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EXCLUSIVE BIG OIL IN CRUDE THEFT SCANDAL:

Shell Nigeria Busted

•Agrees To Refund Over 2m Barrels Of Crude •Accepts Infraction, Fine

FEBRUARY 14 - 20, 2021 www.thewillnigeria.com

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COVER

EXCLUSIVE BIG OIL IN CRUDE THEFT SCANDAL:

Shell Nigeria Busted

•Agrees To Refund Over 2m Barrels Of Crude •Accepts Infraction, Fine

BY OLAOLU OLUSINA

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his is not the best of times for Nigeria’s leading oil firm, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC), a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell. Barely a week after a court in The Netherlands compelled it to compensate two Nigerian farmers for damages over 2004/2005 oil leaks, its alleged age-long game of cheating and exploiting technicalities in the production and evacuation of crude oil to allegedly short-change not only the Federal Government, but also local operators in the oil and gas business, is finally coming to an inglorious end.

The bubble appears to have burst at last, from all indications.

And despite all justifications and defense, Shell has, officially, been fingered in a messy missing crude oil scandal that is capable of further tarnishing the corporate integrity of one of the biggest oil prospecting and exploration companies in Nigeria. The company has been indicted by local regulator, the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, for stealing 2, 081, 678 barrels of oil between June 2016 and July 2018 through unapproved metering system, which it used to misappropriate crude and shortchange local operators.

Unfortunately for Shell, concerted efforts, as usual, to cover up the “scandalous mess” through technical explanations were flatly rejected by the DPR, which insisted on the return of the crude and imposed a fine on the oil giant.

After its initial denial and push back against the allegation, Shell itself admitted to the theft in a letter to the DPR dated February 8, 2021, CAPTIONED: “RE; REALLOCATION OF BONNY TERMINAL GROSS VOLUME FROM JUNE 2016 TO JULY 2018 BASED ON COMPARISON OF METERED GROSS VOLUME BETWEEN CORIOLIS METER AND LACT UNIT INSTALLED ON THE NTCL. The letter exclusively obtained by THEWILL, read: “We refer to your letter Ref: DMR/CTO/COA/COM/V.5/045 dated 28 January 2021 in respect of the above subject.

“We note your directives as contained in the above-referenced letter and wish to confirm that The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC) will implement the refund of the 2, 081, 678 barrels of crude oil from the Trans Niger Pipeline (TNP) injectors (SPDC, TEPNG, NDPR and WSPOL) to the Nembe Crude Trunk Line (NTCL) injectors (Aiteo, Belemaoil, Eroton and Newcross) over the period from end of January 2021 till November 2021 in accordance with schedule III as contained in the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) letter Ref: DMR/CTO/COA/COM/V.5/230 dated 14th December, 2020….”

BUSTING THE OIL THIEVES Apparently, the DPR has woken up from a very deep slumber and many years of being docile. Repeated calls for real action to prevent further revenue loss to Nigeria from the activities of oil thieves, spanning many decades, could no longer be ignored. The country had, for long, become a major victim of crude oil theft by ‘smart industry players’, illegal bunkerers and other operators, who under-declare actual allocations by manipulating technical devices and equipment to their advantage due to the laxity in enforcement of regulations leading to loss of millions of dollars in oil revenue every year.

EXPOSING THE STEALING METHOD Rising to the defense of his Agency, Director/Chief Executive Officer of DPR, Mr. Sarki Auwalu, opened a can of worms as he revealed that most of the crude oil thefts actually occur from land terminals.

“I will like to use this opportunity to give a brief on how we will account for hydrocarbon in this nation. I think that will provide a better view for this committee as well as Nigerians. The process starts well because every crude oil comes from well, and THEWILLNIGERIA

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you cannot drill a well without knowing the capacity of that well to produce,” Auwalu told the House of Representatives Adhoc Committee on Oil Theft recently.

“Most of the thefts are coming from land terminals because the land producers have to use pipelines to transport the crude into the terminals for export. In the process, you have a lot of third party interference; small volumes that account for the larger volume are being taken and they are being stolen.”

Aside this, big oil companies also use unauthorised equipment and devices to steal crude oil from Nigeria and even shortchange local operators as the allocation measurement always arrived at with such unauthorised equipment always fall below the actual crude taken out of the country.

SHELL NIGERIA HAS CASE TO ANSWER In a letter to SPDC, dated 9th February, 2018, and titled, RE: CRUDE THEFT/LOSS ALLOCATION METHODOLOGY, copy of which was obtained by THEWILL, the DPR had warned of the need to ensure that “no party among the Bonny producers (SPDC, TNP, NCTL and other trunk Line Injectors) is short changed,” thus requesting Shell, to, among other things, note that DPR’s participation in the calibration and/ or testing of the meter was not an approval to use and apply the equipment for intended purposes. Maintaining that in its efforts to regularise as well as determine the suitability or otherwise of the 2x12” Coriolis Flow Meter installed by SPDC at the inlet of the NCTL line into Bonny Terminal for Custody Transfer Measurement and Allocation Purposes, DPR, in the letter signed by U.K. Ndanusa for the Director of Petroleum Resources, said it had reviewed all the available records within its disposal alongside the additional submission by Shell’s representatives which include Datasheet/ Specification sheet of the meter.

“

Please be informed that we are unable to accept your request for further engagement on the matter due to your failure to implement the refund of 2,081,678 barrels of oil from TNP injectors (SPDC, TEPNG, NDPR and WSPOL) to NCTL injectors (AITEO, BELEMAOIL, EROTON and NEWCROSS) as directed by the Department

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COVER BIG OIL IN CRUDE THEFT SCANDAL:

Shell Nigeria Busted

*Continued from Page 3

THE DPR LISTED THE FINDINGS FROM ITS REVIEW TO INCLUDE THE FACT THAT: • The NCTL facility was installed by SPDC as a temporary arrangement pending the completion of the permanent LACT unit.

• The meter was calibrated and successfully proved in the presence of DPR representatives but no approval was granted by the Department for its application.

• SPDC was made to understand that the existing Regulations/DPR approved Guidelines do not have provision for temporary metering arrangement for custody transfer measurement • Gross volumes obtained from the meter were used by SPDC for Gross Crude Oil Production Allowance to NCTL injectors from June 2016 to May 2017.

Restating the need to ensure that no party among the Bonny producers is short changed, DPR took the opportunity to draw the attention of SPDC to some salient facts, namely that: • Its participation in the calibration and/or testing of the meter was not an approval to use and apply the equipment for intended purpose.

• The approved method of BS&W determination for dynamic measurement as prescribed in the DPR guideline is the Auto sampling system with mixer device installed upstream. The water allocation to NCTL injectors, which was based on the density measurements of the meter as described (c) above are not acceptable to DPR. “You will therefore be required to adjust water allocations to the injectors in line with the DPR approved methodologies as contained in our letters Ref: DMR/CTO/COA/COM/V2/045 dated 23rd December 2015 and Ref: DMR/CTO/COA/COM/V.2/154 dated 21st March 2017,” DPR added with emphasis.

“The Gross volume allocations as described in (d) above may be considered by the Department. However, the extent of the consideration is subject to the outcome of a comparison between previous Gross measurements by the meter and that of the permanent LACT after commissioning. This is to enable us further verify the accuracy of the Coriolis meter using the LACT Unit in addition to the calibration and proving described in (b) above.”

CROSSING THE ENGAGEMENT LIMIT From all indications, SPDC went beyond the limits of engagement with the DPR as exhibited in its failure to obey the directives given whilst also defending what were obviously clear infractions. But the regulatory agency would have none of such again and was bold enough to stick to its guns.

Another recent letter dated 28 January, 2021 from the DPR to the Managing Director, SPDC, and titled, RE: REALLOCATION OF BONNY TERMINAL GROSS VOLUME FROM JUNE 2016 TO JULY 2018 BASED ON COMPARISON OF METERED GROSS VOLUME BETWEEN THE CORIOLIS METER AND LACT UNIT INSTALLED ON THE NCTL, referred to an earlier defense put forward

by Shell. The letter, also obtained by THEWILL, read in part: “Your letter Ref: SPDC -COM -2021-0016L dated January 14, 2021 on the above subject refers.

“Please be informed that we are unable to accept your request for further engagement on the matter due to your failure to implement the refund of 2,081,678 barrels of oil from TNP injectors (SPDC, TEPNG, THEWILLNIGERIA

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NDPR and WSPOL) to NCTL injectors (AITEO, BELEMAOIL, EROTON and NEWCROSS) as directed by the Department.

“As you are aware, the refund volume is a function of production reallocation (for June 2016 to May 2017) in order to effect correction for the initial water allocation to NCTL injectors with Coriolis meter (by SPDC), which was REJECTED by DPR, vide our letter, Ref: DMR/ CTO/COA/COM/V.3/102 and dated 9TH FEBRUARY 2018, because it was contrary to statutory requirements.

“ACCORDINGLY, YOU ARE DIRECTED TO NOTE THE FOLLOWING: 1. Ensure total compliance with the directives communicated to you via our letter, Ref: DMR/CTO/COA/COM/V.5/230 dated 14th December 2020.

“Your December 2020 Schedule 1B for Bonny Terminal Network and the resultant stock certificates issued to the affected companies are UNACCEPTABLE. You are to therefore, with immediate effect, adjust the schedule 1B and re-issue the stock certificates to the relevant TNP and NCTL injectors, to reflect the production adjustments for the month.

WIELDING THE BIG STICK Based on the above-mentioned infractions, DPR, aside the request for total compliance with earlier directives given, wielded the big stick by placing a sanction against Shell, slamming a $250, 000 penalty on the company for violating what it described as Part 1, Section 2 (d) of the Mineral Oil Safety Regulation and the provisions of Section 51 of the Petroleum Act: 1969. Shell was also advised to ensure timely completion and commissioning of the LACT unit being installed at the inlet manifold of the NCTL line to enable DPR conclude action on the Coriolis meter.”

Shell is not new to scandals. According to a Financial Mail report in 2004, Shell executives in Nigeria were encouraged to overstate the company’s crude oil reserves in the country so as to justify increase in bonuses and benefit from tax breaks, a scandal that damaged its reputation and led to the firing of then chairman, Sir Philip Watts and Walter van de Vijver, head of exploration and production.

Quoting sources, the report said the group’s reporting systems there provided an incentive for overstating reserves. The Nigerian government offered tax breaks to companies that declared they had uncovered oil reserves - the higher the reserves, the higher the tax break. Shell allegedly overstated its oil and gas reserves in Nigeria by over 2 billion barrels and allegedly cheated the country and stakeholders.

“

We note your directives as contained in the above-referenced letter and wish to confirm that The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC) will implement the refund of the 2, 081, 678 barrels of crude oil from the Trans Niger Pipeline (TNP) injectors

DON’T BLAME SHELL - SOURCE However, a source at the accounting and hydrocarbon section of the production department of SPDC, who spoke on condition of anonymity, absolved the company of any blame. He told THEWILL that the company is always trying to comply with DPR’s regulations.

“I know there was a time during the tenure of Mutiu Sunmonu as Managing Director of the company when we had something similar to what you are talking about. That time, we had collaboration with a local operator and we discovered that instead of oil, they would spike water into the system, that is pumping water into our pipes to increase volume.

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COVER BIG OIL IN CRUDE THEFT SCANDAL:

Shell Nigeria Busted *Continued from Page 5

It got so bad we had to do a joint meter proving to solve the problem. DPR, the local operator and Shell would jointly do meter proving together and at the end sign a document.”

Giving more insight into over lifting as a serious form of crude oil theft in Nigeria’s oil industry, the report said: “It refers to the underestimating of the total number of barrels received at any point of the extraction process (but typically after it has been refined) in order to sell the remaining on the black market.

“Underestimation can happen because when oil is drilled and transported via pipelines it also contains sand and water.

The sand and water inflate the volume being transported so the refined volume is never equal to the volume received at the refinery.

“Over lifting occurs at tank farms, refineries and distribution centres. Most of these are owned and operated by national and international oil companies.

“These sharp practices have been reportedly going on for a long time and a reason why many assume oil companies are complicit in oil theft.

“The complexity and secrecy behind over lifting makes it hard to track and measure, as the figures for the amount of crude drilled in reserves vary widely.

“Oil theft involves a number of participants working in a complex web of illicit transactions. The value chain is made up of on the ground and overseas operations, sales, financiers, logistics, and security.

“Underestimation can take place at each stage of the value chain from drilling, transportation, loading, and shipping; potentially creating a wide gap between records and reality.

“Companies also reported to use over lifting to avoid Petroleum Profits Tax by declaring less than actually produced. The NNPC often reports figures they are given by companies and does not independently verify the numbers to ensure compliance.”

SABOTEURS RESPONSIBLE FOR LOSS SHELL NIGERIA Reacting to the development, the Media Relations Manager, Shell Nigeria, Bamidele Odugbesan, said there was no truth in the matter. He said what was being regarded as theft was the result of the activities of those he described as saboteurs in the supply chain.

“The report is laughable, it’s not true. The volume of oil said to have been stolen is just unimaginable, “Odugbesan told THEWILL, adding, “There is nothing to substantiate the report. Saboteurs are on the trunk line, from the point of injection to the terminal.”

On the fine imposed on Shell by the DPR, Odugbesan said: “I’m not aware of any fine,” even as he maintained that Shell is also a beneficiary of the re-allocation of the missing volumes of oil, since, according to him, “Shell is also an injector.”

LOCAL OPERATORS KEEP MUM THEWILL sought to confirm the compliance of Shell to the DPR’s directives on compensation to the local operators that were shortchanged.

We contacted EROTON Exploration & Production Company Limited spokesman, Dele Aikhonbare, who said he had just been reassigned and is no longer in charge of External Relations. “Unfortunately, I’m no longer in the External Relations and I’m not officially authorised to speak on the matter. I know what the answer is but I’m not going to speak.” He directed this newspaper to the External and Governmental Relations Manager, Mercy Max Ebibai, who neither picked multiple phone calls nor responded to messages sent.

Attempts to reach AITEO on Thursday evening however proved abortive. Spokesperson for the company, Ndiana Matthews, was unreachable, as he did not pick calls.

Spokespersons for Belemaoil and Newcross were also unreachable.

HOUSE OF REPS TACKLES DPR Alarmed at this development, the House of Representatives Adhoc Committee on Oil Theft, penultimate week, took the DPR up on the 329,420,319 barrels of crude oil alleged to be missing, wondering why the DPR could not account for the crude valued at over $20 billion between 2005 and 2012.

Though he did not mention any particular oil company, Chairman Committee, Peter Akpatason, who fired the warning shot during an investigative hearing organised by the committee, did not mince words in maintaining that DPR would have to account for the “missing oil.”

“The effects of crude oil theft cannot be over emphasised, and this has lasted for too long. As patriots, it is our collective responsibility to see to the end of this stealing. The Adhoc Committee has identified the key role DPR has as the agency of government in the sector, hence your re-invitation today to enable us work together and come up with a common front on ways to tackle this matter; if not completely put to an end to it, reduce it to its barest minimum,” Akpatason had stated.

“DPR is the agency of the government saddled with the responsibility of monitoring crude oil production and lifting.

The Committee requested and obtained schedules of crude oil produced and lifting between 2005 to 2019. Forensic analysis of the data revealed a very wide margin between what was reported produced and what was lifted.”

SHOCKING REVELATIONS According to Akpatason, “Between 2005 and 2012, DPR reported production of 1,746,621,167 barrels from four sampled oil terminals of Escravos, Bonny, Forcados and Bonga. Out of these production volumes, only

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1,417,200,848 barrels were accounted for as having been lifted officially. A whopping volume of 329,420,319 barrels, valued at over $20 billion, could not be accounted for. The same trend of infractions were observed in the years 20162019. The committee through the analysis of submissions to it has raised issues requiring clarifications from DPR these issues ranges from unprocessed crude oil, suspected stolen/diverted crude oil, discrepancies in records, use of inappropriate devices and technologies for measurement and gauging despite huge budgetary provisions.”

A MAJOR CHALLENGE A 2019 report by Nigeria Natural Resources Charter (NNRC) on crude oil theft in the cwountry revealed how International Oil Companies (IOCs) steal crude oil from Nigeria without the knowledge of the regulatory authorities. While listing various strategies being used in the theft to include small-scale pipeline tapping, bunkering and over lifting, the report also estimated that Nigeria lost a whopping N995.2 billion in revenue annually to crude oil theft over the past few years.

According to the report, “There are several categories of oil theft in existence; small-scale pipeline tapping, bunkering and over lifting. While all three types of theft are not mutually exclusive, they each have different sources, actors, markets, and revenue streams.

“They have seen increased cooperation on ground as profits soared with little deterrence from enforcement agencies. Several investigations have highlighted the complicity between state actors, oil companies and militant elements in all categories of theft.”

NOT THE FIRST TIME FOR BIG OIL THEWILL recalls that in 2016, the Federal Government slammed a $407 million suit against Shell Nigeria and its allied Shell Western Supply and Trading Limited as part of an effort to recover what was lost in revenue through undeclared and under-declared lifting for oil between 2013 and 2014.

According to the NNRC report, “Data from Nigerian export records were reconciled with shipments of oil into the US including its bills of lading, oil vessels name used for the shipment, date of arrival at the destination ports and ports of origin.

“The comparison showed that the crude oil shipments declared to have been exported from Nigeria was less than what was declared to have been imported into the US, using the same shipment by the same vessel on the same bill of lading.”

TROUBLED TIME FOR BIG OIL Only last December, THEWILL reported how Nigerian employees of the Anglo-Dutch oil company were accused of deliberate vandalisation of oil pipelines for personal gain, according to a documentary in the Netherlands. Dutch television documentary programme, Zembla, together with Dutch environmentalist organisation, Milieudefensie, according to Aljazeera, had reported that “Multiple witnesses declared that SPDC, a subsidiary of Shell, caused the oil leaks.”

“According to sources, Shell employees profit from these intentional oil leaks by pocketing money from clean up budgets.” the report also said in a statement summarising an 18-month investigation of various leaks between 2010 and the present day. It added that SPDC, along with the Dutch embassy in Nigeria, were quite aware of the accusations but had failed to address them.

Millions of litres of oil have leaked into the Niger Delta since Shell began oil extraction in 1958.

Shell, however, says that 95 percent of leaks are as a result of sabotage even as it denies responsibility for the leaks, which it blamed on local criminals and organised gangs • THEWILLNIGERIA

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FEBRUARY 14 - 20, 2021 www.thewillnigeria.com

NEWS

From left: Seyi Jakande (Son); Mrs Adetoun Alade; Alhaja Idowu Oledeji; Engr. Kamal and wife of the deceased, Mrs Abimbola Jakande, at the lying-in-state of Alhaji Lateef Kayode Jakande at his Ilupeju residence in Lagos. PHOTO: PEACE UDUGBA

PDP, Afenifere, TUC Mourn Jakande

BY DAMILOLA ESAN

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ondolences have continued to pour in for late governor of Lagos State, Alhaji Lateef Jakande, who died on Thursday at the age of 91.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in its condolence on Friday charged leaders at all levels across the country to emulate the humility, patriotism, selflessness and life of service exhibited by first civilian governor of Lagos state and former Minister of Works, Alhaji Lateef Jakande.

The party said it was saddened by the death of Alhaji Jakande, whom it described as a quintessential statesman; very prudent administrator and exceptionally self-sacrificing leader, whose life remains a true stencil and source of inspiration for younger generation of leaders.

The party in a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr Kola Ologbondiyan said Alhaji Jakande’s leadership footprints remain indelible in his unprecedented development of Lagos state, including urban development, transportation, railways, road infrastructure, mass education, healthcare, economic empowerment as well as investment in mass housing infrastructure across Lagos state.

“Indeed, Alhaji Jakande’s exceptional patriotism is demonstrated in his manifest spurn for materialism and sacrificing of his comfort for the benefit of the society. His reputation of using his personal vehicle and house, while serving as a state governor, demonstrates his persuasion that leadership is about serving the people and not for personal aggrandizements”.

Also, the Pan – Yoruba socio – political organisation, Afenifere, in a tribute entitled “Adieu Our LKJ” that was signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Yinka Odumakin, described Jakande as the last of the LOOBO governors who faithfully implemented the Unity Party of Nigeria’s (UPN) five cardinal programmes in the second republic.

It noted that Jakande’s implementation of the free education programme, especially the phasing out of the shift programme in Lagos schools, was swift and revolutionary.

The group further stated that “he served Lagos without greed and covetousness; he never lived in Government House or drive a government car throughout his service to the state.

“Jakande developed the Lekki area and never took a plot for himself. His life was all about service. We pray that God will send more of his type our way. Good night”.

The Trade Union Congress (TUC), Lagos State Council in a statement signed by TUC Lagos Council’s Chairman and Secretary, Comrade Gbenga Ekundayo and Comrade Abiodun Aladetan respectively, affirmed that the late elder statesman was the most labour friendly and amiable governor in Lagos history whose empathy and compassion for workers was unprecedented.

According to the statement, the erstwhile governor was second to none in quality leadership and good governance, noting that the legacies he left would remain evergreen perpetually.

“History obviously will be kind and generous to Baba Jakande because he lived a good life.

Baba was an epitome of humility, selflessness, sacrifice, and leadership whose achievements will forever stand tall in our hearts.

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Imo North By-election:

We’ll Respect Court Ruling - INEC

BY AMOS ESELE

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week after the Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja, on Saturday, February 6 upheld the disqualification of Sir Chukwuma Ibezim as the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in the senatorial election that held in Imo North on December 5, 2020, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has pledged to honor the ruling.

In a response to THEWILL enquiry over its silence since the appellate court ruling, the electoral umpire said it would take appropriate action on the judgment.

Mr Rotimi Oyekanmi, Chief Press Secretary to the Chairman of the INEC, Professor Mahmood Yakubu said it was in the organization’s character to respect court ruling.

He said: “ What I can assure you is that the Independent National Electoral Commission will always comply with legitimate court judgements. We always do. Indeed, INEC does not disobey court orders/ judgement.”

The Appeal Court in a unanimous decision by a three-man panel of Justices, affirmed the judgement of the Federal High Court in Abuja which ordered the INEC to remove Ibezim’z name from the list of candidates for the by-election after it found him guilty of submitting falsified documents.

In a suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1229/2020, filed against Ibezim by Asomugha Ebeleke, the trail Judge, Inyang Ekwo had in the judgement delivered on December 4, 2020 disqualified Ibezim for making false declaration in his affidavit and documents he tendered to INEC and APC. Ibezim, the court said, presented falsified and uncertified photocopies of his West African Examinations Council, WAEC, certified. Justice Ekwo said Ibezim’s certificate contained different and irreconcilable names, namely, Chuckwuma Frank and Ibezim Francis Chukwuma. Ibezim appealed the case and lost on Saturday 6, 2021. Justice Stephen Adah of the Appeal Court said he found no reason to interfere with the verdict of the trail court and so dismissed Ibezim’s appeal.

In another judgement, the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by Senator Ifeanyi Ararume. Challenging a Court of Appeal judgement that dismissed him as the real candidate of the APC in the same, disputed senatorial by-election.

Justice Amina Augie five-man led panel of the apex court refused to set aside the verdict of the Appeal Court ruling, which had earlier declared Ibezim as the candidate of the APC. *Continues online at www. thewillnigeria.com

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NEWS Afenifere, Junaid Blast Bauchi Governor Over Statement on AK-47 - Wielding Herdsmen

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ublicity Secretary of Afenifere, the Pan-Yoruba socio-political organization, Mr Yinka Odumakin and Professor Junaid Mohammed on Friday came down hard on Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi state for saying that criminal cow herders carry AK-47 in self- defence.

The governor who made the statement as a guest of the Bauchi state chapter of Nigeria Union of Journalists’ 2021 Press Week, said the herders were confronted with threats to their lives while engaging in their business of cattle rearing across borders and so had to protect themselves against any form of attack. He condemned his counterparts in Benue state, Samuel Ortom and those in the Southwest and Southeast, whom he accused of giving quit notices to herders from their enclave.

Speaking on the topic, “The Role of the Media in Promoting Peace in Nigeria”, Mohammed said, among other things.

“On the herders-farmers clashes, you have seen what our colleagues in the South-West are doing and some of them in South-East. Some of us told them with all modesty and humility – you are wrong.

“But the person that is most wrong is the Governor of Benue State, my brother and my colleague, Governor (Samuel) Ortom; he started all these. If you don’t accommodate other tribes we are also accommodating your people in Bauchi and other places.

“We have so many Tiv people working and farming in Alkaleri, farming in Tafawa Balewa, farming in Bogoro Local Government Area of Bauchi; has anyone asked them to go? We have not, because it is their constitutional rights to be there.

“We have Yoruba people in Bauchi for over 150 years, even before the birth of Nigeria. Nobody has told them to go; some of them have risen to become permanent secretaries in Bauchi, Gombe and Borno.

“And now, the Fulani man is practicing the tradition of trans-human, pastoralism, he has been exposed to the dangers of the forests, the animals, and now, the cattle rustlers, who carry guns, kill him and take away his commonwealth, his cows, he had no option than to carry Ak-47 and defend himself because the society and the government are not protecting him.

“It is not his fault, it is the fault of the government and the people; you don’t criminalise all of them because in every tribe there are criminals. You should be very sensitive.”

In his response, Professor Junaid said the governor was “unserious for making such a foolhardy statement.”

He said: “I honestly do not believe that anybody in his right sense would wield an AK47 rifle and claim to be doing so in self-defense. And for somebody in a governor’s position, somebody who is responsible for security in his state, would make such a statement shows you why Nigeria is badly governed”.

When asked for his suggestion for the menacing farmer/herder conflict, he said; “Those who are responsible for the problem know how to solve it. Look you journalists should not be giving space to people like that.”

For Odumakin, the statement credited to the governor “is a tragedy.”

“These are the kind of people we deal with in Nigeria. For a governor in the country to make that kind of statement shows that resolving the Nigerian crisis is getting out of hand. His statement that governor gave quit notices to Fulanis in the southwest is incorrect. What Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu on Ondo state did in his seven-day ultimatum was to ask herdsmen to vacate the forest reserves of the state. Is it human beings that leave in the forests.”

Cryptocurrency: SEC Makes U-Turn, FG To Convert N10 trn CBN Loan Into 30-Year Bond – DMO Backs CBN On Prohibition

BY SAM DIALA he Nigerian government says it will convert the N10 trillion loans it owes the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) into a 30-year bond.

The ‘indebtedness’ to the CBN was largely by Ways and Means advances – temporary loan facilities to the Government granted by the apex bank, traditionally through printing of more money, to fund budget shortfall.

The Director-General of the Debt Management Office, DMO, Patience Oniha, said that the Federal Government of Nigeria is owing the CBN a whopping sum of about N10 trillion (about $25 billion).

Oniha, who disclosed this at a virtual meeting with investors and analysts Friday, said the debt will be converted into bonds by the CBN to fill the huge deficit gap created by the whopping N10 trillion Ways and Means advance.

Analysts have described this as one of the longest borrowing sprees on record from the CBN’s Ways and Means.

Oniha further explained that the decision to convert the huge “borrowing” into bonds was taken as the government’s borrowing via Ways and Means was no longer sustainable.

“The Ways and Means of about N10 trillion will be formalized and converted into bonds and paid back over the next 30 years.

“There will be a moratorium of principal for the first two years and the bonds will not be sold in the open market but to select investors”, Oniha told the audience.

She said further, “This move seeks to not just formalize the CBN’s lending to the government but also make it somewhat legal for the government’s past and perhaps future borrowing”.

In 2020, the government borrowed about N2.9 trillion from the CBN via Ways and Means to fund a budget deficit of about N6.1 trillion.

At a N10 trillion balance, analysts say that Patience Oniha’s comment suggests that the CBN has been funding Ways and Means since 2015.

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BY SAM DIALA he Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has reversed its stand on cryptocurrency and related products, saying it now supports the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) which had ordered banks to terminate all accounts connected to digital currencies.

Before now, SEC had approved the use of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as securities in line with the global acceptance of cryptocurrency as a means of boosting the capital market.

In a sudden U-turn, SEC in a statement Friday, reversed its earlier readiness to accept Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as securities, saying it would no longer do so until such products are able “to operate bank accounts within the Nigerian banking system”, effectively aligning with the CBN order.

Explaining the reason for the policy reversal, the capital market regulator said, “The SEC made its statement at the time, to provide regulatory certainty within the digital asset space, due to the growing volume of reported flows.

“Subsequently, in its capacity as the regulator of the banking system, the CBN identified certain risks which, if allowed to persist, will threaten investor protection, a key mandate of the SEC, as well as financial system stability, a key mandate of the CBN. “In light of these facts, we have engaged with the CBN and agreed to work together to further analyse, and better understand the identified risks to ensure that appropriate and adequate mitigates are put in place, should such securities be allowed in the future.”

SEC noted that it would monitor the digital asset space to create a regulatory structure that enhances economic development, innovative and transparent capital markets.

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*Continues online at www. thewillnigeria.com

Buhari Approves Trillion Naira Company To Address Key Projects

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oor power, rail, roads, bridges and other key infrastructure making living hard for Nigerians may soon become a thing of the past with the N1trillion approved for the establishment of Public Private Partnership styled infra-Co. It is assigned with the task to tackle infrastructural deficit in the country.

Disclosing this in a statement on Friday, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Office of the Vice President, Mr Laolu Akande, said the approval was given by President Muhammadu Buhari with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo as Chairman of the Steering Committee tasked with setting up the company.

“Infra-Co will be one of the premier infrastructure finance entities in Africa and will be wholly dedicated to Nigeria’s infrastructure development. The entity has been developed with concept designs from the National Economic Council, NEC, and the CBN,” said Akande,”

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He added that the N1 trillion seed capital for the capital for the entity, expected to grow to N15 trillion with time, will come from the CBN, the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority, NSIA and the African Finance Corporation, AFC. The Board of the company will be chaired by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN with the Managing Director of NSIA and President of AFC as members. Others will be representatives of the Nigeria Governors Forum, the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning and three independent directors from the private sector.

“Infra-Co will finance public asset development, rehabilitation and reconstruction as well as invest in cutting edge infrastructure projects for roads, rail, power and other key sectors,” Akande said.

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NEWS EXTRA

Anti-smuggling Task Force Locks Horn with Host Communities Confrontations between men of the Nigeria Customs Service and smugglers are not infrequent especially in border towns and communities. Early last month, the town of Saki-Ilesha Baruba in Kwara state witnessed one such face-off leading to the death of three people. EDOBOR AKAEZE reports on the latest incident involving the local transport union and the Joint Border Drill (JBOD)…

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he driver of a red Volkswagen Golf with registration number BDG 453 BH is used to passing through a checkpoint along Saki-Ilesha Baruba axis in Kwara state. A member of the local road transport union, he is quite familiar with the route and some of the anti-smuggling task force Joint Border Drill (JBOD) manning the checkpoint. But on January 8, something different happened.

According to him, he was flagged down by some JBOD officers of Sector 3 comprising the police and army – a task force run from the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) Abuja.

The driver was returning from Sinawu, a trans-border market within the Nigerian territory, so saw no need to stop since he already paid ‘booking fees’ earlier to the checkpoint operatives on duty. The intention was to brush past the security men. But after making it a few meters past them, the driver had a change of heart, stopped and went back to men who stopped him.

The driver was then arrested. But rather than show remorse, the driver accused the operatives of mindless extortion as against a private arrangement the operatives have with the local drivers’ union and commercial motorcyclists in Ilesha-Baruba on their daily ‘booking fees’ of N200 and N500 at every toll mounted along the border.

The golf driver insisted that they weren’t supposed to flag him down since he was coming from Sinawu, a local market in the area, not from a trans-border trip and had already made payment earlier that day.

Miffed at the effrontery, men of the JBOD descended on the driver, giving him a beating of his life. The driver was, however, freed but not with his vehicle.

As events later turned out, the embattled driver had taken his matter to the local union of transporters in the border town. There was much anger over the incident not only from the drivers, but also from commercial cyclists and residents in the place because, according to them, there had been too much complaint about the activities of the men of the JBOD. Ilesha-Baruba as a border settlement has most of its economic activities tied to farming and trading in food staples like yam flower, cassava, and other food items. Because of its proximity to Benin, it automatically attracts smuggling activities in second hand cars, foreign rice, bales of second hand clothing – all of them banned from entry by government to protect the local economy.

When news got to town how their members were maltreated, the local union took it upon themselves to exact punishment on JBOD. In no time, their numbers swelled and they proceeded to sack two mounted duty posts and the logistics office of NCS in the area.

Upon sighting an advancing mob by transporters in the area, the operatives opened fire, killing three of the protesters on the spot. From that point on, all hell broke loose. The protesters went back and began making bonfires on the highways.

A police officer was wounded by the mob. “After the killing of three people, the town rose against the operatives asking them to leave their ancestral lands,” a local chief told the newspaper, adding that residents were fed up with the activities of JBOD in Ilesha Baruba.

It took the intervention of the emir of Ilesha Buruba, Professor THEWILLNIGERIA

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Halidu Abubakar, to douse tension. As gathered, the traditional ruler, upon learning of the fracas, got into his vehicle at about 9 pm. “I went about town calling the mob to order. I spoke to them like a father and they listened, even killed the fires and removed all the burnt debris from the road. I did not return to the palace until 1 am in the morning,” Prof Abubakar further said.

But when the JBOD Sector 3 made its official response on the incident, two days later, it was to deny the sequences of the events, and even denied killing people. The official statement made by Chado Zakari, Public Relations Officer of the NCS, Kware State Area Command and spokesman for JBOD Sector 3, insisted the JBOD Sector 3 operatives on duty, that day, acted professionally.

“Sector 3 security operatives at Ilesha Baruba flagged down a Volkswagen Golf Vehicle (Red Colour with Registration No BDG 453 BH).

“The driver refused to stop hence the operatives pursued the vehicle, apprehended and moved [the vehicle] back to the checkpoint for examination.”

Zakari, however, said that the driver of the vehicle “abandoned the vehicle and fled the scene,” during the pursuit.

He claimed that the vehicle contained bags of foreign parboiled Rice.

Continuing his account, he said the driver who “fled the scene of pursuit“ mobilized a large mob of organized smugglers and errant youths armed with sticks, stones and locally made weapons, attacked the operatives and overran the checkpoint.”

“At the time of the incident, information received from the Sector 3 Team Leaders on the ground at Ilesha Baruba indicate that three persons from the mob were killed during the attack, reportedly when their vehicle somersaulted when fired upon as they attempted to overrun the checkpoint,” Zakari said.

From THEWILL’s investigation, nine people were wounded through gunshots and three died. Two were very serious while others had peripheral wounds. One of those with bullets was treated at a cottage hospital in the town, the others with bullet wounds were taken to Kenu, a village in the vicinity for extraction of the bullets.

One of the victims seen at the traditional hospital in Kenu was shot at the left side of his jaw. He was still battling between life and death when the newspaper’s investigators visited.

Police and army commands have both insisted on probe of the incident Ajayi Okasami of Kwara State Police Command confirmed that the fracas was between JBOD and the local motorists union in Ilesha Buraba.

At the Ilesha Baruba command of JBOD, the newspaper learnt that the army men on duty were summoned to the Customs logistics office and were grilled by their superiors from Saki, Oyo state were an army formation is located.

When this newspaper contacted Zakari on these contradictory details on the account of January 8 and 9, the spokesman merely responded in a tacit text via his WhatsApp handle: “Customs have issued statement about what transpired. We cannot fabricate what we don’t know or did not happen. Everyone is entitled his or her own opinion.”

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After the killing of three people, the town rose against the operatives asking them to leave their ancestral lands,” a local chief told the newspaper, adding that residents were fed up with the activities of JBOD in Ilesha Baruba

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POLITICS

Restructuring: Remedy Nigeria Needs Now

BY DAMILOLA ESAN ESTRUCTURING! That 13- letter word that was once whispered in closed circles almost a decade ago has become a household word that even the most unlikely believer has become its chief advocate, calling for its implementation as a cure-all for all the ills that plaguing the Nigerian polity.

From former military Head of State, General Ibrahim Babangida and e-x President Olusegun Obasanjo to politicians like ex-Vice President Atiku Abubakar. From socio-cultural organisations like Afenifere, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, PANDEF to Senior Advocates of Nigeria like Olisa Agbakoba and Femi Falana, and the All Progressives Congress, APC, the story is the same: Restructuring is the only viable option to remake Nigeria and pull her from the systemic crisis and looming disaster occasioned by worsening insecurity, grinding poverty, unjustifiable inequality, mutual suspicion and mistrusts among its 200 million-plus otherwise resilient people.

But just when you think the bandwagon was hitched for all comers, different concepts about restructuring have kept emerging while the word itself remains. Even firebrand advocates change. Agbakoba once called for true federalism and devolution of powers to constituents units.

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Last week he wrote a published letter to President Muhammadu Buhari.

“It would appear to me that political restructuring, even though important, is dividing us and impeding development. I suggest that it may be time to talk about another model of development whilst the restructuring debate continues. I think what might unite us all in the quest for development is Cooperative Federalism and Economic Transformation.” the Senior Advocate of Nigeria said in the letter, meaning that both federating units should work together.

Obasanjo once said restructuring is behavioral: Change the mindset; that is all. Now he is calling for devolution of powers, a legal and constitutional approach. Yet, even with the shifting of focus among it growing adherents, restructuring, is gathering momentum and speeding to a point when the question would be are you in or out?

Much so that the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, had to mandate a Governor Nasri el-Rufai Committee to work out modalities for implementing restructuring. Thus Nigerians of all persuasions have fallen for the word. The problem is that while they are all talking about it, they are

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Emphasis must return to agriculture and education.

Domestic security must remain in the hands of the federating units because living safe in Nigerian today is by luck. The secularity of the Nigerian state must be respected

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Remedy Nigeria Needs Now

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yet to talk to each other about it. Why? BACKGROUND At independence in 1960, Nigeria operated a Federal structure with the three regions at the time - North, West and East - enjoying some measures of autonomy. The constitution contained both Concurrent list and exclusive list. While Concurrent consists of subjects like education, agriculture, health among others that both the Federal and Regional Governments could legislate upon, subjects on the Exclusive list included Defense, Currency and foreign affairs that only the Federal has the power to legislate upon.

Like all other Federal structure, the regions were generating revenue and sending some agreed percentage or royalties to the Centre.

Thus there was healthy rivalry between the regions as the West was noted for cocoa production, the East for palm produce and the North cotton and groundnut.

This was the situation until January 15, 1966 when the military took over governance of the country.

The military upon assumption of power brought its tradition of top to bottom order structure into governance which means the Head of state at the Federal level gave an order to his subordinates running the affairs in the regions.

Regions later became known States with the various creation exercises carried out by the military regimes Unlike what obtained during regionalism, the centre garnered all the resources and later shared to the states.

Upon return to democratic rule in 1979, which lasted till 31st December 1983, the clamouring for true federalism or restructuring started especially among the Yoruba of the South West. The call then was actually a return to the pre-military era, where the regions enjoyed some level of autonomy especially the control of its resources.

As time went on, with various ethnic violence and other forms of insecurity in the country, the clamour for restructuring started gaining ground and today there is no geo - political zone that has not joined the call for restructuring.

PROBLEM OF DEFINITION The word “restructuring” had been within the political lexicon for over 30 years but it must be stated that there has never been any time that its demand in the Nigerian polity has been this audibly pronounced.

Restructuring has sparked debates from different angles as it has not only been evoked as political campaign strategy but

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has also been used as a means of opposing the government in power. What has come out of this, however, is that it seems that there is no consensus yet on what restructuring means.

The Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, alluded to the non- uniformity in the definition of restructuring when he said that it is not the government that is not clear about what restructuring means, rather it is the people who are asking for restructuring who are not clear about what restructuring means.

Agbakoba in his letter concurs: “Now that we have come to the end of elections by the decision of the Supreme Court, political federalism or by its more popular name ‘restructuring’ may be the way to go, but it has not been understood and generally accepted” The viewpoints provided by various political commentators and politicians only suggest the areas or subjects that need to be restructured. To some, it means the creation of more states, state police, fiscal federalism, local government autonomy and devolution of power to states. For others, it is about moving certain items from the exclusive legislation list to the concurrent list. Those in the extreme define restructuring as a return to regionalism of pre - 1966.

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When they are campaigning, they will put restructuring of the country as one of their manifestoes, but immediately they got there, they jettisoned it

WHICH WAY FORWARD: THE CHALLENGE OF IMPLEMENTATION With the failure of elected governments to implement even their own recommendations, as we saw with Jonathan government ‘s 2014 and the President Muhammadu Buhari’s Committee headed by Nasir el-Rufai , the question is what makes it difficult for restructuring to be implemented. What is standing in the way and what to do?

Chieftain of the Pan Yoruba socio - political group, Afenifere, Chief Ayo Adebanjo cited lack of sincerity on the part of political actors and players.

He told THEWILL in an interview; “When they are campaigning, they will put restructuring of the country as one of their manifestoes, but immediately they got there, they jettisoned it. So what the politicians have been doing is to use restructuring to lobby, especially those of us in Afenifere during the elections but after that, that is all.

“So if you are saying why has it not been implemented, we can also add selfish interest. For instance, most of the governors are used to getting handouts from Abuja. They found that easy and cheap, since they cannot think outside *Continues on Page 20

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POLITICS

BY AMOS ESELE

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t a time the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC presented the picture of a great fall, President Muhammadu Buhari rose to put it together again.

And since that auspicious moment in June 25, 2020, when he gave the approval for the convocation of an emergency National Executive Committee meeting of the party, he has become the fulcrum around which the party now rotates and balances the various tendencies and competing interests threatening to tear it apart.

Recall that at that crisis management meeting held at the Villa with APC governors in attendance, President Buhari dissolved the party’s National Working Committee, NWC, and anointed a 13-member Caretaker/Extra-Ordinary National Convention Planning Committee, CENCPC, headed by Governor Mala Buni of Yobe State.

As its name shows, the CENCPC, was tasked with the duty to reconcile aggrieved members and organize a national convention to elect a new set of leaders for the party.

Coming on the heels of an internal party leadership crisis generated by the Appeal Court ruling on June 17, 2019, which upheld the suspension of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole as National chairman, and threw up claimants to the throne like former Deputy National Secretary, Victor Giadom and the late Abiola Ajimobi who was nominated by Oshiomole’s loyalists as Acting National Chairman, Buhari’s intervention was a masterstroke.

That Presidential move immediately restored sanity at the center for the party. And showed some leadership on the part of the President who had before now been accused of being too aloof on party affairs.

Besides, it gave the party another chance to meet the competing demands of its yet-to fuse- merging partners, namely the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP and a faction of the All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA. “While we must celebrate the fact that Buhari’s leadership style is required to ensure the party is managed independently and therefore made possible for the exercise of the supremacy of the party based on decisions of its organs, old ambitions-Virus 2023 may have weakened the capacity of the party to benefit from the commendable leadership approach of the President”, said Dr Salihu Lukman, Director General of the Progressives Governors Forum of the party, in commendation of that Presidential intervention. He called for a new measure to create a synergy between the party and the president.

That measure to create the desired synergy was part of the mandate of the CENCPC to organise a national convention to elect a new set of leaders for the party. Their constitution effectively killed and buried the erstwhile merging partners in name.

So, while the President’s intervention by appointing the CENCPC settled the leadership crisis at the national level, the chapters at many of the states, local governments and wards erupted in bitter acrimony and rivalry between power brokers and godfathers there.

For one, the National Executive Committee, NEC, of the party had dissolved all elected party officials across board and appointed caretaker committees, which were now peopled by cronies of new members even of some first term governors, who by the party’s constitution are the leaders in their respective states.

The party’s membership registration and revalidation has increased the tempo of rivalry in the states.

Aware of this acrimonious situation, and its power to disrupt party activities, Governor Buni disclosed the readiness of the party to deal with anyone, group or persons planning to sabotage the registration and revalidation exercise. He spoke on Wednesday, January 25 inauguration of the National Committee for Membership and Revalidation Exercise at National Secretariat in Abuja.

He said; “Let me make it abundantly clear that the party would not condone any act of sabotage of denying anyone or group of persons from registering.

“The party would deal decisively with anyone or group who attempt to hijack the exercise, everyone must be allowed and given the chance to register,” Buni said and disclosed the enormity of the task considering that since the last registration in 2014, “The party had in the last seven years received millions of politicians who left other political parties and joined the APC but were not registered.

“Similarly millions of youths who attained the age of 18 years and above have joined the party within this period but could not be registered.

“Again, others who had left the party still have their names in the register.’

Yet as the exercise got under way, tension has arisen because of the frenzy by big wigs to hijack structures in the states.

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Membership Registration/Revalidation:

Buhari Moves To Remake APC

Again it had to take the effort of President Buhari to get the registration exercise to a good start.

THEWILL has learnt that part of the strategy by the CENCPC to handle the ongoing rivalry in the states was to, again, draft Buhari to provide leadership by kick-starting the registration exercise in Daura, his hometown in Kastina state upper weekend.

Another game plan was to get select governors to grace the occasion. Some of them, apart from their host like Aminu Masari of Katsina State and Buni of Yobe, who is Chairman of CENCPC, represent tendencies in the party.

Osun Governor Gboyega Oyetola, apart from representing the Southwest geo-political zone at the occasion is a godson of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a foremost National Leader of the party. He is also a member of the CENCPC. Governor Hope Uzodinma represented the Southeast, while his Kano counterpart Abdullahi Ganduje, holds the vote-catching bloc in addition to being a ‘Buharist.’ Gombe’s Inuwa Yahaya represented the Northeast and Kebbi’s Atiku Bagudu is Chairman of Progressive Governors Forum, a clique of governors elected on the platform of the party. Governor Abdulrazaq of Kwara state represented the North Central. Plateau’s Simon Lalong is the Chairman of the 19- Northern States Governors’ Forum. In all, they were nine governors, present at the occasion.

Seizing the opportunity the event presented, President Buhari remarked that the ongoing exercise was designed to make the party inclusive.

He said; “No more crowning from Abuja downward. Let the people know this and appreciate it that they are in charge of their constituencies and they are in charge of the party.

The President insisted that the party’s structure should by pyramidal, no longer be from Abuja downwards, saying, “Our party style and structure should no longer be Abuja downwards, but from the ward level upwards. So that people can defend the party and its policies even at every level.”

Whether he and the appointed Committee would be able to

Buhari

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POLITICS

Tinubu (right) during the revalidation of his membership of APC in Lagos, recently accomplish this mission is yet to be seen as entrenched interests raise the stakes in the states.

The first sign of trouble raised its head when members kicked against a new date picked by the CENCPP and announced by the Secretary of its Caretaker and Extra-ordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC), John Akpanudoedehe, at the New Year, after an initial postponement on Christmas eve, ostensibly to allow members of the Christian faith enjoy the festivities.

President Buhari had to step in again, by upholding the recommendation contained in a report by the interim committee running the affairs of the party, that the registration should go on.

Even then, a false announcement was issued in Akpanudoedehe’s name on Saturday, January, 30, postponing the exercise, a statement he quickly denied on the same day and declared that the exercise was on course. These political manoeuvres, THEWILL has learned came from some party big wigs embittered by the omnibus powers granted the CENCPC to plan, nominate monitors and regulate the exercise.

In fact, before the kick-off of the membership registration and validation, some party big wigs from the southwest, namely Chief Segun Osoba, ex governor of Ogun State, Chief Tajudeen Olusi, former Soutwest Vice-Chairman of Action Congress and member of the Governing Advisory Council in Lagos State and ex- Interim National Chairman, Chief Bisi Akande had paid a visit to President Buhari in Aso Villa a while ago.

They refused to disclose their mission to journalists. But THEWILL has learned that their mission was to persuade the president against going ahead with the exercise. The President, in his characteristic style listened to them but gave no commitment. For one, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole’s National Working Committee, NWC was still privy to membership register and the succeeding CENCPC was not too sure about it. Otherwise there would have been no need to ask members to revalidate their membership, which, as Oshiomole said on Wednesday, while revalidating his membership at his Iyamo Ward in Edo State, amounts to “double registration.”

An in the game of numbers and control of structure ahead of the 2023 general elections, heeding his visitors plea would be a big gamble. President Buhari, instead opted to go ahead with the planned exercise.

When THEWILL contacted Senator Akpanudoedeghe on phone he asked to be sent a text and when it was done, he failed to get back and refused to answer further calls to his number.

Even so, immediate reactions from chieftains to the conduct of the exercise was partly the kernel of former Interim Chairman, Bisi Akande’s contention last mid-week.

Akande, on Wednesday, February 3 cast grave doubts about the exercise.

He described the ongoing membership/ revalidation exercise of the party as unnecessary and therefore a digression.

Chief Akande who deployed strong words while receiving the party’s monitoring team led by Senator Abu Ibrahim at his Ila country home in Osogbo, Osun state capital, during a courtesy visit, said that the present membership registration/ revalidation less than a decade

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after the original register was an indefensible aberration leading to certain ugly perceptions.

He said “major perception is that APC leadership might be wasteful and unappreciative of the proper use of money in a kind of scanty economy in which Nigeria now finds itself.

“These seeming ugly perceptions put into abeyance the applause of the two national election successes that the original APC register enjoyed since its completion on 15th February, 2014 and the over N1 billion of 2014’s value that the original register cost when APC had no money of its own.

“While thanking you all – my APC leaders and its delegation – that now come to honour me today, I want to emphasize and warn that the next national election that would elect a successor to President Muhammadu Buhari is going to be the most important test of the ongoing APC membership registrations and whatever structure being envisaged to be imposed on it.

Governor Buni, Chairman of CENCPC, disagreed with Chief Akande’s viewpoint. He said the ongoing exercise was being conducted within the ambit of the law.

“The membership registration and revalidation exercise was a constitutional provision which is part of the strategic measures taken by the committee to give existing and new members a sense of belonging,” Buni was quoted as saying by his Director of Press and Media Affairs, Malam Mamman Mohammed in a statement on Thursday, February 4, 2021.

Echoing President Buhari, Buni added; “Our focus is to strengthen the party through a bottom-up approach and to carry everyone on board, while those aggrieved have happily rejoined APC just as new ones have joined the party.” The rub, however, is who is taking the strategic measures to enlist new members and retain old one?

Asiwaju Bola Tinubu joined the fray. He did not mince words in backing Akande’s position. He told journalists in his Ikoyi, Lagos residence on Saturday after undergoing the revalidation of his party membership that the foundation of the party needed no change, neither has the electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, invalidated the party’s register.

He said; “Since we have a foundation and that foundation is on which the structure up till the present was built at the time of the registration of this party, I will not fault Baba Akande’s position; I will not but endorse it.”

“I heard a situation whereby the party’s register submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) at the time of APC registration has been invalidated.”

But a former National Chairman of the party, Chief John Odigie Oyegun thinks differently. According to him, the exercise has become necessary for purposes of update, renewal and increased membership.

Throwing his support of the Buni-led CENCPC, Oyegun reportedly said: “People have moved in the party across the board; some have moved to the front and some to the back. We need to know those who are truly in the APC to avoid a repeat of some of the mistakes that were made in the past.”

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Since we have a foundation and that foundation is on which the structure up till the present was built at the time of the registration of this party, I will not fault Baba Akande’s position; I will not but endorse it

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EDITORIAL

NGF’s Declaration on Cattle Ranching

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he Northern Governors Forum on Monday supported the call for cattle ranching as a solution to the brutal herders/ farmers conflict that has ravaged many parts of the country recently.

In a communiqué after their virtual meeting, the forum stated that “the current system of herding, mainly through open grazing, is no longer sustainable, in view of growing urbanisation and population of the country.”

It resolved to sensitise herders on the need to adopt either ranching or other acceptable modern livestock production. It also condemned all forms of criminality and asked governments to isolate criminal elements, whether as herdsmen, farmers or hunters for prosecution.

This is a welcome, though belated development. It is belated because it is coming at a great social and economic cost to the country. It shows a failure of leadership in crisis management because the conflict had been allowed to fester for too long with untold consequences to the unity of the country.

The delayed response had allowed the deadly conflict to breed the grounds for allied criminality like banditry and kidnapping resulting in a domino effect on seasonal farming in our largely agriculture-based country with the threat of looming hunger and food insecurity in the land.

It has also caused social disharmony among communities where criminal cow headers held sway. It also led to the profiling of the Fulani, following the assumption that any AK-47 wielding kidnapper, bandit or and land grabber is a Fulani.

Indeed, when the Federal Government mooted the idea of Rural Grazing Areas (RUGA) in 2019, public uproar reverberated throughout the country because of the perception that land, a precious commodity among ethnic nationalities in Nigeria, was about to be given gratis to the Fulanis.

It created the public perception that the Federal Government not only favours the Fulani but is even ready to bend over backwards to support them against other ethnic nationalities in the country, no thanks to the controversy over lopsided federal appointments in favour of the President’s kinsmen.

Since then, after public clamour forced the government to kill that land grabbing policy, things have degenerated fast. Maiming and killings, kidnapping and raping had continued unabated in many parts of the country, while the leadership looked away and the country drifted apart. Nigeria global terrorism index rose as a result and many countries like the United States and the UK issued travel warnings against the country.

The recent tiff between the Federal Government and the Ondo State Government, following the seven-day ultimatum issued

by Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, to herdsmen to quit the state’s forest reserves, and the reliance on self-help by a Yoruba activist, Sunday Igboho, against perceived criminal cow herders and alleged sponsors of kidnappers, would have been unnecessary had the Federal Government taken decisive actions on the conflicts long ago.

To think that the Northern, Eastern and Western Regional Governments once ran cattle ranches at Mokwa, Obudu, Imeko and Saki, respectively, during the first republic shows that the idea is neither foreign to Nigeria nor is it an impossibility. What is needed now is the political will and commitment to re-launch it and so douse the tension in the country.

The Kwara and Kano examples are also models to draw from.

THEWILL therefore calls on the state governments, particularly those in the northern part of the country where there is massive land and hospitable place for the scheme to thrive, to follow their declaration through with commitment.

The Federal Government, which had been finding a way, though too slowly, over the menace should support their request for financial assistance. It has to if its National Livestock Programmes, which it had tried to pursue after the RUGA debacle would ever see the light of the day. States like Edo which has indicated interest in cattle ranching business should be encouraged. Also, the recent moves by Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State to revive the old Western Regional cattle farms and similar steps by his Ogun State counterpart, Dapo Abiodun, in partnership with foreign companies should be supported.

Enough of needless bloodletting in the country. It is time to heal the land and take decisive actions to pull the country from the precipice it is headed because of the farmer/ herders unabated conflict and its allied criminalities.

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Our Vision, Our Mission

HEWILL Newspaper is the newest branch of the bold and groundbreaking media project founded in October 2009 by Austyn Ogannah, journalist/publisher, advocate for good governance and promoter of social change in Nigeria and Africa.

Coming a decade after the online THEWILL news service was established in California and has successfully carved a niche for itself in the industry, THEWILL Newspaper is extending the vision of its founder by stimulating and expanding the national conversation, reporting the news as it breaks, providing a platform where readers and contributors contribute to public policy, influence public opinion, and ultimately, contribute towards bringing the change that we desire in our country, Nigeria.

THEWILL Newspaper will continue to fight the good fight; our journalism will be robust, assertive, fearless. We will see issues as Nigerians have always sought to see them—just and fair. We will take on the big issues of our time (especially corruption and bad governance), issues responsible for the social decay and institutional weakness in our country today.

THEWILL Newspaper will advance our contribution to the struggle for a better country and a fulfilling future. We will hold those entrusted with power accountable for its daily exercise and advocate for social justice, equity, and human and gender rights. We will also be relentless in our pursuit of the truth with un-biased investigative vigor that represents the hallmark of journalistic practice.

We pray for God’s guidance as we launch out as a Sunday weekly Newspaper, then becoming a daily soon.

Welcome to our world!

Nigeria Bureau: 36AA Remi Fani-Kayode Street, GRA, Ikeja. Lagos, Nigeria. info@thewillnigeria.com / @THEWILLNG +234 810 345 2286, +234 913 333 3888 EDITOR: Olaolu Olusina @OLUSINA PAGE 14

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FEBRUARY 14 - 20, 2021 www.thewillnigeria.com

OPINION Okowa’s Conversion Of Tertiary Institutions Into Universities:

Sagacity Or Accidental Masterstroke?

BY MAGNUS ONYIBE

O

ne of the iconic leaders that is often cited all over the world as an exemplar, is Lee Kuan Yew, who was the prime minister of Singapore that owes much of his fame to the legacy of a phenomenal, rapid and systematic development of the small island nation in a manner that it leapt from third to first world over a relatively short period.

And the accomplishment of the development feat in Singapore was achieved partly through the concerted and strategic efforts of providing qualitative education to young Singaporeans who were to later take over the mantle of leadership from Lee Kuan Yew and his epoch making team.

All that is documented in a seminal book authored by the former prime minister titled “From Third World To First.The Singapore Story: 1965-2000.”

Since childhood, l had learnt from my mother that it is education that makes the difference between the cleaner and the doctor in the same hospital.

Both are human beings. They may even be from the same womb, village or clan. But the doctor obviously acquired education by attending schools to obtain the relevant skill set, while the cleaner did not. Hence, both of them ended up in their respective stations in life.

In other words, the doctor functions in an exalted position, while the cleaner occupies a lowly position, simply because he/she did not seek or obtain the requisite education that could have stood him/her in better stead.

And who can better personify or embody the metaphor and analogy of the doctor and the cleaner in the hospital

BY CHUKWUEMEKA EZE, ESQ

T

he Executive Bill was transmitted to the National Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari in September 2020, after about 12 years that the PIB had remained work-in-progress.

Below are 20 takeaways from the Bill now undergoing legislative process at the National Assembly.

1. This is the first time since the introduction of the PIB to the Sixth National Assembly in 2008 that there is high probability of not only passing the Bill but also of a President assenting to the Bill. This sense of optimism is supported by the statement of the Chairman of the National Assembly and President of Senate that the Ninth National Assembly will pass all Bills presented to it by President BUHARI. 2. The PIB has been 12 years old at the National Assembly without becoming law due to variegated interests.

3. There is high expectation that the PIB will be passed and assented to in 2021, and added as part of the BUHARI oil and gas reforms legacy. Recall that BUHARI, while he was a military man, had been a Minister of Petroleum as far back as 42 years ago.

4. Then President Obasanjo initiated the “Oil Sector Reforms” when he inaugurated the “Oil and Gas Reform Implementation Committee” in April 2000. The Committee’s task included: “To review and streamline existing petroleum laws and establish an allinclusive regulatory framework for the industry.”

5. Late President Yar’Adua presented the Bill to the Sixth National Assembly in 2008. The Bill was not passed due to disagreements on the sharing of oil profit among the international oil companies (IOCs), host communities, and the Nigerian Federation.

6. In 2012, former President Goodluck Jonathan presented a revised version of the PIB to the Seventh National Assembly but only the House of Representatives passed it due to the clash of interests among stakeholders.

7. The Senate of the Eight National Assembly passed a variance of the Bill known as the Petroleum Industry Governance Bill in May 2017 while the House of Representatives passed its own version in January 2018. President Buhari refused to assent to the Bill when it was transmitted to him in July 2018 and the National Assembly failed to veto his decision hence the collapse of that effort.

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than Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa? He is the son of a nurse and a school teacher (both parents are now of blessed memory) who trained him as a medical doctor, before he became a dyed-in-the-wool politician , practically climbing up from the bottom of the ladder of all the public offices before emerging the current governor of Delta state.

Without educational opportunities, Okowa might not have attained the position of authority he occupies today.

So, having been a youth with ambition, he knows how critical it is for the youths of Delta State today and beyond to be equipped with market ready skills through education .

That’s why, as soon as l heard the good news about the proposed conversion of the three Colleges of Education, Agriculture and Polytechnic into universities, l reckoned that it must be a product of alchemy between education and prosperity which l was convinced must be very clear to Okowa as a governor and a conscientious politician.

Keeping in mind the foregoing, l concluded that the governor must have decided to expand and deepen the infrastructure for education in the state to provide opportunities for the burgeoning number of youths that are bristling with hope to acquire the knowledge that would enable them be up-skilled for the rapidly evolving new age market.

Unbeknownst to me, the decision to upgrade the College of Education, School of Agriculture and Polytechnic into universities is not so much a product of political calculations or machinations, neither is it because the governor and his cabinet are abhorrent of polytechnic and monotechnic education.

Rather, it is an initiative borne out of the fact that Delta youth, whose quest for education has been insatiable because of their renown high lnteligence Quotient (lQ), were actively rejecting Polytechnics and Colleges of Education as pathway to higher education. And that was being reflected by the dwindling number of applicants to such institutions; compared to the deluge of applications into the lone university in the state that has surpassed its capacity by over four folds .

So upgrading the College of Education, School of Agriculture and Polytechnic is basically driven by the wisdom in the idiom “necessity is the mother of invention”.

Before proceeding further, l must put on record that the leadership prowess of first identifying a problem and then creatively solving it exhibited by Governor Okowa and his team has put butterflies in my stomach. That’s because such dynamism is hardly a quality common amongst public servants .

It takes critical thinking and dexterity to identify the reality that while talented youths were making a bee-line to Delta State University, Abraka in droves, and as such the only university in the state was literarily bursting at the seams ,the foot-fall of those applying for admission into the Polytechnics, School of Agriculture and Colleges of Education spread across the three senatorial zones was in trickles and lackluster.

*Continues online at www. thewillnigeria.com

20 Takeaways From Petroleum Industry Bill

8. Before the passage of the PIGB by the Eight National Assembly, it sub-divided the PIB into four separate bills, namely: i. Petroleum Industry Governance Bill (PIGB), ii. Petroleum Industry Administration Bill (PIAB), iii. Petroleum Industry Fiscal Bill (PIFB), and iv. Petroleum Industry Host Community Bill (PIHCB).

However, only the PIGB was passed but not assented to.

9. By virtue of section 53 of the Bill, the Minister of Petroleum shall, within 6 months from the commencement of the Act, cause to be incorporated under the Companies and Allied Matters Act, a limited liability company, which shall be called the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL).

10. The Petroleum Industry Bill, 2020 has substituted the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL). The basic difference is that while the former was created by an Act of the National Assembly, the latter will be registered as a limited liability company with the Corporate Affairs Commission.

11. One of the similarities between the NNPC and NNPCL is that both of them are owed by the Federal Government. The Minister of Petroleum Resources in consultation with the Minister of Finance will, on behalf of the Federal Government, upon determination of the nominal value of shares to be allotted which shall form the initial paid-up share capital, register the latter at the Corporate Affairs Commission.

12. Ownership of all shares in NNPCL shall be invested in the Federal Government at incorporation and held by the Federal Ministry of Finance Incorporated on behalf of the Federal Government.

13. By virtue of section 54 of the Bill, the Minister of Petroleum and the Minister of Finance shall determine the assets, interests and liabilities of the NNPC to be transferred to NNPCL or its subsidiaries and upon the identification, the Minister of Petroleum shall cause such assets interests and liabilities to be transferred to NNPCL. 14. Assets, interests, and liabilities not transferred to NNPCL or its subsidiaries shall remain the assets, interests, and liabilities of NNPC until they become

extinguished or transferred to the Federal Government.

15. NNPC shall cease to exist after its remaining assets, interests, and liabilities other than its assets, interests, and liabilities transferred to the NNPCL or its subsidiaries shall have been extinguished or transferred to the Federal Government.

16. The Bill has established two agencies to regulate all the streams of the oil and gas industry, namely: the “Nigerian Upstream Regulatory Commission” (NURC) and the “Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority” (NMDPRA), both of which are body corporates that can sue and be sued.

17. Section 4 of the Bill provides, among others, that the NURC shall be responsible for the technical and commercial regulation of upstream petroleum operations in Nigeria.

18. Section 29, of the Bill, which established the NMDPRA, provides, among others, that the Authority shall be responsible for the technical and commercial regulation of the midstream and downstream petroleum operations in the petroleum industry.

19. When the NNPC will cease is contingent upon when the non-transferred assets, interests, and liabilities to NNPCL, are extinguished or transferred to the Government (whatever that means). The obvious implication is that the date of cessation of NNPC is unknown, although with incorporation of NNPCL, NNPC will take the back seat until it discharges any remaining asset, interest and liability.

20. The reactions of International Oil Companies (IOCs) to the fiscal and taxation provisions, and the Host Communities to the accruable benefits as stakeholders will determine the shape of the Bill as the National Assembly gears up for the pressures that will ensue.

CONCLUSION If the Bill is successfully passed, as I expect, NNPCL will compete internationally with the *Saudi Aramco of Saudi Arabia, PDVSA of Venezuela, and Petrobas of Brazil,* among such other companies in oil producing countries.

•Barrister Eze is of the Faculty of Law, Nasarawa State University, Keffi.

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Airlines Groan Under New Covid-19 Safety Protocols

AfCFTA: Insecurity Threatens Agric Value Chain PAGE 18

PAGE 17

N395bn Investors’ Fund ‘Trapped’ In Dormant Equities In 2020 – Investigation

BY SAM DIALA

A

mid flourishing outlook of Nigeria’s equity market which earned it the best performing Stock Exchange in the world as at 2020, the nation’s bourse hosted a bunch of dormant equities worth over N395 billion in total market capitalization that created no material value for the investors – investigation by THEWILL has revealed.

The dormant equities, numbering 53 (companies), cut across 8 sectors of between 2 and 15 companies each, with market capitalization ranging from N5 billion to N114 billion per sector among the 144 companies listed on the Equity Main Board. The stocks of the affected companies recorded no price movement (either buying or selling) in 2020 – thus reflecting a state of dormancy during the review period.

At the current exchange rate of N379/USD at the Investors’ & Exporters’ Foreign Exchange (I&EFX) Window, this is roughly about $1.05 billion.

Practically, the values of the dormant equities were static in the ‘opening’ and ‘closing’ share prices as well as market capitalization in their Year-to-Date (YTD) figures as at December 31, 2020 – recording no capital gain or dividend during the period. “The implication is that the equities created no material gains for their investors, added no value to the companies, no fee income for the Stock Exchange and no impact on the economy generally during the period”, said Mike Uzor, a finance analyst.

Furthermore, the investors’ assets in these equities have drastically depreciated over time; while the equities did not count among the gains of the Nigerian bourse as the world’s best performing Stock Exchange in 2020.

It also suggests that the companies have been inactive and have not filed the prescribed statutory returns with the NSE, suggesting further that the investors have nothing to show for being stakeholders in a publicly quoted company.

Analysis of the data published by the NSE at the end of 2020 trading year, revealed that the Financial sector recorded 15 companies, the highest with dormant equities. This is followed by the Industrials 9 dormant equities, Consumer Goods, Consumer Services and Health Care sectors with 6 dormant equities each. The Basic Materials, Oil & Gas and Technical sectors recorded 5, 3 and 2, dormant equities (companies) respectively.

By value, Basic Materials sector recorded the highest figure of N116.26 billion, followed by Oil & Gas and Consumer Services with N83.41 billion and N58.56 billion respectively. The Consumer Goods sector had N55.07 billion, Financials N50.75 billion, Technical N12.00 billion and Industrials N11.94 billion dormant accounts. The Health Care Sector recorded the least with 5.56 billion during the review period.

Of course, 2020 witnessed the worst global economic challenge in about a century through the Covid-19 pandemic which created an unparalleled global macro-economic shock of uncertain magnitude with brutal corporate (financial) distress, and huge stress on the financial system. The twin grave impacts: global crisis of a health pandemic and economic shrink from prolonged lockdown, were quite severe.

However, a closer look at the historical performance of the dormant equities showed that only a few can be categorised as real victims of the Covid-19 pandemic. Many had been in a distress mode for a long time before Covid-19 pandemic. Further periscope points to a long period of inactivity in their sectors and little or no contribution to economic growth.

Companies like Thomas Whyte, Juli Pharm, Pharma Deco, DN Tyre, Studio Press, SCOA, Roads Nigeria Ltd, Union Homes, Tantalizers, among others, are still listed in the Equity Main Board of the NSE showing figures that are part of the total market capitalization of the Stock Exchange.

PAGE 16

In recent past the Insurance sub-sector dominated the dormant equities in the Financial sector and the market as a whole. However, government policies such as recapitalization, aggressive implementation of the Compulsory Insurance Scheme and wider opportunity to play in the Local Content Development initiative, contributed significantly in reviving the large number of dormant equities that used to litter the Insurance sub-sector. Only a few insurance companies are now stuck in the miry clay of dormant equities compared to what used to be in 2017. Companies in the ‘Other Financial Service’ sub-category such as Mortgage banks, Savings & Loans and Microfinance banks constitute the bulk of the dormant equities in this category. *Continue on Page 29

Dormant Equi-es By Sector Value As At December 31 2020 (N'bn) 120

116.26

90

83.31

58.56

60

55.07

50.75

30

0 & Gas Con. Services Con. Goods Basic Materials OilOil & GasConsumer Services Consumer Goods Financials

12

11.94

Technicals

Industrials

5.56 Health Care

Dormant Equi-es By No. Of Companies As At December 31, 2020 16

15

12 9 8 6 4

0

6

6

5 3

Financials

Con. GoodsGoods Con. Services Basic Industrials Healthcare Health CareConsumer Consumer Services Basic Materials Materials Oil & Gas

2

Technical

•Source NSE THEWILLNIGERIA

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AVIATION

xxxx

Airlines Groan Under New Covid-19 Safety Protocols ... As Ticket Sales Dwindle To $151m In Q1 2020

BY ANTHONY OKECHUKWU

R

ecent safety protocols enforced by many countries across the world, particularly those instituted by both the Nigerian and its United Arab Emirates counterpart by way of flight restrictions, are affecting both nations’ carriers economically.

Only last week Emirates for the second time canceled flights, leaving passengers stranded for two consecutive days. Emirates Airlines had halted its flight out of Lagos and Abuja amid concerns that the pact reached by Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) over the latter’s suspension of Rapid Antigen Testing (RDT) , was yet to be resolved With the row, it seems that both the airline and the Federal Government are trying to outwit each other on the different positions taken by the two parties. Beyond the disagreements between UAE and Nigeria, the effects on COVID-19 on air travel generally, and its attendant effects on Nigeria for example, have indicated total tickets sold for the Q1 2020 decreased by $132 million.

This is a huge reduction compared with $282.35 million sold in Q1 2019 by foreign carriers that operated in and out of the country. Data obtained from the National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA), captioned, “BSP Nigeria-R&S Monthly Reports-Market Data April 2020”, shows that $57.79 million worth of tickets were sold in January 2019 alone.

Ticket sales figures for February of the same year stood at $51.52 million; March $80.55 million; April $92.59 million bringing the total to $286.36 million.

In contrast, the January 2020 figure was regarded as the best month for air travel and one that surpassed the expectations of travel agents and other catalytic interests in aviation and travel industry as the month saw high travel demand that amounted to $70.03 million. February 2020 saw ticket sales of $59.16 million; March figure stood at $23.26 million when the COVID-19 pandemic got to its peak and nations started closing their borders including restrictions that crippled travels.

April 2020 saw a sharp decline of air travel as tickets sold amounted to $-1.36m, a deficit for that month as the BSP recorded more refunds than new sales in April. As a result of that, the month of April became negative. The total tickets sold for first quarter 2020 decreased to $151 million.

Speaking at a media forum recently, President of National Association of Nigerian Travel Agents (NANTA) , Mrs. Susan Akporiaye lamented that the COVID-19 brought the entire sector to a halt, stressing that January 2020 was one of the best months for aviation because of huge sales made by foreign carriers.

She said the sales had never happened in recent times because the first quarter of every year is usually slow for business but expressed THEWILLNIGERIA

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joy that the month was good. Akporiaye further stated that February of last year was also good till the second week in March when nations started taking measures to limit the spread of coronavirus by shutting borders. According to her, “The whole of last year, especially from March, was a difficult one as we have never had it so bad. Even the International Air Transport Association (IATA) recently disclosed that 2020 was the worst year for aviation in many years.

“Surprisingly, January 2020 was the best month for aviation in Nigeria in recent years. January of every year is usually very difficult for travel. First quarter is usually slow for business but January 2020 was a windfall followed by the month of February. After March 2020, the industry took a tumble for the worst because of COVID-19”.

Akporiaye condemned the attitude of United Arab Emirates (UAE) over the controversial Rapid Antigen Testing (RDT), saying it was not a full-proof for detection, adding that the PCR test was more comprehensive and far better than the Antigen test, which she said puts a lot of strain on travelers with additional costs.

Meanwhile, stakeholders have opined that adaptability, harmonized and consistent measures are key to the global sector’s survival in post-Covid-19 era. They made this known at the World Bank and World Resource Institute (WRI) 3-day Transforming Transportation Conference aimed at the rethinking of global transport systems to build an inclusive more resilient and sustainable cities post- Covid-19.

According to the stakeholders, while the future changes in the aviation sector arising from the ongoing pandemic are unknown, adaptability rather than stability are key to building a sustainable and green global air transport.

At the local level, stakeholders in the nation’s aviation industry have equally advised domestic airline operators to consider merger so as to survive the challenging period. According to them, merger is the only way domestic airlines can function smoothly and stay afloat.

Speaking on the need for the local airline to merge, former Commandant, Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Group Captain John Ojikutu (retd), noted that there is urgent need for domestic airlines to merge. According to Ojikutu, a review of the policy should restrict their operations in the domestic routes for a minimum of four years and with good economic or commercial audit reports of another four years, before they can be approved for regional routes.

Explaining further, Ojikutu, who is an aviation security expert said “further progression into continental routes should also be considered only with clean economic or commercial audits of another four years for approval into intercontinental routes. For any airline to enjoy government financial intervention or designation as a flag carrier, it must sell a minimum of 40 percent of its shares to the public, quoted on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, and showing consistent good returns

“

Surprisingly, January 2020 was the best month for aviation in Nigeria in recent years. January of every year is usually very difficult for travel. First quarter is usually slow for business but January 2020 was a windfall followed by the month of February

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AfCFTA: Insecurity Threatens Agric Value Chain

BY SAM DIALA

A

griculture and agro-allied business offer a major window of opportunity for Nigeria under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

Their roles are both enormous and strategic; but insecurity poses a major threat.

When juxtaposed with competing sectors such as manufacturing, servicing and small and medium enterprises (SMEs), Agriculture and Agro-allied business showcase Nigeria’s potential for a quantum leap in unusual economic prosperity through the AfCFTA initiative.

The major reason is that Nigeria is predominantly an agrarian society offering employment to about 70 per cent of the population - mainly at a subsistence level. It has huge potentials grossly untapped.

STRATEGIC INTERVENTION Government’s strategic policy shift in recent years has raised agriculture to a national economic priority.

Such sector-specific policies were mainly created by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) through its intervention programmes.

It is reported that the CBN has committed about N5 trillion since 1977 when it commenced agric-focused intervention funds to develop the sector as Nigeria’s alternative foreign exchange (forex) earner to oil and gas, while meeting the growing raw material needs of local industries, The intervention policies, essentially, aim to create jobs, expand the real sector and boost the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP). They have also addressed the challenge of access to capital faced by Nigeria’s 17 million SMEs. The micro-schemes created under the CBN intervention policy include the Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme (ACGS); Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL); Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme (CACS); the N220 billion Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Fund; and the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme.

Others are the Small Medium Enterprise Credit

Guarantee Scheme (SMECGS); the added N2-billion interest rebate funds under the revolving Interest Draw Back (IDB) of the ACGSF and strict supervision of operations of micro-finance banks.

In furtherance of its financial stability mandate, the CBN introduced the N50 billion Targeted Credit Facility (TCF) as a stimulus package to support micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the face of the adverse economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

The measures are yielding results: Agric sector contributed 30.77 per cent of Nigeria’s real GDP in the third quarter of 2020, according to data published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The figure is higher than the sector’s contribution in the corresponding quarter of 2019 and the second quarter of 2020 which stood at 29.25 per cent and 24.65 per cent respectively.

SIGNIFICANT LANDMARK The impact of Agriculture and Agro-allied business on the economy, in real terms, could be measured by their role in the backward integration policy of the Nigerian government.

Backward integration is a practice where companies are encouraged to cultivate their own raw materials by ‘purchasing’ their suppliers or establishing farms to

“

Industry giants like the Dangote Group, Nigerian Breweries, Cadbury, Guinness, Nestle, FrieslandCampina WAMCO, CHI Limited, Flour Mills of Nigeria, and many others are practically involved in backward integration with tremendous impact on the Agric value chain.

grow produce for their factories. The initiative gained momentum in Nigeria following the crash in crude oil prices which started in the fourth quarter of 2014.

Many local manufacturers and multinationals in Nigeria, especially those with interests in key sectors of the economy such as agriculture, agro-processing and manufacturing, have keyed into the initiative. They have shown that backward integration has many benefits such as growth, creating jobs, boosting tax and export revenue.

Industry giants like the Dangote Group, Nigerian Breweries, Cadbury, Guinness, Nestle, FrieslandCampina WAMCO, CHI Limited, Flour Mills of Nigeria, and many others are practically involved in backward integration with tremendous impact on the Agric value chain.

At the launch of Nestle Nigeria Plc new variant of seasoning, Maggi Naira Pot, in Sagamu, Ogun State, in 2017, then Managing Director, Mr Mauricio Alarcon, who lauded his company’s Backward Integration Policy (BIP), said the scheme had not only boosted the economy but created numerous jobs in the agricultural value chain.

According to him, the scheme involved over 4,000 farmers as the company used 80 per cent of locally sourced raw materials, which he said had helped its factory’s expansion.

Nigerian Breweries utilises at least 20 per cent of 1.3m metric tonnes of sorghum in the production of its beverages while 80 per cent or 4.2 million tonnes are utilized to produce food and livestock feeds. The company disclosed in its Sustainability Report tagged, ‘Enhancing the Sorghum Value Chain’, that annual demand for sorghum is approximately 100,000 tonnes per annum.

THE DILEMMA When combined with the role by banks (services) and manufacturing companies, it becomes evident that AfCFTA offers Nigeria immense opportunity for economic growth and enhancement of the citizens’ standard of living through Agriculture and Agro-allied business.

But insecurity poses a huge threat. In the past five years, activities in Agriculture and Agro-allied businesses have dropped significantly resulting in rising food inflation occasioned by receding output amid worsening state of insecurity.

According to reports, about 1,800 businesses closed in the last five years in Nigeria as a result of hostile operating environment, including security challenges. An estimated 300,000 people have fled their homes in the country since 2018 as violent attacks by bandits and herdsmen escalated.

As a result of large scale insecurity and displacement in the worst affected areas such as Borno, Adamawa, Benue, Plateau, Nasarawa, Taraba, Yobe and Zamfara states, food production has declined significantly, pushing prices beyond the reach of the ordinary citizens and signalling imminent food crisis.

Aside hunger, unemployment has worsened as people

•Source: World Bank PAGE 18

*Continue on Page 29

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POLITICS EXTRA *Continues from Page 11

Remedy Nigeria Needs Now

the box to develop revenue generating projects in their states”.

Dr Salihu Lukman, Director–General of the Progressives Governors Forum, a caucus of governors elected on the platform of the ruling APC, supports Adebanjo’s position. At an occasion in Abuja on Tuesday, February 2, 2020, where he presented a paper, “Nigeria’s Volatile Politics and the APC Report on True Federalism,” he said, among others: “Although details of the commitment of the APC on matters of restructuring were outlined in the party’s manifesto, loose public interpretations of the specific commitment of the party to political restructuring have been subject of national debate”.

According to him: “The national consensus as itemized in the el-Rufai Committee report ought to have left the shelf and made its way into laws in terms of implementation instead of being allowed to be used to fuel ethnic and religious tensions.”

In the view of elder statesman and Second Republic legislator, Dr Junaid Mohammed, restructuring as canvassed presents a major obstacle in meaning.

For him, the non-implementation has to do with the vague meaning of the concept of restructuring.

“The question you are asking me, yes, I don’t know how you want something that is not clear to everyone or that does not has uniform definition to be implemented, “ he said, rather rhetorically, speaking with THEWILL. “ I asked you now and you will agree with me that there are many definitions. Will it be rational for me to implement it? As far as I am concerned, we have been discussing restructuring for over 10 years, so if we can’t agree on definition, if we can’t agree on a position. Then how do you want to start a meaningful dialogue.?

“It was the great philosopher, Socrates that said you need to define your term and agree before you can have a meaningful dialogue. I am not prepared to say if we don’t do restructuring, heaven will fall.

There are some people who want you to accept their own definition or position. We should define and reach a compromise and not talking about a nebulous term, ‘restructuring’. *Continues from Page 13

The sense of relegation, frustration and brinksmanship about the ongoing exercise is so palpable in almost all the states, particularly those under its control.

When THEWILL sought explaination, particularly as refleceted by Akande’s words- “indefensible aberration,” ugly perception” and “imposed structure” from top government official, whose wishes to remain anonymous, he replied: “It is politics at work, if other merging partners that formed APC feel short-changed, they have to up their game and be ready to negotiate. “ Reminded that you negotiate from a position of strength, he said; “That is why the registration of members is important and with that you can mobilize during conventions, primaries to get your members into positions of power”.

Meanwhile, the battle for relevance in the party has shifted to the states and geo-political zones.

RIVALRIES, DISAGREEMENTS AND CRISIS IN THE STATES: From Kwara, Imo, Kano and Kaduna, Oyo, Jigawa, Ogun and Bauchi, the rivalry and struggle to control the party structure rages among old and new and new entrants.

No place than Kwara state better shows how the party’s decision to dissolve its elected executives and appoint caretaker committee was fraught with danger from the start.

State Chairman Bashir Bolarinwa and his former Deputy Abdullahi Samari, who claimed he was appointed the state caretaker party chairman through a letter by the APC National Secretariat have polarized the feuding factions in the state with the three factions led by Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Minister of State for Transportation, Gbemisola Saraki and Governor AbdulRazaq perpetually at war, which have scuttled the exercise in the state.

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“Secondly in Nigeria we said we are practising democracy, whatever we do, we must conceptualised it under democracy. So in your definition of ‘ restructuring’ you must have majority on your side.

Even if you think, you have gone round the majority, those you ignored will bring you down,”, he said.

Agbakoba said the same thing inhis letter to Buhari last week: “I understand it but many ask, what is restructuring? I have to admit that the only way restructuring can work is if it is nationally accepted”.

Founding member of the leader of the Northern Elders Forum, Alhaji Tanko Yakassai shares the same position as Junaid’s.

The seasoned politician told THEWILL: “You cannot implement what you have not agreed on. Some people are saying the report of 2014 national confab talks about restructuring’, but did we agree, even at the conference”.

“Some of them who believe they know everything about restructuring will start abusing you when you don’t agree with their position. I asked them to define what it is, so that I would be able to make up my mind.

“So the fundamental thing we need to do is for all parts of the country to first define and reach a consensus, then you can talk of implementation”.

Also speaking, former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Chief Olabode George said the 2014 national conference’s report should be implemented.

“Former President Goodluck Jonathan should have implemented the report before he left office, we won’t have been talking like this again. We reached a good consensus on most of the things people have been clamouring for. Our report satisfied all aspects of restructuring. And we reached a consensus on almost all the issues. I will plead with President Muhammadu Buhari to dust the report and implement it.”

In a view that considerably harmonizes these various positions, Vice-Chancellor of Igbinedion University in Okada, Edo state and professor of comparative politics, Eghosa Osaghae posits: “Now, what is restructuring?” he asked in an interview with The Guardian, recently.

He answered: “ Restructuring is a product of the

dynamics of the system of government we operate.

Everywhere you have a federal system, it is recognized as a system of bargain, negotiations – continuous bargains and negotiations.

“You don’t finalize your federal instrumentalities/ configurations because in the course of time, human societies demands change. You have the global economy that can make you poor tonight and tomorrow you become a rich country, all these things have a way of precipitating different demands and once you have those demands, they can lead to changes in power holding that may demand a review of jurisdictions.

In Nigeria today, we have about sixty-eight items in the exclusive list and about sixteen in the concurrent list. In the balance of scale that means the federal government is very powerful. But you don’t have a federal system when you don’t have constituents units that are legal units that can challenge the federal government by its own actions and activities and in the event of jurisdictional conflict we go to the supreme court.”

“Action. That is the point. Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as governor of Lagos state in 2006 fought the federal government all the way to the Supreme Court over his decision to exercise his powers to create local council development areas. He won the case. The federal government’s only reaction was to illegally withhold the allocation to the state’s joint state local government account. That money, however, accumulated to N10 billion and was eventually paid in 2009 by the President Umaru Yar’Ardua administration, the successor to the Olusegun Obasanjo’s government.

By then both combatants had left office but the case became a landmark judgment that other states latter capitalized upon to create development areas.

“Restructuring cannot only be done at the legal unit through judicial interpretations and reviews, it can be done through actions. All over the world, federations have restructured in this diverse manner. If the states were not dysfunctional, they also will be in the tick for the demand for restructuring; the political parties should also be in the forefront.” said Professor Osaghae.

Buhari Moves To Remake APC

SIMILAR PICTURE UNFOLDS IN OGUN STATE In Ogun state, the battle line is drawn among the three factions loyal to former governors Olusegun Osoba, Ibikunle Amosu and the incumbent, Dapo Abiodun.

Loyalists to Osoba accused him of playing with the interest of, “the collective decision of the majority,” which has factionalized the party in the state.

Contacted, the Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Mr Kunle Somorin told THEWILL that as the leader of the party in the state, his principal cannot afford to identify with any group or faction.

He said: “The governor is the leader of the party in the state and the party is united as one. Nobody would be denied registration in the state. Even those from the Peoples Democratic Party who want to join are free. It is an inclusive exercise.

He buttressed his points that, “even seven members of the Allied Party of Nigeria, (supported by former Governor Ibikunle Amosun) in the Assembly have since joined the APC. They paid a visit to the governor last week. So, everybody is validating their membership of APC.”

BATTLE ROYALE IN IMO STATE, APC FOOTHOLD TO THE SOUTHEAST: The supremacy battle between Governor Hope Uzodinma and his predecessor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, for control of party structures in the state, dating back to the 2019 general election, keeps assuming dangerous dimension every day.

An example is the legal battle surrounding the Imo North Senatorial by-election. It went full circle, from Appeal to Supreme Court, and both candidates of the APC, Frank Ibezim (supported by Uzodinma) and Senator

Ifeanyi Ararume (supported by Okoraocha) had been disqualified.

Mr Ori Martins, Managing Editor of Owerri basedEcho News, told this newspaper that the rift between Uzodinma and Okorocha is very deep and would be disruptive for the party, both in the state and in the southeast.

He said; “This fight to finish between them is not good for APC here at all with the opposition PDP still very much around. For the registration, you might say Okorocha’ faction would carry the day, but you know in Nigeria the masses may vote but the elite would determine who wins.”

CONCLUSION: From the ongoing scheming, allegations of name substitution of committee members, bloody fights to control the structure in the states, the ongoing registration may continue to thrown up challenges the party leaders would have to contend with. But can the footprints of the ‘legacy parties’ that birthed the APC be wiped out?

Coming from a former National Chairman and one of the representatives of the ‘legacy parties’ that midwifed the APC, ‘Indefensible aberration, ugly perceptions, imposed structure,’ are indeed powerful words that the President, whose party, Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, is perceived to have got the plum positions and choice appointments among the merging partners that formed APC and thus in a stronger to determine the structure of the envisaged, new, APC, may have to consider as he engineers a, brand, new APC. However the exercise is justified in the weeks ahead, it is clear a new template for the politics of 2023 is about to be set by the President.

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FEBRUARY 14 - 20, 2021 www.thewillnigeria.com

SHOTS OF THE WEEK

Chairman/Chief Executive of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, Gen. Mohammed Buba Marwa(Retd)(r) with the Country Representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC, Mr. Oliver Stolpe when the latter led his team on a visit to the agency’s headquarters in Abuja recently

L-R: Chairman, Anoh Gas Processing Company (AGPC), Yusuf Usman, in a warm handshake with the managing director, AGPC, Okechukwu Mba, during the signing ceremony of $260million ANOH Gas Project Financing

L-R: Governor of Ebonyi State, David Nweze Umahi; with his Yobe State counterpart and Chairman, APC Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC), Alhaji Mai-Mala Buni and Chief of staff to the Yobe state governor, Alhaji Abdullahi Yusuf Gashua, during the visit of the Ebonyi state governor to APC National Secretariat, in Abuja on Wednesday

R:L Delta State commissioner for basic and secondary education, Patrick Ukah; chief operating officer, AA Holdings Limited, Johnnie Eni; vicar general, Kwale Region, Diocese of Warri , Rev Father Bernard Olagba ; Society of Jesus provincial superior , North West Africa province, Rev. Fr. Chukwuyenum Afiawari, and chairman, Delta House of Assembly House Committee on Education, Hon Charles Chukwuemeke Emetulu,during a recent groundbreaking ceremony of Arrupe Jesuit College Abbi, Delta State , recently

From left- Chief Judge of the State of Osun High Court, Justice Oyebola Adepele Ojo; Governor State of Osun, Mr. Adegboyega Oyetola; his wife, Kafayat; Ondo State Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu; Newly Appointed President of the Customary Court of Appeal State of Osun, Hon. L-R: Abbas Ahmed, Manager, Landlord Relations, IHS Nigeria; Oluwabankole Falade, Director, Regulatory Affairs and Government Relations, IHS Nigeria; Major General Muhammad Sani Aliyu, Chairman, Nigerian Army Polo Association; and Bond Abbe, Associate Director, Government Relations, IHS Nigeria; during a presentation of the sponsor award to IHS Nigeria at the Nigerian Army Polo Association Exhibition Tournament in Abuja recently.

THEWILLNIGERIA

L-R: Mr Segun Erewa; Speaker, House of Representatives, Rep FEMI Gbajabiamila and Chairman Nigerian Diaspora Commission, Hon Abike Dabiri-Erewa during a condolence visit by the Speaker to Dabiri-Erewa family on the death of her mother, Alhaja Sadiat Abeke Erogbogbo earlier in Lagos.

Member Southwest Zonal Monitoring Committee, APC, Tunde Imolehin; Team Leader, South West Zonal Committee, Senator Lawal Shuaibu; Ekiti State Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi; Chairman, Ekiti State Monitoring Committee, Hon Galambi Yusuf; members of committee, Hon Maryam Musa Galle; and Chief Eze Okafor; during the committee members courtesy visit to the Governor in Ado-Ekiti…on Wednesday. PHOTOS BY PEACE UDUGBA THEWILLNG

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FEBRUARY 14 - 20, 2021 www.thewillnigeria.com

ARTS

Portrait of a Woman As a Flutist

“

It wasn’t something I really banked in for... But somehow I can say God ordained it to be that way. It was just like a hobby, let me just learn

BY MICHAEL JIMOH or the ten or so questions emailed to Nigeria’s most recognized female flutist late in January, she used the word passion more than half a dozen times in her response. Not passion in the sense we understand it, like pining for a lover somewhere but for playing a reedy instrument weighing less than the arm of a man.

By her own admission, Ebele Ezeamakam, Nigeria’s first female professional flutist aka Ebele the Flutist, has played the instrument from age 14. Before then, she sang at home, eliciting sidelong glances and arched eyebrows from her parents and sibs. (Ebele is second child in a family of six.) Church was next as a chorister. Not contented with vocals alone, she took up flute playing as her preferred instrument, then it became a hobby and now a passion for life.

“It wasn’t something I really banked in for,” Ebele said in one interview about her fascination with the wind instrument. “But somehow I can say God ordained it to be that way. It was just like a hobby, let me just learn. Then I have to sing, I have to learn how to play an instrument. But I realized the hobby became a passion and today that passion is my career.”

In churches, concerts and musical video promos of her, you’d almost always behold her, lips glued to the flute nearly parallel to her right shoulder and blowing away like the Pied Pieper of Hamelin though without any intention of making away with her audience’s children. If anything, what Ebele has done consistently is capturing her audiences’ heart everywhere she has performed.

The older generation among her audience used to see a man by name Tee-Mac, afro-haired, moustache and goatee forming a T,

F

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do that many years back. There has never been any other famous flutist in Nigeria since then until Ebele arrived on the stage.

Nothing suggests she’ll stop anytime soon.

True! If the passion was never there, you want to believe, it is doubtful if she would ever have contemplated quitting a secure and well-paying job in O&G for an uncertain future as a flutist. Or even dodged extramural classes for flute lessons as a secondary school student in Benin City where the Anambra state-born performer grew up.

Until she became famous some couple years back, not many people knew Ebele worked in a senior position in the Oil & Gas industry except, perhaps, colleagues and those close to her. Yes, with a first degree in Accounting and an MBA, the O&G industry seemed an ideal place to start off.

Today, most people recognize Ebele (starting with entertainment reporters and the industry itself to teenage fans and those who ask her to concerts) as the first female professional flutist in Nigeria. She herself is not unaware of that title going by her email address: ebeletheflutist01@...From several reports about the accountant-turned-flutist, nothing best describes her infatuation with the wind instrument than that very word: passion.

Thousands of her compatriots pray and fast week after week, month to month, year to year just to land a plum appointment in the industry. Once secured, thanksgiving services are sometimes not out of place, complete with special invocations by the GO himself or some such presiding pastor on behalf of the lucky lad for speedy promotions and job security.

But here is one woman who decided she’d had enough in her *Continues on Page 23

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TRIBUTE former metier, however lucrative or privileged it may have been, thus taking up one dearer to her heart, what she’d always wanted to do from her childhood.

When Ara the drummer girl began as a barroom delight in clubs around Apapa in the late nineteen-nineties, many thought she was a joker: a woman/ female fancying herself as a serious player of the talking drum usually the preserve of the male folk. Today, nobody doubts her talents as a player of the percussive instrument anymore.

In the coming years, it is possible those in the entertainment industry might look at Ebele in that light, if they have not already done so. She has been interviewed in more than half a dozen national newspapers, had scores of performances – public and private – in and outside Nigeria not only because she is the most recognized professional female flutist but because she is simply good at what she does.

“Music generally,” Ebele told me in one of her replies via mail, “and playing the flute has been a passion for me, and when something is a passion, it’s beyond you. It’s that God-given gift burning inside of you that you can’t ignore and if you are not doing it you cannot be fulfilled.

You can’t find satisfaction in any other job.”

When my editor pitched the idea of speaking with Ebele this last January, what came to mind was a one-on-one meet, not through some impersonal medium which denies reporters the necessary background against which their stories are set. Besides, I hoped to be entertained through some demonstration by the flutist herself, if only to re-confirm the popular American saying that “journalists are those who are paid to enjoy themselves.”

It was not to be no thanks to the social distancing on account of Covid-19. Even so, the interview proceeded. If, as they say, you can tell about people from what they write, there is no question at all Ebele is truly passionate about her current profession.

But what is even more striking is applying common sense to pursue and live out what she is passionate about. With the entrepreneurial savvy typical of her compatriots in eastern Nigeria where she comes from, Ebele worked as an accountant in O&G to save up enough money for her career in music because, in her words, “music is capital intensive.”

The idea of a woman taking up flute playing would have been unthinkable a hundred or so years back in her natal state, let alone put her lips to the wind instrument for any reason or take it up as a fulltime job. The one who did, as narrated to us by the master storyteller himself, Achebe, was considered a failure (efulefu) among Umuofians, beginning with his own son, Okonkwo, eternally ashamed and scornful of his father, Unoka.

Ever the prescient writer, Achebe gave a hint of who the superstar was in pre-colonial Igbo communities so brilliantly fictionalized in Things Fall Apart. It was not the flawed tragic hero who put a rope round his neck in the end but Unoka who entertained himself and others with wine and music even though he indebted himself in the process.

Unlike Unoka’s pariah status then, Ebele is the darling of all today, wooed and courted by gospel bands and politicians, artistes like her. She has had a collabo with Tunde Aremu. One report in 2018 had governors top on the list of her admirers and even going after her, she was quoted to have said. We wanted to know how true that was. No, Ebele replied.

“I didn’t mean it that way o. I like our leaders. Each time I see them in occasions, it gives me joy and they like my music and performance.”

On whether she is truly the first female flutist in the country, Ebele was non-committal, insisting that “there are a lot of female flutists in Nigeria. You can find them in some music schools like Musical Society of Nigeria (MUSON) and also in churches. I am the first female flutist because I am the first female doing this professionally.”

Part of the reason for lack of appeal to performers, according to her, is “the flute is not seen as a lucrative instrument like the saxophone.

It’s seen as an instrument you can only use in enclosed settings like orchestral settings. But I broke the idea.”

In the entertainment industry today in Nigeria, no one can deny Ebele broke the barrier or spawned the idea of being the first professional female flutist considering her ever widening fan base. Only last December, she performed for high-profile guests somewhere in Lagos where those in attendance observed the social distancing rules. She also said she was well paid.

Though Ebele never had any pioneer flutist to look up to in Nigeria, she believes she can inspire other youngsters, something she’s already began. In 2018, she ran a project of “training in different locations in Lagos state. A lot of females were involved and many indicated their interest in flute.”

One other thing she loves doing apart from playing the flute is reading, something she considers a hobby, browsing mostly inspirational literature, books that “influence me positively and get me closer to God.” The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren, for instance, is her favourite.

Growing up with her parents and sibs in Benin was great, Ebele recalled, although both parents baulked initially when she took up flute playing. But by the time they “realized how good I was, they supported me.” The rest, as they say, is history.

We could not resist asking one final question: her personal life. True, Ebele admitted she isn’t married but hopes to soon. For now, however, Nigeria’s first female professional flutist is completely devoted to what she embraced from her teenage years – the flute.

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Alhaji Lateef Kayode Jakande, 1929- 2021

BY DAMILOLA ESAN

A

lhaji Lateef Kayode Jakande is a household name in Lagos nay Nigeria because of his legacy as an astute politician of the first and second Republic and as the first civilian governor of Lagos State between 1979 and 1983.

A man of modest lifestyle, Jakande was a great disciplinarian and one who didn’t tolerate laziness and lackadaisical approach to work. His firm stand on hardwork earned him the appellation of “Action Governor”.

He was popularly known as Baba Kekere because of the perception by the Awolowo political family then that he was the lieutenant to their leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo and that he would succeed him as the leader of the Awolowo Political family, though events later proved them wrong.

His performance as Governor of Lagos State between 1979 and 1981 with little resources had proved him as an accomplished administrator and astute politician.

He was also celebrated for his welfarist programmes and projects.

The low- income estates he built while in government still litter the nook and crannies of the state. In education, he carried out successfully the free education programme of his party, the Unity Party of Nigeria and not only succeeded in abolishing the morning- afternoon schools in Lagos State but also established the Lagos State University and LTV 8.

Speaking in an interview, Jakande said what got him interested in partisan politics was what he saw as the poor state of the people, saying improving the welfare of the people was a major reason for joining politics.

A devoted Muslim, Kayode Jakande was born in the Epetedo Area of Lagos State. Both parents were from Omun Aran in Kwara State. He studied at the Lagos public school at Enu-Owa, Lagos Island, then at Bunham Memorial Methodist School, Port Harcourt (1934–43). He studied briefly at King’s College, Lagos in 1943, and then enrolled at Ilesha Grammar School in 1945, where he edited a literary paper called The Quarterly Mirror.

In 1949, Jakande began a career in journalism first with the Daily Service and then in 1953 joining the Nigerian Tribune. In 1956 Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who founded the Tribune newspaper appointed him Editor-In Chief. Jakande’s editorials were revered as factual and forthright, and were treated by the colonial powers with respect. After leaving the Tribune in 1975, Jakande established John West Publications and began to publish The Lagos News. He served as the first President of the Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN).

Encouraged by Awolowo, he ran for election as executive governor of Lagos State in 1979, on the Unity Party of Nigeria platform. He defeated his opponents, Adeniran Ogunsanya of NPP and Sultan Ladega Adeniji Adele of National Party of Nigeria and was subsequently sworn in as governor. His administration was effective and open and implemented the cardinal policies of his party. He introduced housing and educational programmes targeting the poor, building new neighbourhood primary and secondary schools and providing free primary and secondary education. He established the Lagos State University.

His government constructed over 30,000 housing units. The schools and housing units were built cheaply, but were of great value.

Though, he gave up the ghost on Thursday, February 11, 2021, Jakande’s name would remain indelible in the minds and hearts of Lagosians, who still see him as the best civilian governor to govern the state.

Born July 23, 1929, Jakande was a journalist who later successfully ventured into politics, became governor of Lagos State in Nigeria from 1979 to 1983, and later Minister of Works under the Late General Sani Abacha military regime (1993–98).

Jakande

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FEBRUARY 14 - 20, 2021 www.thewillnigeria.com

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

BY IVORY UKONU

Valentine Edition!

Scandal-free couples we love to celebrate this Valentine I

n an industry where love is fast becoming a scarce commodity, and many no longer respect the sacredness that embodies the institution of marriage, it becomes imperative to take a look at couples who still understand what marriage is all about. Which is why THEWILL is choosing to celebrate these few veterans on a day such as this. These few have worked at keeping it together over the years, while also avoiding the mine fields of scandals which has become a recurring decimal in the entertainment industry. They have proven beyond reasonable doubts through their marriages, that one can be an actor, be married to a fellow actor and have a scandal free marriage.

Tunde and Wunmi Obe

T

Wunmi & Tunde Obe

he singing couple have been together like forever having begun their relationship while still students of the University of Lagos and Lagos State University respectively. They also began their singing career at about that time. This was in the late 80s. Both later had stints on ‘The Charly Boy Show’ with Tunde co presenting ‘Zoom Time,’ a political spin off segment of the show, with Charly Boy. The duo would later become professionally known as T.W.O (Tunde, Wunmi Obe). Wunmi who is one of the daughters of late businessman and newspaper mogul, Olu Aboderin, has been married to Tunde for 23 years and they have three children together.

Olu Jacobs and Joke Silva

T

Olu Jacobs & Joke Silva

hey are no doubt the poster couple of Nigeria’s entertainment industry. Both have been described as some of Nollywood’s finest role interpreters and what is more, both have successfully debunked false notions about couples in the entertainment business.

They have both been married for over 32 years and both are grandparents.

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Zack and Ngozi Orji

N

ot many know that veteran actor, Zack Orji’s wife, Ngozi and mother of his children is an actress and that both have acted as on screen couple together, a couple of times. In fact Ngozi has acted in over 50 movies. Their over 25 years old marriage marriage which has stood the test of time has been scandal free.

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E-WEEKLY Nneka and Isaac Moses

Nneka & Isaac Moses

T

his quintessential couple and their love for all things Africa prompted them to start the television programme, Goge Africa to show case the beauty of Africa. Coupled with Nneka’s second profession as a fashion designer, the duo always wowed audiences with their choice of outfit which depicted each country they featured on their programme. They have been married for 22 years.

Charles and Diane Oputa Charles & Diana Oputa

C

all them the undisputed drama king and queen of entertainment in Nigeria and you won’t be totally wrong. Charles, more popularly known as Charly Boy, is the second son of former Supreme Court justice, Chukwudifu Oputa while his wife, Lady Diane is an American he married shortly after graduating from a US college. So in love is Charly Boy with his wife that in the 43 years that they have been married, he has proposed to her four times.

Gloria & Nobert Young

Gloria and Nobert Young

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B

oth veterans in the acting industry, 52-year-old Gloria started off in the entertainment business as Charly Boy’s side kick on his show, ‘The Charly Boy Show’ which was quite popular in the early 90s before delving into acting. Nobert on the other hand was a practicing journalist before he caught the acting bug. However, both met as actors and their relationship flourished. They will be celebrating their 19th wedding anniversary in April.

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FEBRUARY 14 - 20, 2021 www.thewillnigeria.com

SOCIETY WEEKLY

BY IVORY UKONU

Ex-Beauty Queen, Helen-Prest Ajayi, Finally Buries Husband 10 Months After Rabiu & Dangote

NEW AFRICAN MAGAZINE

T

Clash of The Titans: Dangote, Rabiu Renew Age-long Rift Over Covid-19 Vaccines

T

he age-long rivalry that many thought had long been buried, between the richest man in Africa, Aliko Dangote and fellow Forbes billionaire, Abdul Samad Rabiu, was re-ignited on Monday February 8. Rather than their usual squabble over similar business interests and who has monopoly of what, the bone of contention this time had to do with Covid 19 vaccines and who should or shouldn’t purchase doses of vaccines for Nigerians.

In the early afternoon of Monday February 8th, Abdul Samad Rabiu, through its company, BUA Group, announced that it plans to purchase one million doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, through the AfreximBank vaccine programme in partnership with Private Sector Coalition Against COVID-19 (CACOVID). The group said that the vaccines would be delivered the following week at no cost to Nigeria, thus making it the first set of vaccines to be delivered in Nigeria since the COVID-19 vaccines became available.

Quite a number of people heaved a sigh of relief at this news. And the reason was not farfetched.

Even though 1 million doses of the vaccine is like a drop in the ocean considering Nigeria’s population, it was still cheering news especially against the backdrop of the Federal Government’s constant change of expected date of arrival of the vaccine. From January ending to February and now to April, the dates have changed more times than a baby’s diapers. Coupled with conflicting reports from WHO on Nigeria’s qualification or otherwise for the vaccine, this news from BUA Group was to say the least, a huge relief.

Unfortunately, that cheering news was shortlived as CACOVID, of which both BUA Group and Aliko Dangote Group are members immediately disowned whatever plan BUA Group had in stock while also denying being in partnership with the Group and Afreximbank for the purchase of the vaccine.

CACOVID maintained that purchase of any vaccine can only be done through the federal government and not by individuals or companies as BUA Group has done. And even after the purchase, the vaccine can only be distributed through the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency, NPHCDA. Feeling slighted that its good gesture was turned down and made a ‘mockery’ of, BUA took the CACOVID team and specifically, a ‘prominent member’ of the body’ (a veiled reference by BUA Group to Aliko Dangote) to the cleaners.

Clearing the air on why it chose to pay for the vaccine, BUA Group revealed that at the meeting where they all agreed to contribute $100m for

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the procurement of the vaccine, the Central Bank governor, Godwin Emefiele had informed members of the opportunity, through the Afrexim platform, to access and pay for 1-million vaccine doses, provided payment was made by the end of Tuesday, February 9, for an opportunity to get the them the following week.

When none of the members of the group made any move to donate the funds, BUA Group offered to pay for the doses at $3.45 per dose, totaling, $3,450,000,000.00 which comes to N1.311bn through the CBN. BUA Group not only accused CACOVID of scuttling its good gesture, it also accused this ‘prominent member’ of being unhappy that the conglomerate rose to the occasion to avoid letting the opportunity to purchase the vaccine pass by.

He further accused this ‘prominent member’ of playing politics with the lives of Nigerians.

This outright allegation of falsehood and insincerity on both sides will no doubt, further deepen the feud and widen the enmity gulf between the founder of BUA Group, Abdul Samad Rabiu and the ‘prominent member’ of CACOVID, Aliko Dangote.

While these two business rivals have both attempted to mend fences and put up a united front in the past, at the behest of concerned friends and business partners, such actions usually collapse like a pack of badly arranged cards at the slightest opportunity. Ironically, both men come from Kano State and are distant relatives.

Their rivalry goes decades back, pre-dating them and their businesses.

Specifically in 1983, the then military head of state, Major General Muhammadu Buhari rtd, in trying to create a level playing field for businessmen, overturned the fortunes of Rabiu’s father, Isyaku, a renowned Kano merchant and industrialist, for failing to pay for rice imports.

While this singular action caused the Rabiu family to start back from ground zero, it inadvertently gave young Dangote who also comes from a line of wealthy merchants and industrialists, a head start in his business when he launched out.

11 years after Dangote set out and established himself in the business world, young Rabiu struggled to catch up. And while he trails behind Dangote in most instances, one can’t deny the fact that he has done quite well in rebuilding his family fortunes and has done so, over and beyond how much his father had done. This is a testament to his doggedness to surmount barriers and assumed ‘favouritism’ of Dangote by successive governments.

It remains to be seen how this renewed rift will play out.

en months after his death, friends and associates of Dr Tosin Ajayi, the late Managing Director of First Foundation Medical Centre, Lagos and husband of ex-beauty queen, Helen Prest-Ajayi, were kept wondering as to why it was taking too long to bid him a final farewell.

But all that worrying came to an end as the beauty queen finally buried her late husband on Thursday, after going through one of the most tumultuous times of her life, battling her late husband’s five children from his first wife, Yemisi, who happens to be the younger sister to the minister of state for health, Olorunnimbe Mamora, for months on end over burial plans.

Yemisi and Dr Ajayi parted ways 36years ago, and 11years before he met Helen, with whom he was with for 25years till his death.

Dr Tosin Ajayi died on April 26 2020 at the St Nicholas hospital, after battling kidney problem. His burial was delayed this long because his five older children from his first wife had been at loggerheads with Helen over the circumstances surrounding his death. They alleged that Helen, was in the best position to tell what really killed their father besides what the public knows.

The children promptly got the police involved. The Police decided to conduct further investigation on the matter and requested that an autopsy be conducted on the deceased, the result of which revealed that he died of natural cause, as no foul play was found.

On account of the autopsy done, Dr Ajayi’s children got another death certificate issued to them, with the address of the deceased captured as the residential address of his first wife. This contradicted the Ikoyi home address where he lived and shared with Helen Prest-Ajayi and which they had admitted to as being his residence in their petition to the police.

The children also demanded that Helen hand over their father’s corpse to them to bury as well as his original death certificate, a request she refused to heed, since they were planning to exclude her from the burial.

They also insisted that his burial be officiated at their mother’s church, SherperdHill Baptist Church, Lagos, even though the deceased had said he would want his burial conducted by the pastor of one of the RCCG parishes on the island, where he worshipped before his death.

These requests were refused by Helen, as her late husband didn’t attend the church of their choice. In fact when he was alive, Dr Ajayi blatantly refused to attend the weddings of two of his daughters at the church for reasons best known to him.

After several meetings held between Dr Ajayi’s children and Helen on the behest of some prominent people in Lagos, the impasse was finally resolved as the late Ajayi was honorably buried by his wife, Helen on Thursday February 11th 2021.

Helen & Tosin Ajayi

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Yinka Akinkugbe

Francis Awogboro

Jide Coker

Senator Ogunbanjo

S-WEEKLY

Lagos Socialites Fight Dirty at Motor Boat Club S

ome of the most prominent male members of the Lagos social scene have been at loggerheads in the past few months over who occupies what ‘juicy’ position at the prestigious Lagos Motor Boat Club, Ikoyi.

These high-profile members, mostly silver spoon kids have been at daggers drawn over issues that arose from the 2020 elections of the members on ly, exclusive club.

Those at the centre of this conundrum are popular names such as Eyimofe Atake (SAN), Yinka Akinkugbe, Jide Coker, Ladi Ani-Mumuney, Jide Balogun, Dapo Majekodunmi, Ladi Ajose-Adeogun, Dr Charles Hammond, Demola Akinrele (SAN), Femi Fowora, Folabi Balogun, Dapo Oshinusi, Prince Francis Awogboro, Tokunbo Ogunbanjo, Lanre Towry Coker etc.

Narrating his own side of the story on how the issue that almost led to exchange of fisticuffs and insults being thrown at will, Demola Akinrele, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and a senior member of the club, traced the origin of the crisis to discussions he had with some members of the club like Femi Fowora, Folabi Balogun and Ladi Ajose Adeogun – all of who are former ‘Commodores’ (a position in the club), with a view to suggesting improvements on the operations of the club as well as the upcoming 2020 elections of new officers.

According to Akinrele, he had expressed his position about Jide Coker, a duty officer to Ogunbanjo. He didn’t want Jide to put himself up for reelection as he felt that some of Jide’s ideas on certain aspects of the club’s operations are unorthodox. His message was relayed to Jide who initially accepted not to seek reelection but later changed his mind.

Unfortunately, the proposition to Coker ended up being misconstrued and ironically, fueled sympathy towards him.

Misconstruing Akinrele’s intention caused things to degenerate prompting Oshinusi to table the matter to a Trustee and a former president of the club, Awogboro, asking for his intervention and

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prevent a breakdown of law and order. While reporting the matter, Oshinusi fingered Akinrele and Ajose-Adeogun as being behind the tension brewing.

But after listening to Akinrele and Ajose-Adeogun’s side of the story, Awogboro agreed with their suggestion and directed that Jide not run in the 2020 elections. However, to the shock of Awogboro, his fellow trustees, Towry-Coker and Ogunbanjo, went ahead to put up Coker’s name for reelection, prompting Awogboro to cross it off on the board where it was placed with his signature appended to it.

This did not go down well with Jide’s supporters who requested that the person that struck out Jide’s name be disciplined.

Now Awogboro is in his 80s and asking that an 82-year-old man be sanctioned was to say the least, the height of disrespect. And this set off a chain of reactions that has since engulfed the club.

In an attempt to exonerate Awogboro, Akinrele explained that Awogboro as a trustee properly intervened under rule 10 of the club because he was invoked by a member to deal with a matter which was affecting the club.

“Even though it was not a matter initially referred to the Trustee by the committee, it was adopted and ratified by the committee through the involvement of the ‘Commodore’ at the meeting, leading to the decision and subsequent communication to Coker of the directive of the Trustee. Akinrele further said that the Trustee’s determination under this order is only advisory and should not extend to curtailing the right of a member to stand for election,” Akinrele said.

But Akinrele’s attempt to douse the fire he started, only fueled it the more, creating further divisions among members. Insults were thrown at each other with some members such as Atake almost coming to blows with Ogunbanjo for openly insulting an octogenarian who dared to remove Jide’s name from the election board for ‘no just cause’.

A few weeks after the elections, shortly after the clubs’ Annual General Meeting, Atake in a letter claimed that while reading his speech, he was heckled and jeered at by Akinkungbe and Ajose Adeogun in an attempt to disrupt the AGM and embarrass him for among other things, attempting to stop insults being rained on Awogboro.

Atake accused the duo of stirring trouble in the club and particularly accused Akinkugbe of belonging to a group in the club “that is driven from behind-the-scenes by Ajose-Adeogun” whom he referred to as ‘obnoxious and a sinful genius,’ “who is too much of a coward to be seen to be steering things, as to want to rock and destroy the foundation of the Office of Trusteeship of the club.”

In his response, Akinkugbe tried to dispel any notion that he has any personal animosity with any individual in the club, insisting that he is all about the rules that govern the club. While eulogising Jide Coker for carrying out his elected duty as a member of the club without earning as much as a query during his tenure, he however considered it a grave disservice that Jide Coker got expelled for daring to put himself up for reelection even after he was told to step down.

“Jide Coker is an ordinary member of the club who in a club election in 2019 was elected to serve on the committee of the club.

Clearly his performance in that role and his attendance to meetings and the responsibilities of his office were diligently carried out. He was not in any case found wanting and no disciplinary measures were taken against him. At least not until a group of members who wished to remain in the shadows (Fowora, Akinrele) decided that he was not worthy of the office.

“Please note he had not prior to this action been summoned for any offence. Please note he did not nominate himself. Please note he was nominated by two members who had every right to do so.

One Dr. Lanre Towry Coker is a long-standing member of the club and the other a respected Senator, former secretary of the club and Trustee of another much older club in the country, Senator Tokunbo Ogunbanjo. The two members wrote to the committee asking why their nomination was cancelled. They were informed that the cancellation had been done by the Trustee,” the statement read in part.

Addressing the issue of Ogunbanjo’s actions which culminated into an insult on the person of Awogboro leading to his expulsion, Akinkugbe felt the judgment was one sided as Atake’s disruptive behaviour has been far in excess of any statement made by Senator Ogunbanjo on the said issue. Yet Atake wasn’t sanctioned.

On how he hopes this whole brouhaha will end, Akinkugbe in his piece said, “I cannot predict how but I am sure that until we reverse the first illegal action to stop Jide Coker from running in a club election and affirm what the rules state, ‘that any member of two years standing can run in a club election, we cannot progress happily. What happens after a necessary reversal, whether re instatement of membership for Jide Coker and lifting the strange indefinite suspension of Senator Ogunbanjo without blemishes, is for the club to decide.

“The Trustee after doing the right thing might suffer some embarrassment for misunderstanding and misuse of his authority and causing club members trepidation, great pain and anguish. A small price to pay for the club and the members to recover some equilibrium.”

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S-WEEKLY

BY FITZGERALD COKER

Governor Yahaya Bello’s Hoax B

y every means, Governor Yahaya Adoza Bello, is a man born under the proverbial lucky star. He is one man favoured by his creator. His emergence as the Governor of Kogi State was heavenly ordained; big thanks to sheer luck and providence that smiled at him. When he was elected the Governor, the youth demography in Nigeria rejoiced with an atom of hope. They were optimistic that Bello would prove a point to the older generation that it’s time for youth to take control of the affairs of the country.

The hope raised by the youth were dashed in less than two years as Bello performed way below expectations. He was not doing anything differently; he never deviated from the norm. Instead of projecting and working assiduously to put Kogi on the world map with developmental projects and creating basic amenities for his people, to the chagrin of many, he was busy exhibiting juvenile delinquency and sheer youthful exuberance like that of a toddler in an adult frame.

He has not only made the younger generation a laughing stock, he also disappointed those who had faith in him. ‘’During his first term as Governor, Bello had an F9 in performance rating. The only aspect he made distinction was in the area of fashion and fighting political oppositions like former Senator Dino Melaye,’’ one source that supported his emergence as governor said.

After his surprise victory for his second and final term as Governor, many thought he was going to correct his wrongs by focusing more on developing and empowering his people, but the Governor is busy funding his hoax presidential ambition. He is dipping his hands into the state’s treasury, throwing taxpayers money away like a faulty ATM machine.

“A man who has not transformed Kogi state in his over six years as Governor, wants to be the President of Nigeria.

He thinks ruling Nigeria is a child’s play or a comic affair. If not for luck and by virtue of his closeness to the First Family could he have even emerged a councilor. He wants to be Nigeria’s President. He is just a clown. When the time comes, we would separate boys from men. The pretenders and the contenders would find their level,” the source further added.

Bello

I

Temitope Adebutu’s Singlehood Sets Tongues Wagging

n May 2017, Temitope Adebutu wedded her now estranged hubby, Olujunwo Obasanjo, one of the many sons of former President Olusegun Obasanjo. Despite the controversy their wedding generated, the groom’s mother tried everything humanly within her capacity to stop the wedding from holding; their wedding party was rated the best in 2017 as they displayed grand opulence. Both families spared no cost to make the wedding a memorable one. It was a heavenly celebration as the wedding party had an unending lavish supply of meals and drinks.

The well-attended nuptial shindig, converged the high and mighty from all over the country to the celebration of love at the highbrow Eko Hotel and Suites in Victoria Island, Lagos.

Like the proverbial house built on a flood path, the wedding could not stand the test of time.

Alas!!! The wedding collapsed on account of irreconcilable differences between the couples, barely one year after it was consummated as predicted by the groom’s mother; Mrs Taiwo Martins-Obasanjo.

Without a doubt, Magistrate Temitope, one of the daughters of billionaire gaming businessman and Chairman of Premier Lotto, Sir Adebukola Adebutu Kesington, is strikingly beautiful. She is one of the few ladies whose beauty would make any full-blooded man drool. So many features, including her Big-Bold curvature, come-hitherlook and infectious smile can make any man weak on his knees. No one sees her without taking a pause to appreciate her God-given endowment.

Besides, she has a good sense of fashion and wears the biggest designer imprints in the world.

However, Tope, a Law graduate from the University of Lagos, is gradually healing from the marriage crash and getting her groove back before death whisked her mother; Mrs. Rosemary Dacosta-Adebutu away in January, 2021. Interestingly, Adebutu, who is a magistrate judge in Isara-Remo, Ogun State, is not in short supply of men who want her as partner most especially for her bourgeoisie background. A close source divulged that; “As we speak she is lonely. She does not even have a boyfriend.

I don’t know how she is going to survive now that her only company has gone on a journey of

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Former Oil & Gas Big Boy, Abu Ali Jibia, Goes Broke

D

uring his prime, oil and gas baron, Abu Ali Jibia, was easily one of the biggest boys in Delta State. His popularity spread across the Niger Delta region like wildfire. He had a heavy financial war chest and was always on a spending spree. Any event he graced, praise singers sang his praise to the high heaven. His arrival was announced like that of a King. He was considered one of the top players in the booming oil and gas sector.

His reign however came to an abrupt end in October 2013, when he was apprehended by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFFC, alongside 10 others over alleged illegal bunkering and sale of allegedly adulterated crude products. His company’s vessel, MT Swordfish, with crude products worth several millions of dollars, was confiscated. Jibia was subsequently charged with five counts bordering on conspiracy, unlawful dealing in Automated Gas Oil, (AGO), popularly called Diesel, unlawful distribution of adulterated petroleum products and dealing in petroleum products that were below expected quality.

In the suit before Justice Mojisola Olatoregun of the Federal High Court marked FHC/L/216C/2013, the state claimed that the accused had on or about May 22, 2013, at Liberty Jetty, Marina, Lagos, without lawful appropriate license, stored and distributed two barges and two petrol tanker trucks of adulterated Automated Gas Oil (AGO).

After the matter dragged on for longer than expected, the case was eventually dismissed from court over lack of adequate evidence to put him behind bars. The former big-boy is believed to be broke and no longer able to service his service his ostentatious and luxury lifestyle as he was milked dry during the legal tussle and unable to earn from his alleged illicit dealings. Since the dismissal of the court case, the oil baron has recoiled back into his cocoon. He no longer attends social functions.

Sources said: “He now lives from hand to mouth as everything he gathered from illegal dealings in oil and gas was blown away like a knockout. His few friends are gathering funds for him so he could at least pick up from somewhere.”

Adebutu

no return. She also recently got promoted at work.

Most cosmopolitan men whose paths had crossed hers reportedly parted ways with her on account of her alleged haughtiness. Some even complained vehemently over her spoilt brat mannerism.”

The source further averred that; for over three years now, her single-status had got different tongues wagging. “She is not in a hurry to bring anyone home for marriage. She is currently taking time to study men that come her way.’’

Jibia

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BUSINESS EXTRA N395bn Investors’ Fund ‘Trapped’ In Dormant Equities

*Continued from Page 17

The fate of some dormant equities in 2020 can be seen as temporary due to a combination of factors such as the Covid-19 pandemic, #EndSARS protest, prolonged border closure as well as the recession. However, many companies slipped into dormancy due to poor or “rascally” management that has distanced them from genuine investors. Their inauspicious corporate governance culture is adjudged legendry and detrimental to an organization with appetite for world-class status.

Stakeholders and industry experts maintain that the dormant equities add no corporate value to the companies and do not offer a window for stockbrokers and the NSE to earn commissions and fees. They do not yield tax revenue for the government either. They are also seen as creating untrue picture of the flourishing Exchange because their dormant values are part of the overall market capitalization of the equity market.

Stockbroker and Vice President at Planet Capital, Mr Paul Uzum, confirmed that many of the dormant equities are companies that are not doing well and do not appeal to investors. He apportioned some blame to their directors who would rather invest in other viable stocks than endeavour to revive their distressed firms. He believes strongly that the dormant equities should not be allowed to continue to occupy space in the Stock Exchange.

“Many of such companies are not doing well. They do not file returns and when they file, they always bring losses. So, investors know them. Their directors invest in stocks too, but buy only the quality stocks, not their poor performing company’s. The Exchange owes the public a duty to weed off such listed firms from the market”, Uzum told THEWILL in a note.

The National Chairman, Trusted Shareholders’ Association of Nigeria (TSAN), Alhaji Mukhtar Mukhtar, said, “Lack of price movements, especially the upwards trajectory, will mean that investors are losing value. It

*Continued from Page 19

movement means that the organisations lack breath; and may be living on life support. Over time, no annual general meeting (AGM) is held and employees of this organisation do not earn a quality living. Survival and competition are by extra struggle while enhanced career progression is often a mirage. Majority of companies in this category run afoul of post-listing requirements of the NSE such as timely disclosure of financial performance.

The NSE penalty for default in timely disclosure of financial performance is punitive. The rules state that: “Any late submission of accounts shall attract a fine of One hundred thousand Naira (N100,000) per week from the due date until the date of submission. A listed company which contravenes any of the provisions of the Listing Rules and General Understanding and fails to pay the penalty imposed on it for such contravention on or before the due date shall be liable to a further fine of three hundred thousand Naira (N300,000) in addition to twentyfive thousand Naira (N25,000) per day for the period the violation continues.”

For the capital market and the investing community, dormant equities represent a drag on the rallying move of the stocks. They impose on the authorities the challenge of multi-administrative costs, both in material and in man hour and in monitoring their compliance behaviour. Dormant equities do not attract positive perception from foreign investors concerning the economy and the regulatory bodies because of their lag in the overall profitability of the capital market.

“The earlier we delist these stagnant stocks from The Exchange, the better for the market. These firms exist to absorb the value of investors’ assets and make the equities market look like a place to experiment how to invest one’s money”, said Bamidele Ogunleye, a Stockbroker in Lagos.

Insecurity Threatens Agric Value Chain

are chased away from their farms by killer herdsmen and other bandits. Thus, agro-allied businesses that would feed manufacturing companies planned in different parts of Nigeria to boost export and inter-continental trade under AfCFTA would no longer serve the purpose.

“There have been numerous accounts of farms destroyed by cattle that had either strayed or deliberately brought to graze. Many farmers - some now former farmers having abandoned their lands - continue to lick their wounds and count losses”, Caleb Ojewale noted while writing in BusinessDay of August 9, 2019 in a report entitled ‘Nigeria courts hunger as insecurity threatens food production’.

BusinessDay also published the account of Olumide Abayomi’s ill-fated integrated agricultural project in Osun State to illustrate the challenge that insecurity poses to Agriculture and Agro-allied business growth under the AfCFTA scheme.

Olumide Abayomi, a chartered account and fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), had retired from his lucrative job at African Capital Alliance, a private equity firm, in 2013 to go into largescale farming.

His long-term plan was to develop part of the 450-acre farmland he acquired in 2012 into a plantation that would also serve as a resort, since it had access to a railway line, a river behind and the ambience that suits tourism.

A portion of the farmland was planted palm trees while Abayomi put 50 cows of his own in another section. He opened up another section for plantain with farm where he reportedly had 12,000 plantain trees at 480 per acre.

“I invested heavily and wanted to really do agriculture,” Abayomi reportedly said, stating that he had spent an estimated N110 million on the farmland located in Osuntedo village, Osun State. But the farmland was invaded by herdsmen who did not only destroy its THEWILLNIGERIA

may also be a fortune for people with monies to invest in stock of their preferences at lower prices. Of course, when 53 companies with market capitalization of over N395 billion are dormant, it means that those sectors are not contributing to the economy. Jobs and businesses are lost, which is bad for any company. But it could trigger a spate of mergers and acquisitions. We hope the fortunes of some of these companies will significantly change in the year,” Muktar said in a note to THEWILL. The National Co-ordinator, Progressive Shareholders Association of Nigeria, PSAN, Mr Boniface Okezi, blamed the regulatory authorities. He advised the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and NSE to closely monitor the listed companies and find out what challenges they may have that could lead to their being dormant in the equity market.

According to him, the Covid-19 pandemic offers opportunity for listed companies in the Health Sector to invest in reviving and upgrading their facilities to play a key role in the fight against the pandemic, either as manufacturers of drugs or raw materials for drugs, disinfectants, or other products. “The companies should be compelled to hold AGMs to tell their shareholders and regulatory authorities what their challenges are with a view to reviving them and putting them back to work. It is in the interest of all parties,” Okezie said in a telephone interview.

Investigation showed that dormant stocks have farreaching implications on the investors’ assets, the company, the capital market and the investment community. For the investor, a dormant equity represents trapped asset; investment in this category earns no value by way of dividend or capital gain. It represents a “wrong” investment decision and could be counted as a loss because, over time, the asset yields no value to justify the investment.

It is also a measure of the company’s performance.

Listed companies whose stocks witness little or no price

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plantations but brazenly occupied the property.

According to the report, when the herdsmen invaded his farm with their cattle, 28 acres of rice and 25 acres of plantain tress were all eaten up. “Before the devastation of his farm, he was able to harvest plantain for two years, and he said harvesting was done every two weeks. Every fortnight, two to three truckloads was harvested, and ‘that is what the cattle ate up completely’,”.

The National President of All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Kabir Ibrahim, in an interview with SaharaReporters in December, 2020 disclosed that he lost N72 million to insecurity which impeded his visiting the farm for two years in the North-West region of the country.

A recent BBC Hausa Service report revealed that suspected bandits in Zamfara State now demand as much as N900,000 from farmers in certain villages before they will allow them carry on harvesting.

Similarly, Daily Trust reported in December 2020 that suspected bandits demanded residents of Aktata villege in Batsari Local Governmt Area of Katsina state to pay N1 million levy to escape an attack. Villagers levied each community member N1,500 to meet up with the demand.

A similar scenario played out at Siroro Council of Niger State where bandits levied some communities N5 million monthly to avoid being attacked, according to The Guardian of 12 January 2021. Nigerian Breweries has its largest sorghum farms in Niger State.

Many communities in the South West states have been under attack by alleged bandits and herdsmen in recent times, resulting to massive destruction of farm structures, crops and harvests as the locals abandon their farms to flee for safety.

Agro-processing industries that had been mooted for places like Benue, Plateau, Bauchi, Borno, Delta and Ebonyi, for instance, are no longer in the front burner of economic development discourse because of the ugly

narrative of insecurity in those areas.

The raw materials – yam, cassava, potatoes, tomatoes, grains and many others – would have been in the works for major Agro-allied businesses. This would have been a boom for Nigeria under the AfCFTA given her huge and young population burning with the fire of entrepreneurship.

Quick solution The drive by the Nigerian government to diversify the economy by promoting agriculture, exit the bumpy route of oil-dominated revenue and launch speedily into the Non-oil Revenue Avenue, is evident. This offers a huge advantage to participate in the AfCFTA arena.

It is vital that expectations of governments and businesses under the new continental operating environment are managed for results. This calls for addressing holistically and professionally the worsening state of insecurity across the country.

Today, Nigeria ranks third in the Global Terrorism Index, following Afghanistan and Somalia, in the league of countries most impacted by terrorism. Such reputationdeficit tag is a huge minus for a country thirsting for massive foreign investment to stimulate economic growth and reverse its status as the poverty capital of the world.

Presently, foreign investment inflow – both direct and portfolio – is on the decline amid rising rates of inflation, unemployment and miserable index, while poor state of infrastructure, mainly electricity and road network, is not abating.

Analysts describe AfCFTA as a huge economic opportunity for Nigeria given her huge natural resources and human capital potentials, but this will remain an elusive low-hanging fruit if the state of insecurity is not frontally tackled.

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SportsLive

BY JUDE OBAFEMI

L

ast month, Nigeria’s representation in the West African Football Union (WAFU) competition for young players, the Under-17 Golden Eaglets, struggled and failed to qualify on their own merits in the qualifiers out of the West African sub-region. It was the second straight WAFU qualifying series that a team from Nigeria, in an age-range competition, was falling below expectations. It was one too many.

The disturbing trend which began with Nigeria’s Under-20 national team, the Flying Eagles, crashing out of the U-20 African Cup of Nations (AFCON) and the U-20 World Cup after they failed to make the cut in the U-20 AFCON qualifiers previously, continued without improvement but with the similar disappointment by the Under-17s, the Golden Eaglets.

The Flying Eagles crashed out of the 2022 U-20 AFCON in Mauritania and, by implication, the 2021 U-20 World Cup in Indonesia after they failed to make the cut in the U-20 AFCON qualifiers of the WAFU Group B series in Benin Republic contested in December, last year. Because the Ladan Bosso-led team had lost both of their first two fixtures against the Black Satellites of Ghana and the Junior Elephants of Cote d’Ivoire, their chances of qualification depended on Ghana beating the Ivorians by at least a two-goal margin. Instead, it was the Ivorians that won.

As for the U-17s, the Golden Eaglets were held to a 1-1 draw by the Black Satellites of Ghana in the final group game of the WAFU B Tournament in Lome, Togo. In analogous fashion to the fate of their older counterparts, the result effectively put their chances of qualifying for the next round of the competition in serious jeopardy.

After playing in a deadlocked tie for the entire first half, there were 13 minutes left on the clock in the second when the Eaglets thought they had done enough to earn all three points after striker Joseph Arumala gave them the advantage from the penalty spot.

In the lead-up to the qualifiers, the centre-forward Arumala was the team’s leading scorer, with five goals in as many friendlies. He composed himself and converted from 12 yards sublimely. However, they could not hold on to their lead to see out a win. Their slim lead was cut short in the 84th minute when the very impressive Eaglets goalkeeper Destiny Emuwahen committed a foul inside the box, and from the resulting penalty the Ghanaians got the equaliser.

It was an all too familiar set of circumstances all over again.

In these youth competitions that Nigeria’s U-17s and U-20s used to be fearsome opponents and took teams on the continent to the cleaners, things have become so bad that once again Nigeria had to wait for the outcome of the last group match between Cote D’Ivoire and Ghana to discover whether they qualified to the next round.

Fortunately, coach Fatai Amoo’s U-17 Golden Eaglets that had managed to secure only one point after losing by a lone goal against the Little Elephants of Cote d’Ivoire and drawing 1-1 against the Black Starlets of Ghana, were handed a lifeline for qualification out of the WAFU B series when Cote d’Ivoire beat Ghana 3-1 allowing the Nigerian boys to qualify by way of superior goal difference. This gave the team a shot at redemption by qualifying them for the semifinals and for the Total U-17 AFCON to be hosted in Morocco.

Yet, it remained a painful position to be in, where for the umpteenth time, the outcome for a Nigerian team was entirely out of their hands and depended wholly on the results from the clash of other teams. It did not use to always be like this. There were times when Nigeria youth sides qualified ahead of the rest and simply waited on other matches to know their next challengers. But, the glory days have indeed gone.

Nigeria’s U-17s were formidable in the era of their rise to prominence. The team won the maiden edition of the FIFA U-17 World Cup in 1985 in China, at a time when it was still known as the Under-16 competition. They followed that success with more victories at the 1993 and 2007 editions. Then, Nigeria failed to qualify in 2011 but returned to win it in 2013 and 2015. By taking the trophies in the last two editions of 2013 and 2015, Nigeria became the second country to win and defend it the succeeding year for back-to-back trophies and the only one to win the junior world cup five times in all. On African soil, while they were runners-up in 1995, they took the trophy in 2001 and again in 2007.

Since then, the Golden Eaglets have dropped out of reckoning.

There has to be some procedural explanation to account for this fall from grace. The general decline in almost every aspect of Nigerian life is a pointer to how this must have come about. Yet, there is also the issue of age falsification to consider. This is of grave concern because even in the planning for the 2013 edition of the U-17 World Cup that Nigeria won, the Eaglets’ camp was thrown in disarray when key members of the squad were determined by the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanning technology to be over-aged and had to be dropped from the team.

In 2016, the ugly circumstance of age-related dishonesty reared its head again for the U-17s. This time around no less than 26 players of the 60-strong squad were sent home from their training camp because they failed the mandatory MRI scan tests for age-range determination just before an AFCON qualifier. The embarrassment aside, it bears thinking about with a preponderant weight of the reoccurrence of this sort of cheating in mind. The question can be raised of the distant possibility that Nigeria had the unfair advantage

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Eaglets Jeopardy, Age Cheating and Dire Future Of Nigerian Football of previously fielding players who used ages far below their real ages in these age-range youth competitions. With that, it was easier to beat all comers and win these tournaments.

This is a case of age fraud, which is the use of false documentation to gain an advantage over an opponent and, in sports with age-range competitions, it is a conventional practice in countries where records are not easily verifiable. It allows older players to enter youth competitions often benefitting from an unfair advantage due to their greater physical maturity compared to the players of the proper age. Although, there are cases where the lack of proper documentation actually makes it impossible for some players to know their exact dates of birth and often leads to approximation and estimation for use on official documents, the common practice is to cheat the other.

Nigeria’s worst case of age fraud dates back to 1989 when Nigeria’s youth national teams were slammed with a FIFA ban for fielding three over-aged players at the 1988 Olympics, whose birth dates varied from the dates they claimed at previous tournaments. The two year ban was not as painful as losing the hosting rights for the 1991 FIFA World Youth Championship as punishment after everything it did to win those rights.

Portugal, who were defending champions, gained from Nigeria’s loss by picking up hosting responsibilities.

The use of the MRI scans was introduced by FIFA in 2009 for the U-17 World Cup and has assisted the world football governing body to more precisely ascertain if players are over-aged or not. With a 99% accuracy until the age of 17, the MRI has been an exceptional tool in agerange football. Medically, all bones in the arm and leg have end plates from which these bones grow. At the completion of the bone growth, by age 17 to 18, the end plates disappear on the MRI scans. For the 1% of the time, it might make a false call but the benefits far outweigh that negligible and rare occurrence.

With better MRI scanning technology to limit these sorts of cheating, Nigeria appears unable to compete favourably on a level playing field.

What gives this position more plausibility is the embarrassment that the country suffered again in December, last year. 40 out of the 60 boys pencilled down as part of the Golden Eaglets contingent failed the mandatory MRI age test. It aligns with the accusations that have been labelled against the Nigeria Football Association (NFF) by individuals who know the subject well enough to be quoted as authorities in their own right.

The Super Eagles coach, German Gernot Rohr, has been quoted as bemoaning the damage age fraud does to the grooming of the future stars of Nigerian football. A former President of the NFF (at a time when it was the Nigeria Football Association) and who had the shortest tenure of a Football Administrator in the country because he was impeached by the Board after less than three months on the job, Anthony Kojo Williams, confirmed to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) “We use overage players for junior championships.” Also, a former Super Eagles player and current football manager, Adokie Amiesimaka, supported the accusation and put the blame squarely on the heads of the NFF.

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Nigeria’s U-17s were formidable in the era of their rise to prominence.

The team won the maiden edition of the FIFA U-17 World Cup in 1985 in China, at a time when it was still known as the Under-16 competition

*Continues online at www. thewillnigeria.com

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BY JUDE OBAFEMI FEBRUARY 14 - 20, 2021 www.thewillnigeria.com

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