlier this year, and the strikes have become increasingly common in recent weeks as rebels clash with

By Rev. Henry Adelegan government troops on the east and south sides of the city, acHRISTIANITY is not determined by title, position, when cording to agency reports. a person joined a church, how well he can speak in tongues, State-run TV said 15 people charity works he engages in and even his acts of miracles. were killed when mortar Jesus Christ said, “by their fruits, you shall know them” (Matshells struck the cafeteria of the thew 7:15-20). Christianity is not by stickers but by characters; it university’s architecture deis not about where you fellowship but your attitude. Righteouspartment in the central ness is one of the parameters of knowing who a Christian is!

Baramkeh district. A Syrian ofRighteousness means to live right, just and being fair to all. ficial who spoke to The AssoFrom our text, King David said that the paradox of being righciated Press on condition of teous however is that it goes with afflictions, persecution, haanonymity because he was not tred and afflictions. Jesus Christ attested to it by saying “Blessed authorized to give official are you when you suffer persecution for righteousness’ sake” ( statements said 20 people were Matthew 5:10). wounded in the attack.

The Bible is filled with examples of people that suffered, not because they were sinful or unrighteous but because they did There was no immediate what was right. Joseph was thrown into prison, not that he comclaim of responsibility for the mitted any offence but because he refused to live an unrighteous attack, which came two days life. It was same with Daniel when he was thrown into the den of after rebels barraged Damlions and also true with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego that ascus with mortar shells that were cast into the fiery furnace as a result of their determination killed at least three people and to uphold what was right. wounded dozens.

Even our Lord Jesus Christ suffered for righteous doing, He Pope names was bruised, beaten, humiliated, debased and made to die as a criminal despite the fact that he was sinless. The good news successor in however is that persecution is not the end of life. David said, Buenos Aires “weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning” ( Psalm 30:5). After His persecution, humiliation and death OPE Francis has made on the Cross of Calvary, Jesus arose on the third day to glory. his first appointment Beloved, are you passing through bad times, not because of of a bishop, naming Mario Poli yesterday to unrighteousness but your determination not to compromise succeed him as archbishop of your faith or desire to live above the standard of ‘scribes and the Buenos Aires and the top Pharisees’. Are you experiencing challenges at work because you refused to yield to pressure from that randy officer or is churchman in Argentina. marriage falling apart through no visible fault of yours or Poli, 66, is a priest very your are your children not doing well despite all your efforts and much in Francis’ vein, focused prayers, I congratulate you. The problem you are passing through on pastoral work, and he made is a comma and not a full stop. God is just starting with you. news recently when he What you should do during this season of Lent is to rejoice publicly dressed-down a even in tribulation, look beyond the present travails (Eccl. 7:8), priest who had posted a Face- and never speak evil about God (Psalm 1:6). Lastly, maintain book greeting on the birthday your integrity (Prov. 22:29; Revelations 22:11-12) and trust God of former Argentine dictator to intervene for you (Psalm 34:17). The righteous can never sufJorge Videla. fer in vain. God had promised us vindication through Prophet Poli has been the bishop in Isaiah that “ Say ye to the righteous that it shall be well with Santa Rosa in the rural La Pam- him; for they shall eat the fruit of their doings.” ( Isaiah 3:10). pa province, and from 2002As He lives therefore, the power that lifted up Daniel, Shadrach, 2008 he served as one of Meshach, and Abednego, Joseph and our Lord Jesus Christ, shall Cardinal Jorge Mario Ber- also lift you up in the name of Jesus. Be assured brethren that goglio’s auxiliary bishops in after the suffering of Good Friday, there is supernatural interthe Argentine capital, but he vention of Easter Sunday. was not among the church ofPrayers: Father, uphold me in my season of tribulation, satanficials rumored to be top can- ic gang-up and tribulation, give me grace not to compromise didates for the post. my faith and intervene in my fiery furnace in the name of Jesus.

LENTEN TALK

Theme: Travails of the righteous

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P

THE NATION FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2013

54

CITYBEATS W

HO killed two Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) officials in Ikorodu, on the outskirts of Lagos, on Wednesday?

This is the question President Goodluck Jonathan sought an answer to from the police at a meeting in Abuja yesterday.

The President had invited the police leadership over the Civil Defence's claim that its men, Gabriel Adaji and Innocent Akegbe were killed by some policemen.

The incident was said to have occurred during a clash between the police and Civil Defence over some arrested pipeline vandals.

The Police team was led by the Deputy Inspector-General (DIG) 'A', Suleiman Fakai, in the absence of the Inspector General (IG) Mohammed Abubakar, who was said to have travelled.

The meeting was a follow-up to the one the president held with the NSCDC on Wednesday evening.

Also in Fakai's Police delegation were Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Umar Manko; Assistant Commissioner of Police in charge of Anti-Vandalism, Friday Ibadin, and the Deputy Force Public Relations Officer (DFPRO) Frank Mba, a Chief Superintendent (CSP).

At the meeting which lasted less than one hour, the President stressed the need for cooperation among the sister security agencies.

After the meeting, Mba told reporters that the police came to brief the president on the clash, adding that the police presented their perspective of the report and the facts.

He said: "The meeting was just one of those routine visits where the police leadership briefs the president on co-operational related issues. Basically that is why we are here this morning. Of course, that (the clash between policemen and officials of the NSCDC) is one of the issues we discussed and we also have to come in here to give the president a police perspective on that report and that is exactly what the leadership of the police has done; giving the president a comprehensive report of what actually transpired,

CITYBEATS LINE: 07059022999

•Abubakar

• Jonathan

• Abolurin

Jonathan invites IG over killing of Civil Defence officials •We didn't ambush the defence corps, say police

By Augustine Ehikioya (Abuja) and Jude Isiguzo

from police perspective and actually presenting the facts as they were."

He, however, declined comment on the alleged killing, saying the president had been "properly briefed and the facts would become public later".

Yesterday, the police denied ambushing the NSCDC's officials at Ikorodu.

A Civil Defence official, who was in the team, has purportedly said the police did not ambush them.

He was also reported to have said that his colleagues were killed during a shoot-out with the police.

He said he was not aware that anybody was killed in the opera-

tion until his commander informed him of the killing.

The NSCDC had told The Nation on Wednesday that 14 of its men were on anti-pipeline vandalism operation and had arrested some suspects when they were attacked.

NSCDC alleged that its officials were heading for their Lagos headquarters when policemen allegedly opened fire on them. The police's action was said to have aided the vandals' escape.

The official said the incident was not an ambush but an operational disagreement.

He said, there was an argument on who was supposed to guard the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) facility which degenerated into a gun duel.

A police Inspector and his colleagues, he said, came in a Toyota

Camry car, adding that because the Inspector was in mufti and was also rude to their team leader, "he was bundled, handcuffed and chained before being forced into one of our patrol vehicles".

The NSCDC official said a rank and file who came with the Inspector called for reinforcement.

He said: "Around midnight, we had just finished operations and we were getting the suspects into our vans when a Toyota Car pulled up. Two men alighted from the car. One of the men was in mufti, wielding a pistol while the other, a police sergeant in uniform, wielded an AK47 rifle.

"We were in uniform; so, my boss, DSC Olufemi asked the man in uniform to identify himself and he said he was an Inspector. The man started arguing with us, saying we had no right to be there

I never beat my late wife, says Arowolo

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MAN, who is standing trial for allegedly stabbing his banker wife, Titilayo Omozoje, to death, yesterday opened his defence at the Lagos High Court in Ikeja.

Akolade Arowolo told Justice Lateefah Okunnu that he never for one day beat his wife after they got married.

Led in evidence by his counsel, Mr Olanrewaju Ajanaku, Arowolo, who is accused of killing his wife, at their 8, Dr. Akindende Street, Isolo, Lagos home, claimed that in June, 2009, he began to notice some changes in his wife, adding: "So, I just opened up to a female colleague and she advised me to give her some time.

"I went to the Holy Ghost night at the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) on Friday night, intending to return home by Sunday, but when

T

since we did not inform the police before coming for the operation. An argument ensued and my boss ordered us to disarm and handcuff the Inspector.

"We handcuffed him, collected his service pistol, walkie-talkie, and Police Identity card. As we were about dragging him into one of their standby Hilux vehicles, a phone call was put to the Police Unit Commander, reporting the situation and some policemen came from nowhere and started shooting at us."

The NSCDC official said his colleagues fired back, adding that the gun duel led to the death of Adaji and Akegbe.

It was learnt that a Civil Defence official was arrested by the police and is being detained at the command Headquarters in Ikeja.

Irate youths protest

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CONOMIC activities were yesterday paralysed in Ubiaruku community, Ukwuani Local Government Area of Delta State when irate youths protesting the killing of their colleague burnt down a brothel and a building belonging to the hotelier's father.

The youths, The Nation gathered, torched the brothel, Mosko Hotel, belonging to the suspected killer, Mr. Henry Safi. They later burnt his father's house and a row of adjacent stores. Tenants' properties were not spared.

Banks, schools, markets and the administrative headquarters of

Policemen, thu from Oyo

N •Arowolo and Titilayo

By Adebisi Onanuga

I was missing my wife, I decided to go home, only to meet a male guest in my house. When I asked my wife why she did not call me all through the night, she flared up and left home."

Arowolo said his wife, before her death, once told him that she felt hypnotised, adding: "The deceased insisted that she didn't know why she was obeying her

stepmother in doing certain things she shouldn't have done."

According to him, his wife had irregular menstruation as a result of which he took her to the hospital.

He claimed that the deceased told him that her stepmother took her for abortion and family planning which resulted in medical complications, adding that she was told that it would take about nine years before she could get pregnant again.

Arowolo told the court that the first argument he had with his wife after their marriage was her request for N500,000 for baby items, saying: "I told her I had spent so much money on our wedding and I pleaded with her to accept N100,000. But she insisted that if I didn't give her the money, she would leave the house, which she did."

Justice Okunnu adjourned the matter till May 22 for Arowolo to continue with his defence.

O fewer than four policemen, 10 thugs and a court bailiff yesterday forcefully evacuated over 10 patients from a state-owned community hospital in the Isokan, Bodija area of Ibadan, the Oyo State capital. It followed a court warrant of possession issued to Mr Latifu Mobolaji Oluboyede who claimed to own the land.

The court order, issued on March 25 in the Oyo State High Court, read that the judgment was delivered in favour of the claimant, Mr Latifu Mobolaji Oluboyede, against the defendant, Ibadan North Local Government, and that the claimant is entitled to a declaration of title to the parcel of land situated at plot 12, Dr Awosika Layout, Bodija, Ibadan.

THE NATION FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2013

55

CITYBEATS

CITYBEATS LINE: 07059022999

Daughter allegedly kills parents

O

LEH, Headquarters of Isoko South Local Government Area of Delta State, was thrown into pandemonium yesterday, following the discovery of the remains of an elderly couple, allegedly killed by their daughter.

The suspect, 31-year-old Elo Elili, is believed to have clobbered her parents to death on Wednesday night with a pestle.

Neighbours said the couple aged 76 and 65, had an argument with the suspect before retiring to bed.

The Nation gathered that the suspect, a spinster, is believed to have a history of mental illness.

"The lady is used to running out naked. That (Wednesday) night, she had also run outside when her father chased her and dragged her back into their home. There-

From Shola O'Neil, Warri

after, we heard a shouting match between her and her parents.

"But this morning, the entire neighbourhood woke up to shouting from a young lady who went to the couple's shop to buy an item. She said she saw the couple in a pool of their own blood," said another source.

The Commissioner of Police, Mr. Ikechukwu Aduba, could not be reached for comment, but the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) of Oleh, Mr. Lawrence Ogoegbulem, a Chief Superintendent (CSP), confirmed the report.A source in his office said the suspect confessed to the killing, claiming that her parents attacked her first.

Expert advises Shell on security security expert in Niger Delta, Hon Edwin Ibanichuka, has called on the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) not to shut down its operation in Nigeria because of the persistent oil theft in the region.

Ibanichuka, the Managing Director of Global Services and Security Limited, who gave the advice in Port Harcourt, while addressing members of the Niger Delta Youth Movement (NDYM), said: "Shell should give me just six months; I will end oil theft in Niger Delta region. As a true son of Niger Delta, the issue of vandalism and oil theft will be a thing of the past if I am given the opportunity.

"All the oil companies operating in the region, especially Shell, are threatening to shut down, but that is not the best

A

From Precious Dikewoha, Port Harcourt

option as there are remedies.

The oil theft business is booming today because politicians, company workers and security operatives have joined the illegal business."

He added: "I have spent years researching into this particular issue for the peace of the region. I have submitted my report to Shell. All I am awaiting is for them to say, 'we have received your report and we will partner with you for the progress of the region.'"

Karibo Douglas, President, NDYM, said: "Some of us have benefited from your youth empowerment. It is on this note that we here today.

We assure you of our total support in the execution of your idea in the region."

hs protest colleague's murder Okungbowa Aiwerie, Asaba

Ukwuani local government area hurriedly closed for fear of being attacked by hoodlums.

Commercial sex workers in the brothel suffered losses as the rampaging youths prevented them from evacuating their properties.

The Nation gathered that trouble began when the deceased, Mr. Maduabuchukwu Otuya attempted to collect a debt owed him by Safi.

A source told The Nation that Safi shot the deceased at close

range during an argument.

However, another source said Safi's gun got triggered off accidentally during a scuffle after it fell on the ground, hitting the deceased.

The Divisional Police Officer (DPO), Ubiaruku, Ihueze Nichodemus, Chief Supreintendent (CSP), declined comment.

He referred reporters to the police Command, Asaba. Efforts to contact the State Police spokesman failed.

men, thugs sack patients rom Oyo hospital From Tayo Johnson, Ibadan

"That the sum of N108,000 should be paid as damages for tresspass to the claimant on or before the 30th of April, 2013," the order said.

Revealing his ordeal in the hands of the armed policemen, the matron in charge of the hospital, Mrs Bisi Emiade explained that they stormed the hospital premises around 9.15 am with a court bailiff, adding that some hefty men, whom she described as touts, threw the patients out of the hospital, including the hospital’s equipment, after which they locked the doors.

Mrs Aina Ojo, a perplexed

nursing mother, said: "I was dragged out on the floor with my child in the presence of the policemen that accompanied them here."

Also Chairman of the Landlord Association, Dr Steven Lawal, said the land was carved out of the Olive Primary School for the community health centre,adding that it belongs to the government.

He appealed to the state government and the Ibadan North Local Government to look into the situation and not allow the residents to suffer unjustly.

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AGOS State Government has urged traders at Mile 12 market, to desist from street trading and illegal parking that may cause traffic gridlock during Easter.

General Manager of Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA), Babatunde Edu, and Chairman of the Task Force on Environment and Special Offences (Enforcement Unit), Bayo Sulaiman, met with stakeholders and the market leaders. They asked them to comply with the directive in their interest.

Failure to comply, they said, would compel the government to take drastic actions.

Edu said the government was worried over illegal parking, charging the traders to devise ways through which they can operate without obstructing traffic and inflicting pain on road.

"You must also provide a place where your cus-

Lagos warns Mile 12 traders ‘You must provide where your customers will park. The excuse that truck drivers wait to collect money from their customers before leaving the market is not tenable. They must leave on time to allow other trucks to come in’

By Miriam Ekene-Okoro

tomers will park; you can't expect them to park outside or on the road.

The excuse that truck drivers are waiting to collect money from their customers before leaving the

market is not tenable.

They must leave on time to allow other trucks to come in. The payment can be done in banks; we have developed beyond that.

"There are blockades on the service lanes because of the activities of traders and commercial drivers.

Things will not change until we change our attitude and ways of doing things" He also warned LAGBUS and BRT buses against illegal parking, saying LASTMA officials had been empowered to take photographs of the erring drivers and their buses.

Sulaiman warned the National Union of Road Transport Workers and traders to desist from operating on the service lanes, insisting that government would not condone illegality on the axis.

Sulaiman told the market leaders: "Find a way to

regulate the way you are doing your business; you can't continue to operate while you make people to suffer. Our job is to ensure that things are in order in the market so that you will not disturb others while doing your business.

"We are worried by the complaints of other citizens who can no longer reach their homes on time following your business activities", he said.

The chairman of Perishable Goods Association, Alhaji Haruna Muhammed, blamed the traffic gridlock on some shop owners whom he accused of also selling on the roads despite having their shops inside the market.

He also identified the nuisance constituted by commercial drivers (Danfo Drivers) whom he said, often park on the Expressway to pick passengers.

TODAY IN THE NATION

FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2013 TRUTH IN DEFENCE OF FREEDOM

VOL.8 NO.2,442

‘From the account of the attacks in Yobe, it is obvious any notion of security in Nigeria is merely a ruse; we seem to be living by sheer Grace. For such a sensitive state where attacks have been rampant in the last two years, security is still virtually non-existent.’

STEVE OSUJI

C OMMENT & D EB ATE EBA

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CCORDING to convention, this is a Good Friday. It is also a Holy Friday.

And convention is what human beings create and stick to. It is our tradition of doing things and naming events. There is a paradox here.

From the perspective of the God who ordained the birth and death of Jesus the Christ, whatever He does is good, and that includes the sacrifice of a son. But for us as humans, we tend to see things differently. We would not be humans if we don’t. So, we consider death in whatever form or shape as bad.

In the particular case of the death of Christ on the cross, it is not only the manner of the death but the intrigue that caused it that was extremely bad and evil. He was wrongly accused of treason and blasphemy. He was maltreated by his accusers. He was mocked.

There was a palpable miscarriage of justice.

In the midst of it all, he was calm and cool. In that regard, the day on which his unjust killing occurred must be judged a bad day for all intents and purposes—that is, from our human point of view. If it happened to any of us, and we were in a position to pass judgment, we would curse the day it occurred.

Therefore, if by convention we have come to recognise the day on which the messiah was crucified as good, there better be a good explanation and justification.

There is an explanation and, humanly speaking, it is a selfish one. For Christians, the death on the cross is even a happier and merrier occurrence than the birth in the manger because without it, salvation is impossible. Therefore, for the salvation of humans, Christ must die on the cross and resurrect from the grave. The assumed consequence of death on the cross—the salvation of humans—is good. Therefore the means to that consequence is good. Even the elders who prosecuted and judged Christ made the point that it is alright that one should die so that the many may be saved.It is a utilitarian reasoning.

Let us assume that this is a valid reasoning and there is something good in the death on the cross and therefore this is indeed a Good Friday. Shouldn’t we also expect at least believers in the sacrifice that made possible the salvation of souls follow suit? Shouldn’t the example be a model for leaders and followers at least in Christendom? His was a life of simplicity. His armour was truthfulness. He delivered a message of hope and redemption. He not only empathised with the poor, he also blessed them with sustenance. And while he abhorred sin, he did not reject sinners; he dined with them.

Two thousand years after the supreme sacrifice of the one we claim to follow, many Christians, including those in the leadership rank of all stripes and collars have only paid lip service to the creed of the messiah. They complicate what is a simple message of love

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SEGUN GBADEGESIN gbadegesin@thenationonlineng.net

What makes this Friday good?

‘If we truly believe that

He sacrificed his life so we can gain salvation, it is our obligation to make humanly possible sacrifices so the downtrodden, the rejected and forgotten in our midst may live a live that is dignified and decent. It is not the magnificence of a cathedral that matters; it is the spirit of giving ...’ and sacrifice. They are pretenders and impostors who draw crowds of sycophants through means other than Christ. They court satanic powers to attract membership to their congregation and expect the spirit of Christ to fall on them! They sell their halls of worship to the highest bidder and hope that the God who noticed and recognised the widow and her mite is not attentive. And while they condemn corruption from the pulpit, they are not ashamed to receive the bounties that cor-

rupted hands deliver.

No one preaches or expects perfection. Even the messiah who reflected the perfection of God was humble enough to attribute perfection to God alone. But there is an expectation that spiritual leaders have the responsibility to lead by example and not just by words, in the observance of the teachings of Christ.

Instead, in many congregations, the human inclination to division by rank and the promotion of inequality instead of the egalitar-

HARDBALL

ian teaching of Christ has been the order.

We identify spiritual kinds with some higher than others and the concept of the priesthood of all believers is jettisoned. Christ taught his disciples that he was their only Teacher and they shouldn’t call anyone on earth teacher. He told them that their only Father was in heaven and they shouldn’t call anyone on earth Father. He taught them that whoever was greatest among them shall be their servant. And he demonstrated this by washing their feet.

Christ lived a simple human life but was not a proud and haughty human. He dined with sinners; he drank wine; he associated with an adulterer without condoning adultery, and he revered the Sabbath day without worshipping it, which was one of the reasons he was rejected by the Pharisees.

On our part, we have substituted for Christ’s teachings the Big-man philosophy of religion. In this philosophy, what really matters is how big the followership is, and how much power and resources we are able thereby to control. No wonder that even as churches litter the nooks and crannies of our streets, the evils of cultism, kidnapping, and armed robbery are on the rise. Sure, we condemn the evils that eat at the soul of the individual perpetrators without harming others, but we condone those evils that harm others but benefit the perpetrator.

On this remembrance of an otherwise bad day which by convention we have come to regard as good because we believe that it was the moment our salvation was bought with the blood of the innocent, it behooves all Christians to truly imbibe the teachings of Christ and the lessons of the cross. If we truly believe that He sacrificed his life so we can gain salvation, it is our obligation to make humanly possible sacrifices so the downtrodden, the rejected and forgotten in our midst may live a live that is dignified and decent. It is not the magnificence of a cathedral that matters; it is the spirit of giving that we imbibe in the hearts of men and women that God appreciates.

If the foregoing sounds like a sermon; it isn’t. It is only a sober thought and reflection on our spiritual heritage in the age of ostentatious spirituality, an oxymoron in itself.

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•Hardball is not the opinion of the columnist featured above

Police versus NSCDC: Symptom of deeper malaise

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HE early morning clash between policemen and members of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) on Wednesday near Ikorodu in Lagos State is sufficiently serious to warrant tough questions and deep reflections. Two NSCDC officials were killed in the incident, allegedly shot by policemen. Reports say the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar, has already ordered an investigation. But it is feared that little or nothing will come out of the investigations, especially in terms of preventing a recurrence. The Ikorodu clash is not the first between security agencies; sadly it is unlikely to be the last.

Both the police and NSCDC have given very contradictory accounts of the Ikorodu clash. According to the NSCDC, the fault was entirely that of the police. The NSCDC officials had arrested a gang of pipeline vandals, they claimed, and were transporting them to their headquarters in Alausa, Lagos State secretariat for further interrogation. However, they continued, one of the vandals put a call to an alleged police collaborator who responded by putting a team together to foil the arrest and forcibly release the suspects. Not only were the vandals released, according to the story, two officials of the NSCDC were also shot dead while many others sustained injuries. The NSCDC account was silent on the reprisal attacks carried out by civil defence officials near their Lagos headquarters.

The police on the other hand were also copious in their account. While they were silent on who died or didn’t, they insisted they were on legitimate duties around the Ikorodu pipelines, having received a distress call from officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation

(NNPC) who complained they suspected the pipelines were being tampered with. Rather than being the aggressors, as the NSCDC officials claimed, it was the civil defence officials who attacked the policemen, disarmed the police team leader and even handcuffed him. Other teams of policemen waded in on that dreary morning in Ikorodu, they said, to compel the release of the police team leader, a sergeant.

They also gave a graphic story of the reprisal attacks near the Corps headquarters of the NSCDC. It is unlikely the two accounts of what transpired near Ikorodu can be reconciled. Both the police and the NSCDC will stick to their accounts and refuse to back down. To back down is to lose face and admit incompetence. This column will, therefore, not chase the chimera of trying to determine who was at fault, nor even expect that in the final analysis the truth will be established. What is truly worrisome are the implications of both the Ikorodu clash and the reprisal attacks at Alausa, near the seat of government. While both the Ikorodu and Alausa attacks point disturbingly to the customary brutality of the two security agencies and the tyrannical fashion they relate with the public, these are actually the least of the problems confronting the country. There are a few other things surrounding the clash that give room for more concern.

The Ikorodu clash is first and foremost an indication of just how deeply poor training and incompetence of security officials have taken root in the two agencies. The attack was obviously neither accidental nor one of mistaken identity. If anybody was handcuffed and iden-

tity card seized, it showed that everyone involved knew who the other persons were. The shooting simply indicated uncontrollable anger and lack of regard for both the rules of engagement and sanctity of human life, the same breach of operational guidelines regularly displayed by security agencies when dealing with unarmed civilians. Second, the reprisal attacks also indicated gross indiscipline and lack of respect for the laws of the land. Yet, these are the same agencies the government hopes would show restraint and display sound judgement in enforcing the law and upholding the constitution in the thick of fighting and general or restricted breakdown of law and order.

The Ikorodu clash and Alausa reprisal are not the first of such ugly incidents between the security agencies. Nor will they be the last if the government continues to tinker with an attitudinal problem that is evidently very fundamental but at odds with the country’s ambition to be a stable polity and a civilised society.

The errant behaviour of the police and NSCDC is a reflection of the impunity they have been used to for far too long, an impunity only a determined government can put an end to. It is not certain whether the leadership of the two security agencies can be trusted to get to the bottom of the problem or even whether they have the will to apply full sanctions once the guilty party is identified. But if the government is as worried as most Nigerians that such clashes give the country a bad name, it can demonstrate its dissatisfaction by empanelling an investigation team and following up firmly by dismissing those who participated in the Ikorodu and Alausa show of shame.

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Editor Daily:01-8962807, Marketing: 01-8155547 . Abuja Office: Plot 5, Nanka Close AMAC Commercial Complex, Wuse Zone 3, Abuja. Tel: 07028105302. Port Harcourt Office: 12/14, Njemanze Street, Mile 1, Diobu, PH. 08023595790. WEBSITE: www.thenationonlineng.net E-mail: info@thenationonlineng.net Editor: GBENGA OMOTOSO