The Nation August 31, 2014

Newspaper of the Year

Niger Senatorial bye-election: APC in early lead

N100m World Cup Fans village: Firm drags NTDC to EFCC –Page 5

–Page 73

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WHERE ARE THE CHIBOK GIRLS KIDNAPPED ON APRIL 15?

Nigeria’s widest circulating newspaper

Vol.09, No. 2957

TRUTH IN DEFENCE OF FREEDOM

SUNDAY

AUGUST 31, 2014

Ebola: It's devilish of Sawyer, Liberia to spread the evil to us - Obasanjo

–Page 6

N200.00

39 foreigners arrested in Lagos hotels

ADAMAWA

PDP disqualifies Acting Governor Clears Ribadu, Marwa, Modibbo, 10 others

–Page 5

LIBERIA, Monrovia : Health care workers wearing full body suits burn infected items at the Elwa hospital run by Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) in Monrovia on August 30, 2014. Liberia has been hardest-hit by the Ebola virus raging through West Africa, with 624 deaths and 1,082 cases since the start of the year.

Photo: AFP

MILITARY LAUNCHES ATTACKS TO RECLAIM GWOZA

–Page 4

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, AUGUST 31, 2014

COLUMN

A materialist reading of ideological suicide A

S the virus of stomach infrastructure infects everything in the land, the word materialist itself may appear incapable of meaning no more than an addiction to gross material consumption; an obsession with mundane materiality as opposed to the finer and more refined aspects of existence. Materialism has damaged our social life beyond recognition.

Tragically enough, even some of our most revered spiritual leaders are not exempt from this addiction to irrational material acquisition and gross consumption.

But as students of advance philosophy will attest, to conduct a materialist investigation is to deploy the principles and methodology of Historical and Dialectical Materialism in order to deepen our understanding of a specific occurrence, particularly the historical and material circumstances in which it takes place. On the other hand, ideological suicide occurs when people kill off their self-advertised convictions in a way and manner that suggest a new identity and the complete erasure of their former self.

Moral outrage and fiery denunciation of those who betray their self-stated political ideals may satisfy our anger but they can hardly yield insight into the way forward, or provide a practical roadmap for immediate action. The classic statement of materialist interrogation of history is Karl Marx observation that men make history, but not under the circumstances of their choice.

There is commotion and crisis everywhere you turn to in the political landscape of Nigeria. The permanent carpet crossing, the eternal to and fro has reached an epidemic proportion. This perpetual shuttle of refugees and politically displaced persons suggest an ideological neutering of the polity. All politicians appear the same, like cats in the night. The collateral damage has been prohibitive. There is a collapse of public trust in politics and politicians.

People no longer perceive politics and politicians as the route to social redemption. So far the biggest casualty in this refractive mirror of public perception is Malam Nuhu Ribadu. While not doubting his political courage, his quaint and quixotic notions of patriotism , this column has already expressed profound reservations about Ribadu’s intellectual and ideological solidity even while he was the presidential flag bearer of the ACN. We need not be further delayed.

Yet in a curious way, this apparent collapse of ideology as a weapon of social engineering and as an instrument for fashioning out political action may well be indicative of a tectonic shift in our polity which could have been rumbling below the surface for quite some time. But the world has never existed in a vacuum of ideas. The end of ideology as a means of social engineering may well signal the arrival of a new vista of ideological struggle.

The politics of the Fourth Republic and the Nigerian post-military society cannot be divorced from the politics of its military progenitors and their end of ideology bravura and triumphalism. Although very much their military superior, General Obasanjo is very much an ideological heir of his professional subordinates in every material respect. Perhaps smarting from the trauma of the civil war, the principal aim of the post-civil

•Ribadu

war military hierarchy has been to create huge pan-Nigerian parties capable of holding the nation together at all costs even at the expense of national development and rapid transformation.

They seem to have succeeded beyond their wildest dream, except that it is becoming impossible to hold the country together without accelerated economic development and genuine political transformation. The mass ideological suicide of so called progressives in the current republic attests to the success of this military formula. Both the PDP and the NPN were conceived as huge Pan-Nigerian bazaars and millennial political monopolies. The problem is that like the NPN before it was stopped in its track, the PDP is set to consume both itself and the nation.

If we cast our mind back to preIndependence politics and the struggle for decolonization, we would find that there was no room for mass defections and the Russian roulette such as we are currently witnessing.

Although there were regional differences as to the actual departure date of the colonial masters, it would have been political taboo for anybody to establish a political platform based on the project of continued colonial rule.

This ideological solidity and political coherence remained very much the name of the game in the First Republic even within the context of widening inter-party animosities. Those who defected from their parties did not have the courage or the political heart to join the hegemonic party. In the case of deserters from the Action Group after its crisis erupted in 1962, they could only manage a tense and edgy alliance with the NPC till the bitter end.

After a futile rebellion, K.O

Mbadiwe, a popular and charismatic politician, returned to the NCNC with his tail between his legs.

Although anchored on a regional platform and later on clear ideological differentiation along Socialist Democratic line, the most outstanding avatar of this politics of principles in the First and Second Republic was Obafemi Awolowo. Even when and while he sought alliances at the centre, Awolowo stubbornly refused to surrender the principles of his party, the Action Group. Throughout his distinguished political life, Awolowo sought and fought to prevent the homogenisation of the Nigerian political class. His thinking was that unless the Nigerian populace was presented with a clear and well-articulated alternative blueprint, the polity was doomed.

After the death of the Ikenne titan, the road was clear for succeeding military autocrats to engineer the destruction of the old regional platform that was the basis of pre-military politics. Responding to what they might have honestly and genuinely thought was a national emergency particularly after a costly civil war, the military sought to demobilise the old regional project. In this respect, the dissolution of the old regions and their balkanization into unviable states came in very handy.

Thus was born in its post-independence incarnation the unitarist and harshly centralising state, a final product of the military imaginary which began life in the colonial incubator and which haunts the Nigerian postmilitary polity till date. But even

…..And a short goodbye from Snooper

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EAR readers, it is time once again to say a short goodbye to our numerous fans and the critical admirers of this column.

Since its debut in January 2007, this column has gone on leave only once. It has been almost eight years of continuous and killing exertions.

It is now time to take a proper rest.

After eight years of hammering away before the lucent screen , even the keyboard is beginning to play poker. There are times when you type in the last letter and then fall asleep on the keyboard only to find that the last letter had multiplied into eight screen pages of strange hieroglyphics which only

the ancient Egyptians can decode. It is the Nubian’s nunc dimittis.

The columnist thanks the numerous readers who have kept him on his toes, particularly our old friends and colleagues in the global academy and the internet samurai who also occasionally come to blows among themselves. We may not always agree on the state of the nation or the way forward, but it has been one hell of an experience discovering how many people still care about the fate of this gifted country. May their tribe multiply.

Bye for now.

S

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nooping around With

Tatalo Alamu before Awolowo’s death, the private wall had already fissured. The 1983 UPN gubernatorial primaries witnessed startling defections to the ruling party. Before then, one of UPN’s serving senators also deserted to the ruling party.

This was something hitherto unheard of in an Awolowo party.

The old man would have been pained to no end seeing some of his beloved and trusted lieutenants absconding. One of these had even written a book on the principles “Awoism”. To show the extent to which the new military class had penetrated Awolowo’s fortress even while alive, Chief Bola Ige was almost summarily expelled from the party for inviting a pariah like General Obasanjo to mediate in the dispute between him and his estranged deputy, the late Sunday Afolabi.

Famously moved by Alhaji Lateef Jakande in what has been dubbed the infamous Night of the Long Knives in Yola, 1983, the motion of expulsion was a foretaste and forerunner of the tragedy that was to befall Awolowo’s surviving discipleship. Exactly 10 years after, Jakande himself was excommunicated for joining the Abacha government.

This was the beginning of the end of politics of principles based on clear ideological preference in Nigeria. The homogenization of the Nigerian political class which Awolowo feared and fought against seems to have come upon us with the force of a gale. In the dialectical maelstrom, what may warm the heart of certain Nigerian nationalists is the seeming collapse and death throes of the old regional politics. But it has come at a stiff nation-disabling price.

In a moment of sublime contempt, Anthony Enahoro, the departed great nationalist and foremost freedom fighter, once dismissed both the SDP and NRC as little better than government parastatals. As if to confirm the old man’s prescient hunch, the leadership of the SDP, acting out a military script, summarily traded away its party’s hard won presidential victory with enthusiasm and relish as if clear party lines existed only in the imagination of jaded Nigerians.

Five years and another military regime after, the late Chief Bola Ige caustically described Abacha’s five parties as the five fingers of the same leprous hand. Shortly before Abacha died in mysterious circumstances, the five parties were bandying together to proclaim the goggled one as their sole presidential candidate.

It doesn’t get more politically homogenous and leprous to the bargain.

The current mass defections and borderless gallivanting among the political class may well signal the final death knell of ideological politics in contemporary Nigeria. To discerning Nigerians, there may not be much difference between the APC and the PDP. Sir Olaniwun Ajayi, the revered Afenifere patriarch, has dismissed both the PDP and APC as platforms of predation and primitive accumulation.

But given the flirtations of the Afenifere rump with the Labour Party which is nothing but the evil doppelganger of the PDP, and their covert complicity and collaboration with Jonathan’s statist agenda, we may well be witnessing the final

working out of some ancient curse.

When Chief Sunday Michael Afolabi famously told Chief Bola Ige to shut up and get on with the federal meal he had been invited to partake in, he might have thought he was making a brilliant point. For lending their talents to the statist chicanery so loathsome to their people’s federalist ambition, both men were later to give up the ghost in mysterious circumstances.

It is not surprising, then, that in all of this, it is the APC that is left clutching the wrong end of the stick.

Already stuck at the zero ground level of low public esteem, the PDP has nothing to lose. The end of ideology is also an ideology of sorts and a viciously and virulently reactionary ideology at that. But it allows the ruling party to retain the initiative. In such circumstances, It will surely take the vigour and vibrancy of a mass movement allied with civil society groups and other professional organizations to unseat the PDP. Like an overweight sprinter, the APC has been slow to get off the starting block. But in linking up at the centre, the party’s dominant old ACN faction might have left its western flank exposed. Huge internal fissures are showing up. With the tragic loss of Ekiti, its regionalist impetus is already in grave danger. If the party allows the PDP or any of its sleeping partners to poach another state in the old region, both the ideological and political planks of its regionalist agenda would have collapsed.

For a party that is hoping to distinguish itself with a genuinely transformational blueprint based on clearly differentiated principles, the current climate of mass defection and ideological suicide could not have been more ominous in terms of public and popular perception. Yet an even more cruel and tragic irony is playing out which portrays many of the party’s leading lights as unreconstructed products of military democracy. Rather than relying on mass recruitment of the electorate, the APC seems to be relying on the big men theory of African politics, a game that happens to be the founding template of the ruling party.

The likes of Nuhu Ribadu are nothing but small fry in this turbulent ocean of political betrayal. The hurricane of mass political suicide has finally berthed on our shores.

The ideological neutering of a polity often results in the neutering of political strategy and methodology with all parties resorting to the same methods and measure. For a developing society, this is the real tragedy of the collapse of ideological politics. It is a one-party state by any other name with the parties no more than bickering factions of the same political monopoly.

But you cannot play poker with history for long, just as you cannot plant cassava and expect to harvest yam. Should the opposition groups falter in their bid to present Nigerians with a clear and well-articulated alternative blueprint, and should the ruling party continue to hold the nation to ransom in its current strangulating stasis and paralyzed inertia, we might just wake up one day to find that we are truly at the mercy of a social earthquake. In the history of human society and its political evolution, no party or politician has been known to defect from that one.

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY AUGUST 31, 2014

NEWS

Military launches attacks to reclaim Gwoza A

military operation is underway to reclaim Gwoza, Borno State from Boko Haram, a week after the sect proclaimed the district an Islamic Caliphate.

Five of the 27 policemen who went missing during the Boko Haram seizure of the town and the attack on the Nigeria Mobile Police Academy in Gwoza, have rejoined their units unhurt, it was learnt yesterday.

Expected to be liberated immediately from the terrorists are Gwoza and 14 surrounding villages.

The terrorists are understood to have blocked

•Five missing policemen back access roads to the town prompting the troops to launch what a security source described as "fierce attacks."

"Some active military operations are ongoing but we will not talk until we have regained the town and other villages," the source said yesterday "All I can tell you is that Nigerian troops are capable.

They did it in Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, and other places. There is no basis for not dealing with the

From Yusuf Alli, Managing Editor, Northern Operation

insurgents at home.

"We have launched fierce attacks both on land and in the air. We are prepared to reclaim Gwoza from the insurgents who have become tired of Sambisa Forest because the terrain has become marshy."

Responding to a question, the source added: "Troops would have taken over Gwoza by now but the operation is tactical because

we are sticking to the rules of engagement.

"We have discovered that the insurgents have been using most of their captives as human shield in launching attacks on troops and invasion of villages. But their antics cannot last."

It was also gathered yesterday that five of the 27 policemen who went missing from the Nigeria Mobile Police Academy during the Boko Haram invasion of Gwoza have

returned safely to their units.

The Police hierarchy was hopeful yesterday that the remaining 22 police trainees would rejoin their formations soon.

A source familiar with the development said: "Following the invasion of the Academy by the insurgents, some of the mobile policemen ran into the bush and they have been trying to find their path in the last few days.

"Do not forget that some of them are not used to the Gwoza terrain because they are not from the area. They also have to navigate their ways in such a manner that

they will not fall victims of Boko Haram.

"Most often, those who survived Boko Haram attacks have been linking up with their different units through Adamawa State."

When contacted, the Force Public Relations Officer, CP Emmanuel Ojukwu, said: "Five of the policemen have returned safely to their stations. Some may have gone back but yet to officially report.

"Let me assure you that we will recover the Academy in Gwoza from the insurgents, we are not giving in at all."

2015: 4m in S/South endorse Jonathan •Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Delta lead, says Anyim

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•From Left: Lagos Commissioner for Environment, Mr Tunji Bello; Chairman, Isolo Local Council Development Authority, Alhaji Abiodun Olaleye, Director, Drainage Construction & Dredging, Ministry of the Environment Mr. Temidayo Erinle and others during the monthly environmental sanitation to enlighten people on Ebola Virus in Lagos.

PHOTO: NAN

$930m loot: Settlement with the Abachas in national "Terrorists would rather HE Attorney-General interest, says AGF have us divided along of the Federation and

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Minister of Justice, Mr. Mohammed Bello Adoke (SAN) says Federal Government's settlement with the family of the late Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha on the $930million loot traced to his accounts was in national interest.

The negotiation with the Abachas on the matter was also transparently conducted, he maintains.

Government has come under fire for withdrawing criminal charges against the eldest son of the late Gen Abacha, Mohammed, saying the move smacked of politics all in an attempt to get the backing of the Abachas ahead of next year's elections.

But throwing light on the issue, Adoke said the recovery of the loot "is a fitting testimony to the strenuous efforts being made to ensure the sufficient disgorgement of the proceeds of crime to serve as deterrence."

He broke his silence on the deal in a document presented at the justconcluded 2014 NBA International Conference in Owerri.

The document was released to the press yesterday by the Office of the

•Insists: 'Settlement transparently conducted' AGF. The recovered loot includes: US ($550m); Luxembourg ($380m); Voluntary surrender ($750m); Switzerland ($570m); Jersey ($380m); UK ($150m); Liechtenstein ($400m) and Island of Jersey £22.5m (N6.18billion) The minister said: "I am aware of the negative commentaries that the settlement generated from those who were ill-informed about the details of the settlement and the underlying imperatives in the national interest.

"I however wish to reassure the Bar that every aspect of the settlement was transparently conducted and the outcome was in the national interest.

"The settlement has received commendation across the globe and is being used as model for Case Studies on stolen assets recovery."

He advised lawyers "with the penchant for making unguarded and baseless statements in the media to always seek information from appropriate quarters before

From Yusuf Alli, Managing Editor, Northern Operation

commenting on issues."

On the Boko Haram insurgency, the AGF said the $1billion request pending before the National Assembly was meant to equip the Armed Forces for "the war against terrorism and insurgency in compliance with the resolutions of the National Assembly while approving a further extension of the Proclamation of the State of Emergency in three NorthEastern states of the country."

He added: "There is the need for Nigerians to appreciate that terrorism is a global phenomenon requiring the concerted efforts of all nations of the world. Government has accordingly sought the assistance of other countries, as well as our development partners, to effectively confront this challenge.

"Equally important is the need to forge a united front to combat the common enemy. Nigerians must remain united in the face of the threat of terrorism.

sectional, religious and political lines as the division would not only help their cause, but also, further diminish our efforts to collectively and effectively wage war against them."

The Minister asked Nigerians to take advantage of the Freedom of Information Act to clarify issues from the government.

He said: "The Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation and indeed allpublic offices are open to the public for purposes of obtaining information on government business.

"The Freedom of Information Act, 2011 remains a potent tool in the hands of those seeking information from public institutions and members of the Bar should take advantage of it.

"We must discourage the pervading culture of baseless criticism for selfglorification and cheap popularity. We have also made a lot of progress in the implementation of Freedom of Information Act, 2011(FOIA). The initial misgivings that pervaded the public service and the difficulty in coming to terms with the new ethos of open •CONTD ON PAGE 73

HE Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF),Chief Pius Anyim said yesterday that four million people in the six Southsouth states have endorsed President Goodluck Jonathan for reelection next year.

According to Anyim, the people want the President to formally declare his retention to return for a second term, immediately.

The SGF who stood in for the President at the third edition of the Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria's (TAN's) rally in Port Harcourt to drum up support for Jonathan ahead of his declaration, said the Southsouth endorsement is the strongest so far .

He gave the breakdown as follows: Rivers state - 1, 000,100; Akwa Ibom - 800, 000; Delta-750,000;Cross River-520,000; Bayelsa 516,000; and Edo-490,000.

He said: "It (number of persons who endorsed Jonathan) is a great record that has been broken.

Something significant has happened. You have proven that President Jonathan has a base. His zone is solidly behind him.

"In my zone (SouthEast), we have been beaten by the people of the SouthSouth zone.

The registration is ongoing. If I return to my zone, the figure will double. SouthSouth people have spoken.

Other Nigerians will follow. I will take the message to Mr. President.

At the appropriate time, Nigerians will hear from him."

At the rally were Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta State; former governor of Rivers State, Dr. Peter Odili; Minister of State for Education, Chief Nyesom Wike; Culture and Tourism Minister Edem Duke; Works Minister Mike Onolememen and Sports Minister Tammy Danagogo as well as Federal and State legislators from the zone.

Odili said that Rivers

From Bisi Olaniyi, Port Harcourt

state remains solidly behind Jonathan and asked the people to ensure "their son and great in-law" returns to office next year.

The ex-Rivers governor (Odili) also lauded President Jonathan for the convocation of Uduaghan declared that the President "must" contest in 2015, having achieved much for the country.

Danagogo described President Jonathan as "Original Port Harcourt Boy," saying: "For us in Rivers State, we will be thanking you for what you are doing. The President is one of us. Rivers people are so happy. We have never had it so good.

"Mr. President should declare for second term. We will vote massively for him.

Not just because Mr. President is our own. He is an excellent product. Let us continue to support him.

You are witnesses to his transformation agenda.

Nigeria still needs President Jonathan's brilliant performance to solve our national challenges."

Wike, in his remarks, thanked TAN for bringing the South-South rally to Port Harcourt, stressing that if the non-governmental organisation had done otherwise, many people would have concluded that Rivers state was not for President Jonathan, especially with the defection of Governor Rotimi Amaechi to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The minister of state for education said: "Rivers State is totally for President Jonathan. Everybody from the South-South is supporting President Jonathan. He is the first Nigerian President in 30 years to tackle the Almajiri menace, by giving the children basic education.

The Federal Polytechnic of Oil and Gas in Bonny, Rivers State was also established by President Jonathan."

THE NATION ON SUNDAY AUGUST 31, 2014

NEWS

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Adamawa: PDP disqualifies Acting Governor T

HE ambition of Adamawa State Acting Governor Umar Fintiri to assume the office in substantive capacity came crashing down last night.

The panel raised by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to screen aspirants seeking its ticket for the October 11 governorship election disqualified him from the race.

Chairman of the five-man screening panel, Senator Ibrahim Mantu said at the end of the screening that the disqualification was in consonance with Section 191 (2) of the 1999 Constitution which precludes an Acting Governor from transforming to substantive governor.

The development confirms our story of yesterday that the Presidency and the PDP had advised Fintiri to shelve his ambition having supervised then impeachment of Admiral Murtala Nyako last month.

He rebuffed them all.

“Fintiri is not qualified to contest in the primaries because he is not as a deputy governor emerged as acting governor,” Mantu said last night.

“He is a child of circumstance. He is the midwife and should not be the one carrying the pregnancy. He is like a referee who cannot participate in the match”, Mantu said.

The panel chairman, who described the screening as a transparent exercise, however said Fintiri was free to appeal the decision to the Screening Appeal Committee set up by the party.

•Clears Ribadu, Marwa, Modibbo, 10 others From Yusuf Alli, Managing Editor, Northern Operation/ Gbade Ogunwale, Assistant Editor, Abuja

However, 13 other aspirants got the nod of the party to take part in the primaries scheduled for Saturday, September 6.

They are: Nuhu Ribadu, Awwal Tukur, Mohammed Modibbo, Idi Hong, Marcus Gundidri, Buba Marwa, Abubakar Girei, Umar Ardo, Ahmed Gulak, James Barka, Jerry Kundusi, Andrawus Sawa, Aliyu Kama.

It was different strokes as the 14 aspirants filed out of the screening room one after the other.

While some of them s emerged smiling, others wore long faces.

Fintiri particularly looked unhappy as he came out of the

room at 6p.m.

He avoided anxious reporters with whom he had chatted heartily shortly before he went in for his interview.

He practically dashed into his car and was driven away before any of the waiting journalists could ask him any question.

Ex- Political Adviser to the President, Ahmed Gulak and Dr. Umar Ardo also came out of the exercise wearing long faces. Gulak declined to speak to reporters.

Former Lagos military administrator, Buba Marwa, who was the first to be screened, also refused to speak with reporters after the screening. He excused himself, saying he was a bit under the weather.

However, it was all smiles for the former chair of the Economic and Financial

Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu who described the exercise as transparent. He sounded optimistic about his chances of winning the party’s primary election.

The son of the former PDP chair, Awwal Tukur also came out of the exercise expressing satisfaction with the process. He also sounded positive about his chances.

Abubakar Girei said he was the man to beat while former minister Idi Hong said he stood a good chance of getting the ticket.

Even before the screening the chances of Fintiri appeared to be depreciating following claim by the All Progressives Congress (APC) that was still a member of the party.

The PDP was jolted by the APC claim.

It was learnt that the APC might take legal action if the Acting Governor was fielded

by PDP. The Concerned Youths for Good Governance in Adamawa State had on Friday petitioned the PDP National Secretariat alleging that the Acting Governor had registered at KIRSHINGA unit of K/WURO NGAYANDI ward of MADAGALI Local Government Area.

His details were put at NAME: UMORU AHMADU REG NO: 05009281; TEL: 08058536087; GENDER: MALE; AGE: 44 YRS. The APC said it might raise legal issue on Fintiri’s qualification to contest on PDP platform for the primary and October governorship poll.

There were indications that the APC might join issues with Fintiri and PDP to pay

him back for spearheading the removal of the party’s former Governor of Adamawa State, Admiral Murtala Nyako.

The State Secretary of APC, Mr. Abdullahi Bakari, who spoke with our correspondent yesterday, said: “During the registration of members by APC in February, the Acting Governor registered as Umaru Ahmadu in Kirshinga Ward in Madagali Local Government Area.

“We also have evidence to show that he has been attending our meetings as a stakeholder. As I am talking to you, we have not received any official document from him indicating that he has left our party for PDP. “I think the party will take a legal stand when the State Executive Committee of APC meets. We are going to take action.”

•Some of the documents by APC showing fintiri’s membership of the party

N100m World Cup Fans Village: Firm drags NTDC to EFCC

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FIRM, ZA Entertainment Nigeria Limited, has dragged the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC) before the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission over the alleged failed Nigerian Football Fans Village (NFFV) at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

The project was estimated to cost N100 million but never saw the light of the day.

The firm is asking the anti-corruption agency to probe the funds allegedly raised from sponsors for the Fans Village and how much was actually spent.

The company made

•Bromide of our report yesterday predicting Acting Governor’s desqualification

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INSMEN of former Foreign Affairs Minister, Chief Tom Ikimi, in Igueben Local Government area of Edo State say they are not disposed to joining him in leaving the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Chief Ikimi, until recently a leader of the APC, is in talks with PDP, his former party, on his return.

His kinsmen, including some of his political allies, told newsmen in Igueben yesterday that they valued the development brought to the area by the APC government in the state more than any individual .

Their spokesman and Chairman, Igueben local government, Chief Julius Asemota,

‘Kinsmen vow not to follow Ikimi to PDP’ •Former NRC chair holds talks on defection From Gbade Ogunwale, Abuja and Osagie Otabor, Benin

said the people of the area are now wiser having seen the performance of Governor Adams Oshiomhole.

Igueben, according to him, remains a stronghold of the APC with no room for the PDP. He said:”Ikimi has not told us where he is going to but I cannot leave my people.

Igueben is the home of APC and we still remain intact.”

Leader of the APC in Igueben Ward two, Fidelis Ihienseneken, said it was a good thing that Ikimi left the APC.

Ihienseneken who claimed to be Ikimi’s cousin said the APC is even stronger now than when Ikimi was in the party.

Another speaker, Micheal Itua said, “Politicians should be tolerant. Ikimi has been a leader of the ACN and now the APC for many years. Bringing in Chief Odigie-Oyegun is like injecting fresh ideas. APC has not failed us. The party has come to stay. We want development here. Wherever Ikimi is moving to, we are here, the APC and we will win.”

Chief Ikimi himself met with leaders of the PDP in Abuja

on Friday ahead of his formal declaration for the party.

He was received by the PDP National Chairman, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu and other party leaders.

Mu’azu described Ikimi as a highly organised and patriotic Nigerian.

He said his party will benefit immensely from Ikimi’s “wealth of experience, strong political structure and massive followership across the country.”

He commended Ikimi for his decision to return to the PDP and pledged that the party

would recognise and reward loyalty, commitment and experience.

Chairman of PDP Board of Trustees, Chief Tony Anenih also commended Ikimi for his decision, which he said was in the overall interest of the nation.

Ikimi told the party leaders that he dumped the APC due to its deep-seated “anti-nationalistic and discriminatory tendencies.”

He said he was ready to join the PDP and use his political structures, especially in the South south zone to ensure that the ruling party emerged victorious in the 2015 general elections.

From Yusuf Alli, Managing Editor, Northern Operation

the demands in a petition to the Chairman of the EFCC, Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde, by its counsel, Newman Akpore.

The Director-General of the National Sports Commission, Hon. Gbenga Elegbeleye had on December 24, 2013 endorsed the proposal to set up the Football Fans Village in Brazil.

Based on the endorsement, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed

by ZA Entertainment Nigeria Limited and the NTDC on May 26, 2014.

Continued on page 73 Chief Ikimi said: “I look forward to bringing value to the PDP. I believe that my contributions will again be noteworthy. By my joining PDP, we are assured of victory not only in Edo State but in the entire South south geo-political zone.”

He also expressed the desire to work with Chief Anenih so as to “move the party and the nation forward” and to bring about the much expected development to Edo State and the South south geo-political zone. I believe that our people are looking forward to this reunion because they will benefit the most from it. When I and Chief Anenih work together, I do not think we can have any obstacle we cannot overcome,” he stated.

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NEWS

THE NATION ON SUNDAY AUGUST 31, 2014

Ebola: 39 foreigners arrested in Lagos hotels

FG, Brazil sign MoU for $900m power project •Power supply hits 4,500MW

By Adebisi Onanuga

From John Ofikhenua, Abuja

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HE federal government yesterday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the implementation of the $900million 7,00Mega Watts (MW) project in Bayelsa State with a Brazilian firm- Benco Energy.

Rodringo Badin, who signed the pact for the company in Abuja, said the firm will tentatively execute the project for three years.

The choice of first project in Bayelsa, he said, is due to its proximity to a gas plant, transmission line and rivers.

He maintained that the power plants will be functioning from two turbines connected to exhaust gears.

The Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo, recalled that a couple of years ago, the two countries signed a pact to assist in developing power for Nigerians.

The minister assured the company that the ministry would do all in its capacity to support the firm in implementation of the project because President Jonathan has insisted that Nigerians deserve power supply in large quantity and no house must remain in darkness.

Nebo, however, maintained that power supply in the week increased to an average of 4,500MW. He added that gas- topower, which was the challenge in the power sector, is becoming history following the current flow of gas to power plants.

The minister said that the federal government has beefed up the transmission network for reliable power evacuation to the national grid.

He revealed that more generation companies are underway, stressing that very soon most of the National Independent Power Project facilities will be connected to the national grid.

Chibok girls: Group demands Jonathan’s resignation

By Sina Fadare

P

RESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan should resign if he cannot supervise the rescue of over 200 abducted Chibok girls, a group, Action Team Against Conscription and Kidnap, has stated.

Its convener, Comrade Debo Adeniran, told reporters at the weekend that the federal government is not winning the war against terrorism.

He lamented that the government is busy with 2015 elections instead of rescuing the abducted girls.

Adeniran said: “Our defensive mechanism is weak. It is sad that soldiers that are supposed to be deployed to Sambisa forest were sent to Osun State because of politics.

“This is the highest insult the government has heaped on Nigerians and taken their interest with levity.”

•The newly consecrated Auxiliary Bishop of Awka, Most Rev. Dr. Jonas Okoye(2nd right); the Bishop of Awka Diocese, Most Rev. Dr. Paulinus Ezeokafor (middle); Former Anambra Governor, Peter Obi (1st right); his wife, Margaret( 1st left), and Senator Chris Ngige(2nd left), shortly after the consecration of Okoye at St. Patrick Cathedral, Awka… at the weekend

Ebola: It’s devilish of Sawyer, Liberia to spread the evil to us Obasanjo

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ORMER President Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday blamed the outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in Nigeria on Patrick Sawyer and some Liberian authorities.

The former president said it is “devilish enough that Patrick Sawyer in connivance with some Liberian authorities,” brought the evil into the country.

He lamented that EVD is already taking its toll not only in the areas of deaths recorded or those that are ill, but also economically. “ Ebola is taking economic toll.

How do we handle people that are economically affected not those that are dead or ill? The economic effect has started, how do we reduce, recoup the economic cost of Ebola on communities, nation, West African

By Ernest Nwokolo, Abeokuta

region and sub-region.”

The former President who spoke while fielding questions from guests during ‘An afternoon with Obasanjo’ a programme organised

by Inside Watch Africa, a continental magazine published by Oluwaseyi Adegoke Adeyemo, said some Liberian authorities knew of the contagious and deadly illness in Sawyer and allowed the visit.

At the event held at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL), Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, he urged Nigerians to be “very aggressive with precautionary measures” against Ebola as there is no curative drugs yet for it.

Obasanjo said: “when HIV

came, they said don’t talk about it. Now it is Ebola and Ebola is even talking about HIV. We should be doing whatever we can and that is being aggressive in taking precautionary measures to prevent it.

“Everybody should be involved. When you see your neighbour showing unique symptoms not just the common cold or fever, take him to the clinic or doctor and we are told that when it has incubated, it becomes a problem.”

The former president who said that he had spoken with Presidents of Liberia, Ghana and Sierra Leone on the Ebola issue, said there is need for Nigeria and other West African countries to talk to development partners such World Health Organisation (WHO), Eu-

We must restore reading culture, Jonathan pleads

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RESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan has called on all stakeholders in the education sector to work hard towards rejuvenating reading culture in children.

Jonathan noted that Nigerians need to be strongly educated on the importance of reading, noting that parents in particular have a vital role to play in teaching their children how to read.

The president gave the advice in Abuja at the official launch of a children book titled: Goodluck Jonathan: The Making of a President.

Represented by his Senior Special Assistant on Youth and Student Matters, Comrade Jude Imagwe, Jonathan explained

From: Gbenga Omokhunu, Abuja

that his administration has initiated a lot of programmes targeted at re-awakening Nigerians on the importance of reading. He further stated that the federal government has built Almajiri schools across northern states for integrated education that would comprise basic western education with Islamic literacy.

The Project Manager, Read for Peace Campaign, Muhammad Mustapha, said that the objective of writing and producing the book was to inspire children and youths to achieve great things in their lives, while also promoting reading and writing

among them.

Mustapha noted that the book tells the story of how President Jonathan rose from a humble background to attain great success in life.

“This is somebody who rose from a humble background, who rose from a village somewhere in the Niger Delta and attained the height of academic excellence by becoming a Ph.D holder, becoming a deputy governor of Bayelsa Sate and eventually the president of Nigeria,” he said.

The co-author, Maureen Sokari, disclosed that the organisation intends to circulate at least one million copies of the book.

ropean Union (EU), and America for help to curtail EVD. Obasanjo charged the world not to see Ebola disease as a burden of the West African countries but something that should be treated as an “international burden.”

He called on the world’s pharmaceutical giants to intensify research efforts towards providing either vaccine or curative drugs for the virus.

In Monrovia crowds took to the streets yesterday after government reopened a slum where tens of thousands of people had been barricaded for more than a week to contain the outbreak.

The blockade of the West Point neighborhood had sparked unrest as residents feared running out of food and safe water on the peninsula.

However, Information Minister Lewis Brown said that lifting the quarantine should not be interpreted as a clearance that West Point is free of Ebola.

He said the authorities acted because they were now confident that they could work with residents to screen for the sick.

“They’re comfortable with the way the leadership and the community is working with the health team to make sure that the community remains safe,” he said.

Liberia has been the hardest hit of the five countries with Ebola cases in West Africa, reporting at least 694 deaths among 1,378 cases. More than 3,000 cases have been reported across Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, and on Friday Senegal announced its first case.

Tambuwal kicks against militarisation of polls

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PEAKER of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, yesterday condemned militarisation of recent elections in the country.

He described the development as grossly undemocratic.

Tambuwal also stated that he is still consulting on his next political moves amid rumour of his defection to the All Progressives Congress (APC) to contest the 2015 presidential race.

He urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct free and fair elections next year.

The Speaker spoke at the residence of Edo Deputy Governor, State, Pius Odubu, before attending the wedding ceremony of the son of the Oba of

•‘I’m still consulting on 2015’ From Osemwengie Ben Ogbemudia, Benin

Benin, Prince Ehioze Erediauwa, and wife Chioma.

He was accompanied by the Minority Whip of the House and member representing Uhumwonde/Orhiomnwon constituency, Samson Osagie; Rasaq Bello-Osagie (Oredo Federal Constituency); Jim Adun (Egor/Ikpoba Okhai); Isaac Osahon (Ovia constituency) and members of the Edo State Executive Council.

The Speaker said militarisation of polls will discourage voters and lead to apathy.

According to him: “I have made my position known at the

NBA conference about a week ago.

“Yes, in as much as we need security during elections, we don’t need an over dose of it.

“And I said that it is not the best of fashions in a democracy that you militarise a process to the extent that voters get intimidated and scared and they rather withdraw and remain indoors.

Security, he stated, should be concentrated at the battle lines, not in voting centres.

“Where we need heavy presence of military men is in the front line states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe.

“So we should focus more on that than states where we are

conducting civic responsibilities like elections,” the Speaker stressed.

Reacting to speculations of his imminent defection to the APC, he said: “When I went to collect my voter’s card, I said I was consulting and I am still consulting.

“Nigeria is not a small country; we have very, very senior leaders that one need to meet with before taking such decisions.

“As I said, I am consulting and at the appropriate time, I will come out to say what I will be doing in 2015.

On efforts to curb insurgency in the North East, he urged Nigerians to give security forces the support to succeed.

FFICERS of the Nigeria Police, the Nigerian Immigration Services and health officials at the weekend collaborated to arrest 39 foreigners in two hotels on Lagos Island.

The arrest of the foreigners, it was gathered, was to prevent possible spread of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD).

The foreigners, 35 from the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) and four Senegalese were arrested by security agents at Benin Hotel and Guest House on Atere Street in Lagos Island.

Eye witnesses said the arrest followed a tip-off by some residents of the area to Area A Command, Lion Building, Lagos.

The residents were said to have expressed fears that the activities of the foreigners, mostly cohabiting together, could lead to the spread of EVD in the area.

On receiving the report, the Area Commander and Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), Imohimi Edgal, reportedly contacted immigration and health officials who stormed the hotel where the foreigners were placed under arrest.

A police source who spoke to newsmen said the immigration officials will determine if the suspects are legally residing in the country.

The source said the health officials will determine their health status to know if they actually have the dreaded disease or not.

Following the arrest, all hotels in the area have been placed under close surveillance while the residents were told to report any suspicious persons or activities to the police.

Speaking to newsmen, a resident of the area, Femi Ajasa, said they became suspicious and alerted the police following the mass movements of the foreigners into the hotels since the outbreak of the Ebola virus.

While commending the Area A Command for their swift response, which led to the arrest of the suspects, he said the residents suspected that some persons were receiving treatment in the hotels rooms, a development which made them alert authorities.

AfDB to support Nigeria with $1 million From: Tony Akowe, Kaduna

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HE African Development Bank is to release $1 million to support the fight against the spread of the dreaded Ebola virus in the country under its Emergency Relief Assistance programme.

Speaking at a dialogue session with international development partners organised by the National Planning Commission in Abuja, representative of the Bank, Martin Osunbor, said the AfDB was committed to the eradication of the disease from the country.

Osunbor also said that the bank will release another $60 million to strengthen the health system in West Africa, which will be managed by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The Minister for National Planning, Dr. Abubakar Suleiman, said that the meeting was convened to fashion out desirable and workable solutions in addressing the spread of the disease.

Suleiman said that the Presidential Committee on Ebola has identified some gaps in the some priority areas needing intervention and support of the development partners.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY AUGUST 31, 2014

NEWS

Nnamani to APGA: You can’t win Enugu

93,000 Nigerians die annually from firewood smoke- ICEED

-As APGA holds rally for Jonathan in Anambra

From Ogochukwu Anioke, Abakaliki

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From Nwanosike Onu, Awka

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ORMER Senate President, Chief Ken Nnamani, yesterday in Awka, Anambra State, said it is impossible for the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) to win elections in Enugu State.

He was reacting at a rally organised by APGA for President Goodluck Jonathan at Dr. Alex Ekwueme Square in Awka.

National Chairman of APGA, Chief Victor Umeh, had boasted that his party would win all the South-East states, including Enugu in the next general elections.

However, at the rally yesterday, organised by Join Jonathan Journey (JJJ) under the leadership of Chief Ben Oranusi and Chief Ben Obi, the only APGA senatorial aspirant that attended the rally was Chief Dubem Obaze.

Other aspirants to the senatorial seats in the state where absent, with the crowd of over 2,000 people following Obaze from the Anambra North Senatorial zone.

While adressing the crowd, Nnamani said, “we thank APGA for supporting Jonathan, who is a member of my party, but I want to disagree with Umeh that his party will take over Enugu State; it is not possible.”

For Anambra State Governor, Chief Willie Obiano, the state is owned by APGA and would never struggle with another party in the state, adding that they came to show solidarity with President Jonathan.

Slain Abia commissioner laid to rest From Ugochukwu Ugoji-Eke, Umuahia HE remains of the late Abia State Commissioner for Agriculture, Dr. Kenneth Nwosu, who was shot by unknown assailants and later died, has been laid to rest in his country home, Amizi Olokoro in Umuahia South Local Government Area.

Speaking during the funeral service at the St. Peter’s Anglican Church, Amizi Olokoro, the state governor, Chief Theodore Orji, described Nwosu’s death as painful and abnormal.

In a sermon, Archbishop Emeritus of Aba Ecclesiastical Province, Rt. Rev. Ugochukwu Ezuoke, stated that those who shed innocent blood will give account to God and implored the bereaved family not to be embittered or to try to seek vengeance as vengeance belongs to God. Dr. Kenneth Nwosu, aged 66 years, was shot on July 9th by unknown assailants.

The incident, according to the Abia State Police Command occurred around Umuajata/ Amakamma road by Stella Inter-Communication in Umuahia South Local Government Area, at the outskirts of Umuahia capital city.

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•From left, Catholic Bishop of Ondo Diocese, His Lordship, Right Reverend Dr. Jude Arogundade, Emeritus Bishop of Ekiti Diocese, His Lordship, Right Reverend Dr. Michael Fagun, Dean of Maryland Deanery and Parish Priest, St. Agnes Catholic Church, Maryland, , Very Reverend Father, Anthony Taiye Fadairo and Emeritus Archbishop of Lagos Catholic Archdiocese, His Eminence Anthony Cardinal Okogie held at St. Agnes Catholic Church, Maryland on Saturday in Lagos.

PHOTO: OLUSEGUN RAPHEAL

MASSOB crisis: Uwazuruike sacks Director of Information, security aides

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N a bid to exert his authority, the embattled leader of the Movement for the Actualisation of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), Chief Ralph Uwazuruike, yesterday expelled the Director of Information, Uchenna Madu, and his personal security aides who were occupying the administrative headquarters of the group in Okwe, Onuimo Local Government Area of Imo State, in defiance to his ejection order.

Uwazuruike, in a general meeting of the group, held at the Ojukwu Memorial Library in Owerri, the Imo State capital, accused the expelled members of inciting other members to rebel against the leadership of the group and other anti-MASSOB activities, stating that they were working

‘…sack us and I’ll expose how you took bribe, betrayed MASSOB’ - Madu From Okodili Ndidi, Owerri

in concert with politicians to destabilise the movement.

In a statement issued at the end of the meeting by MASSOB Deputy Director of Information and Uwazuruike’s Personal Assistant on Media, Maxi Chris Muocha, the MASSOB leader warned that the affected persons would no longer represent or speak on behalf of MASSOB in any capacity.

The statement also cautioned the public not to transact any business with the expelled members on behalf of MASSOB or the leader, stating that anyone who ignores the directive does so

at his or her own risk.

However, when contacted, Comrade Madu challenged Uwazuruike to personally announce his purported expulsion from the struggle and bear the consequence.

According to him, “Muocha, who is my junior in the struggle, cannot announce my sack. Let Uwazuruike personally announce it and I will expose his secrets on how he betrayed the Biafra struggle back then in prison to regain his freedom, which members were not aware of and the secret documents he signed with agents of government for Nigerian unity.”

He further vowed to let MASSOB members and entire Ndigbo into the secret behind most of the actions taken by the MASSOB leader. “I will also expose the real reason Uwazuruike ordered the sitat-home in June, which was mistaken as a boost to the struggle and how he took bribe to scuttle the killing of MASSOB members, whose corpses were found floating on Ezu River in Anambra State.

“I will also expose to the members and Ndigbo, why the international communities were no longer responding to the Biafra struggle as was the case in the past. I will equally expose how he has been spending the millions accruing from the dues and levies paid by poor MASSOB members on women and drinks.”

One feared dead as police open fire on funeral procession

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NE youth was yesterday shot dead and several others wounded when mobile Policemen attached to the Police Anti-terrorist Squad opened fire on a funeral procession at Umuokoto, Umudibia Nekede Autonomous Community in Owerri West Local Government Area of Imo State.

The yet-to-be identified victim was taking part with over 30 other youths in the funeral procession when he was hit by a stray bullet.

The shooting of the people who were mostly youths, which occurred at about 9am on Friday, was described by eyewitnesses as “senseless and unwarranted killing.”

It was gathered that the youths who were coming back

From Okodili Ndidi, Owerri

from the mortuary where they had gone to collect a corpse for burial, were just few kilometres to their destination when the trigger happy policemen met them.

According to an eyewitness account, “as the police were maneuvering to pass the procession, an argument ensued between them and the youths and in the process, one of the policemen, who appeared to be drunk, shot at the procession without warning, killing one person and injuring others before speeding off.

“When the youths regrouped and marched in protest to the anti-terrorist police station at Umuoma, a neighbouring community, the policemen started shooting spo-

radically at the youths injuring many of them.”

The source, who pleaded for anonymity, stated further that, “the youths came for the funeral, they were unarmed; they had not done anything to provoke the police before they were shot like common criminals.”

Narrating his ordeal at his hospital bed, one of the victims, identified as Okey Ekeocha, explained that the bullet hit the tarred road and bounced back hitting him in the arm and head.

He said, “as the argument was going on one of the policemen jumped out from the vehicle and opened fire, one of the bullets hit one of us and he fell down and hit his head on the road, while another bullet hit the tarred road and bounced

back and hit me in the arm and head.

“Bullets were extracted from my right arm and head.

The doctor advised that I undergo another X-ray to ensure there is no other bullet lodging in my body,” he said.

Confirming the incident, the state Police Public Relation Officer, DSP Andrew Enwerem said “what I know is that the youth blocked the way not allowing the anti-terrorist police to pass, quarrel ensued that led to two people being hospitalised.”

He said that normalcy was however restored when reinforcement was moved to the place. “But we are investigating to know the remote cause of the incident but I am not aware of any casualty.”

Moghalu: Onyebuchi’s impeachment, a national embarrassment

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HE National Auditor of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief George Moghalu, has described the recent impeachment of the Enugu State Deputy Governor, Mr. Sunday Onyebuchi, as an embarrassment to democracy.

The former National Secretary of the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party, told newsmen in Abuja that impeaching the deputy governor for allegedly running a poultry farm was ridiculous

From Tony Akowe, Abuja

and unheard of.

He said those who drafted the 1999 Constitution intended impeachment clause only as a means of checking the excesses of the executive, pointing out that it was ridiculous that the deputy governor was not impeached for stealing or misappropriating government money.

He said: “What happened in Enugu State is an embarrassment. It is absolute madness as

far as I’m concerned. The legislatures themselves should please ask themselves questions whether they are doing this in the interest of democracy,” he said.

On whether the party is considering adopting the principle of zoning in selecting its presidential candidate, he said: “One thing I know for certain which I can tell you is that we are going to provide the enabling environment for everybody to express

him or herself. As a party, we have agreed that there will not be any imposition. We want a situation where the best candidate will emerge.

“But when you are looking at zoning, you must not also lose sight of the fact that in our constitution, there is provision for federal character, there is provision for balance and for you to achieve this, you must, out of political exigency, be compelled to bring in zoning.”

HE International Centre for Energy, Environment and Development, ICEED, yesterday revealed that 93,000 people, mainly women and children, die annually as a result of smoke inhalation from cooking with firewood.

Mr. Ewah Otu Eleri, Executive Director of ICEED Nigeria, made the revelation at a one-day media training workshop on Ebonyi State Cooking Energy Progrmme at the Clean Cookstovees Development and Testing Centre, Afikpo.

Quoting a 2010 study report of the World Health Organisation, Eleri, who spoke on the topic ‘Expanding access to energy for growth and poverty reduction in Ebonyi State’ said deaths from firewood smokes is the third highest killer in the country behind malaria (225,000) and HIV (192,000) which he attributed to lack of access to cooking gas and kerosene.

His words, “It is shocking and regrettable that 56 percent of households in Nigerian urban cities still use firewood to cook. In Ebonyi, only 12 percent of households have access to kerosene while only 6.1 of the entire population of Lagos State use Liquefied Petroleum Gas, LPG, for cooking. About 30 million households depend solely on wood as a source of fuel for their daily cooking.”

Boundary disputes: Ebonyi, C’River set up peace committee From Ogochukwu Anioke, Abakaliki

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HE Ebonyi and Cross River State governments have constituted an 84 man “Joint Governors’ Committee to resolve the protracted boundary dispute existing between both states.

The committee terms of reference is to determine the immediate and remote causes behind the age-long boundary dispute.

The committee held its maiden meeting in Calabar under the leadership of deputy governors of both states, Engr.

Dave Umahi (Ebonyi) and Mr. Efiok Cobham (Calabar) respectively.

The committee is also to determine the factors responsible for the failure of previous peace initiatives in the affected states and propose a lasting panacea to the disputes.

Also, it is expected to set up conflict resolution mechanisms for the communities in each sector with a view to maintaining a peaceful co-existence.

The committee is to submit detailed report and recommendations to the governors of both states on or before November 30,2014.

In a communique at the end of the meeting, which was signed by the deputy governors and the attorney-generals of both states, the committee appreciated the prevailing peace between the communities in recent times.

At the end of the meeting, Ebonyi deputy governor, Umahi, told reporters that peace was paramount to both states and could not be compromised.

NEWS

THE NATION ON SUNDAY AUGUST 31, 2014

APC chieftain: Kogi is on wrong path

‘Mu’azu, Tukur will destroy Adamawa PDP’

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From James Azania, Lokoja

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CHIEFTAIN of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and gubernatorial aspirant in Kogi State, Chief Rotimi Obadofin, has described Kogi as a failed state 23 years after its creation.

Obadofin, in a chat yesterday with journalists at his country home in Ayegunle Gbede in Ijumu Local government Area of the state, asserted that everything is wrong with the state.

He argued that all the indices of development are not found in Kogi State 23 years after its creation, when compared with others created along with it.

According to Obadofin: “As a matter of fact, Kogi is a failed state and what we have today is that there is no governance in the state.

“All the indices to show that we have governance is not there. We have no governance in Kogi. What that means is that nothing is happening.”

He deplored the poor state of infrastructure, particularly roads, which he said are not motorable.

Going down memory lane, the APC stalwart pointed out that Kogi was created the same time with Osun and some other states, stressing that while Osun is progressively moving forward in terms of infrastructural development, the latter has stagnated.

He said: “In Osun States education is free at the expense of the state government. The government pays for WAEC, NECO, for all SSSCE pupils and provides text books for pupils in primary schools.

“In Osun you can sleep with your eyes closed because crime rate is very low.

“There is no part in Osun where construction is not going on now but what do you have here other than lamentation by those at the helms of affairs?

“They give the impression that the state cannot work. That we are so poor that work cannot be done.”

PDP chieftains hail Ortom’s endorsement From Uja Emmanuel, Makurdi

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HIEFTAINS of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of Iharev extraction from Makurdi, Guma and Gwer West local government areas of Benue State have praised Minda stakeholders for endorsing Dr. Samuel Ortom for the governorship slot in 2015.

The chieftains included former members of the Benue State Executive Council, council chairmen, party executives, councilors, supervisors and grassroots politicians.

The party stalwarts spoke during a courtesy call on the Minister of State for Industry, Trade and Investment, Samuel Ortom, in Makurdi yesterday.

They expressed appreciation for what they described as the apparent consensus by majority in the four Tiv intermediate areas to concede the seat to the Minda political axis in the current dispensation.

The chieftains maintained that with the endorsement, the Minda stakeholders particularly the eldest politicians among them such as Iyo Iharev, John Azulo and Sylvanus Agagbe, have demonstrated understanding what the political atmosphere in the state.

•Former Vice President and chieftain of All Progressives Congress (APC) Atiku Abubakar and Alhaji Abdullahi Abbas (Dokajen Kano) at the wedding fatiha of his son, Shehu Atiku Abubakar in Yola, Adamawa State yesterday.

Ebola: FG supplies vehicles, motorcycles for border checks T

HE federal government has provided vehicles and motorcycles to effectively man strategic borders as part of measures to contain the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD).

The Minister of State for Health, Dr Halliru Alhassan, disclosed this yesterday in Sokoto while briefing newsmen on efforts to contain the deadly disease.

Alhassan said his ministry has mapped out a collabo-

From Adamu Suleiman, Sokoto

rative mechanism with the Ministry of Interior as well as its agencies against the disease.

He explained that the initiative was aimed at adequately manning the nation’s porous borders.

According to him:”The federal government is up and doing with a view not to take any chances.”

The minister said the fed-

eral government has formed a specialised rapid response team to totally deal with the menace.

The team, he said, consists of doctors, medical laboratory scientists and other medical professionals.

According to him: “The major challenge is getting the understanding of Nigerians, especially those under quarantine.”

“Over 400 persons are still under observation

while only one case is outstanding in Lagos with two isolation centres currently in operation in Lagos and Port Harcourt,” he explained.

On the residency programme, the minister said that the federal government has not sacked any resident doctor.

“The federal government only stopped the residency programme because they went on strike. But it will be reviewed,” he maintained.

Jang orders demolition of bombed market

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HE Plateau State Government has given directive to the Jos Metropolitan Development Board (JMDB) to demolish its market at the central areas of the city capital, Jos. The JMDB market, popularly known as Abuja market comprises over 200 locked up shops and stores.

It was badly affected by the twin bomb blast in Terminus Market, which killed over 100 traders.

The impact of the heavy explosions shook the story building to its foundation.

From Yusufu Aminu Idegu, Jos

The General Manager of JMDB, Brigadier General Musa Gambo(Rtd.), confirmed the directive while speaking with reporters in his office yesterday.

He said: “The building hosting the Abuja market has become a death trap as a result of the twin bomb blast that rocked the market on the 20th of May 2014.

“The walls of the building have cracks all over because the explosions caused serious damage on the foundation of the building.

“Government has carried out assessment on the building and found out that continuous occupation of that building can lead to more loss of lives its citizens because that structure can collapse any time without warning.”

He added: “The market has been marked for demolition since it has become obvious that it is not safe for human occupation which was why the market was shot down since May this year. Now government has concluded plans to demolish that market.

“Government has there-

fore directed all traders who own shops at the market to evacuate their stock within seven days for the demolition to commence. Any trader who ignores this directive does so at the risk of his or her goods in the market.”

Gambo confirmed he has met with all the traders and explained why the shops would be demolished.

He advised traders affected by the planned demolition to seek alternative spaces available at Rikkos, New Market, Katako and Kabong Satelite markets.

I have no plans to defect, says commissioner

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ASARAWA State Commissioner for Information, Hamza Mohammed, at the weekend denied the allegation that he was leading four other commissioners to resign from Governor Umar Tanko Almakura’s cabinet.

He also said he was not planning to dump the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) for another party.

The commissioner, in a

M

ASTER Card has sponsored 500 girls across the country in various skill acquisition trainings.

The scheme held under the Junior Achievement Nigeria (JAN) Girls Enterprise Programme initiative of the firm.

Speaking at the closing ceremony of the programme in Abuja, the National programme coordinator of JAN, Mrs. Franca

From Johnny Danjuma, Lafia

statement made available to The Nation, alleged that the allegations were aimed at tarnishing his name and political clout.

“The report, to say the least, is a figment of the imagination of the reporter as it concerns me and a continuation of the campaign of calumny directed at my person and the Government of Nasarawa state under

the dynamic leadership of Umaru Tanko Almakura,” Mohammed stated.

While declaring his loyalty to the governor, the commissioner stated he remained confident of his principal’s leadership attributes.

“There is no gain saying the fact that I have gained so much from the style, character and achievements of the government and will continue to be

proudly associated with its ideals and successes.”The tremendous development landmarks recorded in the short span of three years is a testimony to the prudent, accountable and visionary attribute of the Governor which I laboured to enthrone and which I will continue to support for the benefit of the people of Nasarawa State,” he said.

Firm sponsors 500 girls for enterprise acquisition From Bukola Amusan, Abuja

Thomas, said the scheme was carried out with the Agency for Science and Technology FCT as the implementing partner.

She explained it was designed to empower the girls with skills for self-employment.

“The students were taken

through 17 sessions that teach self-esteem, goals setting, carrying out research, writing business plan, funding, financial management etc, while the second part is the skill acquisition training. “ Some choose bead making, makeup artistry, computer ap-

preciation while other choose pastry making.

“We have 550 girls in the programme, 180 are being empowered in FCT, Lagos is 250 while Port Harcourt is 120 girls making a total of 550 being impacted on the programme,” she said.

GROUP, The Adamawa State Collective (ASC), has alleged that the attempts by the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Adamu Mu’azu and the Principal Private Secretary to the President, Alhaji Hassan Tukur, to impose a candidate on the PDP will spell doom for the party in the October governorship by-election in the state.

It accused Mu’azu and Tukur of working towards imposing the former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC),Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, to emerge as the governorship candidate of the PDP in Adamawa State against all odds.

The deft moves by Mu’azu and Tukur, ASC alleged, were part of a subtle but grand conspiracy against President Goodluck Jonathan ahead of the 2015 general elections.

A statement by ASC’s Musa Ayuba stated that the plot by the PDP National Chairman is aimed at planting his surrogates and men for the actualisation of his 2019 presidential ambition without considering the consequences on Jonathan’s ambition in 2015.

The ASC said: “Mu’azu doesn’t care if in the process President Jonathan’s political future is jeopardised. This was exactly what he did to former President Olusgun Obasanjo in 2003 when he campaigned against the then president by telling the people of Bauchi State to vote for him (Mu’azu) but vote against Obasanjo.

“This was the reason why in 2007 Chief Obasanjo ensured that Mu’azu’s candidate for the governorship of Bauchi was defeated and also ensured that the PDP National Chairman lost his Senatorial election.”

The group demanded for the emergence of a Christian governor in the interest of fairness and equity.

It said: “After the Christians had governed for 8 years through Boni Haruna and the Muslims also for 8 years through Murtala Nyako, it is only fair and just that the next governor should be a Christian.

“We demand that Mr. President supports a Christian to emerge as the next governor. We are not slaves of the Fulanis.”

The ASC vowed to work against the PDP if it fails to field a Christian aspirant.

Be objective, journalists charged From Austine Tsenzughul, Bauchi

J

OURNALISTS have been advised to resist any temptation of serving parochial interests.

Rather, they were told to be thoroughly professional in the discharge of their duties.

Bauchi State Commissioner of Information, Salisu Barau, gave these charges yesterday at the opening ceremony of a workshop organised by Nigerian Press Council for working journalists covering North East.

The theme of the workshop was: “Effective coverage and reportage of 2015 general elections”.

Barau, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Hajiya Jummai Abubakar, said: “Journalists should resist the temptation of serving parochial interest. Our commitment must be for the survival of corporate Nigeria.

9

THE NATION ON SUNDAY AUGUST 31, 2014

•Nigerian soldiers on rampage

"Given the present state of affairs, it is absolutely impossible for us to defeat Boko Haram" Governor Kashim Shetima in February 2014

L

AST week the world media reported what was widely called 'desertion' of battle front by about 480 Nigerian soldiers. They were said to have fled into Cameroun after a hard and bitter fight with the terrorist sect Boko Haram. According to the reports, Nigerian soldiers who were badly equipped had fled into the neighboring country to escape being killed by a sect which had been widely alleged to carry more superior weapons than the Nigerian Army.

A military retreat?

Expectedly, the Defence Headquarters issued a rebuttal saying what was done by the military was simply what is known in military circles as "tactical manoeuver " and not 'desertion'. The statement by the Director of Defence Information, Major-Gen Chris Olukolade went on to say, "The Nigerian troops that were found in Cameroon was as a result of a sustained battle between troops and the terrorists around the borders with Cameroon, which saw the Nigerian troops charging through the borders in tactical manoeuver. Eventually, they found themselves on Camerounian soil. Being allies, the normal protocol of managing such incident demanded that troops submitted their weapons in order to assure the friendly country that they were not on a hostile mission.

Following necessary discussions between Nigerian and Camerounian military authorities, the issues have been sorted out. Subsequently, the troops are on their way back to join their unit in Nigeria."

As if to confirm Gen Olukolade's statement, the unit the next day returned to the country to join their colleagues. He dismissed media reports that what happened was desertion.

Well, not many people may agree with the General since long before the incident it has become common knowledge that the Nigerian military are poorly equipped to fight this unconventional war which has stretched them thin.

'Why the fight against Boko Haram is stunted' In the last few years insurgency in the country, especially in the North East, has taken lots of lives and cost the nation more than king's ransom, in this report OLAYINKA OYEGBILE, takes a look at why we are losing the war.

It is only those who are directly concerned that can say how many body bags return home on a daily basis from the war against terrorism. The man that is directly in line of fire (sort of), Governor Kashim Shetima of Borno State had in February made a clarion call that the military were not adequately equipped to face this terror.

However, his clarion call was dismissed and he was hounded and told that as a civilian, despite his position as the 'chief security officer' of the epicenter of the crises, he didnt have enough knowledge if our military were battle ready!

Now see who is wrong and right.

But this is not the time to apportion blames. Military retreat is nothing new but the incident of last week calls for sober reflection.

Officers as contractors However, a retired senior military officer who spoke to The Nation on

Sunday on condition of anonymity agreed with the views of those who said that the military were not equipped to fight this war.

According to him, "The war against terrorism or even a conventional war in this country cannot be won with the way things are going presently." Asked to expatiate on what he meant he said, "Our system of military funding is fraught with corruption and open to clear abuse. Military budgets should never be given to military commanders or Chief of Army Staff as it is obtained presently. This is because it opens the system to corruption and abuse. The procurement system that is applicable in the United States and the United Nations is the best."

According to the retired military officer, who is widely exposed and had gone on several military and command postings under the UN in Liberia, Pakistan, Afghanistan etc, what obtains

in the UN and the United State system is that the commander makes requests of what is needed and they are supplied.

The commander, according to him, does not deal with physical cash or any military contractor thus making sure they get what they need.

He is of the opinion that the present system where contracts for building of military barracks, hospitals and such are awarded by military personnel is wrong and open to abuse. He said this was responsible for military officers living large in and out of retirement because they help themselves with the votes meant for buying equipment. He pointed out that our military barracks are today in poor shape compared to others anywhere in the world. He asked: "How do you expect a soldier housed in a facility that is like a pen to fight an enemy with determination?"

He pointed out that the protest by wives of soldiers in Borno State a few

•Boko Haram

weeks back should have woken up the country to the reality of the situation it was facing. He referred to the firing incident which also occurred in the barracks there. According to him, not even during the country's civil war did soldiers fire at their commanding officer during a parade.

Reacting to the alleged 'desertion' or 'tactical manoevre' by the Nigerian troops into Camerounian territory last week, he said, "Well, as a former military man I would like to believe the General's explanation. However, does the common man on the street believe him against the backdrop of protests by the wives of the soldiers who kicked against sending their husbands to fight with bad hardware and weapons? This flies in the face of the reality we face.

People are dying daily and every Nigerian today believes that the military is poorly kitted. If you go to the Air Force how many jets do they have flying? Same for the Navy and other armed forces. Unless the procurement system is radically overhauled we are just scratching the surface; curing ringworm when leprosy is chopping off the fingers."

The view of the retired officer is shared by Shehu Sani, the Kaduna based human rights activist who in an interview said, "I think it's unfortunate for a country like ours that is a power in Africa that has been engaged in acts of peacekeeping in other countries. That has one of the best military officers and best military locations in the whole continent would now be exposed to being inadequately funded and equipped to handle this insurgency."

Sani also believes that corruption is killing our military. According to him, "I think the revelation simply exposes the level of corruption that is within the system and it also exposes how the insurgency has become an excuse for defrauding the state. We are a country with a very fat defence budget but with a very skinny and slimy armed forces and security agencies that are ill trained and underfunded. You can see the exchange of words between the Minister of Finance few months ago with the Army authorities whereby the minister said she has given over N138billion to the army while the army is saying that what they have received is less than a quarter of that." (Read the full interview on page 40-41).

The truth from this all is that: the military is in need of an overhaul to overcome the present challenges. It is time for the Commander in Chief to look in that direction.

10

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, AUGUST 31, 2014

NEWS REVIEW

Jos crisis: when a community sues S security agencies

ECURITY agencies in Plateau State have been dragged to a Federal High Court in Jos. The action, instituted by the Berom Youth Movement (BYM), the Berom-speaking people of the state, was taken to demand for N501.8billion as cost of damages suffered by the Berom ethnic group during the prolonged crisis in the state.

Also joined in a lawsuit instituted by the BYM are men of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), Special Task Force (STF) on Jos Crisis code named 'Operation Safe Haven', the Nigerian Army, Nigerian Airforce, Nigerian Navy and State Security Services (SSS).

Also sued according to the group is the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister for Justice, according to the group in a discussion with journalists in Jos. In the suit filed before the Honourable Justice Ambrose Alagoa of the Federal High Court, Jos, the BYM claimed that "acts of genocide were visited on Berom people under the watchful eyes of the security agencies".

The Berom further alleged in their suit that besides loss in human resources, they also incurred economic loss which included burnt property such as 854 houses and 150 vehicles, 13,100 cows, 10,040 goats and Sheep rustled plus 17,000 chickens all destroyed by the attackers during the crisis.

Counsel to the Berom, Barr Gyang Zi, in his application, urged the court to hold the security agencies and their employer, the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN), responsible for all the atrocities that befell the Berom people during the crisis.

Gyand Zi said "not less than 1,193 Berom men, women and children were killed while over 3,250 were injured or incapacitated during the crisis".

He also that the killings was described as ethnic cleansing by Fulani Marauders due to neglect of duty of security agencies.

Acting National President, BYM, Mr. Rwang Dantong said, "We have to file this suit because the Berom deserves the right to be protected by the Federal Government as provided in the Nigerian Constitution. I am not always comfortable when people outside Plateau State describe the situation between Berom and Fulani as crisis. This is wrong.

What has been happening is the case where the Fulani launch attacks on harmless Berom people in a Guerrilla fashion. The Fulani armed men will hide in the bush during the day and descend on the Berom people at night in their sleep.

Do you call such attack crisis? No, we are talking of series of unprovoked attacks. So, it is wrong to say it is a crisis. It is not a case of two people clashing and fighting.

It has been a case of one group always attacking the other at night.

"The Berom people had never moved out of their domain and go to a Fulani settlement and attack them, rather it has been the Fulani coming to Berom settlement to attack us. If you take a catalogue of all the attacks since 2010, you will realise that it is the Berom that have been under attack all the time. The casualties has always been the

The crisis in Jos has been long and protracted. Recently one of the ethnic groups embroiled in the crises decided to head to the courtroom by suing security agencies.

Yusufu Aminu Idegu examines the issues.

•Berom and Fulani in one of the peace parley in Jos

•Alhaji Saleh Bayeri, National Secretary Fulani Breeders Association of Nigeria

Berom, they kill my people in tens and hundreds. Remember the case of Dogo Nahawa in 2010, the armed Fulani came at the dead of the night to wipe out an entire community".

Continuing Dantong said, "In the attack the Fulani launched on Dogo Nahawa alone, they killed over 500 women, children and the aged. It attracted a global

•Mr. Rwang Dantong, Ag National President Berom Youths Movement

condemnation. The Fulani themselves never denied that attack. They claimed they were on revenge mission. So who say this suit is not appropriate? In fact, we have evidences of how the attackers were aided by the security agencies in most situations. At some of the scene of such attacks, we do pick identity card of security agencies. We have

them as a proof", he affirmed.

Asked if the sum quoted as claims for general damages in the suit was apt, he said "the sum we are demanding cannot even replace all the life lost. And I mean quality lives. We lost a senator, a trained medical doctor, a Majority Leader of the State House of Assembly, late Hon. Gyang James Fulani, and several others. These

are quality lives that money cannot buy. Not to talk of the numbers of youths, mothers and properties destroyed. They are unquantifiable. So, the amount we are demanding here is quite insignificant to what we lost.

"So, we call it ethnic cleansing because the attacks were consistence on one particular tribe since 2001. As I am talking to you now, 13 villages have been wiped out in Riyom LG alone. We have similar cases in Barkin Ladi LG. Then, look at the casualty figures. So, there is no better name to call such incidence than ethnic cleansing," Dantong stressed.

However Musa Yero, a Fulani man residing in Barkin Ladi, said, "The allegation against the Fulani

by Berom people, to me, is neither here nor there. But the good thing is that the case is now before the law court and the onus lies on the complainant to prove their case and be able to identify the Fualani that killed the Berom people. As far as a I know, there are Fulani all over Africa and rest of the world, they have no boundary because they move around with their cattle. The Fulani has no permanent settlement. That is why I said the onus lies on the complainant to identify their attackers.

Yero continued, "I only say this for the sake of it, else, what I know is that the case is filed against security agencies of the FG. It is not particularly against the Fulani. So I am not holding brief for the FG. My response is only as a concerned citizen of Nigeria".

Another Fulani businessman in Jos, Alhaji Muhammed Nasiru, said, "This is not the first time I heard the Berom making all kinds of allegations against the Fulani. I'm surprised that they are still raising the issue today to the extent of dragging security agencies to court. It sounds funny to me because, one, the Fulani and the Berom have been co-existing in Plateau State for a century and more.

Then, how come that all of a sudden, the Fulani rose up and start killing the Beroms. That is the question the whole world should be asking. There must be a cause to the conflict in Berom land. Maybe by the time the truth emerges, we may realise that it is this same Berom that provoked the conflicts. As for the case in court, all of us are waiting to see the outcome of the suit, I belief the judiciary will do justice to it".

Meanwhile, the Plateau State government, in partnership with the European Union (EU), had established a peace building process in the state since 2011 and has reportedly gone far in the projects. In the last meeting of the Plateau Peace Architecture Meeting sponsored by EU through an NGO known as Search For Common Ground (SFCG), ethnic groups in the state including Berom and Fulani have agreed to constitute an all inclusive Plateau Peace Forum (PPF), comprising about 300 tribes. A PPF steering committee has reportedly swung into action to work out modalities for the peace process which is described as the first of its kind in the state.

ues

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, AUGUST 31, 2014

11

I

N the desperate search for political relevance, not a few Nigerian politicians behave like common whores, throwing morals to the dogs. Within the matrix of the content of character, they vacillate just like the tropic weather. They praise in the morning what they have denied the night before, once the price is right. Or, perhaps the wind of change does not suit their political temperament.

Too often, they assume, but wrongly so that the masses have lost their sense of history, forgotten or even forgiven their odious past, and ready to swallow their tall tales by moonlight, as if they were some gullible and naĂŻve kids. But Nigerian electorate is much wiser now. For God's sake this is the 21st Century!

Incidentally, one Nigerian politician who squarely fits this bill is none other than Chief Tom Ikimi, the Man Friday to the late dictator, General Sani Abacha. Only recently, he had this to say in his statement entitled: My Reflections. "I have spent almost 13 of the past 15 years faithfully dug in, in the trenches of the evolving democratic dispensations in our country, steadfastly pursuing my conviction that for true democracy to take firm root in Nigeria we should fall in line with the model practised in successful democracies in the world, of a party in office and a scrutinising alternative party holding the Government to account." But we know him much better than that.

For the records, Ikimi was never a democrat and even as an adept and crafty political chameleon he cannot metamorphose into one over night.

He may be suffering from delusion of grandeur. So, we ask the pertinent question: What role did he play during the dark days of the NADECO struggle to emancipate the Nigerian nation and its good people from the iron grip of military despotism? In those dark, inglorious days, Ikimi as the self-centred politician that he has always been chose to turn his back on the people and became deaf to their cries of anguish by dining with Abacha. He was and still remains the archetype of an ignoble anti-democrat. For Ikimi to have assumed that Nigerians have so short a memory and would embrace his foray into party politics without questions betrays his understanding of the word, 'democracy'.

He, Ikimi it was again who practised bolekaja diplomacy in the face of a clear injustice that triggered global outrage, when he openly supported Abacha's death sentence on Ken Saro-Wiwa, acclaimed human rights activist and internationally recognised environmentalist, and the Ogoni-11.

No democrat would have justified and defended that type of brutal, barbaric and bestial murder of his people's conscience and voice.

His recent claim that Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, a much more refined and respected democrat has never been a popular politician has been rubbished by his own antecedents. Has he forgotten that when he (Ikimi) was the Chairman of the NRC during the IBB days of dictatorship, his people who understand him far more, elected Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, as against Ikimi's candidate, Lucky Igbenedion, as their first-ever democratically chosen state governor? And why not? OdigieOyegun has over the years remained a consistent and committed democrat unlike Ikimi who, more like an unprincipled politician pitches his tent wherever he feels the grass is greener and romances any government in power? Such a person does not have any moral authority to put himself forward for any

•Ikimi

Ikimi's diatribe and the limits of political buffoonery elective post in the first instance.

Where was Ikimi when Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu remained stoutly as the last man standing against the conservatives under the Chief Olusegun Obasanjo's regime as it bulldozed through the SouthWest geo-political zone? Ikimi, the mole that he has always been, was hand-in-glove with the reactionary forces.

Now, he goes further to depths of depravity by alleging that Tinubu was not a millionaire until he became the Lagos State governor in 2003.Unkown to him, Asiwaju has worked his way up the ladder of corporate success to become the Treasurer of Mobil. Unlike Ikimi who has never been known to use his money for a noble or patriotic cause, Tinubu it was who funded NADECO against the blood-letting, fascist despotism foisted on peaceloving Nigerians by the Abacha regime.

Had Tinubu been as self-serving as Ikimi he would gladly have joined forces with the military administration then and become the Minister of Finance. But he chose, as usual to be on the side of the people.

By Idowu Ajanaku Instead, he fled the country into self exile to strengthen NADECO's clamour for the return of democracy.

At that material time, Ikimi was the Secretary on Foreign Affairs to Abacha, globe-trotting, including being at the Commonwealth Group of Nations to defend the indefensible.

Also in his confused perception he claims that Tinubu wanted Chief Bisi Akande retained as the APC Chairman. Unknown to him, Akande had earlier asked to opt out due to old age. As an enduring brand for the anti-corruption battle in Nigeria he would not go against the stipulations of the party's Constitution. But Ikimi thought otherwise. He stated that: "The Constitution of the Party clearly defines the Party Organs and the Party Leadership. There is no provision for anyone to be named as the Party Leader. Asiwaju Bola Tinubu having paraded himself both at home and abroad as The Leader of Opposition and of the APC had great difficulty in descending from the fictitious

throne. In order to continue manipulating the party from his parlours in Abuja and Lagos he struggled to retain Chief Bisi Akande as Chairman."

To also allude to the loss of Ekiti governorship to the PDP as a vote against Tinubu amounts to tissue of white lies! From all indications, that election was a personality struggle between Dr. Kayode Fayemi and Ayodele Fayose. The latter, if the vote by the people is anything to go by is more grassroots related. Was the vote against Tinubu, as erroneously assumed by Ikimi, the same scenario would have played itself out in the recent Osun governorship election.

He was wrong again on the Muslim-Muslim ticket. How could that have happened when APC had not formed a National Exco, nor put structures on ground at the unit, ward, Local Government Councils? That could not have been when the party was yet to provide the guidelines on the emergence of candidates for governorship at the state and the presidency at the national level.

It is for Nigerians to decide if

they want a Muslim/Muslim ticket.

After all, it happened in 1993 and heavens did not fall. What the citizens need at this critical moment of our troubled history are men and women who would frontally tackle the monsters of corruption, mass youth unemployment, insecurity, the insidious culture of impunity to deliver the dividends of democracy at their doorstep.

Ikimi is also wrong on the Ribadu issue. That Tinubu used and dumped him in the 2011 election is a figment of Ikimi's wild imagination.

During the negotiations to expand the scope of the party to assume a national dimension, the CPC and ACN had a gentleman's arrangement that the former should produce the presidential candidate and the ACN to produce the Vice Presidential candidate but Buhari and Bakare did not accede to this.

That President Goodluck Jonathan eventually won can be traced to his presence at the Redeemed Christian Church of God's Annual Holy Ghost festival.

His tacit endorsement there sent signal to the largely Christiandominated South-West geopolitical zone. Ribadu at that time could not even win at his ward in Adamawa state.

Contrary to Ikimi's statement that "Tinubu's reckless and arrogant self-aggrandisement paved the way for the imposition of a strange leadership on the APC in July 2013 when the party obtained registration from INEC" It was his political clout that did the magic.

And to say that "Those of us who had worked so hard towards the successful merger and creation of the APC were manipulated out of the scheme of things" exposes him as one always desperate for political recognition, wanting to reap where he never sowed.

The OANDO contract he also referred to on the eve of the APC Chairmanship election followed due process and has nothing to do with the person of Bola Ahned Tinubu. Ikimi should get his facts right.

He and Modu Sheriff were never going to be seen even by Nigerians as progressives or true democrats.

While Ikimi is branded as belonging to any government in power, Sheriff has the stinking toga as the mastermind behind the Boko Haram insurgency. It was always going to be hard for the tiger to change its colour.

Tinubu has paid his dues in the democratic dispensation, as the beacon bearer. One can situate him within the milieu of a born-leader who has vision in quantum; one with the capacity to feel the pulse and the pains of his people; one who has the courage to do right and the boldness to say 'no' to evil in all its shade; one with the compassion to right the wrongs bedeviling his people.

Fortunately, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is blessed with all these character traits. And as amply demonstrated during his struggles for democracy, his eight years qualitative leadership as the Lagos State governor, against all odds he is eminently qualified to lead this nation to greater heights.

For Ikimi's exit, it is good riddance to bad rubbish. He has had no credentials of a democrat and he cannot now assume one through the backdoor! Nigeria and Nigerians certainly deserve more stable and morally sound leaders.

You cannot give what you do not have.

Ajanaku, a journalist writes from Lagos.

12

THE NATION ON SUNDAY AUGUST 31, 2014

Ropo Sekoni

13

Page 14

Femi Orebe Page 16

SUNDAY, AUGUST 31, 2014

From Boko Haram to Ebola tunjade@yahoo.co.uk 08054503906 (sms only)

Even if millions die, should that stop the President’s campaign train? Go on, TAN

J

UST as we were celebrating our containment of Ebola, and as if to make nonsense of that celebration, a fresh Ebola case was detected in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, on Thursday. I had wanted to caution that we should not dance ourselves lame on Ebola yet when our health minister, Prof Onyebuchi Chukwu, said last week that we had contained the disease. But then, one could have been branded as unpatriotic. With the Port Harcourt discovery, it simply means we still have a lot to do to keep Ebola at bay.

Indeed, Nigeria has not been at ease since Mr. Patrick Sawyer, the AmericanLiberian imported the disease into the country on July 20. In fairness to the Federal Government, its response and collaboration with the Lagos State government since July 20 have been impressive. This has, as it were, almost obliterated the fact that its agencies at the airport had been lax in their duties, hence Mr. Sawyer’s ability to beat the security checks there.

Well, as some would argue, such collaboration is the most sensible thing to do where Ebola is concerned. This is a different ballgame from the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

Yes, Ebola, like AIDS does not respect party affiliation. It is no respecter of whether you are progressive or conservative. It does not recognise boundary, be it religious, social, economic or geographical. Like AIDS, Ebola has no known cure. With AIDS, one can take all the precautionary measures: buy your barbing kits to avoid using general clippers, avoid using the same injection or syringe with someone carrying the AIDS virus; don’t take blood transfusion indiscriminately, above all, avoid the ‘danger down below’, zip up.

Even where all these fail, AIDS could still be somewhat managed. But not so with Ebola. So far, there is no known cure for it. Anyone struck by it could jolly well start singing the Nunc Dimittis, or its other version, ‘Oh Lord, I am coming home’.

That is how bad things are. So, even when one is crying, he should still be clear-headed as to keep his eyes wide open. Even where political party or ideology differs, that should not preclude collaboration to ward off the Ebola.

It seems to me that with Ebola, God does not need to take any trouble of using either fire or flood to bring the world to an end again if He so desires today. Some 5,000 Ebola patients would do the job.

Imagine what would have been our fate in Nigeria had Sawyer been allowed to escape into thin air as he had wanted to, even after having been taken to First Consultants Hospital in the Obalende area of Lagos? Not even Donatus could have been as generous as he would have generously distributed the virus in the

•Prof Chukwu

country, such that even the Boko Haram terrorists would have seen how little their bombs and other armaments that they had hitherto relied on as weapons of mass destruction could be.

Nigeria had been dealing with a seemingly intractable blood-letting unleashed by the Boko Haram insurgents before Ebola came. Indeed, since 2009 when Boko Haram began its onslaught on the country, there has been no respite. The insurgents have attacked virtually everywhere one could imagine and even never have imagined, including police and military formations. It has sacked entire townships and presently has its flag hoisted in Gwoza, Borno State, where it has also proclaimed a caliphate. More than 12, 000 lives had been lost to the senseless attacks by the terrorists and they do not appear to be done yet. The way they slaughter their victims that they did not bomb suggests they are being propelled by some blood-sucking demons.

As things stand, the terrorists are still holding captive more than 100 secondary school girls that they abducted in their hostel in Chibok in April. At least twice they have rubbished the ultimatums given by top military chiefs even as they seem on a systematic mission of demystifying the Nigerian military, given the ease with which they stroll into parts of the country, abducting people at will.

In all of these, one person I do not envy is President Goodluck Jonathan. Indeed, if any man is sitting on a hot seat, President Jonathan is it. So hot is the seat that one would think he should be in a hurry to get out of it. But the most surprising thing is that he is not in a hurry to complete his term and leave. He has been to churches to pray for peace and apparently to seek God’s nod for more years in the rock. And, just in case that fails, he also invited some Senegalese clerics to Aso Rock, in what many have

“ In all of these, one person I do not envy is President Goodluck Jonathan. Indeed, if any man is sitting on a hot seat, President Jonathan is it. So hot is the seat that one would think he should be in a hurry to get out of it.

But the most surprising thing is that he is not in a hurry to complete his term and leave. He has been to churches to pray for peace and apparently to seek God’s nod for more years in the rock. And, just in case that fails, he also invited some Senegalese clerics to Aso Rock ...But President Jonathan ... has not called in the African Traditional Religion people for similar prayer”

interpreted as a spiritual angle to the current war against Boko Haram. The 10 clerics were led to the State House, Abuja, by Khalifah Sheikh Ahmad Tijani Inyass, the grandson of Late Shehu Tijani Ibrahim Inyass, the founder of the Tijjaniya sect.

They met for about an hour with the President at the First Lady’s Conference Room and offered prayers for an end to the security challenges facing Nigeria, as well as for peace and stability in the country.

Jonathan is not alone in this.

As the spokesman of the group, Ahmed Tijani Sanni Alwalu said, “It is a historic visit because it has been done by his father with the then President, Gen. Yakubu Gowon and Gen. Aguiyi-Ironsi. So, history is repeating itself and we come for the Moulude of Ibrahim Inyass Gombe and on his way going home, the President requested for a courtesy visit and Shehu granted that.”

But President Jonathan is yet to complete the ‘tripod’ as he has not called in the African Traditional Religion people for similar prayer. In this wise, one would have thought he would cultivate Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State whose government has embraced the ‘three-in-one’. But he appears to have made Aregbesola a sworn enemy because it was only in Aregbesola’s Osun State that the president did not do well at all in the south west in the 2011 presidential election. With Aregbe’s election for a second term, that history is set to repeat itself in the state in next year’s general elections, a thing President Jonathan had wished he could nip in the bud, by militarising the state to scare voters in the August 9 governorship election.

Interestingly, to date, President Jonathan has not indicated his intention to stand for reelection, but his campaign train is already on the track. The most visible one is the Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN) that has been holding rallies on his behalf, I suspect very much against his will, reminding one of the late General Sani Abacha who never said he wanted to transmute from military to civilian president but everything, including his body language and all, pointed in that direction. With TAN having flagged off the president’s reelection campaign, Nigeria has moved on. What this implies is that that is the end of the search for the Chibok girls; that is if Nigeria ever searched for them. Apparently those who came to help us had to abandon us to our fate when they saw how unserious and unprepared we are in looking for the poor girls. Not many serious countries would want to have anything to do with a country whose soldiers, in the course of ‘tactical manoeuvre’, would stray 80 kilometres into another country in battle!

But, wouldn’t it have been better for our military authorities to tell us that in this season of defections, our soldiers merely took a cue from our politicians and defected to Cameroon, instead of saying they were on ‘tactical manoeuvre’?

But whatever the degree of bloodletting or blood-shedding, the president’s campaign train must start. If he wins reelection, President Jonathan would still have a large part of the country under his control. And if he loses, his successor may have to negotiate with the rebels for a return of the Gwoza caliphate to Nigeria.

Stranded in Jamaica

F

OR sometime now, I have been in touch with a Nigerian who along with some others are stranded in Jamaica due to their inability to renew their Nigerian passport.

In his last mail Eromonsele Akhidenor wrote: I am writing to let you know that I am seriously relying on you to speak out on our behalf as I have observed that we might wait endlessly here and no one will ever rescue us.

I have decided to reproduce one of his mails for the urgent attention of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Immigration Service. I will be glad if necessary action is taken to rescue Akhidenor and other Nigerians waiting to be rescued. “ I left Nigeria in 2010 in a bid to obtain a graduate(Masters and PHD )degrees to further enhance my capability to be useful to my community and my country I chose the Caribbean because of a personal choice I made. “ I have completed my Master’s Program in Integrated Urban and Rural Environmental Management under Natural Resource Management Streams with good grades (My school can be contacted to verify my academic grades as I emerged as one of the best students).

At this point, I am stranded in Jamaica and have turned a destitute due to the non-renewal of the present e-passport at the Nigeria High Commission Kingston Jamaica.

“My problem started by the Month of May 2013 when my Nigerian passport was about to expire,4 months before its expiration date I proceeded to the Nigeria High commission here in Kingston Jamaica to get it renewed only to be told that I cannot renew my passport at the High Commission in Jamaica.

I was told that I will have to go back to Nigeria to renew the said passport, because they do not have the new machine and personnel to do so here in Jamaica. That was the first surprise of my life.

“At another occasion I went back to explain my position to the Embassy officials about my inability to travel back to Nigeria, because this was at the heart of my final Master’s research project which was sponsored by the Environmental Foundation of Jamaica and this was a topic where I looked at Hazard Mapping and Risk Assessment in five communities within the buffer zone of one of Jamaica’s renowned protected area, the Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park.

This was a rare opportunity granted a foreigner and I did not intend to let it pass by me. It was then that the Administrative Attache one Mr Rufus Adeniyi gave me two options. “ He told me, I could go to the Nigerian High Commission in New York or alternatively, I should write down my name and wait for the Nigerian Immigration Officials from the United States. He stated that, they usually come to the embassy to renew passports once in a year. In order to be on the safe side I took both options. I then immediately contacted the United States of America Embassy here in Kingston.

The Embassy of the United States of America told me that there is a six month validity period rules which must be adhered to by citizens of some selected countries which included Nigeria and that automatically disqualified me to travel to the United States hence I chose the second option.

“I went back to the embassy I was given a notebook to write down my name and my phone number. I did not only put down my phone number I also included my wife’s phone number just to be sure they are able to contact me. I waited and kept in constant contact with the embassy only to be told on the 31st of October when I contacted the High Commission, that the Nigerian Immigration officials came and they stayed for two days and that since it was a short notice the embassy could not contact every one of us.

“The Nigerian community in the Caribbean are professionals and law abiding citizens whose life and destiny should not be toiled with by the inefficient way our officials especially those from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Nigerian Immigration Service handle their assigned duty.”

14

THE NATION ON SUNDAY AUGUST 31, 2014

COMMENT

Confab: opening its political balance sheet 1 I

F PROFESSOR BolajiAkinyemi’s self-congratulation is a good measure of how to assess the just concluded national conference in Abuja, there would have been no reason for any federalist in the country to have a second thought about the hyperbolic claims of success at the end of the conference. Having served as the vice chairman of the conference, nobody would blame the former foreign minister for grading a project he co-directed generously, although most people in that capacity would rather wait for others not engrossed in the project to do the evaluation. The balance sheet of the conference does not look as good as it has been painted by the conference’s vice chairman. That the balance sheet appears more negative than the vice chairman has acknowledged is not necessarily because of what the conference staff did directly or did not do at all.

The conference was aborted ab initio or at its planning stage. Preferring to select delegates to mandating communities to elect their representatives in many ways hobbled the good people that were selected to determine how the peoples of Nigeria want to inter-relate with each other in one united political territory. In addition, the assignment given to the conference was too much: amending or re-writing the 1999 Constitution and also writing a proposal on how to re-invent governments across the board. Just reviewing the basic laws of union would have been enough for a conference of that size without overloading the delegates with an encyclopaedia of items about governance-- from designing form of government to showing how to build a silo to keep harvested grains in the country.

Moreover, the possibility of thinking out of the box in terms of constructing basic laws of union was limited by the house rules that required a minimum of 70% of votes for any decision to hold in the absence of a consensus. Furthermore, what was needed to make delegates

Just reviewing the basic laws of union would have been enough for a conference of that size without overloading the delegates with an encyclopaedia of items about governance think creatively about how to design a multiethnic state-nation was ruled out at the beginning of the conference by its convener: President GoodluckJonathan. Delegates were told that nobody had the right to think about self-determination, as doing so would question the basis of the union of Nigeria’s nationalities, as if a constitutional conference is not about questioning or problematising the status quo.

There is no doubt that honest delegates must have gone to the conference, not necessarily for the emoluments as many commentators have observed, but perhaps because delegates were optimistic that they could achieve very much with very little. To be fair to the delegates, they must have exerted themselves. Just seeing the catalogue of what they advise governments to do in order to make Nigeria work or thrive regardless of the type of constitution it has, is enough to convince those who live by criticising others that the delegates thought and talked about many things in the few months of deliberation. Taking over 600 resolutions about every aspect of governing a country, ranging from establishing a sports village and how to choose athletes to represent the country to ensuring adequate supply of potable water for toilets in the markets across the country must have required paying attention to details. The success of the conference is not in the changes delegates recommended in the direction of restoring federalism but more in terms of giving the president a Governance Blueprint of what to do and how to do them in order to govern meaningfully.

Opening the balance sheet after the conference has submitted its report to the convener suggests that the Yoruba region in particular has gained the least from the conference. This may not be because of any inadequacy on the part of

Yoruba delegates. Yoruba delegates included some of the country’s best and finest men and women, many of whom would have been elected by their people were such opportunity available before the conference. But the Yoruba went to the conference as disparate groups or members of opposition parties or pro- and anti-Jonathan groups, rather than as Yoruba people with the belief that true federalism marked by shared governance and shared sovereignty including a reasonable measure of resource control among federating units would improve the life chances of Yoruba people. Each Yoruba delegate believed that his or her patriotism was enough to guarantee seminal contribution at the conference.

Even before the conference, the Yoruba region was divided on the issue of the conference.

Some of the delegates, especially those referred to as leaders of Afenifere or old Afenifere were believed by many to have colluded with the presidency to design a conference that was to be driven

by North-South dichotomy and to strengthen Jonathan’s bid for another tenure, on the assumption that de-federalisation of Nigeria since 1966 was the brain child of the North. Such individuals who later became delegates joined forces with other southern regions to prepare a Southern Position, which, from all accounts, now appears to have been jettisoned before the meeting or during the meeting.

In fact, it took the circulation of the paper from the North titled the “Strength and Backbone of Nigeria” for some Yoruba delegates to commission a paper on regionalism, to replace the anecdotal case each brilliant Yoruba delegate was capable of and expected to make at the conference. It also took one of the young delegates from the Yoruba region to beg and cajole a lot of the delegates for them to see the need to keep

their eyes on the ball: functional federalism. The reason for this should have been obvious at the beginning. Yoruba leaders who believe they constitute the region’s permanent shadow cabinet were bent on proving Yoruba politicians who thought the conference was a diversion wrong. In this process, they were enthusiastic more about making sure the conference did not end prematurely than in ensuring that any meaningful re-federalization took place.

Such leaders had trust in the alliance they conjured with some Southeast and South-south leaders. The burden of proving Yoruba APC leaders wrong about the conference hobbled many of the delegates from the Yoruba region, to the extent that none of the issues raised over the years by the Yoruba about how to bring federalism back to the polity got into the catalogue of resolutions. The highlights of the conference’s success according to Professor Akinyemi should be seen in the context of the overall desire to avoid clear failure that could prove those opposed to the conference right. I am not sure most of the delegates had time to worry about those of us who argued that a national conference called by anybody and at any time was always worth attending. Otherwise, going back to the old National Anthem would not have counted as a success worth celebrating. Pro-democracy groups during the anti-Abacha dictatorship switched from the “Arise o compatriots” to “Nigeria we hail thee” without necessarily moving the country a notch higher on the ladder of federalism.

This was not because individual delegates did not think and talk right at the conference. It must have been because the civil war the Yoruba fought at home before and during the conference became a burden for most of the delegates, to the extent that regions that came there with proper strategic thinking got what they wanted while the Yoruba region got the option of a state police that is to be subsumed under the central police, which, in addition to other central para-police units: FRSC, National Civil Defence Corps, each state must have as the country’s superintending law enforcement agency. The conference report shows that the Yoruba may be better than other regions in fighting civil wars among themselves, other regions, particularly the North and the Southeast are more astute in strategic thinking, directed at getting their political desires fulfilled.

To be continued

THE NATION ON SUNDAY AUGUST 31, 2014

COMMENT

15

Confab as farce The recently concluded conference ended as a waste of a dire nation’s resources

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T began in controversy, and it ended an anti-climax. The opposition asserted the point, which was nothing new, that what Nigerians wanted was a sovereign national conference. Such a conference, which should trigger a fiery frankness from the conferees, would have no limits, including the necessity to renegotiate Nigeria’s existence, or its structure of today.

Those who supported it said any opportunity to confer should be welcomed, and the Federal Government, under the leadership of President Goodluck Jonathan, was offering a rare platform to put behind us a rancour of a generation.

There was a great ritual wrapped around it. As a prologue, an exploratory body toured the country to collate views, and its members seemed to bask in a certain democratic glow as though they had a mandate to renew Nigeria. The body known as the Committee on National Conference under Femi Okunrounmu, betrayed a blend of stately humility and vain bluster, in carrying out their duties. The dress rehearsal was seen as grand by a stand point and farcical by the other. A sense of a dual mandate racked the country, one mandate from the top and another from below. But it was not clear, since there was no poll, what the mandate from below wanted.

Once the stage was set, many politicians, civil rights personas, professionals, ethnic advocates and even clerics, jostled to partake in a drama of inclusion. Suddenly, ethnic masters started to coalesce their troops behind position papers and polemical postures justifying the value of the conference. They even pitched it as an invaluable watershed in history. Some opposition politicians veered out of their partisan togas and scrambled for spots as delegates. At certain junctures, the lines blurred between the opposition and the socalled establishment. It became accepted by a big part of the civil society as a legitimate effort not only to develop the country, but also to unify a fractious people.

Sober questions were raised. One, how could such a conference be called legitimate when the attendees

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EACE and unity, reconciliation and forgiveness are what we Nigerians should stand to acknowledge through wisdom, kindness, liberty, justice, fairness, love, work to overcoming the negative through the creation of a positive mindset that would lead us to a positive environment.

We knew that there is more power in unity than in division, more to love than in hate. I read a story by a lady who said in the following lines: “Once when I was young, maybe more than once, when I was extremely disrespectful to my mother, my father angrily called me ‘garbage’ in our native Hokkien dialect.

“It worked really well. I felt terrible and deeply ashamed of what I had done. But it didn’t damage my self esteem or anything like that. I knew exactly how highly he thought of me. I didn’t actually think I was worthless or feel like a piece of garbage.

“As an adult, I once did the same thing to Sophie, calling her garbage in English when she acted extremely disrespectful toward me. When I mentioned I had done this at a dinner party, I was immediately ostracised. One guest named Marcy got so upset she broke down in tears and had to leave early.

“My friend Susan, the host, tried to rehabilitate me with the remaining guests.

“Oh dear, it’s just a misunderstanding. Amy was speaking metaphorically-right, Amy? You didn’t actually call Sophie ‘garbage.’” “Um, yes I

emerged from the ranks and caprices of tired and recycled elite? Two, under what law was this claptrap jamboree going to be legitimated? Three, how could we reconcile its work and fruit with the existence of a bicameral legislature, the National Assembly, which enjoyed the backing of the constitution? Four, after the dust of deliberations settled, what shall we make of the report since it did not enjoy the stirrings of the law.

Under the questionable halo of patriots and the overhang of princely four-million-Naira-a-month allowance, the conference kicked off under the leadership of former Chief Justice Idris Kutigi, a respected personage.

The conference had, in its several sessions, a motley dose of comedy, tragedy, sobriety, rumination, frivolities and even subversion. At the end of the deliberations, a number of facts emerged. One, it was able, in spite of sceptics, to collate and unify its position in one document, however ponderous. Two, none of its positions was groundbreaking. Rather, it rehashed old conclusions already canvassed, and popular but also contained in reports submitted by several other committees to the president since the dawn of this republic. Ironically though, one of the issues was so contentious that the confab abdicated decision to the wisdom of the president.

Three, the president has foreclosed the possibility of a referendum, and therefore leaves the matter in the hands of the National Assembly, an institution that

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has looked askance at the feverous deliberations of the confab for about four months.

The third point made the whole affair an anticlimax. What it means is that there will be no referendum because it was not supposed to be a document of mass assent. It was an elite gathering with the bogus veneer of inclusiveness. Apart from a few sober attendees, it raked in professionals, ethnic champions, expired politicians, cronies, court jesters, buffoons, intellectual salesmen and political fuddyduddies who parade themselves as icons.

With this motley crowd of opportunists, some of them making a vain show of quixotic patriotism by donating their allowances to nebulous charities, nothing great was expected by this newspaper from this conference. Nothing, it has turned out, is coming out of it. Some of the self-proclaimed progressives looked desperate after the confab as they started agitating in the media as though they wanted to force the hands of the president to implement the contents of a conference they knew was destined to a paralytic bin. They are undergoing a post-conference remorse and shame.

President Goodluck Jonathan, in a spurt of ill grace, launched broadsides at the critics of the confab by saying they have been proved wrong. Not so, mister president. The confab would be deemed successful if he can implement the contents of the report within the ambit of the law.

Some of the recommendations like the two-tier system of federalism, the separation of the position of accountant-general of the federation and accountantgeneral of the Federal Government, among others lacked originality. The issue of revenue formula and the principles of derivation were deadlocked and left with the president to set a committee to resolve. When existing states are famished for funds, the confab called for more states, up to 18.

An affair that cost billions of taxpayers’ money should not have ended up like this. But it did. That shows that it was a conference of futility, a burlesque rigmarole to squander the time and resources of a poor nation.

whenever a person or a people of a nation repent before Him, He (God) responds … thus, restoration, transformation and redemption are the fruits of repentance.

Our God is a God of restoration. His restoration and redemption may take long to come, whatever the situation, it will come. Hence, we have to keep on praying that God should mitigate His judgment on the nation.

Like the Prophet Habakkuk, our prayer should be O Lord, “in wrath remember mercy”. When and where the Lord shows mercy, healing, progress and prosperity will be the result. Again I decree prophetically that Nigeria shall be saved (Amen).

vals, but as Nigerian sons and daughters. We will work in tandem as one family for the growth of the country.

We should not be behaving like those who are far away from civilisation. Nigeria is ours and should not be made a jungle of a sort due to our different political aspirations and interests. When we look up far off in the distance, we will see hope. But no one can bring the Utopian world around us if we do not work towards having such around us and making sure that we bring it.

It is not a Spartan babble that this treatise is made up of.

We have to be in the front string to build the very-well towers. We cannot continue to fight with narrow minds. We must compel ourselves to change our mindsets about what we think our country should be. We should outgrow the level of bickering and tinkering and looking for whom to make prey.

I beseech all and sundry to pursue excellence and stop this argument, this fusion of wars, but focus on the way forward for the country. We are a great people that should not rub mud on the face and yet looking for who to correct.

One Chuck Palahniuk said: The trick to forgetting the big picture is to look at everything close-up. The shortcut to closing a door is to bury yourself in the details. This is how we must look to (providence). As if everything’s just fine.

Rev / Prophet Oladipupo Funmilade Joel

By Odimegwu Onwumere Port Harcourt.

LETTER

Nigeria: Let’s think unity did. But it’s all in the context,” I tried to explain. “It’s a Chinese immigrant thing.”

This is typical of our country, Nigeria. We are like the lady and her father in the story.

We have been called ‘garbage’ and in return, we call those who called us ‘garbage’ the same.

But two wrongs, they say, do not make a right.

It is my wish that if there is any website we must host about Nigeria, that website must be

A

S a minister-of-God and as a stakeholder to the nation’s peace, unity and stability, it behoves on me to comment on the state-of-the-nation; and I want to state prophetically that Nigeria shall be saved by God’s grace. Though the challenges the nation is facing are tough, rough and worrisome …. Security breaches, organised killings, bombings, kidnappings, abductions etc, all these are giving a great cause for concern; but there is hope, I assured.

We should begin to X-ray and find the root causes of the prevailing issues in our nation in order to come up with suitable solutions to the grave situations bedevilling our nation.

Now, it is glaring that, in Nigeria today, danger is looming, but there is hope.

for peace and unity. Not for bitterness. We already have the 2015 elections in our hand, yet we seem not to be after the issues that matter to our collective welfare, but our different political parties and interests.

We cannot achieve harmony, peace and happiness as well as spiritual, social happenings in Nigeria if we do not shelve hatred by the side and welcome all and sundry as one.

Just as it is written in the Bible,

so also it is written in Koran and in other writs.

According to religious scholars: Islam teaches us through its two main authentic sources: The Glorious Qur’an and the Prophetic sayings that we can attain peace of mind, happiness, and salvation, by knowing and believing in the one true God (Allah) willingly and wholeheartedly… (Am only quoting the book…).

Nigeria shall be saved Nigeria is facing serious challenges that openly threaten her existence, but there is hope.

Prophetically speaking, we must indeed wake-up to the truth, that, we have a deadly battle in our hands as a nation, we must therefore rise up, to speedily address this grave situations, before it becomes too late. I hope the national conference will be a vehicle we can ride to national sanity.

I see God intervening in the affairs of Nigeria, sooner or later. I believe very strongly that if we pray and if there is thorough repentance, and we seek the face of God seriously, we are going to have divine intervention.

Reproach (sin) and captivity best describe our present situation in Nigeria. Our sins

are enormous and becoming unimaginable. A nation that was once respected worldwide, is now rebuffed and heavily suspected. We (Nigerians) are also captives because we have mortgaged our resources and destiny to other nations and the devil … however, there is hope.

God is able to remove our reproach and turn our captivity away. He did it for Israel.

He will do it for us (Nigeria and Nigerians). We are in His purpose and plan. Nigeria is a nation of destiny.

As a man of God, the gospel I bring is a message of hope. Hope of tomorrow and of a brighter future. We should have hope because God will not abandon His purpose for our nation. Prophetically too,

Our universality requires that we embrace unity and love and forgive all who may have offended us in one way or the other and also go to plead for forgiveness from those we may have offended. It is written: “Submit yourselves therefore to God.” (God here to me means peace and unity, reconciliation and forgiveness, wisdom, kindness, liberty, justice, and fairness, love, work… Not a sky daddy).

And when we submit ourselves respectively to God, we will not see members of the different political parties as ri-

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16

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, AUGUST 31, 2014

COMMENT

Islamic State (IS): The world’s next scourge and why Nigeria must be alert It would be quite a shame if the country would sit on its hind legs and wait until Nigerians head to Syria and Iraq to be trained in all the technicalities of decapitating fellow human beings

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F AL-QAEDA and its associates have killed in hundreds of thousands, the way The Islamic State, (IS), is going, it may account for millions killed by the time the world finally gets clean with it, if ever.

Without a doubt, the world is permanently in a flux but if anybody had suggested that the world was going to contend with anything worse than al-Qaeda so soon after the US dispatched Bin Laden, we all would have told that person to perish the thought. This is not to suggest that there hadn’t been chilling predictions, post Nostradamus, but they were mostly that: predictions that may, indeed, never come till the end of time. No more. They now mushroom like violence is the last name in Christendom.

Talking about post Nostradamus predictions, there had been many and they keep pouring in. Indeed, 2014 vows to bring the hardest times for mankind. The predictions are terrifying as the world would, according to them, be shocked by natural disasters, assassinations and incurable diseases, and doesn’t Ebola come to mind. The year is believed to be a turning point in the history of humanity. Plagues, wars and disasters threaten the world according to Baba Vanga, a famed Bulgarian prophetess. A blind mystic and clairvoyant, she foresees an epidemic of skin cancer that will decimate the planet’s population and according to the Ukrainian engineer who deciphered

Nostradamus quatrains, 2014 will be engulfed in violence. Famed seers have even seen the beginning of World War111 and Mr. Putin appears to be working unerringly towards that end now that Russia has deployed troops in the Ukraine.

However, if all these are in the future, not so the mind boggling violence the IS (Islamic State) continues to visit on mankind. Its militants recently besieged a village in northern Iraq, gave the residents a deadline to convert to Islam and when they refused, more than 80 men were killed and the women and children of the village became their slaves; this in addition to several weeks of crucifying Christians, beheading their children and burying others alive. Although it started out like alQaeda on an extremist hard line, adhering to global jihadist principles, al-Qaeda has, since February 2004, closed all links to the Islamic State because of its extreme brutality. Indeed, only two weeks ago, a Britishborn member of the group was reported to have beheaded the American journalist, Mike Foley, in a horrendous act of brutality that would hardly be equalled. Its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, claims to be a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad and has proclaimed him the Islamic “caliph”. Caliph, meaning successor, is a title used by Sunni Muslims for those who led Islam from the death of the Prophet to the 20th century. When Turkey was made a secu-

lar state after World War I, the caliphate was abolished. Now alBaghdadi claims to have reconstituted it in himself. He is calling on the Muslim world to move to his Islamic State to support his movement.

Militants are already carrying the IS flag in Indonesia and across North Africa. Jihadist groups around the world are deciding whether to switch their allegiance from al-Qaeda to him. Al-Baghdadi has announced his group’s intention to march on Rome and Spain, seeking to establish his caliphate across Europe. When he was transferred from American to Iraqi custody in 2009, (from which he was later released), he told his American captors, “I’ll see you in New York.”

For us as Nigerians, the most important part of this story, and its relevance is this: ‘Now al-Baghdadi claims to have reconstituted it in himself he is calling on the Muslim world to move to IS and to support his movement’. The potency of this statement and its probable dire consequences arise from what we have come to know about our intelligence community. Naturally, one would expect that a country of Nigeria’s economic standing and place in Africa would, by now, be on top of everything concerning the Islamic State. Indeed, going by the experience of how some Nigerians so easily hung on themselves everything concerning the Islamic world, be it in Iran, Afghanistan or Tajikistan, it should not be out of place to expect

that there should be in place, as you read this, a desk specifically dedicated to Islamic state affairs in not only our Ministry of External Affairs, Defence Intelligence or at the ubiquitous DSS. But that will be the day!

Given that it is not unknown for Nigerians to actually make their services available to organisations like AlQaeda, and with the entire Northeastern part of the country now being ferociously buffeted by Boko Haram, it should stand to reason that our intelligence community, if not the presidency, should now be fully engaged with all the ramifications of Islamic state activities. But as I indicated earlier, it would be the mother of all surprises if Nigeria is giving this ogre the importance and seriousness it deserves.

It would be quite a shame if the country would sit on its hind legs and wait until Nigerians head to Syria and Iraq to be trained in all the technicalities of decapitating fellow human beings, causing and fuelling urban terrorism and putting the entire Nigerian government to fright, not to talk of completely destabilising the economy before our government starts running to foreign countries for assistance.

The Islamic State (IS), formerly the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in its selfproclaimed status as a caliphate claims religious authority over all Muslims across the world and aspires to bring much of the Muslim-inhabited regions

of the world under its political control beginning with Iraq, Syria and countries which include Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Cyprus and an area in southern Turkey. The Economist reported in June 2014, that “it may have up to 6,000 fighters in Iraq and 3,000 5,000 in Syria, including perhaps 3,000 foreigners manly from Chechnya, France and Britain’.

With a territory bigger than Britain, and assets worth more than 2Billion dollars, oil resources, gold bullions and massive kidnappings from which to easily increase its current holdings and the well known attraction of the young and employed who are relentlessly being recruited via a massive propaganda on the social media, it is obviously a short distance from recruiting hundreds of young impressionable Nigerians who, like the recruits from Europe, will not think twice before returning to Nigeria with their newly acquired capabilities in inflicting complete mayhem on society.

If Boko Haram is this keen on completely annexing the Northeast, it will not be unreasonable to believe that , if care is not taken, if the Nigerian government does not take appropriate, creative and proactive measures like keeping on perpetual watch list, the movements and activities of Nigerians who may stray into this weird and dangerous organisation, Nigeria may be heading into the mother of all troubles.

God forbid.

When silence is not the best answer The country’s authorities did not grasp the weight of the Boko Haram problem in spite of warnings from the press and others, until it came to this. And that is the surprise, when you consider that people have been tried for treason in this country just for writing newspaper articles

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NE of the things women do best is worry; it’s almost first nature with them. Women worry that they are losing their beauty, never mind that they normally first spend ages worrying that they didn’t even have any. They worry that they are losing the battle of the bulge, never mind that they first spend ages worrying they are never the right weight. Then they worry that their husbands are losing interest in them, even though they have sometimes (perhaps rightly) concluded that the said husbands never had as much interest in them as they had in men’s cars, and the women’s culinary abilities. Then they worry that their children will not turn out right. If those ones turn out to be medical doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc., what is the good of all that? What is the use if children don’t have money in today’s world? Gosh, how on earth are they going to convince those arrantly knavish children to marry money?

Worry is Our Way; the women’s way.

Men worry too, but they have a different kind of concern. They worry if the car will start in the morning, and whether the mechanic will cheat them again should that happen. They worry that they will not be able to provide enough to meet the needs of the house. They worry that they may never get to

the position that will put them in direct access to government coffers.

Sadly, I have no such words of comfort for the men as I have for the women.

Sometimes, though, I tend to feel that the song that goes ‘Don’t worry, be happy’ is a good song, as far as songs go, but it falls very short of the mark, as far as effectiveness goes. It gives the impression that happiness is in a room and you can go pick at it as you like, rather than something you have to work at. You can’t just fold your hands behind the back of your head, cross your legs and rest your pretty back on a bench, then expect happiness to come strolling in to meet you. Let’s look at this logic. 1) Happiness, I believe, is about beating the odds. 2) Worry happens when the odds are difficult to beat. 3) The odds are difficult to beat when we fold our hands too much. Pure, isn’t it?

Sometime last week, the news came that the seemingly intractable boko haram group might have set up, first a caliphate, then a Sharia state, in the north eastern part of the country. From where most of us are standing, that is news to cause the women to put on their worrying caps as the country appears to be stretched out, relaxed on a bench, hands behind its head, while a fire is raging in its backyard.

Three things strike one here. We will not go into all the rhetoric of

this act being a direct confrontation against the state and all its instruments of office. We will also not go into the debate of the uselessness of the action, given that the region is already practicing, unhindered, the system of religion supported by the act. We will also not get involved in the attempt to argue that the act is an open and direct declaration of greater antagonism. We will not go into all these because the earth is too round for that.

The first thing that strikes one here is that politicians and other elites in the north appear to have failed to foresee where the problem created by covert or overt omission would lead the region and the rest of the country. Worse, the central powers, i.e., the federal government and the armed services under its thumb, also failed to foresee this damage potential. So, our worry stems from the fact that the country’s authorities do not appear to have grasped the weight of the boko haram problem in spite of warnings from the press and others, until it came to this. And that is the surprise, when you consider that people have been tried for treason in this country just for writing newspaper articles.

Secondly, all the combined forces appear to have fiddled, watched and sat thinking while men and women were being massacred, burned, terrorized, dispossessed, and made homeless by these troublers in our midst. Rather than

apply sufficient energy to burn the problem to cinders at its onset, the country diddled and did practically little enough; but that little was enough to allow the problem to grow. Right on our watch, little girls were abducted by the boko haram and have not been seen till now. I don’t believe we have understood completely the ramifications of this failure.

Let me explain. This country maintains a security unit made up of all kinds of sub-units: police, navy, air force, soldiery, and other less understood ones. Since these units are maintained on public funds, it means that the public has a right, nay, expectation to demand protection against robbers, raiders, and other big bad wolves. That public includes all our young girls, young boys and defenseless adults.

Naturally, when young girls are abducted, they expect the country’s defense units to come to their rescue, no matter how far away they have been taken. They expect that their parents will come to their rescue, no matter how poor they are.

Children have faith. The failure of both parents and government to do this has meant that the country has failed in its duty and has let the girls down in their belief in the protection offered by adults and their systems. In short, we all, collectively, have failed to honour the faith of those girls in parents and country.

Thirdly, four months after the abduction, there does not appear to

be any move to reclaim the country’s good name. Worse, the boko haram people have even upped their game. Now, they are moving to set up a government for themselves while the country watches. Yet, in all of these, the country is maintaining some studied silence which is not very comprehensible. Right now, some move, any move, would be better than this silence, this stillness, in the face of this severe provocation. I don’t know about you, but I feel very mortified by all these because I was one person, and I have stated this more than once, who really believed in the ability and ableness of the Nigerian armed forces. I have relatives who served on them and I know their worth.

That is the basis of my faith.

Whatever may be the handicap of the army and the government in putting out this already growing wild fire, I think they need to step over it now and step up. Corruption in the army, as we have been hearing, is no excuse. Insufficiency of manpower, as we have also been sniffing, is no excuse. If it were so, the government would not have been able to afford to send thousands and thousands of soldiers to go and monitor election sites in one state only. So, no, we don’t buy insufficiency of soldiers as an excuse.

It’s been predicted that Nigeria may disintegrate by 2015, even though the president and others have expressed their convictions to the contrary. Keeping silent while a group sets up its own flag in a part of the country is helping that forecast become a self-fulfilled prophesy. We do not have to tow this highway of self-destruction; we just need to borrow a leaf from the ‘Our Way’ of women: worry produces the peaceable fruits of self-preservation.

COMMENT

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, AUGUST 31, 2014

17

(80) Initial encounter with transformational grammar that proved fateful: For Prof Ayo Banjo @ 80 I

T is many months now since my old teacher at the University of Ibadan, Professor Ayo Banjo, turned 80 and so this tribute should have been written long before now. Nonetheless, and as the saying goes, it is better late than never. And in a way, perhaps it is in fact appropriate that I should have taken my time to write this tribute to Professor Banjo since the nature, the meaning of my studentship under him took a very long time to achieve clarity in my mind. Since this observation goes to the heart of this tribute to my old teacher, I should perhaps clarify what the observation is about. This is all the more necessary since it is this very issue that supplied the title to this tribute which centers round the term, “transformational grammar” which is probably as intriguing to many who are reading this piece as it was to me when I first encountered it in Professor Banjo’s class. But before coming to this matter of my first, initial encounter with “transformational grammar” in Professor Banjo’s class that would later prove fateful to my intellectual development, I wish to say a few preliminary things about the man that set him apart from most people I have ever met.

Everyone reading this piece has, I suspect or hope, come across the saying, “speak no ill of the dead”. If there is a corollary to this saying which asks us to “speak no ill of the living”, I am yet to come across it. The reason for this is simple and it is this: none or few of us has ever met a living person of whom we cannot think of many wrong or evil things that they have, at one time or another and on a small or great scale, done to their fellow human beings. Indeed, so basic is this fact of life that to say “speak no ill of the living” would more or less make us all incurable hypocrites. But with only one other person who incidentally was also my teacher, Professor Banjo is one of the two persons I have ever met of whom it could be said “speak no ill of the living” without being hypocritical.

That other person is Mr. Modupe Oduyoye, scholar, publisher and humanist, who was my English teacher in the upper forms of secondary school. Quite literally, I have never met anyone who has had an unkind or disparaging or dismissive word to say about the character and behaviour of Professor Banjo and Mr. Oduyoye and they are the only two people, especially in the world of learning, about whom I can make this assertion.

I have often pondered this fact anytime that my mind goes to these two former teachers of mine. In a terribly corrupt and cruel world, how is it possible to stay above the rot? In a country that is endlessly muddied by a seeming universality of cheating, lying and dissembling on a grandiose scale, how can anyone stay above it all? What inner qualities of spirit and psyche

•Banjo

make this possible, this state of moral rectitude or equanimity that seems superhuman and otherworldly?

And to be completely honest about this without taking anything away from the reputation of these two former teachers of mine, I have also sometimes wondered if indeed it is a desirable quality or achievement for any man or woman to stay above it all. This is because, as I know only too well from direct experience, it is nearly impossible to remain blameless and unsullied if and when you try to intervene to put an end to the rot, to the bog of decadence and suffering into which our country and our world are sinking almost inexorably and unstoppably. But in spite of these thoughts, Professor Banjo remains in my estimation one of the two avatars of whom one can indeed say “speak no ill of the living” and not be hypocritical. This leads me to the heart of the content of this tribute, the matter of “transformational grammar” as I fatefully encountered it as a student of Professor Banjo.

If my memory serves me right, I took only one class with Professor (then Dr.) Ayo Banjo in my undergraduate studies in the English Department at Ibadan and this was in my first year. He taught in the Language, not the Literature section of the Department. Overwhelmingly, the Literature program was the much larger and more established concentration; only a handful of stu-

dents of the Department ever went on specialize in Language. [Niyi Osundare, who was two years behind me, is one of the few famous scholarly alumni of the Department who went on to specialize in Language] I entered the Department as a student fairly certain that, like most of my classmates, I would choose the Literature program. This was the major or primary reason why I took only one course - and in my first year - with Professor Banjo. The other reason, though secondary, is however more central to what I have to say in this tribute and it is this: after that one class with Professor Banjo, I became even more convinced of the choice of Literature as my concentration. And “transformational grammar”, as brilliantly but elaborately taught by Professor Banjo, was at the heart of this confirmation that the Language concentration was not for me. Let me explain.

In all my other courses in my first year, I felt fairly on top of the difficulties and challenges, probably because all these other courses had some narrative and imaginative dimensions to them. Incidentally, this included Sociology which was and still is officially classified as a science, albeit a social science.

Only in Professor Banjo’s course were these dimensions missing, to be replaced by what seemed like a science that even seemed to me closer to the natural sciences than

the social sciences. I had gone into Professor Banjo’s class expecting to have the kind of fun, the kind of excitement that I expected and received from my other courses, but lo and behold, it was as if I was back in my Physics class in high school which, of all the subjects we were taught, had given me the greatest - and for me - ultimately insurmountable challenge. And so from having received an “A” in English Language in School Certificate and GCE “O” level exams, I plummeted to a state of utter bafflement in Professor Banjo’s class on that same Language! And at the heart of it all were the expositions that he gave on, yes, “transformational grammar”.

At this point, it is perhaps time for me to get to what “transformational grammar” is and how my encounter with it in Professor Banjo’s class eventually proved very fateful in my intellectual development. Before that encounter, “grammar” was for me - as it probably still is for most people - the descriptive outline of the ground rules that govern correctness and mastery in language use. It essentially entails learning what the different aspects of language are and how to use them correctly. In “transformational grammar” the emphasis is displaced from descriptive to structural and from correctness to possibility. With “transformational grammar” a

completely incorrect sentence can still be “grammatical” and Professor Banjo gave many examples in that class that I took with him. This in itself was exciting but prior to that, our teacher espoused on many concepts and ideas that were completely at variance with all we had learnt about or known as “grammar”. Perhaps the most startling of these was the proposition that transformational grammar was “generative”. What this means is that the great immensity of what could be done and is done with and in language rested on just a few basic principles or properties. In other words, the abundance, the endless possibilities of and in language actually rested on just a few basic structures in grammar.

The reader probably knows from this explanation of “transformational grammar” that my understanding came much, much later after my encounter with the subject in Professor Banjo’s class. And that is exactly what happened, but I have to explain that it was because of the way in which he taught it that made me decide that this was something I had to get to know, get to understand eventually. In other words, after the excitement of being told that a bad, ungrammatical sentence could be structurally grammatical, the rest of what he taught us about transformational grammar seemed to me so technical, so arcane that I was left with a powerful wish to get to the bottom of the matter. And so in graduate school in America, one of the first things I did was start reading everything I could on the subject. And when I did finally achieve an understanding of it, this was central, even decisive in helping me to understand many other extremely complex and challenging intellectual and theoretical currents of non-traditional, modern thought like Marxism, Poststructuralism and Deconstruction. Thus, in a very indirect way that could be likened to negative dialectics, many things that helped to shape my intellectual adulthood began in that class with Professor Banjo in my first year as an undergraduate at Ibadan.

In conclusion, I must confess that I was prompted to lay emphasis in this tribute on a specifically intellectual subject because most of the tributes to Professor Banjo on getting to 80 years that I have read have concentrated on his solid qualification for that rare phenomenon in which, without hypocrisy, one can “speak no ill of the living”. As I salute him on reaching this milestone and wish him a long(er) life with good health, I also want to acknowledge what I took away from my brief studentship under him.

The young shall grow – especially if they have teachers like Professor Ayo Banjo.

Biodun Jeyifo bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY, AUGUST 31, 2014

COMMENT

Twists and twists on illicit tobacco trade T

HE publicity that the media has given to the training of men of the Lagos State Police Command on implementation of the recently-passed Smoke-free Public Places Law

by British American Tobacco Nigeria (BATN) has come as a rude shock to public health advocates. It is simply the case of a mosquito giving training on how to treat malaria!

Not only is the timing of the exercise suspicious, it reveals also the desperate maneuvers of tobacco companies in ensuring that tobacco control laws are interpreted in their own language thereby undermining their effectiveness. The tobacco companies will talk about health but will reject that health should take precedence over their profit motifs. Instead, the industry advances economic arguments to rationalize, though erroneously, why effective tobacco control laws should not be promulgated.

Such arguments, especially against increasing taxes on tobacco products to reduce the number of people taking to the smoking habit were again raised to high pitch at the Public Hearing on the National Tobacco Control Bill (NTCB) which held on July 16, 2014 in Abuja.

In turns, BATN and other tobacco transnational merchants poked sections of the bill they felt opened doors to possible increase in taxes, a key recommendation of the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) which Nigeria has signed and ratified.

Their fears (real or imagined) centered on the possibility of smugglers exploiting gaps in the demand and supply chain after taxes are raised, to market supposed fake or substandard tobacco products to consumers at cheap rates, besides being readily available.

While verifiable statistics were not provided to back up these claims, public health groups feel the fears are mere hypes, pinning their argument on the need to prioritise health over profits, not the other way round. They point to Article 6 of the WHO FCTC which states that: “Parties recognise that price and tax measures are an effective and important means of reducing tobacco consumption by various segments of the population, in particular young persons.”

Some of the groups that were vehement against arguments for whittled down regulation include the Environmental Rights Action, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Nigeria Tobacco Control Alliance (NTCA), among others.

It is pertinent to note however, that for those

No other touchstone Can test the heart of a man, The temper of his mind and spirit, Till he be tried In the practice of authority and rule -Sophocles (Antigone)

N

IGERIANS, ever curious about the vibrant polity are always curious when an academic, and a world-renowned, erudite one at that moves from the confines of the four walls of the Ivory tower to throw his hat into the highly competitive ring of party politics. To them, the art of politicking itself can best be situated within the matrix of the murky waters peopled by sharks of greed. To them, the Nigerian variant of politics is meant for only the conscienceless clique whose main driving passion is to serve the self at the expense of the state.

That sordid scenario throws up the millionnaira question: who would make the paradigm shift? Who would up the ante and make politics more civil, more responsive and more accountable to the people; who have invested their sacred trust in their elected leaders? Who is that one man to come with a breath of fresh air by sweeping the Augean stable with the broom of change?

To the good people of Ondo North Senatorial District, the answer was not far-fetched. They saw in their worthy son, Ajayi Boroffice, the sterling qualities of a true leader. Talk about vision, wealth of experience, candour, compassion and the courage to do right and he has it all in quantum. That explains why he faced little opposition in his bid to become Labour Party candidate for their Senatorial District back in 2011. Before long, he gained the needed support of traditional rulers in the Akoko area of Ondo State.

In that election, the man (Boroffice) with the magic wand, garnered 84,290 votes to beat the incumbent Senator, Bode Olajumoke of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with 51,112 votes and Olu Agunloye of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) with 36,601 votes. Surely, there must have been some subtle factors to earn him such electoral victory. And that is all because, in Nigeria it would take a miracle to dust

the tobacco firms to thwart the legislation as it showed that media stories citing industry data on growing illicit tobacco actually began in June 2011, just two months after the Tobacco Control Plan for England, which heralded standardised packaging, was published.

The study further unearthed the murky business of tobacco trans-nationals that were found to be very much involved in the global illicit tobacco trade. As far back as the 1990s some of the tobacco companies operating in the UK were accused of facilitating smuggling by deliberately oversupplying •Prof. Onyebuchi-Chukwu, Minister of Health brands to countries like Bulgaria where

By Adamu Musa there was no demand for them.

It noted that even after signing an antiwho understand the “abracadabra” that the tobacco industry is known for the question of smuggling agreement with the European Union raising tobacco products’ taxes is one that goes (EU) the transnational tobacco companies like beyond our shores. It is common knowledge Japan Tobacco International (JTI) continued the that the tobacco trans-nationals have practice. JTI is still under investigation by the consistently used the threat of illicit tobacco to European Anti-Fraud Agency (OLAF) following argue against any form of regulation but most evidence of its involvement in illicit even after signing the anti-smuggling agreement. especially taxes.

In year 2000, British American Tobacco (BAT) A case study readily cited is a recent research in the UK, where the tobacco trans-nationals was also accused of benefitting from were all over the media warning that levels of smuggling. In an expose by The Guardian in the illicit trade would increase if standardised UK, journalists who got hold of once secret internal industry documents found that BAT packaging is implemented.

Standardised packaging do away with had “for decades secretly encouraged tax glamorous and alluring pictures etc from evasion and cigarette smuggling in a global tobacco packs to discourage the underage from effort to secure market share and lure patronising tobacco products. It was identified generations of new smokers”.

But the bogus claims of illicit trade and as a means of cutting down on the number of youths who would normally be attracted by complicity by the tobacco industry are not packs to attempt buying. The study showed that limited to the EU. In South Africa where illicit the alarm was actually a strategy concocted by trade in tobacco always makes the news, a

group, the National Council Against Smoking (NCAS) recently countered the Tobacco Institute of South Africa (TISA) a lobby group for the tobacco industry which had alerted that up to a third of the South African cigarette market goes toward the illegal trade.

Armed with such evidence about an industry that cries wolf when there is none, it is no wonder that public health groups in Nigeria insist taxes must go up.

At the height of the first shot at a national legislation on tobacco in 2007, ERA/FoEN and groups like the National Tobacco Control Alliance (NTCA) went a step ahead with doubts about the motives of BAT Nigeria (BATN) for donating Hilux jeeps to the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) supposedly to combat the illicit trade in tobacco. Their argument was that the vehicles were “Greek Gifts” to pull wool over the faces of Nigerians to divert attention from what they may actually be suspecting.

Similar alarm bells sounded when the top echelon of BATN visited the Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola in September 2013 when the state was on the verge of passing legislation prohibiting smoking in public places.

At that time it was also alleged that the visit was to be complimented with the donation of Hilux jeeps to the Lagos Security Trust Fund.

Current statistics from the WHO indicate that 5.4 million people die yearly from tobacco smoke. The global body painted a gloomier picture recently when it said that unless urgent action is taken, the annual death toll could rise to more than eight million by 2030.

Ironically, it posits that early 80 per cent of the world’s one billion smokers live in low- and middle-income countries like Nigeria. Among a wide range of measures that can cut down the mortality rate on tobacco, the WHO says that tobacco taxes are the most cost-effective way to reduce tobacco use, especially among young people and poor people. It adds that a tax increases that push up tobacco prices by 10 per cent decreases tobacco consumption by about 4 per cent in high-income countries and about 5 per cent in low- and middle-income countries.

The WHO recommendation is one that the House Committee on Health must not overlook if the wellness of Nigerians today and in the future must be secured. In the quest to keep the nation’s revenue base intact, the health of the citizenry must always come first.

Adamu Musa wrote from Sabon Gari in Kano

Boroffice: In the service of fatherland

By Ademola Johnson

an incumbent politician who is still interested in holding on to the plum post. So, what clinched it for Boroffice?

First, he had always been known to publicly criticise politicians who lacked integrity and honour, especially those who take obscene interest in making flowery promises they could not keep in order to get elected. And once they mount the pedestal of political power.

On what inspired him, an accomplished academic to go into politics, he had this to say in a media chat back in 2012: “It is in line with my personal philosophy to serve my people, and my country as long as I am alive. I want to serve my nation because my country, my community and my state have invested in me. They have made me what I am today.”

Politics to him is a veritable platform for selfless service and for gratitude. He wants to give back to the society that has nurtured him to greatness. He went further to throw more light on his guiding philosophy. “So, while I was a lecturer at various universities, I was serving the nation. As a public servant, at the NASRDA I was serving the nation in my own way. Now that I am a legislator at the National Assembly, it is the same push to contribute to the growth of the country that has been my inspiration. I believe that it is that same urge to serve my people that is behind it all. I have looked round and seen that there are other communities that are not as rich as my state that are doing better, so I want to use my wealth of experience to improve on the quality of life of the people.”

But on December 28, 2011, Boroffice officially dumped the Labour Party, the platform that got him the Senatorial ticket for the ACN (now defunct) to pursue his ambition of becoming the governor of Ondo State. As expected there was a lot of hue and cry from the opposition. As usual the man who has his reasons kept his cool.

He must have learnt from another brilliant scientist, Albert Einstein who said that: “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.” It is interesting, if not curious that his traducers, who attempted but vainly then to rubbish his hard-earned reputation have similarly left the same Labour Party today!

So, why did he leave the Labour Party at that time? He had his salient reasons. He explained it thus: “The Labour Party started in Ondo State on a very prosperous and progressive note, with the support of the ACN. But with time it was veering off the trajectory. I believe we have to be in the mainstream, as it has been the trend from the Action Group, UPN, SDP, AD to the ACN. So, it has a long political lineage and it is a party with ideology.”

He added: “The South West has always been the reference point for the progressives. With what I have seen in Lagos State, I believe that we can benefit more in terms of infrastructural development of roads and rail, by the regional integration, in the economy and politics as we have in ECOWAS to foster unity. If there is unity then we can achieve more.”

He sees those who are driving the party as seasoned politicians who believe in the welfare of the people. He reiterates that it was during the era of the Action Group, that the Western Region was very prosperous. He also believes that Ondo State needs to be reintegrated into the mainstream of the Yoruba politics. That informed his preference for CAN (now APC) instead of PDP. There is another reason for his choice of the progressives. According to him they are people who at one point or the other, made a lot of sacrifice for democracy in this country. They fought against the military under (the late General Sani) Abacha and they also made sure that good governance is ensured even in this civilian administration. He specifically points to the heroes of democracy such as Asiwaju Bola

Tinubu, Dr. Akingba, Professor Adeyeye of the NADECO (National Democratic Coalition) era, who fought very hard. “They made a lot of sacrifice to ensure that we have this stable and united Nigeria. We are the beneficiaries of their sacrifices and their efforts.”

Now that the party of progressives he joined has expanded from the regional ACN to the national All Progressives Congress (APC), Boroffice is being hailed from across the country as the man who saw tomorrow-the Nostradamus of Nigeria’s polity. And why not!

Not a few of his colleagues at the Senate have similarly jumped ship into the APC. Though he never clinched the gubernatorial ticket of the ACN, Boroffice stood out as the man whose influence saw to it that his party won in the governorship election in his own Senatorial District. His vision is to take the state, nay Nigeria from an agrarian to an industrial hub. As a scientist he wants his people to go beyond the pedestrian politics of building market stalls to that of shopping malls, from two lanes to the construction of 10- lane dual carriage lanes.

In his words: “As a scientist I do a lot of planning and I have observed that political leaders and governors in the progressive states do a lot planning before embarking on their projects.

They start with the management, then the facilities and incorporate all of this. That is why you do not have the incident of abandoned projects because there was serious thinking through in terms of planning. Planning is the key to sustainable development.”

As the 2015 general elections inch closer, Nigerians should be on the lookout for visionary, committed, courageous and progressive politicians and those who are well prepared for the onerous task of governance. Professor Ajayi Boroffice is surely one of the leading lights of our current democratic dispensation.

Ademola Johnson, a public analyst writes from Lagos.

19

THE NATION ON SUNDAY AUGUST 31, 2014

‘Why I will win Kwara PDP governorship ticket’

‘Kwankwaso is giving hope to people’

Abia’s journey, Orji’s legacy

PAGE 25

PAGE 24

PAGES 21

Race for APC presidential running mate begins

•Amaechi

T

HE next two months in the nation’s political arena promises to be action-packed as the two major political parties, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC), fine-tune last minute preparations to select their presidential candidates for the 2015 general elections.

While it’s almost a fait accompli that President Goodluck Jonathan holds the ace as the most likely flag bearer of the PDP, the situation is completely different in the APC where about four aspirants are already being mentioned as serious aspirants ready to slug it out for the party’s presidential ticket.

According to insiders, in the next few weeks, three of the aspirants, including former Head of State, Gen. Mohammadu Buhari (retd); former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar and

•Boroffice

•Osibajo

Even as the All Progressives Congress (APC) is yet to pick its presidential candidate for the 2015 general elections, the race of who gets the running mate slot may have been narrowed down to three individuals from the South West and a South South governor barring any last minute change in calculations. Assistant Editor, Remi Adelowo reports Kano State governor, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, will formally announce their interests in the race.

The candidature of these aspirants, who are all from the North, is being interpreted within the political circles as an unwritten policy of the major opposition party to zone its presidential ticket to the region, even as many party chieftains have severally denied this assertion.

Regardless of who clinches the APC ticket, leaders of the party, according to sources, are also looking ahead to

select a formidable running mate who will complement its candidate and in addition, somebody that is capable of mobilising votes in certain segments considered as critical in winning a presidential election.

Some of the qualities being considered in the choice of a running mate, The Nation reliably learnt, include cognate experience in the public sector, religious balancing of the party’s ticket and a solid track record to mention but a few.

Unconfirmed speculations have it

that the Senator representing Ondo North in the National Assembly, Prof.

Robert Ajayi Boroffice, former Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice in Lagos State, Prof. Yemi Osibajo and his former colleague in the Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning, Mr. Yemi Cardosso are strongly being considered by the party apparatchik for the slot.

Boroffice leads the race Born on April 23, 1949, Senator Boroffice became a lecturer at the University of Ibadan in 1975, and was a

Professor of Zoology at the Lagos State University (LASU) in 1986.

He also held administrative positions at the Lagos State University including Head of Department, Dean of Faculty, and Chairman of the Committee of Deans.

Boroffice was appointed Coordinating Director for Science in the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) in 1992. His main focus in this job was on biotechnology, Information and Communication Technology and Space Science and Technology.

He reportedly played a central role in establishing the National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA), National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and the National

•Continued on Page 20

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY AUGUST 31, 2014

POLITICS

Presidential running mate race begins •Continued from page 19

Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA).

In 1999, Boroffice became the founding Director General of NASRDA, a post he held for 10 years. Under his leadership, NASRDA launched two satellites; a low orbit earth observations microsatellite (NigeriaSat-1) in 2003 and a communication satellite (NigcomSat-1) in 2007.

He also laid the groundwork for the building of NigeriaSat-2 and NigeriaSat-X, which were launched in August 2011 from Russia.

In 2004, he was conferred the title of Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON) by the then President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo.

In March 2011, Boroffice was given the 2011 Golden Merit Award in Space Science by the World Federation of Science Journalists.

He was elected as Senator in 2011 on the platform of the Labour Party (LP) before he defected to the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), which merged with two other parties to form the APC. Other factors working for him Beside his impressive academic and public service career, another factor allegedly working in Boroffice’s favour is the fact that he hails from Ondo State, which is one of the two states in the South-West that will not be under APC rule when the 2015 election takes place next year.

Ondo is presently controlled by LP, while from October 20 this year; Ekiti State will be run by a PDP-led administration.

With Boroffice, APC believes it will win the sympathy of the people of Ondo and Ekiti, which share almost the same political philosophy. “This way, what the party lost in the governorship elections in the two states will be regained through the presidential election,” said a source privy to the party’s game plan.

His faith A member of the Foursquare Gospel Church, Boroffice is said to be a strong Christian with links with prominent leaders of the Christian community. This factor, sources say, will come in handy in the battle for votes in the 2015 elections.

Cardosso in the frame Those rooting for Cardosso, a former Vice President at Citibank and former Executive Director at the defunct Citizens Bank, point to his public sector background where he distinguished himself creditably and sound knowledge of the economy.

Profile in brief Cardoso runs an investment banking business, FBC Associates. He has over 15 years of banking experience with Chase, Citibank and Citizens International Bank.

He was a Mason fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

In 1999, he was appointed the first Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget in

W

HAT would you say are the achievements of Governor Kwankwaso’s administration?

As a visionary governor, Kwankwaso, having noticed the yawning gap in the education sector, took the bull by the horn towards bridging the education gap by sending over 3,000 students abroad and to local universities to pursue specialised courses, so as to be selfsufficient in the manpower needs of the state.

Already, he has established a bi-lingual school in Niger Republic because we have appreciated the importance of our relationship with Niger Republic. In terms of proximity, it is next door to the state. Also, if you look at the entire sub-African regions and the West African regions, most of them, if not only Nigeria and Ghana, are French speaking and if we migrate to their territory, there will be language barrier in relating with them and because the governor is futuristic, visionary and tackles issues ahead of time, he decided to prepare people ahead of time. That is what informed his decision on the establishment of a joint biLingual secondary school with the state government’s funds, which is the first boarding secondary school in the Republic of Niger.

Meanwhile, we have 100 students in the school, who have been joined by another set of 100 students from the Republic of Niger.

This idea also informed the governor’s decision on how to sharpen the skills of our people in other areas, following his vision. For now, the government has taken another giant leap to let our people learn the Chinese language because we are aware that China is almost the largest economy in the world and for

•Cardosso

Lagos State.

In this capacity, he championed the reform process creating awareness of the challenges of managing the world’s 6th largest mega city. He has forged working alliances with several donor agencies including World Bank, Clinton Foundation, the Department for International Development (DFID), and Swedish International Development Agency.

The former banker currently sits on the Board of Directors of several companies, including Harvard’s Kennedy School (HKS) Alumni, Chevron Oil Plc, Sun International, Africa Policy Institute (API), a Massachusetts- based think tank.

He is also the Chairman of Citibank’s Board Audit Committee and the Project Steering Committee of the World Bank’s Lagos Metropolitan Development and Governance Project (LMDGP).

He is also a member of the Chartered Institute of

Stockbrokers in Nigeria.

Cardoso holds a Bachelors degree in Finance and Accounting from Aston University, United Kingdom and a Masters degree in Public Administration from Harvard University.

His drawback As attractive as his resume is, Cardosso’s lack of political experience is seen as a factor that may work against him.

“He is not cut out for politics and also lacks what it takes to mobilise votes for a party,” said a source while analysing Cardosso’s major weakness.

Osinbajo not keen In the last few weeks, the name of Professor Yemi Osinbajo has been mentioned as a possible running mate to whoever wins the APC presidential ticket. But sources close to him said he may not be keen on the appointment.

However, those who tip him for the job say beside his enviable educational and professional pedigree, Osinbajo is also well respected within the Christendom. A pastor with the Redeemed Christian Church of Nigeria (RCCG), Osinbajo is also well respected for what many call his unimpeachable integrity.

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria and Senior Partner in the law firm of Simmons Cooper Partners, his tertiary education was at the University of Lagos and the London School of Economics and Political Science obtaining the LLB and LLM degrees respectively.

He was appointed Lagos State AttorneyGeneral and Commissioner for Justice in 1999 and reappointed for a second term in 2003.

During the period of his public service, he commenced the Lagos State Justice Reform project.

A prominent feature of that project was the establishment of the Directorate for Citizens’ Rights (DCR), which provides free legal services and legal representation to indigent citizens of the state.

Prior to that appointment, he was the Head of Public Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos. Between 1988 and 1992, he was the Special Adviser to the AttorneyGeneral and Minister of Justice of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

He also served as a staff member of the United Nations and Member of the United Nations Secretary General’s Committee of Experts on Conduct and Discipline of UN Peacekeeping personnel around the globe.

He is currently an Ethics Advisor to the Ethics Committee of the African Development Bank (ADB) and is a non-Executive Director of Citibank.

Osinbajo is Co-founder and Board Member, Convention on Business Integrity and the Justice Research Institute Ltd. He has also authored several law books.

In 2007, Osinbajo and his wife, Oludolapo, the grand-daughter of late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, founded ‘The Orderly Society Trust’, a non- governmental organisation dedicated to the promotion of Christian ethics and orderliness.

Other options before APC While the three aforementioned trio are from the South-West region, sources revealed that the APC is also considering the possibility of picking its running mate from the South-South geo-political zone.

And the man considered the frontrunner for the slot is the Rivers State helmsman, Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, who, since he defected to the APC last year, has proved a formidable foe for the ruling PDP both in his state and at the federal level.

Time is fast ticking as the nation awaits, what from all indications, would be the most keenly contested presidential election ever.

‘Kwankwaso is giving hope to people’ Dr Danburam Abubakar Nuhu is the Kano State Commissioner for Information, Internal Affairs, Youths Sports and Culture. In this interview with Kolade Adeyemi, Nuhu assesses Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso’s achievements and other issues. Excerpts strategic reasons, we need to have our people in China, so that tomorrow when anybody wants to have a business transaction with the Chinese, it will be our people who would be the link, there will be no language barrier. Just recently, the governor approved that some of our teachers that were taught here are to undergo about three months programme in China.

Also, we have our concept of the integration of the Almajiri system and for now, we are trying to figure out the schools where they are and see what we can do in providing facilities to those schools, rather than embarking on the establishment of a brand new Almajiri school. This is so because we have to consider the sensibility of calling a name like Almajiri school, which may give the impression that the school is just there for different kind of people.

They are also human beings like us and we feel that what we should do is to support those who are running the schools to see what we can do in upgrading those facilities. This will be an easier way of assimilation.

There was this belief in the past that the North is educationally backward; do you still subscribe to this notion of bridging the gap with the South?

Yes of course, people have been saying that and it is correct that the North is backward in edu-

•Nuhu cation. But I can tell you that for us, we have been able to bridge that yawning gap. First, you need to have somebody with foresight who can champion that course, you need to have a leader, who should

be on the driving seat. When you talk of a boss, he sits there and tells you to go ahead and would be watching you to see how you are performing, but a leader would be the one in the front and say follow me, as he leads you to the right way. Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso is leading us to the right direction and that is why he is taking it very aggressively in terms of the proper way that it should be done on education. We need to have a sound education plan.

As the Information Commissioner, where do you think the state is lacking in terms of manpower?

Well, when you talk of manpower, there are so many areas and those are the areas we are making efforts to bridge the gap, particularly those areas that we need to do more. For example, the governor sponsored about 100 females to study Gynaecology because we realised that it is an area that we are lacking behind within the state and that it is very important. On completion, the 100 females would only provide their expertise to Kano State alone but would also extend their services to other parts of the country, especially to those areas that require their services; so in that regard,

•Continued on Page 24

THE NATION ON SUNDAY AUGUST 31, 2014

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ONDAY, August 25 to Wednesday, August 28, 2014 will remain indelible in the minds of Governor Theodore Orji and the people of Abia State.

Throughout those days, and indeed, all through the week, the state government and the people rolled out drums to celebrate the 23rd anniversary of the creation of the state.

Created from the old Imo State on 27th August, 1991 by the then military government of General Ibrahim Babangida, the South-East state, with 2006 census population of 2,833.999, is one of the nine constituent states of the Niger Delta region.

The celebration The colour, the dance and the joy that defined series of activities in Umuahia during the week-long anniversary reveal, according to a retired civil servant, Chief Nkemjika Udoka, “the notion most Abians share today that in spite of criticisms, Abia, after over two decades of aimless crawling like a baby, has finally found her feet, a solid foundation to rest on in order to commence the journey for future progress and success.”

Chief Udoka, who danced heartily with some women groups, during the Tuesday ceremonies at the Government House, Umuahia, told The Nation: “I am no longer in the service; but I was here when it all began in 1991, when we left Owerri (Imo State capital) to resume in Umuahia here. There were no offices.

For over a decade when I was still here, the story remained the same. It continued and many of us, who have visited other states that were created at the same time with our state, were ashamed that we may celebrate our silver jubilee in rented and dilapidated offices.

What we are seeing today, two years to the silver jubilee, shows that Abia is poised to wake up after all. That’s why an old man like me wants to dance today,” he said as he hurried off to acknowledge and join approaching Ohafia war dancers.

For the people and their governor, Chief Theodore Ahamefule Orji, it is a period of camaraderie and stock taking as they approach the silver jubilee of the state fondly called “God’s Own state.”

Legacy Concept The 23rd anniversary is described as unique for two reasons: Being the last anniversary the current governor, Orji, would host in that capacity, it is considered an end of a political era and the beginning of another and also a kind of send forth for the governor, or so to say. Secondly, admirers of Orji’s administration say his legacy projects have indeed laid a fresh socio-economic and political foundation for the state and will therefore be considered as the new dawn for Abia.

The argument is that most of the basic infrastructural facilities needed for effective take off and administration of the state were not provided by the previous governments, thus leaving the state dormant and the capital look like an abandoned colonial village. Such basic facilities that remained mere illusion for over two decades in the life of Abia State included a functional secretariat, offices for ministries and parastatals, a befitting capital city, preliminary foundations for development of new cities, modern estates and projects that would launch and sustain new economic base for the state and her people.

Given the absence of these elementary needs, it become clear to all that Abia needed a new beginning, a new foundation. It was his attempt to provide these primary needs, something that should have been done by the pioneers, that are referred to today as Orji’s legacy projects. If you ask him what he would like to be remembered for after his tenure as the governor, Orji, without hesitation would tell you, “I want to be remembered as a legacy governor.”

So, what are these legacies the governor always harps on? Besides intangible but concrete legacies, like creation of conducive political atmosphere for unity, cooperation and progress, maintenance of peace through adequate security of lives and property; Orji refers to provision of the basic infrastructural facilities as the legacy projects.

Talking about these projects, the Abia State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Dr Eze Chikamnayo, said in a recent interview: “In the last inventory that we took on the achievement of Chief T. A. Orji administration, we had over 10,000 standing projects that we can point at on ground.”

Amongst the most outstanding of these physical projects are the ultra modern International Conference Centre, Umuahia; the new governor’s lodge, the workers secretariat complex, relocation of the old market that was

POLITICS

Abia’s journey, Orji’s legacy As Governor Theodore Orji led his people to celebrate the state’s 23rd anniversary last week, Associate Editor, Sam Egburonu, takes a look at Abia State’s journey so far and reports that the ‘legacy projects’ of the outgoing governor, if preserved and put in proper use, are poised to lay fresh foundation for future socioeconomic and political development of the state. at the centre of Umuahia to a more spacious location, the sprouting Abia State Events Centre at the location of the old market, roads, housing estates and others.

Commenting on the anniversary and Orji’s legacy, Chief Bob Ogbuagu, a nationalist and one of the founding fathers of Abia, reportedly described this period as “the finest hour,” of the state.

He added, “I believe in what Ochendo is doing.

He is not doing most of them for now but for the future. They are what could pass as foundational projects. I commend him for what he has been able to do so far.”

The governor, in his fraternal message at the current anniversary also emphasised what he set out to achieve and what the anniversary meant to him and to the state. As he puts it: “This year’s Abia Day Celebration is particularly unique in the sense that it will herald the last I will celebrate with Abians in my capacity as their gubernatorial steward. It hurts to say goodbye, but the expediency of exiting when the ovation is loudest cannot be over- emphasised. The inauguration of any endeavour is as vital as its closing activities.

“Today in retrospect evidently brings to life how I was made a trusted instrument to fearlessly drive the much -expected new dawn in Abia, which was desirous of prosperity and a new lease of life.

“The responsibility was enormous with the capacity to make one’s mind skip a bit, especially in the reconciliatory reality of gaping infrastructural decay and political confinement, which had been the pathetic lot of Abia since creation. Application of the much expected template however ushered the needed new horizon.”

Political horizon Besides physical infrastructure which many agree is primary in the running of the state and for future economic boost, the search for a better Abia has been articulated mostly in the area of politics. Many observers have contended that the political fortunes of Abia since its creation has remained a shame, largely. It has been a long tale of rivalries, quarrels and political intrigues that left the state and her people politically raped in the open gallery.

Hon. Mao Ohuabunwa, a former member of House of Representatives and one of the key players of Abia politics since 1999, captured this development in an interview he granted some editors as part of the preparations for the anniversary. As he puts it: “Immediately we came in, less than a year, the former governor had a problem with the deputy governor. The polity was heated up and from that time, things no longer got better. In 2001, there were serious problems too. Then, we had the Abuja Group with Chief Ojo Maduekwe, Chief Vincent Ogbulafor, etc leading the bloc. There was Lagos Group, Taliban Group, Home-based Group, name it. There was serious factionalisation and that posed danger to the polity and governance. But today, we no longer hear of Abuja, Taliban, Lagos, Home, Mao Ohuabunwa or Chief Onyema Ugochukwu Group. Today, it’s one group, all running around the governor.”

Given this achievement ahead 2015 general elections, most Abians who spoke to The

Nation in Umuahia during the week expressed hope that Orji will employ the same strategy he used in uniting the once warring political foes in Abia to overcome the current debate over power shift.

Already, chants of political battle can be heard loud and clear. So, concerned observers are asking: “Who would be the next governor of Abia State? Who will Ochendo back? How will the current debate between sons and daughters of Ngwa extraction in the Central and South, o v e r zoning of the office of governor, be resolved?

Are the other stakeholders in the North, especially Isuikwuato, I t e m , Nkporo, A l a y i , Abiriba, Uzuakoli, Nkpa,

•Orji

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Ugwueke and so on, also being carried along adequately to ensure peace, cooperation and a sense of belonging?

As Orji prepares to leave office next year, concerned observers are saying he should personally ensure such pertinent questions are resolved while he is still on seat ahead 2015.

This is so because it seems widely acknowledged today that part of what has been the challenge in Abia politics is application of wrong strategies and or philosophies by some of the past leaders, especially what an analyst summed up as “divisive strategy.”

So, if today, the application of new templates, as governor Orji said, is changing the face and fortunes of Abia state, there are genuine calls for him to apply more of such strategies before 2015.

As Prof. Obasi Igwe, the Guest Lecturer at 23rd Anniversary of Abia pointed out in his paper entitled, “Contemporary Development Strategy in Nigeria: The Abia State Perspective,” “Strategy conceived in terms of means and methods is both unnecessary and redundant without a socioeconomic and political vision, guided by an emotional love for your people, total awareness of their historical and objective conditions, and a patriotic zeal to become a significant factor in addressing them.”

It would appear this is what was missing in Abia political strategy before the current efforts of Orji’s administration. Igwe also made this point when he said “Abia is at a crossroads.

A lot needed to be done that was not done since its creation 23 years ago in 1991, until a few years back when Chief T. A. Orji, touched by utter neglect by those earlier trusted to assume their responsibilities, and with almost nothing in the coffers, started amidst divers additional challenges imposed on him, to do something to actually inaugurate the process of building up Abia State.”

From all indications, it is evident that this is just the beginning of the journey for Abia greatness.

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY AUGUST 31, 2014

POLITICS

OME of the constituency projects you reportedly initiated have packed up. A typical case is the borehole project in your community, Uruokhuosa in Uhunmwonde Local Government Area. Please tell us what went wrong?

Because of lack of maintenance, the borehole is not working as at today but I can tell you that when it was commissioned, it was in a good working condition. I mean the citizens really appreciated it. I had to take the responsibility of maintaining it by providing diesel to run it for up to four years. As at 2006, I wrote the local government council at Ehor to take it over. I think what the council did was to buy diesel once. I tried to engage the community to take it over for maintenance servicing it and buying diesel. It was just one of the many that I initiated in the locality as a constituency project and it was going to be difficult for me to continue to maintain them on a personal level on a permanent basis. Even when I advanced money to community leaders for this purpose, it was mismanaged and that is why the borehole is in the state it has found itself today. So the borehole I sank as a member of the Edo State Assembly has finally packed up. I have boreholes in two communities near Uruokhuosa. For one of them, the community took the responsibility for the borehole maintenance and employed somebody for the purpose and I can tell you that apart from my initial support they have never called me for maintenance. So for Uruokhuosa, at the time the borehole came, the community which is my father’s community had no water. So it was their felt need at the time. It still is. I have personally spent money to sink three additional boreholes in the community with support from Benin-Owina River Development Authority to no avail. I am working on a fourth one.

Cast your mind back to the Benin Abraka road project which is very critical to your constituency. You have been in the National Assembly for over half a decade and your predecessor glossed over the bad state of the road.

What efforts have you made to get this road rehabilitated? At a time we heard contract was awarded but as we speak work is yet to commence on the road project. What is really the situation on the road?

I initiated the Benin Abraka road with a colleague of mine when I was on the committee on Niger Delta Affairs; when the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs was created. It was on the same day we initiated the development of the Gelegele seaport. We decided to include the development of the seaport in the first budget of the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs. But before the budget was concluded, I sought the consent of my colleague to quickly include the expansion of the Benin-Abraka road. I did this because I feared if at the end of the day the Government failed to execute the project, we would not have lost out completely. And I was justified at the end of one year. We put N500 million for the seaport and I asked for a N100 million for the design of the dualization of the Benin Abraka road. At the end of the year, the Ministry said the seaport was outside their purview. Instead, they wanted to design the road.

Luckily for us, the following year, Orhionmwon got a Minister in Chris Ogiemwonyi and I went to him and told him all about the road. He was Minister of State for Works. Shortly after his appointment I left the PDP for the ACN and with his intervention, contract for the road was awarded. The problem with the road is that the Ministry of Niger Delta is almost a failed ministry. I have written severally to them because they have refused to mobilise the contractors to site. Its even more painful that late President Yar’Adua created the ministry and the amnesty programme to douse the tension in the Niger Delta and the Presidency is now headed by a Niger Deltan, yet the ministry is not being properly funded. They fund the amnesty office rather than the ministry which mandate is to carry out development project in the Niger Delta region. As at today you can’t point vividly to the achievements of that ministry.

What guarantees are there that the plight of the Benin-Abraka road would not be replicated on the Benin-Akure-Ifon?

The Benin-Akure-Ifon road is under the Federal Ministry of Works. And I think its situation will be different because the current Minister is from Edo. In the case of the Abraka road, it was not directly under Ogiemwonyi’s ministry but the Niger Delta. So he needed to beg his colleague minister for the contract to be awarded. Continuing with the job when he has left office became a problem. Do you know that this road was on the 2012 budget of this same Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs for the

‘Politics has robbed Edo of oil revenue’

Samson Raphael Osagie is the APC member representing Uhunmwonde/Orhionmwon Federal Constituency and the Minority Whip of the House of Representatives. He spoke with Osemwengie Ben Ogbemudia on the challenges facing the Niger Delta Ministry, his obligations and abandoned constituency projects and why he believes he should be the next senator representing Edo South at the Senate come 2015 after spending almost 16 years as a lawmaker in the state and National Assembly. Excerpts:

•Osagie

sum of N1billion. The man just refused to fund or award the contract. Orubebe was Minister for Niger Delta then. He just refused and I discussed with him before saying I have this project. So the point I am trying to make it that lack of funding is what is defeating our projects and that is why you have a lot of abandoned projects all over the place. I had to approach the Minister for Works and his initial commitment and the flag off thereafter is an indication that this is one road that will not go the same way like the Benin Abraka road.

I presume that every Nigerian who is part of your constituency should elicit your concern or rather sympathy or empathy. In 2011, Engineer Ayo Omorogbe was shot and killed as he aspired to contest the seat of House of Representatives which you now occupy. Have you by any chance extended an olive branch to his family ever since?

Before he died, I recall recommending him for appointment into the NDDC. And when he was going to marry I was called and I attended the marriage. When he had a baby I recall he came to me and I also gave him some money, thank God it was a cheque. It is still a painful thing until today.

His death is as painful as my being fingered in the allegation. I find it curious each time I think about it, how I could possibly go to the family and give assistance. Because if a man I assisted so much, I could be fingered during his death, of what significance would my intervention how will my intention to assist the family be interpreted? It will be misconstrued. It’s a very painful thing and there is nothing I could have done in the circumstance. Although some of the family members have come to apologise to me because they now know the truth. But that does not mean that it is not one matter that I feel worried and concerned

about.

You once raised the issue of a Nigerian who was killed in Spain at the National Assembly.

Was it because he was a member of your constituency?

Let me say that as we speak the recognition and the awareness that we now have about the role of government in the welfare of citizens, especially those abroad, can be traced to that motion I moved in July 2007, barely one month I was elected into office. Osamuyi Aikpifanyi was a member of my constituency in the first place. He was a Nigerian from Edo State. He was one of those youths who left Nigeria to overseas in search of greener pastures. He died at the point of deportation. The impetus I had to take up his matter in the National Assembly was the circumstances surrounding his death. My investigations was that he was to be deported in a very dehumanising condition. He was not a thief but was alleged to have violated immigration regulations and was to be deported. He was put in a sack and it would have been better to put him in prison. They were going to carry him as a cargo and he died. Cognizance of the fact that there are many of our people living abroad, I used the motion to draw national attention to this incident to show to the world that we are an endangered species.

Are you disturbed about the lingering crisis on the Edo/Delta border, involving Iguelaba/Jesse residents? What have you done in this regard?

The issue of Iguelaba/Jesse crises and the problem of oil well in Edo being credited to Delta State or any other for that matter has been on for quite a while. I recall that the two state governments have engaged each other over the issue, however it goes down to the politics of oil exploration. The

worrisome aspect of it is that oil flow stations are located in Delta State whereas the oil wells are located in Edo. It is basically technological; this politics I talk about as oil companies tell you that the they cannot site flow stations here in Edo because the quantity of oil is not enough compared to Delta so they are forced to transport them, using pipelines there. Now the policies of the revenue is different. This is supposed to be part of the duties of the Revenue Mobilization and Final Commissioner. Unfortunately, states are not their brothers’ keeper. In the past, it used to be that in order to decline your oil revenue, you must be influential. Recall the episode between Cross Rivers and Akwa-Ibom and how the four lost over 76 oil wells, making Akwa-Ibom the richest state in Nigeria today.There are several issues involving Deltans and Edolites who have lived together and have lived peacefully.

I believe Delta people in the locality must respect existing traditional boundary lines. This is the key to resolving the crisis. The point I am making is that we must have a defined boundary between Edo and Delta. The crises has become endemic and encroachment is persistent because of the oil revenue. The National Boundary Commission has done a lot in this regard but the parties are not accepting and abiding with the decisions reached. What is needed in for all stakeholders to agree on the way forward.

Some are of the opinion that having been in politics as a lawmaker for 16 years by 2015 you should aspire to serve as governor not as a senator. What is your take on this?

I believe that God gives power and if you look at the history of how people emerge as governors, it is either they were not prepared for it or by divine providence. I am not averse to becoming Governor of Edo State but right now it is not my ambition, I can’t tell about the future. At this time, I will be more comfortable crowning my legislative career as a Senator. I have had the rare privilege among the lot since 1999 among all those we started together of being the only one in Edo South Senatorial district still making laws for our people. I believe it is not a bad idea to advance this career to the highest level, more so when I have become so experienced in the parliament. If I get to the Senate I will get precedence over a number of persons who will come and meet me there; even former governors in terms of lawmaking. Because I am not just a member of the House of Representatives, I am a Principal Officer of the House. And that comes with a lot of advantages for my constituency. One, given the experience and ranking, I would have more privileges of becoming a committee chairman or a Principal Officer that can attract more development to my constituency. I have attributed more development in the last three years as a Principal Officer than the previous twelve years at the State House of Assembly and the House of Representatives as a legislature. That is the truth, it is politics of the parliament. So it is to the advantage of my Senatorial District that among the lot asking for it, there is none that has my record. Some may have served three tenures in the House of Representatives but to the extent that they were not part of the Leadership cadre of the House, they cannot have the same kind of experience and expertise that I have.

Many of your opponents say your district in the Benin zone has produced two Senators in Danjuma and Owie and that it is the turn of old Oredo/Egor/Ikpoba Okha, this time around. Do you agree?

Democracy does not discriminate against the constitutional right of any citizen to contest for a public office. You cannot say that because my forefather was a senator, I cannot aspire to be a senator. In America, from where we copied our democracy, the Bush family, a father and a son were Presidents of the United States. The point I want to make is that it was coincidental that Daisy Danjuma and Senator Roland Owie were Senators and hailed from Uhumwonde. There was no time Edo South people sat down and decided that Uhunmwonde should produce the Senator.

There was no time they also decided that Uzamere should be Senator. Otherwise, the time Uzamere left Oredo for Ovia, he would have lost it. He would have become unqualified. While opponents will like to use that as a point against me, my message to Edo South people is we cannot sacrifice merit on the altar of zoning otherwise you will produce morons, mediocre, at the expense of excellence.

So I am qualified, I have all it takes. I am more experienced to be the Senator for Edo South in 2015. I am yet to hear those who are aspiring say, they are more qualified than me.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY AUGUST 31, 2014

POLITICS

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Mark: A successful negotiator of goodwill F

OR the less knowledgeable, incumbent President of the Senate, Senator David Mark was a trained combatant Soldier. Those who followed his track record in the hay days of his Military Career would attest to the fact that Mark was a no nonsense soldier who believed that no matter whose ox was gored the job that has to be done, must be done. From that background, as a Soldier, Senator Mark has less business with dialogue or negotiation. Like a true Soldier, his core obligation was to get the job done even if it required brute force or coercion. Most often, it was with immediate effect. To subordinates, the options are limited and there is no room or window for excuses; but getting results is the core value.

But since taking the mantle of leadership at the nation’s apex law making organ in 2007, Senator David Mark has proven book makers wrong with his deep sense of wisdom lased with diplomacy in managing the affairs of the Senate, nay National Assembly. Even his emergence as the President of the Senate remains a shocker to many political pundits because except destiny and the hand of God, only a few gave him a chance to make a success of it.

Those who had seen the rise and fall of many senate presidents under the current political dispensation (1999 till date) argued that David Mark would unwittingly step on the proverbial ‘banana peels’ that had seen the premature termination of the tenure of his predecessors in the unstable whimsical chair of the Senate Presidency.

Seven years down the line, Senator Mark, to their utmost dismay, has proven doubting thomases really wrong. He has stabilised the Senate, nay the national politics with his ingenuity and wisdom of Solomon. He has unarguably given the upper legislative chamber a good name to be remembered for and whose shoulders Nigerians should rely on no matter the odds.

Just a few months ago, Senator Mark rose above the fray, above partisan politics when he “resolved” the once Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Senators from defecting to the emerging All Peoples Congress (APC) when he stood firm like the rock of Gibraltar and held on tenaciously to what is right in tandem with the constitution and the standing rules of the Senate.

Those who rose up in protest that Senator Mark must read the letter of the “defecting” Senators few weeks later had cause to rethink and say thank you Senator Mark. The Senator Bukola Sarakiled “defecting” Senators now know better that the story would have been grossly unpalatable politically and that what Senator Mark did was beyond partisan politics but to safeguard democracy and protection of national interest.

Let’s not miss the point of this discuss to wit; that at almost every critical situation the nation found herself at least since 1999 return to a democratic rule, there has always been a Nigerian, a David Mark there to rescue the hitherto wrecking ship.

From Senate Retreat in Port Harcourt, Rivers State in 2008, where the upper Legislative Chamber proffered solution to tackle the menace of the restive Niger Delta Militants from where the establishment of the Ministry of Niger Delta, to compliment the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) to so many interventions, including the labour unrests, Senator Mark has always been the man behind the mask.

It is no longer news that for the whole of last year, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) shut down the Ivory towers on account of the alleged Federal government refusal to honour agreement reached with them on the deplorable state of Education in Nigeria.

All efforts/entreaties by authorities

Understanding Sullivan Chime

W

•Mark

By Paul Mumeh

and stakeholders to ASUU to call off the industrial dispute fell on deaf ears until Mark, through a resolution of the Senate was mandated to wade into the crisis.

Expectedly, Mark stepped into the matter and within a couple of weeks of tact and negotiation skills, the university teachers suspended the strike many thought was intractable.

As a humble public servant, Senator Mark did not claim the credit of that achievement but gave it to the university teachers, the Senate and the President of the Federal Republic who gave him a listening ear to resolve the issues at stake.

In the same vein, Mark, now dubbed the ultimate negotiator, waded into the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) dispute with the government and again achieved a great deal of success in resolving the crisis, and the lecturers went back to classes after about 10 months.

Worthy of note was Senator Mark’s invocation of Doctrine of Necessity on February 11, 2010 to save the nation from the precipice at a time when the country was in a circumstance described as ruddership on account of the ill-health of Nigeria’s former President, Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, a man believed to be determined but cut short by ill-health to lead the nation.

That singular action of the invocation of the Doctrine of Necessity unarguably saved Nigeria from leadership vacuum and empowered then Vice President Goodluck Jonathan to become an Acting President. It remains a vital page for the Guinness Book of Records.

What is more, Senator Mark’s intervention in the January 2012 public outcry and wild protests against removal of petroleum subsidy during which the socio-political and economic life of Nigeria was in comatose, remain a reference point in our contemporary history. The statesmanship of Mark on that occasion was worthwhile.

Only last week, Senator Mark again added to his credit when his intervention led to the suspension of the Nigeria Medical Association’s (NMA) two months industrial action.

Doctors under the aegis of the NMA had embarked on strike action to among other things demand for the unpaid areas arising from the relativity allowance, application of skipping in the promotion of medical doctors as applicable in civil service, increment of hazard allowance for medical doctors from the present N5,000 per month to a proposed N100,000 per month, withdrawal of the circular making nurses, midwives consultants, arguing that only degrees of fellowship registrable by the Dental and Medical Council of Nigeria can be considered for

appointment of consultants.

Besides, they are demanding the reversal of government circular sacking Resident Doctors and suspension of Residency Training.

While the strike lingered, Nigeria had the unfortunate and challenging out break of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), a development that worsened provision of health care services in Nigeria.

Government and well meaning Nigerians pleaded with the striking doctors to call off the strike and respond to national health emergency, all to no avail.

It was yet Senator Mark’s intervention from Sunday 17 through Wednesday 20 of August 2014 that salvaged the situation.

During the prolonged meetings with the leadership of NMA, led by Dr. Kayode Obembe, Senator Mark persuaded the doctors to see reasons and hearken to the national call to duty.

Accompanied by Delta State Governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, also a meical doctor, and Senator Tunde Ogbeha, the doctors after due consideration and consultation with their colleagues agreed to suspend the strike and return to their duty posts. Although, negotiation continues with government over the yet-to-be-met demands.

The point must be re-emphasized here that Senator Mark has lived up to his billings as the President of the Senate.

He has consistently stated that he remains a pan-Nigerian, a patriot and nationalist whose mission and goal is to contribute squarely to the wellbeing of the ordinary Nigerian. In doing so, he is to be guided by the wishes and aspirations of the Nigeria people. He will be neutral in all matters, but he cannot fold his hands on issues that affect the security and wellbeing of Nigeria and Nigerians.

In doing so he insist, he will be fair, firm, just and honest at all times so that generations yet unborn would remember his records of excellent services in public service.

Hate him or love him, Senator Mark’s honesty and determination to leave the Senate nay its leadership better than he met it is incontrovertible. Even his political foes have come to agree that his leadership of the Senate is far beyond partisan politics. He believes and works for a peaceful and united Nigeria where no one or section is oppressed or marginalised. He is a peace maker, a successful negotiator of good will. For him, there is the hand of God in what he does, and adorns a garment washed by God which no man can stern.

•Mumeh is the Chief Press Secretary to the President of the Senate.

HAT really does the man want? Beyond his dream, God has blessed him. By the time he was invited to the political arena by his erstwhile friend, Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani, Chime could not have imagined an opportunity to serve in the public square. He was a lawyer quietly plying his trade in Enugu. It was a modest practice by all standards and perhaps he never imagined that he could make the mark to win and don the silk. He never did before his childhood friend Chimaroke Nnamani, called him up to serve as a Special Adviser to the governor. The former governor reposed true trust in his friend who had earlier been vested with managing his estate.

From a Special Adviser, having found favour with Nnamani, Chime was elevated to the distinguished position of the state Attorney General. In that position, he was the official Leader of the Bar in the state- a state that boasts many senior advocates and successful lawyers. Even at that point, it appeared he had come to the end of his public service career. He was not a politician and knew the only path leading up from that point was partisan politics. He lacked the means and clout to pull it through. But, against wiser counsel, Nnamani sacrificed the good standing of people like Uche Ekweremadu for subjective considerations.

His teeth sharpened, the first person attacked by the imposed governor-elect was his benefactor. He ferociously went after Nnamani- tore at his thigh, made for the throat, leaving no one in doubt about his mission. At that point, as a distant observer, I started having reservations about the governor. After assuming office, many of my friends from Enugu have insisted that Chime is the best performing governor they have had; that is when performance is narrowed to provision of infrastructure. What about character? In assessing the worth of a man, I would rather rate the grace of his spirit above outward appearance.

It did not take long for us to see the Enugu State governor in full flight. That he took ill a couple of times could not be blamed on him. Anyone could. However, the secrecy he adopted in managing the information and the not-too-tidy manner of ensuring the state was managed at the time showed a governor could also be venomous. He indicated, through his action, that he thought little of Sunday Onyebuchi as his deputy and would always prefer to see the state as a private estate or a Sole Proprietorship.

Those who had seen his predecessor as a tyrant now know that there is little difference between a tyrant and a despot. All through, Onyebuchi thought his time would come. He believed that if Nnamani could make the way for Chime on account of perceived loyalty, the governor could not do so much violence to total allegiance. Onyebuchi has been proved wrong.

Then came the story that the governor had been treating the young lady he pulled into the Government House as successor to his wife as foot mat. Again, as a man of good breed, Onyebuchi made no efforts to profit from the crisis as many would. The fact was lost on Chime who felt Onyebuchi had had enough, having risen to the number two position.

Decoding his boss’s body language, the deputy governor neither insisted on moving up the ladder as successor-in-title, nor staying to support the next governor. He would rather move sideways by seeking to grope his way to the Senate. It is a legitimate quest. The governor, too, assessing his political structure, has the right to back whomsoever he chooses. However, to go beyond throwing his weight behind a particular candidate and level childish charges against the deputy governor is reprehensible.

Chime’s allegation that Onyebuchi committed gross misconduct by setting up a poultry on the Government House Ground is the worst example of a vicious leader (or dealer). Framers of the constitution made impeachment the stiffest form of punishment for holders of the highest executive offices in the land because it was assumed that only decent people would ever occupy the offices of the Chief Executive, lawmakers and Chief Judges.

The three institutions were brought into play to shut out conspiracy and indecent plots in performing that function.

Despite the safety valve, Onyebuchi has been impeached. Chime and his cohorts have done violence to the spirit of the constitution. Chime has misused and abused his office in ensuring that a young man’s loyalty and industry has been rewarded with political assault, if not murder. As Onyebuchi has indicated, he should go to the courts to explore the possibility of obtaining justice.

He deserves to find out if there are still a few decent men on the Bench who do not consider running poultry a punishable offence. To Chime, I can only say, whatever a man sows, he shall surely reap some day.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY AUGUST 31, 2014

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Y

OU started off as Chief Press Secretary to the governor and later morphed into Commissioner for Information and then Commissioner for Youths and Sports. How were these transformations like?

Basically, there are more or less, one and the same because they all entail building the image of the state, that of His Excellency. It is also about communication with the publics – internal and external public. It is about taking the activities of the government, the programmes and achievements of the government to the people. And for that, I think there is a very thin line that divides that.

The only difference is that you sit as a head of the policy maker in the ministry whereas the other one you are always there with His Excellency.

But I must say that the experience has been quite humbling. There is nothing that gives greater joy than to be in the service of your people and to be of service to people. For someone like me, I don’t think I can derive greater joy from any services than the service to the people. I have enjoyed every beat of it even as challenging as it has been. I give God the glory. I thank most especially His Excellency who gave me the opportunity. It is a rare privilege. He gave me that opportunity to serve the people and believe that whenever this tour of duty ends, the people themselves would look back and say here is the man who served his people diligently.

How did you take it, as you said, before you became a commissioner, you were not involved in policy formulations. From Chief Press Secretary, you were on the rise: what where the expectations?

The expectation for me, in any assignment, is always to ensure that I give my best and to ensure that I succeed. We all read Things Fall Apart and we know the major problem Okonkwo had: Fear of failure.

And I think some of us had that fear of failure. We don’t want to be seen to fail in any assignment we are given. So, I will burn the night, work for 24 hours to ensure that I achieve success. That is my driving principle in life. So, when that step up came for me, I don’t think it was that which

‘What I learnt from Imoke’s leadership ‘school’ Patrick Ugbe, one-time Chief Press Secretary (CPS) to Governor Liyel Imoke and later Information Commissioner is currently the Cross River State Commissioner for Youths and Sports. In this interview with some reporters, Ugbe speaks on the leadership style of the governor, the forthcoming National Sports Festival and sundry issues. Excerpts: I should find difficult to manage. It was still within my area of focus. Besides, it is all about administration. It is all about management. I came from the private sector where I have gone through several experiences and had to run a private business from the scratch and built it to a reputable level in the industry.

So, I was coming from that background and experience and did not think the management of human and material resources would pose any problem to me. Again, the way we function in Cross Rivers State, you would know that we work as a team. Nobody works as an island in Cross River State. Even as Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, I was involved in the overall information management of the state.

Coming from the private sector where things are done to strict specifications and all that, do you feel like fish inside the water suddenly finding yourself again, in the public service because the two are far apart from each other?

In a way, they are not far from each other. It is the experiences you have had that you bring to bear in whatever assignment you are given. In this case, I ran my affairs in a very professional manner. And everyone who had had an encounter with me, who had had to deal with me, will tell you that I deal with them in a very professional manner. Yes you would say there is bureaucracy in government, but there is a way you can walk around that bureaucracy and make things work.

Moving from information to sports, you cannot say that things are still the same different programmes,

•Ugbe policies, ideas, personnel. And it came at a time when the state was bidding to host the national sports festival. What were the fears? What did you find strange or different?

I would not say that I found anything strange or different. Let me say that they are both equally challenging, with different types of challenges. However, it is paramount to note that the principles of management are the same.

So, what stands you out is your passion to perform. And in this case, it is all about the passion for success. I have always been very passionate about sports.

As a broadcaster, I did virtually every-

thing. I reported business, entertainment, sports. Somewhere along the line, I knew I had to specialize and I focused on one – sports. So, I knew virtually everything about sports. And like I said, the principles of management are the same, it is how you apply it that matters. So, moving from information to sports was not that strange to me.

The state had already won the hosting right for the 19th National Sports Festival before I was appointed the commissioner for sports. All I had to do was to prepare the blue prints for the successful hosting of the festival. The state already had a comprehensive sports development plan before I came. All I had to do was to build on that programme and ensure its success. So, it was not really strange to me.

What would you be remembered for as commissioner for Youths and Sports?

What I think I would want to be remembered for is the fact that we tried to make Cross River State a destination for sport in Nigeria. Before I came onboard, not so many people in the country would refer to Cross River State as a destination for sports. But when I assumed responsibility as the Commissioner for Youths and Sports, I keyed into the overall vision of the State Government, its tourism vision. I have always said that sports is the number one tourism drive in the world. The most recent examples are there. Look at what happened in Brazil with the hosting of the World Cup. Millions of visitors were in Brazil and left with lasting memories of that visit and would return there again. Look at what happened at the Common Wealth Game in Glasgow. A great number of people

visited and would return because of the great memory they had. If you look at these, you would see that sports is the number one driver of tourism in the world. And I built on that to see how I could bring to the state so many sporting events. We have been able to do that. We had swimming, it is known all over that the home of the Super Eagles is Calabar. They are relaxed when they are in Calabar and so they don’t play with tension. We have had athletics here also. And now, we are preparing for the National Sports Festival which is like the mother of all. So, at the end of it all, we would have achieved in making Cross River State a destination for sporting excellence. And I would be happy if am remembered for that.

Would the National Sports Festival be considered as the high point of your tenure as Commissioner for Sports?

Yes, because the festival, as I do tell people, is our own Olympic Games. There is no other event bigger than the Olympic Games in the world. And being privileged to be the one at the saddle here in the state when we are hosting it, I think that would be the highpoint for me and God willing, I would ensure that with all the resources available, we would ensure a successful event.

I recall sometimes ago, His Excellency spoke well of you when you were moved to be the Commissioner for Youths and Sports, despite some people’s initial doubt about your ability to perform, how did that go down with you?

I was really touched and humbled. It is humbling when such comments come from your boss. I give God the glory because I have never failed in any assignment given to me. I give His Excellency the credit for his foresight and his ability to spot talents. He can see through and know that this man would be able to deliver. And that was why he decided to move me to the Ministry of Youths and Sports. He might have moved me knowing well that there is a job to be done and needed that job to be done. And I am very happy that I did not disappoint him.

•Continued on Page 25

‘Kwankwaso is giving hope to people’ •Continued from page 20

you need to have someone who will be able to sensitize our minds to prepare for that, as well as to encourage our people to diversify into that field of study because we acknowledge the fact that we have a gap in that area and need to bridge it. And one other area that we also realised that we need to bridge the gap is the issue of teachers. We realised that there is the issue of misplacement of some of the teachers. For example, you have the issue of a teacher, who is better qualified than where he is teaching, just as you can find a teacher who is supposed to be in tertiary institution but teaching in a secondary school. Also, we presently have a situation, where you have teachers that are not supposed to be teaching in tertiary institutions but are teaching there, so we needed to harmonize such positions, which is the exercise that the governor is making efforts to effect. Also, those that are required to proceed for further training, so as to fit into where they are, which informed the decision to commence a programme for our teachers. For example, we are aware that we have shortage of technical school teachers and that is why the state has sent so many teachers to the United Kingdom to study emerging technology in technical education.

It should also be noted that we have 44 local governments within the state and when you look at the programme, the governor decided

that we need to have strategic schools to cater for certain areas that we feel our people would be interested in. For example, the School for Islamic Studies (SIS) is specifically to support what our children have learnt either in the Almajiri, Arabic or in the Quranic schools, so as to be able to upgrade themselves. For now, we have techniclal schools spread across the 44 local government areas of the state, where we send some skilful people to because at the end of the day, not everybody will end up in the education field, as some will want to become artisans, while some will want to become craftsmen, so we needed to provide such category of schools that will provide such skills, so as to bridge that gap. And that is why we also have the sports institute , as we realised that there are some children interested in sports. So, that is how we are carefully building human capacity.

Do you think the ongoing construction of flyover projects will be completed at the end of Kwankwaso’s tenure in office?

I can tell you that when we came on board, we realised that it will amount to total waste of time to encourage people to invest in Kano without the provision of infrastructure. So, our primary objective was to embark on the construction of infrastructure, which will attract investors on their own volition and that is why so many airlines are flying the Kano route, not because they are interested in Kano but because the metropolis is being transformed to a mega city. Apart from that, the programme of Gov. Rabiu Musa

•Nuhu Kwankwaso is an urbanisation programme. He appreciated the need to improve facilities in Kano, particularly the provision of infrastructure, so as to further open up Kano, as well as to decongest the metropolis and to ensure that it is transformed to a mega city.

And that is what informed that decision to concentrate on network of roads and the very first time, one is noticing flyovers criss-crossing the metropolis, a two kilometre flyover, which is perhaps the second longest bridge in the country and the hinterland, as there is no flyover that is as long as the one in Sabon Gari, which is still under con-

struction. The Sabon Gari area in Yan Kura is one the central business district areas, as Kano is popular for its commerce. The city attracts people from all walks of life, including the neighbouring countries for business transaction. The only way to make that possible is to open up the city, where they will arrive and have hitch-free access to our markets for their business transaction. But in order to put all these facilities in place, you need to have somebody who is visionary. People have been talking about flyovers for the past 40 years but today the government has

transformed that dream to reality and that is why I am insisting that what we have is a real programme and not an abstract programme.

However, one of the most critical and important success of the incumbent government is the issue of accountability, probity and transparency because we needed to ensure that whatever we are doing must be very transparent, as well as accountable and to also block all leakages and that is why as at today, we are doing well and our workforce do not complain about non-payment of salaries because they are paid as at when due.

Also, we have done so much to the pensioners. When we came on board, there were pensioners, who were receiving N500 but the governor decided to create a bench mark that all pensioners, who were earning below N5,000, will now have a benchmark of N5,000 and above. That means that those who were earlier receiving N300 will now be receiving N5,000 and from that benchmark, the state government will embark on upgrading of the various scales and have a ladder of how the increment will rise, and it has never happened in the history of Kano, as those who were earlier receiving N300 are now collecting N5,000. Also, our pensioners, who will retire will retire comfortably knowing they will receive their pay as at when due.

Another important aspect is that we realised the need to block leakages, which the governor started from his office by stopping wastages.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY AUGUST 31, 2014

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‘Why I will win Kwara PDP governorship ticket’ Former presidential aspirant of the National Transformation Party (NTP) in the 2011 election, Mr. John Dara, is seeking to govern Kwara State under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ticket. He spoke with Sunday Oguntola on his plans to win the race and govern the state.

Y

OU contested the 2011 presidential election and lost. Why are you sticking out your neck again this time?

I have always been eager to contribute to the quality of leadership in Nigeria. I recall that in 2011, I needed to make a statement on behalf of my people in the Middle Belt that we have many quality people who could be Presidents of Nigeria. I realised that many people in the Middle Belt tend to be self-effacing and humble, even shy of presenting themselves as being available.

I was setting a standard and pace that you don’t need to be a money bag to make yourself available to serve. There is nothing ungodly or arrogant about making oneself available for leadership. That point was eloquently made and I can assure you that in the Middle Belt today, more and more people are very confident and ready to take over leadership at all levels. I could run again for the presidency but as far as the forum is concerned, there is no vacancy there for now.

We have not spoken officially but the truth is we are backing Jonathan. So, that possibility is foreclosed. It gives me the opportunity to reopen a project, which I have vigorously pursued in 2002. I wanted to change the politics of Kwara State and bring democratic, developmental leadership.

In 2003, I contested against former Governor Bukola Saraki. As at the eve of the primary, I had three-quarter of the PDP delegates behind me while he had one. At the end of the day, all our delegates were locked out and he was proclaimed the candidate. The law as at that time gave the party the opportunity to pick candidates however they wanted. So, there was nothing we could do.

Kwara people are calling me to duty. They want me to rescue them. All the original members of the PDP are resolute about my candidature and that is why I am in the race.

How well are you grounded in the PDP considering the many camps in the party led by Hajia Bola Shagaya, Gbemi Saraki and Dele Belgore?

First of all, I always caution that the impression created in media does not represent reality. Hajia Shagaya is one of the leaders of the party. She does not have any faction at all. She is

•Dara a friend of all the aspirants and all groups. She may like one group above others but her primary focus is that PDP wins in Kwara. As a matter of fact, she does not see herself as a politician. She just wants to make sure that PDP wins in Kwara.

Gbemi does not have a faction but supporters for her aspiration. Dele Belgore has supporters not a faction but PDP of Kwara is one solid block.

I can tell you authoritatively that there are no factions. I play a major role and I can say I was the leading figure in installing the current state executives of the party.

The State Chairman is from my camp. I was the one who approached Gbemi to nominate someone to be the Secretary. She nominated the Women Leader. I approached many others who nominated their own people too. So, everybody has somebody in the state executive.

But what is more important is that when we finish the process of primary, the level of friendship among us will remain that we can still be friends. That is my own objective. So, there are no factions; there is competition and rivalry.

So, you belong to Bola Shagaya’s faction?

There is nothing like that. I am a friend to Bola Shagaya. I am a friend to Gbemi Saraki. I am a friend of Abdul Raheem and everybody. And I mean close, warm, personal relationship. I am a friend of Jamiu Ibrahim and everyone. Before politics, we were friends. During this contest, we have no reasons to quarrel among ourselves.

So, I don’t belong to any faction. My belief is

that when I have emerged as the governorship aspirant of the party, everyone can say ‘let’s work together with him’.

The feelers are that the Sarakis have control in Kwara. Is it true? Can you emerge with that structure in place?

Every politician you ask in Kwara will tell you that the media has an exaggerated picture of the Sarakis in Kwara. I will say the media is justified because one way or the other, Saraki managed to be on the winning side throughout his career.

What many people do not know is that he was a smart politician. He would study the trend and throw in his support. When he saw that Cornelius Adebayo was going to win in the Second Republic, he supported him. When he saw that Shaaba Lafiagi was the most popular aspirant in his camp, he backed him despite the fact that he didn’t want him.

When it was the turn of Mohammed Lawal, he saw that he was loaded and competitive. He supported him. All the former governors were aware they needed his support and humbled themselves before him. The formula for getting his support in those days was to be very strong and relate to him with humility and loyalty.

So, who inherited the structure? Bukola has left with some people for the APC. Gbemi is still in the PDP. When the father was alive, he could not defeat Bukola. Is it now that she will defeat him?

How much of the structure did she bring to the

PDP? How much is left in APC? The Saraki’s factor will be in Kwara politics for a long time to come but I don’t think it will be the determining factor in the next election.

In the past, one Oloye determined who became what but there would be nothing like that again.

I believe the Jonathan’s factor would rather determine whoever emerges. I believe that the PDP will win big if I am eventually fielded as the flag bearer.

But what about the zoning arrangement that does not favour you?

I am not aware of any zoning arrangement in Kwara State. Whether in the PDP or APC, there is no such thing in the state. But conventional wisdom makes us know that any of the parties that do not pick its candidate from Kwara South will lose.

In 2011, Kwara Central had produced Bukola for eight years about Lawal’s four years.

So, the district produced the governor for 12 years. Before then, the North produced Shaaba Lafiagi. So, everyone was of the opinion that Kwara South must produce the governor.

Bukola rode on the back of that to pick someone from the South who won eventually.

The same thing applies now. Kwara South is where the ticket must go. We have done first term with Abdul Fatai and we must do the second term after which others can have their own turn. So, it is settled in the minds of electorates.

But the last time the north produced a governor was far back in the Second Republic and fairness dictates they should get it now.

No, but they don’t stand any chance. The voting power of Kwara State is in the Central and South. Are you saying we are not entitled to the second term?

Is it true the president is backing you?

I will say to you that he is neutral. He wants the primary to be transparent to engender unity.

Before now, there were funny characters claiming to have his backing. I know what endorsements they have and the ones they don’t have.

What I can say to you is that I am the most popular. Only two of us were in the original PDP and all these new comers in the party do not know the spirit of PDP. They will not be elected as the flag bearers.

All of them want to be governors but we have not heard of their plans to transform Kwara State. I have produced a four-point agenda for the transformation of the state that people have seen. It resonates with the people.

It is not just about aspiration but vision and mission.

You are a Christian. Do you see yourself winning the governorship poll in a Muslimdominated state?

I believe there is a Muslim majority in Kwara. That is my impression though some people don’t agree with me. So, it will be unwise to be running on the basis of religion.

But what I have going for me is the fact that I am a grassroots, a commoner who can connect with people. Whether Muslims or Christians, old or young, many people are at ease in my presence.

My support base cuts across all religions.

The people of Kwara will take decision not based on religion but competence of the aspirants. I intend to make Kwara a state of harmony for all faiths to feel a sense of belonging.

What I learnt from Imoke’s leadership ‘school’ •Continued from page 24 I remember quite well when we were before the House of Assembly, before confirmation, a day before the swearing in, someone made a comment and called me Patrick Ugbe the Commissioner for Information, I said no, am not going to be the commissioner for information but a commissioner in a different environment this time. The person doubted me, wondering where else a commissioner for information can function. I told him that His Excellency would shock them all. It was as if I already had fore knowledge of where I was going but deep in my mine, I wanted to go to Sports because I felt that something needed to be done there and that I had the capacity to do it.

And I thank God it went according to the will of His Excellency. For youths, I had this feeling when I stepped in, because my father was the first Director of Sports in the modern Cross River. He worked in Youths all his life and retired there. So, me being sent back there, was the Hand of God. A lot of people have said that His Excel-

lency is one man that retained all his commissioners and political appointees so far, how would you assess such a consistent leader. Was it because of continuity? What can you say on this?

What I can say is that, he is a great leader. He is a statesman. There are very few people like him who see leadership the way he sees it, who see governance the way he sees it. One thing we should understand is that there is government, whether it is Donald Duke, Liyel Imoke or anyone else. And there is Cross River State. The actors can come and go but the government is government which means that a man who came before you, would lay his own blocks, the man who comes after would build on those blocks, because we are all building, serving the people. We are not serving ourselves. And in doing that, you must understand that the people you have appointed to serve go through processes the processes of orientation, getting to understand what service is all about before work begins. A sensible leader is one who allows that because we gain from experience. You might have had a background in management but the practical is through experience. A

great leader should not change the experienced and winning team for a new team, that would have to learn all over again in service delivery to the people. But that does not mean that if you find the ones that are not performing, you won’t pull them out and bring in fresh hands that would add value to what you are doing. So, for me, he is a great leader who understands the art of governance, leadership. He has seen it all. He is one man who has been in the legislature, in the executive and in the private sector. He understands administrations, he understands leadership, he understands governance perfectly well. Whatever he is doing, he is doing it in the best interest of the administration and the people.

If you look at Imoke’s cabinet, it is made up of future generation. Is this in accordance with what he has always espoused, his new generation philosophy?

Let me start by saying that he has never overlooked the older generation. He believed in the admixture of all ages. The experiences of our older colleagues matter a lot and when the old and young come together, you would have a perfect mix that

brings success and progress to the state and the nation as a whole. Nevertheless, he is one person who believes in generational change. And if you notice what he is doing with his foundation, he is developing leaders for tomorrow.

He believes that the young people he has in his cabinet are developing so that when his own generation leaves the stage, the state, and which is the model that should be copied for the country, would be left in good hands to ensure continuity. So, yes, it is his philosophy to generate future leaders for the state and the country.

People have always described Governor Loyel Imoke as calm, cool and collected. What is your assertion?

Just as he is, he is always cool, calm and collected. I have never seen him ruffled, which is why I describe him as cool, calm and collected. There are several instances to buttress this description. I would mention one: In working with him, with all the travels, you find yourself in several instances of turbulence in the air, when you see people disturbed, he is never ruffled or disturbed.

26 POLITICS

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, AUGUST 31, 2014

ripples Joshua Dariye is PDP bound

Presidency, PDP favour Odua for Senate

•Oduah

•Okadigbo

•Dariye

Why Ekunife defected to PDP

Sunmonu looks a sure bet for Senate •Ekwunife

Chris Uba back in reckoning •Sunmonu

What’s Adeseun’s gameplan?

•Uba

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, AUGUST 31, 2014

34 GLAMOUR

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44 MAGAZINE

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Continued from Page 53

56 GLAMOUR/OUT & ABOUT

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• Otteh

Page 58, 59

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‘There is need for unity among pensioners’

Can we bank on Nigerian bond market?

• Zal

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‘I work with people who are smarter than me’ • Omatseye

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Firm gets NIS excellence service delivery award

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•From left: Chairman, Yoruba Obas Conflicts Resolution Committee, Olugbo of Ugboland, Oba Obateru Akinruntan, Managing Director, Obat Petroleum and Refinery, Femi Akinruntan, leader of Central Poland Chamber of Commerce, Prezes Gospodarczej at Polish Chamber of Commerce On Investment Visit to Olugbo in Ondo State…recently

T

HE management of the School of Banking Honours (SBH), Lagos has called on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to stop the planned implementation of the new policy regime introducing N65 charges on Automated Teller Machines (ATM) withdrawals.

Reason: the SBH feels strongly that the reintroduction of the ATM charges is not only diversionary and unpopular but will invariably rob the Federal Government of other legitimate sources of revenue valued at over N4trillion on the long run.

Mr. Adetola Adekoya, Project Consultant/Acting Rector of the school made this submission recently while addressing newsmen in Lagos.

It would be recalled that the CBN had in a circular dated August 13, 2014 announced the reintroduction of ATM cash withdrawal transaction fee to N65 per transaction, to cover the remuneration of switches, ATM monitoring and fitnotes processing by acquiring banks.

In a statement issued by the Director, Banking and Payment Systems Department, CBN, Mr. Dipo Fatokun, he said the apex bank and the deposit money banks agreed to re-introduce the ATM charges because the cost of transaction was becoming too burdensome for the banks to continue to bear.

But Adekoya, however, argued that the proposed implementation of the new ATM charges which is expected to kick off on September 1 is a grand design by the apex bank to satisfy some selfish interest at the expense

Institute seeks public hearing against N65 ATM charges •Says policy may stall collection of over N4trillion revenue to FG

By Ibrahim Apekhade Yusuf

of the Federal Government which stands to lose legitimate sources of revenue valued at over N4trillion.

Specifically, he said: “The management of the School of Banking Honours feels strongly that the reintroduction of the new N65 ATM charges by the CBN will not benefit the economy in any way because the proceeds will not only go into private pockets at the expense of the masses who will bear the additional burden but the Federal Government is going to lose over N4trillion revenue which is supposed to accrue from stamp duty collection by the Nigeria Postal Service (NIPOST) over a period.”

Continuing, the SBH boss recalled that his organisation entered into a Master Services Agreement with the NIPOST since 2012 and has been awaiting CBN’s compliance circular to over 1, 500 banks and other financial institutions (OFIs) as back-up to its management approval letters on statutory N50 stamping of all electronic money transfers “received” and manual cash tellers “deposited” into the accounts of their customers, wherever these are from N1,000 upwards, as provided by the Stamp Duty Act 2004 and the NIPOST Act 2004.

The circular, he insisted, follows a 2009 precedent where banks were reminded

of the need for their subsidiaries in the capital market to comply with the NIPOST mandate on N50 stamping of contract notes, among others.

Adekoya, however, regretted that the CBN under the immediate past governor, Mallam Lamido Sanusi refused to issue new compliance circular to banks and OFIs on the N50 stamping of banking transaction receipts and deposits even though private sector banks have started making their own charges on cash-less transactions that are covered by the CBN approval to SBH, since October 1, 2013.

More worrisome, Adekoya said, is that the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc, which allegedly “joined SBH in a press conference in January 2013, to alert on N50 stamp duty obligation, and was appointed “official” sweeping firm on e-Banking receipts later increased its own charge from N35 to N105 (300%) despite “financial inclusion” against a superior law.

“Based on reported growth in NEFT, etc, volume e-Banking receipts is estimated at 50billin per annum (grow 200% instead of reported 300%), which at N50 gives about N2.5trillion postal revenue, that has been converted by NIBSS away from Federation Account since 2013.”

Adekoya, who disclosed that his team has since met with the new CBN boss, Mr. Godwin

Emefiele, stressed that the best way to address the alleged financial “infraction” is for a convocation of a public hearing by the National Assembly to enable the CBN and NIBSS account for the N50 stamp duty proceeds on e-Banking receipts into the Federation Account from 2013 till date.

He, however, said it was heartening to note that based on the feasibility study carried out by the school it hopes to create 300,000 jobs that are expected to roll-out with an immediate sign-on of 100,000 young graduates on its “emerging bankers” programme.

More products, he hinted, has been packaged by SBH students to grow head-count on jobs.

School of Banking Honours (SBH) is an Innovation Enterprise Institution (IEI) created and approved by the Federal Ministry of Education to drive the policy on banking skills and entrepreneurship studies for Nigerian youth. It is registered as an NGO, and has accreditations from National Board for Technical Education and the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria. SBH programmes are listed in the Joint Admissions & Matriculations Board’s Unified Tertiary Matriculations Examinations (JAMB-UTME) brochure to offer admissions to senior secondary school (SS3) leavers into the world of banking operations study and career, leading to the award of National Innovation Diploma (NID) in banking operations techniques.

ONTINENTAL Transfer Technique Limited (CONTEC), Nigeria’s foremost biometric technology and secured system organisation, has won the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS)’s most prestigious award, the NIS Recognition of Excellence Service Delivery.

The award which was announced at a ceremony to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the service at the International Conference Centre, Abuja by NIS Comptroller General of Nigeria Immigration Service, Mr. David Parradang, was in recognition of CONTEC outstanding performance as a technical service provider.

Parradang, who spoke on the award, pointed out that it was to appreciate CONTEC’s initiatives that have demonstrated leadership and commitment to service excellence through practical application of technological solutions for new and existing needs of the Nigeria Immigration Service.

A major area of recognition is the Combined Expatriate Residence Permit and Aliens’ Card (CERPAC) Project that was conceived and designed entirely by CONTEC in 1999 to introduce a new type of Residence Permit and Alien Card which is both forge and tamper-proof to replace the paper type residence permit which was subject to manipulation and abuse in Nigeria on the CERPAC project.

In his citation, Parradang said, “CONTEC technical solutions and professional contribution in CERPAC project has led to a more effective and responsive immigration service.”

CONTEC is an international company with a strong regional African base, as almost 40 per cent of Africa’s population use one form of system platforms designed, processed, printed and delivered by the company.

SURE-P partners ITF on equipping centres From Franca Ochigbo and Halima Farouk, Abuja

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HE Subsidy Re-Investment and Empowerment Programme SURE-P has agreed to equip Industrial Training Fund (ITF) centres with tools to assist technical vocational training students undergoing different skills.

The Chairman, SURE-P, General Martin Luther Agwai disclosed this during a visit by the Director General of ITF, Dr. Juliet Chukkas Oneako in Abuja at the weekend, stating that though SURE-P is winding up by 2015, they should leave a legacy by partnering with agencies that are fully into job creation.

He said, “SURE-P had earlier on renovated ITF headquarter building in Jos, a follow up to that is the equipping of the centre with different tools for trainees in this centres. Our desire is to reduce the labour market to the minimal.”

Responding, Oneako assured that with SURE-P collaboration, the organisation will achieve maximally. “In the past we had successfully partnered with Nigeria Employers Consultative Association, NECA, Dangote Foundation, Technical Vocational School, Singapore. These partnerships are targeted at providing international standard for trainers,” she stressed.

NAGAFF accuses SON of threatening international trade

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HE National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) has raised the alarm, over recent activities of the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) to destabilize international trade, noting that the SON was laying siege and arresting containers within the roads in Lagos State.

Already, the group has forwarded a letter to this effect, to the Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC) and copied the Presidency, the Senate President and the Customs Comptroller General (CGC), among others, stressing the need for their urgent interventions, to prevent SON, from ruining the trade further.

“We have noted, based on reports and complaints from the practicing freight forwarders, that the enforcement unit of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), over time, has laid siege and thereby arresting containers within the city roads of Lagos State, Nigeria”, the National Deputy President, Ugochukwu Nnadi, indicated, recalling that the Federal Government of Nigeria had once directed some Government agencies including SON to operate from outside the ports and only be invited by Nigeria Customs Service if they show interest in any particular import if the need arises.

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY AUGUST 31, 2014

BUSINESS

•DG of SEC, Ms Arunma Otteh

•DG Debt Management Office (DMO), Dr. Abraham Nwankwo

•MD/CEO, AMCON, Mustapha Chike-Obi

Can we bank on Nigerian bond market?

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IME was when the bond market was strictly an exclusive market. But not anymore. Today, it has become the beautiful bride sought after by everybody who is anybody, especially the different tiers of government. And the reason for this is not far to seek: the realization that the bond market is perhaps one of the easiest means of raising funds out there with little or no encumbrances at all.

The game changer Following the reforms in the bonds market, the Federal Government in October 2003 issued three-year, five-year, seven year and 10- year bonds. While the three year bonds were 87.5 per cent oversubscribed and allotted, investors showed apathy towards the longer tenured bonds.

The low turnout for the other bonds resulted in subscription and allotment of less than 50 per cent of the issue. No bonds were issued in 2004. Following investors’ aversion for the long tenured bonds, the government offered only two and three-year bonds on seven separate dates in 2005, raising a modest N178 billion from investors at yields between 8.25 per cent and 17 per cent.

In 2006, the Federal Government was able to raise N282 billion from the three-year, fiveyear, seven year bonds. The amount raised was 58 per cent above amount raised in the prior year, while subscription was N613 million. From then onwards, the bond market has grown rapidly, with the Federal Government beginning a tradition of monthly issuance of bonds.

In 2006, for the first time since the re-opening of the market, special purpose bonds were issued to selected banks for the settlement of N75 billion pension arrears in 2006 According to Ms. Arunma Oteh, Director-General of Nigeria’s Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), “interest in (Nigeria’s) bond market is not limited to local issuers as the reformed environment is attracting interest from multilateral fi-

The Nigerian bond market hitherto an exclusive preserve of blue-chip companies have since become a fad among the different tiers of government who see it as a veritable source of income to drive development projects. In this report, Bukola Afolabi takes a look at the fortunes of the nation’s bond market vis-à-vis challenges of sustaining capital nancial institutions such as the IFC (International Finance Corporation) and the ADB (African Development Bank).”

Addressing participants on “recent reforms in the Nigerian bond market,” at a seminar organised by the Capital Market Correspondents Association of Nigeria (CAMCAN) in Badagry, Lagos, Oteh said: “the ADB has also filed for an MTN (Medium Term Note) programme of about $1.5 billion to be denominated in the local currency.”

She recalled “that the IFC issued its maiden ‘Naija Bond’ in February last year and has already approached us for a medium term note (MTN) programme to be naira-denominated worth about $1 billion.”Both programmes will be free from the eliminated limitation on the lifespan of a shelf programme,” she assured.

“You may also recall that we approved two new trading platforms, both over-the-counter (OTC), i.e. the National Securities Dealers Association (NASD) platform and the Financial Markets Dealers Association platform, the FMDQ. The former, which was launched recently has already started operations and is expected to revolutionise the entire bond market by boosting liquidity and simplifying bond trading.

“The Nigerian bond market is certainly on the verge of a revolution buoyed by an improved, competitive and conducive environment that attracts issuers and investors alike. The yield curve of the FGN bonds which has been extended to 20 years provides a good benchmark for issuers of all stripes to leverage the bond market to attract capital, both foreign and local. The market will continue to attract significant amounts of capital internationally since the FGN bond attracted inclusion into the emerging markets indices of

Barclays and JP Morgan,” Oteh stressed.

Continuing, she said the result of these initiatives have been encouraging, as can be seen from the upswing in the domestic bond market, resulting in current total capitalisation of about N5.65 trillion.

What is more noteworthy, she continued, “is the increasing interest in the bond market by corporates and State Governments.”

State government bond In its annual National Debt Sustainability Analysis (DSA) released by the DMO last year, the total domestic debt of the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) reached N1.471 trillion last year. This is an increase of 19.34 per cent compared with the N1.233 trillion domestic debt figures the previous year.

The figure indicates an abuse of the opportunity that the bond market provides reported recently that only sixteen states of the federation have raised bonds totalling N520 billion in the last six years without clear outlines on how the funds were used.

This is against the backdrop of massive unemployment and infrastructural deficit across the country, which the debts could have addressed.

Specifically, the 16 state governments were found to have raised the bonds without their citizens’ understanding of what the funds are meant for.

Filings by the state governments at the NSE showed that Kogi state’s N5 billion bond is the smallest so far while Lagos emerged the biggest debtor with a total of N187 billion issued so far.

Analysis of numbers obtained showed that Osun state with internal generated revenue and federal allocation of less than N2 billion has so far raised N30 billion including the just concluded N11.4 billion

sukuk.

Others include: Kwara N17 billion, Niger N15 billion, Kaduna N8.5 billion, Gombe N20 billion and Edo N25 billion.

Benue, Ebonyi state Ondo state, Ekiti state, Bayelsa state, Imo state and Delta state have also raised N13 billion, N16.5 billion, N27 billion, N25 billion N50 billion, N18.5 billion and N50 billion respectively.

Investigation by The Nation also revealed that Oyo, Ekiti, Zamfara, Rivers and Adamawa states respectively have concluded arrangements to head to the stock market to have a taste of the binge findings also revealed that the states activities at the bond market have crowded out corporates, particularly the manufacturing sector thus inhibiting their ability to create value and employment.

Although safety of the funds is paramount, experts believe that pension funds administrators (PFAs) should do more than rely mainly on state and federal government bonds to invest pension contributions.

The PFAs held bonds totalling N1.9 trillion at the end of March, equivalent to 45 per cent of their assets under management and 42 per cent of the outstanding stock of debt instruments.

The project of the state government The number of listed state governments bonds currently being auctioned at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) has risen to 35, with a total market value of N565 billion.

The above amount was raised between 1978 and 2013 from the capital market to finance various developmental projects.

The Nigerian bond market has provided N565 billion to 18 states to finance various infrastructure projects in the last 35 years, 75 per cent of the funds were raised in the last five years. In the last two years, four state governments had raised

funds through the bond market to finance various developmental projects.

Leading the pack in terms of volume and value is Lagos State, which got approval to raise N167.80 billion from the capital market but has so far raised N80 billion in 2012 to finance construction of Adiyan Waterworks (Phase II), infrastructure developments, health facilities and redevelopment of Eric Moore Schools.

On December 31, 2013, Ekiti State Government concluded its N25 billion bond issuance programme with the successful raising of the balance of N5 billion from the exchange. Ekiti State had in 2012 embarked on the bond issuance programme raising N20 billion as the first tranche with a coupon of 14.5 per cent to fast-track its infrastructural development and economic transformation.

Having begun the execution of the various projects, Ekiti State returned to the market to raise the remaining N5 billion with a coupon of 14.5 per cent to complete the projects. Earlier in 2012, Ondo State Government under the 50 Billion Debt Issuance Programme issued N27 billion bond to finance developmental projects.

It was followed by Gombe State in the same year which raised the sum of N20 billion to finance the building of township and regional roads, schools, purchase of earth moving equipment, mega park, School of Nursing and refinancing of existing loan while Osun State got approval to raise N60 billion from the capital market.

But has so far raised N30 billion in 2012 and N17.4 billion in 2013 under its Tranche 1 and 11 to finance road infrastructures, commercial infrastructure, urban renewal, Ede waterworks and refinancing of loan while the second Tranche will be used to finance education.

Recently, Director General of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Ms Arunma Otteh said while the state governments have benefitted significantly from the market, the federal government had also been an active participant in both the domestic and international bond markets.

More disciplined funding Also, Director-General of the Debt Management Office (DMO), Dr. Abraham Nwankwo noted that his agency is busier now and has helped by its enabling law ensured Federal Government is now more accountable for its spending. In the days before the advent of the office, he explained further, government funded its deficit budgetary expenses through ways and means, in which case more currency is printed to fund the shortfall in the annual budget. This was particularly the case, he recalled, during the military era and in the years immediately preceding the DMO’s birth.

Speaking on “the transformation of the Nigerian bond market,” Nwankwo , who was represented

by Joseph Ugwuala, head, Policy, Strategy and Risk Management at the office, said between 2003 and this year, Abuja has funded N4.612 trillion or 57.74 per cent of total deficit of N7.986 trillion arising from fiscal operations through bonds issuance at the domestic market.

Giving a breakdown of the figure, showing that in 2003, fiscal deficit stood at N202.72 billion, representing 2.04 per cent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Products; dropping in 2004 to N172.6 billion or 1.51 per cent of GDP. By 2005, national deficit level fell again to N161.86 billion or 1.11 per cent of GDP; before beginning soaring to N341.86 billion or 2.35 per cent of GDP, and representing a 111.79 per cent jump.

The deficit level jumped again to N580.19 billion or 3.64 per cent; and then N537.95 billion or 0.84 per cent

THE NATION ON SUNDAY AUGUST 31, 2014 in 2008. In 2009, deficit was N836.6 billion, 3.02 per cent of GDP. The figure more than doubled once more as government’s revenue obviously stagnated as needs mounted, Federal Government’s fiscal operations resulted in a 2010 deficit of N1.993 trillion or 6.11 per cent of GDP, the highest within the 10-year period. It dropped to N1.136 trillion or 2.96 per cent in the following year; and N1.135 trillion or 2.85 per cent in 2012. Last year’s deficit is forecast to reduce below the trillion Naira mark at N887.06 billion or 1.85 per cent of GDP. He noted that in 2003 at the onset of the bond market, N72.75 billion of the deficit or 36 per cent was funded by domestic borrowing, dropping to N27 billion or 16 per cent the following year; and N25 billion or 15 per cent by 2005, In 2006, the figure rose to N1087.2 billion or 31 per cent; rising further to N200 billion or 34 per cent in 2007; a dropping to N155.47 billion or 29 per cent in 2008. In 2009, the quantum of the deficit funded through the domestic bond market ballooned to N542.11 billion or 63 per cent, a level from which it has never dropped. In 2010, domestic funding of deficit catapulted further to N1.36 trillion or 68 per cent; falling to N852 billion or 75 per cent the following year; last year, N744.44 billion or 65 per cent of the federal deficit was funding domestically; while N544.06 billion or 61.33 per cent of this year’s deficit is to be sourced from the domestic bond market.

According to Nwankwo, “the current practice of financing part of the country’s fiscal deficits by borrowing from the market has not only led to the development of the domestic debt market, it has brought other salutary benefits for monetary policy operations and the economy.”

These, he continued, include “removal of conflict of interest clear separation of debt management functions from monetary policy operations thereby allowing each agency, especially the CBN, to concentrate on its core mandate; subjecting government’s borrowing to market discipline; use of long-term as against short-term funds to finance long-term projects a clear case of optimal asset-matching; significant reduction in refinancing risks through tenor elongation.”

One other benefit, he added, was the “establishment of a Sovereign Yield Curve and benchmark for private sector borrowing.”

The domestic bond market, according to the DMO boss, has not been just for financing government’s fiscal deficits, as it served as a platform for issuance of the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) bonds to buy toxic debts off the balance sheets of Nigeria banks.

Proceeds of the domestic bond issuance, he noted, were also used to fund special government stimulus spending initiatives like the N200 billion commercial agriculture programme, whereby the funds raised by the DMO were made available to the CBN for lending to agriculture enterprises through the commercial banks between 2008 and 2010.

Also, proceeds from the issue was used to fund the cotton, textile and garments revitalisation programme, part funding to the tune of N100 billion with FGN bond proceeds. Others include “the purchase of locomotives for the revitalisation of rail transportation; and, the provision of seed money for the development of infrastructure in new districts in the Federal Capital Territory.”

BUSINESS

59

Sugar master plan: So far, so …

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HE creation of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment (MITI) from the former Ministry of Commerce and Industry

by President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, was one of the landmark decisions aimed at repositioning the Nigerian economy for job creation and wealth generation.

Few months after the creation, the ministry came up with the Industrial Revolution Plan.

One of the major objectives of the Industrial Revolution Plan of the Federal Government was to strategically reposition the manufacturing sector as a major contributor to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product in the area of job creation and wealth generation through value addition.

For it to achieve this, the ministry again came up with various plans geared towards creating investment opportunities and also attracting investors.

Expectedly, in order to bring these laudable objectives to fruition, the ministry directed its policies and programmes at specific areas, especially where the country has comparative and competitive advantage.

Thankfully, the desired objectives of the ministry have begun to yield appreciable result in the sugar industry.

Before 2012, Nigeria was among the top five importers of sugar and only produced about three per cent of domestic consumption.

According to the data from the Nigerian Sugar Development Council, NSDC, before 2012, sugar importation accounted for 97 percent of the total sugar supply in the last 10 years in Nigeria whose cost implication for the country amounts to N530 billion ($3.4 billion).

The data further revealed that the total sugar produced locally in the same period was a mere 240,000 metric tons. Thus between 2002 and 2005, the country depended purely on sugar importation. Sugar consumption during the period in question was 11.3 million metric tons.

That is, local production during the period under review was only 8.5 per cent of total sugar consumption while 91.5 per cent was accounted for by importation.

The implication was that the country was not only losing $3.4 billion to importation of sugar, but also losing 4000 jobs as a result.

Data from the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) further revealed that Nigeria spent an average of N30billion annually on the importation of sugar over the last 10 years in order to meet its requirement.

In 2009, 2010 and 2011, Nigeria spent N53.6billion, N73billion and N101billion, respectively on the importation of sugar.

However, on the 19th September 2012, the Federal Executive Council approved the Nigerian Sugar Master Plan (NSMP) and implementation commenced January 2013.

Among other things, the introduction of the NSMP was expected to attract over $1billion in both local and foreign direct investments and create over 107, 000 directs jobs locally at the initial stage in the next 10 years.

The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Olusegun Aganga, highlighted other benefits of the NSMP to include the generation of 400mgwt of electricity.

He said the new policy is expected to also generate about 1.6 million tonnes of animal feeds annually; 37,378 permanent jobs; $65.8 million savings in forex on fuel imports annually; and $350 million saving in forex on sugar imports annually.

Aganga, who presented the memo for the NSMP during the executive meeting in Abuja, was up-

Toba Agboola writes on the modest success recorded so far under the Nigerian sugar master plan by the Ministry of Industry Trade and Investment and its implication on the economy

• A sugar processing plant (inset) Olusegun Aganga

beat that the new policy will provide a regime of fiscal and investment incentives over the next 10 years in the development of sugar.

From available records, the nation’s raw sugar imports dropped to 800,000 tonnes from 1.4 million tonnes in the second quarter of 2013.

The document, signed by Executive Secretary of NSDC, Dr Latif Busari, stated that refined sugar imports dipped from 1.88 per cent in 2012 to 0.67 per cent in 2013.

It further said that local price of sugar fell from N9,000 per 50kg in 2012 to N6,950 in 2013, representing a decrease of 23 per cent. The document said that total national demand for sugar rose from 1.5 million tonnes in 2012 to two million tonnes in 2013.

Besides, sugar smuggling was virtually non-existent as refinery capacity utilisation rose from 60 per cent to 75 per cent.

The document attributes the successes to the National Sugar Master Plan (NSMP) launched in January, 2013. The NSMP, which has a 10-year implementation period, aims to produce 1.79 million tonnes of sugar; 161.2 million litres of ethanol and 411.7 MW annually.

The document said that the proposed $2billion investment in projects across six states by the Dangote Group will produce between one million tonnes and 1.5 million tonnes of sugar annually.

It further pointed that Kenana Technical Services has substantially expanded its Savannah Sugar at

Numan, Adamawa, from 6,500 hectares to 21,000 hectares by 2018 to produce 100,000 tonnes annually.

“FMNL/GSR through its Adeco Agric Group is to produce 60,000 tonnes of sugar annually from its 13,500 hectares arm in Sunti, Niger State, by 2018.

“Also, HoneyGold Group through its subsidiary, Costas Negocios, is to invest $300 million on two sites in Adamawa State to produce 200,000 tonnes sugar annually,’’ it said.

According to the document, Crystal Sugar Mills has announced plans to invest 30 million dollars in expansion of its operations to produce 60,000 tonnes per annum by 2018.

An elated Executive Secretary of the National Sugar Development Council, Dr. Latif Busari said going by the rate of the growth been recorded, the nation’s sugar production level would hit about 1.79 million tonnes by 2020, higher than the 1.5 million tonnes consumed annually.

Ten months after the implementations of the NSMP, Aganga announced that the country has attracted $3billion (about N480billion) investment into the sugar sector.

He said that the country is targeting production of 1.7 metric tonnes of sugar per annum.

“NSMP has stimulated investments of $3bn thus far. NSMP is targeting the production of 1.7 metric tonnes of sugar; creation of 117,181

direct jobs; generation of 411.7MW of electricity; total forex saving of up to $565.8 million annually from savings from sugar production and fuel importation.

Recently, the Federal Government announced plans to provide N2 billion Agricultural and Infrastructure Support Fund for investors in the sugar industry.

Aganga disclosed this during the quarterly meeting with the directors general and chief executive officers of agencies under the ministry in Abuja.

He said: “The National Sugar Development Council, a parastatal under my ministry, is providing N1 billion from the sugar levy while the Bank of Agriculture (BoA) will provide a matching fund of additional N1 billion as intervention fund to assist investors and farmers who are investing in the sugarcane to sugar programme, which is an integral part of the backward integration programme in the sugar sector.

“The fund, which will be disbursed at a single digit interest rate, is part of our on-going efforts towards providing an enabling environment for Nigerians the BoA will provide a matching fund of additional N1 billion as intervention fund to assist investors and farmers who are investing in the sugarcane to sugar programme, which is an integral part of the backward integration programme in the sugar sector.”

Estate firm unveils programme in Lagos

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INVEST Limited,the continent’s largest online platform and information platform for the real estate sectoron Wednesday 27 August, 2014hostedmedia representatives to a conference and brunch at Victoria Island Lagos, to officially launch REAL ESTATE UNITE 2014 the International Business-to-Business event that convenes players from across Africa’s real estate industry. The event is scheduled to take place from 2 3 October 2014 at the prestigious Intercontinental Hotel in Lagos.

Speaking at the press conference, Ruth Obihwho is Chief Executive Officer of 3Invest,said with Nigeria’s rebased GDP, the sub-Saharan real estate market presents an attractive investment opportunity; a portfolio which currently accounts for about

7.6% of the nation’s GDP but can be as much as 40% if better mobilized.

“This is what we are seeking to do at this year’s event through the theme, ‘Igniting the F.I.R.E, where lies the key?” she said.

The theme represents key factors 3Invest have identified over the years as having the potential to catalyse the industry’s growth. The “F” represents Finance, the “I” represent Infrastructure, “R” represents Red-Tapism while “E” represents Education.

Also speaking at the event was Peter Bamkole, Chairman of the Real Estate Unite Advisory Board and Director of the Enterprise Development Center, Pan-Atlantic University. “Real estate is a major contributor to employment in the country,” he said. “The more we are able to provide jobs, the

less the likelihood that we are going to have uprisings.”

The launch also witnessed the introduction of the Health Care Real Estate Forum which will be part of the event in October, 2014.

“As a forum that is responsive to growing trends in the industry, we knew it was time to bring to the forefront a new market opportunity when we were suddenly faced with the outbreak of the Ebola virus in Lagos and West Africa at large,” Obih said. “With the infrastructural challenges of providing medical services to the infected, exposed and others, I knew that at Real Estate Unite, we had to focus on healthcare real estate or simply put, the future of care from the real estate perspective.”

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY AUGUST 31, 2014

BUSINESS

‘There is need for unity among pensioners’ W

HY did the Federal Government stop payment of gratuity to pensioners?

The former TUC President, Comrade Peace informed me that as a result of the implementation of 2004 Pension Act , the Federal Government staff now forgo their gratuity, what do you know about this?

We have not been seeing any provision that is meant for paying gratuity in the yearly budgetary allocation on pension for retiree. The government has just decided not to pay gratuity.

Was there a time the act was amended to stop the gratuity for pensioners?

In fact, we have discussed that at several fora at our NLC meetings, that there is need for government to pay that gratuity to retirees and civil servant because that gratuity will help retirees to start a new life because it is usually paid in bulk. So such payment will help retirees to start a new life and I believe it is because of these problems that made retirees to opt out of contributory pension scheme. Because in the past, some people will go and buy, build houses and if they couldn’t do that when they were in service, with time by getting that gratuity it helps them to get or build a house of their own. We have discussed at NLC meetings several times that government should revisit that decision of not making provision for gratuity and nothing has been done.

As it is now, it should be a common knowledge that you have pensioners under the old pension scheme and contributory pension scheme, in comparison which one would you choose? Have you had any cause to regret the implementation of the new pension scheme?

To me personally, the fear is that in the contributory pension, once you exhaust your contributory pension, you don’t have any money left to enjoy the pension continuously. Any increment in the worker’s salary is the same applied to pensioners. In the case of the new one, there is no negotiation for the minimum pension. No, there is no provision for that. To me personally, that is the only disadvantage of the act.

This issue of 33.4%, what have you been doing about its implementation?

We have been crying and in fact, we thank your newspaper, you have always been very supportive by carrying our voices, complaints, and all that. It is really unfortunate that up to this moment that I am talking to you, the civil pensioners have not gotten the new rate, unlike the military, they are enjoying their new rate since last year but this is not so for civilian pensioners.

Why is this so?

Well, you know there is this common saying among the military, they call us “bloody civilians.” So I think it is based on that slogan that could have led to the delay in implementing the civilian increment because we know that pensioners should be treated equally, just like workers, there is no discrimination at the federal. In fact, when they increased the salary, every category of civil servant got their increment at the same time. So we thought that the military and civilian pensioners are pensioners, so they have equal rights.

Do you see the government succeeding with the PTAD you have in place at the moment?

It was before the commencement of the contributory pension. That directorate should have been in place, it is long overdue. And I that have been there, I believe the issue of mismanagement of pension fund wouldn’t have arisen because such a body is supervised by PENCOM and you know PENCOM is a known commission that is doing its job commendably and it is not news that now they keep to contributory pensions which is running into trillions. So we believe that as an organisation that is supervised under PENCOM, there is hope and we have confidence.

Just recently, some pensioners who are averse to the leadership of the union made a statement to the ex-chairman of Pension Tax Reform Team into PTAD, should you wake up someday and find out that Maina is now reinstated. What will the organisation do?

You see, it is something that has been

Despite the numerous advantages that pensioners now enjoy under the Contributory Pension Scheme, the General Secretary of the Nigerian Union of Pensioners (NUP), Elder Actor Zal, in this interview with John Ofikhenua, clamours for payment of arrears as the committee which President Goodluck Jonathan set up to resolve pension crisis stopped meeting since last year

•Zal resolved long before now, that the pensioners long before now with their last blood resisted such because reinstating Maina on that reform team would bring a lot of hardship on pensioners rather than making things easy for them.

Like you move from state to state and you discover that thousands and thousands of pensioners are not on the pension payroll because they removed their names and when they remove their names, they say, they have paid the pensioners. The money they are supposed to pay the true pensioners, they say they are ghost pensioners. So I don’t know when somebody is still living and you say he is a ghost.

What do you mean by saying that the pensioners will fight the reinstatement of Maina with the last drop of their blood? Does this mean street protest or seeking redress in the law court?

Based on the Senate investigation team on the problem of pension administration in Nigeria, from their report, the outcome of their investigation was glaring. During the task force, they recorded the highest mismanagement for fund than ever before. And the record is there, which you can even verify at the Sen-

ate. We know that there is no way that our members will be happy with whoever would want to bring back Maina. That is why the problems lingering till today. If you go to PTAD you will see thousands of condemned forms that were submitted by these pensioners they were saying were ghost pensioners and they are still living.

Does this mean that you will limit your protest to “unhappiness” or which action will you take if you say you will resist his coming back with the last drop of your blood? Will you go to court?

As I am with you now there is no way I can give you such an answer. It is something that people will have to meet then they will decide the strategy because everything needs to be planned. So when such a thing happens, when we get to the congress it is there that strategies will be taken and decisions will be taken. So for me to tell you what will happen it preempts my members’ intention which will be tantamount for such a struggle.

How is your union pushing for the payment of the outstanding pension arrears?

It is part of the effort we are making by the

last week press conference that was held here which your correspondent attended. So that is part of our efforts. You know in the union, we rely on our check-off dues. We don’t have any other means and the only thing we can do is to draw the attention of the public for sympathy to such. Pensioners are not working for anybody so if you say they will go on strike. The only thing we can do is to make noise through press conference or through protests like one that was held early this month. That is the only way we can put forward our own effort.

Have you written any letters to the Minister of Finance for her to disburse these outstanding payments?

We have done that several times. You know that there was a committee set up by the president to find ways of resolving the pension crisis in the country. It was headed by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation. Our union is a member, NLC is represented too, PTAD, Head of Service Office, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Labour, the Budget Office and PENCOM too.

But up till today, the issues still linger on, and we are thinking of going back to NLC and say that you suspended the action that you wanted to on our behalf hold a sympathy strike for pensioners, nothing has been done. That is our next plan now- to go back to NLC to say up till now, nothing has been done. That meeting has since stopped since last year. Nobody is talking about the pensions problems again.

Is it true that your union is opposed to the re-election of President Goodluck Jonathan?

You see, there are certain groups that made that statement. As we are, election is a personal view. You cannot imposed your own view on the other person. But we are saying that any government that listens to the plights of pensioners, pensioners will always support such government. Even our state pensioners we have told them that if your governor is paying you well, support him. But if he is not, you know what to do.

So that is just it. It is when you are happy that you will be happy with someone if you are not happy there is no way you will. That is just the logic.

What is your message to all pensioners?

We call on all pensioners to unite.

Whether you are a local government pensioner or parastatal pensioner, federal pensioner or state pensioner, we want pensioners to speak with one voice. We don’t want any division or disunity among the rank and file of the pensioners because united we stand, divided we fall. So my own appeal to pensioners is that we should speak with one voice so that we can fight our common enemy. In the union, there is no discrimination. Anybody from any unit or from any department that you retire whether local government, whether parastatal or pure federal or whether a pensioner from state or tertiary institution, you can aspire to be the president of the union. There is no discrimination. The leadership is not reserved for a particular set of pensioner. It is opened to all pensioners so the better we unite the better we succeed in our struggle.

• From left: Representative of Marriott International, Ramzi Najjar, the Group Executive Vice Chairman/CEO Sifax Group Dr. Taiwo Afolabi, his wife Folashade Afolabi, the MD/CEO of Dori Construction & Engineering Nig. Ltd. Chaim Zach, Pastor Owolabi & Pastor Taiye Olayemi during the ground breaking ceremony of the new Marriott Hotel, Ikeja… recently

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY, AUGUST 31, 2014

‘There is goldmine in water treatment’ H

OW did you get into water treatment?

When I moved into Owode Ajegunle in Ikorodu about five years ago, I found out that there wasn’t good water to drink. On the other hand, there was a lot of flood around. So we had to treat the water and thing got better gradually. We thank God for the government that that is also constructing the roads and bringing development to the area.

I have a friend, Engineer Ibe who had been living in the area for a long while. We met in Israel and discovered that they had good water in spite of the fact that they have rain once in a while. In the process of trying to find out how they do it, we found out that they recycled their water through natural means. It is not about using chemicals at all.

So how did you get trained for this?

We learnt the process in Israel with my partner. When we started we found that people spent a lot of money doing boreholes and you know that when you do boreholes there are some levels that you get to that you cannot control the water anymore. Iron, ferrous and the water become brown or black. Also by the time we started, we needed to convince people about the need to treat their water through our company. Nigerians usually do

Rev. Peter Oladayo Fatukasi trained as a computer programmer in London and soon returned to Nigeria, where he had a short stint with IDPM, gathering experience on the job. However, necessity made him venture into water treatment and fumigation, where he has literally made good. He shares his story of running a successful startup company in this interview with Yetunde Oladeinde not believe something that is new and we told them that there is a money back guarantee or don’t even pay us.

Borehole is not easy to control and so we use the well and it is called osmosis inverter. So, we did it for a number of people in the neighbourhood and got referrals from them afterwards. Our clientele got bigger and we also got projects like working on water used by some hotels within and outside the area. It is affordable unlike the industrial process which is quite expensive. Our system is quite easy for a lot of people to have good water.

How long have you been doing this?

We started the business about five years ago. And the response has been very encouraging but like every new business at that point, we know that we had to bear the risk alone. Now that we have proved ourselves, people now look for us. There is a new

property of about eight flats in the neighbourhood that has just been completed. They called me recently to come and inspect it because they had seen our jobs. It is a pity that a number of people prefer trial and error. When you tell them don’t do this, try what we have. They go round to make mistakes and they come back to us later. Majority of them use stainless steel for water treatment but after two or three years, it rusts and gives problems. We call that mugun stainless but we use plastic and it is called crude water treatment but by the time you finish it, it comes out tasteless, colourless and odourless.

What are some of the challenges that you encounter on the job?

The challenges are that most of the people who are putting up houses usually run out of cash. It takes less than 48 hours to execute the project and it cost from N400,000 upwards. It is a very lucrative business. What keeps me

going is not just the money I make from the business. My passion is to see my neighbours and people around me having clean water. I imagine what is going on at the moment with the Ebola virus and there is no water in a community.

Can you imagine what would happen? Besides, water constitutes a great percentage of what our body is made up of and it is important to have clean water all the time, especially for women. They want to cook, have their bath and tidy the environment from time to time.

Of course, we all know that without water life would be unbearable and it would affect families and businesses. That is why Fela Anikulapo Kuti sang the song, Water no get enemy.

For a number of small and medium scale businesses, electricity has been a major challenge. How has this affected your business?

For us, electricity is not a major thing. It doesn’t really affect us and we make use of the generator,

CBN, Citibank, GBF reward outstanding entrepreneurs

C

ITIBANK in collaboration with Growing Businesses Foundation (GBF) and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on last week recognised excellence by Nigerian micro-entrepreneurs at the CBN Annual MSME Conference and Awards held in Abuja.

At the awards, hosted by the CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan also launched the N220 billion MSME Fund.

The managing of the funds is expected to be in collaboration with the public sector, the civil society and private sector as part of achieving inclusive finance.

The awards to deserving winners were presented by the CBN Governor in the company of Citibank Managing Director, Mr. Omar Hafeez and Dr. Ndidi Nnoli-Edozien, founder GBF. The awards categories include the Best Micro Business Model, Most Marketed Product, Most Innovative Product, Employment Generation, Micro entrepreneur of the year award, Best Woman Entrepreneur and Most Innovative Microfinance Institution.

Some of the dignitaries at the

By Adeola Ogunlade

2014 Micro-Entrepreneurship Award include Governors Idris Wada of Kogi State, Willie Obiano, Anambra State Governor, Ibrahim Dankwambo, Gombe State, Godwill Akpabio, Michael

Wong, Country Director World Bank, Sylvanus Ikhide, Head of Department University of Stellenbosch South Africa, Godwin Emefiele, CBN Governor, Kingsley Moghalu Deputy Governor CBN, Nicholas Okoye, Empower Nigeria, Anabel Group

Inc, Omar Hafeez, Managing Director of Citibank, among other The GBF has so far provided capacity building and technical assistance services to over 200,000 micro-entrepreneurs at the bottom of the pyramid (BoP) since its establishment in 1999.

which is used to test the pumping machine. It is oaky because, you do not need this for a long while. The only problem however, is with our clients; the people who would use our products would need electricity to pump the water regularly. For those using automatic pumping machine like you have in the developed world like the US, immediately the water finishes, it pumps itself back automatically. But with the electricity problem, this would certainly be impossible.

Sometimes, if you use the generator too often then it would pack up easily.

If you have to advise government and our entrepreneurs, what would you tell them?

I would tell our government that they should have the fear of God in their minds. If they do this, God would help them. If the fear of God and fear of death is on their mind then they would be better citizens. Anybody in government today is a millionaire or a billionaire. They have made more than enough, yet they are never satisfied. The most important thing is to do something for the people who put them there in the first place. They must strive to make an impact in the lives of those they promised to serve. As they love money, they should love their neighbours and if they do this things would change.

There is money in this country but our leaders are selfish.

What are the other things that they do?

I am also into fumigation.

Most people do not fumigate their houses in Nigeria for years.

It is better to do this every six months or at least once in a year because of the pests and rodents.

Most houses now, if you look at the ceiling, you find that it is falling apart. That is why when there is a big storm the roofs collapse and it is better to save yourself from all this by fumigating your environment.

From left: Chief Compliance Officer (CCO), Standard Chartered Bank, Siji Adeyinka; Managing Director/CEO, Heritage Bank, Ifie Sekibo and CCO, Heritage Bank, Prince Akamadu, at the monthly meeting of Chief Compliance Officers of Banks in Nigeria, hosted by Heritage Bank in Lagos...recently.

PHOTO: ISAAC AYODELE JIMOH

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY, AUGUST 31, 2014

• Orlando Owoh and his sisters

‘Ours is a family of musicians’ Y

OU play kennery music which was synonymous with the late Orlando Owoh, are you related to him?

He is my elder brother, not immediate.

My dad had 11 wives and Orlando was number 17 or thereabout. I should be number 37 on dad’s list of children.

How was it like growing up in that kind of home?

It was a very loving home and we lived happily together. We are from Ifon, near Owo in Ondo State. My father was richly blessed; God gave him a lot of wisdom. He was very rich and he was into building and carpentry. He was a total technician, he built and constructed. Everyone was involved helping him to make the business successful and my brother was a trader.

What kind of father was he?

He was a great man and a very loving man. We are a family of musicians. Our father was a musician and most of the philosophical Orlando songs are truly my father’s song. He was everything you could wish for in a father.

At what point did Orlando decide to go into full time music?

We were born into it. There is a culture in my family that if you give birth to a baby, you would put the child on the bed to beat something like a drum and the child must react to it. If not they would say that this child is not our own. Orlando was born into it and later he started discovering himself. All Owomoyelas passed through the choir at the Methodist Church at Oshogbo.

We were all born in Oshogbo, our father settled in Oshogbo.

As a choir boy, Orlando was talented and should I say rascally. He was a multiinstrumentalist, singer and he had another thing going for him. He was also a dramatist. At the latter stage of his life, he joined some theatre groups like Kola Ogunmola.

At what point did you join him in music?

I studied Automobile Engineering and started with the Federal Government Technical College in Oyo, where I acquired some other certificates. I practiced for about 10 years and worked with reputable motor companies like SA Motors, Guinness Nigeria Plc and Glaxo Pharmaceuticals.

•Owomoyela

Oluwatosin Bamidele Owomoyela is the younger brother of the late Orlando Owoh famous for the the Africa Kennery Band. In this interview with Yetunde Oladeinde and Udemma Chukwuma, Owomoyela, an automobile engineer turned musician, went down memory lane to talk about the music that runs in the family his early life with Orlando Owoh, and the controversial sides of his late brother who died about five years ago However, the urge to play music wouldn’t allow me to do any other thing. I was with him as an apprentice in his band. The band was first known as Dr Orlando Owoh and his Formina Band and later it became the African Kenneries.

I later started my band, Tosin Owoh and the Zion Kennery Band. I grew in the church and that was why I added Zion but I play just exactly like him. We play at events like birthdays, weddings, burial and travel from place to place. I have been to so many countries around the world like France, Holland, Ghana, all for music. Working with Orlando was fun and I don’t think that there was any big event in Nigeria in his days that he was not invited to. He played for personalities like Alex Akinyele, Chief Gani Fawehinmi, General Olusegun Obasanjo and we went to Abuja to play for Babangida.

Orlando was an ex soldier and he was also a revolutionary. If you listen to his songs, you would find some of the messages that he believed in. I am working to be like him and even surpass him.

What do you consider as the greatest influence in Life?

First of all, I would say God Almighty.

I look up to God for everything. Next I would say my father because he was an all rounder. Then I had a great relationship with Orlando. In fact, he singlehandedly funded my marriage about 20 years ago and I have five children from the union. My father had 11 wives but he advised his children not to take after him in this aspect of life.

Why didn’t Orlando follow dad’s instruction?

I would call him a replica of my father.

When I see him, I see my father. Perhaps, it is the gene running in him. Officially, he had four or five wives but he had women all over the federation. There is no state

that the doctor, did not have a woman, fans and admirers.

He was a revolutionary of some sort; Do you share some of these qualities?

That thing comes naturally with all of us. There are lots of things that I cannot do that my brother could do. Interestingly, I have only one wife and I took to Orlando Owoh’s advice. He said he had so many wives but I should not emulate him. I am also a member of the choir at the Methodist church, Palm Avenue, Mushin Lagos. I must say that with the help of God everything is going well for us.

If you had to advise young people, what would you tell them?

First, I would tell them to have the fear of God. They should be focused, know what you want to do. When I was working with the motor company and at the other places, I knew that my destination was music. That was why I went for apprenticeship under Orlando Owoh. It wasn’t as if the money was much, I just wanted to learn one or two things. So, it is important that they should remain focused, have the fear of God and listen to their parents.

Orlando, like Fela Anikulapo Kuti, was a controversial person, what did you learn from him and how did you affect his life?

He was positively controversial. He sang against the ills of the society and when you do that there are times when you would be on the wrong side of the government. When I joined the band, I tried to reform the band administratively.

The talent was already there and what I did was to manage the band. My brother who is now based in the United States was also there with us.

Orlando smoked Indian hemp and sang about it. He was also arrested for having drugs in his custody at some point, how did you feel about this?

Indian hemp in itself is not bad. I don’t smoke but for some people Indian hemp is a spiritual thing. When he was arrested there was sabotage. He had the record for Dele Giwa and was the only artist who was bold enough to do something like that then. Just before the album came out the government people called him, saying we heard that you wanted to release an album for Dele Giwa, please don’t try it. He now retorted: “What if I do?” And they said there would be problem. He said he would never be afraid of anyone, that he was a soldier and was willing to die like a soldier any time.

So he released the album and that was the genesis of the problem and the cocaine was planted in his bedroom. I was there that fateful day, the day they came to arrest him. It was arranged by the government. You know that Dele Giwa’s death was controversial and the album was quite revealing. I sang the song at a show recently and the crowd rose to give Orlando a standing ovation.

What plans do you have for the next five years?

I have started something for my late brother. Every year I stage the Orlando Owoh Memorial Dance where his colleagues and fans relived memories of the good old days. This is the fifth year and in November we will be celeb rating the man again. We had the last edition at the Officer’s Mess and it was very exciting. Hopefully, the next edition will be there also and we are still working on the modalities.

Apart from the Lagos show we would also be taking it to Ondo and Osun states this year.

I try as much as possible to promote the Kennery rhythm which he initiated.

By the grace of God we have been pushing it around, that rhythm will never die and my album would soon be in the market.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY,

ARTS

AUGUST 31, 2014

66

A closer look at Civil Service Reforms

Title: The Nigerian Civil Service Of The Future: A Prospective Analysis Author: Dr. Tunji Olaopa Reviewer: Dr. Ukertor Gabriel Moti No of Pages: 372

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STUDY on Administrative Reforms in Africa conducted by Prof. Ladipo Adamolekun in 2005 regarded Nigeria as a “hesitant” reformer alongside Gabon, Togo and Zimbabwe closer to the vicious cycle of non-reformers (Somalia, Sudan) than the vicious cycle of advanced reformers, (Botswana, Namibia, Mauritius). 45 long years down the line Nigeria is still hesitantly conceding to administrative reforms in the public service!

Dr. Tunji Olaopa may not be a prophet, neither a Nostradamus who sees tomorrow, but he has been in the bureaucratic corridor of Nigeria, Africa and CAPAM long enough to know that all is not well with the Nigerian Civil Service. That is why, his passion for a professional Civil Service propels him to bring his experience as an “expert insider” to attempt a prospective prognosis, a roadmap towards achieving a world class Nigerian Civil Service in the near future. That is what Dr. Tunji attempts to do in the 372 page book: The NIGERIAN CIVIL SERVICEOF THE FUTURE: A Prospective Analysis. And who can offer a more befitting imprimatur than Dr. Christopher Kolade CON- himself one of Nigeria’s seasoned bureaucrat and technocrat- who in the Forward says, “Olaopa is offering — a timely roadmap for a return journey to a civil service of a world class quality”.

Made up of 18 chapters, Dr. Tunji labouriously and painstakingly takes us on his visionary journey to a trajectory for the future of Nigeria’s Civil Service. He chronicles the reform dynamics of Nigeria’s Public Administration; the Politics-Administrative Interface; the

Title of book: Breaking the Barriers to Divine Lifting through worship Author: Pastor Sunday Jesuniyi Year of publication: 2014 Numbers of pages: 88 Reviewer: Adeola Ogunlade

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IFE is full of challenges and many Christians often times are quick to complaining, murmuring, depressed, discouraged or seek other gods to get breakthrough as against God’s will. They strive to get wealth, riches, political power and dark spiritual powers to achieve this aim. But what is the way out and how can we find a redress through the living God? This is what a gospel musician and worshiper, Pastor Sunday Jesuniyi in his book titled Breaking the Barriers to Divine Lifting through Worship provide some answers to with true worship as antidote to overcoming lives’ problems.

The book which has 89 pages with eight chapters begins with a clear statement that the battles of life are the battles of gods for worship-whom should we live our life to please God or Satan, he asked?

The book reminds us that God created the world and his desires for our lifting in

beginning of the Nigerian Civil Service and reflections on the Nation’s Administrative history. Olaopa also interrogates Nigeria’s reform profile and its emergent dysfunctions, explaining why administrative reforms have failed in Nigeria. From analyzing the elements of the Civil Service Reform process which include: structure, recruitment, capacity building, performance and promotion, professionalism and modernity to accountability, Dr. Tunji examined the statist environment of the Nigerian Civil Service and how that has, one way or the other, compromised its capacity to represent the government in its task of effectively and efficiently delivering qualitative goods and services to the citizens.

Indeed as the roadmap to the future which includes a reflection on the past, Olaopa gives us a synopsis of what he calls “a practitioner’s perspective” on bureaucratic corruption and the Public Service, noting the following as the contextual dimensions and manifestations of corruption: bribery, embezzlement, fraud, extortion, abuse of power, conflict of interest, insider trading/abuse of privileged information, favouritism and nepotism. With empirical hindsight acquired from his several researches on the bureaucracy, Tunji says that “the manifestation and the effectiveness of Nigeria’s anti-corruption strategies and control mechanisms have unfortunately recorded inadequate outcomes”.

Therefore, if corruption equals, monopoly plus discretion in decision-making minus accountability, the overall objective of the anti-corruption strategies should be “to increase the level of transparency and accountability”.

Dr. Tunji also unravels the pay and compensation conundrum and its effect on productivity: if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. Nigeria needs to adopt a new style management in terms of the

management of the salary/wage set up of the Civil Service, bearing in mind her social and economic environment. This is a solution framework for industrial relations and Nigeria’s productivity challenges. In envisioning the future of the Nigeria Civil Service, Dr.Tunji does not claim puritanical ideas. He examines the National Strategy for Public Service Reforms (NSPSR) Reform Blueprint, and concludes that “it can be negotiated through a 5-Point Agenda” by creating a new generation of public managers committed to the agenda of a new productivity paradigm; Reengineering of MDA management system into performance-oriented, technologyenabled and social compact or accountable business model; strengthening and leveraging PublicPrivate Partnerships to facilitate and deepen effective and efficient service deliveries; Reorienting the public service into a rebranded profession and a leadership development scheme that empowers.

But how can this be done? In prescribing the building of a new generation of public managers/leaders, Dr. Tunji examines the New Zealand model, the German ‘Slim State’ model, the Nordic model and the New Public Governance model which lay emphasis on managerialism as the paradigm of organizational efficiency and suggests that “the Public Service should be carried on by the admission into its lower ranks of a carefully selected body of young men ( and women) who should be employed from the first upon work suited to their capacities and their education and should be made constantly to feel that their promotion and future prospects depend entirely on the industry and ability with which they discharge their duties”- a return to professionalism.

In addition to the above, the Service needs to get back to the basic right in terms

of creating a core institutional framework for managing the reform process. This entails ownership of the Reform Management Strategy and he presented many models for managing the reform process which could include sustaining the present arrangement and the strengthening of the Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR) which coordinates all reforms in the Public Service including issues of governance, institutional reforms, service delivery and efficiency improvement, cost economy, and rightsizing etc.

Dr. Tunji equally suggests a critical rethinking of personnel and performance, the role of the Civil Service Commission and the imperative of Human Resource Management (HRM) under a New Public Management paradigm. His prospective opinion is that “the advantages of best practices in HR management can be better deployed within a decentralizing context”.

The Nigerian Civil Service is very critical but at the same time dysfunctional, that is why Dr. Tunji says that he “ realized the significant imperative of a functional, efficient and professionally capacitated civil service within the context of a framework of good governance” as an “urgent desideratum of the Nigerian government”. Olaopa is optimistic the Nigerian Civil Service though short on service delivery to the people now can live up to this responsibility , but it “has a significant date with its own future as a rehabilitated and responsive institutional framework dedicated to policy implementation and service delivery”.

Will the Heads of Service, Permanent Secretaries, Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of Reform Agencies and other MDAs take this “manifesto” for the reform of the Nigerian Civil Service as provided

by Dr. Tunji Olaopa and run with it for the good of the Service and good governance?

Time will tell.

The power in worship all areas of our lives can never be undermined, emphasizing that the true worship of God is the key.

In this book, the writer recalls an experience he had two years ago. According to his narration, “My wife and I were invited as guest ministers to a praise vigil to round up a week long praise programme organised by a church in Kwara State of Nigeria.

A young man who was one of the several gospel artists invited to the programme surprised us and perhaps others too, with his opening remarks when he said he was not a praise member but a worshipper.

To him, worship means singing praises in a slow tempo, while praise is singing the songs in a fast tempo. Unfortunately, this misconception about worship is widely held

by Christians today. Many song leaders have led their congregations to believe that worship is all about singing some kinds of gospel blues, while praise is singing some kinds of fast and danceable gospel songs.”

The book gives life examples of men in the scriptures and contemporary times who through the instrumentality of worship in the time of warfare, anxiety and problem of life were miraculously visited

by God. The writer defines what true worship is as elements of true worshippers, and biblical models of divine lifting through worship. It highlights so many resounding testimonies of the divine intervention of God through worship.

Every chapter ends with a note to readers about taken the right decision of what they have learnt.

The book asserts that the purpose of divine lifting is to empower God’s people to serve Him and their generations according to the integrity of their hearts and the skillfulness of their hands as David did and became a man after God’s heart. The book is for us to become resolute in living for God in total trust and obedience to his word, as this is the key to divine lifting

through worship.

It is epistemology of true worship and an illustration of how the worship of Jehovah can lead to personal prosperity all rolled into one. It is a single, bright sword that every serious Christian should carry in today’s uncertain world. The book should be used every day by believers who are interested in the power of true worship.

The book is a laudable tool for Christians, worshippers, church leaders, youth who want to be useful instrument in the hands of God in our generation.

The author, Jesuniyi, is a chattered banker and marketer by profession with over two decades work experience at top management levels. An anointed teacher, song writer and worship revivalist, he anchors a monthly raise fellowship of all Jesus Loves tagged True worship channel.

Any reader in search of a portable and readable material on worship would find this useful and enriching.

POEM

Harbinger of death WHERE is the Sawyer?

Call him back not to die Let his death come after this war Sawyer, come wage a true war Fight the Boko Haram with your talent Your urine was poisonous So was your sputum Your venom was not found in your teeth Your buca cavity was a container That offloaded a pint of Ebola Come back Sawyer and berth In our lush forest of Sambisa Where figs are armoured tanks Dreaded by our decorated combatants

By Nosa Tokunbor

of war Come back Sawyer Fight a gallant war Waged against us by your incarnates Sawyer find your ilk in Sambisa With your buca cavity the war is won Slither your way into Sambisa Kiss the dreaded forest With your 21 days agonising silencer BUT Skip out our girls Your spurting venom travels in lightning speed From Liberia to Nigeria A haven surfeit of scourge.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY AUGUST 31, 2014

“I

USED to pay school fees and buy textbooks for all my children from the primary school to tertiary level. When Amosun came and talked about free education, I was a bit sceptical. But when my daughters in the primary and secondary schools did not pay school fees throughout the last session (2011/12) and returned home with writing materials and textbooks, I was so happy. I have also not paid school fees for my boy in the nursery school in the last one year. Now, I only pay for my daughter in Ojere (MAPOLY). I am very grateful for this financial relief by the Amosun administration.”

That was the voice of a chauffeur at the workshop of an auto-mechanic in the fall of 2012. I was only drawn into the chit-chat when the man mentioned nursery school. I thought there was a mix-up somewhere. Was there a charity organisation running free nursery school? Up till that time, I must confess, I did not know that many government’s primary schools also had nursery schools. Upon inquiries, I discovered that our free education also covered that level of education.

Garrulity, admittedly, may be a vice, but taciturnity is not always a virtue.

If you don’t blow your own trumpet, nobody will blow it for you. In a country like Nigeria, where politics is still seen by some as a zero-sum game, you need to constantly tell your own story, otherwise the lies being spewed by the opposition may one day be accorded some undeserved attention by the unwary.

Before Amosun was sworn in as governor of Ogun State on May 29, 2011, there was no free education at the pre-primary, primary, secondary and tertiary levels of public education. Parents were paying for everything and buying everything.

Today, to the glory of the Almighty and through responsible governance and prudent husbandry of the resources of Ogun State by the governor, education is free at the pre-primary level, primary level and in secondary schools. Education at the tertiary level is heavily subsidized by the current government; it is not free.

When you consider the fact that an average family in Ogun State has children at the four levels of education at the same time, then you can appreciate the huge financial burden that has been lifted off the shoulders of these parents by the Amosun administration. This is a landmark achievement our government should celebrate.

Between 2007 and 2011, Ogun State defaulted in the payment of counterpart fund for UBEC, hence no money could be accessed under the UBE Act; parents paid for everything. The state also defaulted in managing the ETF in 2009, hence was unable to access the intervention fund in 2010.

67

Free education in Ogun: The untold story

•Make good use of them! Ogun State governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, presenting free textbooks to students of public schools recently.

By Soyombo Opeyemi

In parenthesis, I recall that Ogun was denied the MDGs funds for the years 2009 and 2010 because it mismanaged the N1.64bn for the year 2008. When you consider the above

and the fact that education was not free at any level, then you can appreciate the value the Daniel administration placed on education in Ogun State.

Today, the Amosun administration has offset all

the outstanding counterpart funds and has not defaulted once. When you see structures in our primary schools with the inscription, ‘SUBEB 2008/2009’, it does not mean they were built under the last admin-

istration. Indeed, they were built under the Amosun administration, having paid the state’s counterpart funds for those years. At the JSS level under the Daniel administration, the highest enrolment figure was 174,820. Today, through the free education policy of the Amosun government, enrolment figure has shot up to 214,837. The figure has increased from 146,737 to 162,536 at SSS level. Due to improvement in our technical education, some children now move from JSS to such schools while the majority proceed to SSS, which is a big plus for our drive in vocational/ technical education.

Expectedly, performance of our children in WASSSE has increased tremendously.

In a space of four years (2007 - 2011), for example, the last government did not provide a single chair or table for pupils and teachers at the pre-primary school. But under the current government, our children in the nursery schools have been provided with 3,200 chairs, 800 tables, 17,043 two-seater desks and 10,900 two-seater desks with shutters. 7,148 tables and 14,296 chairs have also been provided for their teachers.

Under the Daniel administration, pupils were paying for all manner of things such as file jacket, ID card, school prospectus, students dossier, examination fee, school inter-house sports, etc., which the Amosun government abolished.

At the inauguration of our free education in the fall of 2011, a question arose on whether the token PTA fees should even be allowed in public schools.

The governor said it should be abolished. There was an argument that it was voluntary. The issue came up

later during a courtesy visit by the state’s chapter of PTA, where the body said the token was a voluntary donation on the part of the parents. The governor accepted but with a caveat: no child must be sent home on account of PTA fees. And just how much is involved here? Between N300 and N900, which cannot buy a single textbook. Yet, depending on the class of the pupils, under our free education policy, they get a minimum of 7 textbooks and maximum of 12.

If you have ever been a teacher in a public school, then you will appreciate what it means for every student in your class to have textbooks. The practice before the declaration of free education by the Amosun administration was for the class teacher to have each of these textbooks and write on the blackboard.

Most often, the textbooks were creased and torn as a result of long usage. In a class of about 70 pupils, not more than two pupils would have one or two textbooks because of the heavy financial burden on the peasant parents.

The previous government promised to pay the WAEC fees of SSS3 candidates but it reneged. According to the Commissioner for Education, Barr.

Segun Odubela, the examination body wrote the new government, threatening to withhold the results of the children because of default by the last government. Not only that, running cost of the schools and subventions to our tertiary institutions were not paid.

Virtually all the school buildings were dilapidated. Teachers’ salaries and allowances were not paid for many months - not only in the education sector. In short, rot was the word. In one tertiary institution, there was no convocation ceremony for 8 solid years. To compound the infamy, the then government announced 100% increase in tuition fees in all its tertiary colleges.

The Amosun administration not only offset the inherited WAEC fees, it restored payment of running cost and subventions. The backlog of salaries has been substantially cleared.

For instance, the governor spent one billion naira (N1bn) to offset the CONTISS and Monetization allowances of the staff of Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU), which he inherited from the immediate past government. Imagine how many modern classrooms or lecture halls that could have been built by that amount! The Daniel government actually owed OOU workers N2.5 billion in salaries and allowances.

Amosun also paid the arrears of three-month salaries owed lecturers of the institution by the former government.

As stated earlier, the Daniel administration increased the tuition fees of tertiary students by 100%.

Senator Amosun promised to reduce it by 50% once •Continued on page 68

THE NATION ON SUNDAY AUGUST 31, 2014

68

EBERE WABARA

WORDSWORTH 08055001948

ewabara@yahoo.com

Contributors’ clinic

L

ET us welcome D A I L Y NEWSWATCH to this column. Its August 27 edition goofed three times with its headlines: “NANS commends Fashola over (for) LASU fees” “AFDB (AfDB) grants $150m to Ebola affected (Ebola-affected) nations” THE NATION of August 27 comes next with this schoolboy mistake: “It was restored few (a few) weeks ago at N65 and it will take effect from September 1.” “…he said PDP does (did) not need Wike to win election in Rivers.”

“The once popular Ejinrin seaport near Epe, Lagos State, which was once a beehive of activities from slavery to….”

No oddity please: hive of activity, preferably, or beehive of activity (not activities)!

“Among the dignitaries at (on) the occasion were….”

“Okada riders, police clash set community on fire” A rewrite: Okada riders’, police clash sets community on fire” “Anambra seeks citizens’ input on (into/to) 2015 budget” “Residents of Ogun community seek organisation’s probe over (into) human rights violation” “Kwarans are no longer their brother’s keepers….” Fixed/stock expression: brother’s keeper (no matter the plurality) “…ethnic and political lines with the wealth of the state in the hands of just a few individuals.”

Going by the context of this extract, it should be ‘few individuals’ and not ‘a few individuals’.

“Dangote pays half year (half-year) bonus” “If that has (had) been the case over the years….”

The Guardian front and inside pages of August 23 nurtured falsehoods for the second time in four years: “The new cases are people who had secondary contacts with late (the late) Patrick Sawyer….”

“Eko Bridge repairs starts (why?), Lagos urges caution, cooperation” “Voters registration: Mimiko calls for deadline extension as protests mar exercise” This way: Voter apathy/registration “How to restore confidence in (to) Police

Force, by Tsav” “Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development hereby invites stakeholders to the grand commissioning (inauguration or unveiling) of the 100,000 MT (100,000-MT) silo complex and flag-off (launch) ceremony….”

“Congratulations to an outstanding public officer, accountant per (par) excellence and a man of integrity….” “…on your selection as one of the most exceptional accountant-general in the federation.” Get it right: accountants-general Finally from THE GUARDIAN under review: “There seems to be international conspiracy (an international conspiracy) in (against) Ebola outbreak.”

FEEDBACK USAGE HINTS: “Beggars must not be choosers”, meaning “a person who is hungry and has no money to buy food should not complain when he is offered bread and cheese instead of roast lamb and new potatoes, with apple tart and cream to follow.

He is in no position to argue with his benefactor and should be grateful for anything he is given”, is the standard proverb (not “Beggars can’t be choosers”).

Similar proverbs are NEVER LOOK A GIFT HORSE IN THE MOUTH; HE WHO PAYS THE PIPER CALLS THE TUNE. “To have one’s cake and eat it” or “to eat one’s cake and have it” means “to have the advantages of two things or situations when doing, possessing, etc. One of them would normally make the other one impossible’. Mr. Andrew is engaged to one of the sisters but he would like to have his cake and eat it and go out with the other sisters.

-Ize or –ise? The ending –ize and – ization are generally preferred to – ise and – isation in the 21st century usage, hence “sensitize”, like Womanize (not –ise), capsize (not –ise), hospitalize (not –ise), humanize, dehumanize, capitalize, doctorize, Russianize, Americanize, Africanize, Nigerianize, militarize, democratize, globalize, demonize, is the preferred form (not “sensitise”).

Every user of English should keep abreast of the current tendencies and influences in the language.

Lest we forget, CELEBRATER or Celebrator is reserved for someone having a good time while “celebrant” is reserved for someone who conducts a religious rite. If “celebrator” becomes overworked/overused or becomes obsolete, then “celebrater”, the original word, will take over (Look it up in The New International Webster’s Comprehensive Dictionary of The English Language, page 214 and The Associated Press STYLEBOOK, page 36).

“Inquire” is the preferred spelling, NOT “enquire” and “inquiry” is preferred to “enquiry” (DICTIONARY OF USAGE, page 91). Besides, in American English, the general preference is to use “inquiry” (GOOD WORD GUIDE, page 99). The debate continues. Well done, brother!

(Bayo Oguntunase, Language a c t i v i s t , Adoro62@yahoo.co.uk) MR. Wabara, I have always enjoyed your every Sunday tonic— Wordsworth. Keep it up.

I wish to draw your attention to our discussion on the word ‘about’ in one of last month’s editions. You inadvertently repeated what was required to be corrected as the correction. Secondly, one of your contributors to that edition should have said, ‘about 1,720 or 1,700’…rounded to the nearest 10 or 100 (sic) would have read rounded up or down to the nearest 10 or 100. And this: 1,729 or 1,700 (to the nearest 10 and 100 respectively). For instance, 1,755 can be rounded up to 1,800 (not 100). Thank you. (Surveyor J. O. Amayo, Benin City, 08051646227) THE next two contributions by Mr. Kola Danisa (07068074257) are from THE NATION of August 24: “Over four months after their abduction, the girls are yet (have yet) to be located.”

“Liberia is (has) yet to return to….”

DR. Stanley Nduagu (08062925996) sent in the next faulty extract from Aba: “The Nigerian nurses as endangered specie (species)” (Nigerian nurses and midwives’ advertorial) ‘Species’ is both singular and plural.

The word ‘specie’ has no place in English language.

More knowledge-based, well-researched, therapeutic and constructive contributions are welcome.

Free education in Ogun: The untold story •Continued from Page 67

voted into office. On the eve of his exit from power, the former governor announced a reduction of 50%. Notwithstanding that, the Amosun government further reduced the fees by 10%, thus bringing the reduction to 60%.

Of course, it was Amosun that achieved the significant reduction because the action of the departing government was cynical and opportunistic.

Otherwise, why did it wait till the last minute to implement the promise made to the students by Amosun?

It is now 3 years that Amosun approved the reduction. The school fees in our tertiary institutions have not been increased since then. What has increased are the incidental or ancillary charges, which the government has no control over. For instance, virtually all the students pay fees to their professional bodies, and government has no control over such payment. The inherited problem between TASUED and TASCE is receiving attention and will be resolved in due course.

Currently, the Federal Government gets 52% of the Revenue Allocation from the Federation Account while the 36 states share 26%. When you divide the 26% by 36, you have 0.7% - but that is assuming the allocation is shared equally. But it is not, so Ogun State ends up with about 0.3% out of the 26% every month. When I saw the Federal Allocation recently in the newspapers, I shook my head.

“This pittance can’t even pay the wage bill of workers,” I muttered. Yet, Amosun still has to fund the police, a federal agency, from that, repair some federal roads from that, etc. From 1999, the centre has never devoted up to 20% to education, and there is no free education in all the schools it owns.

Under the leadership of Senator Amosun, education has always got more than 20% of the yearly budget. Surprisingly, about 80% of that is used to pay wages and salaries of workers. That is why it is worrying that some staff will leave their employer in Abeokuta and go to Abuja to negotiate salary or allowance increment. There is a huge difference between 52% and 0.3%!

Notwithstanding, the current government is so very friendly to workers. It paid salaries of those that went on strike for six months because of a dispute with the Federal Government! Ogun workers have never had it so good.

Workers in some states have been on strike close to a year now on account of non-payment of the minimum wage, yet in spite of the meagre amount we get from the Federation

•Amosun

Account, the Amosun government has paid above the minimum wage, and implemented it across board, thus making it the only government to achieve such a milestone in Nigeria. Not only that, workers now freely express themselves and had on one occasion gone on strike on account of salaries owed by the previous government!

As we enjoy this freedom, it is good we remember the road we had marched so that there is no accusation of abuse of freedom.

Contrary to the charge of the opposition that the Amosun administration only excelled in the area of infrastructure, the current government has achieved more in education than in other areas.

Senator Ibikunle Amosun has taken education from the bottom rung that the previous administration left it and placed it on the top rung of the ladder of public policy. Again, while they spent money recklessly while in power, the Amosun government has been very frugal. For instance, political office holders under the current government receive one-third of what their predecessors earned every month. What Amosun deserves is appreciation, understanding and cooperation from the work force. The good news is that he is getting these from the overwhelming majority of the Ogun workers.

The crisis created by the sudden slump in the federally-collected revenue from 2013 continues to take its toll but due to discreet management of our resources by Governor Amosun, no worker is being owed any salary. Even when there were hiccups in the implementation of our free education, occasioned largely by our warped federalism, we’ve always risen to the occasion and surmounted those challenges.

Three years and three

months of free education in Ogun, Senator Amosun can hold his head high because he has trod where others feared to tread. They said free education was not possible at any level despite the humongous resources they had for eight years, but Amosun has not only made education free at the primary level, but preprimary and secondary schools. They increased school fees of tertiary students every year, completely out of reach of poor students, because the fees rose from about N20,000 to N200,000, N300,000 in some departments.

Amosun not only reversed the trend but slashed the fees by 60%! The over 20,000 children that would have been out of school due to the policy faux pas of the previous government are now in school.

We still have a lot to do.

Amosun inherited a sector in complete ruins. There are many dilapidated buildings scattered across the state, and have remained in such state for decades. Some have been renovated by this government. The majority of them need to be pulled down completely – many of them are already marked for demolition. Some of the schools need to be relocated because they are currently choked by development. Population has risen. Also, new schools have to be erected as schools are returned to their original owners.

As we continue the renovation of some of the structures, invest in training and welfare of teachers and construction of world class, state-of-the-art model schools, we trust the overwhelming majority of our people to continue to give their maximum co-operation to the Senator Ibikunle Amosun-led administration.

Soyombo, media aide to Ogun State governor, writes from Abeokuta.

69

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, AUGUST 31, 2014

NEWS

New Lagos PFN chairman preaches love T

HE newly-elected chairman of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) Lagos State chapter, Bishop Sola Ore, has called on church leaders to close ranks and learn to work together.

He said only then will

By Sunday Oguntola

their passion to expand the kingdom of God come to fruition.

Ore spoke last Friday during the inauguration of the new executive council of the body in Lagos.

•Seeks reconciliation He lamented that there are some pastors who do not see eye-to-eye with others, a situation he said was counterproductive to the mandate and image of the church.

While calling for love

Ekiti deputy governor-elect tasks churches University, Ile-Ife, said: “I on prosperity gospel believe politics should be

T

HE Ekiti State deputy governor-elect, Pastor Kolapo Olusola, has tasked churches on making disciples for Christ rather than making millionaires out of members.

He chided the church leaders, who focus more on prosperity gospel.

Speaking at the 44th Annual Conference and inauguration of the Christ Apostolic Church Students’ Association (CASA) in Osogbo, Olusola advised the church to purge itself of acts capable of misleading the multitude.

O

SUN State is set to host the General Superintendent of the Deeper Life Bible Church, Pastor William Kumuyi, in a visit designed to reconcile people with God. A statement by the Osun State Overseer of the Church, Pastor Biola Adeniran, stated that Kumuyi has visited several states for propagation of the gospel with great signs and wonders, healings and miracles following.

He disclosed that Kumuyi

From Adesoji Adeniyi, Osogbo

The deputy governorelect, who said the church had lost focus of its primary duty, maintained that for the church to work in consonance with the Christ it must go back to the basics and make disciples for the Lord.

He said those in position of power must demonstrate the fear of God. Olusola, who was a senior lecturer in the Department of Building at the Obafemi Awolowo

From Adesoji Adeniyi, Osogbo

will be in Osogbo, Osun State capital from 19 th - 21st September to stage a crusade that will be transmitted live all over Africa and beyond.

The venue of the crusade with the theme “explosion of supernatural miracles” is Deeper Life Camp Ground, Halleluyah Estate, Agunbelewo area of Osogbo.

Adeniran said: “The

WHAT AND WHERE?

F

The chairman of the anniversary, Deacon Ade Adebusuyi, noted that the church, which started in 1974 has crystallised into 19 branches and become the zonal headquarters.

He said a book titled the living seed is also being written to celebrate the milestone.

The senior pastor, Rev. Elkanah Oluwagbesan and others will minister at the occasion.

CCC parish adult harvest today

T

HE New Covenant Parish of Celestial Church of Christ (CCC), 8 Bashorun close Ajegunle will today hold its adult harvest thanksgiving.

Tagged Harvest of promotion, the service begins by 10am prompt.

The shepherd-in-charge, Superior Evangelist Gabriel Abulude, said the 12 th celebration will usher a season of refreshing.

“Promotion does not

new chairman of the body.

According to him: “The news came to me as a shock. I did not expect it. I did not bargain for it. As a matter of fact, when one of our fathers broached the idea with me, I simply said I was not interested.”

Ore however offered himself for service under the guidance of God. He pledged to pursue peace, reconciliation and empower member-churches to become change agents in all facets of life.

xxx

Osun set to host Kumuyi

Church celebrates at 40

OURSQUARE Gospel Church Golden district headquarters will begin a five-day revival conference to mark its 40th anniversary.

Other activities lined up for the celebration include messages, breakthrough ministration and all-night prayers on October 12.

A fund-raising service for the N40m permanent site of the church located at Remilekun Street, Ketu, Lagos will also take place.

about making life better for the people.

“If we have the fear of God I know it will not be difficult leading the people.”

The newly- elected President of CASA, Pastor Joseph Adeyemo, challenged youths to make themselves available as tools for good work.

He said youths must allow God to be in charge of their lives if they want to succeed, urging them to shun the temptation to go against the will of God by not getting involved in crimes and other social vices.

among gospel ministers, Ore said the foundation of the gospel is not “prayer, it is not fasting. It is not breakthrough and it is not water or Holy Spirit baptism.”

The gospel, he explained, is built on love for one another.

“If we ever succeed in this assignment, it must be by love.

Divided we fall, united we stand.”

He regretted the division among church leaders, saying it must be reversed to save the

church.

“It’s in the church that we fight one another. It’s in the church that we kill our wounded soldiers. We not only do that, we also supervise their burial.

“There are pastors who don’t see eye to eye. Their followers should be pitied.

There is bitterness in the heart of many of our pastors.

Let’s love without hypocrisy.

Our community is waiting for us,” Ore stressed.

He stated that he did not expect to be elected as the

come from the west or east or the anywhere but from God almighty.

“We are positioning ourselves for God’s promotion as we praise and serve him in the beauty of his holiness.

I believe all that will come will experience a level of promotion as a result of partaking in God’s vineyard,” Abulude stressed.

He stated that bazaar sales hold immediately after the service.

power of God is alive in His servant, Pastor Kumuyi to save the vilest sinners, heal the sick, open the eyes of the blinds and to make cripples leap for joy of total recovery.

“The solution to ills in our nation today is God and that is why Pastor William Kumuyi traverses one state to another with God’s messages of hope and reconciliation to bring the people back to God.”

•Ore(fourth from left front row); General Overseer of Foursquare Gospel Church, Rev. Felix Meduoye(fifth from left); Immediate past Lagos PFN chairman, Apostle Alex Bamgbola (fifth from front row right); Senior Assistant to Governor Fashola on Religion, Rev. Sam Ogedengbe(third from right front row) with some officials of the body after their inauguration… last week

Ebola: Don’t panic, cleric urges Nigeria

A

KANO based religious leader, Pastor Felix Olotu, has advised Christians to remain prayerful in the face of the deadly Ebola virus.

He said those who trust in God will not be infected by the

From Kolade Adeyemi Kano

virus.

Olotu made this known while speaking with journalists in Kano.

He said the deadly virus is not strange to his church members because it had been pre-

dicted during the New Year message that there would be an epidemic disease.

Asked if his church will review the conditions of giving members Holy Communion to minimise physical contact, Olotu, the Kano

area superintendent of the Apostolic Church, insisted that prayer is the key preventive measures for the disease.

He urged Nigerians not to panic but intensify prayers, assuring that Ebola will become a history in Nigeria.

Shun materialism, Olutoye advises ministers

A

3-day ministers’ conference by the Concerned Christians for Ministerial Integrity (CCFMI) ended penultimate weekend in Lagos with a call on God’s servants to eschew materialism and renew their commitment to the gospel.

The convener, Reverend Samuel Olutoye, told participants at the conference with the theme who’s on the Lord’s side? to shun self-interests and work for the kingdom’s expansion.

Urging them to stand for the truth always, the cleric stated: “in a time that deceit has become the other, telling the truth of God is the revolu-

By Olamide Olawande

tionary act that must correct one and all.”

Olutoye condemned the unnecessary attention no prosperity in churches.

According to him: “If one does not have clean heart and right spirit, he or she cannot please God. Once the Spirit of God leaves a man, he or she has nothing to offer.”

The cleric advised men of God to be sure of their salvation and be committed to His perfect will.

Until they do these, he said their services and sacrifices would amount to nothing in the kingdom.

He also emphasised that

unless there’s revival in the body of Christ, eternal salvation will become a difficult task even for those who consider themselves men of God. He pleaded with gospel minister speak the truth at all times, saying “there’s difference between truth and facts”.

According to him: “So many churches are moving away from the truth. And the Lord spoke to me on the need to bring back His church together and also speak to his ministers so we can receive the much needed revival in the church universal.”

He pleaded for unity among ministers for greater exploits.

•Olutoye speaking conference

at

the

70

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, AUGUST 31, 2014

WORSHIP COLUMN

Prayer is the foundation of Aladura churches (1)

P

RAYER is the pivot on which hangs the entire faith of the Cherubim and Seraphim Churches hence the name “Aladura Churches” in Yoruba meaning “Praying Churches.” The church believed in the absolute efficacy of prayers. Every member was expected to pray at least five times daily (6.00am, 9.00am, 12.00noon, 3.00pm, and 6.00pm).

The founder Saint Moses Orimolade ordered that certain objects and places must be used to ascertain the efficacy of Prayers. Sacred words such as Halleluiah, Iye, and Hossanah were used as songs of Praise to God and are believed to possess the same charisma as the shouting of the Israelites over the wall of Jericho.

Fasting is an injunction of Christ for support of prayers.

Fasting is used by believers in Christ to increase their spiritual strength and to achieve success in temporal as well as spiritual matters. Members of Aladura churches were required to fast twice weekly (Wednesday and Friday) and also during the forty days of Lent. Candles were used in worship in connection with lampstand with seven branches (Exodus 25:31-37) and the seven golden lamps of Rev. 1:12-13.

Moses Orimolade ordered the use of candles in prayer. The number of candles used at each was symbolic; 7 for the seven powers of God, 5 for the five wounds inflicted on Jesus during his passion, 3 for Trinity and 1 for One God. God himself ordered incense, to Moses and Aaron in the days of the Tabernacle. Incense raises prayers and supplications of believers to the throne of Grace.

The Aladura churches were encouraged to use incense in worship and family prayers. Consecrated Water was used by Aladura churches for healing because of the power of God in water and power in baptism. Pharaoh was conquered by water.

Noah was saved by water and Naaman was cured by water.

Consecrated oil was used in healing. Olive oil was used for healing and ordaining officers.

Sword is used for Prayers and services as a mark of warriors, which the Cherubs and Seraphs are. Staff is used in prayers by the elders as used

by Moses to separate the sea and also bring water from the rock. The Aladura churches had sacred places for prayer.

They went to mountaintops in imitation of Jesus Christ who prayed often on Mount Olivet and was crucified on Mount Calvary. Some of the popular mountaintops include Oke Igbala (Ondo), Oke Calvary (Ikare), and Okejigbo (Abeokuta). The most popular seashore is the Bar Beach in Lagos, which is still used today for prayers.

The wearing of white garment (Praying Gown) was also significant for prayers in the Aladura churches. White clothing signified white heart and oneness in heart. It is believed that purity of heart symbolized

By Elder Professor Joseph Otubu

by the wearing of white garment enhanced the efficacy of prayer. The traditional kings in Yoruba land also wore white attires as symbols of Royalty.

It is important to note what Moses Orimolade had to say about efficacy of Prayers at the founding of “SERAFU” church on 9th September 1925.

Hear what Moses Orimolade had to say about Prayer in September 1925.

“There is no time in life that a Christian should be far away from our Lord Jesus Christ. The only means by which we could be near him always is by praying unceasingly.

The only way a Christian can succeed in life’s struggle is to fast, watch and pray always with a clean hand and conscience. While we pray we keep ourselves near our God. As a strayed sheep is always a prey of robbers, let us always draw near our God which privileges abound incessant prayers.”

“Some Christians complain that many times when they pray, they receive no reply all.

It is indisputable that God answers pray but there are three major causes, which deprive one from receiving pertinent answer to his prayers namely 1. Prayers without faith; 2.

If the subject of the prayer will not be absolutely favorable to the offer or if answered, God being a merciful Father and knows the beginning and end of man, will not grant the prayer; 3.If you committed secretly or openly a grievous sin and have not found adequate time to repent it wholly and solely as to receive God’s pardon, there is little or no hope of your prayers being answered.

The prayers of a faithful and honest man are always answered, provided such answer would be to his best advantage.

The Classic Prayer It is a prayer, which Jesus taught his disciples to pray and it represents the classic prayer for all Christians.

Matthew sets the whole Sermon on the Mount in the context of the disciples. (Matthew 5:1) ‘And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain; and when he was set, his disciples came up to him.’

Luke tells us that Jesus taught this prayer in response

to the request of one of his disciples. (Luke 11:1)’And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us how to pray, as John also taught his disciples.’

Lord’s Prayer is not a child’s prayer or mere family prayer; it is specifically and definitely stated to be the disciples’ prayer; and only on the lips of a disciple has the prayer its full meaning. The Lord’s Prayer can only be prayed when those who pray it know what they are saying and they cannot know that until they have entered into discipleship.

The first 3 petitions have to do with God and the glory of God. The second 3 petitions have to do with our needs and our necessities. God is first given his supreme place and then only can we turn to ourselves and our needs and desires. The second part deals with our needs and desires.

First asks for bread, which is necessary for the maintenance of life and thereby brings the need of the present to the throne of God. Second asks for forgiveness and thereby brings the past into the presence of God. Third asks for help in temptation and thereby commits all the future before the footstool of God. In these three petitions we are taught to lay the present, past and future before the footstool of God. When we ask for bread to sustain our earthly lives, that request immediately directs our thoughts to God the father, the creator and sustainer of all life.

When we ask for forgiveness, that request immediately directs our thoughts to God the son, Jesus Christ our savior and redeemer. When we ask for help for the future temptation, that request immediately directs our thoughts to God the Holy Spirit, the comforter, the strengthener the illuminator, the guide, the Guardian of our way.

Being sermon delivered by: Otubu PhD (London), Dip. Theology (Ibadan) General Evangelist, Motailatu Church Cherubim and Seraphim Worldwide at the Golden Jubilee Anniversary service under the leadership of His Most Eminence, Baba Aladura (Dr) Motailatu Akinadewo, Primate, Founder and Supreme Head, MCCSW

•Cross-section of the choir and orchestra at the concert

Living Faith

By Dr. David Oyedepo

Breaking invisible barriers by God’s word! (2)

W

ELCOME to the last segment of this month’s teaching.

Let us attempt a brief recap of the month’s teachings. In the first week, I taught on how you can experience the wonders on the Word of God. I told you that God’s Word is pregnant with wonders and this is why all miracles, signs and wonders are direct confirmations of the Word (Mark 16:20).

I showed you what it takes to access the wonders in the Word of God, namely: •One must be born again (Mark 4:11/ John 6: 63).

•One must be filled with the Holy Ghost (John 16:12-13; John 14:26).

• One must be Spiritual (1Corinthians 1:7; 1Corinthians 3:1-3).

•One must walk in the Spirit (Rev. 1:10; Romans 8:6; 1Cor. 15:23).

•One must desire more Revelation (Isaiah 44:3; 1Corinthians 8:2).

•One must engage in the study of the Word (2Tim. 2:15; Jer. 15:16).

In the second week, we discussed how to engage in the study of the Word. I said we must get addicted to the study of the Word and make it our lifestyle, by feeding on the Word daily in order to stay alive and well. The Bible admonishes that we meditate on the Word day and night; then, we will make our way prosperous and have good success (2Timothy 2:15; Jeremiah 15:16; Joshua 1:8).

I showed you some Covenant Requirements for our Settlement such as being born again (Galatians 5:22, Isaiah 9:6, Philippians 4:7), going after the Word (2 Peter 1:2, Psalm 119:165), being planted in the House of the Lord (Psalm 92:13-15) and making a choice to serve God. Serving God is not a calling or a gift; it is a choice (Joshua 24:15).

In the third week, I discussed the turnaround effect of God’s Word on our destiny. I showed you what our destiny is worth in redemption. You will recall that we said God’s Word in the scriptures make us understand that: We have a victorious destiny in Christ (2 Corinthians 2:14).

We have a glorious destiny (1 Peter 5:10; Rom. 8:29-30).

We have an enviable destiny (Genesis 26:14; Galatians 4:28).

We have a prosperous destiny in Christ (2 Cor. 8:9; 2 Cor. 9:8-11).

We have a destiny of fruitfulness in the covenant(Deuteronomy 7:14; Ps 89:34; Matthew 5:17).

We have a destiny of health and vitality in the covenant (Exodus 23:25). None of our covenant fathers were ever recorded sick; instead, they enjoyed health and vitality all through their lives.

Longevity is our portion in the covenant (Psalm 91:16). All our covenant fathers enjoyed long life. These include Abraham, Isaac, Moses, Joshua, etc (Isaiah 51:1-3; Genesis 25:7; Genesis 35:27-28; Genesis 47:28; Deuteronomy 37:7; Joshua 24:29).

I taught on how you can encounter destiny Through the Bible The Living Word of God. Through anointed books (Hosea 12:10).

I showed you some benefits of encounters with the Word: •Encounter with the Word connects us with destiny, our inheritance. For example, Jacob had a glorious destiny through an encounter with God (Isaiah 9:8).

•Encounter with the Word preserves our destiny, as in the case of Joseph.

(Psalm 105:17-22).

•It dignifies destiny, as it was with Samuel, who had series of encounters with the Word and emerged an honourable man of God(1 Sam. 3:21, 1 Samuel 9:6).

•It advances destiny. Diverse encounters with the Word enlarged the destinies of Abraham and Moses (Gen. 12:13; Gen. 22:17-18; 1Samuel 12:6).

Friend, the power to see invisible barriers crumble, is for those born again. You get born again by confessing your sins and accepting Jesus as your Saviour and Lord. If you are set for this, please say this prayer: “Lord Jesus, I come to You today. I am a sinner. Forgive me of my sins. Today, I accept You as my Lord and Saviour. Now, I know I am born again!”

Every exploit in life is a product of knowledge. For further reading, you can get my books: The Force Of Freedom, Walking In Dominion and Maximize Destiny .

I invite you to come and fellowship with us at the Faith Tabernacle, Canaan Land, Ota, the covenant home of Winners.

We have four services on Sundays, holding at 6:00 a.m., 7:50 a.m., 9:40 a.m. and 11.30 a.m. respectively.

I know this teaching has blessed you. Write and share your testimony with me through: Faith Tabernacle, Canaan Land, Ota, P.M.B. 21688, Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria; or call 7747546-8; or E-mail: feedback@lfcww.org

NEWS

Cleric charges on good hygiene

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HE District Superintendent of The Apostolic Faith Church, West/Central Africa, Rev Bayo Adeniran, has called on Christians to clean their environment and maintain good hygiene while trusting God for safe protection against Ebola Virus.

By Adeola Ogunlade

Adeniran said this at the 2014 Apostolic Faith Church Camp Choir Concert recently at the faith city, Igbesa, Ogun State.

The programme tagged The Power of holy worship attracted participants from West and Central Africa.

It featured classical gospel songs sung in French, Egun, Hausa, and Yoruba languages.

Church leaders, traditional rulers, captains of industries, academia, among graced the occasion.

According to him, the environment is a gift given that God expects Christians to clean regularly.

He said that the virus will have around us today can be contained “if we are very serious about good hygiene.”

According to him: “We are not afraid of Ebola because God has delivered us from the spirit of Ebola. The fear of Ebola cannot come to us because we fear God first. We are not just to serve God but we must clean our environment.”

Adeniran described diseases as an act of God to bring the people back to Him.

He stated: “Any virus by the grace of God can be healed but the plagues that afflict a people are many times results of their sins and carelessness.

“We don’t have to be careless about our hygiene but the correct hygiene starts from the inside of us when we have the right values that please the Lord.”

Noting that governments are working hard on infrastructural and educational development, he said: “until the people have a change of heart and are committed to God and his principles, human effort to make life meaningful will fail.”

The Emeritus Music Director of the church, who led the choir to sing Holy Jerusalem, Rev John Aina, said the essence of the concert was to win more souls to Christ.

“Our music is an act of holy worship and our worship is patterned toward heavenly worship and when you worship God in the beauty of holiness, there is a power that is release into the life as well as the environment.”

THE NATION ON SUNDAY AUGUST 31, 2014

NEWS

Diplomat faults quota system on admission process

‘Aregbesola’s

From Bode Durojaiye, Oyo

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IGERIA’S former High Commissioner to Zambia, Chief Moses Ogunmola, has faulted the current quota system for admission into the nation’s tertiary institutions.

Speaking at a lecture titled ‘How to endanger national peace and stability’ in Oyo town, the former diplomat also offered recipe to address the economic challenges facing the country.

According to him, the nonoil sector must be urgently revitilised in addition to the re-evaluation of the nation’s currency.

Opposing the quota system, Ogunmola said meritocracy must be allowed to take precedence in students admission, while urging government at all levels to jettison what he called “politically-inspired and pseudodemocratic slogans, such as quota system, catchments area and geo-political origin.”

Quota system, he noted, and similar other strategies have proved to be short-time palliatives, which he warned may eventually spell doom for the country in the nearest future.

He said, “In admission matters, other considerations should run a distant second to meritocracy. While I support the establishment of more colleges, polytechnics and universities, I say no to aspiring students who fail to make the merit list. Such candidates should be re-energised and rechannelled into other productive sectors of the economy.

The smaller the number of intakes with fertile and highly receptive brains, I think the better for this country.”

The retired diplomat also called on the National Universities Commission (NUC) to enforce a strict regulation on the award of honorary doctorate degrees, saying “It is a pity that some get-rich-quick universities in recent years have polluted, diluted and cheapened this academic culture by commercialising the award to every Tom, Dick and Harry.”

To promote the study of science, medicine and engineering, Ogunmola, who is the Otun-Alaafin of Oyo, and also an educationist, said no lecturer should be allowed to rise beyond the position of a Senior Lecturer cadre unless he or she can lay claim to originality in specific inventions and discoveries.

reward Ebola: CMD warns against improper victory, for hard work’ use of protective equipment T

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HE Chief Medical Director, Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Owo in Ondo State, Dr. Olufemi Omotoso, has warned health workers in the country against improper handling of personal protective equipment while treating patients suffering from the Ebola virus.

While urging doctors to get trained on how to use the equipment, he added that this

From Damisi Ojo, Akure

has become necessary because there were laid down procedures for using the equipment.

He said: “We’ve seen somebody who wore protective equipment and still contracted Ebola simply because of the fact that he did not know how to remove the gloves. I have actually seen somebody in the airport

when I wanted to catch a flight from Abuja to Lagos.

The person was wearing gloves, handling all sorts of things and, at the same time, wiping his face with the gloves.

“The person was not conscious. So, consciousness is a very important factor; knowing how to handle cases is also an important factor, especially for health workers.”

Expressing the prepared-

ness of the hospital to handle such cases, Olufemi stated that the hospital was in the process of procuring protective equipment that doctors, nurses and other medical personnel would wear while treating Ebola patients.

According to him, the hospital management is already in discussion with the federal government with a view to having isolation wards in the medical centre.

•Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola (right), receiving a report on delineation of wards and creation of additional polling units in Lagos State from the Chairman, Lagos State Independent Electoral Commission (LASIEC), Justice Afolabi Abdulfatai Adeyinka (left) at the State House, Marina, Lagos at the weekend

FOMWAN to Boko Haram: Release Chibok girls unconditionally

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HE Federation of Muslim Women Association in Nigeria (FOMWAN) has appealed to fundamentalist Islamic sect, Boko Haram to release the over 200 Chibok girls in its custody without any condition.

Speaking at the association’s 29th Annual National Conference holding in Osun State, the National President of the association, Alhaja Amina Omoti, said that rather than holding the ‘innocent girls’ hostage, the insurgent group should come into the open to discuss their grievances.

She said: “As mothers, we are appealing to Boko Haram to engage the federal govern-

From Adesoji Adeniyi, Osogbo

ment in negotiation for the release of the abducted school girls, because Islam as a religion forbids making people undergo suffering and shedding of blood.”

The FOMWAN president said the recent silence on the rescue efforts being undertaken by the federal government to release the Chibok girls should not be mistaken for noting that the government was only being careful not to disclose its strategy without endangering the lives of the abducted girls.

While calling on President Goodluck Jonathan to ensure

the release of the abducted girls by “all possible means”, she added, “As mothers and grandmothers, we are deeply touched by these innocent girls’ predicament. No one should start thinking that nobody cares anymore. FOMWAN has always been in the lead for the Chibok girls’ release.

“We have been praying as mothers and know God will listen to our prayers. Mothers can’t seat back when their children are unsafe outside. Let no one think we are comfortable and not doing anything.”

Omoti also called on parents to give their girl child sound education that would make them productive and self

reliant in the society.

The conference with the theme: Youths, Peace and Security, which was organised to address the prevailing insecurity in the country, was attended by about 1,200 participants across the country.

Dignitaries at the conference include the Osun State governor, Rauf Aregbesola, and his wife, Sherifat; representatives of the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Saad Abubakar; wife of the Vice President, Aminat Namadi Sambo and Chairperson of FOMWAN’s Board of Trustees, Hajiya Aisha Lemu and the Chairman of the conference, Prof. Dawud Naobi.

2015: Fashola commends LASIEC over delineation of wards

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AGOS State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, has commended the Lagos State Resident Electoral Commission (LASIEC) for successfully delineating wards and creation of additional polling units in the state.

Fashola, who gave the commendation while receiving the report of the exercise at the State House, Marina, said it was borne out of the need to ensure that residents, particularly those in new settlements, are not disenfranchised.

Pointing out that many densely populated housing estates were constructed in Lagos over the last eight years, the governor said INEC would definitely find the report very useful.

He said: “We know that many estates have sprung up

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By Miriam Ekene-Okoro

in the last seven to eight years and on election days, we want to be in a position to ensure that they do not have to travel long distances going back to their old addresses and agonising about where they should vote.

“This is the primary purpose of the delineation exercise and to ensure that where

certain places have become densely populated, what was put in place to let people vote may become insufficient, overcrowded and in the event people may be disenfranchised and this is important.”

While expressing hope that the series of meetings between LASIEC and the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) are successful, he added, “Nobody would know

a community better than the people who live there. I think it would be important for them to understand that this can only be helpful to their work.”

Earlier, LASIEC Chairman, Justice Fatai Adeyinka (retd), said the newly completed delineation of wards and polling units in the State would help the INEC in the conduct of the forthcoming

2015 general elections.

He added that the process involved a series of stakeholders’ forum where boundary disputes were identified as part of the challenges which could mar elections in the State.

He also disclosed that five states have made requests to understudy LASIEC’s approach because of the success recorded on the delineation of wards.

Why Southwest should vote for Jonathan in 2015-Kuku

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HE Chairman of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Kingsley Kuku, has urged people in the South West to vote en masse for President Goodluck Jonathan if he stands for re-election in 2015.

Jonathan’s victory, he noted, would ensure fairness,

From Tayo Johnson, Ibadan

justice and equity in the nation’s political system.

Addressing journalists in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, Kuku said: “The whole world can see what President Jonathan is doing and many Nigerians can testify to it. On

behalf of 1.6 million voters in Ondo State and four million indigenes of Ondo State, we pledge our support for Goodluck Jonathan in 2015, because within the last 10 years, he has occupied so many positions and have left good legacies there.”

Kuku, who is also the

Special Adviser on Niger Delta to Jonathan , said the recent efforts being made by the federal government to rehabilitate the Lagos/ Ibadan expressway and provide jobs for the youth has shown how passionate the president is for the people of Southwest.

HE victory of Governor Rauf Aregbesola in the Osun State governorship election on August 9 has been described as a reward for his hard work and commitment to the welfare of the people of the state.

A House of Representatives aspirant in Egbeda/Ona Ara Federal Constituency in Oyo State on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr. Adewale Ogunniran, made this assertion while speaking with journalists at the end of a strategic meeting with his campaign team, the Ogunniran Adewale Movement (OAM) in Ibadan at the weekend.

While congratulating the governor for his victory, Ogunniran said: “The results of the August 9, 2014 governorship election in Osun State have shown that triumph of evil over good is temporary.

The victory was a well deserved one which should be an eye opener to budding politicians, that power is in the hands of the people and that you can only earn their votes through hard work.”

Ogunwale also commended the people of the State for exercising their civic responsibility in spite of the alleged intimidation and harassment from external forces.

“The people came out en masse to vote for their governor in appreciation of his meritorious first term performance. Any person who visited the state in the last three years would see that the state is no more what it used to be.

There are transformations and development everywhere in the state,” he noted.

He urged the governor not to relent in his efforts to transforming the state as a choice destination for people and local and foreign investors.

Club cautions Nigerians on Ebola From Tayo Johnson, Ibadan

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HE former President of Ibadan Tennis Club (ITC), Deacon John Onakoya, has warned Nigerians to heed the advice of federal government against indulging in attitudes capable of spreading the dreaded Ebola Viral Disease (EVD).

Onakoya disclosed this during the inauguration of a new executive committee of the club headed by Aremo John Adeleke which held over the weekend.

He said: “Our father told us the gruesome story of the epidemic that ravaged Nigeria during the first World War of 1914 and 1918 called influenza, which is similar to Ebola and made people die in large numbers.”

While inaugurating the new president, Onakoya warned Nigerians not to trivialise medical advice of not taking handshake, hugging, avoiding large gathering of people and keeping strict personal hygiene.

Also speaking at the inauguration, the chairman of the occasion, Dr. Kola Balogun said the role of members of the club is not limited to fostering healthy living and social recreation, but a privilege to strive towards the development of the society.

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY AUGUST 31, 2014

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY AUGUST 31, 2014

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ESOTHO’S Prime Minister, Thomas Thabane, Saturday, accused the army of staging a coup against him.

He fled to neighbouring South Africa, which condemned the military's action and called for a peaceful settlement.

The Lesotho Defence Force swiftly dismissed the coup allegation saying all it did was to pre-empt police elements it claimed planned to arm a political faction.

There were gunshots early in the capital, Maseru, early in the morning with army units occupying the police headquarters.

They also surrounded the prime minister's residence, residents and diplomats said.

Hours after the army's move, the capital was reported to be quiet but it was not immediately clear who was running the government of the mountainous state of two million people.

Thabane, who in June had dissolved parliament to avoid a no-confidence vote against him amid feuding in his twoyear-old coalition government, said he had crossed over to South Africa because he feared for his safety.

"There was clearly an effort to launch a coup", Thabane told Reuters, saying he was at his daughter's home in South Africa.

"We are taking concrete

Lesotho PM flees to South Africa as military seizes power

•Lesotho’s Prime Minister, Thomas Thabane

PHOTO: REUTERS

steps to nip it in the bud", he added, saying the regional Southern African Development Community (SADC) was addressing the situation.

South Africa, speaking on behalf of SADC, condemned the actions of the Lesotho military,

which it said "bear the hallmarks of a coup d'etat". It called on Lesotho's army commander to order his units back to their barracks.

"Any unconstitutional change of government shall not be tolerated," South African For-

eign Ministry spokesman Clayson Monyela told a news briefing in Pretoria.

Earlier, giving its version of events, the Lesotho Defence Force denied attempting a coup against Thabane, saying it had moved against police elements suspected of planning to arm a political faction, an army spokesman said.

"There is nothing like that (a coup), the situation has returned to normalcy ... the military has returned to their barracks," Major Ntlele Ntoi told Reuters. He added the military "supports the democratically-elected government of the day".

Ntoi said one soldier and four police had been injured during the army action. At least one witness reported police officers being detained by soldiers.

Diplomats in Maseru said the Lesotho army was mostly loyal to Deputy Prime Minister Mothetjoa Metsing, who had vowed to form a new coalition that would oust Thabane. The police force largely supported the prime minister, the sources said.

$930m loot: Settlement with the Abachas in national interest, says AGF •Contd From Page 4

government and transparency which the Act encouraged were overcome by my issuance of a Compliance Advisory to all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) on 29th January 2012 pursuant to the powers vested in me

by Section 29 of the FOIA, 2011."

He added that this was immediately followed the issuance on March 15, 2012 of comprehensive "Guidelines on the Implementation of the

Freedom of Information Act, 2011. The guidelines were further revised in 2013 to further elucidate on the provisions of the FOIA." He listed some of the bills being worked upon by government as follows: a bill to domesticate the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court(ICC) in order to make the ICC regime applicable in Nigeria; the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Centre Bill to grant autonomy to the NFIU in line with international best practice and

recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force(FATF); the Proceeds of Crimes Bill to provide for the confiscation and forfeiture of proceeds of crime and the management of such assets.

He also spoke of measures aimed at improving Nigeria's ability to provide international cooperation consistent with its obligations under the United Nations Convention on Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC), the United Nations Convention Against

Corruption (UNCAC) as well as a host of other regional and bilateral treaty obligations.

BREAKDOWN OF ABACHA LOOT RECOVERY SO FAR

• US ($550m) • Luxembourg ($380m) • Voluntary surrender ($750m) • Switzerland ($570m); • Jersey ($380m) • UK ($150m); • Liechtenstein ($400m) • Island of Jersey £22.5m (N6.18billion)

South Africa's Monyela said no individual or body had claimed to have taken over the government. "The situation is still unfolding," he said, adding South Africa urged the coalition leaders to settle their differences peacefully.

The Commonwealth, most of whose member states are former British colonies, also condemned the reported coup.

"There is zero tolerance in the Commonwealth of any unconstitutional overthrow of an elected government," Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma said in a statement sent to Reuters.

Thabane said he had fired the Lesotho Defence Force commander, Lt.-Gen. Kennedy Tlali Kamoli, replacing him with Brigadier Maaparankoe Mahao.

But the army spokesman told Reuters Kamoli was still in charge of the military.

Thabane said: "Commanders of armies are appointed by government, it is not up to them to say who is in control".

He said he intended to return home, but did not specify

when. "That is something I will have to weigh", he said.

Since independence from Britain in 1966, Lesotho has undergone a number of military coups. In 1998 at least 58 locals and eight South African soldiers died and parts of Maseru were damaged during a political stand-off and subsequent fighting.

Besides textile exports and a slice of regional customs receipts, Lesotho's other big earner is hydropower exported to South Africa from the massive mountain ranges that have made it a favourite of trivia fans as "the world's highest country" - its lowest point is 1,380 metres (4,528 feet) above sea level.

Thabane on Saturday said that the military had seized power in a coup in the tiny kingdom and that he had fled to neighbouring South Africa in fear of his life. He told the BBC "I have been removed from control not by the people but by the armed forces, and that is illegal".

"I came into South Africa this morning (Saturday) and I will return as soon as my life is not in danger. I will not go back to Lesotho to get killed".

Lesotho's military seized control of police headquarters and the premier's residence in the capital Maseru in the early hours of Saturday, but later withdrew, a government minister told AFP.

N100m World Cup Fans Village: Firm drags NTDC to EFCC •Continued from page 5

The company was also invited by the DG of NTDC, Mrs. Sally Mbanefo to make presentation to the board of the corporation where the final approval was given for the project.

But the NTDC allegedly defaulted on the agreement on the Fans Village leading to a “serious embarrassment” for the country.

Neither the fans Village was built nor the huge funds from sponsors refunded by the NTDC. The petitioner said: “The EFCC should determine the following: the total

amount collected from various corporate and private sponsors; the account used for such collection of funds from sponsors; the total amount expended on the Nigerian Football Fans Village project in Brazil and the outstanding and unpaid contractual commitments of the NFFV project.

“These funds were collected for the reason of the NFFV project in Brazil, of which our client is a stakeholder and has entered into legal commitments on behalf of NRDC, the government and most especially the people of Nigeria.”

APC in early lead in Niger Senatorial bye-election

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R. David Umaru, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate in yesterday’s byeelection in the Niger East Senatorial District shot into early lead as results began trickling in.

Results from Bosso, Chanchaga, Muyan, Rafi and Shiroro local government areas put the APC standard bearer ahead of former deputy governor of the state and PDP candidate,Dr. Shem Zagbayi Nuhu,and Mr. I. M Bello of All Progressives Grand Allaince (APGA).

Umaru was also ahead in Suleja, Gurara, Tafa and Paikoro local government areas.

The election, was nearly marred by the morning shower which kept many voters indoors.

Jide Orintunsin, Minna

Minna, the state capital went agog last night as soon as the results began circulating.

Youths went round the town jubilating.

Reports from the nine local government areas where the election held indicated that the exercise was peaceful and devoid of violent activities.

But two persons were arrested in Tunga Barko polling Unit of Maikujeri ward in Rafi local government area for attempting to snatch ballot boxes.

Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Operations in charge of ‘B’ zone, Mr. Sotonye Wakama confirmed the arrest and said that the case is being investigated.

Speaking shortly after casting his vote, the APC Senatorial candidate, Barrister David

Umaru commended the Independent National Electoral Comýmission (INEC) for the peaceful and orderly way the election was conducted.

“I am impressed with what INEC have done. It is more peaceful and organised and it shows the determination of INEC officials to get it right.”

Governor Babangida Aliyu could not vote in the election as he forgot his voters card in Abuja.

He said this at the Umaru Musa Polling Unit in Minna, adding that, he would abide by the rule which states that one cannot vote without having a voter card.

“I forgot my voter card in Abuja, which was human error, but I must commend those that came out to vote,” he said.

The senatorial seat became

vacant following the death of Sen. Awaisu Kuta.

Below are the results from the various polling units across the state, but which are yet to be officially released by the INEC: •Area Court 1 Maikukulele, Bosso LGA: APC -134; PDP - 62 • Unit2, Maikunkulele Ward, Bosso LGA:APC – 202; PDP 63 •Nyinyi Maikunkele Bosso LGA: APC – 109; PDP 53 •Umaru Musa Close, Tundunwada South, Chanchaga LGA: APC – 69; PDP - 53 •Yamaha Nite Close, Minna South, Chanchanga LGA: APC – 91; PDP 54 •Nikangbe Minna South Chanchaga LGA:APC – 184; PDP - 27

• Gaboda Unit Maje Ward, Suleja LGA: APC – 49; PDP - 45 • Muntun Daya Unit, She Ward ,Shiroro LGA: APC 144; PDP - 43 •Paiko Central, Paikoro LGA: APC 1,433: PDP- 791 •Tuntungo, Gbadia ward, Paikoro LGA: APC – 1887; PDP. - 1153 • Kampani Babangana, Beji ward ,Bosso LGA: APC 112; PDP - 45 •Sarkin Magina Magayi ward: APC- 96; PDP-34 •Ogbara Pharmacy, Minna : APC- 34; PDP-7 •Dr. Faruq Primary Sch. Minna : APC-74 ;PDP-7 •Nasarawa B ward, Chanchaga LGA: APC – 81; PDP 41 •Kutirko Gbaganu,Minna South :APC -177; PDP 23 •Gbagama B Ward,Suleja LGA: APC-631; PDP-568

•Jigbeyi Beji ward, Bosso LGA: APC-63 ;PDP-57 •Kadna Chanchaga ward, Bosso LGA: APC—188 ;PDP-52 •Kampani Babangana Beji ward ,Bosso LGA :APC112;PDP-45 •Ang barikuta Beji ward, Bosso LGA: APC-145; PDP 96 •Mutun Daya Beji Bosso LGA :APC-124; PDP-43 •Ang. Kuka Beji ward, Bosso LGA: APC-108 ;PDP 116 •Bosso Low Cost :APC147; PDP-75 •Gidan Sarkin Bosso 1: APC -84; PDP 17 •Kadir II, Bosso Centre II :APC-122; PDP-36 •Ang Hausawa Bosso Centre II: APC-129 ;PDP- 20 •Kofars Numa Chanchaga, Bosso LGA: APC150;PDP-20 •Tusha Maikunkele Ward Bosso LGA: APC-80; PDP-17

NEWS Remain united, Edo Dep Gov. tells APC members

THE NATION ON SUNDAY AUGUST 31, 2014

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From Osemwengie Ben Ogbemudia, Benin DO State Deputy Governor, Dr. Pius Egberanmwen Odubu has urged All Progressives Congress (APC) members in the state to remain united in order to move the party forward.

He gave the advice when he received a party stalwart and illustrious daughter of Urhonigbe, Dr. (Mrs.) Nosa Aladeshelu, who was on a courtesy call at his residence in Benin City, the state capital.

Odubu advised the party members in Edo State to continue to see themselves as brothers and sisters and to work for the common good of the party.

He said that such unity would propel the party to greater heights.

Responding, Aladeshelu said she was at the deputy governor’s residence to intimate him of her ambition to represent Orhionmwon and Uhunmwode Federal Constituency, at the National Assembly in 2015.

She pledged to remain loyal to the cause of APC based on her wealth of experience nationally and internationally.

Aladeshelu remarked that APC has gender-friendly policy which she described as sensitive to the yearnings of the people of Orhionmwon and Uhunmwode council areas.

The aspiring lawmaker, who was also at Abudu Secretariat of APC to appreciate the party executive, assured them of her resolve to contribute her quota towards advancing the cause of the party.

NGO disburses N1.3m to SMEs in Cross River From Nicholas Kalu, Calabar

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Youths cautioned against election violence in Cross River From Nicholas Kalu, Calabar OUTHS in Cross River State have been cautioned to avoid violence as activities leading to the 2015 elections gather momentum.

Mr. Thomson Ojong , State Coordinator of the Project Greater Cross River, who gave this charge during the inauguration of the group in Calabar, the state capital, urged the youth s to positively participate in governance. He challenged youths to also seek elective offices. His words, “We want to say that youths have the energy and potential to drive the developments already established to greater heights.

“Youths should endeavour more into profiting ventures.

We encourage them to ensure non violence in Cross River politics. In campaigning for your candidates, don’t carry guns. We encourage youths to also seek offices.” The Consultant of the group, Mr. Donald Udo, said they aim to sensitise the populace on the imperatives of greatness to drive development peacefully.

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NONGOVERNMENTAL organisation, the Foundation for Destiny Transformation, has disbursed the sum of N1.3 million to Small and Medium Entrepreneurs in its ongoing SMEs promotion scheme in Cross River State.

Presenting the cheques to over 30 beneficiaries of the scheme at a seminar at Ogoja Local Governmental Area, by the chairman of the Board of Trustees and the initiator of the foundation, Mr. Ajigo Nyambe, pledged the foundation’s commitment to reducing poverty among youths and women through an aggressive promotion of small and medium scale enterprises in the country.

Nyambe, who was represented by the Executive Secretary of the foundation’s governing board, Mr. Naku John, said the gesture was aimed at supporting government at various levels to provide jobs thereby reducing unemployment and creating wealth for Nigerians with a view to encouraging the current administration’s transformation agenda and the realisation of the nation’s vision 20:2020.

He charged the beneficiaries to utilise their funds judiciously to develop their businesses in order to improve their socio-economic wellbeing.

The Commissioner for Women Affairs, Mrs. Edak Iwuchukwu, pledged her ministry’s commitment to collaborate with the foundation in its drive to reduce poverty and create wealth for the indigent women and men and youths in the state.

Iwuchuwku, who was represented by a deputy director in the ministry, Mr. Mike Nyajor, said the gesture was a proactive means of fighting crime and criminality in the state particularly and nation at large.

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•Participants at the Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria, South-south Zonal Rally in Port Harcourt yesterday. PHOTO: NAN

Ebola update: Panic as PH residents demand shutdown of hotel, hospital

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•Hoteliers to fight Ebola outbreak •Council bosses plan awareness campaign

OLLOWING the first recorded case of Ebola in River State in which Dr. Ikechukwu Sam Enemuo died of the deadly disease over the weekend, residents in Port Harcourt, the state capital, especially those who live close to the hospital and hotel where he was treated and lodged have been called for a closure of the two establishments.

It would be recalled that late Ikechukwu, before he finally surrendered to the deadly Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), was rejected in two hospitals before he was admitted into a private hospital where he later relocated to a hotel room.

But the Rivers State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Sampson Parker, said government will begin disinfection operation of the late Dr. Ikechukwu’s house, the hospital where he was treated and the hotel where he lodged.

In a separate reaction yesterday in Port Harcourt, residents said the inability of the state government to take a proactive step to shutdown the hospital and the hotel will worsen the spread of EVD in the state.

Barrister John Madume, who resides close to the ho-

From Precious Dikewoha, Port Harcourt

tel where the late Ikechukwu lodged at Rumuodumaya in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of the state, said government has shown lack of sensitivity in handling the outbreak of Ebola in the state.

He said what the residents want to hear from them is not disinfection of the hotel, hospital and the diseased home but total shutdown of both establishments where the victim had contact with.

“Look, if the government said they are not ignorant of how fast Ebola could spread, then they should continue to play politics with the lives of Rivers people. The people living in this environment are not happy over the lackadaisical attitude in handling this matter.

“Some of the residents in this area who are financially okay had since relocated, nobody want to stay in a highly contaminated environment. Though we are still waiting for the disinfection of the hotel but all we are saying is that let the government publish the address of the hotel and close it down.”

Mrs. Josephine Kemjika, an activist, alleged that the management of Green Hart Hospital which is located along Evo Road, GRA phase 2 where the late Ikechukwu was treated has resorted to attacking on journalists.

She said, “As I am talking to you now a reporter with Silver Bird Television, Mr. Emeka Idika was mercilessly descended by mob, while trying to video the hospital. Other journalists have also been attacked in one way or the other.

“It is bad that government is doing nothing to expose the identity of the hospital including the hotel. Of course, it is the right of the citizens to have know vital information of where the late Ikechukwu had contact with so as to restrict their movement. The hospital and hotel should be shutdown.”

The Chairman of Rivers State Association of Hotel Operators, Mr. Eugene Nwazi said the association had worked out modalities on how to partner with Rivers State government to contain the spread of the virus in the state.

“We are also partnering with Rivers State Police Command, Tourism and Health Ministries to see how the association could protect our members in the hospitality business in the state. We have recognised that it is the responsibility of all to fight the outbreak of EVD in the state.”

Meanwhile, some Local Government chairmen in the state have also started making arrangement on how to carryout Ebola sensitisation awareness campaign in local communities across the state.

The Obio/Akpor Caretaker Committee Chairman, Dr. Lawrence Chukwu said, “It is our responsibility to create awareness to the people, especially those living in the villages. The only way to avoid being infected with the EVD is to improve our personal hygiene.

“I want to call on the people of Obio/Apkor and entire Rivers People that they should stop panicking, the governor has made a lot of effort to ensure that EVD is being contained in the state.

All we need to know is to be conscious of hygiene in our environment.”

Uduaghan condemns diplomat, doctor over Ebola case in P/Harcourt

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ELTA State governor, Dr. E m m a n u e l Uduaghan, has condemned the action of the diplomat who allegedly ‘imported’ the Ebola virus to Rivers State and the medical doctor for attending to the victim in a hotel room.

Uduaghan urged Deltans to be on the alert and take their personal hygiene and other preventive measures seriously.

He said an emergency committee on the deadly disease has been set up in

From Okungbowa Aiwerie, Asaba

the wake of the index case in the country.

Uduaghan, who spoke in Asaba over the weekend, called for sustained advocacy campaign by stakeholders in order to further curtail the spread of the disease.

He said: “I am not only concerned that the virus has entered Port Harcourt, I am worried and we need to step up advocacy programme for people to raise the level of awareness. I feel very sad,

very bad as a professional that a colleague, a medical doctor went to a hotel to treat someone who was suspected to have Ebola virus: This calls for great concern and need for more awareness to be created.”

The governor, who described as ridiculous the fact that a diplomat should leave Lagos for Port Harcourt knowing full well that he had been in contact with the primary Ebola victim, disclosed that Delta State government has since set up isolation centres in

different parts of the state to ensure proper management of the disease.

Uduaghan called on the people to be vigilant due to mass migrations to the state from different parts of the country.

The governor also denied claims that some persons protested against location of isolation centre, stressing that there was no need for such protest as preventive measures would have been put in place to ensure the safety of those working in the centres and the people living in the area.

NDE empowers Edo women with N3m From Osemwengie Ben Ogbemudia, Benin

HREE hundred women are expected to benefit from N3million grant across the three senatorial districts of Edo State from the National Directorate of Employment, NDE as part of the government, effort in alleviating and supporting the indigents in the Society. The empowerment programme for women is a pilot scheme for South/South geopolitical zone which was kick started in Benin City, the state capital yesterday. Beneficiaries are entitled to N10,000 each.

The Director General of the NDE, Mallam Abubakar Mohammed, who was represented by the Director, Special Public Works, Don Umoru, said the aim is to support smaller business enterprises in other for them to meet up to their need.

Some of the beneficiaries who engage in the sales of pure water, groundnuts, firewood recharge cards, oranges and ‘akara’ (bean cake) besieged the Edo office, venue of the NDE.

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NEWS

THE NATION ON SUNDAY AUGUST 31, 2014 CHANGE OF NAME OYEWO

I, formerly known and addressed as Dr. Foluke Victoria Oyewo, now wish to be known and addressed as Dr. (Mrs.) Foluke Victoria Allanana. All former documents remain valid. Federal Medical Centre, Keffi, Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria MDGCN and general public should please take note.

AYELU

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Ayelu, Mipamau Ruth now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Afodewu, Mipamau Ruth. All former documents remain valid.

General public should please take note.

ADIAGWAI

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CHANGE CHANGE OF OF NAME NAME OGIDAN

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OSAFILE

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Osafile, Nkem Juliet now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Adigwe, Nkem Juliet. All former documents remain valid.

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ISAAC

I formerly known and addressed as Isaac Osawonta Marry now wish to be known and addressed as Chukwu Divine. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

OREOFE

KPAH

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Aishat Abiola Oreofe, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Aishat Abiola Sanyaolu. All former documents remain valid.

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OGOLIME

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CRESPO

I, formerly known and addressed as Mrs. Lawal, Olivier Uche., now wish to be known and addressed as Miss Akanite, Olivier Uche. All former documents remain valid.General public should please take note.

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Lekie Courage Kpah, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Lekie Courage Nwachukwu.

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I formerly known and addressed as Miss Doris Adaeze Ogolime, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Zion Adaeze Salami. All former documents remain valid.

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I formerly known and addressed as Mr. Actor Victor Crespo, now wish to be known and addressed as Mr. Ato Victor Myangega. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

ALIMI

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NDUKA

I formerly known and addressed as Charity Chioma Nduka, now wish to be known and addressed as Charity Chioma Ezeaguba. All former documents remain valid.

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OGBONAKOR

I formerly known and addressed as Mrs. Ogbonakor Mary, now wish to be known and addressed as Irriah Mary. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

OSUNNIYI

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Osunniyi-Gold, Oluwatosin Aanuoluwapo, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Olajide, Oluwatosin Aanuoluwapo. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

AKINSANYA

I formerly known and addressed as Akinsanya, Folashade Anike, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Kolawaole, Folashade Anike.

All former documents remain valid.

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ADIO

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Adio, Temitayo Elizabeth, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Sanusi, Temitayo Elizabeth. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

SHOTE

I formerly known and addressed as Shote, Paul Oluwaseun, now wish to be known and addressed as Mashote, Paul Oluwaseun Oluwatimileyin. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

UMOREN

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Victoria Atabong Umoren, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Victoria Humble Bassey. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

CONFIRMATION OF NAME I Njoabuzia Godwin in some documents and some Njoabuzia Ogor Joshua, now wish to be known and addressed as Christopher Ogor Joshua. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

GBADESIRE

I, formerly known and addressed as Gbadesire, Taiwo Abel, now wish to be known and addressed as Adigun, Taiwo Abel. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

TAIWO

I, formerly known and address as Taiwo Hafsor Oyalowo, now wish to be known and address as Taiwo Hafsor Dosunmu. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

ADEDEJI

LAWAL

NYONG

I, formerly known and addressed as Miss Gladys Imeh Nyong, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Gladys Nyong Sulaiman. All former documents remain valid.General public should please take note.

OGARAWU

I, formerly known and addressed as Miss Ogarawu, Anuri Juliet, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Udensi, Anuri Juliet. All former documents remain valid.General public should please take note.

OJOMU

I, formerly known and addressed as Miss Ojomu, Oluwayemisi Florence, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Audu, Oluwayemisi Florence. All former documents remain valid.Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba Akoko, NYSC and general public should please take note.

FAKUNLE

I, formerly known and addressed as Miss Fakunle, Funbi, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Funbi Fakunle Danse. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

ANYA

I, formerly known and addressed as Miss Chika Anya, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Chika Nnadozie. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

OYEKUNLE I, formerly known and addressed as Oyekunle, Ronke Sadiat, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Adegbite, Ronke Sadiat. All former documents remain valid.

General public should please take note.

OJEDIRAN

I, formerly known and addressed as Ojediran, Omoyosola Olatomiwa, now wish to be known and addressed as Adesanya, Omoyosola Olatomiwa. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

SHINA

I formerly known and addressed as Shina Tagbe Joseph, now wish to be known and addressed as Mr. Wusu, Tagbe Joseph. All former documents remain valid. Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education, Oto-Ijanikin and general public should please take note.

CONFIRMATION OF NAME I OLAGUNJU ROFIAT OMOLEWA my name was written as OLAGUNJU ROFIYAT by WAEC 2012 with examination no.

4302502122 and my correct name is OLAGUNJU ROFIAT OMOLEWA all the document that bearing the two name is the same person and still valid Osun state Polytechnic Iree and General Public should please take note.

CONFIRMATION OF NAME I RAHMAN MUSILIU OLANIYI that I sat for the May/June 2010, my name was mistakenly RAHMAN MUSILIU and my correct name is RAHAMAN MUSILIU OLANIYI and is the same as RAHMAN MUSILIU, all the document that bearing the two name is the same person and still remain valid Osun state Polytechnic Iree and General Public should please take note.

CHANGE OF NAME ADEOYE

CHANGE OF NAME NWAOHA

CHANGE OF NAME OKORO

I formerly known and addressed as MRS ADEOYE FUNKE ELIZABETH, now wish to be known and addressed as MISS OGUNLEYE FUNKE ELIZABETH..

All former documents remain valid.

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I formerly known and addressed as Miss Blessing Nwaoha, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Blessing A. Chukwuemeka. All former documents remain valid. the general public should please take note.

I, formerly known and addressed asMISS. GRACE ADA OKORO, now wish to be known and addressed as MRS. GRACE ADA CHINAKA. All former documents remain valid.

General public should please take note.

OLOTO

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Blessing Chinyere Oramah now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Blessing Chinyere Ojile. All former documents remain valid. Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike and the general public should please take note.

I, formerly known and addressed as MISS. ONYENAMA UZOCHI, now wish to be known and addressed as MRS. UDENWA UZOCHI. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

I formerly known and addressed as Mr OLOTO CHUKWUDI, now wish to be known and addressed as Mr KELVIN CHUKWUDI ASOGWA. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

OGUNROTIMI

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Ogunrotimi Dayo Mary now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Fakomiti Dayo Mary. All former documents remain valid.

Federal Polytechnic Ado-Ekiti and general public should please take note.

ORAMAH

OYALOWO

I formerly known and addressed as Taiwo Hafsor Oyalowo, now wish to be known and addressed as Taiwo Hafsor Dosunmu. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

IBEKEME

ETERIOITA

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Ibekeme Kelechi Veronica, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs Anosike Ibekeme Kelechi Veronica. All former documents remain valid.

General public should please take note.

UZO

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Okalla Onyinyechukwu Olivia, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Nwangere Onyinyechukwu Olivia.

All former documents remain valid.

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I, formerly known and addressed as Miss Eterioita Tope Idienumah, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Eterioita Tope Idienumah Isu. All former documents remain valid. general public should please take note.

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Chigozie Uzo now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Chigozie Isaac Olanrewaju. All former documents remain valid.

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ADIBE

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WEPUAKA

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IAS Express and general public please take note.

OSHO

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ABDULSALAM

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ITUEN

I, formerly known and addressed as MISS ITUEN EKOMOBONG ETIM, now wish o be known and addressed as MRS NNAJI EKOMOBONG FRIEDA. All former documents remain valid. General public please take note.

IBEKWE

I, formerly known and addressed as MISS IBEKWE ADAORA MERCY now wish to be known and addressed as MRS AKPULU ADAORA MERCY. All former documents remain valid. IMT, NYSC and the general pubic take note.

MBACHU

I, formerly known and addressed as MISS MBACHU NKECHI IFEYINWA now wish to be known and addressed as MRS IWUANYANWU NKECHI IFEYINWA. All former documents remain valid. NMCN and the general public take note.

OHIOMOJE

I, formerly known and addressed as Ohiomoje Musa Ohigbai now wish to be known and addressed as Francis Ohigbai Ohio. All former documents remain valid. General public take note.

ELEKWANYA

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Elekwanya Blessing Chiamaka, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Chukwuemeka Blessing Chiamaka. All former documents remain valid. NYSC and the general public should please take note.

CONFIRMATION OF NAME I DENIS OMOLOLA OLUWAKEMI, that sat for SSCE June/July 2009 with exam no. 91901791FF, and my name was registered as IDOWU OMOLOLA OLUWAKEMI, in my Nov/Dec WASSCE (Private) 2012 with Examination no. 5282003141 as DENIS OMOLOLA OLUWAKEMI my correct name is DENIS OMOLOLA OLUWAKEMI that all the document that bearing the two name is the same person and still remain valid Osun state Polytechnic Iree and General Public should please take note.

OLIVIA

I, formerly known and address as Miss Okalla Onyinyechukwu Olivia, now wish to be known and address as Mrs Nwangere Onyinyechukwu Olivia. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

OKALLA

ABDULSALAM

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Abdulsalam Khadijat Oyinade, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Abdullahi Khadijat Oyinade. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

AMANZE

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Amanze Chioma, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Amanze Chioma Nwazuonu Odika.

All former documents remain valid.

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ONYENAMA

BAMIRO

I, formerly known and addressed as Miss Bamiro Bolaji Yemisi now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Lamidi Bolaji Yemisi all former documents remain valid general public take note .

AWOFE

I, formerly known and addressed as Miss Racheal Ololade Awofe now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Racheal Ololade Awofe -Odediji. All former documents remain valid, Ministry of Education Osun State and general public take note.

NWANGWU

I formerly known and addressed as Miss NWANGWU OGECHI DEBORAH, now wish to be known as Mrs. OKONKWO OGECHI DEBORAH. All former documents remain valid, general public please take note.

AKOBI

I formerly known and addressed as Miss AKOBI CHINYERE CHARITY, now wish to be known as Mrs. EZEJI CHINYERE CHARITY. All former documents remain valid general public please take note.

NNATA

I formerly known and addressed as Miss NNATA IJEOMA EVELYN, now wish to be known as Mrs., NWANKWO EVELYN. All former documents remain valid general public please take note.

OREKIE

OGUDEH

I formerly known and addressed as Miss IFEOMA JULIET OREKIE, now wish to be known as Mrs. AMADI IFEOMA JULIET. All former documents remain valid general public please take note.

FATINIKUN

I formerly known and addressed as Miss NYIMEMPIO MABEL WAITE, now wish to be known as Mrs. NYIMEMPIO MABEL TOMIKE OPARAOCHA. All former documents remain valid general public please take note.

IMANGBENIKARO

I formerly known and addressed as Miss. EZIKE VIVIAN CHIOMA now wish to be known as Mrs. ELO VIVIAN CHIOMA. All former documents remain valid general public please take note.

I formerly known and addressed as Ogudeh Richard Imonidafe, now wish to be known and addressed as Akpobomeh Richard Imonidafe.

All former documents remain valid.

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I formerly known and addressed as Fatinikun Olorunleke Emmanuel, now wish to be known and addressed as Olabode Olorunleke Emmanuel. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

I formerly known and addressed as Miss IMANGBENIKARO BLESSING, now wish to be known as Mrs. AZELU BLESSING. All former documents remain valid general public please take note.

CONFIRMATION OF NAME PEACE UDOM and PEACE AGORUA refers to one and the same person, now wish to be known as Mrs. PEACE UDOM. All former documents remain valid, Diamond Bank and the general public please take note.

CONFIRMATION OF NAME MONDAY OXMOND OMORUYI OGUNROBO and OXMOND OMORUYI OXMOND. Refers to one and the same person, now wish to be known as OXMOND OMORUYI OXMOND. All former documents remain valid, general public please take note.

CONFIRMATION OF NAME UCHECHUKWU EMMANUEL OGUEGBE and UCHECHUKWU EMMANUEL EZEKIEL. Refers to one and the same person now wish to be known as UCHECHUKWU EMMANUEL EZEKIEL. All former documents remain valid general public please take note.

CONFIRMATION OF NAME UCHECHUKWU EMMANUEL OGUEGBE and UCHECHUKWU EMMANUEL EZEKIEL. Refers to one and the same person now wish to be known as UCHECHUKWU EMMANUEL EZEKIEL. All former documents remain valid general public please take note.

CONFIRMATION OF NAME I YUNUS AMINAT ADEDAYO, My name was mistakenly registered by WAEC May/June, 2011 as YUNUS AMINAT ADEBAYO, Exam no. 4303014237, that YUNUS AMINAT ADEBAYO is the person as YUNUS AMINAT ADEDAYO, all the document that bearing the two name is the same person and still remain valid Osun state Polytechnic Iree and General Public should please take note.

VERONICA

I, formerly known and address as Miss Ibekeme Kelechi Veronica, now wish to be known and address as Mrs Anosike Ibekeme Kelechi Veronica. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

75

Fire guts Benin disco substation From Osagie Otabor, Benin POWER sub-substation belonging to the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) along Siluko road in Egor local government area of Edo State was yesterday destroyed by fire.

Residents said they heard a loud bang from the transformer before the fire started.

It could not be ascertained what actually caused the fire as at press time.

As a result of the incident, hundreds of houses serviced by the facility have been cut off as the fire razed the entire facilities.

Public Relation Officer of BEDC, Curtis Wadaiyi who confirmed the incident, said the company’s engineers were working to ascertain the cause of the fire.

He said a preliminary report would be ready on Monday to ascertain how many houses are affected.

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Nwanya dies at 74

WAITE

EZIKE

NDIDI

Mrs. NDIDI NWANNEDIYA OGUAMALAM and Mrs. NDIDI CORNELIUS OGU, refers to one and the same person. All former documents remain valid general public please take note.

TOMBIA

I formerly known and addressed as Mary Movihinze Tombia, now wish to be known and addressed as Mary Movihinze James Akumba.

All former documents remain valid.

Federal Polytechnic, Gboko and general public should please take note.

ABDUL

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Monsurat Mojisola Abdul, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs Monsurat Mojisola Bilesanmi. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

CONFIRMATION OF NAME I, Ukadike Jimima and Goodness Jemimah Emmanuel refers to one and the same person. All documents bearing the above names remain valid, general public please take note.

OSHINNILU

I formerly known and address as Oshinnilu Kehinde Olabimtan now wish to be known and address as Akingboju Kehinde Olabimtan. All former documents remain valid.

The general public please take note.

ILENBILUAN

I formerly known and address as Ilenbiluan Peter Edomemen now wish to be known and address as Barachiah Peter Edomemen. All former documents remain valid.

The general public please take note.

OGUN

I formerly known and address as Ogun Opeyemi Babafunmi now wish to be known and address as Opeyemi Ajani Babafunmi. All former documents remain valid.

The general public please take note.

AUGUSTINE

I formerly known and address as Miss Augustine Chinenye Veronica now wish to be known and address as Mrs. Ali Chinenye Veronica. All former documents remain valid. The general public please take note.

•Nwanya

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HE immediate past C h a i r m a n , Governing Council of Federal College of Education, Eha Amufu in Enugu State, Professor Raymond Nwanya, is dead.

He was 74.

The deceased was also former Head of Department of Foreign Languages and Literature and Dean, Faculty of Humanities of the University of PortHarcourt and Publisher of the defunct Abuja Tempo Newspaper.

He is survived by three children, a brother, a sister and many other relations.

His remains will be laid to rest on Friday September 19, after a funeral service at the St. Andrew’s Anglican Church, Enugwu Ukwu, Anambra State.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY AUGUST 31, 2014

ETCETERA

76

SUNNY SIDE

Cartoons

By Olubanwo Fagbemi

POLITICKLE

deewalebf@yahoo.com 08060343214 (SMS only)

A twenty-first century guide •Counsel for all and sundry

CHEEK BY JOWL

OH, LIFE!

THE GReggs

LADIES and gentlemen; boys and girls, make not the world worse. You can aspire to great things without using your prodigious talents to induce confusion. Yes, you are smart, motivated and creative, and everyone that tells you that you can change the world is probably not far from the truth, but changing the world does not require circumventing financial regulations or bending the law.

First, learn to express yourself. Shave your head and cultivate a goatee, big boy. Braid your hair, leave it long, dear girl. Wear all brown, wear all yellow, wear boots, wear leather, and wear jeans always. Try on new identities to see which ones fit best, but shun anything permanent as tattoos, because, as your taste in clothes, hair styles and music, your thoughts about most things would someday change. What you think is really deep and insightful today will look shallow and immature in a few years.

Mind your manners in the meantime. As you will discover afterwards, it doesn’t matter whether the rules of manners make sense or not. What matters is the effect of following these rules: people appreciate the effort and respect shown them. In turn, they will show you respect. And that goes for when you are abroad, in Rome as elsewhere.

Throughout life, people will get in your way. Some will step in your path. Older people will stumble in front of you at the wrong time. Don’t blow your top. Get on top of the situation. Step aside and go about your business. Note that these are often passive aggressive methods by others to get you to acknowledge their existence.

Cheer up. Whatever troubles and doubts you face today, many have experienced the same thing. Take advice after critical analysis as counsel is often designed to benefit the supporter as much as the recipient. Decide what is right for you. You may study quotes from the experienced so that you can refer to them when you need to, for only the foolish would fail to learn from the mistakes of others.

Be patient in love. The worst thing you can do in the search for a significant other is to try to change yourself into something you are not just because you think that is what they are looking for. Get to know the other person’s likes instead and share in their experience. On similar considerations, choose your friends. Good friends can help you through just as bad friends can cause some of the problems in the first place.

Stay fit. Play a team sport, as it teaches interaction and interdependence, adjustment to various personalities, generosity and other character-building traits. You don’t have to join a professional team; go to a nearby park and play any available ball game.

Never pick on the weak. It’s immoral. Bullying people into compliance is distasteful. And don’t antagonise the strong without cause.

It’s foolish. Don’t undermine colleagues. Never mentally or physically abuse people because of who they are, or how they present themselves.

Eat healthily and maintain an exercise regimen not only to help fight diseases and aging, but to help ensure an active lifestyle for many years. The body is like any machine: it runs great when new, but after years of neglect it will slow down, and eventually break down.

Get organised. Keep a calendar, make a to-do list, and don’t put off doing things until later. When you are organised, you undertake more tasks, finish them, and have more time to pursue new activities and relationships.

Invest in yourself. Material things come to those that achieve goals and ambition. An ambitious doctor, lawyer, architect or accountant you may turn out to be, but a fine young man with good character you must strive to become, Junior. And aim to be better than a materialistic mimic, young woman.

A poser none should ever be. Be not the one who swindles others for a living, or one who flaunts fashionable clothes and gadgets beyond earning power. To gain respect, you’ll have to earn respect.

QUOTE Happiness held is the seed; happiness shared is the flower.

Author Unknown

Jokes Humour What kind of man?

A GUY named Steve receives a free ticket to the football cup final from his company.

Unfortunately, when he arrives at the stadium, he realises the seat is in the last row in the corner of the stadium.

About halfway through the first half, Steve notices an empty seat that was 10 rows off the field, facing the halfway line.

He decides to take a chance and makes his way through the stadium and around the security guards to the empty seat.

As he sits down, he asks the gentleman sitting next to him, “Excuse me, is anyone sitting here?” The man says no.

Excited to be in such a great seat for the game, Steve again inquires of the man next to him, “This is incredible! Who in their right mind would have a seat like this at the cup final and not use it?”

With a straight face, the man says, “Well, actually, the seat belongs to me. I was supposed to come with my wife, but she passed away. This is the first cup final we haven’t been together at since we got married in 1967.”

“Well, that’s really sad,” says Steve. “But still, couldn’t you find someone to take the seat?

A relative or close friend?”

“No,” the man says, “they’re all at the funeral.”

Special Dinner A MAN and a woman were having dinner in a fine restaurant.

Their waitress, taking another order at a table a few paces away noticed that the man was slowly sliding down his chair and under the table, with the woman acting unconcerned.

The waitress watched as the man slid all the way down his chair and out of sight under the table.

Still, the woman dining across from him appeared calm and unruffled, apparently unaware that her dining companion had disappeared.

After the waitress finished taking the order, she came over to the table and said to the woman, “Pardon me, ma’am, but I think your husband just slid under the table.”

The woman calmly looked up at her and replied firmly, “No, he didn’t. He just walked in through the door.”

•Adapted from the Internet

Writer ’s Fountain IPS for great writing: Use Editing is fundamental to the process of short words, short sentences and short great writing. The bottom line is: write less, paragraphs. not more.

Note that when you write like you talk, Once you get more comfortable with just you tend to write long sentences. You can getting started and writing a rubbish first write a sentence that fills an entire paragraph draft, you will find that at least as much of the sometimes. This might be how the words writing process is in the editing, if not more. flow out of your mouth, but one advantage As you may have found out, or will soon do, in writing is that you have a chance to edit it takes more work to write a short story or your work before the reader encounters it. post. You could spend twice as much time Therefore, use short words, short sentences editing as you do writing. and short paragraphs. Try not to write more Having someone else to look over your than two pages on any subject. And this is work helps, as much as reading your work less about editing than keeping things simple. aloud and leaving it between edits. You will As much as you can, get to your point down need to learn to step back from the process of quickly and use the simplest language you writing to properly scrutinise your work. can.

View your draft as objectively using the Write less, not more. parameters above. Essentially, if a sentence, no matter how excellent, does not illuminate History through figures: your subject in some new and useful way, •In 1832 Abraham Lincoln ran for the expunge it.

Illinois legislature in the U.S.A., and lost.

Keep writing, even when it hurts.

•Roman great, Julius Caesar, was the first Don’t write a lot. Write often. Practice, you to encode communications, using what has must have heard, makes perfect. Be become known as the Caesar Cipher. disciplined enough to write when you don’t •Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte both want to, and keep at it when you have had suffered from epilepsy. enough. Good luck!

T

THE NATION ON SUNDAY AUGUST 31, 2014

INTERVIEW

77

•Cotinued from page 50

‘My predecessor set up booby-traps all over the state’ see anything on the ground and they even left debt on it. ItuahIghodalo is one of those we are still owing some money over the project. Some people have even dragged us to court over the debt arising from the project. They obtained injunctions that nothing must be done until the case is dispensed with.

But the good news is we have a plan for a cargo airport in the state. In the 1940s, there was the Second World War and there was an airstrip in Alamala Army barrack which was used by our colonial masters. The place is already revived and fenced with some preliminary work already done by the Federal Government on it. My predecessor knows of this airstrip but looked the other way. The beauty is that the Cargo airport will still go ahead. But you cannot say you are doing an airport when there is no road. The road that leads to the airport is one of the roads Papa ObafemiAwolowo constructed. It’s in very bad state.

The Federal Government is actually working on one cargo airport in Wasinmi and they should have completed it really but I don’t know why they have not because money was voted for it yearly.

Why was it difficult to resolve the OlabisiOnabanjoUniversity (OOU) crisis before you ordered the closure of the school?

In a more decent environment, my predecessor would not be in a state to be walking around freely, grandstanding and spreading false information to cover up the obvious lack of planning manifest in the administration he headed.

In one fell swoop, he created four tertiary institutions and raised the number of tertiary institutions owned by Ogun State government to 10. Even Lagos with all the money, has just five.

He then funded them for two months and stopped and then accumulated debts of unpaid salary and subventions.We came in and inherited all manners of debt. In OlabisiOnabanjo University alone, he left a debt of N1.8bn. For eight years, the OOU couldn’t hold any convocation because they couldn’t process results of students. We have to clear all the backlog of unpaid salary and allowances. We held convocation for over 40,000 graduates in one fell swoop. Every government around us has three, four or five but Ogun state must fund all its 10 institutions. He himself funded the schools for just two months and stopped and allowed debts to pile up.

The students of OOU are being used and can sometimes be very mischievous. I know what I said during my campaigns in 2011 because I have

all my campaigns tape recorded. When I was campaigning, I promised to reduce the tuition fee by sixty percent. The following day after I publicly made the promise, he reduced the tuition fee by fifty percent to take the wind off our sail. I then promised to reduce the tuition fee by 10 percent and I did that immediately I assumed office.

We give over N600m to each of the schools every month, multiply that by 12 that is N7.2billion. That is what we spend yearly on tertiary institutions alone. What is the subvention payable by Lagos every month?

He really caused havoc in this state. He set up booby-trap all over the state. For instance, he increased the pension of the retired Permanent Secretaries in the state civil service from N40,000 to N400,000 after his party lost the election and refused to pay the retired Permanent Secretaries. I got to office and that was what I was paying.

I have to be paying the N400,000.He was paying N40,000 and increased it to N400,000 and I have been paying that.

He stopped paying gratuities to retired workers since 2007. Recently I realised that we still have some people who haven’t collected gratuity despite the N26bn we have spent on that sector. So, we investigated the situation.

We discovered that he stopped paying in December 2007. We were made to clear 2008,2009,2010,2011 and 2012 arrears. It means that if he hadn’t owed those years, Ogun State Government won’t be owing any gratuity to its retires. It’s unfair that some people will work and not be paid their entitlement when they retire. We still have some N7bn to be up to date in gratuity payment but that is where we found ourselves. He left debt everywhere and I have been clearing debts all these years.

To return to the OOU issue, the government reduced tuition fees in all its tertiary institutions, even up to 61 percent in some cases, depending on which school they are studying. Students from nine institutions came and thanked me, but their colleagues in OOU said they want further reductions and that the new school fees regime must commence immediately. Against all advice from the security agents, I went to address them.

I saw some of them in hood like those SSS operatives used during the recent Osun State election. I wonder why a student will be in hood.

When it became obvious that all our explanations and efforts to make the students see reason fell

“

The abuse by some people over these tough decisions doesn’t have impact on me. I usually plead with our people that you cannot make an omelette without breaking the egg

“

What really is your Home Ownership Charter Programme about?

We put in place Home Owners Charter because we realised that a lot of people have built homes without relevant approval and papers. It wasn’t to demolish any structure. It is a scheme aimed at empowering our people, putting higher values on their property and helping to generate enumeration statistics.

In areas like Magboro, Aseese and many of our border areas that are unplanned in that axis, we appreciate that past governments have abdicated their responsibility and that is why people built in the manner they did. We plan to do something called ‘envelope development system’. That means development that will take the peculiarity of that particular area into cognisance and try to fashion out some order in the prevailing disorderliness.

There was a master plan for Ogun state. Even my predecessor reviewed it but didn’t use it. The largest limestone belt in West Africa is along the Sagamu-Papalanto belt. It is in the Master-plan and yet what do you have over the limestone deposit now? This housing estate,that housing estate. I cannot understand why people will see the right thing and decide to do the wrong thing.

But my own plan is to deliver quality houses for our people to the extent that becoming a house owner won’t be a problem. Some people told me that the houses in the estates we are building in Abeokuta would be taken over by Lagos people.

I said it would never happen. Nobody will buy the houses and lock it up. It must be occupied.

They will have to come and be living in them.

But we have to be ready to change the way we live in the past.

As a result of her multi-border nature, Ogun State is prone to security challenges. What have you done to address the problem?

Only two states are investing in security more than Ogun State in Nigeria today. These are Lagos and Rivers States. We met 19 rickety Hilux vans provided for the use of the police when we came in 2011. Today, we have over 300 brand new Hilux vans equipped with communication facilities. We have 13 Armoured Personnel Carriers (APC) in place today. No state in Nigeria has the type of APC we have. It is a 2011 technology, the very latest technology from the USA. Some people wrote a petition to EFCC saying that we have approval for eight APCs and ended up buying 13. They said we had the intention of stealing that was why we approved only eight at the State Executive Council in the first instance. I said this is ridiculous. It is when i collected money for 13 and bought eight that I think I have committed an offence. A local supplier brought eight APCs for us and I took the entire Executive Council to inspect them. Then, one police officer called our attention to the failings of the APC’s that were brought to us. We quickly sent them back to the suppliers and proceeded to import our own APCs from the USA. We were advised that if we were buying 10, the manufacturers will reduce the the price and so instead of the eight that we approved, the money was enough to buy 10. And due to the exigencies of the time when banks could not open in the whole of Ogun East Senatorial District, we had to fly the APCs into the country. Even at that, we were able to bring them into the country at a very low cost. We were initially about to charter a plane to fly seven of them simultaneously into the country immediately but someone advised me that it will be cheaper to bring them into the country in piecemeal. That advice again saved money for us to be able to buy more APCs. Happily, when i was asking for waiver from the President, I asked for 13 not eight. The cost of our own APCs compared to the one anyone has is far cheaper. I am not a thief. I have my family name to protect. We have 56 Divisional Police Officers.

We fund the operations of those Hilux vehicles and those APCs. We give allowances to policemen and soldiers in our security outfits.

When we came, banks were all closed but due to the measures we put in place, all banks are today working in Ogun State. Some people try to sabotage the APCs but we always get around it.

They planned to mess us up but God is in control.

My own goal is to provide security for the people of Ogun State. Before we came, nightlife was almost zero, now people can move around even at night and nightlife is back in the state. Properties of our people are now well secured. We have not got there yet but we are on the correct route and we are not stopping.

Why did your administration abandon your predecessor’s Cargo Airport Project?

When the project was conceptualised in 2004, the Expected Date of Delivery was to be December 6, 2006. People of Ogun state were happy that we are about to get to Eldorado. But by the time the former governor left office in 2011 nothing was done and billions of naira had been supposedly committed to the project. I want to revisit the project and continue with it but we can’t even see the plan they have for it. We can’t

on deaf ears and that they are bent on fomenting crisis like they did on August 15 when they destroyed property and attacked innocent people in Abeokuta, we ordered the closure of the university to maintain peace and order.

There is the recurring accusation that the party members who worked for your election are not being taken care of. How do you respond to this?

I don’t really know the genesis of this claim but I believe some people see us as miracle workers. In their minds ‘They say there is no money and everything is going on smoothly.

Roads are being constructed and bridges are being constructed’. They now say ‘the money is there, bring it’. Well, the money is not there to be shared.The money is there to the extent that those for capital projects will go for capital projects, those for recurrent will go for recurrent. We are struggling to cope because the allocations from Abuja keep declining. I don’t know what people are thinking really.

What is the relationship between you and Chief Olusegun Osoba like?

Chief Osoba is my leader and whatever happens, he remains my leader. There is no contest about that. I do not want to say more than that.

Why is it difficult for you to carry him along?

I don’t know what you mean by carrying him along. The ACN executive in the state in 2011 had 52 members. Today, 47 of them are with us in APC. So if I do not carry people along, how will they be with me? These are people who have been with Chief Osoba since he joined politics in the late 80s. So, why the allegation of not carrying people along? The Osoba people dominate the current APC executive in Ogun State. They constitute 71 percent of our executive committee.

I will appeal to you journalists to assist in preaching the gospel that one percent of something is better than 100 percent of nothing.

It is in the overall interest of all of us to continue to work together as a team. Our tendency is the only one that can bring development to our state and country. We should not allow any reverse to the on- going development in our state. I am a peace lover and will continue to reach out to all those who feel aggrieved and all the good people of Ogun State.

Indeed, it is a good credit for Chief Osoba to continue to be in a position to say that it was while our government is in power that we recorded these so many feats we are seeing in Ogun State.

Are you not afraid that these crises could derail your re-election?

Our re-election will be achieved, by God’s grace and with the support of the people. Go and write it down. But I must say it is in the interest of everybody that we are united. So I will want to appeal again that we should come together to make history for our state. I will relentlessly push for us to have a united, stronger and focused APC in Ogun State.

It must be stated clearly, at this point, that I am not in competition with Chief Osoba.

QUOTABLE “The performance pattern that we witness is a reflection of the quality of teaching and learning that is taking place in the school system. Teachers are not competent; you know of what happened in Edo State where a teacher could not even read. So, how can a teacher impact knowledge he does not possess.”

SUNDAY, AUGUST 31, 2014 TRUTH IN DEFENCE OF FREEDOM VOL. 9, NO. 2957

- Head of National Office, West African Examination Council (WAEC), Mr. Charles Eguridu, giving reasons for the abysmal performance of Nigerian candidates in the just released May/June WASC examination.

I

N 2005, the National Intelligence Council (NIC), which is described as “The center for midterm and long-term strategic thinking within the United States Intelligence Community (IC)”, published a report of a one-day conference it convened to look at the future of sub-Saharan Africa. The conference examined a 15-year trend in the region and concluded that for Nigeria, any major event could upset its “precarious equilibrium.” The report did not rule out disintegration. Consequent upon the NIC report, the US military conducted a war game exercise in 2008 and also examined what should be the response of the US military should anarchy overtake Nigeria. There was no definitive prediction of a Nigerian break-up, nor any attribution of the predictions to the US government, but none of the studies undertaken by the US bodies ruled out that possibility. Indeed, in view of the security challenges facing Nigeria since 2009, and the country’s increasing fragility, it would require extreme optimism to rule out that frightful worst-case scenario.

But that is precisely what Nigeria’s rulers have done. Rather than dispassionately examine the damning reports on Nigeria, especially the parameters used to arrive at the frightening conclusions on the country’s stability and cohesion, the rulers have dismissed the study, especially since it emerged it was not a US government study — as if it mattered by whom the studies were produced. Surely it has not been forgotten that in 1991, there was hardly anyone, intellectual or soothsayer, within or outside the US government, who predicted that the Soviet Union would disintegrate that year. Underscoring that universal ignorance, a US international relations expert, George Kennan, confessed that he found it “hard to think of any event more strange and startling, and at first glance inexplicable, than the sudden and total disintegration and disappearance … of the great power known successively as the Russian Empire and then the Soviet Union.” Everyone, including leading members of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s government described the Soviet collapse as “unexpected.”

But Nigerians are enamoured of superstition and are fanatical about religion. Yet, irrespective of their private longings, revolutions are an integral part of history, happen periodically, and are often unpredictable. The spectacular and constantly irredeemable act of leadership malfeasance in Nigeria in fact makes the country more susceptible to fragmentation than any study anywhere has predicted. The absence of social, economic and criminal justice is enduring. The federal and state governments have repeatedly and callously undermined the constitution, abridged rights, promoted tyranny, exploited religious, ethnic and political cleavages, and hoped that by a strange alchemy they could deploy religious faith and conviction to dissipate the spectre of disintegration. They seem to think they are immune to the centrifugal tendencies, (especially the fashionable sectarian adventurism promoted by the Islamic State), overwhelming and inspiring fanatical elements in parts of the world such as Iraq, Syria, Libya and now Nigeria.

Nothing makes the danger of destabilisation and fragmentation more pressing for Nigeria than the continuing threat posed by the Boko Haram Islamist sect, which has just declared a caliphate in Gwoza, Borno State, and seems set to heighten its territorial affront in the face of shambolic and feeble military response.

And nothing exemplifies that feebleness than the strange and dramatic manner 480 Nigerian soldiers found their way into Cameroon last week after a particularly gruelling encounter with Boko Haram militants. Some analysts have described the movement of the 480 troops, almost a battalion strength, as desertion, the worst disgrace Nigeria has ever faced in its 54-year chequered history. On their own, however, military officers, presuming Nigerians to be incoherent, have described the embarrassment incredulously as either tactical manoeuvre or tactical retreat.

Desertion, Boko Haram: Nigeria’s fragility underscored Before the Soviet Empire and its accompanying Warsaw Pact alliance disintegrated, they did not face the kind of countdown Nigeria is confronting, a countdown where soldiers are reluctant to fight, their wives are protesting against the deployment of their husbands, and the national spirit is either inexistent or is substantially distorted. There have been one or two attempts at mutiny in barracks in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, with military authorities blackmailing the discerning public into desisting from commenting on the collapse at war fronts. It will be recalled that Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State was the first to raise the alarm that Nigerian troops were unwilling to fight because of poor motivation and inferior weapons. He was pilloried for his outspokenness, until soldiers themselves began to complain openly of being poorly armed, and their wives joined in the unprecedented revolt, never before seen in these parts.

That the country is badly and incompetently administered is no longer in doubt. What is in dispute is the continuing promotion of the nonsensical viewpoint that Boko Haram is the creation of anti-Jonathan elements, a viewpoint championed by ruffians in the South-South and strangely and stupidly endorsed by elements in the Southwest. This viewpoint has in turn

triggered the divisive demonisation of the North as a wholesale champion of Boko Haram, even though the sect was birthed during the presidency of Olusegun Obasanjo, a southerner, and acquired its terrifying streak under the presidency of the late Umaru Yar’Adua, a northerner. It apparently suits the Goodluck Jonathan presidency that that abhorrent viewpoint is promoted and reinforced by dangerous and malevolent reiteration. This was perhaps why the abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls from a secondary school in Chibok, Borno State, was politicised not by the opposition, but by the Jonathan government, which first doubted the abductions, and has approached the matter since then with undisguised, shameless and enervating impotence.

Sadly, the government’s appalling strategy is anchored essentially on one leg: to defeat the insurgency militarily, a feat now looking increasingly complicated and far-fetched, and provoke the country with its disjointed and disfiguring triumphalism. As far as the complex factors that have engendered Boko Haram are concerned, such as injustice, economic deprivation, subversion of the constitution, political suppression and oppression, divisive use of religion and ethnicity, nothing has been done, and nothing is planned. Indeed, the ab-

horrent sub-plot of the Boko Haram insurgency, which is to use it for electoral ends, is nearly so complete that the Jonathan reelection team brutally hangs their campaign on blaming and demonising others — the opposition and the North especially — for its incompetence and impotence in forging a way out of the national morass.

The consequence is that instead of the unity needed to direct the fight against the common foe, the country is more divided than ever, fighting one another, promoting fissiparous tendency even in the military, fostering ethnic and political resentment, while Dr Jonathan’s government continues to harvest the sympathy of some of the geopolitical zones which have concluded that Dr Jonathan is in fact being persecuted by northern oligarchs and a complicit faction of the Southwest elite.

It is not clear why the Jonathan presidency is unable to rise up imaginatively to both the insurgency in particular and the disequilibrium in the polity in general, or whether he in fact truly desires to challenge and defeat the insurgency and other problems plaguing the country. But I think Dr Jonathan’s government is widely despised for its lack of discipline and its poor intellectual endowment. It is unable to situate the Boko Haram problem in the global Jihadist context, let alone in the less complex domestic context, and is reluctant to appreciate that the sect needs to be examined closely to discover why and how it continues to grow in strength, why it is attractive to all manner of adventurers, why the army seems out of tune with reality, and why his political methods have discouraged and alienated a large swathe of the country. Worse, I fear that Dr Jonathan is not even interested in mustering the huge responsibility needed to understand and solve these problems. He believes that his method of shifting the blame for the insurgency on the opposition and the North will yield him votes, and his tactics of plundering the constitution for provisions and sundry authorisation to sustain and promote the acts of repression will strengthen his hands. He is not tempted to change, and perhaps, as galling as this may sound, may never change even as the country plummets to its most terrifying nadir ever.

Redefining full-scale war against Boko Haram

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HIS newspaper published a report last week of retired military officers campaigning for the declaration of a full-scale war on the Boko Haram insurgents in the Northeast. A battle line must be drawn, they suggested angrily. The report also added, perhaps hilariously, that some unnamed sources within the military disclosed that the 480 soldiers who ‘strayed’ into Cameroon last week and returned rather ignominiously were eager to return to Gamboru-Ngala, from whence they earlier fled, to give battle to the insurgents. It will be recalled that the Senate President, David Mark, some weeks back, also suggested it was time full-scale war was declared on the insurgents. The sentiment on full-scale war has been growing in the past weeks, especially with every reverse suffered by the Nigerian military. Even the former military ruler, Gen Ibrahim Babangida, has suggested that negotiating with Boko Haram was pointless on account of the sect’s facelessness. Some logic.

We know the origins of the campaign for full-scale war, and the personalities behind it.

What is unclear is where they got the impression that the Goodluck Jonathan government was yet to declare a full-scale war on the insurgents. If Nigeria is unclear about the war they are fighting in the Northeast, certainly Boko Haram and its commanders are neither burdened nor hamstrung by that semantic fog. As far as the insurgents are concerned, they are already engaged in a full-scale war with the Nigerian military, and are having a ball.

Whether they are giving it their all is not clear.

But by achieving some spectacular victories in recent months, even putting Nigerian troops on the run in a few areas as demonstrated by the Gamboru-Ngala debacle, the insurgents show their tenacity and contempt for termino-

•Mark

•Minimah

logical inexactitudes.

If the Nigerian military will soon scale up their engagements against the insurgents, it will not be because they were unclear what tempo and quantum of war they have been fighting. I think their war effort has been hamstrung by a number of factors, among which are the poor quality of arms available to them, which they at first disputed and downplayed, the manner in which the leadership of the military has mishandled the issue of esprit de corps, the military’s own strategic and tactical shortcomings, and as some officers have confessed, their discomfort and puzzlement with guerilla/terrorism warfare. I believe the military has been fighting a full-scale war, and have given it their all. As professionals, they must not be seduced by the ignorant pitches of those who suggest that a full-scale war of a different hue could still be declared, perhaps one which will discountenance clinical and surgical strikes in favour of massive and indiscriminate bombardment.

The disgrace of the past few months has been unprecedented. But both the military and the federal government must recognise that the brutal Sri Lankan model of total warfare,

which Nigeria briefly flirted with, will complicate the problem. They must also situate the Boko Haram war within the global context of the war being waged by borderless or asymmetric warriors, such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis), now simply called Islamic State (IS). What is at play here is the contest of ideas and philosophies of government, the push and pull between liberalism and theocracy, and arguments as to how the almost total alienation in the polity can be addressed. Those who suggest full-scale war, apart from being grammatically inexact, seem to imply that once military victory is achieved — a doubtful proposition in the short term — peace and stability would be reestablished.

Nothing could be more wrong.

As I have suggested in this place many times, it is now more urgent than ever for the president, if he can manage it, to appreciate the harm the absence of a national spirit or national identity is causing Nigeria.

I doubt his talent in this regard. In addition, it is also very urgent that the country must be anchored on profound values and principles, among which are constitutional rule shorn of any abridgement or perversion, justice in all ramifications, and the fostering of unity around those great values.

Nigerian rulers have for a long time been complicit in the destruction of these values and principles, and consequently there is no lodestar around which to build a country every Nigerian would be proud of. A military victory against Boko Haram, even though desperately desirable, will only offer us a temporary relief; it will not bring lasting peace or stability, nor the forging of a great nation.

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