Nigerian observer 22 11 2013

THE NIGERIAN

The Nigerian

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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2013

PUBLISHED SINCE MAY 29, 1968 • Vol. 38 NO.360• FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2013 • N100.00

Senate to set up anti-money laundering, terrorism agency

RIGHT OF REPLY

Pages 16-17 Benin, not an offshoot of Yoruba Kingdom

laundering and terrorist activities scaled its second reading yesterday in the Senate.

The Executive bill was

consolidated with another bill on the same issue sponsored by Senator Victor Lar, (Plateau South)

chairman, Senate Committee on Drugs, Narcotics and Financial Crimes.

Continues on page 2

cmyk

Gov appoints caretaker chairman for Orhionmwon

By QUEENNETH A. OROBEDO

VIEW POINT

Page 21

By JOSES SEDE ABUJA - A bill for an Act to establish a Nigerian Financial Intelligence Centre to combat money

Anambra, APC and the Trojan Horse of death

BENIN CITY- Edo State Government has approved the appointment of Mr. lyobo Igharo as chairman, Caretaker committee, Orhionmwon Local Government Council. chairman of the caretaker According to a committee while the statement signed by the supervisory councilors secretary to the State and Special Assistants in Government, Prof. Julius the council would work Ihonvbere, Mr. lyobo with him as members of Igharo is to serve as

. As Obayuwana heads panel of enquiry

the caretaker committee.

The committee is to assume work immediately pending the conclusion of enquiry into the alleged unauthorized journey outside the country by the chairman, Vice Chairman

Councillors and Secretary to the Local Government Council, which led to the suspension of the officials by the State House of Assembly.

Meanwhile, a

committee of enquiry into the alleged unapproved tour by the council officials has been constituted.

In a statement also signed by the SSG, Prof Julius lhonvbere, Barr.

Osagie Obayuwana is to serve as chairman, Mr. S.O. Ohonba, Permanent Secretary Ministry of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs will Continues on page 2

... Sacks Waste Mgt GM, 281 EDSTMA

By ADAMS OYIBOKE officials

BENIN CITY – Edo State Governor, Comrade

EDO STATE

GOVERNMENT SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT Edo State Government has observed that despite several warnings in the past, some unscrupulous individuals and groups have continued to encroach on the land belonging to Edo State Broadcasting Service.

The government can no longer condone this illegality, consequently, it is hereby announced for the information of the General Public and those who have encroached on Edo Broadcasting Service (EBS) land at Aduwawa, Ivue, Auchi and other parts of the state in particular, that they are for the last time hereby given two weeks from the date of this announcement to vacate the encroached premises as failure to do so will attract severe penalties.

Signed: LOUIS ODION, HON. COMMISSIONER FOR INFORMATION AND ORIENTATION, EDO STATE

Adams Oshiomhole has dismissed the Acting General Manager/Head, Edo State Waste Management Board, Mrs. Gilian Ochugbue as well as 281 members of staff of the Edo State Traffic Management Agency for negligence and absenteeism.

Governor Oshiomhole made this known yesterday while addressing pressmen in his office, Government House, Benin City.

He said “I was shocked and disturbed when I saw how the road was turned to refuse dump every Continues on page 2

COMMISSIONING GALORE: Edo State Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole (middle), his Deputy, Rt. Hon. Pius Odubu (left) and Justice Otabor Olubor (rtd) (right) during the commissioning of 8.5km Igbanke township road in Orhionmwon Local Government Area in Edo State yesterday. Photo: CHARITY OZIGBO-ESERE.

EIRS boss clarifies double taxation

By VICTOR OMOALU

BENIN CITY – The Chairman, Edo State Internal Revenue Service, Sir (Chief) Oseni Elamah has said

double taxation emanates from multiple sources of indirect taxes; including levies and fines.

Elamah who made the clarification at a press

conference in Benin City said such indirect taxes range from levies on drivers licence, road

worthiness, hackney permit, business permit as well as other sources of revenue.

formally Commissioned an 8.5 km Igbanke Township Road in

Orhionmwon Local Government Area.

The road which

Oligie and Olubu street has 150 mm thickness, Continues on page 2

Oshiomhole commissions road, Osagie Street, school projects covered hospital road, Igbunku, BENIN CITY-Edo

By ADAMS OYIBOKE

State Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole yesterday

Chief Elamah who pointed out that even the law frowned against double taxation said EIRS mandate is to ensure that relevant laws/policies regarding the various tax laws are properly implemented.

He clarified that the main tax laws operational at the state level are federal government laws which Continues on page 2

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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2013

News

Senate to set up anti-money laundering, Continued from page 1 and take pro-active steps to terrorism agency prevent negative He urged the Senate to pass the Bill to remove Nigeria from the Financial Action Task Force targeted list, a list of countries that are considered unsafe or highrisk jurisdiction due to certain observed institutional and operational deficiencies Senator Lar explained that the implication of being on the list is that Nigerian businessmen and women seeking financial instruments and facilities outside the country or from international financial institutions cannot

get them.

Lar listed some observed operational and institutional deficiencies to include deficient anti —money laundering act, weak antiterrorism Act, absence of an independent financial intelligence unit, absence of mutual legal assistance Act, absence of proceed of crime/ Asset recovery and management body and absence of whistle Blowers Act. Senate Leader, victor

Ndoma-Egba, in his led debate noted that financial intelligence is a law enforcement strategy employed by governments around the world to gather information in relation to cash arid currency transactions in financial system within and across national boundaries.

Ndoma-Egba said that such information gathering is necessary to understand the nature and capabilities of financial transactions as well as to predict their intentions

consequences.

He noted that currently, the country has financial intelligence unit domiciled within the Economic and Financial Crimes commission (EFCC) as an autonomous unit. He explained that the shortcoming of the unit as currently constituted and operated is that it is domiciled in the EFCC as an administrative unit with limited level of capacity and autonomy to effectively carry out its functions.

contract reached with Igbanke people by the Comrade Governor.

According to Barr. Osifo “Edo State before the Comrade Governor took over was in position of shame.

“Today, it is clear that promises are not only made but can now be fulfilled.

He sued for the continuous support of the people for the state government.

Goodwill messages were delivered by community leaders including Justice C.O.

Olubor (rtd), president Customary Court of Appeal, Elder Benjamin Oghumu and Prof. Paul Erieye of the Ambrose Alli University (A.A.U), Ekpoma amongst others.

The commissioning ceremony were graced by top government functionaries”, All progressive Congress (A.P.C) Chieftains within and outside the local government, Traditional rulers, market women and students.

Igbanke Mixed Secondary School was established in 1980 by the then government of late Prof. Ambrose Alli.

and called on the officials of War Against Indiscipline and transport officials to cooperate with the new commissioner, Mr. Orobosa Omo-Ojo to bring sanity to the roads.

He further reminded officials of the Ministry of Transport, Environment and Public Utilities of the law guiding traffic control adding that anyone caught using the Oba Ovoramwen square as car park, collection of passengers will be arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned if found guilty.

He implored the Permanent Secretary Ministry of Environment and Public Utilities as well as all the directors to brace up to their responsibilities stressing that he would not tolerate any bureaucratic bottleneck in service delivery.

According to the Governor, “I am not for bureauracy, I am for result. I have no patience

streets, everywhere I drive through, the road is turned to refuse dump”.

Nobody is doing anything to ensure free flow of traffic, yet at the end of the month, you want your salary paid. I am going to ruthlessly use the rod and the carrot”, he warned.

He however reminded shop owners that the road or walkway are not meant for the sales of tomatoes.

“Our roads are not shops and poverty is not an excuse, it is not synonymous to madness.

He stressed that any goods or wares confisticated will be destroyed and vehicles impounded will be towed to Government House where owners would be made to pay for hour including the prescribed traffic fine and advised officials of EDSTMA and WAI to operate on shift duty to ensure 24 hours surveillance on the roads in Benin City.

Oshiomhole commissions road, school projects

Continued from page 1 7.5 m pavement with side drains at both sides of the road.

Addressing the mammoth Crowd that gathered at the commissioning of the road, Governor Oshiomhole extolled the human character of the people of Igbanke Community.

According to him “In the administration of justice, God has used this community to produce eminent jurist.

“This community has produced and is producing very senior military officers who have committed their lives to defending the territorial integrity of Nigeria not only in the past even in the now”, he said.

He said “in truth our people have suffered needlessly because of greed of leadership and having accepted and adopted me in to Igbanke, let me acknowledge how happy I am today.

He said “your ‘presence before the flag-off and the commissioning of the project today, shows how much you care about your place of birth and anyone who doesn’t know where he comes from can’t possibly know where he is going”.

He used the occasion to approve another 2.5 km road to be constructed in Igbanke community.

Besides, Governor Oshiomhole also commissioned a reconstructed 5 blocks of 3 classrooms each at Igbanke Mixed Secondary School.

Governor Oshiomhole while commissioning the reconstructed school with the state of the art facilities said “the only way we can secure our tomorrow is to invest on the youths stressing that the youths are the leaders of tomorrow.

He however maintained that government will not dabble into retaining adhoc staff of the school maintaining that the teachers Auditing will continue in order to flush out ghost workers and unqualified one’s before new ones would be

employed.

He promised to provide bore-hole water facility for the newly reconstructed school and enjoined community leaders, teachers and students to watch over the school facilities against vandals.

Earlier in his address, the commissioner for Tertiary and Technical Education, Barr.

Washington Osifo described the reconstructed Igbanke Mixed Secondary School as a fulfillment of the social

... Sacks Wast Mgt GM, 281 EDSTMA for inefficient bureaucratic officials bottle-neck. You go to the where I visited”.

Continued from page 1

While lamenting the traffic situation at Oba Ovonranmwen square, Comrade Oshiomhole said “We will sack as many workers that are not willing to work and employ as many as are ready and willing to do the job”.

Anyone who doesn’t take his or her job seriously will loose the job. Those members of staff of EDSTMA totaling 281 who stay at home believing to get their salaries at the end of the month stand dismissed.

According to him, “wages are not awarded out of pity but the result of hard work”, he stressed.

He said “nothing in the system will save those that are not ready to work, even though you are an A.P.C card carrying member, you delivered your ward, you must work or else you loose the job, he maintained.

Governor Oshiomhole who expressed sadness at the environmental situation in the state capital and the indiscriminate parking of vehicles by motorists along the road said Government has a duty to ensure free flow of traffic in the state capital.

He warned officials of the ministry of transport and environment on what he described as show of shame

Gov appoints caretaker chairman for Orhionmwon serve as secretary while Mr.

Continued from page 1

Peter Ekhator and Mr. Andrew Eghadon are to serve as members of the four man committee.

The committee is saddled with the responsibility of investigating and establishing the veracity or otherwise of the

alleged journey of the council officials outside the country without due approval.

The committee is equally expected to conclude and submit its report within one month for onward transmission to the State House of Assembly.

EIRS boss clarifies double taxation Continued from page 1

w ere

promulgated during the colonial era.

According to him, the EIRS has organized various seminars aimed at educating, enlightening and sanitizing the people on

tax administration in the state.

The EIRS boss stated that under the personal Income Tax Act (PITA), the law requires all eligible tax payers to file in their annual returns to the tax authority for

assessment while the pay AS you Earn (PAYE) tax law requires employers to file in and deduct all emoluments of their employees and remit same to the government.

Failure to comply with

relevant laws, he said, amounts to tax invasion and a criminal act in the sight of the law.

He also disclosed that the law does not discriminate against anybody, irrespective of status in the society.

Ihonvbere eulogises former HOS

By QUEENNETH A. OROBEDO BENIN CITY – Secretary to Edo State Government (SSG), Prof.

Julius Ihonvbere has said the exemplary leadership of the immediate past state Head of Service (HOS) Princess (Mrs.) Ekiuwa Inneh would be remembered for a long time.

He stated this yesterday in Government House, during the handing over ceremony of the former HOS to the SSG at a brief ceremony in Government House in the absence of a successor.

Describing her humility, courage, commitment to the values of public service, and dedication as exemplary, the SSG expressed optimism that her vast knowledge and experience is such that could be drawn from in the future.

Prof Ihonvbere congratulated her for serving efficiently and wished her greater heights.

Former Head of Service, Edo State, Princess (Mrs.) Ekiuwa Inneh said she retired voluntarily from the State Civil Service upon clocking the age of 60 years.

Iyase of Benin, Odubu, others extol Princess Oronsaye at 90

By BERNADETTE IDALU BENIN CITY – As tributes streamed in extolling her sterling qualities, Princess Mrs. Katherine Oronsaye founder of the Oronsaye Orphanage and Maternity Home in Benin City used the occasion instead to urge youths to imbibe the virtue of humility.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with The Nigeria OBSERVER, the nonagenerian in whose honour a biographical book entitled, “Princess and Legend at 90: Biography of Princess Lady DR. MRS Katherine Aiyevbekpen Oronsaye, MFR, D. Sc. JP,” was being unveiled at the Samuel Ogbemudia indoor sports Hall to coincide with her birthday stated that she felt happy and humbled by the twin celebration, put together in her honour.

The celebrant going down memory lane, traced the establishment of her Orphanage Hone to her experience with orphans at the Sacred Heart Hospital where orphasn resident in a

big hall clinged to her and did not want her to go whenever she was around them.

This she noted stirred up the desire and subsequent provision of succour to such kids.

The occasion drew an array of people born in the maternity home and some former inmates of the orphanage who put in good words even as it was revealed that all inmates bear the matriarchs surname which made them children, not orphans.

The chairman of the occasion and Iyase of Benin, Chief Sam Igbe, Wife of Edo State Deputy Governor, Mrs. Endurance Odubu paid glowing tributes to the celebrant.

Also present at the occasion were Ovbioba Edun Akenzua-Enogie of Obasuwa; Profession Greg Akenzua; Professor and Profesor (Mrs) Emovon; Professor P.E. Igbinovia, Mr. Victor Osarenren and an array of friends and well wishers.

Edo CJ constitutes 2nd LG Election Petition Tribunal BENIN CITY – The Chief Judge of Edo State, Hon. Justice Cromwell O. Idahosa has constituted the second Edo State Local Government Election Petition Tribunal.

The Tribunal is to be chaired by Hon. Justice Alero Edodo-Eruaga with Hon. Justice E.O. Ahamioje and Hon. Justice Stella Uwuigbe serving as 1st and

2nd members.

A statement issued yesterday and endorsed

by Chief Registrar, H.I. Enemaku Esq said the constitution of the second Edo State Local Government Election Petition Tribunal was in line with the provision of section 83 of the Edo State Local Government Electoral law, 2012 (as amended).

Edo APC women meet Nov 25 BENIN CITYA

sensitization meeting of women of the All Progressive Congress (APC) in Edo State has been scheduled for Monday, November 25, 2013.

A statement endorsed

by Edo APC Women Leader Princess Modino Emovon, (JP) and made available to The NIGERIAN OBSERVER

yesterday indicates that the meeting will hold at the APC State Secretariat, 72A Airport Road, in Benin City at 10 am.

It stressed that the agenda of the meeting is how to move the great party APC, forward and sensitization towards m e m b e r s h i p registration.

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South South Devt: Chief

Delta To Pay N150m Counterpart Fund For SEEFOR Projects

Priest Lauds Edo Govt

By JOEL CHUKWUAGHONIM

I G B A N K E (ORHIONMWON) – The Chief Priest of Nwa-Obu in Igbanke Community, Orhionmwon Local Government Area of Edo State, Dr. Samson Ozabor Igwaran has lauded the State Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and Deputy, Dr. Pius Egberamwen Odubu for their developmental strides.

Dr. Igwaran in a chat with The NIGERIAN OBSERVER in Benin City, said the Oshiomhole led government has done a lot to reposition infrastructure across the state.

While urging him to sustain the tempo, he called on the electorate to contribute their quota to the development efforts in order to get more democratic dividend.

He also appealed to traditional rulers in Igbanke Community to complement the administration’s efforts in giving greater sence of belonging to people in the locality.

Governor Adams Oshiomhole directing the Commissioner for Transport, Hon. Orobosa Omo-Ojo to impound vehicles causing road obstruction in Benin City during his inspection of on-going road projects in Benin City.

the council also approved N122 million for the rehabilitation and routine maintenance of 40 rural water schemes in the state.

“The council approved the sum of N432million for the rehabilitation of Otor-Oweh road in Isoko North Local Government Area of the state. “ Another N386million was approved by the council for the rehabilitation of Osubi Township Road also in Udu Local Government Area of the state,’’ he added.

Ogeah explained that the council approved immediate 25 per cent down payment for all the projects, except SEEFOR.

Delta Approves N15m For Co-op Societies ASABA – The Delta State government has approved N15 million for cooperative societies in the state as part of efforts to encourage their activities.

The state’s Commissioner for Women Affairs, Community and Social Development, Chief Betty Efekodha, announced the approval in Asaba while

Health Officers Elect

By INNOCENT OMOAKA Exco PORT HARCOURT – A new executive has been elected for the Environmental Health Officers Association of Nigeria (EHOAN).

The election held during the association’s 46th Annual National Conference and Scientific Workshop in Port Harcourt Rivers State.

Prince Peter Uwagbale from Edo State emerged National President of the Association which Gimba Musa was elected National Deputy President.

Other executive members elected at the conference included, Nuhu Solomon, National Vice President, North Central, Samada Sam, National Vice President, North West, Mohammed Aminu, National Vice President, North East, Okwuagwu Felix, National Vice President, South South and Ogunsolu Saburi as National Vice President, South West.

Others are; Sanni Barije, National Public Relations Officer, Ogungbenro Ayoade, National Treasurer, Ngaraku Latebo, National Auditor, George Sidney, Financial Secretary, Kilakine John, National Provost and Tanko Sulaim Sulaman as Acting National General Secretary.

Speaking on behalf of the new executive members, Prince Uwagbale assured Nigerians of his determination to promote cleanliness and healthiness in the country and make it free of cholera and other diseases.

He called on members of the association to collaborate with the newly elected executive to improve on the sanitation of the country through he implementation of the rebranding and sustainable

ASABA - Delta Government has approved the payment of N150 million counterpart fund for the State Employment Expenditure for Results (SEEFOR), a World Bankassisted project in the state.

The Commissioner for Information, Mr Chike Ogeah, announced this while briefing journalists on the outcome of the state executive council meeting.

Ogeah said that the council approved N188 million for the rehabilitation of Delta Steal Company (DSC) Township Road in Udu Local Government Area of the state.

The commissioner said that

agenda of the executive.

In a related development, Inenemoh Frank, a Senior Lecturer and Head of Department, Environment Health, Edo State School of Health Technology in Benin City has decred the poor environmental sanitation in Nigeria, saying it remains one of Nigeria’s greatest challenges.

He disclosed this during the celebration of the 2013 World Environment Health Day with the theme: “The Emerging Environmental Health Risks and Challenges for Tomorrow”.

addressing newsmen.

Efekodha also said 51 cooperative societies benefitted from the federal government’s Women Fund for Economic Empowerment (WOFEE) programme in the last three years.

She said that WOFEE was an initiative of the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs in collaboration with the Nigeria Agricultural Cooperative and Rural Development Bank (NACRDB).

The commissioner said the programme aimed to channel micro-credits to grassroots women groups through the state ministries of women affairs.

According to her, 51 cooperative groups in the state fulfilled the requirements to access the facility and got N300,000 each in the last three years.

She also said the Delta government through her ministry had empowered 237 widows under its “Grant to Widow Living with HIV/AIDS’’ initiative.

Clergy Charges Christians On God’s Blessings

By MORRISON HAYBLE AUCHI – Christians have been changed to exploit the benefit of God’s abundant blessings to mankind by striving to understand his language through constant relationship with him in prayers.

General Overseer, Omega Fire Ministries International Headquarters, Auchi, Apostle Johnson Suleman gave the charge in a sermon on “how to work with God”.

Apostle Suleman, using the biblical Elijah as example of a man who understood the language of God and communicated with him explained that this made him (Elijah) to be exalted more than a king.

The man of God observed that everyone has the gift of God to work with but expressed disappointment that many Christians were often ignorant of this wonderful gift of God because they are. Talking his text

from the Bible book of James 5:17, Apostle Suleman underscored unwavering faith in God as Elijah’s element of dominion that enabled him overcome tribulations.

He pointed out that if God could back Elijah who was nobody, he could also do same for the present believes as long as they toed his path.

While noting that Christians have the responsibility to initiate change in their situation, he emphasized that the option remained with the individual, either to take a decision to change a particular situation or allow it persist as it were.

Suleman therefore admonished Christians against keeping wrong company, pointing out that some people who perished in unfortunate circumstances, though might be innocent, received the wrath for belonging to the wrong company.

Efekodha said the programme was designed to boost the financial status of the widows and enable them to take care of themselves and their children.

“Since the programme was initiated in 2004, at least 237 widows have benefited from it

and in 2012 alone, 30 persons benefited from this programme,’’ she said.

She said no fewer than 150 students had benefited from the Delta State Residential Rehabilitation Life Skill Acquisition Programme since it

was inaugurated in 2009.

She said it was initiated for young girls who, for one reason or another, were not able to complete their secondary education.

The commissioner explained that such girls were trained in various skills that could assist them to be self-reliant such as fish farming and computer appreciation.

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News 3.4m Nigerians Live ABUJA - Prof. John Idoko, With HIV the Managing Director,

L-R: Ambassador Isaac Femi Okuo, Ag. Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Information and Orientation, Edo State receiving an award from the President, Association of christians in authority, from Pastor Efosa Idahosa. PHOTO: SOLOMON ENAIGBE.

Expert Links Nigeria’s ICT Devt To Schools Interconnectivity

ABUJA - Prof. Adenike Osofisan, a professor of Computer Science, said that for Nigeria to record meaningful ICT development and deployment, schools must be interconnected.

Osofisan made the observation in Abuja when she presented a keynote address at a national conference on ICT in education with the theme, “Technology-Driven Education; Trends, Challenges and Opportunities’’.

According to her, institutions can share best practice if they are interlinked through ICT, and students will benefit more if they also share knowledge through ICT. “It will increase critical thinking of students and enable them to communicate more effectively,’’ said Osofisan who is the first black female professor

of Computer Science in Africa.

The don expressed the need for paradigm shift from “muscle power to brain power, using ICT’’, adding that students should be encouraged to develop critical thinking through innovations.

Osofisan urged stakeholders in the education sector to encourage the use of social media for the development of students’ knowledge.

“Social media can contribute to youth development if put to good and effective use.

“People, however, downplay the positive side of social media and often play up the negative side.

“Every technology comes with its negative side; we would do ourselves a world of good if we pay more attention to the positive side and exploit the potential of social media,’’ Osofisan said.

Mr. Sikiru Shehu, the Registrar of Computer Professionals Registration Council of Nigeria, said: “The time is now to chart a new course for ICT in the country.

“We must take our destiny into our own hands; we cannot afford to be indifferent to the development of ICT in our education.’’

Mr. Osita Iweze, the representative of Huawei Company, Broad Band providers to telecommunication outfits, said the company believed Nigeria could improve its human capital only through effective deployment of ICT. Iweze said the company would collaborate with the Ministry of Education and other relevant agencies to achieve the goal.

The two-day conference, aimed at addressing ICT

NOA Board Wants Nat’l Recognition For Community Support Brigade ABUJA - The newly appointed board members of the National Orientation Agency (NOA) have called on the Federal Government to give recognition to the Community Support Brigade (CSB) of the agency.

This is contained in a statement issued by the Chief Press Secretary of the agency, Mr. Paul Odenyi, in Abuja.

The statement said that the brigade should be institutionalised to enable it operate as similar bodies such as the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC).

The newly appointed board members of the agency canvassed this view at the inauguration of the board, and pledged their commitment to the task of moving the agency toward the achievement of its mandate in building a new

nation.

According to the statement, the rising need for peace and security in the country has made it necessary and compelling to give recognition to the brigade to beef up the strength of the work force of peace builders in the country.

It noted that the brigade had been actively involved in building and maintaining a peaceful, orderly and disciplined society since its days as War Against Indiscipline (WAI) Brigade.

In his inaugural address, the Board Chairman, Lt.- Col. Paul Obi, a former military administrator commended the Federal Government for bringing to the board members with diverse experience and background.

“This rich composition of the

new NOA board will impact positively on the activities of the board as it avails the agency the wisdom of members in the drive toward fostering national unity and vibrant and robust nation.

In his address, the NOA Director General, Mr. Mike Omeri said the inauguration of the board had brought a new vista of hope to the agency as it strives toward national transformation.

Omeri said that the agency had established a liaison office at the National Assembly, rebranded the WAI Brigade to the Community Support Brigade and commenced the construction of state directorate offices in three states.

He, however, stressed the need for subsequent annual national budgets to address the shortfall in the funding of the agency.

challenges in education, was organised in collaboration with the British Council, Microsoft, Huawei, TETFund, and NUC.

National Agency for Control of AIDS (NACA), said 3.4 million Nigerians are living with HIV of which 58.0 per cent are women.

Idoko gave the figure at the end of a two-day Biomedical HIV Prevention Forum in Abuja.

He was represented at the occasion by Dr Morenike Ukpong, Coordinator, New HIV Vaccine and Microbicide Advocacy Society.

Idoko said there was a need for biomedical prevention technologies because the decline in new infections was much slower in adults than in children.

He said that an estimate of 388, 864 people became newly-infected by HIV in 2011, and that 217,148 people died from AIDS-related causes in 2011.

He said that donor funding accounted for 75 per cent of the expenditure in 2011.

According to him, there is prediction that new cases may

rise in Nigeria from rapid population growth because of the recent increase in Mozambique and Tanzania.

“To keep pace with current spending, 30 billion U.S. dollars is required by 2031.

“Where is that money going to come from?”

He said that nationwide prevalence stabilised around four per cent but 12 + one state carried higher burden and Nigeria was behind target in several important indicators.

Mr Bright Ekweremadu, the Country Director, Society for Family Health, an NGO, said that establishing priority populations to be targeted and identifying appropriate intervention strategies were among the primary mandate for HIV prevention funding.

According to him, intervention to promote accelerated antirethroviral therapy (ART) remained one of the most important scientific advances in HIV program intervention.

A cross section of members of Association of Christians in Authority. (L-R): Pastor Alfred Edobor (Vice President) Evang. Ido Imojiabe Happy (Treasurer) and (Evang) Johnbull Idemudia. PHOTO: SOLOMON ENAIGBE.

New EHOAN President Pledges Cleaner, Healthier Nigeria LOKOJA - Mr. Peter Uwagbale, the newly elected National President of the Environmental Health Officers Association of Nigeria (EHOAN), has pledged to ensure a cleaner and healthier environment in Nigeria.

Uwagbale made the pledge in an interview with newsmen in Lokoja.

He attributed the prevalence of most diseases in the country to poor attitude towards environmental health.

“I promise to present a cleaner and healthier Nigeria to Nigerians, where cholera and meningitis will never thrive again.

“This will be done through a

new re-branding process being championed by EHOAN.” The president urged Nigerians to take environmental health more seriously.

He reiterated the association’s resolve to launch an awareness programmes on the need for people to maintain environmental health, personal hygiene and general cleanliness.

Uwagbale solicited the cooperation of Nigerians in the association’s drive to ensure a healthy environment.

Uwagbale was elected alongside 12 other executive officers at the 46th Annual National Conference and Scientific Workshop, held on

November 15 in Port-Harcourt, Rivers.

Other elected officers were Garba Musa, Deputy National President, Nuhu Anyegwu, Vice President (North Central); Samaila Sam, V-P (North West); Mohammed Aminu (North East) and Okuagwu Felix (SouthSouth).

Others are Ogunsolu Saburi, VP (South-West); Suleiman Tanko, General Secretary; Ogungbenro Ayoade, National Treasurer and George Sydney, Financial Secretary.

Also among the executive are Sani Barije, Publicity Secretary, Kilakime John and Ngalakul Latebo, auditors.

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Inside Edo

Association Honours Info

Lagos Street Residents Decry Activities Of Street Traders

Commissioner

By VICTOR IMADE/SUCCESS OSAYI

By ESTHER JOSEPH/ BEAUTY OBAMWONYI/ ROSELYN IGHARO

BENIN CITY – Residents of Lagos Street, opposite Oba Market, Benin City have called on the Edo State Government to come to their aid over the crowded nature of the area.

Speaking with The Nigerian OBSERVER in Benin City, the residents lamented on the crowded nature of the street as a result of the activities of traders who display their wares on the road thereby obstructing free flow of movement.

Mrs. Oluwatoyin Osagie urged the government to make provision for stores that would accommodate them inside the market as a way of decongesting Lagos Street.

Mr. Joseph, a commercial bus driver, added that the crowded nature of the street has made movement of traffic nearly impossible, and therefore, called for an immediate solution so as to ease their plight.

A student who does not want his name on print said the government officials charged with the responsibility of clearing the area of street traders do little or nothing to salvage the situation.

He however, called for serious monitoring of the officials activities in order to ease the burdens of the pedestrians and motorists.

Edo State Governor Comrade Adams Oshiomhole addressing the DPO New Benin Police Station during his visit to the area. PHOTO: CHARITY OZIGBO-ESERE.

Clergy Urges Believers To Cultivate The Attitude Of Thanksgiving

By ROLAND OSAKUE/ INNOCENT OMOAKA

BENIN CITY (IHINMWINRIN) – The General Overseer of Christ Chosen Church of God (CCCG) World-wide, Most Senior Apostle Joshua Osasuyi has enjoined Christians, irrespective of their denomination to cultivate the attitude of offering thanks to God for his immeasurable protection.

P4P Elects Exco

By CLIFFORD AGBAJOR BENIN CITY – Partners for Peace (P4P), Edo State has elected a substantive executive to pilot its affairs for the next two years.

The election which took place in Benin City led to the emergence of Rosemary Okwuobi, as Chairman; Nosa Amayo, Vice-Chairman; Clifford Agbajor, Secretary; Hope Akachue, Assistant Secretary, and Pastor Morakinyo Ojo as Treasure.

Others are, Comrade Moses Otote, Finance Officer; Eugene Okoeguale, Public Relations Officer (P.R.O.); Zik Igbadi, Research, Documentation and Planning Officer and Agatha Osieke, welfare Officer.

P4P is a programme of the foundation for partnership Initiative in the Niger Delta (PIND).

PIND is a non-profit making organization established to create social and economic development opportunities in the Niger Delta region through dynamic growth and

development.

P4P was formally launched on August 29, 2013, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

BENIN CITY - Apostle Osasuyi who spoke through Pastor Sunday Okpeye in a message at the Children’s Ingathering Harvest of CCCG, Ihimwinrin Branch I in Benin City urged Christians to be humble and appease God with thanksgiving.

The spiritual leader who entitled the message, “Thanksgiving” took text from the book of Luke 17”12-19 noted that, selfishness and disobedience are obstacles that stalls the blessings from God. He therefore urged the

congregation to shun acts that promote ignorance of the scriptures, saying they account for the prevalence of decadence in the society.

Apostle Osasuyi also, charged Christian parents to be committed to the proper upbringing of their children and wards as commanded by the scriptures in order to make a better society.

While describing children as true gifts from God, Apostle Osasuyi admonished the congregation not to spare the rod, rather, to openly rebuke their wards whenever they deviate from the scriptural perspective.

Pastor Sunday Okpeye

BENIN CITY – The Association of Christians in Authority (ACA), south-south zone has honoured the Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Hon. Louis Odion with an award of excellence.

President of the Association, Pastor Efosa. Idahosa who presented the award stated that it was in recognition of Hon. Odion’s hardwork and achievements so far in office.

Pastor Idahosa, noted that the association celebrates and honour deserting citizens, saying that award ceremony marks the associations 6th edition and anniversary celebrations/Honouring ceremony.

According to the Pastor, the commissioner’s contributions through his philanthropic disposition and his humanitarian services was obviously from heart.

He praised the Commissioner’s prowess in information dissemination since assumption of office and therefore sued for its sustenance.

On his part, the commissioner, represented by the Acting Permanent Secretary in the Ministry, Ambassador Isaac Femi Okwo, expressed happiness for being found worthy of the honour.

The commission also stressed the importance of the award, lauding its meritocracy and honesty, especially coming from a Christian body.

LG Opens Tenders Bid

AUCHI – The Tenders Board of Etsako West Local Government Council of Edo State has opened tenders bid for 71 contracts to be awarded in the locality.

The occasion was witnessed by the Executive Director, Project Monitoring, Governor’s Office and his counterpart, the zonal

Heap of Refuse dumped at the middle of Mission Road in Benin City by traders of New Benin Market. PHOTO: CHARITY OZIGBO-ESERE.

Director, Deputy Governor’s Office as well as the various contractors bidding for the contracts.

Projects bidded for include construction and renovation of classroom blocks, constructions of blocks of open market stalls, drilling of water bore-holes and rehabilitation of dilapidated roads.

The tenders, after due process were evaluated and recommended to the legislative arm for consideration.

A five man evaluation committee that would ensure machinery was set in motion for the project execution was announced by the Vice Chairman of the council, Hon. Idaro Mohammed Alasan, who stood in for the council chairman, Hon. Osaro Obazee.

The committee is made up of the Vice Chairman of the council, Administration Officer, Director of Works, the council Accountant and the supervisor for Health.

Hon. Idaro Alasan had charged the various stakeholders involved in the award and execution of the contracts to be diligent and upright in the discharge of their duties so as to justify the focus of the present administration in the state.

THE NIGERIAN

7

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2013

Lagos Doctors Advise Colleagues On Regular Medical Check-Up LAGOS - Two medical experts in Lagos urged doctors to also seek medical care to stay healthy and avoid sudden death.

They told newsmen in separate interviews that many doctors were busy taking care of patients without considering their own health.

Dr. Kay Adesola, National Secretary, Association of General and Private Medical Practitioners of Nigeria (AGPMPN), said that recent record showed that many doctors had died prematurely.

Adesola said that it was autopsy that usually revealed that such doctors had certain ailments which were not treated or properly managed.

According to him, most doctors go about their daily activities without knowing they have health challenges, and those who were aware of their health status do not find time to go for medical investigations.

Adesola said that most physicians were “caught up” in the trivialities of medical practice which affected their health mentally and physically.

He explained, that doctors worked longer hours, see more patients to ensure that they provide solutions to patients’

health needs, as well as make ends meet.

“Our patients respect us by hanging- on to every word we say. They depend on our advice and expertise to stay healthy and

alive,” he said.

Adesola, however, advised doctors to place priority on their health status as they do with their patients.

Dr Kofo Dabiri,a

physicians were exposed to occupational hazards, adding that their daily operations affected their emotional, psychological and physical wellbeing.

The SSA (Media) to the Edo State Governor, Rapid Response Agency, Hon. Austin Braimoh (left) was recently honoured with the chieftancy title of Akwamiri (the Bridge) of the Igbos in Edo by the Igbo Community in Edo North, at a ceremony in Ibie, Etsako West to mark their New Yam Festival. Here, the Ebubedike I of Oru, Chief Felix Okeke (2nd left) the Olowu and Ikemba of Oru, Chief Nwafor, and Chief Samuel Chuks-Ebekoedike perform the traditional beading and cap wearing on the celebrant.

Man, 32, Docked For Forgery

LAGOS - A 32-year-old man, Sodiq Oyetunde, has appeared before a Surulere Chief Magistrates’ Court in Lagos, charged with stealing a cheque and attempting to withdraw N150,000.

Oyetunde, who resides at No. 6 Eletu St., Isale Eko, Lagos is facing a three-count charge of being in possession, forgery and attempt to steal a cheque.

He, however, pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The Prosecutor, Cpl. Jimah Iseghede, told the court that the accused on November 13, went to Cedar Micro Finance Bank (MFB) with a forged cheque and attempted to steal N150,000.

According to the prosecutor, the accused stole a Cedar MFB cheque leaf, belonging to BUMAG Ventures Ltd., and forged the owners’ signature.

He said that the accused was apprehended when he went to the bank to withdraw N150,000 from the company’s account.

The prosecutor said that the offences, committed at the bank’s premises at No. 114 Itire Road, Surulere, contravened Sections 327, 363, and 404 of the Criminal Code, Laws of Lagos State.

The Magistrate, Mrs. A.F. Adeeyo, granted the accused bail in the sum of N80,000 with a surety in like sum.

She said that the surety should be employed, with his address and means of tax payment verified.

Adeeyo adjourned the case to December 28 for mention.

paediatrician, said that most doctors were victims of extreme psychological distress and heart disease.

Dabiri said that most

Hon. Austin Braimoh (right) tastes the traditional new yam delicacy with Chief Nnamdi Obiora, the Akunwafor I of Oru after his installation as Akwamiri (bridge) of the Igbos in Edo.

Institute Appeals To Jonathan To Sign Bill

LAGOS - Nigerian Institute for Food Science and Technology (NIFST) has urged President Goodluck Jonathan to assent to the Nigerian Council of Food Science and Technology (NCFST) bill.

The appeal was contained in a communiqué issued by the National Publicity Secretary of NIFST, Ms Blessing Onojeide, and made available to in Lagos.

The communique said that this was the most important recommendations made at the 37th Annual Conference and General meeting of NIFST which took place in Abuja between October 22 and October 26.

It said that the bill had been passed by both the upper and lower houses of the National Assembly and required only the Presidential assent to become a law.

“The President and

Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces, Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, is requested to kindly give assent to the establishment of the Nigerian Council of Food Science and Technology bill.

“This is to ensure that properly trained and registered professionals are engaged in the critical control areas of food safety, monitoring and enforcement,” the communiqué said.

The communiqué said that the Nigerian Government should establish as a matter of urgency a unified policy and legislation on food safety.

It urged the government to provide adequate framework for the monitoring and enforcement of food safety

laws.

The conference participants urged government to support relevant agencies to promote production of food products that would meet international standard.

“Government and the private sector should engage qualified food Science and technology professionals to monitor and enforce food safety laws and issues,`` the communiqué urged.

It observed that the farm-totable food supply chain in Nigeria was commendable, but the process was slow.

The participants also agreed that recent trends showed that Nigeria was experiencing an increase in the establishment of

cottage and small scale food enterprises.

“About 70 per cent of our population are rural small- scale farmers.

“Food vendors, backyard farm practices and similar food trade provides employment opportunities for urban and preurban unemployed.

“However, most of those involved in these emerging businesses are ignorant of the principles and importance of globally accepted food safety practices, thus creating risk concerns for local and international consumers,” the communiqué said.

It said that food safety management was playing an increasingly dominant role in governance and no country could afford to ignore the current and emerging trends in food safety.

“Doctors are not heartless; their failures weigh heavily on them.

“We deal with lots of trauma such as psychological, and physical trauma which affect the way we work and our health”, she said.

Dabiri advised each medical practitioner to be a patient to another doctor to stay healthy and work efficiently, as well as prevent sudden death.

“Most doctors believed that it was a bit embarrassing to be a patient of another doctor which is why they hesitated to seek care.

“Some of them forget that when they are not healthy, it can affect their ability to deliver the best possible care needed by their patients,” she said.

2015 General Election Bleak Lawmaker

LAGOS - The Chairman, House Committee on Information, Strategy, Security and Publicity of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Hon. Segun Olulade has expressed strong fear over the capacity of the present administration to conduct free and fair elections for Nigerians in 2015.

He said that the nation has just witnessed what he described as ‘failed election conduct’ in Anambra State last weekend, adding that it shows that there will be bleak 2015 election.

In a statement issued in his office, Hon. Olulade who called for outright cancellation of Anambra election said “the fact that the INEC Chairman, Prof. Attairu Jega, has accepted that his electoral mechanism was compromised shows that the process has failed”.

Hon. Olulade was reacting to the inconclusive election in Anambra State where APGA’s Candidate, Mr. Willie Obiano, was speculated to be leading candidate.

Olulade lamented that “such high level rigging and electoral ineptitude demonstrated by INEC is a clear statement to the entire nation that 2015 general election is unsure to be free and fair”. He stated further that irregularities that marred the election was too obvious and has clearly given the nation an electoral set back before the whole world. He said that if what we are experiencing continues that way, the INEC and present administration are gradually calling for anarchy.

The lawmaker said the recent development is nothing but a national embarrassment.

“In electoral history, I have never seen where a section of the state where a popular candidate has his strong hold, was outrightly marginalized.

Olulade remarked that a candidate of a particular party and his entire family were removed from voters’ registers.

THE NIGERIAN

8

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2013

Across The Nation Girl-Child Education NAWOJ Embarks On Sensitisation Campaign ILORIN - The National Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ), Kwara Chapter, embarked on a sensitisation walk to educate the public on the need to educate the girlchild.

Hajia Binta Mora, the Chairman of the association, said the walk was to mark the International Day for the Girl-Child.

She also said the event was coinciding with the celebration of the 2013 Press Week of the association in the state.

Women journalists, according to her, were passionate about girl-child education in the country.

She said NAWOJ had launched initiatives dedicated to achieving equity in access to educational opportunities for girls across the country.

Mora restated the commitment of the organisation to supporting girl-child education in the country.

“We believe in the power of education to change not only a girl, but the world,’’ she added.

She further said that the event was not just to celebrate the International Day of the Girl-Child, but to focus on the need to break down barriers that limit girls and women.

“By hosting an International Day of The Girl-Child event in Kwara, we are demonstrating our commitment to breaking down the barriers that prevent girls in the state and indeed Nigeria from going to school.

“Such barriers like child marriage, sex trafficking, gender violence and discrimination are detrimental to the girl-child,” she said.

She noted that some parts of the country record as low as 7.8 per cent female enrolment in schools.

Mora urged government and other stakeholders to rededicate themselves to the cause of girl-child education.

The walk featured journalists carrying placards with various inscriptions such as ‘‘Stop Discrimination against Girl-Child Education” and “When you Educate a Girl-Child, You Educate the Nation.’’

ASUU Chairman, Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUT), Prof. Gab Agu and other ASUU members signing the condolence register in honour of the former ASUU President, Prof. Festus Iyayi, at ESUT Permanent Site, Agbani in Enugu recently.

Proprietress Of Oronsaye Maternity Turns 90 Tomorrow

BENIN CITY – The Proprietress of Oronsaye Maternity and Orphanage, Princess Lady Dr. Mrs. Katherine Aiyevbekpen Oronsaye, MFR, D. Sc, JP, will attain the enviable age of 90 years on November 23, 2013.

As part of activities to mark the birthday anniversary, her biography titled Princess and Legend at 90, written by Victor Osarenren was launched yesterday at the indoor sports hall of Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium,

Benin City.

A statement signed by Prof. Jude Oronsaye, on behalf of the family states that a thanksgiving Services will take place on Saturday November 23, 2013 at the Holy Cross Catholic Cathedral, Mission Road, Benin City, beginning at 12:30 pm.

A reception in her honour will follow the thanksgiving services at her Home, 81 Owina Street, between Agbado and Igbesanmwan Streets, Benin City.

Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Azubuike Ihejirika, inspecting a quarter guard at the 7 Division Headquarters during an official visit to Maiduguri recently.

Board Trains Over 70 Entrepreneurs ABUJA - The National Board for Technology Incubation said that it had trained more than 70 entrepreneurs in different vocational fields in 2013.

Mr. Abdul-fatai Shittu, Acting Director, Planning and Liaison of the Board, stated this in an interview with newsmen in Abuja.

He said the exercise was part of the board’s efforts aimed at providing institutional infrastructure and mechanisms for the development and commercialisation of research and development outputs as well as inventions.

“NBTI is to nurture budding businesses like babies kept inside the incubator, we help the new business start ups by providing them with the necessary business strategies, plans and technology support.

“The board has exceeded its

target of training 70 entrepreneurs for 2013 with a surplus of 10 very highly skilled young men and women which it has injected into the market to compete and showcase their skills.

“These trained entrepreneurs are not only self employed but have become employers of labour as they go back to their communities and put the knowledge they have acquired into good use.

“In addition to their contribution for creating employment opportunities, they are also contributing to the Gross Domestic product (GDP) and economic development of the nation.”

Shittu said that the board was also collaborating with other parastatal agencies under the ministry of science and technology as well as research institutes to strengthen the capacities of the trainees for

better efficiency.

The acting director said apart from the training, the board was also assisting the beneficiaries to access to loans, grants, information and technologies to enhance their businesses.

He said that the assistance had helped the beneficiaries to run their businesses smoothly and be more competitive in the market.

‘We have helped many of them to have access to grant from the Presidential Standing Committee on Innovation and Invention and other available grants to help them improve on their products and be more competitive.

“We also link them to banks such as the Bank of Industry where they can access loans.

“In order to guarantee their sustainability, we also provide them with technical support with effective packaging of the products to make them more

attractive and market friendly.”

Shittu said necessary mechanism had also been put in place to ensure effective monitoring of the beneficiaries to ensure that the aim of the training was achieved.

According to him, the board’s technology incubation scheme is categorised in three stages, starting with the pre-incubation stage which has to do with the activities of the entrepreneurs before their admission into the programme.

He said that the second stage was the incubation proper during which the participant could be resident or non-resident in any of the board Technology Incubation Centres across the country.

“Then you have the post incubation stage where the board provides mentoring services, networking for capital and

knowledge providers for graduates of the programme to ensure their sustained competitive growth.

“Under this stage, we also ensure that the acquired

knowledge is translated into manufacturing of products, which we also help them to project through various exhibitions to expand their market scope.’’

Central Hospital Projects For Commissioning Today

By SUCCESS OSAYI

BENIN CITY – Several newly completed projects at the Central Hospital, Benin City is to be commissioned today.

In a chat with The NIGERIAN OBSERVER, the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Hospital, Mrs. Sandra Omoregbe listed some of the projects which include, public toilets, water

borehole, the renovated wards and the environmental facelift.

Since Dr. Edith KayodeIyasee assumed office as Medical Director of the Hospital, a lot has been achieved, the PRO also stated.

The achievements according to her included, equipping of effective security system in the hospital ensured.

THE NIGERIAN

9

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2013

Abuja Court Adjourns Suite To January

Trespass:

ABUJA – An Abuja High Court has fixed January 20 for continuation of hearing in a suit filled by Justice Mohammed Dodo, an FCT High Court Judge in Nyanya, against a Church for trespass.

Dodo had sued the defendants, the Incorporated Trustees of Jesus Solution Gospel Centre, Abuja in a Lugbe High Court, for allegedly trespassing into his property, a residential plot of land.

In his statement of claims filed by his counsel, Mr. Abdulhamid Mohammed, the plaintiff had urged the court to declare him the rightful owner of plot 529, Sabon Lugbe South-East, on the Airport road, Abuja.

The plaintiff’s counsel also prayed for an order of perpetual injunction restraining the defendants from further trespassing into the said property until the final determination of the suit.

He also asked the court to compel the defendants to pay the sum of N50 million to his client as compensation for trespass, unlawful invasion and occupation of the said property, among otheres.

Joined in the suit is Mr. John

Ihiabe, the defendant’s General Overseer.

The defendant’s counsel, Mr. Gilbert Okoh, however, filed a motion of preliminary objections to the plaintiff’s claims, arguing that the court lacked jurisdiction to entertain the suit.

According to Okoh, the defendants were not properly served in accordance with the provisions of the law, which, therefore, robs the court of the jurisdiction to entertain the suit.

We, therefore, urge My Lord to uphold our preliminary objection and strike out the suit for the incompetence of the writ of summons and invalidity of the purported service of same, “Okoh had argued.

Justice Angela Otaluka, had on October 29, 2013 granted an order of interlocutory injunctions compelling the parties to c ease claim to the property, pending the final determination of the suit.

When the case came up, the defendant’s counsel informed the court that he had just been served with a counter-affidavit to his preliminary objection and requested for time to respond to it on point of law.

Students of Igbanke Mixed Secondary School, welcoming Edo State Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, during the commissioning of the school built by Edo State Government yesterday.

Coy Urges Internet Connectivity Among Schools

ABUJA - Mr. Gerald Ilukwe, the Managing Director of Galaxy Backbone, said that without computerisation and internet access, it would be impossible to provide qualitative education.

Ilukwe made the statement in Awka at the launch of Anambra State Secondary Schools Connectivity and

Education Programme, a statement issued by Mr. Franklyn Eke, the company’s Corporate Communications Manager in Abuja, said.

It said the occasion was also the formal presentation of cheques by Governor Peter Obi to technology partners.

The statement quoted Ilukwe as saying that Anambra is the first state in Nigeria to computerise and provide internet access for more than 100 secondary schools.

The managing director said the programme would cost the state more than N2.6 billion, and that the initiative would be extended to more than 400

secondary schools across the state.

Ilukwe said the Anambra State Secondary Schools Connectivity and Education programme was designed for sustainability with the coming together of leading ICT brands such as Galaxy Backbone and Microsoft.

Other brands involved in the programme, he said, included HP, Ghezil Technology and Technology Distribution, a subsidiary of Zinox.

He said the launch was a demonstration of the state government’s determination to equip secondary school students in Anambra with the skills required for survival in

the 21st century.

“It is only a governor that is constantly thinking about his people that can achieve what we are witnessing today,” he said.

Ilukwe said the organisation would therefore continue to work with the governor to improve the quality of education in secondary schools.

Reports say that Galaxy Backbone is an Information and Communications Technology Services provider.

Its establishment by the Federal Government was driven by the need to pursue a cohesive and harmonised approach to ICT acquisition, deployment and utilisation in the public sector.

Institute Wants More Private Investment In Infrastructure

L-R: Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Azubuike Ihejirika; Director of the State Service, Alhaji Ahmed Abdullahi; Comptroller, Nigeria Immigration Service, Borno, Alhaji Modu Musa, during the visit of the Chief of Army Staff to Maiduguri recently.

Expert Calls For Data Quality ABUJA - Mr. Oladejo Framework Ajayi, the former DirectorGeneral, National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), has in Abuja urged the federal and state governments to develop data quality assessment framework for the country.

Ajayi gave the advice in Abuja in a lecture entitled “Quality Data to Support African Progress: A case study of Nigeria’’, which he delivered as part of activities to commemorate ‘African Statistics Day’.

The event was organised by the NBS.

Ajayi called for the development of the sector, state and local governments Statistics Strategic Plans to enhance the quality of statistical products coming to the sector, state and local statistical systems.

He said that the certification criteria for statistical products to be admitted as official statistics should be developed.

“A well articulated programme for the strengthening of the Nigerian

ABUJA - The Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors (NIQS) has called for effective strategies to attract more private investments to the country’s infrastructure sector.

The President of the institute, Mr. Agele Alufohai, made the call in Abuja at a news conference to herald the 25th Biennial General Meeting of the organisation.

Alufohai said that the country had the ability to attract

Assessment

Statistical System (NSS) should be developed and dedicatedly implemented.

“Methodology section of the NBS requires rebuilding and strengthening so that it could adequately serve the entire NSS,’’ Ajayi said.

He said the NSS needed to be strengthened through the rebuilding of state, sector and local government statistical systems.

The former DG said that strengthening NSS would enhance data quality assurance for statistical

products coming to the sector, state and local statistical systems.

He stressed the need to establish the Supplier Forum as a way of motivating the suppliers of data for timely data and quality responses to data requests.

Mr. George Oparaku, the Director, Real Sector and Household Surveys Department, NBS, said that the lecture was imperative to the importance of statistics in national planning, policy formulation, monitoring and evaluation of government projects.

significant private investments in infrastructure given its economic potential and the extent to which it could be expanded.

He said government investment alone could hardly meet the estimated 2.9 trillion dollars needed to close the country’s infrastructure gap hence the need for more private sector involvement.

According to him, the 25th NIQS conference aims to bring together experts and stakeholders to explore how Public Private Partnership (PPP) can be used to close the huge infrastructure deficit.

“Our intention in deciding to hold our 2013 Biennial Conference on PPP is to enrich the discussion about how Nigeria can attract local and international private investments in infrastructure.

“The NIQS is bringing together some of the best minds in the private and public sectors to explore how PPP can play a more significant role in closing Nigeria’s infrastructure gap.

“The conference is not a lecture; our speakers will not dwell on definitions and

typologies of PPP. “Rather, they will look at issues directly relevant to improve the design, governance and enhance the delivery of infrastructure PPP in Nigeria.’’

Alufohai said that public understanding of PPP was essential to having more PPPs and enhancing their quality in terms of transparency and fairness to investors and the masses.

“The NIQS believes that PPP can be very pro-poor; low income Nigerians suffer in many ways from poor infrastructure.

“These include low levels of employment, high cost of transportation and excessively long journey times and low quality of life, among others.

“An economy that is endowed with infrastructure is one that attracts investments, is more efficient and creates jobs faster and in great numbers,’’ he said.

The theme of the three-day conference is “Nigeria’s Quest for Investment and Growth: Releasing the Potential of Infrastructure Public Private Partnership’’.

THE NIGERIAN

10

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2013

Business + Economy Court Orders Firm To Pay N173.7m To Bank

ABUJA - An Abuja High Court has ordered a private firm, Digital Tolls Company Ltd., to pay N173.7 million

being loan it collected from Unyogba Microfinance Bank Ltd. with cumulative interest.

The amount includes the sum of N100 million being the actual amount collected as

loan and N68.7 million being cumulative interest on it and N5 million as cost incurred by the bank in enforcing the

The newly built 8.5km Otabor Olubor Road in Igbanke, Orhionmwon Local Government Area. Photo: CHARITY OZIGBOESERE.

Automotive Sector: DG

LAGOS - The DirectorGeneral, National Automotive Council, Mr. Aminu Jalal, has said that the capacity utilisation of the automotive sector had dropped to less than 10 per cent.

Jalal told newsmen in Lagos that the sector was in bad shape and needed urgent attention in the interest of Nigeria’s economic growth.

He noted that it had capacity utilisation of about 90 per cent in 1981.

“There were over 50 auto component manufacturers in Nigeria before, some of which were Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM).

“Many of them had to fold up due to lack of demand and poor infrastructure,” he said.

Jalal said that data from the Nigerian Automotive Manufacturers’ Association indicted that installed capacity of the Nigerian Automotive Industry surpassed annual vehicular demand.

“Annual installed capacity in assembling is 150,000 units, valued at N550 billion.

“A total of 70,000 new and 200,000 used vehicles, valued at over N400 billion, are imported annually since 2008.

“Potential value added, if

Laments Capacity Utilisation

imports were locally assembled, will be N145 billion with additional value incidentals, if local content programmes are vigorously pursued,” he said.

Jalal said that the automotive sector, at full capacity, could employ more than 70,000 skilled and semi-skilled labour, with more than 200,000 indirect employment.

“Unfortunately, the total current operating capacity for the local assembly plants by value is just N6 billion,” he said.

He urged the Federal Government to address low demand, competition from China and India and lack of adequate infrastructure in order to revive the sector.

“These are challenges that affect the sector, and if they can be eliminated, the sector can benefit the economy through job and wealth creation.

“The automotive local content generates many SME’s and high paying jobs.

“This is why both developed and developing economies nurture and protect their automotive industries,” he said.

Jalal said that, with an annual auto import bill of over N400 billion, the

automotive sector was well positioned to add gains to Nigerian economy.

“The industry has the

potential to make Nigeria become the auto manufacturing centre for the ECOWAS sub-region and beyond,” he said.

repayment.

Delivering judgment, Justice Angela Otaluka of the Lugbe High Court held that the bank had proved its case against the company in the matter which was brought under the undefended list.

“Judgment is hereby entered for the plaintiff and the court orders that the sum of N100 million being the loan facility granted to the defendant by the plaintiff to be repaid to the plaintiff.

“The defendant is also ordered to pay to the plaintiff the sum of N68.7 million being the accrued interest for three years at the agreed rate of 20 per cent per annum.

“The cost of N5 million is also ordered to be paid to the plaintiff by the defendant as the expenses incurred by the plaintiff in enforcing the repayment,’’ Otaluka ordered.

Otaluka said that the court placed reliance on Order 21 Rule 4 of the rules of the FCT High Court to arrive at the judgment, following the refusal of the defendant to enter appearance to defend the suit against them.

“This suit which was brought under the undefended list requires the defendant to enter a notice of intention to defend within five days from the date of

service.

“From the records of the court, the defendant was duly served on October 28, that is, about 23 days today therefore in the absence of any response, the court is endeared by Order 21 Rule 4 to enter judgment,’’ Otaluka said.

It will be recalled that the microfinance bank had sued the company for defaulting in repaying the N100 million loan facility, which it had collected from the bank in September 2009.

This was to be repaid within 90 days with 20 per cent interest, in line with the agreed terms.

The plaintiff’s counsel, Mr. Marcel Ebute, had in his submission before the court urged the court to grant an order compelling the defendant to liquidate the said loan which it owed his client.

“The defendant has bluntly refused, disregarded and failed to liquidate this loan facility sum of N100 million or any part thereof, despite repeated demand for repayment by the plaintiff.

“Unless by an order of this Honourable Court, the defendant which has the means to pay and has no defense to this suit, will not liquidate its indebtedness to the plaintiff, ‘’ Ebute had argued.

Oando Constructs Jetty In Apapa Port LAGOS - Oando Terminals Ltd. said it had started constructing a jetty in Apapa to provide more efficient platform to deliver petroleum products to oil marketers.

The company said in a statement in Lagos issued by its spokesman, Mr. Johnson Azuara-Kelvin, that the jetty would serve oil marketers currently using Moman Jetty.

It said that work on the facility was nearing completion.

The statement said that the jetty would have a halfkilometre sub-sea pipeline and a 16-inch three-kilometre onshore pipe to deliver more than three million tonnes of petroleum products a year.

It said that the facility had been identified as “an immensely valuable asset in the Oando stable as it will allow 45,000 DWT vessels to berth and discharge their products without littering and demurrage”.

According to the statement, the cost saving across the industry will be in excess of 120 million dollars (about N18.6 billion) per annum.

“Once operational, the sub-

sea marina jetty will contribute significantly to Oando’s overall net profit as a result of tolling fees and substantial cost savings on imports and demurrage.

“It will also ensure an increase in the utilisation of existing storage space and provide significant reduction of constant delays caused by infrastructure constraints in the Lagos area,’’ the

statement.

It said that in spite of reduction in importation, Oando remained the largest indigenous supply and trading player in sub-Saharan Africa.

The statement said that the company had 15 per cent market share in importation of petrol.

It said that Oando had consistently explored ways to

further increase its margins and add value to the downstream sector in the oil industry.

“The completion of the jetty will be a welcome gamechanger as it will vastly improve distribution efficiency and lead to higher margin volumes with an estimated 36 million dollars (about N5.58bn) expected revenue annually”.

Igbanke Mixed Secondary School, Orhionmwon newly built by Edo State Government.

Photo: CHARITY OZIGBO-ESERE.

THE NIGERIAN

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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2013

Issues

Princes And Beggars Mourn Festus Iyayi

IT is a sad coincidence when at the dawn of 13 November, I started to write an article entitled “Commercializing deaths on the highway by commercial transporters” for publication in this newspaper.

This article was about an accident involving a Big Joe transport company bus and a car whereby the Big Joe bus somersaulted several times resulting in the deaths of all but three of the passengers according to an eyewitness. It happened between Iruekpen and Ehor on Saturday, 9 November. My point of focus in the yet to be published article is reckless driving/impunity on the highway by drivers. This article is also a call on the government to put in place measures at controlling the activities of major public transport operators whose modus operandi about drivers’ welfare and remuneration is partly responsible for recurrent accidents involving them. The desire of the owners of these transport fleet to create more wealth and higer profits puts the drivers under severe pressure that in order to make any meaningful income out of their jobs, they have to have to embark on as many trips as possible, whose total aggregate, during the month accounts for whatever amount of commission received. This is the underlying risk that every prospective passenger travelling with most of these major transporters road face.

I had barely completed the introductory chapter of this article when the news of the death of Professor Festus Iyayi filtered in. I did not doubt the news, because fatal accidents on our highways have become common thing. Within the next twenty- four hours, reactions following this incident were such that a famous passage by William Shakespeare crept across my mind. The passage states that when beggars die, there are no gunshots heard to herald their deaths but the comets themselves blaze forth the deaths of Princes. There is no doubt that Festus Iyayi belonged to the ‘class of Princes’ and it is therefore important to use his unfortunate and questionable demise to bring to the fore events responsible for these sorts of untimely and avoidable deaths on the highway. The deaths recorded in the Big Joe Motors crash of the 9 November, a distance of around one hundred kilometers away from Okene where Festus Iyayi met his death, could have been swept under the carpet because all those that died in that accident belonged to the typical Shakespearean ‘class of

beggars’. But one thing is common in the deaths of these ‘beggars’ and ‘Princes’, and that is all of them died as a result of no fault of their own; in fact they died as a result of the fault of other people arising from acts of greed, carelessness and impunity perpetrated by these agents of death.

While the accident involving Big Joe Motors will be discussed in another article, it is worth noting that it is scandalous that a government’s agent or its organ is responsible

By DAN OMORUAN

protests, strikes and even court actions that is within their disposal. The most painful thing is that we see these political office holders using the law enforcement agents to perpetuate recklessness and intimidate the people. There are obvious examples of politicians

and properties in the society and if the government wants to be objective, this is a good way to go after people with such stupendous and questionable wealth.

I have diverted briefly to draw attention to the fact that political office holders have

in this state who have been involved in the looting of state funds, and are glorified by the people because they see them as the bold and daring ones.

They base their glorification of them on the belief that looting of state funds has become sine qua non with politics. It is matter of whose turn it is to occupy the corridors of power today and do what people have come to think is the reason for seeking political offices. This is the unfortunate thing about politics today and it is responsible for the do-or-die attitudes of politicians towards elections as they will blackmail, swear to the devil, kill and do all sorts of criminal things to win elections.

Sometimes I wonder why the government cannot put measures in place to apprehend these looters of the economy and other criminal elements by assessing their wealth and properties in relation to the amount of tax paid on their known incomes. This I believe will fish out those with questionable incomes like the advance fee fraudsters, robbers and kidnappers and political looters. There is too much display of unexplainable wealth

betrayed and abused the people who supposedly voted them into power in several ways. One of such ways is through the acts of impunity associated with the use of siren. These are acts perpetrated through the indiscriminate and reckless use of sirens. I remembered that on the eve of the swearing in of the Comrade Governor, one of his first popular pronouncements was the regulation of indiscriminate use of sirens in the state and the banning of the plain clothes/red head-tie arm of police parading the streets and intimidating both the criminals and the people with their sirens. I also remembered that people poked the attempt

• Late Prof. Festus Iyayi

for the death of a man who had dedicated most part of his lifetime towards uplifting the condition of the poor and oppressed of the society.

Incidents that are not as serious as this in the developed countries would see the executive officers implicated in the matter resigning from office or making a strong statement to condemn those directly involved with a strong note of warning against future occurrence. It is doubtful if such action had been carried out nearly a week after the incident.

It is not the time that matters in issues such as these, but the conscience and will. This is why it is pertinent to speak once more on the behaviors of the governing class in the country both at the level of the local government, the state or at the Federal level. There is no doubt that lawlessness and impunity have become the hallmark of members of political office holders. The way they go about their activities leaves much to be desired, and it is painful and shameful that for too long a time, the people have acquiesced with these attitudes instead of challenging them with the instrumentalities of

at regulating the use of sirens on the ground that what would happen to Governors of other States who are driving through Benin City. Would they be compelled to silence their sirens while passing through?

Developing events have shown that the pronouncement however progressive it may have appeared at that time has been compromised over the years by forces akin to the Nigerian factor.

While it may not be appropriate to deny our Executive class the comfort and protection of using the sirens on the road, the State Security Service and the Police responsible for their security details should endeavor to develop and adopt a humanist approach to the use of sirens to lead members of the Executive class.

The way past pronouncements meant to regulate the use of sirens had been overturned shows that even the Chief Executives of the State do not have control over their personal security matters. Their security details it seemed are designed, prescribed and implemented by another arm of government responsible for such matters.

One is therefore compelled to question such prescribed rules and procedures that do not consider the individual on the road. There is no doubt that this practice predated this age.

These procedures might have been drawn up since the time of the first republic. They stink of obsoleteness. Blaring of sirens indiscriminately is no longer fashionable and should be discarded because our respected Professor and campaigner of human right is the victim today, it could be another person, not of the ‘beggarly’ class but the ‘princely’ class tomorrow, because these blazing comets and gun shots would not have been, had it been someone of the beggarly class. A stitch in time saves nine; we have missed too many stitches.

Another thing that must be addressed is the attitude and mental state of security men and drivers in a convoy. There is need to review any rule which makes it an offence for drivers to be temporarily dislodged from a convoy because such rule gives them license to kill. Drivers would therefore ensure that they do anything to remain intact in a convoy no matter the risk involved in maintaining this continuum. This may not be the case however, but the point we are pointing at is that there is need to instill decorum and public safety in the way those who use sirens use them. There is need to refrain from scarring and stampeding pedestrians and other road users from the road if indeed our nation is a nation where the individual safety and security is the concern of the government. For too long and by too many casualties, it has shown that government’s drive for the individual’s safety on the road is half hearted. This is a food for thought for the Federal Road Safety and other related organ of government in charge of ensuring safety on the road. In the struggle to reduce accident on the road, the government should not be above the law. This is why it is unfortunate and scandalous that an exalted office like that of the Governor of a State will be implicated in the death by road accident of a distinguished citizen. There are too many things wrong with this country and impunity on the road is one of them. It is as challenging as the problem of militants, kidnappers or Boko Haram and other insurgent groups of the past and present. Impunity on our roads might be regarded as a minor problem but as long as it is resulting in senseless killings of people, it is as serious as the problem of insurgency. We do not need the death of Princes to highlight the severity of the problems of Bullion vans, Executive Class and the Law Enforcement Agents’ high handedness/ impunity on the road. In the world of a Prince, there are a thousand beggars.

• Dan Omoruan writes from Benin

“In the struggle to reduce accident on the road, the government should not be above the law. This is why it is unfortunate and scandalous that an exalted office like that of the Governor of a State will be implicated in the death by road accident of a distinguished citizen. There are too many things wrong with this country and impunity on the road is one of them.”

THE NIGERIAN

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SUB-SAHARAN Africans have every cause to heave a sigh of relief from malaria which has been responsible for the alarming under five mortality rate with the discovery of a malaria vaccine which provides 100 per cent protection against the disease.

A research finding published at the weekend in the journal Science, the malaria vaccine has become the first to provide 100 per cent protection against the disease, confounding critics and far surpassing any other experimental malaria vaccine tested.

The researchers said the vaccine, which is being developed in the United States (U.S.), protected 12 out of 15 patients from the disease, when given in high doses; and will now be tested further in clinical trials in Africa.

WE are enthused with the progress made towards the development of effective malaria vaccine which we consider a welcome development especially to Nigeria because of the high malaria burden on our citizens, particularly pregnant women and children.

WE are equally glad with further explanations from the World Health Organisation and other experts who say there are about 20 other vaccine projects for malaria prevention at various stages of clinical trials globally and that the leading vaccine candidate in the group, RTS, S is currently undergoing the phase III trial and is likely to come into use by 2015 if all goes well as expected. The vaccine, according to the global body is being developed by Glaxo SmithKline Biologicals and PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI) with funding sup-

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2013 THE NIGERIAN

Discovery Of Malaria Vaccine port from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

WE applaud the donor community for their relentless efforts in trying to combat major diseases plaguing mankind, particularly those prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa such as malaria, HIV/AIDS and others. We appeal that once the malaria vaccine comes into full use, the donor community, Non Governmental Organisations and other development partners should help fund the mass production , so that it could be added to the vaccines administered to new born babies during the early years in life with an aim of ending the daily loss of lives to malaria.

THIS laudable feat notwithstanding, we must also sound a note of caution. Nigeria as a nation which will benefit from the new research finding must be careful because this is just a research that is inconclusive and from every indications, is yet to be commercialised.

IT is also very important to note that when a vaccine does become available it would only complement the tools already been deployed to fight malaria, and not necessarily replace them. This is more so when results of on-going trials have not indicated full protection against malaria.

FOR every disease condition, experts have always suggested that prevention is better than

cure. That is why the new vaccine leads the pathway to roll back malaria, other traditional preventive measures should be stepped up. We must continue to do what we should do to keep malaria at bay like keeping the environment clean without stagnant water, sleeping under insecticide treated nets, among others.

ALSO, people should continue to use Long Lasting Insecticidal Nets (LLINs); pregnant women must continue to demand for Intermittent Preventive Treatment in Pregnancy (IPTp) at antenatal visits; and every one with suspected malaria must get tested and treated with Artemisinin-based Combination Therapy (ACT) if found positive for malaria.

THE media and Civil Society Organisations as well as government agencies should increase public enlightenment campaign against malaria, with emphasis on preventive measures, while taking early steps to treat sufferers.

GOVERNMENT at all levels should equally enhance the annual budgetary allocations to the health sector with a view to dealing a death kneel on child killer diseases. Primary health care institutions need to be equipped with the required manpower and facilities to fight malaria head on.

UNDOUBTEDLY, keeping our environment clean is the task of all citizens, but there is need for the enforcement of existing environmental laws and bye-laws to compel citizens who always wait for the push to comply, this is because we strongly believe that only a holistic approach will see to the successful campaign to roll back malaria from our communities.

THE NIGERIAN

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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2013

International Features

World Powers, Iran In New Attempt To Reach Nuclear Deal

WORLD powers aim to reach a preliminary deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program in politically charged talks resuming in Geneva on yesterday.

Seeking to end a long standoff and head off the risk of a wider Middle East war, the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany came close to winning concessions from Iran on its nuclear work in return for some sanctions relief at negotiations earlier this month.

Top policymakers from the six have since said that an interim accord on confidence-building steps could finally be within reach. But diplomats caution that differences remain and could still prevent an agreement.

Russia is hopeful that a preliminary deal will emerge this week, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

“We hope the efforts that are being made will be crowned with success at the meeting that opens today in Geneva,” he told a news conference on Wednesday.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Tehran would not step back from its nuclear rights and he had set “red lines” for his negotiators in Geneva. But Tehran wanted friendly ties with all countries, including the United States.

“We want to have friendly relations with all nations, even the United States,” he told an audience of Basij militiamen.

“Death to America,” the militiamen chanted in response, repeating one of

the main rallying cries for supporters of the Islamic Republic.

The last meeting stumbled over Iran’s insistence that its “right” to enrich uranium be recognized, and disagreement over its work

moderate Hassan Rouhani replaced hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president.

Nuclear analyst Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group think-tank said the “body language” showed

resolve problems.

U.S. President Barack Obama sounded a more cautious note on Tuesday, saying it was unclear whether the world powers and Iran will be able to reach an agreement soon.

A picture released by the official website of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, shows him delivering a speech in Tehran.

on a heavy-water reactor near Arak, which could yield plutonium for atomic bombs once it becomes operational.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has since indicated a way around the first sticking point, saying Tehran has the right to refine uranium but is not insisting others recognize that right.

A U.N. report last week showed Iran had stopped expanding its enrichment of uranium and had not added major new components at Arak since August, when

that the sides were ready for a deal, pointing to Iran slowing its nuclear push and Washington refraining, so far, from imposing more sanctions. “(They) have demonstrated that they are looking to transform stumbling blocks into stepping stones,” Vaez said.

Zarif, Tehran’s chief nuclear negotiator, said on the eve of the meeting there was “every possibility” of a successful conclusion provided there was good faith and the political will among all involved to

American lawmakers urged the Obama administration on Tuesday to take a tougher line with Iran.

The talks are expected to resume with a meeting between Zarif and European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who coordinates contacts with Iran on behalf of the powers.

Western governments suspect Iran has enriched uranium with the covert aim of developing the means to fuel nuclear weapons, which Tehran denies.

Refined uranium can fuel nuclear power plants Iran’s stated goal - but also provide the core of a nuclear bomb, if enriched further.

After years of confrontation, a shift towards meaningful diplomacy between Iran and the world powers began after the June election of Rouhani on a platform to relieve the Islamic Republic’s increasing international isolation and get sanctions strangling its oil-dependent economy lifted.

Rouhani wants to move quickly: Western sanctions have reduced Iran’s daily oil export revenue by 60 percent since 2011 and caused its currency to collapse.

But diplomats say Iran has so far refused to meet all of the powers’ demands. They include suspending enrichment of uranium to 20 percent fissile purity - a significant advance toward the threshold for bomb fuel - as well as limiting its enrichment capacity and mothballing the Arak reactor project.

The Iranian assets that would be unfrozen as part of any deal this week would amount to less than $10 billion, U.S. national security adviser Susan Rice told CNN. Western diplomats have kept much of the details of the proposed deal under wraps but said Iran would not win relief from the most painful sanctions on oil trade and banking that many believe finally forced into serious negotiations.

Under an initial deal the OPEC producer is likely to regain access to precious metals markets and trade in petrochemicals, an important source of export income, and could see the release of some of its oil revenues frozen in oversees accounts.

If an agreement is struck in the coming days, it is intended to be the first step on the road towards a broader settlement that would avert the threat a new Middle East war.

In crafting a deal, Western governments are wary of critics across the Middle East, especially in Israel and Saudi Arabia, who view Iran as a deadly threat, and of hawks in the U.S. Congress who want stiffer sanctions and terms for Tehran.

Obama warned Congress on Tuesday that Iran would make progress towards nuclear arms status if there were no deal to halt or roll back its nuclear program and urged lawmakers to hold off on tightening sanctions while talks continue.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Washington, Israel’s main ally, to avoid making a “historical mistake” when negotiators appeared close to a deal this month. Israel wants Iran to scrap its entire nuclear energy infrastructure.

Israel, widely assumed to be the only nuclear power in the Middle East, has warned it may bomb Iranian nuclear facilities if it deems diplomacy futile in reining in Tehran before it attains nuclear “breakout” capability.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Tehran would not step back from its nuclear rights and he had set “red lines” for his negotiators in Geneva. But Tehran wanted friendly ties with all countries, including the United States.

THE NIGERIAN

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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2013

THE NIGERIAN

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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2013

THE NIGERIAN

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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2013

Right of Reply

THE attention of Benin Cultural Heritage Centre, a non-governmental socio-cultural organization, has been drawn to a publication in the Vanguard Newspaper of May 26, 2013 (page 20-21) , titled “Who are the Yoruba People” authored by Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode, former Minister of Aviation during Obasanjo civilian Presidency.

Ordinarily, the piece could have been read as any other leisure-time entertainment but for the fact that it seeks to annex the Benin Kingdom as an appendage or offshoot of the Yoruba Kingdom. Hear him: “The establishment of IleIfe as the centre and source of all that is Yoruba was confirmed by Oduduwa himself when he sent his sons out from Ile-Ife to other parts of Yoruba land to establish their own independent kingdoms including Bini Kingdom”.

The author went ahead to display at page 20 a map of his contrived Old Yoruba Kingdom which included Benin Kingdom as an integral part of his ‘one big family’.

The Fani-Kayode story was amplified recently in another publication titled “Ife Celebrates Oranmiyan Festival”. Published at page 25 of the same newspaper (Vanguard) of 23 August 2013 by the Ife Community, the Yoruba nation once more claimed: that Oranmiyan conquered the Benin people and founded the Benin Kingdom.

That the celebration is to set the record straight as some people (meaning Benin in particular) are claiming Oranmiyan as theirs.

It is unfortunate that the Yoruba nation has continued to propagate deliberate falsehood about the pre-colonial history of the Benin nation. Honest historians are aware that it is an incontrovertible fact of pre-colonial history of Nigeria that Benin Kingdom is one of the oldest kingdoms in the West Coast of Africa, having been ruled by 31 Ogisos (kings) from 40B.C to 1100A.D and 35 Obas from 1200 A.D to 1897 before the advent of Colonial rule. The claim in the Ife community publication that Oranmiyan was the 4th Ooni of Ife (Progenitor of the Yoruba race) speaks volumes about the age of the Youraba kingdom since we all know about his life and times, and the span of his reign in history.

Benin Kingdom is one of the two famous kingdoms known to early European explorers in the West African Sub-region. The second one is the Guinea Kingdom. You can see the

Benin, Not An Offshoot

By HON ISAAC EHANAH (JP)

two kingdoms clearly shown in the 17th century map of West Africa produced by early European explorers (Fig. 1). Benin kingdom was the first nation state to be visited by foreign explorers as early as 1472 AD during the reigns of Oba Ewuare and Oba Ozolua-the Portuguese Ruy de Sequeira in 1472 and Affonso de Aviero in 1484. The influence of the empire extended beyond the present Republic of Benin, up to Zungeru in today’s northern Nigeria, and Congo Republic in Central Africa. The Benin Empire ruled the Bight of Benin , and in fact, the entire Atlantic Coast before the birth of Nigeria.

Benin remains the first ethnic nationality in today’s Nigeria to establish consular relationship with the outside world, particularly Portugal.

The bold assertion in the Ife community publication that “Oranmiyan after establishing Oyo, he left and conquered the Benin people and again founded the Benin Kingdom” is yet a new chapter of propagation of deliberate and unbridled falsehood of the Yoruba nation in their historical intercourse with the Benin ethnic nationality. There was never any war between Ife and Benin. Instead, as clearly elucidated below, there was a constructive engagement between Ife and Benin in their dynastic relationship that both nationalities continue to acknowledge. However, the Benin nation, from historical evidence, has continued to claim that Oranmiyan is the progeny of Ekaladerhan, the crown Prince of Benin Kingdom.

The mere fact that the post-amalgamation (1914) administration of the heterogenous nation, Nigeria, lumped the Yoruba and Benin Kingdoms together as one admin. Unit, Western Region of Nigeria, by the colonial administrators, does not make the Benin nation an offshoot of the Yoruba Kingdom. Being in control of the instrument of administration in the region, it was convenient for the Yoruba nation to sow the seed of the subsisting historical falsehood which has today blossomed luxuriantly. It needs to be mentioned here that if the pre-colonial pre-eminence of the territorial kingdoms of Nigeria was to be taken into consideration in creating administrative units by the colonial administrators, the Benin

“Ordinarily, the piece could have been read as any other leisure-time entertainment but for the fact that it seeks to annex the Benin Kingdom as an appendage or offshoot of the Yoruba Kingdom.”

Kingdom ought not to have been subjugated to any kingdom in regional administration during that era. Of course, after the 1897 encounter with the Benin Kingdom, the British felt unsafe to trust us with regional authonomy. To God be the glory, this anomaly was corrected by the Tafawa Balewa administration with the creation of Midwestern Region of Nigeria in 1963 after the exit of the British colonial administration.

The subsisting misconception or deliberate

sati the hig off “ his Ife T lies cro Igo

Oba Erediauwa of Benin Kingdom

falsehood by most Yorubas, including their renowned historians and some of their traditional rulers stems from their lack of knowledge and /or appreciation of the precolonial history of the various nationalities (nation states) that were amalgamated into the nation called Nigeria today. Little wonder, therefore, that during the maiden visit of His Majesty, Oba Erediauwa, CFR, Oba of Benin, to Ile-Ife in 1982, the Ooni of Ife, Alaiyeluwa Oba Okunade Sijuwade, in his welcome address, regarded the Benin monarch’s visit as a short home-coming . This expression pre-supposes the joy and pride of a father receiving his son who had made success of his new kingdom abroad (Oba Erediauwa 2004). To the relief and

app Ow Kin the the Ka nat rela Yor T IleHe as I in t by ove

THE NIGERIAN

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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2013

Right of Reply

t Of Yoruba Kingdom

isfaction of Omo N’Oba’s large entourage, e Ooni’s ‘eulogy’ was met with a polite and ghly diplomatic prelude to Omo N’ Oba’s icial address in these words: If the Ooni of Ife calls the Oba of Benin son and the Oba of Benin calls the Ooni of his son, they are both right” The explicit explanation of this statement s squarely in the accident of history of the own Prince of Benin (then called odomigodo), Prince Ekaladerhan, heir

parent to the throne of his father, Ogiso wodo, the 31st Ogiso (Ruler) of Benin ngdom. Details of his story are available in e history book on Benin Kigdom. However, e Benin nation would like Mr. Femi Faniayode and his likes and indeed the Yoruba tion to note the following about the dynastic ationship between Benin Kingdom and the ruba kingdom: That before the emergence of Oduduwa in -Ife from the east (some say from the sky or aven), the Benin Kingdom, formerly known Igodomigodo, has been very well entrenched the West coast of Africa and has been ruled thirty-one (31) kings (then called Ogiso) er the period 40BC to 1100AD, beginning

from Ogiso Igodo to Ogiso Owodo, father of Prince Ekaladerhen.

That Prince Ekaladerhan, crown Prince to the throne of his forebears (Ogiso), by the Grace of God, miraculously escaped execution in traditional obeisance to the injunction of the oracle, and wandered into the forest westwards, and finally landed at Uhe (Ife) That at Ife, the stoutly built renowned mystical herbalist and intelligent god of the forest, Prince Ekaladerhan, was welcomed with pomp and pageantry as the people thanked God for hearing their prayers for a leader who has emerged miraculously from the land of the Rising Sun. That the god of the forest, crown Prince Ekaladerhan at his new abode, assumed the name IZODUWA meaning “ I chose the way that led me to glory”. This name is what has been corrupted to ODUDUWA in Ile-Ife by the Yoruba nation. Femi Fani-Kayode, the Ife Community and indeed the Yoruba nation may wish to tell us the original meaning of Oduduwa in Yoruba language.

That at the demise of Ogiso Owodo (1100AD), father of Izoduwa, without an heir and in the period of interregnum that ensued, powerful community leaders in Benin scrambled to rule the kingdom. Among them was one Evian, father of Ogiamien, who attempted to usurp the throne for his family lineage.

That at the behest of the Edion (Elders) of Igodomigodo; Power-ful emissaries headed

by Chief Oliha were sent out to look for Prince Ekaladerhan to return to take his throne.

That on arrival at Uhe (Ife) after a tortuous journey, the emissaries delivered their message to Izoduwa who, in response, said that “ he was happy where he was and in any case, too old to travel; but he was prepared to send his youngest son, Oranmiyan” (Oba Erediauwa 2004).

That Oranmiyan, on arrival in Igodomigodo,

“The subsisting misconception or deliberate falsehood by most Yorubas, including their renowned historians and some of their traditional rulers stems from their lack of knowledge and /or appreciation of the pre-colonial history of the various nationalities (nation states) that were amalgamated into the nation called Nigeria today.” found that the kingdom was hostile to him; he could not easily get aculturised to the culture and traditions of the people and above all, there was language barrier.

That as a result of the foregoing incapacitation, Oranmiyan had to return home to Ile-Ife but not before his marriage to Erinmwinde, daughter of the Enogie of Egor who bore him a son, Owomika, who was later in 1200 AD crowned EWEKA 1ST , the progenitor of the present Benin Royal Dynasty, arguably the oldest family dynasty in Africa.

RECOMMENDATION In view of the un-abating misconception and controversy between the Benin and Yoruba kingdoms over IZODUWA (ODUDUWA) and ORANMIYAN, we wish to suggest the convocation of a regional Historical Symposium to be addressed by nominated renowned Yoruba and Benin Historians. This academic gathering will be expected to lay to rest the life and times of the legend, Izoduwa (Oduduwa), his origin, meaning of his name, his emergence at Ife as ruler, whether Oranmiyan is his son or grandson as claimed by the Ife community and the Ife-Benin dynastic connection, etc, with proof of dates in history. Such a symposium should be moderated by a team of internationally renowned Historians preferably from outside Nigeria.

Hon. Isaac D.U. Ehanah (JP) is Secretary General Benin Cultural Heritage Centre.

“In view of the un-abating misconception and controversy between the Benin and Yoruba kingdoms over IZODUWA (ODUDUWA) and ORANMIYAN, we wish to suggest the convocation of a regional Historical Symposium to be addressed by nominated renowned Yoruba and Benin Historians. This academic gathering will be expected to lay to rest the life and times of the legend, Izoduwa (Oduduwa), his origin.”

THE NIGERIAN

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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2013

Art Alive

With FRANCIS ODUPUTE

Determination Will Make You Go Extra Miles ... -Pikolo

A law regulating, guiding and benefiting the entertainment industry in Edo State is underway by the Edo State Government. This is a fallout of the recent E n t e r t a i n m e n t Stakeholders’ meeting held in Benin City at the instance of the office of the Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Arts, Culture and Tourism, Mr. David Ehigie Eromosele, popularly known as Pikolo.

In this interview anchored by the Arts Editor, FRANCIS U. ODUPUTE, the SSA spoke on a number of issues bordering on Government’s commitment to Art, culture and tourism development in Edo State, as well as other related matters.

Excerpts: On the recent entertainment stakeholders meeting in Benin City: Yes, it was an entertainment stakeholders’ conference where we called on all the major stakeholders to come so we can discuss the way forward in the industry. And the discussion was of paramount interest in the sense that it was going to talk about the progress in the industry, that was why we had to vonverge in Oba Akenzua cultural center and then we had that stakeholders’ conference.

Outcome of that meeting: It was very successful because we had the major stakeholders in this town, they were there, we discussed and I think the agenda was clearly stated and everybody contributed and at the end we had the conclusion of what we were going to do next and that is exactly what we are doing now. This is what we call the after effect of the stakeholders’ meeting. We concluded that there should be an enabling law backing up these actions so that when next these people are coming in to town, they should be able to appreciate the local content because, we

‘Pikolo’ fielding questions.

actually discussed involving our local content each time you are having an event here because that is one way they can also empower the youth, that is one way you can engage the youth meaningfully. So I think we had a successful end.

Other salient issues that meeting addressed: Like I said we had so many issues that we’re addressing; we addressed the issue of registration for the entertainers in Edo State with the Ministry of Arts, Culture and Tourism. We addressed the issue of unity among artistes; we addressed the issue of getting our stars here involved in any event organized here whether by the State Government or by private entities. And we also addressed the issue of seriousness- going back to the roots and taking very seriously whatsoever you’re doing as an artiste, manager or promoter, etc, because people that were in that meeting were not just only the performing artistes, we also had in attendance people who are into management- artiste management- people who are into production; we also had in attendance Nollywood film makers and all that, we had directors, it was all about different associations coming together to discuss one agenda.

Is your office only meant to address the problems of performing artistes and entertainers…?

My office is not limited to just performing artistes alone.

I am a Senior Special Adviser to the Governor on Arts, Culture and Tourism. We are interested in developing our culture to a level that everybody will appreciate because Edo State has a very great culture. The last time we had a stakeholders’ meeting was on tourism, we held a tourism stakeholders meeting here, same venue, and it was

massive. Now we’re going into entertainment because entertainment is part of the Ministry’s functions. So, we want to make sure that every area we are supposed to touch we’re doing well.

Your plans for the Visual Artists in Edo State: Like I said earlier, we have plans to touch all the areas we have been assigned to work.

People who are close to me know that I have passion for that angle. So what we’re planning to do is that we also want to meet with them and discuss the way forward because we know that they have a great role to play when we talk about culture, tourism and all that. So, what we want to do is that we also want to give them…we’re going to encourage them to do better than what they are doing right now and make sure we bring them to prominence as well.

Your major challenges since assuming office as SSA on Arts, Culture and

Tourism: I will say it is finance, because there are many things that you’d ordinarily want to do but because of financial pressures you will be limited.

I will say the major challenge is finance; we have the atmosphere…the Comrade Governor has given us a very good atmosphere to work; I think everything is available except that sometimes the major constraint is finance.

That is why sometimes we also call on you corporate bodies to also come to our aid so that we can do what is necessary because it’s not only about Government… people think most times because you are in Government, Government will provide everything.

Remember that the Government has so many things to do – it has to tare roads, it has to do this, it has to do that…so we have to help the Government for the Government to help us.

Any practical plan to motivate public private partnership in this regard?

Of course yes. The purpose of these stakeholders’ meetings was to synergize with the stakeholders and the Government so that there will be a cordial relationship. You know, two good heads, they say, are always better than one. Now, by the time we had that our first meeting you saw that everybody was bringing out ideas, and they actually were lauding the idea behind the stakeholders’ meetings…

So, I’m sure that with one or two more meetings like this, the people will have reasons to collaborate with

Government, so that things can be achieved easily.

Fans and friends recently talked about the project DREAM ALIVE WITH PIKOLO. Can you tell us more about that project?

Yes, “Dream Alive with Pikolo” is part of my initiative to empower the youth, to meaningfully engage them so that we can take them off the streets. It is a talent hunt programme that cut across music, dance and comedy; it’s a three-in-one show. We were looking for talents in the comedy and dance and, of course the music part. So, at the end of it all, in each of the categories, we had one winner. In Music we had a winner, in dance we had a winner and in comedy we had a winner. And then, what we’re doing, like we always tell people: it is not rewarding them with cash that matters.

It is the level of prominence that you’re able to bring them into. Because you can just reward them – like we said we’re giving them a hundred thousand…you can just give them hundred thousand and even two hundred thousand naira and because of happiness they can be over excited and spend it and they will have no record of the fact that they are good, they will be looking for another talent hunt to go for. There is no reason why a person who has qualified or who has emerged as a winner from a talent hunt to go about looking for another talent hunt. The next work should have been that the person should be promoted and projected so that everybody would know

that this is the person that came out from the Dream Alive talent hunt by Pikolo.

So, that is the stage we are right now.

Was it a solo effort or you got some government support?

It was my own personal dream to compliment the Government. It was my personal dream, it was a solo effort.

How easy was it for you getting the funds?

It was not easy at all…WAS NOT EASY AT ALL! You know, only that, like I always say that determination will always make you to go extra miles in achieving what you want to achieve. It wasn’t easy, it was Gad and some good people who actually assisted me in one way or the other, and then, of course, the participants – the people that contested. So, we thank every one of them but all thanks be to God because He made it possible.

What should the public expect next…when next is Dream Alive expected?

We’re hoping to organize the season two in April, 2014.

Your final word to the general public on the project: I am appealing to the public to please see this idea as a laudable idea, key into it and let us bring out stars, especially from Edo State.

What’s their gain at the end of the day for keying in?

Their gain is that they are part of making destinies.

THE NIGERIAN

19

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2013

Art And Culture

With Ambrose O. Ekhosuehi 08057378438

Chordophones: Veritable Instruments CHORDOPHONES are stringed instruments held at tension and are sounded by plucking or striking the strings. Their types are musical bows, harps, lyres, lutes, zither and bow lutes.

Musical bow is used for entertainment and is played to accompany story telling. Musical bows called egion by the Benin, afa by Esan and efa by Etsako. There is a musical bow that has a hemispherical gourd attached to it as a resonator found among the Etsako who call it Olodo, and the Ivbiosakon who use the name aidon.

The variant without a resonator is held in such a way that the string passes across the open mouth which serves as a resonator. The lips do not touch the string at any time. The string is divided by touching it with long stick which is held in the left hand that also holds the instrument to get several pitches.

The string is made to vibrate by striking it with long stick held in the right hand. By varying the size of the buccal cavity, the player can isolate and intensity a number of partials and by alternating these, the fundamental tone of the string can produce melody simultaneously.

The pitch can be varied by tightening or slackening the string and it is adjusted to suit the voice of the individual player.

Zither chordophone is an instrument which the strings are stretched over bridges incorporated in the body, across the entire instrument, parallel to the body. The strings of the zither is either plucked, struck or bowed.

Raft zither can be found among the Etsako, who call the zither ‘Ighie’. The Ighie is held in both hands and played with the thumbs. It is a solo instrument used for entertainment or to accompany telling.

Bow lutes are instruments with separate string carriers fixed to a resonator and are sounded by plucking with the fingers or occasionally by bowing and are played with open strings.

Bow lute is called Akpata (Akpatamamwen) by the Benin and Esan, Efa umolo by the Etsako and afan by the Ivbiosakon.

Bow lute is held on the lap and played by plucking the strings. It is tuned by bending the string carriers and passing the strings one or more times round them until the desired pitch is secured.

The strings have names reflecting turning system such as beginning, for the first string, memory for the second string, unity for third string, mother drum for the forth and strong wind for the sixth string.

Bow lute is used for entertainment and usually played solo to accompany dances. Certain spiritual beings are supposed to be attracted to the music of bow lutes.

According to tradition it was said that Arhuanran entered odighi in Udo while playing the bow lute - Akpata.

The attraction of bow lute music had been an important theme in Edo tales. Oba Ewuakpe played the bow lute to relieve his grief during the time of misery.

Once upon a time, a young man was advised never to play the bow lute, however, the young man expressed his wish to possess the lute and to pay it as soon as he possessed the Akpata lute, he began to play it with the skill of an artist; and lured a queen by it who in defence

In Culture

got a stinging bees that made the young man deformed.

Bow lutes have been in use since ages but for at least three hundred years as some of the old Benin bronze plagues represent musicians playing the akpata bow lutes.

The Akpata is also mentioned by Van Nyendael who calls it a harp, strung with six or seven extended reeds.

A group of Spanish missionaries call it small guitar.

On the bronze plaques and in the report by the Spanish

missionaries the bow lute - Akpata is however used in a ceremonial contest.

Chordophone instruments are used in family evening entertainments in Ibota, for advises, teaching, tales and story telling.

In early evening family may gather in the parlour or in the verandah to discuss household matters, tell narrative of traditional institutions, and sing songs.

The narrators and their chordophone instruments serve as symbol and instability within the context of story telling.

Professional narrator normally accompanies self with bow lute, musical bow or lamellaphone especially at festive period or important festive occasions, annual festival and rites of passage.

The narrator is marginal character whose position within the society is uncertain. He depends upon his hosts but the hosts do not depend upon him.

People employ professional narrators to celebrate happy occasions. The chordophone players consider their art the means to achieve personal release from troubling thoughts and to bring some happiness into their lives.

The instruments playing may be associated with certain

figures in both religious and political structures such as witches, unsuccessful rulers. Bow lutes, guitars (Akpata, Asologun) are believed to attract night people and dance while they play. The Akpata player put more emphasis on the presence of the elders, as the Asologun prayer emphasizes more on supernatural beings.

Dan Amos in his study pointed out that the association with the elders and supernatural beings correlates with social marginality in the society, both are transitory figures and part of the social system at one and the same

time.

A professional player of chordophone usually bring with him, his choir Igbesa or supporters. They sit around him and join in the singing whenever he signal them.

The narrator open recitation with proverbial phrases, which includes praise for the host, greetings to the audience and wishes of blessing to every person present, while the opening song echoes for instance “A gha ru egbe re lye ne ughoro”“Ikpihianbo a ya bu ose omwan ude.” (Finger is used to caution a friend) are common features of chordophones instruments players in culture.

“Zither chordophone is an instrument which the strings are stretched over bridges incorporated in the body, across the entire instrument, parallel to the body.

The strings of the zither is either plucked, struck or bowed. Raft zither can be found among the Etsako, who call the zither ‘Ighie’. The Ighie is held in both hands and played with the thumbs. It is a solo instrument used for entertainment or to accompany telling.”

THE NIGERIAN

20

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2013

LOVE is true, but yet, it is fickle. Long lasting love has to evolve and grow over the years, and at times it takes a few unique measures too.

You are not always going to be the same teenager who fell in love with your teenage lover, you will evolve and so will your partner.

MOST couples assume they don’t need to have intimate conversations or exchange thought about each other’s views on life because they already know everything about their partner. But what many don’t understand is that we grow and evolve as individuals constantly and our likes, dislikes and opinions too change all the time.

I have seen that there are just two basic requirements for a relationship to be successful. Affection and sexual desire. As long as we can keep these two emotions on high, love too can be kept alive and exciting.

Most lovers start taking their partner for granted over the years, and this eventually leads to boredom in a relationship. Curiosity in a relationship is the driving force in keeping love alive in a long term relationship. When you assume you know everything about a partner, love starts to stagnate and differences start to crop up. Even if the word aren’t voiced out. After all both of you, grow as individuals with each passing day.

Avoid taking each other for granted one of the disadvantages of long term relationships is the fact that lovers start to take each other for granted. They assume they know their partner ’s likes and dislikes and end up making a lot of assumptions, which can

granted. By these, nothing really becomes a special gesture anymore. Instead it becomes an obligation.

Always remember to acknowledge a gesture, however small it may be

Surprise each other: Remember the first year of your relationship?

Both of you went out of your way to buy each other birthday gifts, do you still do that? Some couples stop paying

FEMINIQUE With IJEOMA UMEH email: ladywithegoldenpen@yahoo.co.uk Tel: 08182382839

Keeping Love Alive!

be critically wrong at times, even favours and special gestures are taken for granted as the years go by.

If a husband prepares breakfast in-bed for his wife every Sunday morning for a few months, it is a special gesture at the beginning, but as the months go by

and the husband decides to sleeps in one Sunday morning, the wife ends up getting upset that she was not served her breakfast.

Likewise, there may be several other kinds of special gestures that lovers share with each other which can eventually be taken for

By GIFT ONAGHAMA

if you want to understand the secret behind knowing how to keep love alive in a relationship.

By taking each other for granted, be it an evening foot rubber a

attention to happy surprises after a few years or even months.

We want to keep the love alive in a relationship, but almost all of us stop doing what would keep the relationship exciting and

big birthday bash, you are faking away the affection behind a gesture, and turning it into an obligation. If you want to keep the love alive in your relationship, acknowledge the gestures and never ever take your partner for granted.

unique.

Go out to your way to make your partner feel special like you used to and you will see that the relationship will only get more exciting and affectionate in no time.

Keep sex exciting: Sexual desire is by far, one of the most important requirements

“Most lovers start taking their partner for granted over the years, and this eventually leads to boredom in a relationship. Curiosity in a relationship is the driving force in keeping love alive in a long term relationship.”

of a happy and romantic relationship. If you want to know how to keep love alive, then your best bet is to focus on a more than satisfying sex life.

Can you remember the first time you got intimate with your partner? it may be a while ago, but you can’t really forget the racing

know how to keep love alive, but yet they don’t really pay attention to sexual attraction between the partners.

Humans are built for procreation we are one of the few species on the earth that indulge in sex for pleasure many people want and need

heartbeats, the passionate cold sweat and the weak knees, can you? Now, just because it has been a few years since you have been together, there is really no reason why sex can’t remain a pleasurable moment and event.

Most people want to

sex, irrespective of whether we get to have it with a partner or someone else. So if you really want to keep your love life on a high you really have to understand the importance of sex in a relationship.

Words on Marble

I buy women shoes, and they use them to walk away from me – Mickey Rooney

THE NIGERIAN

21

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2013

View Point

Anambra, APC And The Trojan Horse Of Death

WHILE it’s not entirely in the interest of Biafrans to concern ourselves with the demonic and macabre dance called ‘politics’ in nigeria, staying silent through some issues might prove detrimental in the end.

The issue with Anambra State politicians and their politics is as deadly as the issue with Nigeria and her politics: they are both power-hungry and stubbornly foolish as they lurch forward to lay blind claims to a singular right to lead.

They forgot that politics is a call to serve and that those desirous of serving others must penitentially and humbly come. All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) was primarily set up to stake out for Ndigbo, to defend and protect the political life of the Igbo in the choking Nigeria.

To every Igbo, the entrance of APGA was like the first entrance of the Christian gospel into a land full of tired but searching and hopeful people. However, today, we all live in disappointments - just as many our days, as a result of false bringers of the gospel, have been asking God where all His promises for Bible faithfulness and love went to. Just as men who have followed the Christian God in whole faith, we knew and believed that APGA will come with it the long awaited return of the

By IKECHUKWU ENYIAGU

deliverer and his deliverance to Igboland in particular and into Biafra as a whole. But, just as the collective wish of the Israelites for a king was met with the proud, arrogant and opinionated Saul, APGA, the passion of Daddy Ojukwu’s heart, has had all demons coming from all openings of hell for one thing: to present themselves - as angels of light - for acceptance.

Just as the so-called ‘fathers of Christianity and champions of faith’ in Nigeria resisted the Spirit of God in His mission in Nigeria (because, even in strange lands, God never ceases to minister to His own until they retrace their ways and entirely return to Him), turning the hitherto managed marriage into a curse upon the people, those entrusted with shinning forth the spirit of APGA became Sauls of lost glory: while Peter Obi of Anambra State outshines in looting of public treasury, in killing of his own people and in serving and servicing the enemies of his people, the low self-esteemed abomination in Imo State, Okorocha, thrives in selfish dance toward self-annihilation as he commits all of Imo to gain political selfglorification. So, men became feeble - both in thinking and in

calculated response.

Today, and just as heads of demonic practices promise life and eternal bliss and gain to impatient men, the Trojan Horse of hell called All Progressives Congress (APC) has

Igboland, come once again to table their case of sacrifice over obedience. They have come - wearing swords of destruction and hell under garments of peace! They bring the

financial and general security understand, if they are still alive and able to tell, the blunder in sacrifice without obedience; the same applies to men who rob others to build temples

Biafrans of Anambra State to stand openly in support for a Sovereign Biafra - seeing that this alone is our help and salvation from the hellish abomination of

Prof. Attahiru Jega, INEC Chairman.

now continually been offered in Igboland by the very people whose fathers brought death and decay to us; by their sons who have sworn by their fathers’ deathbed to finish the work of exterminating the Igbo.

The ever-evil Hausa and Yoruba politicians have, with gullible Sauls of

“All politicians of Anambra stock must vehemently resist this Trojan Horse called APC before it turns into another Asaba Massacre or, worse, a new-age genocide. However, for those whose strength is not strong enough to resist, I say, Stay away from APC!”

horse-gift but their bellies are full of darts of death. Just as Absalom and Solomon could not stop the faithfulness of God toward David with their unquenched hunger for selfish gains, the likes of Peter Obi and Rochas Okorocha will not quench the spirit of APGA. And just as hell has no life to offer, APC will bring nothing good in the whole of Biafraland. Therefore, the land resists them!

Those who had given up on patience and had joined the evil and the occult and the abominable and had used other humans as sacrifices for their own

unto the God of heaven: they both have enchained their souls unto damnation! This abomination called APC will be an instrument of death to all the enemies of God, to all enemies of Biafra and his people.

Those who align with it have aligned with hell and will therefore eat from hell’s kitchen. This evil shall not cross the gate of Zion! Absalom had tried to kill David, his father, and Debe may try to betray his light; but only darkness awaits him as it befell on Absalom and his many Ahitophels of foolish counsel.

Today, I call on all

fornication, Nigeria. All politicians of Anambra stock must vehemently resist this Trojan Horse called APC before it turns into another Asaba Massacre or, worse, a new-age genocide.

However, for those whose strength is not strong enough to resist, I say, Stay away from APC! Block every seed of destruction to God’s temple from your hands!

It’s often been said that Anambra is like Judah in Biafra, do not turn it into another Dome. The Israelis are not yet free from such careless miscalculation.

THE NIGERIAN

22

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2013

Beauty Guide

How Does Colour Affect You?

AS you look around, your eyes and brain work gathers information, you notice a piece of fruit nearby and decide whether you want to eat it. You look at the sky and decide that it look cool and want to rain and also decide if it will not rain today. You see that you are now reading and sort out the meaning. Actually, you are being affected by colour.

The colour of the fruit you saw help you to decide its ripeness and desirability. The colour of the sky and clouds helps you to know the weather condition. Yes, perhaps without noticing it, you constantly use colour to help you process information about the world around you.

Your thinking can be swayed by colour, change your actions, and cause reactions. Can irritate or soothe your eyes, raise your blood pressure or suppress your appetite. When colours is being used in the right way, it saves on energy consumption. It is a powerful form of communication, and thereby, it is irreplaceable.

There are several meanings to the use of colours, to consider some like the Red means to “stop” and green means “go”. Traffic Lights send this

universal message.

Likewise, the colours used for a product, web site, business card, or logo cause powerful reactions.

In this 21st Century, from 2011, 2012, primary colors becomes top most in the fashion world, the use of combination of colours, was widely accepted colour matters in today’s world.

Moreso, the emotional impact of colour is not left out. As you walk down the aisles of a stone, you are surrounded by an array of packaging that is designed to catch your eyes, whether you realized it or not, advertisers continually select colours and colour combinations to appeal to your age group,.

Home decorations, clothing designers, and artiste also know that colours can evoke emotional response.

Also, there are many interpretations of colour, for example, some people in Asia associate red with good fortune and celebration, but in part of Africa, red is the colour of mourning, while in Nigeria, Red is symbolized with danger, and white and black are used for mourning the dead.

Despite different upbringing, however, humans share the same emotional response to

certain colours.

Considering and colours how they affect us; RED The red has a very visibility. It’s often been associated with energy, war, and danger. It is an

And red is associated with dangerous things in most part of African, especially in Nigeria.

For example, like in the Football game, when one is issue a red card, it simply means that

emotional intense colour and can enhance human metabolism, increase respiration rate, and high blood pressure.

No wonder, the Hebrews word for “red” comes from a word meaning “blood”. The Bible uses bright red, or scarlet, to paint a memorable image of a murderous prostitute dressed in purple and scarlet riding on “a scarlet – coloured wild beast.

Full of blasphemous names.”

person is out from the game.

So likewise, the green colour prompts a reaction opposite to that of red, for it slows metabolism and produces a calming effect. Green is a restful colour with tranquility.

We feel relaxed when we see green gardens.

Green are often use for vegetations.

The Nigerian flag is a good example, that is painted with green and the green colour represent forest

“ Also, there are many interpretations of colour, for example, some people in Asia associate red with good fortune and celebration, but in part of Africa, red is the colour of mourning, while in Nigeria, Red is symbolized with danger, and white and black are used for mourning the dead.”

and abundant of natural wealth of Nigerian.

The White Colour The white colour is often seen as a gentleman colour in the society. It represents peace and often

associated with light, safety, and cleanness, it is also connected with the quality of goodness, innocence, and purity.

Angels are shown categorically in the Bible dressed in white, e m p h a s i z i n g righteousness and spiritual cleanness. In the sight of God, white is often seen as “holiness.” No wonder, in Nigeria flag the white colour represent peace.

The Benin Chief’s are dressed in white when visiting the Oba Palace, to show sign of “purity.”

The Purple Colour The purple colour represents royalty and represents various things such as wealthy, magic and mystery. This colour is known to stimulate imagination and inspire high ideals. Purple combines the stability of blue and the energy of

red. It’s associated with royalty and symbolizes power, nobility, luxury ambition, independence and dignity. But a light purple colour means romantic while the dark purple is gloom, it also

represent good judgment and spirituality. It is an ideal colour for both old and young.

Black Colour The black colour is often view as a secretive colour, mostly use for unhappy occasions. It is the color of the hidden, the secretive and the unknown, creating an air of mystery. It keeps things bottled up inside, hidden from the world.

The meaning of black according to colour psychology, the meaning of black is protection from external emotions and feelings, and hiding its vulnerabilities, insecurities and lack of self confidence. Black is the absorption of all colours and the absence of light. Too much black can cause depression and mood swings and creates a negative environment.

Especially when mourning the dead, the colour black is often used

THE NIGERIAN

23

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2013

Int’l Day For The Elimination Of Violence Against Women THE most ungodly, unjust, inhuman and cruel behaviour is the violence against women. It is a global pandemic and according to UN assessment up to 70% of women experience violence in their life time. It is an evil practice that must be averted at all cost. In most African communities violence against women is even seen as a way of life. For instance, in places where FGM is practiced such violence against women is culturally accepted. Violence against women is so common that it is estimated that more than 130 million girls and women alive today have undergone FGM/C, mainly in Africa and some Middle Eastern countries.

November 25 is the International Day for elimination of violence against women. It is a day set aside by the United Nation General Assembly to create awareness of some of the common violence against women and also to advocate for total elimination of such violence against women. It is a day set aside to celebrate the value of human respect and the fundamental human right; a day people of the world are called

Another common violence against women is overlabour.

Most of the family responsibilities are placed on the shoulder of the woman. The woman cleans the compound, she washes the clothes of the children and even that of the husband, she cooks and after which she goes to farm. After harvesting the products from the farm she takes them to market the following day. As soon as she comes back from market no matter how tired she may be she must enter the kitchen to prepare food for the husband and other members of the family. Any delay in the food preparation could attract some beating or fine from the council of elders, if the man decides to take the case up. This is true of most village settings.

The elders meet every market day in Esan land and other parts of the communities in Nigeria.

They are the law makers.

Women are not admitted into the council of elders. Since the council of elders comprises of men, most of the laws are in favour of men. For instance, at Egoro Amede, as a way of encouraging people to attend the local market, every woman is

with a defiled wife the man will die. No man wants to die. The only way out is either to marry a second wife or keep as many concubines as possible. But, who created these customs?

Certainly they are not from God. They are man made laws made by men to protect the interests of the men.

We have two instances in the Bible where God condemned violence against women: the case of Sussanna and the woman caught in adultery. In the case of Susanna two elderly men were looking for an opportunity to rape her. One very hot day, Susanna and her two maids went into the garden she decided to take a bath. She sent her two maids out and bade them to lock the gates. The two elders, who were already inside the garden, ran up and demanded that Susanna yield to them: “if you refuse, we shall give evidence against you that there was a young man with you and that was why you sent your maids away.’ Susanna groaned and said, “I see no way out. If I do this thing the penalty is death; if I do not, you will have me at your mercy. My choice is made: I will not do it. It is better to be at your mercy than to sin against

“One of the common violence against women is the unlawful trafficking of women. About two million people are trafficked annually into unfavorable situations such as prostitution, forced labour, slavery or servitude.” upon to promote gender equality.

One of the common violence against women is the unlawful trafficking of women. About two million people are trafficked annually into unfavorable situations such as prostitution, forced labour, slavery or servitude. It is estimated that women and girls account for about 80 per cent of the detected victims. Last month I received a call from a Nigerian lady who was deceived into prostitution in Italy. Her friend, according to her, assured her that she will give her a decent job. She sold everything she had and traveled to Italy. Her friend disappointed her instead she was forced into prostitution against her will. I advised her to report the case to the Nigerian embassy but she told me that she is scared.

She doesn’t want to be taken to the camp for deportation. She was praying to God to help her to raise some fund so that she could quietly come back on her own. Who will deliver this lady from this mess?

expected to go to market on market day even when they do not have any business to do in the market. Any woman that does not attend market is expected to pay some fine.

Think of the psychological implication of going to market against one’s wish? I thought there is freedom of movement and association for every human being.

In most communities in Nigeria, it is considered a taboo for a woman to marry more than one husband but men are allowed to marry as many wives as possible. In Esan land, for instance, the moment a married woman is accused or suspected of marital infidelity she is summoned to the village where the council of elders compels her to take an oath to prove her innocence. In most cases, as soon as she takes such oaths publicly the husband might decide not to eat her food or even sleep with her because according to the custom she has been defiled and it is strongly believed that when a man sleeps

the Lord”. The elders promptly shouted down her cries for help and accused her, shocking everyone, for her reputation was spotless. The two elders proclaimed their story and demanded her death.

Susanna looked up to heaven through her tears, for she trusted in the Lord. The people believed the judges and assented to her death, but as she was being led away, affirming her innocence and appealing to God, the young Daniel was inspired by the Lord to come to Susanna’s aid. The rest of the elders accepted his authority. Daniel proceeds to have the elders separated and he questions them about the details of their story. Each of the elders reported different trees where they claimed to have caught Susanna. When they disagree, he proclaims their crime and the people turn upon them, for out of their own mouths Daniel had convicted them of giving false evidence and they were stoned to death according to the Law of Moses. Imagine how many women have been accused

falsely by the elders? Do we have people like Daniel who can act as the voice of the voiceless in our society today?

The most interested account where Jesus brought an end to the violence against women was the story of the woman caught in adultery. The Scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery to Jesus for prosecution. They said, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery.

Now the Law of Moses commanded us to stone such.

What do you say about her?

Jesus said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” He bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.

When the elders heard this they went away, one by one, beginning with the eldest. Jesus looked up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” the poor woman said, “No one Lord.” Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again” (John 8:3-11).

Reflection With REV. FR. DAMIAN ADIZE

One thing we must ask ourselves in this story is the woman committing adultery alone? What of the man that committed adultery with her?

Why was the man not prosecuted alongside the woman? This is not just a case of injustice it is also a clear case of discrimination and gender inequality. Men can do anything and get away with it but when a woman is involved, it is a different story. But thank God for our Lord Jesus Christ who came and broke the barrier that existed in our world. St. Paul proudly wrote, “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Geek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:27-29).

I want to sincerely commend the present regime for championing the affairs of the urban women. Before now in

Nigeria, women were not elected or appointed to hold key positions in the country. Today, a quiet revolution in women participation in national decision making processes has been initiated. This radical shift moved into a higher gear in 2011 with 30 percent of the president’s political appointments going to Nigerian women for the first time, this year 2013 I learnt it has even risen up to 45 percent. This, I believe, will go a long way in eliminating discriminations against women. As we applaud the President for this courageous and kind gesture I want to use this medium to remind our women that ‘to whom much is given much is expected.’ Where we have the greatest challenge is at the rural areas. The government should as a matter of urgency find a better way to eliminate the violence against women at the rural areas.

“One thing we must ask ourselves in this story is the woman committing adultery alone? What of the man that committed adultery with her? Why was the man not prosecuted alongside with the woman? This is not just a case of injustice it is also a clear case of discrimination and gender inequality.”

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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2013

International Syrian Opposition Mourns Fallen Commander

UMM AL-AMAD, Qatar On a patch of desert far from Syria, dozens of men gathered under a white tent to commemorate Abdelqader Saleh, a renowned Syrian rebel commander who died this week from wounds after an air strike in Aleppo.

The mourners, who included senior Syrian opposition members and relatives of Saleh, assembled on Tuesday evening in the empty expanses of Qatar, 20 km (13 miles) from the skyscraper-dotted skyline of the gas-exporting Gulf Arab state.

The unusual scene testified to how deeply one of the world’s richest nations has engaged with the cause of Syrians struggling for the past 32 months to

overthrow President Bashar alAssad.

Qatar has long armed and supplied Saleh’s Islamist alTawhid brigades, one of the largest rebel units operating in the sprawling northern city of Aleppo and the surrounding region.

Tawhid fighters, mostly from the countryside, led an assault on Aleppo in July 2012,

capturing about half the city before a fightback by Assad’s forces backed by intensive air strikes ushered in a bloody stalemate which still endures.

Since then, rebel factions have splintered. Al Qaeda-linked militants have sometimes cooperated with more moderate Islamist groups such as Tawhid and sometimes clashed with them.

Abu Abdallah al-Hamwi, head of Ahrar al-Sham, an Islamist brigade that works with an al Qaeda affiliate called the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), said this week Saleh had sought his help to heal a rift between ISIL and other groups.

“He wanted a solution to stop Muslims fighting Muslims,” Hamwi said in a statement.

the Aleppo countryside.

Between sips of tea, opposition members at the wake, partly organised by relatives of Saleh who live in Qatar, insisted that his death would unite the fractious insurgents.

Ahmad Jarba, head of the coalition in exile, which is backed by the West, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, told the ceremony the rebels would exact vengeance for their commander’s killing.

KABUL - Afghan President Hamid Karzai told a meeting of tribal elders and political leaders yesterday that they should support a security pact with the United States, but acknowledged there was little trust between the two nations.

A Loya Jirga, or grand council, involving about 2,500 delegates convened a day after Karzai and Washington reached agreement on a pact defining the shape of the U.S. military presence after a 2014 drawdown of a multinational NATO force.

“My trust with America is not good. I don’t trust them and they don’t trust me,” Karzai told the assembly. “During the past 10 years I have fought with them and they have made propaganda against me.”

Delegates at the five-day Loya Jirga, many of them bearded men with elaborate turbans but with women among them too, will debate the draft and decide whether to accept it - whether they want U.S. troops to stay, or leave Afghan forces to fight the Taliban insurgency alone.

The pact also has to be approved by parliament.

If the United States pulls out, others are expected to follow suit and a thinner international presence could deter donors from releasing promised funds.

After more than 12 years of war, Afghanistan remains largely dependent on foreign aid.

While the pact is widely expected to pass, several thorny issues, including a U.S. request for jurisdiction over its troops, could hold up a decision.

Karzai made no reference in his speech to the question of jurisdiction over U.S. troops, which two years ago, prompted the United States to pull most forces out of Iraq. Instead, he focused on a letter sent by U.S. President Barack Obama promising the pact would in Afghanistan’s best interest.

“We want this pact in order to move out of this unsteady situation. If the foreigners leave unhappy, it will be very dangerous for us,” Karzai told the gathering.

Up to 15,000 foreign troops could remain in Afghanistan after 2014 if the pact is signed.

The United States and Afghanistan have spent much of the past year wrangling over the agreement, but ultimately the United States won concessions on several areas of contention.

Along with immunity from Afghan law for its troops, these included a request to allow U.S. forces searching for militants into Afghan homes, which outrages Afghans and which Karzai has long opposed because of the anger it causes.

Afghanistan Needs US Security Deal - Karzai

Kenya To Demand Change To ICC Rules THE HAGUE (NETHERLANDS)- Kenya will demand change at the International Criminal Court to try to ensure its president does not face charges of crimes against humanity in the aftermath of an election in 2007 when 1,200 were killed.

Kenya, which has tried to halt the cases against President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto, will press a meeting of the ICC’s 122 members for an immediate change in the rules to say that heads of state do not have to attend trials.

Officials will also argue for a longer-term amendment to the founding treaty that would ban the prosecution of heads of state, a campaign which has become a rallying point in Africa, where many leaders say they are the target of an overzealous court in The Hague.

Kenyatta and Ruto deny the charges of fomenting violence after the election. Ruto’s trial began last month, while Kenyatta’s trial is due to start on February 5 after being delayed for a third time.

“Africa feels marginalized, like toddlers, whom the international community feels has never learned to walk,” Amina Mohamed, Kenya’s foreign minister, told Reuters recently.

Last week, the African Union lost its bid to have the U.N. Security Council defer the cases for a year so the two could deal with the aftermath of an attack on a shopping mall by al Qaedalinked Somali militants.

Saleh, Tawhid’s military leader, died in a Turkish hospital after the air strike that cost him his life, as well as that of another Tawhid commander, Youssef alAbbas or Abu al-Tayyeb.

For their sponsors, the rebels’ morale needed attention.

So along with money, weapons and a lavish embassy villa, Qatar’s generosity to the umbrella Syrian National Coalition extended to a commemoration of the fallen Tawhid leader, a pragmatic merchant-turned-fighter from

Keyan President Uhuru Keyantta (right), chats with his Foreign Minister Amina Mohammed during the two day meeting of leaders from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in Pretoria.

North Korea Detains US War Veteran PYONGYANG - North Korean officials detained an 85year-old American veteran of the Korean War last month as he sat in a plane set to leave the country, the man’s son said.

A uniformed North Korean officer boarded the plane on Oct. 26 and asked Merrill Newman, a tourist from Palo Alto, California, for his passport before telling a stewardess that Newman had to leave the plane, the son, Jeffrey Newman, said Wednesday.

“My dad got off, walked out with the stewardess, and that’s

the last he was seen,” Jeffrey Newman told The Associated Press at his home in Pasadena, California.

It wasn’t clear what led to the detention. The son said he was speaking regularly with the U.S. State Department about his father, but U.S. officials wouldn’t confirm the detention to reporters, citing privacy issues. North Korea’s official state-run media have yet to comment on reports of the detention, which first appeared in the San Jose Mercury News and Japan’s Kyodo News

service.

The son said that, according to his father ’s traveling companion, Newman earlier had a “difficult” discussion with North Korean officials about his experiences during the 1950-53 war between U.S.-led United Nations forces and North Korea and ally China. That war ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty, leaving the Korean Peninsula still technically at war. The war is still an important part of North Korean propaganda, which regularly

Palo Alto weekely shows Merrill Newman, a retired finance executive and Red Cross volunteer, in Palo alto, California. An 83-year old American veteran of the Korean war has been detained in North Korea since last month.

accuses Washington and Seoul of trying to bring down its political system — statements analysts believe are aimed in part at shoring up domestic support for young leader Kim Jong Un. The detention comes about a year after North Korea detained another American and as the U.S. State Department warns in a formal notice that Americans should avoid travel to the country, in part because of the risk of arbitrary arrest and detention.

North Korea has detained at least six Americans since 2009, often for alleged missionary work, but it is unusual for a tourist to be arrested. The North’s secretive, authoritarian government is sensitive about foreign travelers, and tourists are closely monitored. Analysts say it has used detained Americans as diplomatic pawns in a long-running standoff with the United States over the North’s nuclear bomb production, something it denies.

Speaking yesterday to reporters in Beijing, U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Policy Glyn Davies wouldn’t confirm Newman’s detention but said, generally, that Washington was working with the Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang, which acts as America’s protecting power because Washington and Pyongyang don’t have official diplomatic relations, “to try to move this issue along and of course calling on North Korea ... to resolve the issue and to allow our citizens to go free.”

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THIRTY years after the Lebanese capital gave birth to the modern suicide bomber, a killer has again driven his explosive-packed car towards an embassy in Beirut, hurling charred corpses through the street.

For Lebanese, Tuesday’s carnage at the Iranian embassy - 23 people were killed and nearly 150 wounded - was both a sharp jolt from their own bloody past and a harrowing omen of a future as the Middle East’s next sectarian slaughterhouse.

Many Lebanese say they now believe their country is doomed to become the next battlefield for Sunni jihadists, looking for soft targets to inflict blows on the Shi’ite supporters of neighboring Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad.

Lebanon has already been caught in the blowback from the 2 1/2-year-old civil war in Syria, with scores killed in clashes between Shi’ite Muslim supporters of Assad and their Sunni foes.

But Tuesday’s suicide attack against the embassy of Shi’ite Iran, claimed by a Sunni militant group, took violence to a higher level.

It resurrected the tactics born in a previous generation’s Lebanon war, which are now the signature of neighboring states’ bloodbaths.

Shi’ites expressed the most fear.

“We expect a bloody conflict, more bombs,” said Ali Abbas, a Shi’ite poet attending a funeral in southern Beirut on Wednesday for four of the men killed in the attack.

“This is a fight between the dark and the light, the night and the day,” he said. “They are present in Iraq, Syria and now Lebanon.”

Lebanon may “turn into a field of jihad - as the terrorist groups call it - as happened in Iraq and Syria,” said parliament speaker Nabih Berri, also a Shi’ite.

“Our country will drown in these kinds of operations,” he told AlNahar newspaper.

Other communities are also deeply worried.

Lebanon’s anti-Assad March 14 coalition, which

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2013

International Features Beirut Blast: Jolt From Past, Omen Of Dark Future

groups anti-Assad Sunni Muslims and Christians, laid blame with the powerful Iran-backed Shi’ite militia Hezbollah, saying it had provoked the violence by joining Syria’s war on Assad’s behalf.

“There is a fear that Hezbollah’s continued intervention in Syria will lead to the Iraq-isation of Lebanon. They went to war in Syria and brought the war to Lebanon,” it said.

The Syrian war has polarized Lebanon and the wider Middle East between Sunnis and Shi’ites, sects that have fought since the first generation after Islam’s 7th century founding. Sunni Muslims support the rebels fighting Assad and Shi’ites back the president, whose Alawite faith is an offshoot of Shi’ism.

This year, Assad gained momentum by winning the overt battlefield support of Lebanon’s Hezbollah fighters, as well as help from Iraqi Shi’ites and Iranian commanders.

Meanwhile Sunnis, including Lebanese, have poured into Syria to aid the rebels, who are armed and funded by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Beirut-based political commentator Rami Khouri said the “Armageddon scenario” - Iranian Shi’ite revolutionary forces facing off against Saudi-backed Sunni militants across the Middle East - was drawing rapidly closer.

“You have these two broad groups now openly attacking each other. It’s no longer a battle of proxies - the principles are killing each other in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq”.

More than 100,000 people have been killed in Syria’s civil war, and a similar number during a decade of SunniShi’ite violence in Iraq. Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war killed 120,000.

The modern phenomenon of suicide bombing - the tactic that more than any other has become the grisly hallmark of today’s Middle East violence - first blasted its way onto the world’s consciousness in April 1983, when a man drove a car packed with explosives into the U.S. embassy in Beirut. The attack killed 63 people including 17 Americans.

Six months later two men drove trucks packed with explosives into U.S. and French barracks in Beirut suburbs,

killing 299 American and French troops. A group calling itself Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for that attack, although Washington has long suspected that the true culprit was Hezbollah.

Today, suicide bombing is the signature of Sunni groups, especially al Qaeda’s Iraq branch, which has sent more than a thousand bombers to blow themselves up at markets, cafes, mosques and police checkpoints in the past decade.

It has now joined forces with the Sunni rebels fighting in Syria.

Tuesday’s attack, the first major strike on an embassy in Beirut since Lebanon’s civil war, was claimed by a Lebanon-based Sunni Islamist militant group which warned of more attacks unless Tehran withdraws its military forces from Syria.

One bomber carried 5 kg (12 pounds) of explosives and a second drove a car laden with 50 kg, in what may have been an attempt to breach embassy walls and then blow the car up inside the compound.

Amidst the anger and trepidation, the public responses from Iran and Hezbollah have been restrained. Hezbollah deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem called on all Lebanese “to stand together and face this terrorism, whatever our political differences”.

He also played down the prospect that Lebanon could descend into all-out violence. “Lebanon has not yet reached the point where it can be compared to Iraq. The situation is different, and we are at the beginning of the road.”

But privately, Shi’ite politicians described Tuesday’s bombing as a watershed. One said the use of suicide bombers had “changed the rules of the game” while another said Lebanon had been turned into a “jihadi battleground”.

“This bombing ups the ante,” said Paul Salem of the Middle East Institute, noting that previous rocket and bomb attacks earlier this year had targeted Hezbollah, not its patron Iran.

“Lebanon is part of a proxy war that is engulfing the entire Levant and the alliances that back the factions in

Lebanon are the same that back opposing groups in Syria and Iraq,” he said.

“A pattern could evolve, as it did in Iraq in 20052006 and onward, in which car bombs and suicide missions were one of the main instruments of sectarian and proxy conflict.”

The trigger for the Iranian embassy attack may have been the latest offensive by Assad’s forces - in the mountainous Qalamoun region north of Damascus, close to Lebanon’s border.

The fighting has helped Assad consolidate his power around the capital and further reduce the ability of the rebels to cross over between Lebanon and Syria.

The combination of rebel military setbacks and the presence of large numbers of fighters on the Lebanese side of the border may have led some Sunni militants to switch their focus towards soft targets connected to Assad’s allies, such as the embassy.

“I assume these groups were able to strike against the embassy previously, and had held back for some reason,” said Yezid Sayigh of the Carnegie Middle East Centre. “It’s a reasonable assumption that the battle for Qalamoun is the likely trigger.”

Lebanon has no shortage of potential recruits for similar attacks, particularly in its north.

“Across the whole (northern) area from the coast to the Syrian border... these Salafi Islamist groups have been rising up over the last ten years,” Khouri said.

Widespread fears of what all-out conflict could do to Lebanon could be the best protection against escalating violence. But they are unlikely to halt attacks by shadowy groups on either side of the regional conflict.

“No one in Lebanon has the interest or stomach for large-scale military confrontations,” said Sayigh. “But shadow wars are different because you don’t need significant numbers, you don’t need front lines, and it’s easy to hit soft targets.”

Courtesy: Reuters

THE NIGERIAN

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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2013

THE NIGERIAN

27

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2013

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THE NIGERIAN

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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2013

Consistency Key To Trophy Tilt - Szczesny

• Ole Gunner Solskjaer

English Premier Title

Wojciech Szczesny has claimed Arsenal are finally ready to enter the winner’s circle once again, as their impressive run of form in 2013 continues.

Polish stopper Szczesny has re-established himself as the Gunners’ first choice keeper after being dropped for a spell earlier this year and he has suggested his own renewed confidence is synonymous of the mood in Arsene Wenger’s dressing room.

Despite losing their most recent Premier League fixture against Manchester United, Szczesny is convinced the current Arsenal side do not need additional re-enforcements to beat all comers in the second half of the Premier League season, as they look to end the club’s oft-mentioned nine-year

Only Chelsea Can Stop Man United - Solskjaer OLE Gunnar Solskjaer says only Chelsea can stop Manchester United winning the Premier League title again this season.

Premier League.

The Old Trafford legend who scored 91 goals in 235 appearances during nine stellar years under Sir Alex Ferguson - reckons that David Moyes can galvanise a title push from his new charges, despite a testing first three months.

Solskjaer, who won the Norwegian league in his first two seasons as Molde manager and is preparing for a Cup final this weekend, also admits he would love to manage in the

“I said it when I came back here that I just want to see if I can manage and if I enjoy it,” he told Sky Sports News. “If I do and there’s offers coming then I’d like to see myself in the Premier League one day.

“David’s started slowly then the machinery has started to work now so I’m pleased with the progress they’ve made.

Everyone’s talking about a bad, bad start but if you look at the other championship

contenders they’re not very far ahead.

“Man United and Chelsea, those two for me are the main contenders. Of course Man United can win it, absolutely no problem. They’ve got the players to do it, they’ve got the history to do it, now when David is getting to know the players, I’m sure we’ll improve. I’m still saying ‘we’!

“After almost 15 years you still feel a part.”

On Sir Alex Ferguson’s

No Fans

Napoli to stage their final Group F fixture against the Gunners behind closed doors on December 11.

The solicitor to the Serie A club, Mattia Grassani, remains hopeful that fans will still be allowed to attend and potentially celebrate their progress into the knockout phase.

“The UEFA delegates recognised that Napoli have made improvements in the way they organise things in the report they submitted at the end of the Marseille game,” he told the local Il Mattino newspaper. “They highlighted how everybody had worked together to improve the success of the sporting event.

“If all we get is a fine, then that would be a great result.”

Napoli’s final group game will be a celebration for the fans regardless of the verdict if Rafa Benitez’s men manage to secure their place in the last 16 by at least drawing with Borussia

that whoever comes into the team, whoever comes in does a fantastic job. We are at our best at the right and it seems to be bringing results.”

Szczesny suggests Arsenal have defied the doubters with their performances at the back end of last season and the start of this, yet he is eager to point out that they still have plenty of work to do.

“We have shown that to people [what we can do] over the last six months or so,” added the keeper who kept a clean sheet for his country in an international against the Republic of Ireland last Tuesday.

• Wojeiech Szczesny

Tottenham Head Over To The Only a point and a position to find a way of breaking separates Tottenham Hotspur through their impermeable Etihad from Manchester City when wall at home.

Dortmund next Tuesday.

Defeat in Germany, however, would mean the Partenopei would most probably need to beat the Gunners to stand any chance of going through and the support of a packed San Paolo, where they have already beaten Dortmund 21 and Marseille 3-2 this season, could be crucial.

they meet at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday afternoon.

Kick-off will be at 15h30 (CAT).

From the league leaders Arsenal through to eighth placed City, it is all delicately poised on the Barclays Premier League log and these two heavy weights will hope to find a way in closing the gap.

Six points is all that divides City from the Gunners and they know that, in order to remain a title contender, they will have to continue on with their good form at home.

An astonishing 12 goals have been scored in City’s previous two ventures on home soil, a 7-0 thrashing of Norwich City and a 5-2 win over CSKA Moscow, making this encounter all the more daunting for Spurs.

However, the Citizens are still fully capable of being defeated and their recent 1-0 loss away to Sunderland before the international break highlighted some of their frailties.

No doubt Spurs boss Andre Villas-Boas will be sifting through the footage of City’s slip-ups this season in order

But they too have had to deal with their own misdemeanors on the field of play too this season.

A recent 1-0 defeat to Newcastle United at White Hart Lane stunned the Premier League observers, while a goalless draw away to Everton has seen them put out some unconvincing displays of late.

For both English outfits, this game presents itself as a chance to climb up the Premier League ladder but there is little dividing both teams coming into the encounter.

REAL Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo has told AS that 201314 could be shaping up to the best campaign of his career, although he added: “I am good every season.”

Ronaldo’s stunning hat trick in Tuesday’s playoff second leg in Sweden clinched Portugal’s place at next year’s World Cup, while he already has 31 goals in the first 22 games of the current campaign.

His strike rate is speeding up, too — since late October, Ronaldo has scored 13 goals in six games for club and country and he believes he could be about to set a new benchmark in his own career.

“I am good every season,”

Ronaldo said. “At least I prepare myself for this, and try to be the best I can. Maybe, with the number of goals I have, this could be the best moment of my life. This could maybe be my best season, but I believe I always play my role.”

The playoff with Sweden had been billed as a personal duel between Ronaldo and Sweden captain Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and it played out that way, with the Madrid star netting all four of his side’s goals in the 4-2 aggregate victory and the PSG striker contributing a brace.

Ronaldo said he had been aware of the personalised nature of the games and was happy to come out on top, while he

appreciated his rival’s gesture in applauding the clinching goal.

“Yes, and this time I won,” Ronaldo said. “[But his] gesture leaves me very happy. Zlatan is a fantastic player and when you have the respect of your colleagues and fans it is a very nice feeling.”

Ronaldo’s performance in the World Cup playoff has seen Ronaldo displace previous favourite Franck Ribery as the frontrunner for the Ballon d’Or, with FIFA having controversially extended the voting deadline.

The 2008 winner — who was previously reported to be planning not to attend January’s

ceremony due to his disappointment with FIFA president Sepp Blatter — declined to comment any further on the matter.

UCL: Napoli May Host Arsenal With

NAPOLI will have to stage their final Champions League group match against Arsenal without any fans at the Stadio San Paolo if UEFA decides to close the venue due to recent crowd disturbances.

The Serie A side have received repeated warnings from Europe’s governing body to exercise better control over the conduct of their fans, but incidents inside and around the stadium prior to and during their 3-2 win over Marseille earlier this month have tested UEFA’s patience.

They are concluding a report into that match, which saw the windscreen of a minibus bringing Marseille players to the stadium smashed and various dangerous items and weapons discovered by local police.

During the game, both sets of fans lit flares and threw fireworks after stewards failed to confiscate the prohibited items at the gates.

As a result, UEFA could force

recent book, he added: “I met him last week and he gave it to me, I haven’t started reading it yet. I’ve read in the media that he said some nice things about me which is nice.”

wait for a major trophy.

“I don’t want to say nobody can challenge us for a trophy, but if we are at our best we will win a trophy and that’s all that matters,” Szczesny is quoted in the Daily Mirror.

“I wouldn’t say we have proved everyone wrong and passed all the tests yet. I will say that when we get our hands on a trophy in May. “I think what is important is what we believe in and we believe that we are good enough with the players we have got and the work we are doing to win the Premier League.

“There is no reason not to [have belief]. When you look at the last few months almost 12 months really because it is not only this season we’ve been doing well.

“It was the last two or three months of last season, where we went unbeaten for a few games.

We are confident that we see the quality is there and we know that when we play at our very best and do it consistently well, we can beat anyone basically.

“A couple of years ago there was a case of not being consistent enough individually as a team, but now you can see

Cristiano Ronaldo Eyes Best Season

• Cristiano Ronaldo

THE NIGERIAN

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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2013

Tennis

FIFA Ask Ugandan FA To Make Changes

Halep Named WTA’s Most Improved Player

ROMANIA’S Simona Halep has been named the WTA’s most improved player after a breakout season left her on the brink of cracking the Top 10.

Halep beat former US Open champion Samantha Stosur in the final of the Tournament of Champions in Sofia earlier this month to capture her sixth title of the year.

Winning the season-ending WTA event at the Armeets Arena in Bulgaria earned the 22-year-old Romanian a cheque for $270,000 (£155,000) and lifted her three places in the world rankings to a career-high

11th.

After a mediocre start to the year, Halep caught fire in June, winning titles at Nurnberg, Den Bosch and Budapest, then adding crowns at New Haven and Moscow.

“Next year will be tough because I’ll have to defend all the points,” Halep said after her win in Sofia.

“But I don’t want to make any plans. I won a lot of titles this season, I played really well and it’s not going to be easy next season. I just want to enjoy my time on the WTA tour and to feel the pleasure in every moment on the court.”

ATP Relocate Bangkok Tournament To China THE 2014 ATP World Tour will feature a new tournament in Shenzhen, China, the ATP have announced.

The tournament will be held from September 22-28 at the Shenzhen Longgang Sports Center after the ATP Board of Directors approved the relocation of the World Tour 250 event from Bangkok.

Alison Lee, ATP executive vice president, said of the move: “China has long been a growing market for men’s professional tennis and we’re

delighted to strengthen our presence in the region through the addition of this ATP World Tour 250 tournament in Shenzhen.”

The move means that China becomes the first country outside the United States to host ATP World Tour 250, 500 and Masters 1000 events.

“The new ATP World Tour event, Shenzhen Open, confirms the exponential growth of tennis in the People’s Republic of China,” added tournament director Allon Khakshouri.

• Simona Halep

Refs To Use Vanishing Spray At CWC

more recently the FIFA U17 World Cup and it will now be FIFA has confirmed it is to allow referees to use available to referees at the vanishing spray to mark out the distance for defensive upcoming Club World Cup in walls at the Club World Cup next month.

Morocco.

FIFA’s head of refereeing, The spray allows officials America, and in March 2012 to paint a white line on the the International Football Massimo Busacca, told the field that marks out the Association Board (IFAB) governing body’s official minimum 10-yard (9.15 approved its use across any website: “A large majority of metres) distance opposition confederation, member the officials considered the spray as a useful and helpful players are required to stand association or league.

A spray produced by tool. from a free kick. The line “The spray has a clear disappears after one minute. Argentine company 9.15 Fair It was trialled in Argentina Play Limit was used at the preventive effect: The in 2008 and successfully FIFA U20 World Cup in distance was always employed at the 2011 Copa Turkey in July this year and respected, so no yellow card for not respecting the distance had to be given throughout the two tournaments played so far.

Chukwu told the chance. I am looking After the Club World Cup in forward to the game with a lot MTNFootball.com that his Morocco, further evaluations of expectations,” Chibuike ambition is to win the cup so will be made. We will review as to secure continental ticket said. the results and discuss if the Chibuike scored nine goals after missing the cut in the in the league and four in the spray will be used also in league. cup. future FIFA competitions.”

“We have been preparing To reach the final, Molde The Club World Cup will well and hard for the game. be contested by Bayern God willing our plan is to beat Lillestrom in the semiMunich, Atletico Mineiro, secure a ticket to the continent final via penalties after 2-2 in by winning the cup. I know it regulation time, while Guangzhou Evergrande, Aldefeated Ahly, Monterrey, Auckland won’t be easy but we are Rosenborg ready for the battle,” Chima Haugesund 2-1 in the other City and hosts Raja Chukwu told semi-final.

Casablanca.

MTNFootball.com Chima scored nine goals in the league for Molde.

A L G E R I A N said that five celebrating Rosenborg midfielder John authorities say 12 people fans were killed when a Chibuike, on the other hand, told MTNFootball.com his have died and 240 were van slid off the road into a mission in the cup final is to injured during ravine in the mountain win it so as not to end the celebrations for Algeria’s town of Bejaia, east of season without a trophy after 1-0 victory over Burkina Algiers, while four others missing the league crown. died in the southern city of Faso that sent the ”We finished second in the country’s team to the 2014 Biskra in a car accident. league so we have a ticket to World Cup in Brazil.

The remaining three play in the continent, but we A government died in other towns, the want to end the season with a trophy and the cup provide us statement on Wednesday statement added without

Nigerian Trio Seeks Norwegian Cup Glory NIGERIAN trio of Daniel Chima Chukwu, Emmanuel Ekpo and John Chibuike will aim to win the Norway Cup on Sunday as Molde face Rosenborg.

Chukwu and Ekpo play for

Molde, while John Chibuike features for Rosenborg.

Chima Chukwu and John Chibuike have told MTNFootball.com that they are going for the trophy.

Molde striker Chima

FIFA has asked the Uganda FA to make changes in five key areas if they hope to develop and promote the sport better.

Edgar Watson, the FA’s Chief Executive Officer, confirmed to MTNFootball.com that the FIFA team, led by the Development Officer for Eastern and Southern Africa, Ashford Mamelodi, asked them early this week to make changes quickly.

The five FIFA members, including consultants who were in Uganda for one week to carry out appraisal and audit of the FA’s operations, included Mamelodi, Sue Destombes, Govinden Thondoo, Diamil Faye and Patrick Onyango.

“We have been asked to make changes on our technical approach, general football management, marketing and communication, governance, league and clubs,” explained the FA CEO. FIFA asked to see an improvement within the next two to four years in the aspects identified as weak areas.

Watson said the coming of the FIFA team of experts will help Uganda a lot in the long run because they now know where the major weaknesses are and can start addressing them.

Mamelodi said last week that the audit and appraisal system, which FIFA has just started, is not forced on all member federations.

“Uganda asked us to come and carry out the audit and we expect them to follow what we have asked them to do,” he said.

Stop Press

Alex Ekhorowa vs Theodore Lokossou Bout Postponed.

A New Date To Be Announced Later

12 Die In Algeria Celebrations

• Daniel Chima Chukwu

further details.

All across Algeria people poured into the streets to celebrate their team’s qualification for the cup, with young men driving their cars down the streets and honking their horns, despite heavy rain in the north on Tuesday night.

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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2013

News Extra KTSG Distributes Tools To 361 Grave Yards

Musawa (Katsina State) - The Katsina State Government has commenced the distribution of working materials to 361 grave yards rehabilitation groups across the state.

Alhaji Abubakar Bindawa, the Special Adviser to Governor Ibrahim Shema on Community Development, said at the launch of the scheme in Musawa that, the gesture would facilitate the groups’ services.

Bindawa said one volunteer group was selected in each of the wards and expressed hope to expand the gesture to others.

He said each of the wards received three wheel barrows, shovels, diggers, rakes and 80 bags of cements for the repairs of water ways and other necessary repairs at the yards.

Bindawa said the maintenance of the yards should be a collective

responsibility as their collapse may subject communities to dangers.

The special adviser also

prone to cholera outbreak,’’ he said.

The officer told newsmen that occupants of the buildings must improve on sanitation within three

days.

“We discovered that the schools also had poor sanitary facilities.

“We educated them on the importance of keeping

healthy environment; we hope that they will improve when next we visit them,’’ he said.

He said that the inspection would continue.

year.

Alhaji Tanimu Kira, the Chairman of Musawa Local Government Transition Committee, commended the state government for the gesture.

Kira said 11 groups had benefited from the assistance in Musawa local government and called on the beneficiaries to ensure judicious use of the items.

LAGOS- Mr Nurudeen Bello, the Managing Director, De-Next Hotel International, Akoka, has advised the Lagos State Government to transform beaches in the state to tourism centres.

Bello told newsmen in Lagos that the transformation would elevate the state to a tourism destination in Africa.

He said that the transformation of the beaches would also fetch substantial revenues to the state government.

“Most of the beaches in the state are in poor condition.

“Therefore, the government needs to upgrade them by transforming them to tourism centres.

“Tourists and visitors like

to feel natural things. A beach is an environment that people will like to feel and enjoy the cool breeze.

“Developing the beaches will make them more befitting for relaxation and enjoyment, “ Bello said.

He said that some of the beaches should be upgraded to promote tourism.

Bello listed beaches in Lagos to include the

Mayegun Beach in Lekki, Bar Beach in Victoria Island, Eleko Beach in Ibeju-Lekki, Alpha Beach in Lekki and Suntan Beach in Badagry.

He urged the state government to also build adventure parks, hotels and zoological gardens at the beaches to make them onestop tourism destinations.

said that the state government had constructed 2,000 mosques and Islamic

schools in the last six years.

He added that the government had also

distributed working materials for the execution of 800 community initiated projects each

Poor Sanitation: 3 Schools, 47 Others

LAGOS- Environmental Health Officers in Oshodi Local Government of Lagos State on Wednesday issued a nuisance abatement notice to occupants of 50 buildings, including three public schools.

The Leader of the team, Mr Samuel Akingbehin, told newsmen in Lagos that the notice was issued after thorough inspection of the buildings.

Akingbehin, the President of the Environmental Health Officers’ Association of Nigeria, Lagos State Chapter, said that the inspection become imperative due to the recent outbreak of cholera in some parts of the state.

He said that many of the buildings inspected had defective septic tanks.

“These are residential houses with large population; such places are

Get Abatement Notice

Expert Advises LASG To Make Beaches More Attractive To Tourists

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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2013

Football Enthusiasts Want NFA, NSC To Compensate Late Njengo’s Family SOME football enthusiasts in Lagos called for compensation for the family of the late Friday Njengo, who was a defender with the Manu Garba-coached Golden Eaglets.

Njengo’s death would be felt The player had died Tuesday, following an auto crash more by the entire football community in the country. than nine months ago.

He had died after being on They then urged the Federal admission in intensive care at Government, through the Nigeria Football Association the National Hospital in Abuja since the accident.

(NFA), to adequately compensate his family.

The late Njengo was involved in the accident on Joe Erico, an exFebruary 3, 2013 with a international, said it was a pity that a budding talent lost his teammate, Adamu Abubakar, while travelling from Jalingo in life that way.

Taraba to Calabar, Cross River.

He however said he was certain that government would They were on their way for compensate the family he left the team’s first phase of final camping for the qualifiers for behind by taking care of them and ensuring they lacked the 2013 CAF U-17 Championship, where the team nothing. emerged runners-up.

“It is the responsibility of the government to ensure that the He was a regular in the team late defender’s family is taken during the qualifiers for the care of, because he met his African championship where death while he was on national the Eaglets overcame Niger, assignment.

Guinea and Mali.

“No amount of money can A cross-section of football enthusiasts however told bring him back, but a little care for their upkeep can help to newsmen in separate ease the pains they feel,” he interviews on telephone that

Onazi Plays Down Liverpool NIGERIA international Switch

Ogenyi Onazi has played down reports linking him with a switch to Liverpool, insisting he is happy at Lazio.

The Jos-born star told Lazio Style Radio that he was surprised to hear of rumours linking him with a move to Liverpool.

Onazi has hinted that an interview he granted in London may have been taken out of context, and he insists he is happy with his current club Lazio.

“I came back from London yesterday morning, some people have told me (about) this interview.

“I did one interview in London, but I was asked this question on Liverpool. This is

• Ogenyi Onazi

very strange. I’m under contract with Lazio, and I’m fine here,” Onazi said.

The Lazio midfielder has been linked to a move to Everton following his impressive displays in the Italian Serie A and the national team.

said.

Joseph Dosu, also an exinternational, said the NFA should compensate the late player’s family because he was on his way to a national assignment.

“Whatever the NFA can do to relieve his family of the pains of the unfortunate incident which happened to their child should be done.

“I cannot but stress the importance of this, because the young boy was on his way to serve his fatherland,” Dosu said.

Yekini Ayodeji, the Chief Coach of Prime Football Club of Osogbo, said the news of Njengo’s death upset him because he was interested in the late player ’s skills as a defender.

Ayodeji said that Njengo was a talented player and that he was sure he would have eventually made it to the senior national team, the Super Eagles.

“I feel sad when I see young men that have their dreams and vision abruptly cut short by death.

“I pray that God in his infinite mercy will grant his family the strength needed to bear their loss,” the coach said.

Ayodeji also appealed to both the NFA and the National Sports Commission (NSC) to compensate the deceased’s family, saying no amount of

Eguavoen Rues Eagles Lack Of Tactical Depth

By SUCCESS OSAYI

BENIN CITY—Former Coach of the Nigerian Super Eagles, Austin Eguavoen has emphasized the lack of tactical approach of the men’s national team when up against opposition teams, stressing that coach Stephen Keshi would have to fix it soon if they are to

have an impact at the world cup.

Eguavoen made this remark while speaking at the discussion segment that immediately followed the live broadcast of the match between Italy and Nigeria on the Africa Independent Television (AIT), monitored in Benin.

Speaking, he expressed concerns over the teams tacticalless approach especially with respect to their defending.

According to him, when a team is under attack, there should be three lines of defense guarding the goalkeeper.

He said the player behind the striker or both that player and the striker should form the first, the entire midfield line should make up the second line and the base line should consist of the four defenders.

The Nigerian team he added, lacks this approach and as a result, the ce3tre backs are exposed too often which in turn makes them prone to mistakes.

He however took time to praise the attacking approach employed by the Super Eagles in the 2-2 draw with Italy in London.

money could bring him back though.

Fatai Amao, the Coach of Sunshine Stars FC of Akure, also appealed to the NFA to

take care of the late player’s burial expenses and also compensate the family of the deceased.

“This will go a long way to

ease for the family the pains the late defender ’s death left behind, since he died while on a national duty,’’ he said.

Friday Njengo on duty for Nigeria during Eaglets African qualifiers

8 Teams Disqualified At Maiden Lagos Int’l Basketball Classics EIGHT of the 24 teams which registered for the junior category of competition at the maiden 3x3 Lagos International Basketball Classics in Lagos were disqualified from the event.

Gbade Olatona, the Technical Director, Lagos State Basketball Association (LSBBF) who is also the event’s co-ordinator, disclosed this to newsmen in Lagos.

He said the measure was to ensure standard in the competition.

“We have our targets, and it is to develop the young ones according to their capabilities and their ranks. This is why we

were strict on age cheats in the junior category.

“The teams which were screened out had brought players who were older than 17 years and this caused a lot of abnormalities,” Olatona said.

Reports say that the first edition of the 3x3 Lagos International Basketball Classics began on Wednesday in Lagos.

The three-day tournament is an innovation of three-on-three basketballers playing in a half court format from the regular five-a-side full court.

In some of the matches played in the junior category, newsmen reports that Deepbond Academy defeated DEL

Academy 10-7 while Miami Rookies beat Fantastic Four 119.

Also, Skymakers defeated Form-Three 7-4, while ISL Team A crushed Vectors 8-4.

In the senior category, Olatona said seven teams from across the country had registered while five teams from Republic of Benin were still being expected to participate in the competition.

He said teams from Togo, Cote d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Ghana, which were earlier billed for the tournament, backed out of the competition “due to reasons beyond their control’’.

Enyimba FC Will Keep Working Hard, Says Club Official ENYIMBA International Football Club of Aba has said its resolve remains continuing to be one of the country’s most accomplished football sides.

The team’s General Coordinator, Okey Nwabeke, told newsmen in Lagos that this was why the club had consistently strived to remain at the top.

Nwabeke said Enyimba FC’s recent nomination as Club of the Year 2013 at the maiden Nigeria Pitch Awards was an indication that the club’s consistent performance had not gone unnoticed.

Reports say that the Ababased club was nominated alongside Kano Pillars FC

which eventually emerged as the winners in their category on November 16 in Calabar.

“We hope to perform better than we did last season. Next season is going to be more interesting for our fans, as preparations are already in top gear.

“We cannot afford to disappoint our teeming fans, and all necessary logistics are being put together to ensure a better outing next season.

“We intend to keep making our fans happy and also give them a reason to keep supporting us,’’ Nwabeke said.

He said the club’s management would do what

was necessary while preparing the team for the 2013/2014 season.

“The team will be fortified of course. But we are not ready to disclose what we are up to.

However, we are going to build a better team.

“We are going for the continental competition next season, and we want to win the trophy for Nigeria again,’’ the club co-ordinator said.

Reports say that Enyimba won the 2013 edition of the Federation Cup, and also emerged runners-up in the Glo Premier League organised by the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL).

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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2013

The Worth Of An Opinion

FEED A Writer’s Challenge BACK

BY opinion, I mean that section of a magazine, newspaper or even a book where personal views are expressed on a topic. The views expressed here may be personal, but the inkling most times is that they are regarded as experts’ opinions by the readers or public. It is to this extent that the readers or public feel concerned about such expressed views, and understand the views’ capacity to influence people’s thinking and actions.

Essentially, it is required of the person expressing an opinion to be broad based: Taking into reckoning a lot of factors which include the knowledge or understanding of so many persons’ levels of perceptiveness.

However, as he aims to make a concise and informed submission for readers’ easy assimilation, a writer must endeavour to make his opinion as cogent and unbiased as possible.

In the present time, maintaining a neutral position when arriving at a more generally acceptable opinion is beset with a lot of challenges.

These challenges do not stem from the dearth of bold and truthful persons capable of expressing sincere opinions.

Furthermore, it can also not be generally said that lucent or insightful opinions are greatly undermined by appropriate grammatical expressions or any other easily understandable means of expression.

But firstly, it must be understood that the act of making insightful or cogent opinions requires some form of mental

exercise which enables the mind in all circumstances to operate as an optimally functioning mill while processing or refining all the information received before arriving at a conclusion or product that is most useful to the readers, public or customers as intended.

Understandably, a newspaper or magazine organisation expects readers of opinions expressed in their publications to be viewed exclusively as the writers’ opinions.

However, this desired detachment can only be as relevant as safeguarding the publisher from libellous offences. But in the same vein, it is not that easy for the publishers of newspapers or magazines to exonerate themselves from the worth or value of opinions expressed in their publications. It is worthy of note that any person who aims to make his opinion an asset in public discourse would always strive to make even the most partisan leanings to appear cogent and not glaringly misinformative.

Sometime ago, somebody, who works in a popular Nigerian Newspaper organisation narrated how their organisation was at a crossroad over publishing some writers’ candid and in the main damning opinions because the wife of their publisher’s elder brother was involved in some financial sleaze. But for the virtuous editorial membership of the organisation, it was considered most reasonable to disuse such sent in opinions

than to hurriedly put a panel of opinion writers together with the aim of putting up opinions to prove to the public how some manner of corruption or stealing are really not as bad as the common sense proves.

As different issues emanate daily in our private and public-life, a lot of persons turn to

trending issues, we must in our desire for a better society appreciate the overall harm inflicted when the culture of ‘he who pays the piper dictates the tune’ permeates everything we do; such as aiming to blame Jesus Christ for a poor sense of judgement when He decided to choose Judas Iscariot as

established sources of information for enlightenment. As much as most writers have failed to develop their minds to keep producing works that would be sound referrals when people seek informed opinions on current or

one of His Disciples, instead of blaming Judas Iscariot for an inexcusable act of diminished responsibility owing to his betrayal of Jesus Christ.

There is absolutely no doubt that even the best expressed opinion is

By KINGSLEY OGBEIDE-IHAMA weakened by its inability to serve all interest. For me, being a writer who strives to express an opinion on trending issues is a great privilege and a worthy responsibility. It is not just about knowing that

one has to send something to the press at the end of the day, week or month, for a publication. It is not about always hurrying to put something together in order to avoid the deadline. It is about influencing the public to

form the opinion which will lead to the kind of general action that would be considerate of me, and the feelings of others, towards me.

Not expressing an opinion when it is expected for one to speak-out is bad enough. If we consider our personal relationship to a person perpetuating criminality and refuse to speak out against it; others who we are not close to us would assume such acts as appropriate and eventually use them against our interest.

This is the aphorism of ‘what goes around; comes around’. This underlines why opinions from established sources of information must be raised above commercial or patronising cynicisms in order to do a greater service to the society.

We should understand that the larger society has the potency of consuming everything in a breakout of uncultured temper.

Therefore the culture of feeding the society with the wrong moral diet which tainted opinions from some writings represent must be greatly reduced if not stopped.

“There is absolutely no doubt that even the best expressed opinion is weakened by its inability to serve all interest. For me, being a writer who strives to express an opinion on trending issues is a great privilege and a worthy responsibility.”

Printed and published by Bendel Newspapers Company Limited, 24, Airport Road, P.M.B. 1334 Benin City. Telephone; Lagos: 01 4930929, Benin: 052 257492, 257531 Editor. BARR. SOLOMON IMOHIOSEN (KSJI) - (07030699646), Deputy General Manager (Marketing) (08023457566), Assistant General Manager(Advertisement) (08023808856) Lagos Office: 3/4 Amode Close, Kudirat Abiola Way, By Olushonsun Bus Stop, Oregun, Ikeja, Lagos. Abuja Office: Floor 1, Edo House, 75 Ralph Shodeinde Street, Central Business District, Abuja. Tel/Fax: 09-5237631. All correspondence to: 24 Airport Road, Benin City. E-mail: nigerianobserver@yahoo.com (ISSN 0331-2674)

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