November 29, 2014

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Fails to produce five detained workers

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THE NATION

NEWS

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2014

•Scenes from the bomb blasts that rocked Kano central mosque... yesterday

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HE Central Mosque located within the Emir’s Palace in Kano witnessed a major tragedy yesterday as triple bomb attacks by the Boko Haram sect left no fewer than 120 worshippers dead.

Bloodstains, mangled bodies and charred wrekage of vehicles and motorcycles characterised the mosque after the incident that has recorded the highest death toll since the sect launched its attacks on the nation.

The larger metropolis was left to mourn the scores of worshippers feared to have been killed in the triple bomb explosions which occurred midway into the weekly Juma’at prayers.

About 128 other worshippers were believed to have been injured.

A similar bomb attack by the same sect was averted at the Customs Market, Gamboru, Maiduguri after vigilante youths alerted the police about two Improvised Explosive Devices planted at the market.

The Northern States Governors Forum (NSGF) deplored the attack which came a week after the Emir of Kano,Alhaji Muhammadu Sanusi 11 challenged Northerners to resist Boko Haram.

The Emir, who sometimes leads worshippers in prayers at the mosque, was out of town yesterday.

The Northern Governors said that the security challenge in the North has taken a turn for the worse as no one,including traditional rulers, is spared by the insurgents.

The Chief Imam of Kano, Prof Sani Zaharadeen, was in the process of delivering his sermon at about 2.15 pm when the bombs began to go off one after the other.

Two of the bombs were planted inside the mosque and the other outside.

"Three bombs were planted in the courtyard to the mosque and they went off simultaneously," a security source who declined to be named said.

A staff member at the palace who also witnessed the attack said: "After multiple explosions, they also opened fire. I cannot tell you the casualty figure because we all ran away."

Angry youths blocked the mosque's gates to the police, who had to disperse them with tear gas to gain entry.

No official casualty figure was immediately available

120 feared dead in Kano central mosque triple explosions

Kolade ADEYEMI, Kano

but sources involved in evacuating victims said between 65 and 100 people might have lost their lives.

Deputy Police Public Relations Officer in the state, ASP Abubakar Mustapha, said on the phone that the police were yet to ascertain the casualty figure.

Governor Rabi’u Kwankwaso was out of town as were Police Commissioner Adenrele Shinaba and the Police Public Relations officer, Musa Magaji Majia, both of whom were said to have travelled to Dubai to collect awards as the best Police Commissioner and best PPRO in Nigeria respectively.

The Force Headquarters said the attack was carried out by suicide bombers.

The explosions sparked a stampede by terrified worshippers.

The sky immediately turned black against the background of the smoke emitted by the explosions.

The sight of so many dead bodies seemed to have provoked the people who started hauling stones at security agents who arrived the scene soon after the incident.

They cordoned off the area as a prelude to the commencement of investigation into the incident and evacuation of the wounded to the hospital and the dead to the mortuary.

The Boko Haram insurgency has displaced over one million people during its campaign the Red Cross said yesterday, an increase on a September U.N. refugee agency estimate of 700,000.

Islamic leaders sometimes shy away from direct criticism of Boko Haram for fear of reprisals. But Sanusi, angered by atrocities such as the kidnapping of 200 schoolgirls from Chibok in April, has been increasingly vocal.

He was quoted last week as saying: "These people, when they attack towns, they kill boys and enslave girls. People must stand resolute ... They should acquire what they can to defend themselves. People must not wait for soldiers to protect

them."

The immediate past Emir of Kano, Alhaji Ado Bayero , was ambushed by Boko Haram insurgents in early 2013.

He narrowly escaped death in the incident.

An official of one of the rescue agencies said 64 bodies had been brought to just one Kano area hospital after the attack and the wounded

figure reflected statistics from three hospitals.

Force Headquarters spokesman, Mr.Emmanuel Ojukwu, said yesterday that the attack was carried out by two suicide bombers and gunmen who opened fire on people trying to flee to safety.

After the assailants blew themselves up in succession at the Grand Mosque in

Kano, “gunmen opened fire on those who were trying to escape,” Ojukwu told AFP. The Deputy Governor of Kano State, Dr Abdullahi Ganduje, commiserated with the families of those who died in the blasts.

Ganduje, who described the incident as very unfortunate, prayed for the quick recovery of those who sustained injuries in the blasts.

The deputy governor called on the people of the state to continue to pray to God to prevent future occurrence.

“It is unfortunate that the ugly incident is happening when the state has started enjoying relative peace.

“We should continue to pray for the sustenance of peace in our state and the country at large,’’ he said.

...Northern govs, ACF condemn attack

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ORTHERN States Governors Forum (NSGF) and the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) yesterday lamented that security challenges in the northern states have taken a turn for the worse in recent times.

The two bodies expressed this view in different statements they issued yesterday in reaction to the tripple explosions that left no fewer than 120 worshippers dead at the Central Mosque in Kano.

In a statement signed by his Chief Press Secretary, Irael Ebije, NSGF Chairman and Governor of Niger State, Dr. Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu, said the attack on the mosque where the Emir Sanusi ll worships is another sobber reminder of how much disregard those behind terror attacks in the North have for the traditional institution and the sanctity of human life.

The NSGF chair said the position of the Emir on the need to protect communities against those perpetuating violence must remain sacro-

Jide ORINTUNSIN Minna and Abdulgafar ALABELEWE, Kaduna sanct, adding that nobody should be intimidated by evil perpetrators, saying “good will surely triumph over evil.”

Aliyu commiserated with the government and people of Kano State, urging them to remain committed to the fight against terror.

The governor maintained that the war against terrorism is not an exclusive preserve of security operatives but everybody’s business.

He said it is time to place everybody under high security alert, adding that strange faces and objects must be promptly reported and investigated.

Aliyu, who decried the continuous turnover in human and material loss on account of terror attack, said the trend must be stopped by all means necessary.

He insisted that Nigerians are not violent people, adding that the few engaged in evil practice must be fished out and punished.

Also condemning the at-

tack yesterday, the ACF said the explosions that rocked the Central Mosque located near the Emir's palace in Kano was wicked, callous and barbaric.

In a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Muhammad Ibrahim, the forum said: "ACF learnt with shock and disbelief the three bomb explosions that occurred in the Central Mosque near the Emir's palace in Kano City.

“The bomb blast aimed at Muslim worshipers in the mosque that left many dead and scores of others injured was wicked, callous and barbaric.

"The recent bomb explosions in Yola, Maiduguri, Azare, Kontagora and many other towns in the North coupled with the daily killing of innocent people by insurgents is very disturbing and worrisome.

"This insecurity situation that have engulfed the North is a clear manifestation of Federal Government's inability to protect the people as intelligence and equipment required to contain the

situation appears lacking.

"ACF urges the people of Kano in particular to exercise some restrain, remain calm and avoid taking the law into their hands or blame innocent people that have lived with them peacefully.

“We equally call upon the people to unite and protect themselves through intelligence sharing with security agencies and community leaders.

"ACF appeals to the Kano State Government and other state governments where bomb explosions have occurred in the last one week to provide free medical treatment to the injured.

“It also extends it heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families, the Emir of Kano Alhaji Muhammadu Sanusi 11, the people and Government of Kano State over this unfortunate incident.

"ACF calls upon the Federal Government to as a matter of urgency deploy all its security apparatus to the areas bedeviled by insurgency in order to bring an end to this menace."

Jonathan commiserates with victims of attack

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RESIDENT Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has commiserated with the people and government of Kano State over the heinous attack on the Central Mosque in Kano, yesterday.

According to a statement issued by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, the President called on the relief agencies and their medical personnel to deploy every possible effort to assist the injured.

He also called on the general public to heed the call for donation of blood at the hospitals where the injured were being treated.

The President also directed the security agencies to launch a full scale investigation into the incident and leave no stone unturned in tracking down and bringing to justice all the agents of terror undermining the rights of citizens to life and dignity.

The statement added: “The

President reaffirms that terrorism in all its forms and manifestation is a despicable and unjustifiable threat to our society.

“He reiterates the determination of the government to continue to take every step to put an end to the reprehensible acts of all groups and persons involved in terrorism.

“President Jonathan calls on all Nigerians not to despair in this moment of great trial in our nation’s

history but to remain united to confront the common enemy.

“The President is confident that no terrorist act against fellow citizens will destroy the Nigerian spirit to remain positive, resolute and united in the quest for lasting peace and security in the country.

“He appeals to all Nigerians to remain vigilant and cooperate actively with our security agencies to win the ongoing war against terror.

THE NATION

NEWS 3

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2014

Non-recognition of Speaker: Tambuwal wants IG jailed for contempt

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PEAKER Aminu Tambuwal of the House of Representatives wants Inspector General of Police Suleiman Abba committed to prison for failing to recognise him (Tambuwal) as speaker.

Tambuwal filed a motion to this effect at the Federal High Court, Abuja on Thursday in reaction to the IGP’s stance during his recent appearance before the House of Representatives Committee on Police Affairs.

Abba had been summoned by the committee to explain the action of his men during their recent attack on National Assembly during which Tambuwal and many other Reps were physically prevented by armed policemen from entering the chambers of NASS. Tambuwal in his motion ex-parte, said that Abba’s refusal to recognise him as Speaker when he appeared before the House Committee on November 26 was a violation of the order made by the court on November 7, directing parties in the suit he (Tambuwal) filed, to maintain the status quo.

Plaintiff wants the court to direct Abba to appear “in person and show cause why he should not be committed to prison for contempt of the order of this court ordering maintenance of status quo on November 7, 2014 and/or for acting in manners and ways which showed disrespect to the court.”

After Tambuwal’s counsel, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), leading eight Senior Advocates and 69 other lawyers, moved the motion before Justice Ahmed Mohammed, the judge directed that it was fair that Abba be heard on the issue raised in the motion.

He said even President Jonathan has continued to recognise and address Tambuwal in official correspondence as “Honourable Speaker,” in obedience to the court’s order of November 7.

He displayed copies of such letters from the President.

Justice Mohammed said since Abba was represented by a lawyer in the substantive case, it was fair that he

•Court orders service of processes on Abba Eric IKHILAE, Abuja

should be put on notice in relation to the allegation that he disobeyed a subsisting order of the court.

The judge, relying on the provision of Order 26 Rule 10 of the court’s Civil Procedure Rules 2009, ordered that Tambuwal converted the exparte motion to motion on notice and directed that Abba be served with the mtion.

He hinged his decision on the fact that the IGP was not only represented in the main suit, he has joined issues with the plaintiff on the substantive suit.

The judge ordered that the motion and his order be served on Abba before the next date and adjourned to December 3 for hearing of the mtion.

Tambuwal hinged his fresh motion on 15 grounds.

These include that Abba acted in ways that showed that he had no regard for the court.

He stated that despite his (Abba’s) lawyer’s undertaking that his client would not do anything to tamper with the res (subject of litigation) in the main suit, the IGP, who is also a lawyer, has refused to obey the court’s order.

The Speaker cited other instances where the IGP allegedly violated the court’s order to include when he sent some armed policemen to barricade the entrance of the National Assembly, thereby denying him access to his office.

He also referred to the incident of November 26 when Abba reportedly refused to recognise Tambuwal as the Speaker on the ground that the issue of his official status was in court.

The judge also took argument from parties in the case in respect of two applications filed by some individuals, seeking to be made defendants in the suit.

Israel Olorundare (SAN) and Moyosore Oniggbanjo (SAN) moved both joinder

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constituencies.

The applicants, who are opposed to Tambuwal’s removal as Speaker and member of the House of Representatives, arguing that removing him would deprive them of representation in the House of Representatives.

While all the defendants in the suit including the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and its National Chairman, Adamu Mua’zu did not oppose the applications, Tambuwal objected to their being made party in his

•Prospective voters collecting their Permanent Voter Cards (PVC) at a distribution centre in Port Harcourt ... yesterday

Automatic tickets for Senators: Jonathan, PDP bow to governors G OVERNORS elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are winning their battle with senators over who gets the party’s senatorial tickets ahead of next year’s elections.

President Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP are said to have reversed their decision to concede automatic return tickets to 40 Senators.

The governors, especially those who are about com-

•Only 20 Senators may now get automatic tickets Yusuf Alli, Managing Editor, Northern Operation

pleting their second term, are interested in going to the Senate and want serving senators dropped for them.

They also claim that some

Turkish hospital set to start kidney transplant in Nigeria HE Nigerian-Turkish Nizamiye Hospital, Abuja is set for kidney transplant and other complex medical surgeries in Nigeria, to save Nigerians the agony and cost of overseas treatment for such ailments.

Medical Director of the hospital, Dr. Mustafa Ahsen, who stated this while fielding questions from newsmen in Abuja yesterday, added that wealthy Nigerians no longer have to travel abroad for medical treatment.

Ahsen said: “Why should Nigerians travel abroad for checkup, surgery and other health reasons when we can handle them all here?

“You are sick and you want to travel abroad for treatment. When you are travelling, you get sicker. There are a lot of instances where

applications dated 11 and 12 November.

The application moved by Olorundare was filed for the Chairmen of Kebbe and Tambuwal Local Government Areas (Sokoto) - Bala Konkani, and Sambo Modo

by Olorundare, while the one moved by Onigbanjo was by three members of the Sokoto State House of Assembly - Abdussamad Dasuki, Suleiman Hantsi, and Shuaibu Umar, representing Tambuwal East, Tambuwal West and Kebbe

suit.

Fagbemi told the court that his client was opposed to the granting of the applications for joinder because he was satisfied with those he sued and against those he was seeking certain reliefs.

The judge fixed ruling on the joinder applications for December 1.

The Speaker is, in the main suit, challenging alleged unlawful conduct by the PDP and Nigeria Police Force in a move to reconvene the sitting of the House of Reps and the withdrawal of his security aides.

Vincent IKUOMOLA, Abuja people die before they could arrive overseas for treatment. Even in recent times, we all heard of a very eminent public figure that died on the way to a foreign hospital.

“Travelling abroad for medical treatment constitutes a financial burden.

When you travel, you will pay for flight tickets and visa, you will pay hotel bills and all that. But here, you only concern yourself with fees for treatment. So we are here to save that money and that life.”

Speaking on other treatments available at the hospital, the Medical Director said the facility is unique, with a wide range of services cutting across various departments.

“We are unique with all

the departments we started here. Particularly, we are a foremost hospital in kneecap and hip joint replacement, open heart surgery and laparoscopy; where we operate on a patient without cutting him or opening his body. We are unique with that. We will continue to invest in higher technology,” he stated.

Ahsen revealed that over $2 million (over N3 billion) had been invested in the hospital and more funds are being invested in certain critical departments, stressing that there would be no ceiling on investment in the facility.

He said: “In the next five months, we will be investing another $2 million. Our plan is not to invest too massively and become passive afterwards. We want to continue to invest.”

Senators will fail if fielded by the party.

It was learnt yesterday that the list of the 40 Senators was being reviewed at press time.

But the u-turn made by the President and the PDP has angered some of the affected senators who are now believed to be willing to take their own pound of flesh by supporting the impeachment plot in the National Assembly.

The Nation gathered that about 20 senators may eventually be given automatic slots in 2015.

A highly placed source said security reports and field studies have shown that it is no longer realistic to grant the 40 senators automatic tickets.

The PDP governors had made representations to the President and the party, rejecting the automatic tickets.

The source said: “Following pressure from governors, the Presidency and PDP have decided to tinker with the list of the senators who may get automatic tickets.

“The party needs to take into cognizance the performance of senators, the peculiar local environment in the state; the zoning formula and the overall chances of the party.

“We also have instances where automatic tickets have caused crises in some states

between governors and senators. The overall intention of the automatic tickets is to enrich the legislature and not to stoke fire.”

A high-ranking Senator said the President, the PDP and the Senate leadership “ have gone back to the drawing board on how we can come up with a win-win situation for all.

“We learnt that not all the 40 senators will be given automatic tickets again as agreed some weeks ago at the Presidential Villa.

“So, we are awaiting the list of the beneficiaries of the auto tickets. We hope those returning will be appreciable to enhancing legislative business in the 8th Senate.”

A top official of the PDP said: “I think about 20 of the senators may eventually return after harmonization of all factors.

“The party will be fair to all because we do not only need to win the presidency; we have to secure the National Assembly too.”

But one of the senators, who spoke in confidence, said: “It will not augur well for the President and the PDP to allow the governors to force the party to dance to their tunes.

“Some of these governors are leaving the stage with credibility problem and they should not create any elec-

toral crisis for PDP. “The President and the PDP are however afraid of these governors. We should be careful or else there might be protest votes in some states.”

Led by the President of the Senate, Chief David Mark, about 60 senators recently met with President Jonathan at the Villa.

At the end of the session, the PDP leadership was mandated to go and consider the modalities of giving 40 senators their return tickets.

Based on the harmonised list, those expected to return are : Chief David Mark, Senate Deputy President Ike Ekweremadu, Ahmed Makarfi, Nenadi Esther Usman, Smart Adeyemi, Atai Idoko-Ali, Barnabas Gemade, Barth Nnaji, Pius Akinyelure, Boluwaji Kunlere, Philip Aduda, Enyinnaya Abaribe, and Uche Chukwumerije.

Also on the list are: Senate Leader Victor Ndoma-Egba, Bassey Otu, Benedict Ayade, Zainab Kure, Simeon Ajibola, Adeseun Ayoade Ademola, Agboola Hosea Ayoola, Emmanuel Bwacha, Umar Abubakar Tutari, Suleiman Adokwe, Also enjoying concession are Maccido Muhammad Ahmed, Abdullahi Danladi, Hassan Abdulmumin, Emmanuel Aguariavwodo, James Manager, Emmanuel Paulker, Heineken Lokpobri, Tukur Bello, Hassan Barata, Lidani Joshua, Alkali Saidu Ahmed, Andy Uba, Margery Okadigbo, Magnus Odion Ugbesia, Garba Gamawa Babayo, and Adamu Gumba.

THE NATION, SATURDAY NOVEMBER 29, 2014

4 News

Jonathan regrets South West's loss of Reps Speaker P

RESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan yesterday said he regretted his inability to push through the election of a south west member as the Speaker of the House of Representatives in line with the zoning arrangement of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

He made the remark at the Yoruba Unity Summit organised by the Yoruba Unity Forum at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Osun State.

Blaming the failure of the zone to get the post on individual interests of some politicians in the south west, he said that he is still haunted by the incident.

He harped on the need to en-

Augustine EHIKIOYA, Abuja

sure equity in appointments which is encouraged by the zoning formula of the PDP. According to him, the leaders of the party have decided to be resolute on zoning in the future.

He said: "I always say it.

One of the problems I face in the National Assembly is that I feel the right thing should be done because our party, the PDP, has a formula.

"We have six geo-political zones in the country and when the president emerges from one of the geo-political zones, the

vice president emerges from another geo-political zone. The rest core offices, the senate president, the speaker, secretary to the federal government and the chairman of the party must come from different geopolitical zones.

"The idea is that, whenever we are distributing board positions and some of these appointments, these people sit to take decisions.

"Whenever we are appointing ministers, all these people sit to take decisions. In that case, we want all the geo-political zones to be in the inner caucus that take critical decisions.

"The last time, it was difficult for me because I insisted

that the south west must get the speaker. Of course, I couldn't go through with it because some of us within the south west didn't want it based on some personal reasons.

"I am still suffering from that till today. That is one of the reasons that the leaders said, this time around, we must work collectively so that whatever position is zoned to the south west, we should get that position. People should not rob it from us," he added.

While appreciating the efforts of the Yoruba people and others, he said the government would continue to do more for the south west.

He observed that over 50 per cent of the nation's wealth is

in the south west, arguing that infrastructure such as airports, rail link and power must therefore be provided to enable the area to continue to provide opportunity for the people.

The President said the occasion was an opportunity for him to salute the collective spirit of the Yoruba people that have seen them play critical roles at every important junction in the history of Nigeria.

He recalled that it was mainly the agitation of the south west that led to the convening of the National Conference and assured that the recommendations of the conference will be implemented.

He said: "I have said it and I will say it again. We will implement the recommendations.

The political environment now is not too conducive for certain good things to be raised because of partisan interest.

People are ready to even kill.

"I wouldn't want to play with that document that our great men and women, our egg heads took time to form. I believe the whole context will be taken by government. So, we will surely implement it." he stated.

The gathering, he said was "not just about the unity of the descendants of Oduduwa, but a clarion call on Nigerians to embark on a path to seek accommodation and build consensus."

He challenged all to come together in harmony and articulate differences with a view to arriving at a formidable national consensus to give the nation a more robust vision and energy to confront the rest of the world.

He said with love, understanding and respect for one another, there is no obstacle Nigeria cannot surmount, saying "with unity, we can go to the moon."

President honours 100 companies Monday

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•President/ Chairman of Council, Institute of Directors Nigeria (IoD), Chief Mrs Eniola Fadayomi (second right); Past President and Guest Speaker, Mr Chike Nwanze (second left); 1st Vice President, Mr. Yemi Akeju (left); and DirectorGeneral/CEO, Mr Victor Banjo during the induction of the new members at Eko Hotel and Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos...yesterday Photo: Biodun ADEYEWA

Ebola cases near 16,000, says WHO

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HE death toll in the world's worst Ebola epi demic has risen to 5,689 out of 15,935 cases reported in eight countries by November 23, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.

Almost all cases and all but 15 deaths have been in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia - the three hardest-hit countries, which reported 600 new cases in the past week, the WHO said in its latest update.

"The total number of cases reported in Sierra Leone since the outbreak began will soon eclipse the number reported from Liberia," it said. The former British colony has reported 6,599 cases against 7,168 in Liberia.

Transmission of the virus remains intense in Sierra Leone, especially in the west and north, with the capital Freetown still the worst affected area, it said.

Sierra Leone appealed to the United States on Wednesday to send military aid to help it battle Ebola as it falls behind its West African neighbors, Guinea and Liberia, in the fight against the virus.

"Liberia and Sierra Leone report that fewer than 70 per cent of patients are isolated, though there is wide variation among districts," the WHO said, referring to an international target set for December 1. However, some data is out of date, it said.

Isolation is required to halt further spread of the viral

haemorrhagic disease, and the aim is to isolate 100 percent of patients by January 1, it added.

Contacts of people known to be infected should be monitored for symptoms, including fever, but relatively low numbers being reported "suggest that in districts with high case incidence, fewer contacts are currently registered in connection with each new case than is necessary to accurately monitor chains of transmission", the WHO

warned.

Mali has reported eight Ebola cases, six of them fatal, and 285 contacts exposed to the virus there are being checked, it said.

WHO teams are evaluating the preparedness of neighbouring countries to combat Ebola, and visits are planned to the Central African Republic, Niger, and Ethiopia next week, it said.

Peter Piot, a leading specialist on the disease, said West Africa's Ebola epidemic

could worsen further before abating, but new infections should start to decline in all affected countries by the end of the year.

The first Cuban doctor infected with Ebola, evacuated from Sierra Leone to Geneva last week, is improving and responding to treatment, the University Hospital of Geneva said in a statement late on Tuesday. His medical team is "reasonably optimistic".

Yuletide: We’ll not increase fares — RTEAN

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HE Road Transport Em ployers’ Association of Nigeria has assured Nigerians that the body will not increase fares during the Christmas celebration, despite the falling price of oil in the international market.

Newly elected Chairman of the Association in Ekiti State, Pastor Samuel Olugbenga Agbede, said the decision of the national secretariat not to increase fares during the celebration will be carried to members of the association across the country.

He said the body has welleducated members who respect the rule of law and their leaders, pointing out that even though drivers are always responsible for increase in fares, the body will ensure that the decision of the association is re-

Tony AKOWE spected.

Pastor Agbede said one of his major priorities as the state Chairman will be to create a cooperative society that will assist its members in buying vehicles at the zero-interest rate.

He said: "My first priority will be to unite all the factions of the union in the state. I am happy that our national President has already done that partially for us because the newly elected executive had the two factions represented on an equal basis.

"I will also create a cooperative society to assist all our members to buy vehicles at the zero-interest rate. Before now, we used to buy vehicles on a hire-purchase basis. If we can

pull our resources together and assist one another, I believe that it will go a long way in alleviating our suffering.

"By the grace of God, we will talk to the government of the day in Ekiti State to help us develop the transport sector in the state.

“The governor has promised to assist us in many ways. He has promised to assist the transport sector and I believe that he is a man of his words.

"By the mandate of our constitution, we are bound to support the government of the day and we will do everything possible to support the government and that is what we are going to do. We are going to canvass support for the government of Ekiti State and the government of President Jonathan for continuity".

RESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan will on Mon day, December 1, give special recognition to the top 100 Nigerian businesses that have contributed to making Nigeria the largest economy in Africa.

The presidential dinner which will hold at the Presidential Villa, is targerted at celebrating investors in the Nigerian economic space and encouraging more investement flow.

According to the Chairman of the Business Assessment Committee, Mr. Jim Obazee, who is also the Chief Executive Officer of the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria, the companies cut across the whole strata of the Nigerian business spectrum.

They are also businesses and companies that are responsible corporate citizens, companies that are generating employment and doing large volume in billions, among other criteria.

The companies are Exonmobil, Dangote, MTN, Globacom, First Bank, Shoprite, Addax Petroleum, Ibadan and Yola Power Company, Fortel Oil, Glaxo, Smithline, Chevron, APM Terminal, Eko Disco, Promasidor, Elephant Group, UAC, Julius Berger, UAC Oriental Energy and Zenith Bank, among others.

The dinner will be preceded with a cocktail which will give the invited captains of industries opportunity to interact with the President and members of his economic.

Over 30% sub-standard products come from seaports, says SON

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HE Director General, Standard Organisation of Nigeria, SON, Dr Joseph Odumodu, has said more than 30 per cent of the substandard products come from the seaports.

Speaking at a one-day stakeholders’ forum on the maritime industry in Lagos, Odumodu said in total, more than 90 per cent of the sub-standard products comes from the combination of the sea-ports, airports and boarders.

He said a lot of local manufacturers have closed up because they could not compete with the imported substandard products. He said some of these products have killed and are still killing many Nigerians.

Odumodu frowned on the proliferation of substandard goods in the markets, which he said were characterised by their short-life span, due to non-adherence to standards in their production processes by foreign manufacturers.

He also reiterated the agency’s unwavering stance on the commencement of enforcement to remove all unregistered products from the markets nationwide as part of efforts to ensure traceability and boost consumer confidence in every product offered for sale.

He said more than 85 per cent of products in the country are substandard, expressing the worry that with such rat-

Okwy IROEGBU-CHIKEZIE and Toba AGBOOLA

ing, the country remained the highest among those patronising substandard products, being an import-dependent economy.

According to him, if importers and exporters comply with all the relevant laws, there would be no incidence of smuggling.

“The challenge is on the doorstep of all importers, if we are able to curb the menace of unscrupulous importers then we would have solved about 70 per cent of the menace of smuggling in Nigeria. We need stiffer and heavier forms of sanctions across the value chain starting from the importers which is better than just destroying these smuggled goods,” he said.

He said smuggling has had a lot of negative impact on the economy that surpasses what can be imagined, noting that the menace has caused the exit of some 21st century basic manufacturing plants such as battery producers from Nigeria.

President, National Council of Managing Directors of Licensed Customs Agents (NCMDLCA), Mr Lucky Amiwero, called on the Federal Government to change the process of inspection.

THE NATION, SATURDAY NOVEMBER 29, 2014

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LL aspirants seeking the tickets of the All Progressives Congress (APC) ahead of next year’s elections are to sign an undertaking to faithfully implement the party’s manifesto,if elected.

The undertaking will form part of the screening of the aspirants, National Chairman of the party, Chief John OdigieOyegun said yesterday in Abuja, while receiving the presidential nomination form of Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso of Kano State at the APC national secretariat.

The manifesto,OdigieOyegun said,is people-oriented

APC aspirants to sign undertaking to implement manifesto—Oyegun Tony AKOWE and must be implemented faithfully by those fielded in the elections.

He said: "We have a manifesto which we are going to commit them to faithfully implement. As a matter of fact, for the first time, there will be an undertaking to be signed by

Osundare wins 2014 National Merit award

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ROFESSOR Niyi Osundare, renowned teacher and prolific writer, is the winner of this year’s Nigerian National Order of Merit (NNOM) Award.

He is the lone winner of the seventh in the series of the award instituted by the Federal Government to honour citizens who are distinguished in their disciplines.

The emergence of the multiple award winner was announced yesterday by the Chairman, Governing Board of the Nigerian National Merit Award, Prof Etim Moses, at a press briefing in Abuja.

He spoke of Osundare’s “outstanding scholarship, researches and services to humanity in the field of humanities” all of which he said have made the winner a household name not only in Nigeria but beyond.

“Niyi Osundare, a poet, dra-

Gbenga OMOKHUNU, Abuja matist and an essayist, has been Nigeria’s noted nature poet of English language expression, and a readily accessible serious poet, who sets out to engage the reader, and has made a most significant contribution to the Nigerian poetic English diction,” Prof Moses said.

He will be invested with the award by President Goodluck Jonathan on Thursday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Moses urged that regardless of the prevailing socio-economic environment in which professionals find themselves in the country, they should develop their intellect for national and global benefits.

The NNMA, was established by the Federal Military Government of Nigeria by Act No. 53 of 1979 and was amended by Act No 96 1992, CAP 122 LFN, 2004.

Winners prepare for 2014 Shiloh

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EMBERS of the Living Faith Church World wide, popularly known as Winners Chapel, have begun feverish preparations for this year’s Shiloh.

The theme of this year’s Shiloh, an annual gathering of winners all over the world at the church headquarters in Ota, Ogun State, is “Heaven on Earth.” It holds from Tuesday December 9 to Saturday December 13.

As part of the preparations, the church has since commenced the usual pre-Shiloh services.

Apart from the usual prophetic blessings that hallmark those pre-Shiloh services, a unique touch has been added to this year’s services with the teachings and prayer sessions anchored on godliness, the practice of righteousness.

This is aimed at spiritually “cleaning up” the saints to properly position them for the “Heaven on Earth” blessings at

Shiloh.

The church has also been holding the usual pre-Shiloh district rallies to mobilise people for the annual event, which is always hallmarked by unusual miracles, signs and wonders and a great “word feast.”

As usual, various service groups and church workers are not left out of the feverish preparations by organising trainings and other programmes to prepare their members for Shiloh.

On its part, the Crowd Control Unit (CCU) has already pasted short but beautiful banners around the massive church premises with thoughtprovoking, scripture-based wordings aimed at sensitising people and rev up their expectations for Shiloh.

Two Sundays ago, CCU also organised a pre-Shiloh training for all its members to hone their crowd control skills to manage the usually massive influx of multitudes expected to attend Shiloh.

CAC Oke Iyanu, Oshodi holds harvest

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HRIST Apostolic Church, Oke-Iyanu, Olowoporoku, Mafoluku, Oshodi will be celebrating its annual harvest tomorrow, November 30, at the church auditorium by 11am.

The event would have in attendance personalities from all walks of life ,especially members from the district headquarters in Mafoluku, CAC Wonderland and its environs.

The theme of this year's thanksgiving is “Giving Qualifies Your Receiving”

News 5

The District Superintendent of the church, Pastor J. A Oni; the Curate Pastor, Pastor R. O. Owolabi and the entire church members,in a statement, expressed gratitude to God for granting them the opportunity for the celebration and thanked the Zonal Chairman, Pastor G. O. A Dare, for his unfliching support to the church.

Pastor Oni, in a short interview, called on all members of the church to pray for a peaceful Christmas and blessings during the new year.

all aspirants at your screening to faithfully implement the manifesto of the party. That manifesto is people-oriented.".

He described the five presidential aspirants of the APC as capable hands any of whom,he said, “will beat the PDP candidate.”

Of Kwankwaso,he said: “We are getting our form from somebody with tremendous experience. The APC is very proud of you.

"We have been monitoring your movement and your utterances and I want to commend you for being a party builder, a consensus builder and for carrying the touch of the party throughout the length and breadth of this nation. " People look at you, people hear you, people are endeared to you and begin to develop

love for the APC where ever you have appeared.

"I am very glad at the decorum that all our aspirants have shown in pursuit of their efforts to become the official candidate of the APC. I thank you because until now, apart from a few minor slips, you have all had a beautiful campaign.”

He said that Nigeria is currently going through challenging and difficult times, but pledged that the APC “ is going to provide this nation with a steady, experienced and capable leader that can lead this nation out of the woods and take these challenges seriously."

Speaking after submitting his nomination form, Governor Kwankwaso said that the leadership of the nation must be prepared to deliver free, fair and transparent elections

which will be acceptable to all Nigerians and the international community.

He was confident that if he got the APC ticket more than half of PDP members would vote for him.

He said the party is strong enough across the country .

"In Kano, for example, we have constituencies where you have as many as 16 aspirants and that is a clear indication of the popularity of the party because there are parties that are begging people to come and collect forms,” he said.

“We have seen it in some states where the PDP is begging some people to come and collect the forms for free. Our forms are not free, but people are struggling to get them because APC forms are like gold.

"We are aware that so many

people have seen the light and are joining the progressives today. So, you can be rest assured that we are going to win many of the states in addition to the centre. We are going to work even harder to make sure that I clinch the ticket of the party which I believe will be in the interest of the APC and this country.

"With my candidature, you can be rest assured that more than half of PDP members will vote for me during the general election because many of them are my friends and they wanted to cross over to the APC, but for very obvious reasons, especially because of blackmail and intimidation, they are finding it extremely difficult to leave that party. We are happy that they are still there and we will meet with them during the election.”

•City Solicitor, Yinka Adeyemi, and wife, Morin, at the call to the Bar ceremony of their daughter, Similoluwa, in Abuja recently

N1.4m fraud: Court jails prison controller for seven years

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judge of the Kogi State High Court, Justice J.J. Majebi, yesterday jailed a Deputy Controller of Prisons, Joseph Friday Idachaba, for seven years imprisonment for offences bordering on obtaining money by false pretence.

A statement by the Head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr. Wilson Uwujaren, said the agency secured the conviction of the top prison officer.

The statement said: “The EFCC on Friday (yesterday) secured the conviction of a top

Yusuf ALLI, Managing Editor, Northern Operation prison officer.The convict is to pay the sum of N1, 403,114.09 in restitution to Nigeria Prison Service.

"Arraigned in 2012 on a three-count charge, the convict was found guilty on count three of the charge by the trial judge, who, however, acquitted him on two remaining counts.

"Count three of the charge reads: 'That you Joseph Friday Idachaba (m) being a deputy

controller of Nigeria Prison Service, and Onoja D. Ruth (IP) also a staff of Nigeria Prison Service, sometime between July, 2012 to February 2013 at Lokoja, Kogi State did with intent to defraud obtain N1,403,114.09 only from the Federal Government of Nigeria via the Nigeria Prison Service with pretence that same amount was the payment of monthly salaries from Nigeria Prison Service, which amount was credited into the UBA Plc account No 2054047736 belonging to one Opia

Mohammed Ugbade (now at large), through NIGSS electronic fund transfer (NEFT) between July 2012-to February 2013.

"That the said Opia Mohammed Ugbade’s name found in the Nigeria Prison Service electronic payroll is not a staff of the service which pretence you knew to be false and hereby committed an offence contrary to section 1(1) paragraphs A&B and punishable under section 1(3) of the Advance Free Fraud and Other Related Offences Act."

APC data centre raid: DSS defies court order

The Department of State Security Services (DSS) yesterday defied an order made by Justice Mohammed Yunusa of the Federal High Court by refusing to produce five detained workers of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The judge on Wednesday barred the DSS from the APC’s data centre which it raided.

He also ordered it to produce the detained workers - Chinedu Atuche, Fayemi Olaposi, Chika Augustine Onochukwu, Ebun Ilori and Esther Enemuwe.

The judge gave the orders in respect of the case of enforcement of human rights filed by APC's lawyer, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo (SAN).

The court ordered that the DSS should unseal the data office/warehouse located at 10, Bola Ajibola Street, off Allen

Joseph JIBUEZE Avenue, Ikeja, Lagos, forthwith.

It gave an interim order restraining the respondent (DSS) from further sealing off the office or taking further steps in connection with the property.

With regard to the five data entry workers being held in custody by the DSS, the court ordered the respondent to produce them in court yesterday to explain to it why they are still being held.

The court, however, did not give any order regarding the release of the seized equipment, including server and computer.

But the DSS defied the order, refusing to produce the workers, who will spend the weekend in detention.

The police was not repre-

sented yesterday, but DSS' lawyer, Peter Okerinmodun, said the agency was unaware of the court's order.

This is despite that the applicants' lawyer provided a proof of service to the agency.

"My appearance today is from what I read in newspapers. One newspaper said the matter came up at Ikeja (high court)," Okerinmodu said in response to a question from the judge on why he was in court.

"I made contact with (SSS) headquarters to ascertain the authenticity. They said there was no service on them. Even as at this morning, nobody has confirmed. So I was not briefed," he said.

Earlier, Osinbajo said both the police and the DSS were duly served, but the latter refused to accept service at their Lagos office.

"The first respondent (the police) we served here (Lagos) and in Abuja. We also served the second respondent (SSS).

Pursuant to the orders of this court, same processes were served in Abuja and they were accepted. Proof of service is in the court's file," Osinbajo said.

"The SSS ought to, in obedience of the orders of my lord, produce the five applicants today (yesterday)," he added.

Okerinmodun sought a short adjournment to enable him "sort out" himself.

"I want to get across to Abuja to know whether they have been served. We are never known for disobeying my lord's orders," said the lawyer.

Osinbajo expressed reservations at the DSS counsel's claims, noting that the judge's orders were unambiguous.

THE NATION, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2014

COMMENTARY

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Balance of power, terror and values HE presidential system in Nigeria is under serious stress nowadays and for obvious reasons. In reality it is normal for any system to have problems either structural, systemic or functional. When however, such problems threaten the very existence of a multicultural democratic society such as ours, then there is great cause for urgent concern.

That was the situation in Nigeria in this last week as the nation prepared for the 2015 presidential elections with the incumbent president seeking re election. The political system is overheated with violent words and actions. The economic system is struggling with the widest income disparity in recent times even as our oil Minister becomes the president of OPEC in these times of falling oil prices. Which can only make our revenue fall and catapult our poverty stricken masses into deeper misery in the midst of plenty in the present governance dispensation.

Our security apparatus too is in turmoil as the Army Chief refused at first to speak freely with legislators when summoned to the National Assembly while the Police Inspector General on his own visit simply refused to acknowledge the status of the Speaker, the head of the legislative institution that summoned him in the first instance. In the hallowed chambers of our Senate there are reports that 63 senators have signed on to impeach our president in a senate of 109 members. Mean while in Osogbo, the capital of Osun state, opposition leaders celebrated the second coming of the governor of the state, with the Colossus of South West politics Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu telling Nigerians to come out bravely and unseat the present president at the coming polls, as the nation has reached the nadir of suffering and frustration on the incumbent’s watch and he just must go in 2015.

Yet, in the midst of all these high tension the presidential spokesman was reported to have said that the incumbent president is the best president that Nigeria has ever had and would be rewarded with re election in 2015. This was the same week that Boko Haram reportedly killed 48 Nigerian fish vendors at Dogon Fili, 15 kilometres from Doron Baga a fishing village on the shores of Lake Chad in Borno State.

Doron Baga itself is 180 kilometres from Maiduguri and is the base of the Multi National Joint Task Force – MNJTF- made up of troops from Nigeria, Chad and Niger fighting Boko Haram in the area. Of course we still know that the over 200 abducted Chibok girls are yet to be found. Which certainly bring us face to face with the nagging question of how Nigeria got to this very sorry pass or situation, how to get out of the rut and those expected to bell the cat in this regard.

Let me start by saying that our values in terms of morals and culture have nose dived a lot from the time we got our independence in 1960. In addition the many military interventions in our politics have polluted our political culture with corruption, lack of transparency and accountability and the political system has allowed our social capital to be destroyed by these value or cultural deterioration. By social capital I mean the beliefs, values and attitudes of a society and nation that make people trust each other and cooperate to have progress in their environment.

I mean our Institutional Capital like our property and ownership laws, respect for the rule of law, our bureaucracy and government institutions, firms that employ and produce goods and services and train and compensate their staff; Knowledge Capital like universities, copy rights and think tanks; Human capital

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In defence of Okupe, his gang and his vomit!

Knucklehead

RESIDENTIAL aide on public affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, is an irritant with a cause however ignoble you may think it is. He is doing everything in his office to bulldoze his face into our homes every day. Hate him or love him, the Ogun State born medical doctor is damn good in the discharge of his responsibility which necessarily involves hitting hard at anyone who dares to punch holes in his principal's so-called transformative strides. When he was appointed as Special Assistant on Public Affairs some years back, it was clear that his job schedule would involve barking and shouting down a growing band of armchair critics who would not allow President Goodluck Jonathan to patiently enjoy his run of luck in Aso Rock. He came on board at a time when the President's popularity rating was criminally dwindling as his spokesperson, including the then Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, ran from pillar to post in their largely unsuccessful effort to put some positive spin on an ugly downward slide. The lot fell on Okupe's fat (no pun intended) shoulders, to inject some political aggressiveness and fiery rascality into the President's public relations strategy.

Of course, going by precedents, no one has ever done this kind of job in Nigeria bearing a crest of morality on his chest and dabbing his face with a sweet-scented powder of reason. It is not a job meant for those who cannot turn logic on its head and twist the tale in favour of their principal---the greatest man that ever lived in Nigeria (if you believe those grossly fallacious advertisements). On this job, you simply cannot afford to see a fault in your principal. He is infallible, perfect and saintly. To be honest, I laugh when some unschooled and politically ignorant social media activists take umbrage against Okupe for the 'recklessness' with which he defends every policy of the government. I snigger when I read piles of critical commentaries, castigating Okupe for daring to discharge his duty to the best of his abilities. I shiver each time I recollect that Okupe's name was missing in the last National Honours' list. Personally, I believe someone in The Presidency or in the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation did a great disservice to

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like skills, insights and capabilities and Cultural Capital which are our beliefs and goals of a society or a nation’s way of life. It is my contention that the trust of our founding fathers at independence has been betrayed such that our present leaders no longer trust each other to play by the rules and that is why our political system is so overheated that we cannot cooperate to stop Boko Haram or trust any one outside ourselves, our enclave or environment to protect us and our property. That explains why those in power rig shamelessly to stay in power and those without power rig to get in. Yet our motto as a nation is still ‘unity in diversity ‘which then at independence was based on trust which now seems to have deserted our political culture or cultural firmament for now.

Nevertheless we can still hope that all is not lost and we should see some light at the end of our dark and gloomy cultural and political tunnel But first we must tell ourselves some home truths before the 2015 elections. Our present constitution is based on the presidential system of government premised on the separation of powers among the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. Each arm of government is equal and they are to cooperate and operate in between and betweext. The security services and armed forces are under the control of their civilian and elected officers and the closure of the National Assembly to legislators by the police should not have occurred. It should be unthinkable for that to happen in any democracy where actors play by the rules and respect each other. Similarly the posture of a police Inspector General refusing to acknowledge the title and presence of a Speaker in his parliament is an official effrontery on the legislature and an assault on our democracy. It is a dangerous trend and the IG has to be purged of his disdain and disrespect for constituted authority.

In Mexico where 43 students disappeared the Mexican president has called for police reforms on a massive scale all over Mexico. A similar measure could be put in place here at least before the 2015 elections as police actions in the legislative fracas and the attitude of the IG have ominously created mistrust on police impartiality on the count down to the 2015 elections.

It is apparent our separation of powers is under serious challenges in the way we are operating nowadays. It could be pre election syndrome or jitters for our politicians afraid of losing power in the coming elections or pre power acquisition stress for power seekers. What is needed is urgently however is strong, dedicated leadership that has respect for our constitutional separation of powers, and wields enough deterrence to make those with scant regard for the rule of law to have a quick rethink or acknowledge that they cannot operate in the same environment with such leaders in control.

Again I want to look at three leaders in the opposition APC party because APC is the credible alternative to the PDP which has led us to the present impasse where the balance of power has not been used successfully to deter and extinguish the terror, perfidy and insurgency of Boko Haram. Which makes it extravagant

too to discuss what the candidate of the ruling party has to offer since their spokesman has already deemed him the best president Nigeria has ever had and we know the buck stops on his desk for the present impasse and political hiatus.

The three leaders are retired General Buhari, former Vice President Abubakar Atiku and the usually red capped Governor of Kano State Rabiu Musa Kwankwanso. I am ignoring the other two presidential primaries candidates because I don’t think they have any chance of getting the candidature of APC .Again like I said before on our deteriorating democratic and social values some home truths have to be said. First I acknowledge that General Buhari is the front runner in this contest because he has been head of state before and has contested for the same office twice before. But that popularity too can be an albatross. Can he be third time lucky? Must he contest for a third time? And is there a dearth of leadership with his mettle and reputation for sternness and discipline ?My answer to the three questions are a resounding No. So unless the other two candidates step down for him I think the APC should set its presidential sights elsewhere.

On Abubakar Atiku let me first of all congratulate him for his boldness and doughtiness in changing the views of the legislature, at least the House of Representatives that the state of emergency has not worked before and should not be extended in the three states of the North East presently affected. That has made him to secure his catchment area which is Adamawa state and that has given him a locus and relevance to contest for our presidency.

Obviously from his published pleas on the plight of the Nigeria state and his renowned organisational ability it is clear he will be a strong candidate to contest for the presidency. But again has he the mettle to deter Boko Haram and shift the balance of terror and deterrence against Boko Haram? I honestly do not think so especially as his home state is still part of the Killaphate of Boko Haram. He has already said that he would work with anyone picked by the party. Which I think is sporty except that this is not a time for games.

Which leaves us with the third candidate, Rabiu Kwankwanso the Governor of Kano who really I think is the man to beat in the APC Presidential primaries, and I say this with all seriousness.

Again let us go back to our stand on decaying values on democracy and institutions and the need to say the truth. In terms of the Management of institutions and political development Kwankwanso has an edge over the other two candidates. It has been acknowledged in Sociological circles that ‘Culture Matters‘ which really is the title of a book I read recently. It is said that cultural values determine human progress in any environment especially when they are linked with innovation, competition and democracy. Kwankwanso who is 58 years old presents a new face with modern achievements in Kano State and should be encouraged to give a new face to leadership in Nigeria. To me he should be given a chance to lead just as the Americans stunned the world a while back by choosing Barak Obama the first black President and a Professor of Law. Kwankwanso is a Fellow of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, a two term Governor who has fixed and is re fixing Kano such that the masses of that state know – Kano is working. He was a Federal Minister of Defence. Let us look forward to man educated enough in engineering to fix machines, structures and systems to bring his immense practical and professional knowledge, experience and innovation to fix our decaying political system and institutions That is the change we need to be hopeful for the future from 2015. He, really, is the Man to beat. So let the Presidential Primaries of Hope in the APC begin.

With

Yomi Odunuga E-mail:yomi.odunuga @thenationonlineng.net SMS only: 07028006913

Okupe's sense of duty. That such a nationalist’s name was missing is a national calamity. It should not happen again! From all indications, Okupe should have been one of the recipients of the same honours that was dashed one 'Alhaji' who led thugs to scale the gates of the National Assembly in defiance of intelligence reports as captured by the a Inspector General of Police and Chief Judge of the Federal Government, Mr. Suleiman Abba.

Or didn't we listen to Okupe as he blamed the fenceclimbing lawmakers while commending the tear-gas throwing men in black for their professional conduct in the face of unwarranted provocation? Hmnnnnn. As one of the editors here would put it: Haba, Abba!

Now, let me fire straight from the hips: it is unfair to label Okupe the government's Rottweiler for repeatedly drumming it into our dead eardrums that Jonathan remains the best leader of all times in our chequered history. Trust me. I would have led the band of critics to lambast him if he had not justified that position with some unassailable facts. On this matter, he took advantage of his background in medicine in clinically dissecting the achievements of his boss. We must also understand that the task was made difficult by the fact that he was responding to allegations of dismal failure made against Jonathan by Okupe's former boss, the wily old fox in Ota Farms, ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo. Why should we deny Okupe a rare opportunity to gloat when the accus-

er-in-chief was the same individual that once hired and fired him from Aso Villa? Do we expect him to sit his ass down while Obasanjo runs riot with his sacrilegious condemnation of everything Jonathan, an apprentice undertaker who has exceeded his master, OBJ's inglorious marks? How then can Okupe look his principal in the face and justify his pay with all the perquisites that come with barking down on critical elements?

Besides, in this era of do-or-die politics, it is a risky business to allow anyone to have a monopoly of mouth diarrhoea. It would have been politically suicidal for this hardworking man to look the other way when the man who foisted a Jonathan on us not only declared him an abysmal failure but also clueless and inept. Aside his biting letters to wit The Presidency had duly responded to, 'Baba' - as Obasanjo is fondly called by those who worship at his altar of political mischief - has personally taken the battle of a sore relationship between a godfather and his godson to the doorstep of Jonathan. On Wednesday, Baba Iyabo was at it again, hitting his estranged political godson hard on the groin.

He said his pick for the vice presidential slot under the late President Umaru Yar'Adua's short-lived regime continues to wring his hands in surrender as the Boko Haram menace has become a 'big industry' in his government. He blurted, with sniggering candour, that Jonathan wasted three solid years before he could do anything tangible in confronting the deadly activities of a sect that has crippled the economy of the entire North-East geo-political zone of Nigeria. He said any well-meaning government would have come up with a workable strategy to mediate what was evidently an impending implosion for oil-producing countries with the discovery of shale oil.

The failure to be proactive, he noted, has led to the hurried announcement of the devaluation of the Naira and some austerity measures, which would hurt the average Nigerian the more. He said this government, if allowed to continue with its pussyfooting on all matters of state, might end up borrowing huge funds to ruin the country.

• Continued on page 61

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Austere measures in a profligate regime Saturday Flakes

have always known that ordinary Nigerians will suffer dysentery from the excess sugar consumed by the minders of Aso Rock. It therefore did not come as a surprise that the Minister of Finance and Supervising Minister of the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, adjusted the big frames of her glasses at a press conference in Abuja last week and told already pummelled Nigerians to tighten their belts for tougher times. Flanked by the Director-General, Budget Office of the Federation, Dr Bright Okogu; the Accountant-General of the Federation, Mr. Jonah Otunla; the Acting Chair, FIRS, Alhaji Kabir Mashi, and other top government officials, Okonjo-Iweala said the Federal Government had decided to adopt austerity measures as a buffer for the economy in the face of a dwindling oil price in the international market.

Assuring Nigerians that the Jonathan economic team was on top of the situation, the minister said: “Every country that is well managed doesn’t just sit and allow a situation to happen to them.

If they are well managed, they prepare the right set of policies to deal with the situation. Those days when we used to be like that in the ‘80s and ‘90s are over. In the ‘80s, when we had shock, we didn’t take measures by ourselves to adjust. We waited for others to come and tell us how to adjust. But now we have competent teams and our job is not to sit and wait, but, to craft a set of policies that will help us to address the shocks. We are not talking about salaries and benefits. We are talking of training and travels, and these will be only for critical and essential items which will be pre-approved by the Head of Service and the Director-General of the Budget Office. The purpose of this is to tell you what we are doing and this (economic) team is calm and will be effective and we are working with the monetary policy authorities and together we will manage the economy in a transparent manner so that people need not have any fear.”

To be sure, it is not the first time a Nigerian government would adopt austerity measures in critical economic situations. Indeed, advocates of cyclical history must have heaved a sigh of vindication after last week’s announcement by the minister. Shortly after it seized power from the wasteful civilian administration of Alhaji Shehu Shagari in the Second Republic, the Muhammadu Buhari-led military administration had adopted similar measures to save the country’s economy from imminent collapse. The Gen. Ibrahim Babangida-led junta between 1985 and 1993 is also remembered for its Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP).

The only misgiving about the latest call for sacrifice is that it is coming from a civilian administration that has little or no regard

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THE NATION, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2014

COMMENTARY

With

Vincent Akanmode vincentakanmode@yahoo.com SMS only: 08034426263 for prudent management of the nation’s resources. And contrary to Okonjo-Iweala’s claim that the executive arm of government had in its discussions on national budgets with the National Assembly in the last three years consistently advocated prudence and low benchmark to encourage more savings, the records show that the administration has been one of the most reckless.

In 2005, the Obasanjo administration successfully negotiated a debt write-off deal of about $18 billion after a cash payment of about $12 billion to free the nation from the Paris Club debts of over $30 billion. Today, the nation’s debt stock stands at more than $44 billion because the government cannot control its propensity to borrow and spend at will.

The nation’s budgets under the Jonathan administration have seen billions of naira dedicated to all manner of funny items from chewing stick to chewing gum. Why, for instance, would the government budget N2.2 billion for a banquet hall in Aso Rock or propose N34.5 million for the feeding of lions in the zoo at the presidential villa when millions of Nigerians do not know where their next meal would come from? In the 2014 budget, for instance, the government, which already had 10 aircraft in its fleet, proposed another sum of N1.6 billion as deposit for another aircraft to raise the number to 11. In 2011 alone, about N18 billion was said to have been spent to maintain the president’s jet.

Consider against the fact that the Queen of England and the British Prime Minister have no private jets, but depend on the British Airways for their flights, one would begin to appreciate the extent to which our leaders are insensitive to the plight of ordinary Nigerians.

Following the public outcry that greeted the addition of three

jets to the presidential fleet in 2010, President Jonathan had told Nigerians to be constructive in their criticisms “so that we do not inadvertently encumber the rebuilding of our nation.” He had said “the President of Nigeria must be transported safely at all times. The cost may seem exorbitant now, but it would be impossible to put a price tag on good governance and an efficiently run country, a promise that this administration is determined to deliver.” His position contrasts sharply with that of another African leader, President Joyce Banda of Malawi, who had to sell the only plane the president had with a fleet of 60 limousines because she considered it an unwarranted luxury in a povertystricken nation. As the story goes, upon receiving an invitation from Nigeria to attend a function in Abuja last year, President Banda wrote back and said she would not be coming because she could not afford the cost of transporting herself to Nigeria, prompting the presidency to dispatch a jet in his own fleet to convey her.

If therefore there is any apprehension from the populace in respect of the call for sacrifice, it would be because those who should be leading by example are complacently flaunting their wealth while the ordinary man is made to shed sweat and blood.

Right now, even the blind would see the hands of the presidency in the ongoing billion-dollar campaign of the Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN) for the re-election of President Jonathan in 2015. Spurred by the urge for survival and the prospects of cheap money, desperate Nigerians have become pawns on the chessboard of TAN managers, who toss them up and down the landscape to sing Jonathan’s praises and declare him the messiah while the nation perishes under his watch.

Deluding themselves that Jonathan has been sufficiently marketed at home, the managers of TAN have taken their venture abroad. They have not only organised pro-Jonathan rallies in Ghana, South Africa, Canada, France and the USA, they have also wasted millions of dollars advertising the President on CNN, BBC, Supersport, Aljazeera and other international radio and television stations, leaving many to wonder if there are plans to take the additional polling booths rejected in Nigeria to the aforementioned countries.

So far, the government has given the impression that only the rich will be made to pay for the nation’s dwindling economic fortune, but discerning Nigerians are not deceived. With the emerging state of affairs, the government will soon hit on its usual joker: a hike in the pump price of fuel.

Agbal’ode: A tribute to Tunji Oyelana at 75 N Saturday, 4th October, this year, actor, singer, composer, activist, and gentleman, Uncle Tunji Oyelana was 75 years old. The former leader of the defunct Benders Band whose popular numbers include Agbal’ode, Alaaru to nje buredi, Guguru perere, epa perere, among others, is a great achiever with an humble disposition.

In 2009, when Uncle Tunji clocked 70 years, his wife, Kikelomo, and a journalist / media consultant, Mr. Segun Fajemisin, published a commemorative book titled, “70 –plus cheers for 70years of Tunji Oyelana”. I contributed to that book and my piece was adapted for some national dailies (for ease of reference the Sunday Tribune issue of October 11, 2009) with the above title.

My 70th birthday tribute of 2009 is reproduced below to celebrate Uncle Tunji Oyelana at 75. Please savour it.

“First, I congratulate Uncle Tunji on his 70th birthday. I consider it a privilege and a right to have been invited to contribute to this commemorative publication in celebration of the 70th birthday of our affable uncle. Please allow me to explain. “ A privilege in the sense that one has been considered worthy to join notable contributors which include Uncle Tunji’s family members, relations, colleagues, admirers and as I am bound to be correct, his world-famous wordsmith ‘Oga’.

“It is also my right, as a long time (over 40 years) admirer and aburo of the world-class theatre and music icon – TUNJI OYELANA (Yeepa, my mouth deep inside ‘orunla’ soup pot!) Need I explain that Yoruba culture considers it a taboo for anyone to call his/her elder or senior by name, hence, my exclamation in bracket above. E jowo, e fori jin mi.

“My early contact with Uncle Tunji dated back to the early 1960’s and the nexus was the now defunct Western Nigeria Television Service (Africa’s First Television Station) and Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service (WNTV-WNBS) both in Ibadan, where he and other talented artistes, actors and actresses, under the leadership of Africa’s first Nobel Laureate, Professor ’Wole Soyinka, gave immeasurable pleasure to the viewers and listeners vide the Armchair and Ori Olokun Theatres.

“My beloved late father, Pa AbdulRahim Oladosu Alabi alias ‘Right Time’ played a major role in my connection with the arts, radio and television. Besides engaging his senior friend, the late Yusufu Olatunji alias ‘Baba l’Egba’ and his Sakara band to play at my naming party in Ibadan in November 1950, he also bought me a Panasonic transistor radio set in 1963.

“Father’s wise decision liberated his PYE radiogram and Gerrad record changer from my regular invasions. It also gave me unfettered freedom to listen to the many stars paraded on WNTV-WNBS channels, Uncle Tunji inclusive.

“By 1968, I had become a regular attendant at WNTV’s “Come, let’s dance show” compered by the late talented broadcaster/lawyer, Auntie Toun Adeyemi, “Any Question” quiz programme hosted on TV by the late Uncle Yinka Johnson and Chief Dipo Babalola on radio. I hold the record of winning WNBS highest quiz prize of 100 guineas in 1969.

“My regular participation on WNTV dance show especially led to my admission to the prestigious circle of the late Chief Afolabi Majekodunmi, alias ‘King of Boys’. His train of jolly men, women and boys would move from the Television House, Agodi after each show to Kongi Club, Adamasingba where Uncle Tunji’s the Benders was the resident band or to any other social party of the “King of Boys” picking. It was indeed a rollicking era.

“At the Kongi Club, the Benders thrilled us to the hilt. I recollect

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Oloye ‘Lekan ALABI

• Oyelana some members of the band such as; Uncle Daodu, Haastrup, and Gbade Sanda. Uncle Tunji, the leader of the band is the toast now as he celebrates his graceful entry into the enviable septuagenarian club-Agba l’o de!

In the 70s, Uncle Tunji’s Benders Band entertained us with soul music with the African folklore flavor. He, Fela, Victor Uwaifo, Segun Bucknor, Joni Haastrup etc contained very well the surge of Western soul/pop music. His hit, “Agba l’ode” remains evergreen. He was and still is, versatile as a singer and actor. You need to see him perform at his EMUKAY CLUB in London.

“Uncle Tunji has always been down-to-earth, accommodating, witty, cheerful and respectable. He obliged, gratis, with his band performance at my 40th birthday party in Ibadan in October 1990, one of my book launches at Premier Hotel, Ibadan in 1994 (the late Eddie Okonta also performed), and at my 30th wedding anniversary dinner at his Emukay Club in Camberwell, London, United Kingdom in August 2008. At my 40th birthday party, Uncle Tunji handed over to me all the money sprayed him by my guests! Iyen ga ju, Sir. A pointer to his magnanimity. But, I need to recall how Uncle Tunji brought his band to entertain my guests, pro bono in 1990.

“I wish to, through this tribute, not only wish the great musician many happy returns, but reciprocate (not retaliate a la the late President Idi Amin of Uganda) his kind gesture vide the surprise 40th birthday gift to my humble self in 1990.

“Of course, many people will recall how the late Idi Amin was swept off his feet by the sumptuous dinner hosted by the Queen of England in his honour in London in the 1970s; prompting him to utter in his post-dinner speech that, “We are fed up by the Queen, and I promise to retaliate when she visits us in Uganda”. So, this piece is not an Idi Amin style retaliation as stated earlier.

What gift did Uncle Tunji present to me in 1990? I had sent invitations to my guests including Uncle Tunji and his wife, Kikelomo, weeks before the October 27th date, engaged the services of caterers and the Ebenezer Obey – led Inter Reformers Band from Lagos to entertain. The day was heralded with prayers and as we got ready to receive our guests, the gateman came into the house to inform me that an advance crew of the band was at the gate. Surprise, it was not Obey’s crew I was expecting from Lagos, but that of Tunji Oyelana!.

“I asked the manager if he understood Uncle Tunji’s instructions well before heading to my Jericho GRA Ibadan residence, as I had invited the maestro and his wife, as my guests and not as entertainers. The manager confirmed Uncle Tunj is instructions and within minutes, they chose a spot and the crew started arranging their instruments and seats. Before the commissioned band could twang its guitars, Uncle Tunji and his men had started blowing away our minds softly with their soulful songs. Besides playing gratis on that day, Uncle Tunji handed over to me all monies sprayed him by my guests. What a great soul he has!

“There was a repeat performance by him at my book launch in 1994 at the Premier Hotel, Ibadan while the icing on the cake was the superlative performance by him and the very warm hospitality

by Kike at our 30th wedding anniversary dinner at their EMUKAY Club on Camberwell Road, London, United Kingdom on August 17th last year. By the way, EMUKAY is derived from Mrs. Oyelana’s initials (Malvis Kikelomo).

“Once again, I congratulate our cheerful Uncle on his 70th birthday and wish him many more seasons of good health, joy and peace. I also extend my felicitations to his lovely and loyal wife, Kikelomo, our dear aburo and the children. As Uncle Tunji sings in one of his albums “Awon omugo po nile yi….” (Fools abound in this land) little wonder Britain now enjoys the warmth of the talent hounded out of his own home. O mase lara awon omugo yi o.

“Please I have a request, can I be allowed to sing at the 70th birthday party like I did at his 50th birthday party at Bodija, Ibadan? I will love to render a Baba l’Egba’s number for the newly emerged Baba from Egbaland, even though Uncle Tunji’s roots are from Irolu, Remo Division of Ogun State. He was born at Abeokuta on October 4, 1939 to the late Pa. Zaacheus Oyenuga Oyelana and Mama Eunice Ope-Oluwa Oyelana, nee Afinsulu. Talking about legacies, Uncle Tunji pioneered ‘small’ bands in Nigeria, whereby musical bands of three or four members, entertain at parties satisfactorily as an ensemble of twenty or more members will do”.

Like many fans of Uncle Tunji do, my visit, whether on vacation or business, to London is incomplete without a night out at Emukay where Kike is the empress. I remember a particular outing at Emukay in 2006 in company of my Aremo (eldest male child) Olayemi and his friends.

As Olayemi and his friends needed to depart Emukay early, I went to bid Uncle Tunji and Kike goodbye. “Why are you leaving so early?” was Uncle Tunji’s reply. I explained that my hosts (Olayemi and his friends) were ready to return home. “Let them go, Kike and I will drop you home later”, was the kind offer I got from Uncle Tunji.

Who would miss such a great offer? I stayed back enjoyed myself thoroughly and enjoyed the promised free ride home.

May God spare Uncle Tunji’s life for more creativity and hospitality to the world. Amen.

•Oloye Alabi is the Aare Alaasa Olubadan of Ibadanland.

THE NATION, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2014

COMMENTARY 9

Overcoming this madness of insurgency ORE than any other issue in Nigeria today, the greatest concern is the security condition of the country. The problem of insecurity in Nigeria, which used to be one of the lowest in the pecking order of social problems facing our nation, has undoubtedly assumed alarming and disturbing proportions. Literarily on a daily occurrence, there are accounts of several security threats arising from assassinations, kidnappings, armed robberies, armed militancy, banditry, and insurgency. Thus far, our country has suffered plagues of crisis, each leading to scores of lives lost and the destruction of properties.

The recent spate of violence, killings and suicide bombings has deplorably assumed worrisome dimensions within the country. From insurgency in the North-Eastern part of the country, to ethnic crisis in the North-Central region, to militancy, vandalism and kidnappings in the South-South and South-Eastern parts of the country, to the armed robbery gangs and the emergent ritual killings in the South Western part of the country, alas, the current security situation has lamentably moved from the realm of security threat to an area of real and present danger.

Of more concern is the worsening security situation in the Northeastern part of the country, which is getting more and more worrisome by the day. We awake virtually every morning to gloomy and dispiriting news of senseless killings and destructions by insurgents in the region. More demoralizing was the recent insurgents attack via a suicide bomber at a secondary school in Yobe state, killing innocent children who were having morning assemblies before going to their classrooms, as is customary in Nigerian schools. Perusing various reports pertaining to the insurgency in the Northeastern region, between July 2009 and June 2014, the insurgents have killed more than 8,000 civilians, including at least 2,000 in the first half of this year. They have abducted more than 1000 women and children, including the infamous kidnapping of 276 teenage schoolgirls from Chibok in April this year. By August of this year, over 650,000 people had fled the area of conflict and reports suggest that there is an unprecedented increase of displaced citizens.

A recent report by the Internal Displaced Monitoring Centre and the Norwegian Refugee Council stated that the number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Nigeria is approximately a third of the IDPs in Africa and 10% of IDPs in the world, making Nigeria (with 3.3 million IDPs) the largest population of persons displaced by conflict in Africa. Thus far, the insurgents have spifflicated hundreds of schools and government buildings and devastated an already ravaged economy in the North East. The violence has consequently overstretched federal security services and apparatus. And with no end in sight, the violence seems to be spreading at an alarming rate over to other parts of the Northern region. As at the last count, the insurgents had captured about 9-LGAs in Borno State, 5-LGAs in Adamawa State and 2-LGAs in Yobe state. For a sovereign nation like Nigeria, this is preposterous, deplorable and highly unacceptable.

The current insurgency in the Northeastern region is both a serious security challenge and manifestation of more profound threats to Nigeria’s security. Unless the federal, state and local governments, as well as the affected region, develop and implement comprehensive and holistic plans to tackle, not only insecurity, but also the injustices that drive much of the troubles, such groups or religious sects will continue to undermine and subvert large parts of the country. While insurgency in the region can be attributed to the high levels of poverty, unemployment, education, religious extremism, other social ills and, perhaps more sinister covert agendas, curbing the problem of insurgency in the region would involve proffering both short-term and long-term solutions. The short-term approach involves improved security collabora-

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Insurgency: What shall we tell our children?

ET us take our mind back to that fateful day in Abuja when our children danced and thrilled the gathering of “who is who” in Nigeria. The occasion was the launching of the appeal fund for General Theophilus Danjuma led committee on Terror Victims Fund.

It was indeed a great day when our children made up of various tribes in a group took us back the memory lane recounting the adversities that continue to hunt the smooth existence of this great country of ours.

Whether we like it or not, they told us the good, the bad and the ugly with regards the happenings in the nation.

As leaders of tomorrow, they had the opportunity that fateful day to express their anguish about what they had observed in the drifting nation and they refused to let go the chance by doing and saying what needed to be said. Apparently disenchanted by the worrisome state of the country, the children said a lot and asked a series of questions.

Whether the children were coached or tutored to say or ask those questions is immaterial. The fact remained that their disposition and demonstration this time was timely, instructive and soul searching. In what appears like giving credence and endorsement to the feelings of the young ones on the occasion, the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’aad Abubakar stated unambiguously that the children had spoken and must be listened to. Indeed anyone could read between the lines.

The questions they asked were thought provoking, pricking, prodding, down to earth and demanding explanation. Here, I crave your indulgence to delve briefly into two of such questions. The children asked the then striking doctors of what had become of their morals and professional ethics that relate to saving of lives more so with the outbreak of Ebola threatening humanity. Turning to the current Boko Haram insurgency in the North-Eastern part of the country in particular and the attendant holocausts, the children asked: “Are there no sponsors? It was indeed an inundating question.

Except this question is answered and convincingly for that matter, all efforts or attempts to contain the insurgency might be an illusion as we may be putting the cart before the horse. It would amount to just pouring water in the basket which remains an exercise in futility.

Before now, there have been accusations and counter ones by groups or individuals as regards the alleged sponsors of Boko Haram insurgency. Starting from the North East Borno state to be precise, both the state bench of the People Democratic Party (PDP), the opposition party in the state and the state government have been accusing one another of sponsoring the Boko Haram sect.

On one of such occasions, the then State Commissioner for Information and Home Affairs Mr. Inuwa Bwala accused the PDP of masterminding the crisis in the state insisting that most of the victims of the crisis were APC members. The PDP in turn told Mr. Bwala to look into his party, the APC to find the culprits.

Similarly, some groups in the state accused the former Governor, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff of aiding and abetting the crisis in the state.

According to them, most of the time he came to Maiduguri, there was never any violence but the moment he left, violence would erupt.

However, the supporters or some groups loyal to Senator Sheriff rejected the tag of violence attributed to them. Rather, they pointed out that

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tion and intelligence sharing, in order to arrest security breaches in addition to recruiting local vigilantes, hunters and those in the community who have a stake in the affected areas (as we are already witnessing).

Reflective of the points that the Presidential committee on the insurgency in the region made, security lapses, inter-service rivalry and lack of collaboration are factors that have encouraged the proliferation of security crises in the Northern part of the country. The government must build and enhance its inter-agency cooperation, harmoniously sharing information and intelligence, collaborating in forestalling and preempting any likely security threat that would have lead to scores of casualties.

Also, the government via diplomatic channels and pacts should seek international intelligence and collaboration to ensure that crime of whatever scale is nipped in the bud. On their part, the citizens should cooperate with the security agencies by supplying them with prompt, useful and relevant information on likely security breaches. According to reports and as a matter of fact, there have been heroic instances by locals and indigenes within the troubled “hot spots”, successfully defeating and thwarting the advances of the insurgents with crude and local weapons. The military should immediately collaborate with such individuals or groups, formally conscripting them, albeit temporarily, in an attempt at further thwarting the advances of the insurgents. Thus being an indigene or local of such hot spots, these groups of people know the terrain and topography of the community very well. And more than anyone, they have a direct interest in ensuring that the violence in their locality is quelled. Accessing their knowledge and collaborating with them is vital if we really want to win the war against the insurgents.

Similarly, there have also been “unofficial” reports that the military lacks motivation in fighting the insurgents, perhaps due to the widely alleged lack of ammunitions and weaponry. However, one way the military can motivate its soldiers is by instilling the notion of patriotism in them, increasing their pay and remuneration and handsomely compensating the families of any soldier who dies during battle. Such compensations should involve huge cash rewards, scholarship for one or more of a family member up to tertiary level and an ownership occupier housing scheme, whereby the next of kin of a deceased soldier who died in battle would automatically assume ownership of the house.

This would go a long way in positively boosting the psyche and morale of a soldier, as he knows, in the event of his death during battle; his family would be taken care of.

In addition, the government should cease heavy-handed military and police methods that risk pushing yet more restless, jobless and frustrated youths into violence and extremism.

The long-term solutions involve a complete overhaul of the tradition-

al method of Quranic education. Public enlightenment campaigns discouraging the custom obtainable in the North of sending very young children to neighboring and far away towns with the aim of acquiring Quranic education has got to be stopped in light of this current crisis we find ourselves in. The Almajiri children are primarily catered and cared for by their Imams and religious tutors and minders. In most cases, their sheer numbers overwhelms their tutors and they are left to fend for themselves and beg on the streets. Some of these children hardly return home; they are vulnerable and provide a potential breeding ground for ill intentioned extremists. As a matter of fact, majority of the insurgents allegedly had their origins as Almajirs, and due to their lack of formal education, poverty and unemployment, become willing tools in the hands of a twisted, murderous and fundamentalist group.

The formal registration of all Quranic schools within the northern parts of the country should be done immediately. It may be necessary for a Regulatory Authority for a religious school or learning facility (both Christian and Muslim) directly linked to one of the arms of government to be established. Mandatory, rather than voluntary registration, curriculum reform, and financial control mechanisms for religious schools and learning facilities should be imposed. The tutors in these learning facilities should also be accordingly registered and known by the authorities, enabling government to keep track of activities and numbers of Muslim and Christian schools throughout the country. A government board can be set up and empowered to review and regulate a prescribed curriculum to be taught in the schools in order to support this scheme. All existing regulations for the registration of NGO’s should be reviewed in order to monitor infrastructure and tighten financial controls.

Officials have got to be trained and security monitoring systems have got to be updated so that authorities can link the necessary information together; including the individuals involved with the mandatorily registered religious schools, declaration of financial assets of the institutions, implementation of standardized curriculum and all financial gifts donated to registered religious centers. This would be vital in spotting a red flag and potential threat when necessary before it becomes a danger to Nigerians.

The reform of the religious educational system should also be encouraged throughout the country, by introducing a dual curriculum, presently introduced in Kano state. While acquiring religious education, these children should also be exposed to formal education, enabling them be more learned, enlightened and prime-placed to carve out a optimistic future for themselves.

Another solution that could be explored is communal monitoring systems, whereby members of a particular community should notify the head of the community or appropriate authorities, if a stranger comes into their midst, staying for long periods of time. Questions should be asked about the occupation, nature and scope of the stranger’s visit and possibly be documented. This would allow members of a community to keep track and alert the appropriate authorities on any undesirable element, plotting to wreck havoc on their community.

Also, security agencies should embark on the total elimination of private militias and organized groups that were and are established, funded and used particularly by politicians and individuals, to further their personal aspirations, later dumping such groups after having been trained to handle arms. This militia groups constitute a huge source of concern within our society, and for a fact, a sizeable amount of the current insurgents had their origins serving as private militia groups and thugs for some politicians.

Victor IZEKOR

• Shettima some mischief makers were out to tarnish his reputation. According to them, this was the case of giving a dog a bad name with the intention to hang it.

Even at the centre, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressive Congress (APC) have continued to trade words over the alleged sponsors of the Boko Haram crisis. While the APC has accused the Jonathan’s administration to be the mastermind of the insurgency, the PDP exonerated the party and told the APC that just as it pointed accusing finger at the party, it (APC) should note that by the same measure, the APC is already pointing four accusing fingers at itself.

However, of recent, the allegation over the sponsors of the insurgency by one group or the other took a more worrisome dimension with the allegation by one Mr. Stephen Davis who alleged that the former Governor of Borno State, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff and the former Chief of Army Lt. general Azubuike Ihejirika were the sponsors of the Boko Haram sect.

This weighty allegation no doubt sent shockwaves to the entire nation and there were reactions for and against. Some groups or individuals called for a probe on the allegation while others dismissed the same as mere propaganda. One of the groups that called for a thorough investigation is the APC, the opposition party.

However, in reaction to the allegation of Stephen Davis against Senator Ali Modu Sheriff and Lt General Azubuike Ihejirika, the

Directorate of the State Security (DSS) exonerated former while it pointed out the Senator Ali Modu Sheriff would be investigated.

However, before we could say Jack Robinson, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff threw a bombshell alleging that the Borno State government hired Stephen Davis to accuse him of sponsoring the Boko Haram sect.

Senator Sheriff who had earlier pointed out that he was being hunted by the APC ever since his defection to PDP, also accused the Borno State government of instructing the state owned Borno Radio and Television (BRTV) to air the allegations against him by Stephen Davis for four days to portray him in a bad light.

Senator Sheriff indicted the state government in Maiduguri while speaking to journalists after his visit to thousands of displaced people in some camps in the state capital. He added: “The purported video clip and allegation against me by Davis was hatched here in Maiduguri to smear my reputation for political gains. And the truth is that if I am a sponsor of the Boko Haram as claimed, it means 90 percent of those in government at present that are mounting the campaign of calumny against me are also sponsors of the Boko Haram because they were part and parcel of my government,” he said.

Responding, the Borno State government through the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Ambassador Baba Ahmed Jidda, said: “ Just two weeks ago, Sheriff told the world at a media briefing in Abuja that he was taking Davis to court in London or so and in reaction, the Nigerian media reported Davis saying he was ready to provide evidence in court in Australia or so.

On the other hand, the SSS said it was probing Sheriff over the allegation and President Goodluck Jonathan said last weekend through Reuden Abati that the security agencies were probing the allegations against Sheriff and findings would be made public. The question now is, why is Sheriff putting the cart before the horse? Why can’t he pursue his case in court, defend whatever evidence that was brought by Davis and clear his name? Also, why wouldn’t he wait for the findings of the Nigerian security agencies that said they are probing him as confirmed by the President? Since he said he is innocent, all he needs to do is to wait for the outcome of the court case and security probe. It is that simple.

For the record, let me say that it is a big embarrassment for the state government, the governor, myself or any citizen of the state for that matter that a Borno indigene is being associated with that grievous allegation because it stains our name as a state and as a people. Borno people are the worst hit by the Boko Haram activities. To say a Borno man is partly responsible is a big embarrassment that all of us condemn in totality because of the stigma it leaves on us.

This is how far the mystery surrounding the sponsorship of Boko haram sect has gone. It has remained as mere accusation and counter one and regrettably, our children’s question has not been answered. The question once more is: “Are there no sponsor of the Boko Haram sect?

This is what our children want to know. Except, the sponsors are located and dealt with, attempts or efforts to bring the insurgency to an end might be futile.

•Victor Izekor writes from Maiduguri.

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THE NATION SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2014

PEOPLE SOCIETY ROMANCE ENTERTAINMENT SPORTS

Grace OBIKE, Abuja

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THE NATION, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2014

A scene in October 1

Ade Love

The success so far recorded by October 1, a new film by Kunle Afolayan, has not just shone the spotlight on him. It has also got not a few thinking about what makes the larger Ade Afolayan showbiz family tick, writes OLUKOREDE YISHAU

Continued on Page 18

THE NATION, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2014

I now beg for survival, says 32-yr-old fire victim •Beautician seeks N3m for surgery S n Kunle AKINRINADE n

was transferred to Ikeja General Hospital where I again spent about three months. I was discharged after I underwent minor surgery.”

Sadly, while doctors were battling to restore Afusat’s severely damaged face, her six month-old baby had died for what she called absence of motherly care.

Hear her:” I was nursing a twomonth-old baby before the incident and she was handed to my mother for proper care. Unfortunately, she died while I was still in hospital. I was told that she probably died because of not having access to breast milk because she was not taking infant formula food before the incident that took me away from her for months.”

Her woes became compounded when her husband and her own mother deserted her because of her predicament leaving her with no one else than her aged father.

,

•Afusat before the incident.

Inset: The victim now

EVEN years after a domestic accident shattered Afusat Jimoh’s beautiful face and parts of her body, her hope of getting a restoration of her ravaged skin appears dim.

Afusat, who trained as a hairdresser, still wears horrific and repulsive looks, and vegetates in pain every day.

The 32-year-old indigene of Kwara State had fallen into fire that badly burnt her face and parts of her body.

Her story was first published in The Nation on July 21, 2012, wherein she recalled the ugly incident.

Afusat said: “It is a long story. But to cut it short, I used to feel dizzy, and whenever it happened I would fall down. I had been lucky to have people around who rescued me. But on a particular day I decided to visit one of my relations somewhere in Ejigbo, a Lagos suburb.

“On getting there, there was a need for me to assist my host to fry some meat.

When I had done that, the fire in the tripod made of three big stones with firewood was still burning.

Unfortunately, the dizziness recurred and overwhelmed me. I fell into the fire and my face was burnt beyond recognition. My arms and neck region were also burnt.’’

She also recalled the fruitless efforts made by sympathisers to reverse monstrous appearance through corrective surgery, saying: “By the time I was taken to a nearby hospital, my face, neck region and arms had been badly burnt. I spent about four months at the hospital before I

I am living with excruciating pains everyday and I often go out to beg for alms so as not to depend entirely on my father and uncle, because they do not have enough money to take care of me

,

“My husband had since deserted me because of my condition; we had been married for three years before the incident. But the one that pains me most is that of my mother who abandoned me. I don’t know where she lives now.

“My father and uncle, Mr. Abdullahi Ayinla, are the ones taking care of me with their paltry income. I am a beautician but people are scared of seeking my service because of my horrible looks. I have now resorted to begging to complement the little my father with whom I now live can afford. He is a courageous and dutiful father and he has not for any reason abandoned me to my fate.”

Afusat’s uncle, Ayinla explained: “I found it difficult to abandon her to fate. Her father is my brother and he lacks the financial resources to fund her surgery which doctors put at N3 million. We have approached the Lagos State government for assistance but we have not heard from the state government so far. She is battling with excruciating pains every day and her condition needs urgent help. I am appealing to people with kind spirit to come to her aid.”

Expatiating further on her travails, Afusat said: “I stopped schooling while I was in JSS3 at Ajumoni Secondary School, Isolo, Lagos State because my parent could not afford to sponsor my education. Although I am a trained beautician but I was selling clothes and beauty products before the incident.

“A charity organisation called Dot Human Development had sought information from an Indian hospital on the cost of face-lift surgery which is about N3million but we have not been

Continued on page 20

Utomi, Onosode, others unite against child trafficking, sexual abuse OTABLE Nigerians, including renowned technocrat, Prof. Pat Utomi; Mr.Gamaliel Onosode and wife of Lagos State governor, Dame Abimbola Fashola, have called for a multiple approach in tackling child trafficking and sexual abuse in the country.

They spoke on Monday at the second Save a Child seminar held at the Nigeria Institute of International Affairs(NIIA), Victoria Island. The seminar with the theme:“Child Sexual Abuse and Trafficking: The Implication on Our Society”, was organised by Harmony Life family magazine.

Expressing his displeasure at the reversal of values in the country, Prof. Utomi canvassed for a return of the lost moral values in the society, to fight the malaise.

“Child trafficking and sexual abuse of children thrives because our society has suffered from a collapse of cultural values. Young people way back could be confident of the protection of the adult, but the reverse is the case now. We, therefore, need a moral rearmament because our values have greatly diminished.

“The youth too need to be serious; instead of surfing for useless materials on the internet, they should invest their time wisely. What would make them overcome the collapse of the norms are the values that will shape them into a better person.”

In her welcome address, the editor of the magazine

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n Kunle AKINRINADE n and brains behind the seminar, Mrs. Mercy Ighofose, said: ‘’The seminar was borned out of the need to create awareness about the high incidence of child sexual abuse and trafficking in our society, and how to reduce the problem.

“Every day, children are being sexually abused in the society and the issue is not getting enough attention from policy makers and enforcement agents. The media lately is awash with reports of child sexual abuse and trafficking. It is important that awareness be created on the dangers such abuse poses to the development •Onosode (left) receiving the award from Utomi. With them is Ighofose. of children and society at large, hence proactive and vigilant in monitoring and preventing the need for this seminar in conjunction with childchildren from being sexually abused or sold into slavfriendly stakeholders and corporate organisations such ery.” as NIIA, National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffick A social worker and Executive Director of The In Persons (NAPTIP), Hannsbro, Golden Penny Foods, Mirabel Centre, Mrs. Hitoro Anaba, said: “Do not igLa Casera, Women’s Right and Health Project (WRHP) nore a victim of rape in your neighbourhoods because and Daviva, among others.

Mr. Onosode charged government and parents “to be Continued on page 20

THE NATION, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2014

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‘I now beg for survival’ Continued from page 19 able to raise the money. I have approached some religious organisations, including churches and mosques, for assistance to help me undergo a comprehensive plastic surgery all to no avail. I have also made fruitless appeals to some government agencies and I became frustrated after repeated visits to their offices yielded no positive results. I want to therefore call on the good people of Nigeria to help me by donating toward my quest for surgery abroad and I pray that God would replenish their purse as they do that.’’

Asked how she has been coping with life since the incident turned her into an awful being, she said: “ As you can see, my head is covered. That is to prevent the festering wound on my brow from exposure to sun. I am living with excruciating pains everyday and I often go out to beg for alms so as not to depend entirely on my father and uncle, because they do not have enough money to take care of me.”

Afusat’s uncle, Mr. Ayinla, also explained the helplessness of the family at taking care of her medical bill. He said: “The incident happened at Ejigbo while she was on a visit to one of our relations. She is the second child in a family of six. Although, we had tried fruitlessly to help her find medical cure to her giddiness and at some point we even tried traditional medicine to find solution to her infirmity but all were in vain until the unfortunate incident that has turned her into horrific sight and a hapless person.”

“Her father, who happens to be my own brother, did all he could to persuade her mother not to abandon her in this condition but she refused to listen. She left as soon as Afusat’s daughter died and she has not bothered to look back since then. Her father is the one looking after her ever since the incident consumed her health. Afusat was very industrious when she was hale and hearty and those who know her can attest to this. ‘’I am seizing this opportunity to call for assistance from Nigerians to raise the money needed for her corrective surgery in India because she has suffered so much while her condition, according to doctors, might worsen if help does not come her way before too long.”

Afusat can be reached via her uncle, Ayinla, on 08059456177.

olukunle87@yahoo.com

Help me to live; the burden of care too heavy on my parents – 22-yr-old kidney patient People should help me. I want to live long and and healthy too to fulfil my dream of making a career in Estate Management in future...The pains I'm passing through is too much for me to bear. Well-meaning Nigerians should help me out.

They should help me to live and feel better once again

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Fashola’s aide tasks community leaders on insecurity

•Faith

n Kunle AKINRINADE n HE Special Assistant to Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State on Religious Matters, Engr.

Shakirudeen AbdulGafar, has urged various Community Development Associations(CDAs) in the state to mobilise themselves towards curbing any form of insecurity in the state.

Abdul-Gafar made the clarion call during a lecture shortly after a Special Jumat Prayer held at the Lagos State Central Mosque to mark the 2014 Community Day. Speaking on the theme: ‘Community Mobilisation: A panacea for Security Challenges’, Abdul-Gafar said: “As individuals, we should be aware of what is going on in our various communities, that is our responsibility if we want the society to get better.”

The Director of Rural Agriculture, Alhaji Habeebullah Giwa, fielding questions from newsmen, also noted that the annual programme has recorded tremendous success which, according to him, has translated into various levels of development in the state. “Because of the centrality of community and rural development, which forms the cornerstone of the state government 10-point agenda to transform the state into Africa’s model mega-city, we have been working with various CDAs and the result has been wonderful. ‘’We thank the governor of the state, Babatunde Raji Fashola, and the Commissioner for Rural Development, Hon. Cornelius Ojelabi and SSA to the governor on Rural Development, Babatunde Hunpe, for the steps taken to increase development at the grassroots. The essence is to also offer prayer to Allah, thank Him for the wonderful things He has done in our lives, pray for our leaders, the CDAs and get closer to the people through the various CDAs,” he said.

Giwa, who noted that several projects had been handed over in different communities in the state in the area of provision of potable water, rural electrification, community halls and opening of rural roads, stated that it was only through the CDAs that rural dwellers will be able to seek government’s intervention on various challenges facing them.

He noted that the theme of this year's celebration was conceived following the security challenges in the country, adding that every individual must be fully aware of what goes on in his immediate environment and offer positive contributions towards having a peaceful environment.

Community Day is a day set aside by the United Nations where members come together to take collective actions and generate solutions to the common problems in various communities.

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OTHER STORIES

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CRIME

THE NATION, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2014

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N the last couple of months, long life and good health have remained the innermost prayer and wish of the promising 22-year- old Faith Aigbokhan from Edo State but these heartfelt longings may prove elusive if public- spirited Nigerians do not act fast enough to come to her aid.

Faith is aspiring to study Estate Management at the university but this dream has taken a back seat in order of priority as she battles with kidney problems that have kept her on a routine dialysis machine.

In the past three months, the disease has stripped her mother, Madam Veronica Aigbokhan, a petty trader and father, a security staff of a pharmaceutical company in Lagos, of their entire savings.

At the last count, they have spent half a million naira on hospital consultations and dialysis excluding the cost of medications.

Mrs Aigbokhan told The Nation that friends, relatives as well as brethren from the Jehovah's Witnesses faith have equally dropped their widow's mite to ensure that her daughter continues treatment regularly and as and when due in line with prescriptions by the physicians.

She, however, rued that all familiar sources of help have now been accessed and even stretched quite

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n Ernest NWOKOLO, Abeokuta n thin but the good news is that Faith is responding to treatment; but the gains may be reversed if there is no fund to sustain the thrice a week dialysis at the cost of N90,000:00.

She said:" I'm a petty trader. Even while I'm here, nobody to take care of the things I sell. The burden is too much on us and the pains are touching us seriously. Faith needs help from kind-hearted Nigerians to live."

According to her, the ailment took the family by surprise as Faith rarely took ill. She said when her daughter complained of having difficulty with breathing, she was taken to a private hospital in Lagos where they were also referred to the University of Lagos Teaching Hospital(LUTH) but on a second thought, they settled for the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Idi - Aba, Abeokuta. ‘’It was at the FMC we got to know that she has kidney problem after series of tests were run on her.

Initially, they discovered High Blood pressure (BP) which prompted even the doctors to wonder what could make a girl of her age to develop high BP.’’ At the Kidney Clinics, Kemta Estate, Abeokuta, where Faith is having sessions on Dialysis machine, she said: "It was here (Kidney Clinics) I got to know that I have kidney challenge. People should help me. I want to live long and and healthy too to fulfil my dream of making a career in Estate Management in future.

"The pains I'm passing through is too much for me to bear. Well-meaning Nigerians should help me out. They should help me to live and feel better once again. Although, it is getting better because at the beginning, it was difficult for me to breathe properly. I could be reached through 08160592632."

The Chief Executive Officer of the Kidney Clinics, Mr Adebayo Sokunbi, also lent his voice in appealing to the government and public-spirited Nigerians to allocate special funds to take care of this kind of ailment.

Adebayo said this is also where the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) is important but rued that NHIS is at its infancy and the coverage, too, quite low.

According to him, the burden of treating or managing kidney challenges are not what an average patient in Nigeria can bear unlike the United States where the costs are spread across the populace.

He said: "Kidney disease is a major health burden and not on one person alone. It is also on parents, families, relatives and I know Nigerians are compassionate people.

"Most of them who have children should help to ease the burden on Faith's parents and such helping hands would be appreciated."

Travel agent sues police for unlawful arrest Lagos-based travel agent, Mr. Patrick Mbonu, has filed a suit at an Ogun State High Court sitting in Ota, against the Ogun State Police Command, for alleged unlawful arrest and illegal detention.

Mbonu, through his counsel, Omobolaji Adejumo, is seeking a declaration that his arrest by men of the Ojodu Abiodun Police Division and subsequent detention and torture at the Ogun State Police Command, Eleweran, Abeokuta, between September 2 and September 5, 2014 was unlawful, wrongful, and unconstitutional and a violation of his fundamental rights.

Mbonu is seeking N5 million damages.

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n Kunle AKINRINADE n Joined in the suit are the Ogun State Commissioner of Police; Assistant Commissioner of Police, SCID and DPO of Ojodu Abiodun Division.

The claimant averred that he was arrested upon the complaint of one Morka Sylvetster, who had contracted one Mrs. Chinyere Godwin, who in turn sought his help to facilitate transfer of $ 3,000 to one Christian Iwuji, based in Dubai, for visa.

He claimed that after directly transferring the sum of $ 1,000 to Iwuji and $ 2,000 to his nominee in Lagos, he later learned that the visa was not granted.

He averred further: “I only facilitated the payment of money to the said Christian Iwuji.I did that because my assistance was sought. I received no remuneration for the assistance I rendered. I was not contracted to procure visa for Sylvester Morka. I was surprised when policemen from Ojodu Abiodun Division stormed my office in

Ikeja to whisk me away.”

Mbonu stated that he was detained for his refusal to make an undertaking to repay the money, which he merely assisted in transferring to Iwuji on behalf of Mrs. Morka.

“Instead of being released on bail by the Divisional Police Officer (DPO), as sought by my counsel, he transferred the case to the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID) of Ogun State Police Command, after detaining me for more than 48 hours.”

However, in a counter affidavit deposed to by Inspector Tunde Olaniba of SCID, Abeokuta, the police said the application filed by the claimant should be refused in the interest of justice.

The statement of defence reads in part: “The purported application for bail as it was titled by Mobolaji Adejumo and Co, dated September 4, 2014, is not an application for bail but a complaint against police actions and prior to the letter, the applicant was already offered bail, but there was no-

body to surety him.The condition of the bail was that the surety must be a reliable person residing in Ogun State.

“The case will involve INTERPOL; hence, the matter was transferred to the SCID, Eleweran, Abeokuta, for discreet investigation.”

Olaniba further deposed that the claimant’s affidavit was fabricated as he was not tortured or rendered incommunicado and he was not forced to sign an undertaking.

The presiding judge, Hon. Justice. A. Agbelu, has, however, adjourned the case to December 18 for ruling.

•Cross section of students at the 'Save a Child' seminar.

Continued from page 19 the rapists can as well molest or rape your daughters too. Let us be on the lookout for perpetrators of rape and protect victims; we should be an agent of change in our society.”

In her contributions, the Head of Public Enlightenment, NAPTIP, Lagos Command, Mrs. Kehinde Akomolafe, described child trafficking as modern day slavery.

“Child trafficking is a phenomenon that has to do with modern slavery. It involves the movement of people from one place to another for the purpose of exploitation. Trafficking in persons is evil, man’s inhumanity to man; it is criminal and therefore requires concerted efforts by all stakeholders to eradicate it.

Parents should acquaint themselves with adequate knowledge of the laws criminalising human trafficking, child abuse and child labour.”

Dame Fashola, who was represented by the wife of the Commissioner of Transport, Mrs. Abiodun Opeifa, urged parents to be vigilant.

“We need effective parent-children relationship and interactions with our children to monitor their activities. And effective teacher-students relationship is also necessary toward tackling child trafficking and sexual abuse of children.”

Other experts who spoke at the event included Mrs. Bose Ironsi of Women's Right and Health Project; Mr. Chino Obiagwu of Legal Defense & Assistance Project (LEDAP), who was represented by Pastor Ariyo Popoola and Mrs. Josephine Chukwuma of Project Alert.

The event was witnessed by a cross section of students from public and private schools in Lagos and Ogun states, while awards were presented to Dame Fashola and Mr. Onosode for their impact toward the educational and general well-being of the Nigerian child.

Stakeholders unite against child trafficking, sexual abuse

•Cross section of stakeholders, government officials and NGOs at the seminar.

•Mrs. Julie Okoigun (left) presenting an award to Mrs. Abiodun Opeifa, wife of the Hon. Commissioner of Transport, Lagos State, who represented Dame Abimbola Fashola, at the event.

THE NATION, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2014

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At the period when I was Community and Public Affairs Manager, I went through kidnappings, through hassles and pains of walking without shoes when taken by these militants and you kept on trekking long distance as directed by those boys. However, I was never kidnapped for more than 48 hours at a time, and we would talk all through the nights.

We usually found a way to negotiate with the boys at the period

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My kidnap experience with N’Delta militants –First Nigerian AGIP DMD Aruwajoye

Stories on pages 28&37

How did your journey to Agip begin? graduated from the University of Ibadan in 1972 and joined Nigerian Agip Oil Company that same year. And I studied chemistry. As at that time, the University of Ibadan was not offering any engineering course. The best you could do was Chemistry, Physics, Geology etc. When I joined Nigerian Agip Oil Company, they took me to Italy that same year where I started a course on Petroleum Technology. I did that for another year and a half before coming back to start work in Nigeria.

In the course of my career, I served in the laboratory for crude oil export in Brass and almost immediately that job became too small for me, as owners of the job felt. So, they took me to a life-changing career, by deploying me to Budget and Operations Control.

This had a very big effect on my life because it taught me about money budget, planning and particularly the trying of operations to money, which is what life’s game is all about really. Unfortunately too, I did not last for too long there. I was only there for a few

Akinboro Aruwajoye retired as the first Nigerian Deputy Managing Director of Nigeria Agip Oil in 2007, after a career spanning 35 years in the same company. He spoke with OLUKOREDE YISHAU

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‘Day my father’s name helped me out of a negotiation impasse’

•Aruwajoye

Manager, Government and Public Affairs. I not as flamboyant as it is today, and was not spent most of my time shuttling between the choice place to be. This was in the period Lagos and Abuja. In 2006, I was made the of “essential commodities”, when people Deputy Managing Director. And I went on selling beer and selling cement were instant retirement in 2007, after 35 years of service in successes on the street. I felt I should also try Agip. Since then, I have been trying to put a it out. Then I applied to Coca Cola, and they few things together, investing in asset owner- offered me a place. The salary was not too far ship and in the service industry. And God from what I was earning. But then, the glamhas been faithful. our of parties, but every Nigerian appeared Were there individuals or circumstances crazy about parties then, and things were in that influenced your choice of career? short supply.

Two people really affected my career. My So, if you were the one who would make working with Agip was inspired by Chief their parties happen, you became a society M.O. Ferede of blessed memory, who was person, a celebrity. And I almost turned in one time Secretary my letter of resignation.

General to OPEC and But my boss who was was at another time my friend said: ‘Akin, I am sorry to say that the the Head of Departare you crazy? How can ment of Petroleum you be thinking of leav(oil) industry is not well. As Resources. Actually, ing the oil company?’ an oil man, I would say the he was the founding Honesty, I was just carvery simple indices to know head of the departried away with the glamment. He was an inour of that period. the health of the industry is spiration, and I liked You wanted to leave reserve replacement.

This him, his attitude, his oil for Coke? means with the oil and gas carriage and the fact (Laughs) Yes, that was that he was a quiet the irony of that period. you are taking out, how and effective person, Then, when you got a job much are you discovering to even under a lot of in the breweries or replace it so that you can pressure. served there, you were Some things he did very successful in the have a sustainable economy? were beyond explaNigerian market. I Today, there is no emphasis nation or the usual. thought it was the place on exploration. To find oil All his life, he must to be. However, I had a have visited more few of my friends who you have to do some explothan I visited him did that. And I don’t ration.

You have to do the whereas he was the know any of them that seismic and drill exploration superior and the are now the better for it. older person. He was It was just a bit of luck wells. It seems as if the govone person that I refor me, and a narrow esernment of today does not ally admired. And I cape. focus on that fundamental also had a boss who Who was Chief was my friend then.

Ferede to your family which is very vital for the There was a time really? How close was survival of the industry the oil industry was he to your father?

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years, and then we entered 1978 when the oil industry, and the environment became top issues in Nigeria.

So, I created an Environment and Quality Control Department of Nigerian Agip. And that was about the year that all other oil companies too created such outfit. And we exchanged ideas; if we had spills that were bigger than our individual capacities, we learnt to cooperate. And because the issue of environment was getting a lot of mention, the NGOs and all such graps now decided to found the Nigerian Environmental Society. I think I was number 12 on the register, and was offered a fellowship of the Nigerian Environmental Society. That was around 1985 or 1986.

I had earlier been moved to the operations department in the company where in 1984, I was deployed to head Brass. I was the first Nigerian to do that. Two years thereafter, the gas plant was built by Agip; it’s still one of the largest plants in Nigeria.

The decree 99 of 1989 made it compulsory for oil companies to stop gas flaring by 1999, and they had to submit proposals to government about their gas utilisation. At that time, Agip decided that it would be injecting some of its gas, and was looking for outlets for gas supply. Eventually it got two gas projects.

One was the production of NGL for Eleme Petrochemical; the other was to produce for the Nigerian LNG Export. By the time I was on that plant, it was new and we were mainly focused on gas injection, with all the treatment facilities. I was the first to head that.

From there I was moved to become the maintenance manager, responsible for the maintenance of all the outlets in the company. And it was at this time too, as a manager in the department, that we introduced computerised maintenance management system. This meant that we could predict things and prescribe actions to take to minimise some unfavourable developments in operations.

Computer usage was new then, and it was quite exciting to do that; I did that for another five years, and by 1994 there was another new challenge in the industry.

Agitation and militancy was coming up. This was the period of the Kiama Declaration.

Kiama is a village in Bayelsa where the Ijaw Youth Movement met for the first time and decided that they were going to pursue resource control and their participation in the industry on a more aggressive note. It was there that the militancy of kidnap, shutting down plants, forcibly taking over facilities came up. And because I had this experience of more or less working in most areas of the company, I knew quite a lot of the boys who were involved. So, I moved from operations to become the Divisional Manager for Community and Public Affairs. That was in 1994.

PART from knowing these people, I come from a background, a household where people valued human relations. This helped me a lot. At that time, while most of the operations of the oil companies were shutting down, Agip managed to keep on producing.

This continued until 1999.

But every good story has an end, good or bad. In 1999, when politics came in, the political class felt that I was too visible. They talked to my top management that they wanted me removed. At the period when I was Community and Public Affairs Manager, I went through kidnappings, through hassles and pains of walking without shoes when taken by these militants and you kept on trekking long distances as directed by those boys. However, I was never kidnapped for more than 48 hours at a time, and we would talk all through the nights. We usually found a way to negotiate with the boys at the period. But by 1999, I was witnessing the downside of all these things.

And the security agencies also picked up intelligence that my life too was in danger. I had to be moved to Lagos where our head office was. There were not really any operations jobs in Lagos, and I was made General

THE NATION, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2014

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He was very close to us. He saw my father as one of his big brothers and would always come to talk to him or take advice. My father was older than him. At one time, my father felt that I should join his company and work for him, particularly when he had the expansion programme for his business. But before telling me, my father decided to ask Ferede and he said no, that it is better for my father if we were diversified and not doing the same thing.

My father did not tell me about this until several years after. And why I think that I was lucky that he intervened at that time was my experience after my father’s death.

After my father’s death, we started running the mill (timber and wood mill). I actually set up a new company at that time with one of my brothers and we hired the factory from the family. Because it becomes complicated really when you are working on family business of that type. Everybody feels they have a stake and if you are successful, they want a share. If you are unsuccessful, people will say you are the one who has ripped them off.

And at that time too, the business was actually bad.

To pull it out, we registered a company and hired the mill. We replaced all the equipment that were not working and hired experts to put things right. We also changed the production system and the work flow and instituted a new management by bringing in some Filipino guys with experience, and started exporting. We were doing business of more than a million dollars a month. This was in early 2000. And we were exporting some timber. After a while, we upgraded it into exporting parquet produced from our factory. But to sustain this level of activity, we needed at least 10 truckloads of timber every day.

And no sooner we seemed to have gotten the mill right and set really to take off than we found it difficult to get sizeable and good

quality trees in the forest. The forest had been completely de-treed. The authorities who regulate our forest resources appear to be more concerned about what they can get. Because when you obtain a government permit to fell a tree, you pay something to government to replant. But people were harvesting and nobody was replanting. Eventually, two or three years down the road, we found that we have a large factory but we could not get raw materials. And that was the end of the factory.

If I had gone to work with my father when he wanted me to do so, that would also have been the end of my career. We fail to appreciate a lot of things that happen to us at some points in life because we do not understand.

Something might appear not to be in your favour at a particular time but when time passes and you reexamine it, you discover it might have been for good. Take life as it is.

You have just taken the title of the Ogbeni Oja of Owo Kingdom. How do you think you can contribute to Owo in that capacity?

HE objective is to find somebody who can drive economic development in the community, using the platform of the Chief and somebody who has access to the inner council of Owo. I don’t want to be presumptuous, but I know a lot about what is happening on the economic front. But I don’t know anything about how the inner council of the Olowo operates. As a young man, I used to think that it was a cult. I have never had time to really think this out. So, I will have to know how it operates so that my thoughts and suggestions would fit into that kind of platform before I would then be able to talk to people about them.

But the economic gaps are very obvious and very challenging needing a studied approach. And I think with the little we have done all around both while in the corporate world and in the past several years as an en-

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trepreneur and also coming from a family that has a background of business, I would think I am one of the people qualified to find some solutions to these problems oppressing our people. We actually started a few things in the past. While I was in Agip in 2007, I was instrumental to the building of classroom blocks in Imade.

The classroom blocks were with toilet facilities, fans in the classrooms and air-conditioned office for the teachers. We also provided a water scheme, complete with a generator to power it. We commenced the building of a fingerling hatchery I spoke to Agip recently that they should proceed with the process of building the hatchery before the end of this year. I presume that if that is done, some of our people will gain some employment and also be more involved in the business of fish production.

I talked about the school earlier because I believe the most fundamental thing that stimulates growth is the improvement on the quality of education in any society. Somebody told me not too long ago that of the 18 local governments in the state, the school certificate result of Owo was 17th position out of the 18. I think that is a disaster, and we must find a way of improving on education while we try to find competitive edges to plug into the Nigerian economy. I believe that if we can build a successful education process and work together on identifying programmes and projects, we should be able to make a dent on the unemployment situation. It is clear to my mind that it has to be based on local resources available and being able to leverage on where we have competitive edges.

It is now 30 years since you lost your late father. Can we know how he guided you to become who you are?

My feelings about my father are so deep because he was my friend, particularly in the later days. He would fuss about my eating habit; then we would sit talking till late in the night. Not that he drank a lot, but he would easily drink a bottle of beer a night before sleeping. Sometimes around 11.pm, he might say: ‘Ah Akin, I went to Lagos and I brought one brandy, let’s try it’.

We were at that level. In recent times, I would call my brothers or sister and ask: ‘What do you remember about our father?’ and I thought my relationship with him was the only one that was special. But some of them would even tell me: ‘Ah, I believe I was our father’s favourite!’. Honesty, I don’t know how he succeeded in making everyone feel special. He was a fantastic character. And even after his death, he kept on influencing our lives.

I remember a day when I was in a meeting in Egbema (Imo State) when I was still working at Agip in community Affairs. We could not conclude anything in that meeting and there were several groups to be convinced.

The Eze who was the chief medicine man and traditional ruler of the group I was tackling refused to bulge for four hours. Then I decided to step out briefly, and that Eze followed me. While we were outside, he asked me: ‘What did you say your name was?’ and I said Akin Aruwajoye. He replied: ‘Ha, I worked for your father’. And that changed the tone of that meeting. His name still opens doors for me and my siblings, and I wish I could be like him.

Will you say that all is well with the Nigerian oil industry?

I am sorry to say that the industry is not well. As an oil man, I would say the very simple indices to know the health of the industry is reserve replacement. This means with the oil and gas you are taking out, how much are you discovering to replace it so that you can have a sustainable economy? Today, there is no emphasis on exploration. To find oil you have to do some exploration. You have to do the seismic and drill exploration wells. It seems as if the government of today does not focus on that fundamental which is very vital for the survival of the industry.

And because there is this major disparity between government and the operators, when it gets to the development of policy it seems as if the two sides are talking but neither of them is hearing each other. I believe that if there is a honest discussion between the sides involved, that is the government as regulators, the oil companies and the independent producers, the industry can get back to its prime place to meet the aspirations of the country.

The way we are going now, which just emphasizes bringing in products and subsidy issue, is not what supports the industry. The support of the industry is based on the amount of exploration works going on and

37 the amount of training. If you have positive results in these two aspects, then the industry will be healthy, from the upstream to the downstream.

What was the situation concerning the issue of local content when you started your career?

The issue of local content has always been there. When I joined the company in 1972 even common operators, people who opened and closed values, or who were just patrolling the lines to see that they were clean, were all expatriates. And it was obvious that the expatriates were the captains of the manor.

HEN I came into Brass in 1975, the only people I knew in the plant were the Italians because I had never worked in Nigeria and I did not know my Nigerian colleagues.

At the mess, Nigerians would sit on one side while the expatriates sat on the other side.

Because the people I knew were Italians, and I could speak Italian and could talk to them, I started sitting with them to eat. And some of my Nigerian colleagues would say: ‘What’s going on with that guy, does he think he is superior to anybody here or what?’ There was that issue of being accepted even by your people. And at that time we would do three months and get one month’s leave.

Whereas today you do two weeks on, two weeks off. It was difficult at that time to find a Nigerian who would have a company assigned vehicle, whereas all the expatriates, including those working with you or working for you, had these company vehicles.

And at that time too, the mess was not offering Nigerians food. And a lot of Nigerians did not like that. I am emphasizing these little things to let you know where we came from. Participation was really minimal. And to find somebody who had a clear cut responsibility of being in charge of aspects of the activities was not very common. And these were the things we had to fight. The union became stronger and things started changing. And the industry has now

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I remember a day when I was in a meeting in Egbema (Imo State) when I was still working at Agip in community Affairs. We could not conclude anything in that meeting and there were several groups to be convinced.

The Eze who was the chief medicine man and traditional ruler of the group I was tackling refused to bulge for four hours. Then I decided to step out briefly, and that Eze followed me.

While we were outside, he asked me: ‘What did you say your name was?’ and I said Akin Aruwajoye. He replied: ‘Ha, I worked for your father’. And that changed the tone of that meeting. His name still opens doors for me and my siblings

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changed completely.

The efforts of the Nigerian content development people must be commended, considering the opportunity now being given to Nigerians to participate in the commanding heights of the industry. It is something worth celebrating.

Why has government and the international oil companies not been able to find a solution to the issue of gas flaring?

The international oil companies, IOCs and government have not been able to get themselves to be on the same page. I laugh when I hear people say “shut them down”. But when you shut these facilities down, the government itself bears 50 percent of the losses.

And all the tax derivable from the operations of the IOCs also ceases.

Flaring is an economic decision. If the gas prize is right, then there will be investments in gas utilisation. But if you want to collect the gas for free, then nobody is going to invest in it. And that is what has been holding things back. But there is some light in the horizon now from the new power policy that allows a free market environment through the willing buyer willing seller initiative. This is more realistic than just decreeing it.

The growing preference for the shale oil is affecting the demand for the sweet crude that Nigeria produces. How real is this threat, and what will be the eventual effect on our economy?

The effect is real and it is on. That is why you find oil price crashing to just a little bit above 80 dollars a barrel. But I think it is the novelty that is resulting in the price crash.

Demand for crude oil and gas in the development economies outstrips the incremental or decremented quantity that America is not taking. So, if we do an energy balance, we will still find that there is enough demand to support the production of today.

But this is not saying that the American market has evaporated for now from Nigeria. And it is going to be like that for quite some time because the quantities that shale gas and shale oil is putting on the American market is significant enough that they might not need to import. Our salvation still lies in China, India and the Asian axis, because they still have energy demand that can support what is being produced in the oil market today.

What do you think is responsible for the delay in actualising the Petroleum Industry Bill?

The PIB delay is infortunate. The PIB is well-intentioned for everybody involved in the industry. For the government, regulators, IOCs and the independent producers. But in structuring such as mammoth bill there is bound to be differences and divergences. I believe that the greatest problem why it is not having blessings of majority of the stakeholders is because they are not talking to each other at all. And if they are talking perhaps they are not listening to each other.

Our refineries are not in the best shape so there is a low capacity to refine. Why are we still not able to refine products at required and appropriate levels? The people who make policies should simply listen to the operators. We have had the telecoms revolution and even though we are yet to get the result of power privatisation, there is sill hope. I want to give an example which anybody in the industry (oil industry) can verify and validate. When the government was running Eleme Petrochemical, it was at a loss to government. I was in Agip at that time and we were the ones supplying them gas. They owed us so much for the gas we supplied to them. But no sooner it was privatised than things changed.

I was reading somewhere not too long ago about the dividend they now pay to government for the 20 per cent ruminant shareholding it has. Eleme is planning on and doubling its flanks and also expanding the scope of the plant. This was an establishment that was just creating losses for government at a time and was a mere drain on government revenue before it was privatised.

We have had a lot of reversals concerning the refineries. The government people involved would say give us this and give us that and we would fix it. After taking all the money, we end up with the same old story of no solution. Somebody should just be bold now to say we should privatise it, and then we will cut our losses. It’s been done in several sectors and I cannot see why this should be different.

Are there no examples of governments or states that operate refineries successfully?

In the free market economy, I doubt if there is any success story of a government that is running a refinery. There might be but I don’t

AKINLOYE

AT LARGE

08050246155 atlarge84@yahoo.com

THE NATION, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2014

38

I bought my first bus while I was in secondar y school –Lagos NURTW vice chair

Sunday Yussuf

,

I challenge you to go round our parks, and you would be shocked at how many graduates you will find there. While I won’t mention names, but you would be surprised to find out that most of the officers are not only educated, but are responsible men. In the BRT section, we have many graduates as staff.

They are in the offices and are responsible people. The talk about union members being thugs has changed

,

O most members of the transport union family in Lagos, Chief Sunday Yussuf, the chairman of the Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) and the vice chairman of the Lagos State chapter of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), is better known as Solution.

But very few of them know the history behind the name that has survived more than two decades now. Giving insight into how he came about the name in an interview with The Nation, Yussuf, who acquired his first transportation bus when he was still in secondary school, said he earned the name during his reign as the chairman of the Ketu motor park in the 80s.

“I got the name because of an incident that happened when I was the chairman of the Ketu park in the 80s. Two of my members were fighting over the ownership of a woman’s pregnancy. For two weeks, the police could not solve the riddle of who truly owned the pregnancy. So, the matter was brought to me to resolve.

“I called the two men and told them that I already knew who owned the preg-

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n Segun AJIBOYE n nancy. I said it was revealed to me in a dream and that whoever lied would be severely punished by the gods. I reminded them of our job as drivers, and that the god of iron abhors what was happening.

“I asked them to go and think over what I have said. Shortly after, one came back and confessed that he was not the owner, and that he only wanted to embarrass the lady. After some time, I called them back, but I did not reveal what the other guy had told me. I said since the two of them have refused to tell the truth, that I was ready to reveal the owner of the pregnancy.

“I simply said: ‘You, I know you are lying. Confess now before you are destroyed’. The guy simply said he was lying and that he was not the owner. I called other members into the room and asked the guy to repeat what he had just said, and he repeated it. Before I knew what was happening, people started shouting my name, saying I am the solution.”

From that point, Yussuf has maintained

THE NATION, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2014

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a steady rise in his profile in the NURTW, culminating in his appointment as chairman of the BRT under the transition committee and the subsequent confirmation earlier this year.

His position as the vice chairman of the Lagos State chapter of the NURTW makes Yussuf a very important member of the transport union. According to him, the cordial relationship between him and his boss in the state, Tajudeen Agbede, has greatly imparted on other members of the union, leading to peace and stability.

A few years ago, the transport union across the country, but particularly in the South West, was notorious for bloody wars by rival groups. Back then, change of government was akin to a bloody military coup, with axes, cutlasses and guns freely used.

But all that seemed to have changed in Lagos since the advent of the AgbedeYussuf regime. Speaking on what has changed in the union, Yussuf said: “I have a very good relationship with our chairman, Alhaji Tajudeen Agbede. And when you have that in any union, there will surely be peace. Apart from that, the national president, Alhaji Yassin, is also ensuring that peace is maintained in all the state chapters of the union. For us in Lagos, we have put in place measures to ensure that strict discipline is maintained in all the parks. We hold regular meetings every Wednesday and once every month for the state. This is to ensure that the leaders are close to the people. We are aware of any problem before it gets out of hand and do our best to settle such problem as quickly as possible.”

Yussuf also disagrees with the public notion that transport unions are populated by illiterates and thugs. According to him, the union has evolved from the old stereotyped organisation filled with thugs to one that is controlled by people that can hold their own anywhere in the world.

“That was in the past. I challenge you to go round our parks, and you would be shocked at how many graduates you will find there. While I won’t mention names, but you would be surprised to find out that most of the officers are not only educated, but are responsible men.

“In the BRT section, we have many graduates as staff. They are in the offices and are responsible people. The talk about union members being thugs has changed. Today, our members are responsible men and women, and we are doing more to improve the standard.”

Yussuf believes the introduction of the BRT in Lagos State has revolutionised the transport system in the country.

While praising the Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola, for providing the right leadership, Yussuf said he is particularly happy and proud about the achievements of the BRT in the African continent.

“Anybody who is associated with the BRT should be proud.

From the Lagos State government to all the staff of BRT, we all feel good with what has been achieved. The success of the BRT is what you have when you have the right leader.

“Governor Babatunde Fashola has provided us with

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I bought my first bus while I was still in secondary school. And that is the message that I preach to younger men. You can aspire to be anything in life, even when life may seem difficult

the right leadership, so we have no other choice than to make sure that the BRT works. As I speak with you, two countries have come to find out how we do it in Lagos. That is a great achievement on its own. It means that we are doing something that is good.”

A self-made man, Yussuf arrived in Lagos shortly after completing his primary education in his native Ago-Iwoye in Ogun State. Armed with his father’s advice on the importance of education, young Yussuf became a domestic servant (houseboy) to a couple in the Surulere area of Lagos.

With the little salary he earned, Yussuf enrolled himself at a secondary school in the Ebute-Metta area of the state. But fate soon brought him into contact with a schoolmate, who at the time was also sponsoring himself through earnings he made as a bus conductor.

“I remember my father would always talk about the importance of education.

•Yussuf

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But unfortunately, he had very little to sponsor us. So, after my primary education, I just packed my bag one day and left home. I arrived at Oyingbo without knowing anybody or having anywhere to go.

“It was there that I met a woman who took me home and asked me to work for her family as a houseboy. From my salary, I enrolled in a secondary school.

But I soon met a schoolmate who was working as a bus conductor. He told me that I too could make more money working as a bus conductor. That day, I went back home and begged my boss to let me go. So, I moved in with my friend and started working as a conductor.”

Despite constantly finding himself in the midst of young men who drank and smoked, Yussuf said his father’s advice constantly rang in his ears, warning him of the consequence of such behaviours.

“Most of my friends smoked and drank. But I was always scared of what

would happen to me if I joined them.

You know I was a bush boy, so I saved most of the money that I made and spent the rest on my education.”

One day, Yussuf said he realised that he had saved enough to buy a bus. That was exactly what he did. He bought his first bus while still in secondary school and gave it to an older man to drive.

“I bought my first bus while I was still in secondary school. And that is the message that I preach to younger men.

You can aspire to be anything in life, even when life may seem difficult.”

Soon after leaving secondary school, Yussuf made up his mind to plunge into the uncertain world of transport business and chose the Ketu motor garage as his base. But his education set him apart from the crowd, and soon the other members agreed to make him the treasurer of the park.

His rise from a houseboy to the head of the transport union, he said, can be ascribed to God and his personal discipline. According to him, his time as a bus conductor was the most trying period of his life. He had to resist several temptations and remain focused in order to prepare for a better future.

“My most trying period was when I had to combine my work as a bus conductor with attending school. I was living with my friend, and I saw most of them smoke and drink. But I was always scared, so I kept away from those habits.

I think it was the discipline to stay away from smoking and drinking that saved me from derailing.”

Though he said he is not much of a woman’s man, Yussuf has two wives.

“I have two wives. But it is not because I am a womaniser. I do everything in moderation. But you know men in our trade and position. I believe the two women are enough for me,” he said a wry smile.

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THE NATION SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2014

with KAYODE ALFRED

E-mail:kayflex2@yahoo.com Tel:08116759807, 08035733605

THE NATION, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2014

44 GOVERNOR FASHOLA

PRESIDENT JONATHAN

A bad federal road in Lagos

GOVERNOR WADA

FCT MINISTER

Gov Fashola

IGP SULEIMAN ABBA

Sen. Mohammed

IGP Abba

Gov Wada

THE NATION, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2014

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With our success with Ebola, it is evident that at some point, things will work in this country — Bishop Hassan Kukah Cleric and social critic, Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, Matthew Hassan Kukah, is confident that regardless of Nigeria’s teething problems at 54, it has the potential of emerging a stronger nation in the end. He shares his thoughts over the nation and more with EVELYN OSAGIE at a recent function in Port-Harcourt, Rivers State.

HE theme of this year’s edition of the Port Harcourt Book Festival is ‘Possibilities for Nigeria at 100.’ Despite the insurgency and other problems, can we look forward to a better Nigeria?

That question does not arise, and as somebody said, we have spent 50 years asking that question and it is a bit silly for Nigerians to continue to ask questions about our nation. It is not a perfect nation but this country is not going anywhere and Nigerians who are pessimists should better wake up to that reality. And like a train, it is going to continue on its destination. Those who want to get on can get on and those who want to get off are free to do so. But I think that a lot of the exaggerations that we have arise from a very poor reading of history and the fact that many of us are looking at our own little corner as what makes up Nigeria. This country is very sophisticated, sacrifices have been made and I think all that we can do is hope that the country gets better and stronger.

Where do you see us in the next 100 years?

I cannot foresee the future but with our success with Ebola, it is also evident that in this country at some point, things will work. And those who divided us, as it were, have now had to stand up and look. For me, it is a matter of the kind of confidence Nigerians have of the future. I have travelled widely but I don’t hear people asking the kind of questions Nigerians ask about their country and their leaders.

And it is not because people are happy but they know that like their parents, they don’t have a choice in deciding where you would be born.

No nation came from heaven and is perfect. Most nations are faced with the kind of problems we are faced with, only that they are dealing with them differently.

How can the social media help in changing the focus of Nigerian youths?

Indeed, the social media is very exciting and as somebody said, it is a country of its own now. It is a faceless citizenship.

The social media has its uses in that, you can get information out.

From the things I read in the social media, a lot of things are said but the language doesn’t often reflect that people have thought through the things they have to say.

But I think the most

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• Bishop Kukah

critical thing is how to get our voices meaningfully heard and constructively so.

There are fears in some quarters over 2015 election. What should Nigerians expect?

I keep hearing these questions. I have no fear absolutely.

Firstly, 2015 is not here yet.

And some of us, including myself, may not be here, I pray I will be but I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. Some of the actors who are running across the stage may not be here tomorrow.

We

‘ ‘

I cannot foresee the future but with our success with Ebola, it is also evident that in this country at some point, things will work. And those who divided us, as it were, have now had to stand up and look. For me, it is a matter of the kind of confidence Nigerians have of the future

must learn to live one day at a time. Secondly, elections in the country will be conducted but those of us who are not politicians must wake up to the fact that politicians have a language, culture and universe of their own that they live in.

And those of us who are so stupid as to surrender our lives for nothing must appreciate the fact that with Nigerian politicians nothing is sure. You must make a choice wisely but that choice must not include wasting your live because only the living can play politics.

Months after the abduction of the Chibok girls, we are still on the issue of negotiation. What is your perception about this?

As somebody has said, this shouldn’t be a matter of politics.

We are prayerfully hoping that things would change. This is not something that is within the power of one person. The issues are much more complicated than that. I think we must trust the sense of judgment of government, security agencies, the goodwill of ordinary Nigerians and share in the agony of the parents of these children and prayerfully hope that they come back to us well and alive.

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Email: counselling@faithoyedepo.org

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Four suspected vandals killed in gun duel with security operatives n Precious IGBONWELUNDU n OUR persons suspected to be pipeline vandals were yesterday killed in a gun battle with security forces in Ikorodu, a suburb of Lagos State.

The incident which occurred at the Abule Oba area of the city was said to have started after Nigerian Navy personnel were attacked by vandals while on routine patrol to rid the axis of pipeline vandals.

A vandal kingpin, who was identified as BlackBerry was said to be among those who died in the battle.

Confirming the incident, the spokesman, Western Naval Command (WNC) Lieutenant Commander Abdulsalam Sani said the incident occurred around 4pm on Thursday.

"Our men were on routine patrol in their boat, which is part of the ongoing operation AWATSE. On sighting them, the vandals who were also in their own boats opened fire.

"An exchange of fire ensued between the vandals and our men. In the process, four armed vandals including the kingpin, alias Blackberry were killed while others escaped with bullet wounds.

"The Nigerian Navy is poised to protecting lives and properties in that area. We appeal to the public not to panic but to go about their normal activities. We also urge the public to provide useful information that will lead to the arrest of the perpetrators of these heinous crime," Sani said.

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•Gov. Babatunde Fashola of Lagos (r), reacting to the absence of his name and his entire unit in the voters register displayed by INEC at Itolo ward G3, Unit E002, Surulere in Lagos...yesterday. See story on page 61

OAU students boo Jonathan, Fayose at Yoruba summit TUDENTS of the Obafemi Awolowo University,Ile Ife,yesterday booed President Goodluck Jonathan and his entourage during a visit to the campus to meet with Yoruba leaders ahead of next year’s elections.

The placard-carrying students protested the Jonathan Administration’s handling of education in the country and called for an immediate end to what they called the rot in the sector.

They were particularly incensed by the security measures put in place for the President’s visit which restricted vehicular movement

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‘Why Ajimobi is giving utmost consideration to women development’ n Bode DUROJAIYE, Oyo n PEAKER of Oyo State House of Assembly, Alhaja Monsurat Sunmonu, has said women, besides their numerical strength have great potentials necessary to evolve a new economic order, accelerate social and political development as well as transform the society into a better one.

She stated this yesterday at a colourful ceremony organized by women from the five local governments in Ogbomoso land, held at Ojagbo recently.

According to her, statistics from the last national population census estimated that of the over 31million rural women in the country, about 16million live below the nationally defined poverty line, lacking access to basic education, decent nutrition, adequate health, and social security. ‘’Also, the UNDP Human Development Report attested to the fact the galloping increase in rural poverty is hitting women hard, as 60 percent of the rural women are poor. Most women have no collaterals to offer to financial institutions, in order

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•Demand halt to rot in education •Yoruba will be taken care of, President pledges n Adesoji ADENIYI, Osogbo n in and out of the campus.

In effect shuttle buses which most students ride between the main gate and the campus were unable to operate and the students were thus forced to walk long distances ,some to their exam halls.

Some of the protesters’ placards read:“We Condemn Jos Killing of Students”; “Students Are Not Chicken”; “Don’t Sell Education As You Sold Electricity”; “We Demand Total Reversal of 2014 Hiked School Fees”; and “We are Not Responsible For Jonathan’s Ineptitude”.

The students also blocked the road leading to the school’s sports centre where a Nigerian Air Force NAF-280 was waiting to carry the President from the campus.

They asked him to address them before leaving.

The students also booed Governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State who sought to pacify them.

The governor had alighted from his car and walked up to the students with a view to addressing them.

What he got from the students was a snub and shouts of unprintable expletives.

His security details reading the unfolding drama quickly shoved him into his car and drove him away from the scene.

Some traditional rulers also beat a retreat to save themselves from embarrassment by the students.

Hundreds of PDP supporters, who had swooped on the OAU campus with different banners to welcome President Jonathan wore long faces.

Addressing the Yoruba Unity Summit earlier at the Oduduwa Hall of the institution,President Jonathan pledged that he would take proper care of the Yoruba if reelected in 2015.

He described the South West as a key part of Nigeria which his administration must work with.

He also promised that the recommendations of the recently conducted National Conference would be implemented.

He said: "the contribution of the Yoruba people to nation building is so enormous to be ignored. So, all parts of the country must work together in love, unity and understanding to overcome all the challenges facing us."

Appreciating the elders and the traditional rulers in the

Southwest for their support for his government since inception, President Jonathan promised equal treatment for all geopolitical zones in the country.

Delivering a paper entitled "Unity of Yoruba Nation," former Transport Minister , Chief Ebenezer Babatope, said that the political progress made by the President, with his ascension to the number one position in the country was not a mistake.

He assured Jonathan of the support of the Yoruba in 2015, saying the South West would not want to be deprived its position.

In their goodwill messages,the Orangun of OkeIla,Oba Adedokun Abolarin, Chief Olu Falae, Ekiti State Governor Ayodele Fayose, Mrs. Mulikat Akande Adeola and Senator Femi Okunrounmu advised Mr. President not to be distracted by comments and actions of some people against his administration.

In attendance at the summit were the Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuwade, Owa Obokun of Ijesaland, Oba Adekunle Aromolaran, academics, captains of industries, and chieftains of the Peoples Democratic Party among others.

I've adopted siddon look option to unfolding events in Ekiti –Fayemi ORMER Ekiti State governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, yesterday said he would not comment on the unfolding events in the state, particularly the recent removal of the state Assembly Speaker by seven lawmakers loyal to Governor Ayodele Fayose.

Fayemi said he has resorted to adopt the option of keeping mute on whatever that is happening in the state and only watch closely from the sideline.

He said: "I won't say anything, I siddon dey look and I will only maintain my siddon look."

The former governor spoke at the campus of Tai Solarin University of Education (TASUED), Ijagun, Ogun State, while fielding questions from reporters shortly after his wife, Erelu Olabisi Fayemi, was conferred with the award of Doctorate degree(honoraris causa) in Sociology by the institution.

He expressed gratitude to TASUED, the management and students for deeming his wife worthy of the honour bestowed on her at

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n Gbenga ADERANTI and Ernest n NWOKOLO, Abeokuta the institution's convocation ceremony.

The institution emerged the overall winner of the IDEA contest organised by the National Universities Commission at this year's Entrepreneurship week which took place between17th and 21st Nov 2014 in Abuja.

TASUED Team came first among the Nigerian Universities invited for the contest. The university was honoured with the most improved university and noble idea award.

Receiving the trophy, the Chairman, Governing Council.Prof Olufemi Bamiro congratulated the TASUED team for the honour done to the University. The Vice Chancellor Prof Oluyemisi Obilade expressed joy and appreciation for the feat. She therefore promised to be of support to students whose ideas will keep making the university proud.

DSS official arraigned for killing police man n Adesoji ADENIYI, Osogbo n N official of the Department of the State Service, Busari Taofeek has been arraigned before an Osogbo Magistrate Court for allegedly killing a police corporal, Wahab Abdul, in Ile-Ife, Osun State.

According to the charge sheet, the incident occurred after Taofeek, 37, shot his service pistol into the air. The bullet hit Corporal Abdul on the head and killed him while he was in the house of Peoples Democratic Party governorship candidate, Senator Iyiola Omisore.

The police prosecutor, Elisha Olusegun, told the court that the incident took place at about 09:40pm on the 18th of August.

The charge sheet further read: "That you Busari Taofeek Adeoye on the 18th day of August 2014 at about 2140hrs at Senator Iyiola’s house along Ede Road, Ile-Ife in the Ile-Ife magistratrial district sitting in Osogbo did shoot into the air your service pistol No20003958 which hit one Corporal Wahab Abdul on his head and caused his death and thereby committed an offence contrary to and punishable under section 319 (1) of the criminal code cap. 34 vol. 11 laws of Osun State of Nigeria 2003."

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Lagos residents get free health treatment O fewer than 200 residents of Surulere area of Lagos State were given free medical attention during the week. The exercise was organized by Mr.Lukmon Oyewole Lawal an All Progressive Congress House of Assembly aspirant for Surulere Constituency 1.

The event which took place at the APC secretariat at Silver Crescent Surulere had prominent members of the party and exco in attendance.

Speaking on Lawal’s health programme, Alhaji Tunde Thompson the deputy chairman of the APC in Surulere LGA said: “Lawal is trying his best in taking care of the people. I believe we need his type of person in government and I want to advise him to continue with his great ideas of helping people at the lowest rung of society.”

Also speaking, Alhaja Ronke Ilori, the APC woman leader in the area said: “I am satisfied with Lawal and I can say he is a great ambassador of our party APC. His gestures for the ordinary people are numerous and I can only pray that God will bless him.

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Akinlabi for burial Nov 29 ATE Prophet Michael Olatunde Akinlabi (aka Baba Koseunti) who died November 2, 2014 will be buried within the premises of C.A.C Abayomi Iwo Road Ibadan, Oyo State on Saturday November 29, 2014 (today) after a farewell service held at the Church Auditorium at 9a.m. He was a pious Christian and a true servant of God with unusual character and panache.

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Adult harvest

HE Celestial Church of Christ 36th adult harvest and thanksgiving will come up Sunday 30th November, 2014. The harvest titled ‘Harvest of NewRestoration’ is at the church premises Km 11, Badagry Exp. Way, Opp. Agric B/Stop, Ojo, Lagos.

A statement by the church’s leaders and public relations officer, Rev. Most Rotimi Akinradewo, said the annual adult harvest and thanksgiving services will address all the needs of the people.

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Community celebrates day GBOGBO community in Ikorodu Lagos has commenced activities marking its annual Igbogbo day celebration.

According to the President of the Igbogbo Development Association (IDEA), Mr Kola Ogunkoya under aegis which the celebration is organised said it is meant to bring home the lost heritage of the community.

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The week long activity will feature rally, free health service for the indigenes and its inhabitants and quiz competition among various schools in the community among others.

Chairman Planning Committee, Mr Adesola Oduntan said all indigenes home and abroad are expected on the occasion marking the activities of the Igbogbo day.

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NEWS

THE NATION, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2014

29,000 persons employed by Edo state govt –Oshiomhole n Osemwengie BEN OGBEMUDIA and Osagie OTABOR n DO State Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole yesterday revealed that over 29,000 persons cutting across the 18 local government areas, have been employed by his administration .

He said 25, 000 were from the rural areas and were employed for the maintenance of markets and roads across the state.

Oshiomhole said about five thousand were also employed into the state neighborhood watch.

The governor who disclosed this while receiving the former minister of state, works, Engineer Chris Ogiemwonyi into the All Progressive Congress said the neighbourhood watch will work with all the security agencies in state, serving in community policing.

Oshiomhole who said the APC do not need violence to win election in Edo State, added that: "We will use our voters card to bury PDP which is already dead in Edo State."

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Amaechi collects PVC card at Ubima …calls for free and fair polls IVERS State Governor and chairman of Nigeria Governors Forum, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi has picked his Permanent Voter’s Card in his native home Ubima, with a call to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct transparent elections.

Governor Amaechi collected his permanent voter’s card on Friday at Ward 8, Unit 14 in Ubima in Ikwerre Local Government Area of the state. He was accompanied by APC stakeholders as INEC National Commissioner in charge of Rivers, Cross River and Akwa-Ibom States; Barr (Mrs) Thelma Iremiren issued him his card.

Amaechi said he was impressed with the effort made by INEC in his ward on the collection of Permanent Voter’s Card.

“I am delighted that you have said that the thumbprint will work and that only those with permanent voter’s card will vote because then, believe me, if you do this with the machine, you have reduced rigging. The only other thing INEC will do is keep away the military. If INEC could keep away the military and bring the machine, there may not be massive rigging that we used to see”, he said.

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•From left; Justice Lambo Akanbi; the representative of President Goodluck Jonathan, Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta State; the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court of Nigeria, Hon. Justice Ibrahim Auta and Justice Roseline Bozimo (rtd.) during the official commissioning of the Federal High Court Complex by Mr. President in Asaba...yesterday.

Why I’m backing Peterside as Rivers APC’s governorship candidate –Amaechi IVER State Governor and Nigeria Governors Forum chairman has disclosed that he and other members of the Rivers caucus of the All Progressives Congress (APC) decided to back the Chairman of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Petroleum (Downstream), Dr. Dakuku Peterside, as the governorship candidate of the party because of his youthfulness.

Amaechi stated that Peterside, 44, a former Rivers Commissioner for Works, who represents Andoni-Opobo/Nkoro

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n Bisi OLANIYI, Port Harcourt n constituency would be able to relate well with the youths.

He noted that his government was desirous of ensuring sustainable development for Rivers people with the firm belief in the power of the people to make a positive change.

Amaechi said: “In spite of the various challenges experienced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), we urge our citizens not to

relent in participating in the exercise. It is our hope that the electoral body will do all that is necessary to ensure a hitchfree exercise in the state and that no eligible voter is denied his card or registration.

“Through this participation, we can individually and collectively elect credible men and women into various positions in the forthcoming 2015 general elections. Your Permanent Voter Registration Card guarantees you a voice in governance.

...Ogoni in America endorse Peterside as consensus candidate GONI Stakeholders Forum (OSF) in the United States has endorsed the aspiration of Hon Dakuku Peterside of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to lead Rivers State.

The group in a statement from Washington DC has Mr. TamBari Lebee, say that, it was irritated at the rented numbers of Ogoni people which took to the streets in Port Harcourt on Thursday to protest the endorsement of Peterside as the governorship candidate of the APC.

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n Wale ADEPOJU n OSF claimed Peterside "is a full fledged Ogoni man by all ramifications".

The statement reads: "The choosing of Hon. Peterside on Wednesday as the APC governorship candidate in Rivers State ahead of the governorship election next year in the state is the best thing that happened to Ogoni people. Among any Ogoni politician out there, Hon Peterside is the only politician that has rolled out

25 Benin Palace Chiefs dump PDP for APC • Why Jonathan must be kicked out – Oshiomhole n Osagie OTABOR, Benin n total of 25 high chiefs in the Benin monarch's palace yesterday joined the All Progressive Congress in Edo State.

The chiefs are in the ranks of Otuodolevbo among the guilds of palace chiefs.

They were led by Chief Jackson Omonomose Igbinovia, the Osagiobariase of Benin Kingdom.

All the chiefs tore their Peoples Democratic Party membership cards and used the broom to sweep them away.

They made their declaration at a rally where a former Minister of Works, Engr. Chris Ogiemwonyi, led 2000 PDP members to join the APC. Chief Igbinovia said they decided to leave the 'People Deceive People' party to join Governor Adams Oshiomhole developmental train. He promised that they would wear their white attires to campaign for the APC across the state. Among others who defected were Chief Arala Osula and an aspirant of the PDP in Akoko-Edo Local Government Area.

Governor Adams Oshiomhole who spoke at the rally urged the people to vote out the PDP and President Goodluck Jonathan. Oshiomhole said the action of the police at the National Assembly was an indication that the PDP is threatening the brick on the foundation of Nigeria's democracy.

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developmental projects to Ogoni while he was the Commissioner of Works in Rivers State. He is responsible for all the tarred roads in Bori, the electrification of many villages of Ogoni under Amaechi’s administration.

"The lawmaker representing Andoni/Opobo/Nkoro Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives who emerged as the party’s consensus governorship candidate during a stakeholders’ meeting on Wednesday

will not only turn Ogoni around in terms of development but shall hand over to an Ogoni man after eight years. Opobo is very small; all the development shall be channeled to Ogoni who kept him from his teen to adulthood.

Meanwhile, Peterside, who has said the Rivers people are queuing behind his candidacy for the forthcoming election, urged citizens in the state to go and collect their Permanent Voter’s Card, (PVC).

Police kills two suspected kidnappers EN of the Special Antirobbery squad of the Edo State Police Command have killed two suspected kidnappers in a shoot-out.

The suspected kidnappers were shot along Benin-Auchi bypass and they died while being taken to the hospital.

A statement by the state police spokesman, DSP Noble Uwoh, said the police team who were on a

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n Osagie OTABOR, Benin n routine patrol intercepted the gang.

Uwoh said the gang was responsible for the series of criminal activities recorded along the bypass. He urged owners of clinic and hospitals to report anyone found with bullet wounds and assured that the command would keep the state safe during the Yuletide celebration.

Police kills 2 Armed Robbers in Benin n Osemwengie BEN OGBEMUDIA, Benin n HE police high command in Benin City, have confirmed the death of two dare devil armed robbers operating on the Benin-Auchi expressway, Edo State.

The robbers met their waterloo at about 5.30am when they ran into a routine patrol team led by the O/C SARS. According to a press release made available to newsmen, the robbers on sighting the patrol team opened fired gun on their vehicle. In the process of exchanging fire with the patrol team,

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two of the hoodlums got fatally injured and died on their way to the hospital.

Other members of the gang ran into the bush with gun wounds.

Items recovered from the hoodlums according to the command’s public relations officer, DSP Noble Uwoh included one AK7 rifle, 83 rounds of live ammunition, one pump action gun, ninety-seven live cartridges, three AK47 rifle magazines and one face-mask among others.

Delta Primaries: Niger Delta group kicks against Orubebe’s ambition HEAD of the forthcoming Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) primary election in Delta State, a group, Eye of Niger Delta (END) has opposed former Minister of Niger Delta Godsday Orubebe’s aspiration to contest for the governorship ticket.

Rising from an emergency meeting yesterday in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, the leader of the group, Comrade Tari Victor-Ben, said his group has sent the organization’s sensitization committee to Delta State to make their position known to the people.

He debunked rumours that Orubebe is the anointed candidate of President Goodluck Jonathan, describing it as false information and a slap on the president’s image.

His words: “We are compelled to issue this very important warning to the People of Delta State, given our concern as well as the interest in the development and stability of Delta State.

And that concern is for Delta State delegates to look beyond Orubebe in choosing who will be the next governor of the state.

“As you can see from our name, we are truly the eye of Niger Delta, our objectives and principles in the region are to ensure that credible candidates emerge in the entire Niger Delta states.

“We have sent our sensitization committee to Delta State to inform the people about this. We are going to organize a protest rally on the 3rd of December together with Anti-Corruption Network, a non-governmental organization where we shall show facts, and names of corrupt Niger Delta politicians.”

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Excitement as Calabar Festival lights up this weekend HE streets of Calabar are set to come alive on November 30, 2014, as the annual Tree Lighting ceremony kicks off the much-celebrated Calabar Festival.

In a statement issued by Mr Nzan Ogbe, Chairman, Calabar Festival Planning Committee, the ceremony will be followed by the HIV/AIDS Walk to commemorate World AIDS Day on December 1. Mr Ogbe further stated, "We are expecting thousands of visitors over the next few weeks. Hotels have reported an increase in bookings and several will be almost full in the days leading up to Carnival Calabar, in the latter part of December."

In anticipation of the increased number of travelers, some airlines have increased the frequency of flights to Calabar, including Arik Air which now operates two flights daily. Similarly, bars and sit-outs around the city have reported increased patronage, with tents and canopies being erected to accommodate the growing numbers of fun-seekers.

According to the Chairman, this year’s Calabar Festival, promises to be best in terms of packaging, organization and security, despite being the last to be held under the administration of Governor Liyel Imoke. “This year’s festival promises to be another 32 days of non-stop entertainment, anchored

by Africa's biggest street party, Carnival Calabar. Adequate security has been put in place to ensure a hitch-free celebration and we guarantee that the 'green, clean & serene' ambience of the city will be maintained."

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THE NATION, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2014

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Why I hid my mother’s remains in my wardrobe for 10 years –Guru Maharaji devotee A retired school principal and Guru Maharaji devotee, Dr. Chimezie Osigwe, who was arrested May last year by the Imo State police command for hiding the embalmed body of his 78-yearold mother, Lucy Osigwe, in his wardrobe for ten years, has been acquitted by the court after giving chilling reasons for his action.

Osigwe who was arraigned on a one count of murder by the state, told the court that he did not kill his mother for ritual purposes as he was earlier accused but was framed up by people who did not

n Okodili NDIDI, Owerri n understand his intentions.

According to him, he kept his mother’s corpse in his wardrobe for ten years as evidence in a suit he filed against Chevron Oil Company that he accused of causing the death of his mother.

He disclosed that the exploration activities of the oil company in his community, Ejemekwuru, in

Oguta Council Area of the state, resulted in partial landslide that cracked most buildings in the community, including his family’s building, where he was living with his deceased mother.

His words: “My mother woke up around 1am that fateful day to ease herself but the wall of the toilet which has been damaged collapsed and fell on her and I heard her shout and rushed down to her

room with my two sisters, She died before the day finally broke. I then reported the case to the police and an autopsy was carried out and I took the embalmed body and preserved it in my wardrobe as I intended to sue the oil company for causing the death of my mother.

“My siblings both those in the Diaspora and at home, were aware of my plan and they gave

their support that the body be kept as an evidence for the case.”

Delivering judgment on the suit with No.HOG/23C/2013, Justice Goddy Anunihu, ruled that the prosecution failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the accused was responsible for the death of the victim.

He ruled that the prosecution counsel lacked evidence to prosecute the defendant who was alleged to have murdered his mother in August 2004 in his compound.

INEC fails to distribute PVC in Fashola’s ward HE Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Friday failed to distribute Permanent Voters Card (PVC) at the Ward G3, State Junior Secondary School, the polling unit of the State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola and his wife, Dame Abimbola.

Our reporter gathered that some INEC ad-hoc staff had hurriedly pasted a notice yesterday morning to notify voters who had registered in the two wards on Itolo Street that they had no voters’ card.

The commission said the voters would have to register afresh at a later date.

The notice pasted at the entrance of the school read: “We regret to inform you that those who registered in this polling unit do not have permanent voters’ cards. Please come back between 3rd and 8th December 2014 for fresh registration”.

Lagos State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Dr. Adekunle Ogunmola, attributed the development to the loss of date arising from the crash of their computing system.

“Yes, some of the data captured during the registration in 2010 crashed. This was the reason we lost about 1.4million data for voters. We are embarking on fresh registration for them and others who were unable to register in the 2010 registration”.

Fashola, who had been skeptical about INEC’s preparedness for the 2015 elections, arrived his polling unit at about 2:05pm to see the notice pasted on the gate.

Speaking to newsmen, the governor described the situation as a collusion or inefficiency on the path of INEC ahead of the polls.

He said INEC, with the development, had decided to tread the path of destruction.

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•It is shameful, says governor n Miriam EKENE-OKORO n

ning".

Asked whether he would participate in the fresh voters registration, the governor wondered what the essence of the first registration was since the commission could not produce their PVCs. "This is an attempt to decimate our voting population in Lagos; it’s clear now. So everyone who has the tem-

porary voters card must hold it.

Those who don't have who only turned 18, we would provide a means for them to participate in this election".

He said he would observe how the commission manages the situation before addressing residents further.

Some residents, who had gathered at the ward hoping to get their PVCs were left to rue the situation as some wondered if INEC with the continuous hiccups is ready for the polls.

According to the governor, "It’s a shameful path; this is my polling unit, this is where I voted, year after year.

This is where I was registered. When INEC said they were ready to do distribution of voters cards, they said it was 7th to 9th of November. Later they said they were not going to do all and that the balance will happen between 28th and 30th.

"So, Surulere was in the balance that was supposed to happen.

So we are here today being 28th and this is the notice they surreptitiously came to put here at night. We can't collect our PVCs.’’ The governor, however, urged those who face such similar fate to keep their temporary voters cards as it was proof that they were captured in the INEC database.

"We would wait for INEC because they registered 6.4million of us in 2010, so whatever has happened, at least we have those cards, they can't run away from us.

Whether they like it or not, we would have elections and we would vote in spite of what Jega and his •The former Governor of Anambra State, Mr. Peter Obi buying banana and groundnut at team may be plan- the popular Nwagu market in his home town of Agulu...yesterday

Minister promises more funding for Alvan Ikoku College, others n Okodili NDIDI, Owerri n HE Minister of State for Education, Professor Viola Onwuliri, has assured of continued Federal Government support for Alvan Ikoku Federal College of Education, through additional funding and other intervention policies that will reposition the college and others across the country to meet world class standards.

The minister, who gave the assurance while commissioning TETFUND projects in the institution, stated that the Federal Government is committed to achieving excellence in the education sector as one of the key components of the president’s transformation agenda.

She noted that the management of the TETFUND was not hinged on partisan politics, but deployed to develop the tertiary institutions in the country, irrespective of political inclinations.

In her address, the Provost of the College, Dr. Blessing Ijioma, called for the upgrading of the College to a university, adding that: “Our college is better equipped in terms of infrastructure and personnel than many autonomous degree awarding institutions.

We have the personnel, the facilities and the experience.

She affirmed that the TETFUND “has not only revived the college’s infrastructure

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In defence of Okupe, his gang and his vomit!

• Continued from page 9 He said his pick for the vice presidential slot under the late President Umaru Yar'Adua's short-lived regime continues to wring his hands in surrender as the Boko Haram menace has become a 'big industry' in his government. He blurted, with sniggering candour, that Jonathan wasted three solid years before he could do anything tangible in confronting the deadly activities of a sect that has crippled the economy of the entire North-East geo-political zone of Nigeria. He said any wellmeaning government would have come up with a workable strategy to mediate what was evidently an impending implosion for oil-producing countries with the discovery of shale oil.

The failure to be proactive, he noted, has led to the hurried announcement of the devaluation of the Naira and some austerity measures, which would hurt the average Nigerian the more.

He said this government, if allowed to continue with its pussyfooting on all matters of state, might end up borrowing huge funds to ruin the country. The economy, he declared, is in comatose regardless of what the IMF-trained Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr, Ngozi OkonjoIweala, says. And, in putting the final nail on Jonathan's stay in the Place of the Rock, Obasanjo said the Otuoke-born politician is fixated on hounding all opposing voices out of circulation by all means possible while oiling the wheel of corruption in the legislature through "direct payment of money to the legislature to cover up wrongs done by the executive thereby making the legislature fail in its oversight responsibility." Accusing the lawmakers of extortion, abuse of privileges and all manner of criminality in the hallowed chambers, Obasanjo whose regime brought the 'Ghana-Must-Go' syndrome into the National Assembly and Nigerians’ consciousness, lamented that the Executive, under Jonathan, 'worsens it when they pay slush

money not to investigate or to cover up misdeeds of corruption and misconduct."

Seriously, why should Okupe not be enraged by Obasanjo's unfounded diatribe against a President who is clearly, in Okupe's words, Nigeria's best leader since independence in 1960. How could Obasanjo continue to rub his boy's nose on the harsh floor when Okupe, some few day back, told anyone that cared to listen that Jonathan's giant strides are visible in all nooks and crannies of the federation including the NorthEast where over 200 school girls had gone missing in the last 229 days? Where was Obasanjo when Okupe wrote, and caused to be published as an advertorial in a national daily, an inspiring prose about our fedora-wearing President? If an insider, which Okupe is, says Oga Jonah's evidence of performance 'stares all of us in the face', why should an octogenarian ex-leader insist that our economy is dancing on the brink of collapse as "those who should act are dancing slow foxtrot while their trousers are catching fire?" If Okupe calls Obasanjo a liar now, some Nigerians would say he is being disrespectful to his former boss. Pray, what manner of dance is foxtrot? Does that sound like a traditional dance steps in the creeks or is that the kind of melody fishermen wriggle their waists to?

And on Boko Haram, what does Baba stand to gain by saying that the criminal activities of these killers of our dream have transformed into an industry within the government and even in the Boko Haram camps? Did he not know that the South African government once frustrated our efforts to battle the insurgents by seizing our $15m in a cash-for-arms deal? Can he tell us that he was unaware of the billions of Naira released to the Ministry of Defence to prosecute the war? Where was he when the defence chiefs said they provided the soldiers and combatants at the war front with all the needed equipment and emoluments to confront the insurgents? So, how is it an in-

dustry within an industry of thieves? How? Besides, Okupe has explained that though the Boko Haram sect has persisted in its "mindless killings, kidnappings and supposed territorial seizures", the Jonathan government has made "giant diplomatic strides with our neighbouring countries in order to checkmate the crisscrossing of the insurgents.

The truth of the matter which we must know and accept is that we have an internal enemy supported by internal and external resources waging a major warfare against our nation.” Why, for crying out loud, has Obasanjo refused to see the giant strides others are seeing? Why? Is it because, like the leadership of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party puts it, he no longer controls political patronage in order to install his hirelings in juicy positions?

Anyway, this is my two-kobo advice to those taunting Okupe and his strategically positioned social media rats to a dogfight, they should be ready for a verbal lashing and some exaggerated listing of the uncommon transformation that stares them in the face even if they have refused to see such. Besides, if every presidential Rottweiler deserves his day in the murky waters of political brigandage, why should we chastise Okupe for doing a damn good job? Who knows? Could it be that Obasanjo is envious of Jonathan for making good use of a man he once kicked out unceremoniously from the presidential Villa for undisclosed reason? See how 'transformed' Okupe has become in less than four years. He now barks befuddling gibberish into our eardrums and taunts us with the shadowy gloom that stares us in the face! Well, it is Okupe's good luck and, as law-abiding citizens untainted by the "thuggish mentality" in high places, we are admonished to take this vomit with stoic equanimity as we tighten our belts to face the consequences of a sick economy under the charge of Nigeria's best leader ever!

Shame!

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THE NATION, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2014

Kebbi assembly members and others to decamp to APC on Monday n Khadijat SAIDU, Birnin Kebbi n OLLOWING the political situation in Kebbi State, all is now set for 17 out of 24 members of the Kebbi State House of Assembly to formally decamp from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressive Congress (APC)

by Monday next week.

This was disclosed by the APC state publicity secretary Alhaji Sani Dododo who stated that the deputy speaker and four others who are leadership of the House plan decamping.

Dododo also confirmed to The Nation that apart from the 17 members, some prominent politicians from the state such as Senator Atiku Bagudu, representing Kebbi Central Constituency at the National Assembly and many others are defecting to APC, ''As you can see, some of them have stated attending our programs and even pasted their posters to contest under the platform of our great party," he added.

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Supreme Court dismisses CPC's appeal against Wada •Says dead party cannot sue n Eric IKHILAE, Abuja n HE Supreme Court yesterday, dismissed an appeal filed by the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) challenging the election of Idris Wada as the Kogi State governor.

The court, in a unanimous judgement, held that since the CPC which filed the appeal had merged with the other political parties to become the All Progressive Congress (APC), it ceased to be a political party and therefore could not file or sustain the appeal.

In the lead judgement, Justice Tanko Muhammad held that the merger of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) and the

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CPC on July 31st, 2013 signalled the death of CPC. "CPC from that date was no more a political party and lacked the capacity to carry out any legal business transaction including filing an appeal."

He held that following the death of the CPC on July 31st, 2013, no appeal or any process for that matter is maintainable in the name of the CPC before any court of law.

"If there is an appeal or process or anything hinged on the appeal, such is afflicted by the death of its initiator (the appellant)," he added.

The court also ordered CPC to pay N100,000 as costs to all the respondents which included Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Peoples Democratic Party, Captain Idris Wada, APC, ANPP, Elder Ubolo Okpanachi and James Ocholie, SAN.

Kwara PDP aspirants disagree over governorship primaries HE Kwara state Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship aspirants and party chairman yesterday expressed fears that the primaries might not be free, fair and transparent based on the controversies that trailed the November 1 ward congress elections.

Scores of members of PDP had protested against alleged manipulation of the delegates list of the party.

They also stated that contrary to the Electoral Act, venue, time and agents of the today state House of Assembly’s primary are not yet known.

One of the aspirants, who claims he is the Chairman, PDP aspirants forum, Senator Simon Ajibola said this in Ilorin, the state capital at a meeting convened by the state police command, Department of State Security Service, Nigeria Prisons Service and other paramilitary agencies.

Some of the other aspirants at the meeting were immediate past Chairman, Federal Character Commission (FCC), Prof Shuaib Abdulraheem, Alhaji Jani Ibrahim, Bio Ibrahim, Engr. Sunday Babalola, Akeem Lawal and Mohammed Dele Belgore (SAN).

Senator Ajibola added that, “we have been asking for the official delegates result sheet of the November 2014 ward congress in the state, up till now we are yet to have it. We plead that the authentic result sheet of the congress be released.”

The senator who is representing Kwara South at the upper chamber

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Security agents: we will not tolerate violence n Adekunle JIMOH, Ilorin n specifically accused one of the aspirants, Belgore of not cooperating with other aspirants.

He added that the former governorship candidate of the defunct Action Congress (ACN) in the 2011 governorship election declined to append his signature on some decisions reached by the forum.

But Mr. Belgore defended his decision not approve of a decision reached at a prior meeting of the forum he was not

physically present.

The Senior Advocate of Nigeria said that, “all other aspirants had a meeting in which I was not in attendant. The decision had been taken at that meeting and they now expect me as a lawyer to sign.”

Responding, the state PDP chairman, Akogun Iyiola Oyedepo agreed that there were lapses in one of the local government areas during the ward congress, adding that the aspirants want to lord it over the PDP leadership in the state.

Koton karfi jail break: 45 runaway inmates recaptured

…We have started recovering phones from prisoners, says NPS ORE 45 prisoners out of the 144 that escaped from the Koton Karfi Prisons, Kogi State have been rearrested.

Nigeria Prison Service (NPS), Public Relations Officers, Mr. Ope Fatinikun told The Nation yesterday.

Suspected terrorists over a month ago attacked the Koto-Karffi Federal Medium Security Prisons in Kogi State.

It would be recalled that in the attack that started at 10pm, the gunmen broke through the prison walls to set free all 145 inmates, vandalized the record office and threw the prison doors ajar.

Twelve of the prisoners were later returned while one died from bullet injuries.

This is the second time in two years that

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n Gbenga OMOKHUNU, Abuja n the Koto-Karfi prison was breached to free inmates. In 2012, 119 awaiting trial inmates were also freed by the attackers and many never returned.

Fatinikun disclosed that efforts are on among security operatives to re-arrest the remaining inmates His words: “About 45 escapees of the Koto-Karfi Prison in Kogi State have been rearrested by security operatives. We have also started effecting the ultimatum given by the Minister of Interior, Comrade Abba Moro to recover all phones within 30 days from all prison formation. Some of the recaptured inmates have been given state pardon.”

Kwankwaso anoints deputy as successor OVERNOR Rabi’u Kwankwaso of Kano State yesterday threw his weight behind Deputy Governor Abdullahi Ganduje to succeed him in office.

Ganduje,an engineer,is the first deputy governor to be so endorsed by his principal,ahead of next year’s election.

The coast is thus clear for Ganduje to fly the flag of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the election.

Kwankwaso,bowing to intense pressure from various interest groups within and outside the party, urged other governorship aspirants to understand the situation and support Engr. Ganduje in the interest of the

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n Kolade ADEYEMI, Kano n party and people of the state.

Ganduje picked the expression of interest form from the party secretariat yesterday.

He could not hide his joy as he acknowledged cheers from thousands of his supporters who converged on the party’s secretariat to show their solidarity.

He described his anointment by Kwankwaso as a triumph of hope, and promised to continue with the legacies of Kwankwaso if voted into office.

The PDP is yet to pick its candidate.

But a source in the party described

Ganduje as a formidable opponent.

“You are aware that Ganduje was part of us. He was a foundation member of PDP in Kano and we cannot dismiss the fact the he is popular and well grounded,” the source said.

“Consequently, we’ll do our best to pick an equally formidable candidate that can give Ganduje a good fight.”

Ganduje had stepped down for Kwankwaso ahead of the 1999 election following pressure from PDP leaders in the state at the time like former Minister of Labour, Alhaji Musa Gwadabe, current Minister of Foreign affairs, Alhaji Aminu Wali and the late first civilian Governor of Kano state, Alhaji Abubakar Rimi.

THE NATION SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2014

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SPORT EXTRA AFCON 2015 OUTSTER

Keshi should take blame, says Oliseh F

ORMER Super Eagles captain Sunday Oliseh has said Stephen Keshi should shoulder the blame for Nigeria's failure to qualify for next year's AFCON in Equatorial Guinea.

Oliseh, writing in his blog, faulted Keshi's constant line-up changes and failure to settle on his best 11 players, a situation he claimed made them not play as a team. ”The uncoordinated way in which the Super Eagles play, which triggered our recent elimination, is borne out of the fact that there were too much line-up changes,” he wrote.

“When you lack ‘raw’ quality in your team, you advocate and build success via team work, team play and a regular team to compensate for what you lack in individual quality.”

He also lashed out at Keshi's poor handling of his critics, citing not all who criticise the out of contract Super Eagles coach are interested in his job.

“It is a crime to air your opinion, give advice or suggestions on how to better the Super Eagles without the handlers throwing insults at you or crying out that you seek their job,” he added.

“They probably do this because they got the job by back stabbing; hence they fail to understand that not everyone needs or wants to coach the Super Eagles.”

The outspoken ex-Juventus man, who is a licensed UEFA

grade A coach, continued by saying Keshi and his technical crew lack the proper qualification requirements to lead a team like the Super Eagles, and that also means they were unable to achieve success in the long haul even though they won the AFCON 2013.

“Most of us played football as kids; we all have an opinion or

idea about football. This, however, leads some to think they are experts. This is not only wrong, but dangerous,” he continued.

“Should you want to be a top coach, you have to study and get yourself certified and even then you are not guaranteed success.

“Spain’s Football Federation recently banned Real Madrid’s second-team coach, Zinedine

Zidane, from coaching because he doesn’t have the right qualifications.

“If they can ban such a legend from coaching the second division, why should we hand over our national teams and first division clubs to people who just attended two-week seminars and pretend to be qualified?”

• Keshi

2015 AFRICAN YOUTH CHAMPIONSHIP (AYC)

Flying Eagles call up 30 as screening begins in Kaduna

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IGERIA U-20 team, the Flying Eagles, have called up 30 players as they begin a screening exercise in Kaduna on Sunday in preparations for next year’s African Youth Championship in Senegal.

The 30 players called up are made up of the core of the squad who qualified the team for the 2015 AYC in Senegal from March and several players from the Nigeria Premier League.

Enyimba star Kingsley Sokari, Tony Edjomariegwe from Nasarawa United as well as Musa Newman of Sunshine Stars are among the fresh callups.

Jacob Njoku from Portuguese club FC Porto is the only foreign-based player invited.

According to the Flying Eagles secretary Ibrahim Auwal Aliyu Ibrahim, the players are to report at the African Continental Hotel on Sokoto Road in Kaduna from Sunday.

The team will train at the Ahmadu Bello Stadium in Kaduna.

THE INVITED PLAYERS: GOALKEEPERS Joshua Enaholo, Adamu Abubakar, Olorunleke Ojo, Dele Alampasu DEFENDERS Musa Muhammed, Ifeanyi

Nweke, Mustapha Abdullahi, Zaharadden Bello, Prince Izu Omego, Adebayor Ademuluwa, Wilfred Ndidi, Sirajo Mazadu, Chinedu Chukwura Emmanuel MIDFIELDERS Bernard Bulbwa, Ifeanyi Matthew, Ifeanyi Ifeanyi, Chizom Eze, Akinjide Idowu, Abdullahi

Alfa, Obinna Nwobodo, Kingsley Sokari, Madu Chiamaka STRIKERS Jacob Njoku, Sulaiman Abdullahi, Abubakar Lawal, Wasiu Jimoh, Tony Edjomariegwe, Newman Musa, Usman Hassan, Adamu Muhammed Silo.

NESTLE MILO SCHOOLS BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

FIBA Africa zone 3 targets outstanding players

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S the stage is being set for the finals of the Nestle Milo Secondary Schools Basketball Championships in Lagos, FIBA Africa Zone 3, the Basketball body controlling the zone, sees the championship as a good platform for Nigeria’s budding talents to hit stardom.

The Administrative Secretary of FIBA Africa Zone 3, Joe Apu stated that the Nestle Milo Basketball Championships for Secondary Schools remains Nigeria’s flagship event for talent identification. “Some prod-

ucts of the Nestle Milo Championships have done the nation proud at international competitions’’. He recalled names such as Mohammed Bukar now based in the United States and Canada based Edwin Jerry who were products of the championship.

Other national team players like Olumide Oyedeji, Anyebe Ujo and Nkechi Akashiele among others also had their foundation in the Nestle Milo Secondary Schools Basketball Championships.

Apu praised the Nestle Milo Secondary Schools Basketball programme as very outstanding in the zone which has Nigeria, Benin Republic, Togo, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Niger and Liberia.

The qualifying teams will arrive in Lagos on December 1.

The players’ accreditation starts on Tuesday at the Indoor Sports Hall of the National Stadium Lagos by 9am while the championship starts with the Round Robin games at 1 o’clock.

Kinetic Sports releases Copa Lagos 2014 theme song

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S preparation for the 2014 edition of Copa Lagos heats up, Kinetic Sports, organisers of Copa Lagos have released the official theme song for the tournament titled: “Copa Lagos.”

The new single is written and produced by one of Nigeria’s hottest talents, Lamboginny, and is set to

bring rhythm and passion to one of the most populous cities in Africa.

Commenting on the release, Lamboginny said: “The song is a great collaboration with Copa Lagos. This is the first time in the history of the tournament that a theme song will herald the 3-day fiesta. I urge all soccer fans to be

part of the experience” The tournament will hold from December 12 to 14 at the dynamic Eko Atlantic City, Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria.

More than a sports event, Copa Lagos is a lifestyle. Beach soccer fans will be offered a varied range of activities, fashion shows and family activities, which will bring

rhythm and passion to one of the most populous cities in Africa.

Lead sponsor, 1960BET and long-standing sponsors First City Monument Bank (FCMB), Eko Atlantic, Cool FM, LTV, Pepsi and venue sponsors Eko Energy Estate under Orlean Invest are lending their support to serve up another unforgettable beach soccer fiesta.

Let’s face facts • Continued from back page groom the squads for the FIFA U-20 World Cup, the All African Games and the Brazil 2016 Olympic Games. They must not allow these coaches field players older than the stipulated age brackets.

The players must be drawn from the domestic league. This can only happen if the NFF can insist on good officiating, which will come with adequate security at all the stadia before, during and after matches.

NFF chiefs and indeed chieftains of the League Management Committee (LMC) must meet with the Inspector General of Police (IGP). It is about time we had security men trained specifically for crowd control at the stadium. This is the norm in other climes.

How can a referee be protected when the security operatives in the stadium are wearing the home club’s jerseys? This is main reason why our domestic league is unsafe, even with the LMC’s laudable initiatives.

Referees are human and they are prone to mistakes, so the NFF must ensure that they are exposed to courses where they can learn the basics. They are an integral part of the game. With adequate security, referees can handle matches properly. I could also task the NFF and LMC to ensure that all the domestic league games are televised either live or recorded. There must also be a platform where all the games are previewed and reviewed on television where the highlights of the good, the bad and the horrible are shown.

Sanctions should be meted out without fear or favour. The NFF and the LMC must lobby the National Assembly for a law against beating up referees or causing a breach of peace. Until such a law is enacted, home clubs will continue to mobilise urchins in their areas to beat up referees. No stranger can invade a pitch to cause mayhem. Club chairmen and secretaries are culpable in this act of organising roughnecks to threaten referees before, during and after matches, in a bid to secure three points.

The Barclays English Premier League is the most watched in the world because it is connected to the people and the corporate world through incisive television coverage. People sit in their homes around the globe to watch the Barclays English Premier League games. They also can contribute on skype, e-mail and on telephone to topical issues on the competition’s official television station. With this type of packaging, it is difficult for the big spending firms in the world not to network the goods and services on such a station since the people are the ultimate consumers of their wares.

The NFF and the LMC must ensure that the coaches who handle the league clubs are eminently qualified. They must institute a system where renowned tacticians school our club coaches periodically about the new train-

ing methods in the game. This idea of former players becoming coaches is chiefly responsible for the poor standard of play in the domestic league. The LMC must from this new season ensure that the domestic league coaches are badge. Those unqualified ones should be shown the way out. Coaching is not an all-comers job. Great players often times don’t make great coaches. Therefore, exinternationals must go to school if they want to transform from being players to coaches.

They are talents at the grassroots. The problem is that Nigerian coaches are lazy. They are fixated. They don’t understand that the game is dynamics. They are all-knowing and don’t think it is right for them to undergo refresher courses to equip themselves in coaching. Indeed, Nigerian coaches are bane of the game here. But for the game to really grow, the pitches must be lush green grass. The pitch must be well laid to enhance the players’ performance not these bumpy pitches which make ball control difficult.

Sunday Oliseh, (you remember him?) summed up the precarious state of Nigeria’s football on his blog; saying: “Most of us played football as kids; we all have an opinion or idea about football. This, however, leads some to think they are experts of the sport. This is not only wrong, but dangerous.

“Should you want to be a top coach, football administrator or technician, you have to study and get your certified qualifications and, even then, you are not guaranteed success.

“Spain’s Football Federation recently banned Real Madrid’s second-team coach, Zinedine Zidane, from coaching because he doesn’t have the right qualifications.

“If they can ban such a legend from coaching the second division, why should we hand over our national teams and first division club sides to people who just attended two-week seminars and pretend to be qualified?

“It takes two years minimum to be a qualified UEFAlicensed coach via theoretic and practical exercises. It is a crime to air your opinion, give advice or suggestions on how to better the Super Eagles without the handlers throwing insults at you or crying out that you seek their job.

“They probably do this because they got the job by back stabbing, hence they fail to understand that not everyone wants to coach the Super Eagles.

“When you lack ‘raw’ quality in your team, you advocate and build success via team work, team play and a regular team to compensate for what you lack in individual quality.

“The uncoordinated way in which the Super Eagles play, which triggered our recent elimination, is borne out of the fact that there were too much line-up changes. Not only does the team not play well or succeed, it is a ‘foreign’ and unknown team to Nigerians.”

These views are coming from one of the most decorated Super Eagles player and ex-captain, Sunday Oliseh. Need I say more?

TOMORROWPUNCHLINE IN THE NATION

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2014 TRUTH IN DEFENCE OF FREEDOM VOL.9, NO. 3047

Matters of faith don’t lend themselves to reason since they flow from our hearts and emotions. Each time Boko Haram - in the name of Islam - invade a village in the North East, burn down churches and murder Christians, it plays strongly into the ‘them-against-us’ narrative

O

N the surface, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) is alive, robust and well. It still remains the self-styled largest political party behemoth in Africa. Some incurable optimists within the party may even continue to harbour the illusion that the PDP is destined to dominate Nigeria’s political landscape unchallenged meaningfully for the next six decades. A closer examination of the PDP, however, will show that the party is under severe stress and strain. The PDP has become a victim of its own success. The strength of the PDP does not lie in the realm of ideas, policies or a programmatic vision. No, it derives its nourishment from having been the beneficiary of a retreating military oligarchy that handed power to it on a platter of gold in 1999. Thus, it has been able to distribute largesse, patronage and the spoils of office on an unprecedented scale. This is in addition to its being able to deploy the coercive apparatus of state against real and imagined adversaries with scant regard for due process and the rule of law.

Once upon a time, the PDP routinely denounced and demonised the All Progressives Congress (APC) as a party lacking in internal democracy. This accusation of course gave the impression that the PDP is the very epitome and model of internal democracy. Now, many Nigerians know better. The PDP national convention will be nothing but a grand coronation of President Goodluck Jonathan’s candidacy for a second term. This is because he has been given what has been strangely called a ‘right of first refusal’ – a move that has practically shut the door against any serious contenders for the presidency within the PDP. In the APC, on the other hand, there is an on-going fierce contention for the presidential ticket of the party among General Mohammed Buhari, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, Governor Rochas Okorocha and Mr Isa Nda-Isaiah. The APC presidential ticket cannot be taken for granted.

It is nobody’s birth right.

The truth of the matter is that the PDP was not always like this. It was at some point in its genesis a truly vibrant, vigorous and dynamic organisational machine. Among the founding fathers of the PDP were several experienced and tested politicians with impeccable democratic credentials. These include the late Chief Sunday Awoniyi, the late Solomon Lar, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Dr Alex Ekwueme, Ambassador Yahaya Kwande, Alhaji Adamu Ciroma, Chief Barnabas Gemade, Chief Audu Ogbe, Professor Jerry Gana and Professor Iyiorcha Ayu to name a few. However, President Olusegun Obasanjo was determined to seize control of the party in order to be able to manipulate it to serve his narrow partisan ends.

Thus, Obasanjo became the ‘leader’ of the PDP. The party became subordinate to and subservient to the presidency. It completely lost its autonomy and organisational sclerosis set in. The presidency removed and installed chairmen and other officers of the party at will.

What lessons can APC learn from PDP?

•Odigie-Oyegun

•Adanu Muazu

The PDP as a party became no more than a parastatal under the presidency. No more was the party to witness again the stiff contest for its presidential ticket that saw Obasanjo and Ekwueme slug it out fiercely in an all- night affair at the Jos township stadium in 1999.The arteries of the party became hardened and impervious to pressures for change.

At some point, in the pursuit of his ill-fated third term agenda, the Obasanjo presidency even got all registered members of the PDP de-registered. Those willing to become members had to re-apply and be registered anew. It was an unprecedented move in the history of political parties in Africa. The party thus created the impression that it was doing

Banire and Osun polls I am not surprised by the spirited and pungent response of Dr Muiz Banire, National Legal Adviser of the APC to my piece ‘Banire, Aregbesola and Osun polls’ published in this space two weeks ago. It is vintage Banire. But then, I think the central pillars of my contention still stand on solid ground: (1) The distinction Banire makes between a candidate and his party in an election is purely academic and theoretical. Both are like Siamese Twins and must either swim or sink together in victory or defeat. Indeed, the Nigerian constitution recognises parties and not candidates. The case of Rotimi Amaechi in Rivers State proves the point beyond dispute. (2) In plural societies like ours, balancing mechanisms are incorporated into the constitution to cater for ethno-regional, regional and other sectional differences. Contrary to Banire’s contention, zoning of political offices and merit are not mutually exclusive. They make for inclusive governance that promotes stability. (3) To the best of my knowledge at least 11 highly qualified and competent aspirants from across the state have collected and submitted their APC governorship nomination forms in Lagos State and are campaigning vigorously to actualize their ambitions. In this situation, it is premature to talk of imposition. (4) Banire is a key member of the APC in Lagos State and belongs to the top hierarchy of one of the formidable groups within the party. Can he vouch that the group will not back any aspirant in the governorship race? If the group decides to throw its weight behind any aspirant, can the primaries still be regarded as free and fair?

—Festus Eriye anyone who wanted to become a member a favour, giving them a great privilege. Of course, thanks to a combination of forces within the PDP and the opposition parties, Obasanjo’s quest for a constitutional amendment to guarantee his continuing in office for a third term collapsed like a pack of cards.

Even after Obasanjo’s departure from power, the PDP as a party continues to remain firmly in the pocket of the presidency or, more precisely, the president. His debilitating illhealth makes it difficult to assess if the late President Umaru Yar’Adua would have continued in Obasanjo’s path of emasculating the PDP or charted a new, liberating course for the party. On his part, President Goodluck Jonathan has clearly chosen the Obasanjo option. The PDP remains firmly in his grip to be used to actualize his every whim and caprice. Like Obasanjo before him, party officials from the National Chairman down hold their offices at his pleasure and discretion.

This situation stultifies the growth and viability of the party. It encourages rank irresponsibility on the part of a government that is no more accountable to the platform on which it came to power. It is as a result of the asymmetrical power relations between the PDP and the presidency, for instance, that all organs of the PDP – Board of Trustees, National Working Committee, PDP Governors forum – have all endorsed a glaringly underperforming President like Dr Jonathan as the party’s sole candidate for the 2015 election. This only shows that the party is in serious trouble.

What lessons then can the APC learn from the PDP experience? Today, the APC is composed of diverse interests and groups that have to negotiate and engage in various kinds of trade- offs to arrive at acceptable compromises. Some of the contending interests and forces within the APC include the governors, national and state legislators, regional caucuses as well as caucuses built around influential political figures. This is why the outcome of its presidential primaries cannot be a foregone conclusion. The various presidential contenders must campaign, bargain and negotiate up till the last moment.

Some see this as a sign of organisational weakness. I do not think so. Rather, it makes for organisational vitality that discourages complacency or institutional paralysis.

It is not enough for the APC to criticise or lampoon the PDP. The APC must also realise that it is all too easy to fall into the same trap as the PDP especially if it succeeds in dislodging the PDP from control of the centre next year.

This is why the party Think-Tank must begin to devise measures to ensure that governments that emerge on its platform at all levels remain subordinate and amenable to party control and discipline. Of course, this does not mean that the government in power must not enjoy a reasonable degree of autonomy from partisan party control. But to go the PDP way of total subordination of party to the government is nothing but a recipe for the kind of disaster being witnessed under the PDP.

Ade Ojeikere on Saturday talk2adeojeikere@yahoo.com

Let’s face facts

N

IGERIANS are interesting when it comes to supporting the beautiful game. They spare no words in celebrating our soccer teams, especially the Super Eagles. Woe unto you if you dare express any form of warning anytime the Eagles are flying.

For the Nigerian soccer fan, victory, no matter how it comes, is essential for the Eagles in every game. They are not concerned about details. This writer has been on the firing line since the Eagles began their campaign three years ago under this coaching crew.

Yes, the results came, culminating in the famous Africa Cup of Nations feat in South Africa on February 10. But, there were flaws in the team, which pundits tried to highlight.

If curses could kill, this writer wouldn’t have

lived a second after the first tirade against the Eagles. The invectives came in torrents. The Nigerian fan is quick to commend anyone who dares to differ from popular views, if the Eagles stumble. Indeed, when such warning signals are ignored and the Eagles falter, many of them retract their comments and identify with the new trend. The team’s performances have been a disaster waiting to happen.

The pertinent questions from readers who have lampooned me have been – Who is the Eagles chief coach? When will the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) name a new coach?

Soccer-loving Nigerians must note that should we allow this lacuna in the team’s technical crew to continue till the end of the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations in Equitorial Guinea, Nigeria may as well forget about qualifying for the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

This is a warning. By the time the 2015 Af-

rica Cup of Nations ends, at least eight countries would have a team in place to prosecute their World Cup qualifiers while Nigeria will be rebuilding with a jaded technical crew that has lost its direction, exhibiting poor knowledge of the game.

How else can we accept the fact that Eagles’ coaches have failed when Nigeria is the only country out of the five that represented Africa at the Brazil 2014 World Cup that will be missing in Equatorial Guinea next year? So, who is insisting that the coaches should stay? One thing is clear - if we allow the coaches stay, we have prepared the stage for crowd violence at the stadium, if the Eagles continue to totter.

Before the game against Sudan in Abuja, some fans pelted the coaches with stones, sachet and bottled water. Around the stadium were placards stating that the coaches should go. Supporters of these coaches al-

leged that the fans were rented to cause commotion.

Some fans carried placards inside the Akwa Ibom International Stadium in Uyo. Those who were in Uyo when Nigeria crashed out of the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations told of the motley crowd crying over the loss. Others threw objects unto the field.

Are these not enough evidence to show that the coaches are not wanted anymore? Is it until the fans invade the pitch to stop the match in a bid to vent their anger on the players and coaches before we ask these men to go? Have we sat back at home to watch Eagles’ last two home matches to see placard-carrying Nigerians at the stands?

Poor fans! They storm the stadium to watch the Eagles only to have their blood pressure raised by appalling displays. Then we launch into useless post mortem. Why can’t we be proactive? my advice to the NFF is for them to focus on our U-20 and U-23. They have started well by getting the right coaches to

•Continued on Page 63

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