Jan 26, 2014

Newspaper of the Year

Ihejirika: ACF disowns Northern Elders Forum over ICC trial

Why we want lawmakers to block executive bills –APC

–Page 4

Says military campaign can’t be personalised

–Page 7

Nigeria’s widest circulating newspaper

Vol.08, No. 2740

TRUTH IN DEFENCE OF FREEDOM

THRILLER IN CAPE TOWN

SUNDAY

JANUARY 26, 2014

N200.00

Christantus Ejike of Nigeria celebrates his goal with his teammates during the 2014 CAF African Nations Championships quarterfinal football match between Morocco and Nigeria at Cape Town Stadium, Cape Town, yesterday.

Story –Page 79

2015: INEC fixes primaries for Oct –Page 4

Presidential, gov campaigns to wait till November Commission may allow use of permanent voters card

$49.8 bnoilmoneylooted,Amaechiinsists Challenges FG to implement UNEP report on Ogoniland

Blames Mbu for return of militants

–Page 5

Yoruba detractors are rabblerousers, says Tinubu –Page 6

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 26, 2014

2 PAGE

CAPTURED

Gunmen kill Chinese rail worker, injure two others

In the arms of The Lord A construction worker walks on an arm of 125-foot (38-metre) Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to inspect it for damage caused by lightening during recent storms. The iconic statue is the largest stone-work of Jesus ever built and stands more than 2,000 feet above Rio on top of the Corcovado Hill. It was named one of the seven new wonders of the world in 2007.

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Okonjo-Iweala, NNPC and $10.8bn

sunday@thenationonlineng.net

Another military timeline for Boko Haram’s end

Jonathan's re-election and Edwin Clark's Calvinism

By ADEKUNLE ADE-ADELEYE

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 26, 2014

COLUMN

The return of the master spook

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LD soldiers never die, as they say. Neither, it seems, do old politicians or illustrious spymasters. In fact, it is now safe to assume that all old masters in their fields never die. To be truly distinguished in your field of human endeavour you need to be truly obsessional.

All great people are obsessive characters. That is the secret of human distinction.

When Chief Obafemi Awolowo was asked by Gbolabo Ogunsanwo, the master columnist, whether he would return to politics on the return of the military to the barracks, the late sage fixed the younger man with a quizzical frown. “Gbolabo, you can only return to what you have left.” Awolowo noted tersely.

In other words, the old man never left politics, despite the gale of purported proscriptions and banning. You can only ban what is “bannable” or boycott what is boycottable.

Politics is unavoidable warfare, and the brash generals have a lesson to learn from the old political warrior. No wonder, they eventually came up with the dubious doctrine of the new breed.

Daedalus may develop artificial wings, but cannot fly for long.

In the past few weeks, there have been some significant moves on the political chessboard. There is some tectonic rumbling. The geopolitical power plates are violently grating. Nigeria’s power blocs are on the move again, like massive tanks crunching their way through difficult terrains. The whole land is quaking with fright and premonition.

It all began with the APC hurricane suddenly developing a seemingly unstoppable momentum as it blitzed its way towards the seat of power. The gale of swift and sudden defections blew open the rotting innards of the ruling party, exposing the political putrefaction of its stalwarts for the world to see.

Nothing concentrates the mind of a moribund ruling party which has outlived all its usefulness more than the prospects of an alternative national platform which seems to have bought into the ancient tricks.

For once, the PDP appears ruffled and out of its depth. The executioner is about to be executed. For a long time, this power-holding and power withholding cartel appeared impregnable; immune to common sense and futile probing from the outside. But for once, it is now experiencing the kind of internal destabilisation which its vicious power masters and diabolical playmakers had reserved for other parties. The sharp blade was probing its own neck, like the endgame of successful armed robbers.

In the event, the long drawn internal squabbling culminated in the ouster and political defenestration of its former chairman, the hapless Bamanga Tukur. After briefly dangling juicier carrots before his covetous eyes, the old shipper was himself shipped to the moribund Nigerian Railway as its demobilized deity.

For a completely derailed country—or un-railed country if you wish—this was cruel and appropriate metaphor. But it is not a done deal yet. With the APC relentlessly raising the stakes, there will be more defections and defecations in the power sanctuary and the foul odour and odium of voluntary incontinence will continue to offend the tame nostrils until the very end.

President Goodluck Jonathan

S

3

nooping around With

Tatalo Alamu

•Gusau

appears to have fastened on a twinpronged strategy in the face of compelling adversity and adversarial circumstances. Dangle the prospects of a National Conference which will dissolve in a world-historic chaos and confusion resulting in dire emergency and automatic elongation of tenure, or in the alternative go all out to win the presidential election by all means and at all costs without minding whose ox is gored or whose back is broken in the process.

On paper, it looks very good: a brilliant and compelling battle plan despite Jonathan’s serial dereliction of state duty and middling competence. But as Mike Tyson famously observes, every boxer has a plan until the first blow crashes through the solar plexus.

This is when hallucination and disorientation take over in the lonely ring. The great ear-cruncher and master of bodily harm should know.

The northern power brokers, Jonathan’s major political opponents, appear to be in a far more precarious fox hole. For

D

them, it looks like a lose, lose situation going forward to be confronted by the organised anarchy of a National Conference for which they have no real appetite, or waiting listlessly to be electorally hammered by a Jonathan willing to deploy all the armada of incumbency in addition to facilitating the electoral suicide pill that the sustained insurgency of Boko Haram represents. For once, the hegemonic northern bloc has its back to the wall.

It is within the context of this life and death power struggle that one must situate the return of General Aliyu Mohammed Gusau to prominence and national relevance, this time as Jonathan’s Minister of Defence. It has been said by those who should know that Jonathan for a long time has been trying to enlist the Gusauborn spymaster, dangling juicy carrots before him all to no avail until he finally succeeded.

No one is sure of the private concessions or the secret pact cobbled together between the two. On paper, it looks like a

devastating blow to the jugular of the old northern power bloc, capable of splitting its aristocratic military caste down the line. Is the remote and enigmatic master spook emerging from the shadows to play his own game once again, or is this an elaborate political bluff?

In the absence of an overriding nationalist ethos, the Nigerian political terrain is a spreading chestnut tree of mutual backstabbing. So in these matters, no one can be sure of who is playing for whom and against whom. It is a game of double and even multiple agents all tending to cancel each other out like an ancient Janus conundrum. The famous owl of Minerva can only begin its flight after the event.

On the positive side, Gusau should be able to leverage his powerful connections in the global intelligence circuits and his background as a devout Muslim to achieve a breakthrough in the Boko Haram deadlock. This is one feat that seems to have eluded both Sambo Dasuki and the late and much lamented Owoye Azazi.

Coming from the same fraction of the military, the same royalist Fulani antecedents and with marital ties to boot, it should not be hard for Gusau and Dasuki to work together. But in these matters, the more you see, the less you know.

General Aliyu Gusau has been in the political game for a long time.

Shy, shadowy and self-effacing to the point of complete self-erasure, the Fulani military powerbroker is justly celebrated as one of the finest and most accomplished products of Nigerian military intelligence.

Known to be courteous and solicitous of the wellbeing of his friends, he is also believed to be a remorseless foe capable of lasting and long-distance animosity.

Well-regarded in northern power circuits, the military intelligence chieftain is known to have a formidable capacity and

Good evening….

ARKNESS is truly visible these days. The millennial fog is very daunting and haunting. At night, the entire country darkens over like some vast prehistoric cave. In the blinding stillness, the few rays of light look like tiny glow worms in a vast jungle of forbidding blackness.

It is a truly historic eclipse, showcasing incompetence, fraud , sheer wickedness and the Blackman’s inhumanity to fellow Black people. This privatization thing is nothing but a transfer of sheer irresponsibility from the state to the private sector. Whoever is supposed to generate light now generates virtually 24/7 darkness.

The informed wager is that it may get worse.

The dreaded apocalypse is probably here with us. And the boy-emperor smiles, with the sheepish mien of culpable flippancy. There is so much stress and unease in the land. Men and women are on a short fuse. Tempers flare in the most public of places. Citizens are sullen and surly-looking, like a historic mob

waiting for the final signal. Twice in the week, raw anger threatened to overwhelm both the House of Representatives and the Senate. As often, the over-pampered haymakers may come to blows in the coming weeks.

In the midst of the confusion and looming conflagration, words went round that the divine creator of Nigeria and Nigerians will address the nation on the state of the union. At the appointed hour, people flocked to the appointed place. Besieged and berserk humanity struggled and jostled for space and the place soon became a Bedlam of sorts. People shrieked and howled at each other like denizens of a lunatic asylum.

Even in hell, there is a pecking order. The rulers of the nation— politicians, priests, soldiers, intellectuals, Muslim clerics, bankers, local kings, oil thieves, marabous and other junkies and flunkies of power— sat in the front row, beaming smiles of self-satisfaction. But there is plenty of opportunity in confusion.

The ranks of the new nobility have been infiltrated by some local thugs who were throwing unimaginable insults at them. Among them was the irrepressible Okon who eyed the rulers with scorn and contempt. “Yeye people, see di kind mess you don put dem Black people and una still dey smile,” Okon hollered.

“There is need to protect the species from the serpents”, a famous establishment lawyer noted, looking in the direction of Okon and other gangsters with considerable suspicion. All of a sudden, a celestial sandstorm began, thus heralding the arrival of the great One. The altercation immediately subsided. An ethereal figure could be seen wafting through the divine cloud.

“Good evening!!!” the voice suddenly boomed and then disappeared with the receding cloud.

The crowd began to disappear in greater confusion and loss of lucidity. Thus ended the historic sighting of the creator of Nigeria.

It will take another hundred years for the historic import of the message to sink in.

stamina for political intrigues and open-ended power conspiracies. As a political fixer, Gusau has become a permanent fixture of Nigerian politics since the Second Republic and in particular in the postmilitary period. He is widely believed to be one of the four leading northern generals that brokered the return of General Olusegun Obasanjo as civilian Head of State in 1999.

If there is one person who would be viewing the return of Gusau at this particular point with considerable consternation and unease, it must be General Mohammadu Buhari, his old military boss and former Commander in chief. And this unease must extend to the upbeat APC. Almost thirty years ago, Gusau experienced the lowest point in his military career when he was purportedly pencilled for dismissal from service on the orders of Buhari over some import license palaver.

The dismissal was swiftly countermanded by a triumphant Babangida who had tried in vain to safe the neck of his subordinate and devoted friend.

Almost three decades after, the body language suggests that the passage of time has not healed old wounds, and the relationship between the two Fulani generals appears frozen and frigid. If that were to be the case, it is unlikely that Gusau would lightly fold his arms and allow power to fall into the hands of Buhari and the APC except in the case of an unstoppable national avalanche.

Whichever way it goes, Nigeria is in for politically exciting and dangerous times. If matters come to a head early enough with the APC relentlessly baiting the expiring ruling party and obviously spoiling for an early bodily clinch, a constitutional earthquake might well render a political tsunami quite superfluous or surplus to requirements But there are so many variables to this engrossing power tussle to make it an overdetermined totality, as a great French Marxist philosopher of power would put it. It is to be noted that as powerful as he may appear, Gusau himself is not invulnerable and invincible. At well over seventy, age is no longer on his side. If he decides to pitch for himself, he may well be consumed by the dynamics he has helped unleash.

Some people are born kingmakers and some are born kings.

Both require different talents. On the two occasions that Gusau had tried to claim the crown for himself, it has ended as a derisive and risible anticlimax. First, when the duo of Generals Diya and Abacha hoodwinked him as Army boss into believing that the crown was his once Shonekan has been dismissed only for them to summarily remove the ground from under him.

Second, when a half-hearted effort to succeed Obasanjo collapsed on the fringes and peripheries of politics without making as much as a dent.

Both were avoidable exercises in selfdemystification. It is to be noted that after the second misadventure, Gusau’s political fortunes took a nosedive. The great spook from Zamfara State would do well to note that in politics, the very notion of third time unlucky is often a diplomatic euphemism for political suicide.

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NEWS

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 26, 2014

2015: INEC fixes primaries for October 2014 D

ETAILS of the process leading to next year's elections emerged yesterday with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) fixing October 211 2014 for primaries by the parties contesting the polls.

The commission had announced last Friday that the Presidential and National Assembly Elections would hold on February 14 to be followed on February 28 by the governorship and state assembly polls.

INEC expects that any dispute arising from the primaries will be resolved before elections.

According to the details made public yesterday by the Commission's Secretary, Mrs. Augusta Ogakwu, the official register of voters will be published on January 13 2015 while list of nominated candidates for Presidential and National Assembly election will published on the same day.

The parties are due to submit the nomination forms of their Presidential and National Assembly candidates not later than January 6, 2015 while those for the governorship and state Houses of Assembly should be received by the commission latest on January 20 2015.

The list of nominated candidates for governorship and state Houses of Assembly will be published on January 17, 2015.

Publication of notice of poll for all election will be displayed on January 18, 2015.

The commission slated November 4-11 2014 for the collection of forms for all elections by the political parties.

The deadline for the submission of Forms CF001 and CF002 at the INEC headquarters for all elections is December 18, 2014 for Presidential and National Assembly elections and December 25, 2014 for governorship and State As-

* Campaigns to wait till November * INEC may allow only use of Permanent Voter's Card sembly Elections.

The parties have up till December 30, 2014 for the withdrawal by candidates/replacement of withdrawn candidates for Presidential and National Assembly elections and January 13 for governorship and House of Assembly elections.

Publication of personal particulars of candidates (CF001) for Presidential and National Assembly is December 25, 2014 while that of governorship and State Assembly elections will be done on January 1, 2015.

In the same vein, the parties are required to submit the names of their agents for the Presidential/National Assem-

From Yusuf Alli and Vincent Ikuomola, Abuja

bly elections to electoral officers at local government area/ area council level by January 29, 2015 and for the governorship/State Assembly elections by February 12, 2015.

Campaigns in respect of the Presidential/National Assembly elections are to run from November 16, 2014 to February 12,2015.

For the governorship/ State Assembly candidates, their campaigns are permitted from November 30, 2014 to February 26, 2015.

Candidates in the June 2014 election in Ekiti State are free to start campaigning from March 23.

Forms for the election will be available for collection from April 1.

Party primaries, including resolution of disputes arising from them, should not be later than April 14.

The last day for the submission of Forms CF001 and CF002 at INEC headquarters is April 21 while the commission will publish the personal particulars of candidates on April 28.

INEC sources said yesterday that the commission would be strict in ensuring

compliance with the restriction on campaign.

Sources warned that the release of the timetable should not in any be seen as a licence to commence campaign.

One source said: "What we have done is to announce the timetable in line with our constitutional mandate. At least, Nigerians now have a picture of our plans. We hope that will reduce agitation for our schedule.

"By Sections 76, 178, 116 and 132 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 and Section 26 of the Electoral Act, 2010, dates of elections are to be appointed by the Commission.

"All the parties should not make the mistake of assuming that we have directed them to flag off their campaign."

Responding to a question,

•L-R: Former President Olusegun Obasanjo; Ogun Speaker Suraj Adekunbi: Wife of the Ogun state governor, Mrs. Olufunso Amosun; celebrator Governor Ibikunle Amosun; his mother-in-law, Deaconess Christianah Odesanya and the governor's brother, Alhaji Abidoye Amosun, cutting the 56th birthday cake of Amosun in Abeokuta… yesterday

the source said that Section 99(1) of the Electoral Act 2010 (As Amended) is explicit that campaign can only start 90 days to any poll.

His words: "The Act says 'For the purpose of this Act, the period of campaigning in public by every political party shall commence 90 days before polling day and end 24 hours prior to that day.'

"Anything outside this would be a violation of the law and the Commission may apply appropriate sanctions against culprits as provided by relevant sections of the law.

"So, you can see that the campaign for presidential, governorship, National Assembly and State Assembly elections would have to begin from around November 17 and thereafter."

It was also gathered that INEC may allow only people with the Permanent Voter's Cards to vote during the 2015 elections.

The commission is likely the experiment this with the Ekiti governorship poll in June and the Osun governorship election in August.

Another source in the commission said: "We are contemplating the use of the Permanent Voters' Cards for the 2015 poll. Do not forget that the Federal Executive Council (FEC) had in April last year approved contract of about N2.6billion for the printing of 40 million cards as part of the First Phase."

The contract was awarded to Art Technology Limited with the technical partner "Obature" in France at the cost of N65 per card.

The commission plans to replace all the 73.5million temporary voters' cards issued for the 2011 general elections as part of the strategy to check rigging and multiple voting.

The Permanent Voters Cards have microchips, which have the biodata of voters and are valid for 10 years.

Ihejirika: ACF disowns North’s Elders ICC trial threat

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HE pan Northern socio-political organisation, Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), is not convinced of the need by anyone to take the immediate past Chief of Army Staff, Lt-Gen. Azubike Ihejirika, to the International Court of Justice (ICC) over military operations against terrorists in the North.

It said yesterday that ACF would not be part of the move by the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) to take Gen Ihejirika to the ICC. National Publicity Secretary of the ACF, Mr. Anthony Sani, told The Nation that the group had no facts to support the position of the NEF. The military, according to him, has its own way of bringing to book soldiers who cross the acceptable line in any such campaigns.

"While ACF insists on the strict compliance with rules of engagement in military campaigns against the insurgence, the

forum does not have the facts needed for support of the position taken by Northern Elders Forum that the former Chief of Staff be dragged to ICJ," he said in Kaduna.

Sani added:"The campaigns by the military against the insurgence could not reasonably be personalised against the former Chief of Army Staff.

And that is why the military has its own way of bringing to book those soldiers who cross the line in any of such campaigns.

"We saw it happen in Abu Ghraib in Iraq and later in Afghanistan where some American soldiers who crossed the rules of engagement were brought to book in accordance with the military rules. We therefore do not expect the Nigerian Army to be different.

"ACF is not on the field and so is not in a position to make an informed comment on when the activities of the insurgents will be stopped by the military campaigns.

"But it is to be noted that

From Tony Akowe, Kaduna

bringing to an end activities of insurgents anywhere in the world is painstaking that often comes with sustained perseverance.

"Nigerians will be very happy to know that what the Chief of Defence Staff has said that the final hour for the insurgence in Nigeria will be April 2014 comes to pass. Nothing will be better news".

He saw nothing wrong in the move by the All Progressives Congress (APC) to assume leadership of the National Assembly, saying: "the face-off between the ruling and the opposition parties in the National Assembly is democracy in action, especially when regard is paid to the fact that such faceoff closed down some parts of government in America not long ago.

"All Nigerians expect is that the democratic process be used to solve problems and not to create them".

Chairman of the NEF, Professor Ango Abdullahi,

had said in a statement that his group would drag Ihejirika, who was dropped as Chief of Army Staff two weeks ago to the ICC for "extra-judicial killings by soldiers in Bama and the act of strangulating civilians in Giwa Barracks using an underground detention centre, while depositing the corpses in hospital."

He added: "The Forum has therefore resolved to harmonise the reports of the two committees, preparatory to filing a case of extrajudicial killings by the Nigerian Army under the then Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant-General Azubuike Ihejirika and six others.

"The reports will be harmonised at our emergency meeting in Abuja on Wednesday, January 22nd 2014 for further action."

The matter did not go down well with the Southeast zone from where Ihejirika hails with Senator Uche Chukwumerije from Abia State denouncing the NEF statement.

Chukwumerije , speak-

ing at a forum in Abuja last week dared the NEF to go ahead with its plan, saying it would give the Southeast a good opportunity to also drag Nigeria to the ICC for the massacre of over two million Ndigbo during the civil war.

He said: "The approach of the group to a national problem is selective, patently biased, apparently in search of preconceived culprits, pointedly indifferent to the demands of national unity, and highly provocative to the sensibilities of all who genuinely desire the unity and stability of this federation.

"As Ango Abdullahi's team opens the doors and walks into the hall of the world court, let them realise that they have at last opened the Pandora's Box. "The indigenes of Odi, Zaki-Biam and Katsina Ala will in quick succession file into the hall. At the same time, Ndigbo of South East and Anioma will dust their files and head for Hague.

"Let it be emphasised ab initio that senseless sacrifice of a human life is indefensible. Violations of human rights have remained the bane of Africa. A society that has no respect for human life is nearer the status of a community of animals.

"But the situation in the universally acknowledged difficult terrain of a borderless war such as terrorism, counter terrorism and guerilla-like conflicts offers a unique challenge. The motives of Prof. Ango Abdullahi and co are obviously beyond concerns about violations of human rights.

"Every citizen (including Prof. Ango Abdullahi) knows that the anti-terrorism campaign in the North is a joint military operation under the command of the Chief of Defence Staff.

"In singling out Lt. General Ihejirika, the then Army boss, the likes of Prof. Ango Abdullahi are merely betraying old prejudices and embarking on a new hazardous search for bad names to hang hated dogs."

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 26, 2014

NEWS

5

Rivers: Blame Mbu for return of militants T

RUE to his word Rivers State governor, Rotimi Amaechi, returned to the same spot in Bori Ogoniland yesterday, a week after hoodlums disrupted his rally, shooting into the crowd and vehicles in his convoy.

He took swipes at the Police Commissioner, Mr. Joseph Mbu, for encouraging the militants to take up arms against the people. ”The same people (militants) we chased away with the military are back to our state, fuelled by a man called Mbu and his cohorts in Abuja.

“They do not mind that your lives are important. They want to sacrifice your lives just to earn the office of presidency and the office governorship,” Amaechi told his supporters at Saints’ Anglican Church premises.

He berated an ex-militant who was said to have masterminded last week’s shooting. ”In 2007, this territory (Ogoni) belonged to one man called Solomon. I learnt he

• Tasks FG to release $1b for Ogoni clean up • Violence can’t subdue our spirit, Abe says from sick bed From Bisi Olaniyi, Port Harcourt came to shoot here (Bori).

Nobody could gather. Police could not even gather here.

They were being shot at. I bought for the police 7 APCs (Armoured Personnel Carriers). They were afraid,” he said.

This time, the rally organised by Save Rivers Movement (SRM) was peaceful with armed policemen providing security in and around the area.

He wondered why the federal government was reluctant to release the $1billion recommended for the cleaning up of Ogoniland by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

He said the release of the funds would have transformed the four local government areas of Khana, Gokana, Tai and Eleme.

“UNEP finished all it

needed to go and recommended that spend at least $1 billion in the cleanup of Ogoni and the development of Ogoni people,” Amaechi said.

He added: “Have you seen the $1 billion (from the federal government) and they want you to vote for them? It will be a foolish man that will vote for the person, who denies you your rights. “ÜNEP asked Federal government to spend $1billion in Ogoni to change things, they said no. $49.8 billion is missing. If they say $49.8 billion is not missing, let them tell us where the money is. Let them publish.

It is in their pocket.”

“Without the UNEP report, the federal government cannot develop Ogoni. You are all suffering. You cannot fish. You cannot farm because your land is polluted.”

He charged the Ogoni and the people of the state to

stand up to whoever might want to harass or intimidate them for political gains.

He said that by resisting oppression, the people would be forcing their oppressors to initiate peace.

The governor went on: “I do not want to come back to Ogoni to hear that you were shattered. I do not want you to take the law into your own hands but I want you to make sure that nobody shoots at you.

“They (gun-wielding militants) are all human beings. They are not ghosts.

They are neither angels nor devil. They are human beings like you. If a man slaps you and gets away with it, tomorrow, he will come back.

“The history of Ogoni is replete with struggle. They killed Ken Saro-Wiwa (during the regime of the late Gen. Sani Abacha on November 10, 1995).Is the struggle over?

“The man said you might

take away my life but you would not take away the idea. You can kill the messenger, not the message. The idea of the liberation of the Ogoni people, is it not still on? I have been part of that idea.”

He dismissed politicians fighting him, especially leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as hungry people, saying that his new party the All Progressives Congress (APC), is the fastestgrowing political party in the country today and is prepared to transform Nigeria forever.

He said: “PDP claims to be the biggest party in Nigeria. APC is the fastest -growing party in Nigeria. Then, there was no ACN, no CPC, only PDP in Rivers State.

Now, they have seen another party, why are they afraid?

“Why are they fighting?

Why are they shooting? Why are they using policemen?

They should allow voting to

take place.”

In a solidarity message from his sick bed abroad, Senator Magnus Abe, who was shot by the police at an earlier rally described the massive turnout at yesterday’s rally, as a proof that violence cannot subdue the spirit of a free people.

Abe, an Ogoni, who monitored the inauguration and rally from London, noted that the successful hosting of the event in the face of threats and intimidation was a confirmation that the principle of non-violence with which Ogoni heroes fought the then federal military government and multinational corporations was still the best weapon.

He praised Amaechi for his courage and exemplary commitment to Ogoni course, saying: “the governor was ready to take the first bullet for Ogoni. His courage, doggedness and commitment to truth continue to justify the decision of true Rivers people to stand with him in the defence of our state.”

DANA Air cleared to resume operations 114 days after • Set to acquire brand new Boeing 737-500 aircraft

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ANA Air is set to resume commercial flights 114 days after it was suspended to allow for operational audit.

Its planes are due back in the air today following the completion of the audit by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA).

The regulatory agency has also lifted the suspension on the airline after demonstrating satisfactory competence in operating the Boeing McDonnell Douglas (MD-83) aircraft fleet.

The carrier, it was learnt, will take delivery of two brand new Boeing 737-500 aircraft next week to boost its resumed operations.

Dana Air was suspended on October 6 2013 by the federal government to enable the NCAA carry out technical audit of its operations.

Announcing the resumption of flight operations in Lagos, the Chief Operating Officer and Ac-

By Kelvin Osa Okunbor countable Manager, Mr. Yvan Drewinsky, said the lifting of the suspension order is a testament that Dana Air adheres strictly to prescribed safety standards as dictated by the Nigeria Civil Aviation Regulations (NCARs) and the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) standards.

He also commended the aviation ministry and the NCAA for the transparent and objective conduct of the operational audit of the airline.

“The successful outcome of Dana Air’s operational audit by the NCAA involving the Flight Safety Group in conjunction with their foreign partners underscores our commitment to safe operations in line with standard procedures,” he said.

Dana Air will operate flights on the Lagos – Abuja – Lagos route for a start.

Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar and members of the Police Management Team in a group photograph with POWA National President and members of POWA National Executives at the weekend.

Sokoto sponsors mass wedding for 125 couples

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O fewer than 125 couples were at the weekend joined in a mass wedding conducted by Sokoto State.

Governor Aliyu Wamakko and Sultan Sa’ad Abubakar III presided over the ceremony.

Sultan Abubakar was represented by the Magajin Rafin Sokoto, Alhaji Rilwanu Bello.

Government House Mosque Sokoto where the wedding Fatiha took place attracted well wishers.

Sokoto state deputy gov-

From: Adamu Suleiman, Sokoto ernor, Alhaji Mukhtari Shagari and the Speaker, Alhaji Lawalli Zayyana, were prominent personalities that also assisted Wamakko and Sultan Sa’ad to conduct the wedding.

Wamakko explained that the gesture was aimed at further reducing the problems associated with the high number of unmarried youths.

He called on the couples to uphold the trust reposed

in them by the state government.

Wamakko further appealed to wealthy individuals to complement the efforts of the state government in this direction.

“I must also urge the beneficiaries to engage in meaningful activities rather than idling away or engaging in executive begging,” Wamakko further stated.

Abubakar, while applauding the gesture, commended the state government for the purposeful commitment, adding that” it

will further reduce the problems associated with the non marriage of youths.”

He expressed worries over the traditions that tend to prevent some youths from getting married.

Commissioner for Social Welfare, Alhaji Zubairu Yari, said that the mass wedding gesture gulped N30 million.

One of the couples, Dahiru Mohammed and Amina Shehu, scored the state government high for the gesture, promising to uphold the trust and confidence reposed in them.

Residents cry out over military occupations

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ESIDENTS of Agura community in Ikorodu have cried out over the occupation of their land by soldiers.

They said they can no longer access their community because of the presence of the military men drafted to the land by Chevron Nigeria Limited (CNL).

The community expressed concerns at a press

By Oziegbe Okoeki briefing held at the premises of the Lagos Television, LTV 8 at the weekend.

The spokesman and Secretary of Agura community, Olaniran Omoyele, claimed Chevron bought the land, which is about 365 hectares in 2005, with forged documents from land grabbers.

“When this was brought

to the notice of the elders and leaders of the community, they wrote an official letter through the community solicitor to Chevron Nigeria Limited intimating it of the true ownership of the land and the illegality of the purchase.

“The letter was acknowledged by CNL but it failed to do the needful,” he explained.

Omoyele said the community has written and protested this matter to the Lagos state House of Assembly for intervention, saying the House was looking into the matter.

According to him: “The era of militarisation is over in Nigeria and Agura community cannot be an exception. “We demand that the frightening looking soldiers

oppressing and intimidating us should vacate our inheritance.

“We therefore advice Chevron to either obey the Nigerian Law or leave this country.”

He added: “Our progenitors are the rightful owners of the land known as Agura town comprising several villages, which includes Ilaba, Oju, Agemo,

Igbalu, Iponmi, Aiyetoro, Oke-Olokun, Ewu-Agbo, Igbose, Alaru-Maku, Papa etc.”

Asked why the community has not explored the legal option by taking Chevron to court since the purchase documents are fake, Omoyele said the community wants to exhaust every amicable settlement method before opting for the legal option.

6

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 26, 2014

News

No rift with Akume, Gemade, says Mark S ENATE President David Mark has denied any rift between him, the Senate Minority Leader, George Akume and Senator Barnabas Gemade.

The trio, he said, is united for the development of Benue state and Nigeria.

Mark spoke yesterday sandwiched between Gemade and Akume at the burial of the Mama Mary Gemade, mother of the former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

He further stated that the senate is being run exclusively

by Benue indigenes with him

From: Uja Emmanuel, Makurdi

as the Senate President and Akume as the minority leader.

He extolled the virtues of the late Gemade whom he said brought out his children in the fear of God and challenged politicians to endeavour to leave good legacy while in public offices.

He appealed to politician also to play the game

according to rule to reduce tension in the country.

Vice President Namadi Sambo represented by the Minister of Interior, Comrade Abba Morro, said the deceased lived a useful life as exemplified by her children.

He asked God to give the Gemade family the fortitude to bear the loss.

National chairman of the PDP, Adamu Muazu, who was represented by national treasurer of the party, Buhari Bala and Chairman Board of

Trustee (BOT), Chief Tony Anenih, all extolled the virtues of Gemade's mother.

They said she died when her counsel was needed.

Governor Gabriel Suswam, who was represented by his deputy, Steven Lawani, said the deceased was a woman of substance who gave education to all her children and urged Nigerian to learn from her good works.

Gemade expressed gratitude to all those who identified with the family in their moments of grief and asked God to reward them.

Tinubu tongue-lashes Yoruba detractors

N

ATIONAL Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Asiwaju Bola Tinubu yesterday lashed out at those he said had been claiming that the Yoruba are leaderless.

Such critics, according to him, are "hypocrites, mischief makers and rabble rousers who know nothing about Yoruba land and Yoruba people."

He spoke at the fundraising for the new ultra modern palace of the Olubadan of Ibadan.

He was the Chief launcher at the ceremony.

•Says they are rabble rousers Tinubu, who was represented by a former minister, Demola Seriki, declared that the critics' knowledge of history was shallow, stating that "it will be better for them to take their eyes off our decent home and spend time cleaning out the rot in their own homes."

The former governor of Lagos State hailed the Olubadan, Oba Samuel Odulana Odugade 1, for the initiative to build the palace.

By Gboyega Alaka

He said the Olubadan, though not a politician has always stood against the marauding forces of destruction and confusion, while remaining committed to democratic principles.

He said this is in line with the pedigree of his predecessors from 1820.

He paid similar tributes to past royal fathers of Yoruba land for not disappointing

their people.

Asiwaju Tinubu hailed Oyo state governor, Abiola Ajimobi, an indigene of Ibadan, describing him as a pride to the Yoruba and Nigeria as well as an achiever who marches on against all odds.

He said that Oyo State under Ajimobi is at "the cusp and point of monumental change."

He said the APC has embarked on a historic journey to bring change to the people and give life to their finest aspirations.

Obasanjo, others hail Amosun at 56

F

ORMER President Olusegun Obasanjo has described the massive infrastructural projects of Ogun state governor, Ibikunle Amosun, as unparalleled.

Obasanjo gave the commendation in Abeokuta during a special prayer session organised for Amosun to mark his 56th birthday.

The former President noted that things were much better in Ogun state, saying ''This event is a testimony of what God has done in your life and what he has made you to achieve in the state since you assumed office.

"As far as infrastructure is concerned, you are doing marvelously well."

He also commended the state Executive Council for working with the governor as a team "otherwise you will be going in different direction and if the house is not in order, the governor will not have peace of mind."

Speaking on behalf of the EXCO members, Secretary to the State Government, Barrister Taiwo Adeoluwa, described Amosun as an agent of change.

"It is an exceptional privilege to serve under him.

His passion and commitment

to add genuine value to Ogun state is commendable and he is a committed statesman who is ready to make a change."

Others who eulogised Amosun at 56 include Ogun Speaker, Suraj Adekunbi, who spoke on behalf of the state legislature and Mr. Oluremi Obayomi, who spoke for the body of Permanent Secretaries.

They all agreed that Amosun has simplified governance in the state with his numerous developmental projects across the state.

In his response, Amosun said his own idea of birthday

celebration should be an opportunity to show love to the less privileged and offer more selfless service to the people of Ogun state.

"There is still more to be done for the people of the state.

We should not take them for granted and as a government, we pray for more capacity to do more,'' the governor said.

He thanked all the good people of Ogun state for their support so far, promising not to disappoint them.

He later visited Borstal Training Institution, Adigbe Abeokuta where he presented gifts to the students.

Mysterious tree writing causes stir in Ibadan

S

CORES of residents rushed to Community Grammar School Amuloko in Ona Ara local government area of Ibadan, capital of Oyo state, yesterday to see a mysterious inscription of the name of Allah on the bark of a tree in the premises of the school.

The inscription, which had been noticed around 1 pm last Friday by a JSS 1 student, Abdulsalam Selimot, attracted many from the community and beyond.

Many turned the tree to an object of worship and started

From: Oseheye Okwuofu, Ibadan.

making supplications under it.

The Quranic lettering, which an Agriculture teacher in the Amuloko School, Mr. Atanda Abdulrauf Olayiwola, interpreted to mean "Mohammadu Ra Sululah" first appeared faintly before it got bolder few hours later to the consternation of many .

Selimot, who spoke in her mother's rented apartment at Oloya area of Amuloko, said: "My Dad said he was coming to see me and so I stood under the tree in front of our school.

"Suddenly, a leaf fell on my head and when I picked it, I saw certain writing on it. I looked up to see where it came from and discovered it fell from the tree.

"There and then I saw an Arabic lettering appearing, being written on the tree. I could not read it well but I noticed that it was a Quranic Language similar to the spellings we were being taught at our Quranic centre.

"I then went to inform some Alfas who came for GNLD training close by. They saw it and asked for my name. They asked me to go and call my parents, and I went to call my mother,"

she recollected.

She said that the Alfas started rubbing their palms on the tree, shouting the name of Allah, a development that attracted others.

Many people besieged the area to take pictures of the inscription with their mobile handsets.

Others videoed it.

Old and young were seen plucking the leaves of the tree, cutting its branches, while some were rubbing their palms on it.

Some were even rubbing sachets of pure water on the bark of the tree in the belief that it would turn holy water for them to drink.

Bafarawa, supporters defect to PDP

F

ORMER Sokoto state governor, Attahiru Bafarawa and his supporters yesterday dumped the All Progressives Congress(APC) for the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP).

This was hours after a meeting at his residence.

Former Kano state governor, Ibrahim Shekarau, was also at the meeting.

Briefing newsmen in Sokoto, Media Assistant to

* APC: It's a good omen From: Adamu Suleiman, Sokoto

Bafarawa, Yusuf Dingyadi, explained that "the meeting was also attended by the supporters of the members of the three legacy parties that merged and formed the APC. "These parties were the defunct CPC, ANPP and ACN but those who belong to the

Bafarawa's faction of the APC." He added: "The leaders of the former governor's faction of the APC had been asked to go back to the 23 local governments for further consultations."

In a swift reaction, Secretary of the Governor Aliyu Wamakko's faction of the APC and Commissioner of Health, Ahmed Aliyu, welcomed the

development, saying it was a good omen.

According to him:"It is a good omen for the APC in Sokoto state and at the national level. APC will now stand to be much stronger and united politically."

He noted that Bafarawa was afraid of Wamakko, saying" he had since been working for PDP. Only his body was in APC but his heart was already in the PDP."

NEWS

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 26, 2014

7

NDLEA nabs student for importing hemp •I bought it with my tuition, says suspect

T

HE National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has apprehended a twenty year-old undergraduate at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA) Lagos for importing 1.745 kilogrammes of dried weeds that tested positive for cannabis popularly known as hemp.

The suspect, Udiomeh Kufre Ita, was found in possession of the drug during the inward screening of passengers on an Africa World Airlines flight from Accra Ghana at the weekend.

NDLEA Lagos Airport commander, Hamza Umar, said that the drug was detected during routine screening of passengers.

He said: "The drug was hidden inside his bag containing personal effects. He was immediately arrested and the case is

By Kelvin Osunbor

under investigation."

The suspect, who reportedly gained admission into the Faculty of Management Sciences at the Regent University, is currently assisting narcotic investigators assigned to the case.

In his confessional statement, Ita said that he used his tuition fees to purchase the drug found on him.

According to him: "I spent my school fees on cell phone, smoking hemp and attending night clubs. I bought a cell phone for N107,000 and spent my school fees recklessly.

"I thought I could make enough profit from the sale of cannabis to offset the deficit in my tuition. I bought each parcel of hemp for 220 Ghana cedi.

"I did not know what came over me and I am afraid to go to my parents. My father is a retiree."

How Oyo averted religious crisis in Iseyin

T

HE postponement of the second term resumption of public and private schools in Iseyin town by one week saved the ancient town from religious crisis already brewing among adherents, it has emerged.

The Oyo State Government had postponed resumption for schools in Iseyin by one week on sensing trouble.

It was learnt that Muslims had informed female Muslim students, particularly those from Iseyin District Grammar School, to start wearing hijab to school once the second term kicked off.

They insisted that any school tradition that denied their female students of their right to wear hijab like their Christian counterparts wearing beret would be resisted by all means possible.

The situation, which had

From Bisi Oladele, Ibadan

generated tension in the town, compelled the state government to convey a meeting with education stakeholders at the palace of Aseyin of Iseyin on January 4, two days to the resumption of the schools.

The meeting afforded representatives of both religions to express their views, though no compromise was reached on the contentious issue.

At the follow-up meeting held on January 9, it was resolved that in Muslim-named/ faith-based public schools, the usage/wearing of hijab should be allowed in accordance with the Islamic tradition/religious belief of the affected students.

It was also agreed that in Christian-named/faith-based public schools, the uniforms should be in line with the established tradition of the school and Christian religion.

• Senate President, David Mark(middle) flanked by Senator Barnabas Gemade(left) and Senate Miniority leader, George

Akume, at the funeral of Gemade’s mother yesterday at Gemade village... in Benue state

Why we want lawmakers to block bills, by APC T HE Interim National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Lai Mohammed, has said the party's directive to its member at the National Assembly to block government proposals was to save the country and democracy.

He told The Nation that government must abrogate the reign of impunity in Rivers State to allow justice, fairness and equity.

He noted that a situation where the lives of the people were taken for granted is the highest form of disservice to the country.

Mohammed stated that the party could not fold its arms and watch its members being harassed and intimidated because they hold a different view contrary to that of government.

According to him: "We have made it clear to President Goodluck Jonathan that the Commissioner of Police, Joseph Mbu, could not have behaved this way if he does not have the support of the

By Musa Odoshimokhe

President.

"We have warned that this also has repercussion for stability in the country. It will get to a point when the people will say they can't take this anymore.

"The situation in Rivers State today is that everyday things are getting more difficult, people are being molested. We have drawn government attention to this ugly situation and since government appears not to be paying attention to the lives of the people who are being molested in Rivers State, we would ask our members to stop cooperating with Mr. President until he ensures that normalcy is back to Rivers State.''

The APC chieftain wondered why the Labour Party and Afenifere were accusing the party of trying to heat up the polity, instead of calling on government to order and ensure that the people of Rivers State were protected.

''Government is about people, if there is no peace, stability and what is happening in Rivers escalates to other states, what will be the importance of any budget?

"So, why are we putting the budget over and above the lives of the citizens in Rivers State? Government must protect them as a matter of responsibility,'' he explained.

He added that if the situation persists, democracy will not only suffer but the teeming supporters of the APC would be forced to go underground because of fear of being persecuted for their political belief.

He further explained: ''Do not forget that if what is happening in Rivers State today happens simultaneously across the country it will not be easy to curtail.

The luck we is that this thing is confined to Rivers State.

So, we don't want it to spread to other states. The way we are going now, the fear is that will they even al-

low people to come and vote freely in 2015. ''What do we want? Why are we trying to shut down government? I must say it’s all about the rule of law in Rivers State, what we are fighting for now is to make sure that the people are protected. What is government all about? Is it not about the rule of law and democracy? ''They are the one using ex-militants backed by the police to stop a peaceful rally. So, if you look at the whole situation from the balance they are the one overheating the polity,'' he said.

He added that APC members at the National Assembly would ensure there is good governance in the country because it is no longer going to be business as usual. ''If Mr. President today has the political will to stop what is happening in Rivers State there will be no reason for filibustering,'' he assured.

Lecturers in colleges of education vow to continue strike

T

HE Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union (COEASU) has warned the federal government against implementation of retroactive policies that will hamper the teacher-education system and the entire sector.

Its National President, Nkoro Asagha, gave the warning yesterday at the expanded National Executive Council meeting held at the Federal College of Education (Special) Akinmoorin, Oyo State.

Asagha lamented that the demands of the union remain unmet despite painstaking moves to dialogue with the federal government.

He said only the consti-

From Bode Durojaiye, Oyo

tution of the Needs Assessment Committee had been met.

"This," according to him, "is in spite of the critical role of Colleges of Education as the fulcrum of every form of education.

"Yet, the plight of the system, and those within it, which is much more crucial in the education sector of the country than those of other tertiary institutions aforesaid, rarely comes to limelight until more damage has been done. '' He accused the Federal Ministry of Finance, through the Budget Office and the Office of the Accountant General

of the federation, of seeking a path towards hasty implementation of the Integrated Personal Pay role Information System (IPPIS) imposed by the federal government without due consideration of the implications on the smooth running of the institutions.

The imposed IPPIS, Asagha noted, has not been certified full-proof as evident in the discrepancies already registered in its pilot implementation.

He warned that ''the Colleges of Education system cannot be used as guineapigs for quasi-economic policies in the guise of checking leakages in government expenditure profile.''

Asagha vowed that the

union will not call off its strike until some of the issues critical to the development of colleges of education are fully implemented by both the federal and state governments.

They include teaching practice, non-accreditation of NCE programmes, nonrelease of white paper on Visitation Panel Reports, non-implementation of CONPCASS and non-institution of dual mode.

Others are non-harmonisation of conditions of service, group life insurance, non-implementation of 65 years retirement age, nonimplementation and payment of peculiar allowances, poor infrastructural development and funding.

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 26, 2014

NEWS

Ajimobi, others donate millions for new Olubadan palace

T

HE Olubadan of Ibadanland, Oba Samuel Odulana Odugade 1, has tasked Governor Abiola Ajimobi and all the eleven local governments of Ibadanlan to mobilise for contributions to the proposed permanent Olubadan Palace.

The monarch, who was represented by the Otun Olubadan, Chief Omowale Kuye also urged the indigenes, non-indigenes of Ibadanland and well wishers to support the project to protect the traditional heritage.

Odulana made this call yesterday at the launching of the new palace building fund raising ceremony held at Lakan Salami Stadium, Ibadan, Oyo State capital.

According to him, the governor and Ibadan people should in particular know that the load owner carries his load where it is heavier.

He said seven years ago when he was being installed as the Ibadan monarch he pledged to ensure the building of a new permanent befitting palace for the Olubadan of Ibadanland and the creation of Ibadan state.

The Olubadan noted that the need for a new palace was recognised over a decade ago when the Central Council of Ibadan Indigenes (CCII) approached the late Governor of Oyo state, Chief Kolapo Ishola, who graciously allocated an extensive parcel of land at the

From Tayo Johnson, Ibadan

foot of the Agala forest for the development of the palace.

Odulana stated that the palace belongs to all and sundry, stressing that Ibadan is a republican city of warriors for which any of the sons could be an occupant of the palace in future.

Responding to the challenge, Ajimobi said the building of the palace is what all the sons and daughter of Ibadan must contribute towards immensely.

Ajimobi noted that different people from different tribes have gained from the hospitable and accommodating spirit of Ibadanland, adding that all should support the gesture.

"The urban beatification project of our government will not be completed without the building of a befitting modern palace for the revered Ibadan monarch," he said He donated N25 million on behalf of the state government and N20 million from his personal purse for the project.

The Chairman Olubadan Palace Fund-Raising Committee, Chief Bayo Oyero, explained the former palace at Oja'ba is rather choky for modern use and has no room for expansion among others.

He disclosed that the entire building project will cost about N2.5 billion but noted that the first phase will gulp about N850 million.

LASU crisis: We'll put an end to violence, says Ikuforiji PEAKER of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Hon. Adeyemi Ikuforiji, has vowed to end the violent crisis in the Lagos State University (LASU).

Speaking yesterday at LASU Ojo campus during an on- the- spot assessment of the damage in the institution during the violence last Thursday, the Speaker assured the incident would never repeat itself.

Ikuforiji, who described the damage done to the administrative block of the school as scary, said it was the grace of God that saved the Vice Chancellor, Professor John Obafunwa and his team from the protesting students.

He promised that the panel of inquiry the House plans set up would investigate the incident and come up with recommendations.

The Speaker said: "We are close to seeing the end of cri-

S

•Lawmakers assess damage

By Oziegbe Okoeki

sis in LASU. The last few years have been better than the previous decades.

"There have been tremendous improvements in LASU. If the right thing is done, we will leave scandalous events behind in LASU." Ikuforiji promised that the House would ensure necessary repairs are carried out in the school and Governor Raji Fashola would be contacted on the matter.

He expressed fears over the damage done to the office of the VC, especially the vital academic documents destroyed, adding that efforts would be made to re-open the school soon.

Ikuforiji, however, said that the issue of hostel accom-

modation for the students would be considered.

"The purpose of not having hostels in the campus has been defeated. We have told the VC to consider PPP arrangement for the hostels.

"We are sure hoodlums aggravated the violence, but with hostel accommodation, the students would have been curtailed and it would have been difficult for the hoodlums to infiltrate them," he said.

The Speaker and other lawmakers were taken round the areas affected by the incident by the VC and other management staff.

They were dumbfounded by the damaged vehicles belonging to the VC and another management staff as well as the extent of damage at the administrative block.

Some students had last Thursday protested over the refusal of the school's management to open its portal for students who had paid their school fees but had not registered before the exams slated to start on the same day.

The House subsequently summoned the school's management, led by the VC and the Students Union Government of the school led by Miss Mojirade Hassan last Friday over the issue.

After listening to both sides for hours, the House condemned the students for their actions and pleaded with the management to open the portal for two days to give those who were yet to register a last chance.

The Speaker, who read the resolution, warned that such an issue would not be entertained next time and promised to raise a panel of inquiry on the matter.

'No parallel APC interim committee in Ondo'

L

EADERS of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in Ondo State have said that there is no parallel Interim Executive Committee within the All Progressives Congress(APC)in the state.

They described the inauguration of the Mr. Rotimi Akeredolu- led Interim Executive Committee of the APC as a welcome development.

According to them, there is no other committee in the state but the one launched penultimate week in Akure by the APC National Vice Chairman in the Southwest, Otunba Adeniyi Adebayo.

They maintained that the committee was the only one saddled with the responsibility of putting the progressive party on the fast lane of development in Ondo.

At a press briefing in Akure yesterday, the former CPC executives said those claiming to be members of the parallel committee were agents of some individuals in the corridors of

From Damisi Ojo, Akure

power.

In attendance at the briefing were the former CPC Vice Chairmen in the Central, North and South districts, Dr Wole Awoniyi, Chief Samuel Olaiya and Hon.Jimi Lumowo respectively as well as the Legal Adviser, Bosun Otitoju, among others.

Also, factional members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the coastal area of Ilaje/Ese-Odo federal constituency have closed ranks ahead of the forthcoming bye-election into the vacant seat in the constituency.

The reconciliation meeting presided over by Dr. Tai Malumi also witnessed mass defection of Labour Party members in Ilaje local government to the party.

At the meeting were groups such as Ilaje Democratic Forum (IDF) and Legacy Group (LG),which comprised leaders of defunct ACN, CPC and ANPP in the area

Funeral service for evangelist

T

HE funeral service of Evangelist Theophilus Oladapo holds on Friday January 31 at the Union Baptist Church, Ipaja road Agege, Lagos.

According to the deceased’s family, interment follows immediately at his residence while reception of guests is at the NYSC parade ground on Ipaja road.

The service of songs holds at his residence Plot 71, Festus Aderele Street, Omotoye Estate, Mulero, Agege by 6pm on Wednesday while the Christian Wake /Lying-inState is at the same venue on Thursday by 6pm.

•Oyo state governor, Abiola Ajimobi (middle); representative of National Leader of All Progressives Congress(APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Chief Ademola Seriki (left) and Chairman of the occasion, Chief Bode Amoo (right) at the fund raising for the new palace of the Olubadan of Ibadanland in Ibadan… yesterday PHOTO: OYO GOVERNMENT HOUSE.

Fashola to spend N200m to resettle Ijora slum dwellers L AGOS State governor, Raji Fashola, has made good his promise to resettle erstwhile Ijora Badia's dumpsites dwellers by ordering the regeneration of the illegal dumpsites into 1008 units of flats.

The governor also disclosed that N200 million has been made available to deliver the project on schedule and to specification.

Fashola spoke in an interactive session with some of the former occupants and newsmen.

He said provisions have been made for each of the former occupants to make available means of personal identification to avoid mix ups

•Pledge to build 1008 flats

By Okwy Iroegbu-Chikezie

with original occupiers.

He asked said all those involved to contact the office of the Attorney General, who is in charge of the disbursement of the funds.

On when the first set of blocks would be laid at the site, the governor said the contractor is working off the site to build the skeletal parts of the building.

The completed parts, he said, would be bought to the

site assemble in line with the latest technology in housing production.

According to him: "Today, even in road construction, the construction technology has changed.

"The drain is constructed off site, they bring the mechanical shovels, excavate, put the drains in and your road is almost half done.

"It is the same way we have approached this housing project".

He said the designers of

the housing units are top intellectuals and architects tested in such technology.

Fashola said due to the peculiar and acute shortage of housing units in the state, Lagos has no other choice but to evolve the best technology to provide mass housing to the teeming population.

According to the governor, the benefits from such a technologically- driven approach are enormous.

"Experts explained that traditionally it takes about one person a day to lay about 100 blocks. With this system, you can do a thousand blocks a day.

So, you would see that you are gaining 10 times efficiency."

Ex-Ondo commissioner buried amid tears HE remains of the former Ondo Commissioner for Information, Ranti Akerele, were at the weekend committed to mother earth at his home town, Idoani, in Ose local government area of the state.

It was a tearful departure as sympathisers, friends, professional colleagues and family converged to bid him farewell.

T

•Late Oladapo

From Damisi Ojo, Akure

Akerele, a seasoned broadcaster and Pastor of the Reedemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), died in his sleep on January 14 shortly after visiting his wife, Lucy, who was hospitalised.

He was 53.

Before his interment, which preceded a service at the Cathe-

dral Church of Holy Trinity Idoani, the former commissioner had been honoured with another commendation service at the RCCG, Mega Cathedral, Akure.

There were music ministrations and prayer sessions, especially for the widow and the two children, Segun and Tofunmi, he left behind.

The prayers were offered

by Pastor S. Olowookere.

The Assistant Provincial Pastor O. Ogunode in his exhortation described Akerele as a dynamic person imbued with rich talents.

Quoting copiously from the Bible, the cleric lamented that people always pursue money, property, power, positions and other worldly possessions without realising that death is the end of every human being.

9

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 26, 2014

• Stranded displaces persons by the side of the road

• Displaced Tiv farmers with their families found shelter under a tree

T ing.

HE story of co-habitation between Tiv ethnic group and Fulani herdsmen is very interest-

The story goes like this: Before now, the Tiv and the Fulani were close friends, they cohabitate and inter marry while the Tiv people are predominately farmers, the Fulani are cattle breeders.

One day a Fulani left some cattle with a Tiv to look after, but upon his return he did not see cattle, he asked the Tiv man and he replied: "Munchi" (meaning we have eaten it).

Since then, the Fulani have been grazing their cattle into Tiv farms and feed them fat as compensation for the cows which the Tivs once ate. The Fulani also mocked the Tiv by calling them "Munchi".

The Tiv on their part killed Fulani cows for grazing into their farmlands and destroying it; this is the ancient story between the Tiv and Fulani. Most Fulani speak Tiv frequently, same for Tiv people.

Mutual suspicions Whether this story is a tale by moon light or not, it has gained grounds over the past decades. But from being friends, the Tiv and Fulani have become sworn enemies which culminated into bloody violence and resulted to the killings of many and lost property.

In Nasarawa, Taraba, Adamawa and Plateau states, Tiv people are at war with Fulani cattle breeders and there is no end or solution in sight.

Both of them accused each other, while the Tiv accused Fulani of grazing into their farmlands and destroying their farms, the Fulani accuse the Tiv of killing their cows.

In Benue State, bloody clashes between Tiv farmers and Fulani herdsmen in Logo, Guma, Makurdi, Gwer west local government area have erupted and recently the crisis extended to Agatu and Oturkpo local government area, in Benue South senatorial district, and the country home of Senate President David Mark, where seven soldiers were reportedly killed by suspected herdsmen last week.

Last week Sunday, the Tiv-Fulani crisis erupted right in the heart of Makurdi metropolis, in the area called Adeke Village, and spread fast to Adaka located on Makurdi-Naka road in

• Deserted primary school in Adaka settlement

Inside story of Benue’s Tiv-Fulani clash

Uja Emmanuel in Makurdi, Benue State writes on the incessant clash between two ethnic groups in the state Makurdi, all within Makurdi local government area.

The attack on Makurdi residents by suspected Fulani herdsmen have sent fear into many residents of the metropolis, who stated that if they can attack Adeke, where Mopol 13 Barracks is located then, no one in the state capital is safe.

On the said Sunday, Andy Okpe, a Special Assistant to the governor told The Nation that at about 4am, he heard sporadic gunshots by Adeke village extension, after the gunshots which lasted for about two hours there was a deafening sound of explosion like dynamite.

"We did not sleep again until in the morning. We saw a detachment of policemen with 10 vehicles who drove past into the crisis zone, and later returned with some Fulani herdsmen in their vans and left to the Police headquarters," he said.

According to Okpe, they later heard that there was violence between Fulani and Tiv farmers. Many lives including cows were lost.

He said since last December when the cattle breeders arrived in the area, tension has been mounting. According to him, "We have been seen Fulani coming into this area day light grazing with automatic rifles on hand on their shoulders, we reported to the traditional ruler and security agencies but nothing was done. The Fulani continued to graze their cattle deep into homes of the residents and sometimes destroyed gardens."

Five Tiv farmers were reportedly killed in the latest attack and about 60,000 persons (Tiv farmers) displaced

from their houses are now living with other family members in Makurdi.

Schools have been deserted even inside Mopol 13 Barracks located within the crisis zone.

The attacks on Tiv farmers which started in Adeke, Makurdi local government area spread to far away Guma local government last Thursday as the suspected herdsmen with their cattle invaded Anundu village, setting many houses ablaze and killing a young man.

Fire for fire Tiv farmers in the process responded and the herdsmen abandoned 46 cows and fled.

The cows were taken to Akaakuma village and prominent sons of the community including the Benue State Commissioner for Land and Survey, John Tondo pleaded with the youths not to slaughter the cattle but hand them over to the police.

Reason prevailed and the 46 cows were handed over to the Benue State Police Command last Friday. At press time, the cattle were still in the custody of the police as no one had claimed ownership.

Tiv farmers are at the receiving end in the ongoing crisis with suspected Fulani herdsmen. Two council wards ( Yandev\ Mbayer) in Guma local government council, one council ward (Mbalagh) in Guma local government and three council wards in Gwer west local government have been deserted.

In the last three years there has been no farming activities or school as the fear of suspected Fulani herdsmen has gripped the communities.

The people live in a sort of concentration camp. Nobody farms again.

Governor Gabriel Suswam in his reaction blamed the continued crisis between Tiv and Fulani on criminal elements among the Tiv who killed Fulani cattle. But his reaction did not go down well with some of his kinsmen who accused the governor of giving impetus to the Fulani to attack Tiv farmers the more.

Speaking to newsmen in his office, lawmaker, representing MakurdiSouth in the Benue State House of Assembly, Benjamin Adanyi said Governor Suswam as the chief security officer of the state should be held responsible for the crisis between Tiv and Fulani.

According him, each time Fulani attack Tiv settlements and kill people, the governor will attribute it to criminals. He accused him of not showing who the criminals are.

The lawmaker called on the governor to stop paying lip service to the bloody Tiv-Fulani violence but act decisively to save the life of his constituents who are mostly affected by the crisis.

But speaking through his media adviser, the governor advised the lawmaker to stop playing politics with the lives of the people, as he has done enough and still doing more to find a lasting solution to the lingering crisis.

Role of security Another dimension has been added to the continued attacks on farmers and settlement with the sophisticated weapons the suspected herdsmen used against their harmless victims who are peasant farmers. Accord-

ing the member representing Makurdi North Avine Agbom, the attacks on Tiv farmers are so sophisticated that he is suspecting the involvement soldiers from 72 Special Forces Battalion and Nigeria Army School of Military Engineering (NASME), all located in Makurdi.

"He told The Nation that some of the suspected Fulani herdsmen who attacked Tiv farmers came with AK 47 and large catchment of ammunition and wondered why nomadic Fulani would acquire a weapon that cost more than N300,000 just to killed a Tiv farmer."

He called on the military high command to probe the activities of its men in the state as they have lost the confidence of Tiv farmers who they are deployed to protect.

Finding a solution Governor Suswam in his effort to tackle the Tiv-Fulani crisis has set up the Benue-Nasarawa Peace Committee and another committee comprising second class tradition rulers in the affected local government area to find a lasting solution to the crisis.

All this has defied any known attempts to find peace among the hitherto two ethic groups. So far there are about 200 displace persons from Gwer west, Makurdi, Guma, Logo and Agatu local governments who have become homeless.

The consequence has been epidemic, deaths, food and water scarcity, lack of proper medical attention and so on. Children and women are mostly affected as there is problem of malnutrition and miscarriage.

Agbom called on the state government to set up camps for the displaced persons so that it would enable spirited individuals to donate relief materials. He also called on the federal government to intervene or else Tiv people will be wiped out completely.

The Tiv farmers said they have decided to defend themselves now that it seems government cannot protect them. How they will defend themselves is not know but a Tiv farmer Tor Unongo, said there are many ways that the Tiv people would defend themselves.

But for now the crises rage on.

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 26, 2014

NEWS REVIEW

•Abdullahi

•Ihejirika

ICC war crimes trial: Who will be the first Nigerian?

T

HE threat to drag top officials to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague is not new in Nigeria, but this time, it is raising unprecedented dust.

First shot was January 17, 2014. President Goodluck Jonathan had, barely two days earlier removed his service chiefs and Nigerians were waiting eagerly to hear the names of their successors.

But before the names of the new military helmsmen were made public, the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), arising from a meeting in Kaduna, released the first bombshell. Since then, the crossfire has been described by concerned Nigerians as "intense, terrifying and explosive."

The Northern Elders Forum, led by Prof.

Ango Abdullahi, had issued a threat to drag retired Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Azubuike Ihejirika, who was retired barely 24 hours earlier and six other unnamed top military officers to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague" for alleged extrajudicial killings.

They also accused Ihejirika and the others of "strangulation of civilians by soldiers in Bama and Giwa Barracks in Borno State, using an underground detention centre."

Their statement said "The Forum has therefore resolved to harmonise the reports of the two committees, preparatory to filing a case of extra-judicial killings by the Nigerian Army under the then Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant-General Azubuike Ihejirika and six others.

"The reports will be harmonised at our emergency meeting in Abuja on Wednesday the 22nd of January 2014, for further action", the statement read.

Abdullahi said the forum had earlier set up two investigative committees to probe the use of soldiers against civilians in Bama and some parts of Borno State.

Wave of reactions The threat of the northern elders have

Current threats and counter threats to drag some Nigerian officials to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged extra-judicial killings, have raised old wounds, further heating up the troubled polity, reports Associate Editor, Sam Egburonu, Assistant Editor, Dare Odufowokan and Sunday Oguntola elicited reactions both from the retired COAS himself and from across the country.

Ihejirika, in his reaction dismissed the threat as "misconceived and capable of demoralising soldiers who are making huge sacrifices for the nation, as well as jeopardising the war against terrorism."

"My reaction to that is that their statement is ill-conceived, perhaps based on some misinformation.

"The northern elders should be thanking the service chiefs, my officers and myself for making huge sacrifices, first to see that Nigeria is safe and the North in particular, since they are the first beneficiaries of the sacrifices being made.

"There is no senatorial zone in this country that has not lost personnel of the armed forces.

It is unfortunate that the same elders, if they are really elders, have not cared to send a single condolence message to the military.

"I think that their statement is discouraging and it impacts negatively on the counter-terrorist efforts because, as we speak, there are soldiers that have not had a meal since yesterday because of the peculiarity of where they are at the moment," he told State House correspondents after attending the Aso Villa Chapel first church

service for 2014.

Ndigbo wade in: Also reacting to the northern elders' threat are Igbo leaders, who wondered why the northern elders should pick on their son, Ihejirika, when, according to them, the alleged action was conducted by the Joint Military Task Force directly under the Chief of Defence Staff.

Speaking on their behalf is Chairman, Senate Committee on Education, Senator Uche Chukwumerije, who addressed a press conference in Abuja.

Condemning the approach of the Northern Elders Forum to what he described as a national problem, he said the threat will do no one any good in the country, adding that the threat is "selective, patently biased, apparently in search of preconceived culprits, pointedly indifferent to the demands of national unity, and highly provocative to the sensibilities of all who genuinely desire the unity and stability of this Federation."

Ndigbo through Chukwumeriji warned that "a society that has no respect for human life is nearer the status of a community of animals.

But the situation in the universally acknowledged difficult terrain of a borderless war such as terrorism, counter terrorism and

guerilla-like conflicts offers a unique challenge.

"The motives of Prof. Ango Abdullahi and co. are obviously beyond concerns about violations of human rights. This is so because the incident of Bama (Baga) has been investigated and put to rest long ago.

"For instance, the Senate sent a strong team to the area in June 2013 after the incident. After a thorough on-the-spot investigation which extended to interviews with all concerned officials (Director of SSS, State Governor, Commander of the Multi-National Joint Task Force, and stakeholders of the community) and visit to the grave yard, the Senate Committee concluded as follows: 'the death toll of 185 was exaggerated but there may be more than 37 deaths," he stated.

Chukwumerije also said the Senate endorsed the report of the committee, stating: "Definitely, there were no massacres to the scale that demanded the judicial sanctions of The Hague. " He rounded up by posing some questions: "Why the blatantly selective search for responsibility in Bama (Baga) and why so personal?

"Every citizen (including Prof. Ango Abdullahi) knows that the anti-terrorism campaign in the North is a joint-military operation under the command of the Chief of Defence Staff.

"In singling out Lt. General Ihejirika, the then Army boss, the likes of Prof. Ango Abdullahi are merely betraying old prejudices and embarking on new hazardous search for bad names to hang hated dogs.

"Besides, the fact that Prof. Ango Abdullahi and co, sprung into action immediately Lt. General Ihejirika and 'six others' left their commands has revealed the depth of longsmouldering resentment of the campaign against Boko Haram by the self-proclaimed leaders of the North," he said.

The position of the Northern Elders Forum, he added, "raises a question about where their

o ?

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 26, 2014 sympathy lies in this battle" against Boko Haram."

Chukwumerije also used the opportunity to identify other incidences in Nigeria that had provoked such sentiments in the past, warning that the threat by NEF will reopen such covered wounds.

"There was the case of Odi in which a whole community was decimated. There was the case of Zaki-Biam. There was the case of Katsina Ala. "If Odi did not arouse the conscience of Ango Abdullahi because the people do not belong to his hallowed Northern enclave, how about ZakiBiam and Katsina Ala? " In the magisterial judgment and imperial political wisdom of the Ango Abdullahi's, when is a Nigerian, their type of Nigerian worthy of national attention and respect of the law, and when is a Northerner, their type of Northerner worthy of attention and protection of the law.

Why only Bama (Baga), he asked?

According to him, "if Ango's criterion of selection of cases for Hague is 'gruesome use of force against unarmed civilians,' 'extra-judicial killings' and 'acts of strangulating civilians' (unproven or exaggerated as the allegation may be), then our learned professor ought to know that the prime candidate is genocidal atrocities of the civil war against the people of former Eastern Region, especially Ndigbo."

Chukwumerije added: "As Ango Abdullahi's team opens the doors and walks into the hall of the World Court, let them realize that they have at last opened the Pandora' Box. "The indigenes of Odi, Zaki-Biam and Katsina Ala will in quick succession file into the hall. At the same pace, Ndigbo of South East and Anioma will dust their files and head for The Hague."

He said that Nigerians must cling to the hope that Prof. Ango Abdullahi and co "wish longlasting peace and stability to our troubled federation."

According to him, the only path to longlasting stability of the federation is the path of equity-"an understanding by all of us that the irreducible necessity in a multi-national state like our federation is a secular state soundly based on rule of all, on equality of rights and obligations of all citizens."

ACF also not in support of NEF: Almost collaborating Ohaneze Ndigbo in this matter during the week is the pan Northern socio-political organisation, Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), which confirmed that it was not in support of the decision of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) to drag Ihijirika before ICC. National Publicity Secretary of the Forum, Anthony Sani told The Nation that the forum does not have the facts needed to support the position taken by the northern elders.

He said "while ACF insists on the strict compliance with rules of engagement in military campaigns against the insurgence, the forum does not have the facts needed for support of the position taken by Northern Elders Forum that the former Chief of Staff be dragged to ICJ. "The campaigns by the military against the insurgence could not reasonably be personalised

“

NEWS REVIEW

•Chukwumerije against the former Chief of Army Staff. And that is why the military has its own way of bringing to book those soldiers who cross the fiducial mark in any of such campaigns," he said, adding, "We saw it happen in Abu Ghraib in Iraq and later in Afghanistan where some American soldiers who crossed the rules of engagement were brought to book in accordance with the military rules. We therefore do not expect the Nigerian Army to be different.

"ACF is not in the field. And so is not in a position to make an informed comment on when the activities of the insurgents will be stilled by the military campaigns. But it is to be noted that bringing to an end activities of insurgence anywhere in the world is painstaking that often comes with sustained perseverance."

Mixed reactions: Most of the other Nigerians, especially lawyers and human rights activists who spoke to The Nation on the issue spoke in similar faction. Onyekachi Ubani, a lawyer and Nigerian

Bar Association (NBA) Ikeja branch chairman, for example said "the former Chief of Army Chief (COAS) was not the Commander-InChief(C-in-C) who declared the state of emergency in the parts of the country after many senseless killings for which there was a Joint Military Action.

"The military activities were joint action so how you can single out a man, who was not even the C-in-C responsible for orders, beats me," he said, adding, "If there is anybody that should be held responsible, it should be the Cin-C not the COAS. But I am particularly worried by the northern elites because they have not considered the genocide against the Igbos that started since the 1960s enough crime for which nobody had taken them to The Hague. I believe what they said is just mere threat for which the court will not be moved to act without proper investigations and evidence. I wish them good luck if they should insist on proceeding with the suit, which I doubt will not be thrown away."

Another activist, Bamidele Aturu, a

constitutional lawyer said in his reaction, "You see, we must educate our people that you don't just bring such a case to the ICC without facts. The ICC is not a forum to intimidate those who perform their duties legitimately to save a nation. But if they have enough facts and they are able to marshal them eloquently, it would be interesting to see them prove them in the ICC. "But I am surprised they singled out Ihejirika when they are other service chiefs and the Commander-In-Chief who were all involved in the combined military efforts.

But then, one does not know if they have any evidence to prove that Ihejirika personally ordered or coordinated any act of killing outside the orders he received from the president.

"Then, we must ask why they waited till he was dropped as COAS to press the charges, considering he had no immunity. If they mean well, then we should allow them to approach the court but one hopes it is not just playing local politics or an act of mere threat."

Chief Bayo Adelakun, a PRONACO chieftain was even more forthright in his dismissal of the threat against Ihejirika, when he spoke with The Nation. According to him, "Those talking about going to the Hague in search of justice against the former army chief are either jokers or very uninformed.

Sincerely, I think by writing on this in your paper, you are unduly promoting their jokes or unseriousnes. How on earth can we be talking of going to the ICC as if we are planning to file a case at the nearby customary court?

"There is nothing to discuss about the threat and even the responses from some individuals or organisations on this matter.

The ICC is not for trivial issues like a group waking up one day to allege that someone killed their people extra judiciously simply because he was an army commander. Who ordered the operation? Who commanded the operation? Was it just an Army operation or a joint operation of the military forces? What was the man's position at the time? Were there senior officials to him involved in the operation?

These and many more are some of the questions that would need to be answered before the ICC can even take a look at the complaint," he said.

But Alhaji Usman Kaima, a historian advised that Nigerians should not be too hasty in dismissing the northern elders. "I find it hard to agree that the elders do not know what they are doing. They said they are investigating the matter. Why don't we all wait?"

So the waiting game continuous even as informed Nigerians express concern over the depth of the sentiments inherent in the threats, counter threats and the general reactions. As Kaima said, it confirms that there are many fresh wounds still waiting to be healed in Nigeria.

What it takes to file a case in ICC

A peep into the laws establishing the court by these people is enough to discourage them from going to the ICC. There are so many limitations to getting justice at the court. This is why many of those who shout bout gong to the Hague usually end up not filing even a sentence at the court. Seeking justice from the ICC is easier said that done, but that is not to say you cant get justice there, but it is not as easy as many people are making it seem."

That is how, a respondent described the processes of filing a case at the International Court of Justice and why none of aggrieved Nigerians have not successfully dragged any official to the ICC, in spite of previous threats to do so.

If they had gone to the international court, former leaders like General Yakubu Gowon ( Rtd), who was Head of State during the Nigerian civil war and Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, who was on seat during the Odi and Zaki Ibiam cases, among others, would by now be undergoing trial at the Hague.

As Senator Uche Chukwumerije explained recently, other cases that elicited such threats in the past included, the case of Biafran massacre, the Odi destruction and killings, the Zaki-Biam case and the case of Katsina Ala. In all these cases, the affected victims have threatened to drag the top military brass then or the Commander-in-Chief to ICC, but none has done so.

Chukwumerije in his reaction had warned that the recent threat may reopen these old wounds.

"As Ango Abdullahi's team opens the doors and walks into the hall of the World Court, let them realize that they have at last opened the Pandora' Box.

"The indigenes of Odi, Zaki-Biam and Katsina Ala will in quick succession file into the hall. At the same pace, Ndigbo of South East and Anioma will dust their files and head for The Hague."

So, with the current threats, it remains to be seen who would be the first Nigerian to be tried at the ICC. Most concerned Nigerians are saying that even though it is necessary to heal the wounds inflicted in the hearts of Nigerians over the years, in the interest of peace, it is hoped Nigeria would not do it in a way that will worsen the ountry's differences. It is believed that this patriotic sentiment may have contributed in making aggrieved Nigerians not to carry out the threat of heading to ICC in the past.

Besides that sentiment, another reason is the issue of the required technicalities involved in

•ICC President Judge: Sang-Hyun Song

proving such cases and the inherent limitations in the powers of ICC. The limitations facing the International Criminal Court (ICC) Established under Rome statute to help end criminal activities across the world, the international criminal court is based at The Hague in Netherlands.

It derives its funding from the member states, governments, international organisation, corporations, and individuals. It is saddled with the responsibility of arresting and prosecuting persons responsible for criminal activities that are of concern to the international communities.

Right from inception, the court has been battling certain bottlenecks in the duty of getting justice for victims of various criminal activities of international concern. These limitations make it difficult for the court to bring justice to the victims of crimes. The limitations also affect the operations of the court in administering justice to the deserving victims.

Chief among these limitation is that the ICC lacks the much required international support it needs to operate effectively from one country to another. This is largely so because not all countries are members of the international criminal court.

Consequently, some countries do not recognize the operations of the court and so are not ready to let their citizens get tried at the International Criminal Court.

Crimes committed in countries like these are most likely to go unnoticed since the court has no jurisdiction to arrest, try and punish individuals who do not belong to the member countries. This makes it difficult for victims of the international crimes in these countries to get justice.

Secondly, even some member countries are

11

unwilling to heed the request of the court. The fear that the ICC may betray the leadership of their country has made many governments across the globe to inhibit the functions of the court on numerous occasions. Examples abound of situations where many nations have refused to arrest some of their prominent leaders even after the court issued warrant of arrest for such leaders.

Allegations and counter allegations of favoritism is another monster threatening the functions of the court. countries, organizations andindividuals feel that there is favoritism in the court. They feel that crimes committed in some countries are overlooked by the court. In Africa, there have been incidences where some of the countries have refused jointly to reject the warrant of arrest issued to their members. The individuals with a warrant of arrest are free to walk in these countries without any threat of being arrested.

Reliance on the police force of the member states for the arrest of the criminals is another problem. Some of the country's police force will not accept to arrest their own leaders and people.

They might also not be willing to reveal information of the criminals who in most cases are influential people in the society. Hence, leaders in these countries will go unpunished for the crimes they committed.

Also, the international criminal court processes usually take several years before the case is determined. This makes it difficult or even impossible for the victims to follow the proceedings. Some judgments might come after the death of the victims. Some also come after the death of the criminals.

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 26, 2014

Ropo Sekoni

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Page 14

Femi Orebe Page 16

SUNDAY, JANUARY 26, 2014

tunjade@yahoo.co.uk 08054503906 (sms only)

B

EING a Sunday column, I normally submit my write-up for publication on Fridays. Usually, I must have started writing it as soon as I find any topic of interest. Sometimes, I even start on Mondays when I find something that catches my fancy, because writing depends on many factors; this moment you are in the mood, the next moment you are not. Sometimes it is the topic I start on Monday that I eventually conclude and submit. Sometimes too, I have had cause to change, even at the last minute, when stories of greater significance break.

As a rule, whatever I write on must be topical. As writers know too, the pen flows better when one is writing on a topic of interest rather than on something one is writing on just to fill space.

Whilst I sometimes have a glut of what to focus on, depending on stories that break during the week, on a few occasions I have had to ‘scrap bottom pot’ (as we say) to find something worth commenting on. This past week was one such ‘dry’ week. It was not as if there were no significant stories, the problem was that there is nothing new to say on most of them. Take the Rivers State crisis, for example, over which there was rumpus in the Senate last week. Take also the story of the new Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chairman, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu begging its governors that defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC) to return to the ruling party. Does any of them need to be told that that would amount to political suicide if they hearkened to such plea? Much as I would have loved to say something on this today in details, a comment by someone to the effect that Nigerian politicians are unpredictable made me change my mind and wait for the time they will commit such political hara-kiri before writing on the issue.

Or is it the story that President Goodluck Jonathan has said that corruption is not the main problem of Africa, but political instability and insecurity? Are you wondering where the President is getting some of these weird ideas from? Now, tell me, what new thing would one be saying that we have not said on corruption? On Stella Oduah alone, we have written the A-Z of corruption.

However, it was while flipping through the newspapers in search of what to write on that I stumbled on the story titled “Pathetic world of flag-girls on Lagos-Ibadan Expressway”. The rider to that headline, “Where graduates work for 11 hours daily, earn N30,000 monthly” encapsulates the sorry pass that has been the lot of Nigerian graduates. In recent times, I have been plying that expressway somehow regularly and I have been seeing some of these ladies on the road controlling traffic. I never knew they were this underpaid, even though I have always known that such tendency is ever present in our society.

It is so sad that our graduates’ suffering is not only about not knowing when they will be graduating from the university, despite the fact that they signed a four-year

Flag-girls and unemployment in Nigeria Who will rescue our ladies from Romeo employers?

• Emeka Wogu, Labour Minister

contract when they were admitted. Only a few lucky ones make it within the four years; those who spend five years must be thanking their stars for being lucky.

Now, after going through these harrowing experiences, one should expect that the graduates would consider their suffering over. But the suffering proper begins after graduating.

You see the apprehension on the faces of the youth corps members during their passing out parade, with many of them staring blank into space, and wondering what the future holds in stock for them.

It was when the reality of that gloomy future dawned on the flag-girls that they accepted the ridiculous offer in the construction company that they are presently serving. But the practice is pervasive in many other sectors of our economy. Go to some of these Indian as well as Lebanese companies, you find many of our young girls employed as casual workers.

Yet, these companies make fortunes as profits from our economy. The sad aspect is that most of these companies regard these casual job offers given these girls as a favour. Some of their bosses even regard the girls as part of their unofficial ‘emoluments’ that they can turn to whenever they feel like.

What they do is to make the recruitment process look tedious for the girls and ladies such that those who eventually made it (sometimes after playing ball) will forever be thankful to whoever they thought was instrumental

“There are many other examples of such demeaning jobs offered many Nigerian girls, with no one rising to fight for them. The politicians who should be doing that are part of the racket. They engage many of these girls who can find their way to Abuja as prostitutes, and while away their time and the time of Nigeria in-between the laps of these unfortunate ladies, their hearts humming and pounding like an over-flogged generator”

to their recruitment. Some were ‘duped’ in the process as they are still not given jobs after the girls had fulfilled all unrighteousness with some of the bosses, who sometimes happen to be Nigerians.

Mind you, when we talk about ladies being duped, it is not about money. It will interest you to note that many of our banks and telecommunication firms that are reaping mouth-watering profits do same, with the supervising authorities pretending not to know, or accepting that there is nothing unusual about it.

A friend’s son was in these shoes until sometime last year when he was saved from that ‘Egypt’. The young man has a master’s from a university in London, but on returning home, the first job he got fetched him N10,000 a month; and N20,000 on a good month. After some time, he got another job from which he earned about N50,000 per month. He was still celebrating this when he got yet another for about double that amount. That is the extent to which exploitation has reached in the country.

What these girls have done is commendable; at least it is better, as some of them said in the newspaper report, than engaging in prostitution. But what of the attendant risks, with many inconsiderate drivers on our roads?

Mind you, graduates employed as casual workers can never be entitled to any form of insurance. So, should anything happen to them even while on ‘active service’, they are on their own. Death will only be seen in the context of the company losing a ‘hand’ (hands is a derogatory term for workers).

There are many other examples of such demeaning jobs offered many Nigerian girls, with no one rising to fight for them.

The politicians who should be doing that are part of the racket. They engage many of these girls who can find their way to Abuja as prostitutes, and while away their time and the time of Nigeria in-between the laps of these unfortunate ladies,their hearts humming and pounding like an over-flogged generator. That is when they (politicians) are not engaging in petty politicking, fighting political battles that have no bearing on the lives of the people, such that one cannot but wonder what these people have done with the power in their hands in years past, and why like Oliver Twist, they always want more. But we have to be careful to ask President Jonathan to solve the problem of unemployment. We first have to ascertain if he believes it is a problem. I said this with due respect, and especially against the background of his assertion that corruption is not an issue in Africa. Unemployment as a problem too, in the President’s eye, could only be in the imagination of those who are saying it is a problem here.

A reader’s musing Did you hear Jonathan yesterday (Thursday, January 23)? He said the problem of Africa is not corruption but political instability and insecurity. Pray, what is the source of political instability and insecurity if not corruption? Why then are we expecting Jonathan to solve a problem he does not even understand? It is glaring we have employed a ... to solve an electrical problem. The President is at home with corruption. God have mercy on Nigeria! From Simon Oladapo, Ogbomoso.

Strikes unlimited

F

IRST it was the Academic Staff Union of Universities ( ASUU) that was on strike for about six months over the non-implementation of an earlier agreement with the federal government.

It took the intervention of President Goodluck Jonathan to resolve the deadlock which is one of the longest strikes by university lecturers in the country.

Thankfully, lectures have resumed in federal and state universities and we can only hope that the federal government will not renege on any of the fresh agreement like before.

While the ASUU strike has been resolved, many other unions are either on strike or threatening to embark on strike.

Despite the assurance by the Ministry Of Education, negotiation with the Academic Staff of Polytechnic is still deadlocked after cumulative six months of strike which was suspended and resumed.

Officials of the union stormed out of a meeting last week noting that the government was not showing enough commitment to meeting their demands like it did in the case of ASUU. Earlier in the month the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) suspended its planned nationwide indefinite strike to allow for full implementation of all elements of the agreement between the association and the government within set lines.

The NMA President Dr Osahon Enabulele said the strike was suspended to allow for full implementation of all elements of the agreement between the association and the government within set time lines.

The doctors had embarked on a five-day warning strike from 18 December to 22 December last year, over their demands and warned of an indefinite strike starting January 6 if their demands were not met.

They had demanded proper funding of health care in the country , provision of a regulatory environment for practice in the health sector and the expansion of universal health facilities to cover all Nigerians.

Others demands are the upgrade of health infrastructure, elimination of fundamental injustices done to doctors in terms of workplace conditions/ conditions of service as well as other health sector challenges.

However while the nation was spared the doctors strike, the Joint Health Sectors Union and the Association of Health Professionals last Friday ended a three-day nationwide warning strike which paralyzed most health institutions nationwide.

The striking workers meeting with the Labour Minister, Chief Emeka Wogu and his counterpart in the Ministry of Health, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu, was inconclusive as both parties could not agree on how to resolve the crisis.

Except an agreement is reached and implemented indications are that the health workers may embark on ill scale strike which will definitely have disrupt medical services in the country since doctors cannot fully operate without other health professionals.

It is unfortunate that years of neglect and non implementation by past agreements has left the present government with the burden of meeting the demands of workers in various sectors.

The federal government however has to rise up to the occasion and take necessary steps to redress the worrying development where no one is sure which union will be the next to declare a strike.

Instead of waiting for unions to declare strikes, the government has to be pro-active in addressing some of the grievances of the workers. In some cases, what the workers are asking for are adequate funding of their sectors and policies to have an enabling environment.

It is curious that the government usually has to be forced to accept terms it had earlier rejected.

The situation where the President has to be dragged into negotiations with unions should not arise if necessary actions have been taken instead of allowing the situation to deteriorate.

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 26, 2014

COMMENT

National conference: towards citizens’ advisory The president needs to pay special attention to recommendations that are likely to privilege some groups and marginalise others.

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OW that the Main Report of the Presidential Advisory Committee on National Dialogue and the Minority Report of the same committee are largely available for perusal by citizens, it should not be out of place for citizens to add their voices to the recommendations contained in the two reports. In a democracy, the existence of a special committee set up to advise the president on how to go about anything should not rule out views from the general public, more so if reports from the formal advisory committee leave room for such interventions from citizens.

As the president is still in the process of digesting the reports, it is important to draw his attention to some aspects of the main and minor reports. With respect to the chapter on Methodology, it would have been more helpful for the committee to include in the detailed description of the methods of consultation a short analysis of the memoranda submitted and how the recommendations are derived from such memoranda. For example, such analysis would have given citizens an idea of how many of the 710 memoranda opted for the use of referendum; the use of an enabling legislation that empowers the conference to determine how to transform its recommendations into a constitution, etc. Such analysis would have communicated more effectively than just leaving the memoranda in an appendix.

Similarly, the chapter on Terms of Reference would have been more informative if it contained analysis of submissions to the committee on drawing up a feasible agenda for the proposed conference. It is not enough for the committee to affirm the commitment Nigerians expressed and exhibited throughout the exercise, it would have been more reassuring if the report had indicated the number of memoranda supporting this position.

This inclusion would have further made the job of the president easier, as he would have been able to sense the percentage (even in the context of ran-

dom samples made possible by the nature of the consultation across states) of states and groups that opt for just one No-go area: dissolution of the Republic. Analysis of memoranda would have given the president and citizens opportunities to tell the percentage of citizens and groups with interest in issues that are not constitutional, such as cost of governance, corruption, God-fatherism, demilitarisation of national psyche, restoring national ethics and values; institutionalising Almajiri and Nomadic education, as distinct from those that address issues of re-constitutionalising governance in the country, such as restructuring of the country, political and fiscal federalism, decentralisation of national education policy; decentralisation of national agricultural policy, etc.

The president needs to pay special attention to recommendations that are likely to privilege some groups and marginalise others. For instance, Recommendation 6.4.3 that says “the credibility of the Conference will be enriched by nominating representatives of the main regional socio-political organisations such as the Afenifere, Arewa Consultative Forum, Ohaneze Ndigbo, MiddleBelt Forum, South-south Peoples Assembly, etc., is capable of introducing avoidable problem in terms of fairness and equity. The fact that only five regional bodies are mentioned by name in the report for special inclusion suggests that there are many others that even the committee is unable to identify, hence the use of etc in the committee’s recommendation. Surely, mentioning five is enough for anyone to believe that the chairman of the committee has no intention to favour Afenifere, an organisation of which he is a leading member.

But many citizens and socio-cultural organisations across the country are bound to wonder about how the Conference committee arrived at the consideration that Arewa Consultative Forum is more significant than Northern Elders Forum or Arewa Youth Forum. The same point can be raised about the choice of Afenifere over Afenifere Renewal Group or Oodua Peoples Congress, both socio-cultural organisations in the

Yoruba region. These five organisations are already part of at least five of the six regions or zones. What special purpose are they going to serve as special delegates to the conference? Nigeria is, first and foremost, a country of citizens, not of socio-cultural organisations. Each of the sociocultural organisations mentioned by the committee is almost as partisan as regular political parties. Why leave out political parties while privileging partisan socio-cultural organisations?

Still on recommendation 6.4., the president should notice the temptation to load the conference with nominees of the president—direct or indirect. So-called Interest Groups should just be given the number to send to the conference, without having to pass their nominations through the presidency. Better still, it is better to leave sociocultural organisations out of the groups to be given special status, more so that doing this is capable of avoidable politicisation of the selection process.

Not too long ago, some socio-cultural organisations went to pay special visit to the president while others did not. Choosing an organisation that did that over the ones that did not or have not paid special visits to the president can raise the issue of partiality or favouritism on the part of the president. Special delegate status should be limited to professional groups whose membership is pan-Nigerian while socio-cultural groups that are region or state-specific should be encouraged to use some of the spaces given to states or regions.

Equally unnecessary is the recommendation that the president shall have the power to nominate one delegate per state, should there be any governor that is unable to identify a representative for his or her state. Why should the president be given such powers in a pro-federal system in a bid towards full federalisation of the polity?

In addition, if the issue of referendum was predominant in the presentations made to the committee, how did the committee arrive in chapter 9 at leaving the matter of integrating decisions and outcomes of the conference into the Constitution and Laws of the nation in the hands of the confer-

ence, more so after recommending in chapter 8 creation by the National Assembly of an enabling legislation for the conference? If an analysis of the distribution of memoranda over what to do with the recommendations of the conference had been provided, there would have been no reason for any minority report, since the crux of the matter between the main and minor reports is the issue of giving the decision to ultimate owners of sovereignty in Nigeria. Another section that may be unhelpful to anyone being advised is the last recommendation under chapter 8: “In the alternative to the above, the president may exercise his inherent powers under Section 5 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and convene the Conference.” Using such powers had been done before. General Obasanjo did this and nothing came out of the conference he called. Encouraging the president to use this option is capable of making him play into the hands of Nigerians who have expressed serious doubts about his capacity to carry the national conference to fruition. Moreover, providing an analysis of the distribution of memoranda over creating a new constitution or recommending amendments to the existing constitution would have been more helpful to anyone that needs to know the scope of what the conference should do.

It may not be too late for the committee to let the president know the percentage of memoranda in favour of ethnic nationality representation, enabling legislation to allow the conference take its recommendations to the people in a referendum, and reserving seats for gubernatorial and presidential nominees. The resultant weight of evidence is likely to assist any advisee to opt for what majority of citizens at the interactive sessions prefer.

For the president to have opted for a national conference that is not sovereign already limits the scope and power of the conference. To encourage the president to nominate up to one-third of conference delegates will be an overkill, the type that can produce an Obasanjo-type of conference.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 26, 2014

COMMENT

15

Marriage martyrs The Roman Catholic Church can do more to stem child abuse

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HE recent revelation that over 400 Roman Catholic priests were defrocked in two years

by Pope Benedict XVI, the former Roman Catholic Pontiff, is clear testimony to the depth of the problems the church is grappling with.

The former pope carried out the action in his final two years before stepping down in 2013.

Defrocking refers to the removal of a priest from his clerical state, and is essentially equivalent to a dismissal. The sanction was imposed on priests found guilty of molesting and abusing children, and shows a considerable rise over those of 2008 and 2009, when 171 were defrocked. In spite of the increase, it is obvious that it represents only a fraction of the clerics who engage in these abhorrent practices.

Even though it is the world’s largest Christian denomination with an estimated 1.2 billion members, the Catholic Church has been beset by unrelenting scandal in recent times. It has had to contend with declining attendances, the increasing secularisation of society, and profound social change. However, the most damaging of the issues it has had to contend with are the actions of some of its own priests whose sexual predilections have caused many to question the church’s status as a religious institution.

Over the past two decades, revelations across many countries, especially those in Western Europe and North America, have revealed shocking cases of child sexual abuse by priests.

The church apparently made matters worse by seeking to conceal the cases, quietly transferring the offenders to other parishes instead of reporting them to the police. Many of those who were transferred often went on to engage in the same practices in their new locations. Even the ultimate

I

AM not amused by the current agitation for the successor of the outgoing governor of Central Bank, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.

Since it became apparent that the controversial Kano Prince’s days are numbered, there has been covert campaign for the top post. From subtlety, the campaign has now become overt. The cacophony is deafening.

Expectedly, the mass media has been the battleground.

The weapons for the actualisation of the self-assigned task come in the shape of base sentiments and the usual culprits of ethnicity and sectionalism taking centre stage. I totally agree with Chinua Achebe that the problem of the nation is squarely that of leadership. I strongly believe that the difference between boom and doom, is qualified or ill qualified leadership The agitation has taken a decidedly negative dispensation.From quality argument spiritedly reasoned along the lines of competence and experience, the campaign has degenerated into ethnic and regional jingoism.

Suddenly,tribal and regional blocs have emerged and taken over the place of quality arguments. One such is from the Southwest. The air now is

sanction of defrocking saves the erring priest from judicial trial, effectively putting them above the law.

Pope Benedict’s actions represent an attempt to come to grips with a problem that has done much to bring the Catholic Church into disrepute around the world. At a recent meeting with a human rights committee of the United Nations in Geneva, senior members of the church’s hierarchy were forced to defend themselves against longstanding accusations that they had been complicit in failing to stem a social evil that had ruined the lives of thousands of defenceless children.

Although there are many reasons why those who ostensibly have devoted their lives to serving God would betray their faith so shamefully, it is clear that the Roman Catholic Church’s continuing emphasis on arguably outmoded policies is a significant part of the problem. There is increasing evidence that many of them, such as marriage for life and celibacy have either outlived their use, or are no longer rationally applicable to contemporary realities.

Thus, while the Catholic prohibition of abortion is in line with its commendable prolife stance, its refusal to countenance the use of many contraceptive devices has unwittingly TRUTH IN DEFENCE OF FREEDOM

•Editor Festus Eriye •Deputy Editor Olayinka Oyegbile •Associate Editors Taiwo Ogundipe Sam Egburonu

•Managing Director/ Editor-in-Chief Victor Ifijeh •Chairman, Editorial Board Sam Omatseye •General Editor Adekunle Ade-Adeleye

complicated the fight against HIV/AIDS and other sexually-transmitted diseases, as well as unwanted pregnancies. This has made life difficult for Catholic adherents, who are compelled to choose between obedience to unquestionable precepts and what they often regard as rational action.

Only recently, a Catholic nun gave birth to a baby, claiming not to have known that she was pregnant. Even if she was telling the truth, her situation demonstrates an incredible naiveté that is clearly at odds with the mission of the church. The same principle is true of childabusing clerics: priests are men, after all, and the natural urges that all humans encounter may simply have been too much for some to bear, resulting in their manifestation of unacceptable behaviour. It is a telling irony that the church gives priests the power to join couples in holy wedlock while denying them the right to do so themselves.

Celibacy is certainly not a Biblical prescription.

While there are several injunctions regarding sexual restrictions for reasons of ritual purity and sanctification, there does not appear to be an emphasis on celibacy either for its own sake or on a permanent basis. It can therefore be gotten rid of without much damage to the church’s perception of itself as a religious institution.

There is no doubt that the Catholic Church, like other religious institutions, finds itself at a crossroads, caught between the propagation of religious belief and the onslaught of a rampaging secularity. However, the dilemma is made worse when it is guilty of an inflexibility which weakens its own clerics, endangers the innocent, and attracts the justified ire of the world.

LETTERS

CBN: The imperatives of competence fouled by a cacophonous campaign for sectionalism and tribalism This is regrettable. I am positive the president, Goodluck Jonathan, will not pander to and sacrifice competence and experience on the altar of political expediency.

Proponents of sectionalism argued that a section of the country namely the Southwest, has been marginalised in the current scheme of things by the Jonathan administra-

tion, hence the need for ‘compensation’ with the post of CBN governor. The charge of marginalisation by the disparate components making up this country is not totally new but the current argument for Sanusi’s successor is. This is because tribe or zone has never been used as criteria for the person that heads the nation’s apex bank. The key attributes have always been knowledge and experience.

Yet, agitators for a ‘tribal’

helmsman at the CBN are anchoring their case on these fundamentally flawed premises. The charge of marginalisation is untenable.

A casual look at the names of those who presided over the affairs of the bank will reveal very interesting phenomenon.

The record exposes the lie of marginalisation of a particular region.In 50 years, the South has held forte at the Apex bank for 28 years while the north for 22 years collec-

tively. Of the nine indigenous governors, five came from the South.

They are Clement Isong, Ola Vincent, Paul Ogwuma, Joseph Sanusi and Charles Soludo. In the succession trail, at no point was tribe or region considered. That may help in explaining why eyebrows were not raised when Ogwuma handed to Joseph Sanusi who also handed over Soludo. The outgoing governor Sanusi took the baton from

Maheeda, you can’t be a Christian and go nude

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HE Christian at salvation was forged into uniformity; a trilogical-alliance of the Spirit, Soul and Body.

Separating the spiritual joint from our vocational support is a cancerous pursuit; an affair that presents us as a double-faced being; an angelic-demon. This is the danger hunting our believers today, 6000 years after Gods creative act.

The idea of building a life outside Christ’s deitic cycle dis-

torts the true image the creator wired us with. The reality of this depravity of the human nature rests on rebellious activity that reflects at every turn we take in the workplace. This damage is mirrored in the media, arts and entertainment, education, business, politics, family and sadly the Church. Many believers sadly live their lives daily as contradictions of their godly makeup.

Caroline ‘Maheeda’ Sam

(the Nigerian celebrity) known as the gospel artist who feels comfortable being nude is one person who claims allegiance to Christ and believes she can pose nude and get away with it. She is one among others (in the field of entertainment) who claim allegiance to the Christian faith but engage in anti-biblical activities in the marketplace. This gross misrepresentation of the cross and the person of Christ has to stop!

For “...you have no obliga-

tion to do what your sinful nature urges you to do.” Grace to all those who will return to the crucified Christ and receive forgiveness.

Stop this blasphemy Maheeda!!!!!! Remain a heathen and do whatever you like with your body, don’t associate you corruption to our Holy God. Daniel Olushola Rukuba Road, Jos, Plateau State,

Soludo.

Constitutionally, the appointment of the CBN helmsman is the exclusive prerogative of the president. Over the years, the nation’s leader singly appointed the Governor.

As required by the constitution, all the Commander- in Chief needs to is to forward the name of his choice to the Senate for confirmation.

The job of managing the CBN is a serious business. Not everyone can make a success of it especially now that the world economy is inextricably intertwined. Only those who are qualified or who meet the right criteria should agitate for it. Among the right qualification is an economist with a commercial banking experience and not an ethnic or tribal enthusiast hoisted into office by his kinsmen just because they thought they have been marginalized. Surely, promoters of this kind of narrow consideration are mindless of the dire economic consequences’ that will follow should an incompetent person take charge of the bank. Thankfully, the president, is mindful of this.

The recent change of guard in the armed forces was a confirmation of this.

By Joseph George No2, Atunwa Street off Toyin Street, Ikeja Lagos

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16

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 26, 2014

COMMENT

Chief Bisi Akande: Celebrating a worthy leader at 75 It is a thing of joy that we still have in Yoruba land today, a distinguished leader of the calibre of Chief Bisi Akande,

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HIS column opens up today with a portion that was guillotined from last Sunday’s article due to space constraint. It is a thing of joy that we still have in Yoruba land today, a distinguished leader of the calibre of Chief Bisi Akande, the Interim National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress to celebrate. In an age when all manner of characters are bandied about as leaders in the Southwest geo-political zone, and when ‘leaders’ are being trashed right and left in certain circles, no matter what high office they have held in the land, we of the APC, and millions of Omoluabi Yoruba and Nigerians in general, can truly celebrate one of our own. A man of impeccable integrity, variously tested and trusted, below is what I wrote about Chief Akande in the special publication for his birthday anniversary: ‘A dye-in-the- wool Awoist and an irrepressible student of the Uncle Bola Ige school of politics, Baba Akande has grown to become an indefatigable democrat. A tested leader in whom there is no guile, it is safe to say that with the likes of him leading the APC, it will yet be too early to declare Nigeria a failed state. Happy Birthday, Sir. Fighting Executive Impunity In Nigeria: Dr Bashir Gwandu’s Example “I see this case as part of my contribution towards strengthening of the rule of law and a decision meant to send message to investors that

Nigeria has come of age and is a place where the law is applicable to everyone, including the president. The Nigerian telecom law is there and it contains adequate provisions to protect stakeholders and investment, all that investors need to do is to learn to stand and pursue their rights in defence of their investments. As for the young ones, never be discouraged, troubled, or get intimidated by powerful forces. There is an honour in public service, just do your part, and God is there to provide protection. Have faith in God and you will never be disappointed.’ – Dr Bashir Gwandu on his court victory.

Increasingly under the Jonathan administration, Nigeria and corruption are becoming Siamese twins. With executive impunity firmly in place, well-connected and high-profile fraudsters are guaranteed a safe passage, whatever their crime. By itself, the administration also routinely perpetrates corruption, as the case in which Dr Bashir Gwandu was unjustly punished eloquently demonstrates.

As reported severally in the media when the news broke in 2013, Dr Gwandu, former Executive Commissioner of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and Chairman of the technical body of Radio communications Advisory Group (RAG), as well as ViceChairman Joint Task Group, JTG-

4-5-6-7, of I.T.U, was summarily removed from office as Executive Commissioner of the NCC on 26th November 2012 for his principled stand against three major frauds committed in the commission by agents of the Jonathan government.

Indeed, according to Femi Falana, SAN, who is Gwandu’s lawyer, Mrs Omobola Johnson, the Minister of Communications Technology, actually demanded, by a letter dated April 12, 2013, addressed to the Secretary-General of ITU, that Dr Gwandu be relieved of the positions he held at ITU. Such barefaced impunity will be hard to come by in any government that sets any stock by transparency and anti-corruption; two elements the Jonathan administration very sincerely abhors.

What then were Gwandu’s offences?

Of course, his sins against the innermost cravings of a corrupt government was that he spilled the bins on three main frauds committed in the commission, apparently on orders from above.

These, according to several news sources, are: selling of 450MHz Spectrum to an unlicensed company- OpenSkys Ltd reportedly owned by Mr Emeka Offor and some powerful associates who then connived to remove Gwandu, after paying only US $6 million for a licence that should have fetched the nation over $50 million. Second was reported to be the N1.029B waiver applied for by the Communications Minister ostensibly for three companies: Multilink’s, Starcomms and MTS, but was granted to only MTS - a company

in which NCC’s Chief Executive Officer, Eugene Juwah, in two separate interviews admitted to having shares, at the expense of the federation account and those two other companies.

The third issue was Gwandu’s reported opposition to the sale of a 10MHz slot in the 800MHz spectrum-band without competitive bids, as required by law, to a South African company called Smile Communications Limited for about •13million while equivalent spectrums sold in Germany, Italy, France and UK for around •992million.

Till date, these weighty allegations have not been probed by the Jonathan administration.

But Nigerians must thank Dr Gwandu and his intrepid lawyer, Femi Falana, SAN, who took his sack case to court as only this past week, the National Industrial Court, sitting at Abuja, declared Gwandu’s removal from office as Executive Commissioner illegal, unconstitutional, ultra vires, null and void and of no effect whatsoever. The court, therefore, ordered that Gwandu be paid his accrued salaries, benefits, allowances and entitlements up to 21st January 2014. The court further awarded him N100 million in damages.

Unless, and until Nigerians come to rise up to fight this thoroughly kleptomanic government, we as a country and people, will remain the butt of jokes the world over. Unfortunately, most of these frauds are perpetrated with the 2015 election in mind as the beneficiaries are all potential big election donors and for that

alone, the Jonathan government will sacrifice anything.

It is the same amoral considerations that underpinned some of the names recently sent by the president to the senate for confirmation as ministers. While mercifully, Nigerians should see the back of Princess Oduah in the imminent cabinet reshuffle, some of these individuals should not be anywhere near a public office. It is extremely painful what messages President Jonathan is sending to Nigerians, as well as the outside world about how serious he is on fighting corruption. Even if the former PDP Chairman, recently forced out of office was not accused of any fraud, the fact that a man who could not manage a political party gets appointed to a very critical segment of the economy is also very uncomplimentary. One can understand jobs for the boys, but for a man of Alhaji’s Tukur’s age and accomplishments to have accepted his new job can only be a validation of his grovelling reluctance to leave the former. It equally says a lot about the PDP that it could appoint as its Chairman, a person who is not only wanted by the EFCC, but was adjudged by a seven-man panel set up by none other than Governor Yuguda who reportedly nominated him, to have misappropriated N20.4 billion while governor of Bauchi State.

Regarding Jonathan’s new ministers, Nigerians can only hope that this time around, the senate will truly serve the nation.

A hollow hope, many will say.

The Beautiful, the Ridiculous & the Sublime The only lesson the people are learning is that it is all right to seek only the things of the self and let the country, and others, be damned

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Y favourite magazine last week featured a story of a new kind of computer printer that prints 3-D inanimate objects. Imagine that! All you need to own various objects like toys in your home is that printer called The Cube, your own imagination and a cartridge that spews plastic instead of ink, and hey presto!, you’re lost in the very depths of your own toy and object factory. You can print practically anything you want. Now, don’t get me started on just what I can do with that kind of machine, because that is one beauty I’ve been longing to see in my lifetime for many reasons. Let’s see why now.

To start with, I have long had a hankering after serving plates that do not break or require too much care.

Now, with a machine like The Cube, I will not only make my own plates, I can make them in shapes, sizes and colours I want. Should I desire to satisfy my palate for a large-sized plate of my favourite dish of good ol’ Amala on a particular day, I would first take my time to design the shape of the container; then I would choose the colour of the day, maybe marigold yellow with a hint of a rainbow mix rimming the edges. Then, I would make the food. With the combination of food and plate simmering in front of me, I can now sing, ‘I’m in heaven...

This is the heaven...’ as one morsel follows another down the dark, dark

tunnel. Then, when I remember that I can choose another plate design and colour for the next day’s menu, another song will issue forth, ‘It doesn’t get better than this...No, no, it doesn’t get better than this...’ Ah, that sure is the life! Hopefully, with enough coaxing, the machine will be able to print my lunch one day.

Oh yes, I have also wanted to own something that I can stuff down people’s throats when they are saying what I particularly do not want to hear. Now, with that machine, all I have to do is look at the shape of the mouth of the speaker and design the appropriate object to fit it – round, square, triangular or slit. No problem.

When someone around me is complaining about the fact that money is scarce in the town and so the housekeeping money is going to be... I quickly shut the mouth before the word is uttered. When someone in the vicinity of where I am standing is trying to tell me that the country is broke, would I mind a salary... I quickly shut the mouth before the unutterable word is uttered. Beautiful.

Now, all I have to pray for is that someday, a machine will be invented that will print people, so that I can surround myself with only my kind of people who will only say things I want to hear.

Now, I have always wanted a machine that can print me a new dress every day. According to the article that

started all this wish list, someone is already thinking like me. There are designers out there, it said, who have printed a pair of shoes and a dress, using different printers. Now, that is music to my ears. No more can my tailor and cobbler be rude to me. No more will I have to grin and swallow their insults of ‘come back tomorrow...’ while the waters are roiling deep inside me worse than the Atlantic Ocean in a storm. Now, all I need to do is dream up a look for the day, and command the machine. Then, when I get to the end of the road and find that the look does not really work for me in broad day light as it did in my head, I can go back home and make the necessary adjustments. I command my machine. The only thing that would be left would be for that beautiful machine to print money for me...

You’re right, we need money to design and build the machines that will make my dreams come true.

Don’t I know it? But, seriously, where do you think the money to fund the technological drive in this country will come from when we are busy funding ridiculous projects? Just the other day, I read in the papers that Senator Abe of Rivers State had been flown abroad for medical attention after being allegedly shot by the police with rubber bullets! I ask you, I tell you! It’s people like these – the one who shot him, him that was shot

and agreed to be flown out of the country, and the one who funded the trip – these are the ones who are standing in the way of making my machine dreams come true. They are the Dream Terminators! Honestly, I sometimes feel as if all our money is going into funding the expensive hobby the country is engaged in right now, politics. It’s a little like the head of a family who persists in finding the cure for hunger by locking himself in the kitchen conducting one experiment after the other. The rest of the family can be left to feel like orphans for all he cares. (Actually, he can feel like a childless father for all they care if he would just get out of the kitchen so they can feed).

Anyway, I just hope this politics will not be the death of this country – through laughter. Take another news report I read the other day. The Speaker of the House of Reps read out a letter written by the chairman of DPP to the house complaining that one of its members had defected to another party. The problem was not so much the defection; obviously that did not rankle.

What pained the chairman was the fact that the said member had disobeyed instructions. He had defected to APC instead of PDP as he had been directed to do! I mean, did a group of grown-up MEN seriously want us to believe that they sat down, deliberated and came up with this no-brainer? Unbelievable.

It just proves two things. The first is what

many people have said before: that this country has NO POLITICAL CLASS. We do not have men and women brimming with ideas, dreams and visions of how to rescue this country from certain doom and self-destruction. All the country has thrown up so far are CLASS 2004, ‘08, OR ‘11 OF CLOWNS AND MARAUDERS. The second point is this: that when I said the year was going to bring up much nuggets of laughter and you should get your sides reinforced so they don’t split, I was serious.

The only problem is that while we are laughing, like Nero, Nigeria may burn. In the face of complete helplessness, however, what are we to do but hold on to our dreams? We have sublime notions of what good governance is like: politicians, not clowns, directing the affairs of the country; leaders keeping their pulses on the prices of garri, beans, oil and rent in the market so that when all else fail, the people can eat and sleep; leaders knowing the state of the national institutions under their care because they also use them – hospitals, schools, transportation systems, roads, recreation grounds, etc. Like I said, these are sublime dreams but it’s not as if they are not attainable. They are, if the leaders would just put their backs into the job and teach the people how to do it too. As of now though, the only lesson the people are learning is that it is all right to seek only the things of the self and let the country, and others, be damned.

COMMENT

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 26, 2014

17

(49) ‘BJ, what is it that you and Mama Sagamu see in Nollywood films?’ (2)

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T seems so obvious now that it surprises me a lot that I did not readily or easily realize as I watched Nollywood films with Mama Sagamu that the producers and marketers of Nollywood do not make their films for people like me who do not talk back to or with the characters in their films. More pointedly, it surprises me now why, for a long time, I did not or could not answer Sade’s question with the simple but irrefutable answer that Nollywood filmmakers do not care one jot about people like Sade who ask what people see in their films. I mean, let’s face the fact here squarely: if hundreds of millions of people in Nigeria, Africa and around the world are watching your films and talking to characters in those films, what does it matter if cultural and social elites who do not talk back at films raise questions about the value of your films? As I see all too clearly now thanks to the humility that Mama Sagamu rather unknowingly taught me, this matter is like asking the makers of Hollywood blockbusters what the millions of filmgoers who flock to see their films see in their products. Terminator 1, 2 and 3 – what do the hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide who have seen and continue to watch them see in these films? Ask such a question if you wish, but both the makers and fans of these films are completely indifferent to the question.

I make this allusion to Hollywood blockbusters deliberately. There is a vast commercial, cultural and cinematic chasm separating the world of the big mega-studios that produce Hollywood blockbusters and the universe of the producers and marketers of Nollywood video films.

For one thing, Hollywood studios spend vast sums of money to advertize, promote and “hype” their films. Moreover, they do have a more or less captive audience that was created over several decades. By contrast, Nollywood producers and marketers are still in the historic process of creating and consolidating their audience base. And if the truth must be told, they are as surprised as everybody else that people like Mama Sagamu love to watch their films. But having admitted these huge differences between Hollywood and Nollywood with regard to the creation and consolidation of audiences counted in the hundreds of millions, there are certain common features that both traditions share that throw considerable light on that question from Sade: “what is it that you and Mama Sagamu see in Nollywood films?” Let me explain.

It is a fundamental aspect of cultural modernity in every part of the world that capitalism seeks to create audiences for the arts, for music, for sports and almost all other forms of entertainment and recreation in their millions, indeed in their hundreds of millions. The key thing in this is to find the winning and repeatable formula that will keep the audiences coming and watching in

[For Akinwunmi Isola, raconteur, master storyteller and cineaste]

•Isola their millions or in some cases even billions. It is thanks largely to Mama Sagamu that I came to realize that before our very eyes and without anyone knowing exactly how it all happened, Nollywood filmmakers have found the winning and repeatable formula that puts them far ahead and above any other national film tradition in Africa in terms of attracting audiences across the whole continent and the African diasporas in Europe, the Americas and the Caribbean. This is why in last week’s opening piece in this column I made the assertion that the single greatest historic and cultural significance of Nollywood is the fact that, for good or ill, it has completely replaced Hollywood and Bollywood films as the preferred traditions of films that Africans love to watch.

There is a theoretical or philosophical principle behind this achievement, but I have no room in this piece to explore it beyond merely identifying and stating it. This is the principle of the fundamental cultural, human and existential right and need of all the peoples of our common earth to self-representation. In plain language, this philosophical principle implies that as much as people everywhere in the world like to see and watch images of peoples from other lands and cultures, people everywhere prefer images and stories of themselves written and told by and

for themselves. This is what Nollywood has achieved by massively displacing Hollywood and Bollywood as the cultural and commercial forces that for a very long time dominated the cinematic images that people in our continent could see.

The interesting thing is why it was/is Nollywood which effected this “decolonization” and not any of the other national cinemas and video industries in Africa. Again, let me say that it was Mama Sagamu that made this perception very apparent, very clear to me.

Let me put these observations and claims in some very concrete terms.

On the MNET-Africa Magic channels that are broadcast twenty-four hours round the clock, Nollywood films overwhelmingly dominate the films that are watched throughout the African continent. I do not have the exact figures, but it would not surprise me to learn that the dominance is as great as a factor of five to one in favour of Nollywood films compared with films from other African countries.

More tellingly, Nollywood film stars are the best known and the most talked about in Africa, many of them being household names, names that show up in reports and even in comedy routines in many African countries. Speaking for myself, apart from a few Ghanaian actors, I do not know the names of any stars from South Africa or Tanzania or indeed any other country that

command the attention, the allure of Nollywood actors. Thus, we arrive at the very intriguing fact that just as millions of audiences of Nollywood films talk back to the characters, so do millions also talk a lot about and are obsessed with the actors themselves.

Above all else and more subliminally, it is becoming more and more apparent that a Nollywood content and style, a Nollywood formula of video filmmaking is beginning to creep into the filmmaking contents, styles and techniques of films from many of the other African countries.

This last point is about the most challenging task that we face in coming to some kind of critical and productive determination of Sade’s question that served as the catalyst for this series. If there is a composite Nollywood content, style or formula that has Mama Sagamu talking with and to the characters of Nollywood films in the intimacy of her own home or at the Ogunbiyis in Victoria Island, what is it? In the present context and as preliminary interpretive act, I can only provide a very broad outline of this Nollywood formula of filmmaking that has been so widely successful as to effect that “decolonization” of cinema in Africa from the dominance of Hollywood and Bollywood. Thus, first, a gripping melodrama of good versus evil is a constant factor in the scripts and storylines of Nollywood films. This

is important if we bear in mind that melodrama is the most successful and popularizing genre of the modern era, especially in cinema. Secondly, there is the fact that Nollywood melodramas are acted with great, perhaps even exaggerated emotion, far more than films from other African countries. Thirdly, the same actors show up again and again in variations of the same melodramatic struggles of good against evil in Nollywood films. Moreover, these actors have so perfected their roles and routines that upon their very first appearance in a film, they elicit instant approving or enthralled responses from their adoring audiences. But then, there arises the question as to how this combination of content, formula and routines emerged and crystallize as the winning hallmarks of the Nollywood brand. I raise this point not as something to be explored in this series but as a topic for further reflection in a future series in this column.

Melodrama, in every genre and culture in the world, provides a charged but extremely oversimplifying presentation and “resolution” of the problems and crises of society and life itself.

Nollywood video films have taken this tendency of melodrama to new, unprecedented levels of moral, spiritual and cultural darkness and depravity.

The “solutions” provided in Nollywood films are often stunningly naïve and obfuscatory. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the overwhelming pervasiveness in Nollywood films of witchcraft and the occult as active determinants of human motivation, behaviour and fate. Indeed, it is doubtful if any other national tradition of filmmaking in modern times has been as deeply immersed in witchcraft and the occult as Nollywood films. This prompts the tantalizing question: Are Nollywood films so popular in the African continent because of, or in spite of their immersion in the occult?

A lot is happening to and within Nollywood. It is almost safe to project now that from its present continentwide popularity as the “decolonizing” nemesis of the dominance of Hollywood and Bollywood in Africa that is however very contradictory in its contents and styles, scriptwriters and cineastes are at work in Nollywood who are using the popularity and the impact of the tradition to provide equally entertaining but more enlightened, subtle and progressive films. To one such person, one such visionary this concluding piece in the series is dedicated. He is Akinwunmi Isola. I do not know if Mama Sagamu has seen any of his films. But I shall be sure to make available to her a copy of Isola’s most recent film, Ofinga, a powerful, moving and also highly entertaining drama on how moral and legal squabbles within an extended family threaten the sense of right and wrong, of the just and the unjust and indeed the very humanity of all the characters in the film. If and when Mama watches Ofinga, I promise for once to join her in her accustomed running commentary on films!

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COMMENT

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 26, 2014

sms only: 08116759748

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NE of the greatest tragedies of the Fourth Republic is the all-out assault on our national psyche. Each time we enter a new election cycle truth, reason and common sense become casualties. As the darker side of our leaders emerges it’s as if a wet blank has been dumped on the nation’s mood. There’s very little to uplift and all you read and hear depresses.

We are ostensibly in a democratic dispensation, but never has there been a more anti-democratic temper in the land. Before our very eyes hard worn freedoms are being rolled back by temporary occupants of powerful offices, and Nigerians who are notorious ‘shock absorbers’ are casually taking it in their stride.

Today, the most dangerous thing you can hold is not a gun but a contrary opinion. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo in his famous epistle to his erstwhile protégé, President Goodluck Jonathan, raised disturbing questions about the actions of this administration.

Rather than limiting his response to the substance of the letter he received, he veered off into name-calling, bald insinuations and topped it by labelling Obasanjo’s missive a threat to national security.

Several weeks before the letter-writing saga began this same administration accused the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) of treason – nothing less – over some statement the party issued!

Ever since there has been no let-up in the flood of tirades and threats from ethnic champions and jobbers falling over themselves to attack anyone who dared criticise the powers-that-be. All this is coming at a time when even Popes are becoming leery of laying claim to infallibility.

A few days ago, former Minister for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nasir El-Rufai, was hauled in by agents of the State Security Service (SSS) for making “inciting statements.” Apparently, at some forum in Abuja last week he had predicted that the 2015 elections could be bloody in parts of the country and many would lose their lives.

With what is going in Rivers State today it is hard to see how that comment can faulted. Already, people are being beaten and bloodied for belonging to the “wrong political camp.” The continuing assault on gatherings of supporters of Governor Rotimi Amaechi by the police and hired thugs is a matter of public record. A senator, Magnus Abe, is recuperating in London after his body stopped rubber bullets allegedly shot by the police at one of the aborted rallies.

Without any sense of shame, the Rivers State police command willingly provides security cover whenever the governor’s foes hold their own events. Mbu Joseph Mbu who presides over this partisan detachment of the “Nigerian Police,” is often quick with the mealy-mouthed response about Amaechi’s supporters not obtaining a police permit.

The Police force is chock full of lawyers who cannot claim ignorance of the fact that both the

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HE occasion was this year’s Armed Forces Remembrance Day Celebration held at the National Christian Centre, Abuja. It was another opportunity for President Goodluck Jonathan to work out his boiling rage at elders behaving badly.

Once he had the microphone in his grasp, the President said: “Sometimes I get worried when I listen to provocative statements that come from very senior citizens. People that ordinarily you perceive are very senior citizens. People who are probably 70 or 80 years who have seen it all and who ordinarily should know the unity of this country is more important than the interest of any individual.

“Sometimes they preach hate and even encourage young people to carry arms and kill themselves.”

Narrow that down to one elderly letterwriter who maintains a residence on one of Abeokuta’s many hilltops. I was certain there was no other sinner in this category.

But this last week I suddenly remembered the presidential rebuke after reading the latest incendiary intervention in our national discourse by his political godfather and former Federal Commissioner for Information, Chief Edwin Clark.

2015: Every opinion is treasonable

dent was at his preachy best – flaying Nigerian politicians for not imbibing the virtues of the great statesman. Sadly, he too has not been preaching what he preaches. Mandela would not have allowed what is playing out in Rivers – i.e. giving winking approval for the police to abuse their powers in one corner of the country – just because it suits him politically.

In reaction to the crisis in Rivers APC has now directed its lawmakers in the National Assembly to block budget passage and ministerial confirmation. The Presidency and PDP have responded by accusing the opposition of seeking to truncate democracy. Jonathan’s voluble Political Adviser, Ahmed Gulak, regurgitated the usual line about “playing politics with everything.” Talk about hypocrisy!

What is Jonathan doing by allowing the situation in Rivers to fester if not playing politics?

What is he doing with his new cabinet selection if not placing pawns on the 2015 political chess board? If the president as incumbent has power to manipulate the police and armed forces for his own ends, the opposition are within their rights to deploy their limited and new-fangled The World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, with the “wonderful” president of Nigeria. Then her pull in the National Assembly Switzerland is not the sort of place you would expect to fans began pointing out that Jonathan just signed a to full advantage. find famous Hollywood actress Goldie Hawn. While tough new anti-gay law. The blonde bombshell beat a It happens everywhere. Late the world’s political and business leaders were thinking speedy retreat. last year the American governof how to salvage the global economy, she busied herself Claiming ignorance of the havoc wrought by Jonathan’s ment shutdown because the Reon a panel discussing “meditation.” But the high point pen against homosexuals, she said: “I am deeply publicans who controlled the of her trip would come when she met President embarrassed. Had no idea of this and was not informed!

Goodluck Jonathan. Charmed and starstruck, she Thank you. This is a horror story!” Just a tiny illustration House of Representatives used immediately took to Twitter to report her encounter of the power of the gay community in the West. their numerical clout to frustrate a budget deal until the most Federal High Court and Court of Appeal have the police carry guns funded by taxpayers on powerful president on earth cut a compromise ruled that Nigerians do not need a police permit whom – in cruel irony – they are now turning with them. American democracy was not demolto enjoy what is their constitutional right. Lagos them in groveling service of their current masished just because of the two-week plus showdown. lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN) has written a treatise ters.

In the same manner Nigeria’s faux democracy on this referring to the rulings of Justice Gloria Of course, it suits the Jonathan’s political will survive any clashing of heads between the Chinyere on a 2006 suit filed by the defunct All agenda to destabilise his political foe and to keep APC and PDP. Indeed, in an environment like ours Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), as well as a subse- Rivers in ferment until 2015 in the hope that this where presidents want to reign like monarchs, quent ruling on the same matter by Justice will enable him take the state. It is the selfish only such confrontations can bring them to heel.

Olufunke Adekeye formerly of the Court of Ap- thing to do but is it the patriotic thing?

If this is the only way to get Jonathan’s attenpeal.

The stakes are high and nothing short of outtion to sort out the mess in Rivers, then the oppoThis is supposedly a democratic dispensation right victory will do for either side. That sets the sition deserves the applause of all true patriots. yet court rulings are either ignored or disobeyed stage for violence and bloodshed in a commuwithout consequences. This is the sort of sick sys- nity with a background for militancy, and where tem that our leaders are proud to preside over there is mounting evidence that politicians are and bequeath to those who will come after them. amassing arms for the coming showdown.

EW Chief of Defence Staff, Air Marshall Unfortunately, this lawlessness, this blatant The week the world mourned former South Alexander Badeh, must be a man with a rape of the constitution continues apace because African leader Nelson Mandela, our own presimagic wand. Bursting with excitement last week, he served notice to the Islamist Boko Haram sect that their days were numbered. He specifically pronounced April the month when the curtains would be drawn on the insurgent Among other things he declared that after their voices being repulsive to their Maker, He saga in the North East.

Ordinarily, such a positive declaration should late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the Yorubas had most certainly responded to their cries for delivelicit three hearty cheers. At the same time I am no leader and the likes of former Lagos State erance. discomfited by this business of deadlines – espeGovernor, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu were wasting cially when it has to do with a group that has their time thinking they could play the part. defied all obituary notices over the years.

He then rounded on all those criticising When the air campaign at the start of the curJonathan’s second term bid. They were, he derent emergency was launched we were assured it clared with celestial certainty, fighting God! was only a matter of time. But like an irritant Clark is at liberty to speak for the Ijaws and PDP cockroach the sect just refuses to go away. on this matter, but he’ll be presuming too much In fact, the last time President Jonathan sugby appointing himself heaven’s spokesperson. gested whilst on an overseas trip that the group Accusing the president’s critics of being would be crushed within three months, its leader against God is not only cheap religious blackAbubakar Shekau replied with counter threats mail, it just betrays ignorance. Truly, God can that were soon followed by a period of unprecallow situations and circumstances to cause the edented bloodletting. most unlikely persons to occupy the thrones of Rather than setting unrealistic deadlines and nations, but the Scriptures are also replete with targets against a foe we are yet to fully undercases of people whom God enthroned but later stand, it would pay the new security leadership toppled after they departed from His ways. better investigate why the might of the Nigerian God enthroned Saul, Solomon and armed forces has not been able to quell the insurNebuchadnezzer to name just a few. When they gency. When we have the right answers, peace went bad the Almighty kicked them out. There will descend on region – and Badeh would not would have been an abundance of critics of these need a press conference to announce it. deviant rulers in their final days. Rather than •Clark

Badeh’s war cry

Clark speaks for heaven

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 26, 2014

Fresh intrigues over Ekiti PDP governorship ticket PAGES 20

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PAGE 25

PAGE 21

•Justice Alooma Muktar (CJN)

•Mohammed Abubakar (IGP)

Obi’s emergence as APGA leader, BOT chairman illegal – Ufomba

North remains home of power in Nigeria - Aruwa

•Lamido Sanusi (CBN governor)

2015: Time runs out for game changers

HEY could determine the next President of Nigeria. For political analysts and observers, they are the game changers.

With them, the pendulum could swing in any direction. These game changers are the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Inspector of General of Police (IGP).

No president can emerge without their active inputs and cooperation, some experts have said.

A test of Jega’s resolve Of the lots, only the INEC chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, is guaranteed of remaining in office when the 2015 elections hold. Jega, who was appointed on June 8, 2010 as the nation’s electoral umpire, is entitled to renewable five-year tenure. This means he won’t be considered for replacement until June 2015.

Certain key office holders will be making way for their successors in 2014. Sunday Oguntola considers how the vacancies and successors may well determine the outcomes of the 2015 polls But even Jega’s ability to conduct credible elections has been dealt a serious blow with the fiasco in the just-concluded Anambra governorship poll. The poll was characterised by all manner of irregularities, starting from name omissions in voters’ list to alleged ballot-stuffing, violence, logistical challenges, inconclusive voting and cancelled votes.

All of these forced the commission to declare the poll inconclusive, leading to a supplementary election in 16 local government areas. The 16 councils were Aguata, Awka North, Awka South, Anambra East, Anambra West, Ayamelum, Anaocha, Ekwusigo,

Idemili North and Idemili South. Others were Ihiala, Nnewi South, Onitsha North, Onitsha South, Orumba North and Oyi. At the end of the disputed supplementary election, widely boycotted by voters, INEC declared as winner, Willie Obiano of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) amid serious protestations by opposition parties.

Several interest groups, including students and women also held protest marches against the charade. Jega admitted the elections were fraught with serious challenges, blaming it on some

compromised staff of the commission.

That outing has fuelled fears that the country might be heading to electoral nightmares in 2015.

Jega did not inspire much hope himself. Last week, he told Nigerians not to expect a perfect poll in 2015. Speaking during a courtesy visit to the commission’s headquarters in Abuja by the United States Ambassador to Nigeria, James Entwistle, Jega said: “We are not promising perfect elections in 2015 but we are confident that we will do better than we did in 2011”.

To Nigerians, that was an admit-

tance of failure before the litmus test.

So even though Jega is sure to conduct the general elections, barring unforeseen natural exigencies, many are already insinuating the Anambra debacle will be replicated across the nation.

Anambra, they said, was a testing ground for what might happen in 2015. This is more so because President Goodluck Jonathan will be seeking reelection.

Though the President is yet to formally declare, many believe he is already poised to win every critical agency to his side to achieve his ambition. With INEC’s independence a constant source of suspicion due to the President’s exclusive power to appoint its Chairman, some political observers believe Jega will be easily swayed to spin the results in Jonathan’s favour, should the needs

•Continued on Page 20

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 26, 2014

POLITICS

Fresh intrigues over Ekiti PDP governorship ticket With the emergence of Alhaji Adamu Muazu as the new National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the race for the party’s 2014 governorship ticket has taken a new twist, reports Assistant Editor, Remi Adelowo

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HE recent declaration by President Goodluck Jonathan that he has not anointed any candidate as the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in this year’s Ekiti State governorship election, coupled with the emergence of Alhaji Adamu Muazu as the new National Chairman of the party have become the game changer in Ekiti State.

It would be recalled that some months ago, the President, who was the National Leader of the PDP, suggested that instead of the expensive and chaos – causing primaries, the Ekiti PDP should adopt the consensus approach to choose its flag bearer.

Acting on this advice, the Makanjuola Ogundipe-led State Executive Committee named some members into the Consensus Screening Committee.

But a faction of the executive, loyal to an ex-governor of the state and a governorship aspirant, Mr. Ayo Fayose, and led by the secretary, Dr. Tope Aluko, cried blue murder.

Alleging that Ogundipe acted alone in constituting the committee, the faction subsequently suspended Ogundipe from the party.

At a point during the crisis, Ogundipe escaped death by the whiskers when hoodlums, allegedly sponsored by one of the factions, descended on the party secretariat on July 16, and thereafter called a press conference on July 23 to announce the suspension of Fayose and his loyalists in the state executive council. But Ogundipe would however not be cowed.

As if that was not enough, 16 of the gubernatorial aspirants asked that Fayose’s suspension be ratified by national secretariat of the PDP. Those who supported this move were

Surveyor Abiodun Aluko, Senator Bode Olowoporoku, Navy Captain Caleb Olubolade (rtd), Senator Ayo Arise, Hon. Aribisala Adewale, Otunba O. O. Akerele, Prof. Adesegun Ojo, Amb. Dare Bejide, Rt. Hon. Femi Bamisile, Rt. Hon. Odeyemi Tunji and Prince Dayo Adeyeye.

Others are Mr. Bodunde Adeyanju, Chief Obafemi Peters, Hon. Ropo Ogunbolude, Pharm.

Bimbo Owolabi and Dr. Kunle Afolayan.

But to the displeasure of the aspirants, the erstwhile National Chairman ignored them and continued to act as a political godfather to Fayose.

The Nation gathered that while the exit of Tukur has created a panic in Fayose’s camp, other aspirants are happy about the development.

Their optimism was further buoyed by the new National Chairman’s pledge to guarantee free and fair primaries to select the party’s candidates at all levels.

The popular opposition against Fayose was not the only thing that would catch Muazu’s attention in Ekiti. Until recently, the Minister of Police Affairs, Navy Captain Caleb Olubolade (retd) had allegedly prided himself the President’s anointed candidate.

He was once quoted as saying the Ekiti PDP primaries would just be mere formality as his candidacy had been sealed and delivered.

Fayose, like Olubolade, also claimed he was the anointed of Aso Rock. The former governor had allegedly boasted that the run–in he had with former President Olusegun Obasanjo some years back will work in his favour, as the President sees in him an asset that will deliver at crunch time.

He was also alleged to have said that Presi-

•Ogundipe

dent Jonathan knows that if he (Fayose) was made the governor, the influence of Obasanjo in Southwest PDP would be curtailed. The former governor was quoted as saying in Yoruba: “Omo buruku l’ojo tie” meaning literally that a ‘bad boy can be useful sometimes’.

Expectedly, the open declaration by Jonathan that he had not anointed anyone was good news in the ears of many of the aspirants.

Some weeks ago, The Nation gathered that the President presided over a meeting with some of the party’s aspirants at the Presidential Villa.

Those in attendance included Prince Dayo Adeyeye, Senator Gbenga Aluko, Fayose, Olubolade (rtd), Chief Bisi Omoyeni and Chief Abiodun Aluko, to mention but a few.

The initial number of aspirants vying for the PDP ticket was close to 30. Sources however disclosed Jonathan met with only 10. Absent at the meeting were Senator Ayo Arise, a former Deputy Governor of the state, Mrs. Abiodun Olujimi and Ambassador Dare Bejide. Also absent were Mr. Bodunde Adeyanju, Otunba

Reuben Famuyibo, Dr. Peter Obafemi, Mr. Segun Olanrewaju and Mr. Davies Olaosebikan.

It is not clear the criteria used in picking those who met with the President.

The Zoning Policy Another bone of contention within the Ekiti PDP is the zoning policy. This is against the backdrop of agitation by Ekiti South Senatorial District that it should be allowed to produce the party’s candidate.

A few days ago, a political pressure group, The Coalition for Fairness, Justice and Equity said in a statement that it would be unfair on the part of the people of the state to remain nonchalant over the alleged lopsidedness of political power in Ekiti State.

Since the return of democratic rule in 1999, the South and Central senatorial districts had produced governors. In 1999, Chief Niyi Adebayo was elected the governor. He is from Ekiti Central. In 2003, Mr. Ayo Fayose took over from him. Fayose, like Adebayo is from Ekiti Central Senatorial District.

After Fayose came Engr. Segun Oni, who hails from Ekiti North Senatorial District. .After Oni, Dr. Kayode Fayemi came in. Fayemi, like Oni, is from Ekiti North.

Aspirants from the South zone are now telling those who care to listen that the zone does not lack capable candidates who can rule the state. They readily reel out names like Senator Gbenga Aluko, Prince Dayo Adeyeye, Chief Bisi Omoyeni and Chief Biodun Aluko.

The Nation gathered that the consensus among major stakeholders in the Ekiti PDP is for the party to limit its search to any of the candidates from the Ekiti South Senatorial district as doing otherwise would be courting political disaster.

With the state governorship election just about five months away, the race for who wins the PDP governorship ticket has indeed begun.

2015: Time runs out for game changers •Continued from Page 19 arise.

But supporters of Jega say he is an uncompromising, incorruptible umpire whose pedigree as an ex-ASUU President has remained constant.

But Jega will be faced with a massive moral burden should the opposition present a Northern presidential candidate.

The Kebbi-born former Vice Chancellor of the Bayero University, Kano (BUK) might be torn between favouring a president, who appointed himself as INEC chairman, or acting against one of his own. Going against one of his kinsmen will mean acting against Northern interest, a price not many are willing to pay. It is a dilemma that will stretch the moral fabric of Jega and test his conscience in no small measure.

Will Jega allow the ruling party’s rigging machinery to run unhindered during and after the elections, simply looking away? Will he move against any such move and write his name in gold? One will have to wait till 2015 to know where the chief electoral umpire will pitch his tent.

Crucial, game-changing vacancies The other office occupiers, Justice Aloma Muktar (CJN); Lamido Sanusi (CBN governor) and Mohammed Abubakar (IGP) will be leaving in 2014. Muktar, the first female CJN, was sworn in on July 16, 2012. She was 68. Born 20 November 1944, the nation’s judicial head will be due for retirement in 2014 upon attainment of the mandatory 70 years for service. This means in the event of an electoral dispute arising from the 2015 elections, Muktar will no longer be around to head the Supreme Court.

Who replaces Muktar?

The face of a modern, unbiased judge, Muktar demonstrated courage when, alongside Justices George Oguntade and Walter Onnoghen, she almost voided the outcome of the 2007 election that brought the late President Musa Yar’Adua and now President Jonathan to power.

While Justices Kutigi, Katsina-Alu, Niki Tobi and Dahiru Musdapher dismissed the appeal by then presidential candidate of the All Nigerian Peoples’ Party (ANPP), Muhammadu Buhari, Justices Mukhtar, George Oguntade and Onnoghen believed the election should be voided.

They maintained that the allegation of substantial non-compliance with the Electoral Act 2006 was proved by the petitioner. She also rejected an offer for an appointment as the Chief

Judge of The Gambia, a ploy many believe was to ease her out of the system and prevent her emergence as CJN. That she won’t be around to head the Supreme Court’s hearing of the anticipated electoral dispute in 2015 is already seen as a big minus by many political observers. With her, they claim it would have been possible to grind the rigging prowess of the ruling party and secure judicial redress.

With Jonathan vested with the powers to nominate the new CJN, there are fears that he could opt for someone who can watch his back, should electoral disputes become inevitable. The new CJN will emerge in December, few weeks to commencement of elections, a development that many say will further raise the stakes for the position.

The website of the Supreme Court lists Justices Mahmud Mohammed, Nkanu Onnoghen and Ibrahim Muhammad as the three leading in the apex court. Though seniority remains a major consideration for the CJN post, it is unknown if Jonathan will break away from the expected tradition or pick someone down the ladder, who is considered amenable.

Already, the appointment of Maj-Gen. Kenneth Tobiah Minimah as the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) also indicates seniority might not always be a consideration for Jonathan. The Rivers-born artillery soldier was picked ahead of 31 senior officers. Minimah is a Course 25 member of the Nigeria Defence Academy while his seniors in Course 22, 23 and 24 were overlooked.

Though the COAS is a political appointment with the President holding the ace, Minimah’s promotion is already generating ripples in the Army.

Those ahead of him are said to be preparing for voluntary retirement to avoid reporting to someone under them.

A military source claimed his appointment was to consolidate the President’s grip on soldiers during and after elections. At a recent Delta-Central Senatorial bye-election, electoral monitors alleged the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) used soldiers to intimidate voters in Ughelli North, Udu and Uvwie local government areas.

They claimed three Hilux vehicles brought soldiers to Okpe Local Government and snatched ballot boxes in favour of the PDP candidate. With Minimah, an Ijaw man, as the Army chief, observes say Jonathan has secured the backing of the military ahead of 2015.

Whether or not, he might shun the seniority

clause in the nomination of the next CJN remains to be seen. But what is without doubt is that the President will keep a serious interest in who becomes the CJN, knowing it might determine whether or not his election is ratified by the apex court in 2015.

Fishing for Sanusi’s successor If it were just down to Jonathan, CBN governor, Sanusi Lamido, should have left office this January. The President was left fuming by the former’s allegation that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had not remitted $49.8 billion of crude oil proceeds to the Federation Account. Sources in the Presidency believe Sanusi’s claim, which he later admitted as an error, was to discredit the administration and score cheap political points.

When Jonathan requested for the resignation of the bank chief, the Kano-born prince reportedly bluffed his call, saying only two-third of the senate can remove him. The tough-talking CBN boss has always insisted he won’t be available for a second term once his tenure expires on June 2.

For the Jonathan’s camp, June 2 is a long time. It is a day they wished would come in few hours. Investigations revealed Sanusi is treated as a repellent. He is believed to be working to undermine the government.

Last week, he was queried again for some questionable donations to opposition states. Presidential aides said the donations must have been to fund the activities of anti-Jonathan camps in the state. The donations include N4billion to Bayero University, Kano; N10 billion to Uthman Dan Fodio University, Sokoto; N500 million to the University of Benin and N100 million to the Kano State government. The donations considered ultra-vires were said to be outside the powers and functions of the CBN. All of these, as well as Sanusi’s outspokenness, have continued to ruffle feathers at the presidency.

Thankfully, from their perspective, Sanusi will finally bow out on June 2. For an incumbent president seeking reelection, the CBN top seat is too important to leave for someone who will not play according to dictates. The President’s re-election machinery requires heavy war chests to woo the mounting oppositions and win over crucial figures. In a political environment where money remains a big decider, the President will be interested in cashing in on every opportunity to oil his electioneering machinery.

With a sympathetic CBN governor, the coast

will be clear to have unfettered access to state funds for electioneering purposes. This consideration, it is believed, will influence the emergence of the next CBN governor, another appointment at the exclusive prerogative of the President.

IGP: To go or stay?

Mohammed Abubakar was made the Inspector General of Police on January 25, 2012 in acting capacity. His appointment was confirmed last year. He enlisted in the Nigeria Police Force on July 30, 1979, meaning he would have been in service for 35 years in 2014. Going by the statutory requirement, Abubakar should bow out of office this July. But this is hard to imagine.

Political analysts said he enjoys the support and confidence of the President. His handling of the Rivers crisis, where police have repeatedly smashed opposition rallies, they say, is a pointer to what he could do in the run-off to the 2015 polls.

The Force remains a critical component in elections. It provides security for voting materials, electoral officials and booths. Many believe the persistent allegations of rigging would have been no-issue had the Nigeria Police Force been up and doing.

The re-election bid of Jonathan means he would need a Police chief he can trust to provide covering and possibly look away should rigging become the only way out. Abubakar seems to have warmed his way to the President’s heart so far, going by how opposition figures have been hunted and shut out. Yet, the records suggest he should retire this July.

Will Jonathan allow him to go and enjoy a deserved rest, or will he accord him a tenure extension, much like former President Olusegun Obasanjo did to ex-police chief, Sunday Ehindero, to enable him watch over the contentious 2007 polls? The IGP remains in office at the pleasure of the President, just like other Service Chiefs. But what about attainment of mandatory 35 years in service? Or will Abubakar enjoy the favour Jonathan granted ex-Army Chief, Lt. Gen Azubuike Ihejirika, who stayed two, long years after he clocked 35 years in service?

How President Jonathan handles these vacancies will confirm how far he is bent on getting reelected come 2015.

To go before election • Chief Justice of Nigeria(CJN) • Central Bank of Nigeria(CBN) governor • Inspector General of Police

POLITICS

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 26, 2014

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North remains home of power in Nigeria - Aruwa Senator Mohammed Ahmed Aruwa represented Kaduna Central while in the upper legislative chamber and also contested the governorship of the state on the platform of All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP). In this interview with Tony Akowe, Aruwa, who is now a chieftain of People’s Democratic Party (PDP), gives reasons why President Goodluck Jonathan should contest the 2015 elections. Excerpts

A

LHAJI Bamanga Tukur has become a former chairman of PDP, having resigned his position due to pressure.

The PDP, particularly in the north, has lost four governors to the opposition APC, while the party has lost some of its lawmakers to the opposition. Do you think the departure of Bamanga Tukur will bring back peace to the PDP and place the party in a good position to win elections in 2015?

If we are talking about governors and members of the House of Representatives defecting, I want to say that they are not doing this for Tukur nor the PDP, but they are inviting chaos to the nation and it will affect every one of us. It is only in a country where there is no rule of law that you can take a mandate from party ‘A’ and transfer it to party ‘B’ without regard to the electorate and you expect democracy to succeed. So, when you talk about defection, you expect a ruling party to be in the minority through the whims and caprices of its own members and not the electorate.

I don’t think anyone of you should even give credence or support to such act, unless you all resolve that the military should come back. Act, can declare all those seats vacant.

Let us be honest and look at the problem of internal party democracy within the PDP vis-à-vis the leadership imposition by the same party. Don’t you think this is enough to encourage defection from the party?

No, I don’t think so. I thought we are being honest ab initio. So, the point of let us be honest doesn’t arise. Ab initio, we should be honest with ourselves. You will agree with me that internal democracy in all the political parties in Nigeria is lacking.

Yes, interest groups abound in all political parties. But no matter the problem, at the end of the day, you should sit as a family and resolve it. But where some insist that there will be no resolution, where do you go from there? This is the situation in the PDP at the moment. Yes, there are lapses on the part of the management of the PDP. But two wrongs cannot make a right.

The situation democracy finds itself in Nigeria, do you think it is proper and right for democracy?

You answer that. Here is a country that is yearning for democracy and the gladiators are not willing to resolve issues. Who will suffer for that? It is democracy that will suffer. Even with the fanfare in the media, there is a lopsided reportage about all issues. Leaders are bound to make mistakes, and followers are bound to read between the lines and see which is genuine, or deliberate. Nobody has the monopoly of knowledge, PDP inclusive. But that is not to say that 27 members of a 30-man state assembly will decide to change camp, leaving three of them on the platform that brought them into the house. Is there any sense in that democratically? Whoever the leader is ought to have stopped that because they are challenging democracy. Democracy doesn’t talk, but we should speak and talk on behalf of democracy. When we see anything wrong, we beat the drum and dance about it and the resultant consequences will spare no one of us. It is wrong for any

leader to think that people should defect to his side, remove 27 out of 30 members from a state assembly, expect not to be hacking on the fabric of democracy. I don’t think it’s right.

We were there when you were received into the PDP with a lot fanfare and high expectations. Yakowa, who received you into the party, is no longer alive. Today, we have a new governor and there are lots of complaints by critical stakeholders within the party in the state that they have been edged out. Do you still feel very welcome in the PDP under this government?

First of all, I must tell you that I didn’t go to the PDP for compromise. It is out of shear volition and the need to unit and not divide. The proliferation of political parties in the country is an instrument of division. So, I felt like belonging to the majority party that is ruling in the north and by extension Nigeria. I looked at the political set up in Nigeria and only in the north, we have pockets of political parties. I know for sure in the South-West there is only one party; other parties only poach wherever they are. But in the north we are divided not only by political differences, but also by religious differences and tribes. This is my number one reason for going to the PDP. I did not go there as an archeologist or an auditor to audit qualities and proprieties of the personalities that are already in that office. I cannot tell you that I’m evaluating the qualities of Namadi or anybody else.

But as a party, I can tell you where I believe that the PDP needs to make amends in order to satisfy some of its members. I belong to the PDP now and I will be there forever, even if I’ll be the only one. I can assure you that unless you bring angels from heaven, the PDP will still rule come 2015. I’m very much welcome in the party. When I said the PDP needs to make amends, I was talking frankly because some of the office holders in the party have distanced themselves from the electorate.

Many northern elders and some members of the PDP from the north are disappointed with the PDP government in Nigeria and want the presidential seat to come back to the north. If the PDP gives the ticket to President Goodluck Jonathan and another party gives its ticket to a northern candidate, what will be the fate of the northern candidate?

That scenario has happened before, and on two or three occasions, the nonnortherner won. I don’t believe that the north should go out of its way and fight because they want to govern this country.

I will say it without any regret and will say it again that the home of power in Nigeria remains in the north. There is no question about it because democracy is about num-

•Aruwa

bers and election is about numbers. Whoever is ruling today, even Jonathan, I don’t think he got to where he is without at least 25% of votes both from the north and south.

Make no mistake, no southerner can be president without northerners and no northerner can become president without southerners. So, I don’t support the idea that any northerner should go over his head fighting that power should come here. We have a country that belongs to all of us. We have a non-northerner ruling today and it’s likely that next time, it will be a northerner.

It should be allowed that natural movement. But to force your way just because you are a majority is not part of democracy because democracy still requests that you protect the interest of the minority. So, now a southerner is ruling and eventually, it will come to the north and at that time, you can now block it from going out. But don’t say you will force your way and that it must be now. If the northerners believe that is the way to run the government or democracy, constitutional democracy for that matter, then goodluck to you. But that is not the fight we should embark on. We should work towards reuniting the nation, working together. That’s what democracy is all about. It’s not about you because you have the number.

What is your take on the position of northerners based on what they said concerning the so-called gentleman agreement on rotational presidency vis-à-vis their perception that the president wants to renege on what

“But the issue of governor to me is a function of age. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again that at 64, I have no business in the government house. I can always advise those in government house. But I may run for the senate, but definitely not the governorship.”

they agreed upon in 2011 for him to run for a single term?

Democratically, it is wrong for them to go into such an agreement. If they are guided by the constitution, they need not talk about that so-called agreement which as far as I’m concerned, is verbal and you’re not a witness to it and the electorate did not witness it. All those northern elders, I don’t care if they escort the earth to the world, none of them can present a copy of that agreement.

They only talk about a non-existent agreement. Even if it exists, it is not democratic.

The constitution provides for two terms and the Electoral Act also provides for two terms.

So, the electorate are the only one that can deny you two terms and give you one term or even recall you if need be. So, who gave those elders the mandate to negotiate this non-existing agreement? I don’t know if you have seen it. You are a journalist and I don’t know if anybody has shown you that agreement. Let me draw your attention to the fact that, sometimes, you members of the press are the problems of our polity. Jonathan inherited two years from Umaru Yar’adua of blessed memory. Jonathan agitated for a sixyear single term. The term he was referring to is the two years he finished for Yar’adua and the four years he is serving now. But we said no. Can you recall the time he was agitating for a six-year single term? Where was our head at that time? Were our heads over our shoulders or were they somewhere else? But now we have said no to a six-year single term and seem to have forgotten that he has a constitutional right to re-contest.

There is nowhere in the constitution that the law bans him from contesting, and he saw it fit to give it a trial. It is your votes that will decide whether Jonathan becomes president or not.

You spoke confidently about the PDP winning the 2015 elections despite the crisis it is going through right now. What is your justification for this?

As a member of the PDP, it is good for me to see my party win the 2015 election and I don’t think there is anything wrong in that. In 2011,

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 26, 2014

POLITICS

Imo PDP: Ararume’s guber ambition alters calculation

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ITH the return of Senator Ifeanyi Ararume into the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) early in the year and his interest in the 2015 Imo State governorship race, political calculations within the party in the state appear to have been significantly altered.

Before the return of the frontline politician, spin doctors in the party had thought the race for the governorship will be a race among interested aspirants from Owerri zone chiefs among who are the current Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Emeka Ihedioha and National Women Leader of the party, Dr. Kema Chikwe.

This, according to party sources, was because of perceived absence of any strong aspirant from the Okigwe zone of the state in spite of the zone’s clamour that one of its own should be allowed to return to the Government House and complete its second term of four years.

The zone’s argument, sources said, is premised on the assumption that the inability of former Governor Ikedi Ohakim to win his re-election bid in 2011 short-changed the zone by preventing it from governing the state for eight years that would have equated the two four-year terms spent in office by Orlu zone when Chief Achike Udenwa ruled the state between 1999 and 2003.

Senator Sylvester Anyanwu, Ohakim and Senator Mathew Nwagwu are some of the names that has been propping up as aspirants from the zone for the 2015 governorship election within the PDP. But political pundits, as well as opinion leaders within the party, have written most of them off as too weak politically to confront Governor Rochas Okorocha.

Also, quite a number of party leaders in the state are of the opinion that the people of Okigwe zone blew their chance in 2011 by allowing Okorocha from Orlu zone to snatch power from them. It is also a popular opinion within the party that it will be unfair to the Owerri zone that has been waiting in the wings for nearly two decades to wait for another four years while Okigwe goes again.

Consequently, politicians from Owerri zone were encouraged to come all out for the position with a near assurance that the party will zone its governorship ticket to the zone without much ado.

And notable politicians from the zone were seen as the front runners in the race for the PDP 2015 governorship ticket. Aside Ihedioha and Chikwe, other notable PDP chieftains from the zone being fingered as governorship aspirants include former Interior Minister, Emmanuel Iheanacho and a frontline financier of the party in the state, Chief Jerry Chukwueke.

But with the recent return of Ararume to the party three years after he defected to the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), party chieftains are once again looking in the direction of Okigwe zone in their bid to decide where the PDP guber ticket should go in 2015.

Ararume, who announced his return to the party with a ceremony that was witnessed by the likes of the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Chief Emeka Ihedioha, Senator Arthur Nzeribe and his wife, Senate Committee Chairman on Aviation, Senator Hope Uzodiimma, Hon. Bethel Amadi, National Women Leader of the party, Dr. Kema Chikwe, South-East zonal chairman of the PDP, Col. Austin Akobundu (rtd), outgoing State Chairman of the party, Chief Eze Duruiheoma (SAN), state Secretary, George Uzoma Eguh, a former Managing Director of the Daily Times, Chief Innocent Okparadike, former Speaker of the Imo State House of Assembly, Chief Kelechi Nwagwu, among others, has not left anyone in doubt that his coming to the party is to contest the governorship election in 2015.

While saying he returned to the party

Senator Ifeanyi Ararume’s interest in the governorship ticket of Imo State chapter of Peoples Democratic Party is causing ripples within the party, reports Assistant Editor, Dare Odufowokan

•Ararume to contribute his part to building the party at all levels, he expressed optimism that with his re-entry, the feat the party recorded during elections between 1999 and 2007 would be repeated. He then asked for the support of all party chieftains and members to enable him achieve his desires for the party.

And it appears the prominent chieftains of the party are fast catching the Ararume bug, creating a fast spreading impression within the party that he may get the governorship ticket in 2015 as a compensation for the many injustices he allegedly suffered in the hands of the party leadership before his defection.

A leader of the party, who spoke to The Nation on condition of anonymity, said Ararume’s return to the party was a product of efforts by party leaders to reposition the PDP in Imo State back to its election winning ways.

“His return to the PDP is not by chance.

Ararume is a politician with a big weight in Imo politics. Having him outside the party was a big loss all these years and we all knew that. What has been the lot of the PDP since he left? We lost our wining magic and that is what we want back.

“The insinuations that he may be given the party’s guber ticket in 2015 are not all lies. Apart from the fact that he deserves it as a politician who can deliver electoral victory, it is also important to note that the party cannot ignore the agitation of Okigwe zone for an opportunity to complete our own second term.

“You recall that Ararume left the party as a result of the injustice meted out to him in the 2007 Governorship Election in Imo State. What happened was the height of injustice and a barefaced act of anti-party activity against a fellow member of the party. That injustice must be redressed. A situation where the

•Ihedioha then President, Chief Obasanjo, arrived Imo State with the National Executives and declared that the PDP did not have a candidate in the election was a barefaced act of anti-party activity.

“This obnoxious decision was handed out on the party, in spite of the judgment of the Supreme Court that Ararume was the governorship candidate of the PDP in that election. A situation where members of a political party were asked to vote against a member of the party is very absurd and reeks of dictatorship. This kind of imposition is not known to democracy; it’s the height of anti-party act and the party must take cognizance of all these now that Ararume has returned to the party,” our source, a state executive member of the party, said.

Also, the State Legal Adviser of PDP in Imo State, C.O.C. Akaolisa, was recently quoted as saying there is need for the party to revisit all the injustices meted out to Ararume before his defection.

“The fact that Ararume has returned to the party in spite of that provocation shows that he is a good man. As the State Legal Adviser of the party, I will advise that this injustice meted out to Ararume should be revisited with a view to have it redressed because he who goes to equity must go with clean hands.

“Now that Ararume is back to the party, it behooves the party to ensure that whatever rights that are due to him and his supporters are given to them in full without any reservations. The party will make further clarification on this development as events unfold,” Akaolisa reportedly said.

But it is not all chieftains of the party that are at ease with the alleged subtle move to hand Ararume the party’s ticket.

From the Owerri zone and other sections of the state, some organisations, party leaders and members are preparing to shoot

down the alleged plan.

Recently,the Owerri People’s Front (OPF) organised a programme in Owerri, the Imo State capital, to remind party leaders of the need for them to consider the agitation of the people of Owerri zone for the governorship with all seriousness.

Speaking at the event, Ihedioha, who was represented by his Special Adviser on Special Duties, Mr. Ernest Ibejiako, described the agitation as noble and justifiable. He said he is committed to any move to ensure that Owerri Senatorial Zone produced the governor come 2015.

He urged the people of the zone to be selfless and not be deterred by materialism and pressure from the enemies of progress in the pursuit of the project, pointing out that the injustice against the zone would be a thing of the past should people support the cause of OPF in actualising the mandate.

On her part, Chikwe lamented that Imo State had been producing emergency governors since 1999 because of the inability of the people to do the right thing by supporting credible and qualified candidates because, according to her, the character of a governor was a combination of so many factors.

The former ambassador said for the state to move forward, Owerri Zone must produce the governor of the state in 2015 in the interest of justice and fair play. She, however, urged the people of the zone to see the issue as a serious business, which required the commitment of all and sundry.

While insisting that the group will move against any attempt to give the ticket to a candidate from another zone, the Chairman of OPF, Mr. Ebere Chukwuemeka, explained that it is time for the party to correct the imbalance in the leadership of the state since 1999. He said the group will continue to enlighten the people on why the zoning formula in the state must be respected.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 26, 2014

POLITICS

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Tribute to Seriake Dickson at 48

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HEN the literary giant, William Shakespeare, opined that some people are born great, others achieve greatness, while others have greatness thrust upon them, he had the likes of the Bayelsa State Governor, Hon. Henry Seriake Dickson, at heart. The governor’s odyssey in life since his birth shows that he is a naturally born great man. This is not to say there were no vicissitudes at the period of his birth and boyhood which worked to no avail to deny humanity this rare gift.

On Tuesday, January 28, the Valentine Governor, who we fondly call the country-man, will clock 48 years. Having survived a lot of battles, especially in the political space, one would have expected the governor to roll out the drums to celebrate with pomp but he has refused to mark the day. To the consternation of many of his aides and government officials, the governor banned congratulatory messages on his birthday and advised those who wish to do so to channel their resources to charity organisations and orphanage homes.

But Dickson’s pronouncement didn’t come as a surprise to me because he was simply living up to his conviction as a country-man! Typical of the Restoration Governor, he will be on ground on Tuesday to attend to files, hold meetings and intensify his inspection of projects to ensure that they are executed in line with specifications and global standards.

Dickson’s 48th birthday comes up 17 days before his government’s second anniversary, which is precisely on February 14, Valentine Day. In less than two years on the saddle, Dickson has changed the governance culture in Bayelsa State, making the fear of God, service delivery, uncommon courage, transparency and accountability the cornerstones of his administration. The multiplier effect of this philosophy is the ongoing massive transformation in all sectors. While the church in Nigeria celebrates Dickson as the only governor that promulgated a Thanksgiving Day law by setting aside November 2 of every year as Thanksgiving Day in Bayelsa State, not many Nigerians know that the countryman remains the only governor in Nigeria that renders account of stewardship to the people on a monthly basis in a town hall meeting where the accruals to the state, IGR and expenditure are laid bare for public scrutiny.

In the last 22 months, over 350 kilometres of roads have been completed across the state, 15 bridges were constructed and over 50 public buildings/ schools completed, the secretariat of the Traditional Rulers Council in Yenagoa, a modern Police Officers’ Mess, School of Tourism and Catering Management have been completed. Rehabilitation of the Glory Land Cultural Centre and the Government House Clinic, among others, are now completed and are being put to use.

Road linking the old and new campuses of the state-owned Niger Delta University at Amassoma has also been completed.

Top among the ongoing projects are the airport project in Yenagoa, Commercial Cassava/ Starch Processing Factory at Ebidebri and two strategic flyovers on Isaac Boro Expressway, Yenagoa.

When completed, they will be the first flyovers ever built in Bayelsa State while the Drug Mart/ Pharmaceutical Store undergoing construction is the first of its kind in Nigeria. Work on the 27km road from Igbogene to Bayelsa Palm and the expanded Elebele – Opolo and OpoloImiringi roads have reached advance stages. Others are the Ogbia-Nembe road, the dualisation of 18 roads and two outer ring roads, three new secretariat annexes, state archives, Museum, Language Centre, Governor and Deputy Governors’ Office complexes.

Indeed, Dickson seems to be in a hurry to turn the oil-rich Bayelsa to Dubai. This may have prompted many international figures like Reverend Jesse Jackson to visit Yenagoa while investors throng Bayelsa State to explore the investment opportunities. Interestingly, Yenagoa, the state capital, has played host to so many national and international events more than ever before. Top among them were the Jazz International Festival and the Most

By Francis Agbo Beautiful Girl in Nigeria award.

But as far as I am concerned, the most laudable achievement of the restoration government is not the ongoing infrastructural revolution but the prevalence of social justice in Bayelsa. This was made possible because of the person of Dickson and the autonomy the judiciary enjoys in the last 20 months, as the judiciary gets its funding through first line charge, eliminating the scenario where many Chief Judges go cap-inhand to governors begging for funding!

Born on the 28th January, 1966 in the riverine Toru- Orua in Sagbama Local Government Area of Bayelsa State to the family of Mr and Mrs Nanaye Dickson of Orua, a descendant of the famous King Kpadia Royal House of Tarakiri Kingdom, Dickson is also a descendant of the renowned Obu warrior family of Orua whose trademark is valour, bravery and honour.

Dickson attended Kolobiriowei Primary School, Toru-Orua from 1972 to 1978 where he got his First School Leaving Certificate and proceeded to the Government Secondary School, Toru-Ebeni between 1978 and 1983 and obtained his West African School Certificate (WASC/GCE). He joined the Nigeria Police Force in 1986 to raise money to further his education, because his parents could no longer cater for his schooling. He gained admission in 1988 to the Rivers State University of Science and Technology, Port Harcourt to study Law from where he graduated with LL.B (HONS.) in 1992. He then proceeded, in 1993, to earn his Barrister at Law from the Nigeria Law School, Lagos and was called to the Nigerian Bar the same year.

He was Cadet Assistant Superintendent of Police in 1994 but withdrew his service to start legal practice in Port Harcourt where he worked with Serena David Dokubo & Co. He was an associate solicitor from 1994 to 1995 and moved to Aluko & Oyebode, a prominent law firm in Lagos, in a similar position.

In 1996, he founded Seriaka Dickson & Co, a law firm in Port-Harcourt and later Yenagoa. He was elected pioneer Publicity Secretary, Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Bayelsa State Chapter, a position he held from 1996 to 1998.

In 1998 when all the bigwigs in Bayelsa were either in the PDP or the APP (later ANPP), Dickson chose to pitch his tent with the Alliance for Democracy (AD) and was elected its chairman between 1998 and 2000 and led the party to winning all the elections in Bayelsa West Senatorial District. Indeed, Bayelsa State was the only state the party recorded such a victory outside the core Yorubaspeaking states. The party apparatchik rewarded him by elevating him to the post of National Legal Adviser between 2000 and 2002.

He was equally elected the National Legal Adviser of the foremost pan-Ijaw sociocultural and political group, the Ijaw National Congress (INC), from 2001 to 2003. He became a member of the National Executive Committee (NEC), Nigeria Bar Association, between 2004 and 2006.

The crisis in the defunct AD, coupled with his desire to help President Goodluck Jonathan who was deputy governor at the time to succeed the incumbent governor, Chief DSP Alamiesiegha, forced Dickson to join the PDP in 2005 and became the founding Secretary of Jonathan’s political group, Green Movement, in 2006. Dickson was appointed the Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice of Bayelsa State in 2006 by the then governor, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, following the exit of Alamiesiegh.

Since the golden fish has no hiding place, Dickson was elected member, representing Sagbama/Ekeremor Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives. He served as the Chairman, House Committee on Justice.

He was re-elected in 2011 but resigned after he was elected governor. In appreciation of his service to his community, Dickson was conferred with the prestigious title, Olokodau of Orua Kingdom. The Tarakiri High Chief

Jonathan engages the reverse gear

O

is also the Edi 1 (pillar) of Ogbia Kingdom.

As a lawmaker, he sponsored so many critical bills which have been passed into law and played a key role in the successes recorded by the sixth National Assembly. But what is not often remembered about Dickson and for which he has not received sufficient encomium was his role in the passage of the Freedom of Information Bill at the National Assembly where he served as the Vice Chairman of the FOIB harmonisation committee and his delivery of an entire senatorial district to the AD in 1998 as well as his amendment of the Evidence Act, the first ever since 1954.

The lesson from Dickson’s story is, if this man, who did not see a vehicle until he was 18 years, could work so hard to be governor, then there are limitless opportunities for all Bayelsans to achieve their dreams if they take advantage of the enabling environment created by the restoration government. If Dickson keeps sycophants at bay and sustains his service delivery, Bayelsa will continue to be a cynosure in Nigeria! Happy birthday my friend and boss!

Agbo is Public Affairs Analyst and Media Strategist to Governor Dickson and sent in from Yenagoa via francisagbo38@gmail.com

UR President has come up with yet another book on Nigeria’s immediate future. Every leader, by his appointments, sets parameters for performance and lets the people into the inner recesses of his mind on the way forward. It affords the people, or those who think and speak for them, an opportunity of analysing the philosophy that guides or would guide the leader in his action. By merely effecting changes in the cabinet, a leader could inform the people that he would no longer tolerate nonsense.

President Goodluck Jonathan has made some important appointments. In doing so, he appears to have engaged the reverse gear while facing the future. Coming so close to the next general elections, we seek to understand him and what he intends to do for or to Nigeria in the course of the next one year.

Two major challenges faced by Nigeria now are the economy and insecurity. He has in place his economic team which has been stable since the inception of the administration. He seems to have placed the fate of Nigeria totally in the team headed by Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy. It is however doubtful if a total surrender of the economy to the Bretton-Woods institutions is what the Nigerian people want today. During the past week, the Finance Minister who is always on the war-path with federal legislators, reeled out statistics on the economy. The one that caught my attention was the claim that about 1.6 million jobs had been created. Where? When? How? These people must actually have built their mansions in the cloud.

If at least there has been stability in the philosophy guiding the management of the economy, the same cannot be said of the security sector. The President, by the changes he constantly introduces, has given the impression that he lacks understanding of how the security agencies work and how a society as complex as Nigeria should be organised. He appears to lack knowledge of the interconnection between political and economic restructuring and the security of a country. He seems to have been dancing round the same circle, believing that mere change of personnel could do the trick. It failed in the past, but it has just been repeated.

In effecting changes in the leadership of the armed forces, what message did the President pass across? He is returning General Aliyu Gusau to office. This time, as defence minister with full constituent powers. He is to oversee the whole gamut of the security apparatus. He similarly upgraded the Chief of Air Staff to Chief of Defence Staff. He thought the ethnic factor should determine who runs the agencies. Before this point, he had downplayed the defence ministry. He once appointed Dr. Shettima Mustapha defence minister. After that, he turned to Mrs. Olusola Obada to oversee the ministry and supervise the defence chiefs. The story of appointment of National Security Advisers is not different.

So, now, what does Jonathan want? Is Gusau his messiah?

Could he be said to have run out of options? Does he regard this as a war team for 2015? As a septuagenarian, I think Gusau should have been allowed to enjoy his retirement. The former Chief of Army Staff, Chief of Defence Staff and NSA is largely respected in the international intelligence community. He is believed to have a wand for solving the insecurity problem, but does he? Does he fundamentally share the same philosophy with the president? What does Jonathan want- just another term in office? What does Gusau want- a peaceful Nigeria? Does General Gusau believe that the President’s ambition stands in the way of lasting peace? Is he in a position to prevail on the President to step down his return bid in the interest of peace?

Gusau is not just a technocrat- he is a politician. For about two decades now, he has nursed the ambition of running Nigeria. Has he given up? If General Buhari is still plying his trade on the scene; if General Obasanjo is still being described as the “Navigator”, to what extent could it be said that the intelligence chief has given up on his ambition? Does he, generally, accept the Northern quest for return to power next year? Or, are both men, the President and the General, playing games?

More on this sometime later.

I looked through the list of ministerial nominees and, as usual, I could not see the spark. It could not be said the Dr. Jonathan picked men and women driven by passion for Nigeria or capable of raising standards. What did the President see in Ambassador Aminu Wali in bringing him on board? What does he have that others before him lacked?

Boni Haruna is coming in from Adamawa. His sole qualification at this time seems to be an intention to checkmate the advances of Vice Admiral Murtala Nyako. But, General Jonathan should watch his back. Loyalty is not a word that means so much to the former governor of the state.

I am concerned about the road to the future that this President has chosen. I am passionate about the divine mission of Nigeria in leading the children of Africa out of the bondage of ages. I do not see the road to a better future with Dr. Jonathan driving the vehicle. We must all shine our eyes now.

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 26, 2014

POLITICS

APC taking the shine off PDP in Benue

•Akume

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HE race for the 2015 general elections is gathering steam, with alignments and realignments by political gladiators in place aimed at securing their interests in the various elective positions, especially the exalted governorship seat in the land.

With this, the political atmosphere is tense as is customary of partisan politics, especially when the time for electioneering campaigns is at the corner, even though the electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has not authorised the commencement of campaigns by political parties across the country, aspirants to the various elective positions have begun wooing the electorate.

To politicians, 2015 is just at the corner as most public office holders are said to be already preparing for votes, particularly in Benue State, where the state governor, Gabriel Suswam’s eight-year tenure will elapse May, next year.

With this, the die is cast, the battle

From, Msugh Ityokura, Makurdi line has been drawn. The question now is, who bells the cat? This is the question causing ripples amongst the political class in the once revered food basket state as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which has ruled the state since the return of democracy in the country in 1999 to date, is, from all indications, inept of ideals and evidence to prove to the masses that it indeed deserves to be voted back to power come 2015.

The working document of the current administration of Governor Suswam, tagged “our Benue, our future,” according to pundits, has not been implemented even up to a quarter as both rural and urban infrastructure remain in shambles with the education and health sectors completely neglected as manifest in the dilapidated state of public schools and hospitals.

The propaganda that the state has been turned into a construction site may after all be a hoax, given the absence of near or total absence of basic amenities

in the state capital, Makurdi, and other urban centres in the agrarian state. This has made so many political office holders of the PDP and other stakeholders to pitch tents with the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), which is sure to upstage the ruling party in the forth coming polls.

For those not conversant with the politics of the state, the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) came on stage just three months to the last general elections with an unimaginable wind that blew across the state, shaking the foundation of the PDP, which has controlled the over-bloated civil service state over the years.

The party was said to have won in the hard-fought battle, but for the “frivolities” of both the INEC and later the judiciary. Where on earth can one contest an election without adequately filling their certificates as required by law, coupled with other irregularities that trailed the conduct of that election?

Today, all that is history as the people of the state look forward to another era that will certainly define their destiny as they vote in 2015.

With the people’s apparent disenchantment with the performance of the PDP over the years in the rural state that has continued to yearn for development, it is certain they will learn from past mistakes that culminated into the PDP continuing in office against their popular wish. Of course, with the level of sensitisation and enlightenment of the masses, it will, from all indications, be difficult to convince people to vote, based on political party affiliation but on the antecedents of the various aspirants to the governorship position.

However, with the performance records of governors of the APC in their respective states, it has become clear where the pendulum will swing in Benue State in retrospect to developments of 2011 where state machinery and federal might were deployed in favour of the ruling party.

The defection of some PDP loyalists and supporters into the opposition APC is seen as a major blow to the outing of the ruling party, preparatory to 2015 as Suswam’s friends, kinsmen and allies have now become key strategists of the APC. One of such key ex-allies to the governor is Joe Ikyaagba, a former commissioner for information in the state, who handled the gigantic project of the construction of the new

government house extension in Makurdi.

Ikyaagba, an architect, was said to have expressed misgivings over the running of government activities and certain policies, which he perceived were inimical to the plight of the people of the state, hence pitching tent with the progressives.

Other key figures holding public offices at the national level, who are already home with the progressives are the members representing Jerchira and Makurdi/Guma federal constituencies, Honourables Lorwase Hembe and Emmanuel Jime. The duo went to the national assembly on the platform of the PDP. However, their sudden decision to join the APC is not surprising given the depth of disenchantment the masses have expressed over the PDP. During his recent birthday celebration in Makurdi, Senator George Akume lamented the dilapidating state of infrastructure in the state and berated his successor, Gabriel Suswam, for not doing anything to resuscitate the ailing infrastructure he inherited from previous governments in the state.

The former governor said “the infrastructure he put in place is being allowed to deteriorate by the government of the day and nobody is doing anything about it,” decrying further, the rising level of insecurity, which has claimed so many lives in certain communities across the state.

Akume further reeled out his achievements while he held sway as the state chief executive to include, the high brow judges quarters, the Benue State University Teaching Hospital and medical school, owner-occupier quarters in new GRA, Nyiman Layout and the industrial layout on Naka Road in the state capital, Makurdi.

Suswam has continued to be in the eye of the storm following series of cases of assassinations recorded during his stewardship with an unprecedented kidnapping under his administration for the first time in the history of the state. That was when the author of his letter, Uhondo’s son, was kidnapped in the state capital Makurdi.

All these developments are still fresh in the minds of the people and would be brought before aspirants to the exalted governorship position for clarification as to why the masses would be ridiculed to the extent they have found themselves given the poor

plight of civil servants and government intolerance to dissenting views on its unpopular policies.

These and several other issues have made the APC to take a shine off the ruling PDP. Senator Akume as the political leader of the APC has continued to wax stronger given the number of PDP stalwarts who have already defected to join forces with him in order to reposition the state for the better.

With the second national chairman of the PDP, Senator Bananas Gemade, voicing his support to the opposition as was manifest during Akume’s recent birthday celebration and the number of Suswam’s kinsmen and allies trooping in their numbers to APC events, it remains to be seen what will become of the ruling party in the forth coming polls.

Suswam cannot, in earnest be said to have lived up to the people’s expectation since he held sway as governor. Second Republic minister, Chief Isaac Shahu, in a recent chat with newsmen in his Gboko resident, lamented the retrogressive spate of development in the state and called on all and sundry to ensure the imminent and much-awaited change take its full course from May, 2015.

He said that those who cannot deliver must give way to people who would produce results in the interest of harmonious co-existence and development of the society.

He announced that arrangements were in top gear to organise a reception in honour of the defectors, including the House of Representatives Committee Chairman on Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Emmanuel Jime, whom he described as his son.

Jime is also said to be eying the governorship stool of the state having been zoned to the Minda area where he hails from.

Perhaps, as it is today, the political arithmetic, alignments and realignments, coupled with the gale of defection into the APC by PDP members signal bright moments for the progressives. With 2015 fast approaching, it only remains to be seen what becomes of the state. This will certainly be determined by the electorate, a considerable number of who are civil servants who have not fared any better and are known for influencing elections in the state.

Ityokura Wrote in from Makurdi

PDP defections: A pointer to APC take over in 2015

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HE gale of defections from the Peoples Democratic Party to the All Progressive Congress, APC has been received by many commentators with mixed feelings. While some brazenly wave the defectors aside with uncouth commentaries, others have seen it as the desired light at the end of the tunnel for Nigeria’s chequered history. The PDP has suffered very serious depletion lately and the gale has not ended. Many more are warming up to dump the party that has prided itself for too long as the largest political party in Africa. Some of its members had boasted to citizens that the party will rule Nigeria for sixty unbroken years.

The nation’s political landscape is daily becoming interesting with increasing dumping of the Peoples Democratic Party by its erstwhile loyalists. In the PDP of today, there is apathy, distrust, hatred, oppression, favouritism, impunity, dog -eat -dog, and several other negative attributes.

But events of the last six months have seen the PDP high and mighty already jittery as we approach 2015 general election where the APC hopes to take over the leadership of the nation. From the letter of former President / PDP BoT Chairman, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo to President Goodluck Jonathan and the reply of the letter by Mr. President, and all the letters that followed thereafter indicate a PDP House of Commotion with several cracks. To stave off the obvious catastrophe of the dipping

By Dan Owegie party, President Jonathan plans to change his cabinet any moment from now. Last week, he had to sack his entire service chiefs and the Chairman of the party, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur whose tenure was largely characterised by unlimited crises of various shapes and sizes was also pushed away. All who had defected from the party had insisted on the ouster of Alhaji Bamanga Tukur but a defiant Jonathan had insisted on keeping him on as his core ally whom he believes will give him the much sort after second term. But the rest today is history.

Before President Goodluck Jonathan could spell Jack Robinson, the party under his watchful eyes had broke into two factionsOne led by Bamanga Tukur and a splinter group led by Alhaji Abubakar Baraje. From one litigation to another and from one funny court verdict upon another, the new PDP moved en masse into the APC. Five Governors of Kwara, Rivers, Sokoto, Kano, and Adamawa and their loyalists soon after defected to the APC. This shook the PDP to its foundations. Two other Governors of Niger and Jigawa who were part of the G7 Governors offered to tarry awhile.

Only recently, 49 members of the House of Representatives formally dumped the PDP and joined the All Progressive Congress which has altered the equation at the House.

Today APC stands majority! A similar scenario is playing out at the Senate where more than 22 senators had gone to court to

challenge the plot to declare their seats vacant should they defect to the APC. This move and fear of the APC has stalled the resumption of the Senate after the Christmas holidays.

The consequence of bad leadership and greed in the PDP is now face-to-face with all card carrying members of the party, including those who have been boasting of being the alpha and omega of the nation.

The reasons for what has killed the PDP are not farfetched. Leaders of a party in power ought to have listening ears from the generality of its members, this seems to be lacking in the crisis-ridden party.

Those who left the PDP had told Nigerians that “In gross violation of the PDP constitution, which stipulates that the NEC meeting must hold at least once in a quarter, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur and a few people have been running the party like a personal fiefdom without recourse to that important decision-making organ of the party.”

Another issue is that the PDP leaders have no regards for the party’s constitution.

Several incidences abound where national officers are removed by a state chapters with the backing of the National secretariat and the presidency.

Again, the Supervising Minister of Education, Nyesom Wike has been accused by the defectors of hiding on the back of the President to unleash mayhem in Rivers State.

The Presidency have continued to deny having hand in the madness in Rivers State where, even the Nigeria Police, Force, Rivers

State Command appear to be the official head office of the PDP! What a shame!

But assuredly, the APC is set to take over the affairs of this country as it is gaining popularity by the day. More and more Nigerians are pouring into the party as its nationwide membership registration gets under way. The APC is already showing to Nigerians that it has the x-factor to take over the governance of the country from the decadent PDP. More importantly, the APC will throw up candidates with experience in governance, candidates with energy, candour and spirit to surmount the nation’s myriad socio-economic and political problems.

Unarguably, the APC is already providing the right alternatives in the states it is currently controlling. In Edo, ably led by Comrade Adams Oshiomhole there are ample evidence of good governance and accountable leadership. Lagos is being properly transformed by Babatunde Fasola, Imo is being remodeled by Chief Rochas Okorocha and so on. Clearly, APC’s emergence is for all Nigerians to get away from unfulfilled promises of the PDP, clean break away from abject poverty, disease and squalor and return of confidence to citizens. The APC is committed to putting the nation back on the track of development to catch up with the rest of the world in infrastructure, science and technology, democracy and governance as well as social order in a globalized world. · Mr. Dan Owegie is a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 26, 2014

POLITICS

25

Obi’s emergence as APGA leader, BOT chairman illegal – Ufomba

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WO months after the Anambra State Election, APGA is still enmeshed in crises.

Two men are parading themselves as National Chairmen. How do you look at this situation?

We have congratulated the people of Anambra State for returning APGA to power. On the issue of two persons being chairmen of the party, I think the media should be fair to Chief Maxi Okwu and his group. Don’t forget I was the chairman of the Reconciliation Committee of the party. Before the elections there was a truce, observed by all parties, after which the parties went back to court to determine who the true leader of our party is. An Abuja High Court has since pronounced that Maxi Okwu is the National Chairman of APGA. So the issue of two people parading themselves as National Chairmen or describing Maxi Okwu as factional chairman should not arise anymore, unless we have no respect for the judiciary.

Chief Victor Umeh in his reaction to the judgement you mentioned said it was an ambush.

The National Secretary, Alhaji Shinkafi said it was judicial rascality. They have gone ahead to disregard the ruling. How do you situate these remarks against your position.

I will give you three answers. One is when a defendant or even a litigant fails to respect the judgement of a court, he is adjudged to be contemptuous. Okay? What they are doing currently is clear contempt of court. The other issue is if a man who became secretary of a party in 2003 in clear contravention of the party constitution, now proclaims a court judgement that says he has been flouting the constitution as judicial rascality, has he forgotten that, that is enough constitutional rascality on his part? So for us the judge should be commended for standing up in this matter and for once telling Nigerians and APGA members that the impunity, the disrespect with which the duo of Victor Umeh and Shinkafi had mismanaged, treated, trampled on the constitution of the party, should be enough.

That is what the judge has done and he should be commended.

Since the inception of the party, crisis has been part of it. What is responsible for the

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Ochiagha Reagan Ufomba, All Progressives Grand Allance (APGA) governorship candidate in Abia State in the 2011 elections and chairman of the Peace and Reconciliation Committee, set up by the Maxi Okwu-led faction of the party last year, speaks on the party’s crisis. Associate Editor, Sam Egburonu, presents excerpts seemingly intractable nature of crisis in APGA? I think, after my exercise as chairman of the reconciliation committee, and the nonimplementation of our recommendation, I described the action as selfishness and insensitivity. And that much I can still say is the problem of APGA – Greed, selfishness and insensitivity. And of course our inability to respect our own laws.

While the crises is raging, Governor Peter Obi has emerged as the party’s leader and chairman of it’s Board of Trustees (BOT). This was done by the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party.

What is your reaction to that?

I will start this way. We have never had issues with Peter Obi occupying any position in the party.

But the process that will throw him up must be in line with APGA constitution because it came one or two days after that judgement, which today we regard as contempt of court. Secondly, how many of us did you see there? That is the issue. I was the governorship candidate of the party in Abia in 2011. Barrister Obiegwu was in Enugu.

Ambassador Frank Ogbuewu was in Ebonyi. How many of us did you see there? You cannot shave a man’s hair in his absence. You cannot clap with one hand. That is the second issue in his appointment. The third and most fundamental is the process that threw him up. The APGA constitution once more, has been flouted. And most unfortunately, Governor Peter Obi is at the centre of this disrespect to the party’s constitution that says that there should be a 24 – member Board of Trustees who shall elect their own chairman and secretary. Was that the case in Awka? It was not.

Some of us are not in politics to disobey the laws of the land. Some of us are not in politics to do the wrong things. We are in politics to bring about positive changes and charity must begin at APGA. We must be able to do good things. I did say a few

•Ufomba

days ago that APGA is like a jet fighter flying with one engine. If you don’t give all the necessary engines and support, then, APGA must crash. God forbid.

Are you saying in effect that Obi’s emergence as leader and BOT chairman is illegal?

Precisely that is what I am saying. It is illegal.

It is unconstitutional. It is null and void. It is contempt of court. It is a great abuse, disrespect, and disregard to several sections of the APGA constitution Are you not worried that while other parties are building structures, reviewing strategies, and marshalling out plans for the elections next year, APGA is battling with multiple crises. Don’t you think it will affect its performance in the election?

Let me be very honest with you, there is no party in Nigeria today that does not have a bit of crises. This is part of the political process. There must be crises in the parties. The political parties all over have their own fair share of crises. APGA is not an exception. But I can also tell you that it can only get us stronger. While this is going on, a lot of people are joining APGA, especially in Abia State, where I come from. People want change.

And the only party they look up to for this change is APGA. What we need to do is to finetune our strategy, to rebrand the party, so that it can be better positioned to win elections. That is the assignment of the new leadership. The strategy must be right. Even if we are having a coalition, an understanding, a working agreement with some of the parties, or any of the parties, or we are having our own candidates at all levels, the strategy must be right.

You ran for governorship election in 2011 in Abia State. If the opportunity beckons, will you run again?

I am not a politician that says my people asked me to come. I am one man who sees a problem and I want to solve it. I want to clearly state and unequivocally too, that the problems I saw in Abia that made me run elections in 2011 are still there.

They are even increasing. So, there is need for one good head to come and save the people of Abia state, especially Aba. I am thinking seriously of doing that.

Re: APC battles PDP for soul of Abia

OR the purpose of keeping records, the trash by one “Hildah Ifeoma Ifegwu”, supposedly on behalf of Governor T. A. Orji, deserves to be ignored as clear abuse of the “Right of Reply”. Nowhere in Mr Sam Egburonu’s piece was Abia State Government mentioned nor was there any attempt to cast aspersion on the person or office of Governor Orji. Furthermore, Chief Ikechi Emenike was neither interviewed nor quoted in the said article. So, the socalled rejoinder by “Ifegwu” is a curious attempt at provoking hostility where none exists.

Those who live in Abia State will be shocked to read anywhere that Chief Emenike has no solid political structure. “He comes around when there is election; after which he fades, litigates and zooms off”. This sentence can only emanate from characters who have been holding Abia State down for many years. After a candidate in an election challenges its outcome to the highest court in the land, what else should he do after the judgement? Hang around Umuahia and be “settled”? Join the bandwagon of political/economic destitutes perpetually in search of crumbs? Or should he go back to his well-heeled business and prepare for another battle? If some of Chief Emenike’s current abusers are a bit more exposed, to appreciate democratic culture, as in civilised climes, they would have realised that after any election, those elected into offices are allowed to serve their constituents, while those not elected rebuild and repackage their structures and processes for another election. Well, I wonder how many times “Ifegwu” has heard about Mitt Romney since he lost his bid to the White House to President Barack Obama. Does that mean he is no longer relevant?

Indeed, modern political culture encourages politicians to lie a little low and not distract those in office. Yet Chief Emenike is in Abia every month for our meetings. If “Ifegwu” can avail me of his contact, I shall invite him as an observer, since we are not a secret cult. Perhaps, Chief Emenike is too enlightened, and obviously too sophisticated not to know when to politic publicly.

This writer, a barrister of over 20 years, has been a member of Chief Emenike’s political structure for many years. I was the pioneer State Financial Secretary of the PDP in Abia State and

By Fabian Okonkwo

Right of reply later, the State Treasurer. I was also the President General of the entire Nneato, covering three huge federal wards, for six years. I was the MC at the 28th December 2013 meeting where, in over 225 buses and 120 cars, over 4,000 co-ordinators from the various communities in Abia State gathered and voted to accompany Chief Emenike to the APC. With one voice we asked our principal to quit the PDP and join the APC. The meeting was presided over by Prof. Mba Uzoukwu, former Deputy Vice Chancellor of University of Nigeria, Nsukka and former SDP Chairman in Abia State. Also in attendance were the State chairman of Emenike Structure and former Caretaker Committee State Chairman of the NRC in Kwara State, Engr. Chris Okpechi, a 1972 UNN graduate of Geo-physics; Prof. Ogbonna Offor (Bende); Prof Chima Ezeoma; and Prof. A. Nwabughiogu (Osisioma). Also on the roll-call were a U.Strained but retired Federal Permanent Secretary, Chief Sam Amajor; Engr. Gideon Asiegbu, another retired Federal Permanent Secretary; Dr. Sam Ogbonna (Ikwuano); Chief Jacob Nwachukwu (Obingwa); Engr. Dr. Abarikwu (Ibeku). Even 85-year-old mama Onyioha, National Women Leader of the NCNC and wife of the great K.O.K Onyioha, was present as was Dame Iheme, retired principal of the oldest teachers college in Abia State, among others. Are these the kind of men and women who “only tell him what he likes to hear?”

Since this article is about setting the records straight, let me inform further that each local government area delegation was led by the following: Mr. Chinedu Adindu (Ikwuano); Chief LongJohn Onyemachi (Umuahia South); Chief Chiwuisi Uchendu (Umuahia North); Chief S. Ihesiaba (Isiala Ngwa North); Chief N. Ezenwoko (Isialangwa South); Chief I. Atubia (Osisioma); Hon. Mike Maduka (Aba North); Hon. Chigozie Eze (Aba South); Chief Ngozi Joseph (Ugwunagbo); Hon. Grant (Obingwa); Chief Nwogu Nwogu (Ukwa West); Chief Nwabu Anyamele (Ukwa East). Others are High Chief Johnson Adiele (Bende), Elder J. Amaogu (Ohafia); Chief I. Kalu (Arochukwu); Mr. Uche

Iyioke (Isiukwuato); and Hon. Ejike Olekanma (Umunneochi).

The communiqué of this meeting was read by my senior, Nnamdi Uchendu, a lawyer of over 30 years standing, former NBA chairman in Umuahia and also erstwhile State Chairman of AD. Dear “Ifegwu”, it takes commitment, fidelity and perseverance to sustain a structure for over 10 years. It is laughable for a man who has never built any structure in his life to question the solidity of another’s 10-years’ old structure.

The revered Chinua Achebe counselled that “Those whose palm-kernels were cracked for them by a benevolent spirit should not forget to be humble”.

The only crime Emenike committed, to his abusers, is the exercise of his God-given indomitable spirit. He has refused to give up on Abia State. And he goes about it without insulting or abusing anyone. Anybody who has been a follower of Emenike will attest to the fact that he goes about his politics promoting his ideas and programmes for the people of Abia.

I challenge anyone to produce one evidence, anywhere, where Emenike has tried to cast aspersions on T.A. Orji. Even in the height of the contentious 2007 elections, when journalists tried in vain to get Emenike to criticise T. A. Orji during his incarceration, he bluntly refused to join the bandwagon of Orji’s abusers. His standard reply was “I have no interest in hitting a man who is down”. Even at the 28th December, 2013 meeting, Chief Emenike told the entire structure that they must never deviate from the “positive politics of representing the good face of Abia and the great ideas that can uplift our state”.

Why do some people in Abia catch the cold each time Emenike’s name is mentioned?

“Ifegwu” needs to go back to his principal to find out why he should visit a man of little political relevance to sign a written understanding to deliver PDP in 2011. The state-owned Broadcasting Corporation of Abia sang about this document every five minutes for two and a half (2 ½) weeks prior to the election. In case you don’t have a copy, you can come to my chambers for one.

Better still, ask your principal for a copy. Which other Abian did your governor sign a collaboration agreement with over the 2011 elections?

It is very funny that from your Government House, you seem so interested in the APC so well as to know that “Chief G. O. Onyemaobi, who has been running the affairs of the APC in the state, knows Apugo too well to have anything to do with him or take him into confidence”. In the same article, you described Chief Apugo as tempestuous among several other unflattering terms, as well as describing his home as “A Lion’s Den”. Every Igboman knows that Prince B. B. Apugo is a political Iroko. One day the story will be told how some vital meetings that were held in that house assisted your principal to his current station.

Some of the thinking in that piece are so warped that they do not deserve any response.

You seem to be feasting on the fate of a very few people who were dismissed from Emenike’s camp. Of the 34 vehicles he gave out, only two were recalled from two aides. Is recalling such assets from men with shady characters not better than demolishing people’s hotels, properties or chasing some of them out of town? Kindly encourage your principal to entrust part of the funds for his 2015 senatorial bid to those characters!

It would enlighten “Ifegwu” more to take a walk to the Government House car park, to find out the sources of some of the Space Wagons, Audi and Mazda cars parked there which are still being used by some of his principal’s senior aides or better still, ask six members of his principal’s cabinet (commissioners) which of them were asked to return any of the largesse they enjoyed from Chief Emenike? These men still live in Abia.

Do you want us to give you names of those who worked with your principal, who do not have such “privilege”?

Chief Emenike and Governor Orji can belong to different political parties without the unnecessary bitterness emitting from the Abia Government House. Since, according to you, “their exit is good riddance”, why don’t you and your principal leave them alone?

2015 election can indeed be conducted in a more convivial atmosphere, if lies, blackmails and unnecessary hostilities can be avoided by those whose primary duty should be to maintain the peace.

- Okonkwo is former State Treasurer of PDP and now a major stakeholder in APC

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 26, 2014

POLITICS

ripples

Still on Jonathan’s conference vs Peoples conference

No respite yet for Chime

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OVERNOR Sullivan Chime’s hope that the political war he has been waging in his backyard since the Udi council chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Enugu State suspended five of his aides will become a thing of the past appears to have again been dashed.

Things appeared bright for the embattled governor when the state party chapter said it had upturned the suspension of the affected persons. The governor who according to sources had made several efforts to have the suspension reversed was elated at the news.

But last Wednesday, the Udi council chapter insisted that the said suspension has not and cannot be reversed. The executive members of the Udi PDP made this known in Enugu, when news filtered in that the state party chapter had upturned the suspension of the affected persons.

Five aides of the Enugu State governor were reportedly suspended last Friday for anti-party activities and holding meetings with party members without the knowledge of the executive committee members. The affected are the Secretary to the State Government, Ameachi Okolo; the

•Chime Commissioner for Youth and Sports, Chijioke Agu; Commissioner for Commerce and Industry, Dr. Jude Akubuilo; the Special Adviser to the Governor on Education, Mr. Marcus Agu; and the Executive Secretary, Enugu State Industrial Parks Authority, Mr. Ugochukwu Onyema.

With the latest development, it simply means that the political ‘civil war’ between Governor Chime and leaders of his party in Udi L.G.A is yet to abate, leaving the Enugu helmsman with no respite.

Oyinlola: Any hope of a comeback?

•Oyinlola USPENDED National Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, is one man who knows how to remain hopeful even

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when the popular opinion appears to be that he is hoping against hope.

Or how can one explain the current happy mood within his political family based on insinuations that he may soon regain his seat at the national secretariat of the party?

The story among Oyinlola’s aides and associates is that his imminent return to Wadata House is one of the possibilities of the reconciliation move to be embarked upon by the new leadership of the party.

Oyinlola’s men are also optimistic that apart from Oyinlola, a former National Auditor of the party, Mr. Bode Mustapha, a close associate of the former governor of Osun State, may also be brought back to his position.

If the move succeeds, the present occupants of the positions, Prof. Wale Oladipo and Adewale Adeyanju, secretary and national auditor respectively, may lose their positions. But what is yet to be seen are how and when this hope will become reality.

Taraba House Speaker under pressure

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HE Speaker of Taraba State House of Assembly, Josiah Sabo Kente, is under pressure over his alleged disregard for a court injunction restraining the House to screen commissioner nominees presented by the acting governor, Alhaji Garba Umar.

Ripples gathered that by Friday, concerned political elders and several organisations in the state, including a group named Save Taraba from Anarchy (STA), have either taken the matter to Abuja or written the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) Mohammed Bello Adoke, to intervene immediately.

STA for example, in a letter to the AGF argued, among others that “since Governor Danbaba Danbaba Suntai is in court with the Speaker and the Assembly, the lawmakers who are defendants in the suit ought not to have screened any commissioner-nominee pending hearing and determination of the plaintiff’s motion on notice, as

•Suntai

contained in the Orders of Interim Injunction (OII).”

But sources close to the House said the speaker had no option than to ignore the court injunction, though he initially claimed not to have recieved it.

•Jonathan

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HILE the federal government under President Goodluck Jonathan is carrying on with its plan to host a national conference that is not likely to be sovereign, given the recommendations of the Senator Femi Okurounmu-led advisory committee, the people of Nigeria continue to reject the proposed talk shop while insisting on a sovereign national conference.

Chieftains and members of the Project Nigeria (Nigeria Consensus Group) and Pro National Conference Organisation, PRONACO; two major platforms in Nigeria committed to a peoples driven and all inclusive National Conference in Nigeria, are the latest group of Nigerians to re-iterate the need for President Jonathan to pocket his own confab idea and hearken to the voices of the people.

The leaders of the groups have again called on the President to jettison the plan to send the resolutions of the forth coming National Conference to the National Assembly

as part of inputs for the ongoing constitutional amendments.

Recalling how decree 24 of 1999 dubiously christened 1999 constitution as the peoples’ constitution, the groups said this is at the root of the current political strife and tension in the land and that no amount of amendments can transform it to a constitution legitimately owned by the Nigerian peoples.

The group also wants President Goodluck Jonathan to make the diverse ethnic Nationalities in the country the core of the composition of the proposed National Conference as they are the original indigenous component units of Nigeria.

Th e gro u p a v e rre d th a t th e universal convention for constitution making is that it is not a government or any of its organs that gives the people of a country a constitution but that it is the people that gives its government a constitution for popular governance.

Between EFCC and new PDP boss

I

T is no longer news to say former Bauchi State Governor, Adamu Muazu, is now the new helmsman of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) but one thing that remains news is how the matter he has with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC) will be resolved.

Or is it that the matter which was in public domain for a long time now, has finally been resolved? Because since the emergence of Muazu as the new PDP boss, not a few Nigerians have been waiting to hear what the anti-graft body has to say on his elevation its to such a position.

But mum has been the word from EFCC which not too long ago declared that it has not cleared former Bauchi State Governor of corruption charges.

The EFCC in a statement back then debunked reports that suggested the anti-graft agency had concluded investigation on the corruption charges against the former governor and found nothing against him.

The anti-graft body said it had to issue the clarification as a response to persistent enquiries coming from members of the press and the general public on the alleged clearance given to Muazu.

But in spite of similar “persistent

•Muazu

enquiries coming from members of the press and the general public,” since Muazu was crowned as national chairman of President Jonathan’s political party, the EFCC is yet to find its voice.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 26, 2014

IN VOGUE

By Kehinde Oluleye

Tel: 08023689894 (sms) E-mail: kehinde.oluleye@thenationonlineng.net

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 26, 2014

GLAMOUR

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32 GLAMOUR

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GLAMOUR 33

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34 GLAMOUR

&

OLUSEGUN RAPHEAL (08033572821) raphseg2003@yahoo.com

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 26, 2014

•IGBOKWE

•ADENIKINJU

•FAWIBE

•KOKORI

38 SUNDAY MAGAZINE

•Adeyemi

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 26, 2014

•Osiri

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 26, 2014

SUNDAY MAGAZINE 39

•Mathewon the day he was called to the bar

•Mathew first from right with his classmates at Saint Joseph Secondary School

•Mathew with Damilola Ogedegbe, the Head Girl at Saint Joseph Secondary School

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 26, 2014

40 SUNDAY MAGAZINE

•Arrested suspected bunkerers

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•Continued on Page 42

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•Continued from Page 41

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Photo: MUYIWA HASSAN

Solutions to real life

?

Princess

relationship issues

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 26, 2014

ETCETERA

56

SUNNY SIDE

Cartoons

By Olubanwo Fagbemi deewalebf@yahoo.com 08060343214 (SMS only)

POLITICKLE

Sunny Side awards

CHEEK BY JOWL

OH, LIFE!

THE GReggs

Fresh from the 2013 season of giving, the writer cannot but hand out worthy titles for disservice to mankind, nay, ‘Nigerian-kind’. Winners may please stand up for recognition and, accompanied by deafening applause, make their way to Sunny Side for resounding reward!

Jokes Humour

Good ‘ol Wisdom AFTER graduation from university, a young man lived with his parents, fishing in the daytime, spending nights with friends and generally just hanging out. One afternoon, his grandfather, who didn’t attend university, stopped by.

Concerned with how his grandson was spending his time, he asked about the graduate’s future plans. Grandson said he was in no hurry to tie himself down to a career.

“Well, you better start thinking about it.

You’ll be thirty before you know it.”

“But I’m closer to twenty than to thirty. I won’t be thirty for eight more years.”

“I see. And when will you be twenty again?”

Different Shakes WHEN Martha moved to the island, she was a nervous wreck about earthquakes. Her friend Lulu, who was born and raised there, was completely nonchalant.

The friends were out driving in Lulu’s car one day when the car began to shake as they stopped at the traffic light.

Lulu looked worried until Martha said, “I

think that we’re having an earthquake.”

“Thank goodness,” said Lulu. “I thought something was wrong with my car.”

Expensive Love MIKE and his wife Janet had several stressful months of financial difficulties. One evening Janet was touched to see him gazing at the diamond wedding ring that symbolised their marriage.

Ever romantic, she started to say, “With this ring…”

“We could pay off some of our debts,” he said.

Facts of Life AT his 103rd birthday party, grandpa was asked if he thought that he’d be around for his 104th.

“I certainly do,” he said. “Statistics show that very few people die between the ages of 103 and 104.”

QUOTE

The qualities that get a man into power are not those that lead him, once established, to use power wisely.

—Lyman Bryson •Adapted from the Internet

W

MOST convenient remedy: The Committee/Probe Panel. When scandals come calling and you’re caught between action and inaction, do, as the Federal Government does: set up yet another committee to investigate the circumstances even when expulsion or suspension of errant cronies should be the first step. The panel rules!

Most recycled statistic: 70 per cent. It is the approximation of the country’s population involved in subsistence farming; of its youth; the illiterate; and the poor.

Most popular method: Fire brigade approach. Coveted by the establishment and leaders across society, it is the convenient method of getting things done (or undone).

Scandal of the year: Oduahgate/Lettergate. Corruption is a way of life to the Nigerian official, and resignation upon sullied reputation, alien. The N255 million bulletproof cars scandal and exchange of letters between former president Olusegun Obasanjo and President Goodluck Jonathan on leadership failures share the spoils.

First baby word: NEPA. At first known as ECN (Electricity Corporation of Nigeria) and afterwards as PHCN (Power Holding Company of Nigeria) before recent unbundling into GENCOs (Generation Companies) and DISCOs (Distribution Companies), the National Electric Power Authority supplies the greatest onomatopoeic appeal upon sudden blackout, even for the infant.

‘Oh, NEPA!’ See? Most policed state: Rivers. The only part of the country where cops are deployed to nuisance effect by the authorities in Abuja surely merits the title. While the Mbu Joseph Mbu-led police hound the good people of the South-south state of Rivers, criminals kidnap and bomb with relish. But pounding the courts, of all places, in the wake of ‘unfavourable’ judgment has to rank as opposing forces’ worst act of contempt yet.

Most ironic name: Patience. As the highest-profile owner of the virtuous appellation, President Jonathan’s wife barely lived up to billing. Constant run-ins with her “son” and governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi, refer.

Most unlikely change: ‘Mama Peace’. While a connection between the virtues of patience and peace is possible, that between unpopular acts by the First Lady and her adopted name is not. To earn the benefit of the doubt, Her Excellency may stimulate the name-change process by encouraging lasting peace in the most natural of states – Rivers.

Most oppressive entity: The People’s Democratic Party (PDP). In power since the return of democracy in 1999, Africa’s ‘biggest party’ has done anything but deliver the dividends of democracy. Former chair, Vincent Ogbulafor’s declaration that the party would rule for the next 60 years merely heightened a famished people’s hope for change.

Most generous award: Kudos. Easily the most widespread gesture of commendation, ‘kudos’, as opposed to ‘knocks’, are given out in appreciation of everything, from people and places to things. At the current rate of usage, we run the risk of running out of the freebee.

Most contrived remedy: The drawing board. Often replaced with the verb ‘restrategise’, it is the point of popular return when things go wrong. Poor results in policy implementation? Go back to the drawing board. Need a better approach to issues? It’s back to the drawing board. Need promotion and more money? Back to the drawing board.

Most welcome resistance: New PDP. Someone had to stand up to the political suffocation. Moved by intra-party oppression coordinated by erstwhile PDP chairman, Bamanga Tukur, a breakaway group of five governors and interim officers wrested their political soul from PDP overlords. 37 House of Representative members followed suit, leaving the party throbbing in anticipation of similar moves by senators and party men.

The face of change: All Progressives Congress (APC). The new home of the politically brave and the port of progress in 2015 following successful test runs in the Edo State and most of the Southwest.

Most quoted moniker: ‘OBJ’ or ‘Baba’. It belongs to Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, one-time head of state, two-term president and third term exponent. A more intrusive politician you may never find.

•Continues next week

Writer’s Fountain HY we write: No one can really explain why the writer their partners says: “this story is good”?

Or is it because writers just can’t stop prefers the pain of writing and re-writing to themselves? physically painful pursuits like climbing a The latter appears to be the most acceptable mountain or taking up self-defense. answer as promising writers agreed at a Do writers write to be accepted in the forum. community of writers and to be able to Some saw writing as compelling and just proclaim: “I am an author”? Or to feel flush couldn’t stop themselves from the fulfilling with excitement when somebody other than activity.

Others found the afterglow that comes If: •If the earth were to become totally flat and from finishing a story second to none. the oceans distributed themselves evenly Yet others liked sharing their private world over the planet’s surface, the water would be or story with the rest of the world. approximately three kilometres deep at And all thought that by getting even the every point. shortest piece published, they could be •If the liver ever stops working a person regarded as ‘authors’. would die within 8 to 24 hours.

Hardly anyone wrote ‘for money’. If the •If the sun stopped shining suddenly, it money came along, that would be fine. But would take eight minutes for people on earth they would write even without the money. to be aware of the fact.

They had to. Writing was that compelling.

•If you go blind in one eye, you only lose Let the budding writer take note: to write about one fifth of your vision, but all your with the money in direct view discounts the sense of depth. possibility of coming up with enduring •If you suffer from iatrophobia, you’re stories. afraid of doctors.

Now, forgive us we take our leave for an •If you are from hedenophobic, you have idea just occurred that we must scribble a fear of pleasure. quickly. Why? Because we are compelled to!

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Page 60

Lottery to generate N500bn in 5 years - Minister

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HE Minister of Special Duties, Alhaji Taminu Turaki, over the weekend said the nation's lottery industry could generate a minimum of N500 billion within five to 10 years.

Turaki made this known to newsmen in London at the end of a three-day visit to various UK lottery agencies.

He said that lottery had a potential of creating jobs, and generating huge revenues for the country if properly articulated, while citing the success story of UK. The minister, who led a 12 man delegation, further said that monies derived from lottery could

fund thousands of good projects that would benefit the public.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the UK Lottery industry which ranks among tops in the world has generated 31 billion pounds for good projects since it was established in 1994.

The sector also creates six millionaires weekly from different games of play.

Turaki, who noted that the ``perception of lottery as gambling'' was a challenge to the industry in the country, adding that if Nigerians understood the concept of lottery, the percentage of players would surpass that of the UK, put at 70 per cent

-- Page 53

‘ATMs have improved cashless policy’

PIB: The ultimate lubricant of the Nigerian economy

How far can new mortgage finance go?

of its population. ``There is a world of difference between lottery and gambling, even in the UK there are agencies handling each of them. If you consider the immeasurable benefits derived from lottery, it is clear that it's different from gambling. ``We embarked on this trip to share in the UK experience of lottery so as to enable us tighten loose ends in our own system. ``We want Nigerians to benefit from what others around the world are getting from lottery. ``In so doing, we are committed to unbundling the sector and liberalising the landscape for investors and players to have confidence in

the industry,'' Turaki added.

In the same development, Mr Shaun Walsh, the Deputy Director UK's Big Lottery Fund, who had earlier briefed members of the delegation, said that lottery funds were spent on charitable projects and not invested. ``We give grants from 300 pounds to multi million pounds to organisations ranging from small local groups to major national charities. ``Funds are given through programmes tailored to the specific needs of communities across the UK and these are mainly in health, education, environment and charitable purposes,'' he said.

•Makoko

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NCC pays fine collected from telecom operators into treasury - official

F

INES imposed on telecommunications operators for rendering poor services are paid into the government treasury, an official of Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) said over the weekend.

The NCC spokesperson, Mr Reuben Muoka, made the position known in Abuja in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

Muoka explained that by the law governing the commission, it was illegal to pay any fund charged as penalty to individuals.

He said that the main reason the commission sanctioned the operators was to serve as deterrent and encourage improvement in services in the industry. ``The law forbids NCC from sharing such money. How do you collect sanction money and begin to share to individuals?

"The penalty is not for profit making but a deterrent for those who are not obeying the rules so that they can adhere to the rules. ``I do not think that it makes any meaning when any operator defaults to begin to share the penalty money to individuals,'' Muoka said.

He said going by the year 2013, sanction fund that was retrieved from all the telecom operators could not be shared.

"Even, if we tell the operators to compensate the customers to the equivalent of that amount, which would be about N9 per subscriber, don't you think that the operators will be happy?

"When the NCC sanctions them, they will improve their services because that can affect them in the global market by the time they approach their banks for loan.

"The money realised from the penalty goes directly into government account, others we use for the monitoring exercises and other things,'' Muoka said.

Oando achieves over four million man-hour operations on its rigs

O

•From left: Mr. Yerima Tafar, Mr. Eddy Diamini, Mr. Muhammad Nasir, Prince Lekan Fadina and Mr. Seyni Nato, all members of Africa Group of Negotiators during the United Nations Conference on Climate Change, held in Warsaw, Polland.

Maritime workers seek inclusion in NHF

T

HE Maritime Workers' Union of Nigeria (MWUN) at the weekend urged the Federal Government to review the National Housing Fund policy to cover workers in private organisations.

The Chairman of the Nigerian Ports Authority Branch of MWUN, Mr Dahiru Talle, said that

workers in private organisation in the maritime sector were not contributing to the fund.

He spoke at the Triennial Delegates' Conference of Senior Staff Association of Communications, Transport and Corporation (SSACTAC) in Abuja. ''The money of maritime workers in the private organisation is not being deducted.

``This is not good because the workers will not benefit from the housing scheme," he said.

He noted, however, that workers in the public sector were contributing to the fund.

Reacting, the President of the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC), Mr Bobboi Kaigama, urged the Nigeria Employers' Consultative Association (NECA) to

ensure that workers in private organisations benefitted from the scheme.

Kaigama said that NECA, TUC and the Nigeria Labour Congress signed a memorandum of understanding with the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria to ensure that the three unions would be aware of all houses constructed and allocated under the scheme.

ANDO Energy Services Ltd (OESL) at the weekend said it had achieved four years of continuous operation without "Lost Time Incident (LTI)" on its four million man-hour operations in its four rigs.

LTI refers to injuries sustained on the job or the injury capable of obstructing a worker from executing a task or loss of operation.

This was disclosed in a statement signed by Dr Alex Irune, Head, Corporate Communications of Oando and issued in Lagos.

The statement quoted OESL, Oando subsidiary, as saying that the performance was another significant industry milestone in rigs operations.

"It is an oil and gas industry benchmark that estimates adherence to safety and environmental requirements in the course of operations," it said.

Commenting on the milestone, OESL Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Mr Bandele Badejo, said that the company was proud of the feat and the industry.

"The charge going forward is to sustain this great safety track record, ensure we maintain focus on the daily activities that led to LTI free operations on all OESL rigs and to continuously identify areas for further improvement.

"OESL teamwork rig has worked on some of Nigeria's wellknown oil industry projects and was one of the first rigs to drill in the Niger Delta region of the country.

"The 3,000 horse powered swamp drilling barge, equipped with 10,000 blowout preventers systems, has operated within the area for the past 20 years,'' Badajo said Mr Chijioke Akwukwuma, the Oando Chief Environmental, Health, Safety, Security and Quality Officer, said the performance of the OESL team "continues to make us proud".

"The achievement of over four million man-hour without an LTI on all our rigs demonstrates what can be attained in the midst of substantial challenges.

"We are extremely passionate about safety at Oando and we will continue to inculcate this culture among our employees,'' he said.

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 26, 2014

How far can new mortgage fi n President Goodluck Jonathan recently inaugurated the Nigeria Mortgage Refinance Company in a bid to ensure more Nigerians get their own houses. In this report, Joe Agbro Jr. examines why most Nigerians still find having a roof over their heads a challenge

‘W

HEREVER a man lays his head is his home,' goes a popular English saying. But while that cliché usually describes a vagrant, it is nevertheless the desires of many men (and women) to have a roof of their own. And since the time of having simple houses, this desire rather than wane, has been on the increase.

However, going with the financial implications of owning homes in these modern times, it is now an Herculean task to own a house now. Just ask the number of Nigerians dreaming to have their own house.

Inadequate roofs According to Adeyeye Ogunwusi, the managing director of Gran Imperio, a consortium in the building industry, there is indeed a housing deficit in Nigeria. But how does one check this awning deficit is the challenge. The truth is that Nigeria needs about 17 million housing units to come out of its deficit.

Unlike other means of buying houses which may involved the bulk payment, buying houses via mortgages should be convenient as loans are provided. And the officially recognised institution regulating mortgages in Nigeria is the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN), which was established as the Nigerian Building Society in 1956. And following the indigenisation Act of 1973, the federal government acquired 100 per cent ownership of the NBS. Designed to offer mortgage lending services to all segments of the population, FMBN started a contributory savings scheme called the National Housing Fund (NHF), which was established by Act 3 of 1992. The NHF is a pool of funds from Nigerian workers, banks, insurance companies and the federal government to advance loans at soft interest rates to contributors. In 1994, the FMBN, following the promulgation of the FMBN Act 82 [1993] and the Mortgage Institutions Act 53 [1989], became an apex mortgage institution and a new company, Federal Mortgage Finance Limited (FMFL), was form to take the FMBN's retail functions.

To meet its mandate, the FMBN has shifted operational emphasis to expand its functions from only social housing on-lending under the NHF to include commercial on lending for housing, commercial mortgages refinancing, mortgage purchasing and warehousing and Mortgage-

•An expansive Abuja housing estate

Backed Securitisation. Under this mandate it finances mortgages created by primary mortgage institutions (PMI) under the National Housing Fund Scheme and also gives estate development loans (EDL) to real estate developers.

But in Nigeria, mortgages are not common. And according to the ministry of finance, there are about 20,000 mortgages open in Nigeria.

And in most cases, the mortgages do not extend beyond 10 years.

This is contrary to the aims of the FMBN which is to assist all levels of Nigerians own homes with convenient payment modes.

To Adeniyi Akinlusi, the managing director of Trustbond Mortgage Bank, the fact that housing finance lack long-term funding is detrimental to achieving housing for all Nigerians. With a deficit of over 17 million housing units, the Trustbond boss said, Nigeria as a huge potential in housing but then, this is something unachievable given the poor attention to the housing sector.

'Unlike the USA which has 85 per cent housing ownership rate,' Akinlusi said, ' Brazil 53 per cent, Benin Republic and South Africa with 61 and 56 per cent housing rate respectively, Nigeria has a paltry 25 per cent home ownership rate. So, there is need to fill the gap.

For instance, if we can provide N3million for each of the 17 million units, that is N56trillion, a lot of money by any standard which no single organisation can undertake except different crop of investors come into the sector.'

Charting a new path However, in a bid to bolster the housing sector, President

‘

Unlike the USA which has 85 per cent housing ownership rate, Brazil 53 per cent, Benin Republic and South Africa with 61 and 56 per cent housing rate respectively, Nigeria has a paltry 25 per cent home ownership rate. So, there is need to fill the gap. For instance, if we can provide N3million for each of the 17 million units, that is N56trillion, a lot of money by any standard which no single organisation can undertake except different crop of investors come into the sector Goodluck Jonathan recently launched the Nigeria Mortgage Refinance Company (NMRC) in Abuja. The president decried the short tenure on loans by commercial and mortgage institutions in the country. He also hopes the NMRC would alleviate the constraints holding back the rapid housing development going on all over the states.

Also at the launch of the NMRC in Abuja, Ngozi OkonjoIweala, the coordinating minister of the economy, had acknowledged the high lending rates in the range of 20 and 23 per cent. Being optimistic too, she hoped the lending rates will come down to low double digits or high single digit, saying; "This company is being set up to help lower the funding cost of mortgages and promote the affordability and availability of good housing to working Nigerians by providing mortgage lending banks increased access to liquidity and longer-term funds in the market."

The plan is that the NMRC will refinance mortgages originating from primary mortgage lenders. Armed with a N6 billion capital and a $300 million World

’

Bank-approved International Development Association (IDA) loan, the NMRC is set for business.

But, Head of research at Fidelity Bank, Francis Ikenga, reacting to the move said; "The $300 million is a drop in the ocean but it's a move that is important to activate the secondary market."

Regarding housing for all Nigerians, Ogunwusi thinks this is possible but he pointed out that certain factors such as the prohibitive cost of perfecting land titles by government must be addressed.

"It (cost of processing land titles) should be brought down," he said. "It is a bit high between eight and 12 per cent to perfect titles."

This is no doubt important because one of the eligibility requirements for having a mortgage is having a valid title to the piece of land on which one intends to build. Now, if a company involved in real estate can still have challenges accessing the required documentation, it must definitely not be a tea party for an individual trying to access these housing loans.

Concerning mortgaging, Ogunwusi who said most Nigeri-

ans do not like to look at things on a long-term basis believes that the mortgage system should be given another chance, especially on the heels the federal government's setting up of the NMRC. "Mortgage system is not very active," he said. "Everything is cash-driven. That is the reason why we are having another problem of acute housing crisis. What federal government is doing might not 100 per cent solve the problem, it is going to take us very far. With that, that kind of corporation (NMRC) can leverage on bonds and access capital to bring the cost of mortgages down. But with the way things are happening now, things that have not happened before are happening now. Let us give the system a chance. Things will naturally take shape."

Hitherto, perhaps, because mortgages involves a long-term process of being indebted to the mortgage company, many Nigerians, seem to prefer resorting to laying brick over brick, through the years, and managing meagre finances along the way. And in some instances, not completing the building project at all, hereby re-

BUSINESS

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 26, 2014

59

fi nance go?

•From left: Chairman /Partner Bailey Cole Consult Mr Toyin Munis , Representative of Lagos State Accountant General & Director Finance Intelligence Mr Olujimi Ige and Managing Partner Bailey Cole Consult Mr Ola Tubi at the opening ceremony of a three-day workshop on Basic Excel for Finance and Accounting Professionals in Lagos State by the Lagos State Treasury Office in collaboration with Bailey Cole in Lagos...recently.

Photo Dayo Adewunmi

Transcorp Hilton serves 1,800 guests in Switzerland

T

RANSCORP Hilton Abuja has successfully served Nigerian lunch to 1,800 guests at the on-going World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Following the success recorded

by Transcorp Hilton Abuja in serving Nigerian dishes in Davos, President Goodluck Jonathan has urged the hotel to "replicate the 100 per cent perfect delivery of service known only to the Hilton."

He was said to have invited the Hilton team to take pictures with him as a sign of his endorsement of the hotel serving invited guest's Nigerian lunch in May 2014 when the World Economic Forum comes

ducing home ownership among Nigerians.

Among the benefits of plugging into the NHF includes accessing loans up to 90 per cent of the cost of the desired house up to the tune of N15m, a fixed interest of 6 per cent per annum on mortgages, and long repayment period of up to 30 years.

Though, Nigerians will start benefiting from the involvement of the NMRC in June, some players in the mortgage sector are already optimistic. According to a news report, Femi Johnson, president of the Mortgage Banking Association of Nigeria and the managing director of Homebase Mortgage Bank, the move by the federal government to refinance mortgages will bring about low interest rates in the sector.

And while NMRC is poised to deliver about 750, 000 homes annually, it also seeks to create an enabling environment with mortgage banks and other financial institutions to offer long term mortgages of between 15 and 20 years to Nigerians at affordable rates.

The current practice among developers is that customers are asked to deposit around 30% of the cost of the building they are interested in while paying for the remainders within 10 years.

Out of the $300 million loan, NMRC would disburse $250 million in instalments as tier-2 capital. And according to OkonjoIweala, $25 million will be used to set up a mortgage guarantee facility for low income borrowers while $25 million will be used to strengthen the FMBN's masshousing drive as well as

microfinance institution's capability to lend to low-income citizens.

Plugging into the fund The NHF scheme is open to all Nigerians who cannot afford a commercial housing loan. An intending beneficiary must be a registered contributor and be up to date with his or her contributions.

To qualify, one must contribute at least 2.5% of his or her basic monthly salary and can access a loan after contributing for six months. A contributor interested in accessing NHF loan can apply through registered and accredited Primary Mortgage Institution (PMI) who forwards the application to the FMBN. He or she would also need to provide photocopies of the land title documents, three years' tax clearance certificate, copy of his or her previous three months' pay slip and equity contribution of 30 per cent, 20 per cent, or 10 per cent, depending on the loan amount applied for.

These loans are repaid on a monthly basis in a convenient and affordable manner. And the only collateral needed for a NHF loan is the house itself, which can be built anywhere in Nigeria.

While this provision is open for salaried workers, there is also another provision for non-salaried workers who wish to take advantage of the NHF platform.

But, as stakeholders cautiously watch the terrain, only time will tell if indeed Nigerians will begin plugging into the mortgage sector.

However, the fact is that the mortgage sector seems to be gearing towards making housing for all Nigerians a reality.

From Nduka Chiejina (Assistant Editor), Abuja

to Nigeria.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is a Geneva-based non-profit organization best known for its Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, the Annual Meeting of New Champions in China (Summer Davos) and the Summit on the Global Agenda in Dubai.

Nigeria will host the 24th edition of the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Africa in May. Tanzania and Ethiopia, respective hosts in 2010 and 2010 showcased that Africa's growth story goes beyond natural resources.

Nigeria has been selected to host the 24th edition of the World Economic Forum on Africa (WEF) between 7 - 9 May 2014 in Abuja.

WEF Africa is the annual regional meeting of the Forum in Africa, often attracting about 1,000 delegates from over 70 countries.

The summit in 2014 is poised to build on the progress made in the 2013 meeting that looked at "Delivering Africa's Promise" by exploring ways to "Forge Inclusive Growth, (and) Create Jobs."

President Goodluck Jonathan is expected to host global business and political leaders in the country, and use the opportunity to tell the Nigerian story.

•From left: Mr. Toba Agboola, Chairman, Commerce and Industry Correspondents Association of Nigeria (CICAN), Mr. Edema Albert, Assistant Comptroller of Customs, Dr Joe Odumodu, Director-General, Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON), Dr. John Isemede, DG, NACCIMA and Mr. Rasheed Adegbenro, DG, MAN, at a public forum organised by CICAN in Lagos…recently

Close Up rewards promo winners

T

WO students have emerged star prize winners, in the second phase of the Close-up Herbal Naija Smile promo. The students, Obi Olivia Ebele, a student of Biochemistry at the University of Nigeria, (UNN) Nsukka and Idowu Habeeb, from the Department of Quantity Surveying, Lagos State Polytechnic, all smiled home with a car each. Other winners got consolation prizes that included ipad and iphones.

The marketing Director, Unilever Nigeria Plc, Mr David Okeme said the brand stand for social confidence expressed in people getting close and a smile is always the end product of such closeness.

By Lanre Williams "This is the reason why we started this campaign, to bring out the natural smiles in Nigerians, with a help from brand that has been nurturing these smiles all through the years. Nigerians have been termed to be the happiest people on earth and this is best expressed in the smiles that cover their faces as they go about their daily businesses and that is why Closeup is partnering with Nigerians to keep these smiles afresh, Speaking on the competition, the Assistant Category Manager, Oral care, Grace Onwubuemeli said it was to search for the natural Naija smile on the Close-up herbal platform.

"Nigerians are said to be the happiest people on earth and we felt one of the ways through which happiness is shown is through smile. So we wanted to reward our esteem customers and consumers through sharing their smile with us then stand a chance to win fantastic prizes," she said.

The contest kicked off in the last quarter of 2013, with over 1,531 entries. Eight winners finally emerged.

The contest was a digital driven campaign tagged, 'The search for Best Natural Naija Smile'. It encouraged consumers to share their naija smile by uploading a picture their smiles unto an application on Closeup facebook page, invite friends to vote for their entries.

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 26, 2014

BUSINESS

CARE-FREE and seeming loose assertion by Sylvia Pankhurst that "wars will never come to an end" appears a most innocuous statement to make to an average reader of global political and economic trends.

Pankhurst writing in 1922, a 27-page pamphlet titled: "The Truth about Oil War", actually alluded the statement that 'war will never come to an end' to an anonymous capitalist.

However radical Pankhurst and several other scholars on crisis in the oil business may appear to the world, the truth still stands that wherever there is oil, there is bound to be conflicts stemming from the astounding monetary gains that the oil business brings to investors.

It is on this premise that the lingering controversy that has trailed the delay in the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) is understandable and must be dealt with without any further delay.

As long as the PIB remains in coma, the logjam that has been witnessed in the oil industry would be sustained and painfully for the greater number of the citizens of this country, they shall be the weeping lot they have been.

For those who have constituted themselves as opposition to this one document which for the first time in the long history of oil business in Nigeria seeks to put Nigeria in the same stead with established oil-producing and exporting countries of the world, they must be aware that it is trite legal principle that law is an agent of social change and the PIB in its various amended versions, aims at bringing about an optimal solution to change in the nation's oil industry which has been accused severally of sluggishness.

And for other citizens who are ignorant of the essence of the PIB, when it is passed into law, then and only then would the Nigerian petroleum industry have a direction from the upstream operation (exploration, development and production activities), the midstream (gas processing) down to the downstream activities of servicing, refining, distribution, transportation, marketing and retailing.

Essentially, the PIB seeks to bring about major reforms in the industry and by so doing create a conducive environment for petroleum operations, tilt the conduct of exploitation and exploration of petroleum resources in the country in favour of Nigerians, optimise government revenue from the industry, deregulate and liberalise the downstream petroleum sector. In its acceding to the yearning of Nigerians, the Bill seeks to create efficient and effective regulatory agencies, promote the development of Nigerian content in the oil industry, and perhaps most critical at this phase of the country's development, the PIB will drive at optimising domestic gas supplies for home use, power generation and industrial development, among other benefits.

While the PIB establishes the Federal Government of Nigeria as the owner and manager of all petroleum re-

sources, offshore or onshore, the government manages these resources on behalf of all Nigerians. Thus, irrespective of where oil is found, it belongs to the government of Nigeria.

However, the PIB recognises for special consideration the localities where the resources are extracted and this is taken care of by the revenue sharing laws and certain provisions of the PIB like the Host Community Fund.

For investors, whether local or foreign, the level of risks involved in any venture is of immense importance and there are such identifiable risks in the Nigerian oil industry such as there are in other countries where oil is found in commercial quantity.

Such commercial risks will include cost overruns, delays and shortfall in project revenue caused by uncertain sales and prices. This is juxtaposed against established political risks like possible expropriation of assets, civil unrests, environment laws, tax policies, among several others.

In the case of Nigeria, in recent times, militant unrest and price distortion of petroleum products have been clearly identified as project risks and the immediate response from the International Oil Companies has been the consistent reduction in their participation in the industry as they continue to sell off some of their oil blocks in the country.

In spite of this seeming threat, efforts by the Nigerian government to establish a clear regulatory and fiscal regime, deregulation of the downstream sector and the establishment of a globally-acknowledged amnesty programme have appreciably addressed the issues of militancy in the Niger Delta region, hence projects financing of the petroleum industry in Nigeria are still quite reliable transactions and the responses of banks, local and foreign, to these are an attestation to this attractiveness.

Despite the expressed fear of insecurity of investments and lives as a constraint for the IOCs and other investors in the Nigerian oil industry, the most critical area of opposition by the IOCs has been the fiscal area of the PIB. This is for obvious reasons as has been maintained by the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mr. Andrew Yakubu, who has accused the IOCs of not wanting to let go of the incentive past they have enjoyed.

"When we started the deepwater project, we had to give incentives to investors in order to encourage them.

Now, the deepwater project is mature, we can't continue to give such incentives."

Allaying fears expressed in certain quarters, the GMD of NNPC insists that the PIB would not in any way retard investment in Nigeria's oil industry rather, the PIB, he assures, will provide a win-win situation for both Nigeria and the IOCs. Change, obviously, is the most difficult thing for humans to embrace and the fiscal arrangement in the PIB which is an overhaul of what used to be in practice is attracting criticisms and it is the

PIB: The ultimate lubricant of the Nigerian economy

By Sehinde Omoniyi

most critical aspect of the Bill.

This opposition insists that it will create a harsh environment that would materially change the economics of existing and new operations particularly in the deepwater sector.

Without any doubt, the tax changes as contained in the PIB will favour increased government take from an average of 73 per cent to a projected 82 per cent and this figures are derived on the projections of a mid-size deepwater oil field with production of around 50 million barrels per annum and oil price benchmarked at US$75bbl.

This opposition to the PIB in terms of the fiscal component is ideally an advantage to oil companies who could reap greater share from higher production and current high oil prices.

In spite of what appears as increased returns to government, the Nigerian fiscal

terms are considered lenient when compared to its peers, particularly those countries with the same geological character like Libya which operates 93 per cent government take and UAE Abu Dhabi which operates on an average of 94 per cent.

And with the recent rise in oil prices, the global trend in fiscal terms is for governments to have built-in mechanisms of increased government share in windfall prices through increased royalty/ taxes and linkages of royalty/ tax rates to prevailing prices to ensure automatic adjustment in share to price increases.

Why IOCs or any operator in the Nigerian oil industry would expect anything less from an industry Bill only exposes how overtly lenient the country has been with its investment climate and this is impacting negatively on its people.

For a document that has travelled around for well over a decade, various changes have been made to

the original document. Obviously, part of it has been the restructuring of the regulatory framework for the oil industry into separate regulators for the upstream, midstream and downstream sectors.

Fiscal changes have also been introduced for the upstream, provisions for gas utilisations, refining/downstream sector reforms and most pronounced is the replacement of the joint venture (JV) agreements between NNPC and the producing companies which cover most of Nigeria's onshore and shallow-water fields with the incorporated joint ventures (IJVs).

What the PIB expects is that the IJVs as legal entities will be capable of raising loans commercially and repay them from generated income. As a result, the IJVs will operate independent of the often contentious government cash call obligations.

Under the PIB, two layers of tax are introduced, namely the Nigerian Hydrocarbons Tax (NHT) and Companies Income Tax (CIT) which are applicable to both JV and PSC operations.

While NHT replaces the Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT) and is set at 50 per cent for JV, 50 per cent for gas and 30 per cent for PSC, the CIT is introduced for all oil companies at the rate of 30 per cent on net profits.

A minimum of 10 per cent withholding tax on dividends and education tax of 2 per cent on revenue existing under the current fiscal regime is retained.

Meanwhile, the streamlined NHT ensures the abolishing of investment tax credits, investment tax allowances and the petroleum investment allowance (PIA) uplift on capital expenditures for existing arrangements and these are replaced with allowances for small oil fields and new gas finds, among other reforms.

As a way of ensuring control and proper regulation of a more encompassing industry functions, the PIB establishes or restructures key agencies in the industry.

They include petroleum technical bureau (PTB) as a special unit under the office of the Minister of Petroleum and charged with the responsibility of rendering professional support to the minister; upstream petroleum inspectorate (UPI) which will regulate technical and commercial activities in the upstream sector and will be responsible for issuing licences and permits because it is not profit-driven, it will not pay income tax.

Others include downstream petroleum regulatory agency (DPRA), the petroleum technology development fund (PTDF), the petroleum equalisation fund (PEF), the national petroleum assets management corporation (NAPEMC) - this will be responsible for managing government investments in the upstream industry and will have subsidiaries to carry out different aspects of these activities.

Another offshoot of the current NNPC will be the National Oil Company (NOC).

The NOC will be listed on the Stock Exchange, meaning

Nigerians can acquire its shares to as much as 30 per cent.

Another PLC in the offing will be the National Gas Company (NGC), with certain employees, assets and liabilities of the NNPC to be transferred to it.

Perhaps of most interest to most Nigerians is the Petroleum Host Communities Fund (PHCF) and in the PIB terms, for the fund's sustenance, oil and gas-producing companies are required to contribute an amount (10 per cent of their profits after adjusting for Hydrocarbon Tax and Companies Income Tax) into this Fund.

The funds will be used to develop the economy and infrastructure of the producing communities.

And as a way of ensuring that the rights of these communities are matched by an equal obligation to the common good, the PIB provides that any community that still goes ahead to destroy assets of companies producing in its locality will forfeit its share of PHCF. Based on the above clarification which is far from being exhaustive given the elaborate contents of the PIB in its more than 200 pages, it cannot be said that the document is designed to benefit a small group of interest against over all national interest.

Rather, its continued delay is only a result of selfcentred, short-sighted and irreconcilable political interest of a few against the good of the majority of Nigerians.

Suffice to say that when the PIB is eventually passed into law, which has become urgent given sporadic changes in the global oil industry, it would create more jobs for Nigerians since it will be an illegal act to employ foreigners for certain skills that can be sourced locally, as has become rampant in the current dispensation.

Since the PIB also provides for preference of local materials sourcing against foreign, it will only encourage more jobs for indigenous contractors, especially those from the oil-producing regions.

The precarious situation of gas utilisation in Nigeria is still a sour statement on our economy and resource management system and only a PIB which has taken this into cognisance will bail the nation out of this malaise.

End of subsidy will become a reality with the deregulation of the downstream sector of the industry and in turn, increase in government revenue from oil industry will mean more funds for infrastructure development, among other value-adds.

Given our background as a people and the near mishaps that we have suffered as a people due to the mismanagement in part of the oil resource, and in the spirit of the Nigerian centenary, the 7th National Assembly will only be doing this nation of over 160 million people proud by passing this PIB into law this early in the year.

Anything short of this will only amount to an outright sabotage of a common patrimony.

- Omoniyi, a journalist, writes from Abuja

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 26, 2014

BUSINESS

61

'ATMs have improved cashless policy’ The Head, e-Business, Stanbic IBTC bank, Thabo Makoko, spoke with Bukola Afolabi on the challenges of implementation of the automated teller machine (ATM) cards and cashless policy in Nigeria

W

E have heard and also read about the phenomenal growth of payment cards since the Central Bank of Nigeria started implementing the cash-lite policy. What is the current state of debit and credit cards issued by Stanbic IBTC and the wider financial services sector?

It is true that the CBN cash-lite policy implementation has increased the demand for cash-lite instruments and cards have been in high demand in the industry.

This year alone, our credit card business has grown by over 400 percent while the debit card business has almost doubled.

Customers are realising the benefits of using cards for their transactions - flexibility, convenience, security of using cards compared to cash, among others. As parts of our drive to provide endto-end financial services solutions for our customers, we issue debit cards to every account holder from inception. This empowers them to carry out transactions with very little dependence on cash.

Self-service channels including ATMs and Point of Sales (PoS) terminals remain highly convenient as they are available 24 hours a day and seven days a week.

In addition to CBN's cash-lite policy, how pivotal is the role of technology, such as increased internet connectivity and robust payment platforms, in driving the adoption of cards in Nigeria?

Technology is essential in driving a cash-lite industry. Our major concern as a bank remains the technology driving the business, particularly the communications for PoS terminals and electronic banking platforms. We invest in educating customers to migrate from cash reliance to using their cards on PoS terminals.

However, if the terminals do not have a 99 per cent uptime, it discourages the behaviour we work so hard to achieve. There are some key partners involved in processing card t r a n s a c t i o n s : telecommunication companies, Nigeria InterBank Settlement System (NIBSS) and the banks. All partners need to be available to ensure better service to customers.

Over the past 18 months, there have been improved commitment and focus in ensuring that we improve the industry and offer a compelling alternative to the traditional cash.

With the growth trend you have enumerated, would you say that Nigerians may be discarding their fear of using cards for financial

•Makoko

transactions?

To a large extent, I will say yes. Every day, more people get more comfortable with the use of cards. However, we still have to work towards the stage where every bank account holder, in addition to having a card, does most, if not all, of their current cash transactions via credit or debit cards. CBN introduced new pricing tariffs and these were meant to encourage the use of non-cash instruments so that consumers can only enjoy the benefits of adopting cash-lite instruments.

Another reported drawback with using cards issued in Nigeria is security.

How secure are credit cards issued by Nigerian banks?

All banks are governed by the Central Bank of Nigeria to ensure that standard national card security features are enforced.

One of these features is the 'chip and PIN' technology which prevents the cloning of cards.

Card association requirements for MasterCard and Visa also include the Payment Cards Industry Data Security Standards (PCIDSS) certification for card issuers. PCIDSS is the international payment card industry data security standard which is a compulsory international standard on card data security.

With this certification, Stanbic IBTC Bank's card payment solutions and debit and credit card services have met the highest standard of security of customers' information and transactions on its e-banking platform, which significantly reduces the risk of card system compromise.

We also have a fraud

monitoring tool on our credit cards called the Visa Risk Manager which effectively monitors and prevents fraud on the credit cards. We always encourage card holders to take security measures concerning their cards like not accepting help from strangers when using their cards; inspecting transaction terminals like PoS machines and ATMs for suspicious devices used to fraudulently collect card details from unsuspecting cardholders; or people trying to note their PIN at an ATM, and so on. Our Customer Care Centre is available 24 hours every day to assist customers with their cards needs.

Recently, it was reported that there are over 150,000 PoS terminals currently in Lagos with many of the terminals inactive. Don't you think this can dampen enthusiasm of Nigerians towards cards?

Yes. There are people who are eager to use their cards at PoS terminals because PoS machines offer more security than carrying cash around.

However, people are not so confident that every time they walk into a merchant's location, their card will be accepted.

From the merchant's perspective, there are several reasons they do not have active terminals. These range from shop owners' reluctance to bear the associated costs; shop attendants not willing to use the terminal for reasons including getting tips as a result of cash transactions, indifference to the value and convenience that the terminals offer, and so on.

These are, however, teething problems associated with the adoption of new solutions. Industry trends

indicate that more and more customers will switch to PoS transactions and cards will be a better transaction option when compared with cash.

Nigerians started embracing credit cards recently. Why did it take so long for banks in Nigeria to issue their customers credit cards, considering how long debit cards have been in the market?

Credit cards, being an unsecured loan product, must be treated as any other loan product - it requires verification checks, documentation, proof of repayment; and so on. In Nigeria, issuing of credit cards is done with much caution as they are prone to default if not carefully managed.

Other developed countries have easier tracking systems where credit rating determines several other socio-economic factors in individual lives; therefore citizens exercise discipline and ensure their cards are properly serviced.

In Nigeria, however, we are gradually building our centralised credit bureau system for referencing customers who have good credit history to extend the credit card product to a larger group.

I believe that in time, credit cards will be very popular in the country when the credit system is fully developed. For now, Stanbic IBTC Bank remains one of the few banks offering the product to a certain category of customers.

People in the lower demographics have been reported to be more faithful in repaying bank loans, compared to people in the upper class. Why are these people who have shown high fidelity in loan repayment not the major focus of the banking system when it comes to products such as credit cards?

Our credit card holders include persons who earn from N80,000 per month.

This indicates that we do not necessarily offer the product to only the upper class. For us, the ability to demonstrate regular repayment via earning a stable income over a few months is a major condition.

With about 30 million bank accounts operated by Nigerians, as reported by the CBN, are we looking at such a number as potential credit cardholders? What does the future hold for credit card usage in Nigeria?

The future is bright for the credit card business. We just need to keep setting up the proper structure in place to improve the card system. We need to have a proper credit rating system which will guide the banks in making the right customer selection for the product.

What happens when you are “Polar Vortexed”

I

HAVE lived life long enough to agree with the age old adage that says "Life is not a bed of roses". I experienced challenges and great difficulties, and watched others go through the same. I now fully realise that challenges will come my way and I accept that I will be tried in the hot furnace of life, usually when I least expect it. To the diehard religious folks who are thinking to themselves that "I am confessing bad things", I say, "Get a Grip on Reality". We live in an imperfect world, where imperfect things happen.

If the world was so perfect and everything worked perfectly, I dare say, we would not need God. If we say that change is constant and for the most part we know that change can oftentimes be very uncomfortable or even downright traumatic, then itgoes without saying that the concept of change itself creates ripples in our lives that sometimes tear the fabric of our world apart. So if change is inevitable, and challenge is inevitable too, where does that leave us? What hope do we have?

I have always believed that there are two kinds of people, "Victims"and "Victors". The former are those who let things happen to them because they feel powerless to intervene, while the latter have this almost "insane" belief that their actions can change their world (note that I did not say, "The World"). A long time ago I belonged to the victim camp, and I carried around the notion that life is noticeably unkind and unfair. I felt a sense of powerlessness over my life and my self-worth and self-confidence was almost none existent.

Even though you would not know it by simply looking at me.

Guess what? I got tired of feeling powerless. It is not a good feeling, believe me. I got frustrated by the notion that anything could come my way in life and I would take it in the face without fighting back. Especially when I could see that there were people walking the earth with me, who were of a different school of thought and they looked like they were getting what they wanted and were better off for it.

People who did not sit back and take no for an answer.

People who would take a beating and still get back up to fight again. People who experienced what initially seemed like insurmountable challenges but which soon crumbled to dust in the face of persistence, resilience and doggedness.

I cannot say for certain when that change took place, the transition from "victim" to "victor". I cannot also say that I have fully crossed over. With each challenge a new day brings, I try to move a little more to the right. Which brings me to a recent challenge I faced early in the year. Yes, can you imagine! We were barely one week into 2014 and life tried to pull the rug from under me.

I spent Christmas in the United States of America and had carefully orchestrated a schedule that would bring me back to Lagos on the fourth of January. Why was this important? It would give me the weekend to rest and get ready for a trip to Dubai with a client on the sixth of January.

This trip to Dubai had been cooking for twelve months and was a landmark event for both my client and I. Additionally, I had committed to my client that I would be in Dubai and so they had incurred expenses paying for my flight and accommodation. By the way, it would be my very first trip to Dubai, which I will probably write about in a later article.

If you are an avid watcher of CNN you would have seen the various news report of the very cold weather with lots of snow referred to as the"Polar Vortex"; that besieged the United States in the first week of January and caused considerable damage, hardship and flight cancellations.

The polar vortex is described by CNN as the circulation of strong, upper-level winds that normally surround the northern pole in a counterclockwise direction -- a polar low-pressure system. These winds tend to keep the bitter cold air locked in the Arctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere. It is not a single storm. I had heard about the bad weatherin the news but thought I was shielded from it because I was not situated in the path of its vicious onslaught. My travel schedule was to take a direct flight to Houston on the third of January, and from there head to Lagos.

I spent all day, the third of January, doing last minute shopping and packing and did not have time to rest before heading to the airport to catch my flight. I got there ninety minutes before boarding only to discover that my flight had been cancelled. WHAAAT! Apparently flight cancellations in the "Polar Vortexed" states had a cascading effect on other places that had been lucky enough to escape the talons of "The Vortex". You cannot begin to imagine my disappointment. There I was, stuck and unable to get to Houston, knowing fully well that I was set on a course to miss my flight to Lagos that night. My dream of Dubai was turning out to be a nightmare.

Stay Tuned, for Part Two.

63

Nigeria booming daily contribution trade Page 64 & 65

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 26, 2014

How foreign institutions E support SMEs in Nigeria A

PPARENTLY miffed by the poor performance of small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) in the country, the World Bank, African Development Bank (AFDB), International Finance Corporation (IFC) have restated their commitment toward the growth of the sector. They spoke during a general meeting organised by the Nigerian Association of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises in Lagos recently.

Also at the meeting include the Nigerian Stock Exchange, First Bank Nigeria Plc, Heritage Bank, Bank of Agriculture, and other stakeholders in the financial sector.

The financial institutions in different presentations identified inadequate access to finance as the major challenge facing SMEs in the country.

Representative of the World Bank, Mr. Michael Wong, explained that the government should provide a platform that would aid easy access to funds for the growth of SMEs in the country.

He said, "Enterprise survey shows that labour is cheap but value added is low due to lots of constraints. Nigeria SMEs, access to finance is low compared to other African countries like Kenya. Most working capital is financed through internal funds."

He noted that the World Bank had concluded plans to launch another scheme to support SMEs in Nigeria.

CBN representative, Jeremiah Abah, said SMEs contributed largely to the development of an economy.

The African Development Bank (AfDB) signed an agreement to provide two sovereignguaranteed multi-tranche lines of credit (LoCs) of respectively US $500 million to Bank of Industry (BOI) and of US $200 million to Nigerian Export-Import Bank (NEXIM) in order to support the modernization and expansion of export-oriented small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

The LoCs will allow local SMEs to be more competitive, scale up their operations and ultimately create more jobs in Nigeria. The LoCs will include a technical assistance package to strengthen institutional capacity of BOI and NEXIM as well as their SME clients.

N

IGERIA is said to produce more cassava than any other country in the world.

It is the third most important source of calories in the tropics, after rice and maize. Millions of people depend on cassava in Nigeria and Africa in general.

Cassava is grown by poor farmers, many of them women, often on marginal land. For those people and their families, cassava is vital for both food security and income generation.

Following in the footsteps of past admin8istrations, especially that of President Olusegun Obasanjo, seeing that cassava not only meet

•Dr. Donald Kaberuka, President AfDB Stories by Bukola Afolabi

States (ECOWAS) exports. This facility will provide a great opportunity for NEXIM to make available concessional long-term funding in pursuance of its strategic objectives of enhancing value-added exports and bolstering the capacity of SMEs for job creation and foreign exchange earnings."

On her part, Ms. Evelyn Oputu, BOI Managing Director, noted that: "The AfDB's operation, contributing to capital market development and government revenue, is likely to generate significant additional lending to our export-oriented SMEs client at a time when it is sometimes difficult for commercial banks to finance this important sector of according to (IFC)."

According to reports, recent data provided by the National MSMEs collaborative survey 2010, put the number of MSMEs in Nigeria at 17,284,671 with total employment of 32,414,884.

Mr. Reginald Nworka, an SME Development Specialist with IFC, in an interview said the partnership is a great opportunity for people to improve their lives and escape poverty.

He noted that what the initiative intends to achieve was to extract people from poverty circle and launch them to a realm of prosperity through empowerment.

xxx

Through this integrated financing package, the AfDB is supporting Nigeria's efforts towards a more diversified economy away from oil and gas. The LoCs will supply multi-sector financing to address the challenge that SMEs face in accessing finance in the country. Therefore, export-oriented SMEs will be able to become more competitive, ensure sustainable growth of their operations and generate employment in the Nigerian productive sectors.

Ousmane Dore, AfDB's Resident Representative in Nigeria, said: "This AfDB combined programme will contribute to mobilize significant financial resources for Nigerian exportoriented SMEs, ultimately contributing to economic development, employment opportunities, foreign exchange and regional trade integration."

While lauding the contribution of the AfDB, Robert Orya, NEXIM Managing Director, said: "Thanks to AfDB's support through this program, NEXIM seeks important economic development achievements, including approximately 55,000 new jobs for its SME clients, US $1.6 billion in foreign exchange and an overall contribution of almost seven per cent to non-oil exports, including a 10 per cent share in Economic Community Of West African

NTREPRENEURS in Ogun State will this year benefit from the N510 million empowerment fund through their trade associations, community development associations and co-operative societies domiciled in the state.

Duro Aiyedogbon, Ogun State commissioner for community development and co-operatives, says the fund is for the economic boost and empowerment of businesses in the state this year.

Entrepreneurs, business men and women as well as artisans operating in the state under the auspices of cooperative societies, community development associations and trade associations domiciled in the state would be empowered through subventions, credit facilities, grant-inaids, among others, Aiyedogbon says.

Towards this objective, the government has set aside N510 million through a budgetary provision as part of monetary allocations to the ministry of community development and cooperatives for the execution of proposed empowerment and development programmes across the state.

Speaking in Abeokuta, the state capital on the proposed empowerment and development programmes, Aiyedogbon reveals that the programmes are evolved to engage more idle hands in all communities that make up the state, thereby making idle population productive and reducing crime rate.

Entrepreneurs to benefit from N510m fund in Ogun The commissioner says that the government, having considered the ministry's intermediary roles in developing people and communities at the grassroots level, would reach out to different sets of people in the state through the ministry, adding that government is re-positioning all the community based associations, such as co-operatives, trade associations in order to alleviate poverty, unemployment and engender socio-economic development.

The commissioner, who discloses that the state-owned Cooperative College, Ibara, Abeokuta and Social Development Institute, Iperu-Remo, are being repositioned to cope with current socio-economic realities in accordance with the best international practice, says that the programmes are being put in place to make people, especially the needy happier.

Nine Nigerians receive small grant award

N

INE Nigerians have been awarded a total grant of 45,000 dollars to undertake various entrepreneurial projects under the U.S Alumni Small Grant Award.

Mr Bill Strassberger, Cultural Affairs Officer, U.S Embassy in Abuja, presented the award to the recipients on behalf of the U.S Government.

Strassberger said the projects would focus mainly on job creation and entrepreneurial opportunities for youths in northern Nigeria.

He said that a total of 95,000 dollars had so far been disbursed to 19 Nigerian beneficiaries since the grant’s inception in 2012.

According to him, the small grants of 5,000 each will be used to support alumni community projects intended to empower at-risk youths in the northern part of the country.

He explained that youths would be trained in such skills as tailoring, bead making, fish farming, among others.

“They will also be provided with

start-up funds after the training to enable them earn a living,’’ he said.

A recipient and Kaduna-based journalist, Elizabeth Anche, said that her project tagged ‘Dress for Life’, would target less-privileged young girls in four communities in southern Kaduna.

Anche said 30 young girls would receive training in hairdressing, manicure and pedicure under the scheme after which a small start-up grant would be provided them.

Anche is a 2008 International Visitors and Leadership Programme alumna.

Another recipient, Kingsley Banguell, said he would work with 25 youths in Lugbe community in Abuja to develop multi-media skills and tailoring under a project tagged, ‘Skills House Lugbe.’

“They would learn photography, web-design, video production and tailoring; basically they do not need an office space to start-up a business.’’

Farmers task FG on N4.3 billion cassava bread fund

the food security needs of the estimated farmers who grow it, but to provide a key to rural industrial development and higher incomes for producers, processors and traders, this administration came up with cassava transformation program.

The cassava transformation project seeks to create a new generation of cassava farmers, oriented towards commercial production and farming as a business, and to link them up to reliable demand, either from processors or a guaranteed minimum price scheme of the government.

The overreaching strategy of the

cassava transformation is to turn the cassava sector in Nigeria into a major player in local and international starch, sweeteners, ethanol, HQCF, and dried chips industries by adopting improved production and processing technologies, and organizing producers and processors into efficient value-added chains.

The cassava processing technology started in the late 50s from the Federal Institute of Industrial Research, Oshodi (FIIRO) with various products and equipment. It is clear that the mandate to process cassava and other crops was

solely given to the institute, which they carried out judiciously without dabbling to crop production and other agencies mandates.

The Federal Government as a way of stimulating increased domestic production and processing of cassava announced plans to cut wheat imports by introducing a new policy compelling cassava flour inclusion in wheat flour.

Part of the government plan was to impose a levy of 15 % on wheat grain imports, which will increase the effective duty from 5 to 20 %. The gain

from the levy was used to establish the Cassava Bread Development Fund.

This led the Federal Government, represented by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Bank of Industry (BoI) for the bank to manage the N4.3 billion cassava bread fund that would support small and medium enterprises (SMEs), master bakers and large industrial cassava flour mills.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 26, 2014

64 BUSINESS/SME REPORT

Nigeria's booming daily cont rib F

•Naira notes

‘ and it is good because I do daily savings contribution the amount of money I contribute daily is affordable for me to contribute and I do not think a conventional bank will take such token amount of money from me.

If I wanted to save in a bank, I must have up to a thousand naira only, but this daily contribution I just have to save the token amount of money I can afford to save

By Lanre Williams already have one, printing of business cards, registration book, among other miscellaneous.

On the return on investment, she said, "The rate of interest is very good and it depends on the more customers you have the more the rate of income for you."

Although the business requires a few hands to manage for those who have a wide clientele, the micro savings collector says she has not really given it much of a thought.

"I don't have any employee because in this business you have to be very careful and watchful so that you won't be a debtor at the end of it. So that is the reason why I don't have any employees for now."

Waxing philosophical, she said, "Money is always tempting and you know that this business deals with handling a lot of

‘

OR most operators of micro, small and medium scale enterprises (MSMEs), especially those involved in the petty trades, the conventional banks out there don't seem to offer much of an attraction for them.

Therefore, one way they keep their businesses afloat is by patronising the micro savings daily contribution collectors who work within the neighbourhoods and environs.

The micro savings daily contribution which dates back to centuries ago, and hitherto commonplace in rural hinterlands and villages, is today a phenomenon in major cities across the country, including Lagos, Aba, Kano, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Ibadan, Benin, Abeokuta, Ilorin, Yola, Warri, Zaria, to mention just a few.

To say that a huge industry has been built around daily contribution is an understatement of sorts because the fad has really caught on as nearly everybody involved in MSMEs consider it a veritable source of savings that is not just convenient but also in their own terms and at little or no cost.

Operators of the micro daily savings contribution who are known in local parlance as Alajo in Yoruba, Esusu collector in Igbo and so on, unlike in the past have since stepped up their games.

So popular is the daily micro savings scheme that names like Alajo Somolu, ruled the roost in Lagos back in the days.

These days, most of them have offices, business names, among other appurtenances.

Speaking with a cross-section of some of the operators in Lagos metropolis and its environs, they confided in The Nation that the business can be very lucrative if well-managed.

Firing the first salvo, Madam Adunni Williams, 50, who is the Chief Executive of Imole Ayo Daily Contribution, and who set up shop in 1998, said business has been on an upward swing.

Going down memory lane, she recalled that she got her tutelage from a former boss, from whom she learned the intricacies of the job.

"I learnt this business from my former boss, by name is Mr. Paul Ben, of Paul Ben Daily Contribution. He is so honest, trustworthy and a devout Christian. He does not take money as idol at all," she began.

Pressed further, she said of her former boss "He was so honest that whenever any of his customers passed away, he would make sure he located the family of the deceased and provide all the money he/she had been saving. He also gaves loans to customers, but this eventually led to the collapse of his business because many of his beneficiaries failed to pay back such loans. So these are the things I have learnt from and I have promised not to make such mistakes."

Although she only has a first school leaving certificate, she admits that the job does not require too much sophistication and so her limited education is not a hindrance at all.

Mrs. Williams, who has been in business in the past 16 years, says what is required as start-up capital is about N200,000, mainly to rent a space for those who don't

money."

The business is not without its own peculiar challenges. "The challenges in this business are so many. First, some customers intentionally save fake money. So you have to know the way and manner to detect it."

Expatiating, she said: "Some don't count their money properly, which will some time lead to argument, whenever you do not notice it, so I have to count well and voice out the amount.

"Loan giving is also one of the barriers in this business, because some will not be able to refund it back and the loss will be yours.

"It is also a work that has to be handled by a hardworking person, some of my colleagues who also run this type of business have shutdown, because they are not hardworking. This business is not meant for a lazy person at all."

One way she tackles some of these challenges is by staying on

the alert and looking well before she leaps.

"In terms of fake money, I do check the naira notes one by one, if at all you give me millions I will check it one by one. In terms of loan I don't just give out loan just like that, I do give half of the amount you ask for and the person I want to give loan must have been my customer for about six month. All this is just to avoid the risk and loss of not getting the money back."

On plans to expand her business, she said: "I have plans to expand this business into a microfinance business, and if the government can help, it will make things easier and smooth for me. I don't give loan and take interest because it is contrary to the will of God." Like his counterpart, Mr. Yinka Idowu, 57, runs God Firsts Daily Contribution, which he set up over 35 years ago, has two employees, whom he described in affectionate

terms and superlative adjectives, "my two employees have served as great help to me."

He came into the business by chance.

"I was a staff of Yaba College of Technology, in the Works and Services Department. I really didn't set out to go into this business. I was drawn into the business when I realised that I don't spend money kept under my custody right from my secondary school days because this business is not for people who spend lavishly. I didn't learn it from anywhere, just like some people do.

I only discovered that I am fit for it."

Mr. Idowu, who began the business with a little seed capital, disclosed that the business is one that is based on trust, stressing that it is the only ingredient that would stand you in good stead with your old and new clients.

"My customers trust me because when the month ends, I pay them their money at the right

THE NATIO N ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 26, 2014

BUSINESS/SME REPORT

ont ribution trade

B

RITISH American Tobacco, Nigeria (BATN), in a concerted effort with other stakeholders from the public and organised private sectors, has advocated for a new regime of stiffer penalties and sanctions as a panacea that will address the ills and menace of illicit trade in the country.

BATN, Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), Manufacturers association of Nigeria (MAN) and Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) all agreed that this was the way out for the country in a forum organised by the Commerce and Industry Correspondents Association of Nigeria (CICAN), to x-ray the impact of illicit trade on Nigeria's economy and also proffer viable solutions to the menace.

Sola Dosunmu, Head of Regulatory Affairs British American Tobacco (West Africa), stated that the major reason illicit trade thrives is the economic opportunity it offers for the smuggler and illicit vendor to make money and also for the consumer to save money.

He disclosed that the company's collaboration with enforcement authorities such as the SON, Customs and the CPC has yielded considerable results in reducing illicit trade; increased revenue to the govern-

T •Mrs Williams time. If you don't disappoint them, their trust will be in you. People who want to go into this business should be honest and make people trust them."

The business, according to him, requires no registration of any kind.

"The business is not registered anywhere. I am the owner of the business, and I just started doing it without registration. I don't think registration is compulsory in this kind of business."

On the profitability, he said: "It is very gainful, if it is not gainful, I won't be doing it at my age. The income and profit come monthly, but I won't disclose the amount," he said, amidst laughter.

On the challenges, he said: "There are many challenges that are associated with this business and I can't mention all of them. Some customers would argue with you, that they have given you money, while they have not. Some would argue that they paid certain amount of money, which they did not pay. While some will not be able to pay back the loan they took."

He, however, attributes divine intervention to overcoming these challenges.

"I have been solving those challenges because with God all things are possible. If you think you can overcome these

challenges by your power, you will just fail. Or if you think you can meet somebody to cover you up, you are just deceiving yourself."

To avoid arguing over money, he says, "I jot the amount of money that all my customers give to me inside this book, which I usually call Confirmation Book. So I just bring it out whenever there is any form of argument between me and my customers."

Though still a start-up, his dream is to transform the business into a big one someday.

"My plan is to turn this business to a micro finance business which by God's grace will be possible for me."

Expectedly, Ogundiran Oluwatoyosi, who owns Bestway, a GSM phone repair centre, and who is a regular patron of the micro daily savings by scheme, spoke glowing of the business.

"Yes, I do daily savings contribution and it is good because the amount of money I contribute daily is affordable for me and I do not think a conventional bank will take such token amount of money from me.

If I wanted to save in a bank, I must have up to a thousand naira only, but this daily contribution I just have to save the token amount of money I can afford.

"Even this area, there is

no bank around here; I have to board a bus before I can get to a bank. So all this I have considered before dealing with them.

And also my money is being paid to me when needed, is just that if I want to collect my money today, I have to inform the man before today. It is also less stressful because it is the operator himself that will come to my shop, I don't have to start moving about before I save my money, and the guy has been honest with me."

Unlike Oluwatoyosi, Azeez Salami has an unpleasant experience.

Salami who is shoe cobbler, recalled that his experience has not been too palatable.

"I have engaged in it before, but now I do not because I was disappointed by the person I contributed with then. I was supposed to collect the sum of N150, 000 from him, for my wedding ceremony and to buy some materials which I needed to get for my business, but he never stopped giving me excuses until I was unable to get the money. I had to go somewhere else to lend money for the ceremony.

So that is the reason why I cannot deal with them again. I prefer to save my money in the bank where I will be paid when needed."

Talk of different strokes for different folks.

HE start of a new year is a great time to put our work habits under a microscope, toss the ideas that haven't been working and put new action into play. Each year has its lessons, so it's always good to reflect on what you've learned and optimise the knowledge for the coming year.

Below are 10 tips on how entrepreneurs can start 2014 on the right foot.

1. Confront and work on your challenge areas. Knowing your strengths is easy. Facing and fixing your weaknesses can sometimes create inaction in all of us. But to grow, it is important to make this change.

There are a billion "I can't" reasons and most are founded on nothing but fear - many times we are simply standing in our own way.

Use 2014 to pinpoint and build up the areas that are challenging you. Classes are great, but as entrepreneurs we need action now. Be proactive by turning to the internet. Look for information, articles, mentors and online tutorials for help.

2. Blend work-life and personal life. Professional life and personal life can be horrible counter weights to each other, creating an imbalance. Scrap the balancing act. Focus on what you're passionate about and maintain your intention to have more of it in your life.

For 2014, look for quick and convenient ways to blend personal life and professional life into a healthier lifestyle that works better for you, the people you love and your job. Honestly, if you add value it doesn't matter how the job gets done.

3. Let apps do the hard work. What's taking up your time? There's probably an app for it. Let it do the work. For instance, Cardmunch is awesome. It automatically converts business cards into contacts with a click of a button. Or 1Password stores all your logins and passwords in a safe, easy to access place. If you find a task taking up too much time, see if there is a tool that can make your life

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BATN, SON, others seek stiffer penalties against illicit trade

By Bukola Afolabi ment through taxes; seizure and destruction of approximately $10m worth of illicit cigarettes between 2008 and 2013.

In his remarks, the Director General of SON, Dr. Joseph Odumodu, noted that if importers and exporters do the right thing that is by complying with all the relevant laws, there would be no nuisance of smuggling.

"The challenge is on the doorstep of all importers, if we are able to curb the menace of unscrupulous importers then we would have solved about 70 per cent of the menace of smuggling in Nigeria. We need stiffer and heavier forms of sanctions across the value chain starting from the importers which is better than just destroying these smuggled goods," he said.

In his address, the acting DG of MAN, Rasheed Adegbenro, also recommended the impositions of relevant sanctions across the value chain such as on dealers and shipping/air freighting companies to discourage trade malpractices.

According to,, Dr. John Isemede, the Director General of NACCIMA, trade was the basis to consider the menace of

smuggling as it borders on both import and export activities.

However, he stressed that the Nigerian customs service has the bulk of responsibility as the country's gatekeepers in curbing smuggling.

The DG of LCCI, in his presentation noted stressed that only a holistic approach can be used to address the menace of smuggling through the creation of enforceable policies within the environment that we find ourselves; addressing the current weak infrastructure which increases cost of production and increasing local content addition in the production of goods.

Assistant controller of Customs, Edema Albert, who represented the Comptroller General of Customs, noted that besides statutory collection of revenue, they were using technology to checkmate smuggling through a unified single window process that strives to minimize human contact to the barest minimum in order to eliminate incidences of document falsification and under-invoicing.

Earlier, the chairman of CICAN, Toba Agboola, stated that the negative effects of smuggling were felt in the economic, environmental and social settings of a nation.

10 tips on how to be a better entrepreneur in 2014 easier.

4. Give a little help. When someone hands me a business card I make a note of how I can help that person. I like to connect people and have always valued when it's done for me, so I try to give back when relevant. It could be as easy as connecting them with a colleague or sending a book or digital article relevant to a conversation.

5. Play tag. Another business card tip? "Tag" business cards when you receive them.

Immediately jot down tags, or notes, to help you remember what the business card doesn't tell you, such as their interests, goals, alma mater or a mutual contact, among other details.

Act fast, while the light bulbs are coming on in your head and be succinct.

6. Have the difficult conversations. A friend and advisor told me something a few years ago that has really stuck with me. He said, "The person who can't have the difficult conversations won't be around long."

What a profound, true statement that is - both personally and professionally.

Have the difficult conversations in 2014: at work and at home, with others and yourself.

If you approach these conversations in the right way, you're likely to learn and grow in the long run.

7. Make a game out of KPI (Key Performance Indicator). In everything you do this year, find the KPIs by looking for the things that signal success or failure.

Make a game out of KPI and have fun. For example, when we make a big announcement at my company Sage One, an online accounting application for small businesses, we try to beat the high score for opened emails, clicks and trials.

8. Have a two-minute rule for no-brainer tasks. Save your

perfectionist and OCD tendencies for the important stuff. I like to blaze through the mindless tasks first thing in the morning when I am planning my day and setting daily goals. When things pop up and take two minutes or less, I like to figure them out immediately.

The time to kick the OCD into high gear and give proper attention is when focusing on higher priorities and early-stage ideas. Otherwise, they will die on the vine.

9. The visual bypass. What is the best way to receive buyin on ideas to ensure they reach market? Who knows: I still haven't figured it out yet.

But lately I've found I saved a lot of time by presenting my ideas visually. Aside from it saving time, telling your story, plan or strategy visually creates more groupthink within the team. How so? A visual of an idea with succinct requirements tends to be shared more across groups, thereby, increasing early-stage comprehension of a new idea or project. This is always a good signal that you're on the right path, and it accelerates the validation from important stakeholders - a key requirement for any idea to gain early traction.

My go-to tool is Omnigraffle. It's great for mapping the journey of our customer and finding areas where we can improve.

10. Take an improv class. I took a weekly improv class for six months. I can't tell you how much this helped me professionally by allowing me to be myself more, took away my jitters and taught me the everimportant fearlessness to fail.

Improv is challenging, but you're with a tight-knit group, and the teacher creates a comfortable environment for true participation.

Culled from: Entrepreneurs.com

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 26, 2014

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 26, 2014

Fighting reported after South Sudan cease-fire

French President Hollande confirms Trierweiler split

F

RENCH President Francois Hollande has confirmed his separation from his partner Valerie Trierweiler.

He told the French news agency AFP that their "shared life" had ended.

Earlier, his office at the Elysee Palace told the BBC "false rumours" had been circulating in the French media, and no statement would be forthcoming.

Two weeks ago a magazine published photos which appeared to show Mr Hollande had been having an affair with an actress, Julie Gayet.

Ms Trierweiler spent a week in hospital after the revelations.

Mr Hollande, who has never denied having an affair with Julie Gayet, has admitted to a "difficult moment" in his relationship with Ms Trierweiler.

At the time, he promised to clarify the situation before his official visit to Washington on 11 February.

Mr Hollande told AFP he was speaking in a personal capacity and not as the head of state.

"I am making it known that I have put an end to my shared life with Valerie Trierweiler," he said.

On Thursday Ms Trierweiler sacked her lawyer for saying she was seeking to end her relationship with Mr Hollande "with the greatest possible dignity".

Ms Trierweiler, who has continued to work as a journalist for the glossy magazine Paris-Match, is travelling to India today in support of the work of the French charity Action Against Hunger.

Since she left hospital, she has been staying at an official residence, La Lanterne, near Versailles.

Ukraine president offers PM post to opposition

U

KRAINE's embattled president is offering the country's premiership to one of the leaders of the opposition that has conducted two months of intensifying protests.

A statement on President Viktor Yanukovych's website yesterday evening said he had offered the job to Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

There was no immediate comment from Yatsenyuk and it was unclear whether the offer would mollify the radical faction of protesters who have clashed with police for much of the last week.

The opposition has demanded that Yanukovych himself step down and call early elections.

The prime minister's job is the country's No. 2 political position.

OUTH Sudan's government says anti-government fighters attacked positions held by troops yesterday, an indication that a fragile cease-fire that took effect on Friday may be beginning to fray.

The information minister Michael Makeur Lueth told reporters that opposition fighters were continuing attacks on government forces. He said the government security forces would defend themselves if the attacks continued.

The information minister did not specify where yesterday's unrest was taking place.

S

• Egyptians wave the national flag and hold up pictures of Defence Minister army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi during a gathering in General Abdel Monim Riyad square at the edges of Cairo's Tahrir square yesterday.

Photo: AFP

Three killed in mall shooting outside Washington

Egypt clashes kill 29 on third T anniversary of revolution A

T least 29 people have been killed in clashes in Egypt as the country marks the anniversary of the 2011 uprising which overthrew President Hosni Mubarak, the health ministry says.

Rival demonstrations of supporters and opponents of the military-backed government took place in Cairo.

But police broke up anti-government protests, and arrests were reported in Cairo and Alexandria.

Hundreds have died since July when the army deposed President Mohammed Morsi.

Extra security measures were in place for yesterday.

Egyptian Interior Minister Muhammad Ibrahim had urged Egyptians not to be afraid to go to events marking the anniversary of the uprising.

Thousands of supporters of the military and the government gathered in high-profile locations including Tahrir Square - the focal point of the 18-day 2011 popu-

lar revolt.

Participants waved Egyptian flags and banners showing army chief Gen Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, whom many urged to run for president.

But police dealt harshly with anti-government protesters in Cairo, with 29 killed and 147 injured in street clashes, health ministry official Ahmed Kamal confirmed to the BBC. The majority died in Cairo, with two dead in the southern city of Minya and another - a woman - killed in Egypt's second city of Alexandria.

Meanwhile on Saturday, an army helicopter crashed in the restive Sinai peninsula, with an unconfirmed report that its crew of five soldiers was dead.

A large car bomb exploded near a police building in Suez, at the southern entrance of the Suez canal, with reports that nine people were injured.

At least 18 people died in violence on Friday.

The BBC's Yolande Knell, in Cairo, says that three years on

from an uprising that raised hopes of political reform in the Arab world's most populated country, rival demonstrations are showing the deep divisions.

There is an extreme anti-Islamist emphasis at pro-government rallies, with chants for "the execution of the Brotherhood" and fury at anyone believed to be critical of the post-coup leadership, reports said.

At anti-government protests, police chase protesters into side streets, firing live rounds as well as tear gas and birdshot.

One of those killed was a member of the April 6 movement, which led protests against Mubarak before and during the 2011 uprising and also opposed Mr Morsi, the group said.

Hundreds of anti-military protesters, both supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi and secular activists opposed to both camps, gather on the third anniversary of the country's 2011

uprising before security forces disperse them with teargas and birdshot, in Cairo's district of Mohandessin, Egypt, yesterday.

Scores of arrests have been reported in Cairo and Egypt's second city, Alexandria - not just of Islamist supporters of deposed President Morsi, but secular opponents of the military government who have also been protesting.

"The only thing allowed is Sisi revolutionaries," one of the activists, blogger Wael Khalil, told the Associated Press news agency.

"This was supposed to be a day to mark the revolution... I don't get it. Do they think that there will be a working democracy this way?"

Al-Jazeera journalist Peter Greste - detained by Egyptian authorities for nearly a month has written a letter from solitary confinement, describing Egypt's prisons as "overflowing with anyone who opposes or challenges the government".

Fresh C.Africa violence puts new president to the test

F

RESH Christian-Muslim violence has erupted in the Central African Republic, forcing new interim president Catherine Samba Panza to take time out yesterday from talks on forming a government tasked with ending the bloodshed.

Residents said a night of fighting had shaken the capital, Bangui, following news that Christian vigilantes had killed a prominent Muslim politician Friday -- putting Samba Panza, the crisis-torn country's first woman president, to the test even before she has had a chance to choose her ministers.

Aides said Samba Panza, the former Bangui mayor

picked by the interim parliament to try to get the beleaguered state back on its feet, had been forced to take a break from talks on her cabinet to devote part of her day to security issues.

The new violence broke out after members of a socalled "anti-balaka" -- Christian militia formed in response to a wave of atrocities by mostly Muslim rebel group Seleka -reportedly killed Joseph Kalite, a Muslim ex-minister who had held cabinet posts in various governments.

Kalite was seen as close to Michel Djotodia, the Seleka leader who overthrew the country's government in March last year and installed himself as president before be-

ing forced to resign on January 10 under international pressure over his inability to rein in his fighters.

Ex-Seleka rebels exchanged fire Friday night with soldiers from the African Union-backed military force MISCA in various parts of the capital.

A commander from MISCA, which has about 5,200 troops and is backed by a 1,600-strong French force, said his unit had arrested about a dozen ex-Seleka fighters and seized their weapons after a firefight near the National Assembly.

Looters and anti-balaka fighters have also been regularly pillaging the capital's central business district, whose

shops are mostly Muslimowned -- often clashing with young Muslims and ex-Seleka rebels, with the violence spilling over into neighbouring areas.

Thousands of Muslims have fled the capital to neighbouring Chad to escape the unrest, part of the million people nationwide who have fled their homes.

Amnesty International said Friday that French and MISCA troops needed to do more to protect the Muslim minority after its researchers found anti-balaka had killed more than 50 Muslims last week in two attacks northwest of Bangui, with victims ranging in age from seven months to 70 years old.

HREE people were killed in a shooting at a popular shopping mall in Columbia, Maryland, a suburb of the US capital, authorities said yesterday.

Howard County Police announced the fatalities via Twitter and urged people inside the suburban Columbia Mall "to stay in place." It said one of the dead was "located near gun and ammunition."

News reports said that the mall, located about 45 minutes outside Washington, was on "lockdown" because of an "active shooter situation."

Howard County Fire and Rescue tweeted they were en route to the scene, and urged local residents to "avoid area."

The mall of about 200 stores in Howard County, Maryland, is a popular weekend destination for families and young children for its indoor carousel and play area.

Uganda pins road safety hopes on new traffic authority

O

N average there are 61 accidents and nine deaths every day on Uganda's roads, which are in such a poor state that the locals once fished out of the potholes in protest.

Now, five years after the idea was mooted, the government is in the final stages of setting up a national agency to reduce traffic deaths and improve road safety.

And Uganda is not alone.

Across sub-Saharan Africa, which has the highest road fatality rates of any global region , several countries are setting up road safety agencies, a step the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, has recommended as part of the UN decade of action on road safety.

Traffic accidents are the single biggest killer of young people between the ages of 15 and 29 worldwide. More than 90% of traffic fatalities happen in low- and middleincome countries, which are home to just half of the world's cars.

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 26, 2014

WORLD/COMMENTARY

M

UCH of the global elite has trekked to snowy Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum. Replete with the tony hubbub reserved for the rich and powerful, the annual confabulation should strike concern, even a pluck of dread, in the hearts of the average person. There, the wealthy gather to discuss how the global economy will function and what the economy will do to or for whom. When the rich congregate rarely do the humble benefit from the stilted occasion.

Wintry Davos is the perfect setting for this assemblage. The cold heart of affluence exceeds the chill of the frosty weather outside.

Participants are advised to take open-air walks that they might warm their hearts and thaw whatever compassion lies frozen within.

While Davos participants busied themselves on more clearly shaping the world in their own image, they pretended to contemplate the matter of income inequality.

There exists a chasm between developed and poor nations. This gap seems to be such a structural feature of our world that for every nation closing the gap there appears to be two more falling further behind. Worse is the divide between rich and poor people. A global humanitarian NGO calculates the world's richest 85 people possess as much wealth as the poorer half of the global population. Less than 100 people have amassed as much wealth as over 3.5 billion people. Never have so few controlled so vast a portion of mankind's wealth.

So minatory has economic inequality become that Pope Francis dispatched an envoy to the convention to plead for the millions the world economy has cast down. He would have done better asking for mercy for that bleating sheep in the grasp of a hungry butcher.

For a split second, the condition of the poor held center stage at the global forum. Then, that second was gone. The words of the papal embassy fell on deaf ears and hearts stony. His messenger looked out of place, like an awkward clothier bumbling with his suitcase of wares into a nudist colony. The Pope felt compelled to register this plea but he must have known more converts were to have been gained had he sent the good Cardinal to the moon to preach o the lunar rocks and stones.

A humble carpenter from Nazareth once commented it was easier for a camel to pass through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter the gates of heaven. That worker of wood spoke the perfect truth perfectly. Yet, this does not amount to a polemic against wealth or people with wealth. We need wealth and are always in need of more of it. That is the point, "we" need it. Wealth creation is, in almost all instances, a collective endeavor. However, the reward for this joint effort, almost always, is unjustly distributed.

Thus, the divine admonition was not against those with wealth or riches. It was against "rich men." There is a subtle difference.

A rich man defines himself by his riches. They are so integral to him that he is what he owns.

This means that which he owns equally owns him. He is one likely to do wrong to enrich himself and one who will never do right if it costs. Jesus was not so concerned about a person's acquisitions. He was more concerned about what a person might do to attain wealth and what lengths he might pursue to keep it.

Like the Nazarene carpenter, we must be concerned with this matter. This requires prudence. Test everything. For the past several months, the global media and establishment politicians has been banging the kettle about economic inequality. At first, this seemed a sympathetic awakening. The more seen of this exhibition, the less good is to be had from it.

Whenever hirelings of those who profit from a situation tell you they want to end it, prepare to be duped.

The fad of this economic season is to bruit economic inequality as if stating the term washes the speaker clean of his antecedents of indifference if not disdain for those of lower economic station. A similar phenomenon occurred during the Civil Rights Movement in America. It became unfashionable to state Blacks were undeserving of equal rights. The most ardent racists were found stating support for equal rights. While their words spoke nicely, their actions remained as prejudiced as always. They did not want the world to change.

They connived to keep the world as it was by faking that they themselves had changed.

Those who believed them, believed a lie. The more you believe a fantasy the farther you drift from doing the work needed to bury stubborn and powerful prejudice.

In present-day America, the chant against inequality has been the loudest but it will do nothing except bounce against the ceiling of high privilege to fall haplessly to ground. Late last year, President Obama proclaimed

The inequality of economic inequalitywhile attempting to fix it!

Numbers don't lie but the people who compile them do.

•Davos

economic inequality as the principle challenge of our epoch. A few weeks ago, he visited the state of North Carolina to declare a policy of establishing economic "promise zones" in impoverished communities around the nation. While the precise composition of these zones remains sketchy, first impressions are that this promise shall be an ill one.

These promise zones offer relaxed regulations, privatization on the cheap, and a cookie jar of miscellaneous sweets that will profit employers but not the laborers who will work for low wages in these zones. These zones promise little save that corporate power will love them and the average laborer will endure them.

They will function as modern revivals of 19th century sharecropping. Back then, farmers owned their land but were forced to sell their produce to certain buyers who dictated prices. These buyers manipulated prices so that farmers paid more for the inputs purchased from these overseers than they gained as revenue. Eventually, farmers sold their lands at depressed prices to satisfy the debts.

But recurrent debts do not remain satisfied. Farmer became tenants on their own lands. They continued working the fields but could never reclaim their property because they were always wading in growing debt. Such will be the fate of these promise zones. Employers will pay cutthroat wages. But the cost of living will be mercilessly more than the wage can manage. The poor laborer will never earn enough to give his family and himself what he ought. He labors to profit the company and grow further indebted to it or other corporations to which it is aligned. Instead of a shining revival on the local economy, this policy is dark, almost medieval in its inspiration.

Some Obama loyalists will call this hyperbole.

I say take a look at America's policy supporting such zones in Haiti. There is nothing enlightened

in them. With the vast numbers of poor Blacks and Brown people, the powers that be think it is time to move Haiti to America. Even poor White laborers will become honorary Haitians in this regard. Welcome to the new world order. It is one of vast riches and rank destitution.

This brings us to a crucial point. Fighting income inequality is not the objective. Inequality is a symptom of a graver disorder; it is a consequence of an unjust philosophy of human interaction and of the economic machinery produced by that distorted conceptualization. It is a byproduct of a belief that human beings are so grossly unequal that some people deserve little more than a meager existence while others are destined to rule the world and all the riches of it.

Imagine a hundred men appear in court testifying that the thief in the dock had robbed each of his wages. It would be a rather curious undertaking for the court to shift focus from the obvious crime to dwell on the fact that the men are aggrieved because they haven't funds to pay rent.

Instead of ordering the robber to return the stolen sums in full, the jurist requests him to pay each a small portion of the pilfered sums to help them in paying their rent. Such a proceeding travesties justice and common sense. We commit a similar mistake when discussing economic inequality.

Those who have commandeered the financial system and large corporations now earn profits far beyond the value of whatever wealth they may create. A handful of financial speculators are of some stimulatory value to an economy. When that handful becomes a horde, the resultant frenzy does little of value while destabilizing the system.

Disaster beckons as the population of speculators and rentiers increases. Yet, the worthless paper they push among themselves is said to be precious simply because they have decided it is and the laws they write give them the power to do so. This

is the way they enrich themselves without sullying their hands in real labor. On the other hand, the farmer growing that which we eat for our humble sustenance performs an essential service; but, his reward is not proportionate to his value. The commodity speculator and the middle-man gorge the profit better meant for the farmer.

We exist in a rentier economy where those who reap the most sow very little and those who literally sow the most, must keep sowing for they never truly ever reap. This unfair weighing of economic reward and value is the heart of the problem. Income inequality is just the fibrillation caused by the hardness of our economic ways.

The truer issue is not inequality but why our economic processes have been so constructed to generate such inequality. This is must be the thrust of the inquiry lest we miss the bigger picture. Economic inequality is just one aspect of human inequality. I posit that where economic inequality is vast or is increasing, others forms of human inequality, be it political or social, are also vast or growing.

To simply fight the symptom of economic is to abet those who profit for this imbalance.

Fighting inequality implies a desire to somehow redistribute wealth from the rich to those who are not. It makes it seem like the commoners are trying to pilfer from their wealthy superiors due to envy or small-minded plebian greed.

In this scenario, the wealthy portray themselves as victim when, in fact, they were the wrongful takers in the first instance. They are the robbers before the court. They are the ones who have structured things such that what they do gets paid more regardless of the value intrinsic in their exertions. Look, no one should begrudge a person his wealth, particularly if that person's wealth is commensurate with the value of his work. However, when the CEOs of failing financial houses receive eight-figure salaries, something is more than amiss. The people are being jobbed and the dignity of meaningful labor is being slaughtered on the profane altar of financialism's domination of our economic lives.

This year, as the mainstream media and politician rail about the evils of economic inequality, pledge yourselves not to be inveigled by their foolery. Their appeal is superficial and transient for they offer no concrete reform of the global economic system.

Their answer is to shift a pinch of money to the poor as if doing so heaps injustice on the rich.

Don't let them tug at your emotions or sense of fair play. If a man amputates your finger then offers you a bandage, you don't smile. Unless you despise your hand, you demand firmer restitution be given. No longer should people be content with promises that can be rescinded at any moment and that detour from the more vital issue. Why should the wealthy gain so much in the first instance?

The preponderance of empirical evidence suggests an economy is stronger and more resilient when extremes of rich and poor are mitigated. Why then do the engineers of the economy drive it in the weaker direction? They care little about the overall economy and only about what they may get out of it. It is you who must care about the economy. Unlike the rich who live above the economy, you live in it.

If you want to end the trend of burgeoning inequality, you don't do so by asking the rich to give back a portion of their improper windfall. That allows the robber to keep his seat as prince and priest. The real answer is to disallow speculators and rentiers from acquiring the hefty, nigh illicit, windfall at all.

This will require a substantial restructuring in how the economy values different roles and different work. For sure, it will require a recalibration of the relative value and wealth allocated to the real sector compared to the financial sector.

Only by reforming the work done and assessing more just and humane relative values for said work can we make our economic processes fairer in how people are compensated for their labors. Such an economy will also produce a different array of goods and services more responsive to the yearnings of the bulk of the population. This will result in less poverty and a growing middle class as the economy begins to produce things that reinforce the stability and welfare of the masses. This makes the masses more productive and thus the economy further grows. This is the only way to fight inequality.

To do otherwise, is to berate inequality yet follow policies that maintain it. It is a fair thing to marvel at a tiger's spots when viewing a picture of the beast or when it is caged.

However, when the tiger is loose and set to pounce, a fixation on the esthetics of his coat can be a fatal distraction. The tiger of inequality stalked the neighborhood. Time to fell the beast.

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POLITICS

T

HERE is this Greek mythology about Sisyphus, King of Ephyra (now known as Corinth). This myth is very apposite in the discussion of the politics of former governor of Oyo State, Rashidi Ladoja and leader of the Accord Party. Punished for what was considered a chronic act of treachery by Corinthians, Sisyphus was compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill and to suffer the humiliation of watching the bolder roll back downwards and to repeat this action forever.

A mid-level officer in the oil industry, Ladoja’s entrance into Oyo politics was at a time when the petrel of Ibadan politics, Lamidi Adedibu, had gained hyper ascendancy and notoriety. Broth of lies, half-truth and outright illogicalities are administered on political victims like hemlock. A number of such victims have died from the unpleasant aftermath of this scary political tactic.

The tragedy of it is that Ladoja passes on this irredeemable lie-peddling bolder-rolling of Sisyphus and churns out generation of political minions.

Mr. Dotun Oyelade is a new recruit of this weird political methodology.

“To Oyo Workers, A Grift Gift” (Sunday Tribune, January 19, 2014) is its manifestation. The traditional prayer session of handing over a new year to God by the Oyo State government was his tool.

At that event, Governor Abiola Ajimobi had taken a cue from the corporate world where he worked for 35 years. The practice is to identify high premium performers called Quality Champions, who bent over backwards in the preceding year in contributing to the lot of the company. Even though their rewards may not be astounding, selecting Quality Champions is a way of motivating other staff and inducing their optimal performance. Research has shown that, a healthy rivalry innovation, it spurs performance and productivity in other members of staff.

Oyelade’s first port of call was the woman who knelt down at the prayer ground. Why a man and his party would advertise open disdain for God and the art of reverence for Him as this is baffling. Oyelade was not done with his binge of assault on truth. “Expensive Mohemian suit” – whatever that meant – was what Ajimobi adorned at that event, he wrote. Televised live on the state broadcasting service, those who watched that programme would be alarmed at that bare-faced lie.

Ajimobi wore a flowing white agbada!

In symbolic logic, once your premise is faulty, every other thing built on it would be compromised. In saner climes, for this sin of uncircumcised lie, Accord Party and this minion of its would be hurled stones of societal disdain. If Oyelade had eye challenge and couldn’t decipher his beloved Mohemian suit

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 26, 2014

Ladoja: Deconstructing politics of untruth

•Governor Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State (left), his deputy, Chief Moses Alake Adeyemo (middle) and the Chairman of All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state, Chief Akin Oke (right) at an inter-faith prayer session organized for the New Year 2014 at the Governor’s Office Car Park in Ibadan on Monday. PHOTO: OYO GOVERNMENT HOUSE.

By Festus Adedayo from agbada, I innocently presume he doesn’t have an audibility challenge as well, or else, he would have heard Ajimobi say the money given to the Quality Champions was from his personal purse. But Oyo State people are used to Ladoja and his henchmen’s assault on and disregard for truth and all things bright and beautiful.

For a start, old civil servants who have attended such interdenominational service over the years confessed that never in the history of the state had the service witnessed such an unprecedented attendance by workers. Now, Oyelade quarreled with the governor for identifying Quality Champions at the Water Corporation of Oyo State who did the unthinkable of restoring water supply to the state, 17 years after. This is either naivety of modern art of motivation of workers or complete mischief wrapped in a silk of lie. Within that period, Oyelade’s master who inflicted an almost four years of naivety and governmental ignorance on the state, held sway.

The Accord Party publicist now went on a roller-coaster of lies. Having worked with a boss who did not demarcate be-

tween state and personal money, Oyelade’s idea of reward to workers is the traditional Alao-Akala ATM image, so Ajimobi’s reward for the Quality Champions may be “insulting”, but in about three years, Ajimobi has re-written this mis-governmental cue and personifies that imperishable adage that between the fish-giver and fish-bait giver, the latter is more desirable.

As a junkie in need of a fix makes a sloppish hold of anything he touches, Oyelade thereafter made an amateurish job of psychoanalysis, analyzing the mood of the mammoth crowd and coming to incredibly fraudulent position that is determined by the queer methodology of Accord Party.

His conclusion was that the workers were just tolerating the same government that had done for them what in geography Nikolaj Copernicus did for the rest of mankind: a revolutionary shift of paradigm.

Let us go to the fundament. A few yards from the venue of the service is the Governor’s Office complex, home to hundreds of offices of civil servants.

By the time Ajimobi came on board, that complex, built by Obafemi Awolowo, without being

hyperbolical, was comparable only to a pig-sty. When Ajimobi took a maiden tour of the personal office of the governor, he was alarmed. Inside the governor’s personal toilet stood a big black pot filled with water. This was where Akala scooped water to flush out his excrement! The complex was rat-infested and littered with rodents’ excreta. General Adeyinka Adebayo and PDP’s Isa Yuguda, on a recent visit to the Governor’s Office, could not hide their fascination with the office’s recent incredibly aesthetic face-lift. Ladoja and Akala couldn’t care less. The question people ask is why these fellows, who built magnificent personal edifices, occupy pigsty offices? Isn’t it then an oxymoron that workers, whose workplace dignity had been restored by Ajimobi, endure their messiah?

The Ajimobi administration has trained over 14,000 civil and public servants, including teachers, both within and outside the country. Astounded by the bureaucratic injustice of stagnating 345 typists of the Ladoja and Akala regimes who waited to retire on meager Grade Level 04, tears of joy welled on the faces of the typists when Ajimobi ordered them to

be trained as Secretarial Assistant/ Data Processing Assistants. At the moment, ten civil servants are undergoing in-service Post-graduate Diploma courses in Public Administration and Masters in Public Administration at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. During Ladoja and Akala’s time, payment of pension arrears to senior civil servants was war. Pensioners even sued Akala. Not only has Ajimobi paid the 142% pension arrears but today, they see him as their friend. This mindset also informs the recent approval of enhanced pension allowance for retired Heads of Service and Permanent Secretaries.

Till date, Ajimobi has promoted 12,000 teaching and non-teaching staff and has, for the third time running, paid the 13th month salary arrears of all public servants. He provided 100 43-seater buses to the people of Oyo State, ten of which were deployed to free shuttle of workers to and fro work.

Yet, in the hollowness of Oyelade’s pseudo psychoanalysis, such enthralled workers must be enduring the governorship of a man whose performance is akin to revolution.

By the time Ajimobi came into office, car and housing loan facilities were insulting tokenism. He jerked it up by over hundred per cent, such that GL 9 and 10 officers collecting N180,000 now go home with N450,000 car loan and housing loan previously a million naira for GL 12 officer is now N2 million.

Civil servants feel a sense of pride, through the aggressive infrastructural revolution in the state and the rewriting of its deplorable image as centre of filth. The truth is, any visitor to the state, who had once been there during Akala and Ladoja years and meets these two now, would be inclined to committing assault.

Akala and Ladoja, who are ex-and present principals of Oyelade, are two wrongs that can never make a right.

No sane Oyo indigene would pray for their return to the seat of power. Even from the seeming inconsequential, anyone who desires a governor they can be proud of in the public, in terms of mental acuity and physical presentation, cannot wish for that ten-stepsbackwards into infamy. While Akala advertises voyeur and sybaritism that do not fit the image of an Oyo person known for hard-work and excellence, Ladoja is poster-boy of that wrong impression that an Oyo State person is a Sule – a barroom argot for a nitwit. In Ajimobi, you had the apt celebration of intellect, agility and deportment as a 21st century Oyo governor. *Adedayo is Special Adviser on Media to the Governor of Oyo State.

Hope as Cross River seeks God’s face T

HOUGH it admitted it rarely brings religious affairs into the political realm, the Cross River State Government however felt it was necessary to put itself in right standing with God as it kicked off a new year.

For this reason Calabar, the Cross River State capital, literally ground to a standstill as revered man of God and General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, was brought to divinely uplift the state and pray that its fortunes turn for the better on Monday.

For a state that seemed to have a string misfortunes luck trail it in the past few years, many felt it was necessary to seek the face of God. The U. J. Esuene Sports Stadium in Calabar venue for the event tagged Cross River Praise with the theme Wind of Change, was not enough to accommodate the multitude that came out to tap God’s blessings.

The turn-out included government officials and residents of the state irrespective of religious inclination.

The atmosphere in the stadium which was already filled from 2pm was electric as various sessions of prayers, praise and worship, ministrations and special numbers by several men of God and praise singers built a steady cre-

From Nicholas Kalu, Calabar scendo that climaxed with the entrance of the man God at about 6pm.

The searing heat and blinding sunshine in the open sheds of the sports arena did not deter the crowd of faithful who turned out to witness the event.

Soft spoken Adeboye who mounted the podium with an interpreter in the local language, Efik, thanked God for the New Year, praying that every ill-luck faced had gone with the last year.

He said despite the various challenges the state has faced in the past it would only come out stronger.

Encouraging the people with several testimonies, he prayed that the peace the state currently enjoys be sustained and continue to multiply, just as he did for healing, redemption and breakthrough this year.

Amidst thunderous roars of agreement, he prayed, “God will fight for.

Every problem that followed you has stopped and now something new is coming into your lives.”

Governor Liyel Imoke who spoke earlier said although the state does not mingle its affairs with religion, they felt the need to start the year on a good note in tune with God.

•Pastor EA Adeboye ministers in Calabar Imoke who was represented by his deputy Efiok Cobham, said they realized that as a state they could not achieve anything without the help of God. He said Adeboye was brought in to aid the state get divine favour as he has been a tested and proven true man of God. Pastor Oni Jacob in charge of RCCG

Region 14 under which Cross River State falls expressed hope that with the visit of the General Overseer the lives of the people would experience the much awaited wind of change.

“We will witness positive transformation in our personal, family, financial, spiritual and business lives in Jesus name.

“Today like the day of Pentecost, God will make his wind to pass over our lives and our land and all the obstacles to our breakthrough, joy, testimony miracles, signs and wonders shall be pulled down and removed like the broken wall of Jericho name and we shall finally possess our possessions.”

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 26, 2014

'Running a church is heart-breaking' B

y February, Christ Life Church will be 25. But there is a nagging question you can't run away from. People said you should have remained a field evangelist and not start a church. How do you react to this?

No. It is not people that determine my call; it is God that determines my call. I have not stopped being a field evangelist and churchplanting has not hindered my evangelistic works. Our evangelistic works started in 1976 and we never planted a church until 13 years later.

We only held crusades and conferences.

My friends and colleagues told me to start a church and I said no. My senior colleagues also said the same and I said no. My friend, Bishop David Oyedepo, came to me to start a church, I said no. Baba Adeboye said so and I insisted.

The late Archbishop Benson Idahosa also approached me and I said no… … So, what made you change your mind?

I didn't change my mind but I simply listened to God. I am a servant of God and in ministry works when you listen to a man and run into troubles, you will only be able to count on the support of that man. But early February 1989, I was preaching for somebody in Lagos and he lodged me in SMA Guest house in Yaba. I was praying in the morning when the Lord spoke to me very clearly from the last verse of 2 Chronicles 6 that the time to start a church had come.

And because God spoke, I had to move. I mean I can argue with Oyedepo, Baba Adeboye and the late Idahosa but who am I to argue with God? When He said that was the way to go, I gave in. The following Sunday we started and it was like wildfire.

Under one year, we were over 1,000. Under one year, we had bought this Victory Garden and God has been with us.

But people still say you are no more on the fields like you used to be I am still on the fields. I am still going tomorrow. You see, if that is your calling, nothing can tie you down.

You can never be fulfilled

The President of Sword of the Spirit Ministries, Bishop Wale Oke, is one of the pioneering Pentecostal preachers in the country. He spoke with Sunday Oguntola on his proposed Precious Cornerstone University (PCU) as well as the 25th anniversary of the church arm of his ministry.

Excerpts:

•Oke

until you go. I am still so much on the fields. Last year, we held so many crusades that ended in Ibadan with one that brought all the churches together. I ministered with Morris Cerrulo.

Lately, not much has been heard about you. Are you hiding or something?

(Laughs) Bishop Wale Oke is alive. It is amazing that people say they have not heard from me that much. We have been everywhere, but the only thing is I don't do much of media talks and evangelism. I have come to realize that we must do much of that these days.

Other than that, I am still well and alive, kicking in the Lord.

25 years, what lessons has church work taught you?

It has taught me patience.

The job of the evangelist is back-breaking but the work of a pastor is heart-breaking.

One stretches your back and the other breaks your heart.

I have come to understand and appreciate pastors better. I have over 500 of

them under me across the world. We are ordaining about 200 of them in February.

So, I have learnt to be patient. The evangelistic work is combative but pastoral work is all about endurance and being gentle.

That does not come easy for an evangelist like me.

During the Obasanjo's years, you prophesied seven years of abundance to be followed by another seven of scarcity. What is the update?

I should be asking you (laughs). You know, the seven years of abundance came. As soon as that word came, the prices of crude oil shot up. But when God gives prophecies, they are not cast in stones. He told Hezekiah to set his house in order, that he was going to die and the man prayed. God reversed it.

I led a prayer chain across the 36 states of the federation that ended in Abuja against famine.

I thank God that he answered the prayers. Our

economy is still one of the fastest-growing in the world.

But the truth is there is no day that lasts forever. When we are in the midst of abundance, we should prepare for the future. We should invest in infrastructure, education, power and build up our reserves so that when shaky times come like it has hit them in Europe, we would have something to fall back on. That is my counsel.

In 2007, you did the stone-laying for Precious Cornerstone University (PCU). Six years after, what is the update on the project?

The update is that we are taking off finally in September this year. NUC has come and we are at the final stage of approval. You see, a university project takes time and consumes money. It is not a quick-fix. For the past six years, we have gone through all manners of processes.

We have already submitted the final papers for licence. They have been here to see what we have on

grounds. They told us what to do and we have reported back to them. We are waiting for the final nod and ready to take-off. We are using Victory Garden as a take-off point and we have another five years to complete our permanent site on the LagosIbadan Expressway. We have fenced the land, did the gate house, constructed a borehole and did parts of the campus roads. NUC has been there to see what we are doing and they are happy.

After five years, we can move there.

Nigerians still have issues with the involvement of the church in university education…

The church brought education to the country.

The best years were when churches were in charge of the education sector.

Government took over and messed them up. Our university is also in shambles and we are here to rescue the situation. We don't want strike for even a week. If you go abroad, you find out that Harvard University was started by a church; Yale was by a church.

So, the experiment of university involvement by the church in Nigeria has been good. Go and check and you can always see the difference. Besides, I am someone who will never do anything in ministry except God ordained it. So, I have his word to do a university…

God told you to start a university?

I can assure you He did.

But the impression out there is that starting a university has become a contest among churches…

It is good. If it is a contest, it is a good one because the Bible said we should provoke one another to good works.

But PCU is not a matter of contest but a product of divine instruction.

So what will be different with PCU? Well, here we are producing entrepreneurs, job creators, not job seekers. Two, it will be a bilingual university. Instructions and classes will be in English and French. That is because that is the way the world is going.

If you are proficient in English and French as an undergraduate, the world is under your feet. There was a

candidate for a United Nations job sometime ago from Nigeria that lost out just because he wasn't bilingual.

I said to myself then, 'if I have an opportunity, I will make every graduate in Nigeria bilingual.' It is a good thing. It opens you up to the English and French worlds. It gives one a competitive edge.

So, our students will catch it naturally.

But what about those who don't want to be bilingual?

It is fine if they don't want.

But you must know that this university will not be for everybody. Law is good, but not everybody is interested in it; as good as medicine is, not everyone is doing it.

Will PCU also observe strict regulations and rules for students considering that many argue most universities run by churches are advanced secondary schools, more or less?

All those places where there are rules, go and check.

Are there results? Do students do better? Of course, they do because the students are not distracted. There are no sugar daddies to chase the girls. No blackberry to chat nonsense.

So, we are going to have strict rules and that must be stated from the word go. We don't want a situation whereby sugar daddies can have access to our students and be telling them some sweet rubbish.

We want graduates with good morals, not intelligent crooks who will squander our resources.

Good, but the exorbitant fees charged by these universities are rather a putoff for many Nigerians…

Okay, look at PCU now.

We started over six years ago and we have been pumping money into it. By our estimation, our break-even point is five-seven years.

Sustaining a project like this is massive. Whatever we charge cannot be enough. We have to keep pumping money. Besides, good, quality education is expensive everywhere in the world, whether it is run by the church or otherwise.

What has God told you about 2014?

God has told us that He is in charge of the nation. There will be challenges and troubles but everything will end well. He said we should not be afraid.

xxx

What and where?

Leadership conference holds in Lagos

A

3 - d a y leadership conference with the theme world missions, winning souls holds from

February 6-8.

Invited speakers are Dr Michal Pangio from Chicago USA; Apostle Psalm Okpe, Dr Austin Adesola,

Evangelist Charles Okafor and Bishop Abraham Olaleye.

Venue is Ajiroba Hall 247, Ijegun road, Ikotun - Lagos.

TWOREM’s prayer summit

T

HE first interdenominational quarterly Holy Ghost Service of the prayer summit The Way of Reconciliation Evangelical Ministries

(TWOREM Int'l), a.k.a Prophetic & Solution Chapel, Lagos, will hold on February 3.

The theme of the summit, according to the convener, Prophet Oladipupo Funmilade-

Joel (Baba Sekunderin), is breaking the hard yoke.

Venue is Sekunderin Int'l Miracle Prayer Mountain, Iyana Agbala Tuntun, New Ife Road, Ibadan, Oyo State from 7am- 3pm.

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 26, 2014

WORSHIP NEWS

COLUMN

Living Faith

By Dr. David Oyedepo

Commanding Supernatural Victory! (4)

S

•L-R: Assistant Pastor-in-Charge Province 37, Pastor Olaitan Olubiyi; Chairperson All Nigeria Confederation of Principals of Secondary Schools (ANCOPSS),Mrs. Solabomi Fadola, Baale of Isheri, Chief Albert Bankole; Principal Isheri Junior Secondary School, Mrs. Mojisola Aluko and Province 37 Pastor, Pastor Adewole Ajayeoba, after the donation... in Lagos

RCCG renovates technical workshop with N2.5m

T

HE Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) Holiness Model Parish Magodo has renovated the technical workshop block of Isheri Senior Grammar School, Lagos.

The workshop, which cost about N2.5million, was dedicated and presented to the school by the Pastor-inCharge of Province 37, Pastor Bankole Ajayeoba, last Sunday at the school premises.

The renovation covered complete re-roofing with PVC ceiling, sliding aluminium frame glass windows, modern security doors, tiling and painting, among others.

At the presentation ceremony were church leaders, students, teachers, community heads, and representatives of

By Adeola Ogunlade

the Ministry of Education.

Ajayeoba said that the project is in line with the church's corporate social responsibility geared towards developmental projects in the neighbourhood.

"In the education sector in Nigeria, RCCG has endowed professional chairs worth millions in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, University of Lagos, Ibadan and Obafemi Awolowo University apart from the amount spent on annual scholarship awards to indigent students in tertiary intuitions all over the country," he noted.

He asserted that the decay in the sector is obvious and cannot be shouldered alone by government.

While urging members of the church to engage in individual social responsibility by feeding the poor and helping the needy around them, he promised that the province will join hands with the parish in equipping the workshop with modern equipment.

The Principal, Mrs. Aluko Mojisola, said: "God is faithful and in our faithfulness, He is always there. When we are in any situation that seems hopeless, God will stand up to help us.

"We are grateful for this kind gesture and I bless God because Christianity is all about caring and putting smiles on the faces of those weeping, giving food to the needy and giving hope to the hopeless."

INCE the month began, I have showed you why you need supernatural victory, what it takes to subdue the enemy and how to process the Word of God for the desired victory.

This week, I will be teaching on how to walk in supernatural victory. Every supernatural victory is rooted in God's Word and your tongue holds the key to your life.

Bridle Your Tongue: In every battle, your mouth ultimately determines the result.

Until your tongue is taught how to function, supernatural victory may never come your way! In Luke 21:15, Jesus said: For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist. To walk in supernatural victory, your tongue must be Word-bridled - it must be scripturally disciplined, because it decides the end of every battle. I'd like to provide a background for this subject.

Confidence: Confidence is the greatest asset of every conqueror. It's a known fact that most battles are lost to fear, because it takes confidence to become a conqueror. The fearful don't have a future of victory. That is why the enemy aims at your confidence in every battle. If he can get at it, he has made a victim of you. You must be armed with confidence when going to war. Don't be afraid of the opposition; instead, be conscious of God's presence (Deuteronomy 1:1-3,8). The depth of your confidence, determines the strength of your voice, and the strength of your voice determines the

response from God. Many are too feminine to walk in supernatural victory.

In Mark 1:27, we read concerning Jesus: ‌ For with authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits, and they do obey him. Friend, it takes spiritual bravery to command supernatural victory! You need spiritual violence, to walk in supernatural victory. You can't be beggarly and operate in victory; you have to be confrontational, daring, disregarding the comments of those around you!

Refuse To Be Terrified: It is not everything you say that comes to pass. It is the things you say boldly in the Lord that get accomplished. You have to speak loud against sickness, poverty, and all satanic harassments. The louder your voice, the greater your victory.

Therefore, go ahead and declare it! It is not just talking, but speaking with authority, refusing to be terrified by the adversary (Philippians 1:28).

When fear steps in, victory is lost!

Building Inner Strength: Proverbs 24:5 says: A wise man is strong; yea, a man of knowledge increaseth strength. The knowledge of the truth reinforces your inner strength. Psalm 125:1 says: They that trust in the Lord shall be as mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth for ever. The word "trust" implies total abandon - no alternatives.

Psalm 23:4-6 says: Yea, though I walk t hrough the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me...

A consciousness of God's everabiding presence builds inner strength in you.

The Word of God says:

That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man (Ephesians 3:16). The Spirit of God in a person strengthens his inner man. It is clear in the Book of Acts, how unusual confidence exploded in the apostles, after the Holy Ghost came upon them. On that day called pentecost, one of the apostles called Peter made his first long sermon to a large crowd of people. At the end of it, about 3,000 people repented and were baptised (Acts 2:1-41). It was the unusual confidence which exploded in Peter that gave him the victory he had over the people who gave their lives to Christ.

These are the ways to build your confidence and then put strength in your voice, so you can command supernatural victory as a way of life. But you need help from God as His child, to access supernatural victory. When a person is born of God, he automatically has the Spirit of God in him. It is this Spirit of God in him that will make boldness, inner strength and confidence become his birthright. Being born of God (redeemed or born again) entails confessing your sins and confessing Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour.

If you are not yet born again, you can do so right away, as you say this prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, I come to You today. I am a sinner. I cannot help myself. Forgive me my sins. Cleanse me with Your precious blood. Deliver me from sin and satan, to serve the Living God. Today, Lord Jesus Christ, I accept You as my Lord and Saviour.

Thank You Jesus for saving me! Now I know I am born again!"

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., 7:35 a.m., 9:10 a.m. and 10.45 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

Nine steps to effective prayer Pastor Amanda Ogunro

TOTAL FREEDOM

P

RAYER is a spiritual exercise which when faithfully done will yield rewarding breakthrough in the spirit which manifest physically to change u n f a v o u r a b l e circumstances.

Today, I will continue with Confession of who you are in the Lord and begin the third step

which is Supplication.

Who are you?

If you can answer this question carefully and righteously, it will bring absolute deliverance to every area of your life. Let me remind you of who you are, in case you don't know. You are the redeemed of the Lord, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb and from the hand of the enemy (Psalm 107:2). Your confession of who you are in Him will bring immediate deliverance from the hand of the devil. For instance, I usually say "Lord, You bought me with your blood, shed it for me, and died on the cross of Calvary. I am seated at the right hand with you in

heavenly places, far above principality, power, might and dominion (Ephesians 2:6). Lord, my life is hidden in you" (Colossians 3:3).

Do you know what it means to be crucified with Christ? (Galatians 2:20). It means personal attachment to and reliance upon Him. Those who have faith in Christ live their lives in intimate union with Him both in His death and resurrection.

Now, after confession and declaration of who you are as believers, you begin to confess your needs to God. We are not supposed to be anxious and worry but to confess

our need to Him. This is Supplication.

Step Three Supplication: Supplication means petition (Philippians 4:6).

God knows our petitions before we even ask. He is waiting patiently to hear the cry of our heart and if we are patient enough, (not rushing out after presenting your petition to Him), He will speak or be silent. His silence does not mean disapproval.

His silence could mean, "I have heard and it is well with you".

Unfortunately, many people do not understand that. After their "give me" and "bless me" list of requests is over, they rush out of

God's presence back to either the television for news, reading the newspaper or browsing on the internet without realizing that the Almighty God is still waiting. Remember God is a person and not an iron. He sees, hears, feels and speaks. Thus He is expecting you to relate with him like a person, He wants you to have a long lasting relationship with Him so as to guarantee the answer to your requests.

Total freedom can only come if you are connected to God. You get connected to God as you give your life to Christ.

You can be born again today by saying this prayer:

Lord Jesus, I confess to you that I am a sinner.

Forgive my sins and wash me with your blood.

Deliver me from sin and Satan. I invite you into my heart. I accept you as my Lord and personal savior.

Fill me with Your Holy Spirit. Thank you Jesus for saving me. Write my name in the Book of Life.

I am born again in Jesus name, Amen.

Write and share your testimony with me through: Pastor Amanda Ogunro, Rivers of Living Water Ministries, 540 Ikorodu Road, Maryland, Lagos. P.M.B 2854, Surulere Lagos, Nigeria. Or Call any of these numbers 08023180141,07064733154.

Email: info@rlwm.org.

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HAT sort of books do you like reading most?

Oh, I like reading science, because it is not my kind of writing. So, I try to know the other side of writing; how they think, how they write science, chemistry, physics and so on. I also like to go into astrological science and how the authors try to create their stories and their ideas.

When you read, what are the salient things you look out for?

I look out for those new things that have just been discovered. And those issues I wish I’d have known. You know the human imagination is so vast and there’s much to learn. While I read, I look at those things people have just discovered, what people have just invented; new ideas people are coming up with. I look at people’s perspectives about things I thought about before.

And I want to feel how they see the world.

Do they help you to create, imagine and see new ideas in your writings?

Ah, they just show me the vastness of imagination the orbit is like. They show me that the orbit is limitless, seamless… so, it brings me to ask myself why should the earth be that way? So if I think that way myself , what happens? It also encourages me to put my imagination beyond aesthetics, beyond the ordinary things of the world.

Who are your favourite authors?

Oh, my favourite author in the world, the man I ever read in my life as a book, is the book called The Holy Bible.

I actually began to read The Bible when I was about seven years old. The first one that was given to me was by The American Bible Society. That was many years ago. And then after that I read Things Fall Apart

by Chinua Achebe. I first encountered it when my father came back with it from a Teacher Training College. And I was amazed at the story; it sounded like the story my father had been telling me. The story was too familiar. So, I found out that human experiences beyond what was scriptural can be captured even beyond my own immediate environment.

Then that became to me a reference point as I took Achebe as a gifted story teller.

Another author is Wole Soyinka. I had heard so much about him and his works. So, I was going to a particular bookshop opposite the present motor park in Abak town, Akwa Ibom State to look at the books he had written. They wouldn’t let you touch the books. Then I had contact with J.P. Clark via his books, the way he handled issues and they thrilled me.

The way he handled some topical issues of those years and how he saw the Niger Delta societies in his works fascinated me beyond words. So those three authors became my favourite before I broke into the world of James Hardley Chase, the master thriller. I read all his books.

ME AND MY BOOKS I wrote my first novel at 16 Dr. Arnold Udoka is a playwright and poet, someone whose books have been staged severally by artistes and university students across the country. An award -winning author, some of his works include Poems Across Borders, I am the Woman, The Gods Are so Silent, Long Walk to a Dream, Akon and many others. In this chat with Edozie Udeze, he explains factors that inspires him to write.

•Udoka

When and where do you like to read?

Well, I like reading everywhere, especially when I am free in my office. This may be due to my experience as a university teacher. Before you go for your lecture you have the books you need to read on your table and you peruse through them. So, the office has become my best place to read. And I try to do that during the break period when the whole place is quiet or when everybody has closed. After that I can put in two or three hours of serious reading.

At other times too, I can read when everybody has gone to

bed. If I can’t read here in the office, then I take it home but I don’t like reading till twelve midnight. No, I don’t like that.

I can handle the rest in my house. Before, when I had a driver, I used to read while in motion. Then I used to have stocks of books by my side and once we hit the road I began to read.

What of writing; when do you like doing that?

You see, writing comes to me every time. I thank God we have telephones where you can put down something. With my phone now, I can scribble down something once the idea comes to me. Any imagination that

tickles my fancy, I immediately jot it down to make sure it doesn’t escape me. Sometimes you discover that most of these things make the story you need.

Then you can look at it again when you are ready to make it into a final story. It is after that I can sit down and say okay let me develop them. If I am rehearsing on stage and an idea comes, I try to jot it during break so as not to forget it. So thank God for the new technology that is making things easy for us.

Before now, I used to go around with pen and paper.

You’d always see pieces of papers in my pocket, sometimes they are rough but they are there for a purpose. I started doing that very early especially when I was 19 years old.

What is your preferred genre?

My preferred genre? Drama and poetry. Poetry gives you room or opportunity to have access to me; to my innerthinking. Drama, because I want to see how someone else interprets me, demonstrates my idea. I want to see if the director, the actors and the audience, are really reacting to those ideas on stage. Whether the actors and the director are able to comprehend what I have been able to pass across to the people. This is why I prefer the two genres of literature – poetry and drama.

At what point in your life did you decide to be a writer?

Well, I had never seen myself as a writer.

No! From childhood, I had seen myself as a priest, being in the position to preach to the people what God said in the Bible. To tell people what is right and what is just and honest. But as I grew up, unfortunately, I was sent away from the seminary. But when I later reminisced over what Soyinka wrote, the ideas J.P. Clark projected and lots more, I felt I could combine both to become both a playwright and a poet. And that is what I have become today. I thought to myself – oh I could be a Soyinka, I could be a J.P. Clark. Those inner thoughts, you know. I also thought I could be a Chinua Achebe. So, I then started with

prose fiction. At 16 years, I had written my first novel and I sent it to Longman. I still remember the address where it was sent at Oba Akran, Ikeja, Lagos. It was sent back to me with a note that unfortunately they had another title that resembled my own. It was the same theme, the same ideas. Well, that was how ambitious I was as a teenager by sending my script to a big publishing company like Longman Nigeria Limited.

I wasn’t at all impressed, I was totally depressed, because this was what I thought was a good material for publication.

So, that discouraged me for sometime. But that urge and inspiration to write at that age has not fizzled out.

How has writing reordered or influenced your life?

Writing has really shaped my thinking.

Writing has indeed reordered my perception of things. And it has made me to come to realise that I have a responsibility to get a story that will help others. This is so because other people’s stories also helped me. Also, it has brought me an award. It has made many people also believe that I am an opinion-molder, someone who can help to shape the society. Some have come to classify me as an intellectual, a professor, if you like. However, that has also influenced who I think I am.

I thought I was nothing. But the way others see me has made me to see myself as a writer who has made the difference. Now, with some of my books being used in the university and the publicity given to me by the press, I begin to think that I can also contribute my quota to the society.

What would you tell your favourite author if you met him/her?

The first question will be: why did you choose to write?

Why are you not a mechanic, a bricklayer or something close to it? When you went to school, what inspired you?

The people who actually captured my imagination were those who read the classics.

Did you have to study the classic to write? Did you model your own after the Greeco-Roman model? And such other questions. And perhaps may be they have forgotten that without that classical touch, they wouldn’t have been able to write.

What book do you intend to read next?

The book I plan to read next is titled Life After Life. I want to understand what happens after life. Most people are too afraid to face life after life and why. If I can help to demystify death, which is a natural progression, I wouldn’t mind to do so. So, the book is talking about death and to me, I don’t think death imposes itself on us.

It is a part of our progression in life and when I read it, I will know, too, how to explain this to humanity what is life beyond what the Holy Book taught us. To know the things that prepare you to face it because it is not the end. But many people think it is the end.

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Title: Out of Africa: FasholaReinventing Servant Leadership to Engender Nigeria’s Transformation Author: John M.O. Ekundayo, PhD Reviewer: Olamide Bakare Year of publication 2013 Pagination: 289

First among his peers

I

T is indisputably apparent that Nigeria is tremendously endowed with human and natural resources capable of leading the world economy. It is not an exaggeration that the vast richness of Nigeria agricultural landscape is capable of producing food enough to feed the whole of Africa for decades. Also, being the sixth oil producing country in the world, it is not an embellishment that the proceeds of Nigeria crude oil, if properly managed and utilised, is sufficiently enough to transform the whole country for the betterment of its people. However, the living standard of an average Nigerian is incommensurate to the abundance of resources at their disposal. Hence the yearnings for selfless and patriotic leadership that will bring to bear good governance for the overall wellbeing of the people. On the contrary, the largesse of good governance appears unattainable. This is not unconnected to the dearth of servant-leader at the helm of affairs, who has the interest of the people at heart, regardless of pressing odds to act contrary.

Against this backdrop, John Ekundayoconsidered the essentials of a servant-leader that are germane and central torapid socio-economy development and democratic sustainability, based on Robert Greenleaf’s model on servant-leader.

Thisdevelopment necessitated the birth of this book: Out of Africa: Fashola- Reinventing Servant Leadership to Engender Nigeria’s Transformation.The 289-page research-based book is a compilation of academic research materials for the PhD degree programme of the author. The methodology involved is the Organlisational Leadership Assessment (OLA) instrument, developed by Dr James Laub in the US while both quantitative and qualitative methods were deployed during data gathering process.

The book x-rays the emergence, political achievement and democratic progress of the

Lagos state governor, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN). The central thrust in the book emphasised the essential character traits and cardinal attributes of a servant-leader cum challenges and relational skill in regard to followership. Citing the unprecedented developments Governor Fashola has brought to bear in Lagos state since the legal luminary assumed office on 29 May, 2007 as the 13th Governor of Lagos state, the author portrays him as an exemplary servant-leader whose adroitness and resourcefulness is worthy of emulation. “He is a good example of what a focused leader is all about. I am very impressed with work of Governor Fashola…he is a good trailblazer; he is showing a lot of good

examples in Lagos state and in Nigeria as a whole. He has shown that somebody can do well, regardless of what party he belongs.”— Dr Ken Nnamani, former Senate President of Nigeria.

The book is compartmentalised into three sections. Part one contains the first six chapters which paint a succinct picture of deficiency of servant-leader Nigeria has suffered since October 1, 1960 when its got independent from the British Colonial government. Citing prominent authorities from all walk of life, the author paints a vivid picture of the dearth of visionary leaders bedevilling Nigeria over the decades. “I am saying that Nigeria can change today if she discovers leaders that have the ability, the will and the vision.”—Chinua Achebe, “The Trouble with Nigeria”. In addition, the author did justice to the work by applauding the laudable efforts of GovernorFashola’s predecessor, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, whose political insight pave the way for Fashola. According to the author, “Fashola could not have achieved many things attributable to his administration if he had faced the politics or politicking alone without the backing of his godfather and mentor, the Asiwaju.” (Page 25, para 5). Based on Fashola’s exceptional pedigree at various leadership capacities within and outside government spheres, Asiwaju’s political sagacity propelled him to create the platform for Fashola whereby the latter could actualise his administrative ingenuity. Also, apart from the OLA research method being deployed, the last chapter of part one is rich with face-to-face interview with Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola, BRF as he is fondly called by his admirers. This and the inclusion of relevant pictures lends more credence to the author’s factual considerations of exceptional leadership style of BRF. Part two comprises eight chapters which encompasses the theory and practice of servantleader, using Governor Fashola’s exemplary leadership style as case study. The perception

When books tell the story

D

ELE OWOLOWO , a widely travelled author, will soon release a trilogy, Nigeria’s Odyssey: Vision, Illusions, Delusions or Transformations Religion: What if…We had Won? and ‘The Giant’ Leading the Race to Extinction Nigeria’s Odyssey: Vision, Illusions, Delusions or Transformations, is basically a thought-provoking look on the choices seemingly being made on the road to development.The book tries to debunk the perception that corruption, power supply, diversity, insecurity, religion, etc., are the reasons for problems in Nigeria.

The enduring aim of the book is to inspire other people of similar mind-set, especially the next generation - the post-SAP ‘suffering generation’,with a wealth of knowledge and wisdom so they can look into the future with a beacon of hopeful light at the end of the tunnel.

Religion: What if…We had Won?, the second in the trilogy, is a weave of fictional ‘historicity’ with historical reality and a look at Nigeria’s contemporary religiously ingrained mode of perceiving reality and the pathway that has led to it. To what extent this has had implications on the present psycho-spiritual thought process and the effects it is having on our present national being, forms the thought-provocative bedrock of this book. The fictional historicity revolves around Eri, OduduwaandBayajidda with more of a supposed subjugation than suspension of history. This is laced with the real confrontational events of history and how this is playing a conflagratingrole on our current national polity.

Last in the trilogy is Nigeria: ‘The Giant’ Leading the Race to Extinction, which is more a thoughtprofounding look at themselves as a race, people, nation and the naturally ordained role Nigeria is expected to play in leading the ‘black’ race. The disappointing results so far in achieving anything of substantial relevance, recognition and respect in this regard forms the central theme of this book.

Though very futuristic in perspective, the book embarks on a historical journey through time past, weaving round the world and back to the present, to touch down on our contemporary position and the way it determines our futuristic aspirations or lack of it. Getting rid of a race is not fictional history rather reality in motion here – but how well can we get it? – forms the backdrop to this book.

Born in the UK, but having spent most of his

of Lagosians and their acceptability of BRF’s leadership style were detailedly incorporated throughout the chapters, citing the importance of servant-leadership and its implication in relationship with the followers.Hence the author defines leadership as “a process involving the interplay of the influential behavioural dynamics between participantsleaders and followers-involved in a specific context, expecting a mutually desirable outcome.”

Part three of the book covers the last three chapters which deals specifically with followership perception of BRF in and outside government spheres. Interestingly, 90 per cent respondent showed extreme satisfaction of the servant-leadership style of Governor Fashola.

“Fashola is not a politician. I meant it. I call him a mechanic. He approaches things in a clinical…mechanized fashion…”— Prof. Wole Soyinka. Also, another eminent Nigerian says: “I am speaking from the bottom of my heart.

Fashola has performed; forget about partisan politics. Here is one person that has performed.

People had given up on Lagos that it would not work.” Prof. Niyi Osundare, Prof. of English and Political Commentator, New Orleans, USA. Another respondent says: “Governor Fashola is the best that has happened to Lagos in the recent past. There has been no Governor like him…he has set an enviable record in governance…if we have 6-10 governors like Fashola in Nigeria, things would have really been better.”, he stated.

The book is foreword by legal icon, Femi Falana, SAN. It is an excellent research-based book, dedicated to Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, that captures the most needed remedy for the corruption epidemic plaguing Nigeria over the decades: the need for selfless leaders — servant-leadership. It is highly recommended topoliticians, political scientists, historians, political science students, researchers and any other persons interested in the concept of servant-leadership.

A micro Nigeria Title:History of the Okoroma People Author: Charles Amiebi Year of Publication: 2013 Reviewer: Ojone Adejo

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formative years in Nigeria, from primary school to post-graduate degree, he was among the ‘Andrew-checking-out-generation’ that left the country when the economy was just about beginning to take a nose-dive. Coming back 20 years later, only highlighted how much of a golden-era that period indeed was considering the level of unemployment, under-employment and misemployment of youths that seemed to be the prevailing educational-economic model. Having experienced a two-decade absence away from the country the book offers an insight into how the difference between the two distinctive eras of the nation, divided by a generation almost wedged in between, demonstrates a pointer into the future.

Inevitably still engaged, though much less nowadays, in travelling – best way to broaden one’s mind - he is mostly now based in Nigeria where he runs his own small business and engages in training, educational awareness and entrepreneurship initiatives, with future interests in the promotion of agricultural employment schemes and rural development.

ACH and every month Nigeria moves from one crisis to another.

Oftentimes, these have to do with the structure of the country and what it means to be a Nigerian. Even books are not left out of this as can be seen in the great to-do that followed the publication of the late Professor Chinua Achebe’s “There Was A Country.”

No sooner was the book published than the country went up in uproar and ethnic warriors advanced to the trenches to defend their often narrow interpretations of historical events. And perhaps this is the problem. That ever so often, there is a tendency in the public sphere to take a perspective and demand that it is the perspective of historical events that happened to more than one person. There is no doubt that HRH, Charles Onoye Amiebi, the late king of Okoroma, was aware of these challenges when he set out to write his last book, “History of the Okoroma People”.

The book, published in 2011 by Onyoma Research Publications in Port Harcourt, comes in at just a little over 100 pages and is chock full of pictures and maps which are further supported by four appendices. The author of the book, who is also the first King of Okoroma, died in 2012 and wrote a foreword to

the book before his demise.

The book was presented to the public on the 18th of November, 2013 at Yenegoa and the late king was buried thereafter in his native land. He presents the Okoroma people and their history, tracing through their migrations and locating their origins in a set of brothers who sojourned into the delta from Igalaland or Idomaland. He makes a careful study and presents the story up until the establishment of a traditional stool for the Okoroma people in which he served as Obanobhan of Okoroma from 1975 to 2012.

One of the most important problems of modern Okoroma land is the same problem of Nigeria, that of identity. He notes, on page 54, that “present day Okoroma is hybrid, with generally mixed blood with Nembe.” He also takes pains to set out the numerous avenues by which Okoroma people, who speak a different language from the Nembe, became mixed with the Nembe. Amongst these avenues are—Nembe consul-

tation of Okoroma oracles, the palm oil and palm kernel trade, access through Okoroma to the colonial trade hubs at Asaba and Aboh, fourthly as refuge to chiefs after the sacking of Nembe by Major Mange. The effect of all these has been a high level of intermarriage across centuries such that the modern Okoroma man is multilingual and speaks both Nembe and Okoroma, even when both languages are not even remotely related. Nor are the origins of the Okoroma and the Nembe similar.

The unique hybrid nature of Okoroma people has also been one of the major challenges of their late kind and he very courageously catalogues these, naming names.

Hear him on the second challenge in the struggle to emancipate Okoroma; “. . .the hybrid nature of the Okoroma people brought about by widespread intermarriage through history [tends to] blur the vision of many an uninformed Okoroma indigene to suffer divided loyalty whenever sensitive issues affecting Okoroma ethnic nationality present themselves. As a result, many Okoroma indigenes would rather ‘sit on the fence’ and jump over to the winning or stronger side when faced with adversities or trials or temptations.”

But the late king of Okoroma shows us, through his book, that in the stress of this microcosm pulling itself apart, there can be another force—the integrative force.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 26, 2014 CHANGE OF NAME OTU I formerly known and addressed as Miss Okosun Patience Inibokun, now wish to be known as Mrs. Adaobobor Patience Inibokun. All former documents remain valid.

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AWANEN

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Awanen Aleema Tracy, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Tipping Aleema Tracy. All former documents remain valid.

General public please take note.

AKESODE

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Akesode, Shileola Kafayat, now wish to be known as Mrs. Ibiwoye, Shileola Kafayat. All former documents remain valid.

JAMB, Ogun State and general public please take note.

ODEKUNLE

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Odekunle, Victoria Tosin, now wish to be known as Mrs. Odukunle Victoria Tosin. All former documents remain valid.

Federal Medical centre, Abeokuta and general public please take note.

JOSHUA

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Joshua Aina Olanike, now wish to be known as Mrs. Ibukun Aina Olanike. All former documents remain valid. Federal Medical centre, Abeokuta and general public please take note.

OLOGBOSERE I formerly known and addressed as Miss Catherine Aina Ologbosere, now wish to be known as Mrs. Veronica Aina Akinwumi. All former documents remain valid.

General public please take note.

CORRECTION OF NAME

I Olawole Gbolahan, WAEC mistakenly written my names as Olawale Gbolahan. In June 2002 with candidate Number 4291208302 and centre at Mary Gold’s High School Ode-Irele, OSCTECH and general public please take note.

OGUNLOLA I formerly known and addressed as Miss Ogunlola Oluwakemi Idowu, now wish to be known as Mrs. Alabi, Oluwakemi Idowu. All former documents remain valid.

General public please take note.

ADEMULEGUN I formerly known and addressed as Miss Ademulegun Julianah Labake, now wish to be known as Mrs. Ifesola Labake Julianah. All former documents remain valid.

Achievers University, Owo and general public please take note.

OMOTOSO

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Omotoso Taiwo Racheal, now wish to be known as Mrs. Dada Taiwo Racheal. All former documents remain valid. Ekiti State Local govt. Service Commission and general public please take note.

OKAFOR

OGURU

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Mimi Fortune Oguru, now wish to be known as Mrs. Mimi Fortune Nyeche. All former documents remain valid. General public please take note.

ELOHOR

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Elohor Okedu Edah Marvis, now wish to be known as Mrs. Elohor Edah Marvis. All former documents remain valid. General public please take note.

OKWUDIRI I formerly known and addressed as Miss Okwudiri Viona Nkeiru, now wish to be known as Mrs. Ohawhuru Viona Nkeiru. All former documents remain valid.

General public please take note.

FAHM

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Fahm Ramota Temitope, now wish to be known as Mrs. Amoranbini Ramot Temitope. All former documents remain valid.

General public please take note.

JACOB I formerly known and addressed as Dr. Jacob Oludare Fadoro now wish to be known and addressed as Dr. Jacob Oludare Oluwadoro. All former documents remain valid.

University of lbadan and general public please take note.

AZEEZ

ODEH I formerly known and addressed as Miss Edith Eseoghene Odeh now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Edith Eseoghene Ogbeta. All former documents remain valid.

General public please take note.

CHUKWUAMADI

I formerly known and addressed as Blessing Chukwuamadi now wish to be known and addressed as Iyabode Yetunde Lawal. All former documents remain valid. General public please take note.

OWOLABI

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Owolabi Oluwakemi Esther now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Ohajunwa Oluwakemi Esther. All former documents remain valid. General public please take note.

EZE I formerly known and addressed as Miss Eze Munachiso now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Onwubiko Munachiso Deborah. All former documents remain valid.

General public please take note.

OLAITAN

I formerly known and addressed as Oluwadamilare Saadullah Waliyat Olaitan now wish to be known and addressed as Akindele Oluwadamilare Waliyat Olaitan.

All former documents remain valid.

General public please take note.

EDUOK

SINA-AGBAJE

I formerly known and addressed as Mr. Eduok Okokon Eduok now wish to be known and addressed as Mr. Eduok Peters Okokon. All former documents remain valid. General public please take note.

ACHIMUGU

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Olatunji Abiodun Olayemi now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Olude Abiodun Olayemi. All former documents remain valid. General public please take note.

AYOOLA

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Bisiriyu Omowunmi Ajoke, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Oladoja Omowunmi Ajoke. All former documents remain valid. General public please take note.

I formerly known and addressed as Mrs. Sina-Agbaje Risqat Olawumi, now wish to be known and addressed as Miss Ajayi Risqat Olawumi. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

I formerly known and addressed as (PTE) Faith Achimugu, now wish to be known and addressed as (PTE) Mrs. Faith Ayerin. All former documents remain valid. Nigeria Army and general public should please take note.

I formerly known and addressed as Mr. ldowu Ayoola now wish to be known and addressed as Mr. ldowu Joel Bada. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

UMEH

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Umeh Blessing Chioma, now wish to be known as Mrs. Uba Blessing Chioma. All former documents remain valid. FederaL Polytechnic, Nekedi Owerri and general public please take note.

OGUNLEGAN I formerly known and addressed as Miss Ogunlegan Bunmi Florence, now wish to be known as Mrs. Ojo Bunmi Florence. All former documents remain valid. Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital and general public please take note.

APEH

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Queen Ene Apeh, now wish to be known as Mrs. Queen Ene Wulstan Aririguzor. All former documents remain valid. General public please take note.

NOFIU

I formerly known and addressed as AZEEZ NAFIU KAYODE, LASISI NOFIU, now wish to be known and addressed as LAISI NOFIU. All former documents remain valid.

General public please take note.

OPALEYE

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Opaleye Shakirat Folasade, now wish to be known and addressed as Adeleke shakirat Folasade. All former documents remain valid. General public please take note.

OLATUNJI

BISIRIYU

AMOO

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Amoo Omowunmi Oluwafolakemi, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Oke Omowunmi Oluwafolakemi. All former documents remain valid.

General public please take note.

OREBAJO

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Orebajo Modupe Idowu, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Akeusola Modupe Idowu. All former documents remain valid.

General public please take note.

OYESILE I formerly known and addressed as Miss Oyesile Dupe Oluwatoyin, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs Oyetuga Dupe Oluwatoyin. All former documents remain valid. General public please take note.

OLAKANSE

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Olakanse Omolola Adenike, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs Adebayo Omolola Adenike. All former documents remain valid. General public please take note.

SERMON

I formerly known and addressed as Sermon Daniel, now wish to be known and addressed as Okeoghene Daniel. All former documents remain valid. General public please take note.

AYENI

ALUKO

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Ayeni Modupe Latifat, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs Ayodele Modupe Florence.

All former documents remain valid.

General public please take note.

IHEANETU

I formerly known and addressed as Awosanmi, Temitope Funmilayo, now wish to be known as Oyesanmi Temitope Funmilayo. All former documents remain valid. FCMB and general public please take note.

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Aluko, Abimbola Mercy, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Aliu, Abimbola Mercy. All former documents remain valid.

General public please take note.

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Nonso Ijeoma, now wish to be known as Mrs. Nonso Mamman. All former documents remain valid.

General public please take note.

ADELEYE

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Oyinlade Adewunmi Adeleye, now wish to be known as Mrs. Oyinlade Adewunmi Odunlami. All former documents remain valid. General public please take note.

AWOSANMI

IZUAGBA I formerly known and addressed as Mr. Izuagba Benard Anayo now wish to be known as Mr. Udeh Benard Anayo. All former documents remain valid. General public please take note.

JOSEPH

I formerly known and addressed as Mr. Joseph Ezeji, now wish to be known and addressed as Mr. Joe Ezeji. All former documents remain valid. General public please take note.

NWANJO

OKAFOR

I, formerly known and addressed as MISS OKAFOR JUSTINA NKIRU, now wish to be known and addressed as MRS JUSTINA NKIRU EKWUEME. All former documents remain valid. The general public should please take note.

BANKOLE

I, formerly known and addressed as MISS BANKOLE ADEFOLAKEMI MUTIAT, now wish to be known and addressed as MRS OJUMOOLA ADEFOLAKEMI MUTIAT. All former documents remain valid.

The general public should please take note.

OLAYEMI

I,formerly known and addressed as MISS FAKAYEJO OLUBUKOLA OLAYEMI, now wish to be known and addressed as MRS OJEBOLA OLUBUKOLA ATINUKE. All former documents remain valid.

The general public should please take note.

FASUAN

I, formerly known and addressed as MISS FASUAN OLAIDE BUSOLA, now wish to be known and addressed as MRS ADESHINA OLAIDE BUSOLA. All former documents remain valid. The general public should please take note.

NNAMANI

I, formerly known and addressed as MISS NNAMANI CHIZOBA now wish to be known and addressed as MRS. CHIZOBA LOVETH KLOOS. All former documents remain valid. General public please take note.

OKONKWO

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Okonkwo Mirian C. now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Ifeanyi Favour Mirian Chinomso.

All former documents remain valid.

Insourcing Limited and general public should please take note.

CHANGE OF NAME

EGBUJOR

I, formerly known and addressed as MISS. EGBUJOR COLLECT CHINOMSO now wish to be known and addressed as MRS. COLLECT MATTHEW AKPOVOMERHE. All former documents remain valid.

General public should please take note.

AJIFOLOKUN I, formerly known and addressed as MISS. AJIFOLOKUN COMFORT AANU now wish to be known and addressed as MRS. ARIBILOLA COMFORT AANU. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

IGBOH

I, formerly known and addressed as MISS. IGBOH AWELE JOAN now wish to be known and addressed as MRS. AWELE JOAN OKHAWERE. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

CHUKWU

I,formerly known and addressed as MISS. CHUKWU, CHINENYE PRECIOUS now wish to be known and addressed as MRS. CHINENYE PRECIOUS ANIEFIOK ETIM. All former documents remain valid.

General public should please take note.

ANAMELECHI

I, formerly known and addressed as MISS. ANAMELECHI OGECHI IRINA now wish to be known and addressed as MRS. IGWE OGECHI IRINA. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

OPELOYERU I, formerly known and addressed as MISS. OPELOYERU RISIKAT OLAJUMOKE now wish to be known and addressed as MRS. OLANIYAN RISIKAT OLAJUMOKE. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

EMEMI

OKEREKE

I, formerly known and addressed as MISS. FAVOUR OMARE EMAMI now wish to be known and addressed as MRS. FAVOUR OMARE EWOWO. All former documents remain valid. Novena University, Ogume and general public should please take note.

OLOWA

I,formerly known and addressed as MISS. MERCY APAAGO OSAROKOTE now wish to be known and addressed as MRS. MERCY NNANNA EPPIE. All former documents remain valid.

Rivers State Polytechnics, NYSC and general public should please take note.

I,formerly known and addressed as Dr. Peter Theophilus Uchechukwu Okereke. now wish to be known and addressed as Dr. Peter Theophilus Uchechukwu. All former documents remain valid. battle Axe & R.,H.M.B,Ministry of Health Umuahia and general public should please take note.

I formerly known and addressed as Miss OLOWA OLUWATOYIN OLAYINKA now wish to be known and addressed as as Mrs. ADEWOLE OLUWATOYIN OLAYINKA . All former documents remain valid. General public please take note.

EZEIKE

I,formerly known and addressed as MISS. UKAMAKA MARYJANE EZEIKE now wish to be known and addressed as MRS. UKAMAKA MARYJANE EZE. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

CHINEDU

I,formerly known and addressed as MISS. CHINEDU ASSUMPTA now wish to be known and addressed as MRS. ONUIGBO ASSUMPTA. All former documents remain valid.

General public should please take note.

CONFIRMATION OF NAME I, MAGNUS OSADEBAMWEN EDOSA OSAYUWAME and MAGNUS OSAMUDIAME EDEMAKHIONTA OBAZEE refers to one and the same person, now wish to be known and addressed as MAGNUS OSADEBAMWEN EDOSA OSAYUWAME. All former documents remain valid. General public please take note.

AZAKA

I formerly known and addressed as Miss. UWAZULUONYE JANE BLESSING AZAKA, now wish to be known as Mrs. UWAZULUONYE JANE BLESSING –MARK ENUMAH. All former documents remain valid general public please take note.

OKOYE

I formerly known and addressed as Miss. FLORENCE ADAORA OKOYE, now wish to be known as Mrs. FLORENCE ADAORA UMEAKA. All former documents remain valid. General public please take note.

CHINEGENE

I formerly known and addressed as Miss. NGOZI JAMES CHINEGENE, now wish to be known as Mrs. NGOZIKA ONYEKACHI TITUS. All former documents remain valid, general public please take note.

OSAROKOTE

JOH I formerly known and addressed as Miss. FLORENCE .S. ECHENIM JOH, now wish to be known as Mrs. DEDENUOLA FLORENCE ECHENIM. All former documents remain valid. General public please take note.

IBEH

I formerly known and addressed as Miss. IBEH CHINAZA REBECCA, now wish to be known as Mrs. NWAEZE CHINAZA REBECCA. All former documents remain valid.

General public please take note.

CONFIRMATION OF NAME I Beyor Toritseju Joan that I sat for NECO June/July2008 and WAEC May/June 2008 registered my name as Beyor Toritseju and is the same person as Beyor Toritseju Joan.

Beyor Toritseju Joan is my rightful name. Osun State Polytechnic, Iree General public should take note.

ADVERT: Simply produce your marriage certificate or sworn affidavit for a change of name publication, with just N4,500. The payment can be made through - FIRST BANK of Nigeria Plc. Account number 2017220392 Account Name - VINTAGE PRESS LIMITED Scan the details of your advert and teller to gbengaodejide@ yahoo.com or thenation.advert @gmail.com.

For enquiry please contact: Gbenga on 08052720421, 08161675390, Emailgbengaodejide @yahoo.com or our offices nationwide. Note this! Change of name is now published every Sundays, all materials should reach us two days before publication.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 26, 2014

76

Our airports, our gateway

EBERE WABARA

WORDSWORTH N 08055001948

ewabara@yahoo.com

For IG, DIGs, AIGs, CPs W HEN you use ‘demand’ or ‘advocate’ as a verb, do not add ‘for’, please!

“The reason is because (that) our parties lack political ideologies.” (The PUNCH Back Page Salvo, January 20) This was contributed by Dr. Stanley Nduagu, Abia ANA President, 08062925996.

Additionally from Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, New Edition: Do not say ‘the reason because’ something happens…but say the reason why that something happens. ‘By reason of something’ means because of something. An analysis, like the foregoing, brings out the technicality of language which puts off most readers!

And from me: you can say ‘the reason why I came’ or ‘the reason I came’.

Some books frown at the former, why most dictionaries approve it. That is grammaticality for you!

From Mr. G.O. Komolafe, Ilesa (08037277985) comes the next excerpt: “Twice THE NATION ON SUNDAY COMMENT (EDITORIAL) of January 12 used ‘severally’ and it got the meaning wrong. Note that the word is not the adverb of ‘several’, but the opposite of ‘jointly’ or ‘collectively’.

SATURDAY INDEPENDENT of January 18 goofed on five occasions: “230 perish in road crashes in Nasarawa” THE NATION ON SUNDAY of January 19 also committed this same atrocity apparently from the same news source: “230 killed in Nasarawa road crashes in 12 months” The victims were not killed, but died/ perished…! Except in unusual circumstances, roads cannot crash when accidents happen. What crashes are vehicles—not roads! We can have road/ rail/air/sea mishaps and respective contraptions could crash—not the means.

“Back to school (Backto-school) resolution” “Lagos official charged for (with) violating Tenancy Law” “Only agriculture can solve Nigeria’s unemployment problem” ‘Unemployment’ is a present and clear problem globally. Therefore, there is no need for redundancies!

“Matches between the two teams in the past

have (had) always live (lived) to expectations….”

THE NATION ON SUNDAY of January 19 disseminated copious blunders: “Harmattan hampers voters turn out in Jigawa Local Govt (LG) election” No news: voter turnout “INEC reads riot act to staff” Fixed expression: the riot act—headline considerations should not vitiate stock entries.

“It must have been distraction (distractions) galore” “This seems an insult, both on the spirit and letters of representative government.” (National Mirror Views Page, January 16) Get it right: the spirit of the law (in this case, representative government) There is nothing like ‘the spirit and letters of…’! The correct expression means intention: the meaning or qualities that someone intended something to have, especially the meaning that a law or rule was intended to have. ‘The letter of the law’, conversely, means the exact words of a law or agreement rather than the intended or general meaning.

(Source: Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, New Edition) Still from Longman: Do not say ‘invitation letter’ or ‘complaint letter’.

Say letter of invitation/ complaint.

“It is a common sight in most police units and stations to behold all manners of faulty equipment....” Not my opinion: all manner of equipment.

“They will only end up frustrating the good intentions of the president, thereby continually subjecting Nigerians into (to) servitude.”

“As popular as the two investigative panels he has put in place may appear, the power to investigate all issues are (is) vested in the respective legislative houses….”

“Charges of corruption against those in authority is (are) not new to Nigerians.”

“Although, personally, his integrity was never questioned, that of the members of his administration were (was) loudly condemned.”

“So (a comma) with dwindling earnings, the Abubakar administration cannot (could not) be expected to maintain the

same healthy foreign reserve as he inherited.”

POLICE ETYMOLOGY NIGERIAN policemen are supposed to be friends of the society.

Alas, their adversarial comportment reminds one of colonialism. Cops in other countries are very friendly and professional. On December 27, 2013, during my trip to Umuode en route to Aba, Abia State, a cop flagged me down just before Ore and asked for the tinted glass police permit for my Sport-Utility Vehicle (SUV). All explanations that I forgot it in my wife’s car when I took the SUV to my local mechanic for check-up preparatory to my South East trip fell on deaf ears! The presence of my wife and children did not make any emotional difference as the insolent and corrupt cop, Corporal Temitope Oluwasope (212039), standing and dangling a WW1 gun as if we were in a war situation proximal to their rickety operational vehicle numbered NPF 533B, insisted that I bribe him with N10,000 for contravening the law! There was no hint of taking us to the station for a statement and subsequent ticketing or making pretensions about dragging me to a kangaroo traffic court! It took the intervention of a senior officer and a gentleman before the extortionist and unruly constable could accept N2,000, which I reluctantly paid to foreclose further time wastage because of the tender children aboard and the long, bumpy trajectory ahead. Otherwise, I do not succumb to such circumstantially exploitative demands.

Such extortive brazenness is the identity of Nigerian police nationwide! This kind of official (police) banditry should be limited to Lagos roads where it is a way of life for officers and men of the Lagos Police Command under the feeble and rudderless leadership of Umar Manko! The IGP, DIGs, AIGs and CPs should check the corrupt and beggarly language of their ‘boys’ while on illegal/outlawed (virtual roadblock) duty. Such foul communication hallmarks irredeemable institutional degeneracy.

OT a few fellow Nigerians will agree that indeed, the country’s airports have received very serious facelift in the last two years. Beside the annual ritual of painting and repainting our airports by previous administrations, there have never been such positive developments in the critical aviation sector as we currently witness.

According to media reports, when the current minister in charge of Aviation, Princess Stella Oduah assumed duty July 2011, she met the sector and its several agencies in need of reorganisation, restructuring and rehabilitation. From one agency to the other across the land, the minister recorded cases of dilapidated infrastructures, demoralised staff and situations that made flying a big risk.

For instance, Oduah announced that at the end of her tour around aviation facilities and agencies, the following among several others, aptly summarised her findings: • Safety and security-critical equipment and installations were either obsolete, unserviceable or unavailable • Completely decayed infrastructure all round- airport terminals were dilapidated and derelict • Airport facilities and services such as air conditioning, toilets, trolleys, elevators, directional signage, power generators, etc were either unserviceable, unreliable, unavailable or not user friendly • Security screening equipment at airports was obsolete and mostly unreliable.

• Airport fire stations and fire-fighting equipment in poor condition, with fire hydrants unserviceable and firemen and women had gone without proper kits for years • Terrible and unsafe working condition of staff in airport offices (i.e. asbestos roofs, leaking roofs, broken floors, no power supply, etc.)

• Poor working conditions for air traffic controllers in the control towers with serious safety risks for the industry • Several abandoned control tower upgrade projects spread across the country- in total, 154 abandoned projects in the industry • Several runways without runway lighting • The Aviation Training College in Zaria had lost its ability to train students and lacked adequate equipment and facilities, and • Massive leakage of Agencies’ revenue due to manipulation of manual revenue collection processes Road mapping Determined to ensure the sector under her purview is properly understood to pave way for upping the ante in line with the Transformation Agenda of the President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan administration, the minister concluded that following her findings during the nationwide tour, in terms of safety and security, the industry was in retrogression, generally lagging far behind the rest of the world.

Economically, the Honourable minister deduced that the aviation industry had become a net liability to government and the national economy with the attendant negative image and poor symbol of our national identity.

Put succinctly, the Nigerian Aviation industry she inherited was moving fast in the opposite direction of the rest of the progressive World and was the perfect example of how NOT to run a national industry.

She was to underscore her

•Jonathan

By Osedebamen Isibor worries for the sector when she declared late last year that: “We also invited an International Consultancy to do a study on the Financial Affairs of all the Parastatals and Agencies under the Ministry to clarify the state of their financial affairs “A Human Resources Consultancy was also invited to do a study on the Human Resources status and practices in all the Parastatals and Agencies under the Ministry “Armed with what we found on the ground, the reports from the 3 studies comissioned coupled with my years of business experience, I appointed a competent team of CEOs and DGs for all the Parastatals and Agencies under the Ministry.

“Together we spent 2 months brainstorming and developing an Aviation Master Plan and Road Map to turn around Nigeria’s Aviation Industry.”

That the Aviation Master Plan and Road Map were finally approved by Mr President in January 2012 was therefore a welcome development that made sure that since then all our actions must follow the Road Map. But as is typical with any effort aimed at cleaning an obviously dirty Aegean stable like the Aviation sector she inherited, especially in this clime, the ministry required some form of ironfisted approach. And like Oduah was to say, “the Transformation of the Nigerian Aviation Industry could not begin without making very fundamental changes. This meant that a number of tough decisions had to be taken, including exiting from various lopsided ‘concessions’ entered into previously.

“These decisions adversely affected several powerful interests benefitting from the arrangements to the detriment of the industry and the national interest, who have continued to fight and distort public perceptions of the actions which my team and I continue to take to transform the Aviation Industry.”

Moreso, the Aviation Master Plan included a Road Map for institutional changes, infrastructure development, human capacity development, the strengthening of domestic carriers, the establishment of a national carrier, the development of Regional Hubs and Perishable Cargo handling facilities, Free Trade Zones and Aerotropoli.

The paradigm shift required a review of the existing Civil Aviation Policy, resulting in a new and robust National Civil Aviation Policy as emphasis of the Master Plan and Road Map is to reposition Nigeria’s Aviation Industry as pivotal to the economic growth of Nigeria, in line with the Transformation Agenda of the Jonathan administration.

Working the Road Map Thus from an agency like Nigeria Meteorological Services, NIMET, through others like Accident Investigation and Prevention Bureau, AIPB, Nigerian College of Civil Aviation Technology, NCAT, Nigerian Airspace Management Authority, NAMA

• Oduah to Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria, FAAN and Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, there have been a lot of turning around by the current Transformation government.

And the recognitions for the great strides in the sector have kept pouring in. For instance, in compliance with International Civil Aviation Organisation, ICAO and World Maritime Organisation, WMO requirement, NIMET underwent a Quality Management System audit process from October 2011. The Agency was finally certified in March 2013. The certification which was a confirmation of Nigeria’s compliance with international aviation standards and best practices in the provision of weather services for airline operations. The certification boosts the confidence of Airline Operators and other users of meteorological data and products makes NIMET the first meteorological agency in West Africa to meet the rigorous requirements and receive the ISO certification. This therefore re-enforces Nigeria’s position to become the aviation hub for the entire sub-region.

“This achievement is unprecedented in the history of meteorological service in Nigeria. It was made possible by the ongoing Transformation of the aviation sector to guarantee quality of service and safety in the Nigerian airspace,” many stakeholders in the sector were to say last year.

The same feat that caused the foregoing recognition are being replicated across the agencies in the sector that today, the Jonathan Transformation Agenda is peaking in the sector.

Today, the nation can boast of modern airport buildings with state-of-the-art facilities that compare with the best elsewhere alongside the effective security network whose personnel have been so trained to be central to the transformation process.

Challenges ahead Just as the nation is happy with the progress so far made in the sector, not a few Nigerians believe that beside the rising cost of flying in the country as well cases of missing luggage, touting, cases of cancelled flights, menace of over-zealous security personnel at the airport and operators of the taxi parks within the airports are areas that the minister and her officials must address as they affect intending or arriving passengers; and potentially, members of the public.

As for the personnel of the several agencies of the ministry, the Oduah revolution must catch up with them; especially, in their inter-personal relations with each other within same agency as well as with sisteragencies. Above all, the transformation going on may make no meaning if the staff of the agencies do not relate well with members of the public today, a potential client tomorrow.

No doubt, a lot has been done to take our airports and related operations to the next level in line with Jonathan’s agenda for that sector. But there is still more to do to get things there up to the zenith.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 26, 2014

77

With Hannah Ojo 08062952262

Hello,

Hello children, it is always a pleasure to have you on this platform. In today’s package, we bring you information about Blessing Liman who became the first female military pilot in West Africa last year.

Read and be inspired to do great things as well. Remember, no one can limit you without your permission.

BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION

Meet West Africa’s first female military pilot

B

LESSING Liman was born on March 13, 1984. She hails from Kaduna and is an indigene of Zangon Kataf Local Government Area.

•She attended the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), formerly known as Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Zaira, Kaduna State. She was of the SP24A set of pilots and they were referred to as the Knights of the Air. • She was commissioned as a Combat Flying Officer alongside 126 others who finished the Direct Short Service Course 2010/2011 Cadets of the 325 Ground

Training Group at the Nigerian Air Force Base, Kaduna.

•According to her: “As the first female pilot, I would want to make a mark that would encourage other females to join the military because I believe that all females have equal opportunity to exercise their rights in whatever they choose to do. I believe that all female Nigerians who choose to become pilots can do it since I have done it” •To see a lady achieving such feat in the midst of so many men is truly inspiring.

Her achievement goes a long way to show that nothing is impossible with determination and hard work.

•Liman

WISE SAYINGS

• L-R: Wife of the President Deaf Supporters Group (DSG) Mrs Bose Dahunsi, Welfare Officer,Remi Adeiye, dancing with their Children, during the End of Year Party/GetTogether Party of Deaf Supporters Group in Lagos recently.

PHOTO: MUYIWA HASSAN

•“A man may build himself a throne of bayonets, but he cannot sit on it.”

-William Ralph Inge (1860 - 1954) •“Birds of a feather will gather together.”

-Robert Burton (1577 1640) •“Early to bed and early to rise, makes a manhealthy, wealthy, and wise.”

•Anonymous •Eggs and vows are easily broken.”

•Japanese proverb.

•A bad workman always blames his tools.”

-Anonymous •A cask of wine works more miracles than a church full of saints.”

— Italian proverb

•Eyinjuoluwa Apoeso during her first birthday celebrations on January 4th 2014

SUDOKU

WORD WHEEL

P

N

A

C

O

C

C Y

To play Sudoku: Fill the box with the numbers 1 to 9 in a way that •Each column must contain all of the numbers 1 through 9 •Each row must contain all of the numbers 1 through 9 •Each block must contain all of the numbers 1 through 9 •No two numbers in the same column, row, or block can be the same.

5

9

O

HOW many words of three or more letters, each including the letter at centre of the wheel, can you make from this diagram?

5 2 3

7 1

8

6 3

4 7

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QUOTABLE “How can we comment on what we have not seen?

Our party has a structure. We need to look at it. The party is yet to see a copy of it. When it gets to the party, the party will look at it and make its position known at an appropriate time”

SUNDAY, JANUARY 26, 2014 TRUTH IN DEFENCE OF FREEDOM VOL. 8, NO. 2740

—Alhaji Lai Mohammed, APC’s interim national publicity secretary, on INEC’s fixing of the 2015 elections for February.

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AST week’s tit for tat between the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) is a reminder of the biblical story of the altercation between Israel’s King Ahab and the most prominent prophet of the day, Elijah. Responding to Ahab’s spectacular misrule, Elijah had decreed very harsh repercussions on the country, prompting the king to accuse the prophet of troubling Israel. But the prophet simply retorted that on the contrary, Israel was troubled by the king and his household.

The outcome of the struggle between the king and the prophet is too well known to require any analysis. Ahab and his family later came to grief.

Comparisons, the English say, are odious. But on Thursday, after the APC gave what amounted to a political ultimatum to President Goodluck Jonathan over his government’s increasing and rampant resort to undemocratic, if not entirely fascist, methods, and the PDP had retorted that the APC was attempting to truncate democracy, it was hard to resist comparing contemporary Nigeria under Jonathan with ancient Israel under Ahab. President Jonathan may not have taken anyone’s vineyard in the direct sense of the word, but he has done much worse by undermining democratic rule in Rivers State, involving himself in oil wells controversy, usurping state powers in favour of the police, and giving the general and depressing impression his sole idea of the presidency is to act and fight in favour of his party, supporters and people. It is difficult to explain why he is not unsettled and deeply nauseated by the brazenness of his methods in Rivers and the openness of the state police commissioner’s partisanship.

The president’s wife, Dame Patience, ever so replete with testimonies of God’s goodness in her life, continually proclaims peace, love and national harmony. But she has been accused of being a puppeteer in the Rivers crisis, with direct links to the state’s commissioner of police, the recalcitrant and fawning Mbu Joseph Mbu. The first lady has done little to refute the allegations of undermining peace and good governance in Rivers State; instead, she has spoken cynically and condescendingly of contributing to the progress of her home state, and has undisguisedly nurtured a hostile attitude towards the elected leaders of that state. Indeed, she speaks peace, and has even christened herself the mother of

2015: Bad omen all round “The president’s new ministerial list is not a reflection of the managerial competence of the appointees, or of the short time left in the president’s tenure; it is a reflection of the idiosyncratic belligerence of the president himself, his evasive and deceptive patriotism, his intolerable lack of fidelity to truth and lofty ideals.” peace. But she acts war and, in the background, fights it. It is likely that to the very end she will indulge in interminable battles, never retreating, never surrendering.

It is against this alarming background that the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the APC met in Abuja on Thursday to review the state of the nation, particularly the condition in which the misrule of the Jonathan presidency has diluted the country’s democratic experience and weakened its foundational principles. It was no longer realistic, they said, to tamely endure the battering and buffeting of the ruling party, in Rivers as well as elsewhere. It had become clear, the opposition party said, that both the president whose proselytising tendencies on social and political issues have turned dull and vacuous, and the PDP whose implacable resolve to demolish the tenets of federalism has become all too obvious, merely paid lip service to peace, institution building, economic development and federal principles.

Having made these observations, and having been convinced that the ruling party

had no interest whatsoever in conducting peaceful and fair polls in 2015, the APC has decided on a more activist path in pursuing its political objectives. It would block passage of bills, particularly the budget bill, and oppose the confirmation of the president’s men, including the service chiefs. Though it is not exactly clear how it hopes to achieve these delicate and draconian aims, the opposition party is doubtless able to discomfit the PDP in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

The PDP has begun to fight back dirtily, as this column guessed it would. And if it is taken into cognisance that the opposition APC is still battling with fractiousness in its ranks, not to talk of the inelegant structural and policy distractions promoted by some of its more obstreperous and domineering state leaders, it seems clear that the auguries are not good at all.

As the APC put it: “Following the forgoing and in view of the joint resolutions of the National Assembly on Rivers State, and other constitutional breaches by the

Oduah conjures phantom, intransigent enemies

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ESPONDING to President Goodluck Jonathan’s pussyfooting on the bulletproof cars scandal involving her and the Aviation ministry she heads, Stella Oduah has embarked on a frenzy of public relations propaganda to shift the blame away from the scandal to the doorsteps of her ‘enemies.’ It took nearly two weeks after the scandal was exposed before the president set up a panel to look into the disgraceful buck-passing enacted by Ms Oduah after it transpired she had knowingly sanctioned, some said inspired, the purchase of two armoured cars at inflated prices. It took more than two weeks after the panel submitted its report for the president to angrily acknowledge he had received the report.

Now it is taking forever for him to do something about the report. Unlike the Justice Ayo Salami case, in which he agreed to suspend the jurist with alacrity, he is in no hurry to lay a finger on the special woman, Ms Oduah.

After it became clear the president would continue to dither with scant regard for the dignity and nobility that should accompany his office, Ms Oduah opportunistically launched attacks of her own against those she described as her long-standing enemies. The reprisal attacks are coming after many solid

•Jonathan

•Oduah

weeks of extraordinary lobbying to save Ms Oduah’s job. But if the president couldn’t save Bamanga Tukur’s job, even though his fault was nothing more grievous than serial indiscretions and tactlessness, it is hard to see the president saving Ms Oduah’s job when her failing is obviously one of atrocious disregard for truth, general and particular mischief in aviation matters, and obscene and indifferent embrace of luxury at a time of great national deficit and scarcity.

But it gratifies and promotes Ms Oduah’s spuriousness to confuse two entirely distinct issues. Only a confused mind could juxtapose the problem she has with her supposed enemies with the self-made scandal of flouting budgetary restrictions and corruptly inflating car prices. Hear Ms Oduah: “For over 38 years that our airports

remained damning commentary on our status as part of the civilised world, or when our airspace existed without the modern and workable equipment and facilities to make the airspace safe, these category of persons saw no evil and heard no evil while they happily clapped their way to the banks. This group has carried on with bitter venom, throwing decency and honour overboard, lying and misleading the Nigerian populace even when they knew the truth, because my team and I changed the game in favour of Nigeria attaining her pride of place…They are the entrenched, corrupt and profligate individuals and entities that have caused the serious rot in the aviation sector.”

Having failed to lather her case with ethnic jostlings, she now refers to the implausible and arbitrary figure of 38 years ago, when both she and her traducers were probably just emerging from their teenage years. Whether Dr Jonathan likes it or not, Ms Oduah’s position is no longer tenable. She will have to go, of course without the honour that should normally accompany a decisive president, or the sense of shame a dignified woman should never lose. Ms Oduah is not plagued by enemies, for she is too insignificant to have any notable one; she is undone by shamelessness, an affliction that is now evidently an integral part of the Nigerian presidency.

Presidency, the APC hereby directs its members in the National Assembly, to block all legislative proposals, including the 2014 Budget and confirmation of all nominees to military and civilian positions to public offices until the rule of law and constitutionalism are restored in Rivers State in particular, and Nigeria in general.

The NEC of the APC has now resolved that if these acts of impunity and lawlessness continued unabated and the Police persist in being as an enforcement arm of the PDP to the detriment of our members, it will have no alternative but to ask our teeming members all over the country, and especially in Rivers State, to take whatever steps that are necessary to protect their lives and property.”

Unmindful of their party’s unhealthy contributions to the country’s lifelessness, PDP spokesmen have suggested that the APC’s plans to respond forcefully to the ruling party’s misrule were deliberate attempts to truncate democracy, create chaos and cripple the economy. As its wilfully misleading tactics in the National Assembly show, the PDP is expected to embrace the worst forms of realpolitik as the 2015 general elections draw near. The party has ignored the law and the constitution so far in Rivers State, and in the National Assembly, judiciary and in many other states; it will continue to do so eagerly, unconscionably and remorselessly. The secret service and the police have become indistinguishable from Aso Villa general office staff; the president will continue to run the two law enforcement agencies as if they are nothing but appendages of the ruling party.

Going by the ministerial list awaiting confirmation, and in view of the extreme conservatism and pro-Jonathan inclination of the Senate, the president seems to be reinforcing his ‘war cabinet.’ He has the legitimate right to appoint ministers who will be an asset to him, and who could swing votes in his direction, but the appalling reality is that most of the president’s appointees have the same malicious and malignant mindset as Nyesom Wike, the Rivers State-born Minister of State for Education. The president’s new ministerial list is not a reflection of the managerial competence of the appointees, or of the short time left in the president’s tenure; it is a reflection of the idiosyncratic belligerence of the president himself, his evasive and deceptive patriotism, his intolerable lack of fidelity to truth and lofty ideals.

If the APC were to be reluctant to respond in kind to the PDP’s damnable tactics, it could be smothered by the continuing misuse of presidential powers and the mischievous interpretation of the law and the constitution. Nevertheless, the greater burden is on the APC. Unlike the PDP, which has a fairly long and stable tradition upon which to swivel, balance and launch ferocious and overarching attacks, the APC is just starting to accrete its partisan powers, define who it is, locate its strengths as well as recognise its weaknesses, and mould itself into a united and disciplined fighting force. The opposition party, it is clear, is a child born in wartime. It will require perceptive, brilliant and selfless leaders to help it reach adulthood quickly in one piece, not to talk of acquire the strategies and manoeuvres necessary to outfox such an indomitable and relentless foe as the PDP. In the coming months, the country will find itself trapped between the PDP’s fiery lack of moderation and distorted nationalism at one end, and the APC’s intrepid and fanatical desire to challenge the ruling party, pound for pound, shell for shell at the other end. It would be chimerical to expect the country to fare very well between the two powers, not when the PDP can count on unnumbered and soulless state officials eager to betray every noble cause, including the country, and the APC can count on its Young Turks frazzled by intraparty contentiousness and weaned on harakiri.

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