MONDAY 28TH JANUARY 2019

Report: Uncertainties over General Election Constraining Businesses

Nume Ekeghe and Chris Uba

A new report by Guaranty Trust Bank Plc has predicted that the business environment will remain challenging this year due to uncertainties around the upcoming general election.

As a result of this, the report titled, ‘Macroeconomic and

Banking Sector Themes 2019,’ said there would be slowdown in economic activities in the first half of the year.

The report, which was obtained yesterday, projected that the anticipated election related uncertainties would also weigh on the banking industry, with banks exercising significant

restraint and due diligence on all cash transactions.

“We expect the regulatory environment to be firm, but supportive and more conciliatory in 2019 – in view of the need to manage investor perceptions to supposedly harsh regulatory decisions and foster confidence in the economy,”

the bank said in the nine-page report.

With regards to the 2019 budget, the report noted that given the recent fall in crude oil prices, and the noted challenges around the effectiveness of the government revenue machinery, “we are concerned about the downside risks to a higher

deficit.”

In addition, it pointed out that with the recent commitment to Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) by the federal government to implement the new minimum wage structure in 2019, there was a higher chance that government expenditure could rise above the projected level,

thus widening the deficit.

Furthermore, it noted that the real Gross Domestic Product growth estimate of 3.01 per cent appears aggressive considering the marginal growth recorded in 2018.

“The new OPEC deal will see Continued on page 9

PDP, CUPP Allege APC Plotting to Take over N’Assembly ...

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Monday 28 January, 2019 Vol 24. No 8685. Price: N250

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I Will Personally Handle Presidential Election Results Collation, Says Yakubu

To allow observers, media access to situation room Raises the alarm over looming violence

Iyobosa Uwugiaren and Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja As part of it efforts to ensure transparency and build confidence in the February

16 presidential election, the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu, has vowed to solely man the result collation centre,

stressing that he will not share his constitutional responsibility as the chairman of the collation secretariat with anybody.

The INEC boss was also said to have raised the alarm

over what he described as the increasing violence tendencies by politicians and youths who could be used by politicians to carry out nefarious activities, saying that the elections might

be disrupted if the security agencies refuse or fail to carry out their jobs, in line with INEC’s specifications.

This is coming as the electoral body has also

decided to allow members of the accredited civil society groups, local/international election observers and the Continued on page 9

NJC Members Summon Emergency Meeting without Onnoghen, Muhammad Senate caucuses meet today ahead of emergency sitting NBA, judicial workers summon emergency meetings Third Force mobilises for mass action Deji Elumoye, Onyebuchi Ezigbo and Alex Enumah in Abuja The uproar occasioned by the suspension of the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen, and the appointment of Justice Ibrahim Muhammad as acting chief justice by President Muhammadu Buhari, is about to simmer as some members of the National Judicial Council have summoned a meeting of the body for this morning in Abuja.

The meeting, which THISDAY learnt would exclude Onnoghen and Muhammad, is one of a couple of others by concerned groups looking for a way out of the looming constitutional crisis.

Ahead of tomorrow’s reconvening of Senate plenary, the caucuses of both the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the upper chamber of the National Assembly are billed to meet in Abuja today.

Also meeting today is the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), whose National Executive Committee (NEC) members have been asked to gather in Abuja.

A member of NJC told The Cable yesterday that

neither Onnoghen, whose suspension has become a subject of controversy, nor Muhammad, the acting CJN, would be allowed to preside over the meeting.

According to the rules guiding the conduct of NJC meetings, five or more members can summon a meeting subject to a request made to the chairman.

Continued on page 8

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SETTING THE STAGE… L-R: Vice President Yemi Osinbajo; Kwara State APC gubernatorial candidate, Dr. Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq; President Muhammadu Buhari; Lagos State APC gubernatorial candidate, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu; and his Ogun State counterpart, Prince Dapo Abiodun, during a dinner for the party’s governorship candidates at the Presidential Villa, Abuja...recently

ASUU Denies Receiving N163bn, Accuses FG of Spreading Falsehood over Strike

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MONDAY, ÍşÎ€Ëœ ͺ͸͚Π˞ T H I S D AY

PAGE EIGHT

ASUU Denies Receiving N163bn, Accuses FG of Spreading Falsehood over Strike Kemi Olaitan in Ibadan The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) yesterday denied receiving N163billion from the federal government, accusing it of spreading lies in its bid to force the union to suspend its three-month-old strike.

The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, had last week disclosed that federal government had released the sum of N163 billion to Nigerian universities from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund

(TETFund) as part of efforts to end the ongoing strike.

But the union yesterday said the federal government was spreading lies to force the union to suspend its industrial action.

It also said as a patriotic union of intellectuals, it had always been fighting for better funding of public universities so that the students who are the future leaders of the country would have good education to compete with their peers all over the world.

ASUU who made the

accusation in a statement titled, ‘Re: N163billion released to ASUU: Putting the record straight’, signed by the Ibadan Zonal Coordinator of the union, Dr Ade Adejumo, called on the federal government to concentrate efforts at finding a quick resolution of the impasse rather than dissipate energy on fake news and cheap propaganda aimed at tarnishing the image of the union.

He described the federal government as mischievous in misinforming the public

when it knows that ASUU only fight for better education while university administration and Governing Council receive the funds made available to universities. According to him, government knows that it is Governing Councils and university administrations that receive and spend all the money coming to the university, adding that contracts and all capital projects are awarded by the councils that are appointed by the federal government and not ASUU.

The union then enjoined vice chancellors and Governing Councils to stop behaving like vultures but should come out and openly put the record straight each time government comes out with deliberate falsehood that money has been released to ASUU. The statement read in part, “Once again, the attention of our union has been drawn to another piece of misinformation which gives the impression that ASUU collects money from government. For umpteenth

time, let it be known that our union is a patriotic organisation whose activities are driven by principled conviction that the resources of the country can better be managed for the ultimate benefit of the Nigerian society, especially the education sector which is our immediate constituency. The government and all civilized individuals are aware of how the university is managed, so also the resources available to it.

Donald Duke, Col. Abubarkar Umar Dangiwa (rtd), Olawepo Hashim, Oby Ezekwesili, Kingsley Moghalu, Omoyele Sowore, Fela Durotoye, Shina Fagbenro, Obadiah Melafiya, Tope Fasua, Alistar Soyode, Elishama Ideh, Thomas Ikubese, Mathias Tsado, Ahmed Buhari, among other 'Third Force' freshbreed presidential hopefuls expected to align in the new coalition to save democracy and the 2019 elections.

defendant to step aside pending the determination of the charge against him.

Umar had held that the motion moved by plaintiff counsel, Aliyu Umar (SAN) cannot be heard without first resolving the issue of jurisdiction raised by the defendant.

However, the Court of Appeal two days later, on January 24, ordered the CCT to stay proceedings in Onnoghen's trial till Wednesday, January 30 when it (Court of Appeal) would deliver its ruling on the application of the defendant on jurisdiction.

However, in less than 24 hours the appellate court order was made, the president announced the suspension of Onnoghen as CJN. Buhari also immediately swore in the next most senior justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Ibrahim Muhammad as acting CJN and head of the National Judicial Council (NJC).

The president based his action on a purported ex-parte order by the CCT obtained on January 23.

The CCT in its ruling of January 23 had ordered Buhari to suspend Onnoghen pending the determination of the charge of non-declaration of assets pending at the CCT. However, speaking on the matter, Erokoro said going by recent developments, nobody knows what the CCT would do when it sits today.

He said, "The purported ex-parte order on which the president acted on carried a date preceding the sitting at the Court of Appeal and they never disclosed that they have already obtained an order for the suspension of the defendant, so anything can happen tomorrow (today).

The Court of Appeal in Abuja last Thursday had ordered the CCT to stay further proceedings in the trial of Onnoghen.

The three-member panel of the appellate court gave the order after taking submissions from counsel in the application filed by the CJN seeking a stay of proceedings of the trial at the CCT. Onnoghen had in the application filed on his behalf by his lawyer, Chief Adegboyega Awomolo (SAN), asked the appeal court to restrain the CCT from going ahead with the trial slated for January 22.

He also asked the court to stop the suit requesting him to step down as the CJN. In a short ruling the presiding justice, Justice Abdul Aboki, ordered that, "this ruling is adjourned till January 30, the tribunal is ordered to stay all proceedings."

Continued on page 60

NJC MEMBERS SUMMON EMERGENCY MEETING WITHOUT ONNOGHEN, MOHAMMAD It was not clear last night if this requirement was met.

According to 1999 Constitution, members of the council are the CJN, who shall be the chairman; the next most senior justice of the Supreme Court, who shall be the deputy chairman; the President of the Court of Appeal; five retired justices selected by the CJN from the Supreme Court or Court of Appeal.

Other members of the council include, the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court; five chief judges of states to be appointed by the CJN from among the chief judges of the states and of the High Court of the FCT, Abuja; one Grand Khadi to be appointed by the CJN from among Grand Khadis of the Sharia Courts of Appeal to serve in rotation for two years; one president of the Customary Court of Appeal to be appointed by the CJN from among the Presidents of the Customary Courts of Appeal to serve in rotation for two years; five members of the NBA, who have been qualified to practise for a period of not less than 15 years, at least one of whom shall be a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), appointed by the CJN on the recommendation of the National Executive Committee of the NBA to serve for two years and subject to re-appointment, provided that the five members shall sit in the council only for the purposes of considering the names of persons for appointment to the superior courts of record; and two persons not being legal practitioners, who in the opinion of the CJN, are of unquestionable integrity.

Buhari had last Friday suspended Onnoghen, citing an order of the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT).

But many lawyers and civil rights activists had kicked against the president’s action, saying the NJC ought to have investigated the allegations levelled against Onnoghen.

Senate Caucuses, Meet Today Ahead of Special Sitting

The senators’ meetings are at the instance of the leadership of the two caucuses, which would take definite positions on last Friday's suspension of Onnoghen.

The meetings would hold a day after the leadership of the Senate met at the Maitama, Abuja private residence of the Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki, to chart a course for the reconvening of the Senate plenary by tomorrow rather than the earlier adjourned date of

Tuesday, February 19.

An APC senator and Chairman of Senate Committee on Legislative Compliance, Babajide Omoworare, confirmed to THISDAY yesterday that the APC Senate caucus led by the Senate Leader, Senator Ahmad Lawan, would meet in Abuja later today to take a position on the suspension of the CJN before going for plenary tomorrow.

Omoworare (Osun East) added that two other meetings of senators of like minds would also hold later today in different locations in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to discuss the main reason for reconvening the Senate plenary.

On his part, Chairman of Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance and Other Financial Institutions and a PDP senator, Rafiu Ibrahim, also confirmed to THISDAY that the PDP Senate caucus led by Senate Minority Leader, Senator Biodun Olujimi, will meet today to take a stand on the suspension of the head of the nation's judicial arm of government by the executive arm.

Ibrahim (Kwara South) stated that the caucus meeting would come up with a strategy on how to address the issue, which he said, has become a “national embarrassment.’’ According to him, "The suspension of the CJN is unconstitutional and cannot hold water, which has also become the position of the entire world.’’ He said by the time Senate resumes plenary tomorrow "it will speak on this unconstitutional act by the president and I know the Senate is made up of people who will speak as concerned Nigerians and not along party lines.’’ However, tomorrow's debate by the Senate might be along party lines as APC senators appear not to see anything wrong with the suspension while their PDP counterparts vowed to do everything possible for the Senate to condemn the act and ask the president to reverse it.

Those who spoke with THISDAY on condition of anonymity claimed there is no way the PDP senators will have their way against the APC lawmakers who are in the majority.

In a statement issued yesterday by the National President of JUSUN, Mr. Marwan Adamu, the union said it would deliberate on the current happenings in the judiciary and take a stand after the meeting.

Adamu described the situation in the judiciary, an arm of government, as unfortunate,

insisting that the independence of the judiciary as enshrined in the constitution is not negotiable.

The union had last week put its members on red alert, following the moves to arraign Justice Onnoghen over allegations of corruption.

NBA to Hold Emergency NEC Meeting Meanwhile, still miffed by the suspension of Onnoghen

by President Buhari, the NBA has called for an emergency meeting of its National Executive Committee (NEC) members today.

The General Secretary of the NBA, Jonathan Gunu Taidi, said in a notice of meeting that the meeting has Onnoghen’s suspension as the only agenda and it would be attended only by statutory NEC members.

THISDAY gathered that at the meeting issues surrounding the boycott of courts as a form of protest would be discussed.

The NBA had last Friday rejected the suspension of Justice Onnoghen, describing the action as a coup against the judiciary.

It demanded the reversal of the suspension, and called on the National Assembly to assert its constitutional authority and powers and prevent this slide into chaos and erosion of the rule of law.

In terse statement by its President, Mr. Paul Usoro (SAN), the lawyers’ body condemned the suspension of the Nigerian Constitution by the federal government.

The NBA noted that the action of the executive arm of government portends a slide into anarchy and complete deconstruction of the rule of law and due process.

It added that suspension of the CJN by President Buhari amounted to an absolute breach of the Constitution and the usurpation of the powers of the Senate and the Nigerian Judicial Council (NJC).

Judicial Summon Meetings

Workers Emergency

Also, the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN), the umbrella body of junior staff members of the judiciary, has fixed an emergency meeting of the Central Working Committee (CWC) of the union for Wednesday to discuss the issues leading to the suspension of Justice Onnoghen.

This is coming as the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN), the umbrella body of junior staff members of the judiciary, has fixed an emergency meeting of the Central Working

Committee (CWC) of the union for Wednesday to discuss the issues leading to the suspension of the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen.

Again, key political actors and allies of Third Force movement under the umbrella of Nigeria Intervention Movement (NIM) have commenced nationwide mobilisation towards the formation of a new political coalition.

The coalition is to rally fresh breed political leaders, civil society groups, labour activists, professionals, women and youths to halt what they described as a threat to the survival of Nigeria's fledgling democracy occasioned by steady descent of Buhari's government to civilian dictatorship.

Third Force Mobilises for Mass Action

Also gearing for action are key political actors and allies of Third Force Movement under the umbrella of Nigeria Intervention Movement (NIM), who have commenced nationwide mobilisation towards the formation of a new political coalition.

The coalition is to rally fresh breed political leaders, civil society groups, labour activists, professionals, women and youths to halt what they described as a threat to the survival of Nigeria's fledgling democracy occasioned by steady descent of Buhari's government to civilian dictatorship.

The leader of NIM, Mr. Olisa Agbakoba (SAN), a foremost human rights advocate and former president of NBA in consultation with key political leaders of the Third Force Movement at the weekend took the decision to halt the growing attempt of the Buhari government to emasculate and compromise key state institutions ahead of the general election holding in the country next month.

A mobilisation committee of the movement led by Prof. Anthony Kila has been mandated to shortlist and mobilise allied political parties, candidates, former aspirants and select leaders of conscience in the country for a major national planning parley slated to hold this week in Lagos and Abuja against the backdrop of the ultimatum earlier given to Buhari to reverse his purported removal of Justice Onnoghen as CJN or face mass resistance.

Some of the political actors and presidential hopefuls already invited to the Thursday parley in Lagos are Agbakoba, Ghali Umar Na’Abba, Tafawa Balewa,

We Will Not Be Surprised If CCT Rejects Appeal Court's Order to Stay Proceedings, Says Defence Counsel Meanwhile, as the trial of Justice Onnoghen resumes today at the CCT, a member of the defence team, Mr. Paul Erokoro (SAN), yesterday said they would not be surprised if the tribunal fails to regard the order of the Court of Appeal, Abuja division, which had ordered it to stay proceedings in the trial of Onnoghen.

Erokoro in a telephone interview with THISDAY, said they expect the CCT to abide by the order of the Court of Appeal, adding, "But we would not be surprised if he doesn't and we are ready for any surprise that may come up tomorrow (today).�

The federal government had slammed a six -charge of alleged false asset declaration against the CJN. He was accused of failing to declare some funds in his domiciliary accounts with the Standard Chartered Bank, Wuse 2 branch, Abuja.

The CCT had in a split decision of two to one held that it was not bound to recognise the orders of the Federal High Court and other courts of equal jurisdiction, which had ordered a stay of the trial of Onnoghen at the CCT the hearing of motions pending at the various courts.

In their majority judgment, tribunal Chairman, Danladi Umar and Juli Anabor, also disagreed with the request to adjournment of the trial indefinitely, on the grounds of a pending appeal at the Court of Appeal, adding that section 306 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA), 2015, did not make provisions for stay of proceedings in a criminal matter and that in the instant case, it shall not be entertained.

He subsequently adjourned to January 28 for hearing on the defendant's motion challenging jurisdiction of the tribunal to hear the matter.

Before the adjournment, the tribunal refused to entertain the application of the plaintiff seeking an order asking the

9

MONDAY, ÍşÎ€Ëœ ͺ͸͚Π˞ T H I S D AY

NEWS

PDP, CUPP Allege APC Plotting to Take over N’Assembly Buhari hosts APC senators to dinner today Omololu Ogunmade, Adedayo Akinwale and Udora Orizu in Abuja The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) yesterday raised the alarm over moves by certain agents of presidency to bribe All Progressives Congress (APC) senators to forcefully take over the National Assembly and protect President Muhammadu Buhari from imminent parliamentary sanctions for constitutional breaches and gross misconduct.

This is coming as President Buhari will today in Abuja host APC senators to a presidential dinner.

The PDP in a statement by its spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, said intelligence available to it showed that it might be the reason the presidency had summoned all APC senators to the Presidential Villa to a clandestine meeting today, ahead of the Senate’s resumption tomorrow.

"The PDP have been informed of how the Buhari Presidency has been unsettled following national and international outcry over his constitutional

breaches, particularly the assault on the judiciary in his attempt to forcefully remove the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen and impose a pliable CJN to do his bidding "President Buhari is not only apprehensive that the Senate might sanction him for violating the constitution and usurping its statutory duties regarding the handling of issues related to a CJN, the parliament might also open an inquest into how President Buhari, who parades as Mr. Integrity, allegedly procured an order from the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) upon which he announced the illegal suspension of the CJN,� the statement added.

The party said that there are reports that the said order is suspicious and subject to investigation, being not argued or issued in the open court, following which Buhari Presidency now seeks to corrupt and undermine the Senate.

The PDP further alleged that money has been moved from the coffers of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) to bribe the APC senators, adding that each APC senator has been offered

Buhari huge sums of money in foreign currency to engage in heckling during the session, particularly when the matter is raised.

The opposition party advised the APC senators to note that the issue at hand is not partisan; and not even about Justice Walter Onnoghen, but about nationhood, as well as the protection of the nation’s democracy and constitution from despotism.

On its part, CUPP also alleged plot that has been hatched by the APC, which has allegedly received the go-ahead nod of President Buhari for a

‘’violent, illegal’’ and takeover of the leadership of both Chambers of the National Assembly on Tuesday.

The coalition claimed that the APC led federal government is of the firm belief that Tuesday is their best and last chance to effect the changes as their control of the judiciary will be put to use to ensure there is no reversal of justice for the present occupants.

The spokesperson of the CUPP, Ikenga Ugochinyere, who addressed the press yesterday evening in Abuja, revealed that the plot will see the announcement of Senator Ahmmed Lawan as the Senate President; Sen. Hope Uzodimma as the Deputy Senate President and Sen.Godswill Akpabio as the Senate Leader, and in the House of Representatives, Hon Gbajabiamila will be announced as the Speaker while Hon Abdulmimin Jibril will be announced as the Deputy Speaker.

He said, "While Senate will reconvene on Tuesday to discuss the suspension of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen by President Muhammadu Buhari, the APC is ready to do whatever to

destroy the very fulcrum of our constitutional democracy on Tuesday and have vowed, it is tomorrow or never.

"The judicial coup, which they believed was supposed to be more difficult went very easily beyond their imagination hence the need to complete the takeover of the National Assembly immediately so that the distraction of the election campaigns will be put to use.

They have also resolved that the government will make some big positive announcements tomorrow (today) being Monday, January 28, so as to deflect the minds of Nigerians."

CUPP further added Prof.

Yemi Osinbajo, Chibuike Amechi and Babatunde Fashola have been saddled with the responsibility of choosing the issue for announcement by the government.

He mentioned Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, Ali Ndume, George Akume and Kabiru Gaya as the arrowheads behind the plot in the National Assembly.

"To ensure the plot goes successfully, the federal government has mapped out the sum of $70, 000 for each Senator and $40, 000 for

each House member for what it called welfare, since majority of them will be compelled to be in town suddenly.

The money for the bribes have already been released to Senator Lawan and Hon. Gbajabiamila for onward distribution to their members as they return’’, he alleged. “The money amounted to $15million ($8million for the House and $7 million for the Senate),� Ugochinyere said Meanwhile, President Buhari will today in Abuja host APC senators to a presidential dinner.

Invited to the dinner with the president are senatorial candidates of the APC at the forthcoming February 19 National Assembly elections.

Invitation letters to the dinner billed to hold at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa was signed by the DirectorGeneral of Buhari Campaign Organisation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi.

Introductory part of a copy of the letter sighted by THISDAY last night read: "All Progressives Congress Campaign Council wishes to invite all serving APC senators and all senatorial candidates to a dinner with President Buhari."

I WILL PERSONALLY HANDLE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION RESULTS COLLATION, SAYS YAKUBU media access to its Situation Room.

The Situation Room is a centre where all results from all states for the presidential election are counted and collated before they are finally announced.

The room is unique to INEC; it is its internal control mechanism and the core activity of the commission, which is not usually open to outsiders.

THISDAY also gathered from a senior INEC’s official that Yakubu, has vowed not to share his constitutional responsibility as the chairman of the results collation secretariat with anybody. “We have decided to open up the Situation Room for members of the civil society groups, party’s members, local/international election observers and the media.

But they would have to be accredited. The greatest thing for us is that the process is opened,� the senior INEC officer stated.

There has been pressure on INEC to grant international and local observers access to its situation room during the elections, especially with President Muhammadu Buhari’s refusal to assent to the Electoral Act Amendment Bill.

It was canvassed that it would make the election transparent

and makes the result they will declare believable.

The INEC officer also urged Nigerians and the international community not to entertain any fear about the integrity by the electoral body to conduct credible election, saying that the commission had over the years, built huge capacity to conduct credible elections.

He, however, said that INEC has its own limitations, adding that “we can only do what we can do.’’ According to him, Yakubu is concerned that with the increasing violence tendencies by politicians and the number of youths who could be used by politicians to carry out nefarious activities, the elections might be disrupted if the security agencies refuse or fail to carry out their jobs, in line with INEC’s specifications. “If we have violence, many elections could be declared inconclusive; that is my fear.

For now, it is a big issue for all of us. Many of the registered voters are young people; they don’t have patience on the day of election. And they can easily be used by politicians to disrupt the election’’, the INEC senior officer added.

He also revealed that the commission had virtually finished its recruitment of ad-hoc staff for the elections, with majority of the recruited

presiding officers coming from the National Youth Services Corps (NYSC) members, adding that in states where they don’t have enough corps members, some final year students were recruited from the federal institutions – universities and polytechnics.

As for the Collation/ Returning Officers, he revealed that those recruited were of professorial grade from federal universities, who were carefully selected in conjunction with the Vice-Chancellors of the universities they operate from.

The INEC officer, who also expressed serious concern over contradicting court orders from courts for equal jurisdiction, said that INEC had been dragged to court for over 619 times since the process started.

He warned that there can never be true democracy without democrats, advising all stakeholders to play by the rules.

We Are Yet to Receive Court Judgments on Zamfara APC

In another development, INEC has revealed that it has not been served any of the two conflicting court rulings issued last Friday on whether or not it could accept the list of candidates for presented by the All Progressives Congress

(APC) for Zamfara State in the forthcoming general election.

A High Court sitting in Gusau, Zamfara State, presided over by Justice Muhammad Shinkafi in suit No: ZMS/ GS/52/2018, had ruled that the ruling APC actually conducted primaries in the state and should be allowed to present candidates for electoral contest.

However, Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu of the Federal High Court, Abuja Judicial Division in Suit No: FHC/ABJ/ CS/1279/2018 dismissed the case of the APC and ruled that INEC acted within its powers by refusing to accept the list of candidates from the Zamfara State chapter of the APC. INEC had last October said it would not allow the APC to field candidates in Zamfara State because the party failed to conduct primaries before the deadline stipulated.

Some members of APC in the state had approached the court challenging the decision of INEC. The party said it conducted primaries which produced current governor, Abdulaziz Yari as a senatorial candidate and his Commissioner of Finance, Shehu Idris, as the governorship candidate, among others.

Justice Shinkafi, who

delivered the ruling said APC had conducted primary elections on October 3 and 7, 2018.

The Zamfara court specifically directed INEC to accept candidates from the party for Zamfara States in the forthcoming elections.

The court also barred the national secretariat of the APC from replacing the names of those who won the primary elections of the party.

But Justice Ojukwu, in her judgment, said it was not the fault of INEC that the APC failed to conduct a valid primary within the period scheduled by the electoral body.

The judge said INEC’s action was intended to curb impunity among political parties and politicians and ensure that rule of law is adhered to.

Justice Ijeoma contended that the APC failed to conduct a valid primary within the period scheduled by the electoral body.

She said such action from INEC was good for democracy, saying it would instill discipline in political parties.

The judge noted that if consensus candidates are to emerge, there are laid down rules, the constitution of a party, which must be adhered to strictly. INEC National Commissioner and chairman Voter Education and Information, Festus Okoye, told

THISDAY that the electoral body has not received a copy of the judgment delivered by the High Court in Gusau and the one delivered by the Federal High Court in Abuja.

He stated: "The commission notes that the Gusau High Court in Zamfara State and the Federal High Court in Abuja are courts of coordinate jurisdiction. “INEC has not received Certified True Copies of the two judgments as well as the enrolled court orders. “As soon as the commission receives the two judgments and enrolled court orders, the commission will carefully and meticulously study both judgments for proper understanding of the issues that were canvassed before both courts and the issues formulated for determination as well as the “ratio� that informed both judgments. “In taking a decision, the commission will also be guided by the specific orders made by the courts and or the reasons for the dismissal of one of the suits.� “As soon as the commission concludes its analysis and study of the judgments and orders of both courts, it will take a position that accords with the law and the constitution and inform the parties and the Nigeria people accordingly," he said

sustaining a tight monetary policy environment,� it added.

The report noted that the impact of flooding on communities and farmlands, and escalation of farmers-herders crisis had a negative impact on foods production and therefore food inflation.

It, however, anticipated higher inflation this year. “The recent convergence in exchange rates, the rise in food prices, new minimum wage and increased government and election related spending are expected to weigh on the general price levels over the near term. We expect headline

inflation to come in at an average of 13.5 per cent in 2019. “Going into 2019, we expect monetary policy to remain contractionary, given the overarching concerns of maintaining exchange rate stability. “We expect that the current monetary policy variables will be maintained in 2019, while Open Market Operations (OMO) by the CBN will be sustained. “In 2019, we expect that the CBN will sustain its interventions in the FX market in a bid to ensure that rates remain relatively stable into the elections and sustain its price stability objectives.

REPORT: UNCERTAINTIES OVER GENERAL ELECTION CONSTRAINING BUSINESSES Nigeria cut its production by 3.15 per cent to a cap of 1.685 million barrels per day (bpd), excluding condensates, which puts total allowable production at between 1.885 mbpd and 2.035 mbpd after adjusting for estimated condensate production of between 200 kbpd and 350 kbpd. “Overall we see a risk to the budget, which was projected on assumptions of US$60pb oil price and 2.3 mpbd (including condensates) production level. “To forestall future vandalisation of oil installations, we expect the NNPC to replicate its recent surveillance contract with Ocean Marine Solutions

(OMS) for the protection of the Trans Forcados Pipeline (TFP) to other installations. “The contract requires the security provider, OMS, to be responsible for repairs in the event of any damage to assigned installations. We believe this will go a long way in motivating effective surveillance and curbing pipeline vandalism in the Niger Delta,� it stated.

Commenting on Nigeria’s rising debt profile, the report noted that the potential capacity of the country to repay as highlighted by its debt-to-GDP ratio of 19 per cent has been questioned in many quarters,

as less important than debt-torevenue of 65 per cent, which measures ability to the repay.

Therefore, it stressed that while government debt is currently about 19 per cent of national Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the cost of servicing the debt had been projected to be 24 per cent of the 2019 budget and 30.7 per cent of the planned revenue. “With the International Monetary Fund and the lower legislative house expressing concerns about the level of debt and the challenge of significantly increasing its revenue streams, it becomes imperative for some moderation to be introduced to

the rate of debt accumulation. “We are concerned that any planned deficit financing in 2019 will only balloon the debt profile, contributing to a further crowding out of the private sector, with attendant impact on economic growth. “As a predominantly import dependent economy, any decline in the relative value of our currency will have a direct impact on the price level of goods and services. It therefore became imperative for the Monetary Policy Committee, and the central bank, to take necessary steps to maintain the value of the currency by

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MONDAY JANUARY 28, 2019 ˾ T H I S D AY

NEWS

Group News Editor Ejiofor Alike Email Ejiofor.Alike@thisdaylive.com, 08066066268

Southern, Middle Belt Leaders, CDD Urge Buhari to Reinstate Onnoghen CJN’s suspension not similar to Salami’s case, says group Martins Ifijeh in Lagos, Olawale Ajimotokan and Udora Orizu in Abuja The Southern and Middle Belt Leaders’ Forum has demanded a reversal of the suspension, of Walter Onnoghen as the

Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), describing it as “a coup against constitutional democracy in.”

Also, the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) has questioned the legal power of President Muhammadu Buhari to sack

US, UK, EU’s Reaction to CJN’s Suspension Hasty, Unfortunate, Says Presidency Omololu Ogunmade in Abuja The presidency last night responded to the swift reactions of the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union (EU) to the suspension of the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen, saying they were rather hasty.

Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, in a statement, said the general consensus of the trio linking Onnoghen’s suspension to the forthcoming elections only showed that they were not properly informed, pointing out that anyone not properly informed about a situation can easily make mistakes as they allegedly did.

“The presidency notes with interest the coordinated statements of the US, UK and EU linking the suspension of CJN Onnoghen to the conduct of the upcoming elections. We appreciate the concerns voiced by the three statements and accept that the authors of the statements believe they were acting in friendship toward Nigeria with regard to making the statements.

“However, we also note that friends, when not properly informed or acting in haste, can indeed make serious mistakes even with the best of intentions.

Such is the case here,” he said.

Shehu who argued that whereas the three of them canvassed respect for constitutional democracy, reasoned that the position they actually took contravened such position as he went ahead to explain the circumstances leading to Onnoghen’s suspension.

“CJN Onnoghen’s situation is one of his own making and, to a large degree, his own choosing.

The CJN was brought before the CCT because of a serious breach of law regarding his assets declaration. This is not a mere technicality like innocently placing a document in a wrong file or mistakenly placing yesterday’s date on a document.

“All credible evidence indicates the CJN owned and operated several secret bank accounts.

Unexplained large sums of money, exceeding several millions of dollars have passed through these accounts. Several thousand dollars are currently parked in the accounts.

“Multiple deposits of equal sums of money were deposited in some of those accounts during the same day. Such rapid and equal deposits are indicative of a person attempting to evade banking reporting laws and regulations.

“Thus far, CJN Onnoghen has given no plausible explanation for the funds or for failing to report the subject accounts in his assets declaration despite having ample time and opportunity to explain the omission. Given the amount of money involved and the CJN’s inability to explain the source of the funds, the most plausible explanation at this point is also the most unfortunate explanation. No one did this to CJN Onnoghen. He and he alone is to blame for this turn of events.

“Over the years and with great frequency, the authors of the three statements have advised and even chided Nigeria about official corruption. Now we are presented with the sad and unwanted situation where the CJN is discovered to have a vast, unexplained amount of money in his pocket.

“Because of this he has been thoroughly discredited. It is untenable that a person in such compromised circumstances would be allowed to preside over the entire judicial system of a great nation. That would travesty the nation and what it stands for.”

The presidential spokesman who queried whether the US, UK and EU could allow somebody with image crisis like Onnoghen to preside over their own judiciary, argued that the CJN had the option of voluntarily relinquishing authority pending the conclusion of his trial but failed.

Shehu who also accused the CJN of undermining the operations of the judiciary by using the opportunity to hang onto office to shield himself from justice, added that he opted to postpone a meeting of the National Judicial Council (NJC) to avoid deliberating on the matter.

Describing his actions as abuse of office, the statement said Onnoghen was holding the office in public trust and not as a shield to protect himself from the consequences of his own actions.

However, he was swift to add that notwithstanding the CJN’s flaws, he was not removed from office neither was his replacement permanent, pointing out that instead, his removal was only subject to the conclusion of his trial.

On the linkage of the CJN’s suspension with the forthcoming elections, he said such link was unnecessary because the “CJN does not run the election. Nor is he the first arbiter of any electoral complaints. He and the Supreme Court will only get involved as the final arbiter at the end of the appellate process.”

Onnoghen.

This is coming as a pressure group, Forum for Justice and Peace has described the suspension of Onnoghen as illegal, stressing that it cannot be compared to the sack of former President of Court of Appeal, Justice Ayo Salami, which was done through due process.

The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, (SERAP) has also sent an open petition to the next-in-rank to the Chairman of the National Judicial Council (NJC), urging the Council to immediately take over the CJN’s case from the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT).

In a statement signed by Edwin Clark (South-south); Ayo Adebanjo (South-west); John Nwodo (South-east) and Pogu Bitrus (Middle Belt), the group called on Nigerians to rise up

SERAP asks NJC to take over case

against “dictatorship” and use all legal means to defend the democracy.

“This is a constitutional crisis foisted by desperation and morbid desire to foist rule of thumb,” the statement said.

“We have checked through the constitution and the president has no power to unilaterally suspend the CJN. “Section 292 of the amended 1999 Constitution is clear that the President can only remove the CJN with 2/3 of Senate resolution.

“To us, what has been done is resort to self-help after the Court of Appeal issued an order stopping the trial of the CJN by the CCT presided over by a man answering charges in court over corruption allegations but still in office.

“The latest action is a clear suspension of the constitution

and enthronement of full blown dictatorship.

“We reject the illegal suspension and demand its immediate reversal. The suspension is null and void and of no effect whatever.

An emergency meeting of the Forum holds shortly on this total aberration.

“We call on all Nigerians to wake up to the reality that our democracy is now under threat and use all constitutional means to defend it. We must not surrender to this authoritarian rule.”

The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) has also questioned the legal power of President Buhari to sack Onnoghen.

The Director of CDD, Idayat Hassan, in a statement issued yesterday, asked President Buhari to reverse his action.

Hassan insisted that the constitution is clear that the powers of appointment and removal are shared powers, which the President cannot exercise alone.

“It is settled law that only the NJC is constitutionally vested with the authority of disciplinary control including that of suspension of an erring judicial officer. The removal of the CJN has created much concern with the way processes of court and law are flagrantly being abused.

In a related development, a pressure group, Forum for Justice and Peace has described the suspension as illegal, stressing that the suspension cannot be compared to the sack of Salami, which was done through due process.

Continued on page. 58

HONOURING FALLEN HEROES…

L-R: Representative of the Chief of Defence Staff, Maj. Gen. Joe Orokpo; Special Guest, Gen. Theophilus Danjuma (rtd), his wife, Daisy, and the Senior Pastor, Trinity House, Ituah Ighodalo, at the Thanksgiving Service to mark the Armed Forces Remembrance Day at Trinity House, Victoria SUNDAYADIGUN Island, Lagos...yesterday

Police Sgt, Two Others Killed in Edo Cult War Adibe Emenyonu in Benin City Police Sergeant identified as Oisa Monday Ehigie and two of his cult members were said to have been killed on Saturday night at Nomayo Junction, Upper Sakponba road, Ikpoba-Okha Local Government Area (LGA) of Edo State.

Last Monday, the police orderly to the Chairman of Ikpoba-Okha LGA in the state, Dr. Eric Osayande, was killed in a similar incident..

Also, last week, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for Owan West constituency, Micheal Ohio Ezomo, was abducted while his police orderly was killed.

It was further learnt that the deceased police officer’s parents have been warning him to stop his cult activities even after becoming a police officer but to no avail.

Edo State Commissioner, of Police, Hakeem Olusegun Odumosun, who confirmed the incident said it was a cult killing, adding that the deceased police officer was a cultist.

Acording to him, “It was alleged that the officer belong to a cult group; he was fighting on the side of his cult group with rival cult group.

“That was what led to his death. Three people lost their lives in the fight - the police officer and two others. I have gone to see his family. It is a cult killing and the officer is a cultist,” he said.

He said efforts were ongoing to arrest the killers, warning that cultist will have no hiding place in the state.

In a related development, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state has called on the Edo State Commissioner of Police to arrest killers of its

Youth Leader in Ukhomedokha Ward 10 of Etsako East LGA, Mr. Godday Etu. The party alleged that Etu was killed last Saturday by some APC youths in the locality.

A statement signed by the Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Mr. Chris Nehikhare, said Etu was attacked with a matchet and later died in a hospital at Auchi, headquarters of Estako West LGA. According to the statement, “This dastardly act we are informed was carried out by marauding and unruly APC youths allegedly led by one Pius.

“Reports reaching us suggest that Pius attacked him with a machete around 1a.m early Saturday morning. Godday died later in a hospital in Auchi from wounds sustained.

“We are calling on the Commissioner of Police, to as a matter of urgency, rebuild trust

and confidence by ensuring all those connected with the murder are brought to book as these APC members are emboldened by the perceived cover they believe they enjoy from the state government and state police command. They think they are untouchable!

“We appeal to our party members to be law-abiding while awaiting appropriate action by security agencies.”

But in a swift response to the accusation, the state Chairman of APC, Mr. Anselm Ojezua, said the APC is not a violent party.

Ojezua urged the PDP not to drag the APC into its internal wrangling.

His words, “I have not heard about any killing but violence is not our character.

“If the PDP has intra-party problems, they should not drag us into it.”

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COMMENT

Editor, Editorial Page PETER ISHAKA Email peter.ishaka@thisdaylive.com

PPPRA: THE FUTURE OF NIGERIA’S DOWNSTREAM SECTOR The major regulator in the petroleum downstream sector is increasingly living up to its responsibilities, writes Abdulwaheed Odusile

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t is often said that necessity is the mother of invention.

The crises that bedevilled the petroleum products supply chain, especially petrol, informed the federal government’s decision in May 2003 to set up the Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency (PPPRA).

Not many Nigerians, especially motorists, would want to recall the harrowing experiences of the past at filling stations across the country, queuing for fuel that was not there, or in few instances where it was available, they could not afford. To address this and other issues associated with the downstream sub-sector of the Oil and Gas industry, the government came up with the PPPRA through an act of parliament, and the agency since inception has been living up to expectations even in the face of daunting challenges.

Successive boards and managements in the agency have remained faithful to the mission and vision of the founding fathers and this has led to a remarkable progress in the downstream sub-sector of Nigeria’s oil industry, which the PPPRA is a major regulator. It is expected that by the time the much-awaited Petroleum Industry Governance Bill (PIGB), recently sent back to the National Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari for review is passed by the legislature and accented to by the president, the agency would be further strengthened to perform its role in the downstream sub-sector.

In spite of these challenges, the agency has continued to record laudable achievements. The last one year has brought remarkable changes and achievements heralding the dawn of a new era in PPPRA. With the support of a formidable Governing Board under the leadership of Muhammad Lawan Buba and a resourceful management led by Abdulkadir Saidu, the Executive Secretary, the agency has recorded giant strides that will no doubt reposition it for greater efficiency and better service delivery. Some of these, which are clear institutionbuilding achievements include: One, review and update of the Code of Conduct for Industry Operators. Two, ensuring products availability nationwide through affective regulation and collaboration of all stakeholders especially the NNPC. Three, rapid expansion of the domestic LPG market through various advocacy and interventions by the agency in collaboration with the office of the Vice-President and that of the Honourable Minister of State for Petroleum Resources.

Four, sustenance of a conducive investment climate resulting

THE AGENCY HAS STEPPED UP ITS OVERSIGHT FUNCTION OF MONITORING, SUPPLY AND DISTRIBUTION OF PETROLEUM PRODUCTS NATIONWIDE IN COLLABORATION WITH OTHER AGENCIES, A TREND THAT ELICITS APPLAUSE FROM MOTORISTS AND MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC

in infrastructural development and job creation. The ongoing Dangote refinery construction project is a testimony to this.

Five, development of competencies and skills of personnel through intensive, sustained training and capacity building programmes embarked upon by the management.

Sixth, collaboration with other government agencies, like the National Orientation Agency (NOA) on public enlightenment and sensitization programmes. Seventh, the agency is currently developing Customer Service Care Line towards establishment of a call center and eight, digital archiving of documents and ongoing effort towards computerization of work process as regards collation of industry data.

It is disturbing that some media reports ignore these laudable and obvious achievements but instead embarked on what appears to be a clear case of campaign of calumny against the agency and is clear that those persons who chose to turn a blind eye to innovations going on instead took to various media outlets painting a picture of unhealthy rivalry among government agencies which does not exist.

PPPRA under the current administration has become a foremost regulatory agency in the downstream oil and gas sub-sector to reckon with in terms of accurate and reliable data. The agency has stepped up its oversight function of monitoring, supply and distribution of petroleum products nationwide in collaboration with other agencies, a trend that elicits applause from motorists and members of the public as the perennial petroleum products scarcity has been confined to dustbins of history.

The current PPPRA Executive Secretary being a seasoned administrator, on assumption of office with the support of the governing board, put square pegs in square holes to ‘ensure greater transparency, accountability and efficiency, as well as good governance in line with the change agenda drive of the present administration’.

PPPRA is alive to its responsibilities and is being positioned strategically as a foremost commercial regulator in the downstream oil and gas sub-sector. The agency under the present leadership enjoys collaboration and mutual working relationship with relevant ministries and agencies of government.

Odusile wrote from Abuja

FLOATING THE NAIRA Boniface Chizea cautions on floating the nation’s currency

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n the campaign trail recently the promise of allowing the Naira to float was heard. It therefore became imperative that those who know should intervene now. Amongst my Asaba people there is this saying that you must drive the black goat inside the house before it is dark otherwise you might experience some difficulties wanting to do so later. If you like as we say, ‘Shut the stable door before the horse bolts away.’ This is the spirit which informed the present intervention.

When you float a currency to ensure that we are all on the same page, you literally allow unfettered market forces to determine the value of the currency. The question to ask upfront is: is there any currency in the world the determination of its value is left entirely to market forces? I don’t think so. What matters is the degree of freedom the market enjoys in the determination of the rate of exchange.

Most monetary authorities around the globe are usually on standby to perform Open Market Operations as they buy and sell the currency for the purposes of the determination of targeted exchange rate. To buttress this point we witnessed Donald Trump America recently issuing threats to the Chinese that they risk retaliation if China continues to manipulate the fundamentals of its economy with a view to gaining balance of trade advantage.

The value of the Naira today is not fixed.

It is determined by a variant of floating methodology referred to as managed float. And therefore talk of floating the naira with the claim that the way and manner the exchange rate has been determined is part of the country’s problem is open to debate. Probably it is useful to put discussions in context by recalling the experience of the country over the years as it experimented with allowing market forces free reign in the determination of the rate of exchange. The first major attempt in the history of this country to embrace market

forces wholesale goes back to the introduction of Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in 1986 at the behest of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) during the Babaginda regime.

SAP then was introduced aimed at a diversification of the economy through aggressive promotion of non-oil exports to reduce the unwholesome dependence of the country on the extractive sector particularly oil for a dominant portion of foreign currency earning as well as to optimize the allocative efficiency of market forces. One area where the impact of this programme was immediately felt was on the determination of the rate of exchange. It is on record that overnight the rate of exchange of the naira was depreciated from 22 to 86 naira to the dollar. This action unleashed unimaginable level of distortion on the economy as price of products suddenly skyrocketed causing runaway inflation. To compound the situation at the same time an official window was left open at the rate of exchange before the SAP-induced devaluation at 22 naira to the dollar for official transactions, providing a rent seeking opportunity which most economic agents in proxy position to access foreign exchange at this rate thoroughly abused as round tripping became the order of the day. What is more since this experience the value of the naira never appreciated again even if one should not make so much about the notional rate of exchange of a currency since what is paramount is the productivity within an economy.

Sometimes memory is short. It is a matter for the records that in the life of this administration similar attempt was made to loosen controls following the persistent call that that is the preferred route to managing the value of the naira with the monetary authorities called all sorts of names including being clueless and incompetent. The Central Bank then decided that it was going to allow the forces of demand and supply determine the rate of exchange and

was going to standby to intervene if the trend is going out of hand. What happened should be very fresh in our memory. The value of the naira depreciated rapidly and was heading to N500 to the dollar compared to the extant 158 when the panic button was hit and the depreciation was halted where it is today. If immediate and urgent steps were not taken then, the rate of exchange could have gone out of control by now.

We must commend the Central Bank under this administration for the feat it recorded for this stability to be achieved. Since then the CBN took other measures that facilitated the stability we are currently enjoying including the accretion to our reserves. One laudable ingenious approach was the opening of the Exporter/Importer Window which literally allowed exporters and importers to agree without interference the rate at which they were ready to transact with the banks only providing a platform as well as guaranteeing the transaction. This window contributed in no small measure to the reduction of pressure on the country’s reserves as it facilitated trade flows and therefore productivity.

Another aspect of foreign exchange management today which has been decried is the question of multiple exchange rates in the economy. But the reality is that for as long as we have various windows for accessing foreign exchange including Bureau de Change and the parallel market, the rates at these different markets can never be the same. But the rates at these other market should not be of so much concern as they lack the volume to cause major distortions. But certainly as soon as practicable we must move to unify the rates at the official market. We have so far retained the problematic dual rates which our experience hitherto certainly informs us that that is not the way ahead.

The question of the 42 items now proposed to rise to 50 denied access to official foreign exchange by the CBN is another policy measure

for which the CBN had received a lot of flak as in the thinking of free market economists it offends the fundamental tenets of free trade.

But as we observed earlier even America was recently at logger heads with China as it complained of the manipulative tendencies of the Chinese to gain balance of trade advantage.

The Central Bank faced with the challenge of dwindling foreign exchange inflow could not have sat idly by to witness the depletion of our reserves on frivolous importations. These imports are frivolous to the extent that local capacity exists for their production. And the authorities must be seen to rise to the challenge of protecting local production and jobs and also the balance on the reserves. Even some of these items are intermediate products as claimed by organized bodies, it is beholden on them to convince the authorities as the task of moving this economy forward must be seen as a joint effort of all stakeholders. It speaks volumes as to the resilience of the authorities at the CBN that they were able to ride the barrage of criticisms from particularly organized trade associations as the bank stood its ground on the policy.

As the tenure of the current Governor of the Central Bank expires in June and the battle for a successor intensifies, it is in order that we should sound a note of warning that the apparent stability we have now enjoyed must be jealously guarded, protected and not be taken for granted. We must also caution against the policy of devaluation as an economy without an acknowledge export base is not in position to optimize the opportunities inherent thereto.

This country is in urgent need of sustained growth and development which certainly is not supported by any measure by macroeconomic instability mindful of the fact that at the end of the day when the time of reckoning arrives, the managers of the economy would be called to account for the fact of the extent of deterioration on macroeconomic fundamentals.

Dr. Chizea wrote from Lagos

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T H I S D AY MONDAY, JANUARY 28, 2019

EDITORIAL The Return Of Lassa Fever The authorities should ensure that the viral disease is contained

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he Nigeria Centre for Diseases Control (NCDC) last week confirmed 16 deaths from 60 cases of Lassa fever with 590 out of 593 reported contacts currently under watch in eight states of the country since the beginning of the year. Against the background of repeated commitments by various stakeholders to prevent a recurrence of this disease, what the current outbreak has shown very clearly is that if indeed there have been any preventive strategies, they were not implemented. The task at hand is to prevent the disease from spreading beyond these states.

According to the NCDC Director General, Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, recent epidemiological data reveals that this trend usually occurs during the dry season, between January and April. He added that the Lassa fever national multi-partner, multi-agency Technical Working Group (TWG) will continue to coordinate response EXPERTS HAVE activities at all levels.

ADVISED THAT PEOPLE We commend him SHOULD ENSURE THEIR and his team for providing support FOOD IS PROPERLY to states including COVERED WHILE the provision of REGULAR HANDemergency supplies WASHING SHOULD BE and deployment ADHERED TO ALWAYS of Rapid Response Teams (RRT) for coordination, contact tracing, case management, risk communication and strengthening infection prevention and control practices.

It is unfortunate that Lassa fever has been a serious challenge for Nigeria’s health authorities since it was first diagnosed in Lassa (the village for which it was named) in Borno State in 1969. Despite all the efforts in the past to contain the scourge, it is unfortunate that we have been witnessing frequent outbreaks in recent years. We, therefore, hope the authorities will take both preventive and long-term measures this time around so that we do not continue to witness the death of our

Letters to the Editor

health professionals and care givers.

Lassa fever is an acute febrile illness which is caused by a virus with an incubation period of between six to 21 days. The onset of the disease is usually gradual, starting with fever, general weakness, before being followed by headache, sore throat, muscle pain, chest pain, nausea, vomiting, cough, and bleeding from mouth, nose, etc. But there are recommended preventive measure such as avoiding contact with rats (dead or alive), keeping the house and surroundings clean, clearing all bushes around the house to avoid breeding sites for rats as well as putting refuse into covered dustbins and disposing appropriately, etc.

H T H I S DAY EDITOR BOLAJI ADEBIYI DEPUTY EDITOR DAVIDSON IRIEKPEN MANAGING DIRECTOR ENIOLA BELLO DEPUTY MANAGING DIRECTOR KAYODE KOMOLAFE CHAIRMAN EDITORIAL BOARD OLUSEGUN ADENIYI EDITOR NATION’S CAPITAL IYOBOSA UWUGIAREN MANAGING EDITOR JOSEPH USHIGIALE

T H I S DAY N E W S PA P E R S L I M I T E D EDITOR-IN-CHIEF/CHAIRMAN NDUKA OBAIGBENA GROUP EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS ENIOLA BELLO, KAYODE KOMOLAFE, ISRAEL IWEGBU, IJEOMA NWOGWUGWU, EMMANUEL EFENI DIVISIONAL DIRECTORS BOLAJI ADEBIYI, PETER IWEGBU, ANTHONY OGEDENGBE DEPUTY DIVISIONAL DIRECTOR OJOGUN VICTOR DANBOYI SNR. ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR ERIC OJEH ASSOCIATE DIRECTORS PATRICK EIMIUHI, SAHEED ADEYEMO CONTROLLERS ABIMBOLA TAIWO, UCHENNA DIBIAGWU, NDUKA MOSERI DIRECTOR, PRINTING PRODUCTION CHUKS ONWUDINJO TO SEND EMAIL: first name.surname@thisdaylive.com

TO OUR READERS Letters in response to specific publications in THISDAY should be brief (150-200 words) and straight to the point. Interested readers may send such letters along with their contact details to opinion@thisdaylive.com. We also welcome comments and opinions on topical local, national and international issues provided they are well-written and should also not be longer than (9501000 words). They should be sent to opinion@thisdaylive.com along with the email address and phone numbers of the writer.

MUHAMMADU BUHARI AND DEMOCRACY

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n December 31, 1983, a putsch coordinated by General Buhari and his associates led to the demise of a democratic government. He was 41 years old at the time. And at the age of 76, Buhari has not lost the taste for “plotting”. He is still the same ol’ G. President Buhari has cast off all pretences. He has emerged from the smokescreens. He has shredded the “uncomfortable raiment of constitutionality”, donning is beloved military fatigues. And he has dark shades on, to blind his eyes from the consequences of his summary execution of the rule of law and all that democracy represents.

Buhari has always shown his detest for democracy. He blames democracy for his ineffective, dubious and conflicted fight against corruption. In fact, he blames the all-round failures of his government on this system of government. He often cites following the due processes in the system as a drawback to his performance.

This retired general once said the “rule of law” was subordinate to national security. He once ordered a nocturnal attack on the houses of judges, and his regime once descended on the legislature, scandalising the institution and stripping it of dignity.

Now, it is the head of the judiciary that is being

owever, because the symptoms of Lassa fever are so varied and non-specific, clinical diagnosis is often difficult, especially early in the course of the disease. For that reason, steps should be taken by the federal government to direct all health facilities in the country to emphasise routine infection prevention and control measures.

Healthcare workers should also be advised to always be careful to avoid contact with blood and body fluids in the process of caring for sick persons.

Experts have advised that people should ensure their food (cooked or uncooked) is properly covered while regular hand-washing should be adhered to always.

The bush around the home should also be cleared regularly while windows and doors of the house should be closed especially when it is night time. The general public should also be adequately enlightened on the dangers posed by rats in their homes. This should be the responsibility of both the Federal Ministry of Environment and that of Information that can deploy the National Orientation Agency (NOA) for a public awareness campaign on the issue.

While we believe that with effective coordination, the disease can be contained quickly before it becomes another national epidemic with dire implications for the lives of our people, the real challenge is to work towards its total eradication from our country. That is an urgent task for the health authorities at all levels of government in Nigeria.

guillotined. The charges against Walter Onnoghen, Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), are weighty and cannot be dismissed. But there is a case in court, and legal processes have commenced already. It is then suspicious that Buhari abandoned the constitutional provisions, which stipulate that the CJN can only be suspended by the president acting on the resolution of two-thirds majority of the senate, in removing Onnoghen.

Clearly, Buhari “suspended the constitution and invoked martial law” in suspending Onnoghen. It is even more ridiculous that he based this illegality on an order of the Code of Conduct Tribunal. Is the CCT order superior to the constitution? Or is it a case of national security being superior to rule of law? And by the way, the chairman of the tribunal is facing allegations of bribery and extortion filed against him by the EFCC, but why has he not been compelled to “step aside” to face the charges?

Perhaps, he is serving a purpose now.

And really, how can one arm of government remove the head of another arm of government?

When did the CJN become the appointee of the executive? This is an aberration; a violent violation of decency.

Fredrick Nwabufo, fredricknwabufo@yahoo. com

ATIKU ABUBAKAR MEANS BUSINESS

I

don’t how others reacted to it, but there was a feeling of utter relaxation and smug anticipation in my mind when I heard from the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, what I considered one of the germane campaign-issue argument this election season. Candidate Atiku promised to bring back Procter and Gamble (P&G) and General Electric (GE). What we heard from Mr. Abubakar was that P&G will be encouraged to revive its $300 million investment profile in Nigeria and GE will be convinced to forge on with that botched $2 billion-plus railway concession investment that this conglomerate mooted but the incumbent APC government frustrated.

If this isn’t the perfect campaign stump then I do not know what a good campaign stump is, but all in all, it shows that Atiku means business because he has shown that he understands what drives a national economy. The vistas for economic-growth stimuli that the P&G and GE investments profiles would open can only just be imagined, as it were, because crash of retail prices of popular key domestic items like Ariel detergent, the suite of “maxi,” “medi,” and “mini” kiddies’ napkins and other product that the P&G outfit can offer will ensure uptick in patronage and a consequent boom in that sector. Regrettably, what is so obvious to GE is what the highfalutin Federal Ministry of Transport has failed to recognise,

viz: Nigerians are social animals who take great pleasure in trans-locating from one community to the other in order to keep up their social and familial commitments and, really, that is why Nigerians are some of the happiest folks in the world today; this wide-area translocation means that there must exist a system of mass transit to move people from one location to another at affordable price regime, and this mass transit system need not necessarily be lines of expensively-imported Toyota buses emblazoned with the logos of some federal agency, some state government, or the image of the governor himself proclaiming “assistance to the masses” as if Nigerians are deservedly wretched. This mind-set is the very reason for the acute inefficiency in the mass transit system of Nigeria, and the planners and investment analysts at GE must be absolutely certain that interconnecting railways lines linking the major towns and cities of Nigeria in the context of a national masstransit system is the sure way to go for this company to agree to that huge investment outlay, very huge indeed by Africa’s standard. Since Atiku is committed to exploring these investment-opportunity window, Nigerians must listen to him and vote for him.

Sunday Adole Jonah, Department of Physics, Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State

16

5 ) * 4 % ": t MONDAY, JANUARY 28, 2019

5 ) * 4 % ": t MONDAY, JANUARY 28, 2019

17

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POLITICS

Group Politics Editor NSEOBONG OKON-EKONG Email: nseobong.okonekong@thisdaylive.com 08114495324 SMS ONLY

PRESIDENTIAL PODIUM

Promise of Abundance from Tope Fasua Udora Orizu

T

ope Kolade Fasua, 48, is an economist, writer and politician.

He is the founder and CEO of Global Analytics Consulting Limited, an international consulting firm with headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria. He is an Economist by training, a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) and a Member of the Institute of Directors (MIoD). He also possesses a Masters Degree with Distinction, in Financial Markets and Derivatives from London Metropolitan University. As a political reformer, he founded the Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party (ANRP). He serves as the party’s National Chairman and Presidential candidate. Fasua has six books to his credit Fasua has authored four books; ‘Crushed’, ‘Things to Do Before Your Career Disappears’, ‘The Race for Capital’, and ‘A Change Will Come’. He is also rounding-up a PhD in Public Policy and Leadership at Walden University, USA. Education This is the fulcrum of development. We will focus education on socioeconomic development. We will declare immediate emergency on the situation where 15 million Nigerian children are out of school. This is 100 years of this country mortgaged and is the biggest existential challenge we have as a people. Any parent who rejects compulsory basic education for their children shall be strongly counseled and recalcitrant ones prosecuted as prescribed by the constitution. Our secondary and tertiary institutions will be recalibrated to solve problems not just for issuance of certificate. A body will be set up to review projects, thesis and dissertations from all higher institutions, in order to sieve out the best proposals and use them with reference researcher. Focus will be on jobs for secondary school leavers who will be supervised by university graduates. We will work towards returning public schools, even if we have to adopt the approach of giving many back to the initial clergies which established them.

Health Mass training and recruitment of health assistants, who will function for first aid and administration while we strive to reverse the brain drain that sucks all our medical doctors, pharmacists and senior health workers abroad. A functioning health Centre will be available in all villages. We shall also employ health education experts to train our people on hygiene and thereby reduce public health bill.

Agriculture Amplify the role of science in seed and yield improvements. Assist subsistence farmers for better productivity and manage transition to mechanization. We must urgently coach our subsistence farmers on ways of maximizing crop productivity. New improved seeds must mainstream all over the nation. Promote commodity boards or clustering for price stability. Agric productivity no longer relies on land mass. Through the further scientification of agriculture, we shall ensure no Nigerian remains food

Fasua

hungry and where possible we shall provide for other African countries and ensure food is cheap in a way that the Naira is strengthened when basic income is able to cover food needs of families twice over. Focus remains on organic foods, health is emphasized.

First we must properly separate the need to diversify government sources of revenue, from diversifying the entire economy as a whole. The areas which I expect to look for additional revenue for government include tourism, solid minerals, more compliance with taxes, fees, ďŹ nes, rates, duties and levies that are currently being outed at will

Security Most of our insecurity problems are intelligence-based. To be tackled by youth involvement and employment into intelligence, paramilitary and light security work. Our youths will do this job with dignity and secure their neighborhoods. A systematic overhaul of intelligence services will be carried out and several layers of checks and balances instituted to ensure sabotage and espionage is eliminated. We shall start rebuilding our capabilities to provide our own weaponry rather than the 100% reliance on foreign countries which comes with attendant delays, compromises and vulnerabilities.

Economy First we must properly separate the need to diversify government sources of revenue, from diversifying the entire economy as a whole.

The areas which I expect to look for additional revenue for government include tourism, solid minerals, more compliance with taxes, fees, fines, rates, duties and levies that are currently being flouted at will and a general organization of our society like other people have done.

We will deliberately go after those who are in government and have flouted Nigeria’s laws as examples as is being done elsewhere. If people see government officials, politicians and top civil servants being held to account they will conform with the laws of the land and revenues will rise. We will rapidly proceed to in producing complex goods that can command value in global markets. It is in ensuring that we keep

our money within the family and that whatever Nigerians need can be bought from another Nigerian and should be made from materials, ideas, technology, knowledge and innovations that are made in Nigeria. Increase per capita national budget to at least $300pa from the paltry $138 per annum in 2018. In two years of governance, achieve at least GDP growth rate of 15 pa year on year for 4 years.

Infrastructure Within three years of ensure all state capitals are connected by passenger and cargo rail to reduce pressure on road transport. Through scientific collaborations, evolve new materials that will ensure our roads don’t fall apart every year. On water, We have fix our water systems ourselves. We shall go back to our universities and polytechnics and challenge students and academia to come up with solutions to this crisis.

We will provide potable water all over the country and use innovative ways to distribute to our people where the infrastructure has broken down. On energy, the solution to our energy and power problem is again internal. We will mainstream alternative energy and use this opportunity to rejig the importance of the educational sector. We will empower and fund engineering departments to take as hands on projects and get very practical by lighting up villages and small towns around them. Also high end homes in large cities will be mandated to install alternative energy systems such as solar and inverters so that

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STATE OF THE POLITY

In Adamawa, the Stakes Are Very High Daji Sani writes that the governorship contest in Adamawa State features 29 gladiators including four women

Fintiri

A

novelty in the 2019 governorship election in Adamawa State is the agreement reached by majority of the parties in the competition to keep the peace. In a bid to avoid post- election violence, clashes during campaign and any election related violence all the contestants have entered into a peace accord.

The symbolic peace accord signing ceremony was conducted under the Interagency Consultative Committee on Electoral Security (ICCES) and coordinated jointly by the Adamawa State Resident Electoral Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Kassim Gaidam and Police Commissioner, Abdullahi Yerima. However, Governor Mohammed Jibrilla Bindow was absent.

The governor who is the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for 2019 general elections sent the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Dr. Umaru Bindir to sign on his behalf.

But the terms of the accord disqualifies a representative from signing for his principal, but provides room for the principal to sign on a later date Rt. HonAhmadu Umaru Fintiri the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Emmanuel Bello of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) were among 13 governorship candidates who personally signed the accord.

Adamawa has 29 governorship candidates, four of them are women, 13 candidates signed accord, 10 candidates excused themselves, but promised to sign the accord on a later date, while six candidates were yet to explain their absent from the peace accord signing ceremony.

However, some stakeholders who witnessed the signing ceremony at the Green Park Hotel in Yola, reasoned that the signing of the accord was very important and candidates of various political parties should take the accord seriously in order to prevent post-election violence.

This development has touched the conscience of political warriors and party stalwarts across the 21 councils of the state, who having been deploying all their political arsenal in readiness to wrestle power from the ruling APC led by Governor Bindow in the state.

The Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) Barrister Kassim Gaidam has said only 29 political parties will participate in the 2019 general elections in the state.

The political arena was tense during the last party primaries, particularly in the APC, where internal wrangling resulted in a faction led by the former SGF David Lawan Babachair supported by the wife of the president, Aisha Buhari was bent on imposing her younger brother , Dr. Haliru Modibbo against the wish of the incumbent governor of the state who was also seeking for his second term on the platform of the APC .

The APC primaries became more interesting because despite the fierce opposition to unseat the incumbent governor, the governor defeated all the APC aspirants including Modibbo and the ex-EFCC boss, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu at the party primaries and he was declared flag bearer of the APC in the state.

The former SGF faction had alleged that the incumbent governor may not work for President Buhari’s victory in the state following his romance with the former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar who is the presidential flag bearer of the Peoples Democracy Party (PDP).

The involvement of the wife of the president and the former SGF was said to have attracted sympathy votes for Bindow during the primaries

Bello

Bindow

Nyako

because the APC stakeholders in the state feared that if the future of the state was allowed to be determined from Abuja, it will not augur well for the coming generation.

However, political pundits are of the notion that the Adamawa governorship election will be the hottest fight of the titans, especially with the emergence of the former Vice President,AlhajiAtiku Abubakar, (Waziri Adamawa) as the presidential flag bearer of the PDP. They further explained that Abubakar in PDP is going to meet stiff oppositions from the wife of the President, who hails from Adamawa, both the current and former SGF Mr. Boss Mustapha and Chief David Lawan Babachair respectively and the power of the incumbent governor, Senator Mohammed Jibrilla Bindow all from the APC who have all agreed to work for President Mohammedu Buhari.

According to them, these forces in APC can only defeat the PDP in the state if they put an end to the internal crisis ravaging the APC which has polarized the party into three factions, the former governor Murtala Nyako led factions also known as the the ‘Black Cap’ which produced Mallam Nuhu Ribadu as its governorship aspirant during the just concluded APC primary.

There is the former SGF, David Lawan Babachairled faction supported by wife of the president, Aisha Buhari which preferred Dr. Halilu Modibbo, her younger brother who has gone to court to demand cancellation of the APC primary, alleging that there were glaring irregularities.

The third faction is the faction of Governor Mohammed Jibrilla Bindow that defeated all other aspirants. He is the flagbearer of the APC in the state.

Because of the unresolved crises, Bindow is cannot sleep with his two eyes closed. His steps are dogged with many challenges; including certificate forgery- which is still in court.An increasing number of people are saying they will not vote Bindow due to failed promises. About 115 of his loyalists who bought forms to contest the primaries for the state house of assembly were not allowed and their monies were not refunded, leaving them with no other option than to dump the APC and Bindow. “These crises may work against the APC if it is not resolved. It will put the PDP at a vantage position to win all the political positions in the state,� one of them said.

According to them, the presidential candidate of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar who hails from the state will want to prove his political weight by making sure he delivers his state even though the gubernatorial candidate of the PDP, Umaru Finitiri is equally a good material and could win the governorship of the state without help from Atiku based on his track record when held served as the Acting Governor.

According to the INEC ‘s REC in-charge of Adamawa, 425,252 Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) are ready, but a total of 288043 PVCs are yet to be collected and out of this total, 164408 cards are for 2017 and 2018 registrations which he had pleaded with the owners to go to all INEC Registration Centres across the 226 wards of the state to collect their PVCs. It is of utmost importance to analyze the political strength and weakness of some governorship candidates.

Acting Governor of the State especially in the civil service by paying a backlog of salary and leave grant including pension and gratuity of retired civil servants in just two and half months of his reign.

That action earned him the nickname “ATM Alert�, with his popular slogan “The Happy days are here again.�

He is a successful business man who was elected to represent Madagali Constituency in 2007 and was re-elected in 2011. He rose to the rank of the Speaker Adamawa State House of Assembly, a position he held up to 2015 when he became twice the Acting Governor of the state after he spearheaded the impeachment of ex-governor Murtala Nyako and his deputy Bala James Ngillari as the then speaker of the 7th State House of Assembly A historian who bagged his first degree from University of Maiduguri, he is believed to have researched into why the state is underdeveloped.

This singular reason propelled his motives to enter the governorship battle.

Fintiri who said he has been used to defeating the incumbent will never settle for second best.

He is a man whose life is full of unprecedented, pleasant and unusual events His presence in the governorship race will split votes from the northern part of the state because he and the incumbent governor come from the same northern Senatorial Zone. He stands a chance of defeating the incumbent, if the APC internal crisis continues.

Because he spearheaded the impeachment of former governor Murtala Nyako from office, majority of Nyako’s loyalists from from the Falani dynasty in the state might not vote for him. They will rather vote for Nyako’s first son, Senator Abdulazeez Nyako who is also in the governorship contest on the platform of African Democratic Congress (ADC).

staged a protest to the State House of Assembly demanding INEC to authenticate the genuineness of his credentials. While the governor is fighting to defend allegations on his secondary school certificate fogery in the court , , Unconfirmed sources have it that the place where Bindow claimed to have attended his higher institution and obtained his Diploma certificate in the United Kingdom UK was recently allegedly discovered to be a shopping plaza.

With the recent appointment of Chief Felix Tangumi as the new Director General (DG), Bindow Campaign Organisation to replace the late DG and former government house Chief of Staff Alhaji Abduraman Abba Jimeta who died in Suadi Arabia while performing pilgrimage, there is renewed hopes for Bindow.

Tangumi known to be a grassroots mobilizer and his credentials and capacity can help resolve the APC crises. The new DG commands a lot of respect among Adamawa stakeholders. Only time will tell if he can do it again as he did for ex- governor Murtala Nyako

PEOPLES DEMOCRATIC PARTY (PDP): Rt. Hon. Ahmadu Urmaru Fintiri.

He is a front line politician in Adamawa, who has made a name for himself when he was the

ALL PROGRESSIVES CONGRESS PARTY (APC): Senator Mohammed Jibrila Bindow (Sardauna Mubi) Bindow, is the incumbent governor of the state and the flag bearer of the APC. He once served his people as a Senator. He is a successful business man who has constructed quite number of roads, particularly in the state capital. He has received a lot of awards and commendations from within and outside the state as one of the Best Performing Governor in the North East ravaged by the Boko Haram insurgency.

As the Governor and chief security officer of the state, Bindow has all the powers it takes to win the 2019 general elections. With the leadership position, he is ready to use the available resources at his disposal to fight especially PDP, and also to prove to other political parties that there is no vacancy in Dugarri, Adamawa State Government House Yola.

However, despite all the good works and the powers of the incumbent, Bindow may find it very tough to win the governorship election due to the internal crisis of the APC which has polarized the party into three different factions, with those against him resolved to work against his return as governor for a second term.

Critics down play his achievement in road construction, saying that the roads were sub-standard and cannot stand the test of time He is also going through a scandel on certificate fogery which the matter is in court and only the verdict of the court can determine his fate whether he will still continue as the flagbearer of the APC or he will be replaced by another.

On the 2nd November 2018, Adamawa Youths

SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY (SDP): Mr. Emmanuel Bello A business Tycoon who is going into politics to test worth. He is a political big wing from Gombi axis and has single-handedly sponsored the (SDP) while he raises additional funds through sale of forms and voluntary contributions from members of the public.

Bello contested elections twice and failed on the platform of APC, as a member of the House of Representatives. With the crises in APC, his party may be the only party to challenge the PDP. In politics, anything can happen. He stands a chance of winning the governorship election, if all that mattered was academic qualifications and business sense. He has the capacity transform the state into an industrial and technology driven state that can generate more job opportunities for the youths.

AFRICAN DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS (ADC): Sen. Abdulazeez Nyako A serving Senator, Abdulazeez Nyako comes from a military background, but has since settled in well and appears to be staying afloat in the murky waters of politics. He is the first son of former Governor Murtala Nyako, who ruled the state for seven years before he was impeached. In his time, the elder Nyako did a couple of good things which may count in his son’s favour as he makes a bid to rule the state. He increased his political capital by bringing into government Special Assistants. This earned him a lot of loyalists in the state.

Despite the fact that he left office under controversial circumstance, the former governor is still a political force to reckon with. His army of former SAs, people living with disabilities, women and a teeming number of quite who were trained in various kinds of skills owe a world of gratitude to Nyako.

Abdulazeez believes he can ride on the political goodwill of his father to clinch the office of the governor of Adamawa state. However, his major challenge is in the way he relates to people. The Senator does not have the charm with which his father captured the hearts of the people. The gate to his house is only open to a few. He also has on-going case of corruption and other charges that opponents may capitalise on.

NOTE: Interested readers should continue in the online edition on www.thisdaylive.com

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FEATURES

Group Features Editor: Chiemelie Ezeobi Email chiemelie.ezeobi@thisdaylive.com, 08152252325

Defying the Odds in Edo Sunday Ehigiator writes that in Edo State, Governor Godwin Obaseki is defying the odds to get power to the people amid a litany of challenges

I

n an industrial age, no one underestimates the place of electricity in development.

From powering heavy industries and small businesses to lighting up machines and equipment in schools, health centers and homes, power, in a manner of speaking, is life.

In the many years that Nigeria has made frantic efforts at transforming its economy, the inability to fix power supply – the harbinger of industrial growth – has been the albatross dragging the country down, leading eventually to the unbundling of the monopolistic state power company, Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN).

After this, it was thought that the emergent companies would dramatically change the narrative.

However, amid a litany of challenges, the distribution arm of the unbundled power companies seems to have been hit by a hard brick over how to deliver power to homes, offices, industries and other critical infrastructure across Nigeria.

This peculiar situation has pitted Governor Godwin Obaseki against the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) and its management in Edo State. While the governor is unleashing an ambitious plan to industrialise the state and deliver good governance to the people, it appears the BEDC is at a loss on how to meet its mandate to distribute electricity to customers in the state.

Stumbling Block Realising that the company has become a stumbling block in his plans, the governor sought alternatives to get electricity to power government offices, business clusters and street lights across the Benin metropolis through a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) from the CCETC-Ossiomo Power Plant, an agreement that is set to change the tune of power distribution in the state christened the heartbeat of the nation.

Obaseki has not minced words on his disappointment with the services of the BEDC in the state, as issues got to a head when he walked out the managing director of the company, when she joined a delegation from the National Assembly on a visit to the government house, in Benin City. On that day, he was livid.

He was quoted to have said: “BEDC has been an obstacle all the way.

They will not provide electricity and will not allow you to get alternative sources of power. The state will not allow it. As governor of Edo State, we have lost confidence in BEDC. We don’t want them here. We are in darkness. Let us remain in darkness until we find people who are capable of delivering electricity.

This is our position."

The governor said despite the fact that the state generates about 600 to 700 megawatts of electricity, the people are still in darkness, wondering how he is expected to explain the irony to the people, who are well aware that they produce a substantial amount of electricity in the country.

He said that BEDC has failed to recognise that they have to be patriotic and responsible to the state and the country but instead they have been noncommittal about the

Members of Edo Civil Society Organisations protesting against Benin Electricity Distribution Company service in Benin City, Edo State, recently

Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki (2nd right); Director, CCETC Clean Energy/Ossiomo Power Plant, Dr. Uwa Igiehon (right); and Plant Administrator, Di Xiaohui (middle), during the governor’s inspection of ongoing construction work at the CCETC Clean Energy/ Ossiomo Power Plant site in Ologbo, Ikpoba-Okha Local Government Area

issue of power distribution. “To assist them in their function, we set up electricity committees across the local government areas

The governor at different fora has decried the BEDC’s lack of preparedness to extend electricity to over 195 communities in the state, in addition to 128 other communities with collapse distribution infrastructure, which the company is not prepared to ďŹ x

chaired by the Deputy Governor of the state, Rt. Hon. Philip Shaibu, with BEDC as member to understand the challenge. But BEDC frustrated our resolve to finding a lasting solution to the issue of providing electricity to our people," the governor said.

Unpalatable Experience with BEDC Leading those screaming at the top of their voices over the unsavory operations of BEDC is the Edo Civil Society Organisation (EDOSCO), which has laid siege to the office of the company in Akpakpava, Benin City, the state capital.

The group has consistently protested the company’s highhandedness and inability to deliver on its obligation to electricity customers in the state as well as the other states where the firm has operations.

Last year, civil society, native doctors, communities and electricity consumers staged protests in Benin City, over the plan to renew the operational licence of BEDC, arguing against the move as the company was ‘incompetent.’.

The Public Relations Officer of the Edo State Civil Society Organisations (EDOSCO), Osaze Edigin, said the peaceful demonstration which lasted for three days was to draw the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE)'s attention to the “incompetence of the distribution company.�

According to him, “BEDC's operational licence must not be extended or renewed. BPP and NERC cannot be compromised. Today, we are in collaboration with other interest groups and critical stakeholders, reaffirming our stand that the operators of the BEDC do not deserve an extension or renewal of operational license for a day later than October 31, 2018. We vehemently object to it and sue the BPP and NERC to pursue the happiness of the people whom they swore to serve.�

The governor at different fora has decried the BEDC’s lack of preparedness to extend electricity to over 195 communities in the state, in addition to 128 other communities with collapse distribution infrastructure, which the company is not prepared to fix.

Also, Ihovbor community in Uhunmwonde Local Government

20

T H I S D AY Ëž Í°ÍśËœ Ͱ͎ͯ͡

FEATURES

Group Features Editor: Chiemelie Ezeobi Email chiemelie.ezeobi@thisdaylive.com, 08152252325

Defying the Odds in Edo Sunday Ehigiator writes that in Edo State, Governor Godwin Obaseki is defying the odds to get power to the people amid a litany of challenges

I

n an industrial age, no one underestimates the place of electricity in development.

From powering heavy industries and small businesses to lighting up machines and equipment in schools, health centers and homes, power, in a manner of speaking, is life.

In the many years that Nigeria has made frantic efforts at transforming its economy, the inability to fix power supply – the harbinger of industrial growth – has been the albatross dragging the country down, leading eventually to the unbundling of the monopolistic state power company, Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN).

After this, it was thought that the emergent companies would dramatically change the narrative.

However, amid a litany of challenges, the distribution arm of the unbundled power companies seems to have been hit by a hard brick over how to deliver power to homes, offices, industries and other critical infrastructure across Nigeria.

This peculiar situation has pitted Governor Godwin Obaseki against the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) and its management in Edo State. While the governor is unleashing an ambitious plan to industrialise the state and deliver good governance to the people, it appears the BEDC is at a loss on how to meet its mandate to distribute electricity to customers in the state.

Stumbling Block Realising that the company has become a stumbling block in his plans, the governor sought alternatives to get electricity to power government offices, business clusters and street lights across the Benin metropolis through a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) from the CCETC-Ossiomo Power Plant, an agreement that is set to change the tune of power distribution in the state christened the heartbeat of the nation.

Obaseki has not minced words on his disappointment with the services of the BEDC in the state, as issues got to a head when he walked out the managing director of the company, when she joined a delegation from the National Assembly on a visit to the government house, in Benin City. On that day, he was livid.

He was quoted to have said: “BEDC has been an obstacle all the way.

They will not provide electricity and will not allow you to get alternative sources of power. The state will not allow it. As governor of Edo State, we have lost confidence in BEDC. We don’t want them here. We are in darkness. Let us remain in darkness until we find people who are capable of delivering electricity.

This is our position."

The governor said despite the fact that the state generates about 600 to 700 megawatts of electricity, the people are still in darkness, wondering how he is expected to explain the irony to the people, who are well aware that they produce a substantial amount of electricity in the country.

He said that BEDC has failed to recognise that they have to be patriotic and responsible to the state and the country but instead they have been noncommittal about the

Members of Edo Civil Society Organisations protesting against Benin Electricity Distribution Company service in Benin City, Edo State, recently

Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki (2nd right); Director, CCETC Clean Energy/Ossiomo Power Plant, Dr. Uwa Igiehon (right); and Plant Administrator, Di Xiaohui (middle), during the governor’s inspection of ongoing construction work at the CCETC Clean Energy/ Ossiomo Power Plant site in Ologbo, Ikpoba-Okha Local Government Area

issue of power distribution. “To assist them in their function, we set up electricity committees across the local government areas

The governor at different fora has decried the BEDC’s lack of preparedness to extend electricity to over 195 communities in the state, in addition to 128 other communities with collapse distribution infrastructure, which the company is not prepared to ďŹ x

chaired by the Deputy Governor of the state, Rt. Hon. Philip Shaibu, with BEDC as member to understand the challenge. But BEDC frustrated our resolve to finding a lasting solution to the issue of providing electricity to our people," the governor said.

Unpalatable Experience with BEDC Leading those screaming at the top of their voices over the unsavory operations of BEDC is the Edo Civil Society Organisation (EDOSCO), which has laid siege to the office of the company in Akpakpava, Benin City, the state capital.

The group has consistently protested the company’s highhandedness and inability to deliver on its obligation to electricity customers in the state as well as the other states where the firm has operations.

Last year, civil society, native doctors, communities and electricity consumers staged protests in Benin City, over the plan to renew the operational licence of BEDC, arguing against the move as the company was ‘incompetent.’.

The Public Relations Officer of the Edo State Civil Society Organisations (EDOSCO), Osaze Edigin, said the peaceful demonstration which lasted for three days was to draw the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE)'s attention to the “incompetence of the distribution company.�

According to him, “BEDC's operational licence must not be extended or renewed. BPP and NERC cannot be compromised. Today, we are in collaboration with other interest groups and critical stakeholders, reaffirming our stand that the operators of the BEDC do not deserve an extension or renewal of operational license for a day later than October 31, 2018. We vehemently object to it and sue the BPP and NERC to pursue the happiness of the people whom they swore to serve.�

The governor at different fora has decried the BEDC’s lack of preparedness to extend electricity to over 195 communities in the state, in addition to 128 other communities with collapse distribution infrastructure, which the company is not prepared to fix.

Also, Ihovbor community in Uhunmwonde Local Government

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T H I S D AY Ëž Í°ÍśËœ Ͱ͎ͯ͡

FEATURES Area, which hosts Azura Power Plant, has been on the receiving end of the company’s antics. In November 2018, members of the community during a protest to government house in Benin City, accused officials of BEDC of removing a transformer bought and installed by them. The action of BEDC left the community in darkness for 16 months.

Oba of Benin, Traditional Council Back Obaseki’s Stance The governor is not alone in his condemnation of the poor services rendered by BEDC in Edo State. The Edo State Council of Traditional Rulers and Chiefs, headed by the Benin Monarch, Omo N’ Oba N’ Edo, Uku Akpolo kpolo, Oba Ewuare II, also joined their voices to the call for improved service by the power distribution company.

In a recent communique issued on Friday, November 30, 2018, at the Oba Palace, Benin City, the Council said it “condemned in strong terms the poor performance and inability of the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) to provide electricity to the good people of Edo State.�

It “frowned at BEDC’s inability to provide prepaid meters to those willing to buy and its imposition of illegal and outrageous estimated billing system on its consumers� and “fully endorsed the actions of His Excellency, Godwin Nogheghase Obaseki, Governor of Edo State, in calling for the non-renewal of the contract between BEDC and the relevant agency of the Federal Government and urged the governor to vigorously pursue the procurement of alternative source(s) of power in order to bring comfort to the people of Edo State.�

The Edo State Council of Traditional Rulers and Chiefs reached the decision after consulting with the relevant stakeholders and experts in the electricity sector, before they joined forces with the governor to demand quality service from BEDC. “We cannot continue to dwell in unending darkness and watch our people suffer untold hardship, resulting from the inefficiency of BEDC. Our people who are into small and medium scale businesses are going out of business daily and bigger businesses are having their share of the hardship.�

They added: “We will not allow our economy to collapse on account of the incompetence of BEDC's management and we urge BEDC to either rise to the occasion and provide electricity or leave our communities. As leaders, we have exercised sufficient restraint, hoping that BEDC would overhaul its system

We will not allow our economy to collapse on account of the incompetence of BEDC's management and we urge BEDC to either rise to the occasion and provide electricity or leave our communities.

As leaders, we have exercised sufďŹ cient restraint, hoping that BEDC would overhaul its system to better serve Edo people

Ongoing construction at the power plant site

Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki (middle); Director, CCETC Clean Energy/Ossiomo Power Plant, Dr. Uwa Igiehon (left); and Plant Administrator, Di Xiaohui, during the governor’s inspection of ongoing construction work at the power plant site in Ologbo, Ikpoba-Okha Local Government Area, Edo State

to better serve Edo people. But the company’s capacity to deliver on its mandate is suspect, and what is worse, is the disrespectful posture of its managing director Mrs Funke Osibodu.�

CCETC-Ossiomo Power Plant to the Rescue As consumers of electricity anticipate the withdrawal of BEDC's operational licence by the federal government, Obaseki has made progress with his plans to rescue the state from the oppressive grip of BEDC with the commencement of construction of the CCETCOssiomo Power plant. The first phase of the construction, according to the governor, is expected to be commissioned in April, which will make more electricity available for

distribution in the state.

Director of CCETC Clean Energy/ Ossiomo Power Plant, Dr. Uwa Egiehon, confirmed that the 55 Megawatts power plant which is a joint venture between a Chinese Company, CCECT Clean Energy and Ossiomo Power would be delivered between April and May, as the company intends to use natural gas from a 50-metre gas pipeline close to the site to provide five megawatts of electricity to the state government offices and streets lights along Sapele Road in Benin City, the state capital, in the first phase of the project.

The 55MW Power Plant project which is expected to be built in phases, the governor said, will ease the distribution of the power, as a substation would be set up around

Kings Square, which would provide power for street lights.

According to the governor, the state government is concluding transaction to deliver electricity to 200 Kilometre street lights across the city. The governor believes that with the 55 Megawatts power plant byCCETC Clean Energy/Ossiomo Power Plant, in place, some electricity will be made available for the distribution company to supply to consumers. “We believe that if the megawatts produced increase, the distribution company will have more power to distribute to other cities in the state.

There is an arrangement to drop power in certain processing centres where artisans can move into and do their businesses with the assurance of steady power supply,� he said.

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IMAGES

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Photo Editor ĂŒĂ“Ă™ĂŽĂ&#x;Ă˜ ÔËÖË Email Ă‹ĂŒĂ“Ă™ĂŽĂ&#x;Ă˜Ë›Ă‹Ă”Ă‹Ă–Ă‹ĚśĂžĂ’Ă“Ă?ĂŽĂ‹ĂŁĂ–Ă“Ă Ă?Ë›Ă?Ù×

L-R: Former Minister of Specisl Duties, Yomi Edu; Former Governor of Cross River, Senator Liyel lmoke; and Senator Ben Bruse at an interactive session with Business Communities on getting Nigeria’s Economy Working;[ A Pragmatic Approach] by Atiku in Lagos...recently PHOTO: ABIODUN AJALA

L-R: Chairman of Heirs holdings; Mr. Tony Elumelu, Executive Vice Chairman of Globacom, Mrs. Bella Disu, and Chairman of Dangote Group; Aliko Dangote, at the Choose France Summit held in Paris, France,..recently

L-R: Group Managing Director, NASCON Allied Industries, Paul Farrer; Brand Ambassador, Dangote Seasoning, Hadiza Gabon; Executive Director, Commercial, NASCON Allied Industries, Fatima Aliko Dangote; Director, Hamis Investment, Hamisu Rabiu and Executive Director, Dangote Industries Limited, Halima Aliko Dangote, at the unveiling of the new Dangote Seasoning Classic Cube, in Kano...recently

Managing Director of Guinness Nigeria, Baker Magunda (R) presenting the Best Performing Farmer for 2018 Framing Season award to Hajara Barau, at the launch of Guinness Nigeria Agriculture Scheme themed: “Grow with Nigeria�, in Abuja...recently

L-R: Chairman, BOT, Red Star Foundation, Tonye PreghaďŹ , Director, Red Star Express, Sule Bichi, Head, Central Admin., Abdul Koguna and government oďŹƒcials during the donation of a borehole by Red Star Foundation at Koguna Village in Kano State...recently

A cross section of members of Good Governace Campaign and other Civil Societies Groups during a peaceful protest in Lagos...recently PHOTO: ETOP UKUTT

Former Governor of Ondo State and Zenith Labour Party candidate for Ondo Central Senatorial district, Dr Olusegun Mimiko (2nd right), and his wife, Olukemi (right), acknowledging cheers from the mammoth crowd at his Senatorial campaign ag o, in Akure,..recently

L-R: Operator of Ilupeju Vitafoam Comfort Centre, Mr. Toye Adegboye; Managing Director, Home and You, Mrs. Feyisayo Abiru; Chairman Vitafoam Nigeria Plc, Dr. Bamidele Makanjuola, and Group Managing Director/CEO,Mr. Taiwo Adeniyi; at Launch of Vitafoam’s Eight Innovative Products in Lagos... recently PHOTO: SUNDAY ADIGUN

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BUSINESSWORLD

Group Business Editor Obinna Chima

Email obinna.chima@thisdaylive.com 08024557078, 08152447875

Í° Íł Ëœ Í° ÍŽ ÍŻ ͡ MONEY MARKET OVERNIGHT OBB

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Quick Takes Wabote, Others for OGTAN Conference

OUR SCORECARD

Head, Credit Operations, Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN), Lanre Oginni; Head Corporate Services, Mr. Idris Salihu; Managing Director/CEO, Mr. Tony Okpanachi; ExecutiveVice Chairman,Verdant Zeal Group, Mr. Tunji Olugbodi and Chief Economist, Prof. Joseph Nnanna, at an interactive forum with journalists in Lagos‌recently

Firms Battling Squeeze in Profit Margins Obinna Chima Corporate costs are now rising faster than the rate of household inflation as more firms record lesser profits, an Associate Professor at the Lagos Business School, Dr. Doyin Salami has revealed.

This is an indication that more firms appear to be going through troubled times.

Salami, said this in a presentation he delivered at the Nigeria British-Chamber of Commerce (NBCC) breakfast meeting held in Lagos recently, with Rand Merchant Bank as the moderator.

Shedding more light on the effect of a rise in corporate cost, the economist said, “the implication of this is that their margins are being squeezed.

That is, companies are having to forego margins in other keep market position. “If you look at the financials of Nigerian banks, at the end of 2017, 16 per cent of the risk assets was made up of non-performing

ECONOMY loans.�

Continuing, in his macroeconomic outlook for Nigeria in 2019, Salami said oil was going to remain a major factor as far as Nigeria is concerned, both on the production side and the price.

He, however, based his projection for 2019 on the expectation of the success of the presidential election which holds next month. “My hope is that we have a successful election. I am not bothered about who wins. What is important is a successful election and what do I mean by a successful election? “Essentially, if you go back to 2015, not in terms of the outcome, but in terms of the process. I am sure you all recall that in 2015, there was about 15 minutes, when it looked like we were headed for trouble and that 15 minutes of seeming madness was over and the election was successful. “That was the single most importance

thing that Nigeria achieved in 2015,� he explained.

According to Salami, with the 2019 Appropriation Bill with crude oil predicated on an assumption of 2.3 million barrels per day and Nigeria’s quota from Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries at about 1.9 million barrels per day, shows there is going to be a challenge in the revenue aspect of the budget. He pointed out that Nigeria remains fundamentally an oil story, saying if the impact of the 2019 elections is excluded from his prediction, oil would be the next issue.

Salami noted that Nigeria’s tax revenue amounts approximately to seven per cent of Gross Domestic Product, which according to him is almost what Afghanistan, ravaged by war, achieves.

Owing to this, he stressed the need for reforms to enhance Nigeria’s revene. “That explains why part of the reforms we need to see are reforms around revenue. The

movement in Value Added Tax is one I would expect to see in 2019. “On the monetary policy side, I can safely tell you that there will be no movement in exchange rate, even after the election, as far as oil prices don’t misbehave. “The term of the current Governor of the Central Bank expires in June. If he is getting a second term, we would know in June and if he doesn’t get a second term, whoever is appointment, will require some time to understand the new role before settling down,� he explained.

The economist pointed out that the current tight monetary policy environment was required to check inflation and keep the naira stable. “Indeed, my sense tells me that as at quarter three of 2018, average growth for the year was still sub-two per cent. “By the time the quarter four growth rate comes out, we need Continued on page 24

Opanachi: N1.3tr Needed to Adequately Fund MSME Sector Goddy Egene The Managing Director of Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN), Mr. Tony Opanachi has said about N1.3 trillion funding is needed to realise the country’s potential in the micro, medium and small enterprises (MSME) sector of the nation’s economy.

A virile MSME is key to the growth of any economy and the Nigerian government over the years has been making efforts to ensure funding for the sector.

The efforts include setting up of financial institutions that can extend loans specifically to the sector. DBN was established in 2017 to provide longer term loans for MSMEs.

ECONOMY While DBN has started well, surpassing its projection in the first year of operations, Opanachi said other sources are needed to be able to adequately meet fund needs of the sector and unleash its potential on the economy.

Speaking to journalists in Lagos, the DBN boss said the need of the sector is over N1.3 trillion. “All the intervention funds currently available put together cannot scratch the surface. It has to be a combination of borrowings from various sources and vehicles. There

is no harm in many sources.

So the National Microfinance Bank (proposed by the Central Bank of Nigeria) will also help.

The intervention funds we have now will help to encourage the sector. The need of the segment is too much for one source of funding to satisfy. “So the Microfinance Bank will be another source of the reach the MSME. The more the merrier,� he said.

Opanachi said on its part, the DBN will continue to support the MSME sector with the funding currently available while working out other ways to improve on the support. According to him, the bank disbursed N31.36

billion to 35,000 MSMEs in 2018, which was the first year of its operations, while it is projecting N70 billion this year. “Our total disbursement-todate stands at N31.364 billion thus exceeding our year end projection of N30 billion. Total number of end borrowers stands at 35, 000 which also exceeded our year-end target of 20,000 MSMEs.�

Encouraged by the achievement recorded in the first year, the DBN boss said the bank’s disbursement target for the year 2019 is N70 billion, which he stressed would help deepen the bank’s penetration in the Continued on page 24

The Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), Engr. Simbi Wabote, Nigeria’s former High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Dr. Christopher Kolade, will be among guests to grace the second annual conference and exhibition of Oil and Gas Trainers Association of Nigeria (OGTAN).

Disclosing this to journalists in Lagos, President, OGTAN, Dr. Mayowa Afe, said the conference which would be held between April14 to 16, in Lagos, has as its theme: ‘Human Capital Development as a Driver for National Transformation.’ Afe, also noted that the keynote address would be delivered by Managing Director of Total E&P Nigeria Limited, Mr. Nicolas Terraz, adding that other speakers include Managing Director of Oilserv, Mr. Emeka Okwuosa, and Managing Director of Marine Platform, Mr.TaoďŹ k Adegbite.

He explained that Human capital development is a key prerequisite for a country’s socio-economic and political transformation. Afe, aďŹƒrmed that the causal factors responsible for the impressive performance of the economy of most newly industrialising countries are an impressive commitmenttohumancapitaldevelopment,“Nigeriawon’tbeanexception.â€?

He further noted that human capital development was undoubtedly the pivot for any meaningful programme of economic development of Nigeria and indeed of any country.

According to him, “A few other notable industry stakeholders who would form part of the panels include chief executives from Halliburton, Schlumberger, Nexus Alliance, AOS Orwell, Kainosedge Limited, Niger Dock,Tolmann Allied Services, and Aveon Oshore. Representatives of Petroleum Trust Development Fund (PTDF), Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON), and PetroleumTraining Institute (PTI) have also conďŹ rmed attendance.

Fidelity Bank Wins Awards

Fidelity Bank Plc has disclosed that it was recently adjudged the “Entrepreneurship Bank of the Year,� at the third edition of DAAR Awards held in Abuja. The bank said it clinched the award in recognition of its unrivalledleadershippositionandconsistencyinenhancingthegrowthand development of micro, small and medium scale enterprises (MSMEs) in the country. According to the organisers of the event which was attended by top government functionaries and captains of industry, Fidelity Bank came tops on all measurable indices to emerge the entrepreneurship bank of the year. The award was received by the bank’s Head, Corporate communications, Ejike Ndiulo, who was quoted in a statement to have said: “It is an honour for the success of our tailored capacity building initiatives for MSMEs to again be recognised at this time. “The award further underlines our unwavering commitment to building a new crop of entrepreneurs who will birth and power the next generation of conglomerates in the country.�

Accordingtohim,thebankwouldcontinuetoexplorefreshopportunities to improve the competitiveness of MSME in Nigeria. He disclosed that the bank had partnered with the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) and the Lagos Business School (LBS), to provide impactful, world-class training needed to improve the competitiveness of Nigerian enterprises, particularly export-oriented businesses and the associated value-chain players in the international market.

Itel Mobile Named ‘Most Admired Brand’

Itel Mobile has been recognised among the 16 most admired brands in Africa in 2018. Also in 2018, its best-selling monster battery smartphone, itel P32 was honoured as the best big battery smartphone by US tech media Android Authority. According to a statement by Itel’s Marketing Communications Manager, Oke Umurhohwo, being a customer-centric brand has sets the company part from its competitors. It also noted that Itel has positioned its products as technologically advanced problem solvers through its android, selďŹ e, and max-power devices.

Umurhohwo, in the statement noted that coming into a competitive space such as the consumer electronics industry, the company whose business strategy spun around being a low-cost provider, faced a critical challenge of being a low-quality alternative. According to the statement, “Coming into a competitive space such as the consumer electronics industry, Itel whose business strategy spun around being a low-cost provider, faced a critical challenge of being a low-quality alternative.

“Basically we are firing on all engines in order to achieve that seven per cent target. But we are not going to make it in 2019 and by 2020, you can be talking about five per cent or more. One thing about the economy is that it takes some time to get momentum, but once you get the momentum, you grow rapidly�

Minister of Budget and National Planning

Senator Udoma Udoma

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BUSINESSWORLD FIRMS BATTLING SQUEEZE IN PROFIT MARGINS

it to be about four per cent of GDP for the economy to growth by about four per cent if we are going to achieve two per cent growth in 2018. “For 2019, my expectation is that growth is unlikely to exceed 2.5 per cent. All of these depends on one assumption – that we would have a successful election. “Whoever wins the election, even if it is the opposition, would be confronted with the reality in the economy,� he said.

President of Council of the NBCC Mr Akin Olawore in his opening remarks said the nation needs to turn its underemployment to full employment.

He argued that any a nation that had its people engaged in various jobs will be productive OPANACHI: N1.3TR NEEDED TO ADEQUATELY FUND MSME SECTOR

MSMEs sector of the economy. “We are not sector-specific and as long as you have the potential to create employment, you have potential to empower and make development impact, DBN will fund you. We also know that some sector has more growth potential so as we go down we try to encourage those sectors,� he said.

Opanachi also disclosed that so far the bank has zero-nonperforming loan(NPL), explaining that it has developed an in-house Credit Rating Model, which was validated by Dun & Brad Street. “We have similarly put in place a number of risk management policies such as: framework for lending to finance companies and mortgage banks, related party credit policy; information security policy and business continuity policy,� he said.

The DBN boss said they just don’t give out money to PFIs but also know the MSMEs that are end borrowers and monitor their operations. “We don’t just give the money to PFIs. What we do if PFIs bring their transactions, we know who the borrowers are, we have their details, who they are, what they do upfront. So by the time we give the money to PFIs and they on lend we go again to monitor,� he said.

NEWS

CBN Injects Fresh $289.76m, CNY 38.70m into FX Market James Emejo in Abuja Following its maiden Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting for 2019, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) at the weekend injected the sum of $289.76million into the retail Secondary Market Intervention Sales (SMIS) and CNY38.70 million in the spot and short-tenored forwards segment of the inter-bank foreign exchange (FX) market The Director, Corporate Communications Department at the CBN, Isaac Okorafor, confirmed the figures, noting that the dollar-denominated interventions were for transactions in the agricultural and raw materials sectors.

On the spot and shorttenored sales in Chinese Yuan, he said they were similarly for payment of Renminbi denominated Letters of Credit for agriculture and raw materials based on bids received from authorised dealers.

While reiterating the Bank’s support to the inter-bank FX market, he disclosed that the Bank’s

management was pleased with the level of stability at both the Bureau-de-Change (BDC) and the Investors’ and Exporters’ (I&E) window of the FX market.

According to him, the CBN management was also satisfied with the current implementa-

tion of the Bilateral Currency Swap Agreement (BCSA) with the Peoples Bank of China (PBoC), coupled with a recent inflow of about US$2.8 billion Eurobond.

Okorafor, expressed confidence that the FX market in Nigeria would continue to

enjoy stability in the coming months and beyond, given the marginal increase in the country’s external reserves.

The CBN had on Tuesday, January 17, 2019, intervened in the wholesale, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and invisibles windows of

the interbank FX market to the tune of the sum of $210 million.

Meanwhile, the naira exchanged for N361 at the Bureau de Change (BDC) segment of the FX market, while CNY1 exchanged for N53.

ENABLING BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

L-R: Representative of the Grand Khadi of the Sharia Court of Appeal, Khadi Mustapha Lalloke; Justice Aisha R.D Mohammed; Chief Registrar of the High Court of Kano State, Mr. Jamilu Suleiman; Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) Secretary & Senior Special Assistant to the President on Industry, Trade & Investment, Dr. Jumoke Oduwole; Acting Chief Judge of Kano, Justice N.S Umar and Reform Lead, Enabling Business Environment Secretariat, Toyin Bashir, during the launch of the small claims court in Kano‌recently

TraderMoni: FG Disburses N12bn to Boost Petty Traders James Emejo in Abuja The Executive Director, Micro Enterprises, Bank of Industry (BoI), Mrs. Toyin Adeniji, has disclosed that total sum of N12 billion had been disbursed to traders across the country under the federal government’s TraderMoni initiative.

She added that the scheme had also assisted 1.2 million small businesses.

Speaking during an interactive session with journalists over the weekend, she said the loan disbursement was part of President Muhammadu Buhari’s commitment to empower over two million petty traders across the country.

Each state of the federation is expected to have a mini-

mum of 30,000 beneficiaries under the programme.

The scheme, which is being implemented by BoI allows each beneficiary to get an interest free loan of between N10,000 to N15,000.

Adeniji, however, insisted that the initiative is not a vote-buying strategy by Buhari administration to woo the sympathy of beneficiaries ahead of the 2019 general election.

According to her, there was no way the programme could have been set up primarily to secure votes as alleged in some quarters as it represented one of the components of the federal government’s Enterprises and Empowerment Programme (GEEP) which commenced in 2016.

She said: “Trader-Moni is a microcredit loan for petty traders designed to meet the need of the larger population of Nigerian micro-enterprises who do not meet the more stringent starting requirements of BVN, bank accounts. “Qualified petty traders start at N10,000, they progress to N15,000, N20,000, N50,000 and then N100,000. As they pay back the preceding amount, they automatically qualify for the next loan. Over 1.2 million petty traders have benefitted till date and we have disbursed about N12 billion.�

She said the need to come up with the GEEP initiative was borne out of the realisation that out of all bank loans given in the last five years

in the country, less than one per cent had gone for small scale business owners.

According to her: “GEEP has two primary goals, access to finance and financial inclusion. We need to provide capital to these groups in a highly methodical manner.

This is access to finance. “GEEP results to date have been encouraging. Since launching the programme, we have provided these loans to over 1.5 million Nigerians in over 2,600 markets and clusters across the 36 states of the country and the Federal Capital Territory with over 4,000 agents. “About 53 per cent of our beneficiaries on the GEEP programme are female and 46 per cent of our beneficiaries

are below the age of 35.�

She added: “GEEP leverages on a private-sector-driven agent network that is spread across the 36 states to enumerate beneficiaries. “Agents are prohibited from requesting for any information not listed in the criteria for each facility. Under no circumstance us a Permanent Voters Card or any political consideration.�

Nonetheless, she pointed out that there had been an impressive compliance rate by beneficiaries.

Adeniji said: “We have seen a high uptake in repayments since we commenced a push and provided a wide array of options as our beneficiaries want to stay on the journey to higher loans by repaying

NBC Transforms Enugu Plant to Logistics, Distribution Hub Raheem Akingbolu

Group Business Editor

Obinna Chima

Capital Market Editor

Goddy Egene

AgriBusiness/Industry Editor

Jonathan Eze

Comms/e-Business Editor

Emma Okonji

Senior Correspondent

Raheem Akingbolu (Advertising) Correspondents

Chinedu Eze (Aviation) Linda Eroke (Labour) Eromosele Abiodun (Cap Mkt) Ejiofor Alike (Energy) James Emejo (Nation’s Capital) Reporters

Nume Ekeghe (Money Market) Nosa Alekhuogie (Maritime)

The Nigerian Bottling Company Limited (NBC), a member of Coca-Cola Hellenic Group, said it has transformed its Enugu plant into a hub for material handling and logistics for the region.

According to the company, the decision to transform was largely informed by the desire to deliver value to its consumers and trade partners not only in Enugu State but in the entire south-east region.

The Acting Director, Public Affairs & Communications, Mr. Ekuma Eze, who spoke on the development further explained that the move was in line with the holistic strategy to reposition the company’s operation for better efficiency

and accelerate the business transformation plan.

Eze said the repurposing of some NBC facilities across Nigeria, Enugu inclusive, was in line with the company’s sustainable business strategy with the overarching goal of improving efficiency and boosting production capacity to meet the ever growing demand of its discerning consumers. “While production activities have stopped at the Enugu facility, the company would continue to carry out logistics and commercial operations from the location,� he added.

He stated that the company’s business transformation and optimisation plan which commenced in 2015 involves huge investments worth over ₏500 million for the massive

expansion and upgrade of some key plants. These he said includes Asejire, Ikeja, Abuja, Owerri, Challawa, Maiduguri, Port Harcourt, and Benin, resulting in increased production capacity, hence, the need to transform some other plants including Ilorin, Jos,Kaduna and most recently Enugu to handle commercial and logistics activities.

Speaking on the employees whose roles were rendered redundant by the transformation, Eze said: “As a result of business optimisation, some roles became redundant.

However, the whole process was conducted with utmost respect and consideration for our employees and engagement with the Unions. The company provided robust and generous

severance packages way above statutory requirements and industry average.�

He also noted that the company as a responsible corporate citizen had engaged with key stakeholders in Enugu State as well as key opinion leaders in the host communities before the action was taken noting that it was done to optimize performance of the company.

He added that the company remains totally committed to investing time, resources and expertise to improve the socio-economic well-being of the communities through locally relevant initiatives.

Reaffirming the commitment of the company, Eze said “our confidence in the Nigerian market is underscored by the huge investment we have

made in our operations in the last four years which has seen an inflow of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in excess of â‚Ź500 million. “Today, we are better positioned to refresh our consumers in Nigeria with our eight world-class manufacturing plants, mega distribution centres and enhanced commercial and logistics capability across Nigeria.

We are confident that these investments and re-engineering of our operations will bring mutual benefits to the economy, our business, employees and our communities. “With operations in Nigeria for over 67 years and thousands of Nigerians in direct employment, NBC remains committed to Nigeria’s economic prosperity and its people.�

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BUSINESSWORLD

MARKET REPORT

Stock Market Gains Further on Continuing Bargain Hunting Goddy Egene billion to be at N11.6 trillion.

Learn Africa Plc led the price gainers with 9.9 per cent, followed by Ikeja Hotel Plc with 9.8 per cent. Veritas Kapital Assurance Plc chalked up 9.0 per cent, while AXA Mansard Insurance Plc and Royal Exchange Plc garnered 7.5 per cent and 6.9 per cent respectively.

Caverton Offshore Support Group Plc was also among the price gainers, chalking up 6.0 per cent, while NPF Microfinance Bank Plc closed 5.3 per cent higher.

Conversely, 20 stocks depreciated led

by Medview Airline Plc with 9.7 per cent.

Resort Savings and Loans Plc trailed with 9.0 per cent, while Union Bank of Nigeria Plc and Linkage Assurance Plc went down by 8.8 per cent apiece.

Fidson Healthcare Plc and Mutual Benefits Assurance Plc shed 5.0 per cent and 4.7 per cent in that order among others.

The equities market extended its gains for the second consecutive week as investors continued their bargain hunting. Having appreciated by 3.9 per cent the previous week, the market recorded another appreciated last week with the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) All-Share Index (ASI) rose by 1.35 per cent to close at 31,426.63, while market capitalisation appreciated by same margin to end the week at N11.719 trillion respectively.

The growth recorded last week reduced the year-to-date decline of the market to 0.01 per cent, indicating that the market would bounce back to positive territory if the bulls maintain their dominance this week.

Also, all other indices finished higher with the exception of the NSE ASeM, NSE Consumer Goods, NSE Oil/Gas, NSE Lotus II and NSE Industrial Goods Indices that depreciated by 0.17 per cent, 0.41 per cent, 1.32 per cent, 0.60 per cent and 2.02 per cent respectively.

However, the NSE Banking Index recorded the highest growth of 7.15 per cent last week, Although the market ended the week with a gain, analysts at Cordros Capital Limited called for cautious trading. “In spite of this week’s rally, our view continues to favour cautious trading pattern in the equities market amidst brewing political jitters ahead 2019 elections, and the absence of a positive market trigger. However, we expect the positive macroeconomic fundamentals to drive recovery in the long-term,� they said.

Daily Performance The market had opened the week on bearish note as investors took profit after seven days of gains. As a result, the market depreciated on the first day of trading last week. However, a rebound was recorded on Tuesday as the bulls returned to the market.

The bulls lifted the NSE ASI to close higher at 30,736.88, while market capitalisation added N1.6 billion to close at N11.462 trillion.

Linkage Assurance Plc led the price gainers with 9.8 per cent, trailed by Redstar Express Plc with 9.0 per cent.

Nigerian Aviation Handling Company Plc chalked up 8.3 per cent, just as Royal Exchange Plc and Oando Plc garnered 7.4 per cent and 6.8 per cent in that order.

Zenith Bank Plc was among the price gainers as investors positioned for announcement of dividend for the year ended December 31, 2018.

The bank last week said its board of directors had approved the audited financial results.

Conversely, 10 stocks dipped in value led by MCNichols Plc with 9.3 per cent, followed by Sovereign Trust Insurance Plc with 8.3 per cent. Cement Company of Northern Nigeria Plc shed 7.0 per cent, while WAPIC Insurance Plc went down by 4.7 per cent among others.

Meanwhile, activity level fell as volume and value traded declined by 51.0 per cent and 56.0 per cent to 245 million shares and N2.4 billion.

In terms of volume, the most active stocks were Diamond Bank (71.6 million shares), Access Bank (27.0 million shares) and GTBank (27.0 million shares while the top traded stocks by value were GTBank(N848.0 million), Zenith Bank (N236.0 million) and Seplat (N193.8 million).

On a sectoral basis, performance was mixed with two sectors appreciating while three declined. The NSE Oil & Gas Index advanced the most, up 1.7 per cent. The NSE Banking Index followed with a rise of 0.8 per cent.

On the flip side, the NSE Industrial

Goods Index shed the most, down 2.5 per cent, while the NSE Consumer Goods Index and NSE Insurance Index shed ices 0.3 per cent and 0.4 per cent respectively.

The market nudged 0.46 per cent higher to close at 30,878.56 on as gains by banking stocks sustained the positive performance. Similarly, market capitalisation inched up by N52.8 billion to close at 11.51 trillion.

The bulls were in total control of the market as 21 stocks appreciated while 10 declined. Although First Aluminium Nigeria Plc led the price gainers, banking stocks dominated.

First Aluminium chalked up 9.8 per

cent, trailed by Fidelity Bank Plc with 9.5 per cent, while Union Diagnostic and Clinical Services Plc gained 7.6 per cent.

Mutual Benefits Assurance Plc, Sterling Bank Plc and FCMB Group Plc garnered 5.0 per cent, 4.9 per cent and 4.3 per cent in that order. Jaiz Bank Plc, LASACO Assurance Plc, United Capital Plc and Guaranty Trust Bank Plc added 3.7 per cent,3.3 per cent, 2.9 per cent and 2.8 per cent respectively among others.

On the contrary, Resort Savings and Loans Plc led the price losers with 8.3 per cent, trailed by Sovereign Trust Insurance Plc with 4.5 per cent. UAC

of Nigeria Plc and NEM Insurance Plc shed 4.4 per cent apiece.

Commenting on the market performance, analysts at SCM Capital said:�Going forward, our near term outlook for the local bourse remains conservative owing to political concerns ahead of the 2019 electoral cycle and the absence of a positive driver. However, stable macro-economic fundamentals remain supportive of recovery in the long-term.

The market sustained its bullish performance on Thursday as rally by bellwethers boosted the NSE ASI by 0.36 per cent to close at 30,989.60, while market capitalisation added N43.2

Market Turnover Investors increased the demand for stocks as they total of 1.807 billion shares worth N17.232 billion in 18,332 deals, up from 1.270 billion shares valued at N13.463 billion that exchanged hands two weeks ago in 16,476 deals.

However, the Financial Services Industry led the activity chart with 1.625 billion shares valued at N14.696 billion traded in 11,778 deals, thus contributing 89.93 per cent and 85.28 per cent to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively. The Conglomerates Industry followed with 83.560 million shares worth N138.309 million in 951 deals, while the third place was occupied by the Consumer Goods Industry with a turnover of 36.251 million shares worth N1.002 billion in 2,224 deals. Trading in the top three equities namely, Diamond Bank Plc, Access Bank Plc and Guaranty Trust Bank Plc accounted for 871.524 million shares worth N8.488 billion in 3,305 deals.

Also traded during the week were a total of 34,341 units of Exchange Traded Products (ETPs) valued at N440,166.37 executed in seven deals compared with a total of 55 units valued at N5,610.00 that was transacted the previous week in two deals. Similarly, a total of 3,498 units of Federal Government Bonds valued at N3.131 million were traded in 20 deals compared with a total of 3,573 units valued at N3.764 million transacted two weeks in 24 deals Price Gainers and Losers Meanwhile, 40 equities appreciated in price during the week, higher than 38 in the previous week, while 25 equities depreciated in price, lower than 29 of the previous week.

Fidelity Bank Plc led the price gainers with 24.3 per cent, trailed by Caverton with 22.6 per cent. FCMB Group Plc chalked up 22.1 per cent, just as Access Bank Plc, Royal Exchange Plc and Red Star Express Plc garnered 16.0 per cent, 14.8 per cent and 13.6 per cent in that order. Other top price gainers included: Wema Bank Plc, First Aluminium Nigeria Plc (12.9 per cent apiece); AIICO Insurance Plc (12.7 per cent) and Linkage Assurance Plc (12.5 per cent). On the contrary, Resort Savings & Loans Plc led the price losers, shedding 23.0 per cent, trailed by Sovereign Trust Insurance Plc with 19.2 per cent.

Medview Airline Plc depreciated by 9.7 per cent, just as MCNichols Plc and Union Bank of Nigeria Plc shed 9.3 per cent and 8.8 per cent.

Other top price losers were: ETranzact International Plc (8.7 per cent); Consolidated Hallmark Insurance Plc (7.8 per cent); Seplat Petroleum Development Plc (6.2 per cent);Fidson Healthcare Plc (5.0 per cent); and Mutual Benefits Assurance Plc (4.7 per cent).

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Samsung Sets New Record on Nigerian Content, Trains Female Welders Peter Uzoho In line with its belief that the future of Nigeria should be in Nigerian hands, Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) has set a new record on Nigerian Content in the oil and gas industry as it has trained another batch of internationally-certified female welders.

Speaking to journalists, one of the beneficiaries of the training and one of the first certified female international welding specialists in Nigeria, Chinonye Okonkwo, stated that when she started the training, many people were coming to watch her to validate their belief that

Okonkwo she would fail. But she ended up representing the “new wave� of home-grown engineering talent on the African continent as the company tapped into the knowledge and expertise of international partners to build a domestic talent base to serve the needs of this dynamic country.

According to her story, she joined Samsung Heavy Industries Nigeria in 2015, initially in the administration team.

She saw colleagues joining the new welding training programme, and was curious about whether this could be a career choice for her. “I spoke to my manager, and he told me that in Korea it is quite normal for a woman to become a welder, so I thought that there is no reason why it can’t be the same in Nigeria�, Chinonye explained.

It wasn’t so easy to change everyone’s perceptions, however.

When she began the training programme she was faced with lots of people coming to watch

her progress – not to see her succeed, but to validate their belief that she would fail.

Chinonye did nothing of the sort. She’s now one of Samsung Heavy Industries Nigeria’s most talented welders, and has been promoted to an assistant training role where she trains new welders, amplifying her impact on the local talent base. Chinonye recently returned from a trip to the Geoje Shipyard in Korea to improve her skills even further, and is looking forward to a future for the SHI-MCI yard in Lagos, Nigeria, following the successful completion of the Egina FPSO (Floating produc-

tion storage and offloading): partially fabricated in Lagos, it’s the world’s largest platform of its type.

She advised the next generation of engineering talent in Nigeria, saying, “If you are willing to try something different, you can find beauty in creating something special for yourself: a career where you play your role in the future of our country at the same time as building a career for you and your family.�

She is now the proud holder of an International Welding Specialist Licence, which she obtained via her work at the yard. This success story has been made possible through

Samsung Heavy Industries’ belief in the potential of Nigerian companies and workers to deliver to their tough, exacting standards.

A number of records were broken during construction.

This is the first ever project to meet Nigeria’s demanding new standards for “local content�, which in simple terms means Nigerian-owned business delivering work in Nigeria.

Over 9.7 million hours of time have been spent by the Nigerian workforce, with over 6,000 Nigerians in employment on the project at its peak via Samsung and its partners and subcontractors.

possible. Also, this is a confidential matter because my RSA account is personal to me. “It is just like if I have an account with a bank, you cannot summon the central bank to produce the bank account of every Nigeria. If PenCom does that, RSA holders that are enlightened may sue the commission and there might be pandemonium. “The Act clearly states that RSA account is confidential and not a public document.�

Ideva, who is currently the chief executive of High Street Consulting Limited, added: “The other thing I find strange is that the pension assets, which is about N8.5 trillion is not a

government fund. These are total deductions made from peoples’ salary accounts and the one the employer pays and the employers are not just the government. “I think we need to do a lot of education for our lawmakers. I think there is a knowledge gap.

Another thing I think we should address is that employers don’t remit monies to PenCom.�

On his part, the Head of Research of one of the leading PFAs said: “Some of us are ready to sue PenCom if this confidential information is given out because it is an infringement on the right of the account holders as well as the business strategies of respective operator companies.�

Experts Decry Lawmakers’Move to Probe PenCom Some experts have condemned the move by the House of Representatives to probe the activities of the National Pension Commission (PenCom) since April 2017.

They are also worried that sensitive and confidential information on the industry may be exposed to the public, saying the move may cause panic among pension contributors in the country.

An ad-hoc committee of the House of Representatives has been mandated to probe activities of PenCOM. The Committee headed by Hon. E.J. Agbonayinma, had in a letter to the Acting Director General of PenCom, Aisha

Umar, dated January 21, requested confidential information on the contributory pension fund, leading to speculation in the industry on why legislators would request information that breaches the law.

In the letter titled: “Request for Information,� the committee had asked PenCom to furnish it with information on its operations as well as the status of pension contributions in Retirement Savings Accounts, contrary to the provisions of the Pension Reform Act (PRA) 2014 which forbids the Commission and members of the Commission from disclosing such information.

Among the information requested by the legislative

committee are “The Net Asset Values of the Contributory Pension Funds, details of supervision and regulations of Pension Fund Administrators and their key instructions and performances, compliances and defaults, annual pension operations of all the Pension Fund Administrators (i.e. details of amount collected from contributors and amount being paid out to retirees, from April 2017 till date).�

The Committee also requested for details of investment percentages and profits from the investment of pension funds, and details of the Federal Government contributions to the Federal Government bonds.

It also asked for the “contributions of retirement savings account holders to Pension Funds Administrators and details of payments from PenCom into the Treasury Single Accounts (TSA) and bank accounts details operated by the Commission� It also requested the PenCom to respond to the request urgently.

But speaking with THISDAY, a former Managing Director of Premium Pensions Limited, Mr. Wilson Ideva said: “This shows total lack of knowledge of how the pension industry works and what the industry is all about. “Somebody asking you to bring the account of 8.2 million RSA holders, to start with, is not

5 ) * 4 % ": t MONDAY, JANUARY 28, 2019

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Ahmed: Nigeria Has World’s Fastest Growing Social Investment Programme Minister of Finance, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, in this interview says the federal government’s intervention through its Social Investment Programme is targeted at lifting the most vulnerable persons in the society out of poverty.

She also speaks about the school feeding programme which currently takes care of 9.5 million pupils as well as clarifies issues around the growing number of beneficiaries in the government’s Marketmoni and Tradermoni.

Obinna Chima presents the excerpts: As good as the federal government’s policies might look, a lot of Nigerians are still not convinced. Also, when you look at the amount the government has borrowed so far and the infrastructure projects, some are still not convinced about its impact and some feel the targets in the ERGP are not realistic? Also, when you say government’s borrowing is for capital project, where do you classify NNPC’s N1 trillion subsidy and what is the update on the VAIDS programme?

Let me say that the targets that we set in the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) are very realistic and achievable targets. And because you have a revenue target and you perform 50 per cent or because you have a projection target, for example, when you look at our budget we said that NNPC’s production target should be 2.3 million barrels per day, but we do have a production capacity that is over 2.5 barrels per day. So we have been told by people when your average performance is two million, why do you still set it at 2.3 million barrels per day? We will say because you have to incentive agencies to perform.

Because agencies are under performing does that mean you just sit back and just reduce the targets? What you should do instead is to find out what are their challenges and drive them to achieve those targets. So the targets are realistic targets. And NNPC’s expenditure and fuel subsidy is not a capital expenditure and we did not and we will never use borrowed funds to pay for recurrent expenditure like fuel subsidy. The current regime that you are referring to as fuel subsidy is different from the previous fuel subsidy regime. What we have now is under recovery, it is the cost of the NNPC’s operations. It is the cost of buying the refined products, storing them and distributing them. In the previous regime there was cost of borrowing that is added because you are engaging a marketer and there was also profit that you have to add. So this is achieving better efficiency and then you have only one agency of government that buys and then sells to the marketers. So fuel subsidy is not a capital expenditure, it is a business expense of NNPC and the federal government is not using borrowed money pay for fuel subsidy.

Investment in infrastructure is very important for any economy to grow in a manner that is sustainable. So, when you are building rail lines or roads, you don’t do that and complete it in one day. It takes time to build and it is only when you build and the assets are put to use that the citizens will get the impact. If you say there is no impact, ask the people that are riding on the Kaduna-Abuja rail line every day. The benefit of that rail line is very significant. You can go between Abuja and Kaduna, do business in the morning and go back to Kaduna in the evening. The road that is being constructed now between Lagos and Ibadan, when completed, it is a 50- year investment. You will not have a situation where you have to invest more on that road. And the most important access road in this country is that road because it is the heart between the ports and Lagos, to the rest of the south-west and indeed, the rest of the country.

So, that is a very critical road and because it is not completed, people are still complaining because there is traffic. But the construction has to be done first of all before the benefits are reached. The Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration Scheme (VAIDS) programme ended last June, and we had an increase in tax payers’ base of five million and that was a significant improvement. In terms of revenues realised,

Ahmed we had N92 billion. But the most important benefit of the VAIDS programme for us in finance ministry, is the data that we gathered from that exercise. That is because we now have the data base of those individuals who were previously not in the tax net, who we can on a routine basis ensure that they pay their taxes.

And we are building up on this exercise. The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has a scheme called the high net worth individual

Investment in infrastructure is very important for any economy to grow in a manner that is sustainable. So, when you are building rail lines or roads, you don’t do that and complete it in one day.

It takes time to build and it is only when you build and the assets are put to use that the citizens will get the impact

scheme, similar to the VAIDS programme. It is a programme where they identify high net worth individuals through the level of their transactions in the banking industry, through their ownership of businesses and they pursue such high net worth individuals and make them pay tax. These are both individuals and as well as companies. The result of this is that the FIRS performance improved by 40 per cent last year, compared to their performance in 2017. So this is both a combination of the automation effort, the VAIDS programme and the high net worth individual programmes and it is growing. So there is significant improvement.

The World Bank projected that Nigeria’s economy will grow by 2.3 per cent this year and the IMF said the economy will grow by two per cent, while the federal government is projecting a 3.01 per cent growth. What are you seeing that you think the World Bank and IMF are not seeing? Secondly, considering the country’s high debt service ratio, why wouldn’t the government go for aggressive revenue mobilisation so as to increase capital expenditure?

The figure that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) provide as to the potential of growth of any country, is in most cases at variance with the country. That is because we have more information about what we are doing as a country than they do. We have more information on the various indices relating to growth in our country than the World Bank and the IMF. And I am not

saying they are wrong because they are seeing it from a prism that is different from ours. The ERGP as well as the 2019 budget projects that Nigeria’s GDP will be 3.01 per cent by the end of 2019. What this means to us is that we are saying this is a growth target but what do we have to do to get there? It is broken down into what each sector has to contribute. We have to now drive implementation on a sector by sector basis so that the contribution leads us to this growth. So when you say target, the target is supposed to drive performance. So if you say targets that are low, what you are doing is that you are dis-incentivising improved performance.

The debt service obligation, I said earlier on, is higher than what we would like, but we are able to meet our debt service obligation at an average of about 50 per cent of revenue.

That is not good enough. When you look at the budget, the debt service performance is supposed to be 25 per cent, but because the revenues are under performing it results to an average of 50 per cent. So what we have to do is to address revenue. And we are embarking on several revenue initiatives.

A report last year indicated that Nigeria has displaced India as the world poverty capital. How do you reconcile that with all you said the government has achieved?

Nigeria’s Human Development Index (HDI) report by the World Bank is one that saddened CONTINUED ON PAGE 29

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AHMED: NIGERIA HAS WORLD’S FASTEST GROWING SOCIAL INVESTMENT PROGRAMME all of us. Let me first of all say that where we are in terms of the low indices is a process that took years to happen. And the things that we are doing to reverse it will not manifest in one or two years. The base line of the data that was used for that report was prior to the Social Investment Programme (SIP) that we are currently undertaking. Another reason is that India has taken some radical measures which they have implemented over a coupled of years that made them drop off from being the highest. So, there are things we are doing that are not yet recorded and then, the efforts that India did. And we are also following the same part that India took. We have to identified the most vulnerable persons in our society and put in place policy measures and we are implementing them so that they will have impact. Let me give you an example, we are feeding children in schools and today we have reached 9.5 million pupils. This is in two and half years. Brazil that has the most aggressive social investment programme in the world, when we visited them in the second quarter of last year, the number they have covered was about 41 million pupil. And they have they have been doing this for about 40 years. So, we have the fastest growing social investment programme in the world today. That feeding programme has a multiplier effect. It is helping us to address the issue of poor school enrolment which is part of the measurement of the HDI report. It is helping us to improve our poor nutrition indices which is part of the measure of the human development index report. It is also helping us to provide jobs for women. We have up to about 100,000 women that are now cooking for these 9.5 million children. One meal a day, includes eggs, chicken, fish and beef, that is what some of these children don’t get at home. The cooks also have to engage other people to help them because each woman has at last 100 children to feed. So, she may end up employing two or three people. It has created employment. And then the farmers, because we insist that the food has to be bought locally and no imported goods. The farmers’ production has increased exponentially because they now find out that they need to produce more. So, it is a journey and for us that report was a wake-up call. It means we have to further redouble our efforts in the social investment programme so that in the next two years when the assessment is done, the report will be significantly favourable to Nigeria.

Talking about the government’s SIP, how much has been disbursed so far under the Tradermoni and Marketmoni, what is the repayment process and who audit the funds considering the comments we have seen around it in recent times?

The Tradermoni and the market money are all managed by the Bank of Industry. We started with the Marketmoni which is providing loans between N10,000 to N100,000 on the average.

And by the middle of last year, we realised that we have only been able to cover 350 beneficiaries. Yet, our target was to reach 1.6 million beneficiaries. So the Vice President who is the Chairman of the SIP said there was need to fast track the access to these facilities. And then in town hall meetings, he now found out that there are some people at the lowest cadre are not even being addressed at all, such as the traders in the market that are selling pepper, onions and tomatoes with very small inventories.

So he said lest find a way to reach all these people quickly. We now went back and did some investigations, we found that there are technology services that can enable you provide money using the mobile phone, provide a loan using the mobile phone for beneficiaries. And you also recover the facility using the mobile phone. So the Tradermoni is providing N10,000 to very small traders using the mobile phone and the recoveries of those fund is also using the mobile phone. And when a trader pays the N10,000, then he is entitled to N15,000, when he pays the N15,000, he is entitled to N20,000 and it grows. So we are helping to grow a large number of people. And we found that it makes a difference in the lives of the people because it is in those businesses that we think are small they trade and manage their families, pay school fees and take care of hospital bills.

Today, the Tradermoni has gone up to over one million people and the target we have in the next four years is to grow that to 10 million.

What is the government doing to resolve

tractor assembly plants, one in each of the six geo-political zones. They will assemble these CKDs into tractors and other implements that will be used in the agriculture sector. And the second thing is the 109 senatorial districts of the country are going to have what we call service centres. These are centres that will be providing services where it will be needed in terms of agriculture services to farmers around the area. But they will also be providing processing services. So, if you produce cassava, instead of maybe exporting just the dry cassava, they will be able to process it for you. So those centre have been chosen already. These assembly plant would be 100 per cent private sector owned and the owners that will run those centres will emerge through a stiff competitive process. And it will be 100 per cent private sector funded and financed. The government is only providing the policy, framework and any support that they will require. So what it means is that a farmer that used to just take his produce and sell directly to the market will now take to this centre and pay the centre a fee, process it and then go away with the processed product.

So if I farm maize, I take it to the centre they produce maize flower and what I am selling is the maize flower. You know that the value addition is actually 70 per cent of the value chain of any agricultural produce. So more value will be retained, a lot of employment will be realised as a result of that and also more wealth will be with the farmer. So that is the design of the programme. We have support from the Deutsche Bank as well as an arm of the Islamic Development Bank to drive this process which largely vendor financed by the government of Brazil.

Ahmed the strike embarked by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU)?

ASUU is on a strike again and for us in government ASUU strike is something that has become matter of routine and it saddens us.

We were told by ASUU that some years back that there were some negotiations and some commitment by the previous administration to provide to ASUU about N1. 1trillion. They are asking for N1.1 trillion, where will we get N1.1 trillion to give to ASUU? It is not realistic. So, we told them the best we can is to give you then N20 billion and we gave them N20 billion last year. And this year also the government has approved another N20 billion to give to them and that is being processed. Apart from the budget of the Federal Ministry of Education, there is also the TetFund that is also designed to be used by the tertiary institutions. You cannot bail out the deficit that we have in the education sector in one year. The first two tranches of funds have been provided to ASUU towards that N1.1 trillion. And by the way I really still

The agriculture mechanisation programme that we launched recently took almost three years before we came to that level. The government of Brazil is partnering with the government of Nigeria to bring in agriculture machineries to be deployed across the country

need to find out how they came to N1.1 trillion, it maybe more than that, I don’t know. This is money that is supposed to be used to build infrastructure within the university system and there is Tetfund specifically set to build infrastructure within the university system. So, we have a lot of work to do between ourselves.

And as we speak, the Accountant General is processing another N20 billion for ASUU and another N15.8 billion in what is called earned arrears. So ASUU needs to face the reality that the economy is not buoyant for us to pay them N1.1 trillion. It is simply not possible, because the resources are not available for us to do that, even if they are, you have to also ask whether the university system as it is structured has that absorptive capacity. You also want to make sure that the funds that you provide were actually used to roll the infrastructure that the system requires.

During the launch of your agric programme recently, you said the target was to create more jobs and that it is going to be purely private sector-driven. So, what modalities are in place to ensure that the target – youths and women in the 744 local government areas are reached?

The agriculture mechanisation programme that we launched recently took almost three years before we came to that level. The government of Brazil is partnering with the government of Nigeria to bring in agriculture machineries to be deployed across the whole of the country. Brazil has one of the highest grades of tractors in the world as well as other agricultural implements and it is one of the places that have the most success in agriculture production. They have a model that they use in Brazil which they have been able to export to other countries and Nigeria found out about it, but we saw also the mode of implementation has happened in some of African countries including our neighbour, Ghana, but didn’t really achieve the target they tried to achieve. So Nigeria stepped back and walked to Brazil to design a programme that was specifically suitable for the Nigerian market.

So, the $1.2 billion is going to come largely in the form of equipment in completely knock down(CKD) parts. So we have identified six

Over the last three years, the government has been targeting N321 billion as revenue estimates from privatisation and as of today, the number you have gotten is zero. Why has it been so? Secondly, there is an output gap in the gap in the economy and the missing link is the private sector investor and this appears to be a sign of lack of conďŹ dence. What is government doing to restore private sector conďŹ dence?

The revenue from privatisation and the revenue we classify as independent revenue, that is, revenue from government-owned enterprises, is the weakest link in our revenue performance.

We have gone through three budget cycles, but zero revenue from privatisation. We are working with and engaging the Bureau of Public Enterprises to make sure that some of the privatisation are fast-tracked. We also found that there is a very tedious process provided by law, that has to be followed for any privatisation to take place. So, we are working with the BPE to fast-track the sale of some of these essential government assets. And then, we are putting in more attention, working with the state-owned enterprises to improve their business efficiencies and reduce their cost, so that more operating surpluses and dividends can be paid to the federation. In terms of the output gap in our Gross Domestic Product, while I respect your opinion, the report we have shows that our trade balance has improved significantly. That means the manufacturing sector has picked up, there is more exports recorded by the country and less import, which is a good thing. Of course, it is not at the level that we want, but the movement is a positive one. There is a significant number of foreign direct investments that have come into these country, a lot of which are direct investments. We have large scale businesses, especially in food processing, that have sprung up in Nigeria between 2016 and 2018. They were not there before. We have large rice mills that are producing rice in Nigeria, we have Olam Farms that are producing feeds for chicken and several other products. So, growth has been restored in the manufacturing sector and more factories are being commission. So, there is progress. But, is it enough? Not yet and we hope more investments would come.

Our view is that there is significant interest in the Nigerian economy. And I would like to demonstrate this by the interest that we saw when we did the last Eurobond. We set out to borrow $2.8 billion and we were shocked that the performance was about $9.5 billion and we have to choose to see that we reduce and allocate it to the $2.8 billion we set to raise. Investors are happy to see that the fundamentals are being rebuilt and that the trajectory of several key indices are all moving upward. So, we are marking progress.

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‘Empowerment of Girls in Software Programing, Key to Nation Devt’ Emma Okonji The Co-founders of Girl Code Academy, Peter Ogedengbe and Adeola Haruna, have stressed the need for the empowerment of girls with technology skills that will enhance national development.

According them, the percentage of female participation in technology related courses and programmes remains low in Nigeria, while stressing the need for more involvement of women in technology skills acquisition. “As a Tech Lead in one of the leading technology companies in the country, I decided to co-found the Girl Code Academy with Adeola Haruna, a female expert in software programming.

The Girl Code Academy is a platform that offers technology skills in software programming and coding for young female university graduates, irrespective of their disciplines. “At Girl Code Academy, we carry out eight weeks intensive training programme annually. We started in 2017, and since then we have trained over 200 young girls that have graduated from university. This year, we plan to have two bathes of training programme. In the first batch, we are training 60 out of which 50 will be trained as front-end web developers, and the remaining 10 on advanced web programming, while the second batch will be coming up in December this year,� Ogedengbe said.

Speaking on the selection process for the training programme, Ogedengbe said: “Every year we advertise and we receive several applications and we invite them for interview and shortlist to a sizable number that we can comfortably train. This year we had over 700 applications, and we shortlisted 60 in the first batch and another 50 in the second batch. The training is completely free of charge and we expect them to take full advantage of the training programme.�

According to him, the academy has trained web developers in their hundreds who are gainfully employed after the training, while some became employers of labour.

Haruna, who is also the Programme Director at Girl Code Academy, said the academy, through its annual training programme, would train more female programmers to compete with the men that have dominated the technology industry.

President, Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON) Dr. Yele Okeremi, commended the efforts of the academy in keying into the vision of smart nations that are using technology to drive wealth. “Women empowerment is key because empowering the women in ICT skills is as good as empowering the entire nation because of the unique position and role of women in nation building,�

Okeremi said.

Global Trade Must Evolve to Remain Relevant, Says WTO Boss Participating in a series of ministerial discussions during the just concluded World Economic Forum’s (WEF) annual meetings in Davos, Switzerland, the Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Roberto Azevêdo reviewed the challenges and opportunities facing global trade today, and stressed that the trading system must evolve if it is to remain relevant.

The meetings included the informal ministerial gathering on WTO issues hosted by the Swiss government.

The discussion largely focused on possible reforms to the trading system, with a range of different perspectives being aired.

The need to address the

impasse in appointments to the WTO’s Appellate Body was a common theme, along with the need to make progress in a number of other areas.

Speaking at the forum, the WTO boss said trade was top the of the agenda in Davos.

This, according to him, was a sign of the strong and very widely-shared commitment to the global trading system. “This is particularly vital now, as we face a number of significant challenges. The current trade tensions pose a threat to the entire international community. The risks are real and have real economic effects.

But the opportunities are real too. “It is in everyone’s interests that we improve prospects for

global trade. It is vital for jobs, growth and development around the world. This is what the WTO is all about – so we are taking action. “First, by working urgently to ease tensions. We’re facilitating conversations between members, complementing bilateral efforts. And we’re helping members to resolve their disputes. “Second, we are working to modernise and strengthen the global trading architecture to ensure that it can support a changing global economy.

These are the key elements that we have been discussing here this week. “The word we keep hearing is ‘reform’. Members are exploring possible reforms

that would help to diffuse the current tensions, fix the impasse in appointments to the Appellate Body, improve monitoring and transparency in the system, and speed up our negotiating processes both on the longstanding issues and on other initiatives that been launched more recently.� “We must do more to make the WTO work faster, and be more flexible and responsive to members’ needs – building on the progress of recent years. The G20 leaders’ declaration made this clear. It called for “necessary reforms� to the WTO so that it can keep playing its essential role in the global economy.

All this has created a political window to modernise the WTO. We must seize that opportunity.

MEDIA BRIEFING

L-R: Chairman, Oil and GasTrainers Association of Nigeria (OGTAN); University Liaison, Mr. Austin Ogu; Vice President, Sam Azoka Onyechi; President, Dr. Mayowa Afe; General Manager, Mrs. Caroline Egejuru; and National Financial Secretary, Mr. Olaleye Matthew, at the media briefing on the OGTAN second annual international conference and exhibition in Lagos‌recently

Accion MFB Supports Physically Challenged Customers Andela Secures $100m Funding to Support Local Talents

Ugo Aliogo

Accion Microfinance Bank has supported three physically challenged customers of the bank with two power generating sets as well as financial support.

The move was part of the bank’s corporate social responsibility (CSR).

Speaking at the bank’s annual customer forum in Lagos, the Managing Director, Accion Microfinance Bank, Taiwo Joda, said the financial institution’s social impact is focused on giving back to the society where they operate, adding that the bank is focused on empowering people. “Our social impact is linked to the fact that we need to be able to give back to the society that we operate. Micro finance banking is actually focused on empowering the people and so you can not totally dissociate yourself from the poor and we are trying to empower the poor. You also know there cannot be effective financial inclusion without social inclusion. If you do not give back to the society and you do not drive social sustainability you cannot be talking about financial sustainability,� he noted.

He also said much of the things they have done include reaching out to schools. Joda, added that Accion has partnered with a lot of schools. According to him, in September 2018, the bank

gave out over 5,000 school bags and exercise books, notebooks to different schools across the country. “It so exciting to children who have never seen a school bag before and we are so excited about that idea.� The Accion MD expressed confidence in 2019, saying the bank would take the initiative a step further because of its understanding that there are lots of abilities in disability.

According to him: “Today we are celebrating three of our customers that are living with disabilities, but who are also economically active doing business and you can see the joy in them. They are not relying in family and friends to be able to feed themselves. “We felt the least we could do is to help their business grow and that is why for two of them- one is into laundry business, and the second is into sales of drinks, we gave them generators. While for the individual with visual impairment, we felt the way we can impact him is to pay the children school fees. “When we interviewed them, we realised that the whole school fee has not been paid and the school session has to break, so what we did was to pay the back log of the outstanding school fees. We also paid for the new session and as time progresses; we will review what we can do to further increase the lives of the people.�

Emma Okonji Andela has announced the completion of a $100 million Series D funding.

The capital raising was led

by Generation Investment Management with participation from existing investors, including Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, GV, Spark Capital, and CRE Venture Capital.

The financing brings Andela’s total venture funding to $180 million.

Co-founder and CEO of Andela, Jeremy Johnson, who made the announcement, said the firm was founded in 2014 to connect Africa’s engineering talent with the

demand for software developers worldwide. “In four years, Andela has assessed more than one hundred thousand applicants, hired one thousand software developers, and integrated them into hundreds of companies, such as Safaricom, Percolate, and InVision. “With the Series D funding, Andela will accelerate the development of its technology platform to identify, develop and match talent at scale. By doing so, Andela will provide its customers with the data they need to understand developer performance and better manage distributed teams. “The company will also expand its presence across Africa to meet

the global demand for high-quality engineering talent,� Johnson said.

According to him, “It’s increasingly clear that the future of work will be distributed, in part due to the severe shortage of engineering talent. “Given our access to incredible talent across Africa, as well as what we’ve learned from scaling hundreds of engineering teams around the world, Andela is able to provide the talent and the technology to power high-performing teams and help companies adopt the distributed model faster.�

Country Director at Andela, Omowale David-Ashiru, said: “Andela has been a critical player in Nigeria’s technology revolution.

Due to our unwavering commitment to our mission throughout the last four years, Andela has grown into a thriving platform for hundreds of technologists in Nigeria. “With this investment, Andela will accelerate the development of Africa’s best tech talent in Nigeria and beyond.�

Co-head of Growth Equity at Generation Investment Management, Lilly Wollman, said: “Generation’s investment in Andela resulted from our deep research into the future of work. “We believe Andela is a transformational model to develop software engineers and deploy them at scale into the future enterprise.

Nestoil Develops Evacuation System toTackle OilTheft Peter Uzoho Nestoil Limited has developed an alternative evacuation system to reduce stealing of Nigeria’s crude oil to the barest minimum.

Through the alternative evacuation system, the regular downtime caused by technical issues to pipelines carrying crude oil, and vandalism done on pipelines across specific routes recorded through the use of flow lines or the Trans-Forcados Pipeline

(TFP) would be negated through evacuating the oil by batches.

The Chief Technical Officer, Neconde Energy limited, a subsidiary of Nestoil, Ifeanyi Ezuka, who disclosed this in Lagos during an interview with journalists, said the innovation was the latest testament to Nestoil’s growing reputation as an innovative company that constantly seeks proprietary ways of working in difficult terrains.

Ezuka, also explained that the

innovation was also borne out of necessity due to the downtime recorded on Forcados terminal when moving their products there. He, however, stressed that the initiative would be of immense benefit to most oil companies, saying with alternative evacuation system, “they now have control over the value chain, in that they can account for all the barrels produced unlike when it’s through the pipelines that they have no control of the process

and lose revenue but now the days of avoidable revenue losses through the pipelines are over.�

Ezuka said: “Historically, in the last 45 years, oil producing companies have used the 200 kilometres long TFP in transporting crude oil to the Forcados Oil Terminal (FOT).

However, frequent shutdowns due to vandalism and oil theft, as well as technical challenges, means a number of producers are unable to meet export targets.

5 ) * 4 % ": t MONDAY, JANUARY 28, 2019

31

32

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33

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35

36

M O N DAY Ëž JANUARY 28, 2019

BUSINESS/MONEYGUIDE

Entrepreneurship Key for Poverty Eradication in Africa, Says Elumelu Obinna Chima The founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF), Mr. Tony Elumelu, has described entrepreneurship as a vital tool for eradicating poverty in Africa.

More importantly, he stressed that entrepreneurship would get youths in the continent busy and keep them out of social vices as well as create employment opportunities in the continent.

Elumelu, who is also the chairman of Heirs Holdings, said this in an interview monitored on CNBC, on the sidelines of the just concluded World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland.

According to him, Africa’s development requires massive private global capital to fire and power investments in the area of infrastructure, to create employment and eradicate poverty. “I came to Davos to interact with global leaders who have control capital and that to me is important for the development of our continent. When you come here you meet global philanthropists, development partners, people who are interested in supporting Africa and will begin to change the

narrative and the conversation, we begin to let them know that what we need now more than ever before is how to empower young Africans to entrepreneurship. That we are achieving, so when we come here, we think this year’s has been quite exciting,� Elumelu, who is also the Chairman of the United Bank for Africa explained.

Responding to a question on how to attract global private capital to the continent, he pointed out that capital goes to where it is most welcome, or where the investment destination is more hospitable. “For us as Africans, the issue is not about attracting private global capital, they are ready and willing to come to Africa, but we need to work with our political leaders to ensure that we create the enabling environment that will attract and retain the capital we need in Africa. “I speak as someone who invests in other African countries.

In fact, we have investments in 23 African countries and I know that there is a lot of investment opportunities, what we need to do more of in Africa is to ensure that the enabling environment is good,� he added.

Elumelu said the TEF has

been quite phenomenal in terms of trying to lift young Africans out of poverty and to help create massive employment in the continent. “What the TEF is doing is trying to democratise luck and trying to improve access to economic opportunities, remembering our own story – trying to ensure that we are able to support those who have ideas. Unfortunately, we are not able to support everyone, it’s a $100,000 commitment. We have supported over 4,000 and this year, we will be supporting another 1,000. “We see successes, and we hear stories of how these young men and women from Africa are succeeding.

And when I hear their stories I tell myself that indeed the future of Africa is in these young ones. “I tell my friends that there is the need to partner to do more. – wealth for one is not enough, we should democratise access to wealth, we should make sure that Africa, like I always say, is the next frontier, and that our young ones are prioritised and are given hope and opportunity, so that they do not go into extremism,� he said.

L- R: CEO, RMB Nigeria Stockbrokers, Abiola Adekoya; Economist & Senior Lecturer, Lagos Business School, Dr Doyin Salami and President/Chairman, Nigerian – British Chamber of Commerce (NBCC), Akin Olawore at the panel session on 2019 Economic Outlook organised by the NBCC in Lagos‌recently

MARKET INDICATORS MONEY AND CREDIT STATISTICS

(MILLION NAIRA)

MARCH 2018

Firm Assures Investors of Good Returns

Broad Money (M2)

24,303,049.86

-- Narrow Money (M1)

10,912,604.10

Nume Ekeghe

---- Currency Outside Banks

1,668,378.21

---- Demand Deposits

9,244,225.90

-- Quasi Money

13,390,445.76

The CEAT Fixed Income Fund has reiterated its commitment to helping its investors and stakeholders to boost the returns on their investments.

Trustees to the Fund, which was represented by Mrs Tadeni Balogun of United Capital Trustees Limited, said this during the second Annual General Meeting of CEAT, while presenting itsfinancial statements for the year ended 30 June, 2017, in Lagos.

She said:“The fund was established to provide investors and/or their beneficiaries and dependants with income (dividend), as well as an attractive total return in the medium to long term period while safeguarding capital.�

The fund which was formerly known as BGL Sapphire Fund, she recalled, is an actively managed open-ended collective fund, whose main objective is

to provide investors with consistent income as well as anattractive return in the medium to long term, through investment in a variety of fixed income securities.

She said the Sapphire Fund was launched in October 2010, registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Nigeria and commenced investment activities in April 2011, under the management of BGL Asset Management Limited.

The fund’s management was subsequently transferred to Capital Express Asset & Trust Limited in February 2016.

United Capital Trustees Limited is trustees to the Fund and UBA Plc (Global Investor Services) is the custodian.

The Managing Director, CEAT, Mr Babatunde Tinubu said: “We promise to continually strive to meet and surpass your investment objectives.�

He said that CEAT had ensured consistent annual

dividend pay out, as it offered investors N15k for the year 2016 which was the year of takeover, and five Kobo distribution for 2017, in line with consistent income objective.

A five kobo distribution was tabled for approval at this meeting for the year 2018, which was approved. “I can also strongly assure you of the distribution of dividend to unit holding for the 2019 year, sometimes in October this year has already reflected in the performance of the fund for the year,� he said.

According to the report presented at the meeting, the fund’s total gross investment income increased by 143 per cent as of the end of 2017, from the corresponding period of 2016.

Approximately N38 m was received as additional subscription (Creating 23 million units), while N12m redemption was recorded (seven million units) during the year.

LEAP Africa Trains Entrepreneurs Judith Obaze LEAP Africa has trained 19 young entrepreneurs on social innovators program (SIP).

The initiative was part of efforts by the organisation to empower and equip new set of African leaders by providing the skills and tools for personal, organisational and community transformation.

Speaking to journalists in Lagos, on the development, the organisation’s Manager, Corporate Communications, Kehinde Ayeni, told journalist that LEAP Africa’s SIP supports creative and young Nigerians with ideas and initiatives that proffer effective solutions to identified challenges in local communities across the country.

She said the program is a one-year fellowship that culminates in an award ceremony to

celebrate entrepreneurs that are highly creative, championing social enterprises and improving their personal lives and the communities around them.

Ayeni, who noted that each participant, having been inducted, is expected to be exposed to various pool of resources to better their lives after graduating from the programme.

According to her, “We work with them through different models to ensure that we achieve our objectives and that of our partners, collaborating with them so that problems that have been identify or they have at this program would be solved. “The SIP is one of the platforms we work with social entrepreneurs in Nigeria to scale up the impact of their initiatives and ventures, we work with them to strengthened their

ventures and ensure that the move into a sustainability model that allows them to increase the work that they do horizontally. “We have three principal touch points with them - where they are linked up with mentors to clock about 60 hours between two months and also we have virtual learning program to support the gap that has been identified. “Today is the beginning of 2019 fellowship for 19 entrepreneurs that has been selected across the country and the fellowship over the time has graduated over 100,� she said.

The organisation has inspired about 50,000 youths, teachers, civil society organisations (CSOs), business owners and social entrepreneurs, to lead ethically while implementing initiatives that contribute to national development.

Net Foreign Assets (NFA)

15,619,134.18

Net Domestic Assets(NDA)

8,683,915.68

-- Net Domestic Credit (NDC)

26,267,136.53

---- Credit to Government (Net)

3,823,345.45

---- Memo: Credit to Govt. (Net) less FMA

5,433,209.43

---- Memo: Fed. and Mirror Accounts (FMA)

-1,609,863.98

---- Credit to Private Sector (CPS)

22,443,791.08

--Other Assets Net

-17,583,220.85

Reserve Money (Base Money)

6,746,646.49

--Currency in Circulation

1,668,378.21

--Banks Reserves

4,357,551.58 Ëž Ă™Ă&#x;ĂœĂ?Ă? Ě‹

Money Market Indicators (in Percentage) Month

March 2018

Inter-Bank Call Rate

15.16

Minimum Rediscount Rate (MRR) Monetary Policy Rate (MPR)

14.00

Treasury Bill Rate

11.84

Savings Deposit Rate

4.07

1 Month Deposit Rate

8.82

3 Months Deposit Rate

9.72

6 Months Deposit Rate

10.93

12 Months Deposit Rate

10.21

Prime Lending rate

17.35

Maximum Lending Rate

31.55

Ëž Ă™Ă˜Ă?ĂžĂ‹ĂœĂŁ ÙÖÓĂ?ĂŁ Ă‹ĂžĂ? Ě‹ ͯ͹Ϲ

OPEC DAILY BASKET PRICE AS AT THURDAY, 24 JANUARY 2019

The price of OPEC basket of fourteen crudes stood at $60.22 a barrel on Thursday, compared with $60.52 the previous day, according to OPEC Secretariat calculations.

The OPEC Reference Basket of Crudes (ORB) is made up of the following: Saharan Blend (Algeria), Girassol (Angola), Djeno (Congo), Oriente (Ecuador), ZaďŹ ro (Equatorial Guinea), Rabi Light (Gabon), Iran Heavy (Islamic Republic of Iran), Basra Light (Iraq), Kuwait Export (Kuwait), Es Sider (Libya), Bonny Light (Nigeria), Arab Light (Saudi Arabia), Murban (UAE) and Merey (Venezuela).

SOURCE: OPEC headquarters, Vienna

37

M O N DAY ˾ JANUARY 28, 2019

MARKET NEWS

May & Baker Nigeria Realises N1.86 billion from Rights Issue Goddy Egene The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) has listed additional 745,234,886 ordinary shares of May & Baker Nigeria Plc issued by way of a Rights Issue.

Specifically, the additional shares arose from company’s Rights Issue of 980,000,000 ordinary shares of 50 kobo each at N2.50 per share on the basis of one new ordinary shares for every one shares ordinary shares

held as at 4 September 2018.

The company realised about N1.86 billion from the right issue as it was 76.04 per cent successful. The application had opened on Monday October 22, 2018 and to closed on Wednesday November 28, 2018.

During the offer, the Managing Director/CEO of May & Baker, Mr. Nnamdi Okafor, had urged shareholders to take advantage of the rights issue and position themselves in order to be able

P R I C E S MAIN BOARD

F O R DEALS

to reap the full benefits of their investments in the company.

He had said right issue would further help to reduce finance costs, increase capacity and bring greater returns to shareholders.

Citing the third quarter results and growth outlook of the healthcare company, Okafor said recent strategic investments and new growth initiatives being undertaken by the company would boost returns in the years ahead.

S E C U R I T I E S

MARKET PRICE

QUANTITY TRADED

VALUE TRADED ( N )

He said the company would pay dividend on the new ordinary shares to be issued through the rights issue, despite the fact that the net proceeds of the rights issue will be received towards the end of current business year.

Okafor said while the impact of the recapitalisation will become visible in the 2019 business year, the company will pay dividend for the 2018 business year on the old and new shares to be issued.

T R A D E D MAIN BOARD

A S

He said the net proceeds of the rights issue will be invested in some key projects including N400 million to finance part of the company’s equity in Biovaccines Nigeria Limited, the joint venture company for local vaccine production and over N500 million on capacity expansion for one of its cash cow products, paracetamol for which it is building a dedicated plant.

He added that the company will also use N400 million to

O F

offset part of its current loan portfolio of N950 million while N500 million will be invested in marketing and brand building.

“We derive our confidence mainly from the pedigree, performance track records and strategic plans of the company which we believe should appeal to all discerning investors.

“The new funds will be used to strengthen their investments and make the company more profitable,” Okafor said.

2 3 / 0 1 / 2 0 1 9 DEALS

MARKET PRICE

QUANTITY TRADED

VALUE TRADED ( N)

Ëž MONDAY, JANUARY 28, 2019

38

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T H I S D AY Ëž Ë&#x153; ÍşÎ&#x20AC;Ë&#x153; ͺ͸͚͡

39

MARKET NEWS

Nigerian Stock Exchange Delists Great Nigeria Insurance Goddy Egene The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) last Friday delisted the entire share capital of Great Nigeria Insurance Plc GNI Plc from the exchange. In notification to stockbrokers, the exchange said following the application â&#x20AC;&#x153;filed by MBC Securities Limited on behalf of GNI for the voluntary delisting of the entire share capital of GNI, please be informed that

the entire issued share capital of GNI were today, Friday, 25 January 2019, delisted from the Daily List of the NSE.â&#x20AC;?

Explaining the factors that informed the decision to delist, GNI had said that over the last five years, there was little or no trading activity on the shares held by the minority shareholders. â&#x20AC;&#x153;There has also been a considerable fall in trading volumes over the last 12

A Mutual fund (Unit Trust) is an investment vehicle managed by a SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) registered Fund Manager.

Investors with similar objectives buy units of the Fund so that the Fund Manager can buy securities that willl generate their desired return.

An ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) is a type of fund which owns the assets (shares of stock, bonds, oil futures, gold bars, foreign currency, etc.) and divides ownership of those assets into shares. Investors can buy these â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;sharesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; on the

months with an average daily volume of 1, 200 units during the period March 2017 to March 2018. Shareholders are not benefiting from the continued listing as shareholders are not getting any exit opportunity and their investments have been locked up and they find it difficult to dispose of their shareholding. Neither the company has benefitted as the companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s shares continue to trade at a significant discount

floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange.

A REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) is an investment vehicle that allows both small and large investors to part-own real estate ventures (eg.

Offices, Houses, Hospitals) in proportion to their investments. The assets are divided into shares that are traded on the Nigerian Stock Exchange.

GUIDE TO DATA: Date: All fund prices are quoted in Naira as at 24Jan-2019, unless otherwise stated.

to the intrinsic value.

Also, GNIâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s free float currently stands at 16.03 per cent, significantly below the NSEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s minimum free float of 20 per cent. With this Free Float deficiency, the NSE could take enforcement action even though The Quotations Committee of the National Council of The Exchange has extended the curing period to May 2020. We do not expect that this deficiency will be cured

during that period and we expect the NSE to initiate a regulatory delisting,â&#x20AC;? it said.

GNI had said that through the voluntary delisting, the directors would be exercising a regulatory provision that will shield the company from any enforcement action that the exchange may effect, which may arise as a result of the outstanding free float deficiency. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Furthermore, through the voluntary delisting process, the

company will be providing an exit consideration to minority shareholders who do not wish to remain in an unlisted company,â&#x20AC;? it added.

GNI added that the delisting will afford the company to carry an imminent corporate restructuring exercise to take advantage of emerging opportunities and may consider re-listing the company in the future if the market conditions are favourable.

Offer price: The price at which units of a trust or ETF are bought by investors.

Bid Price: The price at which Investors redeem (sell) units of a trust or ETF. Yield/Total Return: Denotes the total return an investor would have earned on his investment. Money Market Funds report Yield while others report Year- to-date Total Return.

NAV: Is value per share of the real estate assets held by a REIT on a specific date.

DAILY PRICE LIST FOR MUTUAL FUNDS, REITS and ETFS MUTUAL FUNDS / UNIT TRUSTS AFRINVEST ASSET MANAGEMENT LTD aaml@afrinvest.com Web: www.afrinvest.com; Tel: +234 1 270 1680 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Afrinvest Equity Fund 156.84 157.00 -0.93% Afrinvest Plutus Fund 100.00 100.00 11.00% Nigeria International Debt Fund 278.77 279.03 2.08% ALTERNATIVE CAPITAL PARTNERS LTD info@acapng.com Web: www.acapng.com, Tel: +234 1 291 2406, +234 1 291 2868 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn ACAP Canary Growth Fund 0.84 0.85 0.26% ACAP Income Funds 0.62 0.62 10.98% AIICO CAPITAL LTD ammf@aiicocapital.com Web: www.aiicocapital.com, Tel: +234-1-2792974 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn AIICO Money Market Fund 100.00 100.00 13.00% AIICO Balanced Fund 2.23 2.26 0.55% ARM INVESTMENT MANAGERS LTD enquiries@arminvestmentcenter.com Web: www.arm.com.ng; Tel: 0700 CALLARM (0700 225 5276) Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn ARM Aggressive Growth Fund N/A N/A N/A ARM Discovery Fund N/A N/A N/A ARM Ethical Fund N/A N/A N/A ARM Money Market Fund N/A N/A N/A AXA MANSARD INVESTMENTS LIMITED investmentcare@axamansard.com Web: www.axamansard.com; Tel: +2341-4488482 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn AXA Mansard Equity Income Fund 100.19 100.89 -0.99% AXA Mansard Money Market Fund 1.00 1.00 13.46% CHAPELHILL DENHAM MANAGEMENT LTD investmentmanagement@chapelhilldenham.com Web: www.chapelhilldenham.com, Tel: +234 461 0691 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Chapelhill Denham Money Market Fund 100.00 100.00 13.97% Paramount Equity Fund 11.49 11.79 -1.85% Women's Investment Fund 100.76 103.34 -1.76% CORDROS ASSET MANAGEMENT LIMITED assetmgtteam@cordros.com Web: www.cordros.com, Tel: 019036947 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Cordros Money Market Fund 100.00 100.00 13.17% Cordros Milestone Fund 2023 96.55 96.83 Cordros Milestone Fund 2028 99.27 99.73 CORONATION ASSEST MANAGEMENT investment@coronationam.com Web:www.coronationam.com , Tel: 012366215 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Coronation Money Market Fund N/A N/A N/A Coronation Balanced Fund N/A N/A N/A Coronation Fixed Income Fund N/A N/A N/A EDC FUNDS MANAGEMENT LIMITED mutualfundng@ecobank.com Web: www.ecobank.com Tel: 012265281 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn EDC Nigeria Money Market Fund Class A 100.00 100.00 12.79% EDC Nigeria Money Market Fund Class B 1,000,000.00 1,000,000.00 12.76% FBNQUEST ASSET MANAGEMENT LTD invest@fbnquest.com Web: www.fbnquest.com/asset-management; Tel: +234-81 0082 0082 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn FBN Fixed Income Fund 1,196.35 1,197.11 0.92% FBN Heritage Fund N/A N/A N/A FBN Money Market Fund 100.00 100.00 13.66% FBN Nigeria Eurobond (USD) Fund - Institutional $114.80 115.34 0.80% FBN Nigeria Eurobond (USD) Fund - Retail $144.79 $115.317 1.04% FBN Nigeria Smart Beta Equity Fund N/A N/A N/A FIRST CITY ASSET MANAGEMENT LTD fcamhelpdesk@fcmb.com Web: www.fcamltd.com; Tel: +234 1 462 2596 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Legacy Equity Fund 1.19 1.21 -2.22% Legacy Debt Fund 3.27 3.27 0.76% Legacy USD Bond Fund 1.03 1.03 0.31% FSDH ASSET MANAGEMENT LTD coralfunds@fsdhgroup.com Web: www.fsdhaml.com; Tel: 01-270 4884-5; 01-280 9740-1 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Coral Growth Fund N/A N/A N/A Coral Income Fund N/A N/A N/A GREENWICH ASSET MANAGEMENT LIMITED assetmanagement@gtlgroup.com Web: www.gtlgroup.com ; Tel: +234 1 4619261-2 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Greenwich Plus Money Market Fund 100.00 100.00 12.88% Nigeria Entertainment Fund 107.13 107.51 6.63% INVESTMENT ONE FUNDS MANAGEMENT LTD enquiries@investment-one.com Web: www.investment-one.com; Tel: +234 812 992 1045,+234 1 448 8888 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Abacus Money Market Fund 100.00 100.00 12.86%

Vantage Balanced Fund 2.14 2.16 -0.62% Vantage Guaranteed Income Fund 1.00 1.00 15.96% Kedari Investment Fund (KIF) 120.55 120.73 -3.50% LOTUS CAPITAL LTD ďŹ ncon@lotuscapitallimited.com Web: www.lotuscapitallimited.com; Tel: +234 1-291 4626 / +234 1-291 4624 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Lotus Halal Investment Fund 1.22 1.24 0.60% Lotus Halal Fixed Income Fund 1,078.40 1,078.40 0.84% MERISTEM WEALTH MANAGEMENT LTD info@meristemwealth.com Web: http://www.meristemwealth.com/funds/ ; Tel: +234 1-4488260 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Meristem Equity Market Fund 11.19 11.28 -2.68% Meristem Money Market Fund 10.00 10.00 12.48% PAC ASSET MANAGEMENT LTD info@pacassetmanagement.com Web: www.pacassetmanagement.com/mutualfunds; Tel: +234 1 271 8632 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn PACAM Balanced Fund 1.35 1.37 5.51% PACAM Fixed Income Fund 12.33 12.38 1.00% PACAM Money Market Fund 10.00 10.00 12.72% SCM CAPITAL LIMITED info@scmcapitalng.com Web: www.scmcapitalng.com; Tel: +234 1-280 2226,+234 1- 280 2227 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn SCM Capital Frontier Fund 120.25 120.75 -0.42% SFS CAPITAL NIGERIA LTD investments@sfsnigeria.com Web: www.sfsnigeria.com, Tel: +234 (01) 2801400 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn SFS Fixed Income Fund 1.01 1.01 0.90% STANBIC IBTC ASSET MANAGEMENT LTD assetmanagement@stanbicibtc.com Web: www.stanbicibtcassetmanagement.com; Tel: +234 1 280 1266; 0700 MUTUALFUNDS Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Stanbic IBTC Balanced Fund 2,312.89 2,326.90 2.11% Stanbic IBTC Bond Fund 192.09 192.09 2.34% Stanbic IBTC Ethical Fund 0.93 0.94 -1.58% Stanbic IBTC Guaranteed Investment Fund 248.89 248.94 2.72% Stanbic IBTC Iman Fund 161.68 163.45 -0.91% Stanbic IBTC Money Market Fund 100.00 100.00 13.09% Stanbic IBTC Nigerian Equity Fund 8,301.22 8,401.36 -0.45% Stanbic IBTC Dollar Fund (USD) 1.11 1.11 3.11% UNITED CAPITAL ASSET MANAGEMENT LTD unitedcapitalplcgroup.com Web: www.unitedcapitalplcgroup.com; Tel: +234 803 306 2887 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn United Capital Balanced Fund 1.19 1.19 -0.94% United Capital Bond Fund 1.61 1.61 0.92% United Capital Equity Fund 0.68 0.69 -4.92% United Capital Money Market Fund 1.00 1.00 14.32% United Capital Eurobond Fund 107.75 107.75 0.46% United Capital Wealth for Women Fund 1.09 1.09 -1.02% ZENITH ASSETS MANAGEMENT LTD info@zenith-funds.com Web: www.zenith-funds.com; Tel: +234 1-2784219 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Zenith Equity Fund 11.02 11.17 3.66% Zenith Ethical Fund 12.31 12.42 2.47% Zenith Income Fund 20.77 20.77 8.74% Zenith Money Market Fund 1.00 1.00 12.06%

REITS NAV Per Share

Yield / T-Rtn

5.95 117.98

-39.35% 0.00%

Bid Price

Offer Price

Yield / T-Rtn

10.46 113.07 87.08

10.56 115.53 88.70

-0.87% -3.58% -1.79%

Fund Name FSDH UPDC Real Estate Investment Fund SFS Skye Shelter Fund

EXCHANGE TRADED FUNDS Fund Name Lotus Halal Equity Exchange Traded Fund SIAML Pension ETF 40 Stanbic IBTC ETF 30 Fund

VETIVA FUND MANAGERS LTD Web: www.vetiva.com; Tel: +234 1 453 0697 Fund Name Vetiva Banking Exchange Traded Fund Vetiva Consumer Goods Exchange Traded Fund Vetiva GrifďŹ n 30 Exchange Traded Fund Vetiva Industrial Goods Exchange Traded Fund Vetiva S&P Nigeria Sovereign Bond Exchange Traded Fund

funds@vetiva.com Bid Price

Offer Price

Yield / T-Rtn

3.89 7.18 14.42 13.02 145.32

3.93 7.26 14.52 13.22 147.32

-2.83% -5.76% -3.53% 5.34% 1.24%

NAV Per Share

Yield / T-Rtn

107.13

17.03%

INFRASTRUCTURE FUND Fund Name Chapel Hill Denham Nigeria Infrastructure Debt Fund

The value of investments and the income from them may fall as well as rise. Past performance is a guide and not an indication of future returns. Fund prices published in this edition are also available on each fund managerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s website and FMANâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s website at www.fman.com.ng. Fund prices are supplied by the operator of the relevant fund and are published for information purposes only.

40

T H I S D AY Ëž Í°ÍśË&#x153; Ͱ͎ͯ͡

CITYSTRINGS

Group Features Editor: Chiemelie Ezeobi Ă&#x2014;Ă&#x2039;Ă&#x201C;Ă&#x2013; Ă?Ă&#x2019;Ă&#x201C;Ă?Ă&#x2014;Ă?Ă&#x2013;Ă&#x201C;Ă?Ë&#x203A;Ă?äĂ?Ă&#x2122;Ă&#x152;Ă&#x201C;ĚśĂ&#x17E;Ă&#x2019;Ă&#x201C;Ă?Ă&#x17D;Ă&#x2039;ĂŁĂ&#x2013;Ă&#x201C;Ă Ă?Ë&#x203A;Ă?Ă&#x2122;Ă&#x2014;Ë&#x153; Í&#x2018;Í&#x2122;Í&#x2019;Í&#x2013;Í&#x201C;Í&#x201C;Í&#x2013;Í&#x201C;Í&#x201D;Í&#x201C;Í&#x2013;

Fostering Civil Military Relations Chiemelie Ezeobi writes that CLEEN Foundation in collaboration with the National Human Rights Commission and the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution, recently organised a forum to foster civil-military relations

I

n collaboration with the National Human Rights Commission and the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR), the CLEEN Foundation recently held an accountability forum on civil-military relations in Aba, Abia State.

The Accountability Forum on Civil Military Relations is part of the project activities for the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Fostering Civil Military Relationsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Project and funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

Established in 1998, The CLEEN Foundation, is a non-governmental organisation with the mission to promote public safety, security and accessible justice through empirical research, legislative advocacy, demonstration programmes and publications, in partnership with government and civil society and the private sector.

In his speech, Executive Director, CLEEN Foundation, Mr. Benson Olugbuo, said they work in a wide array of programs including on election security with law enforcement agencies and other key stakeholders.

He said: "We are delighted and honoured to have such distinguished guests including security agencies respond to our invitationfor this forum. The Accountability Forum on Civil Military Relations is part of the project activities for the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Fostering Civil Military Relationsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Project and funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

At the launch of the Fostering Civil Military Relations project by CLEEN Foundation

Photo credit: CLEEN Foundation

Objectives According to Olugbuo, the objective of the project is to strengthen civil-military relations through sustained dialogues and improved understanding between the military and civilians to improve accountability, security and respect for human rights in Nigeria.

He said: "Dialogue between stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s security actors and civilians are all part of the framework for better civil-military relations that enhance trust, accountability, respect for human rights and the sustenance of our democracy.

"It is worthy of note that the military's presence in more than 30 states of the federation is active through various internal security operations in response to the growing internal insecurities that we are faced with as a nation. From Operation Lafiya Dole in the North-east to Operation Sharan Daji, in the North-west, Operation Awatse in the South-west, Crocodile Smile in the South-south, to the famous Operation Python Dance in the South-east one, two, three (birthed to check robberies, kidnapping, cultism and secessionist agitation)Abubakar, 2017), it should be noted that the military is almost a permanent feature of our daily lives as civilians.

Accountability remains at the core of democracy, as a result, enhancing the framework for effective oversight of the security agencies through improving the feedback process to citizens, which will improve the professionalism of security actors

During one of the recent sessions of the project "These operations have come their own challenges in relations to human rights concerns hence the need for accountability forums for assessing militaryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s response to these complaints."

Accountability He further posted that accountability remains at the core of democracy, as a result, enhancing the framework for effective oversight of the security agencies through improving the feedback process to citizens, which will improve the professionalism of security actors.

He noted, "the increased focus by Nigerians and the international community to spotlight the accountability mechanisms by security agencies for addressing citizensâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; complaints are part of measures to instil public confidence and improve the doctrine of civilian control over the Armed Forces especially.

"Existing internal accountability systems for taking complaints of civilians by the Army include the Human Rights Desk set up in 2016 within the Directorate of Civil Military Affairs in the army and the Call Centre to receive complaints against army

personnel. The air force and the navy also have within themselves systems for receiving complaints from the public on the conduct of their officers.

"Within the Nigerian Police is the Public Complaints Rapid Response Unit (PCRRU) set up in 2015 to receive complaints from the public and other existing platforms."

Missing Links While admitting that the set up is commendable and in line with global best practices, he lamented that the missing links has been the efficacy of such systems through regular interface with civilians, adding that this view is under-scored by the largely opaque feedback mechanisms to complainants to indicate what actions are been taken to address their concerns.

He added, "it is against this background that the CLEEN Foundation has organised this forum in the South-east to provide opportunities for the civil populace to raise their security, human rights, and accountability concerns with the representatives from the military and para-military agencies in the zone including recommendations for

improved collaboration.

"With today´s meeting, we want to offer a platform to exchange information, experiences, good practices among participating agencies on internal accountability systems and their role in holding their personnel accountable for actions against the citizens. We hope that this forum will inspire a renewed vigour to improve current efforts at strengthening internal accountability of security institutions and increase citizensâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; awareness of existing redress mechanisms. "

Collaborators He further extended a special appreciation to their collaborators- the National Human Rights Commission and the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR) that have worked with them from the inception of this project in 2015.

"We specially appreciate participating security agencies, the media, technical experts, civil society organisations andtraditional leaders who will provide important contributions to the discussion. Thank you all for finding time out of your busy schedules to come for this forum," he added.

41

T H I S D AY Ëž Í°ÍśË&#x153; Ͱ͎ͯ͡

CRIME&SECURITY

Navy Hits Oil Bunkerers Hard, Destroys 82 Illegal ReďŹ neries In Delta Sylvester Idowu in Warri

deep swampy area of the community which, he said, couldn't have been 5IF /JHFSJBO /BWZ 4IJQ //4 %FMUB discovered without the cooperation Warri has hit oil bunkerers hard with of informants. the destruction of over 82 illegal re"We are in Tibo community in Warri fineries at Tibo community in Warri South West Local Government area of South West Local Government Area %FMUB 4UBUF GPS UIF EFTUSVDUJPO PG PWFS PG %FMUB 4UBUF 82 illegal oil refineries. As you can see, 5)*4%": PCTFSWFE UIBU UIF TJUF this is massive and we have to use two of the illegal oil refineries, covering swamp buggies simultaneously for over two kilometres, took the naval the destruction. personnel more than five days to " These refineries are spread destroy with the use of two swamp over four kilometres and the area buggies. is swampy. We are destroying over Briefing journalists at the site of the 82 illegal refineries, 32 dug pits, sevEFTUSVDUJPO SFDFOUMZ //4 %FMUB 4UB- eral tanks as well as hoses and pipes tion Officer, Navy Captain Adeyemi used for transporting their finished Adewuyi, who was accompanied by products to the loading bay by the the Base Officer, Commander Nsikan river," he said.

Friday, said the illegal oil refineries Adeyemi, who stood in for the were discovered through credible $PNNBOEFS //4 %FMUB $PNNPEPSF intelligence and they had to move *CSBIJN %FXV EVSJOH UIF PQFSBUJPO in personnel for the destruction. said a similar exercise was carried He disclosed that over 82 refineries out at Benin River last week where were discovered at the site located in over 52 illegal refineries were also

destroyed.

He advised illegal oil refinery operators to have a rethink by engaging in legitimate businesses, warning that the navy will always come hard on those engaged in economic sabotage.

Vice Admiral Ibok Ette-Ibas

LASG Opens Additional Dispatch Centre in Igando rReiterates commitment to adequate response The Lagos State Government has renewed its commitment at improving its response time towards effective management of emergency across the State with the establishment of additional LASEMAResponse Unit at Igando, Alimosho Local Government Area of the State.

The General Manager Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA), Mr. Adesina Tiamiyu, who disclosed this, said Governor Akinwunmi Ambode approved the establishment of the centre to cater for Lagosians residing around Ikotun, Idimu, Egbeda, LASU-Igando Road and the Badagry Axis, while process for the establishment of LASEMA Response Unit, by the Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education Ijanikin is ongoing.

In a statement made available by Mr. Adebayo Kehinde of LASEMA Public Affairs Unit, the general manager explained that the decentralisation of emergency/disaster management by the present administration from one response Unit in Alausa to three centres.

They include: LASEMA Response Unit (LRU) Cappa Oshodi; LASEMA Response Unit, Lekki, by Lekki-Ikoyi Link Bridge, and LASEMA Response

Igando Response Centre

Unit, Onipanu on Ikorodu Road.

He said all three are aimed at improving response time to emergency interventions.

He reiterated that the establishment of these centres has yielded good results, thus evidence of protection of lives and properties; dramatic reduction in fatalities and injuries from emergency/disaster situations, this according to him is with a view to sustaining the response capability of the agency towards building a more resilient Lagos Mega City.

The general manager also stated that the state government is planning to establish additional three %JWJTJPOBM VQHSBEFE %JTQBUDI Centres by Temu Junction, Epe to cover Itoikin and Epe-Ijebu Ode Axis; which is almost completed, Ijanikin

by Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education to cover Badagry Axis; LASPOTECH in Ikorodu to cover Ikoroduâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Agbowa and a fourth LRU at Costain, Funso Williams Avenue, to cover Apapa Axis and its environs.

He noted that the significance of these centres is geared towards continued protection of community asset and cultural heritage, a safer environment as well as increase in investment infrastructure of the

state's economy.

He added that over the years there has been improved response time and proper coordination in the various emergency interventions by the agency and its stakeholders, especially with high level of professionalism, various stakeholders meeting and simulations carried out by the agency.

The LASEMABoss also emphasised that the public sensitisation and the surveillance activity by the agency has drastically reduced major incidents in the state, saying that â&#x20AC;&#x153;when we have 10 accidents happened in Lagos, we have prevented 15 of such accidentsâ&#x20AC;?.

While assuring Lagosians that the government is alive to its responsibilities in entrenching safety of lives and properties at all times, he however advised Lagosians to call the emergency toll free number 112/767 which is toll free and open to all distress calls from any telecommunication network.

Finally, he expressed profound gratitude to the governor for providing adequate resources for the agency and other security operatives in the state towards adequate protection of lives and properties for all and sundry.

CRIME SITUATION REPORTS SUMMARY OF POLICE IG MOHAMMED ADAMU'S INAUGURAL REMARKS (I) Following his assumption of duty as the 20th indigenious Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar Adamu on Wednesday, January 16, 2018, has revealed his core derivatives. It reads thus: r %VSJOH UIF IBOEJOH BOE UBLJOH over ceremony held last week, you would recall that I emphasized in my speech that the Presidential and National Assembly elections scheduled for February 16, 2019 and the Governorship, State Assembly, and Federal Capital Territory Area Council Elections slated for Saturday, March 2, 2019 are national engagements that will not only task us, but subject our professionalism and commitment to duty to national and international scrutiny. Similarly, I identified the two national engagements as being a priority to my leadership. r *O GVSUIFSBODF UP UIJT * IBWF laid out a number of engagements that are critical to the attainment of our election security mandate within the context of the Electoral Act. Within the past few days, I have SFDFJWFE CSJFGT GSPN )FBET PG %Fpartments and I have also attended the meeting of the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES) which was hosted by the National Security Adviser and which had all strategic leaders in the election security architecture in attendance. r" DBQBDJUZ CVJMEJOH USBJOJOH PO democratic policing and elections security management for police officers is currently on-going. The training is designed to hold across the 12 Police Zonal Headquarters starting from today January 21, 2018 to February 8, 2018. Prior to this the Office of the National Security Adviser had organised similar election security capacity building training for the Police and other security agencies. All these initiatives are part of the broad plans directed at ensuring quality security service delivery by the Police and other security agencies during the general elections. Todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s meeting is another critical engagement in our resolve to develop an effective framework that will engender optimal police performance during the national exercise. r5IJT TUSBUFHJD QMBOOJOH NFFUing is designed to achieve three major objectives. First is to evaluate police performance in previous electoral engagements with a view to drawing lessons, ascertaining performance gaps and identifying critical operational challenges that can be addressed in the process of planning for the upcoming general elections. The second purpose of this conference is to undertake national security threat analysis and level of preparation for the elections at the State Command levels, discuss limitations and evaluate strategies towards managing the identified threats. The third and perhaps, most important is to enable professional interaction between the Police, INEC leadership, and strategic partners across the country with a view to perfecting interventions that will aid in the attainment of our election security mandate as the lead agency in the election security management process. The meeting will also give insight into some of my policy direction in the drive towards repositioning the Nigeria Police Force. r5IF DSFEJCJMJUZ PG BOZ FMFDUJPO is determined not just by the legal framework regulating it and

the conduct of the actors within the process but by the extent of professionalism and operational competence displayed by the Police.

Conscious of this reality, I assure the nation and the international community that the Nigeria Police Force shall coordinate effectively with other complementary security agencies, and collaborate efficiently with the leadership of the Independent National Electoral Commission in guaranteeing a safe and secure space for the citizens to freely exercise their electoral franchise. r5IJT NFFUJOH TIBMM UBTL BMM DPNmissioners of Police across all the 36 Police State Commands and the FCT to galvanise their personnel and mobilise logistics towards ensuring a peaceful and credible outcome of the general elections. They shall also be tasked to identify possible threats and apply all legal and professional means to neutralise them ahead of the elections. Let me reiterate that while the Police in all Commands will secure law abiding political actors, party faithful and citizens in the course of the elections, nobody should be in doubt as to the capacity and renewed determination of the Police to deal decisively with elements that attempt to test our will by engaging in political violence or other electoral offences including vote buying which could threaten our democratic values. Any citizen that intends to offer himself or herself to be used negativelyas cannon folders for political actors should either have a rethink or be ready to face the consequences. r *OEFFE JO PSEFS UP FOTVSF UIBU such offenders are conclusively CSPVHIU UP KVTUJDF UIF %*( '$**% has been directed to set up Special Election Investigation Teams (SEIT) that will be tasked with the exclusive functions of taking in custody and undertake detailed investigation of all arrested electoral offenders across the country. The Teams shall also liaise with the Independent National Electoral Commission towards the prompt processing of the casefiles of the offenders for prosecution. r-BEJFT BOE HFOUMFNFO BT promised during the handing and taking over ceremony between the immediate past Inspector General of Police and myself, a number of well-thought-out reform initiatives directed at restoring the traditional policing standards of the Force shall be vigorously pursued in all aspects of policing functions, particularly in the operations; intelligence; investigation; training; science, technology and innovation (STI); and monitoring and evaluation within the force.

Adamu

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UK Govt May Scrap MPs’ Holiday British MPs could sit longer hours and their February holiday may be scrapped as the government races to pass its Brexit legislation before Britain leaves the EU on March 29, Downing Street said Sunday.

Prime Minister Theresa May’s government is looking at making the House of Commons sit on more Fridays — which it does not normally do — and extend debating time well into the evening on some days.

It is also “reviewing” the week-long February recess, a Downing Street spokeswoman said.

There are still eight laws the government wants to pass to prepare the statute books for Brexit, covering areas of trade, fisheries and agriculture, immigration, the environment and healthcare.

These include any bill needed to implement a divorce deal with the EU, which MPs have yet to agree to.

“We remain committed to ensuring all necessary legislation is in place for exit day on March 29, 2019, and it is important to stress we are confident of meeting that commitment,” the spokeswoman said.

“We are aware this is a challenging timetable, so as a precautionary measure we are in preliminary discussions about extending sitting times — but only if necessary.”

She said MPs would have a chance to debate and vote on any decision, adding that the government recognised the need to balance their constituency and family responsibilities.

Andrea Leadsom, the leader of the House of Commons, suggested this week that Brexit could be delayed if necessary by a few weeks to get the bills through.

“I’m absolutely certain that if we needed a couple of extra weeks or something, that that would be feasible,” she

told the BBC’s “Newsnight” programme.

But she added that “with goodwill and a determination, we can still get the legislation through in time”.

Meanwhile, officials are looking at whether they might need sweeping powers, including the introduction of martial law, if there is disorder after Brexit, the Sunday Times newspaper reported.

There has been a discussion about using the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, which allows curfews, travel bans and the deployment of the army to quell any social unrest if Britain leaves the EU with no deal.

A separate Downing Street spokeswoman said: “The prime minister has said that there will be disruption in the event of no deal.”

“But as a responsible government, we are taking the appropriate steps to minimise this disruption and ensure the country is prepared.”

Ebola Death Toll Surges in DR Congo The number of people killed in an Ebola outbreak in eastern DR Congo has risen to 443, health authorities have announced, as new President Felix Tshisekedi began his first full day in office on Friday.

The rising death toll — up by more than 40 in the past ten days — emphasises the challenge of controlling the epidemic in the strife-torn east and is just one of a host of complex issues facing Tshisekedi.

Tshisekedi was sworn in on Thursday following a long-delayed and bitterly disputed election, replacing Joseph Kabila after 18 turbulent years in charge of sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest country.

In his inaugural address, Tshisekedi promised a new era

of respect for human rights. He also faces entrenched poverty, corruption and fighting between militias who control parts of the east.

In a bulletin on Thursday, the health ministry outlined the growth of the Ebola outbreak.

“Since the start of the epidemic, the total number of cases is 715, including 666 confirmed and 49 probable.

In all, there have been 443 deaths” in the provinces of North Kivu and Ituri, the ministry said.

DR Congo, formerly Zaire, has seen 10 outbreaks of the highly contagious haemorrhagic disease since it was first identified in 1976 near the Ebola river in the northwest of the country.

The latest outbreak was

declared on August 1 in the region of Beni, a major market town in North Kivu, and quickly spread to neighbouring Ituri province.

The ministry said 248 people have recovered from the Ebola virus, while “236 suspect cases” were under investigation — down one from the previous bulletin on January 15.

The Beni region and parts of Ituri regularly come under attack from local armed groups and foreign rebels, particularly the feared Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) from neighbouring Uganda.

The presidential election, held on December 30, was cancelled in Beni, officially because of the Ebola outbreak and regional insecurity.

US Warns against Threats to Opposition in Venezuela US National Security Advisor, John Bolton, on Sunday, warned of a “significant response” if US diplomats or the opposition leader seeking the ouster of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro are threatened or intimidated.

“Any violence and intimidation against US diplomatic personnel, Venezuela’s democratic leader, Juan Guaido, or the National Assembly itself would represent a grave assault on the rule of law and will be met with a significant

response,” he posted on Twitter.

The warning didn’t address specific groups or individuals, but Bolton noted in a linked tweet that Cuba’s “support and control over Maduro’s security and paramilitary forces” was well known.

10,000 March in Paris against ‘Yellow Vest’ Violence More than 10,000 people marched through Paris on Sunday in protest at “yellow vest” violence during the anti-government demos that have drawn tens of thousands of people to the streets over the past 11 weeks.

Since mid-November President Emmanuel Macron has offered concessions and debates seeking to quell the weekly rallies that often end in violent clashes with police in the most serious challenge yet to his government.

In Sunday’s rival protest, the crowds marched in rain from the Place de la Nation square to the Bastille monument, some chanting “Yes to democracy, no to revolution” as they waved French and European Union flags.

Dubbed the “red scarf”

movement, the centrist initiative is the brainchild of an engineer from Toulouse who was horrified by the violence seen among more extremist “yellow vest” demonstrators.

Many protesters joining the rally said they were not against “yellow vest” demands for greater help for France’s poor, but were sick of the clashes and destruction that have marked protests.

A nursing manager who gave her name as Marie-Line said she believed the yellow vests had just cause to “grumble”, but came “to say that this verbal and physical violence must stop”.

“It’s not a protest against the yellow vests — it’s a protest to say, you’ve made your demands, we are listening to them,” Francois Patriat,

a senator from Macron’s centrist party, told AFP at the demonstration.

“There are other places to discuss this than the street. You cannot block the country and economy because you consider the president to be illegitimate.”

Sunday’s protest was almost double the size of the “yellow vest” demonstration in Paris a day earlier, when some 4,000 people came out to rail against Macron.

The protesters are named after the luminous road safety vests that they wear.

Originally sparked by rises in fuel taxes, the movement quickly snowballed into a widespread revolt over accusations the president, an ex-banker, is out of touch with rural and small-town France.

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Corruption Has Debased Human Life in Nigeria, Onaiyekan Cries out Olawale Ajimotokan in Abuja Archbishop of Abuja Catholic Diocese, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, has identified endemic corruption as the cause of the debasement of human life in the country.

The President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria made this observation at the weekend while giving the keynote address at Catholic Laity Council of Nigeria political conference in Abuja, with a theme: “Roadmap to Good Governance in Nigeria: the Perspective of the Catholic Church”.

Onaiyekan, whose speech was read by Bishop Anselm Umoren, noted that thousands of Nigerians are killed annually on the dilapidated roads across the country because the money meant for contracts awarded for road construction are pocketed.

The cleric also noted that hospitals across the country are nothing but glorified consulting clinics, adding that while the politicians and the wealthy elites continue to engage in medical tourism, the health sector in the country is left to rot in ruins.

“As always, it is the poor people who are most affected; who die everyday from basic illnesses that are a thing of the past in many countries of the world, including in Africa,” Onaiyekan said.

The former President of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) also lamented that uninterrupted democratic experiment in the last 20 years had for most part remained

a process of trial and error without much good results to show for it.

He flayed the vast majority of politicians of stealing the mandate of the people through shabbily conducted elections only to gain power and start enriching themselves, their families and cronies.

“Since the return to democracy, corruption in Nigerian politics has remained both endemic and systemic.

Politics is largely seen as the easiest avenue for quick wealth and easy money. It is construed with a cafeteria mentality as a place where people are invited to come and eat.

“Any politician who does not get rich is a fool and not many Nigerians want to be fools. The mismanagement, embezzlement, looting of our national resources is one of the most brazen stealing bazaars anywhere in the world. Nowhere else in the world do leaders and citizens tolerate this sort of theft in broad daylight with nothing happening to the thieves,” Onaiyekan said.

The Cardinal, however, accused all Nigerians of complicity for woes of the nation and for refusing to hold elected leaders accountable, describing them as docile people that have learnt to cope with bad leadership and all sorts of deprivations.

“We seem to have convinced ourselves that we do not deserve the good things, which citizens of other countries enjoy; we are contented with struggling and fighting for

Five Dead as Plateau Records 17 New Cases of Lassa Fever Seriki Adinoyi in Jos Plateau State Government yesterday confirmed that there are 17 new Lassa Fever cases in the state, adding that “five have so far died of the fever in the past few days.”

Commissioner for Health in the state, Dr. Kamshak Kuden, who confirmed the outbreak of the disease, added that the disease was prevalent in five local government areas (LGAs) of Jos North, Jos South, Bassa, Riyom and Shendam.

Kuden further said the

state government was putting measures in place to control the spread of the disease to other local government areas.

The Nigerian Army had last week reported the death of a soldier at its 3rd Armoured Division, Rukuba Barracks, Jos, after the soldier returned from the burial of a loved one in Kogi State.

The soldier was said to have been referred to Bingham University Teaching Hospital (BUTH), Jos after an initial treatment at the barrack’s clinic. He later died at BUTH.

the crumbs falling from our master’s table. Our politicians use religion and ethnicity to divide and distract us while they focus on plundering our national wealth and bleeding our national treasury”.

He challenged Nigerians to insist on accountability and use the wisdom and common sense, which God

had given them to organise their national affairs.

He also noted that religion, which ought to be used for prophetic outrage against societal ills, has become a willing tool in the oppression and impoverishment of the people. “See what we made of Christianity today with the prosperity gospel, which has

put stupendous wealth in the hands of a few so-called men of God while millions wallow in starvation, poverty and misery. We are amongst the most religious countries in the world and yet we are so corrupt as a nation.

We are among the poorest nations in the world, yet Nigeria is among the happiest

nations in the world. These contradictions defy common sense, “ Onaiyekan said.

He tasked the Laity to shake off docility and chart the Catholic faith perspective on good governance by ensuring that only credible, accountable and responsible men and women ascend to public office.

GIVING BACK TO SOCIETY...

L-R: Olorogu Oscar Ibru; Delta State Governor, Dr, Ifeanyi Okowa; his wife, Edith; and Chairman, Mudi Africa, Mr. Mudiaga Clement Enajemo, during the renovation of Post Office Junction Roundabout to mark the 25th anniversary of Mudi Africa, in Ughelli, Delta State...yesterday

Atiku Hails US, UK, EU for Condemning Assault on Judiciary Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, has commended the United States, United Kingdom (UK) and the European Union for condemning the unconstitutional removal of the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen, by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Atiku in a statement he personally signed yesterday said that while some water has passed under the bridge, he completely and unequivocally rejects and

condemns that action and any other breach of the country’s constitution.

The former vice President stated, “If they come for the heads of the legislature and we keep quiet because we are not legislators, if they came for the heads of the media and we keep quiet because we are not journalists, if they came for the head of the judiciary and we keep quiet because he/she is not from our area, there may be no one left to speak up when they come for us.

“This scenario appears to me like déjà vu. Under a particularly brutal military

dictatorship, Nigerians wit-nessed the illegal and arbitrary removal of many innocent people from their positions of authority and many said nothing because they were not from the ethnic group of those affected.

“I am not fighting for Justice Onnoghen. I am fighting for the constitution.

Once we open the Pandora’s Box of unconstitutionality, we cannot tell where it will end.”

Atiku especially thanked the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union for standing shoulder to

shoulder with the Nigerian people, saying “This is most appreciated and on behalf of the voiceless, I say thank you.”

He said those accusing these governments of interfering made no such accusations when they celebrated a statement from the US/UK/EU calling for free and fair elections in 2015, just after the postponement of the 2015 elections to make room for a final assault against Boko Haram, adding that “what has changed between then and now, except that they are now in power.”

Aisha Buhari Denies Condemning APC Raises the Alarm over Plot to Disrupt Imo Rally members are plotting to hijack to create mayhem.

“We wish to reiterate that Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja CJN’s Suspension the presidential campaign to The APC spokesman asked only genuine supporters of The wife of the president, Aisha Buhari, has denied condemning the recent suspension of former Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen.

Mrs. Buhari in a statement through her Director, Information, Mr. Suleiman Haruna, yesterday in Abuja, described the news making rounds that she condemned Onnoghen’s removal as fake.

“The attention of wife of the president has been drawn to a post on social media to the effect that she condemned the suspension of the Chief Justice

of Nigeria. “It is important to inform Nigerians that wife of the President has not made any public statements on the matter and therefore the commentary is untrue and fake.

“This is highly condemnable and we therefore advise the purveyors of such news to recant and desist henceforth,” the statement added.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalled that the former CJN was suspended by the federal government following a recommendation of the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT).

Ahead of tomorrow’s scheduled presidential campaign rally of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Owerri, Imo State, the party has expressed worry over a possible breakdown of law and order at the Dan Anyiam Stadium venue of the rally.

The party accused its former members now in the Action Alliance (AA) of planning to storm the venue to create mayhem.

In a statement issued yesterday by the National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Lanre Isa-Onilu, APC said it has information that AA

promote the troubled ambition of their governorship candidate, Mr. Uche Nwosu.

The statement said: “The attention of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the APC has been drawn to alleged plans by non- APC members to cause crisis at Tuesday’s rally, scheduled presidential rally of our great party, at the Dan Anyiam Stadium, in Owerri, Imo State,” it said.

The party said information available to it revealed plans by the members of the Action Alliance (AA) to storm the venue

the security agencies to ensure that no one is allowed to foment trouble at venue of the rally.

APC said it is fully in support of all its candidates in Imo State and would do everything within the laws to ensure their success in the forthcoming general elections.

“We are using this medium to inform security agencies including the Imo State Commissioner of Police, and the Director of DSS to ensure no individual, group or political party is allowed to create chaos before, during, and after the APC rally.

our great party and our party members are allowed into the venue, so that we can have a hitch free rally.

“Therefore, we want to state very clearly that the scheduled rally is an APC rally and the party has no alliance with any political party and would not tolerate attempts by some persons under any guise to create chaotic atmosphere at the venue of our rally,” it said.

“We urge our party members in Imo State to remain vigilant and ensure the success of our party candidates in Imo State,” it said.

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Tribunal Judgment: Police Warn against Illegal Assembly in Ekiti Victor Ogunje in Ado Ekiti The Ekiti State Police Command has warned politicians against illegal protest that could incite the people as tribunal delivers judgment on the governorship petition over Ekiti election today.

The police said the command would not fold its arms and allow anyone to destabilise the state under the guise of protest over the outcome of the judgment.

The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the July 14, 2018 governorship

Falana Calls for Justice Onnoghen’s Resignation A human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Mr. Femi Falana, has asked Justice Walter Onnoghen to quit the bench, following the allegations levelled against him at the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT).

The human rights activist made this call yesterday while featuring as a guest on Channels Television’s Politics Today.

He said, “The government should as a matter of urgency, lift the suspension on the Chief Justice since the Chief Justice on his own admitted that he did not declare his assets; he should do the needful by calling it quits”.

Falana said after the suspension has been lifted, the Chief Justice should quit the

bench because he has already admitted that he failed in his duty to declare his asset as required by the constitution.

The Senior Advocate further argued that the Executive and the Judiciary arms of government have failed Nigerians with regards to the case of Justice Walter Onnoghen.

He said it was wrong for President Muhammadu Buhari to have suspended Justice Onnonghen based on an ex parte order of the code of conduct tribunal. He said by so doing the President did not follow due process, stressing that the government must learn to obey the rule of law.

“You can’t fight corruption without following due process,” Falana said.

election, Prof. Kolapo Olusola, is contesting the declaration of Governor Kayode Fayemi, of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the validly elected governor.

Kolapo , who garnered a total of 178,223 in the election cited alleged cases of vote buying, alteration of results , falsification and ballots snatching in the election won by Fayemi with total votes of 197, 459 Olusola wanted the Tribunal to upturn the verdict of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and declare him the validly elected governor.

Speaking with journalists in Ado Ekiti yesterday, the Police Commissioner, Ekiti Command, Mr. Asuquo Amba, said the command’s ‘Operation Make Ekiti Safe Squad’ is on ground to tame any unlawful assembly.

Amba, who spoke through the command’s spokesman, DSP Caleb Ikechukwu, said: “This squad is a joint task force comprising the police and other sister agencies with about 150 men.

“They spread all over the state and are being overseen by the police. They are on ground to stop any unlawful assembly or stop any protest that could result in violence.

“Though, people are ready to hold peaceful protest but no one has written to us now to say that he would stage any protest over the judgment.

“Even if any group would stage a protest, it won’t be one that will cause riotous assembly or that can be hijacked by hoodlums.

“Again, whoever loses still has the option of appeal, so violence is not the best option,

for it won’t be tolerated.

“On our part, we are ready and we assure our people that there would be no cause for alarm”, he said.

Meanwhile, the PDP has expressed confidence that it would be victorious in today’s judgment considering the avalanche of verifiable and ample evidences presented at the tribunal.

Speaking through its state publicity secretary, Jackson Adebayo, the party stated that “our expectation is very high and we knew that we presented our case very well.

“We were able to substantiate our claims on vote buying, falsification of results, alteration

by INEC and ballot snatching with witnesses that gave truthful evidence in court.

“The fact that Fayemi only presented four witnesses out

of over 1,000 listed in his reply showed that it was as good as PDP had won ab initio.

“To us in PDP, we are hopeful that we shall be victorious”, he said.

But the Director General, Kayode Fayemi campaign council, Hon. Opeyemi Bamidele, said the election remained one of the fairest and freest elections ever conducted

by INEC. Bamidele described the allegations raised by the PDP in its petition as frivolous and spurious, saying the people freely gave Fayemi the mandate to govern the state.

“We are sure of victory today.

APC won the election fair and square. We even won in areas known to be PDP’s stronghold, so we have no reason to fear over the judgment “, Bamidele said.

PDP Planning to Rig Presidential Poll, Buhari Group Alleges Laleye Dipo in Minna The Buhari Support Group has said the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is planning to rig the February 16 presidential election in favour of its candidate, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.

However, the PDP in Niger State dismissed the allegation saying that it was actually the All Progressives Party (APC) that had perfected its plan to circumvent the electoral process for incumbent president Muhammad Buhari.

“The opposition is doing everything humanly possible to rig the election or cause violence so that the election will be declared inconclusive because they know they cannot win,” Niger State coordinator of the BSG, Malam Umar Shuaibu, said.

Shuaibu said the group was therefore embarking on town hall meetings across the

country to educate supporters to be vigilant and be on the watch out.

“Most importantly, our supporters must protect their votes from the polling units to the final collation centers” Shuaibu said.

The BSG was optimistic that President Buhari would win the election by a landslide in the state and the country as a whole.

He said his optimism was hinged on the fact that president Buhari had never lost any election in the state since 2003.

“Now that he is a serving president who has performed to the satisfaction of the electorate, he cannot lose election here”.

The stakeholders meeting, Shuaibu, said was to educate the 25 local government coordinators of the group in the state about what was expected of them before, during and after the February 16 presidential election.

Army Inaugurates Vehicle Manufacturing Company Kingsley Nwezeh in Abuja In bid to address the dearth of military equipment, especially light and heavy infantry vehicles, the Nigerian Army has established a new vehicle manufacturing company in Rigachiku, Kaduna State.

The army has in recent times fac Kingsley Nwezeh in Abuja In bid to address the dearth of military equipment, especially light and heavy infantry vehicles, the Nigerian Army has established a new vehicle manufacturing company in Rigachiku, Kaduna State.

The army has in recent times faced the challenges of use of poorly-equipped or obsolete vehicles in its war with insurgents in the North-east.

The establishment of the Nigerian Army Vehicles Manufacturing Company (NAVMC), which was inaugurated by the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Tukur Buratai, is seen as a milestone in the history of Nigerian Army’s march towards self-reliance in the production and maintenance of armoured fighting vehicles.

CONGRATULATIONS...

L-R: President of Lagos Country Club, Mr. Tajudeen Adegboyega Akande; Trustee, Chief Allan Williams; and Elegushi of Ikate Kingdom, Oba KOLA OLASUPO Saheed Elegushi, during the club’s New Year party, in Ikeja...recently

IG Adamu Retires all DIGs Inspector-General of Police, Muhammed Adamu, has retired seven Deputy Inspectors-General of Police (DIGs) who were his seniors from the Force.

The affected officers are Maigari Dikko, the DIG in charge of Finance and Administration and Habila Joshak, the DIG in charge of Operations.

The other five DIGs are Emmanuel Inyang,

Information and Communications Technology; Agboola Oshodi-Glover, Logistics and Supply; Mohammed Katsina, Research and Planning; Sani Mohammed, Training and Development; and Peace Ibekwe-Abdallah, Federal Criminal Investigation and Intelligence.

Their retirement would be announced formally later, it was learnt.

Police spokesperson, Frank Mba’s telephone was switched off at the time of this report.

The seven DIGs and eight Assistant Inspectors-General (AIG) were identified as having joined the police before Adamu, who was appointed on January 15 after the former IG Ibrahim Idris was retired as he attained the age of 60 years.

The seven police chiefs’ departure, according to

Premium Times, was in furtherance of the convention that recommends the retirement of senior police chiefs when an officer junior to them in service or lower in rank is appointed to lead the institution.

When Idris was appointed IG in 2016, more than 20 DIGs and AIGs were compelled to retire from service to enable him constitute his management team.

Army Vows to Sanction Personnel Culpable in Electoral Malpractice Segun James The Nigerian Army has said it will sanction any personnel found culpable of committing any electoral malpractice during the coming General Elections.

The Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai, disclosed this during his visit to the Nigerian Army Corps Signals in Lagos to inaugurate some buildings while also attending the corps’ re-union party, which ended at the

weekend.

Buratai, represented by the Chief of Logistics, Maj. Gen. Enobong Udoh, said all personnel must remain professional and apolitical during the coming general elections.

“All officers and soldiers must remain apolitical and exhibit exceptional professionalism in the forthcoming tasks.

“You must report any unwholesome activities up the chain of command once

it is beyond your powers of command. “The full weight of the Armed Forces Act will be visited on any personnel found culpable of committing any electoral malpractice.”

He said the Nigerian Army would continue to provide military aid to civilian authorities to guarantee security of the nation. “We will support th=e Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the Nigerian Police and other security agencies in concluding

a successful election.’’

While inaugurating the new quarters for officers and senior non-commissioned officers, Buratai said he remained committed to providing infrastructure to motivate personnel.

“This is a further validation of my vision of providing the necessary resources and infrastructure to motivate Nigerian Army personnel in the discharge of their professional duties.

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INEC Approves 144 Foreign, Domestic Observers For February Polls Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has approved 144 foreign and domestic observers for next month’s general election.

The electoral body explained that while 116 were approved as domestic observers, including government and non-governmental organisations, religious bodies and unions, the remaining

UK Court Adjourns $9bn Suit against FG to February 15 Ugo Aliogo The court hearing on the case between the Federal Government of Nigeria and a British firm, Process and Industrial Development Limited (P and ID) would hold on February 15.

A British firm, Process and Industrial Developments Limited (P and ID) has initiated moves to recover a judgment debt of $6.6 billion in damages plus $2.3 billion in uncollected interest, which is calculated at $1.2 million a day, according to a lead judgment by a London Arbitration Tribunal led by Lord Hoffman.

The judgment debt arose from Nigeria’s alleged failure to perform its contractual obligations under a gas supply and processing agreement it signed with P and ID. The judgment sum had snowballed into $9 billion as a result of interest calculated at seven per cent from the date the decision was taken by an arbitration tribunal in the United Kingdom (UK).

According to the UK Tribunal

ruling, made available to THISDAY, it was noted that the agreement was executed on January 11, 2010, by P and ID and the Ministry of Petroleum Resources for and on behalf of the Federal Government of Nigeria to refine associated natural gas (also known as wet gas) into non-associated natural gas to be used by Nigeria in powering its national electric grid.

It also added that the tribunal found that Nigeria had repudiated the agreement by failing to satisfy its contractual obligations and eventually abandoning the project, causing the British firm to lose substantial profits it would have earned over the 20-year period during which Nigeria was to supply the company with natural gas.

Under the agreement, the P and ID project would have generated 3,000 megawatts of electricity for Nigeria.

Also, the natural gas that was being flared off would instead have been processed and used to generate electricity for Nigerians.

28 were foreign observers, including African Union, ECOWAS, missions, embassies and international organisations, among others.

The commission in a statement yesterday revealed that those approved would monitor the general election holding on February 16, and March 2, 2019.

The commission said, “Accredited groups are to

obtain and complete form EC 14A (ii) from the Elections and Party Monitoring Department, INEC Headquarters, Maitama, Abuja between 8a.m-4 p.m (Monday-Friday) starting from January 28, 2019 to February 1st, 2019.

“To ensure prompt and efficient processing of ID cards, all accredited observer groups are enjoined to compile the list and photographs

of their members for deployment on state basis and submit hard and soft copies (CD, using JPEG drive) to the Elections and Party Monitoring Department, INEC Headquarters on or before February 1, 2019, “All accredited observers shall abide by the code of conduct for election observers and that the commission reserves the right to cancel and

withdraw the accreditation of any organisation if its members or agents breach the code of conduct.”

The electoral body explained that the distribution of observer kits (including ID cards to individual observers) would be done by the Elections and Party Monitoring (EPM) Heads of Department (HODs) at INEC state offices between February 11 and 15, 2019.

THANKSGIVING SERVICE…

L-R: Guest Preacher, Bishop Ilesanmi Dawodu; Bishop, United African Methodist Evangelical Church, Abule Ijesha Yaba, Lagos, Rt. Revd Zaccheus Sanyaolu; and the Dean, Rt. Revd Oladipo Timothy, at the 2019 Annual National Conference Thanksgiving Service of the Church in Lagos…recently

FG Orders Crackdown on Illegal Pull Nigeria Back from the Brink of Extinction, Wike Charges Voters Tertiary Institutions 1, Bori.

The governor warned Ogoni clean up exercise as Ugo Aliogo Kuni Tyessi in Abuja The federal government has ordered a crackdown on all illegal tertiary institutions in the country.

Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, gave the order in Abuja yesterday, blaming the increasing spate of illegal tertiary institutions within the country to uncontrollable population growth, which has become a source of embarrassment to the government.

According to him, other reasons are greed, fraud, endemic corruption, insufficient access to teeming qualified candidates and low entry standards.

The minister who stated this at the fifth edition of the weekend ministerial press briefing and with the theme “FG orders crack down on illegal tertiary institutions,” said the most disturbing of the trend is the production of half- baked graduates who end up being unemployable.

Lamenting that such institutions have made the jobs of regulatory bodies difficult, he said such institutions don’t pay taxes, neither do they keep to the rules of the game or have admission quota and accredited courses.

He said: “The unprecedented population growth in our society makes it not

unexpected that education seekers would look for outlets should there be any delay by government in establishing enough schools to keep pace with the educational demands of the populace.

“Four major factors are responsible for the recent upsurge in the number of illegal providers of degree awarding institutions. First is greed, fraud and endemic corruption in our society.

“Secondly, there exist the problems of insufficient access for the large pool of qualified candidates that sit for the yearly Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations organised by JAMB. However, the existing admission spaces in the universities might not have matched with the number of qualified candidates.

“Thirdly, it has been discovered that a major factor that makes the illegal universities thrive is that they have set standards for entry requirements. Admission into such outfits is available to anybody that can pay their fees.”

He said the phenomenon of illegal providers of tertiary education is more notorious in the university sub-sector if tertiary education than the polytechnic or college of education subsector which to this end, over 66 illegal degree mills have been identified.

Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, has called on Nigerians to pull the country from the brink of extinction by voting out President Muhammadu Buhari, who he said has failed the country.

He said Nigeria is at crossroads and everyone is under obligation to salvage the country from the grip of a non-performing tyrant.

He spoke at the weekend during the 2019 Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) campaign rally at State School

He said: “On February 16, 2019, all Nigerians should persevere at the polling units to ensure we vote Atiku Abubakar and other PDP candidates and sack President Muhammadu Buhari.

“Nigerians is at a crossroad and anything can happen at any time. The enemies of the country will never succeed”.

He urged Nigerians to defend their votes and their permanent voters cards because the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led federal government has set up a committee to steal PVCs.

security agencies and INEC against plotting to rig.

He said that any official involved in rigging would suffer the consequences.

He said that his administration has kept all his promises to the Ogoni people, pointing out that his second term will witness more profound projects in the area.

Wike warned the people of Khana Local Government Area against being deceived by the empty promises of the failed APC-led federal government.

He said the Buhari administration has used the

a lying political tool which will never be implemented.

Wike said at the federal level, President Buhari wants to cripple the judiciary and the legislature, the way the Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, closed the courts and State House of Assembly of Rivers State in 2013.

Deputy Governor Ipalibo Harry Banigo expressed happiness that Khana people are solidly behind the governor.

She said Wike will never disappoint Khana people.

SOUTHERN, MIDDLE BELT LEADERS, CDD URGE BUHARI TO REINSTATE ONNOGHEN

In a statement made available to THISDAY yesterday and signed by the Executive Director, Forum for Justice and Peace, Peter Edegbai, the group said the sack of Justice Salami by the then President Goodluck Jonathan was on the recommendation of the National Judicial council (NJC) after thorough investigation was done.

Giving reasons why the sack of the two justices was different, Edegbai said NJC had indicted Salami in two investigative reports for lying under oath.

He said: “A five-man probe panel headed by a former president of the Court of Appeal, Justice Abdullahi Umaru, found Salami guilty of

perjury and judicial misconduct.

The probe panel revealed that the allegations Salami raised against the then (CJN), Justice Aloysius Katsina-Alu, ab-initio, were false.

“The first panel suggested outright sacking of Justice Salami immediately, however NJC members made a passionate appeal for a soft landing for him.

“A second NJC probe panel of three Judges led by Justice Ibrahim Auta confirmed the verdict of the first panel and added sanctions,” he said.

According to him, the NJC in their review requested that Salami should be warned for his unethical conduct which eroded the public confidence in the integrity and impartiality

of the judiciary, adding that he was also asked to apologise in writing to the CJN, Justice Katsina-Alu, and NJC within one week.

“Justice Salami failed to apologise and headed to court.

This was how NJC helped him to retirement. His case and retirement has nothing to do with Jonathan’s government or in any way similar to Justice Onnoghen’s current saga,” he added.

Meanwhile, the SocioEconomic Rights and Accountability Project, (SERAP) has sent an open petition to the next-in-rank to the Chairman of the National Judicial Council (NJC), urging the Council to immediately take over the CJN’s

case from the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT).

SERAP said this was with a view to setting up a committee to investigate the allegations of breach of constitutional asset declaration requirements against the CJN. The organisation also urged the NJC to ask Onnoghen to step aside from his role as Chief Justice pending the outcome of investigation into the allegations against him.

The petition, dated January 26, 2019 and copied to Mr. Diego García-Sayán, UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of Judges and Lawyers, was signed by SERAP’s Senior Legal Adviser, Bamisope Adeyanju.

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Ngige, VON DG Tackle Ohanaeze for Endorsing Atiku The Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, and the Director General of the Voice of Nigeria (VON), Mr Osita Okechukwu, have described the endorsement of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, by the Ohanaeze Ndigbo as partisan.

Ngige said what played out was a mere congregation of party men, that hurriedly took a decision without due consultation of the real ImeObi Ohanaeze Ndigbo.

The Labour and Employment minister made his feeling known in a telephone

interview with journalists yesterday in Awka.

The minister said the meeting was constituted by the President-General of the union with members of the PDP to pass the resolution in favour of Atiku.

“The purported decision of Ohanaeze endorsing Atiku of the PDP as the Ndigbo choice was a distraction and should be disregarded by well-meaning Igbo sons and daughters.

“The decision was illconceived and should be ignored by Ndigbo as it’s a decision propelled by PDP members in Ohanaeze

Ndigbo, hurriedly taken to drum support for their party members in the coming election,” he said.

Ngige expressed disappointment that the apex Igbo sociocultural organisation would degenerate into meddling in partisan politics.

He said that the people of the South-east have spoken in the rallies attended by hundreds of thousands of Igbo citizens in Enugu and Onitsha as to their political choice.

On his part, Okechukwu yesterday in Enugu lambasted the President General of Ohaneze Ndigbo, John Nnia

Kidnappers Storm Viewing Centre, Kidnap Seven in Zamfara More than 20 suspected kidnappers stormed a football viewing centre in Zamfara State at the weekend and kidnapped seven people.

The incident happened in Birnin Magaji Local Government Area of the state.

The father of one of the victims disclosed yesterday that his two sons, including the owner of the viewing centre were among those kidnapped.

A witness, according to Premuim Times, said the kidnappers arrived the viewing centre at about 10p.m. on wearing army and police uniforms.

He said they pretended to be genuine security men detailed to guard the viewing centre.

According to him, some minutes later, they stormed the centre and kidnapped seven

people, he said, asking not to be named.

The victims were identified as Sunusi Sani, the owner of the viewing centre; his younger brother, Zubairu Sani; and Bala Maibolu. Others are Yusuf Shekau, Shamsu DanIsiya, Bello Kwazo, and Nura Muhammad. The last four are said to be from neighbouring villages and are taking refuge at Birnin Magaji town.

The viewing centre is located at Hardo, in the eastern part of Birnin Magaji town.

The kidnappers after the operation shot sporadically into the air as they left the area. This alerted soldiers to the community. Residents said the soldiers arrived promptly but the kidnappers had left.

Birnin Magaji is the hometown of Minister of Defence, Brig-Gen. Mansur

Dan-Ali (rtd).

Thousands of people from the 30 odd villages in Birnin Magaji and Zumi local government areas are taking refuge in Birnin Magaji town after their villages were sacked by armed bandits.

Many of the displaced persons sleep on the open market space because of insufficient accommodation.

Efforts to reach the police spokesperson in Zamfara, Mohammed Shehu, yesterday were not successful.

He did not pick calls made to his phone.

Kidnapping for ransom is rampant in Zamfara State where security operatives have been unable to tackle rampaging armed bandits.

Many people have also been killed and thousands displaced from their homes.

WFM Seeks End to Violence against Women Jonathan Eze The management of Women Radio 91.7 and UNWomen advocacy group has urged Nigerians to shun violence against women ahead of the general election in order for them to actively participate in the electoral process.

The Managing Director of Women Radio FM, Toun Okewale Sonaiya, during a visit to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) headquarters in Abeokuta, Ogun State, said INEC has a major role to play in ensuring that the general election is devoid of violence against women and allows women to exercise their

civil rights to vote and be voted for.

Sonaiya added that Women Radio would track incidences of electoral violence against women in the elections.

In his response, the Head of Department, Voters Education and Publicity, Adenike Tadese, said INEC has made provisions for pregnant women, the elderly and persons living with disabilities across the state with adequate security personnel and that priority will be given to vulnerable persons during elections.

On his part, INEC Representative/Admin Secretary, Mr. Oludele Popoola, also emphasised that INEC is fully

ready for the elections.

He expressed the readiness of the electoral umpire in ensuring that the voting processes are duly followed coupled with an enabling environment for all to vote. He assured that women will not be disenfranchised and urged stakeholders including the media to work together with INEC in avoiding violence before, during and after all the elections.

Women Radio, with support from UNWomen said it would continue in her advocacy for Nigerians to shun violence against women and to vote for women candidates to increase their leadership participation and political empowerment.

Media Experts Push for Election Charter for Journalists Adedayo Akinwale in Lagos With less than 20 days to next month’s general elections, media experts have canvassed for an election charter for Nigerian journalists as a voluntary commitment to raising professional standards.

The experts described this code/charter of election good practice as sets of threshold of fundamental values by which the country’s media could judge itself and be judged.

The experts made this known at a two-day workshop on ‘Election Reporting in Digital Age’ held in Lagos, which was organised by Daria Media and Thomson

Foundation, with the support of MacArthur Foundation.

Speaking at the workshop, a media expert, Mr. Ian Beales, said the charter is a voluntary commitment that seeks to balance freedom of expression and the media’s right to be partisan and the equal rights of electors to expect openness, honesty and fair-dealing in the reporting of elections.

According to him, “It specifies the standard of accuracy, professional integrity and due sensitivity that embrace the best values both of Nigeria’s cultural heritage and ethnic diversity and of modern international society.”

Beales added that it also

safeguards journalism in the genuine public interest and the freedom to editorialise to challenge, stimulate, campaign and criticise.

He said the charter should be strictly observed by all participating publishers, editors and their journalists and contributors, including none journalists- in print, broadcasting and online.

Also, the Executive Director of Daria Media, Kadaria Ahmed, explained that the voluntary code of conduct was being introduced because all the country’s fault lines, including religion, tribe, and even age are being exploited by politicians.

Nwodo over last week’s endorsement of Atiku and his running mate, Mr. Peter Obi,

by Ohanaeze Ndigbo, insisting that such endorsement did not enjoy the support of Ndigbo.

Okechukwu accused Nwodo of rigging the constitution of Ohaneze in the purported endorsement.

The VON DG said Nwodo deliberately sidelined the General Assembly, which is the Supreme Organ of the apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, going by Article 10, subsection VI of Ohaneze’s constitution.

The VON DG was reacting to the controversial endorsement of Atiku/Obi ticket of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) last week and the attendant fury and outrage of

Governor Wily Obiano, Ken Nnamani, Chris Ngige, Geofrey Onyeama and a host of other prominent Igbo leaders.

He said the outrage of Igbo leaders over the endorsement, was justified, as the collective interest of Ndigbo nationwide was atrophied.

According to him, Nwodo acted arbitrarily in “Rambo” style and utterly circumvented Ohanaeze constitution in endorsing Atiku/Obi PDP ticket.

He insisted that Ime Obi could have first drawn a checklist of Igbo Charter of demands and hand over to the two leading contenders -Buhari and Atiku and convene General Assembly meeting to decide, but this was not done.

“The tremendous respect

one has for our elder brother, Chief John Nnia Nwodo, President General of Ohaneze Ndigbo worldwide perished when reports crept in on Thursday, January 24, 2019, on how he regrettably rigged the Constitution of Ohaneze and by extension Ndigbo worldwide by recklessly endorsing Atiku/Obi ticket.

“Going through his communiqué the first question is where is the collective search, the critical and dispassionate appraisal in Nwodo’s endorsement, when in Rambo Style he deliberately sidelined the General Assembly, which going

by Article 10, subsection vi of the Ohaneze Constitution is the Supreme Organ of Ohaneze Ndigbo?”

Nigerians Flee Rann to Cameroon after Withdrawal of Military Michael Olugbode in Maiduguri Nigerians fled in their hundreds from Rann, in Kala-Balge Local Government Area (LGA) of Borno State as soldiers were reportedly withdrew from the Nigerian border with Cameroon.

The residents of the town were said to have fled into Cameroon, when they saw that the troop mostly with the Multi-National Joint Task Force were withdrawn from

the town.

A source who spoke anonymously to THISDAY, said the military were withdrawn on Saturday, causing panic in the town. He said the people, fearing that they may be opened to Boko Haram attack, immediately moved to neighbouring Cameroon.

Rann has continually been attacked by insurgents in recent times and it was in the town that some staff of Red Cross were kidnapped by Boko

Haram last year. Two of the kidnapped staff were later killed by the insurgents after their demands were not meant.

Meanwhile, Borno Governor, Alhaji Kashim Shettima was said to have meant with President Muhammadu Buhari to brief him on security situation in Rann.

The Borno State Governor was said to have appealed to the president on the need to reinforce the town against any attack by the insurgents.

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Fulani Groups Seek Amnesty for Detained Herdsmen Onuminya Innocent in Sokoto The leader of coalition of Fulani herdsmen groups in Nigeria, Alhaji Saleh Bayari, has appealed to the federal government to grant unconditional amnesty to their members detained over various criminal allegations in the country.

Bayari made the call yesterday at a National Delegates meeting of coalition of Fulani Associations from 36 states of the federation and the FCT held in Sokoto.

He said the federal government should consider amnesty to Fulani people accused of crimes as it was done to agitators in the oil-rich Niger

Insurgency: NAF Honours Pilots, Crew Members of Crashed Aircraft, Others Kingsley Nwezeh in Abuja The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) at the weekend honoured the five crew members of the Mi35M helicopter that crashed in Damasak, Borno State two weeks ago while providing close air support to troops of 145 Battalion.

The five deceased crew members were honoured alongside the Late Squadron Leader Mohammed Bello BabaAri, a fighter Instructor Pilot who died during rehearsals for aerial display for Nigeria’s 58th Independence Celebration, as well as 13 other deserving NAF personnel and civilians who had distinguished themselves in their areas of responsibilities in 2018.

Speaking during the ceremony, the Guest of Honour, and Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr. Boss Mustapha, represented by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Geoffrey Onyeama, commended the Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar, for his foresight and for encouraging excellence by ensuring that those who have contributed to the success of the NAF are recognised and rewarded.

According to him, recognition and awards are effective management tools that motivate personnel who are

doing well to keep up the work whilst also challenging those performing below expectations to redouble their efforts.

The SGF stated further that, “It is glaring that the NAF has made huge sacrifices through the commitment, dedication and perseverance of its personnel in the defence of our nation”.

“The conduct of sustained air operations, both night and day, by the NAF is significantly responsible for the successes recorded so far in our war against insurgency and other criminalities.

“I, therefore, wish to commend the CAS for the high level of professionalism being displayed by the NAF”, he said.

While congratulating all award winners and urging them not to rest on their oars, the SGF encouraged other personnel, who may not have received an award, not to despair. He noted that with perseverance and hard work their day of recognition would also come.

In his remarks, the Air Force Chief stated that the occasion was meant to celebrate personnel who showed courage in the face of terror and exhibited strength where others saw fear; personnel who applied ingenuity where others perceived impossibility.

Over 7m Elderly Nigerians Neglected, Group Alleges Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja The Coalition of Societies for the Rights of Older Persons in Nigeria (COSROPIN) has expressed concern over the increasing difficulties facing millions of aged people in the country.

The group, which put the population of those regarded as senior citizens between the ages of 70 and above at seven million, lamented that the level of neglect and deprivations being suffered by them was enormous.

In a communique issued at the end of a conference in Abuja which was attended by delegates, COSRROPIN urged the federal and state governments to consider the establishment of a commission for ageing and elderly persons, with a view to providing an environment which encourages and promotes active living for all aged groups.

The communiqué, signed by the Coalition’s President, Senator Darlington Eze Ajoku, asked the next National Assembly to reintroduce the “Bill for an Act to provide for certain rights and Privileges of Older Persons” submitted to the Senate President in February, 2018.

He called on federal and state governments to establish geriatric hospitals all over to

specially address diseases usually associated with old age, such as diabetes, hypertension, eye problems, arthritis and waste pains.

On the group’s assessment of the commitment of successive governments towards providing for the wellbeing of retirees and elderly ones in the country, Ajoku said the situation has been that of neglect and abandonment.

He said that none of the administrations has implemented any deliberate policy targeted at assisting the senior citizens in their old age condition.

“Successive governments have not done much about the sufferings of the elderly persons, they don’t even bother about the elderly persons. That is why our organisation is determined to push this cause, so that government can wade in and help provide for the welfare of the older ones in the society. We believe that aging is not by accident niether is it a cause,” he said.

On her part, the National Secretary of the group, May Ikoku said that they are engaging in the struggle for the rights of the senior citizens so as to ensure that the coming generation of older persons does not suffer what others are going through presently.

Delta region.

“About 3,000 Fulani clans are in detention at different security formations in the country.

“Poverty, neglect and poor treatment from fellow Nigerians forced those accused persons to engage in dastardly acts,” Bayari said.

He explained that about 2,500 pastoralists were killed, while 3.7 million livestock were either killed or rustled from the herdsmen at various states of the federation, the situation that subjected members to untold hardships.

He pointed out that granting them amnesty would allow leaders to unite their fellows and partner with authorities to sanction any member found engaging in any unlawful activities.

In the communiqué read by

Bayari at the end of the event, the coalition commended Amnesty International 2018 report that said about 3, 641 persons lost their lives in farmers/herdsmen conflicts in Nigeria.

The coalition groups also dissociated themselves from some Fulani unions’ endorsement of a particular presidential candidate in the forthcoming general election. They described the endorsement as dangerous noting that their associations were social, non-political and none partisan aimed at uplifting Fulani interests.

The groups said the endorsement was not in the interest of generality of Fulani herdsmen as neither consultations nor meetings were held prior to the decision.

The associations directed their members to disregard

the endorsement and elect any candidate of their choice as guaranteed by the constitution.

It also reminded herdsmen to consider the credibility and suitability of candidates as well as the leader that has regard and care about their plights.

According to the groups, about 17 million pastoralists are in Nigeria and that while government disburses subsidy and support to farmers, headsmen obtained nothing in past four years.

The coalition accused the federal government of not doing enough for Fulani herdsmen in recognition that they were marginalised in the present disbursement of Tradermoni scheme initiative and others.

The groups alleged that the present administration had neglected them on agricultural

support schemes, concentrating mostly on grain, poultry and fish farming.

The groups further explained that the meeting was organised to exchange thoughts and ideas and possible ways of librating the Fulani herdsmen to come out to speak with one tongue.

They also said the laws banning cattle grazing were unconstitutional that violated human rights while noting that the moves to establish cattle ranches and colonies were yet to come to reality.

The coalition further stated that President Muhammadu Buhari and Atiku Abubakar are all Fulani men and urged members to elect who showed concerns on pastoralists’ plights and their economic development as well as engaged on “Ruga to Ruga” consultation campaign.

WELCOMING NEW PROJECT…

Chairman/Chief Executive Officer, Lee Engineering and Construction Company, Chief Leemon Ikpea (left), and governorship candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC) for Lagos State, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, during the inauguration of Royal Oak Event Centre, Lekki, Lagos…yesterday

Don’t Be Used for Electoral Violence, Union Tell Members Alex Enumah in Abuja The Amalgamated Commercial Tricycle and Motorcycle Owners Riders and Repairers Association of Nigeria (ACOMORAN), has appealed to its members across the country not to allow themselves to be used by politicians to create violence in the forthcoming elections.

National President of the association, Babangida Shehu Maihula, who gave the advice over the weekend in Abuja, also appealed to all those who have registered for the election but are yet to collect their Permanent Voters’ Card (PVCs) to go and do so in order to vote candidates of

their choice.

Maihula, while stating that the association was yet to take a decision on the candidate to support in the presidential election on February 16, said the association is still consulting and appraising the programmes of the contenders and would communicate its position to the members once a choice is made.

“This is the right time for the association to use its 12 million votes to vote in right persons into elective positions.

“I also want to use this opportunity to sound a note of warning to every member of the association that want to be used by unscrupulous

elements, as no one is bigger than the association. Anybody found wanting playing politics with the organisation or anti association activity must be punished accordingly.

“I have got reports of some persons who have been looking for avenues to sell the association out, and have also indulged themselves in some corrupt practices within the association, enriching themselves for selfish purposes and gaining cheap popularity, there are those we have asked to step aside pending the outcome of investigations and decision of the committee of the association into their activities.

“This is a new era, we as an association are all trying to put in our efforts and hard work to redefine ACOMORAN, and not to allow ourselves to be used by corrupt individuals that have made up their minds to pull down every success in ACOMORAN”, he said.

Maihula, said the association remains one and indivisible entity and frowned at the Ogun State leaders of the association who he accused of allegedly embezzling over N5bn association money.

He said legal process was already being contemplated to retrieve the money from him.

ASUU Denies Receiving N163bn, Accuses FG of Spreading Falsehood over Strike “The government knows that it is the council and the university administration that receives and spends all the money coming into the university. ASUU doesn’t receive money from government and doesn’t spend it. Even money meant for our salaries and other allowances come directly to the university administration which prepares the budget and manages it.

ASUU members collect only their salaries as paid by the university. Contracts and all the capital projects are awarded by the councils that are appointed by the government, not ASUU. “It is in the context of the above that our union calls on the vice-chancellors and council chairmen to stop behaving like vultures that wait silently by the sidelines, waiting for the

game to fall only to descend on the carcass. They should join forces with ASUU in its struggles to attract requisite funding into our public universities rather than working at cross purposes with us.

“Part of the least expected from them is to come out openly to put the record straight each time the

government come out with the deliberate falsehood that money has been released to ASUU. They, ie , council and the vice-chancellors, are the receiving and spending agents.

Simple honour demands that they publicly own up to this fact. Their silence in this regard leaves room for unfair speculation about ASUU.”

5 ) * 4 % ": t MONDAY, JANUARY 28, 2019

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Group Sports Editor Duro Ikhazuagbe Email duro.ikhazuagbe@thisdaylive.com 0811 181 3083 SMS ONLY

Moses May Debut for Fenerbahce Today After months of inaction at Stamford Bridge, Nigeria and Chelsea forward, Victor Moses, is very certain to make his debut for Turkish Super Lig team Fenerbahce at home when they take on Yeni Malatyaspor this evening.

It is more than three months since Moses last featured in a competitive match, which was against BATE Borisov in a Europa League game on October 25.

The Super Eagles star who called time on his international career after returning from the World Cup in Russia last summer was in the stands as Fenerbahce were beaten 1-0 by ümraniyespor in a Cup game on Thursday, shortly after he arrived in Istanbul on loan from England.

The right winger trained for the first time with his new teammates on Saturday morning and is looking forward to putting on the Fenerbahce shirt.

Moses posted on social media: ‘’Enjoyed my first training session with @Fenerbahce Focussed on Monday ‘’.

The 28-year-old Moses did not score on his debut for Crystal Palace, Wigan Athletic, Chelsea, Stoke City and West Ham but

got on the score-sheet in his first appearance for Liverpool back in the 2013-14 season.

Meanwhile, Middlesbrough’s Manager, Tony Pulis, has said that John Mikel Obi’s 62 minute cameo in the team’s disappointing 1-1 draw with Newport County in the fourth round of the Emirates FA Cup on Saturday was an indication of his quality despite his inactivity for club and country for three months. ‘’John (Obi Mikel) playing 60 minutes, playing the way he did. It’s the first time he’s had his boots on for a couple of months, Shotts (Ryan Shotton) playing 70 minutes as well, ‘’ Pulis told reporters at the post-match conference.

“John is a quality player, a great lad, a wonderful person.

He’ll be good for us but we’ve got to get him fit.

“I still thought we were in control of the game (after Mikel went off), apart from a few little breaks.”

Mikel showed glimpses of his quality in the 62 minutes he spent on the pitch and revealed his satisfaction at getting some minutes under his belt after three months of inactivity.

NPFL…NPFL…NPFL…

He left Tianjin TEDA after the Chinese Super League team went down on relegation. ‘’I thought the performance was good,’’ Mikel was quoted as saying by Boro’s official webpage.

‘’When you play these games, we were one up, we controlled the game and it’s one of those games where if you sit back you can get caught out and that’s what happened.

Ibrahim Ajani’s lone strike in the 40th minute was all Rangers International FC needed yesterday to defeat Enyimba FC 1-0 to win the Oriental Derby in Enugu on Match-Day 5 of the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) The Cathedral (as the Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium is known to Rangers and their legion of supporters) erupted in wild celebration when Ajani smashed in Ifeanyi George’s cross.

However, Flying Antelopes’ celebration was almost marred by the red card given to Bobby Clement for a second bookable offence in the 87th minute of the explosive encounter.

Elsewhere in Port Harcourt, Rivers United continued their unbeaten start to the season with a 1-0 victory over MFM FC. Luckless MFM Captain, Austine Opara, diverted the ball into his own net after Wasiu Jimoh’s dangerous cross caused havoc in the penalty area.

The first half failed to hit expected heights with clearcut goal scoring opportunities

NPFL MATCHDAY 5 GROUP A Wikki 0-1 Sunshine Rivers Utd 1-0 MFM Rangers 1-0 Enyimba Lobi 3-0 Kwara Utd Remo 2-0 Katsina Utd Tornadoes 0-0 Insurance

GROUP B Yobe Stars 1-0 Heartland Plateau Utd 0-0 Kano Pillars Kada Stars 0-1 FCIU Abia Warriors 0-0 Gombe Utd

few and far between.The hosts stepped on the accelerator in the second half and got due reward on the hour.

Bendel Insurance’s return to topflight ended in another away goalless draw against Niger Tornadoes.

Niger Tornadoes Coach, Bernard Ogbe, refused to come out for the second half of the game claiming his life was at risk.

In Bauchi, Sunshine Stars recorded their first win of the season defeating Wikki Tourist 1-0. The defeat was Wikki Tourist’s second straight loss following their 1-0 defeat away to Katsina United in the midweek clash.

Chibundu Amah fired in a rebound shot from close range after Wikki Tourist goalkeeper Pius Ibrahim parried Sunday Abe’s spot-kick onto his path.

In Makurdi, Nigeria’s representative in the CAF Champions League, Lobi Stars recorded their first win of the NPFL season in style smashing Kwara United 3-0. Michael Stephen scored in the 10th minute before Yaya Kone struck in the 29th and 34th minute to put the game beyond reach for Kwara United.

Also despite been banished to Oshogbo, in Osun State, Remo Stars earned their first win of the season spanking Katsina United 2-0. Two goals – one in each half from Victor Mbaoma and Kingsley Akemini were enough to see off Katsina United.

In the NPFL Group B, FC Ifeanyi Ubah edged Kada Stars 1-0 to move up top in Group B. Chibuike Eze scored the only goal for the Anambra Warriors in the 62nd minute of the encounter in Kaduna.

FC Ifeanyi Ubah now have 11 points from five games.

games to get sharper and help the team a bit more.’’

Mikel trained with his new teammates for only two days before his maiden appearance for Middlesbrough.

Victor Moses may make his debut at Fenebahce today

Peak Reiterates Commitment to Nigerian

Rangers Win Oriental Para-Powerlifters Derby Clash with Milk has reiterated its camp ahead of the Lagos 2019 Enyimba at the Cathedral Peak commitment to sustain its Para-Powerlifting tournament, Duro Ikhazuagbe

‘’The team played really well, it’s a good start for me and hopefully we can carry on from here. ‘’Today was good and hopefully I can get a few more

unflinching support in terms of nutritional values and training facilities towards the continued success of the Nigerian Para-powerlifting Federation in international tournaments.

The Managing Director of FrieslandCampina Wamco, manufacturers of Peak Milk, Ben Langat, gave the assurance over the weekend when he visited the Nigeria Para-Powerlifting gym at the National Stadium Lagos, equipped and maintained by Nigeria’s No.1 dairy product, Peak Milk.

Mr Langat led management of the dairy company on a morale-boosting visit to the Nigerian Para-powerlifters

which was officially declared open on Sunday at the Oriental Hotel in Lekki, Lagos and urged the team to go ahead and prove their mettle in the competition.

The Friesland Campina Wamco boss noted that: “In the past, we have seen you make Nigeria proud in competitions outside the shores of the country and now that it is in your domain, I want to assure you that we are going to give you all the necessary support you need to clinch all the medal.

“FrieslandCampina Wamco is very happy to be associated with you the ‘Unstoppable Team’ because you have inspired lots of life and we want you to continue

in that same spirit so that others will continue to learn from your successes. Langlat told the elated Para-powerlifters.

“We began this journey together with you and we want to continue to build on that success and as a result of that, the bus we promised you will be here to ease your mobility at all times because it is equipped with very modern facilities,” he assured.

Langat told the athletes that Peak will continue to champion their course and vowing not to relent until the whole world hears about the Para-powerlifters’ exploits.

Speaking earlier, Mrs. Oreoluwa Famurewa, Director of Corporate Affairs,

FrieslandCampina Wamco Plc., told the athletes that Peak Milk will continue to provide them with the needed dairy products to nourish their body on daily basis to improve their health and well-being.

On his own part, the Marketing Director, FrieslandCampina Wamco, Chris Wullf-Caesar charged the Nigerian team to go for gold and set unmatchable records in the world of Para-Powerlifting that will etch their names in the record books.

The athletes, thereafter, went into a rigorous training session to the admiration of Mr. Langat and his senior management team as a demonstration of their readiness for the competition.

Dalung, NFF, SWAN, Sports Editors Mourn Fashikun A former sports correspondent with THISDAY, Olajide Fashikun is dead. He died yesterday after a brief illness. He was aged 54.

Samuel Fashikun, younger brother to Olajide, revealed that his brother had suffered partial stroke before he was hurriedly taken to the hospital where he spent over one week.

He confirmed that the family would soon meet and spell out the burial plans.

Fashikun’s partner in the Nigeria Sports Development Fund Inc. initiated to raise funds for athletes to prepare for five sports at the 2020 Olympics, Mary Onyali-Omagbemi also confirmed his death.

He was an ex-international handball player and a stakeholder in all sports.

In swift reactions to Fashikun’s death yesterday, Sports Minister, Solomon Dalung, expressed deep shock over his demise.

“It is a very sad day for sports journalists and athletes in the country.

“Jide created a platform to support athletes and stimulate performance through his mobilization of training funds to assist athletes. This made us look forward to a better podium performance in the years ahead.

Today, the curtains have been drawn on that project.

“Jide was a dedication journalist who went far to uphold the truth. He was a fighter, fearless, thorough and an epitome of investigative journalism while contributing immensely to grassroots sports development .

I pray that God will receive him and give his wife and family the fortitude to bear this loss.”

Similarly, the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) prayed that God Almighty will grant the

soul of Fashikun eternal rest in His bosom, and also grant those he has left behind including his immediate family the fortitude to bear the great loss.

SWAN President, Honour Sirawo, who just returned from 82nd AIPS General Congress, held in Lausanne, Switzerland, equally received the news of his exit with shock.

“I never imagined what I’m hearing. It’s unbelievable to hear that Jide is no more.

I met with him in December when he shared his vision on how he intended to bring his wealth of experience to bear in handling the task the National SWAN choose him for. I’m deeply pained. May his soul rest in peace.”

The Guild of Sports Editors has described Jide Fashikun’s demise as a huge blow to the country’s quest for sports development, as well as the push for a new Nigeria.

Reacting to the death of the investigative reporter, Guild of Sports Editors’ President, Tony Ubani said Fashikun’s demise could not have come at a worse period in Nigeria’s sports development.

“Fashikun was devoted to the development of Nigeria’s sports industry of which he gave his all, as a handballer, an athlete and a journalist.

“Although many people did not like his methods, Fashikun was unrelenting in his quest for a better Nigeria, a disposition which often brought him at loggerheads with the establishment,” Ubani noted.

Fashikun was a one-time Chairman of the Kwara State Chapter of Sports Writers Association of Nigeria, Sports Editor of the Herald newspaper, Managing Editor of Gong News, a senior Sports correspondent at THISDAY and a former lecturer at Kwara Polytechnic.

63

T H I S D AY ˾ MONDAY JANUARY 28, 2019

MONDAYSPORTS AUSTRALIAN OPEN

Djokovic Beats Nadal to Win Record Seventh Title Novak Djokovic won a record seventh Australian Open title and a third successive Grand Slam yesterday as he swept aside Rafael Nadal in Melbourne.

The Serb, rarely troubled on his serve, won 6-3 6-2 6-3 for his biggest victory in a major final over his great rival.

Spanish second seed Nadal, 32, looked rattled by the world number one’s intensity and made 28 unforced errors.

Djokovic, 31, won in two hours and four minutes to move clear of six-time men’s winners Roy Emerson and Roger Federer.

A forehand winner down the line brought up two championship points, Djokovic taking the second when Nadal clubbed a backhand long.

Djokovic, who was the top seed, fell to his knees after sealing another triumph on Rod Laver Arena, smacking the court with both hands and screaming towards the sky.

The reigning Wimbledon and US Open champion claimed his 15th Grand Slam title, moving him outright third ahead of American Pete Sampras in the all-time list, closing in on Switzerland’s Federer (20) and Nadal (17).

Djokovic has now won 13 of his past 16 meetings with Nadal, who has not beaten the Serb on a hard court since the US Open final in 2013.

He leads 28-25 in their record 53 meetings between two male players.

Djokovic continued his fine record of going on to

win the tournament every time he has reached the semi-finals, while Nadal lost for a fourth time in the Melbourne showpiece.

The result meant the 2009 winner was unable to become the first man in the Open era to win all the Grand Slams at least twice and was the first time he had lost a major final in straight sets.

Djokovic said his clinical semi-final win over French 28th seed Lucas Pouille on Friday was one of his best performances on Rod Laver Arena.

Two days later, he surpassed that against the man with whom he shares what many consider to be the greatest male rivalry.

Most expected a much closer encounter between the pair, whose previous meeting at Melbourne Park had been the epic 2012 final, which lasted five sets and almost six hours.

Quickly it became apparent that a repeat was unlikely in front of a stunned crowd.

Djokovic was as close to flawless as he could have been - dominating on serve, controlling the rallies with crisp groundstrokes, rarely making a mistake and showing incredible athleticism around the court.

His tally of 34 winners and nine unforced errors highlights how high his level was.

The Serb made a fast start by breaking in Nadal’s first service game and, although that was the only break in the opener, the gulf between the players felt much wider.

He took his first set point

ZENITH BANK/DELTA PRINCIPALS’ CUP

Q’finalists Emerge, Battle for Semis Ticket Today After five days of intense battle in the zonal elimination series with 26 qualifiers competing for honours in eight zones and 10 centres, the quarterfinalists for the 2019 Delta State Principals’ Cup emerged at the weekend.

The Principals’ Cup football competition is a developmental tournament sponsored by Zenith Bank after the partnership agreement with the Governor Ifeanyi Okowa administration.

The partnership revived the event only two years ago after being in limbo for over 27 years.

The quarterfinalists schools include; Comprehensive Secondary School, Owa Model Secondary School, Boys Secondary School, Orhuwhorun Secondary School, Obule Integrated Secondary School, Sapele , Solid Rock Foundation School, Uwheru Government School and Ekpan Secondary School.

The quarterfinals will be decided today in four different centres and according to the pairing released by the organizing team, Comprehensive Secondary School and Owa Model Secondary School will clash at the Kwale Township Stadium while Boys Secondary School will tango with Orhuwhorun Secondary School at the Oleh Township Stadium.

At the Warri Township Stadium, Obule Integrated School and Solid Rock Secondary School will compete for honours just as Otujeremi Township Stadium will host the last pairings between Uwheru Government School and Ekpan Secondary School.

Head of the organizing team, Tony Pemu, said all matches would start simultaneously at 2pm at the four centres.

Pemu said: “We are all set for the quarterfinals and we are excited that the standard is getting higher everyday. The dates and venues for the semis and final games will be determined soon after the meeting of the Main Organising Committee for the competition.

“The joy we derive so far is the way the event has been growing with every edition. Delta State Government and the sponsors, Zenith Bank, have been wonderful.”

The Group Managing Director of Zenith Bank, Peter Amangbo, has stressed that the outfit was proud of the competition.

“We are happy that this competition is an avenue for some youths to emerge and start their career to be good professionals for themselves and the country in future,” Amangbo said.

after landing a first serve which Nadal could only bat back into the net, wrapping up the opener in only 38 minutes.

More pressure came on Nadal’s serve immediately

in the second set, Djokovic eventually going a break up in the fifth game and, after surviving Nadal taking him to deuce in the following game, broke again to leave him serving for a two-set

lead.

Djokovic then underlined his dominance by firing down three aces to leave him one set away from the title.

Another break for a

2-1 lead in the third put Djokovic on his way to a comfortable win, before he fought off a break point in the sixth game and then sealed victory on the Nadal serve.

Novak Djokovic won his record seventh Australian Open title yesterday when he defeated Rafael Nadal 6-3, 6-2, 6-3

Morata Close to Joining Atletico on Loan Chelsea striker Alvaro Morata said on Sunday he had passed a medical at Atletico Madrid and is “looking forward” to returning to Spain.

According to reports, Morata is to sign an 18-month loan deal in the Spanish capital - 18 months after leaving Real Madrid for Chelsea.

His imminent departure follows the arrival of Juventus

striker Gonzalo Higuain on loan to Chelsea.

“I’ve spent days waiting for this,” Morata told reporters in Spain.

The 26-year-old signed a five-year contract when he joined Chelsea for a then club record £60m fee in July 2017.

Chelsea have since broken their transfer record by spending £71m keeper Kepa Arrizabalaga from

Athletic Bilbao.

Morata has made 47 Premier League appearances for the Blues, scoring 16 times. His last start was against Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup on 5 January.

“The past is the past, and it cannot be changed, and I’m very proud of it,” added Morata, who was at Atletico as a youngster before signing for city rivals Real.

“I am looking forward to

everything being completed so I can start training with my team-mates.

“I began my career at Atletico and the people who know where I come from and know my history know what this means for me.”

Atletico Madrid, who are second in the La Liga table, have allowed Portugal winger Gelson Martins, 23, to join Ligue 1 Monaco on loan until the end of the season

Nigeria Grinds out Four Wicket Victory against Rwanda at Bilateral Meet in Abuja The first leg of the bilateral international cricket series between Nigeria and Rwanda got off to a glorious start last Saturday at the newly constructed turf pitch in Abuja.

At game one, Nigeria won the toss and elected to field first sending in Rwanda to bat. Rwanda struggled in the early overs to some decent bowling partnership between Blessing Etim and Samson Rachael. Rwanda could not put up a respectable partnership and eventually crumbled to 65 runs all out in 17.3 overs.

In the second innings, Rwanda responded well with the ball forcing the Nigeria opening pair to a run out in the second over.

Nigeria struggled to keep a decent partnership as well with wickets falling every other over creating tension all around.

Fyneface Fate came on a rescue mission for Nigeria and two successive boundaries and some power hitting turned the tide in favor of Nigeria Nigeria eventually chased down the required total scoring 66 runs for the loss of 6 wickets in 19.1 over. Nigeria won by 4 wickets In the second match of the series, Rwanda won the toss and elected to bat first. There were some

considerable improvements from the first game with a working partnership in the first 10 overs losing just 2 wickets. A more aggressive approach saw them reach a total of 85 runs for the loss of 6 wickets in 20 overs.

In the second innings, Nigeria lost a wicket in the first over same way, same player to set an early panic into the camp.

The partnership of Blessing Etim and Desmond Mary gradually

steady the ship for a while until Rwanda got 3 wickets in quick succession to leave the game on a balance. Samantha Agazuma and Fyneface Fate took Nigeria across the finish line with some brilliant bating display to record a total of 86 runs for the loss of 5 wickets in 18.3 overs.

In his opening remark at the event, President of the Nigeria Cricket Federation, Professor Yahaya Adam Ukwenya, said

that the friendly tie would do a lot in helping each of the sides to grow the game and strengthen the tie between the two cricket nations The Bilateral Series match-day two resumes today after both team observed rest day on Sunday.

Match 3 is set for 9:00am while Match 4 has been slated for 1:00pm in the afternoon. The series would be concluded with two additional matches tomorrow.

Managing Director, Friesland Campina Wamco Nigeria Plc, Ben Langat (3rd from right, back row), with Marketing Director, Chris Wulff-Caesar (2nd from right, back row) and Mrs. Oreoluwa Famurewa, Corporate Affairs Director (2nd from left, back row) with some Para-Powerlifting athletes at the National Stadium Para-Power gym on Friday ahead of the Lagos International Para-Powerlifting competition.

Monday, January 28, 2019

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MISSILE Obiano to Nwodo â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not part of that decision. Our position as far as the presidential election is concerned is to keep neutrality in order not to hurt anybody and the fortunes of the Igbo in national polity. From history, the Ohanaeze had failed on four occasions where they endorsed certain presidential candidates. Shall we continue that way all the time? â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Governor Willie Obiano of Anambra State berating the President of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Dr. Nnia Nwodo, for endorsing the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar

FEMIFALANA The Legal Battle for Restructuring GUEST COLUMNIST

V

ice-President Yemi Osinbajo once recalled â&#x20AC;&#x153;on the eve of civil rule in 1999 the Federal government had encroached into many crucial areas exclusively within the competence of states. These include planning and development control, creation of offences, revenue collection and distribution.â&#x20AC;?

While the courts have upheld some tenets of federalism the National Assembly has continued to consolidate and expand the powers of the federal government to the detriment of federalism while the presidency has regularly encroached on the powers of state and local governments. On their own part, state governors have compounded the crisis of federalism by taking over the administration and finances of local government councils.

Regardless of political differences the members of the National Assembly have not shown any readiness to review the constitution with a view to restoring the federal status of the republic. Hence, the demand for a sovereign national conference to rectify the legislative and political anomalies carried out by the defunct military regimes has fallen on deaf ears. In the circumstances, the 36 state governments have had to resort to litigation to challenge the several laws and policies of the federal government, which have violated the basic tenets of federalism. The federal government has fought back by defending such cases vigorously and adopting extra-constitutional measures to stop state governments from altering the status quo.

Although the federal government has failed to stop the restoration of limited federalism through litigation only the Lagos state government has consistently mounted political measures to ensure power devolution. Thus, apart from litigation the Lagos state government has dared the federal government by enacting laws in areas not covered by the exclusive and concurrent legislative lists in the Constitution. As a result of the success recorded in the law courts the internally generated revenue of every state government has increased rather phenomenally. For instance, through litigation coupled with aggressive tax drive, the IGR of Lagos state, which was N600 million per month in 1999, has increased to over N25 billion. Thus, the legal and political struggle waged by state governments has altered the national economy to the advantage of all state governments.

It is clear that without embarking on the struggle for restructuring through litigation and adoption of political measures, majority of the state governments in the country would have collapsed. Contrary to the opposition of some governors to the demand for restructuring it is indisputable that there is no state government that has not benefited maximally from the struggle for power devolution led by the Lagos state government since 1999. At this juncture, it is pertinent to review the decisions of the courts in a number of constitutional cases, which have impacted positively on the socioeconomic rights of citizens and the internally generated revenue base of state governments.

Restructuring by Litigation by the Lagos State Government By embarking on litigation and adopting political measures the Lagos state government has won the legal battles against the seizure of local government funds by the federal government and the creation of additional local government councils, issuance of certificates of occupancy on all landed properties in the state, control

Osinbajo of inland waterways, collection of levies from hotels, vehicle registration and production of plate numbers, approval of building plans and granting of licence for lottery, pools betting and casino.

The relevant cases and political measures adopted by the Lagos state government could be examined.

Under the erstwhile military regime, physical planning in the country was regulated by the Urban and Regional Planning Act enacted in 1992 by the Babangida military junta. But in Attorney-General of Lagos State V Attorney-General of the Federation & Ors the plaintiff challenged the constitutional validity of the Act. In granting the reliefs sought by the Plaintiff the Supreme Court held that urban and regional planning as well as physical development were residual matters within the exclusive legislative and executive competence of the state governments and that the grant of approvals, permits and licenses for building and physical development in Lagos state are exclusive responsibility of state governments.

In Attorney-General of the Federation v AttorneyGeneral of Lagos the dispute between the federal and Lagos state governments centred on â&#x20AC;&#x153;general control and management of federal land within Lagos state particularly the re-issuance of certificates of occupancy, granting consent or exercising rights of ownership.â&#x20AC;? In striking out the case the Supreme Court upheld the preliminary objection filed by the Lagos government on the incompetence of the suit. Justice Dattijo Muhammed who read the leading ruling said that the court lacked power to exercise its original jurisdiction in the suit because the federal government had â&#x20AC;&#x153;transferred its title in the land to others.â&#x20AC;?

Sometime in 2002, President Obasanjo ordered the seizure of the statutory allocations of the local governments in the six states, which had created new local government councils. While the other affected states decided to revert to the status quo by dissolving the new local governments the Lagos state government under Governor Bola Tinubu sued the federal government to justify the seizure of the statutory allocation of local governments in Lagos state. The dispute led to the institution of the case of Attorney-General of Lagos State v Attorney-General of the Federation wherein the Supreme Court upheld the creation of the additional 37 new local government councils by the Lagos state government. Notwithstanding

the finding that the new local governments were inchoate since they had not been registered by the National Assembly the court held that the seizure of the local governments was illegal and unconstitutional.

Although inland waterways are not included in the Exclusive Legislative List the federal government has been granting licences for dredging and other related purposes in Lagos state. In Lagos State Waterways Authority & Ors. v. The Incorporated Trustees of Association of Tourist Boat Operators & Water Transportation in Nigeria the Court of Appeal held that that the Inland waterways within Lagos State are not and cannot by any stretch of interpretation be covered by any item in the exclusive legislative list under Part 1 to the Second Schedule of the Constitution.

Apart from the above-mentioned cases the Lagos state Government has called on the Supreme Court to declare illegal and unconstitutional the collection of stamp duties by the federal government within the Lagos State territory without remittance. It has also challenged the legal validity of the Value Added Tax Act. Both matters have been reserved for judgment by the apex court. However, the Lagos state government has dared the federal government by either enacting laws or taking political actions, which have led to the filing of the following suits by the federal governments: In 2014, the Lagos State House of Assembly rolled out four laws to regulate hotel occupancy and licensing and restaurant operation within Lagos State. The action was challenged in AttorneyGeneral of Federation v. Attorney-General of Lagos State wherein the federal government sought to invalidate the laws. But the Supreme Court dismissed the suit on the grounds that the federal governmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s power to enact laws on Tourists Traffic under item 60 of the Exclusive List in the Constitution could not oust the powers of the Lagos State government to regulate intra-state hotel businesses.

Notwithstanding the enactment of the National Sports Lottery Act, which has authorized the Federal Government to carry on lottery, operations in any part of Nigeria the Lagos state government enacted a law to regulate lottery operations in the state. Although the case of Attorney General of the Federation v Attorney-General of Lagos state has not been determined the position of the Lagos State government cannot be faulted.

Our authority for the submission is the case of Edet v. Chagoon where the Court of Appeal held that pools betting and casino are matters not listed in the Exclusive and Concurrent Lists and therefore fall within the residual competence of state governments.

Notwithstanding the powers conferred on the Federal Road Safety Commission to design and produce driversâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; licences and vehicle number plates as well as the registration, licensing and road worthiness of vehicles the Lagos state government has established the Lagos State Motor Vehicle Administration Agency (MVAA) to develop a sustainable policy on motor vehicle documentation and other related matters in Lagos state.

Through the MVAA the State government has engaged in the issuance and registration of number plates since 2007. As of today, aside the FRSC, Lagos is the only state that produces number plates in the country. With the production of 20,000 number plates monthly the Lagos state government controls more than 60% of the number plates issued in the country and generates substantial revenue from issuance and registration of number plates.

In 1993, the General Ibrahim Babangida-led military regime enacted the Lands (Title vesting etc.) Decree No. 52 of 1993, which vested the ownership, control, and management of all lands within 100 metres limit of the 1967 shoreline of Nigeria and any other land claimed from the lagoon, sea, and ocean in the federal military government of Nigeria. Even though the decree covered 9 costal states the Lagos state government encouraged the original land owners in Lagos state to challenge its constitutional validity in H.R.H Oba Yekini Adeniyi Elegushi & Ors. v.

Attorney-General of the Federation & Ors. In nullifying the decree the trial judge, Owobiyi J. held that since land does not feature in either the exclusive or the concurrent list it is a residual matter within the exclusive legislative competence of state governments. In confirming the illegality of the decree the trial judge said: â&#x20AC;&#x153;I must take judicial notice of the fact that as at 1st January 1975 the government of General Yakubu Gowon was in power until he vacated office on 29th July, 1975. For General Babangida to have enacted a law for a period when he was not in power is not only an affront to logic and common sense but also blatantly duplicitous.â&#x20AC;?

It is pertinent to state that the Lagos state government has also collaborated with other state governments in challenging many illegal actions of the federal government including the extension of the tenure of elected chairmen and councilors of local government councils, monitoring of local government funds, unilateral deductions from the federation account to fund the federal capital territory and special projects, abolition of onshore-offshore dichotomy etc.

There are some relevant cases to illustrate this point.

In Attorney-General of the Federation v Abia State & Ors the federal government challenged the claim of the littoral states to derivation in respect of resources in the continental shelf. In granting the reliefs sought by the plaintiff the Supreme Court held that the littoral states were not entitled to 13% derivation from revenue in the continental shelf. However, with respect to the defendantsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; counter-claims the court declared that the funding of Joint Venture Contracts and the NNPC priority projects and the deduction of 1% from the federation account to the Federal Capital Territory were illegal unconstitutional.

The court further held that all revenues accruing to the government must be paid into the federation account apart from the exceptions listed in section 162 (1) of the Constitution, inclusive of the excess crude funds. It was also held the Federal Government lacks the power to deduct from state governmentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; share in the federation account and give same to local government councils.

Even though the littoral states lost the resource control case the federal government was forced to enact The Allocation of Revenue (Abolition of Dichotomy in the Application of the Principle of Derivation) Act 2004 due to violent agitation for resource control in the Niger Delta region. The Act was challenged by the plaintiffs in the case of Attorney-General of Adamawa State v. AttorneyGeneral of the Federation In dismissing the suit the Supreme Court held that the Act is valid, intra vires and constitutional as is concerned with the abolition of the on-shore and off-shore dichotomy principle to a limited extent since it covers only 200 metres depth isobaths in favour of the littoral states. r.S 'BMBOB JT B 4FOJPS "EWPDBUF PG /JHFSJB

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