Don't sign, Southern senators tell Buhari

...towards a better life for the people

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VOL. 25: NO. 63006

ONLINE | www.vanguardngr.com

N200

THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016

BUHARI TO PIPELINE VANDALS:

We'll deal with you like Boko Haram insurgents 9

INEC releases further guidelines on Edo gov poll 12

BUDGET 2016 IMPASSE:

Don't sign, Southern senators tell Buhari •Senators, Reps blame Appropriation Committee •Say Committee Chairman, Jibrin, created the fiasco

By Henry Umoru, Emman Ovuakporie, Johnbosco Agbakwuru & Joseph Erunke

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BUJA—THE controversy trailing the 2016 budget of the Federal Government got messier, yesterday, as legislators in the two chambers of the National Assembly, NASS, broke ranks with the official position of NASS which blamed the Continues on Page 5

Senate begins debate on PIB 8

Mr & Mrs

FOR LATE UNIPORT STUDENT—From left: Facilitator, Occupy Nigeria Season 2, Mr Michael Ojims; Convener, Occupy Nigeria Season 2, Mr Livingston Wechie and member, Iniperitiari Dikibo, at a news conference on the killing of University of Port Harcourt student, during a protest in Port Harcourt. Photo: NAN.

KAWU

The 8th National Assembly and the rest of us C M Y K

P.19 JOSEF OMOROTIONMWAN

Just before the next Armada

COLUMNISTS:

P.17 MODIBBO

FIRS seals off business offices in Abakaliki over tax evasion 44

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C M Y K

Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016—3

C M Y K

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C M Y K

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POCKET CARTOON

ROUND-TABLE—From left: Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Special

Adviser on Economic Affairs to the NSA, Dr. Remi Oyewumi; Interior Minister, Gen. Abdulrahman Danbazzau (retd) and the Minister for Environment, Mrs. Aminat Mohammed, during a round-table on vulnerable people in insurgency and other conflicts in Nigeria at the Transcop Hilton Hotel, Abuja, yesterday. Photo: Abayomi Adeshida.

BUDGET 2016: Don't sign, Southern senators tell Buhari Continues from Page 1 Presidency for the fiasco.

While senators from the southern part of the countr y, in a formal position, asked the President not to give his assent to the budget, members of the House of Representatives in a closed-door session rose against Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, Abdulmumin Jibrin, who they blamed for orchestrating the faceoff.

The southern senators and members of the House of Representatives from across ethnic and party lines were miffed by what they described

as the central role of Jibrin in removing the Calabar–Lagos rail line from the federal budget.

While the Southern senators asked the President not to give his assent without the inclusion of the rail line, the House requested the Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, to interface with President Muhammadu Buhari towards resolving the imbroglio.

The face-off in the House ensued shortly after it went into a closeddoor session and Speaker Dogara sought explanations from Jibrin on the issues concerning the budget.

As Jibrin got up to explain the procedure

IT'S UP TO YOU

BY AYO ADIO

I

F for any reason you have doubted your capacity to succeed, repent now and give it all it takes. nothing can stop you now. It's up to you.

TAKE HEART

BY ELLA RANDLE

If you want to lift yourself…lift someone else— Booker T Washington If you can hear the music all around you and feel the rhythm of your heartbeat, chances are you are a happy positive and kind individual. The kind of person who consciously makes the power of intention active in one’s life. People who are kind enjoy a healthy immune system. On the contrary unkindness weakens the body and puts such a one into a state of dissonance. So extend acts of kindness; ask for nothing in return.

SAYINGS OF OUR PEOPLE The chicken will never forget the one that plucked its tail during the rainy season.

adopted, he was faced with criticisms from several members, leading to an uproar.

Members in different tones, accused him of muddling up the reputation of the House and putting the legislature and the Presidency in an unnecessary face-off.

They alleged that recommendations put up by the House committees were unilaterally tampered with by the Jibrin-led House Committee on Appropriation.

At the end of the session with members seemingly convinced that the problem arose from the legislature, the members urged the speaker to seek audience with the President to remedy the situation.

The House resolution

Reading the resolution after the closed-door session, Speaker Dogara said: “In the interest of our people, in view of the prevailing economic situation, the House has decided to re-examine the 2016 budget.”

Briefing journalists after plenary, Chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Abdulrazak Namdas, reiterated the claim that the rail project was not contained in the original budget proposal laid before the National Assembly by the President.

“We are not saying that as a House that the

Calabar-Lagos rail project is not good, we know it is a viable project.

“Our concern is that people say that this thing was in the budget, and we removed it. That is why we are making this clarification and again I want to state it clearly that up till now, as I speak, there is no communication from the executive, the President to the National Assembly about the budget.

“All that we read in the media are other people’s opinions, but Mr. President has not come out clearly, and this is my problem with the budget that has been passed because as we were told, this budget has been taken back to Ministries for them to examine and get back to the President.

“That is why we asked our speaker to liaise with the executive, let’s know what is the issue because we are elected by the people and we are here to serve Nigerians.”

Mistrust, suspicion

However, a member that spoke to Vanguard on condition of anonymity, said the problem with the budget was the issue of mistrust and suspicion.

The source stated that since the election of presiding officers, there had been suspicion, adding that the controversy generated by the budget issue was not supposed to arise.

The source also told Vanguard that at the closed-door session, some members had called for Jibrin’s resignation as chairman of the Appropriation Committee.

“The Appropriation Committee Chairman was accused of making statements that were not approved by the House.

He helped in escalating the situation, and that was why some members called for his resignation,” the lawmaker said.

For the second day running since the Senate resumed from the Easter break, the plenary went off without a mention of the budget controversy on the floor. However, outside the chambers, it continued to engage the attention of senators.

South East, SouthSouth and South West senators, who met in separate caucuses, have also separately resolved to jettison the budget as

passed by the National Assembly and urged the President not to sign the document until the Calabar-Lagos rail project was included.

The South-South, South East, and South West legislators met separately on Tuesday night where they arrived at the same conclusion.

The meeting of the South West senators took place at the residence of Senator Gbenga Ashafa, APC, Lagos East, who himself is the chairman of the Senate Committee on Land Transport.

As the controversy broke last week, Senator Ashafa on Monday confirmed that the Calabar-Lagos rail project was contained in the report of his committee to the Senator Danjuma Gojeled Committee on Appropriation.

Senator Adesoji Akanbi, APC, Oyo South, who confirmed the meeting, said the APC caucus in the South West was solidly behind Ashafa’s stance.

Senator Akanbi said that presidential assent to the budget document as presented, without the inclusion of the N60 billion Calabar-Lagos rail project, would not be in the interest of the people of the South West.

“Personally, I see no reason the funds in the Ministry of Transport should be moved completely to the Ministry of Works for the construction of roads which belongs to state governments, without engineering design.

“We are seeking the reversion of this decision because the Calabar - Lagos rail project is very viable and it cuts across states in the South-South and South West, and it would galvanise the social and economic activities of the affected

regions.

“Apart from this, the project is a joint venture between Nigeria and China and it is time bound. Any attempt to leave it out of the budget this year will affect the execution of the project.”

Senator Akanbi noted that the argument of the appropriation committees that they could not accommodate the Calabar-Lagos rail project, because it was not included in the budget presented by Buhari, was not tenable because a supplementary provision was supplied.

He said that a similar situation happened in the committee of solid minerals when the rents on some of the ministry’s property were omitted in the budget presented.

The senator explained that officials of the ministry were asked to go and re-present a supplementary budget of N5m, which was instantly included by the committee and presented to the appropriation committee and c o n s e q u e n t l y accommodated.

“The situation is similar to what happened in the Committee on Land Transport because the supplementary budget presented by the Minister, Rotimi Amaechi, was allowed in the parliamentary process.

“Why should the money in the transportation ministry be moved to the ministry of works and voted for the construction of roads that had no engineering design and do not even belong to the federal government?”

However, some lawmakers are insisting that since the budget had been passed, the only option open to the President was to present a supplementary budget to cover the shortfall.

6 — Vanguard, THURSDAY APRIL 14 , 2016

Oba of Lagos tasks media on investigative journalism

By Monsur Olowoopejo

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AGOS—THE Oba of Lagos, Oba Rilwanu Akiolu, yesterday urged journalists in the country to engage more in investigative journalism and balance their reports.

Akiolu gave the advice when officers of the Lagos State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) paid him a courtesy visit in his Iga Idunganran Palace in Lagos.

The traditional ruler said it was bad for a journalist to write a story without getting the other side.

“I believe in the press as a tool for nation building, but it is always bad when they write without balancing their stories; it is not good.

“Some journalists are bad writers, while some write very well. Journalists should always investigate their information before publishing them.

“Journalists have a lot to do to move the country forward and Nigerian journalists are one of the best in the world if they want to work,” he said.

Akiolu urged journalists to always write to correct and help the society.

“Journalists should write on the need for the provision of electricity and water supply and other infrastructure in the society.''

The monarch urged Nigerians to support the present administration’s policies and programmes.

The Chairman of NUJ Lagos Council, Mr Deji Elumoye, thanked the Oba for a warm reception and promised that they would heed his advice.

Elumoye used the opportunity to invite Oba Akiolu to grace one of the NUJ Week programmes, which comes up on April 16 at LTV premises at Agidingbi.

Bread seller-turned model, Olajumoke goes back to school L

AGOS—BREAD sellerturned model, Olajumoke Orisaguna has headed back to the classroom.

The lovely mother of two whose picture went viral when she stumbled on TY Bello’s set in February this year has reportedly started a programme with Poise Nigeria, a Nigerian etiquette and finishing school run by Mavis Isibor.

Jumoke is said to be taking courses at the up-scale Lekki campus in English Grammar and Communication, and also in Total Personality Development.

In only a few months, she became a brand ambassador for Payporte, and scored modelling gigs with fashion brands like Salma Guzel. She has also been interviewed on CNN, and has become the most googled person in Nigeria.

Sequel to catching the eye of the world, the budding model was advised to acquire some form of education to avoid being taken advantage of, and ensure that her career does not grind to an abrupt halt.

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A G O S — STAKEHOLDERS of the Okobaba Foreshore in EbuteMetta, comprising Timber Dealers, Sawyers, Towing Vessel Owners and others, have dragged the Lagos State Government before a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos, challenging their proposed forceful eviction from the Okobaba Street Foreshore, to an uncompleted location in far away Ijede area of Ikorodu in Lagos State.

The stakeholders in the suit by

One concerned Nigerian undergraduate of the University of Lagos; Nneka Ibemesi put it, “Without an education, she will not go far, and as it is people are just telling her what to do. The day she demands for what she

really wants, her career will end.

“Since she started making headlines, many people had predicted that her stardom might be short-lived, as she does not have the proper training to sustain where she has been placed.”

Ibemesie stated her fear of the tendency of extortionists to use an ignorant Jumoke to further their own agenda, without necessarily having her interests at heart. I guess people just want to use her illiteracy to make money and gain publicity.”

Lagos CJ frees, counsels 153 prison inmates

By Abdulwahab Abdulah & Onozure Dania

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AGOS—THE Chief Judge of Lagos State, Justice Oluwafunmilayo Atilade, yesterday released 153 inmates from the Kirikiri Maximum and Minimum Prisons.

According to reports, 129 inmates from the Medium Prisons and 24 inmates from the Maximum Prisons were freed by Atilade.

Atilade had on July 17, 2015, granted 21 inmates from the Kirikiri Maximum Prisons freedom.

The chief judge said the release of the inmates were part of efforts to redecongest the prisons.

Okobaba stakeholders sue LASG over proposed relocation

By Innocent Anaba

INSPECTION: G o v e r n o r Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State (middle); Commissioner for Transport, Dr. Dayo Mobereola (left) and Senator Olamilekan Adeola during the Governor’s inspection of the o n g o i n g construction of Ajasa-Command Road in Agbado/ Oke Odo LCDA, Lagos, on Tuesday.

their counsel, Mr Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, are praying the court to restrain the Lagos State Government from forcefully ejecting them from the Okoababa Foreshore.

The other respondent in the suit is the Attorney General of Lagos State.

They are also praying the court to declare that the defendants are not entitled to eject, remove, drive away, or in any other manner disturb or hinder the possession of the 1st- 5th plaintiffs at the Abeokuta Street (Okobaba) Foreshore of the Lagos Lagoon.

She said:“The purpose of this visit is not only to decongest the prisons, but to make sure that the beneficiaries contribute meaningfully to the society.”

Atilade noted that the exercise was as a result of joint efforts by the Nigeria Prison Service, The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Non-Governmental Organisations and other stakeholders.

“I appreciate the cooperation of the Heads, Prison Decongestion Committee, Justice Oluwatoyin Ipaye and Magistrate Fabunwo for their efforts in making today possible.”

Atilade admonished the freed inmates to be of good behaviour and make positive impacts on the society, saying “I release you from prison custody, go and sin no more.”

At the Kirikiri Maximum Prisons, the Deputy Controller in charge of the prison, Mr Seye Oduntan, told the chief judge that the correctional facility had capacity for 1,056 but currently accommodating 1,235 inmates.

“We currently have 1,235 inmates in the prison with 772 awaiting trial, 209 convicted and 83 serving life sentences.”

ASP Olumide Akande, who is in charge of the Kirikiri Minimum Prisons, said the facility was overpopulated.

He said:“The 1,700-capacity prison currently houses 2,853 inmates with 2,725 prisoners awaiting trial and 128 inmates convicted. We are 1,153 inmates above the capacity.

“I urge Your Lordship to fast-

track the dispensation of justice for the less privileged inmates to decongest the prison.”

The 129 inmates freed from the Medium Prisons comprised individuals who had been in custody for not less than three years for capital offences and 18 months for non-capital offences.

Seventy-nine of the freed inmates were held for capital

offences, while 50 were for minor offences.

Three of the freed inmates had been incarcerated for more than 16 years without trial.

Also speaking at the occasion, the Controller of Prisons, Lagos Command, Mr Timothy Tinuoye, said the prison had selfdevelopment programmes for those awaiting trial.

Allen Avenue community petitions govt over blocked drainage ...We followed due diligence – LG Exec Sec

By Ifeanyi Okolie

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AGOS—RESIDENTS of Allen Avenue, in Ikeja area of Lagos State, have sent an Save our Soul, SOS to Governor Akinwumi Ambode and Commissioner of Environment, Dr. Babatunde Adejare, over a looming environmental disaster following the construction of shops, on massive drainage channel, by the Ikeja Local Government to accommodate traders from the Alade Market.

The residents in a petition signed by a community leader, Wale Akinade, said the local government did not conduct proper impact assessment on the area where they are relocating the traders, stressing that blockage of the drainage and none creation of access road into the market, will cause adverse environmental and health effect on residents of the area.

But the Executive Secretary Ikeja Local Government, Adekunle

Dally-Adeokun, told Vanguard that the council followed due diligence before commencing construction at the site. He explained that Lagos State Ministry of Environment and their counterpart at the Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban was carried along.

He added that more access roads will be created to ease the movement of goods and services around the market. Adeokun also said adequate security will be provided when the market commence its operations.

Traders at the Alade Market and officials of the Ikeja Local Government have been locked in a controversy over the proposed plan by the council to redevelop the 30-year-old market into a mall. The Local Government and its concessionaire, Masters Reality International Concepts Ltd, had built over 500 shops to accommodate the traders at a site not too far from the market.

Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016 — 7

Ekiti to AGF: You can’t use military panel's report to prosecute Says panel not appelate body over S'Court

By Rotimi Ojomoyela

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DO-EKITI—EKITI State government yesterday, said the Attorney General of the Federation, Alhaji Abubakar Malami (SAN), cannot use the report of a military panel set up to probe alleged rigging of the June 21, 2014 governorship election in the state to prosecute anybody.

In an open letter to Malami, who is also the Minister of Justice

by Ekiti Commissioner for Justice, Mr Owoseni Ajayi, yesterday, the state government also said the propriety or otherwise of the election had been decided from the tribunal level up to the Supreme Court and that any other panel, whether military or otherwise, could not sit on appeal on any matter already decided by the apex court.

Owoseni’s letter was entitled “Open letter to the Hon. Attorney General of the Federation, Alhaji Abubakar Malami (SAN) on the alleged plans to prosecute prominent members of the Peoples Democratic Party in Ekiti State for alleged rigging of 2014 Ekiti State governorship election.”

Owoseni, who said that while the AGF was vested with prosecution powers under Section 174 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended), noted that the powers were neither absolute nor unlimited, but it must be exercised with due caution and regard for the rule of law.

He added that the sanctity of the judicial process and respect for the principles of federalism must also be adhered to.

The letter reads in part: “Therefore, unless an alleged criminal act constitutes an offence under a federal enactment, the Attorney General of the Federation will definitely be acting ultra vires by any purported move to prosecute an alleged offender before any state or federal court in Nigeria without a fiat by the Attorney General of the respective state, vested with constitutional jurisdiction to prosecute criminal matters under the state law.

“Although the Electoral Act 2010 is a federal enactment, which creates several offences triable only in the magistrate or high court of a state in which the offence is committed, prosecution of such offences can only be undertaken by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), upon a recommendation made to it by an Election Petition Tribunal for the prosecution of any person or individual disclosed in an election petition or upon findings, after thorough investigation by the police,” he said.

Owoseni urged Malami to take note of the provisions of Sections 149 and 150 of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended).

“Section 149. The Commission shall consider any

recommendation made to it by a tribunal with respect to the prosecution by it of any person for an offence disclosed in any election petition.

• An offence committed under this Act shall be triable in a magistrate court or a high court of a state in which the offence is committed, or the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

• A prosecution under this Act shall be undertaken by legal officers of the Commission or any legal officer appointed by it,” he averred.

Owoseni went further that the findings, reports and recommendations of the Nigerian Army Board of Inquiry did not

emanate from an Election Petition Tribunal as specified by the Electoral Act. He added that as such any recommendation by the military panel could not be the basis or grounds for criminal prosecution of anybody.

Owoseni posited further that the Supreme Court, in the suit number SC 113/2015 APC vs PDP and 4 others, had on April 14, 2015 delivered a judgment in which it affirmed the regularity of the election and the validity of the results as declared by INEC. He added that INEC, the statutory body vested with the conduct of elections in Nigeria, was part of the suit up to the

Supreme Court level and vigorously defended the regularity of the 2014 Ekiti State governorship election.

Owoseni advised the AGF to resist any undue political pressure to act contrary to the provisions of the laws of the land.

Fayose visits China

Meantime, as part of his efforts to boost agriculture and improve technological expertise of artisans in Ekiti State, the State Governor, Mr Ayodele Fayose has travelled to Guangzhou, China to attend the 119th China Import and Export Fair otherwise known as the Canton Fair between April 14 and 19.

VISIT: From left; Mr. Olufemi Adekola, Team Leader, Media & External Affairs and Mrs Omotola Oyebanjo, Head, S t r a t e g i c Communication & Media, both of Union Bank of Nigeria Plc and Mr. Gabriel Omoh, Group Business Editor, Vanguard Newspapers during a courtesy visit of the bank's management staff to Vanguard's head office in Apapa, Lagos, yesterday.

Photo by Akeem Salau.

Aregbesola calls for commission of inquiry into oil theft of PDP administration. and quality of electricity we could

By Gbenga Olarinoye

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SOGBO—GOVERNOR Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State yesterday called on the Federal Government to set up a commission of inquiry into crude oil theft amounting to N5.8 trillion under the previous Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, administration.

The governor stated this while receiving members of Committee for the Defence of Human Rights, CDHR, who came to present a letter to him for onward transmission to President Muhammadu Buhari in Osogbo.

Aregbesola commended CDHR for joining President Buhari in his commitment to recover the resources of the country that was stolen by corrupt public officers.

The governor, having gone through the letter in which the group chronicled its expected actions to be taken by the President on how to recover looted resources of the Nation advised CDHR not to overlook the area of the crude oil theft under the watch

Aregbesola while sharing in the zeal and passion of CDHR on loot recovery said; “In the middle of 2013 a party at the helms of affairs of our country told us that 400,000 barrels of crude oil were being stolen on a regular basis for 24months, we never heard that it stopped for that period.

“What we have lost is N5.8 trillion to an unprotected crude oil theft in 24 months. We can imagine how many roads, schools

get from such amount.

“I am not underestimating your demands but you still need to add to it how the country lost the 400,000 barrels of crude oil daily.”

Speaking earlier, the state Chairman CDHR, Comrade Akinkunmi Asifat, said that all the recovered looted fund should not be allowed to be re-looted. He urged government to use the recovered funds to alleviate the sufferings of the masses by building social infrastructure.

Clerics flay FG’s move to replace Christian, Islamic studies

By Gabriel Olawale

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A G O S — ARCHBISHOP Alfred Adewale Martins of the Catholic Archdiocese of Lagos has condemned the plans by Federal Ministry of Education to replace separate teaching of Islamic and Christian Religious Education with the teaching of Religious and National Values in schools.

According to him; “Combining the teaching of Islamic and Christian Religious Education together is barbaric because it will create conflict in the mind of children. ‘’In a single subject, you will be telling the children that Jesus died for their sins and on another hand, according to Islam, you will be saying that Jesus was a prophet who just simply died.

“Aside that, religious study deserve to be subjects of their own because it is not only a matter of teaching fact, it also involves teaching moral and value among others. They should not be mixed with another subject and should not be taken together,” he said.

He also raised alarm over the aftermath of evil of Boko Haram sect in the country if special attention is not paid to rehabilitation of victims of the insurgency.

Speaking in Lagos yesterday at the 2nd National Meetings of Families organised by the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, the cleric regretted that the pain inflicted on the people by Boko Haram have made it impossible for families to be truly families.

On his part, the Catholic Bishop of Nsukka, Bishop Godfrey Onah in his key note address urged parents to pay special attention to the impact of modernisation, urbanisation, economy and mass media on their children.

DEATH OF AAU STUDENT: Police nab 41 over protest

By Dayo Johnson

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KURE—41 people have been arrested by the Ondo State Police Command following the break-down of law and order in Akungba community over the death of a 200 level student of the Adekunle Ajasin University, AAU, last week.

The disorderliness followed protest of students of the university over the death of Ojo

Afolabi Daniel, a 200 Economics Education Student of the institution in a road accident.

Miscreants reportedly hijacked the protest leading to destruction of the university’s health centre and the restaurant.

Speaking with Vanguard in Akure, the police image maker, Femi Joseph, said that those arrested were being interrogated.

Joseph said that those found to be innocent will be released while those found to be

directly involved will face the consequences.

Meantime, the Vice Chancellor of the institution Prof. Igbekele Ajibefun and his principal officers went round the campus to inspect the extent of damage done by the rampaging students and the miscreants.

Also, the president of the institution's Student Union Government, Comrade Adegbola Oduyemi has absolved the students of the damages.

8—Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016

PDP chair: Sheriff moves to consolidate, reaches out to key stakeholders

FG's N5,000 conditional cash transfer list of 8 states ready

By Ben Agande

By Omoh Gabriel

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BUJA — CHAIRMAN, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, has begun moves to consolidate his hold on power as he reaches out to key stakeholders to support his continuation in office after the party’s convention in May. It was gathered that following the opposition to his emergence as national chairman of the party, Sheriff had been reaching out to outspoken opponents of his emergence with a view to wooing them.

A source close to Sheriff said: “The chairman has been doing a lot since he emerged as a chairman. We hardly sleep in the night as the chairman has made it his duty to reach all those opposed to him, especially those based in Abuja, to appeal to them that for the sake of the party, every member must come together to present a united front against the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC.” Vanguard gathered that apart from reaching out to aggrieved members of the party, the chairman is also working hard to ensure that only credible people emerged as state council officials.

Another source said: “As much as the chairman has promised that no body would be imposed on the people in the forthcoming congresses, he is interested in who emerges in the states, especially states in the NorthEast zone.

"Since some stakeholders in the party are weighing the option of a possible continuation of the chairman in office, he has to be interested in the people that he would work with,” Some governors and and other stakeholders in the South-West, South-South and South-East chapters of the party have begun to canvass for Sheriff to continue in the office beyond the three months approved for him by the National Executive Council, NEC, of the party.

A national officer of the party from the South-South zone told Vanguard: “Since the party is firmly established in the South-South and the South-East, it is better to allow the chairmanship position go to the north to broaden the reach of the party nationwide.

We need to take the party back to Nigerians.”

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RECEPTION: From left, Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu; President, Association of Telecoms Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Lanre Ajayi and Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Airtel Nigeria, Mr. Segun Ogunsanya, at a reception held for the minister, in Lagos.

Senate begins debate on PIB Commences process of unbundling NNPC Probes NNPC’s JV cash calls

By Henry Umoru & Joseph Erunke

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BUJA — THE Senate has begun the process of passing into law the long awaited Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, as it yesterday passed the first reading.

The controversial bill, which is called the Petroleum Industry and Governance Bill, PIGB, seeks to give the country’s oil and gas industry a comprehensive legal framework and also provide the basis for the unbundling of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, into five independent commercial entities.

Both the Senate and the House of Representatives had harmonized the bill before yesterday’s action by the Senate which makes it the third time it would pass first reading in the Senate.

Both chambers of the National Assembly had recently harmonised a new draft of PIB and renamed it PIGB, following a prolonged silence by the Presidency on the bill as well as continued agitation for its passage by the citizenry.

Speaking, yesterday, Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki, who noted that the legislature adopted the PIB as one of its legislative agenda, said the 8th Senate under his watch, would pass the bill to help stimulate the nation’s economy.

Saraki, while inaugurating the Senate standing committees on November 23, 2015, had explained that the Senate was already working closely with the executive towards getting the bill passed quickly, adding that past attempts to reform the industry through the PIB failed for various reasons which he didn’t identify.

According to Saraki,

lawmakers will begin consideration of the first set of bills on the petroleum industry reforms in a matter of weeks.

Also, the controversial PIB had been in the National Assembly for consideration since 2003 but due to ethnic politics and duplication of the bill, efforts to pass the bill were scuttled.

The petroleum industry framework was first conceived by the administration of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua and sent to the sixth National Assembly.

Failure of the sixth Assembly to pass the bill made the immediate past government of President Goodluck Jonathan re-present the bill to the seventh Assembly.

However, the seventh Assembly, again, failed to pass the bill as a result of stiff opposition from Northern lawmakers, especially over allocation of 10 per cent royalty to oil producing communities in the bill.

Probes NNPC’s JV cash calls Meanwhile, the Senate, yesterday, asked its Joint Senate Committee on Petroleum (Upstream and Downstream), Finance and Appropriation to immediately commence the investigation of joint venture cash calls by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC. It expressed concern over an allegation that the NNPC had been violating rules governing its joint venture cash call and consequently asked its committee to investigate the allegation.

The Senate then asked the committee to come up with sanctions for any known

violation of appropriation acts in the oil and gas sector.

Senate resolutions were sequel to a motion by Senator Bassey Akpan (PDP, Akwa Ibom North-East). Akpan in the motion, alleged persistent constraints by NNPC to meet its cash call obligations, a situation he said had worsened the country’s crude oil production output and other activities in the oil and gas sector.

Akpan, who put the current outstanding cash call obligations in the oil and gas sector at $6 billion, stressed that cash calls ought to be treated as first line items by NNPC, prior to its remittance of available balance in its collectible revenues from crude sales to the federation account.

Akpan noted that such revenues ought to be handled as approved by the National Assembly, describing it as an issue of serious concern that crude oil production from the joint venture between NNPC and IOCs had declined by 47 per cent as at the last quarter of 2015.

He ascribed this to the Federal Government’s inability to meet its cash call obligation, adding that it was illegal and unconstitutional for NNPC to spend billions of dollars which ought to be used to settle joint venture cash calls on “inconsequential administrative expenses.”

Akpan, who noted that the National Assembly had approved over N1 trillion as joint venture cash calls for 2016 fiscal year, stressed that the legislative institution must ensure strict adherence to the approval as contained in 2016 Appropriation Act and Medium Term and Expenditure Framework, MTEF.

AGOS — THERE are indications that the list of beneficiaries of the Federal Government's N5,000 conditional cash transfer for eight states is ready.

Feelers from political and World Bank Country office in Nigeria have shown that the list for the conditional transfer has been in the making. The World Bank, it was learned, has used its template that it applies globally to help the federal authorities identify the poor and needy in the eight states while work is said to be in progress in other states of the federation.

The feelers suggest that the team compiling the list in each state goes to two poorest local governments in a state and then identify the two poorest villages or communities in such state.

From the poorest community, a list is drawn. One million poor Nigerians will benefit from the programme. The feeler is that the compilation is in collaboration with the World Bank, which had even started compiling a Social Register before the current administration came on board.

According to those, who have working knowledge of the programme, eight states of the federation have already been covered and that the criteria to determine beneficiaries have been clearly spelt out.

They include: school enrolment by the parents of school-age children; immunization of children against child-killer diseases as well as the aged and disabled poor. It was learned that the programme would run throughout the period of the administration’s life.

It was gathered that contrary to widely held opinions in some quarters, the N5,000 monthly stipend programme has not been cancelled by the Buhari administration. The source clarified that while some people held that the Federal Government was to pay N5,000 monthly to graduates, the graduates’ scheme would be the recruitment of 500,000 volunteer teachers, who would be paid N30,000 monthly.

"The graduates’ volunteer programme would run for two years, with the expectation that the volunteers would be able to secure other jobs as the economy throws up new opportunities," the source said.

Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016—9

Buhari to pipeline vandals: We'll deal with you like Boko Haram insurgents Says decades of damage can't be repaired overnight

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By Levinus Nwabughiogu

EIJING — PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari has issued a stern warning to vandals and saboteurs blowing up oil and gas installations, saying the full weight of the law would be unleashed on them should they continue in their nefarious acts.

The President said the fate of the Boko Haram insurgents in the hands of the Nigerian armed forces would be their lot.

Speaking at a meeting with members of the Nigerian community in China, President Buhari said he would not relent in the fight against corruption.

According to him, corruption is an arch-enemy of the nation, which has destroyed the lives of many Nigerians.

He said: “I ask for your support to make our vision of stamping out corruption a reality in the shortest possible time. Whoever is caught will not be spared. The government is still being dared, but those who are sensible should have learned a lesson. Those who are mad, let them continue in their madness.

“I am aware that in the last two weeks, the national grid collapsed a number of times. I hope this message will reach the vandals and saboteurs who are blowing up pipelines and installations. We will deal with them the way we dealt with Boko Haram.”

President Buhari assured the Nigerian community that the Federal Government was working very hard to overcome current national challenges and deliver on its promise of a better Nigeria.

Decades of damage can't be repaired overnight He said: “Clearly, our vision of a diversified and inclusive economy will not be achieved overnight. It will be a long, and in some cases, painful journey. I am very confident we will get there but we must start that journey now.

“We hear proposals for short cuts or quick wins. However, all we need to do is look at our history to know that there are no quick wins or short cuts in fixing Nigeria. The many decades of damage and destruction cannot be repaired overnight.

“The reform programme we are implementing is not because oil prices are below $45 per barrel today. It is because when oil prices were over $100 per barrel, majority of Nigerians were still suffering. They were simply forgotten and left behind. So, our reforms are to ensure that the majority of Nigerians are not left behind.”

On security Buhari also said his administration was fulfilling its promise to improve security C M Y K

across the country.

He said: “When we came into office in 2015, Boko Haram insurgents occupied 14 local

government areas. Today, I am pleased to say the insurgents have been routed out of these local governments and their capacity

to fight as a force has been significantly degraded.

“We will continue working hard to ensure that the group is eliminated. This is achievable.

And we will not settle for anything less.”

Bill on patronage of locally-made goods passes second reading in Senate

By Henry Umoru & Joseph Erunke

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PUBLIC HEARING: From left, Senator Abubakar Kyari, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, Chairman, Senate Committee on Environment; Senator Ibn Na'Allah, representative of Speaker, House of Representatives, Yakubu Barde (Minority Whip); and Obinna Chidoka, during one-day public hearing on a bill to establish the Forestry Research Institute of Nigeria, at the National Assembly, Abuja.

Chibok girls anniversary: Account for billions of naira budgeted for education, FG tells states, LGs Wants Chibok girls brought back safely the vast majority of them are girls and these are the vulnerable BUJA — THE Vice President, group.”

Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, has called on Nigerians, especially Wants Chibok girls civil society organizations, to make brought back safely states and local government’s On the Chibok girls, Osinbajo account for the hundreds of noted that bringing back the girls billions of naira budgeted for safely was an issue which education over the years.

Buhari’s administration was According to him, the violent taking seriously, noting, however, crises plaguing the nation, such that Nigerians should not forget as extremism, terrorism and that before Chibok, there were the criminality, have been traced to Bunu Yadi boys at Bunu Yadi either lack of education or no Secondary School in Yobe State, education at all. where 59 of them were killed in Speaking on the occasion of the their boarding house just a second anniversary of the kidnap couple of months before the of Chibok girls and the Chibok incident.

"Roundtable Discussion on He said: "Of course, there were Vulnerable People and Conflicts several others who had been Situation in Nigeria," the Vice abducted and killed at various President opined that there was times before those incidents. But little advocacy to ensure that states, you cannot say the girls will be local governments and even the brought back next week or by this Federal Government made day. Every rescue attempt must enough provision for education of take into account the safety of the children, and in particular, the girls. vulnerable.

Citing poverty as a fallout that He said: “As you all know, it is must be tackled to checkmate this the responsibility of the states and malaise, he said: “In societies local governments to ensure where you have extremely poor primary school education is not people, and large numbers of toyed with. It is a known fact that poor people, there must be a this has not been done over the different way of looking at how years which has led to an army of you prepare and how you plan millions of idle hands easy to for that society. deceive.

"You must have a greater "Some people have to be held attention paid to how to provide accountable. Of the 10.4 million for the very large numbers of the children out of school, for instance, poor, who cannot catch up in any

By Kingsley Omonobi

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way because they are far too poor and may not even live long enough to enjoy those things predicated in budgets."

“So we must pay some attention to how we design government programmes and budgets. We must take into account the poverty of our people, question of education and health care should go along with that, especially education and healthcare for the most vulnerable is important.

“That is why one of the chief concerns of this government has been the social investment we are trying to make and which was provided for in the budget.

“About N500 billion has been provided for social interventions, including conditional cash transfers to the very poorest, including loans to market women and persons, who are engaged in informal trade, about a million of those, even in compiling the names and list of those who are the poorest, has been a difficult process, but we have been greatly assisted by the World Bank and the Bill Gates Foundation.’’

On his part, Interior Minister, Lt. General Abdulrahman Dambazau (retd), in his address, said one of the fallouts of the Chibok girls’ abduction was the test case it placed on security agencies, especially the intelligence community and the capacity to respond to such intelligence.

BUJA — A Bill seeking the patronage of locally manufactured items in Nigeria got endorsement of senators, yesterday, as they unanimously passed it second reading.

The bill, tagged :” A Bill for an Act to amend the Public Procurement Act to provide for and adopt a Local Content Policy and timely completion of procurement processes,”was sponsored by Senator Sam Egwu, PDP, Ebonyi North.

Egwu, in his lead presentation during debate on the bill, said the bill sought to amend an existing Procurement Act to place a tag on percentages of certain locally made products to be purchased by government ministries, departments and agencies.

He added that the amendment of the act had become necessary, in view of the need to encourage Nigerians to patronise locally made goods.

He said until the act was amended, there would be a gap between the consumption of locally made goods and foreign goods.

According to Egwu, when the bill is passed into law, Ministries, Agencies and Departments, MDAs, will be mandated to purchase certain percentage of made-in-Nigeria goods.

He said: “The Federal Government spends billions of naira to import cars into the country when Innoson Motors and other local manufacturers are not being patronised.Ministries, Agencies and Departments, MDAs. We have all the raw materials, we also have the biggest market in Africa, yet we saturate our market with foreign goods.

“The amendment of the bill will go a long way in developing Nigeria to become a world class producer. We should not forget that the love for foreign goods is responsible for the level of unemployment we have in the country today.”

The legislator commended the President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu, and other lawmakers for patronising Innoson Motors and other locally made goods.

He urged other lawmakers to toe the path of the principal officers by patronising local products.

10—Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016

Police kill one, arrest 2 others over killing of Igbo trader in Bayelsa

By Samuel Oyadongha

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ENAGOA—THE Bayelsa State Police Command, yesterday, confirmed the killing of one of the robbery suspects that shot dead an Igbo trader on Monday at the Amarata suburb of Yenagoa, the state capital.

It was gathered that one out of the four-man armed gang was killed in a shoot-out with the police while two others were apprehended.

The hoodlums were said to have stormed the residence of their victim, identified as Ejike Agodo, in a commercial tricycle known as Keke Napep and shot him dead.

Though it was gathered that the deceased desperate calls to the emergency line of the police did not yield quick response due to the inaccessibility of the scene of crime, the armed gang ran into the patrol vehicle while escaping from the scene.

The response team of the police reportedly accosted the gang members along the Oxbow lake axis of Swali and engaged them in a shootout.

A source said: “One of the robbers was shot dead while two others were arrested.

“One of the arrested robbers told one of the patrol officers that the leader of the team and person who identified the house of the trader for attack is a resident of the Amarata community.”

Contacted, the spokesman of the state Police Command, Asinim Butswat, confirmed the arrest of the suspects and recovery of four locally made pistols.

“Yes, some suspects were arrested but I don’t known their identity yet,” he said.

It will be recalled that the shooting to death of the boutique owner on Monday provoked a protest by traders of Eastern extraction in the state.

Ejike, who recently married was shot dead at 3.30p.m., few days to his planned trip overseas for shopping to stock his boutique.

Truck crushes 4 at petrol depot

By Ifeanyi Okolie

F

OUR PERSONS were, yesterday, allegedly crushed, and six others seriously injured by a truck at a petrol depot in Apapa. The tragedy occurred during a clash between some marketers and officials of Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG. Vanguard gathered that trouble started around 9a.m., when some marketers and tanker drivers attempted to stop the NUPENG officials at the depot from allowing some trucks said not to be on queue into the depot.

It was gathered that a NUPENG official, (name withheld), allegedly ordered some trucks with logo of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, into the depot, but others resisted.

In the commotion, a driver with registration number, BAU 440 XR, reportedly rammed into 10 persons standing close to the entrance of the depot.

Eyewitness told Vanguard that four of the victims died on the spot, while six others who sustained injuries were rushed to the hospital.

A marketer at the depot, who claimed to have witnessed the incident, alleged that the NUPENG officials were collecting huge bribe from each truck before allowing them into the Depot. . The marketer, who identified himself, simply as Odion, alleged that the development reached a boiling point, when over 100

trucks that were not on queue were positioned to enter the depot ahead of those on queue.

According to Odion: “We and our drivers decided to protest. We stood by the entrance of the depot

and in the ensuing melee one of the drivers started surging towards us and we all ran out of the road. By time we realized what was happening, the drivers had rammed into 10 persons

standing very close to the gate.

"I managed to escape. Four of my colleagues were killed on the spot while six were rushed to the hospital.”

VISIT: From left, wife of the President, Hajia Aisha Buhari; wife of Abia State governor, Mrs. Nkechi Ikpeazu; wife of the Abia State Deputy Governor, Mrs. Vivian Okochukwu, and former First Lady, Mrs. Victoria Aguinyi Ironsi, as the President's wife was receiving 'Made in Aba' items, during a courtesy visit by a delegation of Abia Women to the Presidential Villa, Abuja. Photo: Abayomi Adeshida

65-yr-old man jailed 2 months for sodomy with son, 7

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KADO Grade 1 Area Court, Abuja, yesterday, sentenced a 65-year-old security guard, Patrick Kalu to two months in prison for sodomy with his seven-year-old son.

The Judge, Alhaji Abubakar Sadiq, said that the imprisonment would serve as deterrent to others.

The convict, who resides at Dape Village, Abuja, was charged on a count charge of unnatural offence.

Kalu in his plea, asked the court to temper justice with mercy.

The convict, who claimed to be a “good Christian” attributed his disgraceful act to Devil’s work.

Prosecutor Salisu Khaleel, had told the court that one Mr. Sunday

Irunagbe of same address with the convict reported the matter at the Life Camp Police Station, Abuja on March 14.

Khaleel said that the complainant reported that on March 13, he caught the convict sodomising his 7-year-old son.

According to the prosecutor, the offence is punishable under Section 284 of the Penal Code.

2 robbers remanded for raping victim

By Gabriel Enogholase

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ENIN—AN Egor Magistrate's Court sitting in Benin has remanded two persons, Peter Eleng, 29, Osas Osawaru, 36, for allegedly raping one of their victims during a robbery operation.

The Prosecutor, C.S.O Nnamdi, told the Court that the accused committed the offence on April 2, 2016 at No.1, at Oghobaghase Street in Benin.

He also told the court that the accused after gaining entrance through the ceiling of the store stole N12,000, one Techno phone

valued at N10,000, two Samsung phone worth N22,000 and a packet of cigarette valued at N200.

The plea of the accused was, however, not taken on a three count charge bordering on

stealing and rape.

The prosecutor said the offence contravened section 516, 390 and 358 of the criminal Code Cap. 48 Vol. ll laws of the defunct Bendel State of Nigeria 1976 as applicable in Edo State.

The Magistrate, Mr. W. Aziegbemhin, ruled that the court would consider the bail of the both accused on the next adjourned date and adjourned the case till April 19.

Court remands 21-yr-old man for allegedly defiling girl, 7

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N EGOR Magistrate's Court in Edo State, yesterday, remanded a 21-yearold man, Peace Akpos, in Oko Prisons for allegedly defiling a seven-year-old girl.

Akpos is facing a charge of rape.

The Prosecutor, C.S. Nnamdi,

told the court that the accused committed the offence sometime in 2014 at Ravic Education Centre in Ogida Quarters in Benin.

Nnamdi said that the accused had unlawful carnal knowledge of the girl.

He said the offence contravened

Section 222 of the Criminal Code, Cap. 48, Vol. ll, Laws of the defunct Bendel State of Nigeria, 1976 as applicable in Edo State.

The accused pleaded not guilty to the charge,and case was adjourned the case till April 29.

I was drunk when I raped my step-sister —Suspect He raped me twice —victim

By Esther Onyegbula

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36-YEAR-OLD man, who allegedly raped his 15- yearold step-sister has confessed to be drunk when he committed the act.

The suspect, Ime Martin, who was paraded alongside other suspects at the Lagos State Police Command, Ikeja, yesterday, by the Commissioner of Police, Fatai Owoseni, said boldly before newsmen, “I was drunk when I committed the act.”

It was learned that the victim

(names withheld) started living with the family at five years, and the suspect was said to have started defiling her last year.

He was alleged to have raped her severally before he was arrested.

The victim told reporters: “He slept with me twice, first when I was 14 years old last year and the second time was last Sunday, when my aunty and her son traveled. The first time, I reported to my aunty, when my aunty confronted him, he denied it.

"He said I was careless and probably I had left the door open and an unknown person had come to rape me. He sounded so convincing and my aunty believed him.

“The second time which was on Sunday, when he came into the room, he covered my mouth and raped me. I struggled with him, but he overpowered me.

That night, I ran out of the house.

The young man I ran to was our neighbour and I reported what had happened. He also almost

raped me. So, I ran and I saw the police patrol van from Lion Building, who rescued me.”

Suspect, Ime Martin

Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016—11

C M Y K

12—Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016

Labour wants UNIPORT VC suspened over student's death

By Victor Ahiuma-Young & Jimitota Onoyume

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RGANISED labour, yesterday, called on the Federal Government to immediately suspend the Vice Chancellor of University of Port Harcourt, UNIPORT, and set up a presidential panel of enquiry to unravel the remote causes of Monday’s killing of a student during a protest by students of the university.

Speaking through the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, labour equally demanded that the police officers involved in the killings be identified and brought to justice to serve as a deterrent to others who might be contemplating such actions in the future NLC, in a statement by the Joe Ajaero-led faction, expressed shock that a Vice Chancellor of a university in a democracy could deploy the services of Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS, to control innocent protesting students over the hike in school fees.

He said: “The Federal Government should set up a visitation panel to all the universities to look at the infrastructural situation in order to find lasting solutions and halt the

decay. The Federal Government should restore its control of the commanding heights of the economy which it abandoned through the privatisation processes as provided in the constitution of Nigeria.

"The Federal Government should review its policies to make it more inclusive in favour of the masses as it seems to have abdicated its responsibilities in recent times. The Federal

Government should also ban the use of the Army, SARS and the use of live ammunition in handling public protests and rallies in Nigeria."

Similarly, Rivers State council of the NLC and the conveners of Occupy Nigeria have called on the Federal Government to conduct an independent investigation into the killing of a student of the University of Port Harcourt, Mr Peter Ofurum,

during Monday's protest by students of the university against the hike in fees by management of the institution.

Chairman of NLC in the state, Ada Williams and the convener , Occupy Nigeria, Mr. Livingston Wechie, who briefed newsmen, said an independent inquiry into the incident was necessary since the Police was already being accused of firing the shot that killed the innocent student.

SWEARING-IN: From left: Speaker, Bayelsa State House of Assembly, Kombowei Benson; Deputy Governor, Bayelsa State, Rear Admiral Gboribiogha John-Jonah; Secretary to the State Government, Serinah Spiff and Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State, during the swearing-in of Commissioners and Special Advisers, yesterday.

Ita-Giwa to Presidency, NASS: Don’t politicise CalabarLagos rail project

By Charles Kumolu

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ORMER Presidential Adviser on National Assembly Matters, Senator Florence Ita-Giwa, has urged the executive and legislative arms of government to avoid politicising the Calabar-Lagos rail project, noting that

President Muhammadu Buhari should be encouraged to develop the Niger Delta region.

Ita-Giwa, in a statement, noted that the controversy over the project was unnecessary, adding that the rail line when completed would turn around the

economy of the South-South region.

She said: “The CalabarLagos rail project is a significant one that must not be trivialized or politicized because it has the potential of opening up the economy of the South-South region. I am, therefore, urging my

INEC releases further guidelines on Edo Party primaries fixed for June 2-July 4 gov poll

By Simon Ebegbulem

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E N I N — T H E Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has released further guidelines for the conduct of the September 10, 2016 governorship election in Edo State.

According to the commission, party primaries will hold from June 2 to July 4, 2016, while campaigns will commence on June 10, 2016.

The official register of voters for the election will be published on August 11, 2016 while the election itself will take place on September 10.

The new Resident Electoral Commissioner in the state, Mr. Sam Olumekun, who disclosed this when he paid a courtesy visit to Governor Adams Oshiomhole, C M Y K

yesterday, said INEC will ensure that it conducts a successful election in the state.

Meanwhile, Governor Oshiomhole has admonished the new REC to flush out corrupt INEC officials who were fingered for allegedly aiding electoral fraud during the last general election.

According to the governor, “ I welcome you to Edo State and also pray that God Almighty protects you as He has protected your predecessors, guide you, give you wisdom, courage and robust energy to superintend over the preparations and the conduct of the forthcoming election and beyond.

“I am a believer and a preacher of one-man one-vote because for too long the promise

of democracy was compromised in our country and my campaign mantra was that you must fight election fraud, not because of me but because of our country. It was clear to me that unless you have an accountable government, poverty will remain endemic and society will remain unsafe.

“But I am happy that several years down the line, we have played our part and contributed our quota to the struggle to entrench real democracy and uphold one- man one-vote. And I am happy you said this: the people must take ownership of this process, not as distant miserable spectators, but as active drivers and participants of the democratic process of which INEC has an extremely critical role to play, like the role of a referee.”

colleagues in the Senate and the executive arms to ensure that the project is included and adequately catered for in the budget because it will serve the common good and will complement the Cross River State Deep Sea Port.

“I also want to advise my colleagues to guide and keep an eagle eye on all projects earmarked for their constituents. Only through that can they be called good representatives. The region has suffered enough. Buhari should be encouraged to deliver dividends of democracy to the area even beyond the rail project.”

Ize-Iyamu values friends more than Oshiomhole —Ex-Edo Dep Speaker

By Gabriel Enogholase

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ENIN—FORMER Deputy Speaker of Edo State House of Assembly, Chief Festus Ebea, has described the statement credited to Governor Adams Oshiomhole that a Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, governorship aspirant, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, cannot boast of friends and associates, as unfortunate, saying that the former Secretary to the State Government valued his friends, whether poor or rich.

Ebea, who was reacting to the statement credited to the governor that some of Ize-Iyamu’s friends have been convicted of looting the state’s treasury, said that Edo people know that the friendship between Oshiomhole and Ize-Iyamu led to the latter serving as Director-General of the governor's election campaign in 2007 and 2012, until the governor allegedly betrayed the relationship.

He asked the governor to tell Edo people where his new found friends were in 2007, when personalities like Ize-Iyamu went to look for friends that donated funds to finance his gubernatorial project.

Ebea said: “It is really funny that the governor chose his dying days in office to let Edo people know that he could have created jobs for Edo youths by activating and sustaining the viable industries he inherited like the Ewu flour mill, Bendel Brewery, Cassavita Plant at Uromi, the ceramics plant near Benin, the Ehor fruit juice factory and even the Okpella Cement Factory."

Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016—13

Edo 2016: APC women vow to contest guber ticket with men As first female aspirant emerges

By Simon Ebegbulem

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ENIN—THE Women's Wing of All Progressives Congress, APC, in Edo State has vowed to slug it out with the men folk in the forthcoming governorship primaries of the party as the party's first female aspirant, Mrs Tina Agbarha, joins the guber race.

The women who stormed the APC secretariat in their hundreds to present Mrs Agbarha as their candidate, urged their male counterparts to support her as they had supported them in the past.

The APC Woman Leader in the state, Dr Aisosa Amadesun, who presented the female aspirant to the state chairman of the party, Mr. Anslem Ojezua, declared that Edo women had resolved to produce the first female governor in the country, asserting that the time of playing second fiddle was over.

According to Mrs Amadesun, “We are united in producing the first female governor in Nigeria after we failed in Taraba State. We are seeking the support of our men because we have always supported them. The people you see here today are not just APC women, we have women across political lines, including women from Peoples Democratic Party, PDP,

because their party too couldn’t field any female aspirant. The market women, even the men, are also behind us in this struggle.”

Addressing the crowd, Mrs Agbarha said Edo women have decided to speak with one voice. “I am ready to lead this struggle. Our governor

has performed and I want to build on his achievements so that Edo State will not go back to the dark days. I am appealing to APC delegates to look at the direction of the women. Money is not everything, but by the special grace of God, the men will provide the money

to support us in this historic battle for the APC governorship ticket,” she said.

In his response, Ojezua hailed the courage of the women, admonishing them to work harder as the primaries of the party will be free and fair.

AWARD: From left: Pastor Ituah Ighodalo, Senior Pastor of Trinity House; Mrs. Victoria Iluyomade, Olori Ebumofe Andu and Miss Chiamaka Mbanefo, at the presentation of the 2016 awards of the Ituah Ighodalo Foundation, in Lagos, in commemoration of Pastor Ighodalo's birthday.

N-Delta devt: Okowa urges synergy between NDDC, states, stakeholders

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By Festus Ahon

SABA—DELTA State governor, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa, has called for synergy between the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, state governments and stakeholders to ensure the development of the region.

Speaking yesterday in Asaba, when he played host to the management team of NDDC, led by its acting Managing Director, Mrs. Ibim Semenitari, Okowa said that the partnership would ensure equitable location and nonduplication of projects in the region, explaining that it would allow stakeholders share information and attract projects beneficial to the communities.

He said: “The partnership between NDDC and the states would enable them to share information that will ensure that projects that are beneficial to the communities in Niger Delta are not duplicated by the three tiers of government, as duplication will more often than not lead to nonfunctionality of such projects.

“The partnership with NDDC is a welcome idea. We must all be committed to it because a lot of projects have been undertaken by the state governments with the C M Y K

support of NDDC and I believe that this partnership will positively impact on the communities to ensure peace and development in the region.”

Commending NDDC on already completed projects in the state, Okowa advised them to liaise with the state and local

governments in locating projects in their areas to ensure that such projects become useful and beneficial to the people.

The governor commended the acting Managing Director for her tour and audit of NDDC projects, stressing that it would enable her know the challenges

on ground and encourage contractors to deliver quality jobs.

Earlier in her remarks, Mrs. Semenitari said she was in the state to inspect and commission some projects and also to synergize with stakeholders in the development of the region.

IG tasks A-Ibom command on effective investigation

By Chioma Onuegbu & Tom Moses

U

YO—THE Inspector General of Police, Mr. Solomon Arase, has tasked Police officers in Akwa Ibom State to always carry out effective and appropriate investigations before making arrests to avoid any chaos between them and the public.

He also called on the state Police Command to redouble efforts in combating the emerging trend of kidnapping in some parts of the state especially in Ikot-Abasi Local Government Area of the state.

To boost the morale of the officers and men of the command, the IG, who was on working tour of Akwa Ibom State Police Command assured that if the gangs of criminals were dismantled by

the Special Anti-Crime Squad, all of them would be promoted and specially decorated by the IG. Meanwhile, Arase instantly promoted 13 police officers of

the command to their next ranks for meritorious and courageous services to the police force and urged others to emulate them so as to also merit promotion.

EPA calls for contracting firm's probe

By Tare Youdeowei

T

HE Ekarde Patriots Association, EPA, has called for the probe of Setraco Nigeria Limited, the construction company handling the Gbaregolor-GbekeborOgulagha bridges in Delta State.

In a statement by Chief Andrew Elijah, the group accused Setraco of allegedly using substandard materials in the construction of roads and bridges in the Niger Delta.

He said: “The substandard job

which led to cracks on the Gbaregolor/Esanma bridge that was completed December, 2015, has made the bridge impassable.

The road construction which spanned 2009 to 2015, is not in the interest of the people who have suffered prolonged infrastructural deprivation.”

The group called on Delta State Government, ministers, senators and appropriate bodies to carry out integrity test on every project, especially bridges, adding that “riverine communities expect quality projects considering the terrain.”

Sylva: Court judgment vindicates our stance —APC Chair

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By Omeiza Ajayi

B U J A — CHAIRMAN, Bayelsa State chapter of All Progressives Congress, APC, Timipa Orunimighe, has said that Tuesday’s judgment of a Bayelsa State High Court has vindicated the party’s decision to suspend its former governorship candidate, Chief Timipre Sylva.

According to him, the judgment also buttresses the fact that the APC is a well structured party with laid out processes for choosing new executives.

A Bayelsa State High Court in Sagbama had granted an ex-parte injunction, barring Joseph Fafi, the factional leader of the state APC and his executives who are loyal to Sylva, from parading themselves as party leaders and disrupting the activities of the authentic party executives.

The court also restrained the defendants namely Mr Joseph Fafi, Mr Tonye Okio, Mr Fortune Parnebi and Mr Alabo Martins from “interfering or stopping the claimants from functioning in their respective offices as Chairman, Vice Chairman and Secretary of the APC pending the determination of the motion on notice.”

Edo community alleges neglect by state govt

By Gabriel Enogholase

B

ENIN—EME-ORA community in Owan West Local Government Area of Edo State has lamented its neglect by the state government in terms of provision of social amenities such as potable water, access roads and electricity.

Head of Eme-Ora community, Chief E. Orhewere and pioneer Secretary General of Eme-Ora Progress Union, EPU, who spoke for the community at this year's national convention of the body, said that past and current administrations in the state had neglected the community but only remembers it during elections.

He said that the only secondary school in the locality which pre-dates Nigeria’s independence had produced men and women that have contributed to the economic development of the country.

14—Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016

Buhari wants Mambila power projects completed soon

By Levinus Nwabughiogu, Prince Okafor & Gloria Adokwu

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R E S I D E N T Muhammadu Buhari has expressed regrets that previous administrations failed to honour agreements between Nigeria and China in the completion of outstanding joint projects, including the 4,000 megawatts Mambilla Hydro-Electric Power Project.

This came on a day Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said Federal Government was set to spearhead investment in solar technology, both at utility scale and solar-to-home solutions.

Buhari said his administration was keen on completing the Mambilla project and would abide by the pacts entered into by the previous regimes.

Speaking at a meeting with Mr. Li Keqiang, the Premier of the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China yesterday, the President said that in the shortest possible time, all joint power, rail, road and aviation projects would begin to directly and quickly improve the lives of Nigerians.

President Buhari said he was particularly keen on actualising the Mambilla Power Project because of its huge potentialities to boost economic growth.

DSS arrests Al-Barnawi’s deputy, impersonators of public officers

By Ben Agande

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AST week, Department of State Services, DSS, informed the public of the arrest of Khalid Al-Barnawi, known for his leadership and notoriety in terrorism activities.

Nigerians were also informed of his recruitment of young people into the Ansaru/Boko Haram terrorist groups.

With the arrest of Al-Barnawi, the Department of State Services, DSS, recorded an uncommon success in the decimation of the groups and their leadership.

Similarly, DSS has arrested Bello Danhajiya, a close associate and presumed Second-in-Command to AlBarnawi.

Danhajiya is a Fulani from Zamfara State and a strategic accomplice of Al-Barnawi.

Preliminary investigations have disclosed his involvement in gun-running, cattle rustling and other criminal activities, principally on the directives of his commander, Al-Barnawi.

So far, efforts are being made to conclude the investigations and commence prosecution, in line with the law.

DSS also arrested some suspects for impersonating and defrauding prominent Nigerians, including General T. Y. Danjuma (rtd).

Worried by the spate of impersonation of government officials and the increasing rate of defrauding of unsuspecting members of the public, DSS launched investigations, which has resulted in the arrest of many suspects.

The suspects include Aminu Ado, A.K.A. Yusha’u Muhammed Yerima Adam; David Ali Michika; Umar Hamza; James Malu Akune; and Kazeem Kayode Usman.

DSS, in a statement by

ARRESTED: From left— Second-in-Command to Khalid Al-Barnawi of Boko Haram, Bello Danhajiya; suspected fraudsters and impersonators, Aminu Ado, A.K.A Yusha’u Muhammed Yerima Adam; David Michika; Umar Hamza; James Malu Akune and Kazeem Kaode Usman, paraded by Department of State Services, DSS, in Abuja, yesterday. PHOTO: Gbemiga Olamikan.

Garba Abdullahi for Tony Opuiyo, said Aminu Ado was arrested on March 24 in Keffi, Nasarawa State.

The statement read: “Ado confessed to defrauding Lt. Gen. T. Y. Danjuma (rtd) of N1 million in 2015 and wife of Akwa Ibom State governor of N300,000, in collaboration with one Hajia Aisha, who impersonated the wife of former Gombe State Governor, Danjuma Goje.

“In addition, he confessed to defrauding members of the

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HE Managing Director of Skye Bank Plc, Mr. Timothy Oguntayo, has escaped a bench warrant issued by a Lagos High Court, Ikeja, following his compliance to an order to release $2 million dollars belonging to one Hyde Aremu Adelakun, which was frozen by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC. The court, presided over by Justice Lateef Babajide LawalAkapo, in a ruling delivered on December 4, 2015, had ordered C M Y K

the bank and EFCC to release the said money to Adelakun and his company (Tof Energy Co. Ltd), noting that he was legally and constitutionally innocent, having not been convicted by any court of law in Nigeria, with respect to any offence whatsoever or the purported offence and allegation to which the substantive matter related.

“The respondent grossly misled this honourable court in obtaining the Motion Exparte dated September 16, 2015, as she refused and/or failed to disclose to this

Saudi Arabia, for 10 years as an illegal immigrant, until he was deported in 2008.

“He was arrested in Kano for impersonating the Secretary to the Government of The Federation, SGF. “Michika had called several high-ranking government officials, soliciting for funds to settle spiritualists (Mallams) for prayers rendered for the success of All Progressives Congress, APC, in the 2015 general election and for peace in the nation.”

Children suicide attacks increased 10-fold since Chibok—UNICEF

By Sola Ogundipe

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HILD suicide attacks in Nigeria and neighbouring countries rose sharply from four in 2014 to 44 in 2015, according to a UNICEF data released on the second anniversary of the abduction of over 200 schoolgirls in Chibok, Borno State.

A UNICEF report entitled

Bank boss escapes bench warrant over frozen $2m

By Bartholomew Madukwe

public by claiming to be the Chief Security Officer, CSO, to the President.

“Investigation revealed that Ado had the mobile phone numbers of all the Federal Executive Council, FEC, members, some state governors, their wives, aides, military and police officers.

“David Ali Michika, a 43year-old native of Jimeta, Adamawa State, resident at Ungogo council of Kano State once lived in Riyad,

honourable court that the same subject matter and parties had been pending before the Federal High Court, Ikoyi, Lagos,” Justice Lawal-Akapo ruled.

However, at the last proceeding, counsel to Skye Bank MD, Mr Olanrewaju Osinaike, told the court that they had complied with the order of the court.

Meanwhile, the matter, which was to come up yesterday, was stalled following the absence of the trial judge who accompanied the state’s Chief Judge, Justice Funmilayo Atilade, on a prison visit.

Beyond Chibok shows that between January 2014 and February 2016, Cameroon recorded 21 Boko Haraminduced suicide attacks involving children, followed

by Nigeria, 17, and Chad, two. More than 75 percent of the children were girls.

Beyond Chibok assesses the impact conflict has had on children in countries affected

by Boko Haram. The report notes that nearly 1.3 million children have been displaced.

About 1,800 schools are closed— damaged, looted, burned down or used as shelter by displaced people.

Over 5,000 children were reported unaccompanied/ separated from their parents.

In a statement, UNICEF Regional Director for West and Central Africa, Manuel Fontaine, said: “Let us be clear: these children are victims, not perpetrators.

Deceiving children and forcing them to carry out deadly acts has been one of the most horrific aspects of the violence in Nigeria and in neighbouring countries.”

He said over the past two

years, nearly one in five suicide bombers was a child and three quarters of them were girls.

“Last year, children were used in one out of two attacks in Cameroon, one out of eight in Chad, and one out of seven in Nigeria,” Fontaine added.

The statement revealed that in 2015 for the first time, ‘suicide’ bombing attacks in general spread beyond Nigeria’s borders and that the frequency of all suicide bombings increased from 32 in 2014 to 151 last year.

In 2015, 89 of these attacks were carried out in Nigeria, 39 in Cameroon, 16 in Chad and seven in Niger.

Fontaine noted that the response to the crisis remains severely underfunded. “This year, only 11 percent of the US$97 million needed for UNICEF’s humanitarian response has been received and UNICEF is calling for increased commitment from donors to support affected children and women.

About one million Nigerian children are missing out on education as Boko Haram has destroyed about 900 schools and killed over 600 teachers, according to Human Rights Watch.

Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016—15

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16 — Vanguard, THURSDAY APRIL 14 , 2016

We spend $1.8bn to import fuel every quarter — NNPC

By Levinus Nwabughiogu

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BUJA—NIGERIA National Petroleum Cooperation, NNPC, has revealed that an average of $1.8 billion is spent on quarterly basis on the importation of Premium Motor Spirit, PMS, also known as fuel, into the country.

This was as the corporation also apologized to Nigerians for the lingering scarcity of the product across the country.

In a joint briefing at the presidential villa, Abuja, yesterday, four officials of NNPC in the persons of the Group General Managing, GGM, Public Affairs, Mr. Garba Deen

Mohammed, and the Group Executive Directors, GED, Mr Bello Rabiu, (Upstream) Henry Obih (Downstream) and Anibor Kragha (Refineries), assured that long queues at the gas stations would disappear in days.

Speaking through Rabiu, amid intermittent contributions from them, the GEDs said that already, several trucks loaded with fuel had been dispatched to Abuja, Lagos and Port Harcourt.

Fuel now available in Abuja

According to him, Abuja is now wet with fuel and other areas will soon receive supplies.

He said: “The objective is to brief you on the current situation of the petroleum products scarcity

and queues all over the country.

Let us start by tendering our apology and telling the people that we are really doing the right thing. ''We have been working very hard. It is supply issues that have been causing this problem but we are doing everything possible to end it. What we are doing now is to ensure that we get necessary supplies into the country through imports as well as through our refineries.

“As we speak today, we have 5 vessels serving products all over the country. And not only in Lagos, but also Port Harcout, Warri and Calabar. Apart from these vessels discharging, we also have private sector people that

imported over 120 million and are discharging currently. In moving the product out into the hinterlands, we have a little option because most of the pipelines are still not working.

“Because pipelines are not working, we are relying on about 100 percent trucking to the hinterlands. The plan is that going forward, from today, we will ensure that we give what is more than required in this country.

The total requirement for the whole country is about 1300 trucks. But our plan is to make at least 1500 trucks available everyday. We want to make sure that we sustain the market in a very short time.

You can see that Lagos is

almost cleared. Abuja is getting better. Other places will follow.

Apology to Nigerians

''On behalf of the Minister, who is also NNPC GMD, we are very sorry for what has happened. And we are working very hard to ensure that this does not happen again. We are doing everything possible to have storage that will not allow us to experience this again. Once our depots are wet, it will not take anybody more than 4 hours to take the products from NNPC to any part of the country.

“We are trying to ensure sustainable import, making sure that the refineries work and the pipelines also works. That will reduce all these incidences.

Once we achieve that, queues will become things of the past in the country.''

NLC joins one week global action on rescue of Chibok girls

By Victor AhiumaYoung

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BUJA—NIGERIA Labour Congress, NLC, yesterday directed its affiliates and members nationwide to the one week global action to rescue the girls abducted from Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State in April 2014, as Bring Back Our Girls, BBOG, marks its second anniversary.

NLC in a statement by its factional President, Ayuba Wabba, recalled that it was exactly two years that the girls were criminally abducted from their school of learning by Boko Haram terrorists.

It said: “Precisely 276 schoolgirls were abducted in their school, 57 escaped, 219 remain missing till date.

As many as 17 of their parents have reportedly lost their lives as a result of the trauma and many are daily agonizing. ''NLC salutes the leadership of the Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) for keeping the memory of the girls alive. ''An injury to these girls is certainly an injury to all us. It is not over until these girls are liberated from the clutches of the criminal abductors. ''NLC hereby calls on Nigerian government to intensify the security measures to liberate the girls. We acknowledge the commendable efforts of Buhari administration to smash the dens of the Boko Haram terrorists.''

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Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016—17

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HESE are the worst of times! The past week has brought into sharp focus the danger that institutions of a democratising society can become in the hands of over-ambitious individuals. This fact has become clearer, especially in the week that has been filled with controversy about the 2016 budget and matters arising therefrom.

When Senate resumed sitting on Tuesday this week, the order paper listed eight Bills for consideration, and these included two very controversial bills, that were directly related to one of the major issues in the polity today.

These are The Code of Conduct Act Cap C15 LFN 2004 (Amendment) Bill, 2016 (SB 248), sponsored by Senator Peter Nwaboshi, PDP (Delta North); and The Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015 (Amendment) Bill 2016 (SB 249), which is sponsored by Senator Isah Missau, Bauchi Central.

Is there anything familiar about these laws? They are! They seem to be the laws that are very much in the news at the moment, because they are very much related to the on-going trial at the CCT of the Senate President, Bukola Saraki.

It is very preposterous that the Senate would even dare to attempt to effect emendation of such laws of the land as were being used to try one of their members. And by the end of the day on Tuesday, the Bills had undergone the First Reading. It would be interesting to see if Nigerians can accept to be taken for a ride by such a self-serving institution as the 8th Senate of the National Assembly is turning out to become. The personal survival of their leader, the Senate President, seems to have become the most important issue for today’s Senate, contrary to the hope that Nigerians nursed, when they voted out the PDP in May 2015.

Stallion of change In truth, many of the leading senators today, who are the most influential in the wheeling and dealing so characteristic of the institution, only hinged their chariots to the stallion of change for purely tactical reasons. They never desired any change, beyond getting the opportunity to continue the business-as-usual of keeping the Nigerian status quo of their personal privileges.

It is certainly unacceptable that Senate should be reduced to the lowest common denominator as the 8th senate is threatening to; certainly not the emendation of laws to suit an individual! Didn’t they swear NOT to allow their personal interest to cloud the performance of their duty?

But we have been here with the 8th National Assembly. In October 2015, House Minority Leader, Leo Ogor, dropped a hint that the National Assembly would commence constitutional amendment to ensure immunity for heads of the Executive, Legislature and the Judiciary. Leo Ogor’s argument was that: “if the head of the executive arm, the C M Y K

The 8th National Assembly and the rest of us President and his vice should enjoy immunity, the heads of the other two arms of government, the legislature and the judiciary, should also benefit from the immunity”. Such immunity, according to him, “would reduce distractions and crisis in the National Assembly”.

Nigerians saw through the ruse; it was part of an eventually futile effort to stop any possibilities of trial for the Chairman of the National Assembly, Bukola Saraki.

It didn’t surprise, that he took Nigeria on a breathtaking ride through the court system, up to the Supreme Court in an effort to stop an examination of his past conduct.

Incredible and bizarre Ultimately, the court case opened, and while sub judice, Nigerians are already catching glimpses of the hind place of a ‘Sacred Cow’. It must be so troubling that they would resort to the most bizarre and the most incredible! How do they honestly think they can pull this through?

On what ground would they stand? Would Nigerians accept that the 8th senate could amend laws under which Bukola Saraki is being tried, just because he is Senate President? What manner of country are we becoming?

Shall we allow personal interest become basis to amend our laws?

Let us begin from the beginning. When Bukola Saraki pull through his car park stunt to seize senate in June 2015, those who knew his antecedents and the distance he was willing to go, cannot be surprised at the way the Senate has functioned ever since. The institution has reflected the troubled origins of its leadership and the politically exposed individuals who are its

Many in that National Assembly had a free ride into the two chambers largely because the Nigerian people accepted a platform of change that was symbolised by President Buhari

most influential members. They have an agenda that translates to individual survival as well as individual prosperity. These are the central ethos determining the operations of this institution today.

Invariably, they are bound for the collision course with President Muhammadu Buhari, which the 2016 budget has providentially offered.

Buhari prepared a budget that did not recognise the long established, but ultimately controversial tradition of “constituency projects”; that was after he had refused to “oil” the process of clearance of ministers.

They ambushed him in the budgetary process.

The Lagos-Calabar railways

project was removed; vote to complete Idu-Kaduna rail project suffered a cut of N8.7b, meaning it could not be completed this year and they drastically reduced allocations for completion of major road projects across the country.

In the meantime, they reportedly inserted roads for which studies were not conducted and diverted funds to rural health facilities and boreholes that had allegedly been provided for before.

They knew what they were doing, and they also anticipated a reaction from PMB and the Nigerian people.

Hon. Abdulmumin Jibrin, used telephone number 08036130007, to circulate a text to Members of

the House of Representatives, which said: “though all items submitted by Committees were retained, you will see additional inputs that were necessary to be accommodated via little cuts (my emphasis). You are therefore enjoined to be prepared to justify reports both in the media and elsewhere; in case the executive arm disagrees”. This is the crux of the matter. The 8th National Assembly obviously does as it pleases even if such actions are not in our best interest. Many in that National Assembly had a free ride into the two chambers largely because the Nigerian people accepted a platform of change that was symbolised by President Buhari.

Today, some of the most reactionary and anti-people postures are emanating from the National Assembly.

They seem far more interested in their own collective personal interests than those of the Nigerian people. But just as we defeated the infamous Third Term Agenda, we can build a national movement to defeat the antipeople agenda that has increasingly become central to the operations of the 8th National assembly!

Chibok girls, Boko Haram and geography

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GAINST the backdrop of the second anniversary of the abduction of the over 200 Chibok School girls by Boko Haram, the London TELEGRAPH newspaper, on Monday, April 11, 2016, published an article by its Chief Foreign Correspondent, Colin Freeman, titled “Why Nigeria is the world’s most dangerous place to be a geography teacher”.

The article said that Boko Haram was singling out geography teachers in its terror campaign, because geography lessons contradicted Boko Haram’s “bizarre worldview on how the earth was created. Boko Haram believes that the Earth is flat rather than spherical, and that rainfall is caused not by evaporation, but by God’s divine will”.

Prime candidates As a result, teachers of geography are ranked with Nigerian security men as well politicians as prime candidates for assassination.

This threat to geographers was outlined in an “extensive new report”, by Human Rights Watch, which underlined the devastating impact of the insurgency on the school system, especially in the areas of the war. The report said that 600 teachers have been murdered since 2009, while 19, 000 have quit their jobs in teaching as a result of threats and attacks. At the height of the insurgency schools closed in 22 of the 27 local government areas of Borno state, thus taking hundreds of thousands of children out of the education loop.

The figures are frightening, with a total of 952, 029 school-age children forced to flee Boko Haram violence and around 600, 000 pupils losing access to schooling.

Colin Freeman quoted from the Human Rights Watch report, that: “Boko Haram insurgents have shown particular distaste for certain subjects like geography and science…Teachers of these subjects are targeted”.

It then mentioned an attack at Mafoni Government Day Secondary School in Maiduguri, in September 2012, when the insurgents burst in and ‘“set their sights” on the geography teacher, Malam Anjili Mala…the gunmen simply rained six bullets into the teacher and calmly walked away. No one else was touched’. The background to this was that “the principles of geography and social science contradict the eccentric teachings of Boko Haram’s late founder, Mohammed Yusuf…”

In an interview with the BBC, Yusuf had stated that: “we believe that rain is a creation of God rather an evaporation caused by the sun that condenses and becomes rain”. He also rejected Darwinism and the idea that “the world was a sphere”, which he claimed ran “contrary to the teachings of Allah”.

A medieval perspective: This is the medieval perspective that fuels the ideology that has been responsible for the killing of thousands of our compatriots over the past six years of the insurgency. And as the report being quoted has shown, teachers and education have been on the trigger sight of Boko Haram in these years.

The most symbolic of its disdain

for education was the abduction of the Chibok Girls two years ago today. That abduction, more than most other outrages associated with the insurgency, shocked people around the world and the #BRING BACK OUR GIRLS campaign helped to highlight the atrocities of the Boko haram insurgency at a time when the Nigerian government of the day lived in denial and had even refused to believe that any such abduction took place.

The narrative kept shifting; first it was Northerners that were killing themselves and so the administration was not bothered; then it was a conspiracy of the North against a Southern president and there were also desperate efforts to politically exploit the chasm that was being constructed between the North and South of the country.

Closure for the issue But it was the nature of the anger that most Nigerians felt, that the Chibok Girls’ abduction was going to become one of the many factors that would trigger change in Nigeria.

Two years down the line, these poor girls are not back home and therefore, we have not found closure for the issue. And we cannot and deserve not to rest until those girls are back to their parents. The nightmare is plainly unacceptable and every new day that those girls stay with their abductors diminishes us further, because those girls should actually be in school harvesting the knowledge they could have eventually put into our collective struggle against underdevelopment.

18 — Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016 THE 14th of April has become a day that the failure of leadership and governance in Nigeria led to the disappearance of 276 students of Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok in Borno State.

Today is exactly 731 days or two years since Boko Haram terrorists walked into the school in the dead of the night and took away final year students waiting to complete their final exams.

Prior to this mass abduction, which eventually turned momentous because of the international furore it created, thousands of Nigerians had been abducted, killed or maimed, with communities razed and surviving inhabitants turned into internallydisplaced persons in far away towns. The Chibok girls’ abduction came barely three weeks after the February 26th 2014 massacre of 59 students of Federal Government College, Buni Yadi in Yobe State.

Chibok girls: Two years and counting The interest shown in the rescue of the girls by America’s First Lady, Michelle Obama and Pakistani teen activist, Malala Yousafzai, triggered off the historic #Bringback Our Girls (BBOG) protest around the world, which was also spearheaded in Nigeria by activists, Dr Oby Ezekwesili and Miss Hadiza Bala Usman.

Though 51 of the girls managed to escape through their own efforts, the remaining 219 girls have remained unaccounted for though the Federal Government sometimes claims they know where the girls are held, as human shields.

The abduction of the girls by Boko Haram went a long way in prolonging the conflict, as both the former President Goodluck Jonathan regime and its successor led by President Muhammadu Buhari, had to proceed with caution in the war against the terrorists. Jonathan’s inability to defeat the Islamist terrorists and rescue the girls also contributed much to his loss of the 2015 presidential election. Buhari, on assuming office, vowed that his defeat of the Jihadists would not be complete until he sets the girls free.

Two years on, and with the military on the verge of winning the war on terror, hope appears to have dimmed for the rescue of the girls.

In fact, the #Bringback Our Girls campaigners appear to have lost heart, especially since their founder, Hadiza, was appointed as the Chief of Staff to Governor Nasir El Rufai of Kaduna State.

Apart from the boasts of Abubakar Shekau, Boko Haram’s leader that he had “sold” or married off the girls, it is speculated that some of them may have been radicalised to become suicide bombers while others might have become mothers and victims of serial rape.

We call on the Federal Government to quickly rout Boko Haram and rescue any of these girls who may still be alive, for total rehabilitation. We hope lessons have been learnt, and that steps will be taken to make our schools safer.

OPINION Open letter to Hon. Reyenieju

By Paul Boroh

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EAR Hon. Reyenieju, The Amnesty programme benefits all The Presidential Amnesty Programme finds it expedient to write you this open letter in order to correct the impression you created in your Easter message to some Ex-Agitators of the Niger Delta. Please among others, refer to Page 12 of the Wednesday, March 30, 2016 edition of the VANGUARD Newspapers titled “Lawmaker flays selective implementation of Amnesty Programme” We have to make this response because we think as an elite, a leader of the Itsekiri and a Federal lawmaker, your words carry weight and should ordinarily be fact-based.

Honourable, perhaps if you had bothered to seek information or clarification from the Amnesty Office, your reported reaction might have been different and you probably would have given it little or no ethnic colouration. Please note that the purpose here is not to engage in polemics with you; rather, it is to explain and present facts.

The initial non-inclusion of Itsekiris in Amnesty Programme.

While speaking to some Ex-Agitators during their 2016 Easter visit to you, the Media reported you as claiming that “The process that necessitated the inclusion of ExAgitators from the Itsekiri ethnic group was a long and tortuous one and their inclusion was made possible through the intervention of the National Assembly …” You know that this your assertion which gives the impression that the Yar’Adua

administration -which proclaimed the Amnesty- deliberately excluded the Itsekiri, has no semblance with the truth.

What you did was to present one side of the story while concealing the other which truly illuminates the truth. The fact is that when in October, 2009 ex-Itsekiri agitators disarmed in Koko, Delta State, they stated categorically that they do not want to be part of the Amnesty Programme. The leader of the Itsekiri National Youth Association (INYA) and then member of the Delta Waterways and Security Committee, Mr. Newuwumi Omolubi, who presented a written speech said the Itsekiris are not militants and that the arms they submitted were merely for the protection of their communities. This he said, is the reason no Itsekiri can be found at any of the militant rehabilitation centres or collecting stipend under the programme. It was for this reason Itsekiris were initially left out of the Programme since the Federal Government could not compel anybody or group to be part of it.

Even when the Second Phase of the Programme was carried out, the Itsekiri youths still remained outside it. It was not until Thursday May 17, 2012, three years into the programme, that based on a petition by the INYA, the House of Representatives Committee on Public Petitions held a Public Hearing on the issue. At the Hearing, the then Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta and Coordinator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Hon Kingsley Kuku told the House Committee that the Amnesty Office was fully in support of the Itsekiri

petition to be part of the Programme. He explained that “There were fears among some persons that the Programme was just a ploy designed by the Federal Government and the Oil and Gas multinationals to lure out the Agitators from the creeks and possibly harm them ... As we all can now testify, the Programme has become a resounding success and these previously skeptical persons now want to be included.” Subsequently, the Presidency gave the Itsekiris 500 slots under the Third Phase of the Programme.

Itsekiris have benefitted immensely from Amnesty Programme.

Honourable, your claims that the Amnesty Office has been biased and depriving Itsekiri beneficiaries of their entitlements including skills acquisition and University Education are not factual. Given such faulty foundation, your conclusion that “sadly the present handlers of the Amnesty Programme appear to be irredeemably determined to ensure that beneficiaries of Itsekiri extraction do not maximally reap the benefits of the Programme” cannot but also be very faulty.

First, all Itsekiri Amnesty beneficiaries have been paid the same monthly Stipend as other beneficiaries. Secondly, given the facts that the Itsekiris constitute 500 of the 30,000 beneficiaries who came very late into the Programme, they can be said to have benefited a lot from it. Seventy two of them have had, or are on full Amnesty Programme Scholarship which includes Tuition, Accommodation and In- TrainingAllowances, in the United Kingdom (UK) and one in the United States.

Out of the 500 Itsekiri who took Amnesty, 65 of them (15 percent) have been sent by the Amnesty Office for Master of Science

(M.Sc) Degree programmes in various British universities in fields like Analytical Bioscience/Chemistry, Applied Instrumentation and Control in Oil and Gas, Energy and Environmental Management, Engine Control Systems and Instrumentation, Oil Field and Corrosion Engineering, Risk and Disaster and Welding.

Forty eight of them have acquired M.Sc Degrees while 17 are still studying.

Given the high cost of education in the UK, the Amnesty Office as a matter of policy concentrates on First Degree Programmes, and very rarely on Masters programmes.

But an exception was made for the Itsekiris and four of them are pursing PhD Programmes on full Amnesty Office Scholarship. All these 73 Itsekiri beneficiaries while being on full Scholarship or having graduated (with some probably working) are still collecting the Monthly Stipend. These are verifiable facts which are available even in the public domain.

I was privileged to lead the Amnesty Office Delegation which met with HRH Omoba Godfrey Ikenwoli Emiko, the Olu of Warri the security situation in the Niger Delta and the Amnesty programme, and we benefited immensely from his wise counsel. We appeal to all to imbibe the spirit of unity he has been championing in the Niger Delta and the country.

Honourable, the Amnesty Office under my watch operates an Open door Policy, so it is open to enquiry from any Nigerian on its activities. We wish you the very best.

Brigadier General Paul Boroh (Rtd), is SA to the President on Niger Delta & Coordinator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme.

Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016 –19 Send Opinions & Letters to: opinions1234@yahoo.com

Just before the next Armada

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NCE beaten twice shy.

Like the Word of God, history is forever settled and the sooner we begin to live by its tenets, the better for humanity.

Nigeria is today going through hard times, particularly as a result of the lingering fuel scarcity throughout the country. All the same, our prediction here is that the worst is yet to come.

What we have now is strictly not fuel scarcity – where the product is still available, even if the price is gradually pointing towards the N400 per litre mark. The biting scarcity is defined by that final moment when the product is not available at all; but you look up to the high sea and, all you see are very many ships laden with the product, unable to berth. This phenomenon in Nigeria is called port congestion.

Meanwhile, in just the same way that the sea has been clogged up with incoming ships, every available land space within the vicinity of the port is also clogged up with trailers and tankers that have come

ostensibly to convey the same unavailable products – unable to move forward or backward.

Everywhere is locked up and there is no product! There is an armada.

The dictionary meaning of armada is a large number of ships that move together. History is replete with cases of armada whose missions end up rather disastrously albeit the leaders had very noble intentions; hence some have come to the conclusion that the armada is a failed altruism.

With just a little push, we see in Lagos, a port congestion of unimaginable magnitude, waiting to happen.

We are quickly reminded of the “Cement armada” of the early 1970s. Nigeria had just emerged from a bitter civil war and needed lots of cement to embark on reconstruction efforts.

What the military administration of the time did was to issue import licenses to every Tom, Dick and Harry to bring cement into the country.

Before we knew what was happening, over 450 ships laden

mainly with imported cement and general goods were stranded at the Lagos anchorage, awaiting berthing space for months on end. Some of the ships ended up waiting for upwards of 180 days before setting on their way and freight surcharges ranging from 30% to 100% were incurred by many parties.

At the peak of the congestion, Brigadier Benjamin Adekunle, (aka Black Scorpion) was appointed Port Commandant to try to introduce some semblance of order into the hopelessly confused situation.

That was the genesis of port congestion in Nigeria. Since then, there have been other cases of congestion, including the current one that has been lingering since 2008.

Today, most streets and roads in Apapa area and, indeed, the entire Lagos Metropolis, are still saturated with heavy-duty trucks waiting to load commodities.

Propelled perhaps by the spirit of altruism on the part of the current administration, it is now commonplace that some 36 ships laden with petroleum products and general merchandise are already on their way to Lagos.

Lest what was intended as a plus turns a deadly minus, we must quickly sharpen our containment plans for a looming petroleum armada

Investment: el-Rufai and Anambra investment challenge

By Jaluchi Chikelu

M

OHAMMED Hayatudeen, the intelligent and well focused founding chief executive of the defunct FSB Bank, a few years ago made a passionate appeal to the Nigerian political leaders which unfortunately fell on deaf ears.

Hayatudeen told the political class that the country would leapfrog developmentally if they see the six geopolitical zones as development centres rather than platforms for pushing sectional and divisive interests which at the end of the day leave the overwhelming majority of the Nigerian people shortchanged. Not even the media or development-oriented organisations helped to spread the Hayatudeen gospel. Most of our political leaders are obsessed with power for its own sake, or what Professor Pat Utomi of the Lagos Business School calls power without responsibility. This is why in spite of the fact that citizens of northern extraction have been leading Nigeria since the greater part of our independence from Britain in 1960 the North lags far behind the South in all human development indices (HDI) like access to education, healthcare, etc.

One top government official who is most likely to move in a different direction is Malam Nasiru el Rufai, governor of the strategic state of Kaduna who has been the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory as well as the director general of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE). Like thousands of other Nigerians, I watched on Channels Television with acute interest the two-day investment summit in Kaduna which the state government organised from Wednesday, April 5 to Thursday, April 6, 2016. el Rufai characteristically spoke eloquently and with conviction, disclosing that the state could give South Africa a good run for its money in terms of huge gold C M Y K

deposits. This revelation must have come to most Nigerians as a pleasant surprise because the only business in the state known to most Nigerians is textile. Interestingly, the wellspoken governors of Bauchi and Kebbi states attended the investment summit where the Dangote Group announced the decision to invest $10m in tomato business in the state and Olams of India followed two days later with laying the foundation stone of a $150m investment in livestock. It is good that leading northerners took the summit seriously.

Yet, one state from which Gov. el Rufai can learn so much is Anambra in the South East geopolitical zone. Anambra has made tremendous success in attracting investments in the last two years but for some reason this fact is unknown to most Nigerians. Set up only two years ago as a one-stop investment organisation, the Anambra State Investment Promotion and Protection Agency (ANSIPPA) should serve as a model for not just state governments keen on diversifying revenue sources in an era of dwindling resources from petroleum, but also the Federal government whose Nigerian Investment Promotion Council (NIPC) has by all accounts underperformed since inception. Mandated to bring two billion dollar investments by 2018, ANSIPPA had by the first quarter of 2016 exceeded the target by some $300m, with agriculture alone accounting for 40% of the investments.

Some people may think that the stupendous performance of the Anambra State investment agency may have to do squarely with the fact that the state has

Political leaders should see their areas as development centres instead of platforms for divisive politics

To be forewarned is to be forearmed. It is our hope that adequate containment plans have been put in place for the expected cargoes. Hopeless port congestion is the least that Nigeria desires today.

The problems associated with port congestion are many: apart from a very long queue of ships waiting to berth, congestion is also marked by container- and general cargoes block-stacking; more movement of containers to off-dock facilities; frantic search by agents to locate their consignments, hectic time to position goods for inspection; difficulties at the customs desk; problems with trucks and traffic jams at port entrances and immediate port environment; rowdiness of port workers; and lots of pressure on those operating the terminals.

There is no magic wand in all these. Failing to plan is planning to fail. Importation of goods far in excess of the installed capacity of the ports is a direct invitation to the emergence of port congestion. This case showed up in the cement armada of the early 1970s, when we placed order for 20 million tonnes of cement needed for post-war reconstruction; and we wanted all delivered within 12 months when the total capacity of all the ports in Nigeria at the time was barely 6.5 million tonnes per annum.

Again, the lack of rail transportation is a serious impediment to the clearance of goods from the ports to off-dock facilities or to inland container terminals. In essence, rail wagons that could easily convey bulk liquid cargoes and containers out of the seaports are

probably the highest number of millionaire businessmen and women in the country.

But this is misleading. Why were investments not flowing into Anambra when Peter Obi, a successful businessman, was governor? Until now, business people from the state were paradoxically investing everywhere except their home state.

The first factor responsible for the ANSIPPA success is internalising what Adam Smith famously called the profit motive and communicating it to investors. Businessmen and women are not driven primarily by patriotism or altruism but by profit motive.

Smith has told us that neither the farmer who makes food available to society nor the butcher who gives us meat is guided by selflessness but profit. In the process of trying to make money for themselves, they provide critically needed products and services. If erstwhile President Olusegun Obasanjo had borne this fact in mind he would succeeded in attracting key multinationals in his first term in office when he embarked on almost non-stop foreign trips in search of foreign investors. He was innocently telling business executives like Sir Christopher Gent, CEO of Vodafone of the United Kingdom, the world’s largest mobile phone operator, “to come to Nigeria to help us”.

Sir Christopher was to state while retiring in 2003 that if he had known that Nigeria was such a huge market for telecoms business, Vodafone would have invested in it, rather than allow small players like MTN of South Africa and Econet of Zimbabwe/ South Africa to corner the market. If humanitarian or patriotic sentiments were the basis of serious investments, Cosmas Maduka of Coscharis would not have invested so massively in his home state of Anambra in the last two years. As every business analyst in Nigeria can testify, Mr. Maduka is a starry-eyed investor, who is not swayed by sentiments. In other words, he is investing in Anambra State because he has been convinced by ANSIPPA that he would make good profits.

The second factor for the success of the Anambra investment agency success is the quality of persons driving ANSIPPA. Gov

not there and the heavy burden simply falls on trucks, a bulk of which are shaky and poorly maintained.

Have we really sat down to consider the debilitating effect of port congestion to the national economy? First, there is the loss of income by stakeholders, public and private. For the clearing and forwarding agents, when their containers cannot be found, they lose their handling charges.

Disputes and associated legal costs are inherent in port congestions when parties to a contract fail one way or the other to meet arising conditions.

For example, if a shipping line agrees to divert its ship from Lagos to Port Harcourt, most consignees will object to such diversion. The reason is simple – if equipment meant for a factory located in Lagos or Abeokuta was being shipped in the diverted ship, who pays the cost of conveyance back to Lagos or Abeokuta from Port Harcourt?

This is the type of added question that port congestion brings about.

Lest what was intended as a plus turns a deadly minus, we must quickly sharpen our containment plans for a looming petroleum armada. And in the long run, industrialization remains perhaps the only panacea for port congestion; when we shall curb our appetite for imported goods and tackle squarely the issue of infrastructure, particularly power supply, because no economy ever thrives on generators, we shall then import only what must, of necessity, be imported; and port congestion will be put permanently at bay.

Willie Obianor, a former investment banker, resolved from day one not to make ANSIPPA a haven for political associates or sycophants.

The board is headed by Dr. Cyril Enweze, an economist who was until recently the number two man in the African Development Bank (ADB), having worked at the IMF which he joined straight from Cambridge University and later attended Columbia University in New York. Also on the board are Ifeatu Onejeme, a former executive director at United Bank for Africa; Dr. Ifediora Amobi, who worked under Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala at the World Bank; Ambassador Uche Ajulu-Okeke, Nigeria’s counsel general in South Africa; Solo Okonkwo, a former economics professor in the UK and now secretary to the government; and Greg Obi, an ex chief executive of Manny Bank who is finance commissioner. The management is headed

by Joe Billy Ekwunife, an accountant and retired top investment banker.

The third factor for ANSIPPA’s success is security, an issue of interest to Kaduna since the 2000 riots over Sharia law and worsened by the Boko Haram menace and a new spate of kidnappings. Anambra was until recently bedeviled by armed robberies and kidnappings. Ending this menace is a key achievement of Obiano who recognises, like any other investment banker, that capital is a coward, and goes to only places where it is not likely to be threatened.

The next factor is availability of infrastructure. While most Nigerian government officials consider the provision of basic infrastructure an end in itself, Obiano regards it as a means to an end, that is, it must be linked to economic and social development, leading to enhanced living standards of the people.

Both Obiano and el Rufai obviuosly belong to the Hayatudeen school of thought which believes that Nigerian political leaders should see their areas as development centres instead of platforms for divisive and sectional politics. The duo represent a paradigm shift.

*Mrs. Chikelu, a marketing executive, wrote fromLagos.

20 — Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016

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Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016

Labour urges FG to withdraw dormant mining licences

We are resuscitating moribund industries, opening new ones — Gov Ugwuanyi

By Victor Ahiuma-Young

O

RGANISED Labour has called on the Federal Government to urgently revive the Iron and Steel sector of the nation’s economy to serve as catalyst to the country’s quest for industrialisation.

It equally urged the government to withdraw all approved licences issued to miners who have not mobilised to sites to commence business, lamenting the owners of the licences are undermining the development of the sector.

At its Central Working Committee, CWC, the Joe Ajaero-led faction of Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, expressed concern over perceived the huge failure and ineffectiveness of the privatization policy of the federal governmentleadingtothecurrentcrisis in the nation’s power sector.

Privatization policy Reading the communiqué at the endoftheCWCinLagos,Ajaerosaid: “TheCWC-in-sessionhasobserved with great concern the huge failure and ineffectiveness of the privatizationpolicyofthefederalgovernment which,ascanbeobviouslyseen,has beengrosslyresponsibleforthecrisis in the nation’s power sector. The unbundlingandsubsequentsaleofthe Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN, to various private operatorsaboutthreeyearsagoistheworst mistakeanygovernmentthatisworth its integrity and responsibility can commit.Beforeourveryeyes,wehave witnessedunprecedentedpowerfailure as a result of the steady drop in power generation. Presently, the nation is faced with sharp drop of pow-

By Peter Egwuatu

T

AGM: From left, Managing Director/CEO, African Prudential Registrars, APR, Plc, Mr. Peter Ashade; Chairman, Mrs Eniola Fadayomi; and Company Secretary, Mr Musa Bello, at the 3rd Annual General Meeting of the company, in Lagos. er generation to 2,000 megawatts and we are yet to see the end of the abysmal drop.“Also traceable to the failure of the privatization policy is the operational docility in the mining sub-sector where licenses have been granted to various private miners who, up till date, have not commenced operation at various mininglevelsasexpected.Therefore,the CWC-in-session,havingcriticallylooked

attheseeminglyirredeemablepower situation in the country and the palpableinactivityintheminingsubsector of the economy, instructively advisesthefederalgovernmenttoremind itself of the huge failure of the privatization of the power sector in a wider spectrum and stop any further privatization plan it might have.” He noted that

the CWC-in-session believed that going ahead with privatization of other national institutions like Nigerian Railway and Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, which the federal government planned to unbundle would certainly portend greater socioeconomic danger for the nation.

Nigeria, global financial services firms fear loss of business to Fin Techs

N

Prince Okafor

IGERIA’s finance companies and the global financial services firms are now jittery over the loss of business to Financial Technology, Fin Tech.

Fin Tech is shifting the paradigm of traditional intermediary roles by making them obsolete.

The fear according to the Europe, Middle East and Africa, $ 124.65 1.30 EMEA, Fin Tech Leader at Pricewaterhouse$2,914.00 8.00 Coopers, PwC, Steve Davies “Fin Tech is changing the FS industry from the outside.

PwC estimates within the next 3-5 years, cu$ 43.23 0.40 mulative investment in $ 40.63 0.27 Fin Tech globally could well exceed $150bn, CURRENCY BUYING SELLING and financial institutions and technology 196.5 197 US DOLLAR 196 companies are step278.8688 279.5802 280.2916 POUNDS 223.244 223.8135 224.383 ping over one another EURO 205.0853 205.6085 206.1316 FRANC for a chance to get into 1.8103 1.8149 1.8195 YEN the game.

0.3204 0.3304 0.3404 CFA “As the lines between 275.334 276.0364 276.7388 WAUA 30.2801 30.3578 30.4355 traditional finance, RENMINBI 52.2486 52.3818 52.5151 RIYAL technology firms and 29.9933 30.0698 30.1463 KRONA telecom companies are 276.6932 277.3991 278.1049 SDR blurring, many innovative solutions are CBN Exchange rate as at 12/04/2016

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— 21

emerging and there is clearly no straightforward solution to navigate this Fin Tech world” On his part, the PwC Global Financial Services, Mr. Manoj Kashyap, added that “Fin Tech is shifting the paradigm of traditional intermediary roles by making them obsolete. While FS organisations have acted as intermediaries in the financial system by providing an invaluable service to clients, their functions are being usurped by new technology-driven business models.

“Given how fast technology is developing, incumbents cannot

With the pace of change now occurring at increasingly faster intervals, no financial services business can rest on its laurels

afford to ignore Fin Tech. Nevertheless, our survey has shown that a non-negligible 25 percent of firms do not deal with Fin Tech companies at all.

With the pace of change now occurring at increasingly faster intervals, no financial services business can rest on its laurels.”

PwC Nigeria Partner, Andrew S Nevin, lamented that “Nigeria is just as threatened by Fin tech companies as their global counterparts. We expect Nigeria to leap frog and adopt the rapidly changing technologies as they emerge, driven primarily by consumers’ demands”.

Meanwhile, Fin Tech companies report that the three major issues they face when dealing with Traditional Financial Services firms were deemed as, the differences in management and culture according to 54 percent, 47 percent stated operational processes and 43 percent reveals the issues of regulatory uncertainty.

This analysis is gotten from the responses of 544 Chief Executive Officers, Heads of Innovation, CIOs and top management involved in digital and technological transformation across the FS industry in 46 countries.

HE Governor of Enugu State, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi has said that its government is resuscitating moribund industries while opening up new ones for the benefit of the people.

He disclosed this at the opening ceremony of the Enugu State Investment Summit, saying that the country is being affected by the current macroeconomic challenges, owing to the unprecedented decline in crude oil prices According to him “Government earnings have significantly declined, thus limiting government capacity to implement some of its developmental projects. Our overdependence on crude oil proceeds have made this indeed a very difficult season in our history.We however cannot continuetomakeandgiveexcuses, we have to devise alternative meanstodeliveronourcampaign promises to our people. This we are committed to doing.

Wearecommittedtoreducingcost of governance and we are committed to ensuring that we get the best value for our money.

He noted that his government has set up an Economic Advisory Committeeconsistingofeminent sons and daughters of the state and other states, to advise government on the best policies that willengendersustainablegrowth and development for the state. “I am glad to inform you that the Stateisalreadybenefitingfromthe rich repository of experience, knowledge, goodwill, influence and contacts of members of the Committee.“ He affirmed the state governmentcommitmenttowardsimprovingthelivingstandardsofthepeople of Enugu State by providing them quality services and infrastructure is being challenged by dwindlingeconomicresourcesaccruingtotheState,especiallyfrom ourportionoftheFAACAllocation.

According to him “This is expected,giventhedeclineinglobal oil prices, from which the Nation derives the bulk of her financial resources.Itisnotsurprisingtherefore; that the State’s receipts from theFederationAccountAllocation Committee in the 2015 fiscal year fell by about 50% of what it was in the previous year.

22—Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016

HR managers that want to be reckoned with must exhibit strong presence amongst the executive team

,

‘HR managers should drive companies' profitability'

UMAN Resources (HR) managers have been urged to move beyond their traditional roles of ‘hiring and firing’’ to adding real value to the organisations by initiating ideas that drive company’s profitability.

President of Managerial School of Excellence (MSE), Mr. Leke Olufade, made the call at the maiden edition of Quarterly MSE - HR dialogue with the theme: ‘Our CEOs: What do they want from HR function?’

He emphasised that CEOs are basically interested in revenue growth, profitability, innovation and the ability to retain customers and called on HR professionals to strive and key into the vision of their various CEOs to retain their relevance in the organisation.

Olufade asserted that HR managers are the future of any successful business. He explained that the objective of the dialogue is to provide a platform for sharing of information regarding HR practices globally, nationally and at corporate levels.

He added that the forum would help HR practitioners to agree on workable approaches to topical issues in HR function.

Thriving HR According him, HR managers that want to be reckoned with must have enthusiasm for the business; exhibit strong presence amongst the executive team and also show professional compatibility with top executives. He listed other key requirements for a thriving HR personnel to include building organisational systems and processes to make the company competitive; talent management which enable CEOs to know the next generation of managers and executives and how they are being developed and above all integrity. The MSE president highlighted some issues with HR function to include poor definition of HR roles in terms of performance and corporate contribution to productivity, the fact that most CEOs from functional lines do not fully understand the supportive roles of HR, hence underplaying HR strategic roles and plans.

Speaking as one of the facilitators at the event, an HR expert, Nelson Suulola, who contributed from his over 25 years of HR and CEO roles within the UAC Plc group said HR managers must ensure that there is proper alignment between the vision of the CEOs and the people they are bringing in to the business. He noted that CEOs expects HR personnel to hire employees who believe the business belongs to them and can discharge their duties effectively without being forced .

One of the participants, Mr.Adebowale Shittu, from Dangote Group Plc promised to internalize what he heard at the forum and add it up with his years of experience.

In her own contribution, Jumoke Akinlabi from Fidson Healthcare Plc shared their HR success at Fidson emphasizing that their HR is involved in every facet of the business which has enhanced the company’s corporate governance.

BUSINESS

How young entrepreneurs can access BoI's YES fund

By Nkiruka Nnorom

H

,

By Yinka Kolawole

A

survey by the Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research (NISER) in 2013 noted that most of the capacity building programmes aimed at addressing youth unemployment in the country have concentrated more on training without any tie-in to the provision

of small business loans, which is a critical success factor to the establishment of small businesses. In addition, they hardly take care of the entire training value chain in terms of entrepreneurship, business management and technical skills.

YES The Bank of Industry (BOI) initiated the Youth Entrepreneurship Support (YES)

programme to address youth unemployment in Nigeria. The YES programme is aimed at equipping young aspiring entrepreneurs between the ages of 18 and 35 years with the skills and knowledge to be selfemployed by starting and managing their own businesses.

The N10 billion programme was officially inaugurated by Minister of Trade, Industry and Investment, Dr. Okechukwu

GTBank partners firm on women entrepreneurship

By Peter Egwuatu

A

S part of its support to the development of women entrepreneurs in Nigeria, Guaranty Trust Bank, GTBank Plc has partnered with She Leads Africa, SLA Accelerator to empower women with entrepreneurial skill to develop their businesses.

Head, Small and Medium Scale Enterprises, SMEs , GTBank Plc, Ololade Fadoju at a press briefing in Lagos on Tuesday disclosed that the bank is happy to partner with SLA, Work in Progress, VC4A in funding women entrepreneurs.

“We are so excited to be working with international partners in the Work in Progress! Alliance. GTBank was a lead sponsor for the last 2 years and we’re excited to extend this partnership for a 3rd year. Our

support of SLA as well as their innovative platforms such as SME MarketHub make it clear that they are committed to supporting youth entrepreneurship in Nigeria.”

She Leads Africa has just opened applications for the She Leads Africa Accelerator, a 3 month program designed to identify, support and fund the next generation of Nigeria’s brightest female entrepreneurs. The SLA Accelerator program is being run in partnership with GTBank , Work in Progress Alliance (Oxfam and VC4Africa).

The program is an extension of the She Leads Africa Entrepreneur Showcase, which made history two years ago as the first ever Pan-African pitch competition for women led businesses.

Speaking about the new program, She Leads Africa co-founder Afua Osei said “the pitch competition was a great way to find and fund women led

businesses but we weren’t able to work as closely with the entrepreneurs as we would have liked and help them hit key milestones. The accelerator will enable us to really focus on key areas the businesses need to improve on.”

The 3 month SLA Accelerator will consist of 1 week residencies where entrepreneurs will receive training from the SLA team and their network of business leaders and experts.

During these residencies, entrepreneurs will be focused on growth, marketing and distribution.

“Entrepreneurs learn by doing,” Osei continued, “so while there will be some classroom time, the main priority is for entrepreneurs to actually do their work and immediately put lessons learnt into practice. We’ll be on hand to support them – the entrepreneurs will essentially have a team of live in consultants.”

Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016 — 23

,

& YOU Enelamah on March 17, 2016.

Speaking during the inauguration, Enelamah said the initiative is expected to create a minimum of 6,000 direct jobs and 30,000 indirect jobs yearly.

“The YES scheme provides an opportunity for the BoI to help develop the capacity of the youths with a view to ultimately funding their business plans, aimed at equipping them to be self-employed by starting and managing their own businesses as well as eventually becoming employers of labour,” he said.

Benefits The YES programme focuses on developing the entrepreneurial capacity of youths and providing them with start up loans at concessionary

The YES scheme is aimed at equipping the youths to be self employed by starting and managing their own businesses interest rates to executive their business plans. The scheme will allow each of the eligible beneficiaries to access a maximum of N5 million loan for the procurement of machinery and equipment, including working capital. The loans are to be accessed at a single digit interest rate of 9 per cent, with a tenor of three to five years, inclusive of a six-month moratorium, the minister explained.

Components The programme comprises the following: Eight (8) weeks intensive online and Five (5) days in-class entrepreneurship and business management training which has the ability to test participants’ understanding and track their progress; Technical skills training in partnership with various technical training and vocational institutes in the country; Financing of the businesses by BOI under its SME Cluster initiative in consonance with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa’s commodity-based industrialisation strategy.

Objectives The objectives of the YES programme include: To create an interactive learning platform to train young aspiring entrepreneurs in entrepreneurship and business management that will ultimately translate into improved efficiency and productivity; To kindle the entrepreneurial spirit of the youths and; To act as an incubation centre where business ideas are nurtured to their full potential as well as entrenching global best practices by inculcating a culture of innovation-driven entrepreneurship and ethics in the programme participants.

Others are: Promotion of selfemployment among graduates of institutions of higher learning, thereby changing their jobseeking mindset and; To deepen financial inclusion by de-risking the young aspiring entrepreneurs and making them eligible for small business loans to be provided by BOI. Partners Meanwhile, BoI has accredited eleven enterprise development centres and capacity building consultants to implement the YES programme. The partners include Pan-Atlantic University Enterprise Development Centre, Leap Africa, After School Graduate Development Centre, Fate Foundation and African Community Bridge Foundation, among others.

Speaking during the Memorandum of Understating signing Ceremony in Lagos, the Acting Managing Director of BoI, Mr. Waheed Olagunju, at the Memorandum of Understating signing ceremony, said that the partners will provide support in technical skills and training in partnership with the various technical training and vocational institutions in the country. He added that accredited partner training institutions will deliver the inclass training, which will take place on a bio- annual basis at selected centre spread across the six geo-political zones of the country including Lagos and Abuja.

Olagunju said participants with innovative ideas must have a minimum educational qualification of an Ordinary National Diploma (OND) or its equivalent, explaining that about 10,000 online applications will be solicited nationwide, out of which 2,000 would be selected for the online training component of the programme.

It is not enough to have a vision. We need to have processes and structures in place that will help us achieve the vision

,

Whose role is it to run an organisation's vision?

“Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.”…Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I

T is a big risk when the leaders are the only people that understand the vision of an organisation. There is yet a bigger risk when they chose to run with the vision alone.

Developing the vision is the first step; the second and most important step is running with the vision. Two pertinent questions to ask are: who owns the vision of an organisation, and who runs with the vision?

The CEO (with the board or senior management) is expected to develop the vision of any organisation. The vision helps them to know where they are going to, and what their end state results will look like. That does not mean that the CEO or senior management owns the vision. As soon as any vision is being developed, it ceases to be the CEO’s “property”.

Everyone in the organisation now owns the vision.

Core strategies

when the CEO or S e n i o r Management thinks that his/her idea is best and only idea.

Nobody has the monopoly of best i d e a s .

When the ideas of some group of people (younger officers) are disregarded and slighted, it negates the true fact that “people support what they help create”. When this happens, the people involve might not work with their minds and hearts the way they ought to.

Leaders are to lead and navigate change in a way that will yield sustainable results

Running with the vision is akin to implementing core strategies that will help organisations achieve their end state. The CEO’s job is not to implement the core strategies, his primary roles are planning and change. Employees implement the change, in order words they run with the vision.

I am disturbed. Why is it that in most organisations, only the senior management sees the organisational “big picture”? These people constitute about 20-30 percent in population. What happens to the other 70 percent who are middle officers? These groups of people in one way or the other are expected to run with the vision. Can you see why I am disturbed? Why is it easier for senior management to see the big picture? The answer is because they have been taken to a “helicopter ride” and from 5000 feet above the ground level they were able to see the big picture.

The CEO must ensure that everyone in the organisation sees and knows where the organisation is going to – this is a critical task.

Whenever I am teaching Strategic Thinking to organisations, I always include a slide titled “Danger”. Why danger? Yes, there is a big danger

BY ‘UJU ONWUZULIKE

Points to ponder: For a CEO to achieve the organisation’s vision, everyone in the organisation must begin to see the “big picture”. Mildly speaking, some employees do not know what their vision statement is. They also do not know what their core values are, so what guides them and what have they been doing?

Leaders and Managers must avoid “DAD” syndrome when

running the affairs of the entire organisation.(“DAD” stands for: Deciding – Announcing – Defending).

But rather must enforce “Parallel Involvement Process”- where the views of employees are valued. Being a leader does not confer us the right to use veto powers on subordinates. Remember people support what they help create.

Final Note: It is not enough to have a vision. We need to have processes and structures in place that will help us achieve the vision.

Remember structures influences behavior. The roles of leaders are to lead and navigate change in a way that will yield sustainable results.

These results are achieved collectively.

Senior management and the collective workforce should not focus on their personal goals but rather on the goals of the organisation. It is much easier to achieve one’s personal goal(s) after helping the organisation’ achieve its goal first.

For your views or perspectives: Email: uju@hainescentre.com Mobile: 09091142093

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24 — Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016

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Vanguard, THURSDAY, April 14, 2016 —

25

When Women talk F

Who is talking to your daughter about sex?

By Josephine Agbonkhese & Anino Aganbi

W

OMEN, it is assumed, talk about everything and anything. In fact, two women strangers sitting next to each other on a 2-hour journey will arrive at their destination knowing how many children each has, birth control method used, work life, the burden of juggling work with family, and just name it.

Some go as far a revealing their insecurities, dreams and even talk freely about their numerous troubles.

This goes without saying that talking is one proven way the body is detoxified of burdens- and the heart lightened.

Limits: As free-talking as women folks might appear though, core marital issues such as sex in marriage, violence and abuse, which are most times root causes of distraught and mental instability for many, are sieved and laid far, far away from the conversation table. If at all brought to the fore, such issues are heavily packaged and painted to conceal their real situation, if unpleasant.

While many may label this as pretence though, it isn’t rare to hear women say it’s the wisest way to converse with friends; even though male folks may not share same school of thought.

“To a large extent, there are some things I cannot tell my friends. On a scale of 1-10, I’d be on 5 because you C M Y K

cannot truly trust a friend; you don’t know when a friend will turn into a monster. Beside, some friends are just there for gossip,” Ope Adeite-Peters, a young mother chimed in.

Funmi Adebayo, another young mother based in Lagos, on her part, said she doesn’t talk about issues happening in her marriage with friends at all.

“Somebody must have died before they would hear me complain about anything in my marriage. Besides I find it easier talking with guys than ladies. I discovered ladies have so

much sentiments attached to things,” she said.

Sex education: This culture of selective discourse and pretence unfortunately plays out also in interactions between many mothers and their children, as they find it difficult opening up on issues regarding sex and the body with their naive kids who, in actual fact, are in dire need of tutelage for a safe transition from child to adulthood.

Erroneously, most mothers fear children may become promiscuous if exposed to such talks as sexuality education, not realizing they still would learn about it in their own (most times unsafe, misguided) ways.

Unsafe sources

This culture of selective discourse and pretence unfortunately plays out also in interactions between many mothers and their children

Be assured there are arrays of sources on the loose- and of course beyond your absolute control. At school are friends from unimaginable backgrounds and of course ‘mesmerizing’ teachers. By road sides are vendors of assorted pornographic literatures. At home are relatives, friends and neighbours, some waiting to devour your child. And of course, there’s the ever-compliant internet always ready to disseminate whatever garbage it is given.

Discussing sex: Early, honest and open communication between parents and kids is very important, especially

Continues on page 25

OUR ladies- age range between 30 and 60- sit to a meeting at the lounge of one of the smarter hotels in Victoria Island, Lagos. Not surprisingly, the topic turns from business to issues.

“I don’t understand about this submission thing”, said the eldest, somewhere between her mid and late fifties. “My husband understands me and doesn’t care”.

“How does that work?” asks the youngest, a newlywed. She shrugs. “He has no choice. When we first got married, my husband said he can only eat fresh food. I warm food from the freezer for him when he gets home, then I tell him it is fresh from the freezer ”.

“You actually tell him!” I quip in wonder.

“Yes now. The sooner he gets used to it, the better ”.

Chatting away, the business of the day long forgotten, the topic gets round- as it often does- to why women don’t hang out like men do, and why it is important for them to do so.

One of the suggested reasons was of course so we can get out minds off men and their antics, which have caused many a heart attack and sent some to an early grave.

But what do women talk about, other than men, of course? Other women? Business? Kids? Clothes?

Sex?

INSIDE

How real estate bizwoman, Furo Giami, is redefining ‘women empowerment’

A guide to sexuality education Alele Williams on e-learning AISL at 50: Five decades of impacting community

26—Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016

How real estate bizwoman, Furo Giami, is redefining ‘women empowerment’ When you think women empowerment, you naturally think economic and political emancipation with little or emphasis on ‘formal education’. Mrs Furo Giami, a real estate practitioner and an unapologetic advocate for women empowerment, however firmly believes holistic empowerment, even for the least woman, will be impossible without formal education. The Founder of Centre for Economic & Leadership Development, an organization inspiring women across different continents, including America, Asia and Africa, speaks on the vision behind her forthcoming Nigeria Power Women Conference billed to hold in Abuja later this month; and more in this interview with Woman’s Own.

By Morenike Taire & Josephine Agbonkhese

W

HAT sparked in you the interest for women empowerment?

After I got married and started having kids, I began developing passion to start up something for kids. That triggered the establishment of the Centre for Economic & Leadership Development, CELD. We had children we were taking care of and we also went to schools to engage in advocacy. Till date, we also go into homes to talk to parents about children. We eventually started giving scholarships to children who couldn’t go to school.

I realized that in taking care of a child, you have to take care of the mother; that’s how you tackle the real issues from their roots. Soon, we evolved into a level where our whole vision and mission changed. We had realised that when you empower a woman, you have done a whole lot of work for the family because everything within the home revolves around her.

What exactly is your definition of an empowered woman?

My definition of empowerment is both education and entrepreneur-inspired. An empowered woman is basically that woman who is standing in all ramifications; she is educated (even if it is adult education) and has a means of livelihood, When a woman suffers in the home because she has to depend entirely on her husband, the children bear the brunt. That’s why every woman must h a v e something doing.

A l s o , education i s essential to the growth of

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any business.

But what role do you think education will play in the lives of women traders at the lowest rung of the ladder?

Beyond having a business, there is also the need for sustainability. Most of these women cannot position their businesses in a way that it can even outlive them or qualify for a loan.

Is your organization structured to compliment what your husband does?

Because I understand you both publish too...

Yes and no. He is the publisher of African Leadership Magazine, and we are like the CSR arm of the group. The

We have a whole lot of sessions lined up for women entrepreneurs at different levels

group sponsors the education of the children under our care. They also support our women empowerment initiatives.

We are very independent. Except for the little support we get from his magazine.

Meanwhile, I’m the Publisher of Amazons Watch Magazine, a new quarterly publication born out of the desire to continually highlight the giant strides of women from emerging nations of Africa, South America, Middle East, and Asia.

What’s the inspiration behind the theme of your forthcoming conference?

The theme ‘An Empowered Woman in the New Nigeria’ was inspired by the fact that Nigeria is evolving under a new dispensation. At the same time, a lot of opportunities are opening up, like we have noticed so, how can women key into those opportunities?

To that effect, we’re inviting professionals to teach women how to get access to funds. We have a whole lot of sessions lined up for women entrepreneurs at different levels, and the First Lady, Hajia Aisha Buhari, will also be there to tell us how to get women to top positions again, both in business and politics.

Aside this premier Nigeria Power Women Conference, CELD’s yearly flagship event is the South AmericaAfrica-Middle East-Asia Women Summit which holds in Dubai-UAE. Many have come up with different, unimaginable opinions of the Nigerian woman. What’s your assessment of her?

The Nigerian woman possesses a dogged, deep personality. The only challenge we have is this silent war to meet or measure up with our male counterparts.

Glass ceiling restraints Unfortunately, most women get to the middle of the road and then retrieve.

You only need to be fierce enough to pull through that battle. I’ve had a relationship with most of the women in government and other key offices, and it’s a real battle.

Every day, they fight to keep their position. We constantly have to prove ourselves by working twice as hard as the men. So, the Nigerian woman is a dogged woman who can deliver anytime. Her only glitch is the glass ceiling restraints.

You cannot talk empower ment without political relevance; in what ways are you upping the game politically for women, considering the setbacks of 2015 elections?

Already, we have a session for Women in Politics, in which we will discuss the way forward for 2019. We hope to come up with a strategic plan. The problem we envisage, however, is how to roll these ideas. This is because women, we’ve realized, fight fellow women a lot.

A guide to sexuality education

W

HEN talking to your kids about sex, experts say you must make sure the conversation is age-appropriate. Explain things in a way that your child can understand, given their age; don’t think you have to cover everything at once. In fact, younger kids are said to be more interested in pregnancy and babies, rather than the act of sex.

Age 0-2

From infancy to age two, experts say toddlers should be able to name all the body parts including the genitals. Most two-year-olds know the difference between male and female, and can usually figure out if a person is male or female.

Age 2-5

Children should understand the very basics of reproduction: a man and a woman make a baby together, and the baby grows in the woman’s uterus. They should also understand their body is their own.

Teach them about privacy around body issues. They should know other people can touch them in some ways but not other ways.

Age 5- 8

Children should have a basic understanding that some people are heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual. They should also know what the role of sexuality is in relationships. Children should know about the basic social conventions of privacy, nudity, and respect for others in relationships.

By now, they should be taught the basics about puberty towards the end of this age span, as a number of children will experience some pubertal development before age 10. Their understanding of human reproduction should continue. This may include the role of sexual intercourse.

Age 9-12

In addition to reinforcing all the things above they have already learned, at this tween stage, children should be taught about safer sex and contraception. They should understand what makes a positive relationship and what makes for a bad one. They should also learn to judge whether depictions of sex and sexuality in the media are true or false, realistic or not, and whether they are positive or negative.

Age 13-18

Teens are generally very private people. However, if parents have spoken to their child early about sex, there are chances that teens will approach parents when difficult or dangerous things come up.

Source: Aboutkidshealth.ca

Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016 —27

Who is talking to your daughter about sex? course so much impunity- no age can be too early to start teaching children about their body parts and how they affect their lives and psychology.

A recent (down played) case of a five-year-old girl said to be engaging in sexual intercourse with male classmates whom she would always lure to the toilet with her at school, is a testament to that.

Of course some paedophile somewhere introduced her to the act- and got her addicted too- to the extent of trying it out on classmates.

This case underscores the opinion of experts who advise

Continues from page 23 when your child becomes an adolescent. Beginning a conversation about sex early and continuing that conversation as the child grows is the best sex education strategy, experts say. It lets parents avoid giving one bigand likely uncomfortable talk when the child is already grown and would have already been misinformed by other unguided sources.

When to start: With predators on the loose and children being robbed of their innocence daily- and with of

that parents begin talking to their children about their body parts and teaching them which are private- like the thighs, pubic area, lips, breasts, buttocks, etc. and which are not, once they begin developing speech. Do not feel shy about telling them how to jealously guard those private parts.

The benefits of sexuality education are enormous. Aside imparting in children the right information which can help protect them from risky behaviour as they grow up, it’s also an avenue for instilling family values in your kids.

For example, if you come from a family that abhors premarital sex, thisincluding its likely consequences, can form part of the discussion.

Alele Williams on e-learning

By Ebele Orakpo

E

DUCATION is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world, said Madiba Nelson Mandela but unfortunately, many people do not have access to even the most basic education in third world countries.

To help more Nigerians access quality education, City Profs Educational Foundation (CPEF), a non-governmental organisation led by Prof. Grace Alele-Williams, recently paid a courtesy visit to the Vice-President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, who has been its member since 2006, to deliberate on how e-learning partnership initiative can help advance the nation’s education system.

e-learning partnership CPEF, apart from improving the reading culture of young school children especially, believes that education broadens one’s horizon as nurtured minds will affect a nation’s development.

During the visit, CPEF members, including Prof. AleleWilliams, Mrs. Oluwagbemiga Benson, Mrs. Agbowu, Mrs. Susan Omojokun and Otunba Olayinka Lawal Solarin, noted that the advancement of the nation’s education system through elearning partnership initiative will bring solution to various problems in the system and enhance elearning in the country.

In her paper entitled: Towards the advancement of our nation’s education system through elearning partnership initiative, Alele-Williams said the idea of turning library paperless across Nigeria, was initiated by young

men like Oluwole Oshiyoye, Bright Echendu, Collins Akpore and Babalola Olujimi who desire to help under-privileged children in a few schools to learn how to read and write good English.

She said if the project is steadily pursued, it would influence other children especially in Primary 3 to 6 to learn to enjoy reading and improve their ability to communicate in English.

Speaking further, AleleWilliams said in fulfilling the set goals, the logistics for about 100 children from about five schools in the Akoka area was worked out. “The idea seemed to be straightforward to carry out as the young men involved had been authorised by Mrs. Oluwagbemiga Benson, the then Executive Chairman of the Lagos State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) to use a school.

This took place after the death of its founding patron and former Lagos State Commissioner for

With tab devices, we would be surprised how many software can be downloaded to educate pupils/ students on virtually all the subjects, including English Language and Mathematics

Prof. Alele-Williams Works, Engr. Funsho Williams who had encouraged us to carry out some educational programmes in the school in Akoka, Lagos, before his demise.”

The CPA-CLI prototypemodel e-library started in Somolu, Lagos, has spread to places like Ijebu-Imushin, Kosofe, Surulere and Ikorodu.

It has also been replicated in Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State and Ilara-Mokin, Ondo State.

The plan: “The plan was to select a few children from Primary three to six, to learn to speak, read and write good English for two to three hours after school. This plan ensured the children were from underprivileged homes and also tried to attract teachers from schools that could devote some days out of every week to this project. The teachers are paid a token for their selfless service,” said the professor of mathematics.

Going paperless:“The whole

Prof. Yemi Osinbajo world is going paperless. Some years back, with the help of a UK company, we started an e-learning solution programme in some selected public schools to further enhance learning using electronic platforms. We are happy to announce that the Lagos State Government has been able to set up few viable virtual libraries across the state, but very insufficient to cater for the growing number of its student population.

Structural facilities With tab devices, we would be surprised how many software can be downloaded to educate pupils/ students on virtually all the subjects, including English Language and Mathematics.

“Hence, rather than the child having access to few books (say 5), he could have access to 50 or more books on e-platform. With the structural facilities of the CPEF, we should be able to inculcate elearning system with work stations,

at least starting with one.”

Alele-Williams appealed for government support in carrying out public partnership projects such as the Nofisat Yeside Funsho Library in Bariga, Lagos, donated to CPEF by Mrs. Remi Agbowu and Mr. Kole Funsho of Remick Promotion and Naston.

Commending the efforts of CPEF, Prof. Osinbajo said: “I had the privilege of attending one of the commissioning events of a CPEF project in Lagos even before I became the VicePresident and I am proud to be associated with the organisation as a member of the Board of Patrons.

“I have lots of respect for the Chairman, Prof. Grace AleleWilliams, for her inputs on issues of national development, especially on our education system. I commend the courage of stalwarts such as Mrs. E.F.I. Kukoyi, Dr. Michael Omolayole, Chief Ernest Shonekan and other members of the CPEF Board.

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28 — Vanguard, THURSDAY,

APRIL 14, 2016

Mudirat Danmole Logun For the 10th year running, the American International School of Lagos AISL has trained teachers of local international schools, as a way of giving back to a society that has welcomed it so wholeheartedly for five decades.

According to AISL school superintendent Mr. Greg Rayl “the importance of educating children cannot be overemphasized”.

Mudirat Danmole-Logun, an alumnus and this year’s Chairperson of the Nigerian International Schools’ Conference Committee, shares with WO highlights of this year’s conference and advances in Education pioneered by the school.

H

OW many years have you been at the conference?

I co-ran it 3 years ago then I did it on my own last year and this year. From my calculation, between 9 and 10 years. There is something that was before the NISC which was started by another principal called Mrs. Carter.

It was like AISCA which is an association for international schools conference that happens in Africa. It would move around African countries but then they started one within Nigeria and different schools were rotating it but then it stopped for a while.

This is like a mini rebirth and when it was started then by Mrs. Nwakwesi and the old principal, Mr. Tom Shearer.

They would invite schools from West Africa. It was a 3-day conference then. They would

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probably do cocktails on Friday and check in; Saturday was a full day with different sessions; Sunday was mainly a half day and there was once they had a dinner at Eko Hotel.

Gradually it became a 1-day conference where people come in the morning and they leave by 4 and they just have three or four sessions.

Why is that?

Various reasons. Financial constraints, security concerns.

What was different this year?

Normally we have 4 sessions but this year we had 3 sessions and a job-alike session which we’ve never done at NISC. The only other difference again was that people came from out of state. We had teachers from Akwa Ibom- we had 25 teachers sponsored by Exxon Mobil through a

foundation. They run some kind of assessment program for teachers and those that excel get invited to certain conferences and Exxon-Mobil pays for it. Also this year, celebrating 50 years of the school, we’d invite Lagos state public schools and sponsor them so the school invited only 50.

Schools or teachers?

Teachers actually ended up with schools because when we wrote to the governor he tried to get us one person from different schools. We asked for 5 from the surrounding 10 local governments. We had the normal people we invite from the private schools and altogether we had 293 participants.

Teachers actually ended up with schools because when we wrote to the governor he tried to get us one person from different schools

Did you notice any difference in the interactions and the way the training came across?

I had a survey sent out and looking at the replies everything was okay. The only thing that caught my eye was that they appreciated it but it might be difficult to implement some of them in the public schools. Some of them requested to have longer hours for sessions; some requested to make it a week long. Another one that caught my eye is the request that we have one for students as well to expose them.

Do you look out for a certain kind of school?

We usually start in August and the main criteria is to please look around the area and look for boarding schools; that really need this kind of training. We are not talking Corona or Saint Savior’s. Once it is January they start to call the office to ask that when is the conference, who do I see?

At a point, we even have to turn some schools away.

I was going to ask that…

Yes, we did turn some schools away. Even we had to turn away some of the Lagos State teachers because what happened was when we went to them and they did not all reply, I gave the governor an update, I went back and wrote to him that we invited all the 200 people and only like 85 replied me so far and we took all the 85, if I don’t hear from them by the end of February, I’m sorry I would have to give those spaces to other participants.

Ministry of education I did not get a reply, so I went ahead and opened it up and other people registered and they paid, only for them to arrive on the morning of the conference with some letter from the ministry of education, that said they were all supposed to come here for a conference today and I told them it’s not possible. What was different this year again was, normally they come in the morning and they sign up for their classes here.

A lot of them were signing up for classes because of the titles. They really don’t know what they are getting into so this year I had sent preregister a packet that shows a little blurb about each presenter, the focus and the title. Like there was one that said: We Are Game! If you saw that you would assume it was a pre-K learning tool yet it was a class for Algebra in middle school.

Looking at many of the titles if an outside teacher were to come they would be signing up for the wrong class, so what happens is when the class is

going on the teachers get up and walk out and the presenters get upset that people are walking around. I opened up a portal which they now went into and chose what they wanted to do and as soon as they submit that to me, they get an automatic entry ticket that has a bar code. It is that bar-coded entry ticket that lets them in on campus, it has all their details and what they have sessions one to three and their job-alike session, if they had told me like a week before, I may have asked the IT department to lay out a table here to help them sign up quickly maybe during the opening or maybe they would miss their first session, then I would have pre-informed my teacher and told them that they should have 3 or 4 extra spaces.

So tell me more about this Job-alike session.

The job-alike session was facilitated by our teachers and we grouped them according to special areas. We had Early Childhood, Primary, Grade 3 and 4, then they had School Health and School Facilities.

Student support School Health was held by the nurse, School Facilities was run by the Facilities Director.

What is the involvement of the Ministry of Education?

They are not involved. Right, we found out that some are classified as teachers but they have levels and some of them don’t go to the classrooms anymore, but I said that I want the ones in the classroom.

Do you have a workshop for special needs?

They don’t like to call it ‘special needs’; they call it ‘student support’ because ‘special needs’ brings a little stigma…

It’s patronizing…

Yes. This kid needs extra support. We don’t like to say they have challenges but because they are falling back we have two ladies there; an American and a Nigerian. We have those students in class.

In the past we used to pull them out. Instead the student support teacher goes into the classroom and stays with this child. The only difference is she will take her own initiative: “ you know what, Johnny, let’s just do the odd numbers” or “just do the ones that I circle”.

So the child is in the class doing the same thing at his own pace and achieving the same thing.

Isn’t that distracting for the other kids?

No. Everybody is doing his own thing; they just understand that Johnny needs extra help, Johnny feels better because some of them are thinking, “why do I have to be outside?”

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30—Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016

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Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016—31

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32 — Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016

LEISURE

YOUR LUCK TODAY

By Joshua Adeyemo Phone 08056180139

LIBRA; This is not the right time to rely on promises made by others. Continue to take matters-ofthe-heart seriously. Reason with your reliable associates.

SCORPIO; Tension within the domestic scene will start to ease off. Yet you will need to watch what you do within your base till after 10.15pm tonight.

SAGITTARIUS; Both yourself and other important personalities to you are beginning to see things from same point of view making it easy for you to eliminate unnecessary rift.

CAPRICORN; Venus moves into a positive angle to your Star and encourages peaceful settlement.

Exhibition of maturity on your part will favour you better.

AQUARIUS; Gradually you are dropping aggressive approach you have adopted in the last few days to the betterment of your cause. Remain practical till after 10.15pm

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

By Richard Eromosele

H

ISTORY is defined as the study of past events.In order words, history is simply the study of actions and

About History inactions of some individuals.It is the study of what some men and women do in order to shape the world.It is the

TERROR MUDA

story of men and women who dared.History is the narrative of the exploit and conquest of men and women

in “Never say goodbye”

who are led by their convictions.Some people make history, some write it and some read it.If the history of the world is to be written today,where will you be placed?

By Lanre Kehinde

PISCES; Better than yesterday; however that is not to say you should throw caution to the wind. Improvement on your love life indicated. Try to comport yourself.

ARIES; After a few days of fun you may need to settle down to serious business. Those of you working till very late evening will need to be more careful till after 10.15pm. Reason with your tried and trusted old hands(friends) TAURUS; Venus moves into a positive angle and boost your sparkling personality to the betterment of your cause. Could be a nice day for the-young-atheart GEMINI; It is important you don’t allow your mind to wander unnecessarily so that minor but costly mistakes would be averted. Avoid late evening confusion.

KAPTAIN AFRIKA

in

“Pretty Lunatic’

By Andy Akman

CANCER; Recent tension generated by controversy over money will start to ease off. Be more vigilant if you are working late in the evening.

LEO;. Other people will continue to have their says and if you try to indoctrinate them tensed atmosphere will be aggravated. Be patient VIRGO; Entrance of romantic Venus into your Star Sign will enhance your prospects. Both financial and love related success are possible.

ASTROLOGICAL COUNSELLING Send yyour our dat tr ological datee and place of bir th ttoo the As Astr trological Counselling, PP.M.B .M.B 1100 00 7, Apapa, Lagos 007,

What’s my financial standing?

VIRGINIA

dadadekola@yahoo.com

Dear Joshua, I want to know about my future, especially what I should expect from my love life both in the immediate and far future. However that is not to say I am not interested in good financial standing.

Lucky, Jos. Dear Lucky, The challenge here is inability to hold on to your gains (profits) partially, by the contact made between your natal Saturn and Venus as stated under your career and some other times by your love of easy life. Although the Saturn influence can be mitigated as I said under your career, the love of luxury comes from your stallion Taurus which must not be totally discouraged but should not be allowed to go beyond your control. Yes envy and jealousy can creep in as indicated by the oppositions between your natal Venus/Saturn in Taurus and Jupiter in Scorpio, but that is not enough excuse for either failure or manipulation of occult powers against you. Whatever anybody says and/ or does GREAT FINANCIAL SUCCESS is your portion.

The most influential planet during your birth hour is Venus-the planet of MONEY and LOVE. You are the romantic type whose magnetic personality and open handedness are sources of big trap to his members of opposite sex. As handsome as you are you truly crave stability in your love life/home. The happiness you desired will be yours.

HOME & ABROAD

By Lawrence Akapa

Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016—33

By Japhet Alakam

T

he skills, talents and creative prowess of African artists will be on display as the 12th edition of Dakar Biennale, or Dak’Art - Biennale de l’Art Africain Contemporain, a major contemporary art exhibition that brings together and showcases the works of many African artists opens in the Senegalese capital, Dakar in May 2016.

The event which takes place once every two years with focus on Contemporary African Art since 1996, will this year feature the works of five Nigerians.

Recently the organisers released the list of 65 artists from all over the African continent as those to participate in its upcoming 12th edition in the Senegalese capital from 3 May to 2 June 2016.

The Biennale of contemporary African art in Dakar is the only event of note on the continent to consecrate its selection in particular to living artists in and outside the continent, but this year this is an exception as the list includes the work by the late French-Moroccan photographer Leila Alaoui, who was murdered in a terror attack in Burkina Faso last week.

Curated by French luminar Simon Njami, one who sees it as his mission to bring the biennial up to date and into touch with the contemporary art world.

Dak’Art—Africa’s largest biennial—will include presentations from artist form Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Malawi, Sudan, South Africa, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, amongst others. The biennial also includes artists from African diaspora

Akrisha, four others take Nigerian art to Dakar Biennale

ducting. His compositions, often figural in form, portray notions of bureaucracy and the constraints within the political, social and economic urban sphere; Modupeola Fadugba is Togoborn Nigerian many parts, who is passionate about issues of social justice, women’s empowerment, education and the use of art as a vehicle for activism; Victor Ehikhamenor is an award winning visual artist, writer and photographer. He draws influences from traditional African motifs and religious cosmology while Folakunle Oshun is a Nigerian-born sculptor of the Wolof/ Jollof fame that explores the popularity and migratory controversy of the culinary dish.

•An installation by Akrisha

Yoruba Lalokun, promoting indegenous language in Nigeria

countries such as France and Italy.

The biennial sees its role as one of promoting artists in Af-

Dak' Art objectives are to expand the possibilities of promoting African artists poorly represented in major international art, but also for Africa to develop its own speech on aesthetics

rica who don’t usually receive this kind of platform.”Dak’Art objectives are to expand the possibilities of promoting African artists poorly represented in major international art, but also for Africa to develop its own speech on aesthetics and to participate in conceptualization of theoretical tools for analysis and appreciation of artistic proposals.” they state on their website.

Among the lists is Olaniyi Rasheed Akindiya,aka Akirasha, a Nigerian artist based in the United States. Akrisha who will represent US at the event is one the Nigerian artists on the forefront in the visual arts scene around the world. He is known for his futuristic works which have ties to ancient African history and spirituality. These works are based on moments of time, fleet-

ing moments that can be easily forgotten or transformed into reflections on rural versus urban life, and the accelerated pace of development and social infrastructure which explores both his personal life and the universal.

This uninhibited artist explores different art forms, and fearlessly too. He has, and continues to build a great body of work in mixed media painting, sculpting, installation, body painting and performances.

Other Nigerians on the lists are: Abdulrazaq Awofeso, Modupeola Fadugba, Victor Ehikhamenor and Folakunle Oshun.

Abdulrasaq Awofeso is a Nigeria based sculptor whose methodology is based on the notion of constructivism; adding to the structural form rather than de-

Poets, Musicians, Philosophers meet at Spier Poetry Festival

By Elizabeth Uwandu

E

FE Paul, one of Nigeria’s leading performing poets will be among the poets from across the world that will headline the Spier Poetry Festival in Cape Town, South Africa.

The international festival also known as dancing in other words with the theme, Madly Singing in the Mountains, which is scheduled to hold in May 7, 2016,will feature poets, minstrels, philosophers and musicians such James Matthews (South Africa), Keorapetse “Bra Willie” Kgositsile (South Africa), Michel Deguy (France), Maram al-Massri (Syria/France), Efe Paul Azino (Nigeria), Yvette Christiansë (South Africa/Australia), Hans ten Berge (Holland) and Breyten Breytenbach (South Africa).

Deguy and Al-Massri’s attendance is supported by Institut Francaise South Africa.

The group which will gather for a one-week period leading up to the one-day festival, will have the privilege of travelling through parts of the Western Cape’s inner and outer landscapes.

Speaking on the festival to be curated by Breyten Breytenbach,

•A scene from a previous poetry festival Dominique Botha and Neo Muyanga, Breytenbach said the event is a privileged space for the mingling of voices where one dream of living forever.

According to him, “The festival will once again be a privileged space for the mingling of voices where we will dream as if we were to live forever. It is with some knowledge and understanding of the layered diversity of people enunciating this part of the world, the clashes and the caresses of these mountains and winds, of the rootedness of our dreams – that we share what we

have to offer to our guests from abroad.

How else are we to know that

The festival will once again be a privileged space for the mingling of voices where we will dream as if we were to live forever

we are one in our meeting of the human-old multiformity of poetry?” says Breytenbach.

On the theme of the festival, “Madly Singing in the Mountains,” the festival music director Neo Muyanga said musical themes and leitmotifs will be composed and presented during the week’s gathering and also to be complemented by the readings on the night of the festival.

He says, “In antiphonal response to the calls of our featured poets, we, the chorus, will sing our praises, our sighs, our embrace of solidarity.” Inspired by the festival’s guiding poem, Po Tsju I’s “Madly Singing in the Mountains”, “we will form ourselves into a chorus of musical voices” he says.

Spier CEO, Andrew Milne added that arts has the potential to transform people and societies. “We believe in the potential of art to transform people and societies. As in previous years, this extraordinary convergence of international poets and poetry is a gathering of great minds that brings big conversations and beautiful moments to Spier.”

By Prisca Sam-Duru

W

hen Adesewa Oyinkansola, student of Yaba College of Technology Secondary School, performed two poems in Yoruba language to the delight of the audience at the quarterly cultural programme, Yoruba Lakotun, the applause that followed proved that her dexterity was highly appreciated.

The applause turned into a standing ovation when she said, “I challenged my Mum that I do not want to be a stranger to my culture. My Mum agreed and today, I prefer to read my Yoruba Bible and wear Yoruba clothes.”

Her performance paved way for discussions and lamentations of how Nigerians are fast losing their indigenous languages to those of foreigners.

It was however, observed that Parents are responsible for creating a gap between children and their roots through the systematic neglect of their indigenous language.

Speaking at the cultural event hosted by Olutayo Irantiola last week at the Ethnic Heritage Centre, Ikoyi, Lagos, Mr Ayoade Okedokun, author of Ika Abamo, Omo Elede and other books in Yoruba and English languages, said, “there are certain words that cannot be translated into Yoruba language because it has no equivalent in English and vice versa.

He lamented that “Parents pay schools to teach the children English language, while the children should learn Yoruba language from their parents and immediate community.

Unfortunately, many people muddled up these roles which are distinctly separate. Parents should both cooperate to ensure that their children understand the language so as not to be separated from their roots.”

34—Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2015

Why you should brush your teeth day and night

By Chioma Obinna

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IGERIANS have been urged to cultivate consistent oral hygiene by brushing their teeth twice daily.

Making the charge at an event climaxing this year’s world oral health day in Lagos where over 3,000 primary school pupils were in attendance recently, the Nigeria Dental Association in partnership with Unilever Nigeria Plc., makers of Pepsodent Toothpaste said it is ideal to brush regularly in the morning and at night in line with the 2016 theme: “Healthy Mouth, Healthy Body”.

The Lagos State Governor, Akinwumi Ambode, who was represented by the State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Jide Idris said the partnership to raise awareness on the importance of the message of brushing twice daily could not be overstated.

Addressing the pupils, the Vice President, Marketing, Unilever Nigeria Plc, Robbert-de Vreede said the company is committed to doing business in a sustainable way and that is why they have partnered with Nigerian Dental Association, Federal Ministry of Health and other stakeholders towards getting better awareness for oral health.

“Studies have shown that 90 percent of the world’s population suffers from oral diseases. When kids are affected by such diseases they may not be able to bear the pain and such affects them in school or causes them to drop out of school for a

ORAL HEALTHCARE: From left, Vice President, Marketing, Unilever Nig Plc, Robbert De Vreede; Senior Assistant to Lagos State Governor on Educational Matters, Mrs Seriki Ayeni; President, NDA, Dr. Bode Ijarogbe; Commissioner for Health; Dr. Jide Idris; Category Manager, Oral care, Unilever Nig Plc, Bunmi Adeniba and Senior Special Assistant to the Senate President, Dr. Tony Isiama, with pupils of Toddlers Private School, during the 2016 World Oral Health Day , in Lagos. period of time’ ‘’In 2014 we initiated the oral health school program which has so far educated directly 1.8 million Nigerian children on how to imbibe the culture of brushing twice daily. This year we are educating one million children directly on how to take care of their teeth by brushing day and night using fluoride toothpaste such as Pepsodent. We believe children are change agents. They have the pester power to

influence their parents, siblings and people around them by telling them to take their oral health seriously by brushing day and night with fluoridated toothpaste such as Pepsodent triple action” he added.

President NDA, Dr Bode Ijarogbe said dental caries is largely preventable by simple daily hygiene like using fluoridated toothpaste and brushing day a night which is not yet a common practice for most people.

Walden builds skills in healthcare

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ITH jobs for medical and health services administrators and managers projected to grow 17 percent between 2014 and 2024, Walden University, a pioneer in online education, is introducing the competency-based Master of Business Administration (MBA) and Master of Healthcare Administration (MHA) programmes, through Tempo Learning, its self-paced educational experience.

President of Walden, Jonathan Kaplan, said: “Our new competency-based MBA and MHA programmes will give students the timely skills and knowledge they need to apply at work.

“We developed our Tempo Learning programmes with the help of industry and academic experts in business and healthcare to create a unique learning experience.

“Now, students will spend less time on what they already know and use their professional experience—with support from Walden faculty—to advance more quickly toward completing their degree.”

Walden’s online, competency-based MHA programme is designed to help students prepare to meet the demand for effective, visionary healthcare leaders, as they develop skills and knowledge to apply immediately to advance their career in this rapidly changing field.

Competencies touch on all facets of healthcare administration, from laws and ethics, to operations management and human resources, to financial management and strategic planning.

COMMON SEXUAL PROBLEMS AND THEIR NOVELTY BASED SOLUTIONS (ADVERTORIAL)

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AM a fitness expert and I believe there are natural ways that people can improve their sexual performances. Do you care to discuss these other options for your readers? Thanks – Mike Yes there are a variety of things that people can do to naturally improve their sex lives, especially if they are not suffering from severe sexual dysfunctions. Exercise is one way to do it. Exercise improves blood circulation within the body and without adequate blood flow to the sexual organs, men and women cannot get aroused.

Cutting habits like smoking and alcohol also help improve performance because these substances can interfere with the neuro transmitters that send messages from the brain to different parts of our bodies, one of which is the genitals.

And then there are a variety of foods and drinks that can help with performance too. Coffee helps keep you awake and active. This helps adults perform late in the day or when they should be tired. Herbs such as Ginko Biloba, Ginseng, Maca etc combine very well to aid sexual arousal and performance energy in adults but because very few people are able to identify and combine these individual roots and herbs, we generally recommend natural supplements that already have the appropriate blend of specific herbs for sexual performance. Those are the ones we write about every week, examples of which are Rhino 7, Libigrow, G Female Oral Tablets etc – Uche I am diabetic so I don’t know if I can try any of these drugs. These days I cannot get a firm erection. I am 57 years old – Chidiukwu Diabetes does affect one’s sex drive especially the medication taken for the treatment of diabetes. Thankfully, there are some supplements that strengthen erections and can be taken by diabetics. Libigrow is one of them and it is very good. It gives performance stamina and also controls premature ejaculation – Uche I use Max Load for the increment of semen quantity and it has been working fine. But I heard you have something else like it called Volume. Which one is better? Haruna

Max Load is very good but Volume Pills does more for you. For instance in addition to increasing your semen volume by up to 500%, Volume Pills also gives erections and improves fertility because it increases motility (the ability of movement of sperm cells through the female reproductive tract ) – Uche I am 61 years old with erection issues. Please what is the difference between Rhino 7 and Boss Rhino Gold? I have used and enjoyed both of them – Abiodun The differences are minor and have more to do with their nutritional blend. They both do the same thing which is giving very firm erections, stopping premature ejaculation, enlargement of the penis, semen increment and performance stamina. Some people prefer Boss Rhino Gold while others prefer Rhino 7. We get good feedback from users for both products so whichever one you chooses is good – Uche Please do you have the thrusting vibrators now and which ones do you have? Been waiting for it – Sarah We have three different brands of Thrusting Rabbit Vibrators for women. Call the numbers below for more detail – Uche My problem is premature ejaculation and a friend of mine that you helped says you can help me too. He says I should ask for one spray like that – Chima That would be the LS Delay Spray. Yes you can go for it.

There are other good alternatives as well – Uche Please I need a performance enhancer that is mild. I just need erection and I prefer gentle aphrodisiacs. I easily get headaches when I take alcohol or aphrodisiacs.

Thanks – Yinka Have you Maxidus or Man Up Now? These are all mild erection enhancers with lower grammage for people like you. They are all under 1,000 milligrams. Sex Voltz is another good one that is mild – Uche Adults in need of these treatments/novelties can now call us now on 08171912551, 08027901621 or 07086754515 for help or visit www.zeevirtualmedia.com to place their orders. Zee Virtual Media delivers all over Nigeria. For enquiries email us at custserv@zeevirtualmedia.comUche Edochie, MD, Zee Virtual Media.

Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016 —35

Two yrs after: Will the 219 Chibok girls ever return?

By Dayo Adesulu

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S today marks the second anniversary of the disappearance of 276 students at the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State, stakeholders in education sector are asking if the Chibok girls will ever return to their parents.

You will recall that on the night of 14–15 April 2014, suspected Boko Haram terrorists, attacked the Government Girls Secondary School Chibok, broke into the school, pretending to be guards and told the girls to get out and come with them. They were taken away in trucks, into the Konduga area of the Sambisa Forest, where the terrorists were known to have fortified camps.

Before the attack, the school had been closed for four weeks due to the deteriorating security situation, nevertheless, students from various schools had been asked to take their final exams in physics in the school.

Reports revealed that there were 530 students from different villages who registered for the Senior Secondary Certificate Examination, although it is unclear how many were in attendance at the time of the attack. The students were aged 16 to 18 years and were in their final year.

International outrage Parents and others took to social media to complain about government’s perceived slow and inadequate response. The news caused international outrage against Boko Haram and the Nigerian government. On April 30 and May 1, protests demanding greater government action were held in several Nigerian cities.

Most parents, however, were afraid to speak publicly for fear their daughters would be targeted for reprisal.

Protests: On May 3 and 4, protests were held in major Western cities including Los Angeles and London. A lawyer in the Abuja started the hash tag#BringBackOurGirls# campaign which began to trend globally on Twitter and the story spread rapidly internationally and became most tweeted hash tag such that by May 11, 2014, it had attracted 2.3 million tweets and by 2016, it had been retweeted 6.1 million times.

On May2, 2014, the Police had said that approximately 276 students were taken in the attack out of which 53 escaped.

However, on October 17, 2014, hopes were raised that the 219 remaining girls might soon be released after the Nigerian Army C M Y K

announced a truce between Boko Haram and government forces.

The announcement coincided with the sixth month anniversary of the girls’ capture and followed a month of negotiations mediated in Saudi Arabia by Chadian president, Idriss Deby.

The announcement was met with doubt as this was not the first time the Nigerian government had claimed a breakthrough in negotiations with the Islamic militant group – it had to backtrack on a previous announcement in September after saying the girls had been released and were being held in military barracks.

Intimidating the civilian population Jonathan Hill of King’s College, London, disclosed that Boko Haram kidnapped those girls with the aim of using them as sexual objects and as a means of intimidating the civilian population into non-resistance.

Forced into marriage: It was also reported that Chibok girls have been forced into marriage with members of Boko Haram, with a "bride price" of N2,000 each ($12.50/£7.50) adding, that many of the students were taken to neighbouring countries of Chad and Cameroun, with sightings reported of the students crossing borders with the militants, and sightings of the students by villagers living in the Sambisa forest.

While parents were expecting their children back, on May 2, 2014, Police said they were still unclear as to the exact number of students kidnapped. They asked parents to provide documents so an official count could be made as school records had been damaged in the attack.

Twenty days after the kidnap,

In spite of the celebrated ‘technical victory’ over Boko Haram, the supposed victory remains a mirage until the Chibok school girls are found, liberated and reunited with their families

Kidnapped Chibok girls May, 4 precisely, President Goodluck Jonathan spoke publicly about the kidnapping for the first time, saying the government was doing everything it could to find the missing girls. At the same time, he blamed parents for not supplying enough information about their missing children to the Police.

In May 2015, it was reported that the Nigerian military had reMothers of kidnapped Chibok girls. claimed most of the areas previously controlled by Boko Haram Chibok schoolgirls had ironically part, the Deputy Director, Distance in Nigeria including many of the made it more difficult to free the Learning Centre, DLC, University of camps in the Sambisa forest where girls. A Nigerian military com- Ibadan, Professor Oyesoji Aremu, it was suspected the Chibok girls mander based in Maiduguri lamented that the insurgency had been kept. said: “Boko Haram sees the which is about seven years old in In January 2016, the Nigerian Chibok girls as their trump card. Nigeria has put Nigeria on the military were reported to have We think they are keeping them radar of Terrorism Global Index freed 1,000 women held captive with their main leadership. The where Nigeria is currently ranked

by Boko Haram but none of the day we get the Chibok girls will third after Afghanistan and Iraq.

Chibok girls was found. spell the end of Boko Haram, but According to him, the last two I fear they will kill all the girls in years of abduction of Chibok Innocent mass suicide bombings in the schoolgirls remain the most perpersons process.” petual harrowing experience of I sympathise with parents Boko Haram-motivated insurOn 29 May, 2015, the newly —Kolade gency in Nigeria. elected President Muhammadu In his reaction, Dr. Christopher Buhari in his inaugural Kolade, Founder of Christopher Possibility address to the nation said that Kolade Foundation said: “As a of the return they could not claim to “have de- grand father, I have girls in my feated Boko Haram without res- family and have girls who are He said that in spite of the celcuing the Chibok girls and all grand daughters and I know how ebrated ‘technical victory’ over other innocent persons held hos- I will feel if I don’t know where Boko Haram, the supposed victage by insurgents. The govern- they are in the past two years. tory remains a mirage until the ment will do all it can to rescue "I am full of sympathy with the Chibok school girls are found, libthem alive.” parents and I am praying and erated and reunited with their On June 12, 2015, just two hoping that we will be willing to families. weeks after President Buhari was pool our resources together so we Aremu who pointed out that two sworn in, he and his wife, Hajia can find where the girls are. years is more than enough to Aisha and the Vice-President’s "The Almighty God didn’t cre- dampen the expectations of poswife, Mrs. Dolapo Osinbajo met ate those girls to vanish like that sibility of the return of the abwith some mothers of the ab- or to be destroyed. They have a ducted girls, said that it is not to ducted Chibok girls, a meeting destiny and a future to be fulfilled say that the safe return of the girls Mrs. Buhari had wanted to hold and I am trusting God that one is not possible, but the concurrent for a long time. day, those girls will be rescued signals (female kid bombers, killTrump card: In 2016, one news- and reintroduced to their future.” ing and indoctrination) point to paper article commented that the Harrowing experience: On his the contrary. international publicity for the

36 — Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016

Girl students get CKF training on sciences and leadership

By Dayo Adesulu NE of the objectives behind Christopher Kolade Foundation, CKF, camping female secondary school students for one week, is to build their science skill.

This has yielded quick results, as many of the students have developed game softwares within seven days on campus.

In its quest to develop female students' skills and chances in Science, Technology, Engineering,

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Mathematics Music and Agriculture, CKF had invited 56 students in District 6, Lagos on camp at the Thames Valley International School, Ogun State for academic and leadership training.

At the end of the exercise, having seen the student's exhibitions and listened to their testimonies, Dr Christopher Kolade, the Founder of CKF said: “Part of our objectives for the Foundation on female students is fulfilled.

NGTH Institute boosts students entrepreneurial skills

By Elizabeth Uwandu

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TUDENTS willing to boost entrepreneurial skills can now breath a sigh of relief as Natures Gentle Touch Hair Institute, NGTHI, has announced the basic beginners training programme to cover Professional Development, Electricity in Cosmetology, Chemistry of Cosmetics, Trichology and Chemical Texturizing.

While revealing his intention to develop interested students, Field Education Manager, Recare Limited, Daniel Komla said:‘’A lot of women don’t get customer satisfaction from their hair salons thereby affecting customer loyalty.’’

Speaking at NGTH Institute located at Plot 305A, Jide Oki Street, Victoria Island, Komla disclosed that students of NGTH Institute are trained to offer solutions to problems using all Natures Gentle Touch products. ‘’They are

empowered with the knowledge and skills to establish financial sustenance in the beauty and personal care industry, he added.

He, therefore urged interested persons to quickly register for the Basic Beginners training course scheduled to commence April 18th 2016 in Lagos.

He explained that the programme provides beginners with theoretical and practical skills in Salon Business and Salon Management needed to establish a career in the beauty and personal style industry.

Experienced hair stylists looking to hone their skills can also register for the two weeks training programme. The courses include Hair cutting, Professional Hair styling, Salon Business and Salon Management. Interested individuals are to visit the Natures Gentle Touch Hair Institute located at Plot 305A, Jide Oki Street, Victoria Island, Lagos to register.

Explaining the choice of girls, Kolade said: “In our country, education of girls is looked upon as a waste of time. We want to demonstrate the need for everyone to be educated. Since the girls are lagging behind, we decided to fill in the gap.

"This is just one exercise and I think, we have fulfilled our objective, but work is not finished yet. It is going to continue. We have chosen District 6, Lagos State for the maiden edition and we are going to continue.”

The SHE - Camp, a seven-day residential science camp for disadvantaged girls from public schools around Lagos, is part of an extended and robust science immersion program.

It is designed to stir participants’ curiosity and interest in exploring the world of science and technology, change the stereotypes around girls and science and equip participants with life-long skills in the realm of science and technology, while offering personal development, leadership and ethics education.

In addition to the seven-day residential camp, the program offers participating girls follow up support through in-school science clubs and an informal support network.

CKF offers the SHE initiative at no cost to participating girls.Given the current state of education in the country and based on the shared belief that we Nigerians must provide solutions at all levels for our problems, we believe that this will be a good opportunity to highlight how individuals and private institutions are working together to solve the challenges in our education system.

Cinfores' BrainFriend Platinum boosts e-learning

By Amaka Abayomi

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HE Nigerian education sector is set to receive a new boost with the launch of the 2016 version of Cinfores BrainFriend; BrainFriend Platinum; Nigeria’s foremost e-learning and exam preparatory software which is in line with meeting the Sustainable Development Goals of giving access to and enhancing quality education.

According to the Managing Director and Co-Founder of Cinfores Limited, Mr. Ibifuro Asawo, Cinfores has championed change in the education sector through its products and services in e-learning, schools/campus administration, scholarships management among others.

“Consequently, its various stake holders’ engagements with students, teachers, school administrators at both the Federal and State levels as regards BrainFriend, has been reassuring and impressive. This is so because the software has the

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capacity to provide enhanced education and give access to education to both disadvantaged and underserved children of school age, across board.

“As a proven tool for enhanced academic success, Cinfores has already sold over 500,000 licenses of the software in both public and private schools, homes, with a few state and national project deployments.

“Over seven Original Equipment Manufacturers, (OEMs) have signed up to bundle it along with their devices in addition to the existing list of OEMs that have been bundling

It also carries the new national curriculum for schools in Nigeria, e-books to guide students and teachers

the older version of the software.”

Asawo enthused that the 2016 BrainFriend Platinum which is billed to commence shipping soon, has many features including over 70,000 questions/answers/ explanations based on the national curriculum, 59 subjects including the three major Nigerian languages, and five vocational subjects. It also carries the new national curriculum for schools in Nigeria, e-books to guide students and teachers, video lessons and animations on themes and topics in various subjects, educational games, career guide for students and teachers, and aptitude test items, among others.

He ascertained that BrainFriend Platinum is a deviation from the traditional teaching methods, but designed to complement the traditional teaching and learning processes. It is an enhancement on the previous versions of BrainFriend as the videos, animations, documentary drama and educational games are all new features that take teaching and learning, to a whole new level.

Mobile biodiesel/Bio-lubricant pilot plant In line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of ensuring access to Sustainable and clean energy; Responsible Consumption and Production; and Climate action, Dr. (Mrs) Temitope Elizabeth Odetoye of the Dept of Chemical Engineering, University of Ilorin and her team (Alimi M., Olaoluwa S. E and Ajala E. O), were at the recently held Nigerian Varsities Research Fair at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka where they showcased their Mobile Biodiesel and Biolubricant pilot plant. She spoke to Vanguard Learning on the product. Excerpts:

By Ebele Orakpo

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HE dual-function biodiesel and bio-lubricant production pilot plant was developed to produce biolubricant via esterification and double-trans-esterification reactions from non-edible parinari polyandra seed oil," said Odetoye. Although parinari is not common but it can be found in Kwara State, some parts of Nigeria and West Africa.

Components:The plant, constructed from locally available materials, has different components – Reactor, Separator, Pump, Agitator, Temperature control and other units.

"Initial test-running of the plant indicated desirable performance characteristics and commercial bio-lubricant production potentials. The properties of the preliminary bio-lubricants and biodiesel produced fell within required ASTM standards. They are eco-friendly and environmentally-friendly," she said.

Uses: The pilot plant can be used for other purposes such as product mixing and heating of fluids. Further work on the optimization of the process and test-running with other nonedible oils is on-going. The dualfunction mobile plant will be immensely useful for small scale biodiesel and bio-lubricant production.

*The pilot plant. Inset is Dr. (Mrs) Elizabeth Odetoye

The bio-lubricant can be used in ships, space craft and motor cars The bio-lubricant can be used in ships, space craft and motor cars. The advantage is that it biodegrades and cannot contaminate our water bodies unlike conventional lubricants that contaminate and destroy aquatic lives.

Cost: This is just a prototype and we are expecting industrialists to come on board and interact with us so we can have a better Nigeria. If we can have this kind of product in commercial scale, it will solve our problem of depending on importation and we can even export the machine and products for better foreign exchange earnings.

MSDF: 25 indigent students get scholarship

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ORGAN Smart Development Foundation (MSDF) Resource Centre, under its Education Assistance Scheme has awarded scholarship to 25 indigent but intelligent children selected from secondary schools in Delta State. With the 25 new beneficiaries (18 *Beneficiaries with MSDF girls and 7 boys), MSDF President/CEO, Dr. Urhobo. has in the past six years provided scholarship opportunity to 101 indigent children. Expressing her joy, President/CEO, MSDF, Dr Evelyn Urhobo said MSDF has increased its target to 500 students.

Appealing to friends and well-wishers for support, she said it costs N25,000 to sponsor a child every year. Chairman of the occasion, Dame Florence Ehinlaiye (Proprietress, Twin Fountain Group of Schools, Warri), lauded MSDF for its noble efforts, noting that the privilege of a scholarship made it possible for her to acquire the education that brought her to her present status. She advised the recipients to give their education the priority it deserves and stay away from bad company.

Award letters and the customary scholarship kit (school uniforms, bags, shoes, notebooks and text books) were presented to beneficiaries by the Chief Inspector of Education, Warri South Local Govt. Area, Dr Michael Emeshili and other guests.

Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016—37

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38—Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016

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Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016—39

CBN: From left— Dep. Dir., Currency Operations, Central Bank of Nigeria, Buari Clement; Group Executive Chairman, SIFAX Group, Dr. Taiwo Afolabi; Dir., Currency Operation, CBN, Mr. Femi Fabanwo, and Country Mgr., Ethiopian Airline, Mr. Solomon Mengesha, during a meeting with CBN officials in Abuja.

MEETING: From left— Oluwo of the Onipeju, Chief Oluroye; Onipeju of Ilupeju, High Chief Korede Bisade Phillips; TV personality, Ozzy Agu, and the Aare Ona Kakanfo of Owuland, Prince Bolu Akin-Olugbade.

TECNO: From left— Lagos office Head, Consumer Protection Council, CPC, Mr. Joshua Yakubu; Ruggedman; Managing Dir., Tecno Mobile, Mr. Chidi Okonkwo; Group Head, Standards Organisation of Nigeria, SON, Mr. A. Richard; and Dir., Technical Standards and Network Integrity, Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, Mr. K. Uzoekwe, at Tecno Boom J8 launch in Lagos.

ALCATEL: From left— Sales Mgr, Alcatel Nigeria, Gbenga Adegboye; Samuel Adekanmbi; Aisha Ikhonede, winners, and Head of Operations, Purch Ltd., Felix Amanfoye, at the giving of prizes to Alcatel promo winners in Lagos.

HEARING AIDS: From left— Country Director, International Centre for Prevention of Deafness and Rehabilitation of Hearing Impaired Persons, ICPDRHIP, Mr. Eneche Audu; Executive Secretary, MTN Foundation, Ms. Nonny Ugboma, and Consultant ENT, Neck and Head Surgeon, National Hospital Abuja, Dr. Job Amodu, at the inspection of hearing aids provided

by MTN Foundation in Lagos. PHOTO: Kehinde Gbadamosi.

40—Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016

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Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14 , 2016 — 41

Ohanaeze chides DSS over indictment on IPOB

FIRS seals off business offices in Abakaliki over tax evasion

By Francis Igata

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NUGU—WORRIED by the Department of State Services,DSS, indictment on the Indigenous People of

Biafra,IPOB, over their alleged involvement in the killing of five Fulani herdsmen buried in a shallow grave in Isikwuato Local Government Area of Abia State,the apex Igbo socio-cultural

group,Ohanaeze Ndigbo, yesterday,challenged DSS to show physical evidence linking IPOB to the heinous act.

The DSS had revealed that the bodies of five Fulani herdsmen

Sen Anosike dumps PDP in Anambra, as another joins party in Ebonyi

By Peter Okutu

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BAKALIKI—THE Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Ebonyi State Office has begun sealing off of business offices that have defaulted in their tax payment.

The Controller of FIRS in the State, Comrade Effiong Kenneth who stated this in Abakaliki added that the measure was one of the new strategies adopted by the agency to drive up revenue generation.

According to him, the measure is now paying off as the office of the agency in Abakaliki is now a beehive of activities with people thronging the office to pay their taxes in order to get their offices reopened or to avoid being shut down.

“We know things are difficult, but this does not exonerate tax payment.

It is the duty of a good citizen to pay his tax. As a Christian, it is a sin not to pay tax because our Lord Jesus humbly did it, so that the worldly government will not be disrupted.

“At a time external revenue from oil is dwindling, while g o v e r n m e n t responsibilities is increasing, it is left for government to look inwards."

By Charles Kumolu & Peter Okutu

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CHIEFTAIN of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Anambra State, Sen. Emma Anosike has resigned his membership of the party, citing intractable intraparty crises that have prominently shadowed the state chapter of the party from 1998 till date. This came as the Minority Whip of Ebonyi state Assembly joined the PDP. Anosike, a founding member of the party, who represented Anambra North senatorial district in the Senate, also pointed at the failure of the national leadership of the party at ensuring fair-play in the state level as being among

the reasons for his decision.

In a letter to the party’s National Chairman, Alhaji Ali Sheriff, Anosike chronicled the crises that had characterised intra-party affairs in the state since 1998.

His words: ‘’It is more repulsive to any decent mind or interested spectator to behove the serial clamp-down and destitution of a people’s destiny. The rights to good governance, good life and a protective umbrella of the party structure and citizens seem to have been delegated to the dogs leading to utter repression and extortion."

Meanwhile,the Minority Whip of Ebonyi Assembly,

state House of Hon. Anthony

Nwegede yesterday joined the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, after being elected on the platform of Labour Party (LP) during the last general election.

Announcing his defection to the PDP during a plenary at the floor of the House, Nwegede said his former party has been in crisis since after the general election and that the crisis has become intractable and all efforts made to resolve it had overtime proved abortive.

He said having seen that the crisis cannot be resolved, it became imperative for him to join the ruling Peoples Democratic Party in the state. Nwegede maintained that the PDP in the state was very strong, united and has bright future than every other political party in the state.

My net worth by Waziri Adio, NEITI CEO

By Soni Daniel & Innocent Anaba Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, Mr. Waziri Adio, has declared to the Code of Conduct Bureau, CCB, all the assets - both cash and otherwise - he had acquired in his 23 years of working to press home his desire to transparently run the body.

Adio in a statement in Abuja, yesterday, said that though it was not mandatory for him to turn in the status of his assets to the CCB, he opted to do same because it was, “a potentially powerful sunshine mechanism that could help, in very practical ways, limit the incidence of corruption, one of the major challenges of our country.”

Adio runs the NEITI, a transparency and accountability agency of the Federal Government with the mandate to shine more light on how Nigeria’s revenues from her extractive industries are applied for public good.

“As required by paragraph 11 of the 5th Schedule of the 1999 Constitution and Section 15 of the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act, I have submitted Form CCB 1.

“My declarant ID is FGAO: 000512. Form CCB 1 is the Assets Declaration Form for Public Officers, which all elected and appointed public officers are mandated to submit to the CCB on assumption of and departure from office.

“The CCB is empowered to

verify the claims made in this form. In the main, this is to ensure that public officers do not anticipatorily over-declare their assets and that they do not use public office to corruptly enrich themselves,” Adio said.

He said: “Asset declaration is thus not designed to be another perfunctory, box-ticking exercise.

It is primarily a transparency and accountability instrument. This is a potentially powerful sunshine mechanism that could help, in very practical ways, limit the incidence of corruption, one of the major challenges of our country.”

Adio explained that while the potency of this tool is gravely diminished, he still believes that it should be adhered to by public office holders.

verything about this government is inconclusive. 2016 budget is inconclusive, Corruption cases inconclusive, solutions to erratic power supply inconclusive, among others. -Mr. Chikezie Anyalewechi, Self Employed

“In my view, by the fact that asset declaration is made a secret affair and the public, on behalf of whom people are elected or appointed to hold public offices, is not given a viable role in the verification of the assets declared and is denied the fundamental right to know, this is another case of the ‘missing public,’ and it needs fixing.

“Therefore, as we rightly seek new beginnings for our country, we need to reinsert and reassert the public in this transparency and accountability process by lifting the veil of secrecy from the declared assets of our public officers. This I believe: all public officers should be made to declare their assets publicly; otherwise the impact of the assets declaration exercise is successfully neutered,” he added.

By Bartholomew Madukwe (08102479985) nwamad@yahoo.com

PEOPLE SPEAK

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and fifty other bodies of unidentified people were buried in a shallow grave in a forest in Isikwuato,accusing IPOB of being responsible, a development IPOB denied.

In a statement signed and made available to Vanguard in Enugu yesterday,the President General,Ohanaeze Ndigbo,Chief Gary Enwo-Igariwey,said ”Ohanaeze is curious and very suspicious of the reasons behind the DSS statement which indicted the IPOB as responsible for the dastardly act.

“Ndigbo demand proper investigation to ascertain those behind the heinous act. They did not act on behalf of Ndigbo and should be brought to book.

Ndigbo commiserate with the families of the deceased and have conveyed same to the leadership of Arewa Consultative Forum.

“Ndigbo condemn the act of taking human life in any form anywhere in the country. As travellers to other places, Ndigbo are friendly to visitors. All Nigerians are therefore assured of their safety anywhere in Igboland.”

On 20 16 Budge over sy 201 Budgett contr contro ersy I

weep for Nigeria. If the National Assembly padded the budget and removed capital projects, it is for the citizens to demand it be returned. That is just my own view. And I know that Nigeria will get better soon. -Mr. Aimuire Samuel, Student

A

ll Progressives Con gress, APC, government has failed Nigerians because common budget they cannot settle everything about it.

By October, we will be talking about 2017 budget. What a shameful thing. -Mr. Chimobi Moris, Self Employed

I

s it a common budget that this government is having difficulty with?

Then what are the strategic plans for the country? Is it the budget that led to the fuel scarcity? May God help Nigeria and Nigerians? -Mr. Godfrey Okoyomoh, Computer Engineer

I

believe that everything will surely come to an end. So what I can say on this budget issue is that Nigerians should keep on praying for Mr. President because prayer is the key to open the door of success. -Mr. Musa Jama’a, Entrepreneur

O

h Allah, protect your servant, Muhammadu Buhari, from the group of enemies and saboteurs.

Save Nigeria from internal and external oppressors.

Save Nigeria from the difficulty of affliction, from the burden of hardship. -Mr. Ahmad Salihu, Businessman

42 — Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016

HERDSMEN, FARMERS' CRISIS: Over 100,000

persons displaced, 12,000 families affected

By Peter Duru

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A K U R D I — INDICATIONS have emerged that about 100,000 persons were displaced from their ancestral homes in parts of Benue State in the crisis between Fulani herdsmen and farmers.

The Executive Secretary of the Benue State Emergency Management Agency, SEMA, Mr. Boniface Otese, who made this known yesterday in Makurdi, , said about 12,000 families were affected in the mayhem.

Otese stated that 17 of the 23 local government areas of the state were affected in the attacks while an area like Moor in Kwande local government area was still being occupied by the marauders.

According to him, “The most affected local government areas in the crisis includes Agatu, Buruku, Tarka, Kwande, Logo, Makurdi and Guma, where some

council wards, including Mbalai, Mbadwen, Uvir, Ndzorov and Saghev were wiped out.

“Most of the riverine communities in the state were also not spared, as they all came under severe attacks due to their unique vegetation and enormous endowment in the Benue valley.”

The Executive Secretary stated that Governor Samuel Ortom was working closely with the Federal

R-l: Governor Nasir Ahmad elRufai of Kaduna State with the general-secretary National Union of Textile, Garment & Tailoring Workers of Nigeria, NUTGTWN, Comrade Issa Aremu at the Kaduna economic & investment summit [kadinvst 2016] at the Umaru Musa Yar'adua hall, Murtala Muhammed square, Kaduna.

Photo: Olu Ajayi.

‘Dry land agric practices'll combat desertification'

By Funmi Olasupo

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OKOTO—AS the country continues to grapple with desertification in some northern states, the Director General, National Agency for Great Green Wall, NAGGW, Goni Ahmed, said dry land agricultural practices by residents in the affected areas will combat the menace.

The Head, Press and Public Relation of the agency Larai Dazi, Ahmed made the assertion during a capacity Assessment Workshop on Action Against Desertification, AAD, in Sokoto, Sokoto State, under the Great Green Wall project in collaboration with the Food and Agricultural Organization, FAO. Ahmed said Great Green Wall programme has tremendously impacted communities, following its importance to rural families.

He said the programme was designed to improve the sustainability, integration and adaptability of dry land agricultural practices.

Ahmed maintained that livestock and fisheries, promote commercialization and marketing of agricultural products, enhance accessibility of farmers, pastoralists and other land users to agricultural inputs, increase security and accessibility to basic resources by affected people especially women among others.

Kogi govt decries Assembly crisis ...As House faction ‘suspends’ 10 members

By Boluwaji Obahopo

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OKOJA—KOGI State government has expressed regret over the manner the state Assembly crisis had been hyped, saying the issue was being blown out of proportion by media practitioners.

The Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Kingsley Fanwo, who spoke on behalf of the government in Lokoja yesterday, said media reports on the Assembly was at variance with the reality on ground, insisting that the House had been sitting peacefully and doing its legislative business.

The government statement is coming on the heels of suspension of embattled speaker of the House, Momohjimoh Lawal and nine others, by the Umar Imam-led faction.

FUEL SCARCITY: Taxi drivers withdraw services in Kwara

By Demola Akinyemi

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LORIN—HARD times await residents of Kwara State as taxi owners and drivers yesterday withdrew their services from major roads of Ilorin and other adjoining towns and villages over the ongoing nationwide fuel scarcity.

The ploy was to increase the taxi fare across the state since the increased fuel price has not

Government and all relevant security agencies to ensure an end to the bloody crisis and the rehabilitation of the affected persons and communities.

Otese pleaded for more assistance from the Federal Government, corporate organisations, public spirited individuals and Non Governmental Organisations, in the rehabilitation process.

returned to the official price, while vehicle parts and services have all attracted sharp increase since the fuel crisis started.

Following this development, most of the workers in both state and public service and residents of the state who came out early enough to join taxi to their different places of duties were disappointed due to the nonavailability of taxis on the roads to convey them.

Fanwo said: “What happened in the Kogi State House of Assembly is not exogenous. It may be connected with the lack of trust in the leadership of the Assembly at the time. The grouse of the members was well spelt out by the members which resulted in the tussle for the soul of the Assembly.

“The media should start rating the current speaker on whether he is delivering, on whether he has capacity and whether he has been discharging his responsibilities with leadership. It is high time we vacated the hype and face the realities on ground in the state.

However, the factional speaker, Umar Imam, on Tuesday suspended 10 members of the House for alleged involvement in the leadership crisis rocking the legislative assembly since November last year.

The suspension order issued on the floor of the house at plenary, followed adoption of a report of the ad-hoc committee commissioned on March 10 to investigate the crisis and involvement of the National Assembly and its failure to ensure due process, even at the instance of a court injunction.

The 10 members were accused of having persistently fuelled the crisis and preventing the House from resolving the leadership impasse peacefully for it to do its constitutional responsibilities.

Ajaokuta Steel: How Russia blacklisted Nigerian activist petitions to local and international

By Omeiza Ajayi

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BUJA—FACTS have emerged as to how the Russian Federal Security Service wrongly blacklisted a Nigerian community-rights activist, Barr.

Natasha Akpoti for her stance on the Revival of the Ajaokuta Steel Company.

Akpoti, daughter of a Nigerian father from Kogi State and a Ukrainian mother has been in the forefront of advocacy for the diversification of the economy through the revival of the solid minerals sector. Her major campaign had been for the completion of the Ajaokuta Steel Company in Kogi state.

Having written several

agencies, Akpoti had contacted an ally in Russia to trace the original company that built Ajaokuta Steel Complex.

The decision to contact the original Russian company that built the steel complex was only the beginning of her problems as the company allegedly showed documents that exposed the complicity of some powerful Nigerian officials, politicians and businessmen whose sole ambition is to buy the steel complex and trade off its components.

Akpoti, who was on Tuesday “rendered clean” by the Russian security services, said some of those influential Nigerians were behind her ordeal.

Osinbajo tasks LGs on efficiency

By Marie-Therese Nanlong

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OS—THE Vice-President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, has tasked local government administration in the country to promote greater efficiency in the provision of local services, transform lives of the people at the grassroots and facilitate integration of the national political system.

Osinbajo observed that the third tier of government had been challenged by problem of inefficiency and corruption, which projected it as a weak model for good governance.

The Vice President, who threw the challenge at the opening ceremony of a two-day national workshop organized by the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, NIPSS, in collaboration with Daily Trust Newspapers in Jos, lamented that the local government system had unfortunately become a source of grave concern to the federal government, stressing that efforts were being made to intensify it.

Represented by the Permanent Secretary, Career Management, Office of the Head of Office, Ogbonnaya Innocent, the VP said the fundamental goal of local government remained the acceleration of development at the grassroots level.

According to him, the Federal Government is determined to support efficiency in local government administration and strengthen their operational capacities.,

Our duty is to assist security agencies fight crime — PAC

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HE Police Assistance Committee (PAC), yesterday, said its main function was to assist the Nigeria Police Force, all security agencies, Office of the National Security Adviser and security advisers to the state governments on information dissemination and intelligence gathering that could help in curbing crime and activities of criminals in the country.

Addressing executive members of PAC at a one-day workshop in Lagos, Director General of the organization Dr. Martins John Oni, said PAC did not constitute a threat to any security agencies in any way in the performance of its constitutional role, as the pre-occupation of PAC was to always assist security agencies with relevant information and intelligence gathering to do their jobs.

Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016—43

C M Y K

44 — Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016

C M Y K

VANGUARD, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016 — 45

Republican leaders want me to lose, Trump cries out Egypt’s Sisi justifies hand over *As court says Cruz is US citizen of islands to Saudi

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EPUBLICAN Donald Trump has said the party's leaders do not want him to win the presidential nomination.

The system was "stacked" against him, he said in New York, accusing the Republican National Committee (RNC) of conspiring against him.

His comments come after his rival Ted Cruz was awarded all the delegates in Colorado without a state-wide vote.

Mr Trump leads the race but may fall short of getting enough delegates to get the nomination outright.

Trump That would lead to a contested convention in July, where delegates are free after the first ballot to

back whom they want, opening the door for Texas Senator Mr Cruz or even the third candidate in the race, John Kasich.

PANAMA LEAK: Headquarters of Mossack Fonseca raided by Panamanian police

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ANAMANIAN au thorities have raided the headquarters of the Mossack Fonseca, the law firm from where massive data showing the offshore companies of

some of the world’s wealthiest and powerful people used, were leaked.

The organised crime unit of the Panamanian police said it carried out the raid

“ without incident and interference”.

Police set up perimeter around the Mossack Fonseca’s headquarters, while prosecutors searched documents inside the office.

The law firm has denied any wrongdoing claiming it was a victim of a digital hack adding that most of the information from the leak was misinterpreted.

Panamanian attorney general's office released a statement that it hoped to find documents that have been referenced in Policemen stand guard outside the Mossack Fonseca the media linking the law firm offices in Panama City during a raid on April company to “illicit activi12, 2016. Police on Tuesday raided the headquarters ties”.

Arms supplier to Paris attacker detained in Spain

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PANISH police said on Wednesday they had detained a Frenchman suspected of heading a weapons trafficking ring that supplied arms to one of the attackers that killed 17 people in Paris in January 2015.

Police said Antoine Denevi is suspected of arming Amedy Coulibaly, who shot dead a policewoman and took hostages in a Jewish supermarket, where he killed four people.

Coulibaly was an accomplice of the Kouachi brothers, who killed 12 people in an attack on the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo two days before Coulibaly held up the supermarket. All three were shot dead by police.

In a statement, police said Denevi, a 27-year-old from a small town in northern France, was detained on

Tuesday in the southern Malaga area after Paris issued a Europe-wide arrest warrant.

Saudi curbs powers of religious police

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HE Saudi authorities have moved to curb the powers of the notorious religious police, or "mutawa".

Members of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice will no longer be permitted to chase suspects or arrest them.

They must instead report observations to security forces personnel.

Religious police officers, who roam the streets enforcing strict standards of social

behaviour, are frequently accused of abusing their powers.

Several were reportedly arrested in February for allegedly assaulting (YouTube video) a young woman outside a shopping centre in the capital, Riyadh.

In 2013, four officers were accused of causing a fatal car crash when they pursued two brothers who had refused to turn the radio down in their vehicle.

However, a court subsequently acquitted them.

GYPT's president has hit back at criticism of his government's deal to hand two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia and of its investigation into the murder of an Italian student.

Abdel Fattah al-Sisi warned "evil people" were conspiring against Egypt and urged Egyptians to trust him.

He said the islands of Sanafir and Tiran always belonged to Saudi Arabia.

And he said the probe into Giulio Regeni's killing was being carried out with "utmost transparency".

His comments, broadcast live on state television, came after a week in which he had faced intense criti-

cism on both issues.

President Sisi's announcement that Egypt would hand over Sanafir and Tiran was made during a rare visit by Saudi King Salman in which he pledged billions in aid and

investment to Egypt.

Mr Sisi said that Saudi Arabia had asked Egypt in 1950 to protect the two islands, situated at the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba, from Israel.

President Sisi and King Salman of Saudi Arabia during the Saudi monarch's visit to Egypt.

Migrant crisis: EU says numbers in Libya alarming

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HE president of the European Council has warned Italy and Malta of large numbers of would-be migrants in Libya.

Donald Tu s k t o l d MEPs that it would not be possible to apply the same approach used for the Balkans to unstable Libya.

Italy's coastguard says 4,000 people were rescued from the Mediterranean between Libya and Sicily on Monday and Tuesday.

M e a n w h i l e , Macedonian police again fired teargas at migrants protesting at the border with Greece.

About 11,000 migrants and refugees have been

camped out at Idomeni on the Greek side of the border since countries on the route to northern Europe through the Balkans closed their borders.

In Bulgaria, the interior minister urged the public not to mistreat

migrants after footage of a vigilante group tying up several Afghans went viral.

The prime minister and senior border officials had initially welcomed the creation of civilian volunteer groups along the country's border with Turkey.

These migrants packed into a dinghy were among those rescued off Sicily on Monday

Drought fears grip Malawi, Mozambique

F

OOD shortage fears over a drought in southern Africa have prompted Malawi to declare a state of

national disaster and Mozambique to issue a "red alert".

The President of Malawi,

Zimbabwe's Mugabe says empowerment law confusing investors

Z

IMBABWE's black em powerment policy that aims to tranfer majority shares from foreign-owned firms to locals is confusing potential investors and makes it hard to compete for foreign investment, President Robert Mugabe said on Tuesday.

The southern African nation passed an Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act

in 2008, which forces foreign companies, including mines and banks, to transfer at least 51 percent shares to black Zimbabweans.

But implementing the law has been steeped in controversy, with Mugabe's ministers often issuing conflicting statements on its implementation, further spooking foreign investors.

Peter Mutharika, warned in a statement some people needed aid for all of this year. Mozambique raised alert levels for southern and central regions.

Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Zambia are also suffering food shortages, while South Africa says its drought is the worst in a century.

Over 10 million people across the region will need food aid in the coming year, according to the World Food Programme (WFP).

Malawi has suffered both flash floods and drought recently, hitting the staple maize crop.

46—Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016

Nigeria political class not visionary —Utomi

By Ediri Ejoh

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AGOS — RENOWNED political-economist and public commentator, Professor Pat Utomi, yesterday, attributed the current economy woes in the country to lack of vision of the political class.

According to him, the developmental policy standard of Nigeria is flawed.

Utomi, who spoke at the 2nd SMC-NRGI, media conference series 2016, themed "Economic survival in a period of dwindling oil prices," said the political class in the country was replete with lazy individuals.

He said: “We have a lazy political class that is not visionary enough to see the need to reposition the country in the right policies that will shore up growth and stability in our economy without the sense of playing selfish.

“The play in this is such that corruption has created a custom of people with money without the thought or foresight to create jobs for its citizens.”

He also maintained that government was more responsible for the rot in the country ’s economy than moving it forward.

He said: “The government is more responsible for aborting progress than enhancing development for her country.”

Utomi, however, argued that the ill-equipped nature of the media had hindered her from reporting the economy, adding: “The media are agenda setters and development enhancer to an economy as the media is illequipped to cover the economy.”

Reps seek quick end to budget controversy

By Emman Ovuakporie & Johnbosco Agbakwuru ABUJA — THE Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, Rep. Leo Ogor, and a number of House members, yesterday, called for a quick end to the controversy over the 2016 budget of the Federal Government.

The lawmakers, who spoke in separate interviews with Vanguard, said the face-off was unhelpful for the economy just as they called on the leadership of the two branches of government to quickly resolve the crisis.

Besides Ogor, others who spoke were Philip Shuaibu, APC, Etsako, Edo; Daniel Reyenieju, PDP, Warri, Delta and Henry Nwawuba, PDP Mbaitolu/ Ikeduru, Imo State.

Ogor, PDP Isoko, Delta State, in his submission, asked the executive to stop the blame game on issues he said could be resolved through dialogue.

He said: “Nobody can take away the power of appropriation from the National Assembly. If anyone thinks he can bring a budget to the legislature and it would be returned to him the same way, he must be dreaming.

“One thing that baffles me about the executive is the blame game.

Before the president travelled to China, there was the issue of signing or not signing the budget.

“What we should avoid is the idea of blame games. We should sit as a people, irrespective of political party lines, to consider issues which are of national importance.

On his part, Shaibu said it was in the interest of Nigerians that the House took the decision to interface with the executive to know what was the problem and find a solution to it.

He said: “What the leadership has done today is to make us to agree that whatever they feel that is wrong with the budget, if they bring it, we will look at it and

make sure that it is done in the interest of peace and in the interest of the country and our constituents that we represent.

We are not ready to be in confrontation with them.”

Reyenieju, on his part, described the situation as unfortunate, though he said it was not unusual because one arm proposes, while another arm

appropriates, adding that there must be disagreement in exercising ones constitutional role.

Henry Nwawuba, speaking on the issue, blamed misinformation for the controversy, saying there was nowhere the Lagos/Calabar rail project was mentioned in the budget document submitted by President Buhari.

VISIT: From left, Abdullahi Maikano, Director Consumer Affairs Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC); Usman Malah, Chief of Staff to the Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) NCC; Prof. Umar G. Danbatta, EVC of NCC; Mrs. Dupe Atoki, Director General, Consumer Protection Council (CPC), and Mr. Emmanuel Amlai, Director Assurance and Development, CPC, during a courtesy visit to the commission by the CPC, yesterday.

Banks’ total deposits, loans to the cent and 10 per cent economy hit N13trn respectively in 2013 and 2014. Lagos, Rivers dominate bank transactions

By Emeka Anaeto, Economy Editor

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AGOS— BANKS’ loans to the economy appeared to have stunted in 2015 after a twoyear recovery and growth.

Total loans as at end of 2015 was N13.1 trillion, up by a paltry 1.5 per cent against N12.9 trillion in the preceding year.

Banks’ lending to the economy had grown by about 30 per cent and 26 per cent in 2013 and 2014 respectively.

However, the development in credit growth appears to be a direct consequence of equally sluggish growth in deposit volume as total deposits in banks was N17.2 trillion, up by mere 1.8 per cent.

Deposits had grown by 11 per

Alleged N190m fraud: How ex-HoS, Oronsaye, spent The witness told the court that including the Access Bank looted funds —Witness the lodgments totalled N285 account opening request of the

By Ikechukwu Nnochiri

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BUJA— TRIAL of the former Head of Service of the Federation, HoS, Mr. Stephen Oronsaye, resumed before an Abuja High Court sitting at Maitama, yesterday, with a bank official, Olubunmi Ojoko, revealing how the defendant allegedly squandered N190 million lodged in a secret account.

Ojoko, who testified as the second prosecution witness, told the court that she was an employee of Access Bank Plc, where Orosanye allegedly diverted funds meant for the Presidential Committee on Financial Action Task Force.

In her Evidence-in-Chief, Ojoko said she was the Access Bank’s officer in charge of the account Orosanye unilaterally

opened in the name of the Presidential Committee on FATF. Ojoko opened her testimony shortly after the first prosecution witness, Ngunnan Kakwagh, an EFCC investigator, was crossexamined by the defence team, led

by Chief Kanu Agabi, SAN. The witness narrated how Oronsaye opened the Access Bank account on behalf of the PCFATF in 2012, without obtaining an approval from the Accountant-General of the Federation.

Led in evidence by EFCC lawyer, Mr. Ufom Uket, the witness said: “He called me that he needed to open an account on behalf of the Presidential Committee on Financial Action Task Force.

“I met him at his residence in Asokoro, where I handed him the documents for the account,

He said: “What I think that happened is a misinformation.

The project in reference is a project that will benefit the entire nation, where we will be moving freely goods and services from one part of the country to the other.

It will add value to this country, it will create jobs, the opportunities will be there."

committee signed by him, his passport photograph, copy of his passport and documents that set up the committee by the then Secretary to the Government of the Federation.

“I scrutinised the documents and discovered that the Accountant-General of the Federation’s approval was not included. So I asked him for it and he said it was not necessary.

I asked for the AccountantGeneral of the Federation’s approval because it is needed when opening a government account. Since he said that it wasn’t necessary, I took him by his word.

“I took the documents to the bank and the account was opened.”

She said there were a total of four lodgments into the account from the CBN and other cash deposits.

million, part of which was invested in fixed deposits with part of the interests that accrued re-invested.

Meanwhile, Ojoko maintained that as at the time the account was closed, Oronsaye had already withdrawn about N150 million which was partly interests that accrued on the investments.

The defendant was said to have withdrawn the funds through cheques he issued in favour of himself and various beneficiaries.

“The first transfer was N50 million in October 2012. The second in April 2012 was N90 million from the CBN. In May 2013, there was cash lodgment of N45 million. The fourth lodgment of N100 million came in December 2014 from CBN." “After the first lodgement (of N50 million from CBN), several cheques were drawn by the defendant (Oronsaye) in favour various beneficiaries."

These developments appear to be a clear indication of the economic headwinds the banks had to contend with in the 2015 financial year.

A further analysis of the banks’ loan and deposit report by the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, points to the size of states’ economy and distribution of wealth across the geographical spread of the country which indicated that Lagos State dominated both bank credits and cash deposit portfolios of its residents and businesses with over N10.1 trillion in bank loans, about 78 per cent of the nationwide loan resources and their bank deposits at N8.7 trillion also showing a predominant position at 50.6 per cent of the total.

River State came second in both profiles with total bank loans at N658.3 billion, or 5.0 per cent of total while its bank deposits at N1.0 trillion was about 5.8 per cent of the country total.

Adding to these two states in the top five borrowing states are Kano, Delta and Kaduna with N185.1 billion, N160 billion and N151.9 billion respectively.

However, Kano and Kaduna lost their top five positions when it comes to cash deposits in banks as Delta, Oyo and Anambra with N464.3 billion, N388 billion and N371.1 billion respectively came into the top bracket.

Yobe State was at the bottom of the profile with both the least bank loans and cash deposits in banks at N4.1 billion and N23.3 billion respectively.

VANGUARD, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016—47

•Nwoye: His supporters said to be in talks with APC in Anambra

•Emodi: Has laid low and now runs her school

Meltdown in SouthEast PDP FORMER Senator Emma Anosike yesterday joined the bandwagon of chieftains of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in Anambra State exiting the former ruling party; thereby causing a setback to the once flourishing market that fetched million of naira for PDP big wigs.

By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor

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HE exit of former Senator Emma Anosike out of the PDP is the latest blow to strike the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in the Southeast. He joins former speaker of the House of Representatives, Agunwa Anakwe and some other leading politicians from Anambra State, who have exited the PDP. The case of the former state chairman of the party, Dr. Tony Nwoye remains a matter of much speculation especially given the number consultative meetings held between his supporters in the PDP in Anambra State and All Progressives Congress, APC chieftains in the state.

Successful state congress The implosion of the PDP in Anambra State was a prediction that had been long awaited.

Perhaps the most crisis-ridden state chapter of the PDP or any other party in the country, the party has the reputation of not having conducted a successful state congress since the advent of democratic rule in 1999. It also has the unenviable reputation of being the only state chapter of a party to have two blood brothers – the Uba brothers- in open confrontation for political office.

Anambra State had along the way acquired a national reputation of being a honey pot for PDP national officers, given the prevalence of multi-

billionaires in the state willing to part with a little of their money to get the ascendancy in the political terrain.

Anosike confessed as much in his letter of resignation submitted to the PDP’s national chairman last Monday: “It must be conceded that the party apparatchik at the national levels had come to view party politics and intrigues as vintage harvest points of sorts in terms of loyalty trading, finances and perquisites of office. These contours of aberration took bold imprints as the honey pot ascription in matters that relate to Anambra State particularly and closely knit camaraderie prevail, with it a solid mechanism of oiled party administration, dynamics, and maturation.”

Given the perceived reign of impunity in the PDP in Anambra,

Given the perceived reign of impunity in the PDP in Anambra, it was not surprising that some the party chieftains who in the past brought glory to the party took a backstage in the affairs of the party

•Wogu: Fully in APC

Nwobodo, who was one of the elders of the PDP in the Southeast that managed the presidential campaign funds, allegedly sourced from erstwhile National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd.) left the PDP not long after his name was mentioned as one of the beneficiaries of the funds.

Senator Agboti’s decision to leave the PDP was also despite the fact of his place of prestige as one of the egg heads in the party and involvement in several trouble shooting committees of the party.

The indications of a meltdown in the PDP may have surprised some outside the region, but not •Anosike: Lastest chieftain to dump PDP all. Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State had in an interview with Vanguard applauded the role he said the Igbo nation played in the emergence of President Muhammadu Buhari. Using statistical records, he showed that enthusiasm for the PDP seriously waned between 2011 and 2015.

“One thing people fail to appreciate is that the Ibo nation played a silent but extremely strategic role in the emergence of President Buhari. You may not believe it, but the statistics are there. In 2011, the Igbo nation gave Jonathan about 8 million votes, so when people start accusing Ogbonnaya Onu or Chris Ngige of not doing their own part of the job, people are not being fair to them.

•Adighije: Fully in APC

it was not surprising that some the party chieftains who in the past brought glory to the party took a backstage in the affairs of the party. Dr. Alex Ekwueme, the former vice-president, has since kept himself away while Senator Joy Emodi has returned to education her first love with the establishment of the upscale The Brickhall Schools in Abuja.

National enforcers If the PDP is losing steam in Anambra State, it should have quietly gone home to lick its wound. However, all across the Southeast geopolitical zone, the party is in a meltdown as leading members of the party increasingly turn their backs on the former ruling party.

The meltdown was partly indicated by the attendance at the Southeast Caucus of the rival APC in Enugu last Saturday.

Among them were some of the regional and national enforcers of the party, the men who had in the past been called upon to carry out major assignments for the PDP. Among them were former Minister of Labour and Productivity, Dr. Emeka Wogu, Senators Emma Agboti, Jim Nwobodo, Nkechi Nwogu and Ifeanyi Ararume.

The meeting hosted by the national vice-chairman, Southeast, also had in attendance, former speaker of the House of Representatives Agunwa Anakwe; Senator Chris Adighije. The extent of the meltdown was also shown by the presence of Dorothy, the wife of Dr. Okwesileze Nwodo, the pioneer national secretary and also a former national chairman of the PDP. While Nwodo has since denied that he has defected, the presence of his wife is reflective of the fact that the Nwodo household, once a bedrock for the PDP is no longer what it used to be for the PDP. The exit of some of the PDP chieftains to the APC was, however, stoked by several stories. Most of the PDP defectors were those who received the short-end of the stick ahead of the 2015 general elections. Wogu for example left his position as minister to partake in a governorship primary that his supporters claimed were rigged to favour the governor ’s handpicked successor.

Senator Nwobodo, who was a presidential aspirant in the PDP and senator, resigned from the PDP despite the position of preeminence given him by the new administration in Enugu State.

Quantum of votes “In 2015 Jonathan got 300,000 votes in Ebonyi, go and juxtapose the quantum of votes he got in 2011 in the Igbo heartland with what he got in 2015! If the Igbo had produced the quantum of votes they gave him in 2011 in 2015, the story would have been different.”

Such confidence in the present APC leadership in the Southeast may have become the inspiration for the rallying call by the chieftains to project themselves ahead of the Buhari succession.

It was thus remarkable that the communiqué of the Enugu meeting ended with a claim for the 20123 presidential ticket of the party. Speaking at the end of the caucus meeting, the host of the gathering, the national vicechairman, and convener of the meeting, Emma Eneukwu said better days were ahead for the party in the region.

“With the array of prominent politicians from the South-East joining us now, we shall work hard this time and turn things around,” he affirmed the communiqué issued at the end of the meeting said among others that: “We believe by 2023, the president of a united Nigeria will be a Nigerian of Igbo extraction from the South-East.”

48— VANGUARD, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016

African Bar Leaders: confronting challenges of justice administration

By Dayo Benson

T

HE Nigerian Bar Association ,NBA, has affirmed its commitment to administration of Justice in the African continent as it hosted the first African Bar Leaders Conference in Lagos. The event nd which coincided with the 22 anniversary of Rwanda Massacre, had the theme: “reducing poverty and promoting sustainable economic growth in Africa through reforms in administration of justice.” The four-day event which took place at the Intercontinental Hotel, Victoria Island attracted eminent legal personalities across African countries.

Among the guests were the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Justice Mahmoud Mohammed who was represented by Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, Attorney General of the Federation, Malam Abubakar Malami SAN (represented), President Court of Appeal was represented by Justice Sidi Barde, Court of Appeal justices, Lagos state Attorney General, Adebayo Kazeem represented Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, Minister of communication, Mr Adebayo Shittu and Justice Candid Johnson represented Lagos state Chief Judge. Others were former NBA president, chief Bayo Ojo SAN, life Bencher, Mrs Hairat Balogun, Chief Wole Awomolo, SAN, Attorney Generals of Kebbi, Ogun, Anambra and Akwa-Ibom.

NBA Pro-bono Declaration There were also legal representatives from African countries such as Liberia, Niger, Mali, Benin republic, Togo, Sierra-Leon, Tunisia, Uganda,Côte d’Ivoire and Rwanda Ambassador to Nigeria.

NBA executive director, Ifueko Alufohai in her address said access to justice is an important component of our Administration of Justice Reform programme.

He noted, “We recently publicly presented the NBA Pro-bono Declaration for the Legal Profession. The declaration restates the commitment of the NBA to achieving effective legal representation for the poor. We are now working on the modalities for the establishment of a National Pro- Bono Centre that will facilitate collaboration with other legal aid service providers.”

The promotion and protection of the rights of Nigerians is another important component of our administration of justice programme.

Former Ekiti state Attorney General,Wale Fapohunda in his his speech said “our aim is to

facilitate a process that leads to a better understanding of challenges facing Africa in the key conference thematic areasPoverty Reduction, Economic Growth and Justice Sector Reforms.”

NBA president, Augustine Alegeh SAN said in his opening remarks that “said the failure of the legal system contributed to the genocides in Rwanda.”He pointed out that there is no alternative to the rule of law, “the only alternative is anarchy.” He observed that the problems of African countries are similar, poverty, lack of infrastructure, corruption and terrorism. He said that African Bar leaders must come together and find solutions to these problems. According to him, International Bar Association, IBA, conference does not address African problems.

“African bar leaders should take the bull by the horns and find solutions to these problems.”

AGF Malami congratulated NBA for its achievements and the new voting policy of universal suffrage that will enable all lawyers to cast their vote to elect their leaders. He said that the conference theme aligned with the provisions of chapter 2 of the

I think we should take a look at laws in our respective countries and see how regulation is pushing business away

1999 constitution, adding that there should be time line for the outcome of the conference so that it would not be like other conferences.

The communication minister who is also a lawyer promised to do everything to support the conference and NBA initiatives.

President Pan-African Lawyers Union PALU, Elijah Banda, said the conference theme agrees with the objectives of PALU. He revealed that the union is a creation and brain child of the NBA.

Best practices reforms On his part, president, African Bar Association, ABA lauded the NBA president for organizing the conference saying that NBA has been able to do what ABA and PALU have not been able to achieve.

Justice Kekere-Ekun said the the theme is not only germane but critical. She said sound administration of justice will promote economic growth in the society. She expressed delight that the conference topics will elaborate on terrorism,human rights and poverty. She said that Nigerian judiciary is embarking on best practices reforms, adding that it is trying to ensure that cases are expeditiously dispensed through e-case management system. She also revealed that Nigerian legal e-mails to ensure that lawyers communicate with the court and their international colleagues. She also pointed out that the Supreme Court will soon commence its own mediation centre.

Representative of the Chief

Prosecutor International Criminal Court, Mrs Fatou Bensouda, said that the conference should join her in the fight against impunity. He lamented that when the legal system is attacked, lawyers maintain deafening silence. He said ICC is not an international justice system but it stands against impunity and heinous crimes. He observed that ICC is out to complement national judicial system and that it steps in when the national judicial system fails.

He noted that ICC is not targeting Africans but impunities. He said the body has received reports that both the Nigerian security forces and the insurgents committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Fight against insurgents He observed that ICC will not interfere in the matter if it has proof that Nigerian government has initiated legal proceedings on the issue. He also stated that ICC has communication on crime against humanity in a fight against insurgents, Biafra agitators, Zaria clash between Shiite and the army and hate campaigns in the build up to the 2015 general elections.

Speaking in one of the sessions, the NBA President, Mr Alegeh called for a streamlining of regulatory Agencies in Nigeria, in a bid to foster economic development.

He maintained that government must ensure that the regulatory agencies in Nigeria are streamlined, in order to avoid a multiplicity of functions.

According to him, too many regulatory agencies in a country, hindered a smooth running of businesses, and acted as a major drawback to economic development and growth.

He called on government to merge such regulatory agencies, so as to enhance business development in a large scale.

He said: “We are faced with a situation of government setting set up several regulatory bodies to regulate the same industries.

At the end of the day, it is either we have over regulation because all the regulatory bodies are working very well, or we have no

regulation because there too many regulating bodies and no one is belling the cat.

“I think we should take a look at laws in our respective countries and see how regulation is pushing business away, and see how we can work with our respective home government to streamline regulation of businesses, to ensure that each industry has one sector regulator.

“In Nigeria for example, we have NAFDAC which is the National Agency for Food, Drugs, Administration and Control, and also the SON, the Standard Organisation of Nigeria; “Many manufacturers, having gone through the NAFDAC registration process and having been certified, are stopped from producing because the SON comes in to check the same standard.

“Now, this is one example of double regulation; If these two agencies were merged into one, or if they have one standard organisation, they will have a seamless, simple working system;This is replicated in most of African countries,”

Policy of globalisation Alegeh also noted that government seemed to be imbibing the policy of globalisation without taking into consideration the poverty situation in Africa.

He submitted that as African leaders, the Bar must come out with a road map for the government to work with, adding that this should be the general thrust of the African Bar. In her presentation to the gathering, the President of the Rwanda Bar Association, RBA, Julien Kavaruganda who spoke on the “State of the Justice System in Rwanda, Strength and Weaknesses, Judiciary, Prisons and Police” highlighted the state of the institutions and concluded that they are fairing well.

According to her due to the 1994 genocide, tens of thousands of suspects were apprehended, and by the end of July 1996, 120,000 inmates were being held in a prison system with a capacity of only 18,000 (666,6% of Prison occupancy rate in 1996)

VANGUARD, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016 — 49

Petroleum Industry Governance Bill 2016 Continues from last week (4) As from the date of commencement of this Act(a) The rights, interests, obligations and liabilities .of the Petroleum inspectorate, Department of Petroleum Resources and the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory.

Petroleum Industry Governance Bill 2016 Agency existing immediately before the Effective Date under any contract or instrument or at law or in equity shall by virtue of this Act be assigned to and vested in the Commission; (b) any such contract or instrument covered by subsection 4(a) of this section shall be of the same force and effect against or in favour of the Commission and shall be enforceable as fully and effectively as if instead of the Petroleum Inspectorate, Department of Petroleum Resources or the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, the Commission had been named therein or had been a party thereto; and (c) the Commission shall be subject to all the obligations and liabilities to which the Petroleum Inspectorate, Department of Petroleum Resources and the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency were subject immediately before the Effective Date and all other persons shall as from the Effective Date have the same rights, powers and remedies against the Commission as they had against the Petroleum Inspectorate, Department of Petroleum Resources and the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency immediately before the Effective Date.

Petroleum operations (5) The Commission shall be structured into departments as its Board may, from time to time, deem appropriate for the effective discharge of its functions under this Act. 5. Objectives of the Commission The Commission shall (a) Promote the healthy, safe and efficient conduct of all petroleum operations in an environmentally friendly and sustainable manner; (b) Promote the efficient safe, effective and sustainable infrastructural development of the petroleum industry; (c) Ensure compliance with all applicable laws and regulations governing the petroleum industry; (d) Determine and ensure the implementation and maintenance of technical standards, codes and specifications applicable to the petroleum industry in line with global best practice; (e) Subject to the provisions of this Act, execute Government policies for the petroleum industry assigned to it by the Minister; (f) Promote an enabling environment for investments in the petroleum industry; (g) Ensure that regulations are fair and balanced for all classes of lessees, licensees, permit holders, consumers and other stakeholders; (h) in consultation with the Ministry of Environment, ensure strict

implementation of environmental policies, laws and regulations as pertains to oil and gas operations; and (i) Implement such other objectives as are consistent with the provisions of this Act. 6. Functions of the Commission (1) The Commission shall (a) administer and enforce policies, laws and regulations relating to all aspects of petroleum operations which are assigned to it under the provisions of this Act or any regulations made in pursuance of this Act or under any other enactment; 7 (b) Monitor and enforce compliance with the terms and conditions of all leases, licences, permits and authorisations issued in respect of any petroleum operations; (c) Define and enforce approved standards for design, construction, fabrication, operation and maintenance for all plants, installations and facilities utilized or to be utilized in petroleum operations; (d) In consultation with the Ministry of Environment, ensure adherence to applicable national and international environmental and other technical standards by all persons involved in petroleum operations;

Suspensions and revocations (e) Establish, monitor, regulate and enforce health and safety measures relating to all aspects of petroleum operations; (f) keep public registers of all leases, licences, permits and other authorizations issued by the Commission or the Minister and any renewals, amendments, extensions, suspensions and revocations thereof; (g) Monitor the activities of the holders of leases, licences, permits and other authorizations issued by the Commission or the Minister to secure and enforce compliance with the terms and conditions thereof and carry out enquiries, tests, audits, investigations and any o t h e r undertakings d e e m e d necessary for performance of t h i s responsibility; (h) Publish reports and statistics on the petroleum industry; (i) Develop and publish methodologies for tariffs and pricing relating to third party access to petroleum facilities from time to time by regulation; (j) Establish the framework for the validation and certification of national hydrocarbon Reserves; and (k) Advise the Minister on fiscal and other issues pertaining to the petroleum industry. (I) undertake evaluation of national reserves and reservoir management studies; (m) conduct regular audits of the activities of operators engaged in petroleum operations and oil service companies

in order to ensure compliance with Nigerian laws and requirements for petroleum operations; (n) Maintain a petroleum industry data bank comprising all data acquired by or given to the Commission in the exercise of its statutory functions; (0) supervise and ensure accurate calibration and certification of equipment used for fiscal measures for upstream petroleum operations; (p) Issue licences or permits and any other authorisations necessary for all activities connected with, but not limited to the following: (i) Seismic, (ii) Drilling, (iii) Design, fabrication, construction, commissioning and decommissioning of all facilities for upstream petroleum operations, and (iv) Maximum efficiency rate test and other well test/production related activities; (q) Manage and administer all unallocated acreage of crude oil and natural gas and all upstream petroleum data; (r) Conduct bid rounds or other processes for the award of any licence or lease required for petroleum exploration or production; 87. Petroleum Industry Governance Bill 2016 (s) Make recommendations to the Minister for the issuance, modification, amendment, extension, suspension, review, cancellation and reissuance, revocation and / or termination of upstream licences made in compliance with applicable laws and regulations; (t) Approve all field development programmes; (u) allocate petroleum production quotas; (v) Develop benchmarks and cost management strategies for petroleum operations performance monitoring; (w) Compute, assess and ensure payment of royalties, rentals, fees, and other charges for upstream petroleum operations; and (x) Issue clean certificates of inspection at the oil terminals to exporters of crude

Oil rig

oil upon satisfaction that the requirements as to quality and quantity have been complied with. (y) regulate and co-ordinate the activities of the industry in a nondiscriminatory and transparent manner; (z) establish the methodology for determining appropriate tariffs for gas processing, gas transportation / transmission and transportation of crude oil and bulk storage of oil and gas;

Setting aside, recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards

I

N the above case, the Supreme Court quoted and adopted with approval the reasoning of the learned authors of Halsbury’s Laws of England at paragraph 22, 4th Edition, Volume 2 at pages 330 – 331.

Although in exhaustive, a few examples were given.

An award that is improperly procured in any arbitration proceedings or award, may arise as a result of improper relationship between the arbitrator and a party or his solicitor.

Setting aside under section 48 of the Nigeria law is based on Article 34 of the UNCITRAL Model Law. In theory, it is possible for an aggrieved party to an arbitral award to resist the award by merely refusing to recognise or enforce it.

However, in practice, since the beneficiary of the award can apply to court to enforce it, the party aggrieved must take some positive steps to support his refusal. To assist such a person, the law provides for refusal of recognition and enforcement of awards in section 32 and 52, the later being for international award only.

Section 32 provides: “Any of the parties to an arbitration agreement may request the court to refuse recognition or enforcement of the award” Unlike section 52, section 32 (which applies to domestic arbitration only) does not state the ground upon which the court may refuse enforcement or recognition.

Section 52 (1) which applies to international award only by virtue of section 43 provides as in section 32: “Any of the parties to an arbitration agreement may request the court to refuse recognition or enforcement of the award” Subsection (2) provides: “The court where recognition or enforcement of an award is sought or where application for refusal of recognition or enforcement thereof is brought may, irrespective of the country in which the award is made, refuse to recognise or enforce the award” Section 54 incorporates the New York Convention being virtually identical and intended for international award.

The grounds for refusing recognition or enforcement are contained in section 52, in respect of international commercial arbitration which is similar to Article 36 of the Model Law. There is no doubt that Nigeria has ratified the New York Convention governing the recognition and enforcement of foreign awards.

The more uniform the Arbitration laws of most countries are, the more attractive the practice of arbitration will become internationally.

Ironically England is one of the states that have not adopted the model law, regardless of the above position one finds that decided authorities in English law reports are quite applicable to a number of sections of the Act. It is respectfully submitted that the practical effect and the factual contents of the provisions of their laws relating to arbitration are not irreconcilable with those contained in the model law dealing with related issues.

The above should not be confused with the New York convention which England and visually all nations have adopted as it relates to enforcement.

The New York Convention is for the Recognition and Enforcement of foreign Arbitral Awards. Awards made in Nigeria can be enforced in foreign countries on the basis of reciprocity in accordance with the provisions of the convention. Enforcement of a foreign award, is an award made outside Nigeria and often governed by treaty obligations.

50—Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016

Kidnapped Channels TV reporter regains freedom

By Chidi Nkwopara

O

WERRI—THE Imo State correspondent of Channels Television, Mr. Tope Kutiyi, who was kidnapped last Monday, was released unharmed by his captors yesterday.

Vanguard gathered that soon

after the hoodlums made the initial contact with their captive’s relations and made a N15 million demand, the security agencies pin-pointed their location and swung into action.

Confirming this development to Vanguard on

telephone, the state’s Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Andrew Enwerem, said the Commissioner of Police, Mr. Taiwo Lakanu, personally led the operation for the journalist’s rescue.

Vanguard gathered that the hoodlums, numbering about

seven, took Kutiyi’s work tools, such as laptop and mobile phone.

He said: “The CP led a 100man squad for the rescue. It took them into the huge forest at Ohoba in Ohaji/ Egbema Local Government Area of the state.”

Presidential C'ttee monitors relief materials in Anambra

By Vincent Ujumadu

A

KSM: From left—Immediate past Lagos Metropolitan Grand Knight, Sir Patrick Ikemefuna; Lagos Metropolitan Grand Knight, Charles Mbelede; Supreme Knight, Anthony Onu; Supreme Treasurer, Lawrence Okonufua; Grand Knight of Ajah Sub-Council, Sir SKI Ilugbekhia, and Grand Knight of Lekki Sub-Council, Johnny Ngonadi, all of The Order of the Knights of Saint Mulumba, KSM, at the inauguration of Ajah Sub-Council at Regina Coeli Catholic Church, Bogije, Lagos.

Anambra maize farm targets 3,000 jobs

By Vincent Ujumadu

A

WKA—A maize farm at Achalla-Umuchu in Aguata LGA of Anambra State, brainchild of a philanthropist and businessman, Mr. Godwin Ezeemo, is to provide about 3,000 jobs.

While conducting a team of experts from the Republic of Benin, led by Mr. Masline Howssou Yemaline yesterday, Ezeemo, who is also the proprietor of Orient Feed Mills and Farm, said agriculture was the solution to the country’s employment challenges.

According to him, the maize farm would complement the feed mill and would provide feed to the 50,000 birds in his poultry farm.

He said: “We have a poultry where we can raise our old layers and broilers for table meat and our fishery. The corn will be a major constituent of the feed for the animals and we are targeting to employ 3,000 youths in the farm.

“We chose corn for this land because the land has been fallow for over 15 years and that is why we started constructing the three kilometres road down to this place.”

CRISIS: Aides of Senators, Reps dare N’Assembly Clerk over poll

By Henry Umoru & Joseph Erunke

A

BUJA—STRONG indications emerged yesterday at the National Assembly that legislative aides of Senators and members of House of Representatives are poised for a showdown with the Clerk to the National Assembly, Alhaji Salisu Maikasuwa.

The aides said they were ready to engage Maikasuwa if he goes ahead with the caretaker committee which he inaugurated to put in place an electoral process to bring in elected officers.

Addressing journalists yesterday in Abuja, Chairman, National Assembly Legislative Aides Forum, NASSLAF, Electoral Committee, Mr. Ishaya Nantur-Vangjen, said the committee set up by the Clerk was not known to the constitution of the group, hence their action will never be binding on members.

He said each of the 12member electoral committee, selected by NASSLAF from the six geo- political zones, would organise a credible poll for the group, adding that the constitution of the group stipulated that CNA shall direct the conduct of election of the central working committee and that the executive shall, within six months, inaugurate a new legislature.

Nantur-Vangjen, who noted

that where the clerk failed to call for election, 250 duly appointed members, stating their file numbers, shall summon a congress to initiate the process of election and communicate decision to the CNA, adding that the group had satisfied necessary constitutional requirements to conduct the election.

He stated that the election process would start today and terminate on Tuesday, May 3.

Some members of the group

announced the inauguration of an electoral body that would organise the election that would usher in the elected officers of the group.

Maikasuwa had, in collaboration with top management staff of the federal parliament, appointed a seven-member caretaker committee, led by the younger brother of the Senator representing Kogi West Senatorial District, Mr. Samuel Melaye.

CAN faults call for Kachikwu’s resignation, blames Buhari

By Francis Igata

E

NUGU—CHRISTIAN Association of Nigeria, CAN, has faulted calls for the resignation of Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, over the lingering fuel scarcity in the country.

CAN, in a statement by its South-East body in Enugu yesterday, said attacks on Kachikwu were misdirected considering that he was merely the minister of state, whereas Buhari is the Petroleum Minister.

The statement by Most Rev. David Eberechukwu, CAN President, condemned calls for Kachikwu’s resignation and asked “what happens to the main minister, President Buhari? Will he also resign?”

He expressed surprise “over

the attack on Kachikwu by Nigerians, even those that are supposed to know better.”

Eberechukwu, who is also the Chairman, Southern Nigeria Christian Elders’ Forum, frowned at what he termed “nonchalant attitude of President Muhammadu Buhari over the attacks on our people in the South-East and the Agatu community in Benue State.

“The National Assembly should do something to stop this attack of Fulani herdsmen. It has never been like this before; the Fulani herdsmen we see now are not the same of those days.

“How come they now carry AK-47 and pump actions rifles? Who is pursuing them and who are they pursuing?

This is quite unfortunate.”

WKA—THE Presidential Committee on Flood, Relief and Rehabilitation has visited Anambra State during which it monitored the distribution of relief materials to the victims of the 2012 and 2015 flood disaster that affected six local government areas in the state.

Materials distributed to the victims include roofing sheets, bags of rice, maize, cement, among other items.

Leader of the team, Mr. John Owoicho said during the exercise in Awka that the measures adopted by Anambra was the best among the states affected by the disaster and commended the State Emergency Management Agency, SEMA. He said SEMA adopted a rancour-free method in sharing the items, urging other states to emulate Anambra.

Obi commissions ASPMDA hospital

By Emeka Aginam

F

ORMER governor of Anambra State, Mr. Peter Obi, and some top officials of Lagos State Government, yesterday, opened the new medical centre built by Auto Spare Parts & Machinery Dealers’ Association, ASPMDA, at Lagos International Trade Fair complex, Badagry Expressway.

Addressing traders at the market, the former governor hailed the traders for being conscious of their medical welfare, which encouraged them to embark on the self-help hospital project.

Speaking at the commissioning of the hospital, the member representing Amuwo Odofin Federal Constituency of Lagos State, Oghene Emma Egoh, thanked the traders for creating jobs and contributing to the economy.

Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016—51

By Victor Ahiuma-Young

S

OME have argued that though greed may have been responsible for the present factionalization of Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, in which Comrade Ayuba Wabba and Joe Ajaero are the dramatis personae, but by their public utterances, there is no doubt that both factions are united over the plight of workers and Nigerian masses.

This became evident and manifested during the last Central Working Committee, CWC by the factions in Lagos and Abuja, respectively.

Both Wabba and Ajaero factions at their CWC meetings, lamented the hardship ordinary Nigerians especially workers were going through and called on government to live up to its promises and improve the living conditions of Nigerians.

They were particularly piqued with perennial erratic electricity supply and protracted fuel supply crisis in the country that have worsened the socio-economic woes of Nigerian workers especially.

Failure of privatisation Ajaero faction at its CWC meeting decried perceived huge failure and ineffectiveness of the privatization policy of the federal government which had been responsible for the crisis in the nation’s power sector.

It equally contended that the failure of the privatization policy was responsible for the docility in the mining sub-sector where licenses had been granted to private miners who, up till date, had not commenced operation at various mining levels as expected.

Similarly, the faction argued that going ahead with privatization of other national institutions like Nigerian Railway and Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, which the federal government planned to unbundle would certainly portend greater socio-economic danger for the nation.

According to the meeting, “The CWC-in-session observes the prevalent employment crisis which keeps growing by the day and is practically preparing the nation for heightened insecurity and other numerous social vices if unchecked.

"The CWC-in-session sees as unproductive and impotent all the policies advanced for the stimulation of job creation especially for employable Nigerian youths. The federal government’s Youths Empowerment Scheme, YES, and a host of others floated even right from the days of immediate past administration have not yielded any known, desirable results. The federal government should, as a matter of urgency, declare a state of emergency and

NLC leaders unite over workers’ woes

•Wabba summon courage to call for a summit where ways out of the unemployment crisis could be advanced.

The communiqué at the end of the meeting added that "whereas latent and manifest divisions within the socio-polity have deepened and taken a dangerous turn recently with no sign of abating; ethnic champions, warlords and philosophers have taken centre - stage in national discourses.

Corridors of power Those in the various corridors of power have by their actions and inactions exacerbated these negative feelings and conversations thus abdicating and mortgaging the authority, both moral and legal needed to move the nation away from this dangerous discourse and precipice. Our dear nation has become more divided now than ever before, and thus portends imminent danger for our people and nation as a whole.

“Congress calls on all gatekeepers of the nation at all levels to close rank and pull the nation back from this inexorable slide into a state of anomie. Those whose actions and statements are putting pressure on various national relations must immediately desist.

We also call on those at the various corridors of power to quickly conduct a sensitivity test on all their actions and utterances so as to redirect themselves accordingly to avoid policies and body languages that could easily be misread by other segments of the society.”

Unhelpful response to economic woe

•Ajaero Also, Wabba faction at its CWC meeting, among others, noted that the meeting came at a time Nigerians were feeling the harsh realities of the economic crisis in the country.

According to the communiqué issued at the end of the meeting, “CWC commended President Muhammadu Buhari for taking bold measures aimed at rebuilding the economy. These measures include renewing or strengthening of relations with nations of worth, signing of bilateral/trilateral agreements, creating of a safe haven for investment, fighting corruption, restoring internal security, tracking and recovering looted funds and resisting pressures to further devalue the Naira."

CWC noted that in spite of these

The federal government should, as a matter of urgency, declare a state of emergency and summon all patriotism to call for a Summit where ways out of the unemployment crisis could be advanced

measures, the Naira continued to fall against the major currencies, inflation continued to rise, and the productive sector continued to shrink with more job losses.

Accordingly, "CWC calls on government to consult more widely on issues of economy as well as constitute an economic team (with an encompassing membership including Labour) as part of the process of fashioning out a credible/coherent economic policy capable of responding to the present challenges."

Unpaid salaries and pension

The issue of unpaid salaries and pension were also discussed and members lamented that “an increasing number of employers including state governments and Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs renege on their contractual obligation to pay workers and pensioners as when due, thus creating avoidable hardship and embarrassment for workers, pensioners and their families. Such violations are reprehensible, criminal and unacceptable. Accordingly, CWC resolved to work with the affiliate unions, state councils and civil society allies to engage the serial debtor-employers."

Increasing casualisation, Outsourcing: Members deliberated and noted that the increasing cases of casualisation and outsourcing of workers in the country, “is a strategy by employers to exploit workers and deny them the benefits of their labour such as fair pay, gratuity, pension and others. CWC also observes that this has created a situation akin to slave labour.

Induced casualisation as is practised is in violation ofthe

law. CWC calls on the government to enforce the law on casualization in order to free its citizens from slavery. CWC also resolved to strengthen the Anti-Casualisation Committee of the Congress to continually fight the menace.

Members decried increasing outsourcing of workers by companies and agencies of government, calling on affiliates “to spare no effort at unionizing workers engaged by outsourcing agencies in order to ensure fair pay and good conditions of service. CWC also calls on the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment which serves as the licensing agency of outsourcing firms to transparently develop criteria for licensing, monitoring and sanctioning of the outsourcing firms in conjunction with the tripartite partners.

Hike in electricity tariff The vexed problem of the recent hike in electricity tariff was not left out, members recalled efforts to get the hike reversed and resolved to “call an emergency meeting of NEC in conjunction with TUC to perfect the process of a one-day national warning strike/protest to impress on government, the resolve of the Labour movement, civil society organisations and Nigerians not to accept the increase in tariff and the need for government to reverse the increase. CWC in consideration of the painful intractable problems around the Power Sector, also resolved to call on government to muster the necessary courage to revisit and review the privatisation exercise of the Power Sector.

52—Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016

Dream Team for Toulon tournament N

IGERIA’S U-23 national team have been invited to participate in the 2016 Toulon tournament in France between May 18 and 29.

Samson Siasia’s team will be the second Nigerian national team to play in the tournament after John Obuh’s Flying Eagles participated in the 2013 edition before the FIFA U-20 World Cup in Turkey.

Last year’s runners-up, Morocco, and 2010 African representatives, Cote d’ Ivoire, are the other African nations to have taken part in the tournament.

Ten teams have been invited to take part in the tournament specially

reserved for U-20 players but the organisers have opted to allow the invited teams to register players born from January 1, 1993 and who are expected to play at this year’s Olympics in August as part of preparations for the football tournament of the Games.

Aside from Nigeria and France, South Africa who are Africa’s other representative at the men’s football tournament in Rio have been invited, according to the tournament’s official website.

Other countries invited for the tournament that began in 1967 as a club tournament include England, Colombia, Australia, Japan, Mexico, Czech Republic and Portugal.

The Nigeria U23s will play a minimum of four matches during the competition.

T

IRST Deepwater and Customs Basketball Clubs returned to winning ways yesterday on the fourth day of the Zenith Bank Women Basketball League in Asaba.

First Deepwater defeated Immigration 4433 after losing 56-53 to AHIP on Tuesday.

Custom also defeated Zamfara Babes 70-50. In some other games, IGP Queens beat FCT Angels 69-39, while Benue Princess beat Coal city

Continues from BP General Assembly held in Abuja, the NFF said that the stakeholders namely Chris Giwa, Yahaya Adama, Muazu Suleyman, Sani Fema and Effiong Johnson brought Nigeria football and Nigeria to ridicule, opprobrium and disrepute by their actions which was in contravention of the NFF Statutes and other extant football laws.

Part of their actions which the General Assembly frowned at was “illegally contracting a law firm in South Africa in the name of the NFF and refusing to pay for the services up to a point where judgement was given against the NFF by the South African Court” and thus “violating the Statutes, regulations, directives and decisions of FIFA, CAF, WAFU and NFF.” Members, according to

Queens 45-28. Meanwhile, coach of First Bank Basketball Club, Peter Ahmedu has commended the standard of the Second Phase of the Zenith Bank Basketball League, which began in Asaba on Sunday.

Ahmedu said teams have improved tremendously from the first phase in Abuja, which has seem competition for points more stern, while upset and tightly-fought games have been a regular feature in Asaba.

“From proceeding here, I believe that most teams have

improved greatly since the first phase in Abuja. The games are closely-fought and we have recorded an upset already with GT 2000 beating Customs.

“In the game involving Dolphins and Customs, the border girls gave a good fight despite losing to the defending champions.

With developments like this, the competitiveness, which was lacking in the league, is gradually returning,” Ahmedu added.

Disciplinary Board the communique, noted the motion for the suspension (of the erring members) pursuant to Article 37 (1) of the NFF Statutes but “in the spirit of Article 37 (3) and in the interest of fair hearing,” want them to defend themselves before the Disciplinary Board.

Some other persons, namely Rumson Baribote, Shehu Adamu, Ben Agary and Jide Fashikun, accused of “aiding and abetting the above gross misconduct, thus collectively contravening provisions of NFF, WAFU, CAF, and FIFA Statutes” were also referred to the NFF Committee on Ethics and Fairplay to defend themselves.

The General Assembly attended by all the 44 members as well as the Youth and Sports Minister, Solomon Dalung, the Chairman Senate Committee on Sports, Senator Obinna Ogba, who was alleged to be among

HE Indoor Sports Hall of the National Stadium, Lagos, will on May 1witness one of the biggest grudge fights in Nigeria’s boxing history. It will see Nurudeen “Prince” Fatai, reigning national lightweight champion, defend his crown against savage puncher Oto “Joe Boy” Joseph is the headlineboutofGOtvBoxing Night 7, organisers announced in Lagos on Wednesday.

The fight, which has twice beenrescheduledonaccount of injury to the champion, will offer Nurudeen the chance to redeem himself afterbeingknockedoutinthe fifth round of their explosive challenge clash at GOtv

•Etebo

Zenith Bank WBL: Customs, First Deepwater bounce back

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GOtv Boxing Night 7: Joe Boy, Prince Nurudeen in grudge Clash

those who took the NFF to a Jos Court and the representative of the Inspector General of Police, affirmed the indivisibility of the NFF as governed by the NFF Statutes (2010 edition).

Ostensibly aware of the bitterness caused among the football family by the introduction of a clause in the NFF Statutes which forbids non-members of the Congress from contesting election into the Executive st Committee at the 71 General Assembly in Abuja last year, the General Assembly, following “a passionate appeal by the Executive Committee”, suspended the adopted clause, pending its ratification at the next meeting.

The Congress re-assured all stakeholders that “all eligible and qualified persons under the NFF Statutes are eligible to contest elections.”

Continues from BP solve statutory problems.

“The controversy surrounding the administration of football in the country originated from politics. If it were not so, then a man like Chris Giwa should have since been banned by the country’s football authorities. By now we would not have been hearing this problem cropping up every now and then,” Adebajo said.

Continuing, he said that taking football matters to civil court was enough

Iwobi Continues from BP part in the double AFCON qualifiers for the Super Eagles against Egypt in Kaduna and Alexandria in March.

The youngster who has enjoyed playing time in Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal has said that the fans thrilled him after he chose to play for Nigeria ahead of England.

“It was a difficult decision picking Nigeria over England,” Iwobi told Arsenal Player.

“England did contact me recently before I played my first competitive match for Nigeria, asking if I wanted to play for England. I’m very proud to represent

Continues from BP 4). The draw will begin at 2.30 pm tomorrow at the famous Maracana Stadium.

Nigeria are the reigning U23 African champions and based on their exploits at the Olympics where they emerged champions in Atlanta ’96 and were beaten in the gold medal final by Argentina at Beijing 2008, they have been seeded in

Giwa reason for the football federation to hand Giwa a long ban. “But they treated him with kid gloves, and instead begged him to withdraw the case from court so that he would not be banned. They promised him freedom in exchange for peace; using politics to settle statutory problem.”

He said the present problem was because “people put personalities ahead of institutions. FIFA statutes are clear but people here want to run football Nigeria but I would like to say thank you to England for the chance they gave me, it was a difficult decision.

“The love Nigeria showed me… when I played for them in a friendly, the fans were just crazy. The fans almost eat you up because they love you so much. I’m enjoying playing for them.

“When you’re getting out of the airport there are fans already there screaming ‘Arsenal, Arsenal. Gunners for life!’ and it’s just mad.

Some of them have Arsenal shirts and then others will ask me for Arsenal shirts. It’s a bit mad and the fans are crazy,” he said further.

Dream Team Pot 2.

They are fifth highest rated team at this tournament based on their performances at the last five tournaments added to the fact that they will be in Rio as African champions.

Africa’s other representatives are in lower pots – South Africa Pot 3 and Algeria 4.

Boxing Night 4.

Jenkins Alumona, Managing Director of Flykite Promotions, organisers of the event, said at a press conference that the time is ripe for the two boxers to test themselves again.

“The fight was twice shifted because of injury to Nurudeen, who is an explosive boxer in his own right. The challenger is one of the rising stars of Nigerian boxing and previous winner of the best boxer award at GOtv Boxing Night. The fight has all the ingredients of a thriller: grudge, determination, chance for glory and an eye on the N1million cash prize for the best boxer,” he said.

differently. There is so much clash of interest and those running football are all politicians.”

He said football administration had two faces. “They appear to FIFA as NFF; an independent body that is self-sustaining. But when they go to the federal government or the National Assembly to ask for money they go as Nigeria Football Association.. That is the dual personality the NFF or NFA has in Nigeria.”

He said unless, and until real club owners take over the reins of power in the football house, the confusion will continue to persist.

assassination Continues from BP the country.

“I have not seen any court order, what I got was an order dated 2014 and not 2016,” said Dalung when he declared open an extraordinary congress of the NFF in Abuja today.

The minister also blasted the country’s media, saying the more press bashing he gets, the more dogged he becomes.

“I have survived five assassination attempts, I am a guerrilla man, the more media attacks I get, the happier I am,” he said.

“I am calm and stable.”

He further enjoined the football family to mend fences and unite.

“There are so many problems and football must put their house in order.

They must narrow the gap between,” he urged.

“We are interested in your unity, talk to yourselves because investors have run away.”

Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016 — 53

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54 — Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016

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Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016—55

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Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016

I’ve survived 5 assassination attempts — Sports Minister

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IGERIAN sports minister Solomon Dalung has disclosed he has yet to receive a court order which purportedly

NFF drags Giwa, others to Disciplinary Board •Before ‘hanging’ ‘em

By Patrick Omorodion

T

HE FIFA-recognised Board of the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF yesterday took a bold step to whip into line some football stakeholders who are threatening the peace of the game in the country as it referred them to the Disciplinary Board of the Federation.

At its Extra-Ordinary

continues on page 52

sacked the executive committee of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) led by Amaju Pinnick.

Nigeria have been threatened with a ban by world football governing body FIFA if it were established of a thirdparty interference in the running of the sport in

continues on page 52

•Dalung

Rio Olympics: Dream Team may draw Argentina, Portugal, Colombia

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HE draw for the football event of the Rio Olympics will be staged in Brazil Thursday with Nigeria in Pot 2, which could see them draw the likes of Brazil (Pot 1), Portugal (Pot 3) and Colombia (Pot continues on page 52

•Siasia

Giwa should’ve been banned long ago‘ —Adebajo

By Jacob Ajom

PENSIVE: Melvin Amaju Pinnick, President of NFF reflecting on his next move after the Jos High Court ruling. Photo: Tony Ubani

Iwobi thrilled by ‘crazy’ Nigerian fans

N

IGERIA International Alex Iwobi has described the reception he got from the fans in Nigeria following the

Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers as “crazy”. The 19-year-old forward took continues on page 52

T

HE protracted legal tussle that has seen the affairs of the Nigeria Football Federation come under intense controversy for sometime now is a direct result of the manner of settlement employed by the NFF leadership when the

case first came up over a year ago.

This was the view of the proprietor of Stationery Stores Football Club of Lagos, Tilewa Adebajo as he slammed the Amaju Pinnick-led NFF board for adopting political methods in trying to

continues on page 52

•Adebajo

QUICK CROSSWORD

TODAY'S PUZZLE

YESTERDAY'S ANSWERS

ACROSS 4 Choice (5) 7 Combined (6) 9 Charge (3) 10 Offer (3) 12 Lax (5) 13 Singer (4) 15 View (5) 17 Certify (6) 19 Annum (4) 20 Contradict (5) 22 Faucet (3) 24 Venerated (7) 27 Males (3) 28 Respond (5) 31 Excuse (4) 33 Revised (6) 35 Cap (5) 37 Travelled (4) 38 Beverage (5) 39 Lair (3) 41 Employ (3) 42 Shy (6) 43 Pen (5)

DOWN 1 Uproar (6) 2 Prayer-book (6) 3 Net work (3) 4 Plague (4) 5 Pass on (5) 6 Artisan (8) 8 Plunge (4) 11 Swelled (9) 14 Agitate (4) 16 Asterisk (4) 18 Pour (4) 21 Sinner (8) 23 Saucy (4) 25 Swerve (4) 26 Caribou (4) 29 Worshipped (6) 30 Pact (6) 32 Concerning (5) 34 Detail (4) 36 Relaxation (4) 40 Present (3)

YESTERDAY'S SOLUTIONS ACROSS: 1, Chic 4, Mad 6, Arch 8, Avenge 9, Mature 10, Top 12, Creel 14, Scoff 15, Pearl 18, Writer 20, Orally 24, Total 26, Adopt 28, Greet 30, Sea 32, Gazebo 34, Mess 35, End 36, Yam.

DOWN: 2, Hover 3, Concept 4, Meet 5, Damp 6, Attic 7, Careful 11, Oar 12, Cow 13, Lee 16, Art 17, Lot 19, Radiate 21, Rag 22, Already 23, Yet 25, Ode 27, Press 29, Enter 30, Sole 31, Acid.

How to Play Sudoku

P

lace a number (1-9) in each blank cell. (No line can have two of the same number).

Each row (nine lines from left to right), column, (also nine lines from top to bottom) and 3 X 3 block within a bold block (nine blocks) contains number from 1 through 9. This means that no number can appear twice in any block, column or row.

No mathematics is involved – no adding, subtraction, division or multiplication, just plain logic and your imagination.

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