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Thursday, January 22, 2015 Rabi Al-Thani 2, 1436 AH

. . . putting the people first

APC, PDP condemn stoning of Jonathan in Katsina

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President excited over mammoth crowd in Kano

>> page 3,18

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N150 Vol. 15 No. 41

Again, Nigerian, 5 others face death in Bangkok over drug

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FG stops Buhari’s fund raising website

l Katsina College releases his WASC result l Explains why he ignored PDP’s mischief >> page 2

L: Emir of Kano, Alhaji Muhammadu Sunusi II, welcoming President Goodluck Jonathan to his palace, during a visit by the PDP Presidential Campaign Team to the emir, yesterday in Kano.

Photo: Joe Oroye

Elections: IG vows to sanction erring policemen This is the secondary school result of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari as released by the school principal upon request by Buhari yesterday.

By Joy Baba Yesufu

T

he Inspector General of Police (IGP), Suleiman Abba, yesterday vowed to sanction any policeman who engages in any unprofessional act during the general elections scheduled to hold

283 Days after Will the abducted Chibok schoolgirls ever be rescued?

next month.

This is coming as the Forum of Spokespersons of Security and Response Agencies (FOSSRA) also pledged that it will remain professional, nonpartisan and apolitical at all times, especially Contd on Page 2 during the February general

Bird flu spreads to Kano, Edo, Ogun, Plateau, Delta >> page 3

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PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

News CONTENTS News 2-11 Editorial 13 Op.Ed 14 Letters 15 Politics 16-18 Business Stockwatch

19-22 23

S/Report 24-25 M/Earth 26 Update 28 Feature 30

Election: IG vows to sanction erring policemen Contd from Page 1 elections.

The Inspector-General of Police, who at the Police headquarters in Abuja launched an Operational Guidelines for police officers that would be involved in the conduct of the elections, said the Force is adopting a strategy to enable it live up to expectations in providing security for the 2015 elections.

While launching the booklet titled “Nigeria Police Force Standard Operational Guideline of Rules for Police Officers on Electoral Duty’’, the IGP said “It is simply a guide to all police officers on their legal responsibilities and ethical expectations from members of the public.

“It is aimed at improving the individual and ultimately the general performance of the Nigeria police force in ensuring free, fair and credible elections.

“It is for police officers right from the rank of Inspector-

General of Police to the Constable,’’ According to him, the book will be extended to sister security agencies that will be working with the police during the elections.

Similarly, FOSSRA in a communiqué on its first meeting for 2015 held in Abuja yesterday and signed by Major Gen. Chris Olukolade and Emmanuel Okeh, Chairman and Secretary respectively, the forum said its members will continue to ensure that press statements, official pronouncements of individual members as well as their organisations remain professional, non-partisan and apolitical at all times.

While stressing the need for efficient and effective interagency collaboration, he said members resolved not to be distracted by blackmail and intimidation in carrying out their statutory duties.

FOSSRA’s membership

From Ayodele Samuel, Lagos, Lawal Sa’idu Funtua, Katsina & Ahmed Abubakar

He said legitimate fund raising is the norm around the world to finance electioneering campaign, saying the party is not aware of legislation that prevents any commercial entity from advancing any political aims, or engaging in commercial businesses with political parties, apart from making party political donations – which of course the PDP Federal government so shamelessly breached when it recently collected billions of Naira from many commercial interests.”

“Telecommunications providers must, therefore, not be bullied by the NCC into infringing upon the rights of their subscribers to have unfettered access to information and services for which they paid or are paying.

Let it be crystal clear that we would not let the NCC undermine our democratic rights and freedoms by following the Egyptian model of blocking social media platforms or channels, particularly as the operators are not responsible for social media contents.”

According to Mohammed, “Not once has the telecommunications regulatory body, prevented individuals and organizations have been using these new platforms to either pass across messages or promote their products, among others, just like they have done through the traditional platforms, including radio, television and the newspapers.

“But it seems the government of the day is not comfortable with that. While the PDP-led Federal Government has been mouthing its commitment to free, fair and transparent elections, it has on the other hand been doing everything possible to prevent that. Or how can you have a free, fair and transparent election if you won’t even allow the opposition to leverage the existing national telecommunications infrastructure to raise funds for its campaign? How can you have a credible election when the government of the day routinely uses national institutions as a tool to stifle the opposition?”

The party said it is more

Metro

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Int’l 39 S/World

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Sports 41 Columnist 48

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for the public to report suspicious movements, objects or suspects to relevant authorities.

Concerning media practitioners, FOSSRA cautioned against undue sensationalism and unethical journalism and emphasised the need for media executives, especially editors, to ensure fairness, balance and objectivity on their platforms.

The spokespersons who called on politicians to avoid making reckless statements and inciting comments, called for the cooperation of religious and community leaders in sensitizing their subjects and followers on the need to shun acts of violence and thuggery and pledge to support and work with INEC to ensure free, fair, credible and non-violent elections.

Also in the communiqué, was an appeal to Nigerians to always strive for the promotion of peaceful coexistence, tolerance, orderliness and brotherliness.

FG stops Buhari’s fund raising website

B

Electricity ‘fixed charge’: Are Nigerians paying for darkness?

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is drawn from Defence Headquarters, Army, Airforce, Navy, Police, Department of State Services (DSS), Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA), Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Nigeria Prison Service (NPS), Federal Fire Service (FFS), Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) and National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).

The forum reassured law abiding Nigerian citizens of the preparedness of the security agencies to ensure safety of their lives and property before, during and after the forthcoming general elections while encouraging security consciousness among the citizens by being vigilant all the time.

It also emphasised the need

arely 24 hours after the campaign Fund-Raising Committee of the All Progressives Congress, APC presidential campaign unveiled its online fund raising platforms, the National Communications Commission (NCC) has ordered telecommunication service providers to stop all partisan political adverts and promotions.

However the APC is accusing the NCC of seeking to block its ability to use the platforms of SMS, Ringtones and Scratch Cards, which are totally dependent on the telecommunications service providers, to raise funds for its campaign.

NCC in a letter to all major telecommunication organizations dated 19th January 2015 signed by The Head of Legal and Regulatory Services at the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Mrs. Yetunde Akinloye and Mrs. Marian Bayi of the Consumer Affairs Bureau warns service providers to ‘’avoid running political/advertisement promotions that will portray them as being partisan’’, and has threatened to sanction any service provider that will flout this directive.

Reacting to the development at a press conference yesterday in Lagos, National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Alhaji Lai Mohammed said that the party takes a very strong exception to the contents of the letter sent by the NCC to the service providers as well as the timing of such directive.

“There can’t be a clearer example of abuse of office. We are extremely concerned by this brazen act of intimidation and regulatory lawlessness towards legitimate businesses providing perfectly legitimate advertisement services, especially when the advertisers have not breached any law or prevented their subscribers from opting out of such services.”

appalled that the NCC seems splendidly oblivious of the fact that the Nigerian Communications Act 2003 does not outlaw advertisements. In fact, some of the Act’s subsidiary legislation/ guidelines do permit different advertorial media such as mail, licensee’s website, text messages, and electronic mail (where permitted by recipients),etc.

APC warned Federal Government and its parastatals to desist from approbating and reprobating at the same time as this gives the NCC away as a very partisan and biased regulatory agency.

APC called on the NCC to immediately withdraw its” ill-advised, ill-timed and illintentioned directive which is solely aimed at preventing them from legitimately raising funds to finance our campaign.

Meanwhile, Government college Katsina has confirmed the completion of the West African Examination Council (WASC) by former Head of State and presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), General Muhammadu Buhari in 1961.

Accordingly, the school has released the result to the concerned authorities, thereby putting to end controversies that have ensued over the former head of state credentials.

His school records made available to our correspondent yesterday shows that he attended the school for five years.

Buhari whose school number was 134 took the Cambridge University WASC examination in 1961.

His result is as follows: English 5, Hausa 5, History 3, Geography 6, Health Science 6, English literature 7, math 9 and woodwork 9.

Buhari had earlier directed his old secondary school, Provincial Secondary School Katsina to make available school copy of his certificate.

Buhari, who was speaking

to journalists at the Kano State government house Wednesday, said that he assumed that all his records were at the custody of the Nigerian army, adding that he was surprised to be told that the copies of his records were not in his personal file.

“I assumed all along that all my records were in the custody of the Nigerian army. The position I had the privilege to occupy myself. But much to my surprise we are now told that although a record of my result is not available, there are no copies of certificates in my personal file.” He said “I formerly requested for copies of the certificates in my old school, Government College Katsina, formerly known as Provincial Secondary School Katsina, to make available the school’s copy of my result of the Cambridge West African Schools Certificate (WASC). The copies would be available to the press the moment they are available.” He said Giving a brief history of his secondary school, Buhari said that he graduated from the Provincial Secondary School Katsina in 1961 with many prominent Nigerians such as the late General Shehu Musa Yar’adua and Justice Ummaru Abdullahi, former President of the Court of Appeal, adding that he sat for the Cambridge University/ WASC examination with them and his examination number was 8200002 which he passed finally.

He labeled the allegation against him by the ruling party as sheer mischief and decided to ignore it but was prompted to speak about it because of general concern expressed by many supporters that the issue be addressed, adding that for him, the issue would not have been worthy of consideration.

“I am consented to address you because of the general concern by our supporters and well-meaning Nigerians that the issue be addressed. Otherwise, I would have left it as it is as a sheer mischief and would not have considered it an issue worth the nation’s pride.” He said.

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PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

News

Jonathan excited over mammoth crowd in Kano From Mustapha Adamu, Kano

P

resident Goodluck Ebele Jonathan yesterday in the ancient city of Kano, could not hide his excitement over the overwhelming crowd that received him with a promise to boost the economic growth of Kano through intervention programmes in education, agriculture, commerce and industry.

Jonathan stated at the rally held at polo ground in kano, that the cornerstone of his campaign in Kano is the basic empowerment of the youths and women in the commercial nerve centre of the

North.

According to Jonathan, “I will appreciate all of you for this warm reception; this crowd that has come to receive me because this is a prayer time, so we are hurrying,I will just summarize. Let me use this occasion to appreciate the northern youths for donating N2 million for myself and the Vice-President to buy our nomination forms. The donation was made in Kano and we have to use this opportunity to thank all of you for that.

“Let us use this opportunity to also express our condolences to you for the death of our former Emir, Ado Bayero, and also to congratulate

you for successfully crowning the next Emir of this great city and this Emirate. At this occasion, let us remember some of our great sons and daughters that worked very hard to lead this country. One is the great Murtala Muhammad, Malam Aminu Kano and other great leaders that have worked tirelessly.

“When you are in Kano, you remember what people want. Kano is known for education, it is known for agriculture, it is known for commerce and industry; and that is why this present administration will work with you, work with the Governor that is coming, to make sure that we don’t just produce food,

but we process the food and export and that is why we are working very hard. You can remember our agricultural programme—that now, we are producing rice and we will soon export rice from Kano.

The PDP national chairman, Adamu Muazu presented the PDP governorship candidate Salihu Sagiir Takai and his running-mate Abba Risqua Murtala to the people.

The PDP national chairman, Adamu Muazu presented the PDP governorship candidate Salihu Sagiir Takai and his running-mate Abba Risqua Murtala to the people.

Among those who came to campaign with the President include

All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari (middle), addressing a press conference on his certificate issue, yesterday in Kano. With him are Kano state Governor, Engineer Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso (left), and APC Vice-Presidential Candidate, Professor Yemi Osinbajo (right).

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he Gubernatorial candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kaduna state, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, has said that his party has been vindicated from allegations leveled against it by ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP), over smashing of PDP’s posters during the party campaign rally in Kaduna on Monday, saying it was the handiwork of aggrieved members of PDP. El-Rufai who spoke through Samuel Aruwan and Major Yahya

By Doyin Ojosipe

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Shiko (rtd), the spokesperson and director of administration of his campaign committee respectively at a briefing yesterday, said, if the PDP has any problem with him, it should be issue-based and not his person.

“We have been vindicated that neither my principal nor APC member destroyed PDP posters during our rally on Monday, but some of the aggrieved members of the PDP who were not happy about some people that were nominated for the caretaker committee. They just took advantage of the rally to register their grievances.

Defence policy review committee commences consultation in Lagos

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he Presidential Committee on the Review of Nigeria’s National Defence Policy, which commenced consultation in Lagos yesterday, said there was urgent need to bridge the gap between the military and civilians.

Our reporter observed that the Jonathan campaign r ally in K an o w as peaceful, with water tight security.

5 more states hit by bird flu

APC didn’t smash PDP vehicles, posters in Kaduna, says El-Rufai From Femi Oyelola, Kaduna

Jigawa state Governor, Sule Lamido; Akwa Ibom state Governor, Godswill Akpabio, Director-General of Jonathan Campaign Organization, Senator Ahmadu Ali; Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) national chairman, Adamu Muazu; Minister of Education, Ibrahim Shekarau; Minister of Foreign Affairs, Aminu Wali; Minister of Special Duties, Taminu Turaki; wife of the VicePresident, Amina Sambo; and Senior Special Adviser to the President on School Agriculture, Dr. Baraka Sani.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the committee was inaugurated by President Jonathan on Nov. 20, 2014, to assist the government to assess the state of its defence organization, mandate, capabilities and design.

“As you can see, was it APC members that went to state house with knives and destroyed properties, we are not training thugs in APC. “What happened yesterday at the initial venue of swearing of caretaker committee chairmen for the 23 local government areas of the state was a clear indication that PDP need to put its house in order.

“We don’t sponsor adverts that incite any personality or sponsor anybody to cause disharmony in the state. Our position is clear. We only campaign based on issues that affect us as people of the state.

“What is the state of education, health, infrastructure and security, people are been killed in Southern Kaduna and Birni-ngari without serious step to stop the killings. It is not about personality, but issues.

“My principal has made it clear that within the past seven years, Kaduna state has collected over N700bn. Do we have anything to show for that. The development on ground does it commensurate with N700bn.” He said

NEMA establishes two new IDP’s camps in Borno From Mustapha Isa Kwaru, Borno

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he National Emergency Management Agency has disclosed that two additional Internally Displaced Persons, IDP camps have been created in Borno State.

According to reports, the Information Officer of the NorthEast zonal office of the agency, Mallam AbdulKadir Ibrahim made the revelation Wednesday, saying that with the two newly established, the number of camps has increased to 12.

he Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Dr. AKinwumi Adesina, has disclosed that about 5 more states; Kano, Lagos, Ogun, Plateau, Delta, Edo and Rivers, have been hit with the avian influenza, also known as bird flu.

At a press briefing yesterday in Abuja, the Minister also confirmed that while blood samples were taken to the National Veterinary Institute in Jos, it was able to detect the H5N1strain of virus.

He revealed that about 21 commercial farms, 9 live bird markets and 1 private zoo have so far been affected, while over 22,000 of the birds have been reported dead across the country.

Bird flu was first reported in Nigeria in 2006 when a farm in Kaduna was affected after which it circulated to about 25 states.

The bird virus also resurfaced in Kano in 2008 and early this year, in January 8 it was noticed first in Lagos and Ogun, then later Port Harcourt before circulating to 5 more states.

The Minister however assured Nigerians not to panic as the situation is under control, urging Nigerians to cook all poultry products properly before consumption.

He said that directors of veterinary services in all states including FCT Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN) have been advised to be on alert by doubling biosecurity measures in order to stem possible spread of the disease to other states.

Adesina also said that infected premises have been quarantined and restrictions place on movement of birds in and out of such states as well.

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

Page 4 Report

Electricity ‘fixed charge’: Are Nigerians paying for darkness?

By Ochiaka Ugwu

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he recent increase in electricity tariff is expected, however, the refusal by Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) to abolish ‘Fixed Charge’ is becoming a source of worry to many subscribers who could not explain why they will continue paying for a service not rendered. Most of them have described the practice as paying for darkness.

While some say the charges in whatever guise are unnecessary and maintained that stable power supply must be in place before any increase in charges.

While justifying the retention, Chairman of the commission, Dr Sam Amadi said power consumers in the country will pay N750 as fixed charge for electricity instead of N1, 500 that should have been paid.

According to NERC, the decision to retain the current fixed charge was reached after the last minor review of tariffs, but stated that if the review had not been carried out, power consumers would be paying about N1, 500 as fixed charge.

He said, “Many of the customers should be paying a fixed charge of about N1, 500.

Now, the adjustment has resulted in a decrease in such that the fixed charge will not change. If this review was not done, the fixed charge should have been about N1, 500 in some places.

“But now, the reduction is that instead of having an increment in fixed charge, the consumers now have a decrease from N1,500 that would have been paid from June 1 to N750 for most places.

NERC has always stressed that fixed charge represents the capacity charge on customers for power supplied by power generating and transmission firms to the DISCO. They claimed it has been there and never a new innovation. It was formally N500 and was later increased to N700.

The fact remains that once you are connected to power supply you pay fixed charge every month whether there was power supply or not.

However, the controversial retention of electricity fixed charge nationwide has generated a lot of controversy. The complaint cut across Civil Society Organisations including students, traders, house owners and politicians, who labeled the continued collection of fixed charge by the Electricity Distribution Companies, as illegal.

They inquired on the rationale behind incurring fixed charge whether they have supply or not each month.

In this outer frustration occasioned by this inexplicable reason of this charges, consumers

nationwide have called for a stop to what they tag the “unfounded and illegal collection”.

According to the Electric Power Reform Act in section 1, subsection 4-1 “every DISCO shall issue bills for electricity USED at each consumer’s supply address at regular intervals. The intent and purpose of this law

was for consumers to be billed for electricity consumed either with prepaid meters; you recharge or with analog you are charged for that which you used. The law never provided for charging citizens fixed fees like DISCOs are doing.

The reality is that if you buy a N1, 500 recharge for your prepaid,

DISCO collects N750 as fee; if you consume N3, 000 a month on analog meters, they give you bill of N3, 750. It is the N750 they will remove. Only god knows why DISCO is charging people for bills not incurred.

To add to the difficulty, they are not even maintaining the meters or replacing faulty electric poles and not even supplying prepaid meters for which many have paid and are yet to get them since last year. Moreover, they charge VAT. All the people are saying, is that the fixed charge is illegal and must be discarded like a pack of card.

Electricity consumers have freely expressed their grievances against DISCO on the contentious fixed charge of N750 which it tagged “illegal and extortionary”.

Also included on the list of grievances was failure to supply pre-paid meters already paid for, estimated billings without meter checks and poor power supply even when customers pay monthly electricity bills.

By making the collection from ignorant consumers they alleged that DISCO has committed to fraudulently enriching it’s management at the expense of the poor, hapless and innocent Nigerians, who crave electricity at home and for business but do not get any during the month, but most part with a reasonable amount in the name of fixed charge.

Regrettably, while Nigerians have been complaining of the illegal fixed charge and high electricity tariff without a commensurate service on the part of DISCOs, the federal government took a further step in its power sector reform programme by announcing an upward review of tariff from N8.50 to N10 per kilowatt. They noted the move was aimed at making the power sector attractive to investors who have been arguing that the tariff in Nigeria is the lowest in the world and as such, it does not make the market viable.

The price hike is a deviation from the promise made by the commission that it would not increase tariff until there was a marked improvement in the power supply. Even last year, the federal government said it would crash the “real cost” of electricity tariff by 65 percent, as part of the measures to check the present trend whereby exorbitant real cost of electricity consumed

by Nigerians has led to high cost of goods and services in the economy. In the light of the above statements, many consumers have started to wonder what the federal government is up to.

This decision to increase electricity tariff regardless of DISCO’s poor services has drawn a lot of flak from Nigerians. Because there is no guarantee that the rise in tariff would bring about any improvement in power supply, since the goal of increasing power supply to about 5,300 megawatts was not met, the shortfall will continue to reflect on the poor performance of the DISCOs. From all indications, what Nigerians want now is certainly not increase in power tariff or retention of the inexplicable fixed charge, but increase in current supply that will ensure steady power. DISCOs should be committed to supplying constant electricity to consumers, and surmounting some of the challenges they met on ground including, “aged, undersized and over extended high and low tension feeders, over billing of customers, no service orientation, staff illegally collecting money, illegal connections.

Others are power theft, inadequate metering, inadequate power supply, low level of information available, poor health and safety practice, poor maintenance practice and others.

They should strive to provide over 8,000 backlog of prepaid meters paid for by customers under the previous regime; high volume of estimated billing, liabilities from PHCN, and power theft. With all these manifesting, there is no doubt that electricity consumers will assist DISCOs in providing effective power to them.

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

PAGE 5

News

Housing scam: NLC, Kriston-Lally trade blames

By A’isha Biola Raji with agency reports

T

he Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) is now trading blames with the Kriston-Lally, the developers the congress went into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with in order to provide affordable houses for its workers.

Thousands of workers, considering the involvement of NLC had earlier subscribed to the scheme which was made public in an advertisement.

They are however disappointed that NLC could be involved in an arrangement where helpless workers have been scammed.

According to reports, the hope of securing a place of abode became thin when the two principal actors began to accuse each other.

With subscribers becoming aggrieved following months of delay for construction to commence on the project, the General Secretary of NLC, Mr. Ozo-Eson said Kriston-Lally had kept pressuring for a bank

guarantee to enable its financiers transfer the agreed funding for construction. For months, a request to Zenith Bank for the guarantee failed. A similar request to Access Bank was later approved.

To facilitate the issuance of the bank guarantee, Access Bank demanded adequate funding of the account. Consequently, the Congress was compelled to issue a cheque jointly signed by the two signatories to transfer N2.5billion from Zenith Bank to fund the Access Bank account.

Few weeks after the transfer, the NLC scribe said Access Bank contacted the NLC president Malam Abdulwaheed Omar’s office seeking confirmation to pay a cheque for N51million.

Alarmed, the NLC president, who was abroad then, promptly denied knowledge of any such transaction. He directed that the payment be withheld till he returned.

Back in Nigeria, Malam Omar sent for his co-signatory in Kriston Lally to accompany him to Access Bank to demand explanations for

the pending cheque.

At the end, Mr. Ozo-Eson said it became clear that the developer was, indeed, behind the illegal attempt to withdraw N51 million from the account using a forged signature of the NLC President.

In spite of the agreement, Mr. Ozo-Eson said Mr. Madawaki, Kriston-Lally MD in whose custody were all instruments relating to the transaction, including the cheque books and details of all the dealings with the banks, failed to show up, stalling the entire refund process.

Meanwhile, Mr. Madawaki accused the NLC of failing to provide land for the project as it committed to doing.

According to Mr. Madawaki, despite failing to provide the land for the project as agreed, the NLC also frustrated his company’s efforts to pay for land in Karsana, Apo and Gosa areas of Abuja for the project.

Gov Aliyu denies begging IBB over defection of his cabinet members From Yakubu Mustapha, Minna.

L-R: Executive Director/Chief Executive Officer, National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr. Ado Muhammad, Chairman, Expert Review Committee (ERC) on Polio and Routine Immunisation, Professor Wale Tomori, Director, Global Polio Eradication Initiative, WHO, Dr. Hamid Jafri, and Senior Adviser to the Director of Global Immunisation Division, CDC Atlanta, Dr. Steve Cochi, during the 29th meeting of the Expert Review Committee (ERC) on Polio and Routine Immunisation in Nigeria, yesterday in Abuja.

Photo: Mahmud Isa

Why we cleared Buhari to contest presidency- Onu

By Umar Muhammad Puma

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hairman of the presidential screening committee of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Ogbonnaya Onu yesterday offered an insight as to why the presidential candidate of the party, Maj -Gen Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) was cleared to contest for the presidency in Febraury 14 next month.

Speaking to journalists on the certificate saga in Abuja, Onu said members of his panel have adhered strictly to the provision of the constitution to clear Buhari.

“Really that issue shouldn’t create the kind of problem that we are seeing today in the polity.

When this matter came before us in the presidential screening committee, we had to rely on the constitution of our great country to qualify to be president of Nigeria, you have to be a Nigerian by birth,

he has to be 40 years of age, , he has to be a member of a political party and that political party must be should sponsor you and finally should obtain education at least up to secondary school level or equivalent and our presidential candidate has attended military schools, in Nigeria, in India, in the United Kingdom (UK) and in the United states of America (USA) and in America, he attended the US army war college. So, there isn’t any reason whatsoever to create this type of problems that we now have in the polity.”

Asked if the committee actually demanded to see a copy of Buhari’s school certificate during the screening exercise, he said: “No, we demanded for that but there was an affidavit and you know once you swear to an affidavit, that definitely gives you whatever protection in any matter not just in this case. But the thing

is that we were not doing this for the opposition - the PDP, we were doing it for Nigeria. This is a man who will be president of Nigeria and there is a supreme law, the constitution that guides us and the issue of qualifications is at least a school certificate.

“So if there is evidence that somebody has attended military schools that are tertiary institutions up to the war college of the USA, I mean why should you really go into school certificate and so on? But the Army has shown that he applied in form 6, many young people don’t know we used to have form 6, I attended form 6, I attended higher school that is what is called then that is form 6 and you spend 2 years at the lower and the upper. You can’t go to form 6 unless you completed your form 5 and he got all the credits in the relevant subjects. So all those are in his file.

“So I really don’t see why we should be thinking in this direction because the problems before the nation are enormous. We should be looking at how do we solve the problems of insecurity.

“A country that is the most populous black nation in the world, the largest economy in Africa and then you have unknown flags to the constitution flying in our territory is a very serious challenge for this nation.

Then we have unemployment, we have an an economy that has not been managed properly because come to look at it, I am a chemical engineer and it pains me that for 16 years we abandoned our refineries and then we import petroleum products. We are sixth or seventh largest exporter of crude oil in the world and then we import refined fuel when we have four refineries and we can’t keep them working.”

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he Niger State governor, Dr. Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu has denied a publication, not

by Peoples Daily, alleging he has asked former military President of Nigeria, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida to beg his deputy and other decampees back to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Governor Aliyu made this known at a courtesy visit by Federation of Advocates for Fair, Credible and Peaceful Election led

by Elder Statesman Alhaji Tanko Yakassai, said it is not unusual to see politicians decamping during electioneering period ,adding that those who have defected have right to do so.

“They said I went to be IBB for those who defected. I have passed the stage of begging anybody.

Every politician is free to decide on which party they want to belong to. Let me however plead that nobody should victimize anybody for the political decision they make.”

“I have no reason to hate my deputy Governor over his decision to move to the opposition party.

We have had good working relationship since 2007 and it will remain so even after we leave government in May this year.”

“By now people have made up their minds on the party they will cast their votes. We must therefore accept the results of the forthcoming elections. Do not be annoyed with your brother based on his new found political interest. Power belongs to God and he chooses who to give.”

PAGE 6

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

News

Aliyu donates N5m to victims of KaffinKoro market fire disaster

L-R: Director, Voter Education, Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC), Barrister Osaze Uzzi, Director General, National Orientation Agency (NOA), Mr. Mike Omeri, and the Director, Admin and Human Resources, National Orientation Agency (NOA), Mr. Ado Solomon, during one day capacity training of NOA staff on the forthcoming general election, yesterday in Abuja.

Photo: Justin ImoOwo

From Yakubu Mustapha, Minna

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How Nigeria can overcome insurgency-Gusau

From Femi Oyelola, Kaduna

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he Minister of Defence ,General Aliyu Mohammed Gusau retired, has said Nigeria deserves a defence policy that reinvigorates the spirit of service and patriotism in its military if the nation is to move forward and curb the present insecurity challenges bedeviling it.

He stated this in his opening remarks at the public presentation of the review of Nigeria’s National Defence Policy (NDP) held in Kaduna yesterday.

General Gusau who was

represented by Mr Tunde Fagbemi said the nation at present needs to develop a coherent policy on the defence industry which is a vital role to play in equipping the Nigerian armed forces.

“A well established, properly managed and adequately funded military has enormous protection to contribute to national economic growth, job creation, technological innovation, scientific research and skill development.

“Therefore recognizing that defence is not exclusive to the military but the entire society, it is important that the gap between

the military and civilian is bridged so that the necessary support from the civil populace is maximized,” he said.

The m inis te r adde d that national defence policy is an important document which provides guidance to government about a country’s short, medium and long time policy setting and capabilities which allows the government and citizens to understand the opportunity and challenges for the country’s future defence and security needs.

According to him the current National Defence Policy (NDP)

was promulgated in 2006 and since then the nation has undergone a lot of transformation in terms of development as well as security challenges.

In his own remarks, the lead paper presenter, Amb Babagana Kingibe, said Nigeria’s democratic system must lay foundation for an inclusive society which is critical for the deepening for the fledging nation’s democracy.

“It is as simple as our leaders allowing us the people to freely vote for the government of our choice at all levels, the government that we can hold accountable. “ he said

Minority ethnic groups demand more participation in governance

By Patrick Andrew

S

wing nationalities, a collaboration of all minority ethnic groups in Nigeria, has resolved to demand fuller participation in the management of the country’s economic and political affairs and has subsequently scheduled a national summit where these issues will be deliberated upon.

The summit, scheduled for Makurdi, Benue state from tomorrow through Sunday, will discuss among other issues the fiscal federalism, derivation, control of economy, forms of government, the Nigerian constitution as well as the majority/minority divides.

Protem National Coordinator of the group, Mr Tarsoo Linus, said it has become necessary to hold the summit because the ethnic minority nationalities which constitute more than 70 million of the people of Nigeria cannot continue to play a second fiddle to the three majority ethnic groups.

Linus confirmed that the core issues will revolve on building consensus, ways to build and strengthen democratic institutions, violence-free elections and the need to liberalise the winner – takes all approach to politicking in Nigeria.

“The wealth of this country is controlled by less than one percent of Nigerians, who are spread

majorly across the majority ethnic groups and a sprinkle from our brothers in the swing nationalities.

We have been suppressed by the infrastructure of operation since independence in spite of the fact that we produced the bulk of the wealth of the nation and are the glue that holds Nigeria together,” he said.

“It is our responsibility to design ways to get out of this problem so we have decided to come together in Makurdi” Peoples Daily notes that a document made available to it says that the Swing nationalities of Nigeria (SNN) is “our generation’s response to the challenges of sustained conflict within and

between minorities, and the lack of economic and political development amidst the colossal potentials and opportunities in the world and indeed Nigeria today.”

Accordingly, the group said its mission is to promote and protect the social political and economic rights of swing nationalities through the promotion of social cultural, political and economic justice in Nigeria.

The summit is billed to have in attendance ethnic nationalities from Jukum, Iyaw, Annang, Ibibio, Itsekhiri, Urobo, Idoma, Tiv, Isoko, Birum, Tangale, Waye, Babur, Dera, Nupe, Zango/Kataf, Maghavul, Challa, Afizera, Igala, Igbira, among many others.

Nasarawa NBA solicits for peaceful conduct of February polls

T

he Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, Nasarawa state chapter has advocated for a peaceful conduct in the forthcoming general elections.

The state NBA chairman, Barrister Gabriel Ortan Akaaka Esq., made the call in his welcome address at a one day workshop jointly organized by the NBA Lafia

and Keffi branches on the 2015 election held yesterday at Ibrahim Abacha youths center, Lafia, the state capital.

According to him, the theme of this workshop is: “Sensitization on Peaceful Elections and Sustainable Development in Nasarawa State primarily aimed at sensitizing the electorates in the state on the

need for a peaceful, fair, violence free, transparent and credible 2015 elections, and to ensure that every eligible Nigeria participates in the elections of those who are to be entrusted with the affairs of the nation.”

The chairman, however, lamented that, “Our quest in this country for a peaceful, fair, free,

transparent and credible election is threaten by serious challenges raging from insurgency in the North East, ethnic conflict which has rendered several communities displaced, kidnapping and brigandage in the South East and South West, endemic corruption and poor leadership is in every fabric of our nation.”

he Niger State Governor, Dr Muazu Babangida Aliyu has donated the sum of N5million to the victims of fire disaster at the Kaffin Koro Yam market in Paikoro Local Government Council of the state.

The governor announced the donation during an inspection visit to the market saying that the donation was the first phase of government intervention to help those whose merchandize was razed to get back to business.

Aliyu who was on impact assessment visit to the market was told by the Traders chairman that the fire started in the evening on Sunday took several hours before it was put off.

He urged officials of the council to ensure equitable distribution of the donation adding that the need for victims to go back to their trade immediately cannot be overemphasized.

Aliyu said government was committed to the general welfare of the masses at all times intimating that plans to sink two boreholes at the market to ease water supply has been concluded and work to commence immediately.

He als o t old t he t rade rs that the government would look into their request for the construction of modern market as well as the provision o f a d e q u a t e security in the area to enhance trading of yams and other staple.

Governor Aliyu therefore commended the traders and people of the community for maintaining calm and cooperating to contain the fire disaster. He also praised them for their support and cooperation to the state and local government, calling for more cooperation saying, “We shall continue to seek your understanding at all times.

T h e c o u n c i l c h airman Alhaji Abdullahi Bawa also assured the traders that the council in collaboration with the state gove In his remark, the chairman of Traders Association, Mallam Ibrahim Nasir applauded the Governor for his timely intervention. He however called for government continuous assistance to make business much easier for the traders.

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PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

News

Again, Nigerian, 5 others face death in Bangkok over drugs

By Ese Awhotu, with agency report

A

Nigerian national was among five people arrested in separate raids in Pathum Thani and Bangkok that

netted more than 10 kilogrammes of crystal methamphetamine and some 40,000 speed pills The suspects, Satang Lamsamcharoensap, 42, Arthit Maneethong, 63, Thawet Panang, 51, and Yupin Sirisopha,

40 appeared at a police press conference at the Narcotics Suppression Bureau Wednesday.

Seized from them were 10kg of crystal meth, known as ya ice, 41,800 methamphetamine pills in 20 bundles, a taxi, a 9mm Colt

pistol and six mobile phones.

NSB Chief Rawat Klinkasorn alleged the arrests came after investigators learned Mr Satang had planned to sell 10kg of ya ice for 10 million baht. Officers disguised as potential buyers

L-R: Inspector General of Police, Alhaji Suleiman Abba; President, National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), Alhaji Najeem Yasin, and NURTW Vice -President, Alhaji Adegboyega Tomori, during the launch of police elections guidelines for police officers, yesterday in Abuja.

Photo: Justin Imo-Owo

EFCC says JUSUN strike hampering prosecution of offenders

T

he Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFFC) says the strike by the judiciary workers was hampering its operations as it has crippled its arraignment of suspected fraudsters.

An official of the commission, who preferred anonymity, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday on telephone that the ongoing strike had led to the granting of bail to suspects.

The Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN) had embarked on strike on Jan. 2 to press their demand for enhanced welfare packages, thus stalling activities in the high and magistrates’ courts.

The source said that one

of the latest offenders, Samuel Joseph, Managing Director of Vegefresh Company Ltd, Rhema Doormart West Africa Limited and Plywood and Chemicals Accessories, had been granted bail.

Joseph was arrested in Lagos on Jan. 12, for allegedly diverting N3.8 billion loan he secured from an old generation bank but is still under investigation by the EFCC.. ``There is a limited time the commission is permitted by the law to keep an offender and that is the reason for granting him bail. ``The offender allegedly collected the sum of N2 billion in February 2012 as loan through Vegefresh Company Ltd, ostensibly

for the purpose of setting up a Tomato Processing Plant in Bauchi. ``He also collected the money in addition to setting up aTomato Cannery in Badagry, Lagos, as well as Cassava factory in Ogun,’’ the s ource s aid.

He added that the businessman also collected N1.5 billion from the Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme Facility (CACS). `` Also, N500 million was released as NEXIM Bank’s Rediscounting and Refinancing Facility (RFF) which accumulated to N3, 828,756,877.61 with interest. (NAN) aw, gutted two flats in a two- storey building. ``It was discovered that the child

was burnt to death during the incident. ``The police are yet to identify the cause of the incident because investigation is ongoing,’’ the statement said.(NAN) Enugu Police confirm death of a sixyear-old child in fire incident The Police in Enugu on Wednesday confirmed the death of a six-year-old child, Sochimaobi Nwatu, in a fire incident which occurred on Jan. 17, at Awkunanaw, Enugu.

This is contained in a statement signed by the Police Public Relations Officer in the state, Mr Ebere Amaraizu.It said the incident which occured at No.9, Umueze St. Awkunan.

Gunmen rape housewives, kill 2 in Delta

By Osakhare Erese, Asaba

U

nidentified gunmen currently terrorizing Ozoro Community Isoko, North Local Government Area of Delta State, have taken undue advantage of their warlords to allegedly rape housewives, rob u ns u sp e c ting re sident s and killed two unidentified traders.

The present insecurity situation in Ozoro Community, investigations revealed, has become worrisome to the entire people and in the last two weeks six notable persons were

allegedly killed by these gunmen.

The first victim among those that have been killed, was a popular man who runs a bear parlour along Urode road known as Inikoke who was shot dead at his own residence around Uruto Quarters in the community.

Few days after, another lady was said to have been killed as the killers currently prowling every nooks and cranny of the community were said to have visited one Emunema Eriewe and shot him dead at his family compound around Iyeosa Street, Uruto Quarters in the community.

It was reliably gathered that most housewives have been allegedly raped, especially at nightfall after these gunmen have laid siege for them either on their way home or on return from an errand.

The gang of hoodlums terrorizing Ozoro Community and its environs may have gained upper hands as the community is said to have lacked security and as they have allegedly killed one Anaro on the 30th December 2014 who came to visit his home during the Christmas celebration.

The killing of the brilliant

Anaro hitherto creates palpable tensions and fear of the unknown in the community..

But the Police Public Relations Officer in the State, DSP Kalu who confirmed the horrendous activities of the unidentified gunmen, disclosed that the Police have declared a total war on criminals in the community..

DSP Kalu said that no fewer than eight persons have been arrested in connection with the robbery activities and killings in the area and warned that it will no longer be business as usual for the evil doers

then contacted Mr Thawet and Ms Yuphin to obtain the drugs before returning to a room at the Asia Airport Hotel in Pathum Thani’s Lam Luk Ka district, where they were caught.

According to the Bangkok Post, during the interrogation, Mr Arthit, operator of a used-car lot, told police his business was operating at a loss, which forced him to sell illicit drugs, police claimed.

Mr Thawet reportedly confessed that he got involved in the drug trade as it offered handsome profits.

However, in another raid, Arinze Chidi, 34, a Nigerian national, was apprehended after police found 670 grammes of ya ice at an apartment in the Prawet area of Bangkok.

The Bangkok Post reports that the crystal meth was found in small plastic bags hidden in his closedcircuit television camera during a police raid on his room on Jan 19.

A source said the drugs seized from the two cases had a face value of some 19 million baht.

Recall that Indonesia recently executed two Nigerians, Daniel Enemuo and Solomon Chibuike Oka-for alongside five others for drug trafficking.

Others executed were from Brazil, Indonesia, Malawi, the Netherlands and Vietnam.

Jailed Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah moved to prison hospital- relative

L

eading Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, jailed for violating a strict protest law, has been moved to a prison hospital.

Omar Hamilton, one of his cousins, said the 33-year-old blogger and software engineer was transferred to a prison hospital on Monday morning after his blood sugar level plunged.

He said Wednesday marked the 80th day of Fattah’s hunger strike.

Hamilton said he was one of several jailed activists to have mounted hunger strikes in the past year to protest their imprisonment.

He said Fattah has been in and out of jail since 2011 on various charges, he was rearrested most recently in October along with 20 other people pending their retrial on charges of breaking a law that bans protests without a police permit.

Fattah was one of a number of well-known activists from the 2011 uprising that have been jailed since the army overthrow elected Islamist President Mohamed Mursi in mid-2013.

His 20-year-old sister Sanaa is serving a two-year sentence for violating the protest law. (Reuters/NAN)

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PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

News Judiciary workers’ strike: FG, states, JUSUN meeting deadlocked

By Ai’sha Biola Raji with agency report

T

he joint meeting for negotiations between the Federal Government, Chief Registrars of states’ judiciary and the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN) on Tuesday ended unresolved.

The meeting was held at the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) in Abuja, with all stakeholders present to deliberate and find the way forward.

The SGF, Anyim Pius Anyim, in his opening remarks had said the meeting was called to have a better understanding of the issue at hand.

ASUU condemns alleged witchhunting of members In LASU

He said the meeting was also to take necessary steps in finding solutions.

“FG is ready to comply with the judgment of the court, in line with the Constitution,’’ Anyim said, adding that the Federal Government was committed to the autonomy of the judiciary for the system to work.

He said however that the Federal Government could only help to ensure that state governments complied with the payment based on the availability of resources.

“The Federal Government, as a government, is committed to the autonomy of the judiciary.

“But we need to work together to bring a perfect working solution for everybody, because we do not want this strike to continue for too

long.

“It will not be good if all the 36 states’ Chief Registrars come here and they won’t be to have a workable solution.

“I want to appeal to you not to go back without finding a solution.

“This matter has dragged and we want everybody to come to an agreement for the interest of the system and I want your presence here (in Abuja) to make a difference,” Anyim said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports however that the meeting had on Monday ended with all eyes on the Chief Registrars.

This was on the basis of the Chief Registrars confirming if any state had complied with the court order, which will be the basis for the strike to be called off.

During the meeting with the Registrars, the Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court, Ahmed Saleh, who spoke on behalf of others from the states, confirmed non-implementation by the states.

“I want to say on behalf of my colleagues, that both the state and federal government have not complied with the court judgment.”

The Attorney-General of Ondo State, Eyitayo Jegede, who spoke on behalf of the AttorneyGenerals of the states, said they agreed that a mistake had been made in this regard.

He however pleaded that the next move should about finding a way forward.

The National President of JUSUN, Mr. Marwan Adamu,

said the agreement for the meeting was to ascertain if some states had complied or not.

He however pointed out that if no state had complied with the court judgment there was nothing to be done.

Adamu said the only way forward was for the states and Federal Government to obey the court judgment.

He however said another meeting could be held on Tuesday to see how this compliance could be speedily achieved.

On his part, the President of Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Mr. Augustine Alegeh, pleaded for the matter to be resolved earnestly.

NAN reports that the meeting was later rescheduled for Wednesday at the Supreme Court.

From Uche Nnorom, Makurdi

T

he Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has decried the administrative impunity, reckless disregard for norms in university governance, primitive witch-hunting of its members by the Vice Chancellor of the Lagos State University Prof.

John Oladapo Obafunwa.

The union at a press briefing held at the Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, FUAM, yesterday by the Nsukka zone which comprises, Benue State University, BSU, University of Nigeria, UNN, Kogi State University, KSU and Enugu State University of Technology, frowned at the manner their members were been witchhunted by LASU authority because of their struggles that led to the reduction of exorbitant tuition fee charged by the university.

The acting zonal coordinator of the union, Prof. Victor Osodeke who regretted that one of their members Prof. Tunde Fatunde was overtly interdicted for writing an open letter to Lagos State Governor Mr. Babatunde Fashola, also noted that the branch chairman of LASU had his PhD certificate wrongly withdrawn.

“The impunity and incompetence on the part of the Vice chancellor was obviously due to his undeserved and nepotic promotion from the rank of lecture 1 to professor despite his non possession of a PhD degree”, he said.

Prof. Osodeke accused the LASU VC of displaying bankrupt of ideas for proper governance of university, while also condemning the foot-dragging attitude of the Governing Council and the State Government in calling the VC to order.

He therefore pledged ASUU support to LASU especially in their call for a visitation to unravel and correct the causes of sporadic crisis in the institution.

Joint Health Sector Unions and Assembly of Health Care Professionals protesting over governments’ failure to meet their demands, yesterday in Ibadan.

Photo: NAN

Legal Aid Council trains 5,249 Kaduna residents on dispute resolution

From Femi Oyelola, Kaduna

I

n its effort to ensure that Kaduna state residents resort to mediation as means of settling matters out of court, the Legal Aid Council (LACON) has trained a total of 5,249 persons on legal rights and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) in the state as at September 2014.

The Director-General of the Council, Mrs Joy Bob-Manuel, who briefed reporters in Kaduna yesterday explained that the beneficiaries included district and village heads, women and youth as well as key staff of local government councils.

According to her, the group has continued to provide free legal services to clients across the state,

with funding from the Japanese Social Development Bank and the World Bank in collaboration with some affiliated Non-Governmental Organizations and its legal centres.

“Sensitization and advocacy also took place by road shows in the three senatorial zones and radio and television programmes were also used and over 800,000 people have been reached through

this method.

“These groups have used direct engagement with residents of local communities through dance and drama and we are proud to report that more than 3,000 people have been reached through these awareness campaigns.

“The centres have given service to more than 500 people in the year 2014, compared to 331 people in 2013 and 104 people in 2012.

“Most of the trained residents of Kaduna state are enthusiastic to sustain the project when it ends” Bob-Manuel said.

Yuguda commissions N1 billion drainage system in Darazo From Ahmed Kagama, Bauchi

O

ver N1 billion worth of drainage system built as part of the Bauchi state government effort to bail out Darazo township of incessant flooding causing havoc during rainy season was yesterday commissioned by the Governor,

Mallam Isa Yuguda amidst jubilation by the inhabitants of the town.

Commissioning the newly constructed project, in the township, Governor Isa Yuguda said it was executed to address the aged long problem of flooding in Darazo.

Assisted by the District Head

of Darazo, Alhaji Ibrahim Bababa, Yuguda reiterated government’s commitment towards providing dividends of democracy to the people of the state.

While at the palace of the district head of Darazo, Malam Yuguda charged both religious and traditional rulers to work towards molding the character of

their children and youths.

The governor regretted the unfortunate incidence of the 2011 presidential elections violence in the state where, he recalled, several lives were lost, and urged religious leaders to intensify on prayers in order to avert its reoccurrence in the next month’s general elections.

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

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PAGE 10

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

News

Ogun public school strike: Parents condemn teachers’ action

James Ogunnaike, Abeokuta

A

s the industrial action embarked upon by public primary and secondary schools teachers in Ogun state enters day two yesterday, the State chapter of the Parent Teachers Association, has called on the State government to urgently ‘look’ into the grievances of the striking teachers.

The state chapter of the ParentTeacher Association (PTA) faulted the strike, declaring that the present economic situation in the

..As Amosun proposes 30 LCDA in Ogun

country did not warrant such step.

The teachers, under the aegis of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) and the Academic Staff Union of Secondary School Teachers (ASUSST) commenced a state wide strike over inability of the government to meet up with their demand.

Leaders of the two unions had vowed to commence an indefinite strike, after what they described as the failure of the governor, Sen. Ibikunle Amosun to meet with them personally, instead

of sending government officials.

Addressing newsmen in Abeokuta, the NUT and ASSUS leaders said they embarked on an indefinite strike because the governor had refused to pay 27.5 per cent salary increase he promised to pay them last year October, payment of their allowance, and deductions from their salaries among others.

Chairman of ASUSS in the state, Akeem Lasisi, said the governor was scheduled to meet

with the leaders of the unions on Saturday, January 17, but sent some government officials instead.

The state PTA chairman, Pastor Peculiar Aboluwaji Treasure in a chat with newsmen, condemned the strike, lamenting that understanding on the part of the teachers was “regrettably not shown.”

Meanwhile, Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State has assured residents of the state that the proposed Local Council

Development Areas, LCDA planned by his administration will be created immediately after the February 28 governorship election.

He said, the proposed LCDAs will be in operation before the expiration of his first term in office in May. He disclosed that his plan was to create about 30 Local Council Development Areas which will make the whole local government and local council areas in the State to become 50.

into since the accusers allegedly paid money through the bank.

He also said the PDP will not lose any sleep about the February 14 Presidential poll, even as it accused the APC as ‘mere noise makers’.

“Our opponent, the APC’s campaign have been full of noise and mere dramas, they have been doing a lot of talks about change, change but they have not tell the Nigerians how they want to marshal the change, but on our own our achievements are there to speak for us”.

Metuh assured of the PDP’s victory in all the six geo-political zones in the polls, said this

was based on the large turnout of the people of all the Zones already visited and the remaining zones in the North in the ongoing presidential campaign.

Metuh pointed out the no administration in the history of Nigeria had ever done what the administration of President Jonathan had done for the Northern parts of the Country in terms of projects and appointments and that the people of the region were very happy about it.

While assuring that the party would not lose any sleep about the February 14 Presidential poll, Metuh said, “our opponent, the

APC’s campaign have been full of noise and mere dramas, they have been doing a lot of talks about change, change but they have not tell the Nigerians how they want to marshal the change, but on our own our achievements are there to speak for us”.

He said that the insurgency in the North-East was not the creation of the Jonathan administration and that if not the way the administration had been handling the crisis, the Boko Haram sect would have occupied half other entire country.

According to him,”APC will not win in any of the zones, PDP will win in the South-west, PDP

will win in the South- East, PDP will win in the South-South, we will win in the North-central, we will win in the North-West and the North_East, we will win in all the Zones, this not joke, Nigerians are anxiously waiting for that day”.

On the relationship of the Party with the former President Olusegun Obasanjo ahead of the elections,Metuh disclosed that Obasanjo remained the pillar of the party and that the current PDP led federal government was only building on the solid foundation already laid down by the former President during his eight years in office.

Primaries: N750m bribery allegation must be investigated-PDP insists

By Ahmed Abubakar

T

he Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said the appropriate law enforcement agencies have been implored by the party to investigate the bribery allegations of N750m leveled against some members of the National Working Committee during the last primaries.

Stating this at a press briefing, the PDP National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh said that it was a serious allegation which the appropriate law enforcement agents must look

Kwara PDP Gov candidate unfolds fourpoint agenda

L-R: Chief Executive Officer, Broadcasting Corporation of Oyo state, Mr. Yanju Adegbite, Director, Crown FM Ile-Ife, Mr. Diran Odeyemi, and state Director, National Orientation Agency, Oyo state, Mr. Remi Omowon, during the NBC sensitisation workshop on political broadcasts on 2015 election, yesterday in Ibadan.

Photo: NAN

From Olanrewaju Lawal,Ilorin

T

he Governorship candidate of Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) in Kwara state in the next month general elections, Senator Simeon S. Ajibola has unfolded four-point agenda programmes that would add value to the socioeconomic development of the Kwarans if voted into office.

They are social political reform, human resources development programme, infrastructure and economic development programme.

Ajibola, who stated this while speaking in Ilorin on Monday shortly after the inauguration campaign committee for his governorship aspiration headed by former governorship aspirant of the party, Deacon John Dara enjoined the members of the party to go back to their wards and work harder for the success of the PDP in the state.

The PDP governorship candidate revealed his administration would focus on the social political reform would feature local government autonomy and accountability adding that, it would include civil service reform and improved service delivery.

FG establishes 38 Almajiri Qur’anic schools in Katsina, says Jonathan

T

he Federal Government established 38 Almajiri Qur’anic schools in Katsina state with 19,000 pupils’ enrolment, President Goodluck Jonathan said.

He made the disclosure on Tuesday in Katsina during PDP Presidential campaign rally.

He said the Almajiri category of schools was established to give pupils the opportunity to obtain both Islamic and western education.

Jonathan said people of the state possessed high taste of possessing knowledge.

He added that ``Katsina State has been the home of education and elite since colonial days, where the first college in the Northern region was established. ``We are ready to give education and agriculture high priority in the state as the people are predominantly agrarians and give much

concern to education,’’ he said.

The President explained that his administration established a federal university to give Katsina youths more opportunity to pursue their educational career. ``I know that the state already has two universities, but I decided to establish another one to further enhance the pursuit of knowledge,’’ he added.

He urged the people to vote the ruling party so as to continue enjoying more

dividends of democracy.

Earlier, the PDP Presidential Campaign Director-General, Ahmadu Ali, had appealed to people of Katsina State to vote for PDP during the 2015 general elections.

Ali said Katsina was the home of PDP for the past 15 years, saying the administration of late Umaru Musa Yar’adua and Gov. Ibrahim Shema had done a lot to provide dividends of democracy to the people.

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PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

News

I have no apology over Buhari’s death wish advert’ - Fayose

From Ayodele Samuel,Lagos

E

kiti state Governor, Mr Peter Ayodele Fayose has reacted to certain negative comments that trailed the advertorial he caused to be published on the front pages of Punch and Sun newspapers of last Monday, saying that he has no apology over the advertorial as it contained facts.

Fayose, who stated this through his Chief Press Secretary, Mr Idowu Adelusi in Ado Ekiti on Tuesday said that the truth can never be covered indefinitely, insisting that the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari was too old and sick to be president of this country.

The governor said that the advertorial was his personal opinion as citizen of this country and not opinion of the PDP “and I stand by it”.

The Governor asserted, “I wish to refer to the late President Umaru Musa Yar; Adua, who former President Olusegun Obasanjo claimed was hale and hearty to lead this country and subsequently took ill and died.

“I must assure all those who have expressed genuine concerns, unlike the APC that is playing cheap politics over the issue -that my intention is not a death wish to General Buhari but a factual position that APC is covering.

“My consideration for the advertorial in the midst of alleged ill health of the late president is the need for the nation not to forget the crisis we were thrown into in 2010 but saved by the National Assembly which had to

Ufuk Dialogue Foundation organises conference on peace, tolerance

By Maryam Garba Hassan

U

fuk Dialogue Foundation in collaboration with Fountain Magazine and Ministry of Foreign Affairs Institute of Peace and Conflict Resolution is organising a conference on peace today in Abuja.

The conference with the theme; Love and Tolerance: Two Dynamics for Personal and Social Reform is gathering scholars from different backgrounds.

The annual conference according to the organisers, seeks to provide a common platform for people to discuss the importance of love and tolerance as key steps for personal and social reform.

The initiative is a continuation of international conferences series organised by UFUK Dialogue Foundation to encourage and support peace, tolerance and dialogue in Nigeria.

invoke the Doctrine of Necessity after protests by the Save Nigeria Group (SNG).

“It is in defence of fairness that I called attention to the potential crisis we may face God forbid that the health of the general becomes a hindrance if he was president

and his Vice who is from the South West would have to step into the saddle not too long after Obasanjo’s eight years in office.

“I wish to draw attention to the lead story in the Sunday Tribune of January 18, 2015, entitled, “Buhari’s planned visit

to US causes furor.

“The story revealed that arrangement had been concluded to fly Buhari to US for a medical checkup. That Buhari has been stressed from effects of the rigours of presidential campaigns across the country and he is

definitely in need of medical attention, adding that age was a factor as rigours of the campaign was getting at him”.

Fayose, therefore, advised Buhari to be sincere with himself and step down for a younger and more vibrant person.

wife of Katsina state Governor, Dr. Fatima Ibrahim Shema (left), presenting cash and assorted grains to one of the beneficiaries, during the donation money and relief materials to over 3,700 people living with disabilities recently Katsina. With her is wife of the former Commissioner for Works, Hajiya Kulu Mustapha (middle).

Yero urges security operatives to investigate violence by opposition supporters From Mohammad Ibrahim, Kaduna

K

aduna State Governor, Mukhtar Ramalan Yero has urged security operatives in the state to investigate the Monday’s incidence where supporters of the opposition destroyed Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) properties in the state.

It would be recalled that supporters of All Progressives Congress (APC) on Monday, took over major streets within metropolis in solidarity to the campaign team of the presidential candidates, Muhammadu Buhari.

In the process the youth destroyed the governor’s posters within the major streets.

Governor Yero, therefore, tasked the security agencies to ensure protection of lives and properties of peace loving people of the state.

According to him, some people are desperate on capturing power not by the ballot but by the brutal use of thuggery.

Speaking at the swearing in ceremony of Sole Administrators of the 23 Local Government Areas of the State on Tuesday, Yero condemned the unwarranted harassment and intimidation of innocent citizens of

Kaduna by supporters of the APC during a campaign rally.

“I want to call on PDP supporters and indeed all affected residents of Kaduna to remain calm and not take laws into their own hands no matter the level of intimidation and harassment. We all witnessed what happened in Kaduna on Monday, where people hired by the opposition party went about harassing innocent citizens and destroying properties of the PDP. This is a clear attempt to cause chaos in the state.

“Leaders of the APC resorted to hiring people to intimidate innocent people.

The people of Kaduna state

are now better enlightened on the difference between a truly democratic party and one that is bent on taking power through violence,” he said.

He called on all supporters of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to remain calm and law abiding even in the face of intimidation and threats from supporters of (APC).

Yero also called on the newly appointed Sole Administrators to ensure peaceful coexistence in their domains.

The Governor promised to ensure the safety of all citizens of Kaduna State and their property.

Odumakin tasks women on numerical strength during elections.

From Seyi Ojelade, Ibadan

T

he President, Women Arise, Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin on Tuesday urged women in the country to use their numerical strength to vote for women aspiring for public offices irrespective of political party in the forthcoming general elections.

The human right crusader and women advocates stated this in Ibadan at a One Day Female Political Aspirants’ Capacity Enhancement Workshop held at

Premier Hotel, Ibadan, adding that it is time for women to liberate themselves politically.

According to her, “women can no longer be silence. It is high time we use our numerical strength to determine the future of the entire women “Women should go and collect their PVC to exercise their right.

Nobody should use women as spare-tyre because women remain life wire of any entity”, she said.

Odumakin noted that women constitute over half of the

nation’s population, contributing in vital ways to societal development, wondering why they have remained irrelevant in the society.

In her remarks, the former president of Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Dame Priscilla Kuye, who chaired the occasion said there are many factors militating against women.

She said the factors include; lack of political and economic empowerment.

She urged women to support other women who are competing

to assume various political offices saying men would not give what they have politically to women.

Also speaking, one of the presidential candidates in the forthcoming election from KOWA party, Professor Remi Sonaiya said it is time for women to earn respect and dignity and not to be used by others.

She urged other women who are in the race for various offices to keep eyes on the goals and objectives, saying there are efforts working tirelessly to pull down women.

PAGE 12

Money Sense

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

10 things to consider when buying a new car

By Elaina Verhoff Follow

Determine your budget When shopping for a new car, make sure you determine how much you can spend on it. AAA’s financial services experts advise allocating no more than 15 to 20 percent of your total monthly budget to car-related expenses. Don’t forget to factor in the cost of car insurance in addition to your monthly car payment.

Find out the dealer’s price So how much more than dealer price should you expect to pay? Selter suggests asking the dealer to sell you the car for $500 over the dealer price.

“They don’t have to sell it for that price,” she explains, but it’s a good place to start negotiations.

Arrange financing in advance Before jumping into the driver’s seat for a testdrive, decide on the type of financing you’d like to use (loan, lease or cash). If you’ll be going for a loan or lease, arrange for financing ahead of time.

Compare rates offered by your own bank or credit union as well as other local banks to secure the most favorable terms.

Know your trade-in value While you’ll probably get more money for your old car if you sell it yourself, you may not want to deal with the hassle. If you’re

planning to trade in your used vehicle, make sure you know its trade-in value.

Do phone and Internet research “It’s best to do research in advance of visiting the dealership,” explains Selter.

Use manufacturer websites and sites like Edmunds and HerHighway to read reviews, determine the options for the

model you’re shopping for and evaluate pricing. Selter also suggests calling the dealership prior to your visit to make sure it has the make and model you’re looking for on the lot.

Don’t rush your decision Take your time when shopping for a new car.

“Remember, the salesperson is on commission,” says Selter, “and their job is to sell you a car

the day you visit.”

She recommends visiting more than once and thoroughly researching the vehicle prior to committing to the purchase.

Love the car, love the dealer Make sure you’re comfortable with the dealership where you intend to purchase your vehicle.

“You want to be sure it’s the car you want and that you are buying if from the salesperson

the type of fluid listed in your owner’s manual. Take your car in for service if the fluid is brown or muddy-looking. If you have a manual transmission, skip this step.

o v Check the coolant level. Take care not to open the radiator cap while the engine is hot. Instead, look at the reserve tank. You’ll see two marks for “full cold” and “full hot.” Add coolant when the engine is cold, and if you have to add coolant often, take your car in for service. o vi Ensure that the top of the battery is dry and the terminals are tight and not corroded. If the battery looks bad, have it checked at an auto parts store that offers this service. o vii Level off the windshield washer fluid. This is something that will need to be refilled frequently if you often use it to wash your windshield. You can dilute the fluid with water (it will clean better), but in the winter use it full strength. o viii Replace your windshield wiper blades if they are worn. You don’t want to wait until you’re trying to drive in heavy rain to discover you

should have changed them. o ix Measure tire pressure and check the tread. Your owner’s manual will tell you how much pressure each should have.

Always check the pressure when the tires are cold. If you don’t have a tire gauge, use the gauge that’s attached to the air hose you are using at a gas station. While you’re checking the tire pressure, take a look at the tires to see if they’re damaged.

2. Scheduled service i Get your oil changed. Your owner’s manual will tell you how often you need to do this, and it wouldn’t hurt to do it more frequently. Skipping even one oil change can result in serious damage to your engine, and your car’s warranty won’t cover the repairs. Keep your receipts. ii Have your tires rotated. You may have heard that if you do this, you’ll have to buy four tires at a time instead of two. However, if you don’t rotate your tires,

and dealer that will take care of you even after you write the check,” says Selter.

Take more than one testdrive A test-drive is the best way to find out how a new car looks, feels and drives.

Selter suggests taking the first test-drive by yourself and bringing the whole family (and all their car seats) on a follow-up testdrive. This will give you an opportunity to make sure everything (and everyone) fits comfortably.

Check for a spare tire In an effort to reduce weight and increase fuel efficiency, auto manufacturers are choosing to skip the full-sized spare tire in many new cars.

While you may laugh at the thought of changing your own flat tire, it’s still good to know if you have a spare on board. Ask the salesperson to show you if there’s a full-sized spare, a temporary spare or a tirerepair kit or whether your car is equipped with run-flat tires (in which case, no spare tire will be provided).

Inspect your new car Before you take possession of your new car, give it a detailed inspection, both inside and out. Check for any damage or unexpected wear and tear.

Address any concerns with the salesperson before handing over a check.

...and how to maintain a car A

well-maintained car once meant weekends spent on driveway tuneups followed by hours getting engine grease from under your fingernails. These days almost everything is better done by a qualified mechanic, but you still need to do a few things yourself to head off problems and minimize the cost of maintenance.

1.

Weekly checks o i See if the oil level is good.

With the engine off, pull out the dipstick and clean it with a towel.

Note the marks that indicate when it’s full and when you need to add oil. Reinsert the clean dipstick, remove it and check the level.

Take your car for service if your car suddenly needs oil frequently, if it’s foamy or if it smells of gasoline. o ii Check the transmission fluid.

This is done in the same way as checking the oil, but with the engine running and warm. Take care to add fluid a pint at a time to avoid overfilling, and only use

o iii Verify you have adequate brake fluid. Most cars have a transparent reservoir that will allow you to see the level without using a dipstick. It’s normal to add brake fluid as your brakes become worn, but if the level drops suddenly, take your car in for service as soon as possible. Never add anything but brake fluid, and don’t leave the brake fluid bottled uncovered between fillings. o iv Use the dipstick attached to the cap of the power steering fluid reservoir to check the level. It shouldn’t fluctuate more than the marks on the dipstick indicate is normal. If you have to add power steering fluid more than once a year, take your car in for service.

If you don’t have power steering, skip this step.

you’ll ultimately buy more tires, and your car won’t handle as well.

It’s especially important to rotate tires on front wheel drive cars. iii Schedule a wheel alignment with every other oil change and whenever the car is handling strangely. This extends the life of your tires. iv Keep your car serviced as prescribed in your owner’s manual. It’s best to go to the dealer for this. You will pay more, but the mechanics have been specially trained on your car and follow industry quality standards.

Have the mechanic sign off in your maintenance book if you have one. v Get your cooling system flushed to prevent corrosion from causing your car to overheat. You may also want to replace your thermostat and radiator cap every 60,000 miles. This is commonly called winterizing your car. www.ehow.com

PAGE 13

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

EDITORIAL

Taking the fight to Boko Haram with Dane guns, machetes vigilantes fought inside Chibok in their recapture, it did say it while army soldiers “stayed was involved in retaking Chibok. outside the town to mop up the Army spokesman General Olajide insurgents trying to escape”.

Olaleye confirmed to newsmen that the army retook the town It is significant that these reversals suffered by Boko from Boko Haram militants Haram came just days after President Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday announced his bid for re-election, vowing to defeat the sect whose killing spree has been a huge embarrassment to his government. We wait to see whether this ‘progress’ in the anti-insurgency campaign can be sustained over a long period of time.

One thing is important though.

The participation of locals in the campaign is what has turned the tide against the sect. This is something we have advised severally. The war on terror is as much a thing of the mind as it is something to do on the battle field. The locals who bear the brunt of the fighting must be active participants in the late Saturday. “Mopping up campaign, not just onlookers. ops ongoing. (The) town is now They know the ground better secured,” he told AFP. Elder and can tell who is a Boko Pogu Bitrus said that Chibok was Haram fighter. It is good that recaptured in a joint operation our military commanders have with local vigilantes known as the stopped seeing these people Civilian Joint Task Force, who as Boko Haram suspects to be back up the military in several hunted down, tortured and parts of the northeast where sometimes killed. We pray this Boko Haram is active. He said the new thinking will be sustained.

The participation of locals in the campaign is what has turned the tide against the sect.

This is something we have advised severally

OUR MISSION “To be the market place of ideas and the leading player in the industry by putting the people first, upholding the truth, maintaining the highest professional and ethical standards while delivering value to our stakeholders”

“

T

he news coming from the heartland of the five-yearold Boko Haram insurgency is getting better by the day.

Lately, the military, which had appeared to be at its wits end, assisted by local hunters and militias, retook three towns in the North-east out of the over 20 overrun by the insurgents.

They are Mubi and Maiha in Adamawa state and Chibok in Borno state. Boko Haram attacked Chibok in April, this year and kidnapped several schoolgirls, over 200 of them still missing.

The recapture of Maiha involved hunters, only armed with bows, machetes, clubs and homemade rifles. According to their leader, they got help from other hunters in neighboring communities and together they killed 80 insurgents. In the case of Chibok, after the April abductions, the sect’s fighters returned to occupy the town.

However, the army, assisted by local hunters, managed to retake it on Sunday, three days after.

Unlike in the cases of Maiha and Mubi which the sect named ‘Madinatul Islam’, which means the city of Islam, after seizing it onOctober 29, where the army didn’t acknowledge any role

OUR PEOPLE

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Chairman Malam Wada Maida, Oon, Fnge Director/Editor-in-Chief Rufa’i Ibrahim Managing Editor Abdul-Azeez Abdullahi

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Hameed M. Bello Acting Editor, Weekend Lawal Sabo Ibrahim

“To be a reputable, profitable, innovative and technologically reliant media company offering world class services and products”

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

PAGE 14

Opinion

The Nigeria of our dream

By Ahmed Omeiza Lukman

W

ithout doubt, we are into the final lap of what must be the most hotly contested general election in our nation’s history and one that many would consider to be a pivotal moment. To many, the match is between the incumbent ruling government, the People Democratic Party (PDP) and the opposition coalition of All Progressive Congress (APC). To some the choice is between General Muhammadu Buhari (GMB) and Dr. Goodluck Ebere Jonathan (GEJ), whilst to others it is between maintaining status quo or change.

But I want to put it to you that this election is not about PDP or APC. Why? For usually in any contest, the winner is the one with the better skills, strategy, funds and luck even. But in an election, the winner or loser is decided not by the contending parties but by the audience or in this case the voters.

For in a democracy, we, the person more literally, have the power to decide who wins or lose, who to serve us as our government and who to serve us as the opposition for the next 4 years. This election is really about us, the voters, being able to exercise our democratic right to vote in a free and fair election.

More than ever before, if we are registered voters, we must vote in the February general election. If you are still undecided or unconvinced if you should vote, let me offer you 5 reasons why you MUST vote in this election. Going beyond our right, it is also our

duty as a responsible citizen to vote. Choosing not to vote is like a family member who chooses not to take out the trash in the house but then complained about the stench, or who chose not to participate in the decision-making process of repainting the family house but gripes about the colour chosen. We lose our right to complain about the state of affairs in this country when we choose not to vote when we can.

It doesn’t matter if you are the Senator or a labourer, rich or poor, young or old, male or female, as long as you are a Nigerian above 18years, with no criminal record and are of sound mind, you have one vote each. That is the beauty of democracy; everyone is truly equal at the ballot box. In this way,

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in a functioning democracy, this system ensures that the rights of the masses are protected and the rich and powerful cannot exploit the system to their advantage. If we don’t realize this fact and allow the rich and powerful to buy our votes or to bully us into voting for them, then we don’t have a democracy.

A friend of mine once said, “Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.”

There is truth in that observation.

Perhaps we are where we are as a nation is because we have given the keys of power to the same group for the past 16years and they have gotten drunk with power to the point that they don’t feel the need to be accountable to us anymore.

We need to remind them who

are the real boss in a democracy.

We want to hold our government accountable, be it PDP or APC. In any general elections we are voting for a government that would carry us into the next four years of their term. But in February 14th 2015, perhaps for the first time ever we have a viable alternative government. The choice for us is clear, we either vote for more of the same or vote for change. If we are dissatisfied with the way our country has been managed and believe that things should be better, then this is our chance to vote for change. We are not voting for our own comfort but for all our children. But before we make our choice, it is imperative that we find out for ourselves the vision of the future. American journalist Tony

The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men. If we don’t use our vote to bring about systemic change, I fear that our children one day, in desperation, will have to spill their blood on the streets to bring about that change. So is time to be part of history, hurry and get your voters card, defy all olds, ensure you vote come February 2015, Nigeria can’t afford to fail again.

How did we get here?

By Caroline James

W

hat comes to mind when you come across headlines like these “Politicians First Save Nigeria”, “Nigeria Will Not Break in 1015”, “I Did My Best To Fight CorruptionIBB”, “Lawyer Seek Corruption Free Judiciary In 2015”?. These and many more similar headlines are what we hear and see on our media today. Corruption is now a cankerworm that has eaten deep into the fabrics of our national lives. How then did we get here? Historically, although during the first republic, corrupt was prevalent, but it was kept at manageable level. In 1944, Nnamdi Azikwe was the first major political figure that was investigated for a firm belonging to him and his family. In the west, politician Adegoke Adelabu was charged of corruption levelled against him by his opposition, which demanded for his resignation as direct council head. In the North, the North Government enacted by the Customary presents order to stop any further breach of regulations levelled against some native authority officials in Borno.

During the tenure of the Gowon administration, corruption was kept away from the public, not

until 1975. He was viewed as timid in terms of being decisive against corrupt element in his government. Then during Shagari’s administration, corruption was deemed pervasive while Buhari’s administration convicted different political gladiators of different corrupt practices although, the administration itself was involved in a few lapsed ethical judgment.

However, it was during the IBB regime that corruption was believed to be preponderant. There was no such thing as accountability and the only successful election in Nigeria of June 12, 1993 was rigged. Then during Abacha’s regime, although there was economic growth, it also witnessed widespread of human right abuses and it was after his death that all the billions of naira he deposited to offshore accounts were discovered.

It has after Obasanjo’s inauguration on May 29, 1999, that he said he would combat past and present corruption in Nigeria government. His government then appeared to move more forcefully against government’s corruption in early 2015 as several ministers were fired on corruption charges and the senate speaker resigned after being accused of taking bribes. It was also at this time that the vice-president, Atiku

who was accused of corruption, counter accused the president of corruption. EFFC, a body formed during the administration, was tainted by charges that it was used for political retaliation by Obasanjo and his alies. Then came Umaru Yar’adua and whose efforts to fight government corruption stalled.

In July 2009, Boko Haram, an extremist Islamist sect, launched attacks against the government in North East Nigeria. By the first half of 2012, there is been increasing violent and the ongoing insurgency by the Islamic militant group is worsening the economic stagnation of Nigeria. Now, since August 2014, tension in the PDP led to split in the party and several members of the party later in the year have joined APC an opposition group formed by the merger of several parties. But then, is this the way forward?

Looking at the history of the country, there is no doubt that things are getting from bad to worse. Our future generation has failed us and now, corruption no longer means anything to our political leaders and even the citizens. To worsen the situation, the few rich are getting dangerously richer by the hour while the many poor are getting poorer by the minute. There is no meddling

in the middle as the so-called middle class people are finding it extremely difficult to meet up with their basic needs of life.

A resounding question often comes to mind. What foundation are we paying for our future generation (s)? Nigerians are no longer accountable, we lack integrity and the only issues we hear of today is money laundering, embezzlement, bribery in all its shapes and forms, with little or nothing said or done to prosecute the offenders.

Who then do we put the blame for all this on; is it our leaders or the system? Without any hesitation, I strongly believe that our system is whacked, it is in a very big mess and the fate of the said “future generation” is scary.

Ask 10 undergraduate students what they will contribute to the society if given the opportunity, I bet that 9 out of them will tell you how they want to have their own share of the national cake. It is so painful the mindset our youths have today, that if you go there and get out with nothing, you are termed a fool. Truly, our older generation has failed us.

This country is faced with so many challenges poverty, incessant labour disputes, in security of lives and properties , not to talk of being

Snow said, “Voting is a right best exercised by people who have taken time to learn about the issues. So the choice is for us to make, save the future generation or be part of a failed generation. Even the incumbent president has admitted the fact that his own generation has failed, possibly he meant the PDP generation of leaders, which will surely be judged right come February 14th 2015.

The result of PDP’s political hegemony over the last 15years is that the ills confronting us are systemic, i.e. part of the system.

Corruption, abuse of power, violations of human rights, racial discrimination and intimidation are part and parcel of life in Nigeria. Is PDP capable of reform?

One just has to look at the fate of former Bayelsa state governor, Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha and you will surely have a valid answer towards PDP willingness to fight corruption.

The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men. If we don’t use our vote to bring about systemic change, I fear that our children one day, in desperation, will have to spill their blood on the streets to bring about that change.

So is time to be part of history, hurry and get your voters card, defy all olds, ensure you vote come February 2015, Nigeria can’t afford to fail again.

Comrade Ahmed Omeiza Lukman wrote in from Kiev, Ukraine.

ranked 15 most corrupt nations in the world. Other countries non look down on us and cannot trust us. We need to wake up, put religion, ethnicity aside and stand as one. It takes each of us to make a difference for all of us. How worse can this get as we have faced so many challenges yet we are still standing. I know and believe there is hope for Nigeria, yes the youth are the hope of this blessed country. A president is not the only the only answer to this long as ting problem we face today, it is a collective fight, we have to be willing and ready to stand together to fight corruption, fight our greatest fears and be the strong black men that we truly are.

These are my last words, in every human endeavours, a retrospect helps guarantee a better future, and the hope of any nation however how bad it is now has in the proper understanding of what the navigation for a brighter future. The older generation had better make the future generation understanding what Nigeria use to be, and how to collectively restore the best glory. Only there lies a future.

Caroline James via carolinejames0001@gmail. com

PAGE 15

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

Comment

Yes, Nigeria needs same support as France

By Frank Labaka

M

any opinion makers have come forth to applaud how the West responded promptly to the “terrorist” attacks in France and further used this opportunity to call for the same support against acts of terror in the African continent, particularly against Boko Haram in Nigeria.

Instructive of those making this call is Ignatius Kaigama, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Jos in central Nigeria. The Mail and Guardian reported the Bishop as saying, “I see the very positive response of the French government tackling this issue of religious violence after the killing of their citizens”. He further said, “We need that spirit to be spread around, not just when it happens in Europe, [but] when it happens in Nigeria, in Niger, Cameroon and many poor countries, that we mobilise our international resources to confront the people who bring such

sadness to many families”.

The profoundness of what the bishop is saying lies in the fact that he sees himself as part of the people who must solve the problem faced by the country. He doesn’t exonerate himself and fence-sit, in talking about the problem.

Many have cast aspersions on the leadership of Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan.

Chief among those is the

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well-respected academic, Professor Adekeye Adebajo, who posits that “Boko Haram has exposed Jonathan’s ineptitude”. He reduces the solution of the problem to one individual: President Jonathan Goodluck.

A very instructive lesson from the “Je Suis Charlie” campaign should be the promptness of the State against the acts of terror, the

voluntary participation of the general public in supporting the State, and lastly support from the international community. Over and above, Boko Haram is correctly reported as an “insurgent” group, clearly meaning there are conditions concretising the cause of Boko Haram, not its attacks and explosions.

Prof Adebajo has indicated this fact in his article, raising

So the spirit of collectiveness displayed by all who supported the France’s reaction to the crisis should inspire the same resolve in dealing with the conditions giving rise to Boko Haram itself. The progressive outcome of the Nigeria’s economic rebase which signalled a great boom should be translated into people’s socio-economic development and prosperity.

the question of abject poverty in the North compared to the South of Nigeria.

This fact makes the comparison between Boko Haram and the attackers of ‘Charlie Hebdo’ different.

Something many opinion makers fail to nuance and comprehend. Diverting primary attention on the explosions Boko Haram is undertaking doesn’t come close to defeating it but invites more sympathy towards it from the communities in the North of Nigeria and elsewhere outside the country. The legitimacy of Boko Haram in the North is not rooted in the permanent conditions prevalent in that part of Nigeria, rather on socio-economic conditions that can be addressed by the State to stop this insurgent group.

So the spirit of collectiveness displayed by all who supported the France’s reaction to the crisis should inspire the same resolve in dealing with the conditions giving rise to Boko Haram itself. The progressive

Need for global legislation against blasphemy

By Abdulbaqi Jari Katsina

I

t was last week that 17 people were murdered in Paris in broad day light and the attackers went away from a satirical newspaper 'Charlie Habdo. A popular satirical newspaper "Charlie Habdo" was attacked after ridiculing a lot of religions and religious leaders of various religions excluding Judaism.

Charlie Habdo was just a local newspaper looking for publicity through blasphemy

By Jafaru Yakubu Kurfi

E

ffectiveness is what makes good leaders, ability to exhibit the right leadership practice in different situations, says a lot of leaders effectiveness.

Effectiveness has to do with quality – the right direction and efficiency has to do with time, matching a person’s skills to fit a job is management, putting the right people in the right place to get things done correctly and efficiently, good leaders put people in position suited to their skills.

Managing people involves understanding the strengths and weaknesses of an individual within a team and assign peoples task for optimal efficiency, in fact, another way to look at these differences is to equate leadership effectiveness and management with efficiency Leaders are born and their skills are developed over time, outside influence and educational background will impact the role a person will play throughout his life time and influence his ability to lead.

An effective manager has all basic characteristic of a good leader; I see them as leaders, a

and self-destructive styles.

Just about one will after the attack, Charlie Habdo yet again try to ridicule our beloved Prophet Muhammad (SAAS) in yet another condemnable cartoon that sparked a lot of anger, and of course, putting Charlie Habdo in a more dangerous situation as Charlie habdo wish to take the path of self destruction.

Free speech is often mistaken with right to blasphemy and intolerance. If one does not like any religion or its Prophet, why not he

simple practice his own and do as he wish in his. The world must through the United Nation enact anti-blasphemy law. That will go along way in preventing incident like that of the Charlie Habdo, Terry Jones of US etc.

Looking critically at the amateur videos of the Charlie Habdo attack, One will surely understand that the whole thing was staged to blackmail Islam, Muslims in France - as France houses the largest population of Muslims in Europe (3 million). Also, the

Charlie Habdo incident was aimed to force Jews to return to Israel from Europe. Israeli government has be carrying out violent campaigns against Jews in Europe so as to force them o return to Israel since its creation in 1940s. The Israeli government also staged that drama so as to try to make things difficult for Palestine as it is gaining support in Europe; from Sweden to U K and Germany.

The hypocrisy of western countries free speech is manifest as up to today there

How I see effective leaders prophet, mentors and fathers. They are democrats, straight forward, honest, self confident, displaying sincerity, integrity and a condor in all their dealing, and they are courageous. they aim at their goals by making people around them happy at all times.

I see them as leaders with open minds, they have a sense of humour in working places by creating jokes to relieve tension, their sense of humour is to make point without insulting anybody, courageous and

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dedicated to their work and like people who perform above average.

They have skills to think outside the box in home and working places, they are effective strategist that would help to achieve a vision, energetic problem solvers, they are good listeners and communicators who display their communication skill well and perform well to achieve excellent result.

They are team builders who always ensure that their team members are recognised for their

accomplishment and perform with excellent results, they hold periodic staff meetings to encourage their team members and solve their problems. They encourage initiatives and innovations from their workers, they encourage people in personal issue, and they are high class performers and achievers to the core.

Effective managers always set direction and promote values and gives emotional support. They share large and small in victory

Effective managers always set direction and promote values and gives emotional support.

They share large and small in victory with their team/staffs, they always consult in decision making and support their teams to express their opinion and values, and they are highly ethical in their work.

is a law in Europe that was put to punish anybody who denies the occurrence of holocaust against the Jews. Why is there such a law existing?

Are Jews different from other creations? This will tell you that the concept of free speech was design for blasphemous purposes not for any positive expression.

Also, a Charlie Habdo staff was fired sometimes back for ridiculing Judaism. Likewsie Nafeez Ahmad that was fired from The Guardian newspaper for making a documentary with their team/staffs, they always consult in decision making and support their teams to express their opinion and values, and they are highly ethical in their work.

They belief in mutual respect, they belief in hard work, they calculate their risk and develop a contingency plan for their decisions – they inspire others to reach for their dreams, take charge when necessary and their actions are always based on reason and moral principles.

They set their vision, mission and goals to reflect their principles and set direction for others to follow; they also give emotional support and encouragement to team members. Effective managers are self confident, good communicators, extrovert, assertive, emotionally stables and have passion for work. They have empathy for their people, the downtrodden and maintain value and respect for others. Finally, effective leaders utilized their power in a sensitive way, and adopt a diplomatic approach in all their dealings and lead by examples.

Jafaru Yakubu Kurfi wrote in from 2 Maradi Amadu Road, Kurfi, Katsina state

PAGE 16

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

I am still a member of PDP-Prof Onyebuchi

By Ali Abare Abubakar

T

he immediate past Minister of Health, Professor C. O Onyebuchi Chukwu has reaffirmed his membership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), saying he remains a member of the party.

Onyebuchi stated this in a press release made available to journalists yesterday.

The former minister, who resigned his appointment to contest the governorship seat in Ebonyi State but lost out in the primaries, said it has become necessary to make the clarification in view of the general confusion in his state in the aftermath of the party’s primary election.

While lamenting that the party has yet to respond to his petition over the turnout of the primaries, having sought for a redress from the national secretariat of the party, Onyebuchi said though that he is still hopeful the party will grant him fair hearing.

Parts of the statement read: “I wish to make it clear that I am still a member of the PDP. I am aware that in the pervading confusion surrounding the political developments in Ebonyi State, my supporters have been longing for a statement from me. I have kept silent all this while because I was pursuing and hoping for quick justice through the internal

mechanism of my party. However, I do acknowledge that it will be improper to keep them waiting indefinitely.

“I thank all my supporters, most of whom have stood by me till this moment for their unprecedented show of support, solidarity and love. I appreciate the resources including money,

material and time that have been expended by many of them. I feel the pain of their disappointment.

However, I wish to assure them that I have not given up the struggle for justice to be done which I wish to take to a logical conclusion but through legitimate means. For the upcoming elections, I ask that while they

may not enhance the political fortunes of our detractors, they should vote right. Indeed, the impending elections present moments of risks. If we make the wrong choices, God forbid, we may lay our dear state open to a reversal of our good fortunes, incestuous rape of our resources and unbridled brigandage”.

N

iger State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has handed over all party machineries to the state deputy governor, Hon. Ahmed Musa Ibeto who dumped the ruling PDP for the APC on Monday after allegedly suffering injustice and humiliation.

Ibeto while addressing large supporters of the party after the inauguration of the campaign team of the APC gubernatorial candidate, Alhaji Abubakar Sani Bello in Minna yesterday assured that APC enjoys

GENERAL MUHAMMADU BUHARI ON HIS CERTIFICATE

I

only consented to address you this morning because of the genuine concern expressed by many supporters and other wellmeaning Nigerians that the issue be addressed. Otherwise, I would have dismissed it for what it is – sheer mischief and would not have considered it an issue worth the nation’s while.

“I had assumed all along that all my records were in the custody of the Military Secretary of the Nigerian Army. Much to my surprise, we are now told that although a record of the result is available, there are no copies of the certificates in my personal file. This is why I formally requested my old school the Provincial Secondary School, Katsina [which is now known as Government College, Katsina] to make available the school’s copy of the result of the Cambridge/West African School Certificate. This will be made available to the press the moment this is available.

“However, before we obtain that, let me say for the record that I attended Provincial Secondary School, Katsina. I graduated in 1961 with many prominent Nigerians, including General Shehu Yar’Adua, former chief of staff at the Supreme Headquarters, and Justice Umaru Abdullahi, a former President of the Court of Appeal. We sat for the University of Cambridge/WASC Examination together in 1961, the year we graduated.

My examination number was 8280002, and I passed the examination in the Second Division.

“And although the ruling party may want to wish this away, the issue in this campaign cannot be my certificate which I obtained 53 years ago. The issues are the scandalous level of unemployment of millions of our young people, the state of insecurity, the pervasive official corruption which has impoverished our people and the lack of concern of the government for anything other than the retention of power at all costs”.

“

Taraba state All Progressives Congress (APC) Gubernatorial Candidate, Sen. Aisha Alhassan (middle), her Campaign Director General, Dr Abdullmumini Vaki (left), and her Running Mate, Elder John Maigari (right), during the inauguration of the party gubernatorial campaign, yesterday in Lissam, Ussa Local Government Area of Taraba state.

Photo: NAN

Ibeto takes over APC leadership in Niger

From Yakubu Mustapha, Minna

FOR THE RECORD

goodwill and has majority support of Nigerlites as victory is certain for the party at the February polls.

He added that with the composition of knowledgeable personalities in the campaign team, the party will surely form next government at all levels of governance.

According to him, “Niger will deliver the Presidential position to the APC, APC will win all the 25 seats in the state House of Assembly, the 3 senatorial seats and the seats of the 10 House of Representatives and when the time of the local

government elections comes, we will take all of the that too.”

Ibeto, who was made the leader of the Niger State APC at the event, said “The reason for this is obvious; we have the goodwill, the composition that people will accept.

We have the people that are ready to vote our party. And even, when the time comes for local government election in the state, we will win the 25 councils also.”

He also assured that the APC in the state will conduct peaceful campaign that will not lead to confusion and breakdown of law

and order.

“Our party will conduct our campaign peacefully, because, we are sure of victory. It will be devoid of violence, before and even after the elections.”

He expressed confidence in the campaign team, chaired by Alhaji Bako Shetima as the Director General and prayed for Gods’ guidance towards a successful elections for the party, adding that

by June this year PDP will be an opposition in the state and APC will be in governance.

February polls: Eze Ndi-Igbo urges FG to provide adequate security

By Stanley Onyekwere

T

he Eze Ndi-Igbo of all states in Northern Nigeria and Oyo State, yesterday, called on the federal government to ensure adequate security before, during and after the forthcoming general election, to contain any form of post-election violence.

…urges Igbos to collect PVCs The group also admonished all Igbos to ignore any threat from any politician or political party, but stay wherever they reside to defend their votes.

This was part of the resolutions of the meeting of the Eze Ndi-Igbo of all

states in Northern Nigeria and Oyo State, held in Abuja.

Presenting their communiqué after the meeting, the Coordinator of the group, Pampas Ngozi Wahiwe emphasized that the Igbos were committed to the peaceful-

coexistence of all Nigeria irrespective of tribe, creed and religion.

Wahiwe, who is also the Eze Igbo Minna, maintained that they had resolved “to work for a violence-free electoral process in 2015”.

The group called on all Ndi-Igbo leaders to mobilize their subjects and kinsmen to obtain their Permanent Voters’ Card (PVCs) for the

forthcoming general election.

According to him, “We have resolved that the unity, indivisibility and peaceful co-existence of all people in the country are not negotiable.

“We urge all Igbos nationwide to remain in their various states of abode during and after the forthcoming election, as this country belongs to all of us.

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

Councilors kick against constitution of LG interim committee From Femi Oyelola, Kaduna

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arely 48 hours after the inauguration of interim chairmen and councilors for the 23 Local government areas of Kaduna State by Governor Mukhtar Ramalan Yero, some councilors have described the action as illegal because doing so infringe on the provision of Section 7(1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Two of such councilors, Ismail Khalid and Yakubu Audu, representing Angwan Dosa and Gabasawa wards in Kaduna North local government council, in a letter addressed to the governor of the state, by their counsel, Barrister Auta Maisamari and made available to the media in Kaduna yesterday, stated that by the provision of Kaduna State Local Government Law 2012, under which they were elected, the tenure of office of elected local government council in Kaduna State was two years and the government was aware of the fact but made no arrangement or preparation to conduct election into the 23 local government councils of the state before their tenure lapsed.

“Although your decision to dissolve the 23 local government councils in the state is lawful by virtue of provision of Kaduna State local government council law 2012, it is unlawful for your to appoint persons that are not democratically elected to administer the 23 local government councils in the state.

“This contention is in line with the provision of Section 7(1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, as amended. This section has received judicial interpretation in the judgement of Kaduna State High court, in suit No. KDH/KAD/616/2011 between Auta Maisamari Esq versus Governor of Kaduna State delivered by his lordship, Justice Gideon Kuradaon on the 2nd day of August 2011,” the letter said.

The letter further stated that the court declared that the defendants do not have power to make any law to appoint interim leadership for the 23 local governments of the state.

The perpetual injunction was also granted restraining the defendants from appointing sole administrators and other interim leadership for the 23 local government of Kaduna State.

In view of the above the petition said the inauguration of interim leadership by Governor Yero amounts to contempt of court because there is perpetual injunction restraining the government or his agents. “This amounts to breach of court order which is an impeachable offence” the councilors said.

PAGE 17

Poor Representation: PDP members in Nasarawa to defect to APC From Gambo Ahmed, Lafia

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eoples Democratic Party (PDP) members from Tattara/Kodoro ward in Panda development area of Karu local government area of Nasarawa State have resolved to defect to the All Progressives Congress (APC) for what they described as poor representation by the House of assembly member representing Gittata /Karu constituency, Babawi Chetubo

(PDP). .

The PDP supporters made their decision known in an interview with Peoples Daily yesterday when the assembly member visited Tattara town canvassing for re-election in the forth coming polls.

Spokesman of the group, Mr.Kulow Deiy Jagali said that the decision became imperative following the total neglect of the area by the House member since he was elected into the office in

2011.

His words:” Imagine he promised to provide boreholes to our communities , grade Agwan Ayaba/Jagali, Rafin Sanyi/Dutse Gogo and Tudun Wada Mada/ Jamage roads but since we voted him he has never even paid a thank-you visit to the area, except now that time has come for election. We are tired of the PDP member (Babawi) representing us, we vowed to go for a party that is promising and that is APC

because we have seen practically on ground in just few years.

Mr Kulow called on the entire people from the ward to massively vote for the APC aspirant for a better change and quality representation, addingthat Babawi is a failure and should not be trusted as according to him, he succeeded in bribing delegates with huge sums of money that brought him as a winner during the recent PDP primary but this time he will be shown the way out.

Labour Party Governorship Candidate, Otunba Adebayo Alao-Akala, addressing a rally, yesterday in Apete, Ido Local Government Area of Oyo state.

Photo: NAN

Maku a deceiver- Nasarawa APC

By Ali Abare Abubakar

T

he All Progressives Congress (APC) in Nasarawa State has described Labaran Maku, immediate past Minister of Information, as “a deceiver”, following the flagging off of his gubernatorial campaign under the platform of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA).

The APC Publicity Secretary in the state, Wuduyamba Sam Agidi while responding to statements credited to Maku, fired back at former Minister “for running a regionally and ethnically divisive campaign”.

Maku was reported to have made case for the northern senatorial zone

where he came from, to produce the next governor of the state.

“Nasarawa State belongs to all citizens and no ethnic group or religious group should insist on championing a campaign based on the purported right of a particular region to produce the next governor.

Who made the arrangement, where was the arrangement made and when were entire people of Nasarawa consulted before some ambitious politicians decided on who will rule and for what duration? As the 2015 elections approach, we should concentrate on the greater good of all and the comments by Maku are just dangerous comments to make-especially, coming from someone

who is claiming to be the peacemaker in this election campaign. It just sounds like comments coming from a selfish and ambitious politician that didn’t get his way in his own party and is trying to galvanize perceived ethnic, religious, and regional grievances rather than talking about issues that will better the lives of the people of Nasarawa State,” Agidi stated.

Similarly, former PDP member, Senator John Danboyi has thrown his support behind the APC flag bearer, Governor Umaru Tanko Al-makura, while denouncing a campaign strategy capable of causing divide among the people.

In a chat with journalists

yesterday in Lafia, Danboyi said the state never had it as good as under the leadership of Governor Al-makura, urging the electorate to vote the APC candidate in the coming election.

“This is precisely why I decamped to APC. Governor Al-Makura is running a campaign based on the issues facing all people in the state.

There is no room for tribal politics in this campaign when the real issues of jobs, development, health, and education face every person every day. These issues to no affect just one group and the Governor’s leadership and progress on these issues is the best the state has ever had in all three senatorial zones. Just look around.

Seeing is indeed believing,” he added.

Youths pelt PDP supporters in Bauchi From Ahmed Kaigama, Bauchi

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here was a mild drama at the flagging-off of the Bauchi State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) gubernatorial electioneering campaign when youths pelted the crowd with stones, including the main pavilion where the State Governor, Isa Yuguda was seated, at a Mini-Stadium in Darazo, headquarters of Darazo local government area of the state.

It all started shortly after some

decampees from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the PDP spoke through their leader, Nasiru Darazo, telling the crowd that the APC in Bauchi State was divided into 3 different factions following misunderstandings among members arising from the party’s primary elections.

Nasiru, while formally announcing their decamping to the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said that the APC in the state has, since the party’s

gubernatorial primaries been divided, blaming the leadership for not addressing the issues bordering on party internal squabbles in the state.

According to him, the widening internal rift within the ranks and files of the APC in the state is a blessing in disguise for the PDP as it will give the party upper-hand to sweep votes during the forthcoming general elections.

No sooner had the commotion settled down, people including some

top hierarchy of the PDP began moving out from the mini-stadium, leaving the venue virtually empty by the end of the event.

Investigations by our reporter revealed that the irate youths did not take kindly to the statements credited to Nasiru Darazo, a strong supporter of the APC before his sudden crosscarpeting to the PDP, informing the reason why the youths pelted the crowd attending the function, including Governor Yuguda.

PAGE 18

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

Defection worries Bauchi PDP Chieftain From Ahmed Kaigama, Bauchi

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eoples Democratic Party (PDP) Chieftain in Bauchi, Alhaji Bashir Bukar Rimin Zayam has expressed worries over the defection of PDP members especially the former deputy governor of Plateau State, Dame Pauline Tallen and some other erstwhile members of the PDP. Bashir, who is also the Bauchi State Publicity Secretary the of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), stated this yesterday while speaking with newsmen in Bauchi.

He said to lose a single supporter is a problem talk less of loosing people as prominent along with their supporters, stressing that it is indeed a source of worry for the chances of the party to win the 2015 February election in Plateau State.

He appealed to the national chairman of the PDP, Ahmadu Muazu and President Good Luck Jonathan to look into these problems and find lasting solution to it to enable the party to win the 2015 General election.

Bashir said he knows the consequences of their defection because they were living in a border with Plateau State.

Pauline Tallen who was Governor Jang’s deputy up to 2011, defected to the Labour Party and sought to be governor that year under the LP.

PDP will use old formulas to win, says Dakingari From Ahmed Idris, Brinin Kebbi

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overnor Usman Saidu Dakingari of Kebbi State has called on the supporters of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state not to panic ahead of the forthcoming general election as the party would use its former formula to win the election and ensure that PDP governorship candidate emerges winner.

Addressing party supporters at the Haliru Abdul Stadium in the state capital, Birnin-Kebbi yesterday, the governor added that, Kebbi has been a PDP state since 2007 and he would ensure that the party delivers the state.

“I would not allow any opposition parties to take over the state from me, those that leave the party left for their selfish interest” he added.

Dakingari further pointed out that based on his achievements and dividends of democracy provided to the people, he believe that the electorate will vote for them.

“I constructed roads, hospitals, schools and infrastructures such as electricity and supply of water” he explained.

The governor, who expressed dismay over the attitudes of some politicians who he said were jumping from one party to another, described them as ingrates.

Peoples Democratic Party supporters, during President Goodluck Jonathan’s presidential rally, yesterday in Kano.

We’ll hold PDP responsible if anything happens to Buhari From Lawal Sa’idu Funtua, Katsina

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he All Progressives Congress (APC) gubernatorial candidate, Plateau State, Barrister Solomon Dalong has warned that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would be held responsible if anything happens to General Muhammadu Buhari.

Speaking to newsmen yesterday

at the Katsina venue of the APC presidential campaign, Dalong condemned the death wish advert on Buhari sponsored by Governor Ayo Fayose.

“It is good that they make their intention open, we now know their plan and even if a mischievous bird fly over Buhari’s house we will hold PDP responsible” he added.

He described the alleged attack

on Buhari’s personality by the PDP as the ranting of a dying party, saying their mischief would not deter the opposition.

Dalong described the speculation on Buhari’s health as laughable as according to him “leadership is about credibility not age. After all it is not about playing football”.

The gubernatorial candidate urged people to strive to bring change

through the use of their votes in the forthcoming general election.

He advised electorates to resist the temptation of collecting sweets, rice and biscuits to cast votes to wrong candidates.

Dalong urged APC faithful to resist the temptation of being provoked to embark on violence, saying someone assured of victory cannot fight.

Agbaje pledges to reduce land cost, improve housing in Lagos From Ayodele Samuel, Lagos

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eoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate in Lagos State, Jimi Agbaje yesterday promised to address the rising case of accommodation in the state with special emphasis on building low cost housing for Lagosians.

Speaking at a town hall meeting at Ifako- Ijaiye Local Government area, Agbaje said the state government has continually paid lip

service to the plight of the masses in the state in the area of housing, saying that the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led state government has only succeeded in building 25,000 housing units in the last 16 years.

Agbaje added that some major challenges militating against affordable housing in the state is the exorbitant cost of land and the stress of obtaining permit from the state government.

“I disagree with the excuses by

the Lagos State Government that it is not easy to build for low income earners in the state. A former governor Lateef Jakande did it and I will do it if elected”.

“The excuse the government has given is that the cost of cement is high and had used tax payers’ money to build for themselves, their cronies and the rich. Lagos State is ranked 36th in World Bank ratings of places where it is very difficult to get approval to build” Agbaje said.

He said that if elected, his

administration would reduce the cost of land in Lagos.

“We understand how building low cost houses can be done in Lagos. The first thing we will do is to reduce the cost of land because our records show that the elite have taken all the land for themselves.

Agbaje also said that his administration would also prioritise vocational training for youths in the state, create jobs and reduce the scourge of unemployment in the state.

PDP condemns attack on Jonathan in Katsina

By Ahmed Abubakar

T

he Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has condemned Tuesday’s attack on President Goodluck Jonathan by supporters of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari in Katsina.

The National Publicity Secretary of the Party, Olisa Metuh in a statement on Wednesday said the attack is “a clear indication that the APC is not ready to dial back on its rabid desire to attain power through violence despite signing a peace pact a week ago in Abuja”, adding that the PDP would “no

longer tolerate such acts of violence on any of its members”.

“This brazen attack on the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and our presidential candidate clearly shows that the APC was never committed to the spirit and letters of the Abuja peace accord which they signed in the presence of prominent Nigerians and international personalities.

“It is unfortunate that while the PDP and other parties are busy ensuring that their members and supporters remain committed to a peaceful electioneering, the APC has been hatching plots to unleash violence on our candidates and members.

“We invite Nigerians, friends of Nigeria and all lovers of democracy to rise in condemnation of this dangerous phenomenon. These early developments clearly demonstrate that the comments and declarations by the leaders of the APC that Nigeria would be thrown into chaos and bloodshed should it lose the February general elections were real.

“We commend the maturity and the ever peaceful disposition of President Jonathan and the leaders of the PDP even in the face of this unwarranted attack”, the statement said.

According to the PDP, “the irony

which we wish to place on record is that the APC which has successfully completed its campaigns in the South south, including Bayelsa, the home state of President Jonathan without any incident and has even signed a pact to maintain peace, is turning round to unleash thugs to disrupt the presidential campaign of our great party.

“In spite of this, we wish to assure Nigerians of the iron cast resolve of the PDP to ensure peaceful and credible general elections where the votes of the people shall exclusively determine who emerge as leaders in the general elections”.

Page 19

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

SEC DG assures on vibrant market

FG computes validation list to pay 1,669 PHCN workers

By Etuka Sunday

T

L-R, Commissioner, Securities and Exchange Commission, Hon Zakawanu Garuba, Chairman, Association of Stock broking House of Nigeria, Mr. Emeka Madubuike, President, Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers, Mr. Albert Okumagba, and SEC Acting Director General, Mr. Mounir Gwarzo, during a meeting between SEC and Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers, yesterday in Abuja.

By Aminu Imam

T

he Ag. Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Mounir Gwarzo has assured Nigerians that the Commission will continue to ensure that the market remains vibrant, in order to attract investors both locally and internationally.

Gwarzo gave the assurance when he received members of the Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers (CIS) visited him in the Commission’s headquarters in Abuja.

He said the current management will strive to develop domestic investment from retail and institutional investors.

“We will step up to reach out to the market and improve

investment. On the international side, what is most important is the enabling environment.

Right now the rules are very friendly and that is why we keep changing them from time to time to suit best practices and attract investors”, he stated.

Earlier in his remarks, President and Chairman of the Governing Council of the Institute, Mr. Albert Okumagba lamented the over 60 percent control of the Nigerian stock market by foreign investors.

Okumagba said, the current situation were over 60 percent of the market is control by foreign investors give serious cause for concern, saying: “The level of participation of our locals is effectively less than 3 million when ideally over 80 million of our people should be in the

market.

“Our coverage of insurance assets in Nigeria is not up to two percent of insurable assets; if we can increase from two to 20 percent and then to 50 percent, we will be shocked at the kind of positive contribution that insurance can make”.

Mr. Okumagba further disclosed that for pension, coverage is about 8 percent, noting that if Nigerians, who are supposed to be captured by the Pension Reform Act come on stream, we can do multiples of the N4.7 that has been mobilized.

He said, “We have opportunities for our own domestic investors; the pension companies have over $25 billion, which they have taken as money and even though they have a room of about 25 percent to

invest, only about 12 percent of that has been invested.”

‘We believe that some of the factors that are holding the market down today will soon ease off, like issues of security, election and crude oil prices; once the elections are done with, the market will begin to stabilize’ he added.

The Ag DG of SEC, Mr. Mounir harped on investors education, both for retail and institutional, to improve the level of investment from the domestic side.

The meeting addressed issues that will engender better interface between the regulators and the operators, as they both expressed the desire for the capital market to play a deeper role in funding gaps in the federal budget and also fund infrastructure gaps.

CBN vows to resist ‘speculative attack’ on Naira

By Etuka Sunday

T

he Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has insisted that it would resist speculative attack on the Naira.

Fielding questions from journalists after the Monthly Monetary Policy Committee meeting yesterday in Abuja, CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele said that the bank’s action became necessary following some “uncomfortable tendencies” in the market.

Emefiele said that the decision of JP Morgan to exclude Nigeria from the index was done in error, as the apex bank had directed banks to reduce their Net Opening

Position (NOP) from 10 to 0, due to volatility in the market.

Rating agency, JP Morgan had earlier this week rated Nigeria negative, citing the downward review of the Net Open Position (NOP) by the banks as a reason for its action.

The rating agency noted that reviewing downward its NOP is a sign that Nigeria was illiquid.

Emefiele noted that during the period the NOP was reduced, there were pressures on the Naira.

The apex bank boss further stressed that “ we have a responsibility in line with our core mandate to defend the currency and exchange rate of the Naira. We are monitoring

the market to the extent that we feel the interbank market will continue to support trading activities of both Nigerians and foreign investors”.

Emefiele assured that the apex bank is looking into the issues and will soon engage the JP Morgan Index team to prove the level of liquidity in the market, noting that exclusion from the index would negatively impact the country’s economy.

“We are committed to remaining in the Index; we will do everything possible to remain on the Index because we know the adverse impact the exclusion from the Index will cost the country”, he emphasised.

He added that the Naira is appropriately priced therefore there was no need for anybody to worry about further devaluation.

On the widening gap between the RDAS and the parallel market, apex bank governor asserted that the Bank was doing its best to see how it can intervene in the market.

“We know that allowing the gap creates certain opportunities for certain people. But we will continue, because we don’t want the exchange rate to spiral out of control and that is why at the appropriate time certain actions will be taken”, he stated.

he Federal Government yesterday said it has computed the validation list to settle the severance entitlements and Pension Funds Administration (PFAs) for 1,669 workers of the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN).

This was disclosed by the Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo in Abuja while reacting to the recent protest by the workers for none payment of their severance packages.

Nebo, who spoke through his Chief of Staff, Prof. Chidi Onyia, said, “I don’t understand where that allegation is coming from; because if you recall, when the privatisation process started, the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) had a projected list of about 47,000 workers. Of that 47,000, over 45,000 were validated and paid both their severance packages and their PFA.” He said the number of those to be paid is about 2,400 and “out of that number, 1,669 has just been validated, based on a committee constituted by the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE), with some members of labour and some members of the Ministry, including people from the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN)”.

He said the names of the validated workers would be published next week, for them to come and present their information for the validation process to go on before they can get paid.

Speaking about the fate of the about 800 other workers yet to be validated, the minister said, “The others are those that even PHCN and the people that are suppose to submit the list; Labour has not given us the list. We do not want to validate people that are not in the system and are ghost workers.”

He noted that list included workers in the Enugu PHCN Distribution company (Disco), whose data crashed during last year’s validation exercise.

The pre-published list, shows that the verification of the 1,669 ex-workers will be done across nine centres including Lagos, Port Harcourt, Kano and Abuja between January 26 and February 6.

The Minister, who did not disclose how would be paid to these workers, said, “We can’t say how much will be paid; I will have to get the exact amount from BPE. But once a validation is through and the list is submitted to the Office of the AccountantGeneral, funds are released right away”.

He debunked the notion that the moves to clear the workers were being made in the face of the general elections, saying, “I had said that this list for 1,669 former workers came up from several processes. The demonstration just happened two days back, so we couldn’t have gone to the zonal offices, validated the list and about to publish it in just 48 hours.”

Page 20

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

Business

Pension investments in equities drop below 10% over erosion, paucity of funds

By Aminu Imam

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ension Fund Managers (PFAs) have been forced to cut down their investment in equities to less than 10 percent, following volatility in the financial services market, resulting in loss in equities of up to 60 percent in 2014 and further decline in share prices due to economic headwinds, caused by dwindling global oil prices.

The development, according

to analysts, who attributed the fall to safety and caution so as not to further risk contributors money, is against the statutory 20 percent required by the National Pension Commission (PenCom).

Consequently, the 10 percent stake has brought the pension assets investment in equities to about N470 billion, as the end of October 2014 when pension assets rose to N4.5 trillion, according to figures from PenCom. Chairman, Pension Fund

Operators Association of Nigeria (PenOp), Misbahu Yola, said enthusiasm to increase investment by the PFAs withered, due to increasing erosion and little new investment coming into the market.

Yola, who is also the managing director/CEO of Legacy Pensions Limited, said operators were being watchful for bottom of the market, as this presents a good buying opportunity, because prices are very low and attractive.

He however expressed optimism that there is the possibility of a rebound after Nigeria’s general elections.

“Imagine when the elections are over and new government direction is clear, the market will rebound; particularly if there is fiscal discipline”, Yola observed.

Managing director/CEO, FUG Pensions Limited, Usman Suleiman, said that though the market is down, PFAs would still invest in the stock market in spite

L-R: Economic Officer, Embassy of the United States of America, Mr. Joel Kopp; Managing Director, PAN, Mr. Ibrahim Boyi, and Chairman, NigerianAmerican Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Sherrif Balogun, during a visit to the PAN factory, yesterday in Kaduna.

Photo: NAN

PHRC running at a profit – MD

By Etuka Sunday

T

he Managing Director of the Port Harcourt Refining Company Limited (PHRC) has said that the plant is currently running at a profit despite the on-going phased rehabilitation and turn-around maintenance (TAM) of the refinery.

The MD of the PHRC, Dr. Bafred Enjugu made this known in an interview in Port Harcourt, Rivers state.

With the increasing demand of the petroleum products, Dr. Enjugu said the PHRC would turn in more profits in 2015, as the plant continues to refine more petroleum products such as premium motor spirit, otherwise known as petrol, automotive gas

…says rehabilitation has boosted in-country capacity

oil and dual-purpose kerosene.

He said the Federal Government and the management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) last year approved an 18-months circle of phased rehabilitation for all the refineries using local contractors, after the Original Refinery Builders (ORB) failed to turn up to carry out the TAM. Dr. Enjugu stated that the initiative afforded PHRC engineers the opportunity to participate actively in the ongoing phased rehabilitation and provided indigenous contractors the window to supply the refinery with spare parts and equipment

that require replacement.

The MD noted that the participation of indigenous engineers to participate in the phased rehabilitation is in compliance with the Nigerian Content Act, which seeks to promote in-country capacity for indigenous players in the Nigerian oil and gas sector.

He said the new approach has contributed immensely in enabling the PHRC to become a profit centre, adding that several billions of naira was saved in capital flight.

Dr. Enjugu stated that the PHRC has the potential to refine 47 percent of Nigeria’s installed refining capacity and noted that

the strategic initiative has made the plant to be available with 99 percent steady supply of electricity from a public private partnership.

On his part, the Managing Director of the Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company (WRPC), Engr. Paul Obelley affirmed that the company is running at 60 percent installed capacity of its 125, 000 barrels per day.

Engr. Obelley revealed that the phased rehabilitation has also helped the plant in replacing some of its obsolete parts, stressing that the petrochemical plant, which was down for almost 18 years has been fixed and the carbon black plant would soon be inaugurated.

ICPC to partner online media in anti-corruption campaign

By Joy Baba-Yesufu

T

he Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) on Tuesday pledged to partner with on-line media publishers to strengthen anticorruption campaign in the country.

Chairman of ICPC, Mr. Ekpo Nta, stated this in Abuja during a courtesy visit to the commission by a delegation from the Guild of Corporate Online Publishers (GCOP).

He said the partnership would entail signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the guild to ensure that members were trained to enhance effective investigative reports on corruption.

“A look at some publications on corruption clearly show that reporters of such news lack basic understanding of corruption and the mandate of different agencies in the fight against corruption.

“We will work out modalities to have an MoU with your association to establish working

relationship that will entail discussions on ways to fight corruption in the country in 2015,” he said.

Nta said the role of online media in information dissemination was enormous, adding that the coming together of the publishers would address frivolous publications on-line.

He lamented reports on corruption by some section of on-line media and called on the publishers to ensure proper training for anti-corruption journalists.

Earlier, the leader of the delegation, Mr. Salami Samiu, said the guild was established a year ago to regulate the activities of on-line media publishers.

He said the establishment followed findings that the some on-line media had over the years been by individuals who had no knowledge of journalism, to achieve their selfish gains.

Samiu added that the visit was to formally introduce the guild to the commission as well to canvass for partnership in business to sustain the organisations.

of the downturn because pension funds are long-term funds – that is to say, we are not day-traders but long-term investors.

“We are not selling at present; so, whatever loss is recorded in the books will not crystalise. In fact, to a long-term investor, this is the time to buy shares of companies that have good fundamentals and long term prospects”, he added.

The total value of pension assets under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) stood at N4.5 trillion as at October 2014, with an average monthly contribution of N20 billion and 30 percent annual growth rate.

Analysts have said that this pool of pension funds is a potential platform for attaining the transformation agenda of government in the provision of infrastructure, energy, employment generation and the development of the real sector, justifying why stakeholders are canvassing for inclusion of majority of the working population who reside in the informal sector.

It is pertinent to note that the trend in pension fund assets highlights the increasing significance of Pension Funds as major institutional investors in the Nigerian economy, and this has been largely shown with the FGN Bond, where more than 60 percent of the assets have been invested.

It further shows the growing availability of long-term finances for the development of the real sector and other economic developmental strides.

NNPC to cancel deepwater projects, says GMD

By Etuka Sunday

F

ollowing the continued fall of global oil prices, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has said that several deep-water projects in the country face delays or outright cancellation.

“A number of deep-water projects may suffer delays or cancellation, including one in Angola, three in Nigeria and one in Ghana; while in shallow waters, two projects in Angola, one in Nigeria and two in Ghana may suffer delays,” the Group Managing Director, NNPC, Dr. Joseph Darwa, said at the 19th edition of Offshore West Africa in Lagos, on Tuesday.

He said the challenge for the country’s oil and gas industry was how to manage major projects through both price and fiscal uncertainties.

He also noted that the current slide in oil prices was caused by a combination of factors, including lower than expected demand growth, continued strong supply growth and unexpected loss of OPEC discipline, said the factors portended significant implications for the industry.

Page 21

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

Commerce & Industry ARSO set to revolutionise Africa’s agro-sector

T

he African Organisation for Standardization (ARSO) has declared its commitment to revolutionize Africa’s agricultural sector, noting that all hands should be on deck to adopt new technologies to help the continent move away from reliance on food imports and secure food supplies through rapid sustainable increase in food production.

ARSO, in a statement signed its President, Dr. Joseph Odumodu explained that under ARSO THC 02, agriculture and food products, chaired by Tanzania, with membership and experts from across the continent, targets to help African countries revolutionise agriculture, by addressing issues of handling, packaging, labelling, storage and processing and intrinsically fulfill many of the broader requirements for producers to participate in global supply chains.

Odumodu, also stressed that programmes were under way to help Africa produce high-value products; codify sustainable agricultural practices in order to address sustainability issues required to tackle environmental

degradation, soil infertility, soil erosion, declining yields, increased pests and diseases, loss of biodiversity; among others.

ARSO pointed out that across sub-Saharan Africa, agriculture accounts for three-quarters of employment and one third of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), maintaining that for very poor households, agricultural development not only a defense against hunger but also acted as an income generation venture nearly four times more effectively than growth in any other sector.

“These circumstances help to explain why agricultural development is such a powerful tool for reducing poverty in Africa and eliciting economic development”, ARSO added.

The African standards body added that despite the persistently strong agricultural component of its external trade, sub-Saharan Africa’s presence in world agricultural markets has tended to lose significance since the early 1970, saying that trade potential in Africa was severely limited by low level of production capacity.

Oil marketers ask FG to pay N250 bn subsidy

M

ajor Oil Marketers of Nigeria (MOMAN) on Tuesday appealed to the Federal Government over outstanding payment of N250 billion subsidy claims owed marketers in 2014, to ensure sustainable importation of petroleum product, saying more than 85 percent of oil marketers has complied with reduction with pump price.

MOMAN Executive Secretary, Obafemi Olawore, speaking with newsmen in Lagos, said that the amount in question was the outstanding payment of marketers on subsidy, which includes interest rate and foreign exchange.

He said that directive has been given to members of MOMAN to conform to the Minster of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke immediate directive to revert their pump price from N 97 to n 87 per litre.

He said that about 85 percent of its members had reverted to their pump price to reflect N 87 per litre, adding that others will follow suit immediately.

According to him, “We are not against the reduction of pump price to N87 per litre, but government should also increase marketers’ margin of petroleum product.

“Marketers’ margin has been stagnating since 2007; no reason was given by the minister for the reduction of the petrol pump price.

“Only N4.60 per litre was given as margin to marketers since 2007, which has not changed. The N10 reduction was on depot price

not marketers margin.

“We were meant to believed that in line with Section 6 Clause 1 of the Petroleum Act, that it was the sole responsibility of the Minister of Petroleum to announce that there will be a reduction or increase in the pump price of petroleum,’’ he said.

Olawore, however urged the minister to expedite action on the committees promised to set up top look into the complaint of marketers over margin.

He said that MOMAN had agreed with Petroleum Product Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), Marine Inspectors, Audit and Ministry of Finance to take stock of product in their tank for adequate refund.

He urged the concern authority to expedite action on dipping the stock and signing the paper to allow marketers load product from storage tanks for various stations across the country.

According to him, if the people involved did to sign the document, marketers cannot load product because we have to ensure the quantum of petrol product we have in stock for government to refund marketer of the differential.

Olawore said that deregulation of the downstream of the oil and gas sector remains the only solution to drive the petroleum sector.

He said that for government to avoid issue, “this is the best time them to deregulate sector, when the price is low, adding that “It will now left for marketers to come up or down”.

L-R: Branch Controller, CBN Enugu, Mr. Patrick Okonkwo, presenting a souvenir to Manager, Union Bank Plc Enugu, Ms Oby Nkwota, during Enugu Bankers 2014 Award, on Tuesday in Enugu.

Photo: NAN

FG approves low interest funding plan for cotton, textile Stories by Ayodele Samuel, Lagos

T

he Federal Government has approved a new funding mechanism that will ensure that cotton, textile and garment companies access long-term, low interest loans to finance their operations.

Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mr. Olusegun Aganga, speaking during the launch of the Nation Cotton, Textile and Garment Policy and the inauguration of a 17-member Implementation, Monitoring and Review Committee for the CTG Policy, said the policy is aimed at revitalising and boosting the growth and development of the cotton, textile and garment industry.

Aganga said the policy, which was a product of prolonged and comprehensive consultation with all the stakeholders in the industry, was expected to address all bottlenecks inhibiting the growth and development of the industry.

He added that it would improve the quality, quantity, production capacity, marketing and competitiveness of the players across the entire value chain; control the influx of fake and sub-standard textile and garments into Nigeria; and

improve the competitiveness of CTG across the nation, among others.

“In 2010, the Federal Government introduced a N100billion Cotton, Textile and Garment Revival Fund, managed by the Bank of Industry (BoI) to reverse the ugly trend of progressive collapse of the textile industry”.

The BOI, in conjunction with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) have appraised the performance of the fund, indicating that a substantial portion of it has been successfully disbursed.”

He added: “We have, however, obtained presidential approval for some aspects in the policy such as the conversion of the loan, given to the BOI by the Federal Government for onlending to CTG companies, into Federal Government’s equity in the bank.

“This will make it possible for BOI to elongate the period of this fund which was billed to end in 2017. It further puts the BOI in a position to review the interest rate downwards. Already, a number of the beneficiaries of the CTG Fund have had their loan tenure elongated while their interest rates have been reviewed downwards. This will go a long way in alleviating the burden on CTG companies,

especially those in the northern part of the country.”

He added that as part of the new policy, all military and para-military institutions and government-owned institutions would purchase only made-inNigeria fabrics in order to boost local patronage and support the growth of the value chain across the entire CTG industry.

Speaking during the event, the President, Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Dr. Frank Jacobs, described the new CTG Policy as “the requisite compass” for revitalisation and growth of the cotton, textile and garment industry in Nigeria, adding that MAN would do everything to support the implementation of the policy.

“For us, the CTG policy is another milestone towards Nigeria’s Industrial Revolution because it shows a clear and integrated approach towards complete revitalisation and growth of the industry across the entire value chain,” he stated.

Also speaking during the event, the Chairman, Nigeria Textile Manufacturers Association, Senator Waleed Jibrin, said, “For over 40 years of working in the textile industry, this is the first time we are having a truly realistic and comprehensive policy for the sector.

Page 22

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

Business

Why Nigeria must remain on the JP Morgan Emerging Market Index

By Aminu Imam

I

t is a piece of good news that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) will engage with JPMorgan to ensure that Nigerian bonds remain on its Emerging Markets Global Bond Index (GBI –EM) as a result of the recent negative watch placed on them by the New York-based global financial services firm.

The move will certainly boost investors’ confidence on the Federal Government bonds.

Godwin Emefiele, Nigeria’s Central Bank Governor, told the press this week that the apex bank will be engaging with JP Morgan team to provide them with the numbers on FX liquidity, which is the bone of contention in the placing of the Nigeria bond on negative watch list in the first place by the global investment bank.

With the on-going sliding of the value of Naira against the dollar due to falling price of oil in the world, Nigeria’s monoproduct economy needs to urgently diversify its bases for the funding of its infrastructural and other economic development projects. And one area that the country has turned to in recent years is the international capital market (ICM).

In 2014 Nigeria received the prestigious 2013 Best Sovereign Bond in Africa Award; it was bestowed on Nigeria by the Emerging Market, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) wing of the Citigroup; the award was a recognition of the bold steps taken by the Debt Management Office (DMO) in 2013, when it offered two Eurobonds in tenors of 5 and 10 years, each for USD500 million, which were four times oversubscribed at the time -- a pointer to the confidence investors have on the Nigeria’s economy.

Nigeria has come a long way in the management of its debt portfolios through the Debt Management Office (DMO). And one of the most innovative steps was the listing of Nigeria’s bond, on the J.P. Morgan Emerging Market index in 2013. Nigeria and South African are the only two African countries on the index.

Recent price shocks at the global oil market have affected FX liquidity in the country.

Daily, trading volumes for the naira have dropped just $20 million to $30 million in January, compared with about $300 million to $500 million six months ago. The Nigerian economy will be the worse for this trend, because importing goods into Nigeria would be expensive, while exports would be cheap, thereby creating room for round tripping of the foreign exchange.

CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele In an effort to stem unhealthy speculation, in which banks resort to round tripping at the FX market, the CBN came up with two fiscal policies announced through two recent circular notices, which were, for all intent and purposes, aimed at protecting the naira.

These are the foreign exchange trading position of banks at the close of each business day and the utilization of funds purchased from the interbank foreign exchange market.

As a result of these rules, the FX market temporarily stopped trading on a two-way quote basis, which led to an incoherent price discovery process, with the exchange rates hovering all over

“

the place and making it very difficult for banks to fulfil large client orders.

Noting the negative effects of the two fiscal policies, CBN quickly modified them on January 16th through another circular.

The new circular revised the Daily Foreign Currency Trading positions from zero percent to 0.1 percent of shareholders’ funds unimpaired by losses and increased the timeline for utilization of funds to 72 hours.

The utilization deadline was moved from the date of purchase the value date. The modification effectively removes all barriers to trading Forwards, Swaps and other derivative products.

Sounding reassuring, the

CBN Governor said, “We are committed to remaining on the index and know the adverse impact exclusion from the index will have on the country.”

Nigeria accounts for 1.8 percent of the $287 billion linked to the GBI – EM. The implication of removal of Nigeria from the index is that it would force funds traders to sell Nigerian bonds from their portfolios, potentially resulting in significant capital outflows. This, in turn, would raise borrowing costs for country.

However, many analysts believe JP Morgan will not take such a step given the size of our economy and potential for future capital rising (?) in the debt and equity markets. Although the

Nigeria has come a long way in the management of its debt portfolios through the Debt Management Office (DMO). And one of the most innovative steps was the listing of Nigeria’s bond, on the J.P. Morgan Emerging Market index in 2013. Nigeria and South African are the only two African countries on the index.

move by JP Morgan is to protect the interests of international investors some financial analysts see it as a bit hasty if one considers the fact that Nigeria took the recent FX measures in order to protect the fledgling Naira.

Looking back at the distance Nigeria has travelled in managing the country’s debt profile, all efforts by the Federal Government should be directed at ensuring the consolidation of the achievements of the DMO. It is public knowledge that, prior to the establishment of the DMO in 2000, public debt management was bedevilled by many issues, such as inadequate debt data recording system and poor information flow across agencies; complicated and inefficient debt service arrangements, which led to penalties that added to the debt stock, and lack of consistent well-defined borrowing policies and public debt management strategies.

Today, the DMO has continued with market-based funding of government’s financing needs which began in 2003, and has marked a turning point in domestic debt market transformation. This has involved initiatives such as tenor elongation and establishment of sovereign yield curves of 3 months to 20 years, thereby creating a market for long-term funds; streamlining and restructuring of the different types of outstanding debt instruments; and, regular issuances of Bonds, and development of active secondary market for FGN Bonds.

The DMO also worked to establish a viable competitive presence in the ICM through its debut offer of USD500 million 10-year 6.75 percent Sovereign Eurobond issued in January, 2011, which was closely followed by the successful issuance of a USD 1 billion dual-tranche bond offering, on July 2, 2013, of USD 500 million 5-year bond and USD 500 million 10-year bond at coupons of 5.125% and 6.375% p.a., respectively.

The decision to establish and promote access to the Nigerian sovereign bond in the ICM has helped to provide foreign investors with requisite market information for investment decisions; and created market benchmarks for future borrowings by the sovereign, sub-nationals and corporate bodies.

These provide reliable perspectives and credible country evidence to support foreign direct investments (FDIs).

With these achievements Nigeria has come a long way in its debt management and will be well remaining on the JP Morgan Emerging Market Index, whatever it takes.

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

Stock Watch

Report as at Wednesday, January 21 2015

PAGE 23

Peoples Daily, Thursday, January 22, 2014

PAGE 24

PAGE 25

Special Report

The African leaders who choose power before the people T

he principle of government by the people for the people has been subsumed by the will of some African leaders to cling to power.

Well-established examples of this tendency are Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema.

A number of other leaders including Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila and Burundi’s Pierre Nkurunziza also seem keen on the idea of extending their stay in power.

At the same time, several countries, including Senegal and Burkina Faso, have seen popular uprisings in recent years, forcing long-time leaders to step down.

This has raised hopes that other presidents might be deterred from holding on to their positions beyond the time allowed by their constitutions.

Burkina Faso - President Blaise Compaore, 63, had been in power for 27 years when he attempted to change the constitution in October 2014 in order to run again in November 2015.

As the country’s MPs were debating a bill to change

As part of the BBC’s Democracy Day, Maud Jullien considers the African leaders who have refused to give up power and those who have been forced out by popular protests. the constitution, thousands stormed the parliament, the ruling party’s headquarters and the presidential palace.

The president resigned after four days of riots, making way for a transitional government.

Senegal - Former leader Abdoulaye Wade managed to run for a third term even though Senegal’s constitution limits the number of mandates for a president to two. The constitutional court ruled that since the constitution was written after the end of his first mandate, he could run again in the 2012 poll. But the announcement prompted riots, which continued until election day. President Wade finally admitted his defeat in the polls by calling the winner, Macky Sall, to congratulate him.

Burundi - 2015 sees the small central African nation of Burundi go to the polls for what is already set to be a controversial election. Pierre Nkurunziza was elected

Former Senegal President Abdoulaye Wade faced widespread protests towards the end of his rule

president of Burundi after the end of the country’s civil war in 2005. A decade later, opposition parties say the president is threatening to violate the principles that brought him to power. The country’s constitution sets a two-term limit. While he has been in power for 10 years, his allies say the first five years do not count as he was elected for that term by parliament, not in a popular vote.

Democratic Republic of Congo - President Joseph Kabila has been in power since his father, Laurent, was assassinated in 2001. He is serving his second term, and the country’s constitution does not allow him to run for a third in the 2016 elections.

But government spokesman Lambert Mende has said that the poll could be delayed because of a nationwide census that could start this year and take three years.

The opposition has protested about the bill to mandate the

Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe is Africa’s oldest president and has been in power since 1980

census, calling it a ploy to keep the president in power.

Equatorial Guinea Africa’s longest-serving president is Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema, 72, a former soldier who has been leading the oil-rich nation for 36 years. He took power in a 1979 coup against his uncle Francisco Macias Nguema,

Joseph Kabila came to power in 2001 following the assassination of his father President Laurent Kabila

whom he had executed. It is not clear whether he will run in the next election, but he has made no move to dismiss the idea. His son, Teodorin Nguema Obiang, is the vice-president and a likely successor. Zimbabwe - Africa’s oldest president, Robert Mugabe, has been in power in Zimbabwe for 34

years. Aged 90, he is nearing the end of his rule, but his wife Grace is increasingly being seen as a possible successor.

She was recently elected head of the ruling Zanu-PF party’s women’s league and was a key figure in a campaign to discredit Joyce Mujuru, a Mugabe loyalist previously thought to be a contender

It is not clear whether Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema will stand for re-election

President Blaise Compaore was forced to stand down in October 2014.

to succeed him. The new constitution in 2013 set a two five-year term limit to the presidency, but this does not apply retrospectively to Mr Mugabe.

How to ‘Africanise’ democracy Speaking this year on the death of Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, Rwanda’s President Paul

Kagame was clear about both countries’ lukewarm relationship with a Western version of democracy.

“Invariably, the question has been raised about whether the emphasis on development and the role of the state in it is not done at the expense of democracy and people’s rights.

“Those who disagree with

or criticise our development and governance options do not provide any suitable or better alternatives. All they do is repeat abstract concepts like freedom and democracy as if doing that alone would improve the human condition.

Yet for us, the evidence of results from our choices is the most significant thing.”

President Kagame is not

It is thought that President Mugabe’s wife, Grace, may have presidential ambitions of her own

alone in questioning multiparty democracy in the African context. Indeed, US historian William Blum in a recent book describes democracy as a Western imposition on Africa - “America’s deadliest export” and foreign policy tool.

Consequently, there has been some discussion as to how to “Africanise”

democracy.

Mr Zimba suggests incorporating traditional power structures into formal government.

“At the moment chiefs are seen as political footnotes, even though they are often more effective and revered than politicians. Politicians recognise the influence of traditional leaders on how communities vote during elections and try to manipulate this. A better system would be some kind of bicameral government, even giving traditional leaders legislative powers.”

As with any healthy democracy, there is a range of opinions and robust debate, but the consensus seems to be that whilst democracy is not delivering as well as it could be for Africa, it remains the most viable form of government for the continent.

Mr Ngoma sums it up: “Democracy on paper is very beautiful, but the practice depends on what practitioners actually do - and often they’re not doing very well.”

Source: BBC

PAGE 26

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

Mother Earth

Extreme climate conditions: How Africa can adapt

A

frica’s climate already poses grave risks to the continent’s people and economies, and global warming promises to intensify the problem. A factual riskmanagement solution can help.

Even before global warming became an issue, many African countries were unusually vulnerable to floods, droughts, and heat waves. Indeed, if there were to be no further change in Africa’s climate, its current state already presents grave risks to the continent’s people and economies. Global warming could trigger more frequent and severe weather disasters, shifts in rainfall patterns and climate zones, and rising sea levels.

For African nations, adapting to these possibilities is an urgent necessity. To do so, their leaders must answer some difficult questions. What climate-related losses could these economies sustain over the coming decades?

How much can be averted and through what measures? Which investments will be required to finance them? Will the benefits outweigh the costs? We believe that such questions can be answered systematically through a factual risk-management approach that African leaders can use to assess climate’s impact on their countries and to find ways of minimizing it at the lowest cost to society.

Knowledge about future climate trends—particularly their local impact—is incomplete, so policy and investment choices must be made under uncertainty. Yet enough is known to build plausible climate change scenarios as a basis for these decisions, even in developing countries. Such scenarios can help decision makers to identify adaptation measures useful against a range of climate change outcomes. Cost-effective responses can address much of the identified risk: depending on the country studied,1 40 to 70 percent of the losses expected by 2030 could be averted—even under severe climate change scenarios—through adaptation measures whose economic benefits outweigh their costs.

In almost all cases, however, at least some risk cannot be averted through known measures.

Many adaptation measures would strengthen economic growth in developing countries; in Mali, for instance, climateresilient agricultural development could generate millions of dollars annually in additional revenues.

Measures with demonstrated net economic benefits could also attract investments and trigger valuable new innovations and partnerships.

Indeed, welltargeted, early investments to improve climate resilience— through infrastructure

Extreme whether condition leading to drought caused death of animals in East Africa development, technological advances, capacity improvements, new systems and behavior, and risk transfer measures—will probably be cheaper and more effective for the world community than complex disaster relief efforts after the event.

A fact-based approach can provide valuable input into the overall decision-making process.

Among other things, it recognizes the importance of cost–benefit considerations, makes it possible to put “price tags” on current and future climate risks, and lets decision makers develop plans to help businesses adapt to them.

In northwestern Africa, stretching deep into the Sahara, Mali is a mostly dry nation, subject to frequent droughts. Increasing temperatures and decreasing rainfall tell of a shift in climate zones as the desert moves south over productive land. In these regions, farmers dependent on agriculture and livestock already face trying periods of drought

“

and have few options to overcome them. Many are moving to the cities, others to the countries less arid south. Our study focused on Mopti, an important agricultural area in the central region.

Mali has a wide variety of natural environments, ranging from a Saharan climate in the north to the more tropical south.

From year to year, its rainfall levels are among the world’s most variable. Annual floods during the rainy season in the Niger River’s interior delta benefit agriculture but may harm local populations (Exhibit 1). Mali also faces additional hazards from climate change: drought is expected to increase in frequency and severity, weakening the country’s agriculture and GDP. The climate zone shift—the combined effect of rising average temperatures and declining average rainfall— has already pushed the country’s agroecological zones to the south over the past 50 years, with average rainfall down by about

200 millimeters and average temperatures up by 0.5°C over the same period.

Desertification and climate zone shift have multiple causes, with complex interactions. The impact from climate change is aggravated by farming and domestic practices, such as slashand-burn agriculture (which erodes the soil) and deforestation, mostly to meet 90 percent of Mali’s cooking and heating requirements. (Forest cover has decreased by almost 50 percent since the 1980s.) Nonetheless, local adaptations could eliminate a significant share of the loss due to climate change, and it is important to recognize that farmers have already developed the kinds of techniques that will help them cope. Diversity in crop cycles—already widely practiced by Malian farmers—will be essential. Genetic variation in plants helps to make agriculture in areas with higher climate risks more resilient to them.

These losses will probably be offset, to some extent, even in the absence of specific adaptation measures. Agricultural production in Mali is likely to increase in value through the encouragement of farming in the regions best suited to it and the promotion of the right mix of crops. The human migrations required should happen naturally.

Also advantageous will be the farmers’ tendency to spread out geographically for access to different types of soils and water sources.

In 2006, the value of Mali’s crops and livestock was estimated at $840 million and $620 million, respectively. Projections to 2030 take into account the most valuable agricultural crops (cotton, maize, millet, rice, and sorghum) and livestock (for eggs, meat, and milk). Following historical expectations, the five main crops’ value would increase by 46 percent, to $1,220 million (1.6 percent annual growth). In a more optimistic scenario, that level would more than double, to $2,470 million (4.6 percent annual growth).

The significant uncertainty about climate change has spawned a range of climate projections for rainfall, while temperatures are consistently projected to increase significantly. Local climate models allowed us to consider three scenarios for a climate zone shift by 2030. Under the moderatechange one, temperatures would rise by 1.2°C and annual rainfall would decrease by 2.2 percent. The high-change positive scenario projects an increase in rainfall and temperatures of 8.1 percent and 0.9°C, respectively, while the high-change negative scenario anticipates a decrease in rainfall of 10.6 percent and an increase in temperatures of 1.4°C. Under all three, Mali would suffer economic losses by 2030. The pessimistic high-change scenario could involve losses of about $300 million annually (some 15 percent of the value of agriculture and livestock); the optimistic scenario, losses of $120 million annually (6 percent).

These losses will probably be offset, to some extent, even in the absence of specific adaptation measures.

Agricultural production in Mali is likely to increase in value through the encouragement of farming in the regions best suited to it and the promotion of the right mix of crops. The human migrations required should happen naturally.

Still, such measures would not cover the full expected climaterelated economic decline.

Measures to increase productivity by encouraging the development of assets primarily in the most promising areas could compensate for losses elsewhere.

Simulations show that by 2030, a migration of one million people could raise agricultural production by 6 percent more than population growth spread evenly across regions would. The migration of 1.5 million people by 2030 could raise production by an additional 8 percent—an overall 14 percent increase compared with the base case. But such controversial measures might promote conflict and increase competition for resources.

Infrastructure and asset-based measures could make semi-arid areas substantially more resilient; however, so accelerated migration isn’t essential.

Source: Science Daily

P A G E

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

Mother Earth

By Mohammed Kandi, with agency report

I

n a bid the further awaken nations and individuals around the globe to climate change education, and to gear up their participation annually world’s largest grassroots environmental movement, WWF’s Earth Hour kickstarted the countdown to the 2015 event with the release of the official campaign video today.

The two-minute video demonstrates how Earth Hour

Erosion control project in Darazo to cost N1bn, says Yuguda

Climate Change: Earth Hour 2015 holds in March is empowering individuals and organisations around the world to take action on climate change.

Showcasing memorable moments and achievements from past Earth Hour events as well as powerful statements from world leaders and personalities such as UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, US President Barack Obama and actors Emma Thompson, Li Bingbing and Marc

Ruffalo on the issue of climate change, the Earth Hour 2015 video was aimed at inspiring people with the message to act and ‘use your power to change climate change’.

Executive Director, Marketing and Communications WWF International, Sudhanshu Sarronwala, said: “This is the ninth time the Earth Hour movement will roll across the world. Millions of people will come together to

use their power to change climate change and we want to work with them to deliver real solutions for a sustainable future for our planet.”

He added that in the past eight years, Earth Hour has grown from a symbolic lightsoff event in Sydney, Australia to the world’s largest opensourced environmental campaign mobilising hundreds of millions of people in more than 7,000 cities

and 163 countries and territories.

“We would like to thank the band Bastille, Universal and EMI Publishing for helping us create an inspiring video that captures the energy and power of the Earth Hour movement to impact climate change,” said Sarronwala.

Earth Hour 2015 will take place on 28th March 2015 between 8:30 and 9:30 P.M. in your local time zone.

G

overnor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi State has said the erosion control project in Darazo, Bauchi State, would be executed at cost of N1billion by the state government.

The governor stated this when he inaugurated the flood control project in Darazo Local Government Area of the state.

Yuguda said the drainage spanned six kilometres and was constructed at the cost of N1 billion to mitigate the prevalence of flood ravaging the town for decades.

He added that “since the existence of Darazo town, every year with heavy down poor, the entire town gets soaked by flood.”

“But today, you can see that with this drainage and the bypass road that we constructed, it has not only solved the problem of flood; it also decongested the flow of traffic into the town.

“At least the people can now live happily, safely and can sleep with their two eyes closed when there is a down pour.’’

The governor cautioned the people against dumping garbage into the drains.

He said local government officials had been mandated to sensitise the people against such acts, adding that the effort was already yielding fruit.

“From the sloping of the drainage, the engineering and the quality of the finishing of the drainage, no matter the kind of garbage put in there, I believe when there is a down pour, it will not wash it away.

“The local government is doing its own best. It had been told to sensitise the public, the residents about the need not to dump in garbage into the drains.’’

The District Head of Darazo, Alhaji Ibrahim Bababa, thanked the governor for assisting the people.

He described the Yugudaled administration as peopleoriented government through the execution of projects that touch the lives of the people.

Bababa told Yuguda that as the district head of Darazo, he would ensure that people do not dump garbage into the drains.

(NAN)

Toxic aerial fumigation in Latin America

Environmentalist warns against illegal fumigation

T

he Environmental Health Officers Registration Council of Nigeria (EHORCON) said only practicing environmental health provider should handle chemicals used for residential fumigation.

Mr Cyril Akinyele, the Public Relations Officer of the council, gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.

According to him, only the environmental health officers, who practice public health pest control, know which chemicals are eco-friendly and which are not.

He said that only eco-friendly chemicals could only be used for fumigation of houses.

He said that it was an offence for unlicensed persons to indulge in the act of disinfectant, popularly

known as fumigation.

“We have Environmental Health Officers (EHOs) and we have private practicing environmental health providers.

“If you want to carry public health pest control, which is what you call fumigation, it is either you are an environmental health officer or you are a registered practicing environmental health provider that have interest in that area public health pest control, in which you see many people dabbling into, and which is against the law, Act 11 of 2002 of Environmental Health Officers Registration Council of Nigeria.

“If you want to practice that, you must register with Environmental Health Officers Registration Council of Nigeria and you must have an environmental health officer as

a technical person working with your establishment.

“And you must have a licensed an Environmental Health Officer using his or her license, standing for you because he is your technical officer.’’

Akinyele said that the people who engaged in fumigation of environment must also be guided by a licensed technical EHO. He said that the officer would be able to identify the types of chemicals to be used as disinfectant to avoid affecting public health.

“Chemicals that are not ecofriendly is not accepted because it is going to affect the public health and that is the effect of what we are seeing, destroying their health.

“Because chemicals that are being used are not eco-friendly. At the end of the day, it affects their skin; some inhalation would affect

the lungs.

“And at the same time, it affects the structure; the building of the house because of some chemicals that are not supposes to spray on walls, are being sprayed on walls.

“Even animals die off and even you entering that house, you now suffer from some disease like pneumoconiosis because wrong chemicals are being used.’’

He advised the public against using illegal people with unhealthy chemicals because of cheap labour.

According to Akinyele, the council is now arresting those who are illegally performing disinfectant in homes, offices or open spaces.

He also advised the public to contact licensed environmental health officer for such services to avoid illegal practitioners. (NAN)

PAGE 28

Emergency Update

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

Sani-Sidi: The Public Officer of the Year

By Abubakar Jimoh

S

entiments apart, there is no doubt that disaster management efforts in the country is currently receiving unprecedented breakthrough, thanks to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and it principal, the Director-General, Alhaji Muhammad Sani Sidi. No wonder, Sani Sidi was recently honoured with Public Officer of the Year awards by one of the country’s leading Newspapers, the Sun. Going by the available facts, Sani Sidi has been able to overturn the approaches to disaster management in the country, using strategic values systems that have helped to save thousands of lives and property worth billions of naira.

Through these efforts, the agency has been able to develop, improve, and sustain cordial relationship with stakeholders, especially specialized volunteers on disaster management in the country.

Under the leadership of Sani Sidi, most of the activities of the agency are undertaken under collaborative efforts with other response agencies and volunteers who are also trained to provide supports whenever required. The volunteer groups include those for top level officers in the public and private sectors known as Executive Volunteers, The Grassroots Volunteers at community level and Youth Volunteers. The successes of the volunteers are noticeable in public awareness campaigns and response to emergencies.

Haven realized that quality education and awareness campaigns are major pillars towards disaster risk reduction, NEMA under Sani-Sidi has expended more resources in training and retraining of staff and stakeholders through regional seminars, conferences and simulations exercises. There is also tremendous public awareness on disaster management through effective media relations and strategic relations with relevant response agencies.

The improvement in early warning alert by NEMA has assisted in great measures in reducing risk from excessive rainfall that have resulted to massive flooding this year alone. Though lives and property have been lost, those that had adhered to the early alert from the agency were saved.

While preventive strategies are antidotes to avoid occurrence, timely response to disaster occurrences are now the hallmark of NEMA going by their response to bomb explosion sites, collapsed buildings, flooded communities among others. While NEMA rescue officers search for victims, relief and rehabilitation teams provide succour to the affected communities.

NEMA’s success story in the last five years is not limited to managing challenges in Nigeria, but also with the international communities.

The agency has rendered various types of assistances and supports

Lead Coordinator, American National Counter Terrorism Center, Magdalene Bijj, presents emblem to DG NEMA, Muhd Sani-Sidi

“

Through these efforts, the agency has been able to develop, improve, and sustain cordial relationship with stakeholders, especially specialized volunteers on disaster management in the country.

to mostly African countries. For instance relief materials were provided to victims of explosion in Congo Brazzaville, while The Gambia benefitted from deployment of skilled NEMA emergency officers to support in setting up similar agency in that country. In the same vein, stranded Nigerians during the political crises in Arab countries were successfully evacuated and united with their families in Nigeria. Egypt, Tunisia and Libya were cases in point.

It is pertinent to note that while NEMA offices are in only six states representing each geopolitical zone of the Federation, Sani-Sidi finds it necessary to improve the capacities of the stakeholders, especially the volunteer groups. The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) is a beneficiary of the gesture. The NEMA-NYSC Emergency Youths Vanguard (EYV) has received financial and moral supports for their programmes and projects.

For instance, such assistance helped this writer to realise some projects including pamphlets, Zebra crossing, school quiz, relief donations and advocacy visitations during the NYSC days.

Many stakeholders’ initiatives have been developed and sustained from the NEMA-EYV collaboration.

A concrete example of these is Youths Against Disaster Initiative (YADI) which is an opportunity for

young Nigerians to be advocates and champions of disaster risk reduction in their communities.

The initiative was influenced by encouragement of Sani-Sidi, who insists “Disaster Management is everyone’s business.”

YADI was created through the collaborative efforts of the youths who have been critically involved in sensitization campaign against disaster during their service year at the realm of NYSC. The Initiative majorly aims to: create a framework for sensitizing and enlightening the youths on public safety, security consciousness and disaster risks management across the country; educate and empower youths on public safety, disaster risk reduction, especially in preparing, responding and mitigating natural and man-made disasters through effective collaboration with stakeholders.

In view of the above, it is therefore not surprising that NEMA under Muhamad Sani-Sidi has continued to receive accolades for the way and manner it manages disaster situations in the country.

In order to sustain the tempo of disaster management in the country, Sani Sidi was reappointed

by President Goodluck Jonathan in 2013 for second tenure upon the completion of his first tenure.

It is expected that Muhammad Sani-Sidi would use the next

half of his tenure to sustain, if not improve on what have so far been accomplished in the areas of disaster management in the country.

Sani-Sidi was born on 12th August, 1966 in Jere, Kagarko Local Government Area of Kaduna state.

He started his education career in 1973 at L.E.A Primary School, Jere where he obtained his School Leaving Certificate in 1979. He attended Government Secondary School, Minna for his West African Secondary Certificate (WASC) between 1979 and 1984; He enrolled into College of Advanced Studies, Zaria for his IJMB “A” Level between 1984 and 1986. He bagged B.sc (Hons) in Business Administration from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria in 1989. Masters in Business Administration (MBA) and Masters in International Affairs and Diplomacy (MAID) between 2000 and 2001, and 2001 to 2002 respectively from the same institution.

He began his working career at Ministry of Finance, Katsina state, where he served as Data Entry Officer for one year mandatory NYSC Primary assignment in 1989 to 1990. Senior Manager (Supplies) at National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) in 1990 to 2003. He became Special Assistant to Honourable Minister of Finance, Abuja in 2003 to 2007. He was

Honourable Commissioner, Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources Kaduna state in July, 2007 to 2008; Honourable Commissioner, Ministry of Works & Transport Kaduna state in 2008 to 2010; Honourable Commissioner Ministry of Culture & Tourism Kaduna state in July 2010 to September 2010; Director General, National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) in September 2010 to date.

He is a member of many national and international professional bodies such as the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM), USA; International Emergency Management Society (TIEMS), Belgium; Institute of Civil Protection and Emergency Management (ICPEM), United Kingdom; World Society of Victomology (WSV), Germany; and Institute of Corporate Administration, Nigeria.

Alhaji Sani Sidi has received several awards to his excellence in public service. These include Fellowship Award for Distinguished Professional Contribution by the Institute of Corporate Administration, March 2011; Award for Exemplary Leadership in Disaster Management by Conference on Disaster, Safety and Management, March 2011; Outstanding Chief Executive Officer by Thisday Newspaper Special Report, April 2011; CEO of Best Emergency and Disaster Management Agency of the Year

by African Leadership Magazine, London, June 2011; Human Rights Friendly Public Official of the Year by Human Right Writers Association of Nigeria, December 2012; Public Officer of the Year by the Sun Newspaper, January 2015.

Also, his distinguished public service had captured the attention of Kaduna State Government which specially appointed him to oversee the affairs of various public sectors and several other committees.

He has represented the country in several Conferences and Seminars both in Nigeria and international communities such as Member of Delegation to the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) Meeting in Kampala, Uganda; Member, Study Tour on Debt Management to Australia in January, 2005; Member Delegation, EU-ECOWAS Meeting in Dakar in July, 2005; Africa Development Bank (ADB) Annual Meeting, Abuja in 2005; Member Delegation to Annual Meetings on Africa Capacity Building Foundation, Paris in 2006; Member of Delegation Nigeria Nigeria/ Xenel Meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; Member of Delegation Nigeria/UAE Investmant Mission, Abu Dhabi, UAE; Leader of Nigeria’s Delegation, Third Session of Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reductions, Geneva, Switzerland in 2011; among others.

Abubakar Jimoh is the National Coordinator, Youths Against Disaster Initiative (YADI) abujimoh01@gmail.com

Page 29

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

Feature

Letter from Africa: Black beauty

O

ver the past few years, I have made a habit of asking my fellow Africans from different countries what they think would have been the lot of our continent if the slave traders and colonisers had never set foot here.

Some suggest that African societies would have eventually evolved, gradually catching up with the rest of the world in terms of development.

Others insist that Africa was already at the same level of development as the rest of the world, but that slavery and colonialism interrupted and stunted our growth.

Some others believe that we Africans would have wiped ourselves out with tribal wars and conquests and that the continent would have become a vast space with the few surviving ethnic groups spread out far from one another.

I like to imagine that we Africans would have eventually, in the fullness of time, sorted ourselves out.

We would have discovered electricity and gravity; we would have invented air conditioners and refrigerators and we would have wondered what lay across the vast oceans, then sent men and women in ships to find out.

It may have taken many decades, it may have taken centuries, but African societies would have eventually made their way towards what is known as “first world” status.

I also imagine that, at some point, an African would have thought, “My hair is tightly curled and beautiful. But I wonder what it might look like when straightened.

“What if my hair were blue

In our series of letters from African journalists, Nigerian writer and novelist Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani considers the contentious subject of skin lightening.

How would fashions have evolved without slavery and the colonisation of Africa instead of black? What if yellow or red? What if gold?”

Such an African could then have gone on to invent hair relaxers and dye, despite never having seen a Caucasian with straight, blond hair.

It would have been less about “trying to look like white people” and more about creativity, a quest for options.

Africans may also have

“

Some others believe that we Africans would have wiped ourselves out with tribal wars and conquests and that the continent would have become a vast space with the few surviving ethnic groups spread out far from one another.

his knife or a Naomi Campbell wearing high heels.

Some of these women bleach their skin only a few weeks before a big event, such as a society wedding.

They know that there will be a crowd of guests and they intend to stand out.

Therefore they purchase the most eye-catching jewellery and clothing, and don the most elaborate pompadours.

Being light-skinned is a natural stand-out factor in a society where the majority of people have dark skin.

By bleaching their skin, these women also aim to “glow in the dark”.

‘Ashamed of being black’ Nigeria’s infamous 419 scammers of the 1990s had a reputation for flashy lifestyles.

They drove the biggest cars, wore the most flamboyant clothing, and built the most ostentatious houses.

Many of them also tended to prefer being seen in the company of light-skinned girlfriends and wives, women whose complexions “flashed”.

Females eager to benefit from the scammers’ largesse began bleaching their skin.

Skin lightening became simply a tool for fetching a wealthy man.

Almost every year, a fresh debate erupts in the media around bleached skin and other alterations to appearance that African women embark upon.

I suspect that this year will not be different. This topic will once again make the rounds.

One of my New Year wishes is that accusations of “wanting to be like white people” or “being ashamed of being black” will not drown out whatever else Africans around the world have to say regarding the various choices they make.

What if there were no-one else in the world but Africa and Africans?

It is within that premise that I would prefer to see the debates tackled.

Source: BBC

Beauty products such as skin lightening creams are popular across Africa contemplated the possibility of switching skin colour.

“Some of us are dark-skinned and beautiful; some are lightskinned and equally beautiful.

What if the dark can become light and vice versa?”

The first set of “bleaching creams” manufactured may have been carcinogenic. But eventually, an African scientist, unhindered by any guilty feelings around helping “black women make themselves look like white people”, would have perfected a bleaching cream that was not dangerous.

He may even have received a much-needed government grant to further his research.

African women would then have been free to alter the colour of their skin without any adverse health effects.

‘Glow in the dark’ Many of the Nigerian women I know who use skin-lightening products are not necessarily originally dark-skinned.

They are already light-skinned women who want to reinforce what they already have.

Think of a butcher sharpening

A few years ago, campaigners in Senegal put up posters against skin lightening creams

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

Page 30

Feature A closer look at South Africa’s racially charged debates

T

here was Nelson Mandela’s former assistant’s bitter claim that “white’s are not wanted or needed in South

Africa”.

There were two prominent black female newspaper editors crossing swords over political bias and “the white internet”.

And another columnist’s work being branded “racist and mindboggling”.

And then there was the governing African National Congress’s not-entirely-welcome gathering in opposition-run Cape Town, where President Jacob Zuma leant back some 21 years into the past, to blame apartheid for South Africa’s current electricity shortages.

At one level, it can all seem - and I know that as a white, privileged foreigner, I am treading on thin ice here - ever so slightly trivial.

On a continent - and in a country - facing such profound, complex challenges, the compulsive habit of so many here to define issues in terms of race and history seems like a gift to the government, which inevitably manages to steer the debate away from matters of more immediate accountability and substance.

Over the holiday period, I spent some time in a very different nation - to report on the 10th anniversary of the Asian tsunami - and was struck again by the optimism and energy of Indonesia.

Both countries have been through their share of trauma and chaos in recent decades, and both are still grappling with corruption and development.

But in Indonesia the focus and the debates seem resolutely, ambitiously, forward-looking.

Right v helpful “Start Quote The debates over exactly how long one can keep blaming the past - on a range of issues - will grind on here. ” And yet, of course, here in South Africa, people have good reason to be preoccupied with their past.

You do not shrug off the legacy of decades of apartheid in one

President Jacob Zuma has been criticised for his response to South Africa’s energy shortage

It has been a sour, tetchy start to 2015 here in South Africa. A string of social-media-fuelled debates about race and responsibility seem to have dominated the news agenda.

“

On a continent - and in a country - facing such profound, complex challenges, the compulsive habit of so many here to define issues in terms of race and history seems like a gift to the government, which inevitably manages to steer the debate away from matters of more immediate accountability and substance.

generation, and some white South Africans remain a little too snug in their cocoon of privilege.

“It’s a mindset - it’s like THEY enjoy chaos,” said a white local to me a few weeks ago, peering contemptuously through the windscreen as we drove through a small traffic jam in an overwhelmingly black neighbourhood in the centre of Johannesburg.

But generalisations are dangerous. Or at least counterproductive.

As the years go by, some issues are slowly detaching themselves from the past. Soaring crime is rarely blamed on apartheid these days. Corruption, too, is increasingly tricky to link to history.

But many other problems - education, land reform, and inequality - remain much harder to unpick.

Then there is electricity.

Right now the power shortages facing South African homes and industry are acute and alarming,

for an already struggling economy.

Eight years ago, President Zuma’s predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, frankly acknowledged that his government had erred by ignoring industry’s calls for investment in new power plants.

“Eskom was right and government was wrong,” he said apologetically.

But earlier this month, President Zuma offered a different perspective.

“We don’t feel guilty about the energy issue. It’s not our problem of today, but a historic problem, one of apartheid, that we are resolving,” he said, citing the apartheid government’s attempts to undercut sanctions with cheap energy, and the ANC’s ambitious plans to provide impoverished black families with electricity.

The debates over exactly how long one can keep blaming the past - on a range of issues - will grind on here.

But when it comes to electricity, the question, surely, is not so much whether President Zuma’s analysis

is right, but whether it is helpful.

Diversity is a key feature of South Africa, where 11 languages are recognised as official, where community leaders include rabbis and chieftains, rugby players and returned exiles, where traditional healers ply their trade around the corner from stockbrokers and where housing ranges from mud huts to palatial homes with swimming pools.

The diverse communities, however, have not had much representation for long.

Until 1994 South Africa was ruled by a white minority government which was so determined to hang onto power that it took activists most of the

last century before they succeeded in their fight to get rid of apartheid and extend democracy to the rest of the population.

The white government which came to power in 1948 enforced a separation of races with its policy called apartheid. It dictated that black and white communities should live in separate areas, travel in different buses and stand in their own queues.

The government introduced grand social engineering schemes such as the forced resettlement of hundreds of thousands of people. It poisoned and bombed opponents and encouraged trouble in neighbouring countries.

The apartheid government

Zelda le Grange was Nelson Mandela’s private secretary and handled his diary even after he left office eventually negotiated itself out of power, and the new leadership encouraged reconciliation. But the cost of the years of conflict will be paid for a long time yet, not least in terms of lawlessness, social disruption and lost education.

South Africa faces major

problems, but having held four successful national elections as well as local polls since the end of white rule, a democratic culture appears to be taking hold, allowing people at least some say in the search for solutions.

Source: BBC

PAGE 31

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

Mark, Moro, Suswam drum support for Jonathan

R-L: Senate President David Mark, Benue state PDP

From Uche Nnorom, Makurdi

S

Most politicians will face the wrath of God-Olumba Olumba Obu From Matthew Aramunde, Lagos

F

ew weeks to the general election, the Spiritual Leader of the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star, Olumba Olumba Obu has revealed that it is reaping time for politicians who were involved in what he termed wrongful adoption and imposition of candidates on the electorate.

Speaking further, he said the divine reaction became necessary to correct the abnormality caused by political godfathers, leaders and political parties that are

overwhelmingly repressive and by placing personal interest above the interest of the nation.

He condemned in strong terms the misuse of state funds by those in the corridors of power to fight, suppress and oppress their opponents, including those that supported them in the past elections.

Casting aspersion at the primary election that brought up those to contest the various political elective offices, Obu maintained that the fear of political godsons losing the primary election made their godfathers to

explore all avenues to disallow a level-playing field for aspirants to test their popularity with the delegates.

He went philosophical when he said God will fight for someone who in the past supported his fellow party member to rise to the position of a governor on the agreement that at the end of his tenure, he takes over from him and instead of respecting that gentleman agreement, he uses the state money to fight and suppress his benefactor.

He berates politicians for their pretentious attitude when

they visit churches in the garb of offering thanks giving after rigging election even as is on record that politicians play the game of politics to feather their nest without an iota of the fear of God in their hearts.

This group of Nigerians in both their carriage and utterances behave as if they owned the country.

“God owns Nigeria; you can acquire wealth and use it and your position as governor or president to do what you want against the will of God. God owns life. Your wealth cannot give you life” he said.

Rep Ogor promises Isoko more democracy dividends

By Patrick Andrew

T

he Deputy Leader, House of Representatives, Hon. Leo Ogor has promised to deliver more dividends of democracy to his constituents if returned to the House in February elections.

The representatives of Isoko North and Isoko South Federal Constituency made the promise when he flaggedoff his re-election campaign at Ozoro,

the headquarters of Isoko North Local Government at the weekend.

He reiterated that his sole interest in seeking re-election was to ensure that the Isoko nation was not left out in the overall development stressing that more federal presence would be attracted to the area.

He informed thousands of PDP bigwigs and supporters who witnessed the campaign flag-off that quality representation of the Isoko

nation is his watch-word since he was elected as a federal lawmaker.

“My going back is to crystallise all the good things I’ve started since I became your representative. They include more federal infrastructure, more federal scholarships, federal appointments, and employment for Isoko sons, and daughters”, he said.

Ogor noted that effective representation in any legislative chamber is predicated on experience

added that the “Isoko nation needs an experienced lawmaker and that is me; the man capable of delivering all your legislative demands’.

Further, he appealed to them to support the re-election of President Goodluck Jonathan on February 14 adding that as one who has done well he should voted back to power to continue his good work, “a vote for President Jonathan is a vote for development”.

and governance.

In the statement he made available to Peoples Daily yesterday, Ebodaghe said their action portrays lack of morals, disrespect for the person and office of the president noting that the action was likely to be replicated elsewhere.

“We are taken aback that the APC leaders in the state and at the national level has kept mute over the action of the youth for casting aspersion on Mr. President. The action of the youth couldn’t have been spontaneous but a premeditated action orchestrated

by some disgruntled elements within the APC leadership in the state to embarrass Jonathan.

“We are convinced that some elements within the party leadership in the state would have organized and encourage the youths to carry out this shameful act. We condemn the attitude of APC supporters in parts of the North and Northern political actors for keeping mute when President Goodluck Jonathan supporters cannot freely exercise their freedom of expression.

The burning of President

Jonathan’s campaign vehicles in parts of the North and the pulling down of his posters in parts of the North can only be likened to Nazi Germany where for the fear of Hitler, everybody must fly the Nazi flag even against their conscience. This cannot be tolerated in modern day Nigeria and should not be encouraged.”

The group further adduced that the action of the youth could rubbish the peace accord recently signed by the 14 presidential candidates and recalled that Gen Muhammadu Buhari the flag bearer of the APC

enate President, David Mark yesterday extolled the good virtues of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan as a humble man who will deliver the country from underdevelopment if re-elected.

Mark who said this in Otukpo during Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) rally held at the Ochi’Idoma Square, x-rayed the achievements of the President in Idomaland particularly in the near completion of the Oweto bridge which he promised the people in 2011, the establishment of the National Open University (NOUN) that awards degrees, ongoing construction of the Makurdi/Enugu road, N12 billion Otobi dam, School of Health Science, amongst several other projects.

He also noted the transformation agenda of the President in key sectors of the economy including agriculture especially in the provision of fertilizer and seedlings and other farm inputs and funding to farmers as well as rehabilitation of the rail system.

“Based on these achievements, our President has done extremely well and as such deserves to be re-elected. Therefore I urge all of you to vote massively for him on February 14th, 2015”, Mark appealed.

Minister of Interior, Comrade Abba Moro said there is no alternative to President Goodluck Jonathan and the Senate President Sen. David Mark because of their track record of performance.

While Governor Gsbriel Suswam lauded Mark as an outstanding democrat, adding that he is a man of substance, honor and integrity.

He further described Mark as a great stabilizer of Nigerian democracy who should be reelected to ensure unity of the country.

Suswam who is the Northcentral coordinator for President Goodluck Jonathan campaign organization said the President is the only man who has answers to the problems plaguing Nigeria.

…As group berates APC for insulting Jonathan in Sokoto

T

he Nigeria Posterity Project has taken a swipe at the Sokoto chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for allegedly insulting and embarrassing President Goodluck Jonathan during his campaign rally in the state on Monday.

According to the National Coordinator, Louis Ebodaghe, some APC youth were alleged to have swept the foot prints of the president in a symbolic gesture that demonstrated the humiliation and rejection of the PDP’s bad leadership

had braced President Jonathan after both signed the accord stressing the symbolic gesture may have been cast in bad light.

The group appealed to the leaderships of all political parties to caution their supporters against acts likely to jeopardise the smooth and peaceful campaigns and actual elections in the country adding that the APC in particular should admonish its supporters to restraint in their actions in harmony with its campaign slogan of ‘change that we need’ in the hitherto way conducting things.

PAGE 32

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

The return of Abuja On-street parking system and matters arising

A sign post displaying parking charges by one of the ‘Abuja Park and Pay’ operators.

Feature

By Stanley Onyekwere

R

ecently, Mandate Secretary, Transport Secretariat of the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA),Engineer Jonathan Ivoke, reiterated that the administration is re-packaging the controversial On-streetparkingsystem popularly known as the Park and Pay for a re-launch.

Ivoke said since the suspension of the policy by a judge of the FCT High court sitting in Apo, the nation’s capital, Justice Peter Affen, citing the legality of its operation.

Peoples Daily recall that Justice Peter Affen, had on April 14, 2014 declared the park and pay policy illegal, which should be stopped forthwith.

In his ruling, Affen, said there was no enabling law backing the policy, after a private savings and loans firm in the in the Abuja sued the FCTA.

As expected, there was a wide jubilation among residents over the suspension of the scheme, as many say it relieved them from the operators’ purported arbitrary charges and high handedness against innocent motorists in the city.

Interestingly, since then, many motorists have gone berserk, parking indiscriminately without due recourse to other road users, as their actions poses serious risks to commuting even as it violates the traffic rules.

It was in the quest to restore sanity to motorists in the capital city that the administration is working with the national assembly to restore the park and pay policy he said to reporters in Abuja at a press briefing on the achievements of the secretariat in the last year.

The On-street-Parking popularly known as Park and Pay policy required that vehicles parked within the city between the period of 7am and 7pm during workdays are to pay for the space and time the vehicle was parked except Saturdays and Sundays.

However, the policy which

FCT Minister, Sen. Bala Mohammed

was introduced in 2011 by the FCT Administration was aimed at sanitising the unruly parking habit of drivers on the streets thereby creating traffic congestion.

And when the policy came on stream, residents of the territory welcomed the idea as they noted that the unnecessary

traffic congestion would be managed for good.

Unfortunately, between 2011 when the FCTA launched the scheme at Wuse 11, pioneered

by Integrated Parking System (IPS) and April 2014 when the court quashed the policy for lack of legal instrument to drive it, the operators, IPS, ATB and

the late entrant NAJAC, but it appeared that administration seemed tohave derailed in her mission, as it’s staffers acting on instruction abused the implementation of the policy.

Even as it was the duty of the on-street-parking attendants to man their posts and ensure that drivers parked are duly charged, they would rather stay away from visible point where they can be contacted and payment made for an amicable service upon the exit of the drivers they call their supervisors who come to clamp the vehicle for the bigger cash of N5000 and above than for the N50 or hundred Naira tag for 30 min and one hour.

Drivers and car owners groaned under the policy creating bad blood between them and the operators and by extension the administration of the FCT which empowered the operators.

But according to the FCT administration, it plans to fulfill the legal requirements needed to reintroduce the suspended policy in a better form.

Contiuned on page 34

PAGE 33

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

Photo Splash

Coalition of Civil Society Organisations in support of reduction of the fuel pump price, yesterday in Abuja.

Wife of the Chairman, Kwali Area Council, Mrs. Abigail Daniel Ibrahim (middle), participating at a training workshop on skill acquisition, yesterday at Kwali Town Hall, in Abuja.

Young boy hawking wallets and belts, at Mapol junction, in Nyanya, Abuja.

Roasted yam seller attending to a customer, yesterday at Appo village, in Abuja.

Drummers entertaining Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) supporters, during rally in Abuja.

Photo: Justin Imo-Owo, Isa Mahmud and NAN

PAGE 34

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

Metro

The return of Abuja On-street parking system and matters arising Continued from page 32

Following the FCT Administration’s insistence on repackaging the suspended policy for a comeback before the end of last year, had continued to elicit feelings of gloom and excitement among residents.

While many residents have expressed fears that the move would mean the return of abuses like arbitrary charges, intimidation and harassment against them, others were happy and optimistic that the revised policy when in place would enhance the security and beauty of the city.

Reiterating the rationale behind its decision to return the policy, in a recent interview with Peoples Daily, the Special Assistant on media to the FCT minister, Nosike Ogbuenyi, acknowledge that there were pitfalls associated with the initial implementation of the policy, but not with the concept itself.

According to him: “All these are some of the things that the minister has considered and he is going to come out with very clear cut guidelines for the policy, so it is coming.

“There have been a lot of collaborations, meetings and committees sitting to fine tune the programme, So it is coming back and very soon- that’s the assurance that I can give to the residents. This is because there is no mega city in the world that does not have a park and pay system.

“People don’t just park any how in the city. You can see what is happening now in Abuja- there is chaos in many places, with people parking their vehicles anyhow and do anyhow.”

For Ivoke, the enabling law which gave oxygen to the fire of the legal workings of Justice Affen judgement to end the policy is being prepared and would be granted expeditious attention to enable the administration arrest the indiscipline on the roads.

Although, the secretary admitted that the operators went overboard in the course of implementing the policy but would have learnt their lessons even as he said the laws being worked on would address these lacuna and ensured rigorous training for their staffers.

On his part, MD/CEO of NAJEC Nigeria Limited, Nebolisa Igbokwe, noted that the new phase of the policy will be technology driven such that service off-takers would be issued unified cards that

Park and Pay officers doing job near Merit House in Maitama, Abuja, recently.

would be accepted by all the operators irrespective of point of purchase and charged as appropriate.

According to him, an electronic card is underway that would make for seamless cashless payment, this will discourage to a large extent such issues raised about bad behaviours of some of the recalcitrant staffers.

Beside the cards, the attendants will be fitted with functional camera as with our staffers whom when people come to complain to me were verified and they saw their recordings to their consternation as they view themselves of such cases of alleged fraudulent practices where they were guilty.

Some observers opined that those kicking against the policy have their reasons but the sanity that would be experienced on the streets of the city would obviously be a thing of pride to all residents of the city who are very conversant with the recent past while the policy was in place.

Reacting to the planned move, one Elijah Ejeh, of Asokoro District, who expressed sadness over it, said there was no justification for the reintroduction of the scheme, going by its bitter experiences due to the over zealousness of the operators.

He argued that the operators were only concerned with how much they can realize from the public, by employing all forms of force to cow innocent people into parting with their hard earned resources.

Similarly, one Ogene Austin, who resides at Wuse, said the FCTA should put the plan on hold, and first build the capacities of stakeholders in the scheme, as the operators lacked the required skills and knowledge to effectively implement the policy.

“For me there is no need for the government to even contemplate repackaging the policy, as there is nothing to show that some of the problems associated with the initial implementation of the scheme are being addressed, to ensure its workability,” he said.

Another resident, Umar Ali, of Jabi, in Utako District, who specifically complained about the attitude of the officials of the Private operators, whereby they are not visible to attend to customers, as they would rather lay ambush on unsuspecting motorists, so as to clamp down on their vehicles, because of the arbitrary charges they collect as penalties. “ The problem we have in this part of the world is that our leaders are very quick to copy whatever other developed

cities are doing, without first considering the workability of such initiative due to our peculiarity, but as long as it would generate revenue for them, it is good-even if the people die or become sick because of it.

“So if the government goes on to reintroduce the policy, I’m sure that they would not last, as there is the possibility of more victims arising from the high handedness of the operators of the scheme.

But, expressing contrary view on the issue, one Franca Oke, described the move as a welcome one, considering the lingering insecurity in the country, particularly the nation’s capital required such drastic measure.

She decried that since the suspension of the system, there is increased rate of indiscriminate parking by motorists everywhere in the FCT, thereby making the city look disorganised and dirty.

“With the return of the revised scheme, I’m confident that it would help boost the security of the city, as people especially criminal minded ones would no longer abandon their vehicles on the streets, which may be useful tools in the hands of terrorists,” she said.

Also, one Adebayo Ola, said people should not allow the little pitfalls recorded during

Photo: Justin Imo-Owo

the initial implementation of the scheme, overshadow the good things inherent in the policy.

He says; “the scheme has the capacity to provide employment to a lot of unemployed army of youths in the society, irrespective meager wages they may be receiving, at least they would become gainfully engaged and be able to fend for themselves.”

Notwithstanding, outlining the benefits of the system, the minister’s spokesman said beyond providing employment and generating revenue, it enhances aesthetics and minimizes car theft in FCT. “There is nowhere where you just behave anyhow on the road. This is about life.

Because by their operation they also help to minimize accidents on the road, as a situation whereby people are parking and positioning their vehicles anyhow, it increases the accident rate.

“And since they stopped operating, accident rate in some places are now on the up surge, and we don’t want it to continue.

“So, residents should cooperate with the operators, because the idea is for the good of all of us, as we would be working in tandem with what is happening in other parts of the world,” he stressed.

Page 35

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

International international_peoplesdailyng@yahoo.com

Ukraine conflict: Is Russia stoking war or pushing peace?

ANALYSIS

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arely a week ago, there were hopes of an international peace summit for eastern Ukraine. Now, with fighting around Donetsk reaching an intensity not seen for a long time, the chances of such a breakthrough look increasingly slim.

Russia’s deputy foreign minister talked on Monday of “serious consequences for Ukrainian statehood” following a surge in violence that has claimed increasing numbers of casualties.

Some interpret that as a warning of increased military intervention by Moscow. Russia is already accused by Nato and Kiev of arming and supporting the separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, a claim it vehemently denies.

But others suggest that a flurry of recent official statements may signal Moscow’s desire to avoid escalating the crisis any more.

“If Ukraine pushes further and, say, enters Donetsk then President Putin will have to respond, and that’s a dilemma,” argues Dmitry Trenin, head of the Moscow Carnegie Centre.

“If he tries to reverse the situation, that will mean a far greater military involvement, and that could be disaster.

It’s not what he wanted,” MrTrenin argues.

In such a scenario, abandoning the pro-Russian separatists to their fate is not an option for Russia’s president. For months, Moscow has accused a “fascist” government in Kiev of conducting a “punitive” operation - even genocide - against Russian speakers in Donetsk and Luhansk.

That message is hammered home daily by state-controlled television, which portrays patriotic rebel warriors alongside helpless civilians under attack by indiscriminate Ukrainian artillery.

The fact that insurgents frequently fire from residential areas is never mentioned.

Formally, Moscow advocates “special status” for the occupied regions of eastern Ukraine, a pro-Russian enclave within a united Ukraine.

But Russia-watchers have suggested that the real goal is another frozen conflict: an open sore for Moscow to prod and stir when required, and so retain influence over Kiev.

But for Ukraine’s authorities, who have already seen Crimea annexed by their neighbour, territorial integrity and sovereignty are key.

President Petro Poroshenko vowed again this weekend not to cede another “scrap” of Ukrainian soil.

The key battleground for now is Donetsk airport. Although its value now is little more than symbolic, whoever controls it claims supremacy.

So when pro-Russian forces suddenly pushed forward there last week to seize new ground, Kiev hit back with similar force.

The editor of Russia in Global Affairs, Fyodor Lukyanov, believes Ukraine is demonstrating renewed

Ukrainian artillery attacks have hit civilian buildings in the centre of Donetsk

Vladimir Putin faces a strategic quandary in eastern Ukraine energy for a fight, manoeuvring to strengthen its hand at any future peace talks.

“The Minsk process took place because Kiev was almost defeated,” he argues, referring to the September

ceasefire deal signed last September. “It couldn’t continue fighting.”

Since that truce, more than 1,400 people have been killed.

“But the worst thing for Russia is if Kiev continues to try to settle this by

“

military means. Russia will be forced to respond militarily, and that would be a disaster for everyone,” MrLukyanov warns.

Last week, a former Russian prime minister from the late 1990s raised the rhetorical question of sending regular troops to Ukraine - openly, not furtively should Kiev pushed on with its offensive.

YevgenyPrimakov ultimately warned against such a move, but some suggest he would not have raised the option had voices close to President Putin not been advocating it.

Putin’s ‘olive branch’ Then, very late on Sunday night after a day of heavy clashes around Donetsk, the Kremlin revealed that President Putin had extended an apparent olive branch. On Thursday, he had written to President Poroshenko offering a “concrete timetable” for implementing the existing peace plan.

Russia’s president clarified that

Last week, a former Russian prime minister from the late 1990s raised the rhetorical question of sending regular troops to Ukraine - openly, not furtively - should Kiev pushed on with its offensive.

Moscow accepted a ceasefire line in Ukraine set by Kiev and was prepared to use its influence on the rebels to pressure them to withdraw their heavy weaponry.

The contact line, as it is known, was established last September based on the position of forces at that moment.

But continued conflict ever since has altered positions, and opened its location to hot dispute.

“Maybe Russia is ready to put pressure on the rebels now, to get them to stick to the Minsk deal even though many have said they are not happy with it,” suggests MrLukyanov, seeing a possible concession here by Moscow.

That has yet to be proved.

Meanwhile, there has been markedly little progress on other major issues including re-establishing Ukrainian control over a long stretch of its border with Russia, the alleged entry route for fighters and weapons.

A Russian foreign ministry spokesperson said that issue was being addressed, as part of the Minsk process.

But the process has evidently stalled.

On Wednesday evening the foreign ministers of Ukraine and Russia - as well as Germany and France - will meet again in Berlin, to discuss how to enforce the Minsk deal.

With civilian casualties mounting, the need for progress is urgent.

Meanwhile pro-Kiev troops and insurgents continue to battle for control of the shattered, empty shell of Donetsk International Airport.

We may never know exactly how many lives have been lost in the ruins at the heart of the Ukraine conflict.

BBC:Source

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

Page 36

International

LRA commander Ongwen arrives at ICC

Ghana government websites targeted by hackers

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top Lord’s Resistance Army commander is now in custody at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Dominic Ongwen will undergo medical exams after being flown Tuesday from the Central African Republic, and is expected to make his first court appearance soon.

His arrival at the court ends a nearly 10-year effort to have him face three counts of crimes against humanity and another four counts of war crimes.

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he majority of the Ghanaian government’s websites, including its main site, have been hacked and are currently offline.

A message reading “Hacked by Alsancak Tim” appeared on the sites.

On its social media accounts, Alsancak Tim describes itself as a nationalist Turkish hacker group.

The deputy communications minister said experts were working to restore the websites by the end of the day and were investigating who was behind it.

On the Facebook page of the Alsancak Tim group, which uses the tag line “injustice, oppression and war with all our might”, there is a list of 11 Ghanaian websites that it says it has hacked.

The BBC’s Sammy Darko in the capital, Accra, says it is not the first time a Ghanaian government website has been hacked.

The ministry of justice’s website was hijacked by those sympathetic to Argentina during a row in 2012 about a frigate.

The Argentine vessel had been impounded in Ghana after a financial fund said it was owed money by Argentina’s government as a result of a debt default.

In the same year, two private banks in Ghana were hacked simultaneously, our reporter says.

Cameroon ‘frees German hostage’ held

by Boko Haram

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ameroon says its military has freed a German hostage kidnapped in Nigeria by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram.

NitschEberhard Robert, a teacher, was abducted in July 2014 in Nigeria’s Adamawa State by the group, Cameroon’s government said.

He was freed in a “special operation of the Cameroon armed forces and security services of friendly countries”.

Boko Haram has seized control of towns and villages in north-east Nigeria and launched raids into Cameroon.

It is not clear which countries contributed to the operation to free Mr Robert.

Germany’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer told the AP news agency that the man was now safely in Cameroon’s capital.

In this photo released by the Uganda People’s Defense Force (UPDF), Ugandan Contingent Commander to the African Union Regional Task Force Col Michael Kabango, left, talks with a man in UPDF custody said by the UPDF to be the wanted Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) commander Dominic Ongwen, right, in the Central African Republic.

ICC prosecutor FatouBensouda said Wednesday that Ongwen was “among those who bear the greatest responsibility” for LRA atrocities. The group is accused of killing and kidnapping tens of thousands of people across Uganda and three nearby countries over the past 30 years.

United Nations SecretaryGeneral Ban Ki-moon said Ongwen’s arrival in The Hague “marked an important milestone in accountability” and a step toward justice for those victimized by the LRA. Bensouda said Ongwen’s transfer to the court sent a “firm and unequivocal message” that perpetrators of the most serious crimes would face justice no matter how long it takes.

The court has charged four other ICC leaders with war crimes and crimes against humanity, including LRA chief Joseph Kony.

An African Union task force is searching across central Africa for Kony and the few remaining bands of LRA fighters. Ongwen surrendered in the Central African Republic earlier this month.

DR Congo unrest: Catholic church backs protests

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he Catholic Church in the Democratic Republic of Congo has thrown its weight behind protests against President Joseph Kabila extending his rule.

It called on people to peacefully oppose his move to delay presidential elections until a census is held.

At least 11 people have so far been been killed in the protests.

It is the worst unrest in the capital, Kinshasa, since the riots which broke out after Mr Kabila won a second term in disputed elections in 2011.

Mr Kabila, who first took power in 2001 following the assassination of his father Laurent, is constitutionally barred from running for another term in elections due next year.

‘Dormitories ablaze’ The opposition says government

plans for a census are a ploy to delay the poll so that he can hang on to power.

The government admits the election could be delayed, but says the census is vital to ensure polls are free and fair.

The Catholic Church, the largest in DR Congo, has shut its schools as violent protests continued in Kinshasa for a third day.

The BBC’s Maud Julien reports from the city that security forces and protesters clashed again at the government-run University of Kinshasa, the focal point of protests.

Demonstrators told her that security forces fired live ammunition, killing four of them. There is no independent confirmation of this.

During a visit to the campus, she

saw many buildings gutted by fire, including dormitories for female students.

Windows had been shattered, and the impact of bullets was clearly visible.

The opposition accuses the government o trying to stage a “constitutional coup”

Zambian ruling party takes early lead in Presidential vote

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ambia’s ruling Patriotic Front (PF) party candidate Edgar Lungu took an early lead on

Wednesday in a presidential election that ran into a second day after heavy rains disrupted voting.

Polling agents guard ballot boxes as counting of ballot papers continues a day after presidential elections in Lusaka, Zambia.

Results from 14 out of 150 constituencies showed defense and justice minister Lungu, 58, had 103,634 votes, compared to 47,731 for his main rival, HakaindeHichilema, 52, a wealthy economist from the United Party for National Development (UPND).

Much of the southern African country was lashed by heavy rain during election day and a handful of polling stations that could not open will hold voting on Wednesday, the election commission said.

Voter turnout was “very low” at around 34 percent for the constituencies where ballots had been counted and the final result may be announced later than Friday, it added.

However, the kwacha gained 1 percent against the dollar to 6.49 as the peaceful vote eased investor jitters about stability in Africa’s second biggest copper producer.

With another election due late next year when President Michael Sata’s term would have ended had he not died in office, the winner will have little time to turn around a stuttering economy in one of Africa’s most promising frontier markets.

Zambia has averaged 6 - 7 percent growth as the mining sector boomed but that slowed to 5.5 percent last year, the International Monetary Fund says, and could ease further with the price of copper reaching a 6-year low this month.

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

Page 37

International Asia & Middle East

Iraqi PM Calls for More Help to Combat IS S

Yemen Rebels Guard Presidential Compound

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raqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi says U.S.-led airstrikes against the Islamic State group have been “very effective,” but that his government expects more help from the international community.

In an interview Wednesday in Baghdad with the Associated Press, Abadi stressed the need for fighting on the ground and said the training that international military advisers are giving Iraqi forces needs to happen more quickly.

“We are very thankful for the air campaign to support our military, but I think you cannot achieve victory without a real fight on the ground, and we are doing this fight and we are expecting other countries to match our fight,” he said. “We don’t want anybody to fight with us on this, but we need support and logistics.”

Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, right, stands with Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari at the Prime Minister’s Office in Baghdad, Iraq,

The prime minister also said Iraq is struggling to find the resources to buy arms and needs

help to get them quickly.

President Barack Obama has ruled out sending ground

troops to Iraq. He authorized the air campaign there last August targeting Islamic State militants.

hi’ite Houthi rebels have replaced the guards outside Yemeni President AbdRabbuh Mansour Hadi’s home, further pressing their control of the country’s capital.

The rebels took up the positions Wednesday, a day after clashing with Yemeni security forces at the site Rebel leader Abdel Malik Al Houthi said in a televised speech late Tuesday that his faction wants an end to what he called “corruption and totalitarianism” in Yemen. He stopped short of calling for the government’s ouster but warned that further action against it is possible.

Elsewhere, authorities in the southern city of Aden closed the airport there Wednesday, saying the move was a protest against attacks on the Hadi’s power and the country’s sovereignty.

The United Nations Security Council and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon have called for a cease-fire and the restoration of the government’s full authority.

Houthi seek greater rights Houthi forces, calling for greater rights for Yemen’s Shi’ite minority, overran Sana’a in September.

Israeli Police Say Palestinian Stabs 11 on Tel Aviv Bus Bangladesh

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An Israeli police officer and paramedics treat an injured man at the scene of a stabbing in Tel Aviv, Israel.

sraeli police say a Palestinian man has stabbed at least 11 people on and near a bus in Tel Aviv, leaving several critically wounded.

Authorities said the attack Wednesday began with the man stabbing the bus driver and several passengers. They said he stabbed another person on the street as he attempted to flee.

Officials say the 23-year-old suspect

was shot in the leg then captured by prison officers nearby.

Police spokesmen identified the man as Hamza Mohammed Matroukh, a resident of the Israeli-occupied West Bank who entered Israel illegally.

Israeli leaders called him a “terrorist.” Islamist leaders in the Palestinian Gaza Strip called the act “heroic,” but did not claim responsibility.

Philippines, US Oppose Beijing’s Activities in S. China Sea

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he Philippines is looking to its alliance with the United States to try to keep up with China’s reclamation activities in disputed islands in the South China Sea. Senior officials from both countries strengthened their strategic alliance during two days of bilateral talks on trade and defense that ended Wednesday in Manila.

Click to enlargeClick to enlarge H i g h o n th e a g e nda w a s maritime security, as well as concerns about China’s ongoing reclamation work on reefs and shoals in the Spratly Islands that the Philippines claims.

Last month the Philippine military’s chief of staff said based on intelligence information, facilities at one of the larger outcroppings, Fiery

Cross Reef, could be completed soon.

Philippine Defense Undersecretary Pio Lorenzo Batino calls development at the reef, which in November appeared to be expanding to accommodate an airstrip, “a very serious concern.” But the Philippines, with one of the smallest military budgets in Asia, is powerless to stop any of it.

“We have to increase our capabilities and that will only come through modernization,” Batino said. “This is a realization of course ... of the needed modernization that we needed to implement earlier.”

Military modernization U.S. Defense Assistant Secretary David She ar told reporters after the meeting his department’s 2015 budget includes $40 million in military

loans for the Philippines.

The country is in the midst of implementing a fiveyear $1.8 billion military modernization program, but the country will still have tiny naval and air fleets compared to its neighbors.

With a lacking military, Manila is taking the diplomatic track. An international tribunal is reviewing its arbitration case against Beijing that questions what it calls China’s “excessive claims in the South China Sea.” China rejects arbitration and did not submit any supporting materials to the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague.

China has repeatedly said it has “indisputable sovereignty” over the sea and its hundreds of outcroppings.

Beijing’s claims questioned Assistant U.S. Secretary of

State Daniel Russel says the United States has consistently called on China to adhere to a non-binding declaration it signed with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations on keeping the peace amid competing claims, and to follow international law as the basis for its sovereign claims in the resource-rich sea.

“Behavior that raises tensions, behavior that raises questions about China’s intention and behavior that would appear to be inconsistent with the principles that I have enumerated, work counter to those goals,” said Russel.

Philippine Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Evan Garcia says Manila is “after a peaceful resolution,” and Chinese reclamation activities on the disputed islands “are not a positive development.”

arrests 7,000 opposition activists

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angladesh has arrested more than 7,000 opposition activists since the start of nationwide protests two weeks ago, ministers have said.

The authorities are struggling to deal with unrest in which activists have bombed vehicles and blockaded roads, and 29 people have died.

Opposition leader Khaleda Zia called for protests on the anniversary of last year’s election.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina denounced the opposition as militants on Tuesday.

She said activists were not engaging in politics, but rather terrorism.

Both leaders have frequently called for general strikes and blockades while in opposition.

They have alternated in power for most of the past two decades, but analysts say MsHasina now has the upper hand.

Industries Minister Amir Hossain Amu said 7,015 activists and leaders of opposition groups have been arrested so far.

He offered a reward of 100,000 taka (£850; $1,300) for information leading to the arrest of any of the protest leaders.

The authorities are considering a shoot-on-site policy for anyone involved in looting or other violent disturbances.

Most of those who have died in the protests have been motorists and bus drivers caught in bombings. It is unclear who carried out the attacks.

Ms Zia was put under house arrest at the start of the protests, but has since been freed.

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

Page 38

International

Obama seeks action by congress to secure US A

s he enters his seventh year at the nation’s helm, President Barack Obama put forward an agenda he said will strengthen national and global security.

Speaking from the U.S. Capitol Tuesday evening, Obama addressed the nation and a Congress in which Republicans control both the Senate and the House of Representatives after winning sweeping victories in the November elections.

At a time of riveting global crises, Obama’s speech was mostly about domestic issues, but he touched on several pressing foreign policy challenges.

National security Obama acknowledged as commander-in-chief his first duty is defending the country.

“We lead best when we combine military power with strong diplomacy; when we leverage our power with coalition building; when we don’t let our fears blind us to the opportunities that this new century presents,” the president said.

American leadership is stopping the advance of Islamic

Barack Obama said it was “time to try something new” in US-Cuban relations

State militants in Iraq and Syria, the president said, citing “a broad coalition, including Arab nations, [working] to degrade and ultimately destroy this terrorist group.”

Obama called on Congress “to show the world that we are

united in this mission by passing a resolution to authorize the use of force against ISIL,” he said, using an acronym for the Islamic State group.

The authorization would replace powers that were given to President George W. Bush to

prosecute the Iraq war.

Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, two sharp critics of Obama, accused the president of bungling the battle against the Islamic State group, also known by the acronym ISIS.

Among state of the union guests, Cuba policy divides

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he US and Cuba are due to hold their highest-level talks in decades in the Cuban capital, Havana.

The talks are part of a thaw in relations between the two rivals announced last month in simultaneous

speeches by US President Barack Obama and his Cuban counterpart, Raul Castro.

They come only hours after Mr Obama urged Congress to seize the chance to end the US trade embargo against Cuba.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov speaks during a news conference in Moscow,

The talks will focus on migration and restoring full diplomatic ties.

‘New era’ The US delegation will be led

by Roberta Jacobson, the top US diplomat for Latin America. The last time someone of her level of seniority visited Cuba was 35 years ago.

BBC state department correspondent Barbara Plett Usher says the meetings feel like the beginning of a new era in relations between the two nations.

Our correspondent says the US will be asking for an end to current restrictions on its diplomats so it can upgrade its interest section in Havana to a full embassy.

The Cubans have not made their agenda public, but talks are expected to focus on migration issues on Wednesday and fuller diplomatic relations on Thursday.

On Tuesday, President Obama stressed the importance of the thaw in US-Cuban relations in his State of the

Union address to Congress.

He said his decision to engage with Cuba after decades of frozen relations had the potential to “end a legacy of mistrust in our hemisphere”.

He also urged Congress to begin work on ending the US trade embargo against Cuba, which has been in force for more than five decades.

“In Cuba, we are ending a policy that was long past its expiration date.

When what you’re doing doesn’t work for 50 years, it’s time to try something new,” he said.

The president said the shift in his administration’s Cuba policy removed “a phony excuse for restrictions in Cuba; stands up for democratic values; and extends the hand of friendship to the Cuban people”.

However, President Obama does not have the power to lift the embargo, only Congress can do that and correspondents say many Republicans are still deeply opposed to this.

Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats, the junior government coalition partner, on Wednesday wrote to Chilcot saying that the longer the report took to be published, the less confidence the public would have in it.

“If the findings are not published with a sense of immediacy, there is a real danger the public will assume the report is being ‘sexed down’ by individuals

rebutting criticisms put to them by the Inquiry, whether that is the case or not,” he wrote.

Critics of the war, including relatives of some of the 179 British service personnel killed during the six years of British combat operations, have accused former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government of misleading the public to justify the invasion with then-President George Bush.

Britain’s Iraq War Inquiry Report Delay Prompts ‘Sexed Down’ Fears

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ew delays to a major report into Britain’s role in the Iraq War sparked fears on Wednesday that the public would conclude an inquiry’s longawaited findings had been “sexed down” to prevent criticism of former high-profile figures.

The investigation, headed by former civil servant John Chilcot, was set up six years ago by former prime minister Gordon Brown

to learn lessons from the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which ousted Saddam Hussein, and its aftermath.

The inquiry was initially expected to take a ye a r t o finish, but media reports said the findings would now not be published until after an election in May, leading to widespread criticism.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick

Europe and Americas

France to hire 2,680 to fight extremism

F

rench Prime Minister Manuel Valls said France will create 2,680 new security positions over the next three years to help counter the threat of Islamic extremism.

Valls announced the new measure Wednesday after his weekly cabinet meeting, saying Paris will spend nearly $500 million on the effort to boost the fight against terrorism, in the wake of the deadly attacks earlier this month.

Also Wednesday, French investigators said they have charged four people in connection with the attack on a kosher supermarket in eastern Paris that resulted in four deaths.

Prosecutors said that the men charged have ties to Amedy Coulibaly, who killed four people in a hostage standoff at a Jewish supermarket January 9. The day before, he killed a policewoman.

The four men are suspected of having provided support for Coulibaly, who was later killed by police.

The Associated Press names the charge as “association with terrorism.”

The shootings were part of three days of terror attacks on Paris that started with the killing of 12 people at the Paris headquarters of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday January 7.

Valls told reporters Tuesday that the recent attacks in Paris have exposed a “geographic, social and ethnic apartheid’’ in France.

Lavrov: US ‘Aggressive” on World issues

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ussian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address reflected what he called the U.S. desire to dominate world affairs.

Lavrov spoke Wednesday, ahead of a meeting in Berlin to discuss Ukraine. He went on to say that the U.S. has set an “aggressive” course.

But he said Moscow continues to cooperate with the West on fighting terrorism, despite the tensions over Ukraine.

President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2015.President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2015.

Obama, in his State of the Union address, said the United States is standing strong with its allies while Russia is isolated with its economy in tatters. The Russian economy has been suffering largely because of Western sanctions imposed over the Ukraine crisis.

Later Wednesday in Berlin, Lavrov was to meet with officials from Ukraine, France, and Germany. He said he expects the talks to focus on pulling back heavy weapons from the front line in Ukraine, where fighting between Ukrainian troops and proRussian separatists has escalated.

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

Page 39

Strange World

Handimals – Italian artist can turn his hands into incredibly realistic animals

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ward-winning Italian artist Guido Daniele has an exceptional talent – he can transform human hands into ‘handimals’, hyperrealistic animal portraits.

With a career as an illustrator spanning over 40 years, Guido began to explore and experiment with body art and using the human body as a canvas in 1990. Gradually, he perfected the art of making his models contort their bodies into specific positions and using his painting skills to turn them into

realistic portraits and scenes.

In 2000, an art director asked him if he could paint animals on people’s hands without using photoshop. “After I tried doing it, I was the first one to be positively surprised with the beautiful result,” he said. “I did not know that a great artist from Florence, Mario Mariotti, did the same artistic research before me. From 2000 onwards, I began my research on the ‘Handimals’”. That same year, Guido released his world-famous ‘Handimals’ series, consisting of 77 highly detailed animals painted

onto hands that were twisted and manipulated into various positions to form beaks, trunks, feathers, and more.

Guido believes that his work is so well received because hands – after the face – are the most expressive part of the body. “So seeing hands transforming into so many different things, such as animals or natural environments, is something that surely fascinates people, both children and adults.

I just look at my hands and try to imagine all different things and animals they could turn into.”

Guido revealed that he wanted to be an artist ever since elementary school. “I was only five years old when my teacher asked me to make a greeting card for the headmaster,” he recalled fondly. “It was obvious that I was the most creative and artistic child in the whole school, so after that episode all my classmates began to ask me to do their drawings and caricatures.”

“I want to try to paint all what is possible to paint on hands and bodies: animals, flowers, materials, architectures, objects, cars, dreams,” he said. “Now I am

62 years old, I only have 20 years more to find my artistic visionary in this world, in this life. In my next life, I would like to be a doctor, surgeon, inventor, or scientist and do something to make the human life less suffering – build a better world.”

Guido, who now lives and works out of Milan, is often contracted by some of the world’s biggest advertising agencies – they regularly use photographs of his body art in various product endorsements. His work has also been used to help promote charities such as the WWF.

Page 40

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

Some Interesting Facts

W

atermelons can cost up to $100 in Japan.

The City of Tokyo was originally called Edo. Rapper LL Cool J’s name actually stands for “Ladies Love Cool James”.

A recent study at Harvard has show that eating chocolate can actually help you live longer.

A used sheet of Bounce will collect sawdust like a tack cloth.

In Singapore, it is illegal to sell or own chewing gum.

The shroud of Turin is the single most studied artifact in human history.

Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the U.S. treasury.

Every Swiss citizen is required by law to have a bomb shelter or access to a bomb shelter.

Pearls melt in vinegar.

The sperm count of an average male compared to thirty years ago is down thirty percent.

Leonardo Da Vinci

Leisure

never dated or signed his most famous painting, the Mona Lisa.

Babies start dreaming even before they’re born.

The odds of being born male are about 51.2%, according to the census.

Fried spiders taste like nuts.

Close to two million people who go to the hospital in the U.S. for one ailment wind up catching another.

Even a small amount of alcohol placed on a scorpion will cause it to go crazy and sting itself.

All babies are color blind when they are born.

Say what?

SUDOKU SUDOKU EASY 229

PHOTO OF THE DAY

Lemon was trained to carry buckets of water and then moved on to more unusual tricks.

Source: Dailymail.co.uk

SporT 41 Page

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

sports@peoplesdailyng.com, SMS- 08142929046

foreign coach for Eagles

By Albert Akota

F

ormer Secretary General of the Nigeria Football Federation, Fanny Amun has advised the NFF to look beyond indigenous sentiments in deciding the next coach of the Super Eagles.

The NFF have claimed that they have offered a new contract to Stephen Keshi, after initially stating their resolve to hire a foreign coach for the Eagles, even though that decision was shunned after they came under pressure to have a Nigerian lead the team.

But Amun, who coached Nige-

ria’s U17’s to the FIFA U17 World Cup in Japan in 1993, says the NFF shouldn’t be bothered about sentiments of race and nationality, and hire the best man for the job.

“Michael Emenalo is a Nigerian who works at Chelsea as technical director. Nobody looks at his

race or his nationality.

“So why should we be too concerned with where the Super Eagles coach come from? My opinion is that if you’re good, you’re good.

“If they say they want a coach from Sweden, I don’t mind. Our coaches should also aspire to

work in Sweden and elsewhere,” Amun said.

The Super Eagles are still without a substantive coach, after Stephen Keshi’s contract expired last July, even though the former Eagles skipper subsequently worked on an interim basis.

Eagles

Referees get UK visas, off to London next week >>>Pg 42

AFCON: Host nation in another stalemate >>>Pg 43

Klitschko to fight Jennings in New York >>>Pg 44

Page 42

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

Sport

Referees get UK visas, off to London next week

By Albert Akota

T

he second batch of Nigerian referees to go for capacity enhancing programme in the United Kingdom, since the advent of the Amaju Pinnick –led NFF Board, will depart the

country on Monday.

All the 20 referees have been issued entry visas into the United Kingdom, and they will be accompanied by Chairman of the NFF Referees Committee, Alhaji Yusuf Ahmed Fresh and the Chairman of Nigeria Referees

Why I attended CAS hearing – Amadu

Association, Alhaji Ahmed Maude.

Three women are among the 20 arbiters who will undergo a similar exercise to that taken by a team of 10 Nigerian elite referees in a first run of the programme in December 2014. This second batch will return to the country on

February 4.

The referees heading out for this second exercise, sponsored

by Sienna Marine Limited, are Hadiza Musa, Paul Umuago, Jelili Ogunmuyiwa, Ibrahim Umar Fagge, Jeremiah Akure, Francis Agbaegbu, Mohammed Ahmed

Rufai, Bosede Momoh, Ishiaku Ibrahim, Iheanacho Chukwuemeka, Dele Atoun, Abdulrahman Suleiman Jimeta, Uloma Nwogu, Abubakar Audu, Obieze Okiridu, Ezenwankor Obiora, Sunny Atu, Sani Mohammed, Jibrin Isah and Mohammed Aliyu Jingi.

Kano Pillars ready for Super six in Abuja

Pillars

K

ano Pillars defender, Isaac Loute has said that Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) champions, Kano Pillars FC will use the Super six Pre-Season tournament in Abuja organized by the League Management Company (LMC) as another opportunity to prepare for the task ahead on the continent.

Kano Pillars will represent Nigeria in the CAF Champions League and will get started with South Sudan club, Malaika who are back-to-back champions of the

NFF Scribe, Musa Amadu

T

he General Secretary of Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) Musa Amadu has clarified the role he played when he appeared at the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) Switzerland last week.

Prompt News recalls that there has been contradicting reports in the media as to the role the General Secretary performed during the CAS hearing.

According to him, “I was in Lausanne Switzerland at the Court of Arbitration for sports but as a witness for FIFA in a case brought against it by the Chris Giwa led NFF with Yahaya Adams the Kogi State FA Chairman.

“Giwa gave Yahaya Adams the power of attorney as the so called NFF President to sue FIFA, I did not go there to represent “his NFF” I went there to give evidence on behalf of FIFA. “They are suing FIFA in the name of NFF asking the court of

Arbitration for sports in Lausanne Switzerland, to reject the decision

by FIFA not to recognize the fact that no election took place on August 26, 2014.

“We here know categorically well that no election took place on that day and it was on the basis of the report from NFF and the group of FA chairmen that wrote a report on that day to FIFA that FIFA now acted in order not to recognize that election.

“Why is Giwa in a hurry? Let him wait because the matter has gone to CAS. If CAS say yes election took place on August 26 (and God in heaven knows that no election took place) then let him come and do his Presidency and see how it goes.

“Without any much ado and with all the speculation going on, I think we should all wait for the final decision to be taken by CAS in this matter between Yahaya Adams & NFF and against FIFA” Amadu opined .

South Sudan National Cup in the weekend of February 13-15.

Loute stated that though Masu Gida as Kano Pillars are fondly called have been preparing in Kaduna but the Super six PreSeason tournament will give an ample opportunity to test the team for the task ahead.

“We are currently in Kaduna preparing for both the CAF Champions League and the league but we shall hit Abuja on Thursday for the Super Four,”Isaac Loute said.

“We have been working

hard, much more than the other clubs that will take part in the tournament and apart from using the Super Four to extend our preparation, we intend to be the champions of the Super Four this time around,” The Super six will start on January 24 with all four clubs representing Nigeria on the continent (Kano Pillars, Enyimba, Warri Wolves and Dolphins) and an extended invitation has been given to both the national U/20 and the national U/23 teams, Flying Eagles and Dream Team.

Media makes NPFL inferior to Europe leagues-LMC

T

he Chairman of the League Management Company (LMC) Nduka Irabor has accused the media of making the local football leagues inferior to the English Premier League and others in Europe despite its quality of talents.

Irabor said the increasing hype in reportage of foreign football leagues has relegated the domestic league to the back seat while he also lamented the huge accrued from watching leagues in Europe at the expense of the local leagues.

He, however, urged journalists in the country to give more attention to reporting the activities in the domestic leagues and help boost the return of football fans to the stadiums.

“We spend too much time talking about the EPL and other foreign leagues. Talk about the Nigeria leagues. We want the

media to join us in this because our players are good,” Irabor told media.

“We sit back in Lagos behind your mic and desk and talk about foreign leagues. We play the impression as if it’s not the English Premier League we used to see.

“There is so much happening in the domestic league. Talk about it and see how many fans will come back to the stadium.

“You know how much Nigerians pay for EPL. Bring that money into the domestic league and see if we will not transform it,” he concluded.

The LMC will no doubt expect an improved media promotion in the activities of the league during the Super Four pre-season tournament scheduled to hold from January 24 to February 4 in Abuja.

The 2015 Super Four competition will feature reigning champions Enyimba, league title

holders Kano Pillars, Warri Wolves and Dolphins alongside invited U20 and U23 national teams.

Irabor

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

PAGE 43

Sport

AFCON: Host nation in another stalemate

H

ost nation Equatorial Guinea turned in a stirring performance to take their second point of the Africa Cup of Nations with a 0-0 draw against Burkina Faso yesterday.

Following their 1-1 draw with Congo in the tournament opener, Esteban Becker’s men were subject to sustained pressure during the opening half as Burkina - finalists two years ago sought to bounce back from their opening loss to Gabon.

But, as on that occasion, wasteful finishing undermined their efforts after Alain Traore twice struck the post before halftime.

Equatorial Guinea attackers Emilio Nsue and Iban Edu schemed inventively throughout and impressed during a more even second period.

Kike and Viera Ellong came closest to securing a famous victory before Alain Traore fluffed his lines once more to leave Burkinabe sweating on the clash between their other group rivals

later on Tuesday.

Bakary Kone required a perfectly timed challenge to deny Nsue in the fourth minute before Burkina Faso proceeded to control the opening exchanges.

They almost edged ahead in the 18th minute as Alain Traore clipped a 25-yard free kick against the post when Equatorial Guinea goalkeeper Felipe Ovono scrambled behind an overmanned wall.

Diosdado Mbele was a touch fortune to escape with only a yellow card - one that will rule him out of the host’s final home game - when he cynically ended Jonathan Pitroipa’s darting break towards goal.

With half an hour played, Aristide Bance crashed another free kick goalwards, with Ovono pushing clear before his opposite number Germain Sanou was forced to divert an angled shot from Guinea full-back Sipo behind.

As half-time closed in, Burkina ramped up the pressure - the post denying Alain Traore again as his

Gervinho gets 2-match ban for striking Guinea defender

Gervinho

I

vory Coast forward Gervinho has been given a two-match ban following his sending off against Guinea in the sides’ 1-1 draw on Tuesday.

Ivory Coast forward Gervinho has said sorry after his red card for striking Guinea defender Naby Keita in the sides’ 1-1 draw.

“I want to apologise to the Ivory Coast nation, my teammates, the fans and the African Nations Cup organisers for this gesture of anger,” he wrote on Twitter.

“It is not like me and it does not have its place on a football pitch.”

A red card carries a mandatory one-match ban but the Confederation of African Football may extend it.

Usually, a dismissal for violent conduct receives at least a twomatch ban at the Nations Cup but it can be as high as four if the disciplinary committee feels it deserves a more severe sanction.

Former Arsenal forward Gervinho appeared to slap Keita in the 58th minute of the Group D match in Malabo in a off-the-ball incident, Ivory Coast were a goal down at the time but fought back to earn a draw despite their numerical disadvantage.

The 27-year-old Gervinho had been his side’s best player in the match and he would be a big loss should he be suspended for the Elephants’ two remaining group games, against Mali on Saturday and Cameroon on the 28th.

controlled volley struck Ovono’s leg and the inside of the upright before ricocheting clear.

Ovono thwarted Bertrand Traore as he charged towards goal in the 40th minute, with the

same player having a close-range shot blocked before Nsue forced Burkina defender Steeve Yago into similarly evasive action at the other end.

There were chances at either

end in a fast-flowing opening to the second half - Kike smashing a volley over at the back post for the hosts after Nsue and Iban Edu combined to unlock the Burkina defence.

Rantie strikes the ball

Rantie looks forward after penalty missed

B

afana Bafana striker Tokelo Rantie has taken ‘full responsibility’ for his penalty miss against Algeria, but is keen to move on and look ahead to the next match against Senegal.

Rantie was guilty of missing a penalty against Algeria in South Africa’s opening Africa Cup of Nations match on Monday night.

The Bournemouth player’s miss proved to be a turning point in the match as Shakes Mashaba’s side went from 1-0 up to lose the game 3-1.

“I take full responsibility.

When we were awarded the

penalty I just went for the ball as I felt very confident and did not even think I could miss it,” Rantie told SAFA Media.

“I am very disappointed that it did not go in but as we all know it can happen to anyone in the game. No person steps up to take the penalty to miss. I am trying hard not to dwell on it because it will not help me move forward when I am given another chance to play.

“The penalty issue is gone and it’s time to move on. I am also glad I have teammates who understand that it could also happen to anyone. They didn’t

criticise me even though they are disappointed that I did not score.

“If I take all the negativity of missing the penalty into the next match I will be failing my teammates and the whole squad as I will not be able to perform to the best of my abilities.

“Stressing about the penalty won’t help anyone. I just need to be mentally strong. But I am very excited about the next game.

That is my focus right now.”

Rantie believes that if Bafana continue where they left off against Algeria and improve om certain aspects, they can get the better of Senegal in the second Group C match on Friday night.

Emilio Nsue and Iban Edu

Page 44

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

Sport

NFF eyes new kits sponsor deal– Adama

By Albert Akota

D

irector of Marketing at the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) Idris Adama, has assured Nigerians that they will strive to get a better kit sponsorship deal for the country even as his department has been moved to Lagos.

Adama said that taking his department to Lagos was the best decision the Amaju Pinnick-led board has taken so far.

“I think that is the best decision so far that the leadership of the Federation has taken because if you look at the responsibility that I am saddled with, all the private sector organizations that I am dealing with are all concentrated in Lagos and our major business is in Lagos.

“So, I need to be very close to the sponsors in Lagos and even get more sponsors. So being in Abuja will not really help me and I appreciate that decision”.

Asked what his Department and the Federation are doing as regards getting new sponsor for the country upon expiration of the Adidas deal, he declined to disclose the name of the possible new kit sponsor but reassured that all hands are on deck to get a better deal with a new company.

His words, “The contract with Adidas says from 2011- December 31, 2014.

December 31, 2014 is gone so the contract is expired.

“And Adidas has come up to say that in line with their new strategic plan they are not thinking of creating new relationship or extending a relationship with any country within Africa for now because they are concentrating on some clubs in Europe.

“But this does not stop the national teams from wearing Adidas, we are still wearing Adidas till we get our new sponsors because Adidas has not restricted us from wearing their product,” he explained.

Nadal battles to enter Australian Open third round

Wladimir Klitschko (R)

Klitschko to fight Jennings in New York

W

o r l d heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko has announced his first fight in the United States for seven years.

The 38-year-old Ukrainian will defend his IBF, IBO, WBA and WBO

Australian Open: Murray eases into round three

A

ndy Murray made short work of local hope Marinko Matosevic on the hottest day so far at this year’s Australian Open.

The sixth seed won their second-round contest 6-1 6-3 6-2 in one hour and 42 minutes as the temperature broke 30C. The Briton, 27, took his record against Australians to 10-0 and will play Portugal’s Joao Sousa in the last 32.

As expected, there was plenty of support for Melbourne’s Matosevic on Margaret Court Arena, with his friends and supporters

A

shouting down the Murray fans courtside.

The contest off court was not quite matched on it, as Murray came out timing the ball beautifully and firing down some heavy serves.

Murray would end the match with just 12 unforced errors to 49 from his opponent, a clear indication of how sharp he remained throughout.

The former Wimbledon champion swept into a 5-0 lead in just 14 minutes and saw out the set soon after, with just one error and one point against serve to his name.

be a tough challenge but I am especially happy to be fighting in New York again.”

Jennings has won all of his 19 fights, 10 by knockout.

Klitschko has 63 career wins, with three losses - his last loss coming against Lamon Brewster 11 years

since Wimbledon because of injury and illness in 2014.

“At the end of the first set, I started to feel my body was very bad, very tired,” said Nadal. “I was worrying like crazy. Then I was serving for the third and almost threw up. It was a terrible feeling.

“I was close to not continuing because I felt that I was very dizzy.

“I was suffering a lot. Too much. Obviously it’s a very positive thing that finally I have the chance to win, but I hope to recover myself.”

Murray

ago - and he has been world champion for nine years, two fewer than American great Joe Louis who holds the record.

Deontay Wilder holds the WBC world title belt after he beat Canadian Bermane Stiverne on points in Las Vegas on Saturday.

PGA admits 22 new professionals

Senate President, David Mark

T

Nadal

n ailing Rafael Nadal battled past qualifier Tim Smyczek in five sets to reach the Australian Open third round.

The Spaniard fought back to win 6-2 3-6 6-7 (2-7) 6-3 7-5 and avoid his earliest ever defeat in Melbourne.

Nadal, seeded third, required treatment from the doctor for stomach cramps in the third set and repeatedly doubled over in distress.

The 28-year-old was playing just his 10th match

belts against unbeaten 30-year-old Bryant Jennings at Madison Square Garden on 25 April.

The bout will be Klitschko’s first fight since November, when he knocked out Bulgaria’s Kubrat Pulev.

Klitschko said: “It will

he Professional Golfers’ Association of Nigeria (PGA) has absorbed 22 former amateur players into the elite class after five days of rigorous test for 93 applicants that ended at the Kaduna Golf Club last weekend.

Festus Makelemi, director of the PGA said that the just concluded “Qualifying School” was the most transparent in the association’s history.

“We are aware of the growing interest in PGA activities, especially from corporate Nigeria and one of the ways we can showcase the values of the association is by displaying this measure of openness. None of the

players that missed out can tell you the process was not clear enough” he said after the event.

Izang Ayuba, a multiple medal winner in golf at the National Sports Festival for Plateau State, finished atop of the players seeking professional membership at the Qualifying School. He is a protégé of Samson Lawal Lamingo Golf Club’s resident professional.

“Turning pro is the peak of my career as a golfer and I am very glad to have achieved that here” he told journalists after the event.

The PGA had set out to admit twenty best players at the event only to be faced with three players finishing in the joint 20th position.

Page 45

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

Sport

P-i-c-t-o-r-i-a-l 1.Mali midfielder Sambou Yatabare believes that they should have won their Africa Cup of Nations group match against Cameroon on Tuesday night which ended a 1-1 draw.

2.Given Singuluma says he is grateful for the faith Zambia coach Honour Janza has put in him.

3.Gifted playmaker Danny Cipriani has been unlocking defences for Sale this season

1

4.An ailing Rafael Nadal battles past qualifier Tim Smyczek in five sets to reach the Australian Open third round.

2

5.Super Eagles forward Emmanuel Emenike is currently experiencing the worst goal drought of his professional career after firing a blank for Fenerbache in their 2-1 win over Altinordu in a Turkish.

3

4 5

Page 46

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

Sport

The host’s short notice, big concerns

AFCON: Ebola fears, freebies, big names at Equatorial Guinea

T

he 30th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations which kicks off last Saturday, witness organisers, players and fans hoping the tournament can thrive in

the face of adversity.

It was only in November that Equatorial Guinea took over as hosts from Morocco, whose plea to postpone the finals over fears about the spread of

Favourites to win the trophy

A

Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema has personally paid for some fans to attend matches

I

t is not the first time the small, oil-rich central African state of Equatorial Guinea, with a population of just 740,000, has hosted the tournament they did so jointly with Gabon in 2012.

Matches hosted in four cities; Bata and Malabo as they were three years ago - and in Mongomo and Ebebiyin. The new venues was relatively basic because there has been insufficient time to build better facilities in those towns.

The stadium in Ebebiyin has a reported capacity of only 5,000. Even so, there is a real chance of it not being filled - one of the 2012 Nations Cup matches hosted by the country was attended by a tiny crowd of 200 people.

It is that kind of statistic which has moved the

country’s president Teodoro Obiang Nguema to personally pay for 40,000 tickets for fans to attend matches.

Additionally, the hotel capacity in the new host cities is minimal, making it a struggle for both media and fans to find accommodation and follow the tournament.

On the pitch, little was expected of the team, who were eliminated from the qualifiers when they were penalised for fielding an ineligible player - Cameroon-born Thierry Fidieu Tazemeta - in a match against Mauritania, only to be reinstated when they stepped in as hosts. Their chances of making any impact have not been helped by the fact their new coach, Argentine Esteban Becker, was appointed 11 days before the opening game of the finals.

lgeria is the best team in Africa, according to Fifa’s global rankings, and go into the tournament as many people’s favourites.

After an outstanding World Cup in Brazil last summer, when they reached the last 16 for the first time, the Desert Foxes won five of their six Nations Cup qualifying matches to top their group with ease.

Algeria play a fast, counter-attacking style utilising their so-called “golden trio” of Porto playmaker Yacine Brahimi, Valencia’s Sofiane Feghouli and Islam Slimani of Sporting Lisbon to great effect.

However, they have probably the toughest draw at the finals, alongside Ghana, Senegal and South Africa in Group C. Gourcuff is wise to be cautious, as few tournaments

are as difficult to predict as the Nations Cup. Burkina Faso, with no previous impressive Afcon history, made the 2013 final.

Zambia won the title in 2012, beating Yaya Toure, Didier Drogba, Gervinho and Ivory Coast’s other big names in the final.

Ivory Coast and Ghana have long been regarded as Africa’s two most talented teams, but Ivory Coast has not won the title in more than 20 years and Ghana’s misery stretches to more than 30 years.

Two sides enjoying resurgence are South Africa and Cameroon - both putting recent difficult spells behind them to find form and unity at the right time to go through qualifying unbeaten.

“I have told the players not to fear anybody because we have no reason to feel inferior,” said South Africa coach Ephraim Mashaba.

Ebola a shadow over the tournament

T

he deadly virus, which broke out in West Africa in March 2014 and has claimed the lives of 8,386 people in six countries according to World Health Organisation figures up to 12 January, has cast a dark shadow over the tournament.

However, there are no reported cases in Equatorial Guinea and the country’s government has taken measures to prevent Ebola from reaching their soil, including hiring the expertise of a team of Cuban doctors.

Julia Nchama Abeso Avomo, the administrative attache at the country’s embassy in London, said everyone entering Equatorial Guinea will go through a short medical check upon arrival as a precautionary measure.

Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia are the country’s worst affected by Ebola.

Guinea is the only qualifiers for the finals - and their achievement is remarkable given the circumstances.

The team were unable to play any matchers at home and also suffered because of the stigma of the disease.

B o r u s s i a Monchengladbach winger Ibrahima Traore says the players were tested for Ebola in the dressing room, just before a vital match against Togo.

“We got a $30,000 (£19,700) bonus for qualifying and I gave that money directly to charities fighting the disease. At the Africa Cup of Nations we want to fight for the people who are struggling due to Ebola.”

Ebola was rejected by the Confederation of African Football (Caf).

With concerns over the short time for Equatorial Guinea to prepare, worries about potentially poor attendances at

matches in remote parts of the country and doubts about the infrastructure and facilities, football itself has taken a back seat in the build-up to the 16-team, 17 January to 8 February event.

Star players - Toure, Brahimi, Bony

F

our of the nominees for the 2014 BBC African Footballer of the Year award will be on show: the winner of that title, Yacine Brahimi, will be instrumental in Algeria’s bid for glory, Ivory Coast boast Yaya Toure and Gervinho, while Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang will spearhead Gabon’s attack.

Porto playmaker Brahimi was Algeria’s top scorer in qualifying and will be a goal threat, while he is also likely to provide assists thanks to his quick feet and eye for a pass.

Manchester City powerhouse Toure will be the driving force for the Elephants, who will also look to the skilful Roma forward Gervinho to shine as brightly as he did on the World Cup stage last summer.

The Ivorian ranks also contain striker Wilfried Bony, who has just become one of the most expensive African players in history after signing for Manchester City from Swansea for £28m.

Fans will hope for pace, power and clinical finishing from Bony.

Borussia Dortmund striker Aubameyang scored twice and provided four assists as Gabon finished top of Group C in qualifying.

With blistering pace, strong aerial ability and clinical finishing, he will be a potent

threat.

One lesser-known name to watch out for is Fabrice Ondoa, the teenage goalkeeper of Cameroon.

The 19-year-old plays for Barcelona B and only made his debut for the Indomitable Lions during the Nations Cup qualifiers. He conceded just one goal in six games.

Algeria’s Brahimi will be hoping to celebrate his birthday in style by lifting the trophy on the day he turns 25.

Notable absences There will be no successful defence of the trophy for Nigeria after the Super Eagles failed to book their place at the finals. It was a big shock - and some would say a massive loss for the tournament.

Record seven-time champions Egypt also missed out - for the third time in a row.

And for the first time in over a decade, two of Africa’s biggest names and greatest strikers will be missing from the tournament.

Cameroon’s Samuel Eto’o and Ivory Coast’s Didier Drogba retired from internationals after the 2014 World Cup. Eto’o scored a record 18 goals at Nations Cup finals and hit 56 goals in total from 118 appearances for his country, while Drogba struck 65 in 104 matches for the Elephants.

Sofiane Feghouli (left) and Yacine Brahimi are two of Algeria’s key players

South Africa’s incentive - win it for Senzo Ivory Coast’s Wilfried Bony has completed a £28m move from Swansea to Manchester City

The record-breaking manager

South Africa captain Senzo Meyiwa was shot dead in October outh Africa midfielder captain, was shot after entered his Dean Furman says burglars house near the team will be trying girlfriend’s to win the trophy to Johannesburg.

Furman has now taken honour their goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa, who was over the captaincy and will lead the team in Equatorial killed in October.

Meyiwa, the team Guinea.

S

F

renchman Claude Le Roy will coach at the Africa Cup of Nations for a record eighth time. This time the 66-yearold is in charge of Congo, the fifth country he has led at the finals.

He won the tournament with Cameroon in 1988, having finished runners-up with them two

years previously, he came third with Ghana in 2008 and was a semi-finalist with Senegal in 1990. Only once - in the last edition of the tournament, as coach of DR Congo - has he failed to reach the quarter-finals.

His chances of success this time are limited, as Le Roy himself acknowledges.

PEOPLES DAILY, thursday, January 22, 2015

PAGE 47

www.peoplesdailyng.com

QUOTABLE QUOTE Let nobody tell me that (President Goodluck) Jonathan is my brother because he is from South-south. My brother should be able to fix the bad roads in my place, …favour me and won’t attack me.

. . . putting the people first

THURSDAY, january 22, 2015

– Rivers state’s governor Rotimi Amaechi

SPORTS Buhari’s naiveté, PDP’s desperation latest

Agbonavbare hospitalised in Spain over cancer after wife dead

F

ormer Nigerian international goalkeeper, Wilfred Agbonavbare is clinging to his life as he battles to survive cancer at a Spanish hospital.

The ex-Rayo Vallecano goalie, who been relocated back to Spain after spending five months in a Tampa, Florida, hospital, to continue with his treatment told a friend recently that: “I was relieved of my job after I was diagnosed with cancer. My wife died of breast cancer three years ago and when she was diagnosed with breast cancer I spent all the money “I made playing professional football on her medical bills to keep her treatment uninterrupted. Consequently, I had to send my three children to Nigeria because my lethal health condition.”

Agbonavbare, who was a member of Nigeria’s U-21 Mexico 1983 Flying Eagles, 1984 AFCON silver medalist and 1994 AFCON gold medalist, is calling on Nigerians to come to his aid and so did some of his teammates in the Eagles calling on the Federal Government to convert the scholarship awards promised the 1983 Flying Eagles team into financial rewards so that Wilfred’s cancer treatment continues uninterrupted.

This according to them will also enable some of their colleagues in despair as a result of financial constraint to have hope.

Ex-Flying Eagles and Green Eagles star Dehinde Akinlotan said Agbonavbare needs urgent help now, adding that “Mr. Agbonavbare is plagued with serious sickness at a hospital bed as we speak seeking financial support and also fighting for his life, we are hoping that our plea to Mr. President in redeeming the pledge bestowed on the team.

“We had already lost three of our teammates (Ali Jeje, Chris Anigala and Tarfa Kpako) to illness during our plea and we pray that almighty God will be with and give Agbonavbare good and sound health.”

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and a politicized Army

I

s it me alone or it is visible to all the discernible? The ruling party, PDP, is clearly desperate.

Very desperate.

Power is slowly slipping away.

Naturally there is panic. It is using all means possible to avert this predictable end. The police and the DSS appear to be willing tools. I am worried that the Nigeria Army too, is behaving like the militia arm of the ruling party. Two short days ago, its Director of Public Relations, a one star General, Olajide Laleye, addressed a press conference to expressly make a mountain out of a molehill. He averred that General Muhammadu Buhari, the foremost challenger to the presidential throne currently occupied by Goodluck Jonathan, was economical with the truth by claiming to have his certificate with the military authorities.

According to him, not such a thing could be found in Army records.

I am bewildered. Since when did the Army start to willingly give information to the press?

On Tuesday? Ok, I would want the Army for instance, to make public how much is being spent on the counter insurgency for instance. I would want the Army to make public who authorized the allocation of plots meant for Barracks to certain Generals, serving and retired.

By getting involved in the politics of Buhari’s lack of certificate, the Nigeria Army has confirmed suspicion that it, too, is in dangerous alliance with the ruling party. The press conference two days ago expressly to dispel the claim by Buhari is below the belt for a professional institution like the army.

There has been, lately, a lot of hullabaloo about the certificate or lack of thereof, of one man- Buhari. Since the “scandal” broke, there has been no “let off”. It has been bedlam.

Finally they (Buhari’s enemies) have “got’ him. They were jumping for joy. “Boys” like FFK who, at the site of ‘amala’ will call a spade, wheelborrow, have gotten a full time job. Buhari has been ‘slippery’. Getting him was tough. All the labels stuck on him had been as effective as asking Femi Fani-Kayode to remain loyal to a cause. But the shout of joy would appear now is stuck in their throats.

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THURSDAY Column Ali M. Ali

aliyumaliyu@yahoo.com

General Muhammadu Buhari

Buhari himself burst their bubble yesterday. He asked his Alma Mata to make public his WASC result. It’s out now. I doubt though if it will rest the hoopla. Until the fading order is sent packing, Buhari should be prepared for more personal attacks. I won’t altogether be surprised if tomorrow, the PDP says Buhari doesn’t have a marriage certificate or that he is from China!

Among the medals uncharitably hung on the neck of the gangling General was “fundamentalist”, ”bigot’, “iron-fisted” ruler,” dictator’ etc. Before his foray into the political grazing field, his peers in the military when he was Commander-in-chief labeled him “rigid”. He probably attracted more of these labels, the moment he threw his hat into the political ring 13 years ago. Owners of the game see him as an “intruder” in politics. They didn’t foresee him swimming in the murky waters of politics.

In all the labeling, none described him as ‘corrupt’ or a thief. This is incredible in a nation where public service is seen as an easy passage to Eldorado. A nation steeped in warped values in which

notorious crooks are celebrated and given chieftaincy titles. A nation in which the upright are denigrated and tagged “cursed” for not stealing the common patrimony.

First to probably fire the proverbial salvo was the ruling party’s national scribe, a certain Professor who bears the name, Wale Oladipo. He, it was who described Buhari a “semi illiterate” jackboot. It was a veiled reference to the ‘discovery’ of the millennium“Saint” Buhari, after all, has a chink in his overtly fortified armour.

What is Buhari’s armour?

An incorruptible public record of service.

An unblemished personal morality. A cast iron reputation of accountability.

These are the virtues lacking in Buhari’s traducers. And they are bountiful. It is not an accident that his harshest critics are among the tribe of thieving elite. Men and women entrusted with the public till and abused it. Who at one time. Countless inquisition into his public record of service returned a not guilty verdict. This, I dare say, makes them uncomfortable and secondly, green with envy.

His gangling frame too,

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is unsettling. Say what you may, Buhari engenders mixed emotions. Ordinary folks see him as an upright. Thieving elite sees him as too “puritanical”, so they demonize him. The meticulously observant, see him as very naïve. His ‘assumption’ that his certificate was in Army record, is an example. He demonstrated this naiveté some 31 years ago in 1984.Asked about press freedom, he swiveled in his chair as C-in-C and affirmed that “I will definitely temper with that” Linguists like Dr MK Hassan, a lawyer of excellent pedigree, matched Oladipo ‘grammar’ for ‘grammar’. He said no such word, as “semi-illiterate” exists in English. According to him, the right expression would be “semiliterate”.By describing Buhari so “illiterately’, Professor Oladipo came across as “semi-literate, Dr Hassan insists.

A parody of the hit song ‘’Pull over, show me your particulars’’

by KCee which featured Wizkid, was cobbled together and named “Buhari Pull over, show me your certificate’. It made the rounds in social media. It was an instant hit in the ‘bad taste genre’ Since then, a cacophonous “Buhari-show-me-yourcertificate” campaign was mounted. An educated guess may help explain the brouhaha about Buhari’s certificate. This is even more so considering the man has ran for the same office a record three times. The campaign, to me, was designed by a desperate sinking order. It reminds me of 1993 election. Abiola was coasting to victory and suddenly a chink was found in his armour-his bags of money. Achilles had his heel.

Goliath had his forehead. And Buhari? Certificate? Nope, he is more than qualified to run even without the certificate.

DAN GAYE Police redeploy Mbu to Lagos

They should have redeployed him to Baga