January 18, 2015

Newspaper of the Year

Sanusi: Nigeria is a weak state –Page 6

Boko Haram: Cameroon, Niger, Chad lose patience with Jonathan –Pages 4 & 5

Launch new force to check sect Another suicide bomber kills six in Gombe blast Nigeria’s widest circulating newspaper

Says nation that can't defend self loses basis for existence

Vol.09, No. 3099

TRUTH IN DEFENCE OF FREEDOM

SUNDAY

JANUARY 18, 2015

N200.00

Kaduna Gov, on tape, threatens to attack APC supporters, El-Rufai Yero: I didn’t say so

–Page 4

Confusion in Presidency, PDP over Obasanjo –Page 4

Jonathan woos Kwankwaso, Wammako, Gemade, Goje, others

THE BUHARI THEBUHARI TESTIMONIALS From cradle to candidate: The General’s story –Pages 9-12

BAYELSAPDP CRISIS WORSENS AS TAN DARES DICKSON You can't ban us, group tells governor –Page 77

BAGA: GLOBAL LEADERS GROUP BLASTS JONATHAN OVER SILENCE –Page 7

EX-MINISTER, OTHERS DUMP PDP AS BUHARI STORMS JOS

–Page 5

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 18, 2015

PAGE 2 Stormtrooper outfit saves man from snakebite

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CAPTURED

N Australian man attacked by a deadly snake he thought was dead was fortunate to be wearing a Stormtrooper costume from “Star Wars” at the time, otherwise his walk for charity might have ended tragically.

Scott Loxley was on Day 277 of his almost 15000 kilometre walk around the country to raise funds for the Monash Children's Hospital for charity when he encountered the highly venomous snake alongside the road as he was passing through Yalboroo in Queensland.

Because he sees snakes on the road all the time, mostly dead snakes, Loxley believed this king brown snake was dead, too.

“Turns out it wasn't dead,” Loxley said in a Facebook video.

“It was a big old king brown. They love the cane fields up here, and he lunged at me and bit me. The good news is, he bit me in the shin and the armour actually protected me and stopped the bite.

“I could feel the teeth on the plastic scraping, but the armour actually stopped something. So all those people that rag on the old Stormtroopers saying the armour doesn't do this, doesn't do that, it stopped a snakebite and probably saved my life today.”

The king brown snake, the sixth most dangerous snake in Australia, has the largest recorded venom output of any in the world, delivering 150mg in one bite. It is also known to hang on and chew on the victim as it injects the venom.

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EARLY two years after the country importuned him to visit the war-ravaged northeastern part of the country, President Goodluck Jonathan finally stirred himself.

Using the pretext of the Armed Forces Remembrance Day anniversary, he last week paid a belated visit to his troops at the Brigadier Maimalari Barracks in Maiduguri, Borno State.

The last time he visited the Northeast in 2013, he had talked down to the regional elite, accusing them of conniving at the rebellion waged by the militant Boko Haram sect. Convulsing with rage at the time, he had threatened to withdraw his troops if the elite would not stop complaining about their overbearing attitude.

He would hold the elite responsible for just one more soldier killed by anyone in that forlorn region, he said haughtily. He did not specify whether it mattered who the assailant was: innocent civilian or Boko Haram militant.

But those were the giddy days, a time when he woefully misread the insurgency then just intensifying, a time when he was quite sure victory for his troops was a matter of weeks or perhaps months. His expectations have since been disastrously dashed, and the 'police action' he thought he needed to crush the insurgency has drawn out into a war of attrition. If he feels victory is still within reach, he has spoken of it in whispers, not with the spiritedness and condescension with which he read the riot

The bandwagon effect •The drama of the 2015 election campaigns is reaching new heights of creativity. Here, Lagos All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate, Akinwunmi Ambode (third left), addresses supporters from atop a double-decker bus at a rally held in Ikorodu yesterday.

Left is Governor Babatude Raji Fashola.

BAROMETER sunday@thenationonlineng.net

Jonathan finally ventures Northeast act to the Northeast's regional elite almost two years earlier.

The visit has predictably triggered a swarm of speculations regarding his motives for venturing into the Northeast, a region he had pointedly and remorselessly refused to visit even when the hordes of hell descended on those beleaguered towns, killing, maiming and abducting. Fifty-nine schoolboys were massacred at a federal college in Buni Yadi, Yobe State, an act that horrified the country and elicited a poetic and rhetorical flourish from the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal. On his own, the

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S if the international image of Nigeria could not possibly sink further, President Goodluck Jonathan and candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in next month's presidential election, Muhammadu Buhari, were made to sign a pact indicating they would shun violence during and after the presidential poll. It is not known how they wish to exercise perfect control over their supporters, or how, in case of breakdown of peace, especially after one of them had lost the election, the matter could be made justiciable. In law, neither could be vicariously held responsible for breakdown of peace consequent upon poll dispute except it is

the perpetrators.

Some 219 schoolgirls were abducted by the same Boko Haram militants from a state government school in Chibok, Borno State, and turned into sex slaves or married off, but the president cited security reasons for his failure to visit the blighted town or the girls' inconsolable parents. Indeed, the only time he deigned to meet with the mourning Chibok parents, it was at one of the elegant halls in Aso Villa, his commodious presidential residence and offices. Even then, the visit was instigated president sent a soulless con- by a young schoolgirl from dolence and a famished Pakistan and now Nobel promise to catch and punish Peace laureate, Malala

Yousafzai.

In short, no monumental crime was horrendous enough to provoke a presidential visit to the Northeast after the earlier 2013 trip, and it even seemed until now that apocalypse itself could not have persuaded him to reach out in empathy to a part of his country taken over and ravaged by militants -- until now, a few weeks before the February presidential poll. Some observers believe he was merely using the Armed Forces Day as a pretext to soften the ground before his campaign stop in the region, and that he had probably hoped he would not have to

venture into those parts because the intensity of insurgency was expected to make polling impossible.

Whatever his reasons for visiting, whether his motives were pure or not, it is still incontrovertibly poor judgement to visit the region barely four weeks to the polls. And whatever his reasons were, it is clear the region will spurn him, for when they needed him, he equally spurned them. For almost two years, the region was politically lost to him; now, electorally, they will leave him in no doubt that the region is also lost to him.

But perhaps the president should be left alone to ponder the dilemma of campaigning in the region, thus proving cynics right, or avoiding campaigning in those parts and, depending on the outcome of the polls, wishing he had.

infuse them with a passion and patriotic commitment for the peace of their country and the wellbeing of their people.

Conjectures may be unhelpful, but it seems to everyone that the overriding interest of Nigeria, its image in the eyes of the world, and the pride of its people should have led the president to talk, act and work for a credible election as well as strengthen law enforcement agencies to impartially police the election, both before and after. For a presidency which has, however, politicised and subverted all law enforcement organs, rendering them crassly partisan, the pact may appear a complete waste of would be worrisome that Nige- time, on top of the humiliation rian leaders still needed the of the country. international community to

Humiliating election pact proven they instigated the violence. Is the pact not therefore nugatory?

The five-point covenant binding the signatories to maintain the peace was signed in the presence of Kofi Annan, former Secretary-General of the United Nations, and Emeka Anyaoku, former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth. The event took place at a workshop reportedly inspired by the offices of the National Security Adviser (NSA) and the Adviser to the President on Inter-Party Affairs, and supported by at least six international agencies and the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies

(NIPPS), Kuru, Jos. The presence of Messrs Annan and Anyaoku dominated the workshop, with the latter chairing the event, and the former giving a keynote address.

From all angles, it was difficult not to see the event itself and the pact that followed as humiliating. If it is considered that two government departments organised the workshop and inspired the pact, the puzzle would be why the federal government felt the need to goad its agencies to put the event together. And if it is considered that the highpoint of the workshop was the involvement of the two high-ranking diplomats, it

By ADEKUNLE ADE-ADELEYE

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 18, 2015

COLUMN

The concept of permanent liberation J

UST as eternal vigilance is the price to pay for continuous liberty, the concept of permanent liberation advances the thesis that permanent liberation battles is the price to pay for living in a postcolonial country. One struggle for liberation and freedom commences as soon another terminates. It is a state of permanent warfare as battles succeed battles in a roiling cauldron of continuous strife and contention. No man is tailor-made for permanent warfare. Even the greatest of warriors often falter or lose their nerves. In a state of permanent warfare, you need permanent moral clarity and consistent focus in order not to join the wrong battle formation.

It has been said that people fight for a cause only to find that what they have fought for is not what has supplanted the old order. It is then often left to others to fight on.

But when the same struggle for liberation and freedom resumes in a new guise with the old demon wearing a new face, some old warriors, out of sheer historical exhaustion and loss of the acuity of vision, are wrong-footed into joining the wrong battle formation against the immanent will of their own people. This is just as some regnant forces of the discredited old order suddenly found themselves as part of the ascendant winning coalition.

The people treat the former oppressors turned new liberators with wary regard. Thanks but no thanks.

The rogue liberators would soon be back to their old ways when the cannons boom once again, and very soon too. As for the old liberators turned new oppressors, they are treated with instant excommunication and prompt expulsion from the Order of Political Saints. It is a cruel, harsh and unforgiving world.

There are no come back kids here.

The political galleria is full of walking corpses and numerous casualties; former heroes who have been expelled from the Procession of Holy Patriots.

This is probably an old society's way of transposing its old values to a new society. But it is just as well. It may well be because nothing lasts in the tropics. Things grow so fast and die so fast. And when they die, they decompose so fast, that you begin to wonder if they ever lived. That is the nature of the tropics. Nothing is permanent, not human institutions, or artifices for reining in the wilder impulses of humankind. In the sultry heat, even the nation-state itself is permanently on the boil.

Revolutions revolve. One liberation struggle is quickly succeeded by another. Just when you think you have got rid of a band of oppressors, new oppressors emerge in the sizzling cauldron. And in the combustible contradictions, old oppressors transform into iconic arrowheads of the new struggle.

By the same token, some icons of the old struggle caught in the maddening tempo of events, the shifting and swirling political gyrations, suddenly become villains of the new struggle. It takes more than moral clarity, political sophistication and analytical prowess to be on the right side of history in the permanent shuffling and shuttling. It takes divine luck.

Yet it does not take a diviner to conclude that the forthcoming elections are a watershed for post-independence Nigeria. What was seen a few months ago as a routine contest between a superbly well-entrenched

•Tinubu

even if under-achieving and underperforming government and a disorganized and desultory opposition has now shaped into an epic power struggle the like of which has never been seen on these shores. There is a mysterious will to this election, a metaphysical potency to its gathering hurly-burly which cannot be lightly ignored. Needless to add that it will determine the fate and destiny of Nigeria.

Despite the numerous battles, the wars of liberation in modern Nigeria can be grouped under three broad rubrics, namely: The war of national liberation against colonial oppression; second, the war against internal colonization and military occupation of Nigeria; lastly the war against the combined forces of ascendant ethnic and neo-military power formations bent on keeping Nigeria in political slavery and economic servitude which is currently joined.

With retrospective clarity, it can now be seen that the battle of the Victorian Lagos Press against the various colonial administrations, particularly the journalistic slugfest between these illustrious Nigerian patriots and the Lugard family, the Aba Women Uprising, the various ethnic revolts, political trials and numerous workers' strikes were all part of an uncoordinated war of national liberation.

Similarly, the ethnic rebellion against internal colonization in the old Western region which culminated in the First Coup, the Tivi uprising in the Middle Belt, the Civil War, the Zango Kataf riots, the Ogoni Rebellion, the Orkar military mutiny and the protracted and bitter struggle for the de-annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election were all part of a costly war against internal colonization and military despotism in Nigeria.

Of all of them, it was only the June 12 contention which had a pan-Nigerian template that spawned an international wing.

It is also worthy of note that in the history of Nigeria, this is the first election that is going to be entirely issue-driven, even where dominant ethnic and religious preferences cannot be discounted or ignored. While virtually all the

other elections have been more or else ethnic referendum fought under some ideological or political occlusions, the veil seems to have come off this time. This is ironically because it is also the first time in Nigeria that elections are being entirely driven by the will of the people. The role of the political elite in the deployment of ethnicity and religion as instruments of political negotiations can no longer swept under the carpet.

The coming elections will be fought on three main planks, namely (1) the validation of the sovereign electoral will of the Nigerian people. It is on this that all the other planks rest (2) The issue of corruption and its multiplier effect on the national climate (3) The stunting of certain vital national institutions, namely the military as seen in the Boko Haram fiasco, the judiciary as manifested in sheer corruption and unwarranted government interference and the failure of the political class to modernize Nigeria.

The election is not about ideological proclivity or political refinement, pressing as those may be to the political sophisticates. The election is mainly about the first principle of nationhood which is the inalienable sovereignty of the electorate and whether the people have the right to choose or change their government if and as when they deem appropriate.

It has been possible to mess up Nigeria this far because the rulers believe that the electorate have no say in elections. The fundamental and overwhelming revolutionary imperative of our time is to return power and sovereign will to the Nigerian people. All other things can then follow. Being mass-driven, this is an election of limited political vision but unlimited strategic clarity.

It is that unlimited strategic clarity which informs the alliance between the dominant political tendency in the South West and the core north which has produced the APC in the face of present odds and past prejudices. Political impurities often have their strategic value. In the June 12 presidential election and the struggle to terminate military despotism in Nigeria, Abiola, a

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nooping around With

Tatalo Alamu friend and creation of the military, brought rightwing resources to bear on an essentially rightwing venture.

In the current conjuncture, the APC with its slew of recuperating feudalists, former authoritarian strongmen and republican royalists has brought immense rightwing resources of fabulous wealth, visibility and connection to bear on what is particularly a leftwing project: the authentication of the Nigerian electorate. What bullet could not achieve, the ballot may yet achieve. Help always comes for Nigeria from the most unlikely of sources.

As we have said, the concept of permanent liberation requires permanent struggle. To be sure, the emerging two-party structure in Nigeria is adversely weighed down by its freight of political misfits, frauds and nonentities. In all probability, and if the law of permanent liberation subsists, the battle for the ideological refinement and political redefining of the parties will commence as soon as the current battle for popular supremacy terminates.

In that forthcoming shakedown, the current victors will get their own comeuppance if they fail to read the tea leaves or could not find the moral clarity and altruistic strength of character to handle unaccustomed change.

Such inability to deal with sudden, unexpected changes coming from unexpected quarters has been the great tragedy of the surviving barons of the old Yoruba political establishment who are bent on a mission of final self-immolation.

Even for the stoutest and most valiant of men, it is not easy to be in a permanent theatre of war and roiling contention and still maintain one's alertness and strategic foresight. But they should learn from history.

A quick glance at the turbulent pageantry of Yoruba history and modern mythology might suffice.

Nobody ever remembers the earlier sterling contributions of Aare Afonja to Oyo Empire, or the fact that the self-willed generalissimo and prince thought he was actually attempting to lay the foundation of a formidable new empire out of the

wreckage of the old in contempt and defiance of a succession of effete and clueless Alaafins.

There were many Lagosian grandees of Yoruba extraction who got swept out of historical contention simply because they could not understand or align themselves with the strange new doctrine of Yoruba self-determination as advocated by a man they despised as an upstart from the Ijebu interior, just as there were many authentic heroes of the Action Group struggle of the fifties that fell by the wayside simply because they could not read the AwoSLA feud of the early sixties correctly.

In 1993, a few avatars of the Action Group/ UPN struggle against internal colonialism in the First and Second Republics who allowed legitimate grudges and grievances against Abiola on account of his past perfidies to condition their attitude to the annulment suddenly found themselves on the wrong side of history from which they have never recovered. In 2015, those who are allowing ancient grudges and ancestral animosities to becloud their political judgement may also find themselves trapped in the abyss of historical infamy from which there may be no escape or recovery.

The graveyard is filled with the bones of indispensable men indeed. The Yoruba pitch for an alliance to win power at the centre is not incompatible with defending core Yoruba interests while advancing national interests. Attack is often the best form of defence, more so in a colonial cage of chaotic contraries. The old strategy of waiting for the enemy to come for you in your own territory was the product of a siege mentality, a Laager mindset or what the Americans call the habit of circling the wagons.

Only those who have failed or refused to come to terms with the emergent realities of the post-colonial polity can still be sold on this ancient strategy. In the long run the Yoruba nation and Nigeria at large may yet have to thank those political wizards responsible for this remarkable rupture of customary political praxis and its radical epiphany of fresh possibilities

The funeral of an elephant

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HE sight of the PDP unraveling , coming apart at the seams with spectacular aplomb, must fill one with pity and terror. How did the largest party in Africa come to this sorry pass? Yet it is a well-known historical fact that hubris affects not only human beings but human institutions and political contraptions as well. This, surely, cannot be the same party destined to rule for the next sixty years, according to one of its summarily defenestrated chieftains. Conceived as a broad-based pan-Nigerian caucus to free the nation from military bondage, the PDP has become a fascist terror machine from which the entire nation is seeking liberation.

Those who refuse to learn their history are condemned to repeat the lesson. We have been through this route before. In the Second Republic, the late Umaru Dikko, confusing the monstrous

amalgam of placemen and party hacks that his party was to Hitler's NAZI, boasted that the NPN would rule for a whole millennium, in short an African Third Reich. But shortly thereafter, a gunslide replaced the NPN's dubious landslide, to put things in General Theophilus Danjuma's memorable phraseology.

To be sure, these two gentlemen were no idle prattlers. They had the fact to back up their controversial claims -or so it seemed.

When Vincent Ogbuluafor was making his canonical declaration from the throne, the PDP stood supreme with the opposition in total disarray and reeling from the hammer blow of the rampart and rampaging party. At the time Umaru Dikko was boasting about the bearish strength and virtual invincibility of his party, Chief Awolowo's UPN had just been handed one of the worst and most humbling electoral whipping of the century.

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 18, 2015

NEWS

Confusion in Presidency, PDP over Obasanjo

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HE Presidency is in dilemma over how to handle former President Olusegun Obasanjo following calls for his expulsion from the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) for alleged antiparty activities.

The PDP is also ruing the defection of five of its governors and other stalwarts to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Some top shots of the ruling party and presidency officials have already launched secret moves to reopen talks with the governors.

They want them back as part of the last minute strategy to swing the tide of public opinion in favour of President Goodluck Jonathan.

The initiators of the peace talks, according to sources familiar with the

* Jonathan woos Kwankwaso, Wammako, Gemade, Goje, others development, are trying to prevail on the affected governors not to make things difficult for the President such that he could win between 25 and 40 per cent votes in their states.

But the Presidency and the PDP are confused about what to do with exPresident Olusegun Obasanjo following recommendation by some party bigwigs, including Ijaw leader Chief Edwin Clark that the ex-President should be expelled.

Some ex-PDP chiefs being wooed are Governors Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano); Aliyu Wammako (Sokoto); Abdulfatai Ahmed (Kwara); ex-Governors Segun Oni, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, Danjuma Goje,

FROM: Yusuf Alli, Managing Editor, Northern Operation

Bayo Alao-Akala, Rasheed Ladoja, ex-PDP National chairmen like Audu Ogbeh, Barnabas Gemade, Kawu Baraje, ex-ministers Labaran Maku, Samuel Ortom and others.

It was gathered that though Governor Sule Lamido has not defected, the presidency and PDP are worried that he is yet to show enough commitment to Jonathan's re-election bid.

Investigations revealed that only Governor Rotimi Amaechi is being sidelined in the discreet lobbying because of what a source described as a "SouthSouth" challenge.

It was learnt that the peace initiative followed

moves to prevent any possible run-off poll with the presidential candidate of the APC, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari.

Some of these defectors are being begged to collapse their structures with PDP to ease victory for Jonathan on February 14.

A highly-placed PDP source said: "There is no point pretending, we are feeling the impact of those who have defected from our party to the APC. "If they had remained in the party, it would have been a walk-over for Jonathan at the polls during the presidential race.

"We have discovered that our major obstacles are those who have left PDP because they are masters of the game in their own right.

"This is why some forces in the presidency and the PDP are making last minutes moves to engage them to have a rethink and work for Jonathan wherever they are.

"We know that after the elections, we will embark on massive reconciliation to bring back everybody under the same umbrella."

Another privileged source said: "Emissaries are being sent to some of these defectors in the overall interest of the party.

"This is the kind of rapprochement that the late Chief K.O. Mbadiwe would describe as 'Accord Concordiale'. The PDP does not want to lose the poll.

"The party has the war chest to win the elections but it needs votes to seal its victory at the first ballot.

"Besides the defectors, the party is worried about the siddon look attitude of leaders like Governor Sule Lamido and others.

Contacted, the National Publicity Secretary of APC, Chief Olisa Metuh, said: "Officially, I am not aware but I must restate that our doors are open to returning and new members.

"We know that most of

these people who defected from PDP to APC are not happy where they are.

They are free to come back.

"They have left a land flowing with milk and honey for the desert. They have left a party where they were major stakeholders to a party where only one or two people take decisions."

As at press time, there was confusion in the presidency and PDP on what to do with exPresident Olusegun Obasanjo whom some party elders had accused of alleged anti-party activities.

While some elders like Chief Edwin Clark wanted Obasanjo expelled, majority favoured that the ex-President should be ignored.

A member of the NWC said: "The President has engaged Obasanjo like a father; it is left to him to chart his part.

"But do not forget that he said he cannot dump a party that made him the President of Nigeria.

"We are still hopeful that he will temper Justice with mercy. We will reconcile him too with the party."

Another NWC member simply quipped: "I don't discuss personality, I face issues. I cannot talk on exPresident Obasanjo."

Kaduna Gov, on tape, threatens to attack APC supporters, El-Rufai •Yero: I didn’t say so

G •APC presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari addressing a mammoth crowd at the Jos township stadium yesterday

Suicide bomber kills five at Gombe market

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suicide bomber killed at least five people and wounded 11 on Friday near a market in Gombe.

"It was a suicide bombing," said Saidu Ahmed Minin, head of operation of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) in Gombe.

"Six people were killed

including the bomber and 11 others were injured. We evacuated them to the hospital."

Witnesses said the blast went off at 7:25 pm in the packed market neighbourhood of Kasuwar Arawa.

"The bomber went into the crowd of people waiting to recharge their telephones" at a

public charging station "and then set off the explosive," taxi driver Idris Babandada told AFP by telephone. "The explosion shook the whole neighbourhood."

No one claimed immediate responsibility for the attack but Boko Haram militants are increasingly powerful in the Northeast and Gombe has been

hit by several suicide bombers recently, most of them at bus stations and near military installations.

An aid worker in Gombe said that the injured were being treated by aid volunteers and nurses, because doctors in the city were on strike.

Eschew politics of bitterness, Adeleke advises politicians

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HE first civilian governor of Osun State, Senator Isiaka Adetunji Adeleke, has charged politicians to eschew politics of bitterness and character assassination.

Adeleke, who is a candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for Osun East senatorial district, gave the charge during his 60th birthday held in Ede his country home.

From Adesoji Adeniyi, Osogbo

He reminded politicians of the peace pact signed in Abuja to make the poll violence-free and charged them to tolerate one another in the course of politicking.

Adeleke advised that the politicians should rather focus on programmes that will benefit the electorate as they are campaigning for support in the next month

general elections.

According to him, politics of bitterness and acrimony could only hinder progress of any community, therefore, enjoining politicians to play the game of politics according to the rule.

The Ede Council Christian Association of Nigeria led by Prophet John Adewuyi, showered encomium on Senator Isiaka Adeleke, who is the Asiwaju of

Ede. The dignitaries present at the event, including Christians and Islamic clerics, described Adeleke as an apostle of peace.

The Islamic Ulamas led by the Chief Imam of Edeland, Shiekh Moshood Akajewole, enjoined politicians to emulate the virtues of Senator Adeleke, whom he said his watchword is peace and unity.

OVERNOR Ramalan Yero of Kaduna State has been caught on tape threatening violence against the All Progressives Congress (APC) should his team be attacked while campaigning.

Speaking in Hausa language to his supporters, Gov Yero vowed swift "revenge" if ever attacked by any one "born of woman".

"If you are born of a woman, please pelt us with stones, when we go out for campaigns. We dare you to destroy or burn our vehicles.

Burn our House," the governor said.

"I swear by Allah, anyone who does any of these things, we will revenge."

The governor and his supporters see Mallam Nasir ElRufai of the APC as the main stumbling block to a return to office and said he could stop ElRufai from entering the state.

"If I say you should not come to Kaduna, I swear you cannot come. If I say you should not leave your house, I swear you cannot leave," Yero said.

"If I say they should demolish your House, I swear

by Allah, they would demolish it immediately. If you think we cannot do it, try us and see, continue with what you are doing, by God's grace we will show you."

But following the outrage

sparked by the threats which were first published by the online outfit -Premium Times - the governor went on radio yesterday to deny issuing any such threats.

He said he only urged his supporters to rise up and defend themselves whenever the opposition attack or attempt to destroy their property.

The governor in the phonein programme in Kaduna said he could not have uttered the statement attributed to him.

He appealed for calm before, during and after the forthcoming elections, adding that, as an advocate of peace right from his early years, his prayer is that people should conduct themselves peacefully and be allowed to vote for persons of their choice without intimidation or force.

He said: "those who know me know that I am an advocate of peace and since I became governor of the state, I have been doing all I could to ensure that we have peace in the state.

"In fact, my love for peaceful coexistence in spite of provocations could be why some were saying that I am too patient to a fault. I have never made any provocative statement, despite the fact that I've been insulted on Facebook and in other places. Those working with me, I admonish them every day on the need for peace. "

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 18, 2015

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EIGHBOURING Cameroon, Chad and Niger have decided to take their fate in their hands and put the terror sect ,Boko Haram, in its place after losing patience with Nigeria on account of its alleged passive handling of the war against the group.

Consequently, the three countries have launched a regional bid to combat the Boko Haram insurgents whose attacks have spread beyond Nigeria with mounting concerns over federal government's failure to regain control.

The three neighbours have opted for a joint military response to the cross-border threat from Boko Haram fighters and have made veiled criticisms of Nigeria, AFP reported yesterday.

Officially, all four states, whose borders converge at Lake Chad, formed a military alliance due to take shape last November to battle Boko Haram.

But building a combined Lake Chad force seems to have dropped off the agenda.

NEWS

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Boko Haram: Cameroun, Chad, Niger lose patience with Jonathan

Now the urgency of the situation is such that Nigeria's partners appear to have finally lost patience and decided to act.

Cameroon, in particular, has been critical of what it sees as the Nigerian authorities' passivity in the face of Boko Haram.

Last Friday, after Chad's parliament voted to send armed forces to Cameroon and Nigeria to help fight the insurgents, Chadian army vehicles headed south out of the capital N'Djamena.

The move followed the seizure of the fishing town of Baga, Borno State on January 3 in an offensive that Amnesty International called the deadliest ever by the sect.

Satellite pictures released

by Amnesty and Human Rights Watch last week showed widespread destruction with around 3,700 buildings in Baga and nearby Doron Baga damaged or destroyed.

• Launch initiative to put sect in check Amnesty said 2,000 civilians may have been massacred but the Nigerian army objected to the "sensational" claims and said that the death toll in Baga was about 150.

The Islamists detained "over 500 women and hundreds of children" in a school, one woman who escaped the area told AFP, adding that she had seen "decomposing bodies scattered all over".

The army had planned to use the isolated settlement of Baga as one of its key bases to work with a regional force.

However, the other countries are opposed to any major deployment inside a bastion of Boko Haram.

"The most worrying situation for us today is Nigeria, it's the situation of Boko Haram," Niger's Defence Minister Karidjo Mahamadou said after the fall of Baga.

"Since November, we have no longer been at that post (Baga). We explained to the Nigerians that we could not stay since we did not wish to put the lives of our soldiers in danger," Mahamadou said.

Like Niger, Cameroon was strongly opposed to the Baga deployment option and will not send any troops into Nigeria on a permanent basis, security sources said after officials said the army killed 143 Boko Haram fighters who had at-

tacked a military base in the northern town of Kolofata.

President Paul Biya favours the exchange of intelligence reports to enable coordinated operations but believes each nation should act on its own territory around Lake Chad, the security sources said.

Cameroon has for months complained about the Nigerian army's lack of fight and mass desertions in the face of the insurgents.

"Nigerian soldiers abandon their weapons when they desert their positions," a Cameroonian military officer said last week.

"Those are the weapons with which we are attacked."

For Chad, its battle-hardened army will step in to help "in the courageous and determined response of (Cameroon's) armed force against the criminal and terrorist acts of Boko Haram," the government stated Wednesday after President Idriss Deby received Cameroon's defence minister.

And yesterday tens of thousands of Chadians marched in the capital to show support for the fight against Boko Haram chanting in French and Arabic: "Kick the forces of evil out of our territory."

Chad's "vital interests" are at stake, officials have said but N'Djamena is still cautious.

When troops from both Chad and Niger withdrew from Baga, they were "unable... to accomplish their mission with the Nigerian army," a Chadian official said, asking not to be named.

Polls: President is your in-law, Patience Jonathan tells Anambra • As Jonathan's campaign train hits state • Obi Onitsha reconciles Obiano, Obi

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•Chief Willie Obiano, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and former Governor Peter Obi at a reception held in President Jonathan's honour at the Palace of the Obi of Onitsha, Igwe Nnaemeka Achebe...yesterday

Ex-Minister Tallen, others dump PDP for APC

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HE All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential campaign train stormed Jos, Plateau State yesterday with the flag bearer, General Muhammadu Buhari(Rtd.), declaring that the much expected positive change in the country is around the corner.

Buhari promised that the positive change would affect all aspects of the country once he wins the February 14 election.

The presidential hopeful who received several PDP stalwarts who decamped to the APC said: "PDP government has caused a lot of damage to this country with bad governance. PDP has been ruling us with impunity.

"But APC has come to

Positive change is around the corner, says Buhari From Yusufu Aminu Idegu, Jos

change all that and give freedom and dividends of democracy to all Nigerians.

"So, I encourage Nigerians to troop out on February 14th, vote PDP out and vote in APC. APC is ready to institute leadership that will promote transparency that would be acceptable to all Nigerians.

"Specifically, I will lay more emphasis on the education sector and create jobs for our unemployed youths.

"Schools in Nigeria no longer turn out competent graduates, infrastructure is gone, salaries of teachers are no longer paid regularly

and the best we can do for this generation is to put in the best in our educational system. When we give our youths the best education, they can take care of themselves."

The campaign organisation's Director General, Governor Rotimi Amaechi, asked the people of the state to "join the moving train of change that is moving across the country so that they will be in the mainstream of government affairs as from May 29th."

Amaechi urged the people to take a bold step to enforce the change they have been yearning for.

The National Chairman

of the APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, presented the party's flag to the state governorship candidate, Simon Lalong, who said the wave for change was now effectively on its way in Plateau state.

Former Minister of State for Science and Technology, Pauline Tallen led former PDP chieftains who left the PDP for the APC at the rally.

Others who switched camps were Professor Sambo Wapmuk and Prof Sunny Tyoden and thousands of their supporters.

Tallen, who served as deputy governor of the state, said the PDP has failed Nigeria.

Buhari assured them of equal rights in their new party.

Stop using religion to divide Nigerians, APC warns religious leaders

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HE All Progressives Congress (APC) yesterday warned religious leaders in the country to stop using religion as a tool to divide the people, especially in the name of politics.

National Publicity Secretary of the party, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said in a statement in Jos that the warning became necessary following the false messages being cir-

culated via SMS to the effect that adherents of a certain religion were being killed in a part of the country and their houses of worship burnt on Saturday, when nothing of such happened. ''After receiving the text message, we investigated and discovered that nothing of such happened today, Saturday, Jan. 17th 2015,'' the APC said, describing those ped-

dling such incendiary messages as liars from hell and agents of evil.

It said such messages could set adherents of the country's two main religions against themselves.

The party challenged the security agencies to investigate, arrest and prosecute the brains behind "these serpentine messages, instead of chasing shadows and turning

themselves into tools of partisanship in the hands of unscrupulous and shameless politicians. ''Those who will use religion to divide the citizens for political reasons are not men of God, whether they are Christians or Muslims. They are agents of darkness and posterity will not be kind to them,'' it said.

IRST Lady Patience Goodluck yesterday pleaded with the people of Anambra State to vote for her husband in next month's presidential election because of his status as their in-law.

Mrs. Jonathan, who was on President Goodluck Jonathan's campaign team to the state, told PDP supporters at a rally in Onitsha that her spouse deserves their support if not for nothing else.

She described the PDP as a moving train and urged those still in doubt to come on board.

The president himself said that his administration had released N10billion for the take off of the 2nd Niger Bridge, N1.5billion of which was paid as compensation to those whose properties were demolished to make way for the N130billion project.

The president who had earlier inspected the level of work on the bridge, which links Onitsha with Asaba, Delta State said: "I discovered that work is really in progress as the access road that will lead to the bridge that is about 3km has been graded just to make sure that there is access to the site.

"I spoke with the management of Julius Berger and they assured me that the project will be completed within 40 months."

He described the bridge as critical to his administration.

Also addressing the rally, the Southeast coordinator of the PDP presidential campaign and former governor of Anambra state, Peter Obi, told the people that most of the projects he executed during his tenure were sponsored by the President through the Millennium Development Goals (MDG).

National chairman of the party, Adamu Muazu, said PDP would remain grateful

to the people of Anambra for their patience, commitment and dedication to the president.

The leader of the party in the state, Chief Chris Uba, said the party was not leaving any stone unturned in making victorious certain for the PDP in the next month's general elections in the state.

However, a PDP leader in the state, Chief Okey Muo Aroh, told the president to warn Governor Willie Obiano over his threat to unleash security operatives on PDP members who are campaigning for election but whose names are not listed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as contestants.

The president later paid a courtesy visit to the Obi of Onitsha, Alfred Nnaemeka Achebe at his Ime-Obi palace during which the traditional ruler urged him to reconcile Governor Obiano and his predecessor, Obi. The duo had fallen out soon after Obiano's assumption of office and Obi's defection from APGA to PDP. Speaking, Governor Obiano said the entire Anambra State irrespective of political affiliations had decided to support President Jonathan for a second term in office as the state under his administration has witnessed great re-birth and shall support the President.

Igwe Achebe thanked President Jonathan for his vision and transformation agenda.

He said: "We want to remind you of what you said when you visited Ndi Igwe in 2011.You said that you are PDP and PDP is you.

"You also said that you are APGA and APGA is you and we want to stand by that by making sure that there is a level playing field for all the parties in the coming elections especially as the people of the state bury their different political parties to support you."

6

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 18, 2015

NEWS

Nigeria's economy strong, stable, says group

APC expresses worries over plans to scuttle Buhari's victory

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HE Nigeria Posterity Project said yesterday that Nigeria's economy remains strong and stable in spite of the challenges arising from the dwindling global oil prices.

The organisation said in a statement in Abuja that its findings were based on empirical research into the Nigerian economy between 2010 and 2014.

National Coordinator of the group, Louis Ebodaghe, said the national economy has turned out to be the best and biggest in Africa.

It said: "President Jonathan has developed the economy, raising the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to seven per cent per annum in the past six years, the highest in sub-Saharan Africa so far.

"Foreign direct investments in the first six months of 2014 stood at $9.7 billion. The regime's automotive policy has injected fresh ideas and vibrancy into Nigeria's automotive sector.

"The industry which has been moribund for 20 years has bounced back to life with Nissan, Hyundai, Kia, Peugeot and Stallion Motors assembling their products locally in Nigeria, while the innovation of Innonson Motors is manufacturing quality vehicles locally.

"These have created jobs and boosted the Nigerian economy tremendously."

Jonathan's Maiduguri visit too late –group

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pro -Buhari group, Buhari Support Organisations (BSO) h as said that last Thursday's visit by President Goodluck Jonathan to Maiduguri is "certainly a little too late and contemporarily disingenuous."

"To have waited after several years is most unfortunate. To visit when presidential election is imminent reeks with a great deal of suspicion and we cannot be taken in by this late visit to Maiduguri," Dr. Chidia Maduekwe, Media Director of BSO said in a statement yesterday.

He said the President should have visited the state when the people needed his support most and not now when the Presidential election is around the corner.

Maduekwe said an APC government would do things differently as it "will urgently and completely secure the territorial integrity of the nation. It will never leave defence of the nation in the hands of hunters, children and civilian JTF."

Tinubu is Awo of our time, says Fashawe

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HE national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, has been given thumbs up as an authentic Yoruba leader for his incredible political prowess and unmatched achievement.

Tinubu, according to the Asiwaju of Owo in Ondo State, Otunba Oyewole Fashawe, has recorded developmental projects across states only akin to the halcyon sixties era of the late sage and Premier of the then Western Region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo.

Fashawe gave the commendation during an interaction with an audience of younger generation of Nigerians at his Owo country home at the weekend.

He said: "There is no need to hide a good product. Tinubu has paid his dues and perfected the art of returning the Yoruba political wheel back onto the national track, just after eight years that an illustrious and proud Yoruba son (Olusegun Obasanjo) handed over the mantle - a feat only few people would have anticipated.

T

•Chad's Prime Minister Kalzeube Pahimi Deubet (C) leads a rally in N'Djamena on January 17, 2015, showing support for a decision to send troops to fight Nigeria's Boko Haram Islamists (AFP Photo/)

Sanusi: Nigeria is a weak state

•Says nation that can’t defend self loses basis for existence

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OKO Haram's acts of terrorism are escalating only because of the weak r esponse from the federal government, the Sarkin Kano, Alhaji Muhammadu Sanusi 11, said yesterday in Auchi, headquarters of Etsako West Local Government Area of Edo State yesterday.

Nigerians, he said, should therefore rise up and defend themselves vigorously from further intimidation and attacks by the insurgents.

"First responsibility of the state is to protect lives and properties of its citizens or it loses the basis of its existence" the former Central Bank governor said at the closing ceremony of the 29th National Quranic recitation.

Islamic leaders, he added, must speak up now against Boko Haram's atrocities "or we are guilty of complicity."

"It is extremely important that we look at the Quran which provides the most noble of

From: Osagie Otabor/ Osemwengie Ben Ogbemudia, Benin behaviors and character. Selling free borns into slavery, kidnapping of young girls and rape are unIslamic.

"We can't keep quiet while people are being killed, we must fight to make sure our religion is not distorted .But the state must protect us. If your enemy comes to attack you and you run away Allah will not help you."

He reiterated his position that Muslims across the country must defend themselves against Boko Haram insurgency, pointing out that the terrorists are still in business and gaining more territories only because the Nigeria state becomes weak.

He urged the Federal Government to wake up to its responsibility by liberating parts of Borno, Yobe, Adamawa states currently under the control of Boko Haram.

He called on the people to

stop running from the terrorists whom he said are projecting Islam wrongly.

Sanusi hailed the people of Kano for putting up a gallant resistance when terrorists attacked the Emir Palace central Mosque, Kano during the November 28, 2014 Jumat prayer.

Dozens of worshippers were killed in the attack and so were the men suspected as the brains behind the terror.

That attack came a few weeks after the Sarkin Kano first challenged Nigerians to defend themselves against the sect.

Sanusi, who was outside the country during the siege, rushed back home and reiterated that the people should stand up to the sect.

Boko Haram's leader,Abubakar Shekau responded a few days later threatening to come after the traditional ruler.

Shekau said his sect did not consider Sanusi a true Muslim

and would attack him whenever an opportunity presented itself.

Also speaking at yesterday's event in Auchi, the Shehu of Borno, Alhaji Abubakar Umar Gabai El Kanemi, called for the sustenance of the Qur'anic recitation describing it as the most important rallying point for Muslims.

El Kanemi urged Muslims to base their teachings on the Holy Quran and not to mislead their followers.

Governor Adams Oshiomhole said government was nothing if it could not protect lives and property of its citizens.

At the end of the 10- day recitation, Yusuf Muhammad Baffa Dukku from Gombe state came first in the male category with 95.2 points.

He went home with N500, 000 and a 4 runner jeep while Khadija Tanimu Abdullahi from Plateau state won the female category with 91.1 points.

She also got N500, 000 and a Lexus Jeep for her effort.

Jonathan’s academic qualification has not impacted Nigeria, says Fashola

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AGOS State Governor, Raji Fashola, yesterday declared that the academic qualifications of President Goodluck Jonathan and Vice President Namadi Sambo have not in any way impacted positively on the nation.

The governor, who spoke at the All Progressives Congress (APC) mega rally in Ikorodu, said the university degrees of the duo have not stopped the country from sliding into its present sorry state.

Fashola said: "We prayed that if we had someone who has degrees, he would be able to develop the country. And when the president, a PHD holder assumed office, rather than improve the standard of living of the citizens, we are having regression. The Vice President is an architect but he cannot construct road.

"But a lawyer is the Commissioner for Works in Edo State and he has constructed several roads. In Ogun State, the Commissioner for Works is an architect and he has built several roads. So, let's ask Sambo, the vice president, what has he done for the nation.

•’Buhari will restore lost territories’

By Miriam Ekene-Okoro

"All he (Sambo) could do was to inform the president that people are leaving Lagos because of the state tax regime. And I want everyone to ask the vice president if the number of vehicles coming into Lagos has reduced."

The governor said the federal government postponed the planned increase of import duties on Tokunbo vehicles by 70 percent because the elections are around the corner.

"They know that people will protest. That is not in the interest of the public transport system.

The responsibility of any government is to protect its citizens. And for it to be attained, you should support the candidature of Buhari and Ambode.

"How can the government be giving its citizens jobs through lottery? If the government does it responsibilities, citizens will get on with their life."

Fashola also flayed the PDP governorship candidate, Mr. Jimi Agbaje, saying he is displaying inexperience and ignorance on

budget implementation in the state.

Agbaje, during a debate organised for gubernatorial candidates in the state on Thursday, said the educational sector only got three per cent of the entire 2015 budget of the state.

But Fashola dismissed Agbaje's claims, saying: "He does not know anything about financing.

"If he listened to my budget speech, I said that we increased budget for education from 15 per cent to 16.8 per cent. I also explained that the 16.8 per cent is not the entire budget for education.

"But other funds for some of the education programme were left with the ministry that was saddled with such responsibility in the state.

"We do de-worming and school milk programme but the fund for such was left with the ministry of education. We do refuse collection across all the schools and the fund for such was left in the purse of the ministry of environment.

"We repair desk and maintained schools the budget is in ministry of works. We do this because we have experience to manage this state.

"And when you add all these funds together, one will realise that the fund for education was more than the 16.8 percent."

He said the APC presidential candidate, Gen Muhammadu Buhari would restore all the nation's territories currently under the control of Boko Haram, if elected.

Buhari, according to him, is referred to as an upright man and that the appellation speaks volume of his ability to bring back Nigeria from the precipice which corruption has pushed it into.

The APC gubernatorial candidate, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode, urged Lagosians to vote for him to enable him continue the good works of the current governor and his predecessors.

He promised to provide employment for youths as well as improve the welfare of women and children if voted into office.

HE APC Presidential C a m p a i g n Organisation is worried by a statement credited to a presidency official in which he said government would rather hand over power to the military than to General Muhammadu Buhari in the event that the APC candidate wins next month's election.

The statement was allegedly posted on Facebook by one Deji Adeyanju of the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Doyin Okupe.

He was credited as saying: "Buhari can never be President of Nigeria. Quote me any day any time. Instead of Buhari to become President of Nigeria, Nigeria would rather break.

"A military coup will even be allowed than for Buhari to become the president of a democratic Nigeria. Quote me any day, any time."

The APC Presidential Campaign Organisation said yesterday in a response: "This statement is still to be denied or retracted by the official who handles Dr Okupe's Twitter handle.

"Unless it is convincingly rebutted, the statement above, by the ruling party, appears to clearly be uninterested in free, fair and conclusive elections, but rather to engender crisis and chaos if it happens that the APC candidate, General Buhari wins the elections.

"This revelation in a public statement via the BBM would appear to support the PDP's avowed determination to rule for 60 years, a boast echoed repeatedly by some former national chairmen of the party.

"The boast, however, did not reckon with the emergence of the All Progressives Congress and the determination with which the party mobilized and stuck together to confront the PDP that over time had prided itself with invisibility.

"We of the APC hereby call on all Nigerians to be vigilant and ensure that no one is allowed to truncate the 2015 elections.

"It is also important that all Nigerians allow peace to reign and insist on free and fair polls to assist the process of peaceful and democratic transition.

"Similarly, our party, the APC is confident that the men and women of our patriotic Armed Forces and the Police, including other security agencies would discharge their obligations without fear or favour and ensure that the 2015 polls is not only free and fair but also credible leading to the installation of a popularelected government that will improve the well-being of Nigerians."

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 18, 2015

NEWS

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Tinubu, Aregbesola, others rally support for Ajimobi N

ATIONAL Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, yesterday led chieftains of the party to the historic Mapo Hall, Ibadan to rally support for Governor Abiola Ajimobi and other candidates of the party in next month’s election.

Tinubu highlighted the reason Nigerians must vote for the APC next month, listing stealing of 400,000 barrels of oil daily unabated and poor performance as among the major reasons.

The former Lagos State Governor accused the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of spreading poverty through its poor performance and corrupt practices, saying the only solution is for Nigerians to reject

From Bisi Oladele, Ibadan

all its candidates in the coming and election and vote for the APC's instead.

He urged Oyo State voters to allow their conscience to guide them in determining the best candidate that deserve their votes.

According to him, the great feat of the Ajimobi, the APC governorship candidate, are unparalleled in the state.

He listed the rebuilding of Agodi Gardens, dualisation of roads, massive infrastructural development and welfare packages for the people as among the reasons Ajimobi deserves their votes. ``They steal 400,000 barrels of oil every day. Yet, President Goodluck

Jonathan said he could not see this and he claims he is still in charge.

"He is no longer fit to rule this country. Let us send them packing on February 14 by voting for the APC at the national level and for Ajimobi on February 28,'' he said.

He added: "Governor Ajimobi has demonstrated that he has vision, capacity and capability to make people the cornerstone of his administration. This is what Ajimobi represents in Oyo State and he has been consistent with it. ``Today, when you drive through Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, you see beautiful scenery, clean environment, good road network, new flyover, Asejire waterworks, Agodi Gardens, new

markets, you will be proud of having somebody like him in the saddle. Indeed, Oyo is now a huge construction site."

Tinubu said it was regrettable that in spite of all entreaties to former Governor Rashidi Ladoja to team up with Ajimobi to develop Oyo State, he (Ladoja) insisted on floating a party that lacks regional or national spread.

Describing the Accord Party governorship candidate as an ingrate, he said that he had nothing to offer the people of the state, having demonstrated gross incompetence during his tenure as governor.

In his own speech, Aregbesola also accused the PDP of funding President Goodluck Jonathan's cam-

paign team, the Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN) through proceeds from fraudulent handling of sale of kerosene.

According to him, the federal government deliberately sells a litre of kerosene to cronies at N40:90 while the cronies sell to marketers at N95 per litre. The huge difference, the governor said, is what PDP is using to fund campaigns and enrich cronies.

He challenged the PDP to sue him to court over the facts.

While addressing the people, Ajomobi rubbished criticism of his administration, saying he has outperformed his predecessors, two of who are also in the February 28, 2015 race.

Ajimobi listed six major projects undertaken by his administration, which he said are unprecedented.

He also pointed out that no fewer than eight big companies have opened shops in the state due to the investor-friendly nature of his administration's policies.

These include the largest cooking oil factory, largest bread factory, largest Shoprite store, 100,000 pro-

duction capacity chicks producing factory and Nigeria's largest Information and Communication Technology (ICT) service providing firm.

Besides, Ajimobi listed his achievements to include recruitment of 20,000 youths, construction of modern markets for traders with provision of interestfree trading capital, free buses for civil servants and students as well as improved welfare package for workers and restorers.

The governor listed sustenance of a peaceful environment and massive infrastructural development as chief among his achievements.

He challenged his predecessors to show their own score cards.

Also at the rally were other leaders of the party including Chief Bisi Akande, Eng. Segun Oni, Dr Kayode Fayemi and Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola who also addressed the mammoth crowd.

The entire Mapo hill beamed at the seams with crowd of supporters and enthusiastic residents who came to witness the campaign.

World's young leaders unhappy with Jonathan over Baga massacre silence •Say he was unable to provide leadership when required •Accuse him of clear incompetency in handling of national issues •Demand more actions in fight against terrorism •Governor Abiola Ajimobi (second right), Leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu (right) and Chief Bisi Akande (third right), Former Governor of Ekiti State, Dr Kayode Fayemi (middle), Oyo Deputy Governor, Otunba Moses Alake Adeyemo (third left), APC Leader and former Governor of Osun State, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola (second left) and APC State Chairman, Chief Akin Oke (left) at the flag-off of the Oyo State gubernatorial campaign held at Mapo Hall, Ibadan on Saturday.

Ohakim, Araraume, others absent as Jonathan visits Imo S

OME chieftains of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Imo State yesterday shunned the campaign train of President Goodluck Jonathan, which hit Owerri, capital of the state.

Among the notable absentees were former governor, Chief Ikedi Ohakim, believed to be a close associate of President Goodluck Jonathan and Senator Ifeanyi Ararume, who is still claiming the party's governorship ticket.

Another party stalwart, Chief Arthur Nzeribe, was also missing at the rally.

Their absence lends credence to the reported cracks in the PDP in Imo State.

• Former gov set to join APC

From Okodili Ndidi, Owerri

There were speculations that former Governor Ohakim was also considering ditching the PDP for the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Investigations revealed that Ohakim was to oversee preparations and mobilise Imo residents to support the reelection bid of Jonathan.

His absence is already causing ripples in President Goodluck Jonathan's camp, fuelling speculations that the

former governor, who is reportedly being wooed by the All Progressives Congress (APC) may be nurturing plans to quit the ruling party.

While some of the governorship aspirants during the contentious December 8 election have been drafted into the Jonathan campaign committee in Imo State, several others kept their distance from the Jonathan's rally.

Addressing supporters at the rally, the president boasted

that he has recorded verifiable developmental achievements in all the critical sectors.

He, however ,noted: "I have not come list to all the projects and life-changing strides of this administration but I have come to announce to you the youth - focused initiatives of my administration.

"We have also come to convey our belief that the kitchen is no longer the sole place of the woman in a 21st century society. We are creating opportunities to allow our women free expression of their potential and equipping them qualitatively to compete with their peers across the globe."

UPN: INEC voids adoption of Jonathan

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HE Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has rejected the adoption of President Goodluck Jonathan as the presidential candidate of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN).

INEC said the Lagos convention of January 9 2015 by the suspended National Chairman of the party, Dr Frederick Fasehun, was illegal.

The electoral body's position contained in a letter

From: Dele Anofi, Abuja

dated 7th January 2015 emphasised that the Lagos convention should not have held because extant rules were not complied with.

It said a new convention must be held by the authentic National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party led by the acting Chairman, Dr Manzo Abubakar.

The letter reads: "This is to inform you that the commission is in receipt of an-

other letter dated 5th , January 2015, under the signature of the UPN National Secretary that non-compliance with Article I V , Section1:1 of the constitution of UPN in scheduling of the National Convention vide the notice of 24th , December, 2014.

"Having considered the issue raised in the said letter, the commission has directed that you be advised to comply with Article I V, Section 1:1of your party's constitution by convening a

meeting of the National Executive Committee (NEC) to approve the place and time of the National Convention.

"Accordingly, your party is required to provide a notice for National Convention that is supported by clear evidence of compliance with the relevant provision of the constitution of UPN which empowers the National Executive Committee (NEC) to prescribe the place and time of the Party's National Convention."

EVENTEEN young leaders from across the world have deplored President Goodluck Jonathan lame response to the terror attacks on innocent Nigerians, especially the January 3 massacre of Baga, Borno State residents by Boko Haram terrorists.

The 17,all of whom are members of the World Economic Forum of Young Global Leaders, said in an open letter to the President that he failed to address Nigerians who look up to him for leadership on that bloodshed.

Amnesty International last week released satellite image of Baga after the destruction, saying as many as 2000 people may have been killed.

The Defence Headquarters disputed the figure and said "only 150" were killed.

The young leaders in the January 16, 2015 letter were also shocked that the President said nothing about the incident during his Thursday trip to Maiduguri, capital of Borno State, the epicentre of Boko Haram acts of terrorism.

"More disturbing still is the fact that you would send a message to France condemning the killings there, yet seem unable to address the Nigerian people who look to you for leadership," they said.

"Unfortunately, it's not the first time you've met calamity with insouciance. On 10 November 2014 a suicide bomber killed 47 people and injured 79 others. The following day, with barely a mention of this horrific incident targeting children, you launched your re-election campaign.

"Despite the ease with which you move on, even you will remember the abduction of the schoolgirls in Chibok in April last year.

"It was 40 days before you addressed the country on that occasion.

Nigerians waited, perplexed, as your government debated whether or not the abductions had even taken place.

"As a result, of all the girls captured, only 52 have secured their freedom - escaping on their own. The rest are still in captivity, still waiting to be rescued, months after being taken from their friends, family and community.

"Could it be that your government also doubts that the Baga attacks happened? Amnesty International's satellite images confirm that indeed a massacre took place and as many as 2,000 people are dead. Yet your army wastes time contesting the numbers.

"Whether 150 or 2,000, we'd like to hear from you on your government's plans to secure the region and to bear witness to the loss of lives in Baga. We have seen a clear incompetency in handling matters of national interest.

"In the context of existing ethnic and religious fault lines, silence only says that Nigeria's government does not care about the victims and is not dealing with the insurgency."

The young leaders did not spare the international community which, they accused of failing to "maintain pressure on a government that seems ambivalent about fulfilling its constitutional role to secure the lives and properties of its citizens."

They asked the international community to intervene since global outrage seems to be "the only hope to see you act."

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Group warns defeated APC candidate to accept fate

By Ibrahim Apekhade Yusuf

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YOUTH’S group under the aegis of Ifako Ijaye Youth Forum urged the leadership of the Lagos Chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to call on the defeated aspirant in last month’s House of Assembly primaries in Ifako Ijaye Constituency 2, Mr. Benjamin Adeyemi Olabinjo, to order by desisting from parading himself as the candidate of the party.

The youth forum in a statement released yesterday and signed by its President and Secretary General, namely: Abiodun Alatishe and Godwin Agu, alleged that the defeated aspirant has been parading himself as the candidate of the party by pasting posters within Ifako Ijaye constituency 2, which it said is a violation of the Electoral Act. The forum said the authentic candidate for Ifako Ijaye constituency 2 remained Mr. Rasheed Makinde, who, it said, defeated three other aspirants in the December 2nd,2015 House of Assembly Primaries to clinch the ticket as the APC candidate Besides, the group further explained that Olabinjo in flagrant disregard for the party has been moving from one neighbourhood to the other within the constituency campaigning for votes, when, indeed, he is not the candidate of the party. ‘‘This action exhibited by Olabinjo if not quickly addressed by the party at the State level can cause APC to lose the seat to the opposition party because the house would be seen to be divided. We have it on good authority that the defeated aspirant is working against the interest of the party by secretly conniving for the opposition,’’ the statement said.

Book on girl-child, ‘Girl Set Go’ launched

By Remi Adelowo

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 18, 2015

NEWS

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T was a gathering of the who is who in the corporate world recently at the launch of a book on girl-child, ‘Girl Set Go’ written by a chartered accountant, Mrs. Adenike Ayeye.

The book also coincides with the inauguration of a nongovernmental organisation, Precious Jewels Development Initiative, founded by the author.

Speaking on her vision for the NGO and what motivated her to write the book, Ayeye in a chat with The Nation, said: “The aim is to see our young teenage girls become the best they can be. One of my passions is mentoring teenage girls to grow into happy, fulfilled and balanced professionals. I want to see our teenage girls become successful professionals, role model wives and excellent professionals”.

She adds: “Precious Jewels Development Initiative will help our young girls acquire the skills to make informed choices that will help them actualise their dreams and utilise their natural talents to achieve a balanced and fulfilled life.

APC initiates reconciliation with Bamidele to win Ekiti for Buhari

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HE national leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has commenced reconciliation moves to bring back the Labour Party (LP) governorship candidate in the last governorship election in Ekiti State, Mr. Opeyemi Bamidele back to the party.

Bamidele who is the House of Representatives member representing Ekiti Central Federal Constituency 1 defected to the LP in acrimonious circumstances from the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) shortly

By Odunayo Ogunmola, Ado-Ekiti

before the birth of the APC. The Nation gathered that the APC national leadership is wooing Bamidele to enlist his support for the candidacy of its presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, in the February 14 poll.

The APC Deputy National Chairman (South), Chief Segun Oni, held a closed door meeting with Bamidele and his followers in the LP at the federal lawmaker’s residence in Iyin-Ekiti on

Saturday.

Sources present at the meeting revealed that Oni reportedly appealed to Bamidele to bury the hatchet on his political feud with Fayemi and the APC leadership in the state urging him to support , Buhari ahead of the February 14 presidential poll.

Speaking with reporters after he emerged from the meeting hall, Oni said he was in Iyin-Ekiti to pay a solidarity visit to Bamidele, stressing that his party has a future with Bamidele and his political

disciples. Bamidele also revealed that he was under tremendous pressure from both the APC and the PDP but he would have to make wide consultations before deciding on his next line of action.He said his meeting with the APC leadership was part of the ongoing realignment of politics in the run-up to the 2015 general elections.

Bamidele added that he would want to support the emergence of a government that would be able to provide employment for teeming youths, fight corruption and insecurity in the land.

•Segun Oni with Opeyemi Bamidele and LP stakeholders in Iyin-Ekiti yesterday

Materials for Feb polls arrive Osun - REC

T

HE Resident Electoral Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission for Osun state, Dr. Adekunle Ogunmola, has disclosed that some of the materials for conduct of next month’s general elections have arrived the state.

He told reporters at a press conference held during the weekend at the commission’s office along Gbongan Road that 3, 960 plastic ballot boxes and electronic smart card readers for the conduct of the 2015 general elections are now in the custody of the

From Adesoji Adeniyi, Osogbo

commission.

The REC, who assumed duty on February 5, 2015 on redeployment from Oyo State, also stated that additional 2,133 Smart card readers are in the possession of the commission to make the exercise a successful.

However, he said that more materials would arrive the state before the poll.

According to him: “We are poised for a better delivery of our services; Accreditation will be done with the use of Smart Card Readers and we have 2, 133

card readers in our store, we are expecting the rest. With this (card readers), we will be able to start training our staff.

“The smart card readers would confirm the authentic owners of voter cards and the commission would ensure that voters were adequately enlightened on how to vote.

“The card readers would be deployed to each polling units to authenticate voter’s card before any voter is allowed to vote by verifying by thumbprint and picture on the card.”

He called on electorate in the state to troop out for collection of their Permanent

Voters Card, PVCs. The REC, who said the collection of PVC is ongoing across the state, noted that the Commission has extended collection of PVCS to Saturday.

He said: “The remaining PVCs are four hundred and twelve thousand, six hundred and eighty-eight (412, 688), representing 29.35 percent.

“About 5,000 applicants have applied in the INEC’s ad-hoc recruitment exercise for Osun state elections and the applicants would soon be screened.”

PDP Iwo chair removed

T

HE chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party in Iwo Local Government Area of Osun State, Alhaji Mutiu Omotayo Kareem, has been removed by the leaders of the party for alleged anti-party activities.

He was removed at a meeting of the leaders and members of the party held at Ewenla Hotel in Iwo. In attendance at the meeting were some chieftains of the party including Chief Abiola Ogundokun, the former Minister of Youths Development, Senator Olasunkanmi Akinlabi, who is the senatorial candidate of the

From Adesoji Adeniyi, Osogbo

PDP for Osun West in the February general polls.

A resolution of the meeting was signed by the Secretary of the party in the council area, Alimi Sulaimon, the Youths Leader, Bello.

Babatunde, the Women Leader, Taiwo Ramon, Public Relations Officer, Fatai Mukaila, and others from different wards of the council.

In the resolution, in which the party chairman in the State, Alhaji Gani Ola-Oluwa, was copied, ýa vote of no confidence was passed on Kareem for alleged

incompetence, for allowing factionalisation of members and for lacking accountability among others.

The letter written to the chairman after the meeting read in part: “We hope that the state executive under your leadership as well as other stakeholders, will seriously look into this matter and find lasting a solution to the matter.”

After welcoming Akinlabi and his team to the meeting, Ogundokun, rallied the support of members for President Goodluck Jonathan’s re-election in the next month presidential

election.

He assured that Jonathan will improve the lots of the people of South West if given another chance to lead the country.

Ogundokun, who also described Akinlabi, the party’s senatorial candidate for Osun West, as a dependable and tested politician, said he would not disappoint people of the constituency if ýhe was voted for in the National Assembly February poll.

Responding, Akinlabi assured that he would not let them down if given the opportunity to represent them at the upper chamber.

Ekiti APC condemns assassination attempt on Rep From Odunayo Ogunmola, Ado Ekiti HE All Progressives Congress in Ekiti State has condemned assassination attempt on its House of Representatives member representing Ekiti South Federal Constituency 1, Dr. Ifeoluwa Arowosoge in the early hours of Friday.

The unknown gunmen did not meet the federal lawmaker at home but kept asking for the whereabouts of the APC chieftain and mercilessly beat his wife, Oluwayemisi and other members of the family.

The police have described the incident as an armed robbery but the state chapter of the APC disagreed.

The party described the attempt “as one attack too many”. ýIn a statement by the State Publicity Secretary, Taiwo Olatunbosun, the Ekiti APC said it is worrisome that the latest incident is happening two weeks after the Speaker, Dr Adewale Omirin, narrowly escaped assassination in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital. The party called the attention of the Inspector General of Police to the alleged conspiratorial role of the Ekiti State Commissioner of Police on such attacks by always dismissing them as armed robbery attacks.

“When some suspected assassins laid siege to the house of the Speaker of the House of Assembly, Dr Adewale Omirin, two weeks ago, the Commissioner of Police who rescued the Speaker after a distress call to him at midnight later denied that such incident happened even when the Speaker himself confirmed the attempt on his life”, Olatubosun said.

T

Jefferson feeds the poor

T

HE General Overseer of Mercy Tabernacle, Bishop Bankole Jefferson recently showered citizens with spiritual blessings, food and clothing as part of his New Year gifts to the less privileged ones in the society.

The event which is an extension of the church’s monthly feeding program of feeding and clothing the poor is an event where testimonies are shared and lives transformed.

Tagged “Help from Above”, the church was turned to a beehive of activity with an unprecedented number of people besieging the venue for their own share of essential commodities. Unlike the previous arrangement, the relief program recorded over 8000 beneficiaries. Some of the items distributed included: Rice, beans, gari , yam, tubers, vegetable oil, beverages and Indomie instant noodles.

“The beneficiaries of the program are people who hitherto had no hope of joining fellow human beings across the country in celebrating Christmas and New Year.

These people cut across the different ethnic groups, religions and denominations.

People really came en-masse, saw and receive what their hearts desired for in the festive season and for the New Year.

By their expression, they were absolutely astounded and at the same time happy being partakers of the manna from above”, Jefferson informed.

9

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 18, 2015

Buhari: From cradle to candidate

IN THE BEGINNING

B

UT for providence, the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (born 17 December, 1942) would have been unheard of. From birth, the odds were not in his favour but he withstood all hurdles to survive and shine in life.

He was born on a Thursday - an anonymous day in the week reflecting his equally unprepossessing roots. About him Abiyamo.com reports: "Unlike many other Northerners who were born into aristocratic backgrounds and climbed up using the prestige of their families and the influence of their fathers, Buhari was born into a humble family, what we call pako in my area…His mum had given birth to a set of twins before Buhari but they both died shortly after birth.

That explains one of his nicknames, 'Leko' which means 'someone born after twins who died', something like Idowu in Yoruba land."

He was a product of a Fulani father and a Hausa (Habe) mother, Hajiya Zulaihat (nee Musa) who was the daughter of Sarki Dogarai (head of infantry) of Daura military forces. So, Buhari inherited soldiering from his maternal side because his maternal grandfather, Kauran Daura Lawal was the head of Daura's military forces.

Having lost his father, Hardo Adamu Buhari, at three going on four years, there were limited opportunities for the young Buhari because he was 23rd among his father's children, but the 13th and the last child of his

General Muhammadu Buhari (retd), presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), is an enigma viewed in different lights by many. To some he's a Muslim fundamentalist, while others see a disciplined, honest and modest family man. His reputation is under attack by the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which is facing the first truly competitive electoral contest since the outset of the Fourth Republic. In this piece, YUSUF ALLI and TONY AKOWE tell the story of the soldier turned politician, stripped of myths and caricatures.

•Inspecting guard of honour as Military Head of State

mother, Zulaihat. Though his father was the Ardo of Dumukorl Village near Daura, the chiefdom added no aristocratic value to his life. The only feasible alternative was to be a cattle herdsman as a Fulani man. Not being the type who easily succumbs to fate, Buhari strove hard to excel in primary and secondary schools as well as at the military cadet institutions he attended.

HIS EDUCATION Although he had contested elections in 2003, 2007, and 2011, the general's educational attainments have become an issue this time around after he filed an affidavit stating that his credentials were with Nigerian Army authorities. The PDP has sought to make capital out of this. Rather than ask under what circumstances (war, coup , detention, military ethics etc) Buhari's credentials had been in the custody of the Nigerian Army, political expediency has kept the issue alive - although the PDP failed to take advantage of the one week period of claims and objections to challenge Buhari's eligibility.

Beyond the political shenanigans, there are two issues to be determined: Did Buhari go to school? Does he have certificate? His profile suggests an affirmative answer. He attended the Central Primary School in Daura and Kankia Primary School (where he completed lower education in 1956) before proceeding to the Provincial Secondary School in Katsina in 1956 after which he enrolled at the Nigerian

•Contd. on page 11

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 18, 2015

NEWS REVIEW

10

The Buhari testimonials SANUSI LAMIDO SANUSI

US ARMY WAR COLLEGE

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RESENTING a paper on July 22, 2002 in Lagos on "Buharism: Economic theory and political economy," a former Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria and now Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, said: "With one or two notable exceptions, the various positions for or against Buhari have focused on his personality and continued to reveal a certain aversion or disdain for deeper and more thorough analysis of his regime.

The reality, as noted by Tolstoy, is that too often history is erroneously reduced to single individuals.

By losing sight of the multiplicity of individuals, events, actions and inactions (deliberate or otherwise) that combine to produce a set of historical circumstances, the historian is able to create a mythical figure and turn him into an everlasting hero (like Lincoln) or a villain (like Hitler). The same is true of Buhari. There seems to be a dangerous trend of competition between two opposing camps aimed at glorifying him beyond his wildest dreams or demonizing him beyond all justifiable limits, through a selective reading of history and opportunistic attribution and misattribution of responsibility.

The discourse has been thus impoverished through personalization and we are no closer at the end of it than at the beginning to a divination of the exact locus or nexus of his administration in the flow of Nigerian history.

This is what I seek to achieve in this intervention through an exposition of the theoretical underpinnings of the economic policy of Buharism and the necessary correlation between the economic decisions

TAM DAVID-WEST

P

ROF. Tam David-West, who was the Minister of Petroleum Resources when Buhari was head of state, said: "I see Gen Buhari as an extra-ordinary man, a real man and detribalized Nigerian. He is clean, not corrupt. He is a man of integrity. And I challenge anybody, both President Jonathan and all his supporters, to contest it in an open debate. I believe that only Buhari can fight corruption in Nigeria because he honestly detests corruption. He has been head of state, minister of petroleum and governor of a north-eastern state. He was also the executive chairman of Petroleum Trust fund (PTF) and in all that, he was not soiled in any way.

"When he was accused of corruption, he challenged them to show the world his

G

made and the concomitant legal and political superstructure.

"Third, I do not think Nigerians today are ready for Buhari. Everywhere you turn you see thieves who have amassed wealth in the last four years, be they legislators, local government chairmen and councilors, or governors and ministers. But these are the heroes in their societies.

They are the religious leaders and ethnic champions and Nigerians, especially northerners, will castigate and discredit anyone who challenges them. Unless we start by educating our people and changing their value system, people like Buhari will remain the victims of their own love for Nigeria.

At his best Buhari may have been a Bonaparte or a Bismarck. At his worst he may have been a Hitler or a Mussolini. In either case Buharism drawn to its logical conclusion would have provided the bedrock for a new society and its overthrow marked a relapse, a step backward into that era from which we sought escape and in which, sadly for all of us we remain embedded and enslaved." corruption. Till date they have not. He is the only former head of state that has no plot of land and house in Abuja and no oil block anywhere.

"Whenever he goes to Abuja he stays in a hotel. He stayed clean in and out of office. And I think that we need only clean individuals to lead this country. I can assure you that when elected, Buhari will fix Nigeria."

David-West, who wrote a book, 16 Sins of Buhari, in 2010, has been a major voice in defence of the retired general's capabilities.

Delivering a public lecture recently on the topic: "Corruption and Insecurity: Model for Nigeria", at the 60th anniversary of the Kuti Hall, University of Ibadan, he dismissed suggestions that Buhari's age would be a hindrance. He said: "They say Buhari is too old. He will be 73 next year. He is very young. Mugabe is 90 years this year. Mugabe has been president since 1987. The President of Liberia is older than Buhari.

Leadership is not by age or degree. It depends on endowment."

On allegations that he is an Islamic fundamentalist, David-West has this to say: "I am an Anglican fundamentalist. I am a Christian fundamentalist and I am proud to be that. A fundamentalist is different from an extremist. A fundamentalist believes exactly in his religion. I believe the Bible is sacred. If you're an Islamic fundamentalist, it means that Quran is sacred. It is different from being an extremist.

"I have said this and nobody challenged me; three of Buhari's cooks are Christians. I have published it many times. His second security officer is a Christian, his second driver is a Christian. His cook in the office is a Christian.

Idiagbon's (Tunde Idiagbon) wife was a born again Christian. You can preach better sermon with your life than with your lips. We should show example by how we live."

CHUBA OKADIGBO

W

HEN in 2003, Buhari as the presidential flag bearer of All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) picked former Senate President, the late Dr. Chuba Okadigbo, as his running mate, amidst allegations that he (Buhari) was a religious fundamentalist, set to Islamize Nigeria. Okadigbo rejected the claims - describing them as irrational, cheap blackmail and nonsensical "I consider that fear irrational. The thinking that Christians will automatically collapse because of Buhari is nonsensical. I remain a Christian and everybody who so wish. Religion is a matter of personal conviction not a matter of government and the constitution of Nigeria doesn't empower anybody, president and whatever to convert the country into his personal religion. The constitution says that Nigeria is a secular state."

ENERAL Muhammadu Buhari attended the US Army War College, Pennsylvania and graduated on June 9, 1980. In a letter of recommendation written that year by the college to then Nigeria's Chief of Defence Staff, Lt. Gen. Alani Akinrinade, it praised Buhari describing him as "A Most Distinguished International Fellow."

The letter, dated 13 June 1980 and signed by the Commandant of the College, Major-General DeWitt C. Smith Jr. also described Buhari as "a man of extraordinary aptitude who demonstrated a broad knowledge of current international problems. His keen interest, sense of responsibility and solid grasp of the strategic implications of the important global issues marked him as a key member of any student seminar. Infact, he was at his best in the "give and take" environment of our seminar group discussions where students are encouraged to express their views even though they differ from the group consensus."

Part of the letter also said of Buhari: "his

written efforts were "first-rate" and noted for their outstanding quality of research, logic and communications skills. Brigadier Buhari's oral presentations consistently reflected those gifts of mind and hearing which are essential in command or group endeavours. His individual presentations were of exceptional value in that he avoided vague generalities and focused on the issues which involved hard, detailed choices."

On his ability to grasp sensitive issues, Smith Jr. said he has "political sensitivity and intimate knowledge of current politicalmilitary problems."

SALAHUDEEN ADEBOLA LATINWO

A

former Military Governor under BuhariIdiagbon regime, Group Capt.

Salahudeen Adebola Latinwo said: "In almost every nation, culture, religion and

DOMKAT BALI On his part, a former Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Domkat Bali, said: "Buhari is a very likeable and honest person. You can always know where you stand with him on any issue; he is very straightforward. He is a man who adheres to principle."

philosophy of effective living throughout the world, do what you say you are going to do, is recognized as an important value and a significant measure of trust-building behaviour in interaction with others. Your credibility can only be built over time. And, it is built from the history of your words and actions. The Buhari I know is a man to trust at all times. Of course, trust is like oxygen for a business. When it is in short supply, the effect for employees and customers alike could be like a loss of cabin pressure in an aircraft and never has the danger being higher than it is now in the viral condition of the twitter age. He is a true nationalist, an epitome of truth and firm in his decisions.

Obviously, General Buhari is also courageous and believes in himself."

SHEHU YAR'ADUA The late Gen. Shehu Musa Yar'Adua, in the biography published by the Federal Ministry of Information, said: "He worked fairly hard at his studies and games. He was reserved. He was one of the few boys in the school trusted by his classmates and was quite dependable."

Buhari in self defence on the issue of religion I

N a recent interview with The Cable, Buhari came out quickly to deny allegation of religious extremism. He said he had demonstrated to Nigerians that he is not a fundamentalist.

He said: "Nigerians will always uncover impossible room for manoeuvre for politicians.

I had to face one of the governors during one of our party's meetings [over the issue of religion].

"In 2003, I chose Chuba Okadigbo as my running mate. He was a Roman Catholic. He was an Igbo. In 2007, I picked Edwin UmeEzeoke. He was a Roman Catholic. He was an Igbo. And in 2010, I chose even a pastor, Tunde Bakare. "Honestly, what do Nigerians want me to do? If they don't believe I'm not a fundamentalist, what else can I do?"

He likened his situation to that of Moshood Abiola, a southern Muslim, who picked Babagana Kingibe, a northern Muslim, as running mate in the 1993 presidential election. The MuslimMuslim ticket went on to win an election that is still considered by many as the most credible in Nigeria's history.

"I have not absolutely closed my mind to picking a Christian or Muslim as running mate if I get the ticket. Because I firmly believe that Nigerians, having gone through what they have gone through, realise it is not a matter of religion, but a matter of Nigeria.

"And the main religions, Christianity and

Islam, they know and they believe in the Almighty God. The question of stealing and short-changing people in the name of religion should stop," he said.

He made referred to the 1961 Northern House of Assembly election, when Ibrahim Imam, a Kanuri Muslim from Borno, won an election to represent Tivland, a Catholic domain in the Middle Belt, after being sponsored by Joseph Tarka, the leading Tiv politician then.

"This new phenomenon of religion is another blackmail political confusionists in Nigeria are bringing to the fore," he said.

He also said religion would not be an issue if he won APC's ticket and goes ahead to win the presidential election, because of the background of many political leaders from the South-West.

The wives of Bola Tinubu, APC national leader; Oyo governor, Abiola Ajimobi; Lagos governor, Babatunde Fashola; Ogun governor, Ibikunle Amosun; and former APC interim chairman, Bisi Akande, are all Christians, Buhari pointed out.

"For goodness sake, the children of these political leaders were bred and brought up by Christian mothers. You think those people, wherever they participate, they will bring a religious issue? What kind of people are we?

Nigerians will always bring something to cause confusion while we are trying to stabilise the system," he said.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 18, 2015

NEWS REVIEW

Buhari: From cradle to candidate

s

•Contd. from page 9

•Kanabe

'Buhari is like Ojukwu' Major Yusuf Abdulkadri Kanabe (rtd), in this chat with Edozie Udeze shares his experience when he worked with Major Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) the APC presidential candidate while he was the Governor of North Eastern State in 1975. He describes Buhari as a good listener who cared for his workers and soldiers posted to the government House to work with him.

"

I did not work with him directly as such. But I was a Brigade Duty O f f i c e r detailed every other week or so to work at the Government House in Maiduguri. I was a Duty Officer and part of my responsibility was to oversee others who were on duty everywhere. Those who visited and other important people who came into the Government House were all part of my duty to oversee their movements.

As a Duty Officer then, it was also my responsibility to oversee all the duty guards who were posted there. I had to oversee all these and make my report back to my superior officers who seconded me from the brigade headquarters, Maiduguri.

At that time, Buhari was a Lieutenant Colonel in the army and in charge of North-Eastern state in Maiduguri. The truth of the matter is that Buhari is a good man; he was a very good man. He was like Ojukwu, very straightforward; all he expected of you was to do your work. Once you did your work very well and diligently, you had no problem with him.

Once you did the work, you automatically become his friend.

Several times I would come to the State House to check the guards. Sometimes he would be there to ask the soldiers if there was any problem for them to narrate their experiences to him. While he was there, he instructed that every soldier riding a motorbike should wear his helmet. This, according to him, was to prevent damage to the head if there was any accident. He gave this instruction because he was so concerned about the welfare of his soldiers and other workers at the Government House.

Some of the soldiers objected then. But I happened to be around when that instruction was given. You see, the Brigade Headquarters in Maiduguri at that time was not far from the Government House.

When I got there, I saw that there were multitudes of people whom he was addressing, telling them that it was better for them to stay alive. "Please use helmet so that if an accident happens you do not disfigure yourself", he told the crowd.

Along the line, however, many people complied. He was so nice to the people when he was the governor until he was moved away to become Federal Commissioner for Petroleum Resources.

His attitude to work was also encouraging. Just like Ojukwu, every

11

7:30am he was in his office because it was a walking distance. From Government House to his office was not far. From that moment, he would not go until late in the evening. He never postponed any work he would do today till tomorrow. He would not tolerate intrusion from visitors during working hours. No visitor until the whole work was completed.

At times too, he would come to the quarter-guard, which is the gate house of the Government House to ask soldiers about their problems. I personally encountered him on more than four occasions and it was nice the way he interacted with soldiers. After listening to them, he would then attend to their welfare.

One good thing about the general is that he is a good listener. He would never shout you down while you are complaining about anything to him. He made sure he allowed you to finish and he would find solution to your complaint.

He also had human sympathy; he was much younger then. He was about 32 or 33 years old.

If he could do this then, now that he is in his 70s, I think he can do better. He has built on it and part of that is how he leads people irrespective of who they are or where they come from. We were all soldiers serving in the army then. We were only seconded to the government house to discharge our duties and we were not treated differently at all. Part of our principal duty was also to take care of his family.

We were not members of the cabinet or the state exco. Even members of his cabinet did not complain that he was a tribalist or such. Even at the government house, sometimes he would instruct them to bring food to the guards at the gate. Sometimes the food would come from the brigade headquarters or the government house.

In terms of social life, at times, he would drive himself out of the government house.

The government house then had only one entrance. His car then was a Renault. His favourite spot then was at the lake between Maiduguri and Biu. There he with other officers would play games, mostly cards and draughts. Sometimes too, he would go out with his wife either to visit friends within G.R.A. there in Maiduguri. That was where I think he told the ADC to take the family to.

Military College (now Nigerian Defence Academy) in 1962.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in its latest publication of the list of presidential candidates for February's polls ascribed West African School Certificate (WASC) to Buhari as his qualification. Possibly, INEC is in possession of what most people don't have.

Investigations, however, indicate that Buhari earned a Diploma (equivalent of a Master's Degree) in 1980 from the United States Army War College (USAWC).

Responding to enquiries from a Nigerian, Sunday Iwalaiye, on Buhari's status as a graduate of the college, Carrol Kerr of the Public Affairs Office of USAWC said: "Nigerian Col. Muhammadu Buhari is a graduate of the US Army War College Class of 1980 and earned a US Army War College Diploma. Note: The Army War College first awarded master's degree to the class of 2000".

According to a book by the Federal Ministry of Information, "Muhammadu Buhari: Nigeria's Seventh Head of State," Buhari went to Provincial Secondary School (now Government College, Katsina) in Katsina. Some of his classmates in secondary school were a former Chief of Staff Supreme Military Council, Maj-Gen. Shehu Musa Yar'Adua, Alhaji Fathu Abdullahi. It was at the Provincial Secondary School that Buhari started demonstrating his leadership qualities because he emerged as a Class Monitor in Form 2. The book claimed that he later became a school prefect, a house captain and head boy of his set.

Wikipedia give insights into Buhari's sojourn in the military as well as the long chain of elite schools he attended. It says: "Buhari joined the Nigerian Army in 1962, when he attended the Nigerian Military Training College (in February 1964, it was renamed the Nigerian Defence Academy, (NDA) in Kaduna.

"From 1962-1963, he underwent Officer Cadets training at Mons Officer Cadet School in Aldershot in England (Mons OCS was officially closed down in 1972).

"In January 1963, Buhari was commissioned as Second Lieutenant, and appointed Platoon Commander of the Second Infantry Battalion in Abeokuta, Nigeria. From November 1963- January 1964, Buhari attended the Platoon Commanders' Course at the Nigerian Military College, Kaduna. In 1964, he facilitated his military training by attending the Mechanical Transport Officer's Course at the Army Mechanical Transport School in Borden, United Kingdom.

"From 1965-1967, Buhari served as Commander of the Second Infantry Battalion.

He was appointed Brigade Major, Second Sector, First Infantry Division, April 1967 to July 1967.

•Buhari, left, during the civil war

"Buhari was made Brigade Major of the Third Infantry Brigade, July 1967 to October 1968 and Brigade Major/Commandant, Thirty-first Infantry Brigade, 1970-1971.

"Buhari served as the Assistant AdjutantGeneral, First Infantry Division Headquarters, 1971-1972. He also attended the Defense Services Staff College, Wellington, India, in 1973. From 1974-1975 Buhari was appointed Acting Director, Transport and Supply, Nigerian Army Corps of Supply and Transport Headquarters.

"He was also made Military Secretary, Army Headquarters,1978-1979, and was a member of the Supreme Military Council, 19781979.

"From 1979 -1980, at the rank of Colonel, Buhari (class of 1980) attended the US Army War College (established in 1901) in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, United States of America and gained a Masters Degree in Strategic Studies.

Upon completion of the on-campus full-time resident program lasting ten months and the two-year-long, distance learning program, the United States Army War College (USAWC) college awards its graduate officers a master's degree in Strategic Studies.

"Other roles include: General Officer Commanding, 4th Infantry Division, Aug. 1980 - Jan. 1981; General Officer Commanding, 2nd Mechanized Infantry Division, Jan. 1981 - October 1981. General Officer Commanding, 3rd Armed Division Nigerian Army, October 1981 - December 1983 In August 1975, after General Murtala Mohammed took power, he appointed Buhari as Governor of the North-Eastern State, to oversee social, economic and political improvements in the state.

"In March 1976, the then Head of State, General Olusegun Obasanjo appointed Buhari as the Federal Commissioner (position now called Minister) for Petroleum and Natural Resources. When the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation was created in 1976, Buhari was also appointed as its Chairman, a position he held until 1978.

HeMajor-General Buhari was selected as Head of State to lead the country by middle and high-ranking military officers after a successful military coup d'etat that overthrew civilian President Shehu Shagari on 31 December 1983.

LIFE AS A FAMILY MAN An addict of the Spartan life, Buhari resisted cultural pressure in the North for early marriage. He was also determined to see to the end of the 1967-1970 Civil War to keep the nation united before taking marital vows. His first wife was betrothed at 14 but he waited till she was 18 years to tie the nuptial knot. But at 29 years in 1971, he succumbed to the irresistible beauty of ex-First Lady Safinatu (née Yusuf) by going to the altar with her.

Wikipedia reports: "They had five children

•Contd. on page 12

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 18, 2015

NEWS REVIEW •Mrs. Aisha Buhari with children and grandchildren

•Contd. from page 11 together, four girls and one boy. Their first daughter, was Zulaihat (Zulai) named after Buhari's mother. The other children are Fatima, Musa (deceased), Hadiza, and Safinatu named after her mother, Buhari's first wife. In 1988, Buhari and his first wife Safinatu got divorced. In December 1989, he got married to his second and current wife Aisha (née Halilu). They also have five children together - one boy and four girls. They are Aisha, Halima, Yusuf, Zahra and Amina.

On 14 January 2006, Safinatu Buhari, the former first lady of Nigeria and Buhari's first wife, died from complications with diabetes.

She was buried at Unguwar Rimi cemetery in accordance with Islamic rites. In November 2012, Buhari's first daughter, Zulaihat (née Buhari) Junaid died from sickle cell anaemia, after having a baby two days earlier at a hospital in Kaduna.

HIS UNIQUE QUALITIES Buhari has a huge cult following because he is firm, a nationalist, trustworthy, honest, hardworking, dependable and broadminded.

Half of his cabinet as a military Head of State was made of Christians with portfolios assigned on merit and competence. He lives a modest life and is always decisive in dealing with any situation even if it involves his closest friend.

Abiyamo.com quoted a former Protocol Officer and Interpreter at the State House, Dodan Barrack, Mr. Femi Segun - now deceased - as saying that there was a time exMilitary President Ibrahim Babangida was almost retired by Buhari-Idiagbon regime over an issue. In spite of the fact that he was the Chief of Army Staff under Buhari's regime, IBB was asked to leave a meeting where his fate was to be decided. He said: "IBB was asked to step out of the meeting which was going on because they wanted to discuss him. For about

From cradle to candidate

•Buhari with deceased first wife

three hours, IBB , as the then Chief of Army Staff was just walking up and down outside without shoes and cap thinking seriously. We didn't know what was going on but it was clear that he was asked to step out of the meeting. A few days later, he staged a coup.

"However, it must be said that Buhari was not blindly punitive. When 250 politicians from all over the country were declared by investigators not have any case to answer, he ordered all of them released. These included Adamu Ciroma, the late Ikemba of Nnewi, Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu, Audu Innocent Ogbeh,

Alhaji Aliyu Maitama Yusuf, Dr. Bode Olowoporoku, Mrs. Mobolaji Osomo, Chief Michael Koleoso."

One of the classmates of Buhari, Malam Mukhtari Zango, was quoted in the Federal Ministry of Information's book as follows: "He used to baffle me. He was so strong-willed and principled. He always stood his ground and did not follow the crowd."

A former Public Affairs Manager with the NLNG, Ilyasu Gadu, who was one of the cowriters of the book on Buhari, said: "Everyone we interviewed spoke glowingly about high-

level of discipline, commitment to efficiency, selflessness and incorruptibility of Buhari. Yet little was known about these qualities. This was why the Publication Department of the Federal Ministry of Information through Mrs. Roseline Odeh came up with a proposal to unveil Buhari's real person. I took the proposal to the then Chief Press Secretary to Gen. Buhari, Alhaji Wada Maida, who was also a former Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria."

HIS CONSISTENT VISION Like the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo and social critic, Tai Solarin who devoted their time to preach the gospel of quality education for all, Buhari has been a consistent advocate of anti-corruption war. He still does not mince words on this. When he assumed office in 1984 as a military Head of State, he said: "While corruption and indiscipline have been associated with our state of underdevelopment, these two evils in our body politic have attained unprecedented height in the past few years. The corrupt, inept and insensitive leadership in the last four years has been the source of immorality and impropriety in our society. Since what happens in any society is largely a reflection of the leadership of that society, we deplore corruption in all its facets. This government will not tolerate kick-backs, inflation of contracts and over-invoicing of imports etc.

Nor will it condone forgery, fraud, embezzlement, misuse and abuse of office and illegal dealings in foreign exchange and smuggling."

Despite the fact that he left power about 30 years ago, Buhari's perception of the solutions to the nation's problems has not changed.

Ropo Sekoni

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Femi Orebe Page 16

SUNDAY, JANUARY 18, 2015

Lessons from Paris tunjade@yahoo.co.uk 08054503906 (sms only)

OULD the Kouachi brothers, Cherif and Said, and their accomplice, Amedy Coulibaly, have thought they were going to escape after killing 17 people, including 10 journalists and three policemen during their attacks in Paris penultimate week? As I watched the video clips of the attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine with some other people on January 7, none of us had any doubt the terrorists were going to be arrested or killed. It was an affront to French security system for them to get their targets so cheaply; but to expect to get away with the mass murder was stretching their luck too far. It would seem either they underrated the French security system or they overrated their own invincibility. If they knew they were going to be killed the way they were, why did they not commit suicide after the massacre?

Be that as it may, the global rage and response to the incident is commendable. The point was well made that nothing is too much to do to preserve free speech. Even many of those who did not support the magazine joined in the protest march organised to make the point that no amount of terrorism should stop people from expressing themselves. All over the civilised world, there are avenues to seek redress for people who feel aggrieved over one thing or the other. So, it would be dangerous for the rest of society to allow themselves to be cowed by a few elements that are angry over a cartoon in a magazine.

For many, the killing of the magazine's staff was not proportional to whatever crime or offence they had committed, if any.

One thing that such attacks do is to popularise the medium in question as many people who might not have heard about it would hear and want to see what is so special to single it out for such senseless attack. Imagine Charlie Hebdo that prints only about 45,000 copies weekly except when there is need for special edition printing more than 500,000 after the attack and selling, not only in France but also in Britain where readers queued to have their copies.

Another unintended fallout of the attack on the magazine is what the Late Fela Anikulapo-Kuti called double wahala for dedi body which has surfaced, with the reluctance of people and the authorities in the home towns of the terrorists responsible for the attacks to bury the gunmen in the towns for fears that their graves will become shrines for Islamic extremists. Town officials said they want to 'avoid' burying Said, Cherif and Coulibaly even though under French law, the burials must take place either in the district where the deceased lived or the district where they were killed.

But beyond all of these are some profound lessons for Nigeria from the unfortunate incident.

Perhaps the first point the French citizens made was that they would not be cowed by terrorists. Despite the initial shock, they still organised a 'Unity Rally" started by about two million people, including President François Hollande and more than 40 world leaders, on January 11. In all, about 3.7 million people participated in the demonstrations nationwide, in what officials called the largest public rally in France since World War 11.

It is instructive that there were no inci-

Charlie Hebdo is proof we still have a long way to go

C

•President Hollande dents; we did not see policemen with horsewhips compounding the agony during the rally.

This was quite unlike many of our own rallies that are usually organised to give a semblance of popularity to a falling leader. Remember the two million man-march organised for the late despot, General Sani Abacha? The Paris protest was one with a cause; and sans frontieres, at that!

Then the professional way the terrorists were eventually killed by the French police. It is to the credit of the police and the system under which they operate that they were able to bring an end to the episode in less than three days. French citizens must have been so proud of their effort and rightly so. They went to battle gallantly and fought like professional policemen such that the terrorists themselves admitted as death closed in on them that they wanted to die as martyrs. If that was what they indeed intended, they ought to have killed themselves immediately they silenced the police officer that they shot at close range after the Charlie Hebdo murders.

The question that many of us started asking as we watched proceedings leading to the killing of the terrorists on cable television was if our own policemen will ever get to this level.

The answer is obviously no, because they are used more for illegal, political and menial purposes. Why did the United States feel so reluctant to sell Cobra helicopters to Nigeria? Is it not because of fears they could be deployed against civilians; possibly political opponents?

Anyone who thinks the problem with our police force is only a question of fund is mistaken. If we keep having leaders with small mind who believe security forces are to be used for selfish political gains, we will never get there even with the best of tools for the Nigeria Police.

Then, the human touch of the French president to the whole episode; it was just awesome; his speeches at every juncture edifying.

Indeed, the Nigeria Police and the country's leadership were on my mind throughout when I saw the cabinet members of France, that country's political leaders and police force representatives standing grim-faced as the slain police men's names were read with the citation that they were "dynamic, courageous, highly professional and had an exemplary record", before their burial. President Hollande then pinned a medal to a blue cush-

“The question that many of us started asking as we watched proceedings leading to the killing of the terrorists on cable television was if our own policemen will ever get to this level. The answer is obviously no, because they are used more for illegal, political and menial purposes”

ion on each coffin. Hear him: "In the name of the French Republic we make you a Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur," (the highest decoration in France) he said three times before bowing for several seconds before each coffin. After a minute's silence, a military band played La Marseillaise. Who do we give such honours to in Nigeria?

Crooks and people to whom honour is not due!

Compare this with the burial of our own policemen killed on active duty.

About two weeks ago when the InspectorGeneral of Police, Suleiman Abba, visited the widows and the children of police officers killed in the ambush by the proscribed Ombatse militiamen at Alakyo Village in Lafia Local Government Area of Nasarawa State on May 7, 2013 and announced that the children would be given scholarships and that their entitlements would soon be paid, it was seen as a positive development. Yet, the scholarship is not automatic; it is subject to discussions with some institutions abroad. Again what is good in talking about paying the entitlements of policemen killed on duty more than 19 months ago? How do we expect the police men and officers to give their best under these circumstances? These are the circumstances under which our own security operatives work, and we expect them to want to die if need be, on duty.

Are we not wasting our time? Perhaps it is issues like these that we need to focus on rather than keep convicting soldiers for mutiny perpetually.

Then, the sanctity of human lives! You could see this even in the way the French and Western media reported the incident.

They kept referring to it as 'massacre'. Hear France's Prime Minister Manuel Valls: "In three days, 17 lives have been taken away by barbarity. The terrorists have assassinated journalists, French Jews, workers, well known and anonymous people, in their diversity of origin and option. It has touched the heart of the whole of France …but France has risen up."

Boko Haram alone had killed more than 2,000 people as at June 2104, sometimes killing more than 100 in an attack. Yet, the country has hardly been jolted. We do not seem to realise that the people killed can never come back to life. As a child, we were never comfortable for weeks in those years of innocence (before the advent of the Yahoo Yahoo leaderships we have been having) whenever we attended wake-keep or even saw corpses on the streets. These days, kids would even cross the road by an abandoned corpse without blinking an eyelid. Where has this country's innocence gone? Where is Nigeria's soul? What exactly do we need to jolt us to the reality of what is happening in the country, that those being abducted and who may never be found, as well as those killed are some people's brothers and sisters; some people's fathers and mothers, some people's wives and husbands? Why should life be so brutish and short in this country?

The lessons are too numerous to mention. But France too must seize the momentum of the Unity Rally to do some introspection. It must realise that the idea of "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity" at the heart of the French Revolution of 1789 should be for all such that no section of the country would feel so marginalised as to harbour antiFrench sentiments to the point of wanting to correct things by terrorism.

CHIBOK GIRLS. STILL IN LIMBO. SINCE APRIL 15, 2014.

Ensuring nonviolent election

A

MIDST the cross fire and acrimony that have so far characterised the electioneering campaigns for the February general elections, the outcome of the workshop on non-violence held in Abuja last Wednesday provides a ray of hope that the exercise may not witness the scale of violence witnessed in the past.

With the tension in the country over the likely outcome of especially the February 14 presidential election, it is necessary to call all political candidates to order and remind them of the need not to engage in activities or make utterances that could lead to violence before, during and after the election.

Instead of engaging in issue-based campaigns, focused on their past performances and their plans if elected, some candidates and their supporters have been engaged in all manners of name-calling and are threatening to take the laws into their hands.

There have been veiled threats by supporters of President Jonathan to shut down the refineries if their candidate is not re-elected while proBuhari supporters have also said the APC will form a parallel government if there are proven cases of electoral malpractices.

In some states, political violence has already assumed alarming proportion with clashes between supporters of rival parties resulting in deaths.

It is against this background that the organisers of the Abuja non-violence workshop has to be commended for getting the presidential candidates of political parties in the country to sign the five points accord.

Even if, as some have noted, the two main presidential candidates - President Goodluck Jonathan and General Muhammadu Buhari, whose picture embracing each other has gone viral - were playing to the gallery, it is significant that they openly pledged to abide by the accord.

It is up to the leaders to send the right signals to their followers that election into political offices should not be a do-or-die contest. While there may be personal selfish interest, contestants are not supposed to be permanent enemies.

To ensure peace, winners must be magnanimous in victory, while losers should be gracious in defeat. What is important is that there should be a level playing field for all contestants and electoral regulations complied with.

If for any reason, losers are not satisfied with the result, there are legal options to seek redress instead of resorting to violence.

Good enough, there are enough cases to cite where those who secured electoral victory by the back door were sent packing. To a large extent, our judiciary has proved/proven that though justice may be delayed, it would not be denied if any complainant is able to prove his or her case.

Party members should have by now accepted the fact the political ambition of their candidates is not worth dying for as President Jonathan has repeatedly stated.

Why should supporters take up arms against themselves when those they are fighting for may someday reconcile their differences as we have seen in recent political party membership realignments in the country?

As former United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, warned that, with Nigeria's strategic position in Africa, we cannot afford to have an election whose outcome will be violently disputed and throw the nation into chaos.

Despite the imperfection of the electoral process, all parties concerned should do everything possible to guarantee the continued peaceful coexistence of the country.

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 18, 2015

COMMENT

Not violence, just free and fair elections 1

The consequence of rigged elections in the course of the country's history is that most of the governments in the country have been considered for decades by many citizens to lack legitimacy.

A

FTER the hyperbolic reaction to the emergence of Buhari and Jonathan as the two leading presidential candidates, marked by pre-campaign high fever and infectious fear mongering at the instance of both priests and politicians, technocrats and academics, the events and pronouncements of the last few days confirmed that emphasis has shifted to making the only right demand at this moment in the country's political history: free, fair, and credible elections. Just as it has been in mature democracies across the globe, elections are not supposed to be automatic causes of heart attack or convulsion to citizens, but merely an opportunity for national political renewal and for reinforcement of citizens' belief in the claim that citizens are the real owners of modern nation's sovereignty.

Just a few days after strident calls for postponement of election and installation of Interim governments, the nation was made to witness expressions of commitment to violence-free polls by major stakeholders in the electoral process. Rather than join the forces calling for the end of history in Nigeria, President Jonathan, General Buhari, and other presidential candidates pledged that as candidates they eschew violence and would discourage their supporters from getting violent before, during, and after the elections. In other words, those who may gain or lose from electoral violence have opted for peace and unity of purpose: credible elections. It is not clear whether the agreement among presidential candidates includes avoiding the kind of intimidation of voters by state security that characterised recent gubernatorial elections in Ekiti and Osun.

On his own part, President Jonathan openly acted statesmanlike by calling on INEC to ensure that no Nigerian is disenfranchised as a result of inefficient and ineffective release of permanent voter cards

to citizens. Correspondingly, the INEC chairman also publicly ordered that the current process of releasing PVCs be changed, to ensure that all citizens, duly registered to vote, are given unfettered opportunity to collect their voter cards, without which they cannot exercise their rights as citizens on February 14 and 28. In addition, the INEC boss released important information regarding the plans to conduct free, fair, and credible elections. He put the total number of registered voters (not the number of voting age population) at 68.8 million. He announced that his commission will use card readers to verify the identity of voters presenting PVCs on election days, adding that 130,000 card readers had already arrived while his commission is waiting for others scheduled to arrive before the presidential election. The troubling part of the information given by the INEC chair is that 30 million PVCs are still to be collected. But the quick assurance by the commission's leader that distribution of PVCs will henceforth be decentralised must be uplifting for those yet to collect their voter cards and other believers in the view that Nigeria's destiny as a nationstate depends on its ability and capacity to make democracy work in the country, principally through free and fair elections.

Even at the risk of re-stating the obvious, it is necessary to remind INEC of a few steps that have to be taken, if the decentralisation of distribution of PVCs is to have a salutary outcome. The agency needs to repeat to citizens through mass education and publicity the total number of days available for collection of the cards. Print and electronic media need to be engaged to do this job ad nauseam, as this may be the only way to take advantage of repetition as a public communication tactic. It is re-assuring that INEC boss has told citizens that the presidency has done its own part by making all funds needed for credible elections

available.

Now that funding (cash, to use the word employed by Professor Jega) for the electoral process from now till announcement of results is no longer a constraint, the onus of conducting free, fair, and credible elections rests principally on INEC. The latest announcement that distribution will resume in all wards as from Friday, January 16 for one week is good news. But one week may not be adequate to distribute 30 million, if the commission has been able to distribute just 38 million since the exercise started weeks ago. It is more cost-effective to invest in ensuring that registered voters are able to collect their PVCs. The wards, except those that have given out all cards in their charge should be open till the end of January. Citizens that have jobs may not be able to get to the wards on week days, since transportation in the country's urban areas is habitually chaotic and ineffective.

Realistically, most working citizens have just Saturdays to spare for this exercise. This is the reason most democracies mail voter cards to registered voters' homes. INEC needs to take into consideration constraints of working citizens, particularly those in the urban areas.

As we observed in this column a few weeks ago, it will be important for INEC to tell citizens by the end of January how many cards are yet to be collected and how INEC plans to disable such cards for this year's elections. Uncollected cards should be invalidated and the numbers of invalidated cards should be published in national dailies after the deadline for collection and well ahead of the first election, for citizens to be assured that such cards would not be a source of tension during polling. Citizens also need to be informed about the delivery of the remaining card readers, as voters need to be assured that every voter will be subjected to the same procedure and that card readers will not be used selectively.

Given the state of infrastructure and

facilities in our country, the average voter recognises the challenges facing INEC staff.

Conducting election for a voting population of almost 70 million in a country without constant electricity, good roads, proper mass transit within towns, and low level of productivity or efficiency of the average worker must be a major challenge. But four years should be long enough for INEC to overcome challenges thrown up by these factors. Efficiency is of utmost importance in this national task of conducting an election that is free and fair and is seen to be so.

Conducting a successful poll in 2015 is not only a good way to discourage violent citizens from putting Nigeria's peace, stability, and unity at risk. Citizens know through reading or primary experience about the failure over decades of the country's leaders to conduct free and fair elections or to sustain such elections when they happened as was the case in 1993. The consequence of rigged elections in the course of the country's history is that most of the governments in the country have been considered for decades by many citizens to lack legitimacy. The feeling that most governments in the country have been illegitimate either because they were imposed via coup d'etat or through rigged elections has had knock-on effect on the culture of corruption and impunity in the country over the years.

From the excitement that has been shown so far about the 2015 elections, it seems that citizens are already yearning for an end to government by rulers perceived to have been put in power by rigged or manipulated elections. The task for INEC is complex but doable. INEC officials must know that citizens believe that INEC is the only agency that is charged with the task of keeping the country stable, united, and democratic at this point in the nation's history. The advantages are legion for the country and even for those seeking elective offices.

To be continued

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 18, 2015

COMMENT

15

Killer kids Boko Haram and the dangerous dimension of the juvenile suicide bomber

A

S the insurgency inspired by militant jihadist groups like Boko Haram gathers strength, the increasing incidence of underage girls carrying out suicide bombings has come to be a major source of concern.

Ever since some 276 girls were abducted from a secondary school in Chibok, Borno State in April last year, there have been widespread fears that young female children could soon become instruments of terror. Such apprehensions were based on experiences elsewhere in the world, successes recorded by Nigerian security agencies in detecting and apprehending adult male bombers, and the usefulness of the burqa as a means of concealing suicide vests.

Events have since confirmed the validity of those fears. This year, there have already been two attacks featuring very young girls. The first took place in a market in Maiduguri, in which a bomb was allegedly detonated by a 10-year old girl. About 16 were killed and 20 injured.

Twenty-four hours later, two 10-year old girls blew themselves up in a market in Potiskum, killing three people and injuring 40. Those attacks came after a 13-year old girl, Zahra'u Babangida, was arrested in Kano in December last year with explosives strapped to her body.

There can be no doubt that the use of female children as suicide bombers is a worrying new dimension of the Boko Haram insurgency. It is a pointer to the evolution of new techniques by the militants as they continue with their campaign of terror. It makes the task of the security agencies that much more difficult, as they are now compelled to take a new demographic into consideration. The beleaguered citizens are put under even more pressure, as their precautions expand to accommodate even more potential terror suspects.

Perhaps most worrying is the way in which it demonstrates the effectiveness of Boko Haram's

O

N Sunday night January 11, 2015, CNN International called me to provide some insights during a live interview on the Boko Haram menace and killings. Especially, at Baga. The bloodied Borno city of Baga.

I did.

To understand the level of impunity and violation of the national security of Nigeria by the violent, terrorist radical Islamic group Boko Haram, you have to know about their horrendous massacre of more than 2,000 persons of all ages and gender in Baga.

Baga is near Lake Chad and had not been conquered

by Boko until Friday January 9, 2015. Boko overwhelmed both the ? local vigilantes and Nigeria's armed forces near and into Baga.... blood flowed like a river....

The other implications and points I wish to make are: First, Boko Haram has turned Jonathan's Nigeria, with brazen impunity, into what I call Nigeria's Federal Republic of Insecurity. Borno and nearby areas have become Boko violent playgrounds, the capital territory of their medieval Caliphate.

We cannot have two Commanders-in-Chief in one country: Abubakar Shekau and President Jonathan. For President Jonathan, again,

indoctrination efforts. For a long time, the conventional wisdom was that Nigerians were simply too life-loving to become suicide bombers.

That belief has proven to be false in the case of adults, but what is worse is that it has now become untrue of children as well. Unlike those who are older, young children are far more impressionable and therefore more likely to believe what they are told, especially if the ideas being implanted come from authority figures.

What this means is that the anti-terror campaign must strengthen its efforts to enlighten the populace. A viable strategy would be twopronged, involving religious and community leaders, and increasing access to western education. It is especially important to counter the seductive myth of martyrdom employed by the insurgents: Zahra'u claims she was told that she would go to heaven if she detonated her bomb.

The increased availability of western education would offer feasible alternatives to extremist ideology and help to make militant indoctrination more difficult.

The citizenry must also be involved in these enlightenment efforts. Parents should be taught to recognise the tell-tale signs of radicalisation in their children. Anti-indoctrination educational materials explaining the workings of the terrorists could be devised for use in primary and secondary schools to enable children to better understand 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

the tricks of the insurgents aimed at them.

Just as important is the economic empowerment of vulnerable Nigerians, especially those who are resident in the north-east of the country. People whose lives are blighted by generational poverty and despair are more likely to be tempted to offer their children to the militants. Those who sincerely feel that their current existence is simply unbearable are the ones who might seriously consider an explosive transition to the next world.

It is also time for Nigeria's security agencies to be much more proactive than they have been so far. Given the nature of the insurgency facing the country, more should have been done to anticipate the direction militant tactics would take, and greater effort should have been spent in defending against them.

It is particularly important to halt the mass kidnappings that Boko Haram uses to acquire fighters and suicide bombers. So far this year, the group abducted nearly 100 boys and young men from Malari and Kukawa. Dozens were taken in raids throughout the north-east last year, the most spectacular of which was the Chibok abduction. Tragically, the Federal Government's lukewarm response to it has apparently emboldened the militants to carry out similar outrages.

Nigeria can no longer afford to be complacent. The insurgency will continue to develop new strategies as it seeks to spread terror. It is for the nation to ensure that their plans do not succeed. Even as the nation contemplates the emergence of girl-bombers, it must also prepare itself for the advent of child-soldiers who will confront Nigerian troops in the field of battle, in addition to carrying out assassinations and espionage. The war against terror will be long and hard; the full commitment of the nation is vital to achieving victory.

LETTER

Boko Haram, Baga and Nigeria's federal republic of insecurity stand firm and Be Nigeria's duly elected and only Commander-in-Chief; or.....

Second, for having the will and courage to resist the repeated onslaught of the Boko Haram, Baga has been used, hideously, to teach other towns/villages around Borno and Yobe who refuse and resist going under the dark banner of Boko Haram and ISIS that Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan and his armed forces remain incapable of protecting All Nigerians within its borders.

Third, beyond the issue of the serial incapacities of the Nigerian armed forces to tackle and defeat Boko, I'm concerned like most Nigerians that the Boko massacres in Baga and Boko's use of 10-year olds as bombs-explosives carriers into markets. Significantly, the killing of more than 2,000 human beings in one weekend has yet to draw any measurable international response or protests as we saw

millions on January 11, 2015 in radical Islamists' embattled Paris. The world came together, stood together against terrorism and for freedom of expression.

Fourth, Nigerians and Nigeria's government should lead the way! Or do they consider their own as Children of a Lesser God?? Nigeria should emulate the way the French forces and intelligence network moved decisively and killed the terrorists... without forming some committees or bogged down by sentiments.

Fifth, as the year ?2015 opens, a recurring concern for Nigerians, Americans and the international communities remain: are we safe going about our every day lives or investing to do business in most parts of northeastern Nigeria?

The honest answer is No! Daily, hourly, Nigerians say their quiet prayers in Maiduguri, Kano, Baga, Damaturu, Yobe, Jos etc asking for one of the following:

may the evil eyes and bazooka of Boko Haram and kidnappers not see them! May the lethal bombs of the violent agitators of Boko Haram and political thugs others never set their gps in the same zone... Amen!

Sixth, ahead of the February 2015 election and amidst all the palaver, Nigerians continue to wonder if their federal state of insecurity would continue?, despite the fact of a whopping federal government budget with the security? and defense allocation bagging since 2012, annually, the lion's share of an average of N925 billion (Naira) -- the equivalent of $6 billion. Those have not given Nigerians reasonable "security?" from kidnappers, common criminals, terror brigands, radical fundamentalists like the brazen Boko Haram and a rag-tag ethnic armies, area boys and area girls, and so on and so forth.

Seventh, Nigerians, from

all sections and faiths and economic status, have expressed their displeasure at the evident incapacity of the federal government led by President Jonathan and most state governors to perform the most basic function of providing security? and safe environments for the citizens. The unrelenting bombs and violent attacks and kidnapping in the middle belt Plateau State and in Maiduguri/Borno State, have combined to make life and movement much more dangerous for families, millions of unemployed? youths and investors in Africa's most populated country of almost 110 million people.

Eight, I believe and have made the political economy point that lawlessness and insecurity affect domestic production and international business worthiness of any country. The very bold attacks on the Nigerian Police headquarters and the United Na-

tions building in Abuja (Nigeria's federal capital) on Friday August 26, 2011 by the radical Islamic group Boko Haram left a weak profile of the President Jonathan and his team -- in the eyes of the local and international communities. I wrote the USAfrica special report 14 years ago-on October 17, 2001 -- warning that some radical Islamic groups in Nigeria have some level of inspiration and informal links to international terror organizations. Nigeria's bin-Laden cheerleaders could ignite religious war, destabilize Africa. http:// www.usafricaonline.com/ chido.binladennigeria.html Finally, if any of the President's 100 advisers has the polite courage for the extraordinary task of reminding His Excellency of his foremost, sworn, constitutional obligation to the national interest about security and safety of Nigerians and all who sojourn in Nigeria, please whisper clearly to Mr. President that I said, respectfully: Nigerians, at home and abroad, are still concerned and afraid for living in what I call Nigeria's Federal Republic of Insecurity! Nigeria, we hail thee.

•Dr. Chido Nwangwu is Founder & Publisher of USAfrica multimedia networks.

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 18, 2015

COMMENT

The sham peace accord The Peace Accord signed by the candidates is nothing but a decoy as PDP will rig mercilessly

O

N Thursday 15 January, 2015, Feyisara Falana wrote as follows on the Face book wall of Comrade Adeboye Adebayo: "JUST BE INFORMED: URGENT: "I just discovered a secret being planned by Campaign for Goodluck Jonathan Group. They are giving forms out for masses to fill telling them that they will get benefit from the president. The secret behind this is when you fill this form you have to include your voter's card number on it. How are we going to use this voter's card? We will insert the voter's card into a machine that will read the card. Once anyone has sold his card unknowingly for the Goodluck campaign, the machine will reject his/her card on Election Day. It will show that you have voted already, because the number must have been used to vote before the election for Goodluck. Please spread this news before our ignorant people sell their votes for peanut. This is my contribution to save this honourable country from sinking to another FOUR years. Good morning Nigeria"- Feyisara Falana.

Let me quickly add that I would not be surprised if all the signatories TAN coyly obtained from the youth of every geo-political zone allegedly endorsing the president have also inserted their voters cards number and will be treated accordingly. In which case, the presidential election has already been won well ahead of 14 February, 2015. Therefore, like the peaceful, but scientifically rigged Ekiti election, the presidential election, in particular, will be peaceful only on the surface.

On the same day that Feyisara Falana was doing that yeoman's patriotic duty, I wrote as follows on the ekitipanupo web portal concerning the boast by the Senate President, David Mark, that PDP will not only win the presidential and other elective positions in the 2015 general election, but will do so transparently in a free and fair contest, such that it will be acceptable to the opposition, the APC: "I sincerely thank David Mark for this since it appears APC has learnt nothing from Ekiti. The Peace Accord signed by the candidates is nothing but a decoy as PDP will rig mercilessly. They have too much to lose not to rig in addition to using security agencies to protect and cover their tracks. Kofie Anan and Anyaoku, two highly regarded international diplomats, should help Nigerians further by telling us how they got involved in this. Since when have they been thinking about intervening?

Was it before or after Prof Bolaji Akinyemi flew the kite of a MOU? Is this diplomacy or duplicity? Nobody wants violence but how has PDP shown they won't rig? Will the president deploy soldiers, policemen, militants in masks or not? Why did the diplomats not emphasise transparency and integrity of the electoral process? Left to me, this accord is a carte blanche to the PDP to rig to their hearts' content and so they will in which case the CHANGE being celebrated all over the place will be a chimera. APC should immediately seek legal ways of making rigging impossible. February 15 will be too late. It is not too late.

With this PDP, huge campaign crowds

for APC is no guarantee of victory.

They showed us that in Ekiti. Having been once beaten, therefore, APC in my view, should be TEN times shy. I have seen nothing to that effect."

In "It Will Be Most Unlike PDP Not To Rig The 2015 Election", 4 January 2015 , I had written as follows about Musliu Obanikoro: "In an interview, published in the Punch of Sunday, 28 December, 2015, Obanikoro declared assuredly: "Ogunlewe said in his interview with Sunday Punch that he doesn't know whether the PDP will win in the Southwest. He said it is not yet time for him to talk about that. But it is time for me to talk about it. I can tell you that we are going to win. The president is going to win BIG; we are going to clear the Southwest. You can Mark today's date and quote me."

Also, in: "Prof Bolaji Akinyemi Vs PDP's History Of Electoral Apostasy", 28th December, 2014, I wrote: "He recently wrote a letter to both President Goodluck Jonathan and General Muhammadu Buhari which, in my view, was either misplaced, or failed to lay emphasis on the appropriate issue thus indicating that he failed to reflect deeply on the ill-consequences of his 1993 letter to General Abacha, also at a time of considerable anxiety in the country. In the letter, he suggested that the two presidential candidates of Nigeria's two foremost political parties should sign a Memorandum of Undertaking to have peaceful campaigns as well as having their supporters ACCEPT WHATEVER THE RESULT(caps mine) of the 2015 presidential election. Not a few see this suggestion as anything other than offering a carte blanche to a rig-prone party like the PDP to rig the 2015 election to

its heart's content since such an understanding would have completely tied APC's 'hands' behind its back. Recent elections during which President Jonathan turned the concerned states into virtual garrisons with all manner of 'security operatives', some of them masked, and who in turn manacled the opposition, more than justify this conclusion. It could only be a shame that many believe that Professor Akinyemi is probably only the messenger here, given his well known capacity for original thinking, and that he most probably knows more than he volunteers given his well known chummy relationship with the government."

I am sure something preposterous is afoot and APC had better wake up.

There is no doubt whatever, in my mind, that, unknown to these distinguished international diplomats, they are again being used to hoodwink Nigerians like they did in the MKO Abiola case in 1998. I am not certain their involvement is a happenstance nor is it altruistic. If anything surprises me in all these, it is the failure of the astute and experienced politicians as well as the egg heads in the APC to see how they are walking into a trap with their eyes open because not a single one of the five terms of the accord talked to a fair and transparent election. None. I repeat again: I do not want any violence before, during or after any of the elections. But, for Christ's sake, what assurances do Nigerians have that the PDP, with the connivance of INEC and some rogue international scientists will not rig the election from source and through the use of soldiers, kill and go police men, as well as members of the Niger-Delta Volunteer Force who are usually

masked as they did in Ekiti or scientifically as we also saw there. I had never seen a more peaceful election than that of Ekiti but that was because the ballot papers had been pre-programmed and rather than supply Indelible ink, INEC deliberately supplied Ekiti voters vanishing ink.

I am also quite aware that hundreds of thousands of the forms referred to

by Feyisara Falana have been distributed all over the Southwest by a chieftain of the PDP under the pretence that he was going to offer all manner of employments, loans, etc to these youth. If APC is suffering from an unimaginable failure of intelligence, let me tell them that hundreds of thousands of this form have been distributed from the Ijebu Igbo axis of Ogun State. APC just must stop this or forget everything about victory. It would thus have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

It was former Governor Segun Oni of Ekiti who first drew our attention to this evil form during his maiden outing with the APC, warning Ekiti people not to sell their souls to the devil, picking forms from those who would take them through rituals. Back in Lagos, a top official of the Bus Conductors Union came to my office to show me a copy of the form and I saw with my very eyes where applicants were being asked for their voters' card numbers as well as their mothers' names; the latter for ritual purposes.

I think the way out is for the APC to quickly go to court to obtain a ruling outlawing the use of Card Readers in the 2015 election on the grounds that its integrity is already compromised.

A stitch in time will safe more than nine.

Hail Corruption!

This perverseness in all of us tends to make each one think only of himself and consign all other people to hell, all other members of his group to damnation, all other clients to Hades, and all other citizens to Halifax!

I

looked up my Microsoft Encarta for the definition of corruption. It described it as the 'dishonest exploitation of power for personal gain.'

I liked the definition so much I did not bother to look for any other. I did not bother to consult our dear president's dictionary which describes what corruption is not: stealing. I was too afraid of what it would tell me corruption is.

We are all familiar with the national refrain: the government is too corrupt. I agree. Nearly, if not all, the governments we have been saddled with in Nigeria appear to have had only one item on their agenda: to be more corrupt than their predecessors; and to leave the country more depleted and disconsolate than they meet it. I must say they have all succeeded. The effect is that Nigerians have learnt to be corrupt in all their various places of watch. We have all imbibed the culture of corruption as a people and we are not liking it.

The definition I stayed with - in case your English is worse than mine, dear reader, which I doubt - simply means that when we overtly or covertly use our position to gain something, no matter how trite, we have engaged in corruption. So, advertently or inadvertently, the only one not guilty of corruption is standing still.

That definition rolls practically everybody into the carpet of guilt, beginning with me.

I think one of the hardest things

to manage is power: over food, money, children, properties, students, clients, proselytes, adherents, citizens, etc. Let's take the first example. It is my belief that the area generally demarcated as the cooking stove offers a super-great temptation to be corrupt. Anyone who has ever found himself or herself in charge of the cooking will testify that you need superhuman strength to resist tasting everything in the pot to death when various kinds of aroma waft up your nostrils. I think the worst of the lot is the barbecue.

When the grill is hot and the meat begins to sizzle, your tongue pushes itself against the palate, forcing the throat to constrict as it bobs up and down in involuntary saliva swallows, and paroxysms of desire prompt you to reach out and cut a piece to taste. Suddenly, like one in a dream, you reach out for a small piece, then another small piece after another, until you find that you have tasted an entire steak. Of course it goes on until someone with foresight knows that an entire joint would be liable to disappear if the utensils are not rescued from you. To be honest, I have always believed that what I eat at the table is not enough to account for my weight gain; I still believe that the corruption at the stove has a lot to do with it! Ladies and gentlemen, what I have just described is a metaphor for the misuse of all the national treasures kept in our

care: food, money, children, properties, students, clients, proselytes, adherents, citizens, etc.

Now, I have a very bad habit: I hate counting money, not even at the bank counter. Naturally, I have been victim to many a deliberate underpayment. I believe that counting money reminds me too much of how short it is in supply in my purse; so I just spend what little I have until I run out of. The other day, someone wanted to send some money through me to someone else and was surprised that I did not bother to verify the sum.

Well, I explained, if it falls short, the fellow should know that the shortage would not have come from me.

I explained to him that one of the greatest instances of corruption, is to 'quickly borrow' someone else's money in your keeping to meet an urgent need until you can go to the bank to replace it! My sender was dumbfounded. I do believe at that moment he thought I was an angel, until I hastened to explain that I only knew that after the children had grown. When the children were young, I cannot now recollect how many times the monetary gifts they had received from visitors were 'quickly borrowed' for 'something urgent'. Yes, you guessed it; I had the power over their money: it was in my keeping.

Someone else now has power over my money because it is keeping it: the bank. Have you noticed that banks not only charge you COT but also all kinds of things including the

VAT on the COT? I understand why I am charged some money on my transactions, but who on earth is supposed to pay the VAT tax on what they have charged me? Is it me or the bank gaining from the charges they have deducted from my own account? What kind of corruption of logic is this, I ask?

Then, take the case of private transporters, i.e., drivers given charge of vehicles. It is well known that very few of them can resist the temptation to pick up paying passengers with your vehicle on their way to and fro or either of your errands. You would never be the wiser but for some telltale signs of forgotten or dropped items in some corner or the other of your car. You think it is the lure of the fare or companionship that makes them do it? No, it is the lure of the make-belief; the need to pretend that the car belongs to them at the point of departure; the power to decide.

Have you ever had to deal with estate or house agents? My goodness, I tell you, they are one species of humans. I have never known a group of people to eat more from where they have not sown. They not only charge a great deal higher than the fellows who struggle to build the houses, they evict, discharge and acquit at will.

Now, if that is not an example of the exercise of power and abuse of power, I don't know what is.

Time and space will not permit me to mention the various bodies and associations whose executive members, learned and all, appear to be only

interested in using the resources of their associations to solve their own personal problems. What about civil servants and technocrats who are supposed to protect the state: e.g. certify that the road has been built or contract executed satisfactorily but who agree to look the other way at a fee when the job has been done shoddily or not at all? What about GSM companies that charge us the earth and then sell us to private enterprises to inundate us with offers of all kinds of unwanted services? What about parents, teachers, schools, villages who wangle unfair advantages for their wards?...

It is easy to conclude that this country is all 'messed up' as we say up yonder because everyone is busy pointing accusing fingers at others, quite forgetting themselves. I don't believe though that the situation cannot be redeemed; it can. As you can see, it may take more than one man or one party or one group. It requires each and every one of us.

There is a perverseness in all of us which tends to make each one think only of himself and consign all other people to hell, all other members of his group to damnation, all other clients to Hades, and all other citizens to Halifax! In the end, we all suffer and groan and wait for a deliverer. The deliverer is you, you and me! Until we recognise that we have the power to undo this evil in our hands, we might as well continue to drone, 'Hail Corruption!' at wake time each morning.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 18, 2015

COMMENT

17

(99) Voting against one's interests: identity politics and the 70% in dire poverty (1) Be se tiwa, bee si se tiwa, Demo a wole!

[Whether you're with us or you're not with us, Demo will win!]

Chief Remi FaniKayode, on the eve of the 1965 Western Regional elections

T

HE epigraph for this week's column comes from perhaps the darkest hour in the turbulent history of electoral politics in Nigeria. Concerning that perilous moment, two events connected with two larger-than-life personalities stand out. The personalities were Chief Remi Fani-Kayode; he was the Deputy Premier in the Western Regional government of the then Premier, Chief S.L. Akintola. The other personality was Wole Soyinka. Since Wole Soyinka was and is Wole Soyinka, he needs no further introduction here. In the Western Regional elections of 1965, both men were indirectly locked in an epic battle whose ramifications and resonances go to the heart of the subject of this week's column, this being identity politics as either a salvation and/or a graveyard for the interests of the poor and the disenfranchised that constitute the human and demographic majority in our country. What does this mean and how did Fani-Kayode and Wole Soyinka come to be the respective embodiments of the contradictions of identity politics in the Western Regional elections of 1965? And moreover, what does all this have to do with the forthcoming general elections of 2015?

Let me explain.

For the benefit of the young readers of this piece who were either not yet born in 1965 or were below the age of 10, it is important to recall who Chief Remi FaniKayode, aka "Fani Power" was. A brilliant and professionally very successful lawyer, he achieved his highest prominence in politics when he became Deputy Premier of the Western Region and secondin-command to Chief S.L. Akintola as Party Leader of the Nigerian National Democratic Party that was universally known as "Demo".

"Demo" was a breakaway rump of the erstwhile Western Regional governing party, the Awolowo-led Action Group. "Demo" was also a widely feared and hated political party that played politics at the basest level of primordial, cynical and opportunistic sentiments. Its political calculations began and ended with what, in its view, were ostensibly in the best interests of Yorubas but were in actuality meant to maintain Demo's fascist grip on power. Thus, in the light of such

•Wole Soyinka

•Remi Fani-Kayode •"Identity politics - from the Right and from the Left"

murky calculations, Akintola, "Fani Power" and the other bosses of "Demo" felt that, in essence, they had to do two things. What were these tow things?

One: The NNDP or "Demo" had to go into alliance as very junior partners with the most powerful conservative political forces in the country as institutionalized in the Northern People's Congress (NPC) and its two legendary leaders, the late Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto and the Nigerian Prime Minister, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. Beside these two towering figures, Akintola and Fani-Kayode were and acted like political minions. Two: "Demo" had to disparage and tear down everything that Awolowo and the Action Group had achieved. Since the free education, free health services and other social-democratic policies of the Action Group were immensely popular in the Western Region, the only way that "Demo" could discredit them was to pass these programmes and policies off as evidence of Awolowo's incipient, creeping "socialism" and "communism". Thus, everything, "Demo" warned the people of the Western Region, would be shared

by Awolowo: property and personal possessions; wives and concubines; the debts that citizens owed through reckless and irresponsible financial practices and activities; even the clothes in one's wardrobe and one's back. These ideological views, "Demo" asserted, were against the traditional culture and morality of the Yoruba people.

Indeed, Akintola and "Fani Power" took their opportunistic politics of identity to the extent of forming a Pan-Yoruba socio-cultural organization that they named "Egbe Omo Olofin" as a counterforce to the much older "Egbe Omo Yoruba" that had historically had very close links to Awolowo and the Action

Group. But all its tactics, all its oratory failed to win "Demo" popularity and legitimacy in the Western Region and it was against the background of this total failure that, on the eve of the 1965 regional elections and in an address that was broadcast on radio and television to the electorate that "Fani Power" uttered his infamous pronouncement: "whether you are with us or you're not with us, Demo will win". This was worse than rigging, worse than any heinous electoral fraud that Maurice Iwu and Olusegun Obasanjo ever perpetrated on Nigeria and Nigerians for in "Fani Power's" declaration, victory had been declared before the elections took place.

The role of Wole Soyinka in that fateful electoral conjuncture can be summarily stated and is best summed up in the well known Radio Station holdup event. It is the very height of collective insult to declare to any people in the world that whatever they felt about any government or political party, that government, that party will achieve electoral victory in total and complete indifference to the wishes, the interests of the given people. Thus, it was this collective insult to the people of the Western Region that paved the way for Soyinka's radical intervention. His heroism achieved legendary status in the Western Region precisely to the extent that it articulated a need, a will to tell "Fani Power" and "Demo" that the people of the Western Region are a people whose collective will and interests could not be so easily set aside.

This is identity politics at its most radical and uncompromising.

Thus, it is very surprising that most accounts of Soyinka's Radio Station holdup act have left out that prior pronouncement of "Fani Power" whether you vote for us or you don't

vote for us, we will win. And please note that it was in the voice of a "free Nigeria" and not only a free Western Nigeria that the gunman at the Radio holdup spoke. This was contained in the pre-recorded message that the gunman substituted for the broadcast of the fake electoral victory of "Demo". In effect, Soyinka moved, in the same act, the same event, from an insult to the people of the Western Region to the implications of "Demo's" electoral superlative act of rigging for fascist, violent suppression of rights throughout the whole country. In other words, he moved from identity politics to the politics of popular, radical democracy for and in the whole country.

The great supposition of identity politics is that when one acts in the domain of politics one ought to act, first and foremost, in the interest of oneself and one's own group of belonging, be that group racial, ethnic, regional or religious.

On this account, only a Black man or woman can best speak for and represent Black people in the United States of America. In Nigeria only the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), only Ohaneze Ndigbo and only the Odua People's Congress (OPC) can speak for and represent the interests of Northerners, Igbos and Yorubas respectively. Indeed, the often unspoken but unshakeable faith of proponents and practitioners of identity politics rests on the premise that only members of one's own natal group can act best in the interest of the group. But this is a questionable assumption. As we have seen in the two cases embodied by "Fani Power" and Wole Soyinka in Western Regional elections of 1965, one protagonist whose party claimed to be acting for and in the interests of the Yorubas was actually confronting them with fascism and political

enslavement while the other agent extended the sphere of his identity politics far beyond the Western Region to the whole country. This raises the fundamental question of how exactly identity politics combines the personal interests of, on the one hand, the professional politician and, on the other hand, the interests of the totality of members of the racial, ethnic or religious group to which the politician belongs. In coming to the conclusion of this piece, let us carefully examine the ramifications of this question.

The basic presupposition of identity politics is that the circles of interests between the politician and his "tribe", region or religious community converge. But this is hardly ever the case. This question becomes even more complex and more fraught when, as in a country like Nigeria at the present time, virtually in all the communities in the given nation, the vast majority of the people are very, very poor.

Poverty always makes nonsense of the presuppositions of identity politics and the more extreme and widespread the poverty, the more deeply problematic the play of identity politics. Let me put this observation in the form of some concrete questions. Are the Northern poor, the Southern poor, the Niger Delta poor, the Christian poor, the Moslem poor, the Ekiti State poor and the Akwa Ibom poor, the Kanuri poor and the Tiv poor each be best represented and spoken for by the big men and women, the professional politicians of each group? If not, who speaks for all the poor of the land, for the 7 out of every 10 Nigerians who live in abject poverty? What do each of the two main ruling class parties, the PDP and the APC, have in their composition and in their ideologies to give us an indication of the differences between them in the practice of identity politics? Are there in fact any significant differences between them on this particular point?

What does the inherent identity politics in the alliance of the "core" North and the Southwest as the dominant formation within the APC portend for the interest of the poor of the land, if at all it portends anything by way of social, redistributive justice in our time?

Finally the most basic question of all: Why do the poor, in our country, as in many other countries of the world, often vote and act against their own economic and political interests in the name of and under the sign of identity politics? These and other related questions and issues will provide our starting point in next week's conclusion to the series.

[To be continued] Biodun Jeyifo bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

18

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 18, 2015

COMMENT

sms only: 08116759748

P

OLITICIANS are already doing what they do best: making promises they never deliver on. From the word go most parties assured us they would run issue-based campaigns. Taken on face value it meant focusing on matters that have brought the country to its knees: insecurity, economy and corruption.

Their way of addressing the issues is to make fresh promises to tackle existing problems without offering detailed plans for public discussions.

Everyone is promising to create trillions of jobs, provide 24 hour electricity and crush the insurgency.

The only this missing is a roadmap on how to get from A to B. The upshot is an unprecedented dumbing down of political campaigns the likes of which we've not seen in recent memory. It is so ludicrous, it is surreal. I don't see any 'transformation' - that much abused word - happening in the 28 days before we start casting votes.

That is another way of saying that what would inform our voting decisions this election cycle would be religion, ethnicity and frivolity. That said I now serve you a sampling of choice soundbites - beginning with some classics from the period preceding the campaigns and other winners now that the battle has been joined. Hopefully, you would decide who to vote for based on these inspired utterances.

Not too long ago, Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs to the President, Doyin Okupe, got us all in a flap when he likened his longsuffering boss to Jesus Christ.

Now one of the president's biggest boosters, Akwa Ibom Governor, Godswill Akpabio, has declared his own wife 'Mother Theresa'.

Thankfully, the late Theresa of Calcutta was only saintly, not deity, so we are spared the brouhaha that would have attended suspicions His Excellency had crossed the line into blasphemy.

The occasion for lavishing such effusive praise on the gubernatorial spouse was Akpabio telling a political gathering that it was the state's First Lady who actually 'discovered' the Akwa Ibom Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate, Udom Emmanuel. Now you can add headhunting to the list of madam's multitasking skills!

Just when we are struggling to restrain the religious from plunging Nigeria into sectarian strife, a firedup President Goodluck Jonathan nearly sparks class warfare. The immediate trigger was former President Olusegun Obasanjo's calling a summit with market women at which he briefed them on leakages in the Excess Crude Account (ECA).

Jonathan who's becoming adept at scoring own goals seemed to have decided he could do without the votes of agberos and the elderly because he lambasted unnamed senior citizens for carrying on like "ordinary motor park touts."

A few days later at the inaugural PDP presidential rally in Lagos, a Jonathan almost foaming at the gills with rage blasted All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, for not buying a single rifle for the armed forces when he was in power. And to think the general didn't have to contend with passing appropriation bills though a hostile National Assembly!

Presidential rage was unabated as the campaign swept into the relatively friendly precincts of Enugu.

The ambience was enough to inspire

E-mail: festus.eriye@gmail.com Twitter: @EriyeFestus

2015: Ethnicity meets frivolity

•Mrs Oludolapo Osinbajo and Mrs Aisha Buhari in Ogun State

the Commander-in-Chief to let fly with another salvo in the direction of enemy forces. Buhari, he charged, couldn't remember his own phone number and shouldn't be trusted with the presidency. Haba Mr. President!

How many of us remember the registration numbers of our cars?

Jonathan wasn't trying to play a game of trivia but suggesting that his rival was already in his dotage.

Thinking they are on to something, the PDP has seized on the age question with gusto. Former Anambra State Governor, Peter Obi, warned that Nigeria didn't need a 72year old grandfather. Another person suggested that the general was actually 74 or was it 78?

If he's all of 78, he's still a spring chicken compared to Tunisia's newlyelected President, Beji Caid Essebsi, who is a mere 88 years. And what is it about all these countries that love electing grandfathers? Check this: Ronald Reagan elected United States President at 69 or Nelson Mandela assuming the South African presidency at 76?

As I speak the age question has refused to go away because the very young Ekiti State Governor, Ayo Fayose, has accused Obasanjo of trying to foist 'an old horse' who's about to keel over on the nation. So far the ancient horse keeps trudging on oblivious to the fact that aside his age and health, issues surrounding his school certificates are still raising dust - at least in PDP quarters.

Again, the ruling party believes it has found the chink in the general's armour. I keep wondering why this fuss wasn't kicked up in the last three election cycles. Is someone seeing something nightmarish on the horizon?

Anyway, some Nigerians are not too concerned whether Buhari's certificates are with Defence Headquarters, National Museum or the US Army. Former Super Eagles star, Victor Ikpeba posted this on Twitter in response to the controversy: "Even if Buhari present NEPA bill as him certificate I go vote for am! E don reach that level."

Whoever thought that women would be relegated to the backseat during this campaign is obviously clueless. Initially, it did look like there was a conspiracy to silence them. In

fact, I was beginning to miss the inimitable contributions of our esteemed First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, on the hustings.

That was until Buhari went and put his foot in it by declaring his intentions to proscribe the unconstitutional office of the First Lady. This provoked a mutiny not only in social media - but of all places - even within APC ranks. Post haste the would-be first and second ladies were wheeled out for public scrutiny in Abeokuta mid week. Suffice to say they passed muster.

Not willing to have its thunder stolen given that the administration has excelled in First Ladyship, Jonathan jumped feet first into the discussion by declaring that spouses of presidents and governors don't spend government money. How revealing! Clearly, they've been

W

running their circus with British foreign aid or United Nations funding.

Slowly but surely the president is coming to terms with fact that Nigerians want the issue of corruption discussed and he has decided to compare his methods with those of the one-time military ruler.

Exasperated by Buhari's tough posturing he wondered aloud how much former Anambra State Governor, Jim Nwobodo, stole that he was thrown into jail. 'Money that is not enough to buy a Peugeot', he snorted. That should be good news for those who pinch a Peugeot worth of public funds: amnesty is coming in a Jonathan second term.

Such was the depth of feeling the president had over this issue that declared he would not put people in crates because of corruption. For those born after 1984, this refers to the then military regime's innovative way of repatriating the late Second Republic Minister of Transport, Umaru Dikko, from London to face corruption charges.

The president's comment prompted one of those irreverent types who troll the Internet night and day to declare that in China corrupt officials are executed: loading them into crates is to give them underserved honour!

I began by moaning that the candidates were talking in general terms. My apologies to the president who has made the intriguing declaration that he now intends to fight corruption using technology.

Sounds interesting! He must have been using cowry shells; that explains why things have been going from bad

to worse.

When the next set of cabinet nominees go for screening they would probably be made to walk through a scanner that would determine their susceptibility to corruption.

No discussion of Nigerian politics would be complete without a nod to ethnicity. Already, we've had useful contributions that could swing the polls in one direction or the other.

Take, for instance, the warning by Lagos PDP gubernatorial candidate, Jimi Agbaje that the South-South could shut down the economy if Jonathan isn't reelected.

I wonder when Agbaje did his referendum because a couple of prominent South-southerners like former Bayelsa State Governor, Timipre Sylva and incumbent Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, have made it obvious that there had little or no brotherly feelings towards the president.

Amaechi, in particular, has been keen to resolve the confusion over the president's ethnicity. The Igbos have been made to believe that because Jonathan's middle name was 'Ebele' he was their kith and kin. That is like saying because the Rivers State governor's first name is 'Rotimi', he's from Isale Ogbomosho!

To address the matter once and for all he proposed a contest to the rally crowd in Aba: "My name is Amaechi, but President Jonathan who says his name is Azikiwe cannot speak the Igbo language. He says his name Ebele; let him speak Igbo and let us see."

Before Election Day we may be forced to watch another contest. Ondo State Governor, Olusegun Mimiko, says Buhari cannot be president because he's not computer literate. I recall seeing the general holding an Ipad not too long ago. I'm not too sure whether he was using it or admiring it.

I equally remember a photograph of Jonathan staring at a blank desktop computer screen. Was he trying to locate the power button? You make up your mind and 'vote wisely'.

Who's with Jonathan?

HEN people question the electoral value of former President Olusegun Obasanjo my answer is simple: whenever he speaks it goes straight to every newspaper's front page. If he was of no consequence this would not be so.

If he were irrelevant the PDP and APC would not be trying to beat down his door in a bid to get his support. President Jonathan has done everything short of prostrating himself to get the old man's endorsement. Obasanjo may still be pledging allegiance to the ruling party but his body language and utterances show he's backing Buhari this time.

Former Vice President Alex Ekwueme is not known to be controversial. But the timing of the interview in which he tore present day PDP to shreds cannot be described in any other way but as pre-meditated. He said all he's ever received from the ruling party was humiliation and warned Jonathan not to expect a 2011-type bumper harvest of votes. Coming from one of the grandees of the party in what it considers its stronghold, this is ominous.

•Obasanjo

Just like Obasanjo, former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, has just published in newspapers an open letter to Nigerians in which he paints a grim picture of the state of the nation and warns people to 'vote wisely'.

His close pal and neighbor, former President Ibrahim Babangida, whose regime has

often been accused of institutionalizing corruption, gave an interview recently in which he declared that compared to what happened in his day, current levels of malfeasance made him and his associates look like angels.

Former Catholic Archbishop of Lagos, Anthony Cardinal Okogie, on Thursday labeled the administration 'clueless', warning that the country needed an urgent rescue from the "imminent brink of irredeemable destruction."

From former Nigerian High Commissioner in the United Kingdom, Christopher Kolade to popular Catholic Priest, Ejike Mbaka, a growing list of influential voices are rising against the status quo. Where are all those non-partisan big names whose endorsement the president needs to counter this trend?

His supporters might be tempted to dismiss these individuals, but from a perception point of view this isn't good news for Jonathan's second term bid.

Every campaign needs a boost from time to time - not an unending dripping of bad news.

LIFE

SUNDAY

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•Continued from Page 24

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20 SUNDAY LIFE

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 18, 2015

In the past few weeks, the harmattan haze has been blowing and biting really hard across the country.

Almost everyone admits that it is so cold and the intensity is extraordinarily high compared with the experience last year and beyond. In this report, Yetunde Oladeinde, Assistant Editor (Lagos), Kolade Adeyemi (Kano), Yusufu Aminu Idegu (Jos), Chris Orji (Enugu), Nwanosike Onu (Anambra), Odunayo Ogunmola (Ekiti) and Oseheye Okwuofu (Ibadan) take a look at its impact across the country and how Nigerians are coping.

•Continued on Page 21

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SUNDAY LIFE 21

•Workers using the sun heat to counter the severe cold

•Continued on Page 26

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22 SUNDAY LIFE

•Essiekan

Three visuallyimpaired Nigerians, who lost their sights to violent attacks, share their stories of pain, regrets and rehabilitation. writes Adeola Ogunlade

“I want to develop software for the blind Ebong Essienkan, IT consultant, Mathemati cian”

•Continued on Page 25

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 18, 2015

SUNDAY LIFE

23

Dr. Ebohor Micheal Ndidi, an Applied Psychologist

•Ebohor

‘I lost my sight to a desperate lover’ Latifat Adesope, victim of acid bath

•Continued from Page 24

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 18, 2015

26 SUNDAY LIFE •Continued from Page 21

•A disabled cyclist in his coat to wade off the harmattan

By Tolani Awere

•Source: Bloomberg

Page 28

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30 GLAMOUR

ADETUTU AUDU

crownkool@yahoo.com

08023849036, 08112662587

Kazeem Eletu-Odibo hooks Kate Orukpe

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 18, 2015

Sammie Peters under weather

GLAMOUR 31

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GLAMOUR/OUT & ABOUT

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GOS celebrates life @ 55

S

ENATOR Ganiyu Olanrewaju Solomon, Lagos State senator representing Lagos West Senatorial District, recently gathered friends and family at his Lagos house to celebrate his 55th birthday. The stylish senator used the occasion to appreciate his followers. Among those that graced the party were Tokunbo Wahab; Hon. Tajudeen Tijani Ojo, Hon. Bashir Magbade, Hon. Akeem Ayoade and others.

•L-R: Mr. Olawale Olaleye and Tokunbo Wahab

•Celebrator, Sen. Ganiyu Solomon and wife, Aderonke

•L-R: Mr. Yinka Jeje and Funmi

•L-R: Dr. Hammed Afolabi and Dr. Olushola Oladipupo Okorie

• L-R: Okunade Ojengbede and Managing Director, Laredo Small Chops, Lanre Laredo

Edesiri hooks Ese

•L-R: Alhaja Ajoke Yinusa, Hon Bashiru Magbade

Wedding

M

R. Edesiri Ewherido, an information technologist, recently got married to Miss Ese Erakpotobor, a Human Resource Consultant, in Effurun, Delta State.

•The couple with the APC governorship candidate in Delta State, Olorogun Otega Emerhor

•The couple flanked by the bride's parents, Pastor and Mrs. Alex Erakpotobor

• L-R Groom's parent Mr and Mrs Faronbi,the couple Remilekun and Temitope and the bride's Parent,Mrs and Mr Oyewo

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POLITICS EXTRA

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POLITICS EXTRA

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Raising a voice for the Nigerian girl With Temilolu Okeowo temilolu@girlsclub.org.ng 07086620576 (sms only) Please visit my blog www.temiloluokeowo.wordpress.com for more inspiring articles. Twitter@temiloluokeowo

Dear Yetty

yetimo2012@gmail.com

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Looming banking crisis Page 60, 61

•Gebremariam

‘Nigeria’s aviation sector lagging behind in Africa’ Page 62

New board to recapitalise Federal Mortgage Bank

N

EWLY inaugurated board of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) has promised that the team would recapitalise the bank and improve its balance sheet structure to modify its standing as a financial institution.

The Managing Director, Gimba Ya'u Kumo, whose appointment was renewed, gave this pledge in Abuja at the inauguration of the board over the weekend.

According to him, "our strategy will involve developing proactive and effective strategies to attract offshore funding for affordable housing to Nigerians as well as improving service delivery to

•Assures on impressive growth From Nduka Chiejina (Assistant Editor), Abuja National Housing Fund (NHF) contributors' across the country."

He added that the Board also plans "to look at improvement of members of staff welfare across board to ensure a well motivated workforce and profitable operations."

The FMBN boss said that the completion of ongoing housing estate projects under the Ministerial Pilot Housing Scheme nationwide and the completion of the Goodluck Jonathan Legacy Estate in Kaba District in the Federal Capital

Territory, FCT, will be vigorously pursued.

Kumo assured the federal government and other stakeholders in the sector, of their determination to sustain the cordial relationship they enjoyed in the previous years, appealing that, "the same support and cooperation enjoyed by the previous executive management team be equally extended to the present team.

"As a returning member of the team, I have had the privilege of experiencing the various challenges facing the FMBN as well as the housing sector in general," he said.

Earlier, the Minister of

Lands, Housing and Urban Development, Mrs. Akon Eyakenyi, said that the essence of reconstituting the team of the FMBN was to reinvigorate the bank and effectively reposition it to meet the present and future challenges and gave a fresh mandate to the management to make house ownership easier for most Nigerians.

Eyakenyi applauded the performance of the FMBN in previous years, saying the bank continues to be one of the performing organisations in the country.

She urged the team to create room for innovators and strategic thinkers in the bank to flourish by reconfiguring the human resources management architecture of the bank.

Real estate expert calls for investment in housing

E

XECUTIVE Director, Amen Housing Estate, Eleko Beach, Epe, Lagos, Mrs. Sade Gbadamosi, has urged investors to complement government efforts in the rural transformation drive.

Addressing reporters at the commissioning of the Amen Estate, she said the scheme would assist the middle-class members of the

society to own their houses at affordable rate.

She added that the scheme will decongest the overcrowded cities, noting that housing is becoming a problem in Lagos because of the influx of people and plan to make the state a mega city.

"It is to assist in decongesting our cities and we want to use Lagos State as example. It is to encourage government at all

level in its housing scheme. This is to make house available to people in areas that are a bit far from the cities," she said, adding: "The low cost houses help the urbanisation of the communities that have for long been neglected, through what we have done people will be shifting to places where there are space and healthy places instead of choking themselves up in congested area."

Gbadamosi said the estate was well secured, with facilities to meet the demand of the middle class society.

"As you can see for yourself, we have created a wonderful estate that has all facilities to make life comfortable. There is a generator that offers electricity for 24 hours. We have what a normal estate should have but I have to tell you that at Amen Estate you have much more.”

•From left: President African Paediatric Association & Societies, Dr. Dorothy Esangbedo, Consultant Neonatologist, National Hospital Abuja, Dr. Muktar Yola, Paediatrician and former Head of Department, Paediatrics, LASUTH, Prof. Oluyinka Ogundipe and Marketing Director, West Africa, GSK Consumer Health, Ms. Kerry Alexander, at the launch of GSK's Panadol Children and Scott's Emulsion at the weekend

MainOne unveils West Africa's largest data centre M AINONE, Nigeria's leading provider of innovative telecom services and network solutions for businesses in West Africa, has commissioned its premier Tier III Lekki Data Centre to address the growing demand for Collocation, Cloud and Disaster Recovery Services in West Africa.

The centre is to operate as an entity under a new subsidiary to be known as MDX-1.

Speaking at the launch, the Chairman of MainOne, Fola Adeola, reiterated the company's commitment to nurture the growth and impact of the Internet ecosystem

through the provision of highquality infrastructure to power businesses and governments across West Africa.

Chief Executive Officer, MainOne, Funke Opeke, said, "We are delighted to launch West Africa's largest and bestconnected data center. This reaffirms our capabilities in

meeting the needs of business for reliable connectivity and data centre services in a dynamic and fast paced global economy."

The highpoint of the occasion was the unveiling of the centre by Minister of Communications Technology, Dr. Omobola Johnson, as well as other notable industry leaders.

-- Page 53

‘We don’t compromise staff welfare’ Page 63

•Brewer

GSK unveils panadol, Scott cod liver oil emulsion for kids

G

LAXOSMITHKLINE Consumer Nigeria Plc (GSK) has launched a range of products namely: Panadol suspension and Scott's Cod Liver Oil Emulsion for

kids.

The event which held at the weekend in Lagos had healthcare professionals, including paediatricians, general practitioners, nurses, pharmacists and other health workers.

Speaking at the launch, Dr Dorothy Esangbedo, President, African Paediatric Association & Societies, emphasised the role of Omega-3 fatty acids, Vitamin A and D and Calcium in the growth and development of children.

Echoing similar sentiments, Dr. Muktar Yola, Consultant Neonatologist, National Hospital Abuja, while highlighting the need for proper management of pain and fever in children, said the new range of products were effective for such ailments.

The Marketing Director of GSK Consumer Nigeria Plc, Kerry Alexander, said: "Panadol Children's Suspension provides fast and effective relief for pain and fever in children and is gentle on tiny tummies." This is even as she stressed that "Scott's Emulsion, which comes in orange flavour, provides nutrients that contribute to growth and development, normal brain function and the maintenance of a healthy immune system in children. Because Scotts is an emulsion, it has a higher absorption and provides better results than other cod liver products in oil form."

Speaking earlier, Dr Davis Iyoha, Senior Brand Manager, Panadol, in his statement, said that Panadol Children's Suspension is suitable for children aged three months to 12 years and comes in a bottle with a child-resistant cap for added safety.

The Senior Brand Manager, Scotts, Adebimpe Osanyintuyi, added that "Moms now have excellent healthcare for helping their kids grow strong, bright and healthy."

The highpoint of the occasion was the formal unveiling of the product by Prof. Adebiyi Olowu, President, Nigerian Paediatric Association, to healthcare professionals.

Unilever celebrates 2015 first babies

A

S part of its commitment to improving the quality of life, Unilever Nigeria Plc, in the company of the First Lady of Lagos State, Dame Abimbola Fashola, welcomed Lagos State' first babies of 2015 with Pears range of baby products in addition to N100,000 each presented to the first two babies delivered.

Mrs Fashola, who commended Unilever Nigeria's contribution during her visits to the Isolo Maternal and Child Centre, Ajeromi Maternal and Child Centre, and the Island Maternity Hospital to welcome the first babies of the year, enjoined all parents to build a solid foundation for their children, especially in the first five years of their lives, by exposing them to all the necessary vaccinations.

Besides carting away Pears range of baby products distributed to all the new born babies delivered in the various maternities visited, the duo of baby Ogunnoiki and Onyejiekwe delivered at the Island Maternity Hospital and the Isolo Maternity respectively, got N100,000 each.

Speaking during the visit, the Category Manager, Skincare, Unilever Nigeria, Mr Olumide Aniyikaiye, said "every child has the right to healthy upbringing. As such, Pears has taken it as a social responsibility to partner various clinics/hospitals across Nigeria to educate mothers on how to take care of their kids during antenatal, post natal and child welfare."

Canadian envoy kicks against child marriage • Pledges development funding for women, girls

H

IGH Commissioner of Canada, H.E. Mr. Perry J. Calderwood, is worried about the spate of early child marriage in some parts of the country, stressing that the practise should not be encouraged.

The envoy gave this charge at a photo and video exhibition advocacy forum in Abuja tagged: "Too Young to Wed" with thematic preoccupation addressing the subject of child, early and forced marriage.

Describing the practice as appalling, Calderwood said: "The implications of child, early and forced marriage are broad and profound. Simply put, child, early and forced marriage places the lives and futures of girls at risk. It holds back the development of girls, their communities and their countries."

He, however, said it was heartening to note that over the last two years, international momentum has been building to address child, early and forced marriage.

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BUSINESS

Looming banking crisis I

F insanity, as defined by Albert Einstein, "is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results", then it may be correct to say that the managers of the nation's banking sub-sector, with a few exceptions, need to have their mental health reexamined!

For the avoidance of doubt and confusion, a few anecdotes would suffice.

Clear and present dangers There are clear indications that the nation's banking sector may yet suffer its worst woes in the history of banking if the apprehension of concerned stakeholders is anything to go by.

The apprehensions and worries of a good many high networth individuals, with interest in the major commanding heights of the economy, stem from the fact that majority of the banks, with a few exceptions, are literally in the red.

The reason being that most of them devoted a huge chunk of their cash call on businesses and investment portfolios, with the hope of maximising profits, but have got their fingers badly burnt in the process.

While sharing his experience, a businessman, who asked not to be named, because of the sensitive nature of the issues involved, confided in The Nation that some first generation banks are likely to go under, in no distant time, because they are currently battling with losses running into billions in foreign exchange.

"My company operates in the downstream sector of the oil and gas, so naturally we deal mostly on importation of refined products. As such, we rely largely on finance from the banks. I can tell you from my continuous interactions with some banks' chiefs that they have lost a lot of money in foreign exchange in the wake of the plummeting oil prices and devaluation of the naira."

Giving an estimate of the quantum of losses incurred, the source said: "There is a huge debt overhang. A majority of these banks, which are mostly first generation banks, are in terribly bad shape. The danger signs are there for all to see. The situation is such that in the coming weeks, some of these banks may not be able to honour their obligations to depositors."

The source who didn't mince words said, "It is only a miracle of some sort that would rescue the terribly bad situation. Unless the government comes to the rescue, things might go from bad to worse."

Commenting on the parlous situation in the banking sub-sector, Mr. Rolland Osaze, a public analyst, described it as unfortunate.

"It is rather scandalous that we are already subjecting our banks to this kind of trouble yet again after the sad episode of the banking recession. With the banking reforms, many thought that banks would be more careful not to expose themselves to unnecessarily high risks but the reverse is the case as we have seen now."

Like Nigeria, like abroad Nigeria is not alone. Wheeling and dealing is also rampant abroad. The world woke to a rude shock few years ago to discover

In the desperation for quick deposits by the money deposit banks, majority are already exposing themselves to high risk ventures thus becoming easy targets of Ponzi schemes. In this report, Ibrahim Apekhade Yusuf examines the issues

•

•CBN Headquarters, Abuja

that Enron Corporation in USA was in bad shape financially, no thanks to the shoddy deals of its management board. This is just as subprime loans caused the collapse of mortgage banks in the USA and led to economic recession in 2008.

But by far, the most horrendous of these cases is the famous Nicholas Leeson, a 28-year-old trader at Barings Brothers, who lost billions of dollars in a fell swoop sometime in 1995.

As the story went, Leeson was trading in Singapore and he was making money. The owners of the bank were clapping for him. Then he made the wrong call and the bank came crashing after the Barings lost $1.4 billion trading Nikkei index futures. The losses drove Barings, a 228-year-old institution and "Banker to the Queen"), into bankruptcy.

Bank not immune to risk While giving insight on the level of risk involved in banks, Dr. Austin Nweze, a political economist at the Pan Atlantic University, Lagos, said banking is a riskfocused venture but advised that they have to work within the agreed terms.

"Banks also are in business to take risks. But some risks they take are not the kind of risks that entrepreneurs take. Banks are supposed to be more conservative. That is the nature of banking. And because of the nature of how they create assets and how they create liabilities, in the sense that banks generate liabilities by going for deposits, and they create assets by giving out loans to companies and the risks involved in creating as-

sets there are some level of risk that they should take but it has to be collateralised."

Nweze who observed that there are no long-term funds for the banks, but short-term funds, said the inordinate ambition to amass deposits by banks could be responsible for the current mess.

"They are giving out loans to these oil companies to bring in oil.

And once these companies bring in oil, they get paid. It pays the bank, that's typical trading."

While noting that the CBN cash reserve ratio allows the banks to invest some percentage in certain businesses with a caveat, he, however, lamented that most of the banks breach the law.

"Some go beyond overexposing themselves and this is what you find. It is the trading attitude that is really affecting the banks. They are not putting money in long-term projects and there is no cushion.

Insurance is supposed to cover some of these investments. I don't know whether they are covered by insurance. And there is something they call hedging in the futures market, whereby you hedge. They are supposed to be in the futures market, hedging is supposed to be taking a risk against a risk."

Going down memory lane, Nweze recalled that, "When a few years ago, British Airways, for example, bought in the futures market, aviation fuel, for about 10 years, what that means is that whether the price goes up or down, they would buy at the same rate.

So that's what hedging does.

"So, it also means that somebody would be writing off some losses. If there is any insurance or

hedging, it would save the day.

But with this situation, I don't think there is any form of hedging. It's something purely trade.

And some of the banks are overexposed. And some of them would go under for sure."

No longer at ease for banks Indications emerged at the weekend that a combination of the dwindling revenue of the nation's money deposit banks on the one hand and a cocktail of measures put in place by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to rid the financial system of excess liquidity may set state governments and banks on a collision course in the days ahead.

Financial industry sources said some banks are now developing cold feet to honour cheques emanating from state governments in full, the liquidity position of such states in the affected banks notwithstanding.

The development is said to be hitting states' finances as preparations for next month's general election hot up.

Sources said a number of states have had to protest to management of banks over the decision of the latter to peg the amount that could be withdrawn by state governments in recent times. An official of a state government in the Southwest region said the state had to settle for amount lower than cheques presented to banks a few weeks ago.

According to sources from the banking industry, operators are undergoing serious pressure as income streams shrink in response to the tight monetary policy of the CBN and other policies that make

bank customers to pay less for services. "Banks are under pressure not only from state governments but also from corporate depositors these days. The naira devaluation and the policy on cash reserve ratio have combined to put banks in a tight corner," a source from one of the banks said.

The CBN's Director, Corporate Communications Department, Mr. Ibrahim Mu'azu, said the CBN did not direct banks to peg withdrawals, explaining that banks may be using their discretion in their operations.

Those that suspected that the directive to banks to peg withdrawal by states could have been initiated by the CBN were quick to link the development to the recent hike in public and private sectors funds as a way of reducing the liquidity in the system, especially as the nation faces increased pressure induced by oil price volatility.

Banking industry watchers said the measure may have been arrived at by banks at individual levels given recent constraints to their income generation activities by the recent the decision of the federal government.

The federal government had directed all ministries, departments and agencies, MDAS, to close their Revenue Bank Accounts with Deposit Money Banks latest by February 28, 2015.

The federal government is currently facing a real battle of getting revenue collecting agencies to remit accurately and timely what they generate on its behalf into the federation account.

With the new platform, all re-

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'Effective communication, tool for brand mileage' J

•Okonjo-Iweala, Finance Minister

•Godwin Emefiele, CBN boss

ceipts by MDAs will now be made directly to the consolidated revenue fund at the CBN through electronic channels, a process called the e-collection.

The Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), Mr Jonah Otunla, who stated this Tuesday in Abuja at a workshop on the take-off of the electronic collection project, said the balances of the revenue account, belonging to all MDAs should be transferred to the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the federal government.

He said: "MDAs are given up to February 28, 2015 to close RBA. Appropriate sanctions shall be applied against any MDA that fails to comply."

The directive was because the federal government had unveiled an Electronic Revenue Collection platform to help it improve on its Internally Generate Revenue (IGR) efforts in view of declining oil prices.

A number of banks have found a leeway in tax and revenue collection mandates from the federal and state governments; their agencies, ministries and parastatals to mobilise cheap deposits until such deposits are required by the agencies.

Among the notable agencies of the government that have formed a mutually beneficial relationship with the banks are the Federal Inland Revenue Service, the Nigeria Customs Service and distribution and generation companies, among others. In August 2013, the House of Representatives had accused 21 money deposit banks of defrauding the federal government of money running into billions of naira through tax evasion, non-remittance of tolls and falsification of official financial records, saying the heads of the banks had queries to answer.

Some of the affected banks were Citibank, Stanbic IBTC, Standard Chartered Bank, GTBank, Access Bank and Zenith Bank.

Others are First Bank, Union Bank, United Bank for Africa, Diamond Bank, Unity Bank, Fidelity Bank, Mainstreet Bank, Sterling Bank, Heritage Bank, Ecobank, FCMB, Wema Bank, Skye Bank, Enterprise Bank and Keystone Bank.

The House Committee on Finance said it had been inundated with reports on cases of tax evasion and sharp practices in tax remittances by banks.

Gale of sack The difficult regulatory environment, which is due to take a toll on the financial sector this year, has forced a number of banks to commence the process of cutting jobs and put on hold branch expansion plans.

While some of the banks laid off some workers late last year, it was learnt that most of the lenders were planning to cut their employees' numbers this month and in February.

Findings revealed that the latest threat of disengagement had to do with the need to realign for their operations for a tougher 2015, especially as the monetary policy environment continues to get tighter.

It was learnt that apart from job cuts, the banks were also planning to reduce the number of new branches to be opened this year.

Other major projects and sponsorship programmes for thirdparty companies, which may not readily add to the bottom line, are also due to be axed by bank executives.

Last week, Skye Bank Plc announced that it had transferred its tellers, drivers, security personnel and other support staff members to three outsourcing firms.

Hundreds of the bank's workers are said to have been affected by the development.

The decision, which came less than one week into the New Year, led to the disengagement of the affected employees from the bank and their subsequent transfer to third-party firms.

Investigation by our correspondent showed that the decision of the banks to reduce their workforce and branches was meant to assist them to cut costs in the face of a looming decline in their profitability this year.

A top official of one of the major lenders, who preferred to speak under condition of anonymity, said, "Some banks have laid off a few workers; others are planning to do so. Some will engage more contract staff. All the measures are aimed at cutting costs because the banking business environment is increasingly becoming challenging."

Zenith Bank Plc, Union Bank of Nigeria Plc, Diamond Bank Plc, Enterprise Bank Limited and Keystone Bank Limited had in the last two years sacked hundreds of their workers.

Experts said the recent regulatory measures would have major negative effects on the banks this year, adding that they were already feeling the effects of previous actions by the CBN, especially the increase in public sector CRR, the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria's levy increase, and the gradual removal of certain bank charges.

The Managing Director, HighCap Investment and Securities, Mr. David Adonri, said although banks had been affected by previous regulatory measures, the recent actions of the CBN would further affect their operations beginning from the first quarter of this year.

Investigation by The Nation further revealed that some of the banks are already considering closing up their branches, divest their shares from other investments all in a bid to cut cost as well as raise funds to shore up their funds.

UST like everything in life, effective communication is a sine qua non to success. It is even so in the realm of politics.

As different candidates for elective positions join the hustings, politicians have been looking for ways and means to sell to their candidacy just as political opponents demarket one another.

However, flaunting of impressive resume has become a marketing tool used for strategic advantage and a niche that makes a candidate the round peg in the round hole.

In the view of Femi Akinwande, a brand specialist, political communication is really not new in the realm of politics.

Going back in time, Akinwande recalled that: "For years, politicians have relied on basic marketing skills campaign buttons, posters, political rallies and campaign speeches to familiarise voters with a name, a party, and a platform."

Specifically, he said: "Going back to Franklin D. Roosevelt, all modern day presidents have relied on marketing to a greater or lesser degree to communicate their message to the American people."

Coming nearer home, Akinwande said, the nation's political terrain has also evolved robust communication strategy overtime. "The need for effective political communication is now given serious consideration by every politician worth his salt," he said.

On what form this can take, Akinwande said: "The same principles that operate in the commercial marketplace hold true in the political marketplace: successful companies have a market orientation and are constantly engaged in creating value for their customers.

"In other words, marketers must anticipate their customers' needs, and then constantly develop innovative products and services to keep their customers satisfied."

Citing a renowned marketing scholar, Philip Kotler, who said "politicians have a similar orientation and are constantly trying to create value for their constituents by improving the quality of life, and creating the most benefit at the smallest cost," Akinwande said it is the in-thing now.

He was, however, quick to add that beyond the campaign buttons, posters, political rallies and campaign speeches to familiarise voters with a name, a party, and a platform, there is an emerging trend in political communication.

According to him, most political marketing experts believe that just as in product, what is made of a political candidate as a brand will determine

By Ibrahim Apekhade Yusuf

its functional benefit to end user.

"Every day, we use thousands of different products, from telephones to bikes and drinks cans to washing machines. But have you ever thought about how they work or the way they are made? Every product is designed in a particular way - product analysis enables us to understand the important materials, processing, economic and aesthetic decisions which are required before any product can be manufactured.

"An understanding of these decisions can help us in designing and making for ourselves. So, the analysis of these candidates, their background, how they are shaped and what they are made of will determine their functional effect when they assume role of governor in the state.

"So, it is necessary for voters who are like product consumers to look at the content of their experience before buying them or else they might end up buying a product that will not create the value they want," said Akinwande.

Echoing similar sentiments, Mr. Ashiru Mukaila, a PR manager, noted that at the centre of an excellent brand management is the ability to useful effective communication to achieve good mileage for the brand. "In politics, this is absolutely necessary because you are dealing with a composite product. So, you have to put in everything you've got."

Interestingly, a new trend seems to has emerged in Lagos as the marketing of the resume of political candidates to convince the electorate on how the background of the APC candidate, Ambode Akinwunmi, and his PDP counterpart, Jimi Agbaje, jostling for the governorship of Lagos State could help the state experience the needed value proposition and help to create sustainable development ultimately.

A brand builder and marketing professional, John Feyipitan, who spoke specifically of the Lagos gubernatorial candidates said electorate must look at the experience of the gubernatorial aspirant of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Lagos, Akinwunmi Ambode and PDP's Agbaje.

On the basis of evaluating the experiences of the hopeful contenders, the APC candidate, Ambode, it does appear, has gotten the needed experience to create the value and also sustain the current development in the state because of his background, unlike the PDP candidate, Agbaje, who has always been a pharmacist, he stressed.

Reeling out Ambode's experience,

he said, "Akinwunmi Ambode is an Accountant, Administrator, Public Finance expert, a retired civil servant who served Lagos State meritoriously for 27years; holding key positions across all cadres of the state's civil service such as the Auditor General for Local Governments, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance and Accountant General of Lagos State."

Pressed further, he said: "After his retirement from the Civil Service at 49, he established Brandsmiths Consulting Limited - a public finance and management-consulting firm with a deep knowledge of the Nigerian public sector. He serves as the Managing Consultant/CEO and has used his wealth of experience and social network to build alliances that will establish Brandsmiths as a worldclass professional services provider, engaging in strategic planning, operations improvement, business planning and public financial management.

"The firm and its associates are currently working with state and federal government agencies to cutover to the new IPSAS system of public accounting which takes effect from 2014. He graduated with Honours in Accounting from the University of Lagos at the age of 21. At 24, he had become a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria and finished a Masters degree in Accounting specialising in Financial Management, also at the University of Lagos, via a Federal Government Scholarship. He also received a US Fulbright scholarship for the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship at Boston University in Massachusetts."

Feyipitan said this functional benefit of Ambode remains an edge compared to his opponents who have only worked as a pharmacist for three decades.

While attempting a comparative analysis of both candidates, Feyipitan said: "From what I read, Agbaje only possesses a veteran experience with over three decades as a practicing pharmacist. He served in much health management capacities in his early years as a pharmacist in Lagos State, and is currently the Managing Director of Jaykay Pharmaceutical & Chemical Company Ltd. Lagos needs a brand that is filled with better materials that will enhance sectoral growth."

However, considering that Kolter sees political marketing as the process by which political candidates and ideas are directed at the voters in order to satisfy their political needs and thus gain their support for the candidate and ideas in question, experts believe candidates' experiences really count in delivering the political manifestoes.

•From left: Director/Coordinator National Lottery Regulatory Commission, Lagos, Mr Fidelis Ajibogun, General Manager, Marketing Segment, MTN, Mr Richard Nwanoge, the winner of N10million MTN Cash Quest Promo, Mr Ikenna Ekeaku, and Chief Marketing Officer, MTN,Mr Olubayo Adekanbi, during the MTN Cash Quest Promo in Lagos...recently PHOTO: MUYIWA HASSAN

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 18, 2015

BUSINESS

HAT is affecting the growth of air transport in Africa?

Unfortunately, thus far the continent has not encouraged African partnership in the aviation sector as much as it should. Now, with a renewed initiative in the Yamoussoukro Declaration, we do hope that the African heads of states that are going to meet in Addis Ababa in the next couple of weeks to declare that Africa should see a single sky, a single aviation policy, a single aeronautical policy whereby African carriers can cooperate.

African countries can cooperate to double up their aviation sector with free access to their markets to African carriers.

Basically, what we are looking for in the coming meeting of heads of states of Africa is full implementation of the Yamasokoro Declaration on one hand, which means that the African airspace will be treated as a single airspace. So, any African carrier will be able to fly from any point to any point without any restriction in the continent. The second objective which we are pushing as African airlines, the African Airlines Association (AFRAA) and the African Civil Aviation Commission (AFCAC), which is headed by a Nigerian lady, is to formulate an aviation policy, single market for Africa which will have the same community clause as the European Union has today.

By this what we mean is, today in the European Union, member states treat the European airspace as a single market. So, they have full freedom of the air for their airlines within the European Union but when it comes to air services agreement negotiation between member states of the European Union and other countries outside the European Union, the European Union will act as a single market.

For instance, today as it is, if one of the European Union member country airline wants to fly to any country in Africa; in the air services agreement there will be a clause mandating the European airline to fly to that country through any other European country. For instance, British Airways can fly to Addis Ababa through Paris with the European Union community clause. But unfortunately, Ethiopian Airlines or Kenyan Airways or Aril Air will not be able to fly to European countries through other African countries which doesn't have an airline.

For instance, if we want to fly to Paris through Chad in the existing arrangement, we will not be able to do so while AirFrance will be able to fly to Addis Ababa through one of the member countries in Europe. So, this kind of block to block, the African Union as a block, and the European Union as a block, block to block negotiation should be there to make it competitive and create level playing ground for everybody.

So, because of lack of these two policy instruments, the first one is the Yamoussoukro Declaration and the second one is what I explained now, what we see today is unfair competition in the continent. And the result of it is that 80 per cent of intercontinental traffic between African and the rest of the world is carried by nonAfrican carriers, only twenty percent is carried by African carriers and this is lopsided and it has to be corrected.

And in order to correct this imbalance and unfair competition, it is necessary to enact those two instruments that I explained before. And I hope and

'Nigeria's aviation sector lagging behind in Africa' Tewolde Gebremariam is Chief Executive Officer, Ethiopian Airlines.

Gebremariam is concerned over the dwindling fortunes of the African aviation sub-sector. He is, however, optimistic that with concerted efforts on the part of concerned stakeholders, things would begin to look up for sector. He spoke with Kelvin Osa Okunbor in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

•Gebremariam

wish that Nigeria will lead the change because Nigeria is a big aviation market. She is the most populous country, the largest economy now in the continent. So, Nigeria has a lot of ways to drive this initiative. Having said this, as I also mentioned before, Ethiopian Airlines is quite a significant player in the Nigeria aviation sector and we want to do more, we want to cooperate with Nigerian carriers and do more. But in terms of coverage, we are doing fine. Like I said before, we are covering four points in Nigeria.

How is your operation in Nigeria?

I think we can do more, but in terms of coverage I think we have one of the most coverage in the country with Lagos-Abuja, Enugu and Kano and we have been the only carrier in Enugu and maybe the others are trailing us now and we are very old in Nigeria. Perhaps maybe British Airways is older because of the historical relationship, otherwise we have been serving the Nigerian people for close to half a century.

So, it has been a very good association, very good partnership. We would like to see the Nigerian aviation sector develop much faster than it has been so far and we would like to see a very strong national carrier in Nigeria. Nigeria Airways used to be one of the best in Africa in the past. So, we are ready to help, we are ready to partner and hopefully the aviation policy would also be revised to support this kind of African partnership between African brothers and sisters.

Don't you think that having multiple entry points in Nigeria affect the domestic market?

I have read some statements in Nigeria in the media that there are groups who say that more points

to Ethiopian Airlines in Nigeria may affect the domestic carriers in Nigeria. But I really differ on this argument because within the context of the Yamoussoukro Declaration, we should have more points, we should corporate more and we should also facilitate the intercontinental and inter country travel to avert the hardship that we experience today in Africa. If you want to travel today from Nigeria to a neighbouring country in Cameroon on the Central or Ghana or Cote de' voire on the West, you do not have so many choices in terms of availability of air routes, it is an underserved market, the entire continent is an underserved market, especially for travel within the continent.

So, I think we should push for more and more segments and more and more air routes among African countries.

Do you have any plan to expand your operations in Nigeria?

There are two ways to do that in terms of expansion. As I said before we are flying to four points right now and we want to increase the frequencies in those two points especially Kano and Enugu. We are not there daily as much as Lagos and Abuja. So, we want to increase the frequency to daily so that we connect the northern part of Nigeria with the rest of the world, particularly the Middle East and Asia every single day. We also want to connect the Enugu area with Asia, Middle East and Europe every single day so that is an immediate expansion plan. We are also starting Port Harcourt although it is very close to Enugu but if it is feasible we would start it. But the second point is more important, the second point as I said before, is we should not see Africans travel to Europe to visit their neighbours in the 21st

century, this should not be acceptable in the continent any more.

By this what I mean is, for instance, if you want to travel to Gambia today from Lagos you have very limited choices. You may not be able to fly at the date that you want, at a time that you want, so unfortunately for some days of operation in the week you may have to travel to Europe to connect to Gambia. I think this has to stop.

Why should we fly to Europe for six hours and come back to Africa for another six hours when we can travel to our neighbouring country? This is true in the ECOWAS region, and this is true in the Eastern African region also.

I think in a bigger picture, we should be able to connect the continent as much as required by air. Because the other issue as you all know is the other modes of transport are not well developed whether it is road or railway system; it is very under developed in the continent. So, air is the most practical and easy way of connecting passengers on the continent.

If you want to connect two countries by rail it is a huge and massive investment but if you want to connect two countries by air, which almost all countries have airports today, it is very easy with very little investment. But we are not doing it because we have closed the market and we don't understand any rationale why we should close the markets and let our people suffer. So, in this line we want to do more, meaning connecting the Central region, the ECOWAS region, East Africa, and Southern Africa. Africans have to also trust each other in terms of trade and investment. It is only ten per cent of African trade within the continent. Africa is trading

with the rest of the world for about 88 per cent or 90 per cent but with ourselves very little.

Ethiopia exports a lot of flowers to Europe and a lot of West African countries import flowers from Europe. So, this is ridiculous, isn't it? So, the South-South trade relation has to grow. Why do we trade amongst ourselves through Europe? This doesn't make sense.

Ethiopia exports a lot of meat to Middle East but again a lot of West African countries like Gabon, Guinea import meat from Europe.

Angola import meat from Brazil while a lot of East Africa countries export meat to Middle East and so on. The poor air connectivity is also driven by the lack of trade and investment amongst ourselves. So, I think with the African Union and the other continent and institutions we need to change that. And at Ethiopian Airlines we want to play a catalyst role in developing this trade and investment and also air connectivity. As you know, back in the 60s Ethiopia was the only airline serving the east-west. So, we have done it for more than 50 years, we should be able to do it better now in the 21st century.

Is there any record of government interference and what is the contribution of the airline to Ethiopia's GDP? This is a very good and important point. I think Africa can learn from the way Ethiopian Airlines is managed and on the corporate governance of Ethiopian Airlines. It is hundred per cent owned government but fortunately successive governments in the Ethiopia, starting from the emperor, although with completely different ideology and completely different political leadership, all of them allowed the airline to be managed by professionals. And that is the main success factor for the airline because the airline business is a very, very challenging business.

For two reasons: number one it is highly capital intensive and labour intensive business. So by that you can derive how difficult it is in terms of asset management, in terms of labour management.

The more capital intensive a business is then the capital requirement of that business is high and therefore the asset utilisation is very, very important.

You buy an airplane you have to keep on the air for thirteen or fourteen hours a day, anything less than that is very difficult to make money. The second challenge in the airline business is that there is excessive competition as you may know.

There are so many airlines with so much capacity and that capacity is growing irrespective of demand or not. So, there is too much capacity, which drives it down and therefore the profit margin is very, very slim. And that make the cost of air very high, so you cannot make mistakes. If you do it will be fatal. So, for these reasons airlines need to be managed professionally by aviation experts. And that is the realisation by the Ethiopian government and the discipline of the government for not interfering in the airline. But when I mean by not interfering, they leave the daily management of the airline to the professional managers like myself but they hold us accountable for the performance. So, there is a board of about eleven people, with high government officials, two from the government side and one from the employees. So employees are represented on the board and that arrangement is very good and the management runs the airline.

Every government official here, every minister pays for their ticket.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 18, 2015

F

ORTUNE 500 is an annual list of the 500 largest companies in the United States as compiled by FORTUNE magazine, which shows the socio-economic fundamentals as well as integrity quotient of companies at some point in time, thus placing them on a vantage position to enjoy public goodwill.

Besides, the collective performance of the Fortune 500 companies may be seen as one indicator of the country's overall economic performance. Thus to be a Fortune 500 company is widely considered to be a mark of prestige.

If the template of Fortune 500 is anything to go by, then it may be correct to say that Deutsche Post DHL-the largest global logistics company and the world's tenth biggest employer, with over 500,000 employees, is the dream of any prospective employee.

Reason: like all Fortune 500 companies, DHL is not just a place to work but offers a lot of perks to workers in terms of handsome welfare, self-esteem, among others, which other employees of other organsiations merely dream of. The company which operates the world's largest network for international shipping services today, with direct connections to over 220 countries and territories and 41 processing centres on four continents, has continued to find means and ways of changing the fortunes of its staff for the better.

Whether in Africa, Asia, Europe or elsewhere DHL has set up shop, nothing is left to chance when it comes to staff welfare.

Little wonder DHL Express Sub-Sahara market has been certified as top employer 2015 in Africa for its outstanding employee offerings across the region. This is in addition to six African countries - South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Ghana that were also certified Top Employers in their local markets.

Independent research by the Top Employers Institute

shows the company looks after its people exceptionally well and DHL Express is one of the select few companies to achieve the exclusive Top Employers Africa 2015 certification in various African regions in which they operate.

Top Employers is a global and annual programme that certifies organisations which successfully demonstrate exceptional HR environments and employee offerings. The programme is an audited and research based process that assesses employee offerings as well as the conditions employers create for staff to develop.

The Top Employers Institute assessed DHL Express' employee offerings on various criteria, including talent strategy, workforce planning, employee on, learning and development, performance management, leadership development, career and succession management, compensation & benefits and company culture.

Crucial to the Top Employers process is that participating companies must meet the required high standard in the research in order to achieve the certification.

Only organisations that achieve certification in at least four countries within the region deserve the special Top Employers Africa 2015 recognition. The independent research has verified DHL Express' outstanding employee conditions in all certified countries.

Judith Oude Sogtoen, Director of International Business Development for the Top Employers Institute: "Our extensive research concluded that DHL Express forms part of a select group of employers that advance employee conditions worldwide. Their people are well taken care of. Now that they have received the Top Employers Africa 2015 certification, they can truly consider themselves at the top of an exclusive group of the world's best employers. A reason to celebrate!"

Commenting on the award, Charles Brewer, Managing Director of DHL Express Sub Saharan Africa, said this achievement is an acknowledgement of the business's strong focus on em-

BUSINESS

'We don't compromise staff welfare' DHL, the world's largest courier company, has consistently won laurels for its outstanding success as one of the top global companies to work in the 21st century. Charles Brewer, who is the Managing Director, Sub-Sahara Africa, DHL Express, a major arm of the global conglomerate, speaks on the strength and character of the foremost courier and logistics firms, reports Ibrahim Apekhade Yusuf

•Brewer

ployee engagement, development and training on the African continent.

"We truly value external recognition and believe that it affirms our position as the International Specialists in Af-

rica," Brewer says as a matter of fact, even as he notes that this accolade is testament to their dedication of having motivated employees, which is a key focus pillar of their strategy.

"Understanding the need to drive a common culture across 220 countries, we launched a Certified International Specialists training programme for all 3,500 staff in Africa. Everyone from the Global CEO to a Courier in any country has gone through this training programme reinforcing our core competencies as an organisation. CIS training has been central to our staff retention and development globally, " he Brewer enthused.

While sharing a though on the growth indices of the company in the outgoing year, Brewer notes that "The first half of 2014, revealed strong continuing growth for DHL Express Sub Saharan Africa's top three import trade lanes: the United States, France and China while the top three Sub Saharan Africa's export trade lanes were to Great Britain, the United States and France."

While reiterating that the first half of 2014 was characterised by robust growth in the energy sector particularly due to exploration companies mobilising new campaigns in countries such as Cameroon, Congo and Gabon, the technology sector continues to provide ongoing opportunities for DHL to provide innovative solutions, particularly through cross-business unit collaboration as customers look to align their internal requirements to achieve efficiencies and cost containment.

"We have an exceptional market position in Africa, one of the world's leading emerging markets, and whilst we have an unparalleled footprint, we continue to invest in market leading infrastructure across the continent, with planned expansion in 2014 and beyond."

"SMEs remain an integral part of our growth story and a core focus is to continue making logistics more accessible.

To date, DHL Express has over 3 500 retail locations across Africa, with 100?s more planned before the end of the year."

"As we say within DHL, we have been in Africa for 36 years and the turnaround from the 'forgotten continent' to 'Africa Rising' has been an amazing journey. The future only looks

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great. It's time for Africa to focus, connect and grow," Brewer notes further.

Expatiating, the DHL boss believes: "Businesses in Africa are under increasing pressure in the current economic climate to remain competitive, both locally and globally, and sometimes lack the ability to build resilient supply chains.

Outsourcing logistics strategically can make a significant contribution to a business's profitability so make sure that you have the right partners who understand the global economy and more importantly, the intricacies of doing business with each individual African county - it's not a one size fits all approach."

Even with the accelerated growth that the continent has experienced, Africa is the world's least connected continent, when considering the ease of moving people, trade, information and finance, according DHL's Global Connectedness Index.

"Going forward, regional integration will continue to play a key role in unleashing the continent's growth potential. Some of the areas being talked about and focused on include a continental free trade zone, single customs union, a common currency, etc. all of which should significantly improve intra-regional trade, which presently is less than 20%. A good example of this is the recent and rapid progress made by the East Africa Community (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi) who are working incredibly hard on developing a number of critical and trade boosting areas such as projects to improve the roads, ports, rail and critically, the customs border environment and have recently introduced a common visa for the region."

Successful companies in 2015, Brewer observed, will be those that can adapt to the fast changing global environment, such as unstable currency markets, the fast growing global population and rising number of internet users, and make them work in their favour.

UKAid builds capacity of pharmacists in child therapy

I

N its quest to build the skills set of community health practitioners, especially pharmacists and allied professionals in Lagos and its environs in the area of child therapy, the UKAid subsidiaries in Nigeria, Partnership for Transforming Health Systems Phase II (PATHS2), Lagos, organised refresher courses with specific focus on innovation and trends in the management of diarrhea and other related child ailments.

The event, tagged: 'Continuing Education Conference' was in collaboration with the Lagos branch of the Association of Community Pharmacists of Nigeria (ACPN) and Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), helped to further raise awareness on prevalence of diarrhea and called for paradigm shift in its management especially in the communities.

Every single day, Nigeria loses about 2,300 children under-five

years of age, according to United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) report. These children are often vulnerable to life-threatening infections. Diarrhea is one of these and it is the third largest single cause of child mortality (after malaria and pneumonia) in Nigeria.

Thankfully, some innovations are so simple; you have to wonder why no one has come up with them before. One of such is zinc supplement and low osmolality Oral Rehydration Salts (ORS) therapy in the management of acute diarrhea illnesses among children.

According to experts, children may be prone to diarrhea due to lack of safe and clean drinking water and exposure to poor sanitary and domestic hygiene. In addition, this can occur when children are not fully immunised, lack the proper diet according to their age's dietary requirements or are immune compromised.

No fewer than 11 per cent of all

child deaths in Nigeria are due to diarrhea. That is, 90,970 under-five deaths annually, a United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) 2010 estimate show.

Six years before this dismal statistic, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and UNICEF endorsed ORS as the gold standard in managing diarrhea globally. But it is still unpopular in Nigeria.

Major complications of diarrhea, as observed at the conference, are dehydration and malnutrition. In diarrhea, the digestive system is less able to absorb fluids and nutrients.

Also, there is an increase in the amount of fluids and minerals that the body secretes. These changes cause the body to lose fluids and minerals, like zinc, sodium and potassium. When these fluids and minerals aren't replaced, this can lead quickly to dehydration and malnutrition. And zinc loss weakens the immune system, leaving a child less able to fight disease.

Dr. Olasumbo Makinde of PATHS2 Lagos observed that the three essential elements in the management of all children with diarrhea include rehydration therapy, zinc supplementation and comalling for continued feeding and prevention.

Pressed further, Dr Makinde said, "The combination of zinc supplementation and low osmolality (concentration of a substance in a liquid) ORS is a recent development in the treatment of diarrheal episodes in children. From research, it has the potential to decrease diarrhea-related deaths by up to 88 percent, with feeding and extra fluids."

Echoing similar sentiments, State Team Leader of PATHS2 in Lagos, Dr. Ibironke Dada, noted that by averting deaths from diarrhea, by over 80 per cent, Nigeria's progress towards the Millennium Development Goal (MDG)-four would accelerate as the MDG deadline draws near.

Dada added that the zinc supplementation and low osmolality ORS campaign was important because of its strategic role in reducing under-five deaths.

Justifying the need for the zinc supplement, she said "ORS replaces lost fluids and essential salts. The right balance of essential glucose and salts - work together to ensure that fluids are absorbed at optimal rate. Sodium allows water to be absorbed through the intestinal wall; glucose enables the intestine to absorb the fluid and the salts more efficiently and potassium stimulates the appetite and activity of the child."

Efficacy of ORS treatment, she stressed, is improved by reducing osmolality from 311mOsm/L to 245mOsm/L. The old ORS solution, with higher osmolality than plasma, increases risk of hypernatremia and increased stool output."

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 18, 2015

O

N the 1st of December 2014, I boarded a Hummer bus in the fleet of Auto Star from their Enugu office, Abakaliki road, to Lagos. Auto Star, seen as an elitist transport because of their slightly high charge which can be attributed to their fairly good services, has always been my first choice any time I want to travel within the country as I find it most gruelling to fly local since the last air mishap I was involved in on my way from Lagos to Enugu.

Though it's been a while now, the experience is still haunting me. It's just as if it happened yesterday. I have told myself countless times that my life is in God's hands, but that has not driven away the air phobia. Any time I find myself in the belly of an aircraft, as soon as the door closes, I feel trapped, caged in. I do not mind the taking off or landing but once air borne, I start imagining and hearing all sorts of noise supposedly from a faulty engine plane.

Even when I'm on an international route, especially long trips, I get so tensed up that I will have my Bible open all through the flight till the plane lands and I have my feet safely and firmly on the ground. It is that bad. I desperately need help because, unfortunately, I always have things that take me outside the country.

So whenever I have a choice of travelling by road or rail, I quickly grab it and only fly when there is no alternative.

Now, Auto Star, from my little experience and tales from other road users, seems to be one of the best transporters for now, especially if you are travelling light though not very light. It is more expensive than other line but you are sure to be comfortable.

The company has different vehicles but no big luxurious ones. It has Sienne Sedan which carries just five passengers, Peugeot 406 that carriers three passengers and the Hummer bus which allows passengers more luggage that carries ten passengers.

Their vehicles are not unduly loaded giving passengers enough room to stretch their legs and bodies.

Another reason why it's the first choice for most passengers is that most times, the company keeps to departure time even when the vehicle is not full and drivers are not allowed to carry any other passenger once the vehicle leaves the company's premises.

However, on my last trip from Enugu to Lagos on December 1st 2014, the driver refilled his fuel tank at Asaba, Delta State, and getting to Ore, Ondo State, he stopped for about 15minutes for passengers to refresh and stretch their legs while those who wanted to buy one or two things had the opportunity to do that.

As the journey progressed, to my surprise and chagrin, the passenger in the front seat, whom the driver had talked to, started appealing to passengers to contribute money for fuel. Trust our people, kind or should I say gullible, started bringing out money for fuel without much question.

Why should I pay more money? I queried since I had already paid for the trip.

The other passengers who were already bringing out money explained that the driver was not given enough money for fuel.

Furious, I asked how that should be the passengers' problem and they patiently explained that we had to augment the fuel money so as not to be stranded in the middle of nowhere.

Fine, I said, but on the condition that the transport company must reimburse me. To that, the driver replied that he could not guarantee it. So I declined to add my money, making me the only passenger who did not contribute. I threatened to sue the company if the driver did not get me to Lagos.

Of course, if it was just me or that the passengers had not brought out money, I would have eagerly paid instead of being

How transporters violate obligations to passengers

•Travelling bus

stranded. In fact, if the situation warranted my paying for the whole fuel myself in order to get home, I would have done so but go after the company as soon as I reach Lagos.

However, I did not completely buy the driver's story. I thought he was playing a fast one on the passengers till much later when I put a call to the company's Lagos office at No. 5 Ikorodu Road, Jibowu, and a staff who listened to my story instead of expressing surprise told me that she suffered the same fate early this month when she was coming back from Christmas holidays.

Sympathising with the company's drivers, the staff, whose name I would not deliberately mention, said apart from fuel money, that the drivers are only given N1,000.00 for emergencies and if by any chance they run out of fuel maybe because of unexpected traffic hold ups or other unforeseen circumstances they will have no option except to appeal to the passengers.

Intrigued and disappointed with the explanations, I put several calls to the company's manager without any response.

I sent a text and still no response. So, last Wednesday, I took a trip to their Lagos office on Ikorodu Road. I was attended to by a

staff who simply identified himself as Sunny AutoStar. He told me that the manager was not around. I left my details for the said manager.

After about thirty minutes, I got a call from Nneka Nneji who identified herself as the Lagos manager. Not debunking my story, she said I should have come to the office for reimbursement. But that is not all the issue, I pointed out. The company is supposed to make enough provisions to ferry their passengers who have paid them to their destinations. Once you collect money from a passenger and issue a receipt then a contract has been established. However, she promised to contact me after further investigations, which I'm still waiting for.

In such cases, how can you blame the passengers for buying the fuel as no one will like to be stranded? But I will roundly blame them for not taking action against the company after getting to their destinations. They should not encourage such day light robbery by keeping quiet and thereby encouraging the company to carry on robbing passengers deliberately by not giving drivers money for emergencies.

Like Nneka Nneji said, that I should

have come back to the office for reimbursement; coming back for reimbursement of maybe N300.00 at whose expense? Going back for that will even cost the passengers (some of who may be living far) much more than what they contributed for the fuel. *Transporters and consumers alike should understand that by law, transporters owe their passengers some obligations which they must fulfil as long as passengers have paid for their journeys. *It is the obligation and duty of the transporter to ensure that passengers arrive at their destination within reasonable time. *Transporters, in case you are feigning ignorance, should note that passengers are to be compensated for any breakdown of vehicle while on the trip. *It is the obligation of the transporter to ensure that passengers have value for the services they pay for. *It is a must for the transporter to display contact phone number for consumer complaints and to obtain the manifest of all passengers on each trip. *The law insists that drivers must go for regular eye check up and they are not allowed to use mobile phone while driving. *Poorly maintained vehicles are unacceptable as they constitute danger to passengers, so transporters owe consumers the duty of carrying them in vehicles that are road worthy. *Passengers have the express right of sitting comfortably therefore the law stipulates that transporters should not over load their vehicles. It should not be more than three passengers on a line of seat. *Drivers are not expected to exceed 100km per hour speed limit. Also, a driver though may be right, he is not expected to always insist on his right of way.

Passengers should never forget that it is their right to be taken to their destination and on no account must you agree to be dumped on the way.

Report any breach to an appropriate authority such as Consumerwatch, Consumer Protection Council of Nigeria, Federal Road Safety Commission, etcetera. •To lodge complaints, call these Hotlines: 080566002020, 08056003030.

LG makes waves with Inverter Linear Compressor

L

G Electronics (LG) once again demonstrated its leadership in home appliances by announcing sales of more than 10 million refrigerators with its patented Inverter Linear Compressor around the world since 2001.

Speaking at the LG Show office at Lekki Phase 1 Lagos, the Company's General Manager, Home Appliances Division, LG Electronics, Hyunwoo Jung, noted that in 2001, LG introduced the world's first refrigerator powered by an Inverter Linear Compressor, and has continued to improve the technology ever since.

In 2007, LG sold one million of its Inverter Linear Compressor-equipped refrigerators and increased that number to five million in 2011 and 10 million later.

With strong results in premium refrigerator markets such as Korea, North America, Europe and the CIS region, LG is expected to sell more than two million Inverter Linear Compressor refrigerators in 2014.

"LG has always strived to offer

consumers the most advanced, highest performing appliances in the industry," said the General Manager, Home Appliances Division, LG Electronics West Africa operations. "Our Inverter Linear Compressor is the result of our commitment to excellence and technological innovation and demonstrates LG's desire to lead the global premium refrigerator market."

In addition to its versatile Inverter Linear Compressor, LG's Door-in-Door feature has also contributed to strong refrigerator sales.

Recent introductions by the company include the Chest Freezer which comes equipped with the super-fast Blast Freezing feature and the Low Voltage Stabiliser (LVS) which makes it consume less power compared to conventional freezer as well as the Evercool Refrigerator, a unique LG patented technology that offers Cooling Retention up to seven hours in the refrigerator and 10 hours in the freezer portion to keep food fresh and healthy.

•Refrigerator

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 18, 2015

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 18, 2015

NEWS

OR the last three years, I have written so many papers on the wickedness of the federal government for their criminal attitude of delays and nonpayment of pensions, gratuities and arrears to retired workers known as senior citizens. This has now been extended to non-retired workers. The sins committed by the present Nigerian government are legion: corruption, indiscipline, impunity, selfishness, greed, avarice, lies, ungodliness, wickedness, insecurity and all other evils of different descriptions. The foundation of all these evils is the twin evils of indiscipline and corruption. In truth, the father of corruption is indiscipline by which corruption is watered, while corruption breeds all the other evils in our society. A nation harbouring all these evils in a fell-swoop is a nation full of sins, many of which are unpardonable even in the eyes of God. As of today, Nigeria suffers from her many sins.

The Jonathan government has committed many unpardonable sins, all of them associated with indiscipline, corruption and impunity. The consequence has led Nigeria, an oil rich nation, to a beggar nation, and a nation where God’s given wealth has been squandered through serial stealings of public funds diverted into private pockets by horrible people in government. Nigeria is a nation where people shamefully complain about non-electricity supply in the 21st century! In this article, we shall deal with official corruption as it affects Nigeria as a nation and the welfare of the good people of Nigeria, and especially the welfare of workers - the creators of the wealth of the nation. Our write-up focuses on atrocities committed by the federal government on the issues of delay or non-payment of workers’ salaries as well as gratuities and pensions of retired workers as at when due, and, of course, the corruption of the federal government that has led to the impoverishment of States and their citizens.

It is known that the present government has made more money from oil, from 1999 to 2013 than any previous government. At one point, the price of oil reached as high as $147 per barrel. Now the price of oil has gone down to $45 per barrel which is likely to nosedive in a few weeks. The problem is compounded by the refusal of the federal government to build refineries for its 16 years in the saddle. Consequently, Nigeria exports oil only to import petroleum products which led to an unprecedented sleaze in the petroleum sector. When the going was good, and with a lot of money earned from crude oil, our government stole our fantastic earnings from crude oil through the Petroleum Ministry and the NNPC under the supervision of the darling of the presidency, Mrs. Diezani Allison-Madueke where theft of oil was reported to have risen from 250,000 to 400,000 pb between 2011 and 2012.

Things were so bad that nobody, except the Petrol Minister and Mr. President and, perhaps other few

Nigeria’s sins: Time for atonement, deliverance, restitution and change

By Moses Makinde

members of the cabal in the petroleum industry, know precisely how many barrels of crude oil are sold in a day and how much money accrues to the Federation Account until the missing $20bn was discovered, while ¦ 5 trillion was reported to have disappeared under the watch of the president and his petroleum minister, without explanation till today (The Nation, January 15, 2015, p5).

People would like to believe that the discovery of the huge amounts of money was only a tip of the iceberg, as it must have been going on for years. This, of course, includes the phantom oil subsidy and various avenues of stealing in the petroleum ministry. The amount of money stolen was actually meant for the Federation Account from which all the states would have benefitted immensely through monthly allocations. We now know from Obasanjo that Nigerian foreign reserves has been depleted by more than 50%, from $67bn in 2007 to $30bn in 2014, as a result of official corruption in the oil sector.

The federal government’s unprecedented profligacy has led to the tragic devaluation of the naira to ¦ 195 in January 2015, a sure scenario that would greatly hurt President Jonathan in this year’s election.

The stealing of revenue from oil became so great that throughout last year, allocations to states that were needed to develop as well pay salaries of workers were cut by 40%. This had impacted negatively on the lives and standard of living of Nigerian citizens, workers, market women, artisans, relatives and dependants. Thus, the criminal reduction of Federal Allocation to states became a terrible blow to innocent Nigerians where God’s given wealth had been squandered by greedy, wicked and extremely corrupt people in government. Things are so bad that we now read such screaming headlines like “mass sacking looms in private sector” (Punch, January 4, 2015, pp 2 & 6).

Nigerian workers and pensioners are perhaps the hardest hit. There was a disturbing headline “FG owes 70,000 workers three months salaries” (Punch, Dec. 30, 2014, p1-2) where the paper had painted a vivid picture of the way the federal government treats its workers, even at Christmas, in 2014. Note that the delay or non-payment of salaries in the States is caused by corruption, indiscipline, impunity and bad governance at the centre where state allocations are squandered and stolen, shared and some for the purpose of 2015 general elections. On this matter, one cannot but agree with Festus Eriye, editor of Sunday Nation, that “squandermania mixed w i t h m a n a g e r i a l incompetence has brought Nigeria to her current sorry pass” (January 11, 2015, p.18).

On the waste of public funds

•Jonathan the Punch’s damaging editorial (January 15, p.26) wrote about the “rampant waste of public funds, the plunder of the oil Excess Crude Oil Account and other fiscal buffers”, and then asks a most pertinent question: “where has all the oil money earned since the fourth oil boom (2003 - 2014) gone? This is most certainly a sin against Nigeria and Nigerians, and humanity at large.

The Bible says that every labourer is entitled to his/her wages. This code is respected everywhere, but not in Nigeria where sins and evil triumph. Nigeria is a nation where workers are owed salaries in arrears of up to 6 months. Of course, the sinners in the Federal government have stolen so much money of the people that they have little left for States to pay workers’ salaries. The tragic situation was well reported in The Punch’s editorial, January 4, 2015, p.26, captioned “Celebrating New Year without salary”, part of which reads “today, many civil servants will greet the New year with despair rather than hope”. This is because of the scandalous failure of “federal government and many governors to pay salaries of workers for several months”.

But the Federal government and not the state governments are responsible for this atrocious crime. The federal government had squandered the normal allocation to the states that now receive only about 50% of their entitlements. That is how bad it is. And that is where the prodigal administration of President Jonathan has led Nigeria, a nation full of milk and honey and where citizens have no reason to be poor, or workers not receiving their salaries and pensions regularly and as at when due.

No wonder some people are now saying in a paradoxical fashion, that Goodluck Jonathan is BADLUCK for Nigeria, perhaps, the worst president Nigeria has ever had and which must not be

allowed to continue beyond May 29, 2015.

Rather than make atonement for the sins committed against pensioners in this country, the federal government continue to compound their woes, even at Christmas and New Year.

The situation was so bad last December that Nigerian Pensioners cried out “We had a bleak Christmas and New year” (Punch, January 5, 2015, p44). According to the newspaper report, “there seems to be no end in sight yet to the problems confronting retirees of the federal government… most Nigerians enjoyed the Christmas and New Year holidays with their families and friends but there was no celebration for many federal retirees who have not been paid their pension stipends”.

And the report continued “Some of the complaints coming from the Pensioners are non-payment of pensions, omission of pensioner’s names from the payroll, under-payment of pensions, delayed pensions and nonpayment of arrears and gratuity”. They expressed sadness, as they have always done, about so many of their colleagues who had died without collecting their delayed gratuities and pensions. All this is happening even as more than ¦ 300bn was stolen from pension funds by one man in the pension house of horror This is a sin from which several curses rained on the present government may be difficult, if not impossible, to reverse. To be a pensioner in Nigeria is like being sentenced to death by hanging!

I have said that the curses of pensioners, dead and alive, are troubling Nigeria, especially the curses of several thousands who had died without receiving their gratuities and pensions. Now, if it takes from 20 to 40 years to reverse a curse, how many years would it take to reverse thousands of curses by dead

and living pensioners? From the look of things, I had suggested that instead of prayers about which Nigeria is well known, she should first do the following as a nation of incurable sinners (1) acknowledge her sins as committed by people in government (2) confess these sins (3) repent and (4) ask for forgiveness before we embark on any prayers, like the “Nigeria prays” by Gowon, or those by clerics the Adeboyes, Oyedepos, Kumuyis, Wale Okes, Olukoyas, Areoguns and the likes, before our prayers could be answered (see my write-up entitled “OkonjoIweala and Pensioners, in the Nation, June 29, 2014, p18”).

Afterall, we are often told that we cannot live in sins and expect the blessings of God to multiply. For this reason, I wrote that Nigeria should ask for forgiveness first before embarking on any aggressive prayers and night vigils for a country whose sins are probably more serious than those of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Forgiveness: Abraham Lincoln’s Proclamation

When I sent my write-up to a young pastor, friend of mine, Pastor Kayode Ojo of the Word of Faith Ministries, Mayfair, Ile-Ife, he sent me an appropriate and useful document which confirmed my call for Nigerian leaders to ask for forgiveness before going into aggressive prayers and night vigils for which we are hypocritically known.

The document is contained in a book titled, Shaping History Through Prayers and Fasting, authored by Derek Prince and published by Whitaker House, New Kensington, USA, 1973, pp 333-335. The document consists of a proclamation by the famous former president of the United States of America, Abraham Lincoln. This document consists of “Three Fasts Proclaimed by Lincoln”. During his presidency, Lincoln “proclaimed three days of national humiliation, prayer, and fasting. His first proclamation (out of three) was requested by a joint committee of both houses and congress, and the day set apart was the last Thursday in September 1861.

The following is only a part of the first proclamation:”Whereas it is fit and becoming on all people, at all times, to acknowledge and reverse the Supreme Government of God; to bow in humble submission to his chastisements; to confess and deplore their sins and transgressions, in the full conviction that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and to pray, with all fervency and contrition, for the pardon of their past offences, and for a blessing upon their present and prospective action…” And it continues: “Therefore I, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States do appoint the last Thursday of September next as a day of Humiliation, Prayer and Fasting, for all

the people of the nation. And I do earnestly recommend to all the people, and especially to all ministers and teachers of religion, of all denominations, and to all heads of families, to observe and keep that day, according to their several creeds and modes of worship, in all humility, and with all religious solemnity, to the end that the united prayer of the nation may ascend to the Throne of Grace, and bring down plentiful blessings upon our country”. Note that the inscription on the US dollar is “In God we trust”.

Nigeria needs atonement, forgiveness and restitution to clear the sins of massive corruption, impunity, unemployment, deaths of innocent people through official killings, abduction of 220 innocent children by the uncontrollable Boko Haram, deaths from extreme poverty, hunger and delay or non-payment of pensioners’ and workers’ salaries as at when due; deaths from lack of potable water, electricity supply (many people have died from generator fumes as a result of power outage) good health care and other evils that have triumphed under the watch of president Jonathan’s government. For this reason, I suggest that General Buhari and Prof.

Osinbajo should, in the first instance and before election, declare a day for all lovers of APC to ask for God’s forgiveness for the atrocities committed by the present federal government in order to clear the way for a new APC government by sweeping away, with their anointed symbolic brooms, the atrocities committed, in the eyes of God and Nigerians, by the present administration. This is necessary for Buhari and Osinbajo in order to off-load or cancel the many sins committed by the present government so that they (Buhari/Osinbajo) could begin their own era under a clean slate. Fortunately, Gen. Buhari and Prof. Osinbajo are deeply religious people, godly, honest, disciplined and incorruptible and so would be the kind of people in which God is well pleased.

Shortly after their assumption of duty as President and Vice-president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, they should make a proclamation to Nigerians, in the manner of Abraham Lincoln, by asking for forgiveness of offences of past leaders, and for God’s blessings upon their reign as well as blessings upon Nigeria and Nigerians. That is the only way our prayers could be answered and the Gordian knot untied.

Perhaps, then, God would touch the heart of President Obama to visit Nigeria, the gigantic dwarf of Africa. This could only happen as a result of the CHANGE (including JUSTICE) which the APC stands for, and which would bring an already battered Nigeria to greatness and the dawn of a shining light.

•Prof. Makinde, FNAL is DG/CEO, Awolowo Centre for Philosophy, Ideology and Good Governance Osogbo, the State of Osun.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 18, 2015

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 18, 2015

INTERVIEW

'Jonathan will be PDP's last president' W

hat should Nigerians be looking forward to in 2015?

2015 is a year that Nigerians are expecting so many things. Many people have been saying that Nigeria will breakup but I can tell you that Nigeria will not breakup in 2015.

Nigeria will still remain a as, country in 2015 but we need a lot of prayers against bloodbath. We need prayers for God to protect the country especially in the political scene because so many unexpected things will happen.

Politically, what do you foresee?

Nigerian politics still needs a lot of prayers. We need to be prayerful to avert many politicians getting involved in accidents.

The election will not breakup Nigeria. There will be partial peace in some places while there will be no peace in some places. I don't see Nigeria remaining a single nation in the next 30 years. Jonathan will be the last PDP's president.

I see a new government coming up in this country. If Jonathan eventually wins in 2015, PDP will not have it in 2019. The party will break.

I don't see APC capturing Abia State. If APGA works hard it will capture Abia, albeit I see rigging in the state. Rivers is another state we need to pray hard about so that there will be no stealing of ballot papers and there will be no killing.

APC will want to retain the state and PDP too will not want to give up. These are the things we need to pray about for God

The Founder/Spiritual Head of Inri Evangelical Church Lagos, Primate Elijah Ayodele, spoke with Adetutu Audu, on the forthcoming elections, among sundry issues. Excerpts: We should pray that there should not be a jail break. Journalists must be watchful. The NUJ in particular must be watchful because politics will tear the body apart. Some banks will face crisis. Let us pray against the death of any journalist in the year. Let us pray that we don't lose any emir and prominent Oba in the southwest.

A traditional ruler will be dethroned in the east. We should also pray that the country does not run into debt. We must pray hard against ship capsize.

There are fears that the fall in oil price may spell doom for the country in 2015. What is your take on this?

I have not seen anything fantastic happening to our economy. Very soon, it will affect the rich too. I foresee a lot of problems in the CBN. There would re-organisation, re-shuffling and formation of policies that may not work for some commercial banks.

CBN will get it wrong in some areas and some banks will lay off some of their staff.

Some communication companies will also lay off some of their staff. The prices of food stuff will go up. The prices of fish will go up.

I see shares doing fine in the early parts of the year. I have not seen anything fantastic happening to unemployment. The prices of petroleum will go up. Let us

pray against pipeline explosion and breakdown. There is going to be a lot of crisis in the NNPC and there would be new refinery. Some of the oil we are having will dry up.

In the next 15 years, our oil may not be as rich as it has always been. Some states will break down economically in 2018 and 2019 because of debt.

We need to pray hard so that 20 of all the states that we have do not break down economically.

Our foreign reserve will experience crisis. I have not really seen anything cheering about it.

What other issues should the people look up to in the year?

Let us pray very well that no calamity happens in the aviation sector because it is possible that we are going to witness air crash. Nigeria Air Force will lose their plane through crash.

Let us pray as well so that we do not see death in the army. I want to beg the president to pardon these 54 soldiers that have been sentenced to death. There is so much blood that is crying and the land is not at peace. If the President allows them to be killed, it will affect the progress of this country.

He can dismiss them or punish them in another form instead of killing them. Boko Haram will want to attack the barracks and let us pray against any police headquarters being engulfed by fire.

Adeboye: 2015, a year of new era

ward as there are abundant resources that they have which when harnessed is enough for them to survive," he said.

He lamented that since the discovery of oil, successive governments have paid lip service to the agricultural sector which was the mainstay in the then north, south and western regions in Nigeria.

to take total control. APC and PDP will share the northern part of the country.

Buhari should not be overwhelmed because the PDP will go with their foot soldiers to make sure that they get some.

If the APC is not careful, PDP will take part of the south west from them. Let us pray that APC will not lose any of its BOT members and also in PDP. A top APC leader, Obasanjo and Edwin Clark are playing their last politics.

Some of them would be disappointed. We should pray so that there would not be crisis in the judiciary in Lagos, Rivers, Kano and Kaduna in particular.

There is going to be a change in our constitution as well. They will try to implement some of the things in the constitution and in the process there would be arguments.

There would be a lot of discussion on our constitution after the elections.

Insecurity has been a serious challenge. Would this abate in 2015?

Jonathan must handle the issue of security very well because terrorism has come to stay in the country. Even if another government comes in today, it will not be able to fight Boko Haram. Boko Haram will be targeting markets, motor parks and will abduct more children. We have Al Qaeda, ISIS teaming up with Boko

• Ayodele Haram in the country right away.

We would need a lot of prayers to manage it. It is going to take the government a longer time to defeat Boko Haram. We also need to be very careful because I see explosions in many places, bomb blasts. Even in the South West here, we need to be very careful.

We also need to pray

against tanker explosion. We are going to have ocean surge and also sea pirates with the federal government calling for assistance on this. Kidnapping will be on the increase and another wave of criminality will evolve.

The police will try their best but there will be changes in our security network, namely the army, the Navy the Customs, the Immigration and the Prisons.

NEWS

T

HE General Overseer of The Redeemed Christian Church of God, (RCCG),Pastor Enoch Adeboye, has charged Nigerians to always exhibit a grateful heart to God for them to experience supernatural breakthrough, success and open doors in 2015.

Adeboye made this known last Sunday at the special thanksgiving and prayer programme organised by the RCCG, Headquarters, Throne of Grace Parish, Ebute-Metta, Lagos.

According to him, Nigeria has so many reasons to thank God because despite our troubles the fact that there has been no war and our economy is standing strong we should be grateful.

According to him: "We are a spoilt nation because we have everything in abundance. We should still be grateful to God because in spite of the fact that we waste our resources, we are still the most formidable economy in Africa and that is what God can do."

Adeboye, who spoke through his Special Assistant on Personnel and Administration, Pastor Johnson Odesola, opined that Nigerians all over the world

By Adeola Ogunlade are well respected because of our aptitude, can- do spirit, resilience, passion, knowledge and wisdom, which have earned us some degree of respect all over the world.

On 2015, he said: "We

should expect the usual because what looks like a problem in 2014 will become our promotion.

"What looked like our test for last year will become our testimony, and all our trials last year will be our triumph. That is why it is a new era."

Adeboye opined that Nigerians should relax because we are in the hand of God, and when God carries his people, he carries them successfully.

He advised the federal and state governments to invest heavily in the agricultural and manu-

Boko Haram out to decimate Nigeria, says NOSCEF

T

HE Northern States Christian Elders Forum (NOSCEF) has dispelled popular notion that northern Muslims are behind the deadly activities of radical Islamic sect, Boko Haram.

The group, NOSEF stated, is after Christians and Muslims based on its terror attacks on churches and mosques in northern states.

This was contained in a statement by chair of NOSCEF's chairman, Elder Olaiya Phillips.

"I have heard that some people say the rise in Boko Haram is caused by the Northern Muslim

community but that is not correct.

"Boko Haram claim to be Muslims but they also kill Muslims as they do Christians.

While admitting that Christians have been more affected by Boko Haram's attacks, Phillips pointed out the sect is out to fight the entire nation, regardless of religious affiliations.

Offering his condolences to the victims of terror attacks by Boko Haram, Phillips condemned the "callous murder of innocent Nigerians,'' describing it as utterly despicable.

He lamented that the real is-

sues affecting northerners on a daily basis are being forgotten during the terror attacks, urging Christians in the region to come out strongly with votes come February.

According to him: "We asked Northern politicians of all parties to support us in our call for a united front against Boko Haram, but they have spent more time bulldozing our churches than fighting Boko Haram.

"If your family and friends were threatened with murder on a daily basis, wouldn't you want to make sure the next government was going to do something about it?"

facturing sector, in 2015 as a way of cushioning the effect of the dwindling revenue in the oil market.

"We need to revisit our policies that make the state dependent on the federal government and every state should look in-

Address grievances, cleric advises INEC

T

HE Senior Pastor of Divine Favour Prayer Assembly Ministries, Mowe Ogun State, Prophet Tayo Popoola, has advised the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to urgently look into complaints and grievances from all quarters to avoid postponement and electoral crisis during the general elections.

In his message at the conclusion of the annual end of the year revival of the church at the weekend in Mowe, Popoola emphasised that without such complaints

and grievances addressed, the election could be postponed.

According to him: "The Lord, through a revelation, revealed that if the complaints and grievances are not properly addressed to the satisfaction of stakeholders, aggrieved parties would seek redress through the court and this will subsequently disrupt electioneering time-table as well as voting."

He also advised the government to shelve any plan to review the existing prices of petroleum products in the country, saying "it is a time bomb."

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 18, 2015

WORSHIP

COLUMN

BSN unveils sign language bible

T

HE Bible Society of Nigeria (BSN) has introduced the first sign language bible into the country. BSN released the bible in DVD format.

At the dedication of the bible at the Presbyterian Church of Nigeria (PCN) Lagos, the church's Prelate/ Moderator, Rev (Prof) Emele Uba Uka, urged Nigerians not be hearers alone but doers of the word of God. Thanking the initiators of the sign language bible, Uka said they came to Nigeria about two years ago for the training of teachers in the sign bible.

He expressed delight that 32 bible stories were contained in the dedicated DVD. BSN's General Secre-

By Joseph Eshanokpe

tary, Rev Dare Ajiboye, who described the day as the happiest in the life of the organisation, said with the bible the deaf who can't hear would be able to, through the signs in the DVD, read and understand the word of God. He urged the church to assist the physically challenged, saying they need help.

"The church supports us to assist the deaf and dumb and the blind,'' he said, adding that a set of the DVD costs N50,000.

At the event, some bible stories were presented in drama and songs by members of the Deaf Opportunity Outreach (DOOR).

Its Africa Director, Pastor Paul, said the organisation had translated the bible in the deaf

languages of Burundi, Ethiopia, Ghana, Uganda and Tanzania.

He came to Nigeria in August 2012 and, by the following year, trained some translators in Nigeria.

"We were able to bring out 32 stories from Genesis to Revelation and worked on the translation. The project was very strenuous and required so much strength as it was more of a physical activity, but we are very grateful to god that the job is now done,'' Pastor Victor Ajayi, leader, Nigeria 2by 2, added.

During a fund raiser he led, Ajiboye, PSN, Rev Uka, and BSN's Head of Public Relations, Pastor Samuel Sanusi, donated handsomely to launch the new bible.

Remember heaven, cleric charges Christians

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HE Special Adviser, Administration and Personnel to the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor Johnson Odesola, has charged Christians to live with the consciousness that Jesus could come anytime.

He pointed out that many Christians have been distracted by earthly concerns and might be caught unawares should the saviour return.

Odesola spoke at the public presentation of Living on Empty by the Media and Publicity Director of the National Youth Office of RCCG, Pastor Femi Enigbokan, in La-

By Adeola Ogunlade gos.

"Most times, we major in minor and forget that the major thing that makes heaven glad is our walk with God, which is personal and has great reward when Jesus Christ comes," he said.

Odesola applauded Enigbokan, who he referred to as his son, and said the book is a timely intervention for the church to remember that the coming of the Lord is at hand.

The author, Enigbokan, said that the Christian race is a marathon with several pitfalls carefully premeditated by the enemy to put out the fire among believers. Living on Empty shed light

on these snags and how to successfully overcome them in our quest to make heaven while fulfilling purpose on earth.

He said Living on empty is a mix of deep teaching, sharing real life issues, practical insights and sundry matters.

"In the book, I tried to do an expose on some of the major factors that subtly lead to spiritual burnout in the lives of believers' activities, rate of inflow to outflow, not being deeply rooted in Him, wrong association, disengagement due to length of stay and the problem and pleasures of life and how we can with the help of the Holy Spirit overcome them," he stated.

• L-R: Pastor Belemina Obunge, RCCG National Youth Pastor; Author, Pastor Femi Enigbokan; and Pastor Johnson Odesola, Special Assistant to Pastor Adeboye on Admin/Personnel.

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Group task youth on 2015 elections

HE Executive Director of Youngstars Foundation, Kingsley Bangwell has advised young people to shun violence and embrace peace and fair play as we approach the 2015 general elections.

Bangwell made this known at campaign toward, Nigeria 2015 election organised by Youngstars Foundation in partnership with The 2Face Foundation funded by the National Democratic Institute (NDI) through USAID held recently at the NRC Building, Ifako-Ijaiye, Lagos.

The campaign "Vote Not Fight": Election no be War brought together hundreds of youths, civil society groups, youth association and musicians within the Ifako-Ijaiye community. The youth, were given a non-vio-

By Adeola Ogunlade lence pledge slip.

He said that the need to engage young people, most especially in violence prone areas on the values of peace, love and fair play as we approach the Nigeria 2015 election, is very instructive for a violence free poll.

Bangwell said "vote Not Fight" is a youth non-violence voter education campaign that seeks to promote peaceful participation by Nigerian youth in the 2015 elections.

He noted that by February 2015, Nigerians would again head to the polls to decide through the ballot box the leadership of the country at the federal and state level both at the executive and legislative arm.

Previous elections have been known to be marred with instances of violence and sometimes needless deaths.

He recalled that in 2011 elections in Nigeria, Over 600 people were killed and about 40,000 people were internally displaced in the post- election violence of 2011. He said, "this must be prevented in 2015 especially as there are already instances of violence during rallies in” some parts of the country.

Bangwell opined that the campaign seeks to encourage youth to make a commitment to shun violence and embrace peace. It is hoped that Nigerians from all walks of life will commit to peaceful elections by signing a non-violence pledge.

"Election is not a war but an opportunity to refine the future of our country which must be echoed in the minds of our youth as we draw closer to the polls,” he said.

Living Faith

By Dr. David Oyedepo

Deflating The Pressures Of Life (3)

L

AST week, we examined the issues of telephone and electricity bills, which cause financial pressures and how to deflate such pressures. I said a person who is jobless does not need to own a telephone, since he can't foot the bill. Also, I told you it is wasteful to deliberately leave your electricity lights on and walk away. This accumulates bills which may lead to financial pressure, if you are unable to pay up!

This week, we will be looking at another aspect of financial pressure arising from children's school fees, and how to overcome it. I want you to know that as parents, the kind of school you send your children to, should not be determined by your choice, but by your income. If, for instance, your child goes to school where the school fee is thrice your annual income, you are already operating under pressure.

The kind of school that a child goes to, in most cases, does not determine his intelligence or performance. It is discipline that will distinguish him in the ultimate. By following scriptural principles, you can cheaply deflate such financial pressures. God said to Abraham: ...Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward...

(Genesis 13:14).

Abraham obeyed God and what happened to him? The Bible makes us to understand that God

blessed him with much cattle, silver and gold (Genesis 13:2).

You can see that if Abraham did not start from where he was, he wouldn't have ended his life well; he would have died of poverty! You, too, can always start from where you are, in anything you are doing.

For instance, when our children were growing up, I never prayed for their school fees for once, because they went to the school I could afford, without prayer or pressure.

Should there be a fall in income, the children can be relocated elsewhere. If the school fees of your children are more than your income, relocate them to another school whose fees you can afford without tears.

However, the overall attitude that will help anyone deflate financial pressure is contentment. Be content with that which you have (Hebrews 13:5). Unless you are satisfied with what you have and where you are per time, you are likely to live under financial pressure. If the school fees of your children are more than your income, relocate them to another school which fees you can afford without tears.

Therefore, be happy with what you have. Your reward may be slow, but it is sure. It takes contentment to get to where you are going. This is my philosophy from scripture: What I don't have, I don't need, because no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly (Psalm 84:11). Husband and wife, with contentment, you can cheaply overcome financial pressure and your des-

tiny becomes colourful, especially in this New Year!

The truth is, contentment does not come on a platter of gold. It is one of the characteristics of a child of God. If you want to become a child of God, you do so by accepting and confessing Jesus as the Lord and Saviour of your life and family. For you to have contentment, you must be born again. Are you born again?

You can be born again right now, as you say this prayer: Lord Jesus, I come to You today. I am a sinner. I cannot help myself.

Forgive me of my sins.

Cleanse me with Your precious blood. Deliver me from sin and Satan, to serve the Living God. Today, Lord Jesus, I accept You as my Lord and Saviour.

Thank You Jesus for saving me! Now I know, I am born again!"

Next week, I will be showing you the implication of social pressure on your family and how to combat it Welcome to the family of God, the family of Winners! You will never go back, in Jesus' name! Now that you are born again, you shall not be under financial pressure anymore, in Jesus' name!

I come against any financial pressure in your life, in Jesus' name! Contentment shall be the key in your hand for overcoming the pressures of life. You won't fail! This is your year of Heaven On Earth!

Every exploit in life is a product of knowledge. For further reading, please get my books- The Winning Wisdom, Understanding Financial Prosperity and Breaking Financial Hardship.

I invite you to come and fellowship with us at the Faith Tabernacle, Canaan Land, Ota, the covenant home of Winners. We have four services on Sundays, holding at 6:00 a.m., 7:50 a.m., 9:40 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. respectively.

I know this teaching has blessed you. Write and share your testimony with me through: Faith Tabernacle, Canaan Land, Ota, P.M.B. 21688, Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria; or call 7747546-8; or E-mail: feedback@lfcww.org

• L-R: The Presbyter, Methodist Cathedral, Palm-Avenue, The Very Rev Kolade Odu; The Bishop, Methodist Church, Diocese of Lagos West, The Rt Rev Oluyemisi Ogunlere ; The Senior Cathedral Steward, Methodist Cathedral, Palm-Avenue, Mr Abiona Babarinde at the Covenant Service held at Methodist Cathedral, Palm-Avenue, recently.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 18, 2015

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 18, 2015

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EBERE WABARA

WORDSWORTH T 08055001948

ewabara@yahoo.com

Work ethic, not ethics

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HE NATION ON SUNDAY of January 4 welcomes us this week with an avalanche of errors: "Some crammed popular city squares, parties and spectacular fireworks displays."

Captured: firework displays "Ikpeazu said that (sic) he has (had) been a public servant in the state for the past twelve (12, in professional journalism) years…."

"The Abia governorship candidate said that (sic) all his documents including his tax papers have (had) been documented…."

News: all documents documented!

Carry go…nothing do you!

"APC dares PDP in Cross Rivers (River) State" "Ndigbo's grouse against (about) Jonathan" "Bello Fadile's grouse with (about) Obasanjo's My Watch" (THE GUARDIAN, January 2) "Seven-month-old infant roasted in Lagos New Year tragedy." (The PUNCH Metro, January 2)…an explosion that sparked the fire which engulfed (burnt) the baby cannot be likened to 'roasting'!

"2015: PDP mends fence in Rivers" (Source: as above) Politics Today: mend fences "BoI lauds Nigeria's first card manufacturing firm" The PUNCH Industry: card-manufacturing firm "Also there will be back to school anointing service for pupils and students" KICC (Walking in Full Blessing): back-to-school anointing service "Military blames sabotage in the run up (runup) to elections" (THISDAY Front Page Sub-headline, December 29) "143-years-old (143year-old or 143 years' old) Lagos school…."

"University don attacks private varsities, says their impact are (is) not being felt" In the spirit of the New Year, delete 'University'!

"Buhari will lose woefully (abysmally) in Ekiti, says PDP" (THISDAY, January 5) "To understand the workings of the legislature, the citizenry needs (need) to understand its modus operandi…." (THISDAY Perspective, December 16) "Dabri-Erewa: An examplary (exemplary) legislator" (THE GUARDIAN, January1) "Ministers list potentials (potential/potentialities) of Kachimbila Dam" (Source: as above) "You provided employments for thousands of Nd'igbo sons and daughters" For the delectable princess: 'employment' is uncountable.

"Restricted area: Out of bound to customers" (Ecobank Nigeria Limited Banking Hall, Aguda Branch, Surulere, Lagos, January 5) The pan-Africa (not African) bank: Out of bounds!

"Dear Customers, Please always remember to Collect a copy (copies of your) Deposit Slip (deposit slips) before leaving The bank" ( U n n e c e s s a r y capitalization) Another faulty notice: Dear Customer (sic), Kindly Drop your Deposit Slips Here.

Management" (Source: Guaranty Trust Bank Banking Hall, Bode Thomas Branch, Surulere, Lagos, January 5, 2015) "NGO embarks on tree planting (tree-planting) campaign in Delta" "Lets (Let's) celebrate an achiever" "Despite bombing, Jos second hand (second-hand) market booms" "SUBEB: Our grouse with govt-Kogi NUT boss" Middle Belt Today: grouse about "Nurses decry the use of quackery in private hospitals" Lifeline: decry quackery in private hospitals-not 'the use of quackery'!

"Aguda residents happy for (over) improved power supply" T H I S D A Y PERSPECTIVE of December 22 disseminated copious infractions: "Candidates have emerged under (on) the platform of the PDP to fly the party's flag in the main election."

"Reason for this is due to (Reason for this is…) the undisputed fact that…."

"We join well meaning (well-meaning) members of our great party, PDP, our teaming (teeming) supporters…."

"Dr. J o n a t h a n ' s accomplishments has (have) so far…." (One-and-a-half page advertorial by ALGON, Akwa Ibom State Chapter, THE NATION ON SUNDAY, January 4) "Nigeria needs DNA testing (DNA-testing) centres" " O b i t u a r y announcement by Association of Registrars of Nigerian Universities (ARNU) (Full-page advertorial, DAILY SUN, December 19) An 'obituary' is inherently an announcement-so no needless 'announcement'!

"Hon. Emeka Ihedioha had remained calm and focused, knowing very well that in spite of betrayals which could tantamount to the (sic) stabbing on (in) the back…." (THISDAY, THE SATURDAY NEWSPAPER COMMENTARY, December 20) "That is why majority of the delegates voted for Agbaje." (Sunday PUNCH,

December 21) Interview: a majority of the delegates "The three most admirable traits about him are his unbelievable work ethics…." (Source: as above) Famous parents: work ethic "…where all manners (manner) of dirt is (are) poured on you…."

(THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER, December 21)

FEEDBACK YOU couldn't conceal your annoyance a fortnight ago about the avoidable errors in our local media.

Don't be discouraged.

Painfully, the usual production chain-cumknowledge management is faulty and dangerously weak. Recruitment methods are now sleazy, on-the-job training and newsroom management are compromised. The nature of mass media operations requires flawless recruitment, good training and Total Quality Management, from planning through production to the consumers.

The following brief is to substantiate yesterday's (January 6) contribution. The newly modified words which can now be freely used in our local media are 'fora' or 'forums', 'uplift' or 'upliftment', 'infrastructure' or 'infrastructures', 'vandalism' or 'vandalization'. Example: vandalization of government property.

Sources: Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary, Oxford University Press Dictionary (2015) and Meririam Webster Dictionary, which attributes origin of 'upliftment' to Jamaica. The quality of graduates today makes the job difficult for the editors.

Paradoxically their input reveals the falling standard of education in the country.

Apart from providing employment, the proliferation of private media organizations has in a way devalued competence and content in the broadcast industry where revenue drive takes prominence. The so-called talents, many of them inexperienced, run to new stations to occupy plum but critical positions; fumbling NTA and FRCN are not doing enough to minimize their errors for others to imitate. Security of tenure keeps incompetent staff on the job. To them, the usage of the words 'commission' and 'correspondent' is correct.

We must learn that learning continues throughout life.

Meanwhile, some English words we had criticized have been modified by the native speakers! 2015 shocker! Cheers. (SUNNY A G B O N T A E N , 08062998165) NEXT WEEK: Bayo Oguntunase intervenes.

Certificate controversy: Warribased lawyer faults Ozekhome

HE call on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to disqualify the presidential candidate of the All Progressives' Congress (APC), General Muhammadu Buhari (Rtd.), for nonpossession of the required basic academic qualification has been dismissed as weightless.

A Warri-based lawyer and right activist, Oghenejabor Ikimi, stated this in reaction to a recent interview by renowned lawyer, Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN).

Ikimi pointed out that Buhari's records and those obtained from institutions where he had attended for academic purposes showed the futility of calls for his disqualification.

Ikimi, who is also the Executive Director of the

From: Shola O'Neil, SouthSouth Regional Editor and bolaji ogundele, Warri Centre for the Vulnerable and the Underprivileged (CENTREP), wondered how it would have been possible for Buhari, who attended several high profile institutions within and outside Nigeria to be without a valid high school leaving certificate.

He also recalled that the former head of state had once deposed to a sworn affidavit to the effect that he had lost his credentials, a fact he said could be verified with the INEC. Ikimi, in a statement, said: "Under the above section, a candidate vying for the position of the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria must possess a minimum educational qualification of a school certificate or its

equivalent and its equivalent means GCE, WAEC, NECO etc.

"My research shows that the retired General Muhammadu Buhari is a product of the Katsina Provincial Secondary School (now Government College, Katsina).

"Furthermore, the respected General is a product of the Nigerian Military Training School, Kaduna (now Nigerian Defence Academy) a degree awarding Institution and he is also a product of the Officer's cadet school, Alder shot in the United Kingdom.

"Common sense dictates that General Muhammadu Buhari could not have achieved the above feat without first acquiring a secondary school certificate or better still possessing a London GCE then."

• Officials of the national emergency management agency (nema), Gombe State, during their visit to victims of friday bomb-blast, who were hospitalised at the specialist hospital, Gombe, recently.

'Jonathan's visit to Maiduguri face-saving'

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UHARI Support Organisation, the umbrella body of all support groups campaigning for the election of the All Progressives Congress(APC) presidential candidate in the February 14 election, has said that President Goodluck Jonathan's last Thursday's visit to Maiduguri was suspicious and aimed at softening grounds for his campaign in the region.

Spokesman of the group, Dr. Chidia Maduekwe, in a statement said even though the president deserves commendation for eventually mustering

From Tony Akowe, Kaduna courage to visit the troubled state, he cannot be taken seriously for abandoning the region to terrorists who have killed several innocent Nigerians.

It, however, said that if the APC is elected, Buhari will never abandon any part of the country or hand over the defence of the nation to hunters, children, and civilian Joint Task Force (JTF).

The statement said: "Buhari/Osinbajo presidency will push for more robust support in the security and economic stability of the West-

African sub?region and African Continent as a whole.

"It will seek and maintain close and frank relationships with ALL of West Africa; Special relationships with South Africa and its Subregion; UK, USA, Canada, EU, Asia and the Middle East "In so doing, the Buhari/ Osinbajo presidency will be responsive and sensitive to the security needs of all Nigerians.

"The choice before Nigerians is clear; to vote massively for an APC-led government on the 14th of February 2015. This is the surest way to secure lives and properties in Nigeria."

Nigeria in dire need of quality leaders, says GAMJI

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IGERIA is suffering from lack of capable and effective leadership in all spheres, GAMJI Club has said.

GAMJI is a name given to the late Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello, for political greatness and sagacity.

The president General of GAMJI, Kwara State, Dr Abubakar Ibrahim, said this yesterday in Ilorin during the club's 2015 public lecture titled "Wither the Sardauna leadership legacies?"

He promised to establish a GAMJI centre to mould good

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From Adekunle Jimoh, Ilorin leaders for the country.

Dr Ibrahim added that the centre, the visionary and exemplary leadership qualities of the late premier of northern Nigeria and Sardauna of Sokoto will be inculcated in the younger generation.

He said the establishment of the centre became imperative because of the stark reality.

According to him: "Nigeria is now in dire need of good legacies for it to

overcome its current social, political and economic crises.

"Such leader must possess moral authority and esteem values of integrity, honesty and must be ready to undergo hardship and suffer deprivation on behalf of the poor masses.

"Such leader must be competent and sound in the art of managing diverse people and abundant resources and must properly understand his mandate as father of the nation, not a as a son or daughter of Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo ,Ijaw, Nupe or Ebira.”

' Fakeye's death, a great blow'

HE Chairman of World Christian Council Association Chambers of All Churches, Primate Ayoola Omonigbehin, has described the death of Apostle Gabriel Fakeye as a great blow to the Christians worldwide, especially in Nigeria.

The late Apostle who died

By Taiwo Abiodun two weeks ago in Lagos was the leader of 'Ayo Ni O ' Cherubim and Seraphim Church Movement.

Omonigbehin, in a statement, described Fakeye as a good follower of Jesus Christ.

He said: "The late Apostle

Fakeye was a complete follower of Jesus Christ, a saint and a true shepherd of Christ.

"May God comfort the entire family of Cherubim and Seraphim church and his family."

The Primate implored Nigerians to emulate the late Apostle's good works.

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 18, 2015 Afghanistan arrests five over Peshawar school attack

Niger protesters burn churches in second day of Charlie riots

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•Five killed in protests

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TONE-throwing demonstrators set fire to seven churches in Niger's capital Niamey yesterday, in the latest protest in France's former African colonies at French newspaper Charlie Hebdo's cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad.

A day after five people were killed in Niger in protests over the cartoons, protesters in Niamey attacked a police station and burned at least two police cars near the main mosque after authorities banned a meeting called by local Muslim leaders. Police responded with teargas.

"They offended our Prophet Mohammed. That's what we didn't like," said AmadouAbdoulOuahab, who took part in the demonstration.

"This is the reason why we have asked Muslims to come, so that we can explain this to them, but the state refused. That's why we're angry today."

Demonstrations were also reported in regional towns, including Maradi, 600 km (375 miles) east of Niamey, where two churches were burned. Another church and a residence of the foreign minister were burned in the eastern town of Goure.

Four Muslim preachers who had convened the meeting in Niamey were arrested, police sources said. Protesters burned the French flag and set up roadblocks on streets in the town centre but no casualties were reported yesterday.

The French embassy in Niamey warned its citizens not to go out on the streets.

Turkish journalist could face prison term over tweet

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URKISH prosecutors are seeking a jail term of up to five years for a prominent female journalist arrested over a tweet suggesting a cover-up in a corruption scandal that shook the government, media reported yesterday.

SedefKabas, a broadcast journalist and anchorwoman, has been charged with "targeting public servants tasked with fighting against terrorism," the Dogan news agency reported.

Police detained Kabas last month after raiding her home in an upscale neighbourhood on the Asian side of Istanbul, taking away her laptop, iPad and cellphone.

"Do not forget the name of the prosecutor who dismissed the December 17 case," Kabas had written on Twitter, including the name and the picture of the prosecutor.

She was referring to the corruption probe launched in December 2013 that is blamed by the authorities on President RecepTayyip Erdogan's top foe, exiled cleric FethullahGulen.

•Smoke billows in a street as people demonstrate against French weekly Charlie Hebdo's publication of a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed near the grand mosque in Niamey, yesterday.

AFP PHOTO / BOUREIMA HAMA

Indonesia executes Nigerian drug convict, 5 others I NDONESIA yesterday executed a Nigerian and five others including a woman convicted of drugs offences, a spokesman for the attorney general's office said.

Daniel Enemou and Namaona Denis from Malawi - along with an Indonesian woman, Rani Andriani, were moved to isolation cells yesterday,preparatory to their execution.

Execution spots were prepared on the Nusakambangan island prison where they were being held.

Also executed were Brazilian Marco Moreira and Dutchman Ang Kiem Soei.

All the convicts were executed by firing squad shortly after midnight.

"The execution of the six convicts has been carried out,"

spokesman Tony Spontana told AFP. He said five were executed on Nusakambangan Island, off the south coast of the archipelago's main island of Java and home to a high-security prison.

The sixth was executed in Boyolali district in central Java.

They were the first executions to be carried out under the new government of President Joko Widodo, who took office in October.

A last-minute personal appeal by Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff to spare her countryman, ex-pilot Moreira, and the Dutch government for its citizen, Soei, changed nothing.

"What we do is merely aimed at protecting our nation from the danger of drugs," At-

torney General Muhammad Prasetyo told reporters on Thursday.

"There is no excuse for drug dealers and hopefully, this will have a deterrent effect."

He said that Widodo refused Rousseff's appeal by telephone to spare Moreira. The president told Rousseff that he could not commute the sentence because all judicial proceedings had followed Indonesian law and Moreira had been granted due process, Prasetyo said.

He said that the executions will not disturb Indonesia's ties with those countries.

Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders told reporters on Friday that Kiem Soei, who previously had his nationality declared unclear by the Indonesian government, is a Dutch citizen.

He said the government in The Hague is doing all it can to prevent his execution.

"We are working on all channels - international and to the highest level we are trying to prevent it," Koenders told Dutch broadcaster NOS. Koenders said the Netherlands was in contact with other countries whose nationals face execution.

Amnesty International said that the planned executions would be a setback to the new government's promise of improving respect for human rights.

Indonesia has extremely strict drug laws and often executes smugglers. More than 138 people are on the death row, mostly for drug crimes.

About a third of them are foreigners.

Europe on high alert over terrorist threat ECURITY went on the high side yesterday following anti-terror raids and arrests of suspected Islamist militants.

More than 20 people have been arrested in Belgium, France and Germany and Belgium has joined France in deploying troops alongside police.

Security has been tightened in several countries after recent attacks in Paris left 17 people dead.

There are increased concerns about the return of young Europeans who have gone to fight with Middle East militants.

In Belgium, five people were charged on Friday with "participating in the activities of a terrorist group" following a series of raids that be-

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gan on Thursday evening and left two suspects dead.

Guns, munitions and explosives, as well as police uniforms and a large amount of money, were all seized by police during the operation.

Eric Van Der Sypt, an official at the prosecutors' office, told AFP that: "The investigation... has shown that these people had the intention to kill several policemen in the street and at police commissariats [police stations]."

Thirteen people were arrested in total but only five would be prosecuted, he said.

Belgium would also seek the extradition of two suspects held in France.

On Friday, the Belgian government also announced new measures to deal with terrorist suspects.

They include making travelling abroad for terrorist activities a crime and expanding the cases where Belgian citizenship can be revoked for dual nationals who are thought to pose a terror risk.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on Friday that, despite this, both countries faced the same threats.

"The link that exists is the will to attack our values," he said.

Twelve suspects are being held by police in the Paris region over last week's attacks in the French capital that killed 17 people.

France remains on its highest terrorism alert level and authorities have said that some 120,000 police and soldiers have been mobilised across France.

The incidents in France and Belgium have had a wider impact on their European neighbours.

Spain has launched an investigation into the visit of one of the Paris gunmen, Amedy Coulibaly, to Madrid just days before the attacks in Paris.

Police in Germany have also arrested two men following raids on 11 properties on Friday, involving some 250 officers.

One of the men was suspected of leading an extremist group of Turkish and Russian nationals.

Police said that the group was preparing a serious act of violence in Syria but that there was "no indication" that the group had been planning attacks inside Germany.

FGHAN security forces have arrested five men suspected of involvement in last month's massacre at a school in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, an Afghan security source said yesterday.

Several Taliban gunmen stormed the school in the northwestern city of Peshawar last month, killing 150 people, mostly children, in the country's deadliest ever militant attack.

The December 16 attack on the Army Public School, which drew international condemnation, prompted a bout of national soul-searching even in a country used to high levels of violence.

Yesterday an Afghan security source, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed to AFP that his force had recently made five arrests, after Pakistan supplied information to Kabul.

The official said the men, who were not Afghan nationals, were arrested in the troubled border areas between the two countries.

They were accused by Pakistan of aiding the Peshawar school attackers, he said, insisting that the investigation by the Afghan security agencies had not yet established the suspects' direct association with the attack.

Pakistani officials declined to immediately comment.

Protesters, police clash at Sao Paulo bus fare demo

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AO Paulo protesters clashed with police who used tear gas and sound bombs to disperse crowds, as thousands rallied against Brazil's latest round of bus fare hikes.

Police resorted to force after part of the march veered from its authorized route, and also arrested one member of the anarchist Black Bloc group, whose radical members took position at the front of the crowd.

Organizers said the protests, called after authorities increased bus fares by 0.50 reais (20 US cents), brought together some 20,000 demonstrators.

Authorities said the number was closer to 3,000.

"It went as usual: the people demonstrated peacefully and the police throw gas," Isabella, a 22-year-old law student, told AFP, wiping sweat off her face after running from police.

About 1,000 police officers monitored the rally, with part of the demonstration regrouping to carry on after the encounter.

Protesters also called for free student fares.

The rally, called by the Free Pass movement, which also convened protests one week ago in Sao Paulo and Rio, is best known as the force behind 2013 protests that spread nationwide just as the Confederations Cup, a dress rehearsal for the 2014 World Cup, was getting under way.

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NEWS

Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola SAN (2nd right), his Deputy, Hon. (Mrs) Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire (3rd right), the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate in Lagos State, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode (3rd left), his wife, Mrs Bolanle Ambode (2nd left), running mate and Secretary to the State Government, Dr (Mrs.) Oluranti Adebule (left), Lagos State Chairman, All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Henry Ajomale (middle) and the Senator representing Lagos East Senatorial District, Senator Gbenga Ashafa (right) during the All Progressives Congress (APC)Governorship Campaign Mega Rally at C & S Primary School, Ogolonto, Ikorodu, Lagos, yesterday.

•Hon. Solomon Olamilekan Adeola, APC senatorial candidate for Lagos West addressing members of the Computer and Allied Products Dealers Association of Nigeria at Computer Village, Ikeja.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 18, 2015

•From left: Lagos state PDP Deputy governorship candidate, Alhaja Safurat Abdulkarim; PDP governorship candidate, Mr Jimi Agbaje, and former Minister of Cooperation and Integration in Africa, Dr Abimbola Ogunkelu, during an interactive session with the people of Ibeju-Lekki, at the Town Hall meeting in Lagos yesterday Photo: NAN

•From left: National chairman, Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM), Alhaji Ibrahim Bashir; the governorship candidate of the party for Adamawa, Dr Dahiru Modibbo and Adamawa central zone senatorial candidate, Aishatu Dahiru, during inauguration of PDM governorship campaign in Yola yesterday Photo: NAN

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 18, 2015 CHANGE OF NAME ABIODUN

I, formerly known and addressed as Biliki Iyabo Akinlawon, now wish to be known and addressed as Iyabo Abiodun Akinlawon. All former documents remain valid.

First Bank of Nigeria and general public should please take note.

BOYE

I, formerly known and addressed as Boye, Adetola Folaade, now wish to be known and addressed as Adegbite Adetola Folasade. All former documents remain valid.

General public should please take note.

SORINOLA

I formerly known and addressed as Mr. Sorinola Olufemi Johnson, now wish to be known and addressed as Mr. Oluwafemi Johnson. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

KOLEOSHO

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Koleosho, Aderonke Olatayo, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. JudeOmotsuebe Aderonke Olatayo. All former documents remain valid.

SKYE Bank Plc and general public should please take note.

ODETOYE

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Odetoye Oyinlola Olabisi now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. OluwasegunYahaya Oyinlola Olabisi. All former documents remain valid.

SKYE Bank Plc and general public should please take note.

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CHANGE CHANGE OF OF NAME NAME ONOVAKPURI

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Lizzy Emuobonuvie Onovakpuri, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Emuobonuvie Ebulu. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

NJOKU

I formerly known and addressed as Njoku Emmanuel Chimuanya, now wish to be known and addressed as Maduabuchi Emmanuel Chimuanya. All former documents remain valid. Federal Polytechnic, Nekede, Owerri and general public should please take note.

NWANGUMA

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Nwanguma Ezinne Blessing, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Chibundu Ezinne Blessing. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

APAM

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Apam, Maureen Mlumun, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Ibaishwa Maureen Mlumun. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

DADA

AYENI

I formerly known and addressed as Dada, Monsurat Abimbola, now wish to be known and addressed as Sulaimon Monsurat Abimbola. All former documents remain valid.

General public should please take note.

ADEWUYI

I formerly known and addressed as Adewuyi Shakirudeen Adeleye, now wish to be known and addressed as Ojeyemi Shakirudeen Adeleye. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

I formerly known and addressed as Abiodun Modinat Ayeni, now wish to be known and addressed as Abiodun Morayo Ayeni. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Adewuyi, Mojisola Rashidat, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Bashorun Mojisola Rashidat. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

OLUMIDE I formerly known and addressed as Olumide Olabisi Ifeyinwa Loveth Victoria, now wish to be known and addressed as Olumide-Jacobs, Olabisi Victoria. All former documents remain valid. University of Nigeria, Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Bristish Embassy, American Embassy, France Embassy and general Public should please take note.

AKPAN

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Ofonime Moses Akpan, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Edibeowo Ofonime. All former documents remain valid.

General public should please take note.

COOKEY

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Cookey, Peace Nkechi, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Ezenwoke Peace Nkechi. All former documents remain valid.

General public should please take note.

UCHECHUKWU

I formerly known and addressed as Clinton Godswill Uchechukwu Ogba, now wish to be known and addressed as Clinton Godswill Ekeoma Ogbonna. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

GIWA

ADEWUYI

LAMBO

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Lambo Ganiyat Abiola, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Abdulazeez Ganiyat Abiola All former documents remain valid.

General public should please take note.

OYEWOLE

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Oyewole Racheal Ajoke, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Ayodele Racheal Ajoke All former documents remain valid.

General public should please take note.

NZEKWE

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Nzekwe, Ebere Maltida, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Chukwujekwu Ebere Matilda All former documents remain valid.

General public should please take note.

AJIBADE

I formerly known and addressed as Ajibade Omotayo Omoyemi, now wish to be known and addressed as Salisu Omotayo Omoyemi All former documents remain valid.

General public should please take note.

OLAOGUN

I formerly known and addressed as Olaogun, Ayodele Johnson, now wish to be known and addressed as Olaoluwa Ayodele Johnson All former documents remain valid.

Yaba College of Technology, Lagos and general public should please take note.

AGWUELE

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Giwa Latifat Mojisola, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Atiku, Latifat Mojisola. All former documents remain valid.

Lagos State Local government Service Commission, Ikeja and general public should please take note.

I formerly known and addressed as Agwuele, Anthony Onyemachi, now wish to be known and addressed as Chukwu, Anthony Onyemaechi.

All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

ODEH

JONHNSON-GAJI

I, formerly known and addressed as Odeh Aghamioghogho, now wish to be known and addressed as Odeh Amen Martins. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

UZORDINACHI

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Uzordinachi Nkechi Joy, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Nnabuife Nkechi Joy. All former documents remain valid.

General public should please take note.

OLA

I formerly known and addressed as Fadlullah Olamide Johnson-Gaji, now wish to be known and addressed as Fadlullah Olamide Gaji. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

UGWULONU

I formerly known and addressed as Ugwulonu, Juliet Chianele, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Ejah Paul Chika. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

RABIU

CHANGE OF NAME OLUROYE

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Oluroye Oluwaseun Mary, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Lene, Oluwaseun Mary. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

MUDASIRU

I formerly known and addressed as Mudasiru Olalekan Musiliu, now wish to be known and addressed as Mudasiru Olamilekan Muslimdeen. All former documents remain valid. Osun State College of Technology (OSCOTECH) Esa-Oke and general public should please take note.

BABATUNDE

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Funke Margret Babatunde, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Funke Margret Shebolatan. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

AJAYI

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Ajayi, Anuoluwapo Olufunke, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Akinola, Anuoluwapo Olufunke. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

CORRECTION OF NAME I, Ganiyu Rofiat Remilekun, that I sat for JAMB 2014 with registration num 47189590 BE and my name was mistakenly registered as Musibau Ganiyu Rofiat, and my righthful name is Ganiyu Rofiat Remilekun. All documents bearing the above names remain valid.

Osun State Polytechnic, Iree and general public should please take note.

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ARIYO

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ESOM

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ODELEYE

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EKEH

OLUPITAN

BELLO

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IDIONG

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ADUMO

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OKORO

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ADENIYI

ADELEKE

JOSEPH

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Adeleke, Adenike Janet, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Oribolawa Adenike Janet. All former documents remain valid.

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PETER

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CHANGE OF NAME

NELSON

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Joseph Olachi Favour,now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Ogbonna Olachi Favour. All former documents remain valid.

General public please take note.

OYAWOYE

ADEPOJU

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CONFIRMATION OF NAME I Adewuyi Kayode O. Timothy is the same person as Oni Kayode Timothy all former documents remain valid. Osun State Polytechnic Iree and general public take note.

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SANNI

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BASHORUN

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General public take note.

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AKINPELU I, formerly known and addressed as Miss Akinpelu, Olayinka Righteous, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Dania Olayinka Righteous. All former documents remain valid. Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB), Nigeria Institute of Food, Science and Technology (NIFST) and general public take note.

CONFIRMATION OF NAME This is to confirm that DAVID VINCENT UDOH and UYIO VINCENT UDOH refers to one and the same person, and now wish to be known and addressed as DAVID VINCENT UDOH. All former documents remain valid. General Public Notice should please take note.

CHANGE OF NAME OBONUKUT

I formerly known and addressed as MISS BLESSED LINUS OBONUKUT, now wish to be known and addressed as MRS. BLESSED IFIOK UMANAH. All former documents remain valid.

University of Uyo, Uyo .NYSC and general public should please take note.

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CONFIRMATION OF NAME I, BETHEL PETER AKAN and UFOK PETER AKAN refers to one and the same person. Now wish to be known and addressed as BETHEL PETER AKAN. All former documents remain valid. Fin. Insurance and general public please take note.

AYENI I formerly known and addressed as Miss Ayeni, Eniola Elizabeth, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Martin Eniola Elizabeth. All former documents remain valid.

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OLAJOYEGBE

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BELLO

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OWARIE

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AMUSA

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OKUMODI

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KALIO

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AMADI

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OKE

I formerly known and addressed as MISS OKE FUNKE FAVOUR, now wish to be known and addressed as MRS. FUNKE WEY. All former documents remain valid. The general public should please take note.

DARAMOLA

I formerly known and addressed as MISS DARAMOLA FRANCISCA DAMOLA, now wish to be known and addressed as MRS. OLAWWUMI FRANCISCA DAMOLA. All former documents remain valid. UBEC Abuja and general public please take note.

LAWAL

I formerly known and addressed as MISS LAWAL AMINAT OLANREWAJU, now wish to be known and addressed as MRS. OLAYIWOLA-LAWAL AMINAT OLANREWAJU. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

EKEWUEME

I formerly known and addressed as MISS CHINENYE LOVELYN EKWUEME, now wish to be known and addressed as MRS LOVELYN CHIDOMERE. All former documents remain valid. NYSC, NIMC and general public please take note.

CHANGE OF NAME BETEGHA

I formerly known and addressed as Miss BETEGHA RUTH, now wish to be known as Mrs. RUTH BARINEKA. All former documents remain valid. General public please take note.

IBRAHIM I formerly known and addressed as Miss IBRAHIM BECKY OJOMA, now wish to be known as Mrs. HEART BECKY OJOMA. All former documents remain valid general public please take note.

PREYE I formerly known and addressed as Miss PREYE ESEIMOKUMOH, now wish to be known as Mrs. PREYE DAVID .E. EKA. All former documents remain valid general public please take note.

HART

I formerly known and addressed as Miss ESTHER HART, now wish to be known as Mrs. BARASUA ESTHER IBIKARI. All former documents remain valid, general public please take note.

NDIDI

I formerly known and addressed as Miss WEHIUZO NDIDI, now wish to be known as Mrs. IYOBO NDIDI PROGRESS. All former documents remain valid, general public please take note.

NDIDI

I formerly known and addressed as Miss ELIZABETH OJOCHIDE ALIYU, now wish to be known as Mrs. ELIZABETH OJOCHIDE ATOKOLO. All former documents remain valid general public please take note.

POMENDI

I formerly known and addressed as EBIKEBINA HELEN POMENDI, now wish to be known as Madam.

ANISO HELEN POMENDI. All former documents remain valid general public please take note.

OKEH

I formerly known and addressed as Mrs. Okeh, Patricia Ngozi (nee Okekwe) , now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Dan, Patricia Ngozi. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

EBHODAGHE

I formerly known and addressed as MISS EBHODAGHE DEBORAH EDEDEAWAN, now wish to be known and addressed as MRS EROMOKHODION DEBORAH EDEDEAWAN. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

OBINWA

I formerly known and addressed as MISS OBINWA CHIOMA LYDIA , now wish to be known and addressed as MRS ANAKA CHIOMA LYDIA. All former documents remain valid. Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki, NYSC and general public should please take note.

EKPA

I formerly known and addressed as EKPA OSARUWENSE JOEL, now wish to be known and addressed as SIMON OSARUWENSE JOEL. All former documents remain valid.

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JETAWO

I formerly known and addressed as MISS ABIOLA ROSELINE JETAWO, now wish to be known and addressed as MRS ABIOLA ROSELINE IBINE. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note

OSSAI

I formerly known and addressed as OSSAI CELESTINE EJIOFOR, now wish to be known and addressed as DAVID CELESTINE EJIOFOR. All former documents remain valid.

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AKINBOWALE

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Akinbowale Anuoluwapo Damilola, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs Shobande Anuoluwapo Damilola. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note

ADOH

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Adoh Ifenasochukwu Princess, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs Uvietaire Ifenasochukwu Princess. All former documents remain valid.

General public please take note

DAVIES

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Nahimat Oluwatoyin Davies, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs Nahimat Oluwatoyin Adekoga. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

MULIKAT

I formerly known and addressed as Miss Mulikat Folake Odetokun, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs Mulikat Folake OdetokunAdeiye. All former documents remain valid. Stanbic Bank Nigeria Ltd and general public take note.

OMOBOMI

I formerly known and addressed as Mrs. Akanni Folasade Omobomi, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Akanni Folasade Victoria. All other information remain as Akanni Folasade Victoria.

General public take note.

76

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 18, 2015

ETCETERA

SUNNY SIDE

Cartoons

By Olubanwo Fagbemi

POLITICKLE

deewalebf@yahoo.com 08060343214 (SMS only)

Resolutions for all Goodbye 2014; welcome 2015 and all the expectations that come with the New Year.

Dear reader, you probably hope, as many do, to change for the better this year. To begin on a good note, you may set New Year’s resolutions, even if they usually end faster than you can say ‘January’. Still, here’s to a better you.

OH, LIFE!

THE GReggs

THIS year: I will find out the real meaning of ‘resolution’ in the dictionary.

I will not make my list of resolutions longer than I can manage.

I will stop procrastinating about procrastinating.

I will remember to write 2015 instead of 2014 as the date.

I will replace decades-old picture of me with 2015 ones.

I will replace junk food with healthy chunks of food.

I will drink more water, however tasteless it may be.

I will try and lose weight; better still, I’ll get fit.

I will promote tolerance more and self-interest less.

I will smile more and frown less; laugh more and whine less.

I will improve my education all round.

I will write a book or at least a short story.

I will earn a promotion or at least promote my ideals.

I will land more credit and lose more debt.

I will not develop road rage and curse when a driver cuts me off in traffic.

I will not conjure poor telecoms service to end an unwanted phone call.

I will not pretend to be near the market to end a phone conversation.

I will not fake bus stops on the phone to keep someone waiting.

I will promise no more than I can give and give more than I promise.

I will not cause problems and blame it on someone else.

I will read the equipment manual before I lose it.

I will keep a mental note of chords and batteries before I lose them.

I will stop saying the right thing at the wrong time, and vice versa.

I will try to be at the right place at the right time.

I will not try the right solution for the wrong problems.

I will not worry too much, for worry little solves problems.

I will work harder to find time to relax more.

I will remember neglected relations.

I will rise above the little things and tackle bigger things.

I will limit perfection to being a better person.

I will ensure a good ending, if not a bright start.

I will stick to these resolutions for more than a week.

Questionable turns

CHEEK BY JOWL

Q: If someone goes to jail for something he didn’t do, what happens?

A: He could get credit towards another crime.

Q: What’s black and brown and is attracted to the trespasser?

A: A black and brown dog.

Q: What is the name of the hair salon next to the graveyard?

A: Curl Up and Dye. Q: What happened to the thief when it got too cold?

A: He was caught with his hands in his own pockets.

Q: What did a lawyer name his daughter?

A: Sue!

Reader’s Response A twenty-first century guide Greetings, sir. May you live and peace be with you. Amen. I read a column you write in The Nation newspaper of December 21, 2014. All I’m saying is thanks; I learnt something that will carry me along in life. +2348039108***

QUOTE For last year’s words belong to last year’s language And next year’s words await another voice.

And to make an end is to make a beginning.

Jokes Humour Spoiled Business AN ELECTRIC vacuum salesman goes doorto-door in a new neighbourhood. When a woman answers the door at the first house, he walks in and drops fresh cow dung on her floor.

“Ma’am,” he says, “just to show you how confident I am in the quality of my vacuums, I’ll eat whatever the vacuum doesn’t pick up.”

The woman smiles and asks, “Could I get you some salt with that?”

The salesman scoffs confidently and says, “I assure you my vacuums have more power than any other on the market today!”

The woman replies, “Well, that may be so, but we just moved in and the electricity isn’t turned on yet.”

Prison Notes SEVERAL years ago, Andy was sentenced to prison for some illegal transaction. During his stay, he got along well with the guards and fellow inmates. The warden saw that deep down, Andy was a good person and made arrangements for him to learn a trade while doing his time.

After three years, Andy was recognised as one of the best carpenters in the local area. Often

he would be given a weekend pass to do odd jobs for the citizens of the community, and he always reported back to prison before Sunday night was over.

The warden was thinking of remodelling his kitchen and in fact had done much of the work himself. But he lacked the skills to build a set of kitchen cupboards and a large counter top which he had promised his wife.

So he called Andy into his office and asked him to complete the job for him. Andy refused. He said, ‘’Look, I’d really like to help you but ‘counter fitting’ is what got me into prison in the first place.’’

Guess Who? A GUY walks into a post office one day to see a middle-aged balding man standing at the counter methodically placing “Love” stamps on bright pink envelopes with hearts all over them. He then takes out a perfume bottle and starts spraying scent all over them.

The guy’s curiosity gets the better of him and he goes up to the balding man and asks him what he is doing.

“I’m sending out 1,000 Valentine’s Day cards signed, ‘Guess who?’”

“But why?” asks the man.

“I’m a divorce lawyer.”

•Adapted from the Internet

—T.S. Eliot

Writer ’s Fountain RITING BRIEFS: Writing 302— Creation rules: Find a place is work and more work. If you work, it leads you somewhere meaningful. It’s the people who you are comfortable in, and then try trusting it do all of the work all the time who eventually for a while. break even and profit.

Be self-disciplined. To be disciplined is to But don’t try to create and analyse at the follow a writer in a good way. To be self- same time. They are different things. Enjoy your disciplined is to follow a distinguished writer craft, for writing is not war. To succeed, you in a better way. must study constantly and maintain a presence Nothing you write is a mistake. Save of mind. everything you write. Words cut out today Craftsmanship takes years of wide reading. might be useful later.

So, read anything you can get your hands on As you will find, the only rule that counts and watch movies carefully, critically even.

Animal power: To put down your thoughts efficiently, do •A group of frogs is called an army. the following: Select topics that interest you.

•A group of herring is called a seige.

Choose a suitable layout and stick to it. Then •A group of jelly fish is called a smack. proceed slowly and take care. You could write •A group of kangaroos is called a mob. by hand.

•A group of larks is called an exaltation.

Make the paragraph the unit of composition •A group of owls is called a parliament. and use the active voice. Put statements in •An electric eel gives a shock of up to 650 volts. positive form and use definite language.

•Porcupines are able to float in water.

Omit needless words and avoid a succession •An adult giraffe’s kick is so powerful that it can of loose sentences. Keep related words together. decapitate a lion. and keep to one tense form while placing the •An adult lion’s roar can be heard up to five emphatic words of a sentence at the end. miles away, and warns off intruders or reunites Rewrite and edit until you achieve the most scattered members of the pride. inspiring phrases, sentences, paragraphs, pages, •A cat has 32 muscles in each ear. and, ultimately, story.

W

77

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 18, 2015

•Scenes from the play

Promise of the Future, a novel written and adapted for stage by Towunmi Coker, is a story of HIV/AIDS in the society. Staged at the Terra Kulture last weekend, it was meant to enlighten the public on so many aspects of the disease. Edozie Udeze reports

Talking AIDS on stage

P

ROMISE of the Future, a novel which has been adapted into a stage play was written by Towunmi Coker,a twenty-one year final year medical student of the University of Lagos. Last weekend the play was on stage at the Terra Kulture, Lagos, where the issue of HIV/AIDS resurfaced to remind Nigerians that the disease is still very much around.

The play which was scripted and directed by Segun Adefila of the Crown Troupe of Africa has all the trappings of medical terminologies showing that the playwright is indeed at home with the issue she tackled in the book. All the sentiments were well demonstrated on stage by the artistes.

While on stage, the audience could follow the sequence of events that led the main character Celestina Ajoke, to contract the dreaded disease. It was in the course of the events that other instructive issues concerning HIV/AIDS came to the fore. And this was why the author, Coker explained in an interview that the story is to remind the public which seems to have relaxed with the belief that HIV/AIDS is abating or disappearing, to have a rethink.

She said, "What we do is to use literature to impact on our world. Some of the activities we indulge in include organising writing competitions for students and getting them to understand and appreciate better how literature can be used to recreate the society. This is what we do in Lagos State every year. Stage play is also one of our activities and the stage play must be based on a book which has also been published. Promise of the Future is a novel, but the aspect of it that deals with HIV/AIDS has been adapted to be able to send the necessary message to the people on how to handle the disease," she said.

Coker also delved into the areas of the disease which is still a bit confusing to the people. "You see, you

T

HE Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN) yesterday fired back at the Governor of Bayelsa State, Mr. Seriake Dickson, saying he lacked the powers to order its exit from the state.

TAN, the main campaign group of President Goodluck Jonathan, also condemned a statement issued by the Bayelsa Youth Vanguard (BYV) barring the first lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, from accompanying her husband to campaign in the state.

The group in statement signed in Yenagoa by its state Director, Publicity, Chief Nathan Egba, expressed shock and disbelief at the packand-go order emanating from the governor.

TAN also reassured the governor of its readiness to cooperate with his government in campaigning for President Jonathan's reelection in the state.

"We are shocked because we find it hard to understand how an elected Governor of a State would make such a statement in a democratic setting, as we have in Nigeria, as there is nowhere in the Nigerian Constitution that gives any governor such powers.

"TAN in Bayelsa is however, aware of plots by some over-zealous Government officials

•Coker can be HIV positive, yet you can marry and will not infect your spouse. So long as you keep taking your drugs based on instructions and prescriptions, you may have children who are not infected. But above all, people need to be more careful so as not to contract it.

These are some of the lessons we try to pass across but it is all in the play and it is written primarily to pass this message across to the larger spectrum of the society".

Using this part of the play to draw people's attention to the issue was the best way to reignite the HIV flame in the minds of the public. "Yes it is part of the education we are talking about. We need to continue to enlighten the public; we have to continue to remind everybody that HIV/AIDS is still an issue in the lives of the people.

And plays can go a long way in passing the message, in making the public try to sit up by not even rejecting or neglecting carriers. There are enough drugs now to quell it or control it in such a way that it does not necessarily

endanger lives. This is why I adapted the novel for stage so that using the terms that are appropriate, we can begin to see the reality of what we are saying".

Coker who divides her time between studying to become a physician and writing to impact on the society won the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) literary prize for children in 2007. She was 14 then. "Yes, I didn't particularly grow up with writing in my mind. I chose to do so because of the passion I have for people and theatre is a beautiful vehicle to reach out to the society.

I won an award in secondary school in literature and that also motivated me to write more books. Also my ANA literary prize in 2007 helped me to do more as a writer. Apart from the books I have written myself, I read other authors extensively to know more and understand better. Apart from that, also, to me literature permeates the society. When this play was staged at the University of Lagos and the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) the responses were very encouraging. You could see how the audience sat with rapt attention to learn more about the drugs and what needs to be done to avoid infecting the spouse or the unborn child.

In adopting the style of storytelling to inform the people, both Adefila who directed it and Coker who scripted the play were in consonance that it was the best format to allow the story to tell itself. Celestina who hitherto was known as Ajoke was the main character. Suddenly, she lost her parents in an inferno.

With all hope lost, she was taken away by her father's business partner who promised to take good care of her. Now in a place somewhere in the East, she practically lost touch with her people in the West. Her new madam did not treat her well. Subsequently, her master took a liking to her. The man himself was a great womanizer that he had girl-friends everywhere. Even after the wife complained severally, he did not yield. This resulted to series of quarrels.

Gradually, he began to show interest in Celestina whom he pestered with gifts and promises. Initially they were using protection but when it downed on them that they needn't worry about that, they discarded the idea. In the meantime, Celestina had another boy-

friend by name Kunle. That one took her on a holiday when her madam was away and they had fun to their hearts content. So when five years later Celestina began to show the symptoms of HIV/AIDS and she was no longer in the custody of the man and Kunle had disappeared, it became impossible to know who actually gave her the disease.

But all hope was not lost for Celestina who had now been located by her people for her father willed all his wealth to her. She gained admission and later found another lover who promised to marry her in spite of her dilemma. For a long time Ajoke refused to be swayed by the man who proved all his love for her. "I don't want to infect you too", she said. "But I love you and I want to marry you", he insisted. In the end, they got married and had a set of twins who were not infected. That is the whole beauty of the story," Coker enthused". Today many people who have watched this play on stage have been sending me text messages to ask whether this is really possible. And I say yes, it is possible.

Theatre is the best way to inform them".

So make it permanent in the consciousness of the people, Adefila devised two methods. One, he used music to sooth the embers of the audience and the stage. Two, he used dance-drama to demonstrate the profundity of the subject. Together, these two methods helped the audience to follow the story meticulously as the narrators interjected from different directions of both the stage and the hall. It was an innovative concept, for it helped to properly situate the story in the minds of the people.

The artistes were also equal to the task, for they were to dance in different styles to depict what life had in stock for the characters. Adefila adopts this abstract form of theatre which is not only demonstrative, but conveys his messages much clearer to carve a niche for himself. He reasons that theatre is life and therefore has to be used to attack the ills of the society. People have to feel the pulse of theatre as it relates to everyday life and then learn from it. Now that the play is billed to go places it is instructive to use it properly to preach against promiscuity and the spread of HIV/AIDS not only in Nigeria, but elsewhere.

TAN dares Dickson: you can't ban us from Bayelsa From Mike Odiegwu, Yenagoa to portray groups such as TAN, Women For Change Initiative and others in very bad light, in order to make it appear as if they are against the State Government.

"In the same vein, we re-assure our teeming members and supporters not to worry, but rather remain resolute and focused as the Presidential election is less than a month from now", the statement said.

Frowning on the threat by a youth group barring Dame Patience from attending the forthcoming February 5th Presidential campaign in the state, TAN said such threat was unfortunate.

"TAN, while strongly condemning the threat by the group ,said the statement by the group is unwarranted. The TAN said it is the believe of the group that such probe will expose those behind the shame act, but will also serve to deter others who might want to toes the same line.

"We have noticed that since alleged cold war between the State Government and the

First Lady, became a topic for public discourse, more individual and groups in the state have become emboldened to make statement that are clearly disrespectful to the office and person of the First Lady.

"The recent sack from the State Executive Council of associates of the first lady such as the former Commissioner for Local Government, Mrs. Marie Ebikake and the former Special Adviser to the Governor on Federal Projects, Chief Remi Kuku, who is also the

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Deputy National coordinator of the First Lady's NGO, Women For Change Initiative did not help matters.

"In addition to the above, the TAN State Director of Logistics, Chief Abel Ebifemowei has been removed from his post as Chairman of the State Environmental Sanitation Authority, as well as a top Civil Servant Mrs. Irene Digitemie who has also been recommended for retirement for allegedly associating with the Women for Change Initiative group.

' Fakeye's death, a great blow'

HE Chairman of World Christian Council Association Chambers of All Churches, Primate Ayoola Omonigbehin, has described the death of Apostle Gabriel Fakeye as a great blow to the Christians worldwide, especially in Nigeria.

The late Apostle who died

By Taiwo Abiodun two weeks ago in Lagos was the leader of 'Ayo Ni O ' Cherubim and Seraphim Church Movement.

Omonigbehin, in a statement, described Fakeye as a good follower of Jesus Christ.

He said: "The late Apostle Fakeye was a complete fol-

lower of Jesus Christ, a saint and a true shepherd of Christ.

"May God comfort the entire family of Cherubim and Seraphim church and his family."

The Primate implored Nigerians to emulate the late Apostle's good works.

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SPORTS THE NATION ON SUNDAY

Sports writer wins StarTimes NBA Tour

EXTRA

JANUARY 18, 2015

Dancers perform during the opening ceremony of the 2015 African Cup of Nations ahead of the group A football match between Equatorial Guinea and Congo at Bata Stadium in Bata yesterday. PHOTO: AFP

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IGITAL Pay-TV service provider, StarTimes has been commended for its various sport initiatives, contents and engagements, particularly the just concluded StarTimes NBA-TV All Access Tour program which recently produced two winners, who will be enjoying an allexpense-paid one-week trip to Los Angeles, California, USA to watch NBA games and experience American basketball superstars live in action. One of the winners, Boluwaji Bamidele who is a sportswriter expressed his joy at having the opportunity to go to watch NBA matches live in America.

"In 2006 when I went to cover the F IBA World Championships in Japan and saw all the superstars who play in the NBA in action for their respective countries, it became my ambition to one day go to America to experience live the NBA action. I am happy that the opportunity has come today courtesy StarTimes. I really feel happy," gushed the basketball writer.

Governor Akpabio tournament prizes yet to be paid

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IVE months after, the prize monies for the 2014 Governor Akpabio Cup Tournament, are yet to be paid, according to a member of the organizing committee.

Uyo, the capital of Akwa Ibom State witnessed the influx of youths from all parts of Nigeria on September 2014, with teams also coming from United States of America and Tanzanian for the Under 18 Boys competition in honour of the sport loving Governor who has contributed immensely to the development of sports in Nigeria.

The winners of the annual competition are entitled to three million Naira, runnersup two million Naira, while the third-placed team get 1.5 million Naira. But checks have now revealed none of the teams who placed top have received their cash prizes.

According to our source, who prefers anonymity, the agent that facilitated the participation of the American and Tanzanian teams has also not been paid his fee.

He said: “As a matter of fact, we have not been paid our money, and I want to believe that the governor is not aware of the situation. In a competition like this that involves other teams abroad, it is always important to make everything open and be honest because of our integrity. Nobody has told us anything and those teams have been on our necks.”

RESULTS Villa 0 - 2 Liverpool Burnley 2 - 3 C/Palace Leicester 0 - 1 Stoke QPR 0 - 2 Man United Swansea 0 - 5 Chelsea Tottenham 2 - 1 S’rland SUNDAY FIXTURES ENGLAND West Ham v Hull City Man City v Arsenal AFCON Zambia v DR Congo Tunisia v Cape Verde

Chelsea hammer Swansea to go five clear

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rampant Chelsea side score four in the first half as they thrash Swansea 5-0 to go five points clear at the top of the Premier League.

An error from Gylfi Sigurdsson, who looked uncomfortable in a holding midfield role all game, directly

led to Oscar bounding forward and firing home the opening goal after just 48 seconds.

And though the hosts spent the following 10 minutes looking like they would be fine in the wake of Wilfried Bony's departure for Chelsea's title rivals Manchester City, they capitulated before the halfway

point of the contest.

Another Cesc Fabregas assist created another Diego Costa goal on 20 minutes, shortly after the Swans' only decent spell of the game concluded, before a nightmare two-minute period put Chelsea beyond sight.

A defensive howler gifted the

AFCON: Congo breaks Equatorial Guinea hearts

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HE stand-in home nation, Equatorial Guinea, looked set to start with a victory in Bata but a goal three minutes from as Thievy Bifouma scored a late equalizer for Congo in a 1-1 draw on Saturday.

Emilio Nsue's 16th-minute strike appeared to have put Equatorial Guinea - which was only given a place at the tournament as host after Morocco was stripped of the right to stage the competition the victory.

The Middlesbrough forward opened the scoring by slotting home following great work from Kike Seno.

Equatorial Guinea spurned a number of chances to extend the lead from there and saw an Nsue second controversially

ruled out for offside.

And the host nation was ultimately made to pay by Almeria forward Thievy, who ensured a share of the Group A spoils three minutes from time when he capitalized on some sloppy defending to steer the ball in at the near post .

Esteban Becker's side enjoyed the better of the opening stages and, although Prince Oniangue shot narrowly over the crossbar from long range for Congo, Equatorial Guinea was rewarded as Nsue fired home following a fine bit of individual play from Kike.

Kike nutmegged a defender on the right flank and surged towards to the edge of the area, before slipping a ball through for Nsue to slot through goalkeeper Christopher

Mafoumbi's legs.

The rest of the first half was scrappy, but Iban Edu did force Mafoumbi into a scrambling save with an effort from more than 40 yards after spotting the shot-stopper off his line.

Midfielder Ellong Doualla was brought on for Pablo Ganet

by Becker at halftime, but Equatorial Guinea should have been reduced to 10 men three minutes into the second half.

Iban swung an elbow into the face of Cesaire Gandze but was not punished, despite the Congo midfielder requiring lengthy treatment.

Javier Balboa was then denied by Mafoumbi before substitute Ladislas Douniama drew a strong save from Ovono at the other end.

Red-hot Man City to cage Arsenal on Super Sunday

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hampions Manchester City head into this much-anticipated encounter with Arsenal in redhot form, and Manuel Pellegrini's side currently unbeaten in their last 12 league contests, a run that includes nine wins - however they have drawn two of their last three games.

Meanwhile, the visitors also arrive in the north west on an impressive run of late having managed nine victories in their last 12 games in all competitions.

And key to that have been the eye-catching displays of Chile

international Alexis Sanchez, with the forward having been involved in more goals than any other player in the Premier League so far this season.

City hope to have both captain Vincent Kompany and top-scorer Sergio Aguero back from injury for this clash after the duo made the substitutes' bench at Everton last Saturday.

However, the home team will be without Samir Nasri, with the former Gunners midfielder having been ruled out for three weeks with a calf problem, while striker Edin Dzeko is doubtful with a calf/shin injury.

The north London club have both right-back Mathieu Debuchy (shoulder) and defensive midfielder Mikel Arteta (ankle/foot) unavailable after surgery this week, while left-back Kieran Gibbs may also miss out with a heel problem.

Defender Calum Chambers, though, should feature having recovered from a recent illness.

The last seven Premier League games between City and Arsenal at the Etihad Stadium have seen 28 goals scored.

There have been six red cards in the last nine Premier League matches between these two sides.

ball to Costa inside the penalty area, where the Spanish international slotted home the third from a tight angle, before Oscar bagged his own second almost straight from the ensuing restart by the beleaguered home side.

Chelsea further exploited a terrible defensive display and

could have been five or six up at the interval, but spent the second half content to see the game out - only adding one more as sub Andre Schuerrle nipped in to tap home Branislav Ivanovic's square pass from close range just before Oscar could get there for the hat-trick.

Eaglets snatch 2-0 win against Sokoto United

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IGERIA'S U-17 team, Golden Eaglets on Saturday beat Sokoto United 2-0 at the Ahmadu Bello Stadium in Kaduna.

Kaduna's home boy Suleiman Abdullahi and languid striker, Victor Osimhen scored twice in the second stanza to break the resolve of their more experienced opponents who fought like Trojans throughout.

In fact, it took some gallantry display on the part of Sokoto United's goalkeeper Masud Isah for keeping the score line at a respectable margin against the Nigeria National League side.

Golden Eaglets soon took over the match moments after Sokoto United took the kick off following signal by referee Patrick Ishaya. Victor Osimhen got Eaglets' first real chance in the seventh minute but saw his shot going over the bar. He also saw goalkeeper Isah held firmly to his well-directed header following a cross by Etiboy Akpan in the 22nd minute.

Five minutes later, Isah again foiled the Golden Eaglets when he tipped over the bar Suleiman Abdullahi's goalbound header as both side failed to score in the first half.

Eagles ease to victory over Yemen

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FON Udoh and Azubuike Egwuekwe were on target as Nigeria claimed a 2-0 friendly victory over Yemen at the Sevens Stadium in Dubai.

The Super Eagles were initially scheduled to play Sudan before the country pulled out on Tuesday due to unforeseen reasons.

Ranked 176 against Nigeria's 43 in the FIFA monthly rankings, Yemen bowed to the superior powers of the threetime African Champions.

The Nigerian side threw everything at the Asians in the international friendly match and went into the recess with a well deserved lead.

Yemen failed to keep possession and were camped in front of their 18-yard box with little sign of putting the Nigerians under pressure.

Nigeria enjoyed the lionshare of possession but could not make their territorial superiority count in the opening exchanges.

Mfon, who netted twenty three goals in the 2013/14 Nigeria Professional Football League season stunned Yemen in the 25th minute with the only goal of the first 45 minutes.

Stand-in coach Daniel Amokachi who made some changes to the team that fell one-nil to Cote D'Ivoire made his intention clear to Yemen with an all out attacking system.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 18, 2014

AFCON James Wilson (left) celebrates scoring Manchester United's second goal of the game in their 2-0 win at QPR

Bafana-Bafana vow to make slain keeper proud

SPORT EXTRA 79 'Algeria are motivated'

WORLD CUP

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OUTH African midfielder Dean Furman says that Bafana Bafana hope to make their late goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa proud at the Africa Nations Cup finals.

Furman spoke to TV stations as Bafana touched down in Equatorial Guinea for the tournament and said: "There is a great feeling in the camp. I think the confidence in the group has grown considering we knocked the champions, Nigeria, out in the group phase.

"We also did well away in Congo and Sudan which has really built the confidence and belief amongst the players.

"We have a good spirit in the camp and we hope to perform well, and make Senzo Meyiwa proud."

South Africa face Algeria in their opening game on Monday evening. Group C consists of South Africa, Algeria, Ghana and Senegal.

Kingston warns Black Stars against social media

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x-Ghana international Laryea Kingston has advised the Black Stars players to avoid social media during the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations.

The former Heart of Midlothian player sees Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp as major distraction tools.

Kingston says the Black Stars find it difficult to deal with criticisms about their performance and that eats them up.

“The players have to desist from social media and concentrate fully on the tournament if they want to win,” Kingston told Happy FM. “Sometimes, we get distracted by things people say about us on such platforms so it will be prudent for the players to stay away from social media during the period of the AFCON.” Kingston played at the 2006 Africa Cup of Nations finals and got sent off in Ghana's final Group match against Senegal.

The suspension was carried over to the FIFA World Cup that year and that cost him a place in Ghana's squad for the tournament in Brazil.

Fortune: Wilfried Bony is a threat

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ORMER South Africa international Quinton Fortune thinks that Wilfried Bony will play a significant role during the Cote d'Ivoire's Africa Cup of Nations campaign.

The Ivorians will compete at this year's tournament with a relatively young strike force, with Gervinho and Salomon Kalou the only vastly experienced campaigners among them.

Former team talisman Didier Drogba no longer competes for the national team and the jury has been out on who will take over the reigns as the Ivory Coast's chief marksman. Fortune thinks that Bony, who recently signed with English champions Manchester City, will fulfil that role with considerable aplomb.

"Wilfried Bony stands out as the top African striker," Fortune told Goal.

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lgeria midfielder star Yacine Brahimi says The Desert Fox are very motivated ahead of Monday's first day clash against Bafana Bafana.

The 1990 champions arrived in Equatorial Guinea on Thursday as one of the 2015 tournaments hot favourites following a fiery run in their Group B qualifiers in which they won five and lost one match.

“We will try to adapt quickly in Equatorial Guinea, especially to the climatic conditions," the FC Porto midfielder and 2014 BBC Africa Footballer of the Year said.

"We are motivated to succeed and make our fans happy. We are confident and claim ahead of this great African event."

Algeria are in the group of death that consists of Ghana, Senegal and South Africa.

Liverpool have regained identity, says Rodgers

Mikel gets British passport C

HELSEA midfielder John Obi Mikel is delighted that he has finally been issued a British passport, after applying for the document months ago.

The Nigeria international became eligible for citizenship, having spent more than eight years in England following his transfer to Chelsea from Lyn Oslo of Norway in 2006.

Since late last year, Mikel had been patiently waiting for positive feedback from the authorities, and he ultimately got cheering news last week. ''Mikel was issued a British passport last week, and he is very happy to be in the possession of the passport,'' a representative of the Super Eagles star told SL10.ng. ''That's very good news

because he will no longer be counted as a foreign player in the Chelsea squad. ''All the obstacles that would have prevented him playing in Europe have been eliminated, especially in Italy. ''Mikel is not leaving Chelsea in the January transfer window.

He will only think about his future at the end of this season.''

Prior to the start of the 2014 -

2015 campaign, there had been speculation that manager Jose Mourinho wanted to offload Mikel in order to free up a foreign quota spot, but this is now a thing of the past.

In the last few months, the 27-year-old has been linked with possible moves to AC Milan and Schalke 04 in the winter transfer market.

Moses ready to go against Leicester

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he Super Eagles forward said he isn't taking nothing for granted despite his manager at Stoke comment on his return.

Stoke City manager had termed Victor Moses return to the Britannia Stadium as a major boost.

Moses,24, won't be at the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) after Nigeria failed to qualify for the tournament they won with Victor Moses playing a major part in 2013 in the Eagles success story at the tournament, he had spent the past six weeks with his parent club Chelsea after sustaining an

untimely thigh injury during the 2-1 reverse against Burnley back in November.

The fit again Moses went back to the Britannia Stadium in the build up to last weekend's Premier League fixture with Arsenal however Stoke boss, Mark Hughes decided not to hand Moses a desired return to action.

Victor Moses expressed joy to be back and feels he's ready to back to real action.

“I am delighted to be back UKMAN Haruna's fourhere, and it all feels new and year stay with Ukraine fresh for me again. It is really giants, Dynamo Kiev, exciting,". Moses old the club's appears to be coming to an end website with reports linking the 24year-old with a move to St. Etienne of France.

According to reports "It is a great place to play and I'm really looking forward to it." monitored by SL10.ng Kiev are Sunderland head coach Gus in talks with St. Etienne to use Poyet, meanwhile, expressed the former Nigeria Under-17 his delight at the securing the and 20 captain as lightweight in services of the former England their bid for Frank Tabanou.

Dynamo have already international.

He said: "I am thrilled that submitted an offer of €5 million Jermain is a Sunderland player. plus Lukman Haruna to St I know all about his attributes Etienne to acquire the services and his qualities first-hand and of Tabanou and the Ligue 1 his exceptional goal-scoring outfit, according to reports are record speaks for itself. He has something different, something special. rsene Wenger believes a "We know each other very win against Manchester well - he was very young when City on Sunday could we played together and I was start a turnaround in Arsenal's coming to the end of my career, fortunes against the Premier so I know him from inside the League's top sides. pitch.

Arsenal were hammered 6-3 "When I returned to Spurs as a coach it was a great experience by City last season and since the for me to work with him, so I am 2012-13 season, Arsenal have really looking forward to managed only one victory in 12 having him as my player now league matches against teams and for him to be part of our that went on to finish in the top four. Last year they were also team.

Dynamo Kiev offers Haruna to St. Etienne

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Sunderland seal Defoe deal

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underland have strengthened their attacking options after completing the signing of Toronto FC striker Jermain Defoe on a three-and-a-half year deal.

The former Tottenham frontman moves to the Stadium of Light as part of the deal that sees United States international Jozy Altidore move in the opposite direction.

Defoe makes a return to the Premier League following a successful stint in the MLS, where he scored 11 times in 16 appearances.

Commenting on his move to Sunderland, Defoe said: "I am delighted to be here and I'm looking forward to the challenge.

"It is a great club and I've always enjoyed coming up here and playing against Sunderland because of the stadium and the supporters.

studying the proposal.

Dynamo Kiev manager, Sergei Rebrov, omitted Lukman from his 26-man winter camp, fuelling speculations a move away from the club is imminent for Haruna.

Last season Haruna made 18 league appearances for Dynamo Kiev with three goals but an injury in pre season kept him out of this season opening games and since then he has struggled to regain his place.

He joined Dynamo Kiev in 2011 from Monaco and has made 50 appearances for them since then with 8 goals to his name.

Wenger targets victory against City

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humiliated 6-0 at Chelsea and 51 at Liverpool.

The Gunners still have to host Manchester United and Chelsea before the end of the campaign and Wenger believes Sunday's result could start a change in how his side approach the top sides.

"We go into a period now where the confidence is important," Wenger said.

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RENDAN Rodgers says Liverpool have rediscovered their "identity" and that they are getting back to their best after their 2-0 win at Aston Villa.

Fabio Borini's first Liverpool goal in almost two years and Rickie Lambert's strike extended the club's unbeaten run to eight games in all competitions and lifted them to seventh place in the Premier League.

"We have regained our identity from how the team has played for two years. It has very much come back," said Rodgers.

"It was fair to say in the opening four months of the season we were nowhere near what we had been, so we needed to find a solution.

"We changed the system for the game at Manchester United and even though we lost I had seen enough in our play that that could be the way going forward.

"The system is working very well for us. In my time here we've played a lot of different systems but this one is exciting. The players that we bring in are footballers anyway.

"The most important thing for me is the identity and style of the team. We're building towards the future and progressing really well.

The team is performing at a good level and playing some wonderful football.

"If we can get through to the end of January, getting to the top four is still an objective. We showed last year we can put a run together to see us in there."

Rodgers also hailed Simon Mignolet after his much-maligned goalkeeper produced an excellent save to deny Christian Benteke at 1-0.

"I thought he was outstanding," said Rodgers.

"He wasn't overly worked but he made two great saves when called upon.

"But what was really pleasing was how dominant he was.

"Benteke is nearly unstoppable in the air when he is challenging for the ball, but Simon came for a number of crosses and got contact with the ball and was really calm and composed and wasn't flustered.

QUOTABLE “I never dreamt of having a bridge on a dry land in Ogun State in my life time. Yes, we have Ogun River, where there is a bridge. Go to Ijebu, Sagamu, Otta, what am I seeing, bridges, not even one, two, three.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 18, 2015 TRUTH IN DEFENCE OF FREEDOM VOL. 9, NO. 3099

—Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo endorsing Ogun State Governor Ibikunle Amosun for a second term.

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F Nigeria fails once again to elect the right man as president, it will be because the country has focused on the wrong priorities. So far, as the campaigns for the polls intensify, Nigerians are preoccupied with what they describe as weighty election considerations. They try to see how much President Goodluck Jonathan has implemented his so-called transformation agenda, evaluate his opinions and policies on corruption, agriculture, social and infrastructural programmes, the tertiary institutions he has established, and his counterinsurgency strategies, among other things. If they judge he has been faithful in nearly all the items he promised to deliver, it seems likely the electorate will enthusiastically return him to office. Should that happen, it would be because the voters and their president understand one another, have met at a common junction down the road, and shared values, cultures, politics and philosophies — in short, that they reflect a common depth of wisdom and vision, no matter how shallow these are.

But the voters could also assess the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, and judge him a good substitute for, perhaps, a non-performing Dr Jonathan. The voters may be persuaded that Gen Buhari’s programmes and his party’s worldview would rejuvenate Nigeria and take the country to a great height, the so-called lunar landing Dr Jonathan has obsessively dreamt of without a scintilla of effort in that direction. Even if Gen Buhari is elected and the APC is endorsed, no one can be sure what factors would procure him that electoral victory: his programmes, his party, voter frustration with Dr Jonathan and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the urge and desperation to try something new, a consideration that anything but Jonathan would do just fine, etc?

Less than four weeks to the nation-defining presidential poll, the PDP and Dr Jonathan’s supporters have sensibly avoided any reference to their candidate’s character, choosing instead to focus on whatever achievements they think he has made, and to denounce his opponent, Gen Buhari, for his weaknesses and inconsistencies as a person and leader. Conversely, the APC has tried valiantly to focus on their candidate’s character, which they roughly define in terms of his honesty and integrity, electing to de-emphasise his records as military head of state in the mid 1980s. In their push and pull, and cut and thrust, both parties give

Presidential poll: it’s a question of character

•Jonathan

•Buhari

only a pathetic hint of the significant role character — a virtue and value they have no proper understanding of — should play in the election and in the task of rebuilding Nigeria.

One of the reasons the world is plagued by poor leadership in both politics and business is that there is not much emphasis placed on character anymore. According to former French leader, Charles de Gaulle, “A man of character finds a special attractiveness in difficulty, since it is only by coming to grips with difficulty that he can realize his potentialities.” He adds: “Faced with crisis, the man of character falls back on himself. He imposes his own stamp of action, takes responsibility for it, makes it his own.” But character loses its meaning or is weakened if it is not sustained and ennobled by sound judgement, and intuitive understanding of times, issues and policies. Character

means so much more than the dictionary understanding of embodying a person’s personality. It is deeper, metaphysically nuanced and is projected at a level that transcends simple and exact definitions and terminologies.

By focusing on projects a president has executed or not executed, the Nigerian voter makes the incalculable mistake of using the wrong yardsticks to assess their leader. Leadership is more than projects executed. They are not interchangeable; though projects sometimes open a window into the character of a leader. Indeed, Dr Jonathan is the perfect example of the weakness of democracy in producing leaders with character. What projects has he executed, and what are their visionary rubric? How have his policies and ideas projected his understanding of democracy or any other concept of governance original to him?

That farcical pact between Jonathan and Buhari

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EARING President Goodluck Jonathan declaim upon the higher virtues of electoral rectitude at the Abuja workshop where he and APC candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, signed a covenant to keep the peace during and after next month’s presidential election, one would easily ascribe to him the greatest political altruism. But President Jonathan, experience has shown repeatedly, is only capable of affected political display, the most egregious ever by a Nigerian president or head of state. It used to be thought such affectations were deliberately conjured to impress. After a careful study and understanding of Dr Jonathan’s idiosyncrasies, it became obvious his affectations are products of a part of him neither he nor anyone close to him had control over.

He speaks one thing with conviction, and the next moment he is doing the perfect opposite with equal, effortless and innocent ease.

The pact between him and Gen Buhari, which was supposedly midwifed by former United Nations Secretary-Genral, Kofi Annan, and former Commonwealth Secretary-General, Emeka Anyaoku, is no exception. To be fair to Dr Jonathan, he has never spoken glowingly of democracy, or offered us any original thought on the subject, whether practical from experience or philosophical from a visionary standpoint. So, he could not be expected to declaim on the topic, whether he faked it or meant it. But on a variety of other topics, such as electoral fidelity, employment, economic de-

velopment, and social transformation, the president has lent the full gamut of his complex personality.

G e n Buhari is not in office, nor does he have his hands on the levers of law enforcement and security. So it is difficult to gauge his sincerity regarding the pact. But does anyone trust Dr Jonathan’s enthusiastic view of the Abuja covenant? Newspapers emblazoned a photograph of the president and the general embracing each other after signing the pact, both beaming wide grins, the more surprising because the inscrutable Gen Buhari seldom openly smiled. Beyond the smiles and the photographs, there is little else to the pact, at least as far as Dr Jonathan is concerned. To him, a pact is not any more important than the paper it is signed on. For the pact to have meaning, all institutions of state, not just the electoral body, must be impartial and professional. Dr Jonathan has never demanded impartiality or professionalism of the police, Department of State Service, army, judiciary, his cabinet, or even the bureaucracy. His idea of impartiality

is their unalloyed commitment to his person and government.

Could the president therefore feign ignorance of the crass unprofessionalism of former Rivers State police commissioner, Mbu Joseph Mbu, whose despicable interpretation of his powers and the constitution, not to say his obnoxious insubordination, went unchallenged, mediated or moderated by the president? What of the gangster assault executed by the police on the House of Representatives, and especially against the person of the Speaker? What of the withdrawal of the Speaker’s police security, a decision that both affronted the constitution and manifested political intolerance and lack of respect for democracy? How then can a president under whose nose such deplorable assaults on the constitution were planned and executed claim to desire a violence-free poll and the institution of an impartial, sane and developed polity?

Judging from the president’s enthusiasm, or the body language he cavils at when others read it in him, his idea of violence-free poll does not refer to him, for after all, he had repeatedly warned that no political ambition was worth the life of anyone, regardless of the fact that he often spoke violence. The pact makes sense to the president only as a tool to control Gen Buhari’s die-hards, many of whom he believes require little prompting to take extraordinary and extra-constitutional measures to conjure their utopia. But let the president offer real leadership, the kind that is truly inspiring and altruistic, one that even the blind and the deaf can attest to, and see whether there would be a whimper if an election was lost.

Has Dr Jonathan not dedicated himself to avoiding crisis, or responding amateurishly and cowardly to them when he can’t avoid them? How did he respond to the fuel price crisis, especially when it emerged it was complicated by gargantuan thievery by oil cabals? How has he responded to the insurgency in the Northeast, a troubled region that discomfited his delicate spirit?

It is in fact possible for a leader to execute great developmental projects without anything properly describable as character. Should that happen, the electorate would at least be consoled by the good life, in place of the greater aesthetics of life, the great and lofty abstracts that sometimes burden a leader, compelling him to design structures and frame ideas for the day after tomorrow. But if there is no coherence in the plans for the material enjoyment of today, how can there be, like the sun that produces its own energy, a brilliant, self-actualising and self-perpetuating vision for tomorrow? This was the tragedy Nigeria encountered in 1999 under former President Olusegun Obasanjo. And this is tragically the fate now being endured in greater distress and humiliation under Dr Jonathan.

But this was also a tragedy that predated the Fourth Republic, a tragedy clearly the nemesis of many businesses, societies, and in this case, Nigeria.

Gen Buhari wears the outer shell of character, and is at least a better person and leader than Dr Jonathan. But his detractors are not wrong to argue that his judgement both as head of state and when he presided over the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) was less than unimpeachable. His character may not be ennobled by the wisdom and intuitive intelligence that only a deep person can exude, but he will at least not shy away from crisis, wilt before it, or indulge in the expediencies souls enfeebled by years of irresolute living and leadership are accustomed to. The choice before Nigeria next month is very clear: to put a man in office that best approximates the archetypal leader with character, not a man who cites antediluvian projects like narrow gauge railway as trophy. The wrong choice will probably doom the country, and further consign it to the dungheap, thereby reinforcing its sordid reputation as a byword among nations.

APC and the Chibok factor

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T is hard to imagine whether in any polity a president can win re-election fairly and transparently with a baggage like the Chibok abductions, no, not even in Africa. By the time the presidential election is held in February, the 219 Chibok schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram in Borno State will be about 10 months in captivity. It is a major political issue, perhaps more significant than even the collapsing economy. Why the All Progressives Congress does not use it as a major campaign issue may be due to their reluctance to, as they say, politicise security matters. But the crime cannot be wished away, and it is not politicisation to remind the country that the Jonathan government is incompetent in handling it.

The APC must remind the country that no president or government should be rewarded for mishandling a tragedy of that magnitude. The girls are our daughters, and their parents have remained disconsolate. Indeed, far beyond the mere tragic act of Boko Haram seizing the girls and damaging them, is the unforgivable fact that the president neither visited the crime scene nor empathised with the parents, the state and the Nigerian people. He has no reason to ask for their votes; and those of us whose votes he asks for should deny him. It is nothing personal. It has nothing to do with him as an Ijaw man, a Niger Delta man, a Christian, or a learned zoologist. The image and dignity of Nigeria are at stake, and the APC must utilise the abductions to the hilt.

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