The last days of Shekau

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SECURITY BREACH AT AIRPORT

Boy hides inside plane’s wheel from Benin to Lagos •Passengers narrate turbulent take-off

BY SIMON EBEGBULEM (Benin-city) & DANIEL ETAGBE (Lagos)

W

hat desperation could have led a teenager to ‘ride’ in the main wheel of an aircraft from Benin-City, the capital of Edo State, to Lagos?

That was the question on aviation stakeholders’ lips after an Arik Air ’s flight from Benin-City landed at the domestic wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos, yesterday, and a young boy jumped out of the main wheel.

The boy was promptly arrested by the security personnel of Arik Air and handed over to their counterpart in the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN).

The boy was suspected to have sneaked into the aircraft’s mail wheel at the Benin-City airport.

One intriguing aspect of the saga was the claim by Arik Air that the pilot that flew the aircraft reported to the control tower in Benin-City moments before take-off that he noticed a boy in the bush about 200 – 300 meters at the end of runway.

Arik Air quoted the control tower as telling the Captain that they were sending security men to arrest the boy and cleared him for take-off.

The passengers on the flight told Sunday Vanguard that they heard a loud noise as if tyres crushed somebody on the ground as the plane took off from the Benin-City airport.

Arik Air managing director, Mr. Chris Ndulue, described the incident as security breach.

Expressing shock over the teenager’s beating of security at the Benin-City airport, Ndulue said, “We are worried by the incessant security lapses at our airports. We are appealing to FAAN to immediately address the problem”. Narrating the

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Clockwise from left: Pix 1: An airport security official leading the apprehended teenager who stowed from Benin. Pix 2: The boy with his “magical rosary”around his neck. Pix 3: Passangers disembarking from Arik Flight W3 544 aircraft stowaway incident, yesterday, in a statement, Communication Manager of Arik Air, Mr. Adebanji Ola, said the teenager sneaked into the aircraft main wheel of Flight W3 544, departing Benin-City airport for Lagos at 9.00am.

According to Ola, “the pilot of the aircraft notified the control tower when he noticed the presence of a strange boy in the bush about 200 – 300 meters at the end of runway 23.”

He stated that the “control tower informed the Captain that they were sending security men to the place to arrest the boy, adding that the pilot was told he

had been cleared for take-off as the situation was under control.”

The statement went on: “As the captain was making his final turn, preparatory for take-off, a cabin crew called his attention to the information by some of the passengers that they saw a boy running towards the airplane.

“The First Officer confirmed that they had observed it earlier and alerted the control tower which responded that they have sent the patrol team to arrest the boy.

“The Captain again reported to the control tower and was informed that the situation was under control and that he had been cleared for take-off.”

Meanwhile, sources in Benin-City said the boy may have entered the airport through Akenzua Road due to lack of perimeter fencing there. Some top officials of Edo State government were said to be on board the plane. One of the passengers reported unusual take-off.

He narrated: “We had the sign in Benin-City when the plane was about leaving. As it was moving slowly, we heard

a loud noise as if the tyre crushed somebody on the ground and we all started shouting ‘Jesus, Jesus’. It means the boy was already inside that tyre compartment before we left.

“When we landed at Lagos Airport, the boy came out from the mail wheel, everybody started shouting. But talking seriously, this shows that we have a serious problem securing our airports.

This is security breach. If that boy was carrying bomb, he could have succeeded in blowing up the plane,”the passenger said.

FG partners six universities on human capacity in water sector

BY OLALEKAN BILESANMI

T

he Federal Government has expressed its determination to continue to partner with institutions of higher learning in the country to enhance human capacity development in the water sector. This is sequel to the establishment of water resources capacity building centre’s in six of the Nigerian universities, under the

National Water Resources Capacity Building Network programme (NWRCBNet), where the concerned institutions will offer courses in post – graduate studies in water related courses.

While receiving the Vice Chancellors of the six universities and the management of the National Water Resources Institute, Kaduna, in her office in Abuja, the Minister of Water Resources, Mrs Sarah Reng Ochekpe, challenged the univer-

sities to further promote water education in order to strengthen the capacity of the sector, adding that water is important to life, hence the need to pay closer attention to develop the sector.

Ochekpe asked the implementors of the network to inspire young people to take interest in water related issues, and that it was in realization of their critical role to the sector that the Ministry

of Water Resources, along with the National Water Resources Institute, introduced “Junior Water Prize” competition last year, to enable young people participate in an essay writing with focus on water related issues.

The minister enjoined the six universities to engage other universities to set up programme in water studies, as part of the efforts to develop the sector with the necessary skills.

Earlier, the Executive Director of the National Water Resources Institute (NWRI), Kaduna, Dr Olusanjo Bamgboye, who led the delegation of the Vice Chancellors to the minister, said that the institute had supported the National Water Resources Capacity Building Network (NWRBCNet) with a seed fund of 12million naira for the six universities with each of them receiving 2million naira.

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Glo leads in socio-economic impact – Deji of Akure

BY DAYO JOHNSON

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HE Deji of Akure, Oba Adebiyi Adesida, has lauded Globacom for improving the socioeconomic situation of the people.

Adesida said that the entrance of the outfit into the telecommunication sector of the country was a turning point.

The Oba, who spoke at the opening of the Glo World Shop in Akure, also commended the initiative of the founder of the organisation, Dr. Mike Adenuga, describing him as an astute entrepreneur.

Speaking through his

brother, Prince Lana, he explained that Globacom had added to the beauty of Akure, saying there should be more partnership between the organisation and the Ondo government.

The Regional Sales Manager, Activation of Globacom, Mr. Clement Igbede, said the new outlet was put in place for better and more convenient services to the people of the state capital.

Igbede said the organisation had opened the Alagbaka, Akure and the Ondo town Glo World zones, to make its services available to the people with ease.

Lagos Medical Guild chairman, Odusote, loses grandmum

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A D A M Susananah Ajolade Odusote, nee Dina, is dead. She was aged 107.

Until her death on 25 July at General Hospital, Lagos, she was an industrialist.

She is survived by children and grandchildren among whom are a Lagos legal practitioner and industrialist, Mrs. Kemi Oni, CEO of MultiPurpose Oil Services Limited, and the Chair-

man, Lagos State Medical Guild, Dr. Olumuyiwa Odusote.

Burial, commences on Friday, 30 August with a wake-keep at No 3, Oke Mosa Street, Oke-Agbo, Ijebu Igbo, Ogun State.

Her remains will be interred at the Christian Cemetery, Oke-Agbo, Ijebu Igbo after a funeral service on 31 August at St. John’s African Church, Oke-Agbo, Ijebu Igbo.

SUNDAY VANGUARD, AUGUST 25, 2013 — PAGE 5

BOKO HARAM LEADER’S DEATH A EXCLUSIVE

The last days of Shekau Continued from page 1 a raid on his hideout by military forces, he was said to have been taken to Mali for treatment by the Boko Haram top hierarchy.

In Mali, Sunday Vanguard learnt that Shekau’s situation soon grew worse.

After consultations, the leadership of the Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad, which in Arabic means, “People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad”, decided to move their boss to Cameroun.

“It was in Cameroun that the situation got out of hand.

“There, all known medical support that could be provided within acceptable underground limits was mustered. But that was where he gave up the ghost”, one of the security sources said.

The source added that a recent video recording allegedly released by the sect showing Shekau calling the bluff of the US, Britain and France and claiming that nobody could stop the group was a smokescreen to paint the picture that he was still alive and in control.

Indeed, the spectre of hopelessness was initially discarded as news which first filtered out of the sect’s camp suggested that Shekau could actually survive.

To buttress that air of invincibility, the publicized recording had to be released to members of the public.

Sunday Vanguard was told that “if the sect members had had access to modern medical facilities, Shekau may have survived. But the leadership of Boko Haram was also sure that the military was all out to get Shekau and, therefore, could not risk even a disguised Shekau being taken to an hospital”, a source disclosed.

“In fact as I am talking to you now, we have it on good authority that a close confidant of his (Shekau) who was mandated to follow him and ensure he received proper treatment has been killed by members of the group for allowing the information of his death to get out”, the source said.

From left: Wife of Ekiti State Governor, Erelu Bisi Fayemi; Deputy Governor, Prof. Modupe Adelabu; representative of GOC, 81 Division, Nigerian Army, Capt. Ande Danbeki; son of the deceased, Mr. Donald Fajuyi; his wife, Lanre; Governor Kayode Fayemi; and representative of the Chief of Army Staff, Capt. Aduku Saheed, during the funeral mass for the late Mrs. Eunice Fajuyi (wife of late Governor of old Western Region, Col. Adekunle Fajuyi), in Ado-Ekiti, yesterday.

Aside killing the confidant (aide), Sunday Vanguard was made to understand that there was an intelligence report indicating that his followers hurriedly buried his remains, in an attempt to hide the death and paint a picture of invincibility around him so that they would continue to use it to hoodwink sect members.

Sources said the death of Shekau and the likely response of Boko Haram who may be mobilising to hit back (revenge) through bombings, kidnapping and killing of innocent citizens played a role in the decision of the Federal

Government to approve the establishment of a new army division for the North-East, 7 Division, with headquarters in Maiduguri.

Sustained attacks Meanwhile, sustained attacks in some parts of the North-East, the latest of which was the massacre of 44 persons in a village in Borno State, on Friday, believed to have been carried out by Boko H a r a m , lent credence to the claim that

Chief Servant of Niger State, Dr Mu'azu Babangida Aliyu, (left), presenting certificate to the newly elected president of National Youth Council of Nigeria, Alhaji Abdullahi AbdulMajeed, who paid him a courtesy call at his residence, shortly after conducting the national election, while the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Youth and Job Creation, Ms Josephine Washima, looks on.

a new leader may be in command of the sect.

Shekau’s deputy in the Boko Haram hierachy, Momodu Bama, was reportedly killed by the Joint Task Force, during an encounter with troops around the Bama corridor on August 4.

Director of Defence Information, Brigadier General Chris Olukolade, in a statement announcing the killing, penultimate week, said Bama had been leading attacks against troops and civilians in the c o m m u n i t i e s of Yobe and Adamawa states.

According to him, Momodu, said to be a specialist in manning

anti-aircraft guns, was known to be vicious and heartless with a penchant for personally executing his victims.

Bama was among the most wanted terrorists with a N25million bounty placed on his head.

The defence spokesman said others that died in the operation i n c l u d e Bama’s father, Alhaji Abatcha Flatari, who was also said to be one of the spiritual leaders of the Islamist group.

17 other insurgents reportedly lost their lives in the encounter, while 24 were arrested.

North in dilemma over 2015 •2 northern presidential candidates likely

BY SONI DANIEL

T

HERE is uneasy calm among northern political

leaders following the registration of the Peoples Democratic Movement, PDM, barely two weeks after the historic birth of the All Progressive Congress, APC. Sunday Vanguard learnt that the emergence of the PDM, last week, has significantly altered the calculations of the North, which had hoped to use the APC platform to present a major challenger to President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015.

SOLUTION

A leading APC chieftain, who pleaded anonymity, said, Abuja, yesterday, that the North was confused over what to do with the registration of PDM. The politician, a member of the inner caucus of the APC and hails from one of the northern states, said that the North was suspicious that some politicians who did not wish them well were behind the sudden registration of PDM, which they see as an extension of the PDP, to counter the APC. The APC big wig confirmed that the North had zeroed-in on his party to upstage Jonathan in 2015 but was jolted by the emergence of PDM. The APC top shot described the promoters of the PDM as enemies of the North, who were used to register the party in order to split the votes of the region in 2015.

According to the politician, there was a tacit agreement among ‘aggrieved and sidelined members of the PDP’ that they would all fuse to form a party that would displace the PDP at the centre.

The former lawmaker said, “From our findings, there are some northern elements who are working hard to ensure that the region does not get to the Presidency in 2015; their own calculation is that if they don’t, and can’t get the Presidency, no one should get.

“Theirs is not the interest of the region but their personal interest and concerns. Before the APC was registered, we had some working relationshipwith those who are aggrieved and have been sidelined by the PDP with the intention of forming a broad-based party to unseat the

PDP in 2015.

“But from what we are seeing, with the registration of the PDM, last week, a different scenario is unfolding because the two parties are likely to field two northern candidates thereby splitting the northern votes and enhancing Jonathan’s electoral fortunes.

“The implication is that the votes of the North would be divided along the line and this is what we are trying to avoid by reaching out to the PDM in order for both parties to have a working relationship that will throw up a common presidential candidate in 2015.”

In the meantime, Second Republic lawmaker and National Coordinator of the Coalition of Northern Politicians, Academics, Professionals and Businessmen, Dr. Junaid Mohammed,

yesterday, expressed concern over the emergence of the two parties, which he said left the North nowhere.

According to Mohammed, the people of the area were simply watching the two parties-APC and PDM- as none of them has made its position clear on the quest by the North to claim the Presidency in 2015”.

Mohammed added, “It is too early to assess PDM now because its birth leaves the North nowhere considering the fact that it has not declared its intention relating to North’s quest to reclaim the Presidency in 2015”.

But PDM’s Director of Communication and Strategy, Alaba Yusuf, made it clear, yesterday, that the party did not intend to align with any other party, stressing that PDM had what it takes to win the 2015 presidential election.

Anambra 2014: Confusion as two PDP candidates emerge

BY CHARLES KUMOLU

S

ENATOR Andy Uba yesterday emerged the winner of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, gubernatorial primary election just as another candidate was set to emerge from another primary convened by a faction of the party recognised by the party ’s leadership.

Analysts said this portend confusion in the PDP as two members were set to lay claim to the candidacy of the party.

Uba contested alongside Ambassador Jerry Ugokwe, Chief Ugochukwu Okeke and Chief

Emma Anosike.

He pledged, after clinching the ‘ticket’ for the November gubernatorial poll, to ensure that the PDP emerged victorious in the election.

At the time of filing this report, the faction of the party recognised by the PDP leadership was about to commence voting.

No fewer than 15,000 delegates from the 326 wards in the state were expected to participate in the exercise. The primary by the Kenneth Emeakayi faction attracted a large number of party faithful against Uba’s group which had few people in attendance.

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S UNDAY VANGUARD, VANGUARD , A UGUST 25, 25 , 2013, 2013 , PAGE 7 AUGUST SUNDAY

Managing Director, Guinness Nigeria, Mr. Seni Adetu (left) presenting the key of a 6ton Canter truck to Guinness Nigeria Best Overall Distributor (National) and Managing Director of Edinho Nig. Ltd (Abuja), Chief Edmond Okafor during Guinness Nigeria's Distributors Conference tagged 'Celebrating Great Partnerships ' held at Darlington Hall, Ilupeju, Lagos on Friday

From right: The Aviation Minister, Princess Stella Odua, the official first flight landing ceremony at Akanu Ibam International Airport Enugu. Gov Peter Obi of Anambra State, Finance Minster, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala and Minister of Power Chinedu Nebo. PHOTO: BY HILL EZEUGWU

Tukur meets S-west PDP leaders to resolve crisis

BY DAPO AKINREFON

T

O resolve the linger ing crisis in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the South-west, the National Chairman of the party, Alhaji Bamangar Tukur, yesterday, met with members of the party in Lagos State.“Speaking with journalists on arrival at the Concord wing of the Murtala Mohammed Airport, Tukur, who was received by PDP stalwarts, led by the acting National Vice Chairman, Southwest, Chief Deji Doherty; Prince Buruji Kashimu and other party leaders, said he was in the state on a social visit.“Tukur said: "My mission is social; to meet my family the PDP."“Debunking the claim of fighting within the South-west chapter of

the party, he said what was happening is common with politics.“He noted that the situation in the party in the zone was not unusual, adding that "it is not possible for every member of a party to have the same view on

issues."“Tukur's visit, it was gathered, was a peace mission, aimed at putting the South-west PDP house in order.“The PDP chairman said it was important for all the divergent views to be harnessed for the victo-

ry of the party. He also expressed high hopes that very soon the PDP would hold its congress in the South-west.“While he assured the people that the PDP had to put the congress was put on hold in compliance with

Power supply improves soon — NERC •JODER condemns sector neglect

BY OLAYINKA AJAYI

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IGE RIANS have been asked to support the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, in its efforts to improve the power sector.

Speaking during a joint workshop organised by Journalists for Democratic Rights (JODER) and the Nigerian Human Rights Community (NHCR) in Lagos at the weekend, Dr. Sam Amadi, the Chairman

of NERC, said the support of Nigerians and civil society organisations was crucial to helping the sector . Amadi however stated that lack of investment in the sector by the Federal Government was the major reason the sector had not yielded the desired result. According to him, huge corruption also hindered the sector since 2000.

JODER condemned the way the sector had been left for long without being

attended to.

The chairman of NERC assured Nigerians that the challenges faced by PHCN will soon be a thing of the past, as his commission had given licenses to companies that understand the major challenge facing Nigeria in the sector to generate power.

Also reacting to the increased service charge by PHCN from N500 to N750, he stated that what should bother Nigerians is

ANAMBRA 2014: How PDP can get it right — Obiogbolu

BY LEKAN BILESANMI

A

PDP governorship aspirant in Anambra

State, Dr Alex Obiogbolu, has commended the people of the state for their support and acceptance of his aspiration, explaining that his party will get it right at the November polls only if the process of electing its candidate is credible.

Obiogbolu, who spoke

a court order, he said, "You wait and see. There will soon be congress in PDP, that I can assure you; very soon. It is democracy. We obeyed the court. After, we will then hold the congress.”

in Awka yesterday, singled out the traditional rulers, the presidents of town union, particularly those from Anambra North, for their support which, he said, dates back to 2007 when he first indicated his interest in the state’s plum job.

He said the support has become a source of inspiration for him to keep dreaming of the wonderful things he will do for the state if he makes it to

Awka Government House.

He was also full of praises for the civil socities, the clergy and Ohaneze for standing behind him even as he gave a thumb up for the youths and groups like Forum 99 for their enthusiasm towards his guber intention.

He also expressed his commitment and unalloyed support for the process initiated by the PDP

toward electing a credible candidate to fly the party’s flag in the election.

Obiogbolu however declared that the PDP must get it right now to avoid being in opposition for the next eight years He called for a secret voting and unteleguided process for credibility sake and to avoid casting as person on the process which will lead to failure

of the party at the polls.

effectiveness of the service not the charges.

His words: “Although the service charge ordinarily looks much, it is nothing compared to the N180,000 compulsory service charge industrialists pay monthly.

What I think we should bother ourselves with now is how effective is the service going to be soon.”

B

ARELY 48 hours after the Edo State Police Command paraded 47 suspected kidnappers, the command, on Friday, lost four officers during an attempt to save the human rights lawyer, Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN), from suspected kidnappers.

Though the suspected

kidnappers succeeded in taking away their victim, Ozekhome, and his driver during a gun duel, there were indications that the police were closing in on the suspected kidnappers.

The state Edo Commissioner of Police, Foluso Adebanjo, and his men were said to be combing the ‘Evil Forest’ and other suspicious hideouts in search of the

victim..

The Inspector General of Police, Muhammed Abubakar, has directed the Commissioner of Police in the state to fish out the suspects. It was learnt that the DPO who led the group was receiving treatment at an undisclosed hospital. An eye witness account said that the police officers battled the suspected kidnappers but were

subdued due to the abductors’ superior firepower.

Narrating the incident, Adebanjo said: “Operatives of the command, led by DPO Ehor Division, responded swiftly to a distress call at about 3:30pm that an unspecified number of armed men had blocked the Benin-Auchi Road by Ehor axis. However, the

N

IGERIANS have been advised to start shopping for credible leaders that will govern local, state and federal governments come 2015 and beyond. This was made known by the national president of National Campaign for Credible leadership, NCCL, Hon. Anthony Onoharigho, during his maiden interactive session in Abuja.

According to the national president of the group, “ it is our duty that we task and encourage ourselves for we and the entire Nigerians to move and get credible leaders that will govern the country in 2015 and beyond.”

Aderemi at 70

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RINCE Adewale

Aderemi clocks 70 on Wednesday. Aderemi, an old boy of Christ’s School, Ado-Ekiti (1957-61 set ), is a chartered accountant and a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria. He was the Publisher of Business and Financial Analyst magazine in the 1970s

through 2000. He is currently the Preacher and General Overseer of Jesus 0live Branch Ministry, IleIfe. A Justice of the Peace, Aderemi is a son of His Royal Majesty, Sir Adesoji Tadeniawo Aderemi (190080), the Ooni of Ife ( 193080) and first African Governor of former Western Region (1960-62).

Group hails Tilije’s move to APC

A

group, Crusade for Democracy and Good Governance, CDGG, at the weekend, hailed the alleged decamping of Mr Fidelix Tilije, running mate to Chief Great Ogboru of the Democratic Peoples’ Party, DPP, in the 2011 polls, and other members of the party in Delta State to the All Progressive Congress, APC.

Police launch manhunt for Ozekhome’s kidnappers, lament killing of four officers

BY SIMON EBEGBULEM

2015: ‘Let’s start shopping for credible leadership’

hoodlums ambushed the patrol vehicle and opened fire on them, prompting an exchange of fire.

“At the end of the gun duel, the hoodlums escaped with bullet wounds but not without their victim who was later identified upon search on his abandoned vehicle as Chief Ozekhome (SAN) and his driver ”.

National Publicity Secretary of the group, Chief Ejiro Okparerume, told newsmen in Abuja that members of the group received the news of the decamping of Tilije and some DPP members in Delta State and National Assembly to APC with great excitement.

According to him, the massive decamping of the DPP members was a confirmation of Chief Frank Kokori who was recently quoted as saying that DPP was dead and buried.

He said: “I want to tell you that we in our group are elated over the dumping of DPP by the running mate to Chief Ogboru, all DPP members in the Delta State House of Assembly including Hon Keston Okoro, Hon Akpodiete Edoja Rufus and Hon Chief Austine Ogbaburhon of the House of Representatives; this is a welcome development to the newly registered APC.”

P AGE 8 — SUNDAY VANGUARD, VANGUARD, A UGUST 25, 25 , 2013 3 AUGUST PAGE

SUNDAY Vanguard, AUGUST 25, 2013, PAGE 9

All letters bearing writers' names and full addresses should be typed and forwarded to: The Editor, Sunday Vanguard, Kirikiri Canal, P. M. B. 1007, Apapa, Lagos. E-mail: sunvanguardmail@yahoo.com

That massacre in Borno mosque Dear Sir,

B

ARLEY a few days after the celebration of Idel Fitre, terrorists suspected to be members of Boko Haram sect opened fire on a mosque in Borno State, killing about fifty people, and wounded many, as (thirty people). This kind of incident has happened many times in the recent past. Today it is Borno, yesterday it was Yobe, next day Kano, other days Kaduna. With these shootings and bombings of innocent Nigerians, we now want to know what assurances of safety do you give the relatives and friends of those being murdered, that there wouldn’t be a repeat of such incidents.

A chart is being prepared to list all

the places where such attacks took place and the cities and states. What is the reason for all this. Is it because our men and women in uniform are not adequately trained in surveillance tasks. Is it because the security vote is not enough to enable them combat crime? It is because of lack of equipment and training?

What do we do with our oil money – the trillions, if government cannot provide or guarantee security of life and property? In Nigeria we exist side by side with terrorists, kidnappers but we are unable to discover their activities in advance.

During the Obasanjo presidency, he attempted to involve foreigners in modern training of our men in uniform.

Unfortunately the then minister of defence, Lt. Gen. Victor Malu, former

The insincerity and deceitfulness of our ruling class Dear Sir,

O

UR present crop of ruling class took us for a ride when it stated that the low tariff paid on electricity, will not attract foreign investors to invest in PHCN when it is privatized.

But it is quite ironic and sad that the same cabal who have bought over all our privatized companies with their business partners and who are never satiated in accumulating wealth for their generations yet unborn, have now bought over the assets of PHCN

and have in the process increased its tariff to N14.85 per unit to milk us dry, while they are smiling to the banks with huge profits!

It should be noted that this group of greedy Nigerians who own oil blocs that belong to all of us, are hell-bent in buying up our remaining common patrimony. Shame on them!

Ifeka Okonkwo Plot 44, Ahocol Housing Estate, Phase II GRA, Awka.

Ecomog Field Commander opposed it, what is happening today? Today, president Obasanjo is vindicated. We point accusing fingers to defeated politicians, disappointed office seekers, wealthy eccentrics and political murderers. These respectable figures sometimes join forces with persons of considerably lesser repute.

Rarely in this country has the impulse to destroy dominated our national discourse the way it has during the past few years, political adversaries have sometimes indulged in vicious attacks or assaults on each other. We should have an investigation of why we didn’t respond strongly to previous acts of terror. In the early attacks, the president promised a strong and forceful response but those promises were never followed by effective action. We need to renew our determination to restore normalcy in that region.

With due respect to our men and women in uniform, I wish to opine that the national security challenges is one that is global in scope and encompasses not just the Boko Haram attacks here in Nigeria but also there are serious threats throughout the world-in Indonesia, Syria, North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan in Northern Island London etc. it is a new kind of military mission, our challenge is much more pervasive than it would be if we are just facing one enemy in one place.

We should worry about our ports bridges, railways and other utilities.

During the life time of Osama Bin Ladin, he mentioned Nigeria as one of the countries to be attacked by Al Quaeda. He was specific on Kano.

That was after the bombing of Sept. 11 of World Trade Centre in New York.

What did the authorities do about the warning?

Probably nothing.

C.C. Political Commentator

Okereke

Must it be Anambra State?

Dear Sir,

C

OME November, INEC will be conducting the gubernatorial election to fill in the vacancy Mr Peter Obi will be leaving at the completion of his tenure. For over a decade now Anambra has been in the news for one form of political summersault or another.

At first, it was Dr Mbadinuju who took over in 1999. He fought it out with his godfather Mr Emeka Offor. It came to the climax when he employed the BAKASSI BOYS to fight the criminals at Onitsha and NNEWI. The BAKASSI BOYS became controversial to the extent that even the home movies industry made fortune out of it as almost every child dragged their parents, to buy the ISSAKABA BOYS home movies.

At 2003 general elections, Dr Chris Ngige came from nowhere to the chagrin of everybody but Mr Obi finally came in, in 2006 with the help of the judiciary. This was to reclaim his stolen mandate from Ngige. Not quit long after, Mr Obi discovered that politics is different from financial institutions where he came from. Mr Obi was impeached within six months of assumption of office. It took the intervention of the judiciary again to bring him back.

At 2007, it became the turn of Dr Andy Uba. He only stayed in the office for just seventeen days before Obi later emerged to continue or to complete his tenure.

One big question is, what lessons have we, the Anambrains learnt from all these political upheavals. Why must our names be in the news for negative reports With the election around the corner let us choose wisely and say no to money politics as it is our major problem.

Chikelue F. Chinyeaka, writes in from Enugwu Agidi, Anambra State

PAGE 10 — SUNDAY Vanguard, AUGUST 25, 2013

Eight years of “Madam President”: Issue for 2015 (1)

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RESIDENT Jonath an certainly did not wish this to happen. But, whether the country will be willing to stomach four more years of Mrs Patience Jonathan, or not, has suddenly become a campaign issue even before the struggle for Aso Rock 2015 starts.

However, before going into the details, permit me to bring the issue into historical, global and political perspective – if not for anything else but because of those who already concluded that Dele Sobowale hates Jonathan.

Our President and his wife are treading a path which others have trodden with different results.

For those who read the Bible, the first major example of a wife’s intervention in statecraft involved Queen Esther who violated established protocol to see the King and obtain a favourable decision for her people. The last century, the 20th century, recorded at least three such interventions by “Madam Presidents”. One ended well; two others did not. Perhaps,

that brief summary of history should permit me to issue Dele Sobowale’s First Law for Presidents or Prime Ministers – “Keep your wife or husband out of it as much as possible; the odds that they will do you any good are long; very long”.

Mary Antoinette uttered those fatal words when the French masses were protesting the unaffordable price of bread – which was their favourite meal. Uncaring Marie announced that they should go and eat cake – which was, and still is, more expensive than bread. A revolution occurred. She and her husband King Louis the 16th, 1764-1793, were dethroned and beheaded. It was a bloody revolution.

What Marie had in common with most wives, who publicly intervened disastrously in their husbands political lives, was lowbreeding. They were born and raised “shoe-less” – to use a word with which Nigerians are by now familiar. And, they behaved as if they wanted to rub everybody’s face in the dirt from which they sprang.

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he outstanding exam ple of wifely intervention ending with everybody sleeping peacefully in their beds belongs to Eleanor Roosevelt, 1884-1962, wife of American President Franklin D Roosevelt, 1882-1945. She became

Nigerian lawmakers are the highest paid in the world Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks. ~Doug Larson

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ICE job if you can get it. No wonder the Nigerian Lawmaker fights tooth and nail to stay on the gravy train.

There are 109 Senators and 360 members of the House of Representatives so in terms of payment by result, the Nigerian lawmakers does not deserve such high pay and surely does not perform their duties to warrant such hyper inflated pay. In America, a Senator earns 174,000 US dollars and in the UK, a Member of parliament about 64,000 pounds sterling a year. So what do our lawmakers do for this generous amount? can someone please tell me why they deserve this enormous amount of money? It is about time Nigerians demand better service and improvement for Nigeria and Nigerians.

No one deserves that much money while ordi-

nary people are scavenging to make ends meet. Nigeria has got multitude of deprivation; high infant mortality rate, high maternal mortality rate, malnutrition,inadequate health care and transportation and lack of electricity outage,high crime rates, high number of young people not in education,employment or in training. So why can’t this excesses go to improve the lives of Nigerians. So instead,Nigerians lawmakers are paid for below par performance and disregard to the electorates that they are meant to represent. I feel that ordinary Nigerians have been severely short changed, cheated and insulted by these so called honourable people.

According to Professor Itse Sagay, he stated that the Nigerian lawmakers at the lower and upper chambers of the National Assembly are the highest paid legislators in the world. A senator in Nigeria earns 240 million naira (about 1.7 million US dollars) in sal-

more assertive in public policy decisions as her husband’s health deteriorated. But, she was active right from the start.

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art of the success of Eleanor Roosevelt can be attributed to the fact that she was born into the American elite families who have always been close to

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“Most men are fighting for their lives in whatever they are doing; and a wife can only be with them or against them”. (VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS p 272).

“Let them eat cake”. Queen Marie-Antoinette. 17551793.

sive shoes – which she was never tired of showing to visitors.

Not bad for someone who grew up shoeless in a shack – until the, mostly hungry, people got sick and tired of the show and threw out President Marcos and seized the collection of shoes. At least, her life was spared.

The autocratic late President of Rumania and his wife, who also publicly intervened in political affairs, were not so lucky. When the uprising came, both husband and wife were dragged out of the “Palace”, and after being murdered, had their corpses dragged all over the capital by the masses they previously treated with disdain.

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can go back in history and provide several

They were born and raised “shoe-less” – to use a word with which Nigerians are by now familiar. And, they behaved as if they wanted to rub everybody’s face in the dirt from which they sprang

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the seat of power. So, unlike those tasting power and wealth for the first time in their lives, she had no reason to flaunt it. Her interventions were therefore well researched and widely accepted; she bent over backwards to be diplomatic even when issuing orders to those who could not possibly refuse to obey h e r .

Imelda Marcos of Philippine thought that being wife of a dictator was her “armour against fate”. She went about be-decked in diamond and gold chains and rings. Her major claim to fame consisted in her collection of 1,000 expen-

dozen examples from ancient times till today. A bigger tally of examples will still lead to the same conclusion – it is perilous business for a political leader to get his/her spouse involved in governance. One head on the chopping block is enough; why two? Intervention, which is inevitable,mis better be left for the bedroom – of course, without a microphone planted by foes…..

ASUU AGAIN? ARE NIGERIAN STUDENTS TAUGHT

BY DULLARDS? — 1 “History does not repeat itself; man does”, Barbara Tuchman, US Historian, expert on 13th and 14th

aries and allowances and a member of the House of Representatives earns 204 million naira (about 1.45million US dollars) per annum. It definitely rubs insult to injury for the average Civil servant who earns about 46 to 120 US dollars per month.

RMAFC disputes the al-

nald Reagan

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I feel that ordinary Nigerians have been severely short changed, cheated and insulted by these so called honourable people.

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lowances that the lawmakers earn as misleading and describes the allowances as befitting the political and public office holders; such as the Nigerian Senator Remuneration package comes to 1,505% of basic salary, and the other 225% for furniture .So like I said,fine job if you can get.

Response to: A Time Will Come…?

Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ro-

I will say this. We are being judged as a nation. As Denrele Animasaun said, we like to show our allegiances to religion yet we have lost our humanity. The elite use the ethnic divisions for their own benefit yet we are too blind to see it. Only now are we beginning to wake up to this fact.

It is funny that Obasanjo talks of his former Vice President and former governor of Bayelsa in this manner yet he picked Abubakar twice in return for campaign money and forced Goodluck Jonathan onto the late President Yar ’Adua, a Goodluck Jonathan who later pardoned and forgave his former boss Alamieyeseigha. Those who are identify themselves as Ijaw who will still support Jonathan have themselves to blame if by 2019 their quality of life has not improved. They will blame the Northern elites of course or someone else other than themselves.

This tribal politics has retarded our nation and many people know this. I have talked with them. However, many seem to be either on two track minds, shortsighted, or cowardly that they will return to tribal politics the next day. I will say this again, we are being judged by God now. He will not save those who do not attempt to save themselves.

- Chukwuka Okoroafor

Centuries Europe.

Among the men who repeat themselves, we can now indisputably add ASUU members. And, it is difficult to believe some of them are historians!!! God help us!! I am not a certified historian; I learnt all my “history ” in the School of Hard Knocks – which is another synonym for EXPERIENCE. At Unijankara, our only mandatory course is HISTORY; because if you don’t know where you are coming from, you are likely to end up where you don’t want to be – like ASUU; now all tied up in their under garments. To understand how pathetic these ASUU guys are, permit me to bring you in two installments articles which appeared on this page years ago predicting the current impasse. Enjoy it; if you have no kid in one of the universities involved. And don’t forget to send me a bottle of GULDER for accurate prediction once again.

A N ASUU SUU GOES GO S ON STRIKE AGAIN? AGAIN? “Insanity has been described as doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result”.

A n o n y m o u s .

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f there are people not surprised that ASUU is back on strike, they are the faculty and students of UniJankara – Seat of Street Wisdom. We don’t blow grammar like the Professors of ASUU do, but we know when we are dealing with con-men – even if they are called Presidents and Vice-Presidents. Now that ASUU is again back on strike, let me remind our readers of the article published on these pages in June this year under the title: ROPE A DOPE –ASUU. Enjoy yourself and send us a bottle of beer for accura-

Dear Denrele, Your above captioned article refers.

It’s acceptable that the Columnist’s job is to point out the flaws, in order to elicit appropriate response.

But our peculiar situation demands that it is even more helpful for possible solutions to be proffered, especially by those of you in the diaspora, who see how things are made to work.

So next time you ask these many questions, please try give at least one good answer. “A time will come” when someone might use it to better our country. Have a fine day. Regards, -Alh Musah Ali My response: Dear Ali, Thank you for your email.

A time will come... was very self indulgent and it was my way of exorcising the pain and frustration within me!

In a country of so many talented and intelligent people you would think the solution will and can come from within. Outside looking in as diasporas, the solutions are oblivious; honesty, transparency, compassion and selflessness. All these characteristics are the bedrock of any civil society, you would expect that majority of people already have it.

We as Nigerians truthfully lack most of these qualities so, about time we developed a conscience and

cy of prediction. Otherwise, advise ASUU to hire us as consultants next time they negotiate with Jonathan and Co. Right now these ASUU guys are pathetic!!

To be continued…..

O KO N J O - I W E A A’’ S FA LA FA L L A C Y O N ASUU DEBT “Government cannot pay the N92b owed to ASUU..”, Finance Minister.

That was the lead story for several newspapers last week and it portends the disaster that will befall university students and their parents from now until the matter is resolved.

Unfortunately, the Minister for Finance and Coordinating Minister for economics had just made the matter worse by making a declaration which is totally fallacious. I don’t know if Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala took an elective course in SEMANTICS at Harvard, but I am sure she remembers from Economics 101 that the study of economics is about the allocation of scarce resources. A government which parades forty-four Ministers, compared with 15 for the USA and China had already allocated the resources available to it in a way that should make reasonable people shake their heads.

There is a distinct difference between “can’t pay and won’t pay ”.

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he Federal gover n ment can pay; but because of wasteful spending and endemic corruption it won’t. By the way, whose money is Madam President using to cause traffic holdups nationwide? Which other wife of a President under the sky does that tod a y ? i l b l m Viisit:www w.Delesobowale.com . elesobowale.com

work collectively towards building a better future.

So my piece was to prick our collective conscience and judging by the number of mails I have received, it got people to think collectively that the answer lies within all of us.

Regards, Denrele Animasaun We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. ~Aesop Whatever next? Ebenega Okorodudu , has requested that state and federal governments immortalise late Pius Akpor Ewherido. And he also would like the speedy release of former Governor of the State, Chief James Ibori, from London prison.

Where do you begin with such people, even the pope cannot beatify any one unless there has been evidence of sustained good deeds and miracles. So unless the state and the federal government have become the Vatican then, I am afraid that there is a case of delusion of grandeur going on. Certainly the sudden death of Ewherido in some quarters, must have evoked so much emotions but I think common sense should prevail and accept that death is a leveller. As for Ibori? The good doctor is requesting that Ibori should be pardoned; he argued that the former governor was instrumental in the improvement of his state.

SUNDAY Vanguard, AUGUST 25, 2013, PAGE 11

2015: Who says Nigeria cannot break? well. But because wishes are hardly coterminous with reality, it appears illadvisable to rely on wishes. Again, those who think prayers would do the magic have to bear in mind the common saying that ‘heaven helps those who help themselves. In other words, prayers alone may not be sufficient especially if some of our compatriots as usual, choose to be reckless

always put our country through constant threat of dismemberment.

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lthough President Jonathan has said several times that it is premature and distractive to get involved in electioneering until next year, the nation is already broken into 2 irreconcilable groupings concerning his role in 2015 elections. And whereas the

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few years back, the Americans were re ported to have predicted that Nigeria may not survive a likely turmoil in 2015. The date obviously gives a political undertone to the problem considering that it coincides with when our next general elections are due. The significance of the prediction does not lie in the maker as those who perceive America as omniscience would want the nation to believe. After all, France and indeed some of our own prophets/soothsayers were reported to have also seen ‘visions’ which corroborated the alarm.

The truth is that anyone who has followed the history of Nigerian elections can easily have such expectations. In the last one week however, some rather soothing remarks on the subject have been credited to our President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan and 2 former Heads of State-General Yakubu Gowon and former President Ibrahim Babangida (IBB).

To the positive views of these statesmen, I would love to say a loud Amen and proceed to wish our nation

For how long will our nation survive, when with little or no work, a tiny elite group appropriates so much to itself while an exceedingly large segment of the population is left prostrate?

about how they handle our numerous centrifugal forces. For instance, we are all aware that the fabric of solidarity which binds our heterogeneous society together is not only fragile but tends to stretch to breaking point at the slightest provocation. Yet, our people, especially the political class,

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first group which is a large portion of the south appears ready to die if the President is not re-elected, the second group-another large portion of the North seems ready to bring the world to an end if power does not shift to the North in 2015.

Unfortunately, the show down is virtually inevitable

PhD, Department of Philosophy, University of Lagos,

The new Neanderthals (1) others have demonstrated convincingly that "The bitter truth about the Igbo" is a perfection of ethnic rottenness.

What I intend to do in the following paragraphs is to use the negative platform generated by the deportation saga to address two of the most difficult obstacles in the evolution of Nigeria towards a great nation, namely, opportunistic ethnic irredentism and religious fanaticism. But before we go into that, it must be clearly stated that the action of Lagos state government in deporting Nigerians to their states of origin is a paradigm manifestation of the point made poignantly by Chinua Achebe thirty years ago that our problem is, fundamentally, bad leadership.

Of course, Lagos, like every megacity in the world, harbours a large number of street urchins and miscreants.

In more civilised countries where people treat one another as human beings, the leaders work extra hard to take care of the poor by putting in place various welfare programmes for that purpose. In Nigeria, things work differently. In the first place, Nigerians are yet to understand that human beings, irrespective of socio-economic status, are bearers of unique value that deserve respect and

dignity. Moreover, Nigerian leaders believe that "some animals (themselves) are more equal than others," simply because they have easy access to a lot of money and power. For our politicians the downtrodden are inconsequential (almost human) unless during election time when their votes would be needed for re-election. In the specific case we

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HE ill-advised ac tion of Lagos state government with respect to the deportation from the state of some destitute of Igbo extraction sometime ago has once again brought to the front seat of public consciousness one of the gaping fault lines in the geopolitical contraption called Nigeria - pernicious ethnicity.

While some commentators support the action on the ground that Governor B.R. Fashola has a duty to rid Lagos of "undesirable elements irrespective of ethnic affiliation," an overwhelming majority of Nigerians, correctly in my view, condemn it as unconstitutional, inhuman and a futile attempt to tackle a social problem using discredited military tactics.

Thus far, the silliest reaction is the essay by Femi Fani-Kayode, entitled, "The bitter truth about the Igbo," published in the August 11 edition of Sunday Vanguard. That article drips with so many lies, deliberate misinformation, distortion of facts and warped logic that I cannot help but marvel at the almost infinite capacity of humans for self-deception. I will not dignify Fani-Kayode's smelly, abecedarian bunkum with a response.

In any case my friend Obi Nwakanma, Nelson Ako Okoli, Kelechi Jeff Eme and

because of the lucrative nature of politics and the winner-takes-all political system that we run. For how long will our nation survive, when with little or no work, a tiny elite group appropriates so much to itself while an exceedingly large segment of the population is left prostrate?

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he other day, one po litical analyst made a rather uncharitable classification of the nation. He said everyone knows what it takes to become a judge, a medical doctor, a professor and indeed any professional practitioner. The politician on the other hand, gets to fame, according to the analysis, through several question channels such as illiteracy, fake certificates, thuggery and all forms of duplicity. The question as to which of the two groups is better recognised and remunerated in Nigeria for its contribution to national development does not arise because the politicians themselves do not quite know how much they earn. They just expropriate. Why will politics not be a do or die game and who says Nigeria cannot break on account of politics?

The powerful Nigerian political class can in earnest do and undo. If the group or even just one of them organizes a function in our collectively owned Abuja these days, the only roads that would not be shut on the day by our eyeservice law enforcement

planning in handling the complex problems of governance.

If government officials who authorised the eviction of some Nigerians from Lagos painstakingly considered the matter in all its ramifications, they would have realised the futility of such superficial approach to a serious social problem and focused their minds on more humane and resultoriented poverty alleviation programmes. It must be remarked that the core issue arising from the deportation saga transcends ethnicity, although that in itself is a major concern considering the damage fanatical ethnicity has been causing the country, particularly

For our politicians the downtrodden are inconsequential (almost human) unless during election time when their votes would be needed for re-election

are discussing, Fashola, just like other state governors, has a moral obligation to take care of Nigerian resident in his state, especially the poor, r the disabled and the unemployed. Therefore, it is not surprising that different state governments, instead of investing resources on welfare programmes for the poor consider it appropriate and convenient to deport them to their states of origin. This shows the recurrent lack of imagination, creativity and compassion in our leadership. Nigerian leaders prefer superficial, touch-and-go tactics to deep thinking and strategic

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since the pogroms against the Igbo living in Northern Nigeria which precipitated the Biafran war.

As already indicated, the nauseating deportation raises the question of the nature of Nigeria's federation and of citizens' rights vis-a-vis the overbearing powers of political office holders. Also of interest is the relation between the leaders and the citizens, the overriding philosophy of leadership that guide policy formulation and implementation, and the imperative of developing awareness among political office holders that power ulti-

agents would be the few leading straight to the venue of the event. No one works or goes anywhere that day. How can the Nigerian bureaucracy be efficient or effective when the system of recruitment has been gravely corrupted?

Interestingly, we hear only about the scandalous sale of job placements. The other condemnable dimension of the numerous deficient recruits that are imposed on institutions by the powerful are taken as the entitlement of the latter. Indeed, the same powerful occasionally sets up panels to probe only the jobs that are sold. No one can question the political class as public policies weaken only the powerless

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or instance, in order to make the apprehension of criminals easy, persons who own factory fitted ‘tokunbo’ tinted glasses are made to register their cars officially with the police supposedly at no cost. The people and the authorities are however aware that the powerless pay no less than N25, 000 per vehicle at the designated centres for the assignment. As part of transforming Nigeria, the Immigration Service now officially renews an international passport at the same cost of acquiring a new one. It is probably for the same reason that the Federal Road Safety Commission has decreed that fresh and increased expenditures have to be borne for the procurement of newly

mately belongs to the people. This means that Nigerians must continue to have serious conversations about the meaning of Nigeria and what it means to be a Nigerian. Such debates necessarily involve clear articulation of the rights, duties and obligations of the citizens to their leaders and vice versa.

Having said that, let us look a bit more closely at ethnicity as a dangerous obsolete approach for negotiating the complexities of diversity in a modern state.

As every secondary school student of Nigerian history knows, the creation of modern Nigeria by British imperialists brought together people of diverse ethnic nationalities who had to work together to construct a unified country.

Now, although since independence successive governments have made concerted efforts to eradicate pernicious ethnic irredentism, the problem has persisted because, as paradoxical as it might sound at first sight, ethnicity is entrenched in the basic laws governing the country. Take for instance the 1999 Constitution cloned from the 1979 version. Section 14 (3) stipulates that the composition and conduct of the government of the federation should be such as to avoid the predominance of persons from a few states or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups. Yet, in section 15, it prohibits discrimination based on place of origin, sex, religion, status, ethnic or linguistic association or ties. Clearly, y the two provisions just cited conflict with each other.

Supposing there is a job opening, and in order to act in conformity with the fed-

designed vehicle plate numbers. n major cities, land lords are passing to their tenants, increases occasioned by ground rent, tenement rate, facility fee and water rate to mention a few. In Abuja, parking fees by different collecting agencies are being imposed on the people although there are no parks. Based on these issues, which could obviously weaken the weak beyond weakness, it can be argued that Nigeria may not break physically but in the sub consciousness of the weak, the break happened mentally years ago. To the privileged class however, these are non-issues because they happen elsewhere and are reportedly temporary sacrifices for development.

Last month, I was at a workshop where some of the speakers blamed the nation’s woes on the media.

According to them, journalists as patriots ought to be engaged in advocacy journalism by projecting their country only in good light.

During the question and answer session, the key note speaker declined to respond to my question as to what he considered the best way for a journalist to report a public event like the process arranged by our 36 governors to elect a chairman for the Nigerian Governors Forum. He just said that was politics. I understood him to mean that whether Nigeria would survive over time depends on politics.

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eral character provisions in section 14(3) the most qualified candidate from a certain state was rejected so that a less qualified candidate from the "right" state could be selected. It means that the first candidate has been discriminated against because of her place of origin contrary to the provision of section 15. Thus, inadvertently or by design, our constitution makes allowance for unfair application of ethnicity in conducting official business; it also promotes mediocrity and nepotism by providing legal backing for rejection of excellence. Considering the incredible discoveries in biological sciences which provide compelling evidence that all human beings belong to one family despite racial and cultural differences, anybody that consistently argues fanatically on the basis of alleged superiority of his own ethnic enclave, as Fani-Kayode has done, belongs to the neanderthal sub-species of the genus, homo neanderthalis.

The expression "neanderthal man" is named from fossil remains found in a cave at Neanderthal, a valley between Dusseldorf and Elberfeld; they are the remains of Palaeolithic people that lived around one hundred and fifty thousand years ago. It follows that when someone is described as a neanderthal, that person is primitive, old fashioned and archaic.

One of the distinguishing characteristics and manifestations of primitive mentality is obsessive strong attachment to place of origin and blood relationship.

To be continued

PAGE 12—SUNDAY Vanguard, AUGUST 25, 2013

The third tier question Dasuki Panel commissioned by the military regime under General Obasanjo forms the basis of conflict today in Nigerian federalism.

The work of General Alao ShakeyShakey was continued by the one they call General Maradona, who gave even more teeth to that illegality by incorporating, within the law, the right of the federal government to directly create and fund local governments. These distortions failed completely to take account of the archive of

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HE place of the third-tier govern ment, that is local government ad ministration in Nigeria, has remained the thorniest and contentious issue in Nigerian federalism. It has to be, principally because it actually has led to general distortions in public service delivery at the most crucial levels of government.

The local or municipal government is the most important tier of government principally because it is the so-called basis for grassroots governance, and by statutory fact, provides the most domestic of the homeland services in a nation. It generally ought to be the basis for city or county or municipal administration: who collects your tax; who provides and regulates electricity service and energy use; who cleans up the street after a storm or after its daily use; who builds and maintains county and municipal roads – those service arteries into the heart of the land and by which we traverse our cities and hinterlands on our daily chores; who runs the local police and emergency services; the parks; the City hospitals and town schools; and so on so forth.

The local government is by its very nature that vital arm of public governance, and the true measure of our autonomy from an overwhelming behemoth state.

Distortions in Nigeria’s local government administration and in the acts establishing them under the Federal constitution are the result of the long years of military rule. The command and control structure of military governments made it necessary to create a uniform and standardized local government administration. Such standardization worked for a military system intent on establishing a powerful central panopticon of the public that it necessarily had to dismantle the key logic of municipal governance under a federation: the rule of its variability. That is to say, that the uniform legislation that standardized local government administration, taking its cue and life from the reports of the

The current debate and the votes taken by the national Assembly therefore, over the so-called autonomy of the local governments misses the point and does overstep the boundaries of the task of constitutional amendment. There is absolutely no question that the constitution of the federation of Nigeria establishes the local government as the third-tier of government. There are only two contending issues from that constitution: one is the question of the basis on which new local governments can be created; the second and most vital is the question of fiscal autonomy: should federal grants paid to local governments from the federation account be under the oversight of the state governments through the use of the common purse principle? Reasonable people think this erases the capacity of the local governments to act and to govern and should be rethought. The hands of local administrators have been tied behind their back, and the law makes them mere constitutional furniture on which the state gover-

Distortions in Nigeria’s local government administration and in the acts establishing them under the Federal constitution are the result of the long years of military rule

debates and dialogues that were at the foundation of the various regional local government acts in 1954, when the issue of local government administration first reared up, towards decolonization.

The Northern and Western Regions chose to adopt the Native Administration system of local government while the Eastern Regional government under Azikiwe, after long and thoughtful deliberations in the Eastern Regional House of Assembly, chose to adopt the County council model of local government administration, because in their words, and following the various studies by government anthropologists, it was best suited to the democratic and republican traditions of the people of the East. Thus therefore was the foundation of the Eastern Region’s local government act of 1954 which established country administrations and Town Councils and village committees.

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nors with vast executive powers can sit on with impunity. It is important for the National Assembly to divest itself of the power to create and regulate local governments. This power must be a state power following various conventions. Counties and ungoverned areas wishing to establish municipal governments may petition for incorporation, and based on their ability to fund their own services principally through a tax base may become incorporated municipalities under state laws. Direct federal grants to local governments must be made directly to such local governments based on their verifiable status.

One of the great contentions today is what many call the injustice of local government distribution and the funding distortions that make a state like Kano with forty-two local governments get federal grants almost in excess of what the entire South-Eastern Nigeria gets from the local

government funds, and far more than Lagos with a bursting population. These distortions have to be corrected by legislation. Although we have pegged funding of local government administrations principally based on land mass and population, there must be a case made for consistent review of such criteria to include direct services provided. For instance how many kids are registered in schools in Kano compared to Owerri; how many attend hospitals; what data do we have about the number of educated people seeking employment, housing, the use of public utilities, etc. in Jigawa against the same in Ebonyi? These clearly verified needs must be the basis for grants made to the local governments because in the end our human service index must be the true basis for making fiscal planning and for distributing resources. Not land mass. And just as a final note to this local government question, and I’ve barely scratched its surface: Governor Anayo Okorocha fumbles on the question of the real governance of Imo state. Among his great experimental failures is his purported introduction of the “fourth tier” of local administration in Imo state. This is a classic con game. The Towns have always been the basis of town government and community development in the East. Okorocha’s policy on local administration has only merely created new local monarchies and potentates at the vital grassroots where the South East has always enjoyed a modicum of democracy from electing their local leaders who direct community development. Let me therefore point that the Imo state house of Assembly which is generally known as a sleeping chamber, has the duty and obligation nonetheless, to make laws for the people and establish oversight over the executive branch must not be complicit in the ploy to turn town governments to pseudo-monarchies because it will lead to violent protests. The real governments of the towns remain, and must remain, the elected Town Union executives, not the foolish “fourth government” of Ezes, warrant chiefs, proctors and proconsuls appointed by the Nero of Douglas House. More on this someday. But to put it simply: Governor Okorocha’s policy is distorting the balance of local and community government in Imo state with this mad project called the “fourth tier.” It is pointless artifice and an empty ritual that will lead to no good. But it speaks in general to the current confusion in the third-tier administration in Nigerian federalism.

Why rotation arrangement must be respected in Owan East and West Federal Constituency

BY SYLVESTER IRUONAGBE

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T is no longer news that the All Peoples Congress (APC) has been registered in Owan East and Owan West LGAs in Edo State. The registration has re- energize the political life of the people.

In 2015, we will also look forward to an APC candidate to represent the people of Owan Federal Constituency at the House of Representatives. This is the only elective position that is rotated between Owan East and Owan West in the federal constituency.

It is a common understanding between the peoples of East and West to rotate the office of the member of House of Representatives representing Owan Federal Constituency on a one term basis. This is as a result of the agreement and understanding reached by our elders and political leaders.

At the inception of democracy in 1999, the people chose to elect the late Hon. Benson Alegbe into the federal house on the platform of the PDP. Alegbe, who is from Axis One (OraOzalla - Sobe) Owan West did only one term and, as a gentleman, stepped aside to honour the rotation agreement.

In 2003, Abdul Oroh, now Commissioner for Agriculture, Edo State, and a former Chairman of Owan West L.G.A, Hon Johnson Abolagba, showed interest in the seat. Oroh is from Owan East Axis One (Emai – Ihievbe – Ivbiadaobi) and Abolagba is from Owan West Axis Two (Iuleha).

The leadership of the PDP in the area

prevailed on Abolagba not to run in the spirit of the agreement but he refused.

The PDP conducted primaries between Oroh and Abolagba. Oroh won and Abolagba immediately decamped to NDP where he ran against Oroh. Oroh won the elections and represented the constituency between 2003-2007. At the end of Oroh’s tenure, he wanted to return to the House as a result of his achievements, but the people asked that the rotation agreement be kept.

Oroh tried to be re-elected but was defeated at the primaries by Abolagba from Owan West Axis Two (Iuleha) who won the 2007 election and represented the people between 2007 and 2011.

At the expiration of Abolagba’s tenure, he wanted to be re-elected and ran on the platform of the PDP against Pally Iriase who ran under the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).

At a meeting of the leaders of Owan East and Owan West hosted by Chief Shagari Oni of Erue Owan West, they unanimously agreed to respect the rotation and emphatically averred that it was the turn of AXIS TWO. In spite of this, Oroh went ahead to run against Pally in the primaries. Pally won on rotational basis. He ran on the support of the people for the rotational agreement and understanding.

Presently, Iriase is representing the people of Owan Federal Constituency at the House of Representatives. During Pally’s campaign, his key campaign issue was rotation which he used to its fully advantage.

Now that he is in the House we are

beginning to hear that he is interested in returning to parliament for another term. This is laughable because it was mainly because of the rotation that he got the ticket to run for election in the first instance.

No Rep member in Owan Federal

Constituency has been re-elected. Ask Oroh or Abolagba; they tried but they did not succeed.

What is good is good. Let us do what is good and fair.

• Iruonagbe, a lawyer and social commentator, is based in Benin City.

Delta govt, UPU back Urhobo youth group

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HE Delta State Government and the leadership of Urhobo Progress Union, UPU, have backed the Urhobo Youth Leaders Association, UYLA, a pro-Urhobo socio-political group led by Comrade Francis Arhiyo.

Comrade Arhiyo, President General and other executive members, including Comrade Godwin Okporoko, Prince Eric Oharisi, Comrade Vincent Oyibode were officially sworn in recently, at Oviore town, Delta State.

Deputy Governor of Delta State, Professor Amos Utuama, represented by Hon. Lucky Awveromre, at the ceremony, said the formation of UYLA is a welcome development in Urhobo land and promised government's support to the group for it to achieve success.

Also, the President General of UPU, Chief Patrick Aziza, rtd, represented by Chief Francis Atanomeyovwi, said the leadership of UPU is strongly behind the UYLA, adding that all stakeholders in Urhobo land have identified with the group and would continue to work with it to achieve its set goals.

Comrade Arhiyo, in his acceptance speech, said the UYLA is a platform to encourage and mobilize all Urhobo youths

to embrace progressive ideas, build a sustainable and profitable foundation for effective participation in politics.

'Egbo-led Okpe DPP executives not dissolved'

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HE woman leader of Democratic People’s Party DPP in Okpe local government area, Mrs. Victoria Abaide, has denied media report that the Okpe chapter of DPP led by Mr. Richard Egbo has been dissolved and caretaker committee set up.

Abaide reacting to report that a caretaker committee has been set up where her name was shortlisted as woman leader, said she never attended any meeting of the party where the Okpe chapter of the party led by Mr. Egbo was dissolved, insisting that Egbo remains the recognized and authentic DPP chairman of Okpe chapter.

According to her, “I, Mrs. Victoria Abaide, never attended any meeting of DPP at Okwejeba on 27th July, 2013 as published in the media, and there was no time the executives of Okpe chapter led by Egbo were dissolved, and caretaker committee inaugurated, as Egbo remains the authentic chairman of DPP Okpe chapter”.

SUNDAY V 3 Vanguard g d, AUGUST 25, PAGE 13

PROLOGUE REPORTS & TOP STORIES OF THE PAST WEEK

CRUDE OIL THEFT

Doom Looms zGovt loses N365billion in July

BY JIDE AJANI N365billion is a lot of money. Worse still, N365billion is a lot of money to lose in just one month. In any currency, in any clime, under any circumstance and, for any people, that amount is huge. To put it in proper context, consider this: N365billion is the equivalent of not less than $2.25bilion. The now contentious military assistance that the United States of America, USA, provides for the Egyptian military annually is the equivalent of $1.2billion. This is an assistance that the Egyptian military eagerly awaits and uses to its fullest.

Just recently, the State Department spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, revealed that Washington still hasn’t delivered some $585 million — almost half the annual military aid package — for fiscal year 2013, to the Egyptian military. Pray, which country on earth would have its Minister of State for Finance, announce glibly, that it recorded a revenue loss of N365billion in just one month? From President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, to the Petroleum Resources Minister, Diezani Allison-Madueke, the Finance Minister and Co-ordinating Minister for

The regular stunts about burning and destroying illegal crude refineries are no more than submissions to tokenistic dramatization of a sense of duty because the real crude oil thieves continue to thrive with the active connivance of those making the hundreds of millions from the crime. the Economy, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and Presidential Adviser on Amnesty, Kingsley Kuku, the lamentation song that the theft of Nigeria’s crude oil is doing grave damage to the country’s economy, has become all too familiar.

Whereas the military task force that has been bursting illegal refineries continue to do its work; whereas there has been a number of successes recorded in the attempts to pick up some hoodlums who engage in pipeline

vandalisation; whereas there is an almost weekly bulletin heralding exploits about arrests and display of suspected pipeline vandals; whereas the Minister of State for Defence, Madam Olusola Obada, has been crying that European governments should come to the aid of Nigeria in the fight against crude oil theft by refusing to buy the stolen products; whereas the International Oil Companies, IOCs, have also been lamenting the loss of crude; whereas it has been generally acknowledged that some powerful, very powerful Nigerians are behind the crude oil theft; whereas government itself has not come out to provide the exact volume of crude exported and produced per day in its strictest sense; whereas the actual number of barrels lost per day to oil thieves hover between 400,000 and 600,000; whereas, whereas and whereas……

Now, therefore, it should be admitted that either a paradigm of recklessness or irresponsibility or both have taken over in Nigeria. N365billion loss!

Strange but true!

After three weeks of investigative work, Sunday Vanguard discovered that the only authority that can stop crude oil theft in Nigeria is the authority of anti-corruption. The discoveries went as far up to link friends of those in very senior positions in government and in the IOCs. Firstly, a government that is at pains to give an accurate figure regarding export volume can never be said to be sincere about stopping crude oil theft.

At best, what that tells the oil thieves is that a commodity, the volume of which cannot be certified and verified, ab initio, would be difficult to calcu-

late in terms of losses; and at worst create a free-for-all environment for the sustenance of the theft. The regular stunts about burning and destroying illegal crude refineries are no more than submissions to tokenistic dramatization of a sense of duty because the real crude oil thieves continue to thrive with the active connivance of those making the hundreds of millions from the crime.

Does this administration know that there could be a correlation between a government collapse and crude theft because, with such losses, it would find it difficult to run its business and the people could in turn rise against it?

Yet, had the theft been an activity being carried out in states controlled by the opposition, the hired guns who are quick to read-meanings, no matter how warped, into anything, would have insisted that opposition parties want to sabotage government. Mind you, the states where the theft is happening are controlled by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, including President Jonathan’s own state of Bayelsa. Had it been happening in Northern Nigeria, it would be interpreted as part of a bigger anti-South agenda. In the final analysis, it should be borne in mind that crude oil theft, in its very pure, undiluted form, also includes the misapplication of revenue accruing from its sale. The following report is just the first part of the discoveries from the investigation.

N365billion loss in the month of July!

And there is no protest? And the people and government are going about their normal business as if nothing has happened? Really strange!

P AGE 14—SUNDAY YV PAGE 14 SUNDAY Vanguard g d, AUGUST 25, 2013

*Top to bottom: President Jonathan, Diezani and Okonjo-Iweala

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igeria is in dire straits.

This statement summa rizes the response of a top security official familiar with the large scale theft of crude oil that is going on at the nation’s oil terminals and as well as other locations en-route. The security official fingered highly placed individuals in a conspiracy that deprives Nigeria of billions of dollars in revenue to the Federation Account. “There is more to what you want to know from me. The truth is that it is a high technology crime and there is a well-built cartel responsible for oil theft in the country and, until you smash their set-up, illegal oil bunkering will not stop,” the security official told Sunday Vanguard in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State capital, last week.

He added, “They (the cartel) are highly connected people in and outside government, oil companies, businessmen, retired and serving military officers, including people you never thought could be involved. “Illegal oil bunkering is their means of livelihood and they are bleeding the country.

Forget about those you people in the media refer to as oil thieves. I mean those that steal crude oil from well heads with Cotonou boats/canoes, and then hide in the bush to refine and sell to petrol station owners. “Those are people in the kindergarten section of the business. The main people are the ones you do not see. They do not come to the pipeline to steal crude oil; they do their transaction at the various oil terminals. Whether Forcados or Bonny (terminals), officials can declare that only two vessels were loaded when 10 were loaded.

The conspiracy that robs Nigeria of billions of dollars •How barons, military personnel, govt officials, ff IOCs bleed the nation •The • The fear over 2013 revenue target

“The oil barons are very wealthy and they mop up the little that oil bunkers are able to steal and sell to them, but they do their real business with oil companies and government officials. “ Appearing perplexed about the situation, he asked rhetorically, “Do you think anybody will be complaining of stealing of crude oil if it is just the volume that villagers steal and refine to eke a living?”

How they operate If the unnamed security official was hard to pin down, the president of the Ijaw People’s Development Initiative, IPDI, Warri, Comrade Austin Ozobo, was straightforward. He explained, “The oil cartel has illegal points where they siphon oil through long hoses into their waiting boats with an understanding with military officials.

“The poor class, who were doing the business to earn a living, have long, quit the business because of the manhunt by security agents, who have continuously destroyed their properties,

as they could not afford huge amounts to settle the security agents on daily basis”.

According to him, “Military men see the business as a money-making ven-

,,

EMMAAMAIZE, REGIONALEDITOR, SOUTH-SOUTH, SAM OYADONGHA (YENAGOA) AND JIMITOTA ONOYUME (PORT HARCOURT)

OIL

crude from points and to refine. Sometimes, they pay between N100,000 and N200,000 for loading per boat and local refinery operators settle military men in their operational areas with

Do you think anybody will be complaining of stealing of crude oil if it is just the volume that villagers steal and refine to eke a living?

ture. They lobby to be posted to the Niger-Delta area because they know whoever serves in the creeks of the region must buy expensive cars and build big houses.

“Oil cartels lobby military men in oil installations to enable them load raw

between one and two million naira per week.

“Most of the military men, government officials and oil company workers have big vessels, Cotonou boats, barges, local refinery ports and illegal Continues on page 15

S UNDAY YV 5 SUNDAY Vanguard g d, AUGUST 25, PAGE 15

Continued from page 14 points allocated to individuals to steal oil and make huge amounts of money.

“The military men are selective in their operations. They only go after people who refuse to settle them”.

Kuku’s alarm

S

pecial Adviser to the President on Niger Delta and Chairman of the Presidential Amnesty Office, PAP, Mr. Kingsley Kuku, raised eyebrows over the theft of the nation’s crude oil by an unidentified cartel, urging Nigerians to view it as a war against the country. Giving his position and privileged sources, Kuku, who spoke while playing host to national executives of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association, led by its vice president, Mr. Adamu Umoru, should know what he was talking about. He warned that unless decisive steps were taken to arrest the ugly trend, the theft could cripple the economy.

He noted that the volume of crude stolen could only be compared to the loss experienced at the peak of insurgency in the Niger Delta, warning that the theft could rise from 400,000 barrels per day to between 800,000 and one million.

His words, “The theft of our oil should only be equated with the ‘Blood Diamonds’ in Sierra Leone. This is the greatest act of sabotage against the Nigerian economy.”

Kuku, earlier in an interview with State House Correspondents, in July, accused the international oil companies (IOCs), some of their indigenous staff and some oil-bearing communities of complicity in oil theft. According to him, the process of illegally extracting crude oil from pipelines in the coastal areas requires highly technical and mechanical expertise, which ordinary Nigerians or residents of the oil-producing communities do not have. However, he absolved Niger Delta governors of complicity in the crude theft, saying there was no evidence of their involvement.

He insisted that oil theft was an international crime and urged the international community to go beyond coming up with penalising oil theft, and support the efforts of governments across the Gulf of Guinea and other parts of the region in dealing with it.

He said, “The best you can find at the level of the Niger Delta people or some merchants of this trade are those doing menial jobs in it. “You will need high-grade vessels and, where you cannot load your illegal or stolen oil, you are definitely going to find yourself in a mess where you will have to pay huge sums for demurrage. How many Nigerians have the capacity to do that?

“So it is an international crime. I have never heard about any governor being involved. I know of one thing and, this is the bombshell, that there are workers in the oil and gas industry who have the expertise, who have the technical know-how, who know about the ways and means of sabotaging the oil and gas industry, who are likely to

•Illegal refineries ... crude stolen by operators just a tip of the iceberg

The conspiracy that robs Nigeria of billions of dollars be involved.

“I also know and this is critical and I know that a lot of multinationals will be angered by this, but their being angry does not bother me; what bothers me is the oil theft that is affecting the revenue of this country; that is affecting the environment that I am from.

“So you have a situation where some pipeline protection contractors empowered by the oil companies participate in the theft. This is not about NNPC; not about PPMC. You know almost every oil company has pipeline protection contract, pipeline surveillance

contract for local security contractors.

The same people who are meant to be securing these pipelines participate in oil theft. So the oil multinationals must look inwards at their contracting process, their procurement process, look at the status of some of their vendors and security contractors, x-ray them, review their processes very well and deal with the issue of oil theft as it affects participation in-house in the oil and gas industry”

Sharp drop in revenue The impact of oil theft in recent times

has been so devastating that oil giants, Shell and Agip, were losing 190,000 barrels of crude daily from oil fields in Southern Bayelsa State.

The decline was responsible for the drop in oil revenue accruable to the state from N12.4billion in May to N9billion in June, according to figures from the monthly revenue breakdown, echoed by Seriake Dickson, the governor of the state. It also forced the two oil firms to declare force majeure on their crude output from their facilities domiciled in Bayelsa to absolve them of liabilities from crude buyers.

Force majeure is a legal notice that absolves an oil firm of liabilities for failure to meet supply obligations to crude buyers due to circumstances beyond the firm's control. The Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi OkonjoIweala, recently, lamented that the country was losing 400,000 barrels of crude oil per day because of crude theft, illegal bunkering, vandalism of infrastructure and halt in production.

In addition, the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani AlisonMadueke, said Nigeria might not recover from the negative impact of crude theft and pipeline vandalism in the next 20 years or more. AlisonMadueke stated that the nation was producing 2.3 million barrels of crude oil per day as against its daily production benchmark of 2.567mbd in the 2013 budget.

Analysing the impact of the 400,000bpd loss on the economy, a renowned economist and Chief Executive, Financial Derivatives Company, Mr. Bismark Rewane, said, “If you are doing two million barrels per day, multiply it by the cost of a barrel and you will understand what the country makes or loses. The 400,000 barrels is

Continues on page 17

P AGE 16—SUNDAY YV PAGE 16 SUNDAY Vanguard g d, AUGUST 25, 2013

I used ‘Warri Model’ to stop oil thieves — Adekeye

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former Chief of the Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Adekeye, in this interview, speaks on how he fought oil thieves in Warri area of the Niger Delta to a standstill.

Rather than equipping the military, the Federal Government is said to be awarding contracts to militants to secure oil installations.

Critics say that is why the military is incapacitated? he government, with due apology, may have their information on why they think militants are best suited for the job. But my experience on the field is such that if a man has been doing a bad business for such a long time and you think he is born again and you now give him a task, what about his colleagues with whom he was doing the business before, are they ready to give up? Can he fight them? I also think the fight against illegal bunkering is not just a military battle, it is everybody ’s.

We must take a holistic look at it. The oil companies, the communities where the oil companies operate, everybody is benefiting from it. After that, the second tier. Those in political positions, local and state governments, they all get involved, one way or the other.

But there seems to be insider collaboration in this oil theft; that is why it is thriving.

You are right. I commanded three operational bases in the Niger- Delta: Calabar, PortHarcourt and Warri. I fought oil theft there and it was successful at that time.

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What method did you employ that made it effective? et me use Warri for example. When I got there in August 1999, the whole security system had collapsed.

I was not even sure of getting to my office from house because firing could happen at any time. I went on the offensive, intelligence wise. I discovered that most of the fighting was being fueled from illegal theft of petroleum products. It was now a responsibility for me to, if I had to restore security, fight that as well. If my major task was to restore security there, then I had to fight the source of funding. At grave risk to my personal safety, I had to go various places where pipelines

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were being breached, where they were stealing crude. I dressed as one of them, I didn’t smoke because I don’t smoke and I was able to identify all the places. Now with the forces I had on ground, I knew I might not be able to face the boys because everywhere you had the pipeline being vandalised, there were well-armed boys around you.

That means they outnumbered you. f course they were better armed. Unfortunately, these pipelines were guarded by uniformed men. If I had to fight them, that means I was

O

new method. In fact there was an occasion that we had to engage the police in a shootout. The police said it •Vice Admiral Adekeye, exwas under them, we Chief of the Naval Staff said no, the truck was carrying illegal crude tangible source of income and you were with them. In bought three Jeeps same day. fact, one of the trucks, in the course of pursuit, drove into We got wind of the source of mud and the driver ran away; his business which of course it was the next morning that we was illegal, we destroyed it and had to come and tow the truck he eventually sold the cars and away. You know the Odi was back on the streets. If a operation was supposed to be single outfit like my FOC could replicated in Warri, but by the do that, why can’t the nation time the Odi operation was pick up people because going on, we had already we know those who are doing weaken the militants here in it?

At grave risk to my personal safety, I had to go various places where pipelines were being breached, where they were stealing crude. I dressed as one of them, I didn’t smoke because I don’t smoke and I was able to identify all the places going to fight both the wellarmed militants and the uniformed men together. ‘We can’t just fold our arms’, I told my men. ‘We have been sent here to come and do a job’. We asked ourselves, ‘What is the aim of all these militants which of course was to get all the petroleum products stolen and transfer to the market’. If that is the case, the most important thing for them is to get to the goods and the market becomes an individual’s problems. So we decided to be impounding the barges the moment they are fully loaded where there would only be few people on board.

And with that, I killed the operation in Warri and environs because, before they knew it, we had impounded more than 20 barges. In a day, we could impound up to five, at times eight. When they got fed up with that, they went by road using trucks, we started impounding the trucks too as soon as we discovered their

Warri such that by the time we went for the operation, we did not kill a single soul and we removed everybody, well over 500, from the island, we even cooked for the children. From the proceeds of illegal crude, a lot of other illegal activities are going on, like the profit of illegal crude is used to buy arms. Now that oil theft has become very lucrative, virtually e v e r y b o d y , including those who want to go into politics, go first into it. That is why I think all the people i n v o l v e d

should be probed.

That is if the people are arrested? ou need the courage to do that. I said it earlier that one of the reasons this thing is going on unabated is because we are not probing the source of our income. I know of a young man who didn’t have any inheritance, no

Y

The navy initiated and built a ferry just as the air force also had a bomb detecting robot.

What is the state of those projects now?

What is robot? It is just equipment you operate without you physically controlling it.

Drones are robots. And they are fantastically effective. We have been using them before to monitor the pipelines, militants’ movement, etc. If that is the case, I think it should be good enough for the market, and if there is a market, the issue of funds will not be a problem, but it must be good enough to compete with other ones available. For the ship, I had a market in mind when I mooted the idea. We had sea port symposium in Nigeria in 2006 which we combined with the navy golden jubilee celebration. Unfortunately many of the participating countries didn’t have ships of their own and that was when the idea of ship- building came to mind. Nigeria was already a big economic base at least for the West African A coast; if we were able to go into shipbuilding, there is every possibility that there would be some market for us. I started getting some of our ships to be repaired, but, first of all, I took our engineers to shipping yards to show them how to strip off the ship and things like that.

Of course they succeeded in stripping one and building it back.

Our chief of naval engineering then is now

the deputy governor of Bayelsa State. I asked him, ‘What have these people done that we cannot do?’ His reply was, ‘We have not been tasked’. And I replied him that they were tasked with immediate effect.

This means from concept we already had a market. We had a management that would be managing the funds. We were already talking to people about it. I had spoken to governor of Lagos then because they were trying to expand their water transportation by increasing their ferries and the governor had agreed to buy 30 from us, because, apart from buying it here, the cost of maintenance would not be a problem. I went to NIMASA which was trying to empower some communities in Niger Delta by giving them ferry and NIMASA was willing to buy five from us.

So you can imagine Nigeria navy building 30 to 35 ferries on the Nigerian water, you can be sure that some neighbouring countries will be coming to buy. And of course we would have achieved the strategic aim of getting people to use the water transport more.

The aim was to achieve three pronged-objectives: Projection of our dockyard as a strategic defence equipment, establishment and to spread our expertise to the West African region. Before I came in, most of our shipping activities were contracted out and our engineers were just sitting idle. But the Nigerian Navy cannot operate without its engineers because we are on board ship together, in battle and so we cannot afford a demoralising

engineering like that; that is why I was giving them those tasks. By the time we finished building the ship; our aim was to go on patrol of some West African countries with brochures for them to see some of the things we could do.

SUNDA SUND S UND DAY

Continued from page 15 about 20 per cent of our total production. So, if your salary is reduced by 20 per cent, what impact will that have on you? Therefore, it is a very grave situation for the country”.

Unidentified cartel Ex-militant leader and founder of the non-operational Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger-Delta, MEND, High Chief Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo, revealed, in an interview, that a brawny cartel was behind oil theft in the country.

On whom they are and how they could be exposed, he said, “The identity of those responsible for the theft of crude oil could only be revealed through a high-powered investigation because it is a big business for the rich.”

Tompolo is the chairman of Oil Facility Surveillance Limited, OFSL, Warri, Delta State, an indigenous company that was contracted for a pipeline surveillance contract by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, to protect crude oil pipelines in Delta State. The contract, a pilot project awarded February 2011, expired in February 2012 and is yet to be renewed.

d, AUGUST 25, PA AGE GE 17 7 Vanguard g

The conspiracy that robs Nigeria of billions of dollars

*Oil thieves at work

Control measures Investigations carried out y Sunday Vanguard concluded that the fact that a cartel, comprising oil companies, security agents, government officials and wealthy Nigerians, are ripping off the nation, is not in doubt.

What is troubling, however, is the lack of foolproof measures to monitor pipelines, absence of up-to-the-minute technology to determine the actual oil production and the tepid attitude to the policing of the pipelines.

Oil companies also cry

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efore Kuku raised the latest alarm, Shell Petroleum Devel opment Company, SPDC, blew the whistle on behalf of the oil companies, sometime in June.

The company’s Manager, Government, Community Relations, Mr. Krukrubo Evans; General Manager, Nigeria Content Development, Mr. Igo Weli; and Head, Oil Spill Response, Mr. Pat Agbo, who spoke in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, warned that the negative impact of pipeline vandalisation, oil theft and illegal refineries could affect Nigeria’s economy and environment.

Evans, who was represented by Mr. Funkakpo Fufyin, lamented that the activities of oil thieves had forced the SPDC to close oil production in its Nembe Creek Trunk Line in the state.

He said the shutdown of the facility led to the loss of 150,000 barrels of oil per day, adding that the development reduced the revenue accruing to the derivation account.

Prior to the shutdown, he said the SPDC discovered over 90 different punctured points on the 90km pipeline, adding that the company had commenced repairs of the trunk line.

“Our biggest worries are crude oil theft and illegal refineries. They are

Kuku:: ‘There Kuku There is a conspiracy conspiracy’ bringing down the economy. Nigeria loses 150,000 barrels per day amounting to $6.1bn annually to oil theft,” the SDPC Manager said.

“Illegal refineries are destroying our environment. We are pushing and talking to the government and other stakeholders to do something about it.

These crude theft and illegal refineries have to stop” He decried the mode of operation of illegal refineries and said operators only took 30 per cent of the crude oil products and “pour the rest into the environment.”

The official identified the company’s facilities in Bodo West, Imo River, Nembe Creek Trunk Line, coastlines offshore Niger Delta as the hot spots for illegal bunkering, adding that the oil company had taken measures to stop oil theft by monitoring its pipeline through detective equipment and aerial surveillance.

Govs intervention,

by Uduaghan Fielding questions from reporters,

penultimate Sunday night, in Abuja at the venue of the Nigeria Governors Forum meeting, Delta State governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, said the Forum was determined to check the challenge of oil theft in the country and had already taken measures to support the Federal Government, which were already paying off.

According to him, the Forum had to do something after the shutdown of two major pipelines (Trans-Niger and Nembe), which led to the combined loss of about 300,000 barrels per day.

“This resulted in the drop of our oil output from 2.5million bpd to 2.1million bpd. But, as I speak today, the two pipelines vandalized and damaged have been repaired and re-opened”, he stated. Uduaghan said that the cooperation and vigilance of all Nigerians was necessary to check illegal oil bunkering.

Hullabaloo over lost barrels The point of the biggest controversy over oil theft is the actual loss figure.

Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, disagreed with the claim that Shell lost $700 million to oil theft in the second quarter of the year.

NNPC, in a statement by its Acting Group General Manager, Public Affairs Division, Ms. Tumini Green, in Abuja, described Shell’s claim as “defective”, pointing out that the loss the multinational oil firm claimed to have suffered was not based on its operations in Nigeria.

It said the country was winning the war against oil theft and pipeline vandalism. Consequently, the corporation disclosed that daily crude oil production had increased to an average of 2.4 million pbd. It said: “Suffice it to say that some vandalised pipelines and flow stations have been repaired and re-opened such that average current national daily production stands at 2.4 m/bpd compared to the average year to date figure of 2.13 m/bpd as at June 2013.” The corporation traced the success to the Petroleum Minister’s directive to NNPC to constitute an industry-wide committee on Security Strategy Against Crude Oil and Product Theft.

That committee’s members include representatives from NNPC, all IOCs, NPDC, security agencies and Oil Producers Trade Section, OPTS, of the Lagos Chambers of Commerce and Industry, LCCI.

NEXT WEEK YOU WILL READ ABOUT THE SITUATION REPORT IN BAYELSA, DELTA AND RIVERS STATES, ESPECIALLY HOW THE CRUDE OIL THIEVES OPERATE.

1 8 — SUNDAY VANGUARD, VANGUARD, A UGUST 25, 25 , 2013 3 AUGUST 18

How PHCN is addressing poor power supply challenge – Engr. Jonahama Power supply in Nasarawa State is in a deplorable situation. The Business Manager, Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), Lafia Unit, Engr. Jonamaha, explains to Sunday Vanguard why the situation will continue to remain so or get worse if nothing is done.

BY ABEL DANIEL

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HAT is the state of pow er supply in Nasarawa State?

The Lafia Business Unit comprises of the entire Nasarawa State with the exception of Keffi Senatorial Zone. Nasarawa State does not generate power. The state is supplied by 132kv line from Katampe, Abuja. This line has what we call the transmission station in Karu supplying Karu, Nyanya, Mararaba area on 23Kv/11Kv line. The same line supplies Keffi, there is another transmission station in Kefffi, which is stepped down to 33kv and then to 11.

The transmission station continues to Akwanga. The line between Akwnaga and Lafia, which is 33kv line, was constructed about 30 years ago. That line was constructed when Lafia was just a local government. That time, there wasn’t much development in Lafia, the state capital, and environs that have now become development areas and local government area.

Today, this line is overstretched. By implication, we have what we call voltage drop. This explains why we have serious voltage drop in Lafia and environs. Again the distance between Akwanga and Lafia is about 55km. Between Lafia and Awe is about 95km, it is the same line that supplies this area. It is also this line that supplies Doma axis and Agyaragu, Obi. All these account for the low voltage of electricity in Lafia and environs.

How we have managed the little we have In the midst of all these, we still have to manage what we have. The only way for us is to do a lot of load shedding to ration power supply.

Apart from the low voltage, the line itself is over stretched. It is carrying a load far above its capacity.

The energy is not available to us in the first place, and even if it is available, we face the problem of transporting the voltage in a single circuit 33kv line from Akwanga to Lafia. More importantly, the Transmission Company of Nigeria deemed it fit to install what we call capacitor bank and the essence is to burst

the voltage. But right now, the breaker controlling the capacitor is not functioning. I have requested from our head office in Abuja to see how to reactivate the capacitor. With that capacitor in place, power supply will boost our voltage profile by 4 KV. Supposing we have low voltage of about 25KV, when it is boosted with capacitor, we will have 29KV. Presently we have as low as 17KV or 18. That is a problem. Secondly, the PHCN, through the Transmission Company, has decided to extend the 132KV line that drops in Akwanga to Lafia. The contract has been awarded. With that extension we are going to have bulk supply on 132KV instead of the 33KV supplying Lafia and environs. That will address the low voltage problem we are experiencing. There is another contract ongoing, that is

the construction of 330KV line from Jos to Makurdi through Lafia. The contractor is working on that line.

The construction work had passed Lafia and close to Makurdi. The Nasarawa government is working towards stepping that 330KV to 133KV along Shandam Road in Lafia, when completed. That will be the lasting solution to the low voltage problem in this axis. By the time these two lines project 132KV and 133KV are actualized, we can even back-feed Akwanga, Keffi and Karu from Lafia on 132KV. How long will it take to fix all these?

The extension of 132KV line from Akwanga to Lafia is about to commence according to the contractor.

The 330KV is near completion, stepping it down to 133KV here in Lafia does not take much time.

Hopefully, before the end of 2014,

this project will materialize; with that we will be planning on how to take care of other neighboring states.

Do we have internal problem of inadequate feeder transformers?

The state government has given us distribution transformers of various types. This intervention has practically reduced the problem of load shedding arising from over loading of distribution transformers. However we have some few isolated cases of load shedding due to over loading. So what we simply do is local load shedding whereby areas using the same transformer share power supply.

Sometimes it is not that the transformer is over loaded but because development in the Lafia metropolis is growing and the location of transformers may become far from the places of expansion.

What other challenges do you face from customers and how are you coping with it?

Our objective as a power company is to provide adequate power for the people in the state and to also generate revenue from the little power we supply. Since I came here, I noticed that people are reluctant to pay bills. The reason some of them give is that they don’t have full voltage and therefore cannot pay bills, while some people believe it is a national cake we must enjoy free of charge.

We are doing our best to enlighten the general public on this. This has affected our cash collection in the state. But with time I know we shall overcome this. I want people to understand that payment of electricity bill is not an option as far as they are using electricity no matter how little.

NEXIM’s N1.2bn aid creates 60,000 jobs in the ment industry under the Nigerian is to support non-oil export sector entertainment industry Creative Arts and Entertainment to the following minimum level:

BY SYLVESTER AROH

I

N recent past, creative art and entertainment were seen as unserious business ventures... Parents, friends and associates of entertainers perceived them as never-do-well in the society.

However the boom in the industry is helping to neutralize the stereotype.

The entertainment industry today is a multi-billion dollar business. The contribution of the Nollywood to the overall development of the nation’s economy cannot be overemphasized. The Nigerian film industry is second only to petroleum in terms of foreign exchange earning.

It is in realization of this and its efforts to ensure that the entertainment and art industry attains its full potentials that the Nigerian Export Import Bank (NEXIM) has engaged in strategic support of stakeholders, especially in the areas of marketing, advocacy and capacity building programmes; intended to create awareness, build

•Mr. Robert Orya capacities, facilitate monetization of intellectual property as well as showcase Nigeria’s talents.

The managing director of the bank, Mr. Robert Orya, said NEXIM’s contribution will be in the areas of provision of finance and guarantees to enhance industrial capacities, as well as support the acquisition and adoption of new and clean technologies thereby ensuring competitiveness of Nigeria movies in the global market.

According to him, NEXIM extended loans to eligible companies in the creative arts and entertain-

Industry Facility Scheme. As at today, a total funding support to the industry by NEXIM comprises of N700 million and N536 million disbursed to six beneficiary clients.

The bank’s funding intervention in support of exports has created and sustained about 60,000 jobs with the breakdown showing that, in 2009, 25,000 jobs were created; and, in 2011, a total of 35,000 jobs were created. The bank’s support translated to additional developmental impact by way of foreign exchange generation to the tune of an average of US$100 million annually. In the interim, the bank is positioned to create and sustain over 15,000 direct jobs and generate estimated forex of US$300 million. This is because funding intervention would be targeted at sectors with high employment potentialities like agriculture, entertainment/creative art, etc.

According Orya, “In the last few years, NEXIM has supported the Nigerian non-oil export to the tune of N20billion. On the funding intervention in the next five years, the bank’s strategic plan projection

from N41billion in 2012, we hope to expand to N50billion by the end of 2013; in 2014, it will increase to N63billino, while we plan to support the non oil sector with N94billion by 2015.”

A veteran actor said the intervention by NEXIM will go a long way in positioning the nation’s film industry to compete with their counterparts from across the globe.

He commended the effort of the bank at ensuring that the film industry competes favourably with other industries in terms of modern equipment.

Meanwhile, a school of thought believes that part of the N3billion the Federal Government is injecting into the entertainment industry through NEXIM should be spent in formulating policies that will safeguard creative works and ward off piracy which is one of the biggest challenges facing the industry.

*Aroh is the Northern Regional Editor of a Lagos based Research Intelligence Magazine

SUNDAY Vanguard, AUGUST 25, 2013, PAGE 19

BATTLE FOR THE PDP LEADERSHIP

It’s old timers versus new comers *77 aspirants jostle for 17 national offices

By Henry Umoru

M

EMBERS of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will, on Saturday, converge on the nation’s capital city, Abuja to correct a self-afflicted mistake, that is, conduct a Special National Convention where members of the National Working Committee, NWC, who resigned June 20 will be reelected or replaced.

The party’s headache is how to drive the process that would lead to the emergence of the NWC members to join the National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur.

The journey to this Special National Convention started when the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, came up with a report that the conduct of March 2012 National Convention was not thorough.

It was first the case of INEC should go to hell as it had no such power to void the PDP Convention from which the NWC members emerged.

But the implementation of the INEC report became imperative for the PDP because it was geared towards regularizing the membership of the NWC as well as giving the leadership credibility without which elections or congresses conducted by the NWC may be questioned in court and thus put the 2015 presidential primaries at risk.

A

ccording to the INEC report on the March 24 2012 National Convention, “The mode of election adopted for single candidates was not in accordance with the mode of election stipulated in paragraph 6.5 (i) of the guidelines for the conduct of the year 2012 congresses and National Convention and therefore not acceptable to the Commission”.

In the report, INEC stated that election of single candidates whose process of coming in was through affirmation was not acceptable to it.

Those affected by the report include the Deputy National Chairman, Dr. Sam Sam Jaja; National Organizing Secretary; Abubakar Mustapha; National Youth Leader, Alhaji Garba

Olisa Metuh Chiza; Deputy National Youth Leader, Dennis Alonge Niyi; Deputy National Auditor, Senator Umar Ibrahim; Deputy National Woman, Hannatu Ulam, and National Woman Leader, Kema Chikwe.

Also affected are Deputy National Organizing Secretary, Okechukwu Nnadozie; Deputy National Treasurer, Claudus Inengas; National Legal Adviser, Victor Kwon; National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh and the Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Binta Goje.

INEC declared that only four NWC members were duly elected. Those whose election followed the guidelines were the National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur; the former National Secretar y, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola; former National Auditor, Bode Mustapha, and National Financial Secretary, Elder Bolaji Anani. Mustapha has since been replaced by Adewale Adeyanju as National Auditor.

T

he INEC report led to the resignation of the eight PDP national officers, leaving Tukur to work with the National

,

Alhaji Bamanga Tukur

Kema Chikwe Nonyerem Agboti, Acting Deputy National Secretary; Yusuf Hamisu Abubakar, Acting National Organising Secretary; Tony Ceaser Okeke, Acting National Publicity Secretary; Simon Jok, Acting National Legal Adviser; Barrister Tanko Beji, Acting National Youth Leader; Oyibo Nwaneri, Acting National Woman Leader; Yau Kwadon, Acting Deputy National Legal Adviser; Peter Adefunmilayo, Acting Deputy National Youth Leader; Nasiru Ibrahim Birchi, Acting Deputy National Auditor; Mrs Torkwase Ajoh, Acting Deputy National Women Leader; Mohammed Dandari, Acting National Treasurer and Deputy National Financial Secretary, Awwalu Gwadabe.

O

thers are Onyemaechi Ikechukwu Jideofor, Acting Deputy National Organising Secretary; Augustine Lugbenwei, Acting Deputy National Treasurer; Calib Yahaya, Acting Deputy National Treasurer; Chief Akin Taiwo, Acting Ex- officio; Tope Ademiluyi, Acting Ex-officio; Chief Mike Akinfenwa and Gbenga Oduwaiye as Ex-officio.

The July 20 date for the convention had to be shifted following a court injunction restraining the conduct of the South-West Zonal Congress slated for August 24. Another court order has stopped it

Financial Secretary, Anani, and the National Auditor, Adeyanju.

Eight officers were thus appointed to assist Tukur and the two officials to run the PDP. The interim officers are the former Deputy Speaker, House of Representatives, Chief Chibudom Nwuche who replaced the Deputy National Chairman, Sam Sam Jaja; Remi Akintoye, Acting National Secretary; Senator Emma

,

The party, at its June 20 National Executive Committee, NEC, meeting, raised a Special National Convention Planning Committee led by former Minister of Information, Professor Jerry Gana, with Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State as his Deputy while, Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu and Ambassador Aminu as co-Deputy Chairmen and former acting

Chief Chibudom Nwuche National Secretary, Dr. Musa Babayo, as Deputy Secretary. The convention was then fixed for July 20, and Zonal Congress for the South-West, July 11.

77 aspirants showed interest in the 17 offices due to be contested.

The offices are the Deputy National Chairman, Deputy National Secretary; National Organising Secretary; Deputy National Organising Secretary; National Publicity Secretary; Deputy National Publicity Secretary; National Treasurer; Deputy National Treasurer; National Legal Adviser; Deputy National Legal Adviser; National Woman Leader; Deputy National Woman Leader; National Youth Leader; Deputy National Youth leader; Deputy National Youth Leader; Deputy Financial Secretary; Deputy National Auditor; and Ex-officio members.

B

ut the July 20 date for the convention had to be shifted following a court injunction restraining the conduct of the South-West Zonal Congress slated for August 24.

Those vying for the past of the Deputy National Chairman in the Saturday election are Opusunju Silva; Jaja Sam Sam; Secondus Uche; Omu Stella Unuezi; Isibor Dongo Peter; and High Chief Jerome A. Eke. For National Secretary, those contesting are Chief Babatope Ebenezer Oluwole B; Owolabi Babalola Isaac; Oladipo Adewale Abiodun (Prof); Kayode Adetokunbo Adeyinka; Salis Owolabi; Sarumi Oladapo Babatunde; Adeniran Tunde; and Oke Olusola Alex.

For the position of Deputy National Secretary, those slugging it out are Nwonu Ephraim Iyke and Onwe Solomon Onwe. Those for National Organizing Secretary are Mustapha Abubakar and Sidi Ibrahim Bamalli.

Aspirants for the position of Deputy National Organising Secretary are Okigbo Patrick Ogechukwu; Nwangwu Innocent N.; Nnaedozie Okechukwu M.; Uchechukwu Chukwuma Ogbonna; Prof Ezeh Nicholas Chika and Okolo Christopher .K. (Engr.)

For National Publicity Secretary, the contenders are

Metuh Olisa; Ononuju Katch .B. Onyedika; Akwaugo .A. Iloanya; Iwuanyanwu Chyna; Nwosu Caroline; Aroh Okey Muo; Anyanwu Longers Nzennata; Offodile Chudi; Nwabuona Anthony; Madueke Obi Christian and Chidebe-Samuel Chidi E. Deputy National Publicity Secretary has Elias John Babani; Barrister Maidugu Bashir and Tijani Kwaji Kwaghe.

The battle for the position of National Treasurer will be fought between Gwandu Bala Labbo and Bala Buhari. Enegesi Claudius Godsave is the only candidate for Deputy National Treasurer; Kwon Victor Yusufu for National Legal Adviser and Jalo Abdullahi Ibrahim for Deputy National Legal Adviser.

For National Woman Leader, the contenders are Kema Chikwe Nonyerem; Nosike Ann Frances; Nwabueze Nikky Nkiru; Ibeneme Heplizibah Chika; Nnadi Bettylhukaku;Orubele Ngozi Bernadette; Chukukere (Dr.) Gloria Chineze; Uchegbu Kate Ada; Ineh Lady Love Ihuoma

A

nd Onuoha-Ibezim Mariam (Princess), just as the only candidate for the position of Deputy National Woman Leader is Ullam Hanatu.

Those vying for the National Youth Leader are the immediate past occupant of the office, Alhaji Garba Umar Chiza, Mohammed Mariam Al-Hassan; Ugboho Ajon F.; Baba Wakili; Adeyemi Olabode John and Hussaini Abdullahi Maibasira.

The position of Deputy National Youth Leader has Muham’med Abdulganiy (Gani); Ogunmilade Olubiyi Felix; Alonge Olaniyi O. Dennis and Aisida Victor Modupe while Deputy National Financial Secretary position has Gwalabe Auwalu Abdu and Deputy National Auditor, Alhaji Lawal D. Anche.

F

or national ex-officio are Olasehinde Fumilayo Abiola; Fashola - Ikwue Margaret Kikelomo; Koshoedo Setonji Gbemenu; Adebiyi Olubunmi Agbeke; Chief/Mrs Ogwnsakin Olayinka Florence; Akinfenwa Michael Akinade Oladafe; Ojo Mercy Adesewa; Olorunsogo Esther Olukerni; Yinka Ogunbiyi Tolu; Mrs Adedeji Otiti;Teju Omotosho Olamide; Alhaji Akanbi Bashlru Adewale J.P; Adebajo-Fraser Princess Gloria; 0lu Wale; Olowofoyeku Ayotunde; Osinroluke-Euba Olawunmi Taiwo and Dakova-Vauqhan David Kolawole.

While some of the immediate past NWC members are lucky that their states and zones are representing them, others are not, even as power play has set in for the 2015 presidential election, as the PDP leaders are jostling about who will control the delegates.

The immediate past National Legal Adviser from Plateau State, Kwon is being returned unopposed, just as Jalo Abdullahi Ibrahim is returning as Deputy National Legal Adviser; Ullam Hanatu as Deputy National Woman Leader; Gwalabe Auwalu Abdu as Deputy National Financial Secretary and Alhaji Lawal Anche as Deputy National Auditor.

PAGE 20— SUNDAY Vanguard, AUGUST 25, 2013

Email: woman.vista@yahoo.co.uk

Helen Ovbiagele Woman Editor

U

nderstandably, some of our readers were outraged while responding to our piece on the decision of the British government to ask people above the age of 18, from some Commonwealth countries; Nigeria, Ghana, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, to deposit the sum of three thousand British pounds or $4,600 or 3,500 Euros, before they can be given a six-month U.K. Visa.

To them, it’s disloyal and unkind of our old colonial masters to want to treat us so shabbily and disrespectfully when we’re still members of the Commonwealth,.

Some readers wondered what the fuss from us is all about, when there are other countries in the world for us to visit. If the Britons are going to use stiff conditions to keep us out, then we should turn our backs on them, and not show desperation of any sort, they reason.

There was a suggestion by some that our Ministry of Foreign Affairs should bring pressure on the British Government to take Nigeria off the list; given that we’re the largest patrons of their airlines – British Airways and Virgin Atlantic. These companies would record huge financial losses if the passenger flow from here declines..

All important views, I’m sure. The thing is, once a major western country, particularly Britain, puts a stigma on us, the other countries usually follow suit.

If the British government goes ahead with this decision, we shouldn’t be surprised when other European countries now demand visa cash bonds before they can issue visas to Nigerians.

My stand remains the same.

Re: U.K. visa cash bond & fire for fire Both the rulers and the ruled in this country need to show the world through our lifestyle, values and conduct, that we’re a responsible, self-respecting, honourable and law-abiding people. Britain knows us inside out. They know why things don’t work in this country, and the desperation with which we want to get rich by any means. So, the respect just isn’t there.

With regards to ‘U.K. Visa Cash Bond & Fire for Fire, there’s nothing wrong if the British Govt. decides to ask Nigerians to deposit N723,000 for U.K. Visa.

Many Nigerians currently living in Britain are alleged to be involved in fraudulent activities, prostitution, drug deals, etc. What are those who have lived there for upward 15 years still doing?

‘Madam, I think it’s unreasonable of Britain to want to impose such a fine on us; just because we want to get into their country. They know how our economy is, and the state of the people. Just where

Nigerians should learn to live in their own country and stop constituting themselves into nuisance in their host countries. How many Britons are living or working in Nigeria that the Nigerian

You know Nigerians!

They would go look for the money by all means. I suppose the continued increases of visa fees are no longer enough for the British, so they have to enforce a bond to take more money from us.

Where’s the assurance that you will get back your money when you’re leaving their country, and you haven’t overstayed?

,,

View-Point

(07036819426)

do they expect the average Nigerian who wants to visit the U.K., to get such a sum of money to deposit against a U.K. Visa? Is this another strategy of theirs of fleecing us of money? - Kayode, Oyo State.’

‘Helen, I blame our people for this tendency of the western countries to include Nigeria on the list of whatever is bad in the world. It’s clear disrespect and contempt for all we stand for! But then, given the way we conduct ourselves within the country and in foreign land, would you say we don’t deserve such treatment? Our name is synonymous with corruption, thievery, scam, etc.

You name it. Britain has the right to refuse us visas, but asking for such a high sum against a Nigerian’s likely overstay in Britain is very unfair. - Pa James, Lokoja, Kogi State.’

Aunty Helen, good day!

government is alleged to be thinking of issuing a retaliatory policy?

I think our Ministry of Foreign Affairs should wake up from its slumber. Celestine,mnse.frc’ ‘The decision of the British government to demand a visa bond may not be quite smart on their part, in the long run.

Nigerians have a way of finding their way around any issue. Those who want nothing more than a vacation may be kept out because they can’t afford the bond, while those who want to go hide away there, would raise the sum of money by any method, get the visa and go disappear into Britain. The forfeited three thousand pounds would be a poor consolation to Britain. Their best line of action to keep out those they suspect, is to refuse to give them visa. Period! - Liza,

Enugu.’

‘Ma, I don’t believe the excuse the British are giving for wanting to enforce a visa bond so high. I think they just want to get money off us.

Steadily over the years, they’ve continued to raise the visa fees. We continue to moan and adjust; moan and adjust. You know Nigerians!

They would go look for the money by all means. I suppose the continued increases of visa fees are no longer enough for the British, so they have to enforce a bond to take more money from us.

Where’s the assurance that you will get back your money when you’re leaving their country, and you haven’t overstayed? - Tunji, AkokoEdo.’ ‘Mrs. Ovbiagele, our people are right to consider ‘fire for fire’ with regards to the decision of the British to ask any Nigerian above eighteen years of age to deposit three thousand British pounds before they can be given a visa. For too long, we’ve been treated with disrespect by our colonial masters who don’t mind humiliating us when it pleases them. I don’t know if we have enough heat to give them fire for fire, but let’s try to make them uncomfortable in any way we can, if they don’t change their mind concerning the matter.

Thanks Ugochukwu, Abuja.’

‘My sister, who cares a hoot if Nigerians are asked by the British High Commission to deposit one billion naira as visa bond in case they overstay the time given them?

About three quarters of Nigerians will not travel outside these shores in their lifetime, so, why agonize over the issue? Most of us are just getting by in terms of money, and surviving from day to day.

Let those who are desperate to go to Britain, go meet the conditions. It isn’t a national issue. Period! - Chike, Abia State.’

‘My response to the visa cash bond issue is that Nigerians should go look for a new play ground for their whims and fancies, if any country will have them.

Wherever there’s a concentration of Nigerians, be sure that the vile odour of their character which they developed in this country, will accompany them there, waft around them, and in no time, they would become odious to their host country!

They would then be thrown out. We know what to do to bring our country and ourselves honour, but would we do it? No! The disgrace continues! Seamus, Lagos.

We thank all those who sent in their views, but regret we can only publish these few.’

SUNDAY Vanguard, AUGUST 25, 2013, PAGE 21

Email: woman.vista@yahoo.co.uk

(07036819426)

Nigeria has too many laws already — Nkoyo Toyo, member, House of Reps

BY JOSEPHINE IGBINOVIA

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ormer Nigerian Ambassador to Ethiopia and now a member of the House of Representatives where she represents Calabar/ Odukpani Federal Constituency in the National Assembly, Amb.Hon.Nkoyo Toyo has been in the forefront of civil society movement.

The founder of Gender and Development Action-GADA, Nkoyo is a veteran in gender advocacy and issues pertaining to governance. In this interview, she speaks on the attainment of the much desired 35% affirmative action, reveals why the cost of governance is expensive in Nigeria and also urges women to take advantage of laws provided for their protection. Enjoy! that through subsidiary legislation; not in the constitution. This is because we need electoral reforms for it to ever happen. We have to go away from elections that

every country where an increase in governance has happened for women, the party list was used. Now, it is left for voters to look at the party

,,

How far has the Cros oss River State governme ment gone with the abolis ishment of harmful widowh whood practices?

We don’t have e too many of these things in n our state.

Maybe I shou uldn’t talk about Cross River as a whole, but about my co onstituency, Calabar. We have a whole lot of civilizati tion and the impact on the resst of the state is profound d. That’s why you always no notice that Calabar is peacefull, clean and organize ed. It’s a reflection of the histo ory of the people and their abiility to acquire and imbibe a whole lot. That’s not to say we don’t have issues, but I’m saying that we had long passsed laws on widowho ood, violation of the rights of the girl child and more. No ow, if you impregna ate a girl in Calabar, you can’t run away.

Are the women really using these e laws?

You know,, as it is in many cases, only a few people take these laws to court for justice. Sadly, a law is never a law until it is enforced in court. I once witn nessed an incident where the e wife of the governor express ssed concern over widowho hood practices and cultural deprivations according to o tthe lamentation of a group of women. I remember she told them to stop complaining and take advantage of the laws available for their protection. Enlightenment is however the solution because I’ve realized many of us are educated but not enlightened.

How feasible is the 35 percent affirmative action in this new constitution?

We’re going to try and get

I have a big farming project which is retuning people in agriculture. I’ve also built an enterprise development centre which prepares people to go into business. The challenge with that however is that you don’t train people without giving them capital

are based on who has majority to the proportional representation system which makes use of party list. In a party list, a party comes up with the list of all its candidates and then goes to election as ACN, PDP, or whatever. If PDP gets 80% of the vote and subsequently gets 80% of the positions ava vailable, we can mandate that pa party to ensure that 35% of the list ist iit is sending for positions must comprise women. So, when hen y you’re voting, you’re not voting oting the t individual but the party, which will in turn ensure women comprise 35% of the list created for position. In

*Nkoyo Toyo

list and decide to vote for a party based on their likeness for whoever catches their fancy on the party list. So, the seats won by each party will now be proportionally distributed to candidates, but ensuring by law that 35% of the distribution goes to women.

*Nkoyo Toyo

In representing your people, what are those bills you’ve sponsored?

I’ve actually only done electoral reforms issues and that hasn’t got anything to do with my people but with my sectorial interest which is gender and social development. I’m however working on something that has to do with social work as an act. Frankly speaking, I think we have a lot of laws already; I actually struggle every day to convince myself of the need to create more laws! Do you know that for each law we create, we have to pay for enforcement?

With each law, there comes a secretariat and that’s why you see the proliferation of agencies and departments of government that are making the cost of governance high in this country! Nigeria is actually one of the most expensive countries in the world to run!

Government and civil servants take almost 70 percent of the entire budget while we spend only about 28 percent on development and capital! So, each law we create is expenditure!

Remember when we changed the INEC chair to Professor Jega? Remember er h how many billions we gave to him?

So, laws are not cheap eap!

Anybody who says he has created so man many laws and has therefore fore done well should have a rethink because each hav law requires appropriation.

That’s why the federal government is considering cutting down the number

because e iit has realized too many peop ople are duplicating too many law aws, setting up agencies, dem emanding fund for manageme ent and fixing up their brothe ers and sisters in those agencie ies! For me, I believe what we e need is to amend the laws w we have rather than create e new ones.

So, what are you ur aspirations?

My ambition is to o return to the house next term m because the first term is usu ually a time for gathering experi rience while a second term m is when you’re actually able e to make your contributions and a impact felt. By then, one w would have understood how the e system works and also be a able to do more work.

What are you do oing to impact lives in yo our constituency at th he grassroots level? l?

I’m taking a lo ot of projects home; healthca are, building blocks of scho ools and getting people emplo loyed through farming. I h have a big farming project whi hich is retuning people in n agriculture. I’ve also bui uilt an enterprise develo lopment centre which prep epares people to go into business. The challenge with bu tthat however is that you don’t train people without giving them capital. Finding capital for that is therefore a challenge. I’m also giving scholarships.

What are those issues you want government to look into in your area?

What I really wish government could look into is how to harness the huge tourist potential of Cross River State.

PAGE 22 — SUNDAY Y VANGUARD, AUGUST 25, 2013

Says her friends mean more to her!

Dear Rebecca

I

WANT to thank you so much for the manner in which you have been advising young men like us as it affects relationships. My major problem now is that I have a lady I’m considering marrying if God permits, but the lady in question has a lot of friends which by the nature of my Job, I don’t like. Another thing is that she preoccupies herself so much with issues concerning her friends. She spends time visiting them. I have tried discussing the issue with her on several occasions but she always says she cannot leave her oldtime friends because of me who she met only recently. Please, what do you advise I do to handle this issue before it gets out of hand?

Stanley REPL Y REPLY

T

O be able to give useful sugges tions which could help those who write in, to solve their problems, we need to know the basic personal details like, age, family and educational background, job, etc. You did not give your ages so I don’t know if you’re adults or teenagers. You didn’t say what you both do, i.e. whether studying or working. One has no way of knowing if you are both ready for marriage now, and if the lady in question feels you are her ideal man.

From her attitude as portrayed in your mail, she doesn’t seem to feel so; at least not yet. She’s probably at an age when having friends to move around with, matters a great deal. Someone who doesn’t get enough attention at home tends to cling to his/her friends, who they feel ‘understand’ her/him and see life the same way as she/ he does. This is very important to us in our teenage years and sometimes, early twenties. As we get older, we begin to think for ourselves and develop our own style and personality, and this may be different from our age mates’.

I think you need more

time to study this lady in order to find out if she’s the sort of lady you’d want for a wife. She seems realistic about the relationship as she feels she doesn’t know you well enough yet to cling to you and leave the friends that have been her support for quite some

time. By the way, why do you want to isolate her from her friends? Is it because you feel their character is not good, or you want her to concentrate all her happiness on your company alone?

That’s neither wise nor healthy. What if you

leave her later? Even when married, we need good friends of our own sex around us because they tend to understand our emotions and feel what we feel. I hope you too have some good male friends that you relate with. I wonder what sort

of job you can possibly have that would forbid your girlfriend having friends of her own. Any relationship that restricts us having friends is selfish and unhealthy. If you want to stay on in this relationship, encourage your girl to make friends with re-

sponsible ladies. Greet them warmly when you meet them and accompany her sometimes to go visit them.

If on the other hand, you can’t stand your girl’s ways, then end the relationship. I have a feeling she may not lose any sleep over your leaving her.

What did I do wrong?

Dear Rebecca

I

I’m afraid she might leave me!

Dear Rebecca

I

’M a regular reader of your column in the Sunday Vanguard. I was 20 years old when I left secondary school eight years ago.

Then, I started attending a fellowship where I learnt so much about wisdom, love and relationships. At the moment, I’m going through a problem.

There is this girl I love so much and care about. She loves me too and we cheer each other up during our leisure time. She has just left secondary school. Since our . relationship started, my family members and some if my friends have turned their backs on me. They want me to leave her and I cannot do that to someone who has been so kind to me, even though I’m not so financially buoyant.

Although we are from different tribes, we have decided to love each other as Christians. She is planning to further her education into the university and I’m scared. She may meet other guys there and stop loving me.

Please, help me.

Steven REPL Y REPLY

T

HIS life is so full of uncertainties that it doesn’t make sense to

start worrying now about something you feel may happen to you in future. Let us analyze the situation. You are a 28-year-old man who is not financially buoyant yet. You are in love with a girl who has just left secondary school. You are both Christians but from different ethnic groups, and your people are against your having a relationship with her. You don’t want to leave her because you are grateful to her for remaining with you even though you don’t have money. Also, you both belong to the same Christian body. One commends your loyalty to her but where exactly would this relationship lead? You are not in a position to take a wife yet, and you say that she intends to pursue a university education.

Since you can’t marry her now, there’s really nothing for your relations to oppose, even if she decides to abandon going for further studies and decides to marry and settle down.

If you are fretting that if she goes to the university, she would meet other guys and stop loving you, it means you have no intention of ac-

quiring higher educational qualifications and in the long run, she may not want to marry a non-graduate.

If you really want her to be a part of your future marital plans, you would have to do something to make your future more financially comfortable, even if you don’t study further.

This girl may be fond of you now in her teenage years, but as she becomes exposed to a more enlightened lifestyle on the campus, you may no longer seem her ideal man.

So it is important for you to accept now that there may not be a future for this relationship and it may end at any time. The christian thing is not likely to hold you together if you don’t make an effort to improve yourself and gain self-confidence, which would ensure that you are not afraid that a girl would leave you for another man.

There is no guarantee that this can’t happen even if you are the wisest and richest man on earth, but at least, you won’t feel inferior. r So, enjoy the relationship as it is and leave the future to God.

’M a 28, good-looking and working in a private company. There is this 20 year-old girl I met at the restaurant where I usually go take my meals. Her mother owns the place.

She is a very beautiful girl and a secondary school graduate. Recently, I approached her for friendship and she said she would think about it. There hasn’t been any reply from her but she eats with me at the restaurant when I buy food from them. One day. when she and a customer were joking about her movements, I joined in and told her that her mother doesn’t go everywhere with her so, she cannot say the mother knows her well. She got angry and asked me not to talk to her again. I thought she knew I was joking,and she wasn’t serious about her utterance,but ever since then, this lady has stopped talking to me. She no longer attends to me at the restaurant. When I apologized to her, she ignored me. I later told her mother about it and she advised I reconcile with her because she knows that her daughter loves me.

Aunty,I’m bothered about her refusal to my proposal.

Why would she eat with me if she didn’t like me? Is it love or some other thing?

I’ m really worried. I’m interested in this girl. Please, advise me on what to do.

Shoga, Lagos.

REPL Y REPLY

M

OST girls are very sensitive about bad remarks about their appearance or character.

Whereas a man would have laughed over your joke, a girl would feel humiliated, especially since you made it in public. Your remark could be taken to mean that she sleeps around. That wasn’t what you meant, of course. You just wanted to join the other man to tease her.

We always advise on

this page that friendship should be established first before a romantic relationship, so, you should have continued as friends for a while before telling her that you want her as a girlfriend.

If you had studied her well first, you would have known what sort of remarks hurt her, and you would avoid them.

Saying publicly that she could be up to anything when she goes out, since her mother whom she claims knows her well, is not with her all the time, does not show respect for a girl you claim to love.

Women are emotional creatures. Our men should learn to respect the women around them (mother, sister, wife,female friends, etc., and desist from addressing them anyhow. A man who loves and respects his mother would talk decently to, and about a woman, irrespective of what he really thinks of her.

I suggest you send this girl an appropriately worded card or text, if you have her telephone number, telling her you are sorry. Greet her when you see her, but don’t stop to chat. If she still doesn’t want to talk to you, leave her alone and ignore her when you go to eat in her mother’s restaurant. That she used to eat with you does not mean she is in love with you. If you can’t bear the situation, stop going to eat there. You will meet another girl you like. It may well be that when you ignore her, she may want you to be friends again. If this happens, don’t pester her about agreeing to be your girlfriend. Both of you should have other casual friends while you study each other. Only the future can tell whether this would be a casual relationship or a romantic one.

•All letters for publication on this page should be sent to: Dear Rebecca, Vanguard Media Ltd, Kirikiri Canal, P.M.B 1007, Apapa, Lagos, Nigeria. E-mail: dearrebecca2@yahoo.com

SUNDAY Y VANGUARD, AUGUST 25, 2013, PAGE 23

‘Fifty shades’ or not, you can’t flog a dead horse!

W

HEN Fifty Shades Of Grey, a trilogy by a female writer simply called EL James hit the book stands early last year, it caused a mighty ripple in the reading industry. A racy escapades of a couple’s sexual exploits, the books were nothing short of soft porn.

But the escapades are lovingly woven round the two lovers in the book that love is made to soften their almost decadent exploits. A friend’s daughter got me the books almost fresh of the press, when she travelled. They were simply unputdownable.

But alas, trying to go down the youth route and capture some of the exploits left a very disappointing question - with who?

Oh to be young again!

But young is Aimee and 28. She read the books and decided her love-life, which she deemed humdrum definitely needed to be spiced up. “My boyfriend was a lovely man,” she recounted in an interview. “He was kind and caring, and at first we’d enjoyed a passionate relationship. But our sex life had become a bit boring. As I read the book, my eyes got wider, and I thought: Blimey! Is this what other people really get up to?

“By the time I’d fin-

ished the book, I’d made a decision, I was going to inject some passion back into our lives. First, I had to look at the part, so I went shopping. I made a purchase, and that evening, I said to Alec: “come upstairs. I have something to show you?” ‘Now?’ he said.

“But it’s too early to get to bed.” I wasn’t going to be put off so easily, and I went to the bedroom to get ready then called out: ‘’Alec, I’ve got a surprise for you!’

He walked in and his eyes almost popped out of his head when he saw me in nothing but a lacy bra and pants.

“Well ... ?” I said. He coughed and spluttered, then said: ‘What the heck have you got on?’

“Don’t you find me sexy?” I asked. “Sexy?” he said. “You look a right state!” Then he walked out, leaving me standing there with my mouth open. I realised that spicing up our love life was going to be harder than I’d thought, but reading Fifty Shades had ignited something in me and I was determined not to give up. A few nights later, when he came home, I was cooking dinner wearing nothing but an apron. I smiled and said: “What do you think?” “I think you look ridiculous,” he

said. I put down my wooden spoon and shot him a glare, “What’s the matter with you?” I asked. His eyebrows shot up. “What’s the matter with me?” he said.

“What’s wrong with you, Aimee? This isn’t normal behaviour. Why have you changed?” “I’m sick of our boring life,” I said.

“I’m not bored,” he said.

“We’re a normal couple.

It’s natural for things to die down after a few years together.” I didn’t agree.

So one evening, I suggested doing something cheeky with whipped cream. “Don’t be silly;’ Alec huffed. “Think of the mess!” ‘What about some role play, then?” I asked. “You’re being daft,” he said. After that, whatever I suggested in the bedroom department,

his response was always the same - “Not tonight love, maybe tomorrow.”

Finally, one night in bed, I snapped and said, “Fine. Just tell me what you want and I’ll do it.”

“Ok,” he said, “Turn over.” I tur ned over.

“Right,” he said, ‘Now go to sleep.’ .

But did Aimee get the message? No way? So one particular night, after they ’d had a good outing and were a bit tipsy, she grabbed her man and they stepped through the door, she started kissing him. “He kissed me back”, she said, and I was encouraged. As we went upstairs, I thought this was more like it. In the bedroom, Alec was standing in front of the window, and as I gazed at him, I

wanted to wrap my arms around him, but as I stepped forward, I tripped on a shoe and stumbled. I staggered forward and put my arms out to break my fall. Instead, I went crashing straight into his chest. After that, everything happened quickly. Alec let out a cry and wobbled backwards.

I could only watch in horror as he fell into the bedroom window - and went straight through it. I screamed and stared down into the darkness and spotted a figure lying on the ground 20ft below. His foot was twisted beneath him as he lay amid shards of broken glass”.

Alec’s injuries were really bad and he needed surgery to insert a metal rod to hold his broken leg in place. He was furious with Aimee. But he’d calmed down the next day when she went to visit. Had she learnt her lesson? “As we sat chatting,” she went on, “an idea crossed my mind, I’d always fancied the thought of getting frisky in a hospital (just like in Fifty Shades) and I thought it might cheer Alec up. I pulled the curtain around the bed and slipped my hand under the sheets. But once again, I’d misjudged things. He was furious and started shouting. ‘Is

that all you think about?’ he yelled. “It is sex, sex, sex!” I stared at him, stunned. He continued ranting. “It’s sex for breakfast, sex for dinner and sex for tea. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m in agony here.”

“A nurse came over to see what all the commotion was about. I tried to explain to her that I was Alec’s girlfriend but before I could get a word out, he yelled: “she’s a sex maniac. Get her away from me.” I was so embarrassed, I fled.

When I visited the next day, he was barely speaking to me. Finally, he said: ‘When I get out of here, we’re splitting up. You’re not the woman I met. You’ve got a problem. You’re obsessed with sex and you need to sort it out...”

Needless to say, that was the end of the romance. The poor woman read her boyfriend’s moods wrong - all of the time! She might be a bit too adventurous in her effort to spice up their love life, but the average hot blooded male would jump at the chances she lovingly offered. She might be nursing a broken heart now, but I think she had a lucky escape. What virile man would turn his back on sex at age 32?

08052201867(Text Only)

Exercise helps build healthy blood cells

O

NE great advan tage of regular exercise is that by it we’re able to keep the blood platelets from crowding together to block the blood vessels. A blocked blood vessel in the head will cause a stroke; one in the heart will result in a heart attack.

When we work out we induce a higher heart rate which in turn makes us breath faster and deeper.

And deep breathing enables the blood to receive sufficient oxygen for proper metabolism which leads to maintenance of healthy cell life, for cell renewal and survival.

When the blood has been inundated with oxygen you can then expect to get the most out of the body.

Tired, sick, or rapidly ageing deep breathing exercises can be of wondrous benefits.

Conditions ranging

from insomnia to heart problems are often brought on by oxygen starvation.

As we advance in years the powers of the body slacken. Cells that were once elastic lose that quality and become incapable of absorbing oxygen as they once did.

The decline in the cells ability to absorb sufficient oxygen can lead to shrinking of the body or make it fatter.

With exercise we can feel safe knowing that our bodies are protected against life-threatening conditions like stroke and heart attack. Less threatening cases such as tension, constipation, indigestion, nervous headaches can all be helped if or when we undertake to exercise regularly.

The following are yoga postures which can all be executed along with deep rhythmic breath-

ing.

LOTUS (with upturned hands) Technique: Sit with both legs outstretched in

front of you. Now, bend the left knee and place the left foot on the right thigh and then bend the right knee and place it on

the left thigh.

Interlace the fingers and raise up the hands with the palms upturned.

Breathe slowly but deeply for 5 to 10 times.

Benefits: The Lotus with upturned hands expand the chest for better air intake. The thigh muscles are well toned and the hip, knee and ankle joints are rid of stiffness.

THE WRITTER’S POSE Technique: Sit on the heels. Bend the left arm at the elbow and pass it up at the back. Then, bend the right elbow and hook the fingers of both hands at the back. Hold the head up and breathe deeply for 5 to 10 times.

Then change hands and repeat the deep breathing.

Benefits: The writer ’s pose expands the chest for better respiration. The shoulders get a good workout. The thigh muscles too are stretched and strengthened. The syno-

* The Lotus

vial fluid in the knee and ankle joints increase leading to activity of the joints.

Sideways Forward Bend Technique: Sit with both legs stretched in front of you. Bend the right knee and place the right foot on the inside of the left thigh high up the crotch. Gently lower the trunk sideway till you can hold the left foot with the left hand from the inside and the right hand hold the left foot from the soutside.

Retain the posture as you inhale deeply for 5 to 10 times and then repeat on the otherside.

Benefits: The Sideway Forward Bend affects the hamstrings and thighs.

The sides received enough stretch to improve lateral flexibility.

The digestive organs are gently massaged and constipation greatly helped.

Yoga classes at 32 Ademola Adetokunbo Victoria Island, Lagos, 9.10am on Saturdays

d , AU G S 25 GUST 2 5, 2013 24 SUNDA P AGE 24— SUND S UND DAY Vanguard UGUST g

bunmsof@yahoo.co.uk

08056180152,

SMS only

Omodolapo Jega’s death: Who is really to blame?

Readers React hidden, the erring person has been given license to continue in wickedness. This story is a lesson to all to handle issues without sentiments. Also, as Christians, always read between the lines and when your pastor or leader errs, don’t cover it up. Call his attention to it. Leadership should always be by example.

May God take care of her children.”

A

couple of weeks ago, I carried the pathetic story of Late Omodolapo Olotu Jega who wrote a heartwrenching letter on her death bed to the husband she claimed heartlessly abused her and was the source of the cancer that killed her.

This was followed the next week by her father ’s tear-jerking oration at her graveside. In spite of the fact that I pleaded with readers to wait for the dad’s oration to be published before re-acting, a lot of you promptly did so immediately they read the first story. Fola Ajidagba, an older friend and a regular ‘critic’ of this column was almost in tears when he called my mobile to react to what he termed “a wicked and heartless treatment of an innocent and almost naive woman” and promised to make sure one or two women close to him learn from Dolapo’s experience. Here are a few reactions from the loads I ot from you readers:

Y

ou advised readers to wait till you publish the grave-side oration of the dad,” wrote Kayode Abegunde, “I doubt if that will add or subtract from my view. (I) If Omodolapo had spent a tenth of the time she spent monitoring her husband’s numerous girlfriends on her health, she may still be alive today. (2) As a Christian, she failed to depend on God for her plight. (3) The WHOLE world except Obama were of the view that NGOZI IWEALA (a woman) was the most qualified for the post of the President of the World Bank.

(4) Dora of NAFDAC is a woman, so why should Omodolapo lose her sleep for not having a male child; (5) She did not love herself. Instead of attending to her

Gender Roles All Mixed Up ... Until lt Comes To Sex n this modem age, men and women are increasingly happy to adopt the habits of the other sex.

But it seems there is one area where we are determined to stick to gender stereotypes, even if it means lying.

A study has found that chaps still want to be seen as ‘ real men’, the kind who boasts of having had many sexual partners no matter what the truth.

Women, meanwhile, prefer to be seen as having less sexual experience than they actually have, to match what is traditionally expected of them.

The research by Ohio State University found that men and women will fib about sex to meet cultural expectations, but otherwise will freely admit where they fail to adhere to classic stereotypes.

Women, for example, will admit to the masculine vice of telling each other rude jokes, while men will confess to the more feminine pastime of writing poetry.

The study of 293 students aged 18 to 25, reported in the journal Sex Roles, found that men who were connected to what they thought was a working lie detector claimed to have had fewer sexual partners than when they weren’t.

For women, the reverse

I

health, she was busy reading her husband’s mail. That is enough to render her drugs impotent.”

O

nyii Nwosu-igbo wrote: “A friend has just drawn my attention to your column on Sunday, the 4th of August and the emotional funeral oration of the bereaved father of late Dolapo. The concept of marriage has radically changed. Marriage, unknown to many people, is like any other contract.

But it is sui generis. It is sui generis in the sense that unlike ordinary contract, the law determines how you enter into it and also how you dissolve it.

Dolapo badly approached it with too much emotion. Marriage has since changed for the worst. From your account, it is clear that Dolapo was too innocent, if not naive, to understand this. She stayed tragically too long in that relationship. All the signs that Noble (her husband) was not good for her were starring her in the face but she still refused to quit. What was at stake was her life. Her church had nothing to do with it. Marriage is not a

Y

OUR column to express your loving thoughts in words to your sweetheart. Don’t be shy. Let it flow and let him or her know how dearly you feel.

Write now in not more than 75 words to: The Editor, Sunday Vanguard, P.M.B. 1007, Apapa, Lagos. E.mail: sunlovenotes@yahoo.com Please mark your envelope: “LOVE NOTES"

My everything You magnify my happiness When I am feeling glad; You help to heal my injured heart

‘do or die’ matter. She listened to her church and paid dearly for it.

“Pastor” Noble Jegha is a very heartless man, going by the account published in your column. But remember that there are women who are as bad if not worse. Some abandon their sick husbands and turn the hearts of children against their father. Some begin to misbehave when the material circumstances of their husbands take a downward turn. My heart, thoughts and prayers are with the distraught family of Dolapo and the children she left behind. May Almighty God grant her that peace and love which eluded her on this earth ... “ ohanye from Abuja believes that “ ... her parents killed her. She left her abusive husband and travelled out of this country, settled elsewhere and was doing well for herself but her parents pleaded with her to take her husband back after he almost killed his own blood sister, defrauded his bank, stole money from both her mother and cousin. Did Dolapo’s father assume Oti would change his character? As far as I am concerned, Dolapo’s parents are 90% responsible for her

M

death. The only way they can make Dolapo rest in peace is to try whatever they can to get custody of their three grandchildren before Oti starts sleeping with them or sell or kill them. As for Oti, the devil, he will get his just reward very soon.”

H

er incredible Obituary notwithstanding”, wrote Emeka from Enugu, “we challenge her husband to react to his late wife’s out pouring for a balanced third party view.”

“I’m a man and pained by Oti’s heartlessness towards his wife,” wrote Patrick.

“May he receive 10 folds the torture he put his wife through. 1 pray God to see this woman’s children through to adulthood and may they not marry a man like their father...”

“It was so heart-rending reading Dolapo’s story from the dead, and her father’s oration too,” wrote Jumoke Oyelese. “I think naming the church would help people in similar situation or near similar ones. When the name of the church is

was true.

Psychology professor Terri Fisher, the author of the study, said: ‘There is something unique about sexuality that led people to care more about matching the stereotypes for their gender.

‘Sexuality seemed to be the one area where people felt some concern if they didn’t meet the stereotypes of a typical man or a typical woman.’

All Night Long? (Humour) wo sixty-year old men are chatting over their lunch in the works canteen. Fred grins at his mate and says, “ you know George, I made love to my wife three times last night.”

“Never!” exclaims George, “how did you manage that?” “It was easy really. I made love to her once, then slept for half an hour, then I woke up and made love to her again, had another 30 minutes sleep and made love to her the third time.” “Now!” says George, impressed, “that sounds good, I think I’ll do the same.”

T

S

o that night George gets into bed, makes love to his wife and turns over to sleep for half an hour. He wakes up, makes love again and goes back to sleep. 30 minutes later, he wakes up once more, makes love and falls asleep. In the morning, he wakes up in a panic to realise he’s 45 minutes late for work. He throws on his clothes, skips breakfast and rushes down to the factory. As he gets to the gates, the boss is standing there looking very angry. “Sorry I’m late boss,” he gasps, “give us a break. I’ve worked here for 40 years and I’ve never been late before. Come on, it’s only 45 minutes.” The boss replies in disbelief.

“45 minutes! Where were you yesterday, and the day before?”

Whenever I am sad.

You’re such a pleasure in my life; I hope that you can see How meaningful your friendship is; You’re a total joy to me.

Cent Obama centobama@gmail.com +2348061379003

They just have to wait for the right man to come along, the one who's brave enough to climb all the way to the top because they value quality.

Women

Everything about you added up to a perfect illustration of the word LOVE. The best love asset any mortal can acquire. No wonder when you rotate around my mind, 24 hours you make my day because you inhabit and occupy the very depth of my heart. I will always treasure and cherish you.

Akachukwu Ferdinand, aka5forever85@gmail.com, 08063819314

Women are like apples on trees, the best ones are on the top ofthe tree.

The men don't want to reach for the good ones because they are afraid of falling and don't want to get hurt.

Instead, they just get the rotten apples from the ground that aren't so good but easy. So, the apples at the top think something is wrong with them, when in reality y they y are amazing. g

Chris Onunaku 08032988826/08184844015.

Perfect love

SUNDAY Vanguard, AUGUST 25, 2013, PAGE 25

08116759757

By OLA AJAYI, IBADAN

D

id a housewife hire an assassin to kill her rival?

Or did the family night guard try to assassinate his master’s wife? These are the knotty questions the police in Ibadan, Oyo State capital are attempting to answer after a suspected hired assassin, Ikechukwu Christopher, was arrested. The suspect was said to be on his way from Enugu to Ibadan to carry out the assassination when he ran into the police. A locallymade single barrel gun and a woman’s photograph found on him gave him away. He was taken into custody.

Ikechukwu named one Adenola Adeniyi, a former timber contractor, based in Ago Iwoye, Ogun State, as his sponsor. The police went after Adeniyi who, in turn, named one Arowolo Lateef as the person who gave out the assassination job.

Assassination fee was put at N80,000.

The police alleged that a woman, identified as Mrs. Funke Abidoye, contracted Lateef, the family nightguard, now apprehended, to assassinate the husband’s junior wife, Ololade.

But the nightguard denied the claim, saying he was the mastermind of the murder plot to avenge the ordeal of the first wife, Funke, in the hands of Ololade.

Meanwhile, Funke is said to be on the run.

Oyo State Police Commissioner, Mr. Mohammed Indabawa, nar rating the stor y, said Ikechukwu, the suspected hired assassin, confessed that he was contracted by Adeniyi and Lateef to kill Ololade, “Based on his confession, the said Adenola was arrested and he too corroborated the statement made by Ikechukwu and added that he was hired by Arowolo at the rate of N80,000”, Indabawa said.

He continued: “Investigation revealed that Arowolo hired them at the rate of N80,000. After a diligent investigation, the said Arowolo too was arrested and he confessed that one Funke, the first wife to one Muyiwa Abidoye, hired him to kill the younger wife. He explained further that he, as the husband’s night guard, was contracted by the first wife to look for hired assassins that would kill the younger wife.

“Items recovered from the three suspects are one locally

*The failed assassination suspects

TROUBLE IN FAMILY

Wife paid N80,000 for rival’s assassination – Police zI engineered murder plot – Night guard made single barrel, one dane gun, eight live cartridges, one expended cartridge, one dismantled locally made gun, two cutlasses, eight handsets, one nylon containing criminal charms, photographs of Mrs. Ololade Abidoye and her husband, Muyiwa Abidoye found on the prime suspect, Ikechukwu. Meanwhile, the second wife who was said to have contracted the arrested suspects to kill her colleague has absconded from her matrimonial home. Efforts are on top gear to prosecute the arrested suspects”.

But, Arowolo denied being contracted by the first wife as alleged by the police, stressing that he just wanted

The police alleged that a woman, identified as Mrs. Funke Abidoye, contracted Lateef, the family nightguard, now apprehended, to assassinate the husband’s junior wife, Ololade to kill the younger wife in annoyance and to avenge the ordeal the first wife suffered because of her younger wife.

Ikechukwu confessed that his boss in Enugu gave him the contract to carry out the assassination. “But, when I was going, the police stopped me and found the pistol I was

carrying. I was arrested and taken into custody”.

When asked why he was the person his boss in Enugu instructed to commit the crime if he had not done anything like that before, he answered that he learnt the act of shooting through hunting game and he had

never been involved in killing anybody.

Adeniyi said he was in Ago Iwoye as a timber contractor when the business went under and Arowolo offered to help.

“He gave me a motorcycle to work and he did not collect any money from me. After sometime, he told me a woman was owing him N20million and for three years, she had been avoiding him. I asked him the business he transacted with the woman but he told me to help him look for hired assassin to kill the woman. After sometime, he started to threaten me. I later got in touch with one man who now linked me with a man at Enugu”.

SUNDAY Vanguard, AUGUST 25, 2013, PAGE 27

INTRIGUING EXPERIENCES Continued from page 26

lack of commitment, lack of faith on the part of those who claim to be Christians or Church goers but really are not convinced or converted to the truth.

“Boko Haram ven if you remove Christianity, does the African culture promote the killing of your neighbor just because you disagree? What are they using to kill these Christians? Is it their own manufactured ammunition or those manufactured by the very Europeans you said you don’t want their culture? The dresses they wear, where are they from?

The food they eat, what is it served on? Is it not got from western civilization? They are not sincere and they have no love for their fellow Nigerians.

And their actions being politically motivated cannot be eliminated. What they are doing is evil and is inexcusable.

E

H

A

re you satisfied with the Federal Government’s handling of the situation?

The security situation in the country could have been better managed but, as it is said, who is government? You and I are the people who elected those representing us and managing the government, therefore, to some extent, we the populace are also liable for the defects we see in government because when elections comes, somebody comes and gives you money and you take and go to vote for him, you forget your future and the future of your children and children’s children. Who is to blame? Is it just those hungry for power or those of us who accept bribes to vote for them? We are all liable and co-responsible for whatever deficiencies we may notice in society. I think Nigerians should seek more of their fellow Nigerians and of their future and therefore be circumspect in whom they vote into power to represent them.

Again talking about governance, government should have the political will to put the right persons in the right positions. If somebody is found wanting in any of the sectors, send the person packing and put the right person there.

What is your view on the growing acquisition of private jets by pastors in Nigeria?

If they bought private jets, how did they come about the money? Félix HouphouëtBoigny built a basilica. I remember visiting Abidjan and from there I went to Yamoussoukro. It was the Nigerian ambassador to Cote D’Ivoire who told us that the man built the basilica from the resources of his family, that his father had a large expanse of land and that they had a lot of cocoa from which they made their wealth.

But an outsider will say that he used government money to

•Archbishop Patrick Ebosele Ekpu

‘Boko Haram killings inexcusable’ Churches are springing up every day in Nigeria, but they don’t seem to be able to check corruption and immorality build it. So if that pastor had also bought a private jet and used the resources of his family, you probably will say he has used his followers’ money, but if indeed he uses his followers’ money and his followers allow him, then they have endorsed what he is doing. It may not be a good example he is showing others, but he has not abused his position or somebody else’s right. But if he uses the

Church’s resources, I will say he has some questions to answer to his worshipping community and his God whom he claims to serve.

Churches are springing up every day in Nigeria, but they don’t seem to be able to check corruption and immorality.

Why? As you very well know, the Church does not have a police force, a CID or FBI or CIA; it is

ow do you see churches owning schools and tuition fees are beyond the reach of many members?

The easiest approach would have been that you give a peanut salary to the teachers and you know what will happen, they will not do their work, they will not be there; so if they are going to be retained and do an honest day ’s work, they have to be paid good salaries and since those churches or schools do not receive subvention from government, well, I don’t know where you want them to get the money from to pay good salaries to the teachers.“So where does that leave the children of the poor who are members of that church?“If there are really deserving ones, you give them scholarship. And how do you know they are not giving them scholarship? Even the Federal Government, with all the oil money and all the taxes it collects, has it been able to give scholarship to every citizen? It is not done anywhere, nowhere, as they say in America, there is no free lunch; somebody pays for it. In Nigeria, we want every problem solved, but, as Christ himself said, the poor will always be with you, you cannot be able to answer all the needs of all the poor people in the world at once, it has to be gradual and the more people they train, people are more conscious of the defects of their neighbors and those followers will be able to take care of some of them and the Church takes care of the rest and the government with its social welfare programmes takes care of the others.

Marriage for Catholic priests he position of the Church is that if you want to be a Catholic priest in the Western right, you do not get married, so, before you become a priest, you have a long time to think about it, whether you want to make the sacrifice or not. It is a sacrifice, not God’s law.

Therefore, we should adhere to the tradition and discipline of the Church. If you know you cannot adhere to the rules, you have a choice to go into other vocations. But the rule of the Church remains the rule.“If you had not been a priest, what would you have been?

I would have liked to be a lawyer and an administrator. That is what appealed to me, that is

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a profession you have to be free, even your parents have no right to decide for you what you have to do, they can advise but the ultimate decision lies with you.

I felt God was calling me to be a priest and that is where I can make my own contribution to God’s glory and work out my own salvation. And I have no regrets being a priest today.

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hat have been your most challenging and happiest moments?

Challenging moment will be when you find the people or leadership cadre that you have prepared disappointing you and following a course that is contrary to what you have prepared them to handle. One of my happiest moments was when I ordained 14 priests at a time at the University of Benin chapel in October 2, 1998. If you look at all the Nigerian priests in Archdiocese of Benin City, Father Patrick Osinbor and Theophilus Uwaifo are the only ones that I did not ordain and train, any other one, by the grace of God, passed through my hands. It was very difficult because I had to look for money to pay their fees and then it came to a time that, in the seminary in Bodija, Ibadan, I had over a hundred students whom I had to pay for and it was by no means easy. I tried to harness all the resources available and appealed to friends and members of the Church who understood what my goal was and they assisted.

ASUU strike“I would humbly request them to sit down and talk over their different problems and when decisions are reached, they should be followed. Government should honour agreements they reached with ASUU.

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ow do you assess Oshiomhole’s administration in Edo State?

I hear many people praise him, I think he is a sincere man, he had been on the other side of government, he was a labour leader and therefore knows the problems of the workers and I think he tries to respond to them. He is doing very well, people are not disappointed.

Message to Nigerians say let us take some moments off and think about what we think is best for us and how we, together with government, can move the nation forward. For the Catholics, I want them to go back to the basics, renew their faith in God, be loyal to God and be sincere in truth and in spirit to follow our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ.

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PAGE 26— SUNDAY Vanguard, AUGUST 25, 2013

INTRIGUING EXPERIENCES

ARCHBISHOP EKPU’S TOUGH MOMENT

I paid over 100 priests’ school fees

By SIMON EBEGBULEM, Benin City

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retired Archbishop of Benin Catholic Archdiocese, His Grace, Archbishop Patrick Ebosele Ekpu, recently, marked 50th anniversary as a priest. Since his retirement three years ago, the Uromi born cleric has dedicated his life to praying for the Church. On October 26, 2013, His Grace will be marking his 82 birthday.

Sunday Vanguard met him last weekend for this interview. He spoke on how he trained over 100 priests in school, the crisis in Benin Catholic Archdiocese, insecurity in some northern states, the acquisition of private jets by men of God, gay priesthood and some national issues.

Excerpts:

*Warns against hasty judgment on clerics owning jets *Killings by Boko Haram, inexcusable translate the mass into Bini language, I had only one Benin priest who was able to assist me in the translation, all those who are complaining, some of them cannot read and write Bini language. And that is why I laugh each time they try to politicize church activities.

Shouldn’t the Church train more Bini priests for this purpose?“The Church will if you find the candidates. If the candidates are not there, will I come and take your child and make him go and speak Bini?

But the Church has always trained Binis who are interested in priesthood and we will continue to do that.

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hat do you say about the Edo Liturgical Group that is championing this cause?

In the Catholic Church, it is the bishop of a place that is the head of the liturgy. Liturgy means public worship, so the bishop is ultimately responsible for the liturgy in the Church.

Who appointed them as Edo Liturgical Group or who authorized them? Such people have no basis to arrogate to themselves a position they do not have. They do not know the principles of what they claim to represent. Who guides them?

How is life in retirement?

We thank God it has been very pleasant, restful as I will like it to be.

What motivated you into priesthood? “It is God’s grace.

Only God calls and one responds and it is also His help and inspiration that keeps one going.

“Are you not worried that the Catholic Church is losing its followers to the Pentecostal churches?

We lose some faint hearted members but the majority remains. If you look at the Catholic Church, say in BeninCity, you will see that as some people are dropping out, others are coming because the number of the parishes is increasing which is a sign that the Church is alive and growing stronger every day.

While you were the bishop, many new parishes came up.

How did you achieve that?“It was God at work, one tried to propagate the gospel and people listened and accepted it.

How do you view the crisis in the Catholic Church in BeninCity which has seen some persons calling for the installation of a Benin bishop?

I have always told them that they should pray for a good bishop no matter where he comes from because, to me, the Catholic Church is like a university. If you establish a

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•Archbishop Patrick Ebosele Ekpu

university in a place, what the university needs is the best brains available to help to bring up the youths in the place not whether he comes from there or not. It is worrisome and I will say it is lack of faith; if you believe in God and do what is right, the correct thing will come up, not by our chosen but at God’s own time.

But why is it that there has not been a Bini bishop just like they are agitating? There is a similar case in Mbaise, Imo State where the people said

they want a bishop from their area.

“Well, we are trying to politicize something that is essentially spiritual. If you take the case of Mbaise for example, was a Bini man sent there to be the bishop? Or was he an Hausa man? Isn’t it an Igbo man that was sent there? But they said no, they want a particular tribal or ethnic origin of the person, it is lack of faith and that is why I said spiritual problems have to be tackled with spiritual forces and what is happening is a

question of lack of faith. If they have faith, they will not be agitating. If we accepted somebody who is from Ireland, or from England to be a bishop, why will you say you don’t want a fellow Nigerian as bishop?

Don’t you see that something is wrong somewhere?

The way forward was active as a bishop in Benin Archdiocese. At that time, the archdiocese encompassed the whole of Edo State. Each time I wanted to

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he Church is also facing the issue of gay marriage. How do you react to that?

We all are responsible for the development and better enlightenment of our citizens because we are throwing our culture away; if you are a biologist, have you ever heard where a male cow is going after a male cow or a male camel going after a male camel? If we saw a lot of that practice, then we might say it is natural for a man to do that, but you know that the issue of procreation is such that it is social, it is the environment that affects people’s behaviour and if the social environment encourages what you are doing, or promotes it, then one easily falls into but if it does not, then it will not develop.

Continues on page 27

PAGE 28—SUNDAY, Vanguard, AUGUST 25, 2013

Dance of the high and mighty for Daranijo @ 80 If there was ever any doubt as to the kind of crowd Alhaji (Chief) Sinari Daranijo moves with, the evidence came to the fore penultimate tim weekend when the accomplished administrator and the Osupa Adinni of th Lagos celebrated his 80 birthday at the Lagos City Hall. The list of guests who came to honour him with their presence includes business tycoons, government functionaries and several eminent Nigerians from diverse fields. Photos by Biodun Ogunleye.

L-R:Celebrant and wife, with Sir Sunny Nwosu and Chief Ogunkelu.

L-R: Justice George Oguntade; Otunba Subomi Balogun; Justice Olorunnimbe; celebrant, Chief Sinari Adaranijo; his wife; and Brig-General Mobolaji Johnson.

L-R: Alhaji Sulaimon Adagun, Alhaji & Alhaja Lateef Jakande.

L-R:Alhaja Jumoke Eko, Alhaja Kehinde Kekere-Ekun and Alhaja Olubukola Doherty.

L-R:Chief Razak Okoya with Justice George Oguntade and wife, Chief (Mrs) Modupe Oguntade.

L-R:Sir Chief Simeon Oguntimehin, Mr Bolade Adaranijo, and Senator Muse

Nk k hi and d Nnaemeka N ka Nkechi kechi Remembrance ser vice N service d wed for Segun TTaiw aiw o aiwo NNAEMEKA Okonkwo and Nkechi Eleazu were

L-R: Princess Abosede Kotun, Chief (Mrs.) L A Adenike "Suada of Ake" and Olori Ibironke O Otudeko

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Dr. (Mrs.) Moji Kolade and Chief Mrs. D A Adenike Taiwo

ABEOKUTA, penultimate Sunday, bubbled when n the children of the late Chief Olusegun Taiwo rolled d out the drums to celebrate one year remembrance off the deceased Oluwo of Ake and former Chairman,, Ogun State Central Senatorial District, Action n Congress of Nigeria (ACN), now All Progressive e Congress, APC. The ceremony, coordinated by Chief (Mrs) Adenike e Taiwo, the Suade of Ake, started with a thanksgiving g service at St. Peter’s Church. There was also a get-together at the Ake Palace Ground. Photos by Wumii Akniola

Chief (Mrs). Adenike Taiwo, friends and family.

joined together as man and wife at St. Barth’s Anglican Church, Aguda, Surulere, Lagos

From left: Mr Daniel Eleazu, the bride’s dad, Pastor (Mrs) Willie Okonkwo, groom’s mum, Mr Nnaemeka Okonkwo, groom, bride, Nkechi Eleazu, Mazi Willie Okonkwo, groom’s dad and Mrs Theresa Eleazu, bride’s mum

SUNDAY VANGUARD, AUGUST 25, 2013 —29

Parade of splendour as K uk u’s son w eds Kuk uku’s weds

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agos was treated to a high-profile wedding penultimate Saturday when renowned doctor and Ijebu High Chief, Olorogun (Dr) Sunny Kuku’s son, Oluwadamilare Bodunrin, married Olubunmi Oluwaseun Onabanjo, daughter of Prince Olawale Oladeinde.

Bodunrin and Olubunmi were joined as man and wife at the African Church Cathedral, Salem, Ebute Metta. The service was followed by a reception held at the Haven in Ikeja G.R.A., Lagos. Many eminent personalities graced the event. Photos by Biodun Ogunleye

O Ovie i off A b g ts Agbon g gbon gets gets ice stafff off off staff offfice IT was celebration galore in Agbon Kingdom when Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan presented the staff of office to the monarch of the kingdom, His Royal Majesty Ogurime-Rime Ukori 1, JP, Ovie of Agbon Kingdom, Delta State on Wednesday. Photos by Nath Onojake

R-L: Gov. Emmanuel Uduaghan presenting the staff of office to the Ovie of Agbon.

The couple: Mr & Mrs Bodunrin Kuku L-R: Olorogun Sonny Kuku and Mrs Patricia Abdulraman Kuku,groom's parents and Prince & Mrs Olawale Oladeinde, bride's parents.

L-R: Prof. Grace Alele-Williams, Chief (Mrs) Ayodele Oreagba and Chief (Mrs) Osibogun.

R-L: Oba Sikiru Adetona, Awujale of Ijebu land, Oba Adedotun Gbadebo, Alake of Egbaland and Otunba Subomi Balogun and wife, Abimbola .

H Ib hi Mustapha M Hon. Ibrahim pha b i mum buries uries m The final burial ceremony of the late Alhaja Safurau Mustapha, mother of Hon Ibrahim Mustapha, Councilor, Kosofe Local Government, Lagos State was held at Anthony Village, Lagos. Photos by Lamidi Bamidele

L-R:Mrs Ladun Odeleye, SA, Budget, Ifako-Ijaiye LG; Hon. Ibrahim Mustapha; Mrs Rachael Adekanye, SA, Budgets, Ipaja LCDA and Hon (Mrs) Alamu Oluwafemi, SA Budget, Ojokoro LCDA. C M Y K

Otunba and Olori Adekunle Ojora with Chief Bimbo Okenla, the Kakanfo of Awujale

L-R: Delta State Uduaghan, Barr. Neworld Safugha, Commissioner of Local Govt,Olorogun Kenneth Okpara, Commissioner of Finance and Chief Sunday Onoriode, Chairman, Transition Committee, Ethiope East Local Govt.

L-R: Lady Maiden Ibru, Mrs Bosede Kehinde and Mrs Yemi Kehinde-Young.

ll wship hip ffor ba NIM Fello Fellowship ello or or A Ayyuba y uba Nigerian Institute of Management conferred on several members the honour of Fellow of the Institute. One of the people honoured is Commodore Abimbola Ayuba of Naval College, Onne, PortHarcourt;

Chief Efe Akpofure, SAN, (left) and Chief Ochuko Unuagba, the Otota of Agbon

R-L: Commodore Abimbola Ayuba, Commandant, Naval College Onne, Port-Harcourt; Mrs. Adebisi Sosan, former Deputy Governor, Lagos State and her husband, Commodore Oluseyi Sosan.

The celebrant, Otunba (Engr) John Olusegun Adekunle Ogunnaike (JP), during his 60th birthday and conferment of chieftaincy title of (Agbolaya of Ijebu Isiwo) on him, with members of his family

Ogunnaike at 60

PAGE 30 — SUNDAY Vanguard, AUGUST 25, 2013

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SUNDAY Vanguard, AUGUST 25, 2013, PAGE 31

PAGE 32— SUNDAY Vanguard, AUGUST 25, 2013

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HE World Bank wants developing countries to adopt effective Debt Management Performance Assessment Tool (DeMPA) to enhance clarity between monetary policy implementation and debt management for sustainable growth, stressing that domestic capital markets are fragile in low income countries in the West African region.

A representative of World Bank, Lilia Razlog, made this known while addressing participants at the opening ceremony of a regional training on DeMPA, organised by World Bank in collaboration with West African Institute for Financial and Economic Management (WAIFEM) in Lagos.

“DeMPA is important tool to give banks and governments modern skills for effective debt management for economic stability. The skills from DeMPA will improve developing countries in debt management to boost growth rate. The methodology of debt management was developed by World Bank with international institutions to help various countries in efficient debt management and about 60 countries have applied this methodology effectively”, she said.

In his keynote address, the Director General of WAIFEM, Prof. Akpan Ekpo, explained that governments in low income countries faced a complex array of competing economic and policy demands in seeking to improve the lives of their citizens, saying citizens of these countries seek additional and improved services in infrastructure, education, health care, electricity, social justice and security among others, as well as more efficient and equitable systems of taxation.

“Because domestic resources in these countries are limited to meet these needs, countries often have to borrow and frequently accumulate debt. Consequently, governments in low income countries often face considerable balance sheet risks, given their high levels of indebtedness in relation to GDP and to export receipts,”he stated.

“Their economies are heavily dependent on commodities, and are exposed to volatile terms of trade movements and capital flows. At the same time, in many of these countries, domestic capital markets are fragile or non existence. The process of fiscal decentralisation is often at a developmental stage, and an extensive collection of guarantees as well as other contingent obligations at all levels of government must be managed.

“Therefore, prudent government debt management is essential to sound practices for public borrowing and debtmanagement, which are important to support economic stability. High quality public debt management can reduce financial vulnerabilities, contribute to macro-economic stability, preserves debt sustainability and protect a government’s reputation.

Volatility of interest rates, C M Y K

World Bank warns African countries on high debt profile •Says domestic capital markets are fragile in lowincome countries

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BY UDEME CLEMENT

Mr. Baba Musa exchange rates and debt flows requires debt managers to properly assess possible risks and to mitigate them by relying on diverse range of financing sources, while maintaining borrowing costs at prudent levels. These will result in reduction of government’s budgetary exposures. The Auditor General departments at national and state levels of government can play active role in protecting the financial

Lillia Razlog condition of governments and reduction in budgetary expenditure. These would ensure that sound public debt strategies and risk management practices are put in place to certify data disclosure policies and effective supervisory regulatory regime for public sector financial management. The risks associated with future obligations and claims on government’s budget, as well as possible contingent obligations

Governments in low income countries often face considerable balance sheet risks, given their high levels of indebtedness in relation to GDP and to export receipts

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arising from the private sector can therefore be minimised.”

Speaking on the theme, ‘Basic Statistics, Econometrics and Research Methods’, the director, Debt Department, Mr. Baba Musa, said, “Understanding of basic statistics and research methods by policymakers involved in management of our economy has become increasingly necessary given the ever increasing openness of economic transactions and the need to appreciate the link

between theory and practice.

Econometric results bring empirical content to bear on economic relations. The course is intended to upscale the skills of policymakers in economic research and policy decisions for improved performance of the economy”.

He stressed that the DeMPA Tool developed by World Bank has been designed to be userfriendly. “The tool undertakes assessment of strengths and weaknesses in government debt management practices. The training was meant to develop competences of participants in application of DEMPA tool as a catalyst to strengthen national and sub-national debt management. DeMPA evaluate strengths and weaknesses in public debt management, through indicators covering core areas of public debt management namely, governance and strategy development, coordination with macroeconomic polices, borrowing and related financing activities, cash flow forecasting and cash balance management, operational risk management and debt records. Its scope is central government public debt management and closely related functions such as issuance of loan guarantees, on-lending and cash flow forecasting and cash balance management. DeMPA guides the design of actionable reform programmes and facilitate monitoring of performance over time.”

$500 MILLION BOND:

How Nigerians in Diaspora will benefit, by Hon Akinlaja

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member representing Ondo East/West Federal Constituency, Ondo State at the House of Reps, Hon Joseph Akinlaja, has outlined the opportunities available for Nigerians in Diaspora and the need for them to return home to invest. He assured that the Federal Government will soon redeem its $500 million promise to release the Diaspora Bond.

Akinlaja, who represented Hon. Abike Dabiri-Erewa, Chairperson, House Committee on Diaspora Affairs, made this known in United Nations Headquarters, New York, at a two-day Corporate Nigeria Stakeholders’ and Investors Forum sponsored by Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta State.

“According to the World Bank, Nigeria is one of the world’s fastest growing emerging economies. No one needs to tell you what this means - a billion investment opportunities lie in various sectors, with a lot of these sectors largely untapped agriculture, information technology, medicine, mining, textiles, electricity, energy- the list goes on. To be more empirical, there is an organisation called the Nigerians in Diaspora Alumni Network (NIDAN). NIDAN is an organisation that consists of former Nigerians in Diaspora who have returned home, and now own thriving businesses.

They lend support to one another, and I am sure they will continue to capitalise on investment and growth opportunities in the

Nigerian economy. Most of these successful businesses are in medicine, IT tech firms, entertainment industry, and several other professions,”the lawmaker said.

“With respect to the Diaspora Bond, we know the Federal Government has plans to issue a $500 million bond by issuing a first tranche of $100 million in 2013. This will be a major milestone in the process of involving our Nigerians in the Diaspora in the development of the Nigerian economy.

“As said earlier, there are lots of opportunities for development that these funds can be put to.

Also, of all the countries in Africa, Nigeria received $21 billion in remittances from its citizens abroad, putting us at number one in Africa. This fact, along with the success of the Nigeria’s $1 billion Eurobond in 2013 promises to show that Diaspora bond will be a very viable agent of investment and development in Nigeria. Nigeria remains attractive investment destinations for anyone, no matter the challenge see face today as a nation. We have the human and material resources in abundance. You are part of the solution; let us do all we can to make Nigeria the great country that we know it can be.”

During the interactive session at the forum, Akinlaja used the opportunity to thank Delta State government for the laudable initiative organized by the governor and his economic team and said their counterpart Ondo State, under the leadership of

Governor Olusegun Mimiko, has also created an atmosphere where investment can thrive favourably.

Delta State Commissioner for Commerce and Industry, Mr Kingsley Emu, who represented Uduaghan, at the forum, said the state is not just an investment destination. He disclosed that Delta State has also created enabling environment to allow investors get value for their money and also recoup their capital within the framework of their revenue projection.

In a keynote address delivered on behalf of the governor at the event, titled “Harnessing Investment Opportunities in Delta State”, Emu said the “Delta Beyond Oil” initiative has recorded many milestones in

the overall interest of the people of Delta, especially the less privileged.

“Where we are now in terms of policy direction is Delta Beyond Oil. What we are saying is that when the oil wells eventually run dry what are those things we should do with the revenue from oil in the decades while the oil wells lasted? How can we diversify our economy using our areas of comparative advantage? The major ones are the micro, small and medium scale enterprises (MSMEs). The success of the MSMEs underscores what we have always believed; that is, Delta is a land of limitless possibilities in terms of human capital and natural resources,” the commissioner said.

From left: Mrs Onome Odili, Marketing Manager, Sc Johnson Ltd , Dr. David Okpan,Human Resources Director, Mrs Oluwatoyin Akinyombo, who won N500,000, Mr. Kwame Wiafe, MD, Mr Bukola Ogunsakin, another winner of N500,000 SC Johnson Ltd Promo,and Mr. Demeji Osinguwa, Director Sales, during the presentation of cheques to winners of the SC Johnson Scratch Your Way to Millionnaire Promo in Lagos. Photo By Diran Oshe.

SUNDAY Vanguard, AUGUST 25, 2013, PAGE 33

We need data to create jobs

– Kachikwu, ExxonMobil Vice Chairman position, I will do that, but where tomorrow takes us, I don’t know; in terms of elective office I’m out.

•Speaks on the Odogwu title

part from being the A Odogwu, you are also the Isagba of Onicha Ugbo and of

BY HUGO ODIOGOR

Vice Chairman of ExxonMobil, Africa Operation and publisher of Hints, Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, believes we need data if we must address the challenge of unemployment in the country.

The Harvard trained lawyer also speaks on his duties as Odogwu of Onicha Ugbo in Aniocha North LGA, Delta State.He was invested with the chieftaincy yesterday.

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Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu We are making conscious effort through a committee to work on this issue, not just in Onicha Ugbo alone, but for the entire Umu-Ezechime where, as you know, I hold the Isagba title in all the 13 towns that make up Umu Ezechime kingdom. I believe that those of us that have been successful in some ways in the zone, there is a huge challenge to reach out and I think that the starting point is to have a data base, and teach the youths on how to apply for job.

After that, we are to set up a permanent secretariat that is going to deal with these data. We want to set up data for some of our people that are in position that they can help us find work

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AN we start by asking what is your vision as the 11 th Odogwu of Onicha Ugbo, especially now that we are no longer in the era of communal conflicts and war fares?

One of the major challenges, in the immediacy, is to ensure that the people of Ishiekpe are united and there is peace in my domain. As the Odogwu, I am the leader of the whole of Ishiekpe village. I am their representative in the Ono-Otu and in the Obiin-Council. Within the wider Onicha Ugbo town, my role will be to assist the king in making decisions that will uplift the welfare of our people and make our people live in peace.

Onicha Ugbo people are generally peace loving, we do not engage in conflict with other towns. Sometimes we do have issues but such issues come and go, they do not lead to major conflicts.

Secondly, I am very concerned about the future of our youths.

As part of the event leading to the Odogwu installation ceremony, we have planned a youth empowerment forum. I really get disillusioned when I see young people leaving school and having nothing to do. There is a willingness to work but there is no work for them. The next temptation is to go into crime.

But if you direct them, properly, then you can prevent that.

We need to know the people that are looking for work and what type of qualifications and skills that they have. We need to have a data base that people can work with in trying to help our young people consciously to find work.

Where some of them are not qualified in the right perspective, the next option will be to encourage them through scholarship, to go for master ’s degrees to improve their CV because sometimes you find that people go to the universities to study courses that will not enable them to find jobs easily.

These are the things we are taking up with the youth forum scheme. We brought resource persons from different backgrounds to speak to these youths on how to prepare for life and make them realise that they are not alone and that there is a genuine effort to try and help them out.

Onicha-Ugbo. I will like to see how we can galvanise our people to see what we can do to promote the development of infrastructure. e are very keen on St. Pius W Grammar School renovation project.We want to set up a Trust Council in that direction to help expand St. Pius Grammar School and see if we can export education to other people. There are a lot of things on ground.

On the political front, I want to play a role. What I want to do is to make sure that Anioma gets its turn in the gubernatorial position. I have said it openly that I am not running for an

I will like to see how we can galvanise our people to see what we can do to promote the development of infrastructure

for some of these young people.

So that will be the first in town.

For so many years I have been involved in the economic empowerment of women, providing them with trucks to convey farm produce. This is going to receive greater impetus.

Then there is of course infrastructural development of

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elective position. You cannot be an arbiter and at the same time trying to put yourself up as a candidate. But that does not mean that I am excluding myself from the political process.

Right now I am employed and I am focusing on that, but to the extent that I can help to influence things to get the right people in

Eze Chime kingdom. How are you going to combine the responsibilities of the Isagba and the Odogwu at the same time?

There is a precedent; my grand father was the Ashi Obi and the Odogwu of Onicha Ugbo; he held both titles. But I have asked questions and people told me that I can continue with both titles because the Isagba title, which is a social title, cuts across the 13 towns that make up the Ezechime kingdom.

It really does not involve my sitting in Obi in Council in those towns. It is an honour and recognition on me by these communities, it does not permit you to attend the meetings of Obi in Council in those towns but when they have something that requires my assistance in areas of development of infrastructure, they call o n me. But as the Odogwu of Onicha Ugbo, I represent the people of Ishiekpe in Obi in Council.

The Odogwu is a traditional and an Obi in Council title.

As the leader of Ishiekpe people, I have to contribute my quota in this process of decision making in the town and help to resolve conflicts that may arise from time to time or take decisions on how to develop the town. Our ancestors were wise enough to introduce the concept of representation in running the office. Since I am still in employment and may not have time to tackle the day to day activities of the office, I have appointed two able hands in the persons of Mr. Onnekanse Kachikwu who is at Onicha Ugbo to attend to the daily traditional issues and Mr. Chris Ibeashi who also contested for the Odogwuship. They will stand in for me in the day to day activities and call me when there is a big issue. That goes to prove the point that we have made progress in process of reconciling the parties.

The Odogwu title will continue to attract interest because we are not in a military era, we are in a democracy and people will aspire for the office, those who did not get it will always have

a nostalgic disappointment of what they failed to accomplish. I think that sense of disappointment is not going to disappear over night.

This is not just for the Odogwuship, but also for all the major Onotu titles that are zoned to the different villages that make up the town.

History is a different thing and it takes time to change things, it also takes care of where the pain or the emotions are from. If you don’t understand this, trying to solve a problem is a waste of time, the best way to go about it is to understand the passions of those who are aspiring to contest and those who believe that it is their birth right and it should not be toyed with.

Once you understand that, you discover that the dimensions of the worries are really not as complicated as they look. It is just that when people present the issues, they do it from emotional point of view, but once you knock off the emotion, are you going to deny the people who have been here for over 200 years?

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part from your career as a lawyer and a corporate player, you have strong passion for writing and publishing. What really motivates you in life?

I have always loved writing.

My first published work was at the age of 16; so I have always written, I have always published. Whether there are serious books or sector publications, I just like to let out my thought and let them influence people. That is the driving force. If I leave the oil company today, writing and publishing is one area I will turn all my attention to.

You will find that a lot of institutions have been able to hold me down in terms of coming in as visiting professor, lecturer on parttime basis or on sitting basis.

I do that to give back to society. I do it for free.

It give gives me joy because it helps me practice that for which I went to school.

Sometimes we can get carried away by business and the drive to make money.

But at the end of the day, you have to ask yourself what really gives you joy. Seeing a published work gives one satisfaction, seeing a debate contribution that helps to influence changes notion or changes ideas is very important, more satisfying than a million dollars in a bank account.

Turkey furniture fair holds Nov

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NEGOL, Bursa - Turkey will play host to the 30th Modef Expo - Furniture and Decoration Fair from 4-9 November 2013, where over 150 furniture manufacturers and decorators will display their new products and concepts to professionals visiting from all over the world. “Through the exhibition, visitors will be able

to discover the wide range of products and unique samples that reflect both modern and classical design themes, and also understand why the heart of the Turkish furniture sector is in Inegol,”a statement by the organisers said..

The statement continued: “The furniture industry in Turkey is very dynamic and this has

resulted in the international competitiveness of the Turkish manufacturers, particularly when it comes to quality, design and price. At present, around 25 percent of the USD 6 billion furniture production in Turkey is marketed across global markets.

Inegol constitutes 35 percent of this and the aim is to hit USD 1 billion in exports in 2013. With

more than 260 large-scale factories, 1000 showrooms and 1500 production centers, Inegol has maintained its position as the largest furniture producer and exporter in Turkey. Current export statistics show that there are around 300 Inegol furniture companies exporting their products to over 110 countries across the globe.

PAGE 34 — SUNDAY Vanguard, AUGUST 25, 2013

The military in Egypt was insincere in toppling Morsi — Prof Momoh domino effect impact because the political leadership in those countries know the consequences.

By HUGO ODIOGOR, Foreign Affairs Editor

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rof. Abubakar Momoh is a political scientist, human rights activist and author. He teaches at Lagos State University, Ojo, Lagos, where he is the Dean of Faculty of Social Sciences. He is a prolific writer and commentator on international affairs.

In this interview, Momoh provides an insight into the unfolding political development in Egypt.

What is your reaction to the turmoil in Egypt?

The development in Egypt is a huge setback for those who wish to deepen democracy in that country. What took place was a coup and the US and European leaders must admit that simple fact no matter what their wider interest is.

The prospects for civil war are high in the country generally regarded as the power house of Arab politics. What is your take on this?

The country risks a civil war because the issue at stake is whether a coup is the rightful way to resolve issues of disagreement. It’s sad that some Arab countries who disagreed with Mohammed Morsi see this as an opportunity to support the coupists and their allies with funds and political affirmation.

Opponents of Morsi argue that he was eroding the secular status of Egypt and trying to become another dictator by attempting to oust the powers of the courts to question his actions and proclamations?

Morsi may have made mistakes, and, indeed, he admitted to having made mistakes. But there are many fractured things in Egypt:the constitution is fractured, the parliament is fractured, the press is fractured, the party system is fractured and the new opposition is constructed on a fractured political template.

Do you think the way Morsi handled the military after he took office, the Sharia, the Coptic Christian crisis and referendum on the constitution paved the way for way he was ousted?

The military wanted to cage Morsi, hence they gave him a constitution that stripped him the powers of an Executive. They dissolved the parliament and strategically made the Constitutional Court the kingmaker and ombudsman. The Coptic Christian community and other interest groups needed to find wider political space, genuine parliament to play oversight role and ensure accountability. In focusing on Morsi as an individual rather than the fractured political structures and

Given the role of the social media and youth discontent with governments in the Arab world, can our political class ignore the lessons from Egypt?

If our political elite ignore the happenings or gloss over them, it will be unfortunate. The youth of Nigeria feel let down and disappointed. Let us not give them the opportunity to undermine the system,because if we do, it’s anarchy that will reign, not

*Morsi... caged by the military

The country risks a civil war because the issue at stake is whether a coup is the rightful way to resolve issues of disagreement

processes of Egypt, the new opposition missed out on the fundamental issues.

With the experiences in Turkey, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, etc, can democracy thrive in the Arab world?

Democracy will come to the Arab world but not in one fell swoop or as bandwagon.

The capacity of the “Arab Spring” to transform the political landscape of the Arab world was over-exaggerated and it did not take into account the historical specificities and balance of social forces in each country. The new social movements in many of these countries are not ideologically on the same template. Also, the over-reliance on the youth as the

fulcrum or lever was dangerous. The youth idealised and romanticized change.

Many of them did not consciously connect the issues in the context of wider ideological and political meaning.

Material crisis was the main trigger, organizational and ideological cohesiveness was taken out of the “Arab Spring” rebellion. Where successes were recorded, the question of power was posed in a decisive and concrete manner, not in a romantic manner.

With hindsight of the Algerian crisis in the 1990s, do you envisage a backlash from the Muslim Brotherhood?

The Muslim Brotherhood has learnt from the Algeria crisis. But the forces against them both internally and externally are overwhelming; hence they will be forced to fall back to their tradition opposition role. They will be more unity and determined this time and fringe members of other parties such as Al Noury Party, who see the deposed Morsi’s predicament as an assault on Islam will align with the brotherhood.

There will be influx of sympathizers of Morsi from other Arab countries. That will make matters far complex.

Since 1973, political developments in the Maghreb and the Middle East have always infiltrated into Nigeria to exert influence on our domestic affairs. Do you envisage a possible domino effect for Nigeria and sub Sahara-Africa?

There will be no domino effect of these happenings on sub-saharan Africa.

Maybe, Somalia and Kenya and Mali.

Not even in Niger and Chad will such

revolution.

How do you respond to the reaction of the US and major powers to the political situation in Egypt?

I expected the US and Europe an countries to unreservedly condemn the coup and impose sanctions.

Unfortunately most of them find it hard to admit that there was a coup neither are they willing to impose sanctions. That is morally reprehensible and condemnable.

African leaders didn’t raise their voices when Morsi seemed to be going astray, but when he was kicked out, Nigeria and AU were up in arms, a replay of what happened in Mali. Is this ostrich diplomacy of any use to Africa’s democratic development?

Nigeria and AU have no business pointing to day to day programme s and contradictions in the way Morsi ran his government; weak institutions and a selfserving constitution caused it.

AU has a standing policy coming out of the Togo Agreement, that coups have been criminalised in Africa.

The AU and Nigerian governments were merely being faithful to that resolution.

SUNDAY Vanguard, AUGUST 25, 2013, PAGE 35

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An Interpreter’s Account of Nigeria’s Dilemma Obasanjo, Iwu and the North/South Dichotomy But Nigerians did not even give him the chance to choose either. It was in this state of doubt that the 2007 elections were held. As it turned out, the outcome was as controversial as the processes that led to it. The furore that was to follow was either moderated or exacerbated by the personality of Iwu. However, all this depended on people’s perception of the then INEC chairman. n the politics of number, Obi argues that if there is any issue which has made the NorthSouth divide legendary, it is the unending argument about which region of the country is more populous than the other. The argument has been with the country since independence. But it was reinforced again in 2006 when a national head-count took place. Between the early part of 2006 when the census exercise was conducted and January 2007 when the figures were announced, all that the people achieved was merely to wait for an official pronouncement on the census whose outcome everybody knew would open a fresh can of worms.

The fears of many were confirmed when the then chairman of the National

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going to be the last thing he would do in his life. This declaration was instructive.

It showed that Iwu recognized the need to carry out his assignment.

Given this scenario, it became easy to appreciate the fact that the problem lay not with Iwu as a person but with Nigerians who do not even believe in their ability to effect a change if they so wished. The rational way to escape blame in the situation would then be to surmise that people who have resigned to situations should not expect miracles to hap-pen. Those who have accepted complacency as a way of life should not complain when smart Alecs seize the day.

It was encouraging to know that in a situation where many doubted the possi-bility of conducting the elections, the man at the centre of the storm was the one giving assurances to the con-trary. Even though the circumstances that led to this state of doubt were understandable, Nigerians did not give Iwu and his Commission the benefit of doubt. Since Iwu had said that he would conduct free and fair polls, what the people needed to do was to mark his words while monitoring his actions and inactions. The overall objective would have been to ensure that he did not deviate from his promises.

Beyond all that, an umpire such as Iwu needed to be saved from the psychological warfare that he was subjected to. The best way to destabilise a man is to label him a fraud. Once that sticks, any step taken by him to the contrary will hardly count. Iwu’s case was as bad as that. In this matter, the option before Iwu was either to suc-ceed or fail.

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n his new book entitled, “Delicate Distress: An Interpreter’s Account of the Nigerian Dilemma”, Dr. Amanze Obi, scholar and frontline Nigerian journalist, asks disturbing questions about Nigeria. He delves into Nigeria’s 2007 general elections, digging up its controversial rubbles.

He also raises questions about the politics of number that has tended to widen the gulf between the North and the South of the country, among other issues. Excerpts: Professor Maurice Iwu, the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) between 2006 and 2010, had a date with histo-ry. He was saddled with the onerous responsibility of conducting the very crucial election that would give Nigeria a leap in its quest for an enduring democratic culture.

Iwu was certainly not the first Nigerian to be confronted with such national assignment. Some other Nigerians of repute had done the job before him. But there was a significant difference between Iwu’s assignment and those which his predecessors carried out.

The difference resided largely in the circumstance under which Iwu worked. Under his leadership of INEC, Nigeria was, for the first time in its history, experiencing eight years of uninterrupted civil rule. That was a landmark in the political history of Nigeria.

Having crossed the hurdle which the civilian governments of the First and Second Republics could not overleap, the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo, which gave Iwu the assignment, was obviously thumping its chest. It was taking pride in this feat. At some point, the govern-ment or its principal, Obasanjo, became somewhat conceited about this. He began to feel that as he was leaving office, he would dictate the direction Nigeria would go.

When therefore Obasanjo talked about the 2007 elections being a matter of life and death, he was simply saying that he needed a special form of reward for tak-ing Nigeria to the democratic height it never attained before. Anything that stood on his way therefore deserved to be crushed.

Besides, the same President had wanted to stay in office beyond his constitutionally sanctioned tenure.

The plot was aborted. But it sharply polarized the poli-ty before it was buried. The experience left remarkable bruises on the psyche of the President. Having failed in that regard, the next step for him to take was to ensure that the elections went the way he wanted. iven this set-up, Iwu was caught between the overbearing tendencies of the principal who appointed him and the imperative of playing the role of an unbiased umpire. This sce-nario constituted difficult times for him.

But, more difficult for Iwu was the pes-simism of Nigerians. Regardless of the precari-ous situation in which he found himself, Iwu looked poised to weather the storm. Even though he was being buffeted from all corners with criticisms that were, more often than not, uncharitable, the man was still working hard to earn the confidence of Nigerians. He never wavered in his oft-repeated declaration that he would conduct free and fair elections, even if that was

Iwu was caught between the overbearing tendencies of the principal who appointed him and the imperative of playing the role of an unbiased umpire

Population Commission (NPC), Samuila Makama, announced the census figures.

Nigeria’s population, according to him, stood at 140,003,542. The figures released showed that those living in Northern Nigeria outnumber those in the South by about 11 million.

Perhaps these were the only things that sounded new, even if a section of the country did not accept them. Beyond these, every other index about the census followed a familiar trajectory. For instance, the argument about the numerical superiority between Lagos and Kano remained. Just to ensure that the apple cart was not toppled, the census figures merely gave Kano a slight edge over Lagos. While Kano recorded 9,383,682, Lagos was awarded 9,013,534.

It is not only the Lagos and the Kano

figures that looked contrived, most of the other figures also appeared made up.

Consider again the old and familiar debate between the numerical strength of the North and South of the country. From the very beginning, the claim that the North has more population than the South has been disputed. The argument was and has remained that the colonial overlords who were instrumental to the conduct and outcome of the country’s first census preferred to put the figures of the North higher than that of the South for strategic reasons.

But the South has continued to argue that landmass is not the same thing as mass population.

The South is also worried that it is only in Nigeria that an arid North can boast of more human beings than the rain forest, that is, the South. Under the present 36 – state structure, the North has 19 while the South has 17. All these point to a certain disparity. The story it tells is that a people with 17 states cannot have a higher population than those with 19 states. Based on this longstanding belief or assumption, government and its agencies are being made to accept the situation as almost axiomatic.

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t would appear that the whopping 11 million which the NPC awarded to the North in excess of the southern population suggests that there are more northerners than southerners. But the indices used for the 2006 census may not necessarily suggest that. It may well be that the migrant population in the North helped to swell the figures in its favour. This is especially so since religion and ethnicity were excluded from the census questionnaire.

This brings us to one of the issues that made the outcome of the 2006 census suspect. Before the census exercise started, a lot of dust was raised as to why two critical indices – religion and ethnicity – were excluded from the questionnaire. Questions were raised as to why NPC chose to do that. But no meaningful reason or explanation was given. In the absence of that, the move lent itself to all sorts of interpretations. The Igbo who are known to move around more than any other group in Nigeria felt uneasy about it. The move was seen as an attempt to use the Igbo population to swell the figures of other states of the federation where the Igbo are resident.

In the same vein, adherents of Christianity and Islam subjected the exclusion of religion from the questionnaire to different interpretations. For Christians particularly, it was an attempt to conceal their real numerical strength especially in South-west Nigeria where Islam and Christianity seem to be competing in terms of penetration and reach.

Situations such as these create nothing but mutual suspicion and even antagonism. What it suggests is that Nigeria is founded on false grounds and that the authorities must never be trusted when it comes to facts and figures.

PAGE 36—SUNDAY Vanguard, AUGUST 25, 2013

The Nationality question

BY FEMI FANI-KAYODE

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ermit me to begin this contribution with two incontrivertable assertions. Firstly had we successfully answered what has come to be collectively known as the ‘’Nationality Question’’ in the ’50s and ’60s there would have been no civil war in 1967. Secondly had we not chosen to forget our differences but instead had we tried to understand them, the last 53 years of our existence as an independent nation would have witnessed far more unity,stability and progress than it has done. The agitation and quest to answer the ‘’Nationality Question’’ in Nigeria will not stop until the question has been successfully answered no matter how long our leaders, politicians, professionals and intellectuals ignore it and attempt to brush it under the carpet. The quest to properly identify, situate and define the rights, duties and obligations of each and every one of our numerous nationalities in a wider Nigeria will never end until it is achieved.

As a matter of fact, given the sheer desperation of each of the major ethnic groups to win control at the centre in 2015,

the activities of Boko Haram, the agitation of the Niger Deltans, the ressurection of MASSOB, the unmistakable resurrgence of a rather extreme form of igbo nationalism, the activities of various ethnic nationalist groups and the growing religious and sectarian divide in our country, it has only just started in earnest and it is a cause that I have chosen to dedicate my life to. As long as I live, I will resist the idea of any part of Yorubaland being turned into a ‘’no-man’s land’’ where the Yoruba people are meant to live as second class citizens and neverdo-wells and where they are treated like filth. If that makes me a tribalist or a bigot, then so be it.

If loving my nationality,which comprises of 50 million Yoruba people, and adoring my nation of 160 million Nigerians at the same time is a crime then I am guilty of that crime. I do not have to love one at the expense of the other. We are not America which is a nation that is made-up of immigrants and ex-slaves and a country which literally wiped out the indigenous population that they met there when they arrived who were known as the Red Indians. We are not Americans

who somehow found their way into the world barely 300 years ago, we are Nigerians. And each and every one of the great and numerous nationalities that make up our beautiful nation has a noble heritage that goes back for thousands of years. We may not be as developed or as wealthy as they are but we know who we are and we know where we are coming from. That is why I am proud of this country and all the various nationalities that make it up regardless of our difficulties and challenges. Yet we are not so different to some others. In the United Kingdom there are basically four nationalities: The English, the Welsh, the Irish and the Scottish. Each of these four nationalities is actually a tribe yet you very rarely find a British person who will tell you that he is not proud of his Scottish, Welsh, Irish or English heritage AND at the same time proud of his nation. He is first an Irishman, a Welshman, an Englishman or a Scot before being British even though he cherishes being both. He does not have to sacrifice his Irish, Welsh, English or Scottish heritage and roots for Britain and neither does he have to sacrifice Britain for his heritage and roots. He

balances it well, he has the best of both worlds and this is indeed a wonderful thing. He derives his strength from both.

He enjoys being Irish, Scottish, English or Welsh and cherishes it deeply just as much as he enjoys and cherishes being British. And, today, centuries after Great Britain was established as one nation under one Crown and one Royal Sovereign the British citizen still cherishes his primary nationality and tribal heritage so much that power has been gradually devolved from the centre at Westminster in London to the various tribes and ethnic nationalities in the regions over the years.

Such is the agitation for the restoration of ethnic identity and devolution of power in the United Kingdom today that Scotland is preparing for a referendum to determine whether her people should remain in Great Britain or not. This is a beautiful thing. It is known as self-determination and no human being ought to be depride nied that right. Taking T in your primary roots and your ancient heritage is not a crime.That is how it is meant to be. It is only in Nigeria that we call this perfectly natural and wholesome phenomenon

‘’tribalism’’. We give it an ugly name and we ascribe to it an even uglier connotation. Everywhere else in the world the reality of ethnic nationalities is acknowledged, respected, valued, cherished and wellmanaged. As a matter of fact such diversity is a source of strength and pride for many.

For example in the nation of Belgium one will find that there is an ancient dichotomy and deep rivalries between the Flemish people of the north and the Waloons of the south.

They speak different languages and have a completely different history and cultural heritage yet these two great and ancient nationalities or tribes are proudly Belgian and they rally under one flag. This is how it ought to be everywhere. I have no hate or ill-feeling towards any other ehnic group in this country or anywhere else. If I did I would say so and damn the consequences. Racism and tribalism is below me and such primordial traits offend my sensibilities. To harbour such views is well below my intellectual and spiritual dignity.

Those that know me well can attest to this. I have as many Continues on page 37

Femi Fani Kayode’s gaffe on Lagos deportation

By LAWRENCE CHINEDU NWOBU

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EMI Fani- Kayode comes as a relevance seeking opportunist who is fond of jumping into every national issue and almost always injecting tribalism into simple issues of citizenship or social justice as a strategy.

Being incapable of being objective or constructive, his articles/utterances are often full of contradictions and sometimes outright nonsense.

He has nonetheless carved a niche for himself as a disrespectful, talkative loudmouth and one of the rabidly bigoted/ignorant Nigerians who thrive in fanning the flames of the “tribalism industry.” The recklessness and illogicality he brings to bear on issues of national importance, no doubt, marks him out as one of those many Nigerians who should be rebranded a different species of humanity responsible for Nigeria’s damning predicament. Nowhere is this more demonstrated than his take on the constitutional issue of deportation of persons from Lagos, which he has characteristically and laughably chosen to make a tribal issue.

A man of Fani- Kayode’s education is ordinarily expected to be able to distinguish between emotional and constitutional issues, he is also expected to, like a lawyer,

be capable of good judgement on the side of justice devoid of sentiments for the simple reason that, as the saying goes, “injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere”.

But FaniKayode found it impossible to

If Fashola was so interested in resolving the issue of destitution, he could have shown an example by rehabilitating indigenes of his state exercise good judgement, because he belongs to the group who thrive in the “tribalism industry” and on the suffering of Nigerians including his own people.

The illegality of the action of the Lagos State government in the deportation of persons should be obvious even to the layman.

Nigeria has a Constitution which spells out very clearly the rights of every Nigerian to reside wherever he chooses in any part of the nation without let or hindrance. In violation of this constitutional right, Governor

Femi Fani- Kayode Fashola started a campaign of institutional kidnapping (arresting and holding persons against their will) and deportation of persons to several states within Nigeria. At the last count, Fashola has deported people to several northern states, Oyo, Ogun and, recently, Onitsha where, in the dead of the night, persons, some of whom were from Edo, Delta and Kogi states, were dumped. Some of the deported persons were reportedly lunatics who could not communicate or express themselves and it is possible that some of them might even be from Lagos.

The pretext is that the deported persons are homeless and destitute, and repatriated to reunite them with their families, but you don’t hold people against their will/ constitutional rights and dump them at night along the road and claim to be reuniting them with their families. Government exists to provide for the most downtrodden and impoverished in society. It is the responsibility of government to invest in creating jobs, opportunities, and to rehabilitate the downtrodden including the disabled in their respective jurisdictions and not to deport them. In all normal

societies, government has a massive budget of social welfare with which they provide for social housing, unemployment allowances for those who have no jobs, disability allowances, medical cards and other varieties of social aid.

There are thousands of technically destitute Nigerians residing in Britain, Ireland, France, Germany and elsewhere who have been housed by the government in council houses and who depend on their livelihood from social welfare payments and other benefits. Those countries have not deported Nigerians because they are destitute and dependent on government to survive in line with the logic of Lagos State government and its sympathisers like FaniKayode. If Fashola was so interested in resolving the issue of destitution, he could have shown an example by rehabilitating indigenes of his state, but it is not on record that Fashola has provided social housing, unemployment benefits, medical insurance and other social aid to poor indigenes of Lagos State. It is thus evident that what Fashola has manifested is the usual sadism and wickedness of Nigerian leaders and their disdain for the poor and downtrodden.

* Nwobu can be reached via lawrencenwobu@gmail.com

SUNDAY Vanguard, AUGUST 25, 2013, PAGE 37

The Nationality question Continued from page 36 non-Yoruba friends just as I have Yoruba ones. I look down on no other human being, no other race and no other nationality and I do not claim that the Yoruba are better than anyone else.

What I insist on though is that I should be allowed to acknowledge my history and to preserve my ancient heritage, culture, values and ethos. I also insist that my people should be allowed to develop at their own pace. I am not ashamed of who I am and where I come from and had it not been for others holding us back I know where the Southwest and the Yoruba would have been by now in terms of development. And neither would I go to England or America or Enugu or Kano and claim that I own the place or that my people built it from the scratch and that they generate all the money that is there. I would never say or do such a thing and neither should I be expected to sit back quietly when someone says it about my land, my people and my territory. In this debate I

have threatened no-one, I have incited no-one, I have accused no-one and I have not sought to silence anyone with threats or blackmail. I have not expressed hatred towards anyone. Yet my family has been subjected to insults, threats, humiliation, hate-speech, misrepresentation, falsehood, intimidation, calls for arrest and lies by some people who really ought to know better. My father of blessed memory has been insulted during the course of this debate as has my late mother, my wife, my children and my people from the South-west. We have been called all sorts of names and subjected to the most filthy and disgraceful abuse and malicious lies. And now some ask me if I will ever stop this fight for the rights of my people. The answer is that I will not because a price has already been paid. I will never renounce my views. Those that have chosen the path of aggression and open hostility and that seek to supress our voices, intimidate us into silence and drown us with their propaganda are vulger, crude and rude. They are also experts at telling lies. Yet they

cannot silence a whole nationality or just wish us away. We are here to stay. To me this is simply an intellectual exercise and we can agree to disagree and still remain compatriots and friends. However I will not give up my identity be-

We ignore our differences at our own peril and this is not only naive but it is also exceptionally dangerous cause that is all I have. I will not betray the dreams of my forefathers and their aspirations for our people. For four generations now the Fani-Kayode have contributed positively to the affairs of this country.

Unlike some of those that are bleating and insulting us we

have paid our dues. Like millions of others we have a stake here and we are from Yorubaland. I have a little Fulani blood in me too and I am very proud of that but I am first and foremost a Yoruba and I will live and die for the Yoruba and indeed for my nation Nigeria if needs be.

I have written about virtually every major ethnic group and nationality in this country over the last twenty three years and sometimes in very harsh terms, including my own, Yet it is only when I disagree with some of our Igbo brothers and sisters and dispute their claims on Lagos that all hell breaks loose. They say our territory is ‘’no-man’s land’’ yet they will never offer us theirs in return or even allow us to build there. Who is the fool here? And when we complain they have the nerve to insult us. Enough is enough. I am not a racist or a bigot but I believe that I have a right to defend that which is mine and to preserve my identity.

We ignore our differences at our own peril and this is not only naive but it is also excep-

tionally dangerous. They made the same mistake in Yugoslavia through the ’70s and 80s until the explosion came in the ’90s and all hell broke loose. No-one saw the war coming in that country except the more discerning and brilliant minds who had been shouting for decades before it came that their very own ‘’nationality question’’ had to be answered and that Colonel Broznin Tito’s dream of an eternal and everlasting old Yugoslavia was unsustainable.

No-one listened to those discerning voices and consequently millions were killed in the most horrendous and vicious civil war that Europe has ever seen. From being one country where the people and numerous nationalities were compelled to ‘’forget their differences’’ by law, Yugoslavia was eventually broken up into five sovereign independant states as a consequence of fratricidal butchery and unrestrained and all-out war. I pray that we never break up and that we never witness or fight such a war in Nigeria.

The answer is to understand and settle our differences and not to forget them.

PAGE 38—SUNDAY Vanguard, AUGUST 25, 2013

•Uba

•Ifeanyi

•Nze

•Okonkwo

•Anenih

•Okeke •Obinna

Walter

Soludo

BY VINCENT UJUMADU

HE battle for Governor Peter Obi’s successor has begun in earnest and, as is customary with Anambra elections, intrigues and manipulations are already in the air. Three political parties: the All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA, the All Progressive Congress, APC, and the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, are clearly ahead of others in terms of followership in the state and, unless the unexpected happens, the next governor, after the November 16 election, will be from one of the three parties. The fourth political party, Labour Party, LP, is also waxing strong because of the influence of Mr. Ifeanyi Ubah, the oil magnate, who has pitched his tent with the party, though the party is seen currently as a one- man show in the state.

All the cleared aspirants in the PDP and APGA have paid N1 million each for expression of interest in the tickets of the parties and the very serious ones are already paying the N10 million nomination fee. It is also obvious that some of the aspirants who paid the money in both parties may step down for their favoured colleagues before the primaries.

T

C M Y K

Anambra 2014:

Ekwunife

The candidates, the issues, the processes Likely candidates

There are about 32 aspirants, new and experienced, from all the political parties, jostling for their parties’ tickets. PDP has 12, the ruling APGA has 13, APC has three; while the KOWA Party, the Peoples Party of Nigeria, PPN, and LP have one each. Other parties which only show presence during elections in the state have also been renting small offices as their state secretariats and, like traders, are exhibiting their wares.

Expectedly, their businesses will boom after the primaries of the major political parties as some of those who will drop by the way side are likely to pick tickets from the small parties. Some of the small parties are already dropping names of notable aspirants in PDP and APGA, claiming that they are standing by to pick their tickets at the appropriate

time. For now, the small parties have not even begun the process for the selection of their candidates for the election, but they are monitoring the political situation.

PDP

Aspirants in the PDP include Senator Andy Uba, Nze Akachukwu Nwankpo, Dr. Obinna Uzor, Mr. Ugochukwu Okeke, Mr. Walter Okeke and Prince Nicholas Ukachukwu, who are all from Anambra South senatorial zone. From Anambra North are Senator Emma Anosike, Chief Tony Nwoye and Dr. Alex Obiogbolu, while from Anambra Central are Mrs. Josephine Anennih, Mr. Sylvester Okonkwo and Chief Charles Odunukwe.

The intrigues trailing the ward congress of the PDP in the state is seen as part of

the strategy by some of the Governor Obi’s tenure. aspirants who want to put Ukachukwu said: “The themselves in a vantage people of Anambra North position before the have the right to demand to governorship primary be governor. We in Anambra election. PDP is also not South senatorial zone also bothered about the clamour have the right to demand

by Anambra North that the that we should be allowed to area should be allowed to complete our two tenures of produce the next governor of the state There are about 32 and that is aspirants, new and why a large number of the experienced, from all aspirants are from Anambra the political parties, South and jostling for their Central. One of the parties’ tickets governorship aspirants from the South, eight years as Anambra Ukachukwu, said, in Awka, Central has done. Between that Anambra South is yet to Obi and Senator Chris complete two tenures since Ngige, Anambra Central has the creation of the state, occupied the Government unlike Anambra Central that would have been in office for Continues on page 39 11 years at the end of

SUNDAY Vanguard, AUGSUT 25, 2013, PAGE 39

The candidates, the issues, the processes Continued from page 38 House for 11 years, while Dr. Chukwuemeka Ezeife and Dr. Chinwoke Mbadinuju, both from Anambra South, have jointly occupied the Government House for only five years.

Crisis For the past 12 years, Anambra PDP has been experiencing crisis of leadership. It was PDP that introduced godfather into the politics of the state during the tenure of Mbadinuju when the billionaire business man, Sir Emeka Offor, held sway. The godfather syndrome continued during the three –year reign of Ngige when Chief Chris Uba, who facilitated his emergence, tried to overawe the governor and Ngige’s refusal to submit led to a crisis. Since the PDP lost the Government House following the removal of Ngige in 2006, the party has been in disarray, with feuding members jumping in and out of court to perpetuate their hold on the party.

As the governorship election draws near, the crisis remains unresolved. And at a time members of the PDP expected those who want to take over form Obi in 2014 to come down and mobilize the electorate in readiness for the election, the aspirants preferred to stay in Abuja where they were said to be lobbying to arm twist the national leadership of the party to give them the governorship ticket without a primary election.

Though all the aspirants later agreed to a primary election after series of meetings with the national leadership of the party and capped it up with a peace rally in Awka, the group, led by Chief Ejike Oguebego, which has the sympathy of Senator Andy Uba, was absent at the rally, Uba, however, said later that his inability to attend the rally was due to flight disruption and insisted that he remains in the forefront of the efforts to ensure that a lasting peace returns to the PDP in the state. But events that took place during the ward primaries showed that the crisis in the party is still far from being resolved.

Currently, the party is sharply divided over its leadership in Anambra, with Prince Kenneth Emeakayi leading the executive approved by the national leadership, while Oguebego leads another faction approved by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC. Penultimate Monday, the PDP held its ward primaries for the election of three –member delegates from each of the 326 political wards in the state and, as was the case in the past, two parallel primaries were held.

While the PDP leadership was conducting its primary without the presence of INEC officials, the electoral umpire was supervising another primary conducted by Oguebego. The surprising thing was that the supervision was done by INEC officials from its headquarters in Abuja and they were seen boarding a vehicle back to Abuja the following day. It was gathered that they left with the results they collated and, later in the day, Oguebego headed to Abuja. The question being asked is whether the result collated by INEC would be forwarded to the PDP headquarters which did not recognize the Oguebego leadership. Again, what would happen to the result of the

•Uba

•Ifeanyi •Nze

•Anenih

•Okonkw wo

•Okeke •Obinna Walter Soludo prrimary conducted by the Emeakayi faction action of the party since INEC said it recognizes Oguebego as the chairman of the party in the state?

One of the PDP governorship aspirants, Ukachukwu, is, however, optimistic that, ultimately, whatever result is sanctioned by the national leadership of the party would be the authentic one. Many people in the PDP are blaming the renewed crisis in the party on the former secretary of INEC who, it was gathered, allegedly issued a statement recognizing Oguebego as the state chairman days to his retirement.

According to a source in the Commission, the statement took the national leadership of the PDP unawares and it came at a time the party leaders thought they had almost resolved the crisis in the Anambra chapter. But Ukachukwu said the National Working Committee, NWC, of PDP was working hard to withdraw the recognition, arguing that it was improper for INEC to select leaders for the party.

APGA In APGA, the aspirants are Professor Charles Soludo and Mr. John Nwosu both from Anambra South; Mrs. Uche Ekwunife, Mr. Emma Nweke and Chief Chukwuemeka Nwogbo, from Anambra Central; while from Anambra North are Mr. Oseloka Obaze, Prince Chinedu Idigo, Chief Willy Obiano, Chief Charles Nnacheta, Dr. Chike Obidigbo, Chief Patrick Obianwu and Chief Paul Odenigbo. Buoyed by the statement from Obi that he would support a candidate from Anambra North, some aspirants from the area are already claiming to be the governor ’s anointed persons. For instance, spirited efforts are being made by stakeholders and aspirants in APGA to prevail on most aspirants from Anambra North to withdraw their ambition and support one person to be able to win the party’s ticket. At least three meetings had been held in that regard and it was believed that by the time they go into the primary proper, only one aspirant from Anambra North would be

Ekwunife reconciliation process. presented. However, while some Obi has since denied having aspirants p withdrew from the race in interest in any aspirant aspirant, saying that the spirit of a united Anambra North, whoever emerges from the primary another aspirant, Chief Willy would be supported by the party.

Obiano, a former executive director Recall that shortly after winning the of Fidelity Bank, who is considered a 2010 governorship election, Obi serious contender, joined the race. began the campaign for power to There are claims that three persons shift to Anambra North, an area that from Anambra North are being has not produced governor since the favoured by Obi, for one of them to creation of Anambra State in 1991. take over from him. The three are The stand of the governor, perhaps, Mr. Oseloka Obaze, the SSG and encouraged many people from former senior official of the United Anambra North to develop interest in Nations, UN, Obiano and Prince the governorship race such that by Chinedu Idigo from the Aguleri royal May this year, about 15 persons from family. Those from Anambra North, the zone had declared their interest who cut short their governorship in the race. As the controversy over ambition, apparently to create the zoning of the governorship to chances for others, include Mr. Anambra North continues, one of the Dubem Obaze, a former aspirants from the zone, Idigo, said commissioner for local government and younger brother of Oseloka Obaze; While the PDP leadership a member of House of Representatives, was conducting its primary Mr. Afam Ogene; without the presence of and the member representing INEC officials, the electoral Anambra State in the Revenue umpire was supervising Mobilization, another primary conducted Allocation and Fiscal Commission, Mr.

by Oguebego Nnamdi Ekweogwu from Onitsha, It was gathered that the move by Anambra North to there was indeed an agreement present one aspirant at the primary reached among Anambra politicians election heightened when, that the North should produce the unexpectedly, the former governor of next governor. He said: “Governor the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Obi has promised to release the Professor Chukwuma Soludo, who agreement at the appropriate time. was aspiring to contest on the During my consultations for this platform of the PDP, decamped to governorship race, I met a traditional APGA and announced his intention ruler in this state who said there was to contest for governor in that party. such an agreement and that he is in He immediately registered as a possession of a copy of it. Since some member of APGA in his Isuofia Ward. respected stakeholders are saying Political watchers insinuated that that there was such an agreement, I Soludo was drafted into the race from expect our people to respect that within and outside the party as part agreement by giving Anambra North of the reconciliation process between the chance to produce the next Obi and the national chairman of governor.

APGA, Chief Victor Umeh, on the The SSG, Obaze, also spoke in the crisis that almost tore the party apart. same light when he said that When Umeh was asked his position allowing Anambra North to produce about the zoning of the governorship the next governor is a moral issue. after his reconciliation with Obi, he Continues on page 40 said that it did not form part of the

PAGE 40—SUNDAY Vanguard, AUGUST 25, 2013

Continued from page 39 He said: “There should be a moral question for aspirants from Anambra Central and South senatorial zones still angling to become the next governor of the state because their zones have been occupying the seat since the creation of the state.

“It should be known that the people from Anambra North senatorial zone are not groveling for sympathy and attention, but seeking what should come to them rightfully, if there is justice and a sense of equity. Thankfully, there are many well-meaning people from the south and central senatorial zones that support our cause, our dear Governor Peter Obi, being a leading example. In the fullness of time, everyone will have to account for their political stand, since the issue at hand is both moral and constitutional. Such rotational issues are topical in Delta, Enugu, Abia, Akwa Ibom and Lagos states. It remains a paradox; therefore, that those who say the governorship slot cannot be ceded to Anambra North in 2014 since there is no zoning, are the first to advocate that Presidency should be ceded to the Igbo nation in 2015. As I see it, the quest to bring the governorship to Anambra North is now a sacred mission for the people of the North.”

•Uba •Ifeanyi •Nze •Anenih

•Okeke •Obinna Walter

C M Y K

Ekwunife

Soludo

The candidates, the issues, the processes

APC APC has three aspirants namely, Ngige and Senator Annie Okonkwo, both from Anambra Central, as well as Chief Godwin Ezemo, who is from Anambra South. Before now, many people believed Ngige would easily secure the APC ticket, but unfolding events in the new party suggest otherwise. Okonkwo, who left APGA for APC and was named the interim deputy national chairman for south, recently resigned to join the governorship race. He is a grassroots politician whose entry into the race is bound to make a lot of difference. Same goes for Ezemo who, through a neophyte in politics, is believed to be in the good books of top officials of APC. It is also being speculated that Okonkwo and Ezemo may run a joint ticket in APC. Okonkwo and Ezemo also appear to be plotting against Ngige as they recently took the decision to make the state chairman of All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, Chief Pat Orjiakor, the interim chairman of APC without consulting Ngige. Before settling for Orjiakor, it was a known secret that Ngige preferred an old ally in the PDP to become the state chairman of APC. How he would react to the appointment of Orjiako will be known in the coming weeks. But Orjiako told Sunday Vanguard that he is very passionate about APC, adding that whatever the state leadership of the party will do will be very transparent. Again, Ngige’s position on the recent deportation of 72 Igbo from Lagos State in which he supported the action appears to have pitched him against many stakeholders who naturally would have assisted him in prosecuting his gubernatorial ambition. Besides, some of his ardent supporters are claiming that he has not done much as a senator and in empowering those who stood by him when the going was tough.

However APC cannot be dismissed with the wave of the hand in Anambra because of the influence of the three parties that merged to form it and the personality of Ngige and Okonkwo in the party. Its only problem may be that none of its governorship aspirants is from

•Okonkwo

Anambra North which is an area that usually presents bloc votes in every election. Many people in Anambra North also say they are not happy with Anambra federal lawmakers over the issue of oil wells in the area which Kogi State people are laying claim to. Idigo, a lawyer, said it was unfortunate that the three senators from Anambra State could not defend the state, even when the facts are available that the oil deposits are in the state and wondered why they should come to Anambra North to ask the people to vote for them.

LP Ifeanyi Ubah from Anambra South is so far the only aspirant in LP. There are also professional aspirants who declare interest every four years mainly hoping that serious aspirants would negotiate with them for settlement. Since he left APGA for LP, Ubah has ensured that no other aspirant came into his new party.

Among all the aspirants, he is the only one that has done controversial things. For instance, he started by dashing SUV cars to some politicians that abandoned their former paymasters to join him and sacking some of them later. Some of them said they had to leave his campaign train because of his style of politics. Nevertheless, his Nnewi country home has continued to witness a beehive of activities and many people who visit there are getting instant cash.

Issues that will dominate the campaigns While some of the aspirants have clear –cut programmes which they intend to execute if they win, others are merely campaigning to be governors without programmes. But,

essentially, the 2015 presidential politicians accuse the PDP – election, the recent deportation of controlled Federal Government of Igbo from Lagos State by the APC – neglecting. controlled Lagos State government, Perhaps the greatest campaign the deplorable situation of federal issue is the 2015 presidential roads in the state, the yet –to take election. To PDP members, there is off Second Niger Bridge and no way the presidency would allow another party to win Anambra State infrastructural development in the capital city of Awka Many people in Anambra are key issues some of North also say they are not the aspirants have been talking about in happy with Anambra the course of their sensitization tours. federal lawmakers over the While PDP and APC issue of oil wells in the area aspirants are accusing the present which Kogi State people are administration of not doing much to laying claim to improve the infrastructure in Awka, APGA aspirants have been if President Goodluck Jonathan reminding the people that it would hopes to win his second tenure. amount to taking Anambra State According to some politicians, back to the dark days if those who Anambra will be a test case for the were the major actors in the future election which is why the destruction of government property major political parties are being very in 2003 in the name of politics were careful in selecting who would fly allowed to come back. their flags in the November 16 Already, some of the aspirants in election. the state are believed to be Mrs. Chinwe Emenuo, a civil preparing jingles that would refer to servant, said the concern and prayer APC as a party that hates Igbo, with of Anambra people is that the next some saying that it was a good thing that the deportation of Igbo by Lagos governor should continue the good things Obi has done. She said that State government came at the right as a civil servant that would retire in time for them to use it against the the next two years, she hopes that party. In fact, a top member of APC the next governor will pay her was recently subjected to entitlement as Obi has succeeded in questioning in Awka when he doing since he came to power. She embarked on a tour of the area and also hopes that the peace that has some members of his party told taken root in the state will continue, Sunday Vanguard that they were not adding that it would be unfortunate amused by their experience during if the state returned to the era in that outing. Another issue being which the people lived under raised by the aspirants and their tension and foreign investors had to parties is the deplorable condition of abandon the state because the Onitsha –Enugu federal politicians made the state unsafe for highway that passes through Awka, them. the state capital which some

SUNDAY Vanguard, AUGSUT 25, 2013, PAGE 41

PDP ELECTION

Why they are after me —Olisa Metuh

*Says opposition against his re-election has no foundation

BY HENRY UMORU. Chief Olisa Metuh, the immediate past National Publicity Secretary of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP is a lawyer, a real estate manager, and an administrator.

Metuh hails from Otolo Nnewi, Anambra State. The former PDP National Working Committee (NEC) member, who has picked the form to return as the party’s spokesperson, was a Zonal Youth Leader, National Auditor and National Vice Chairman, Southeast.

In this interview, Metuh bares his mind on his plans as he prepares to come back to Wadata Plaza, among other issues.

Y

OU resigned recently as National Publicity Secretary of your party following what happened at the 2012 Convention. Why do you want to be returned?

When I assumed office on March 24, 2012, I made a commitment to myself and to my party to change the way we do business. We moved from a reactionary apparatus to an innovative and proactive directorate. My team was determined to rebrand this party and restore the confidence that was eroding by the day. I reorganized the publicity department into a full-fledged research and operation based directorate and created tactical units, streamlined to operate under the direct supervision of the National Publicity Secretary.

With very minimal resources, we developed many units like the media monitoring and surveillance, event planning, rebranded the Umbrella magazine to a world class content oriented magazine, arranged ministerial scorecard sessions; and created the social media unit to manage the PDP website as well as PDP Facebook, twitter, blackberry messaging, blogs. Due to our drive, our Facebook participating followers moved from less than 300 to almost 18,000 people in less than three months and the followership is still growing.

We continued to reach out using the social media even without funding from the party. All these innovations have brought great dividends to our great party. Reckless and unfounded attacks and blackmails against our party have declined tremendously. But we are not done; we have achieved all these in just 14 months. Our commitment and resolve to achieve more cannot be deterred by sabotage and elements of undemocratic process.

For me, it is not a question of just being National Publicity Secretary. It is that of building institutions. I have laid a solid foundation which has effectively curtailed negative media reportage against the party. The National Publicity Secretary of the largest party must have a sense of responsibility to help the nation to have a good image. We have more work to do. That is my drive and that is my commitment.

What stands you out among other contenders?

While I encourage active participation by Nigerians in governance or in the political process, nevertheless every position in the work place comes with requisite qualification and experience expectations. The National Publicity Secretary of a great party like PDP is no different from other corporate entities with regards to that expectation. I possess both practical and institutional knowledge of the process necessary for the effective dispensation of the duties of this office. While these aspirants are hoping to be elected so that they can learn on the job, I bring experience, I bring capacity, and I bring access to credible relationships that help in managing the image of our great party.

As you know, I rose through the ranks of this party, from youth leader, ex- officio, National Vice Chairman Southeast and to National Publicity Secretary. I am no stranger to the workings of this party. While some

Chief Olisa Metuh even at the expense of personal comfort. The records of my performance in all my previous positions are public record. The complexities of the Southeast politics are common knowledge to all, but I have been able to manage these conflicts for the greater good of our party.

While I am not perfect, I have always strived to be fair and consistent in my dispositions, and that has brought me reverence from many stakeholders and attacks by a few. That is what democracy is

It is normal politicking but the PDP is so strong that it has been able and will continue to withstand such things. So there is no cause for alarm appreciate these qualities, others antagonize me because of that, but I always welcome a healthy competition. That is the beauty of democracy.

What is your take on some individuals who are engaged in campaigns of calumny and law suits against you despite the fact that you have a large support base in the South-east and across the nation?

You know that success begets envy. As you rightly mentioned, I have the support of party members from the South-east and across the nation. That support comes from tested and trusted engagements over the years. When it matters, I have always stood tall with my people

fundamental rights. But these are signs of desperate people and our people are no fools. Our courts are equipped with men and women of reputable jurisprudence experience. The Supreme Court is equally taking steps to curtail these abuses.

Do you foresee any internal opposition against you?

I don’t understand what and who you describe as internal, but I do know that these desperate individuals will stop at nothing to advance their cause including infiltrating the hierarchy of our party to perpetuate lies, unfounded attacks and even inquiries in my

all about. But you will agree with me that most candidates that are driven by content and quality do not engage in politics of calumny. Just tell the people why you are a better candidate.

But you cannot say that when you don’t have a record. When people have no credible record of service, that’s when they resort to desperate actions to destroy others.

With regard to the various law suits, I am a lawyer and therefore encouraging citizens to seek redress in court as key to sustaining a true democracy.

However, engaging in frivolous legal actions amounts to abuse of the process and an attempt to deny the citizens of their

office activities seeking for anything to malign my person, my family and to undermine the good works we are doing for our party and our country. Be rest assured that we are not perturbed by this; our focus is on the opposition who is bent on undermining the good deeds of the President. If any member of our party allows himself or herself to be used by the opposition, to make unnecessary allegations, and unwarranted inquiries, that shows how much they love our party.

I hear that some elements are looking at my records to see how they can tarnish my image.

There is nothing about my life family, my business and my tenure as party official that has not been subjected to all kinds of scrutiny by these undemocratic elements but thank God we are answerable for our actions and we are waiting for them. Some have questioned the publishing of the PDP magazine; that we were charging people money for interviews and I laughed. Let me tell you, we independently sourced for funds and printed the magazine without financial assistance from the party. It is only PDP members who participate in the magazine that provide the funding. We rebranded the magazine and have been running it successfully.

So we are waiting for these undemocratic elements and I know God is with us.

However, I must state that the fight is not within the party and that is why I have not paid attention to them. The problem is outside the party. There are those who want to scuttle the progress of the party and bring

down our government. But we will not lose focus. We have to prove to them that President Jonathan is doing well for the country and to showcase that the PDP is the only option for the country. By the time we engage in negative campaign with these undemocratic elements, we lose the moral advantage of fighting for the general interest of the party and the people. So I will refrain from focusing on intraparty matters. My job when I am elected by the grace of God is to engage in inter-party matters and focus on projecting the image and achievements of the PDP. My job is not to start fighting our members or to discredit them.

What innovations are you bringing in especially with the registration of the APC? We believe in integrity. We will say the truth and allow Nigerians to decide. We will not engage in any campaign of calumny or go about pouring vituperations on people. Ours will be to stand by the truth, say the truth and allow Nigerians to decide. We will continue to showcase the achievements of the party. PDP remains the only national non- tribal party that is fighting for the interest of all Nigerians and we will continue to drum it to the ears of the people with all vigor. PDP is the only party that is committed to the unity of this country. It is the party that has the best governors and the best legislators at the federal and state levels. Our ministers are doing well. The truth is that we have capable hands. Most of all, we have a President who is humble and forthright. We have a President who has done well and, by the time, he leaves office, Nigerians will know that a great man has passed through this country.

Your party has been passing through a lot of crisis recently.

What really is the matter? Do we have any solution in sight?

Our party is not having any crisis. What you see is ordinary politicking. It is normal in politics especially as the general elections draw nearer. PDP is a big party. We have millions of Nigerians as members all over the country and people are trying to get involved in one way or the other. So it is normal politicking but the PDP is so strong that it has been able and will continue to withstand such things. So there is no cause for alarm. The National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, has been able to steady the ship of this party and he is doing well.

Recently, the Interim National Chairman of the APC, Chief Bisi akande, described President Goodluck Jonathan as kindergarten President. What is your take on this?

I think the Presidency has already answered that, but we need a President who is a kindergarten and not a graduate of corruption. We need a President who is not a graduate of violence or a graduate of deception, or a graduate of ethnic and tribal politics. We need a President who is a kindergarten and not a graduate of nepotism. So if he is a kindergarten in the sense that he is at the least level in corruption, that means he is fighting corruption. If it means he is at the least level in playing ethnic politics and promoting violence, then that is what we need.

PAGE 42—SUNDAY Vanguard, AUGUST 25, 2013

I‘ll be voice for our people in the Senate – Majemite

BY TONY NWANKWO

,

Olorogun (Barr.) Fred Okiemute Majemite, lawyer and politician, is political adviser to Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta State. He is also the Okiemute ro Ovie of Ughelli Kingdom. He wants to contest the bye-election for the vacant Delta Central Senatorial seat when INEC gives the go-ahead. In this interview, he says as a staunch member of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, he has what it takes to reposition the district at the Senate. Excerpts:

Fred Okiemute Majemite

W

HO is Olorogun Majemite and why do you want the Delta Central senatorial seat?

The death of our brother, the late Senator Pius Akpor Ewherido, representing Delta Central in the Senate was a severe blow to us. In him, we had a landmark representation, but his demise has brought a vacancy to the position. And according to the Constitution, the position must be filled within 90 days as approved by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). I want to run for the position, having done so before in 2003. I had to abandon my quest for Olorogun Felix Ibru, who also did a wonderful job in representing us there. After my quest in 2003, I have strengthened my profile.

For instance, I have served my state under Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan as

Special Adviser (2007-2009), Commissioner for Special Duties (2009-2010) and as Commissioner for Lands (20102011). Currently, I am the Political Adviser to His Excellency, the Governor. These are positions from which I have impacted my constituency of Delta Central.

We hear there are others aspiring to this position. What makes you different. Why must Delta Central choose you for the job?

It is true that other worthy aspirants are bound to emerge because the constituency is large and boasts of worthy sons and daughters. But my case is special, having aspired for the position in 2003, only to jettison my quest to support the eventual winner, Senator Ibru, I have used other

My people have the problem of being marginalised. This issue has been on the table for a long time, but not much seems to have been done on it. I will speak on this

,

political positions I have found myself to impact on our people.

Even before I went into politics, I have had some empowerment programmes for our people. I have a running indigeneship scholarship programme where over 20 brilliant students from my constituency are recognised and awarded to cater for their university education. I have also been assisting my people in the constituency in small scale businesses. Some of these programmes I have used to alleviate poverty in the constituency. As political adviser to Governor Uduaghan, I have used the position to traverse the entire Delta Central, so I know the problems that exist, and I am ready to tackle them.

And what are the problems?

My people have the problem of being marginalized. This issue has been on the table for a long time, but not much seems to have been done on it. I will speak on this, and I will make my voice heard on the issue. Our greatest problem is that nobody is speaking for us. We have no Federal Government representation. For instance, we have no federal minister in the cabinet of President Goodluck Jonathan from the constituency and this affects what you get in terms of Federal Government projects. We have had no federal presence in the constituency since this democratic dispensation. This is apart from the Federal University of Petroleum Resources, Effurun (FUPRE). There is also the Delta Steel Complex (DSC), Aladja, which was controversially sold.

There is the Sapele Port and the need to site an agro-based industry in the district. The most urgent need however is for us to have a voice at the Federal Executive Council (FEC).

The late Senator Ewherido is said to have provided good representation at the Senate.

Do you intend to continue his programmes or you want a new path?

He represented us well, therefore I would want to continue with some programmes he had on ground while bringing my own programmes also to bear. I would like to continue the pursuit at the Senate of the Bill

on Corporate Manslaughter which is targeted at corporate accidents. I will support this and bring it to fruition. I know there were some scholarship programmes he had on ground, I will continue to support those, while including my own. I will take on the programme on the competition on Urhobo Language in secondary schools in the constituency. This programme is very close to the heart of our people particularly the elderly who fear the Urhoho language could become extinct unless something is done. I will tackle the programme head-on.

There will be no age limit on when you can learn the Urhobo language. Furthermore, I will use the experience I have garnered over the years in government to good use. Add this to my superlative membership of the Urhobo Progress Union (UPU), whose support to my quest I will take for granted. I have served them well and I know they will not let me down.

All these I will bring to bear as I go to the Senate and don’t forget I am a lawyer by training.

You expect a tough contest when the time comes?

Of course, but I am on ground.

I had invitation to contest this Senate position ten years ago. I had to step down to support Olorogun Ibru. Today, UPU agrees with me. I have their support. I have been a very good party loyalist. I am a bridge in the constituency. I know my chances are very bright.

Akwa Ibom: New realities and dilemma of guber aspirants

BY ABDULWAHAB ABDULAH

A

KWA Ibom State is increasingly becoming a theatre of vibrant politics. Indications are rife that by 2015 when contests for political offices gets on full stream, Uyo may be next, after Abuja, where massive attention would turn, given the current scenarios playing out in the state.

In 1999 when democracy first perched in Nigeria, politics in the oil rich state was less crisp.

It was never known with a high measure of acrimony and highwire treachery. The congenial political atmosphere in the state enabled the first governor, Obong Victor Attah, to run two terms with little stress. It was only at the point of disengagement by Attach in 2007 that Akwa Ibom politics began to gather steam.

The process began when Attah rallied to pass the baton of power to his son-in-law, Dr Udoma Bob Ekarika. The incumbent governor, Godswill Obot Akpabio, than an aspirant, rallied his forces to extinguish that possibility. Attah buckled and conceded to a political arrangement which enabled an aspirant from Anang to take over from him. Akpabio’s popularity, based on his infectious human relations and his positive approach to issues appeared to have won for him the race.

In less than two years of rulership in Akwa Ibom, Akpabio has become a phenomenon. Today, an average Akwa Ibom indigene would

proudly point towards the gover nor ’s achievements without restraint. Certainly, the finesse Akpabio brought to governance has made the governor ’s office at the Hill Top, Uyo to be attractive.

There are indications that more than 50 aspirants would file out in the struggle to take over Akpabio’s seat in 2015. All along, the former Secretary to the Government of Akwa Ibom, Mr Umana Okon Umana ranked as first among the contenders for the governorship seat. Rated as highly cerebral and composed, Umana, who has had very long years of sojourn within government, many believed, was a strong pillar of support for the Akpabio’s administration. He was all the same close with the governor such that his office placed at his disposal opportunities to play extra roles which made him a man to watch. The enormous power he wielded made many in Akwa Ibom to easily conclude that he was the real heir apparent to the governorship seat.

However, his exit from government, penultimate week, offered an insight into something untoward within Akwa Ibom politics. Until Umana came out to denounce reports that he formally declared interest in the 2015 governorship race, the general impression was that he was eased out for using his office to promote his ambition.

There have been reports that Umana was no longer in the

Gov. Akpabio reckoning before Akpabio and his think-tank based on mere suspicion that he would not be loyal to the governor if he got power in 2015. His possible refusal to make pacts on the game of power with political godfathers in the state also seemed to fuel the suspicion.

Those who held this view said stand point on entering the governorship race with grassroots support rather than with the backing by the godfathers counted against him, hence the reason for the turn of events and the ignoble role reportedly played by armed security officers just to humble him.

However, Umana added to the confusion on the issue of his exit when he denied any rift between him and Akpabio in an advertorial. He went ahead to also denounce reports that he was sacked by the governor.

According to him, the reports on his earlier declaration of intent to run in the governorship race

of Akwa Ibom were the handiwork of enemies who wanted him out of government at all costs.

Impliedly, the former SSG was telling the world that although he had desperate opponents within government who wanted him out, he was never sacked, but voluntarily resigned. This has led to the thinking that the opposition he was battling with had the aim of eclipsing his rising profile as a way of halting him early from succeeding Akpabio. The advertorial stressed this much when it submitted that, “Mr Umana has utmost respect for the office of the governor. The relationship between him and the governor remains cordial, brotherly and friendly”.

There have been more questions and few answers on the exit of Umana from government.

For instance, why would his undeclared governorship ambition cause a stir within the government and then lead to his exit? Who were his main opponents within the cabinet and why were they afraid of him.

Then the big question: If Umana with all the influences he commanded in the government he served for six years could not express an ambition to be governor, who then would be able to break the ice?

The exit of Umana from government thus brings to the fore the experiences had by some cabinet members who were believed to have nursed governorship ambitions while serving, and who by dint of that

lost their jobs. It brings to the mind also the story of how top rated politicians who looked good to take Akwa Ibom politics to a height, just fizzled out. These include Chief Ufot Ekaete, former SGF and Minister of Niger Delta Affairs Ministry; Senator John Akpanudoedehe, former Minister of State for FCT; Senator Effiong Bob; Engr.

Patrick Ekpotu; Obong Nsima Ekere; Senator Eme Ekaete; Ambassador Sam Edem, former Chairman of NDDC; and Senator Aloysious Etuk.

Notwithstanding, the exit of Umana from government has seemingly turned the heat on the politics in the sate. Aspiring governors who perceived him as a stumbling block could now begin to express themselves, although with a high measure of caution. This is because the hammer may drop on the head of anyone who failed to learn from the experiences of others.

If the governorship race in Akwa Ibom promises to entail some serious battles by 2015, the most prominent aspirants who seem to have strong reflexes in the struggle, and who may turn things around, all things being equal, include Mr Udom Emmanuel, the new SSG; Mr Adasi Obolom, Commissioner for Local Governments; Mr Bassey Albert Akpan, Commissioner for Finance; Mr. Efiong Abia, Commissioner for Rural Development; and Mr Ekpeyong Ntekim, Commissioner for Justice and Attorney General, among others.

SUNDAY Vanguard, AUGSUT 25, 2013, PAGE 43

justice that is involved.

Governors from 1999 to date are from Enugu East and Enugu West senatorial districts. By the time I complete my second term, Enugu East and Enugu West would have occupied the position for 16 years. Is any argument required for anyone to know that equity and justice demand that the next governor should be from Enugu North?

I went into these details to prove that we have an agreement, a gentleman’s agreement; it is an understanding, one that would work best for the interest of our State and its peoples.

CANCER SAGA

I was amused reading my obituaries – Gov Chime

The Next Two Years We have spent these years laying the foundations for future governments. They have to take a cue from where we stop. There is a blue print for developing the State. It is not about individuals, it is not centred on me as the governor. It is about the people, it is about projects that would benefit the people. I am not naming anything after myself. We are doing all we can to complete all projects. We would not burden the incoming administration with uncompleted projects. The next two years would be used in completing projects that would firm up the foundations we laid.

•Says it’s Nsukka’s turn to be gov in 2015

A

S he strode to a more relaxing seat from the exalted one where he signs the executive decisions that run Enugu State, Governor Sullivan Iheanacho Chime set the mood for the interview at the Lion Building, Enugu, his official quarters.

He sat just a metre away. Our feet could have been touching if he did not cross his in a regal posture that he varied as the interview ran. His towering presence made one instantly think of abasketball professional in other climes. He was snug. He seemed to have put aside the trappings of office for the thrills of this encounter.

The handshake was firm, not beyond a clench that could have suggested bellicosity. He was in high spirits, discussing his health with unpractised frankness. “I was amused reading the reports about me, especially the several obituaries,” he said, as he went on talking about his recovery.

A long queue of guests was waiting for him. He was to conclude the day’s business by 4am and was back at work after a few hours’ sleep. It is a routine he maintains.

Enugu, the challenges of re-inventing a 101year-old city, and his joy at the opening of the Akanu Ibiam International Airport radiated as he accounted for his six years in office.

With two years to the end of his administration, Governor Chime talked as if he was writing his handing over notes. He bantered and countered as we talked Enugu politics, the opposition andhis position on 2015 and the race to succeed him.

“It may be interesting to know if those who opposed the building of the mall at Polo Park are not among the regular shoppers,” he joked about the fiery army of opposition, whose voices are drowning in the flood of plaudits over his performance.

A lawyer by training, but a practical politician dedicated to the people, he said the matter of Nsukka (Enugu North) producing the next governor was not a promise, but an agreement that equity and justice support. “It did not have to be written, such things are never written,” he said.

What follows is Governor Chime, mostly in his own words…

•Gov. Chime

Key Projects

BY IKEDDY ISIGUZO,

Chairman Editorial Board

015 For Nsukka

2

The issue of Nsukka producing the governor in 2015, it is actually Enugu North senatorial district – let me make the clarification before some think I mean Nsukka town – has evolved. Some are contesting it; some claim there is no agreement to that effect. I think it is more than an agreement. It is a promise that evolved from an understanding we have about peaceful transitions in the State.

A bit of the background could help in establishing that the matter has gone beyond promise, agreement to a case of equity and justice. In 1999, the contest for the governorship was open to all the zones.

Governor Chimaroke Nnamani won and did a second term.

In 2007, it was open again.

Aspirants from all the zones participated, I won. By 2011, most candidates withdrew from the contest because of

the enormous support that I had. The real players in Enugu North said it made sense for me to complete two terms.

The traditional rulers, in particular, told contestants from Enugu North that they would not get support; it was a sort of disclaimer. Nobody

We have done many road projects and we are continuing. We are opening up the State, making it easier for people to move around as they explore the investment opportunities we are creating. We have also constructed roads that have shortened distances between parts of the State.

Governors from 1999 to date were from Enugu East and West senatorial districts. By the time I complete my second term, Enugu East and West would have occupied the position for 16 years. Is any argument required for anyone to know that equity and justice demand that the next governor should be from Enugu North from the North contested in our party (PDP), but other parties fielded candidates.

What I did at the town hall meeting was to re-echo what we all knew. Nobody writes such things as agreements.

The most important aspect of it is the matter of equity and

The one from Abakpa Nike to Nsukka is almost finished.

Once completed, the journey from Enugu to Nsukka town would be under 30 minutes, making Nsukka closer to

Continues on page 44

PAGE 44—SUNDAY Vanguard, AUGUST 25, 2013

Continued from page 43 Enugu than some parts of Enugu. We have done more roads in Enugu North than in Enugu East.

When we were building the mall, people criticised it, the same way they criticised other projects.It may be interesting to know if those who opposed the building of the mall at Polo Park are not among the regular shoppers.

An industrial park is being built, the state secretariat is under construction. We pulled down the buildings that had no character.

Some of the ones left date back to 1928, but they were built with stone. We are leaving them for their historical importance, again they are strong. In those cases we are renovating them.

Like the mall in Polo Park, those who screamed when we were pulling down the old structures at the secretariat, are among those amazed at the new structures replacing them.

We are building a new government house. All these would be completed before we leave.

Others areas that have engaged our attention are agriculture, education, industrialisation, job creation and empowerment of our people.

Diagnostic Centre One of the earliest projects that this administration started was a diagnostic centre. It would have been commissioned before the completion of my first term.

Things went wrong with the construction. We had to pull down the building and start again.

We are aware that no modern city can operate without sound medical facilities. I know that some would think that we are constructing the centre because of my illness, it was conceived and was being built before I fell ill last year.

N

ew Enugu, Centenary City

The Centenary City to mark 100 years of Nigeria is under construction. We have a Workers’ Village too in addition to some housing estates that investors are building. These are expanding the city. We are changing the look of the city.

The changes are more profound than people think.The projects we have executed have changed Enugu from a civil service city to investors’ hub.

Government is supporting investors with the provision of infrastructure. The road networks that we have established have made access to the new parts of the city easier.

We have revoked lands allocated to some who have become speculators. There are allocations that some people got 20 to 30 years ago and failed to develop them. We have revoked and re-allocated them. The move

has resulted in people utilising their allocations.

Financing Projects Resources to execute our projects have been a major challenge. We refrain from borrowing as much as possible. What we have been doing is prudent management of the resources we get from the federation account. We operate within our resources.

We have also improved our internally generated revenue.

during a visit to Enugu. The facility would be in use before the end of the year. It would be used for air surveillance of the South East zone.

Investors’ Hub We call this city an investors’ hub and the facilities are rising to meet the challenges. The international airport (that was formally opened yesterday) is part of the main infrastructure that would facilitate the

I was amused reading the reports about me, especially the several obituaries. I still required regular check-ups for evaluation of the progress of the cell, the re-growth.

The regular checks were in March, May and June. I needed evaluation every six weeks. The most recent evaluation showed no signs of affected cells How Airport W Would Help Enugu The impact of the airport would not be limited to Enugu State. It would impact on businesses in the South East and beyond.

Travellers and business people that find the airport in Enugu nearer to them would use it. So we are in a situation where people in Delta, other South South States and the North Central would use the airport.

We are confident that the impact would be great. The airport would facilitate businesses and we expect that as it grows and schedules include other parts of the world, Enugu would be the major hub in this part of the country with a spread of services that would benefit other areas.

The impact of an airport therefore cannot be limited, the uses that result from its presence would show and soon the impact would be obvious with the attendant multiplier effects of having such an important facility here.

Security Issues Enugu is rated the safest State in Nigeria. The Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar said so. We are still improving our security. People arriving Enugu for business or pleasure should harbour no fears.

We are assisting the police in the construction of facilities for their air wing at the airport. It was one of the issues we settled with the Inspector General of Police

realisation of this ambition.

We are also looking forward to the rails being resuscitated.

Our administration would help with the provision of land. The issues of tax

•Gov. Chime

‘It’s Nsukka’s turn to be gov in 2015’ holidays are determined in Abuja but we would offer any assistance that we can.

We have secured a licence for our own cement company. We are working with Lafarge on the project. The State has proven reserves of limestone for the cement factory.

Challenges From Electricity, Water We still have challenges with water. We are tackling them.

Electricity is another area of interest for us. We have several offers that are tied to the natural resources we have. The abundant reserves of gas in Ugwuoba and coal in Amansi-Odo would serve the electricity projects well.

His Health I am fine. I am not sick. I attend public functions.

Some people insist on drawing their own conclusions. What I went through was millions of miles away from what people thought. A routine medical check revealed cancer cells, but they were benign. Since they were discovered early,

they were nipped. They had not spread. It was nothing serious and the technology for the treatment was available.

The treatment (chemotherapy) was harsh.

It is not something that I can describe, but I am grateful to God that I went through it successfully. I am recovering from the treatment. Itaffected my normal cells; they are regrowing. Doctors predicted that recovery would take up to a year that is time for the effects of the treatment to wear off.

I was reading all the stories about me. I was amused reading the reports about me, especially the several obituaries. I still required regular check-ups for evaluation of the progress of the cell, the regrowth.

The regular checks were in March, May and June. I needed evaluation every six weeks. The most recent evaluation showed no signs of affected cells. I would be there again on August 30. I believe that I would not require frequent

checks after that.

N

ext Governor’ s Agenda

I cannot impose any agenda on the next administration, but I do not think the administration would have much choice than following the blue print. We have taken the State to the pointwhere it makes sense for future governments to continue in similar directions.

The next governor would have his priorities. His greatest challenge would be when he deviates from programmes that would benefit the people. He would have the people to contend with not me, that is why I say that the choices available to future governments are limited to providing services to the people. All we have done are for the people, who have learnt that government is meant to serve them.

Anyone who acts to the contrary would answer to the people, not me.

SUNDAY VANGUARD, AUGUST 25, 2013, PAGE 45 sameyoboka@yahoo.com

08023145567 (sms only)

FROM SUNDAY MBANG TO SUNDAY MAKINDE:

Methodist Church elects new Prelate

BY SAM EYOBOKA & OLAYINKA LATONA

T

HE Prelate of Methodist Church Nigeria, Dr. Sunday Olatunji Amos Makinde, whose investiture took place on November 12, 2006 at Trinity Methodist Church, Tinubu, Lagos, will retire as the administrative head of the church in October this year having attained the age of 70 as prescribed by the church constitution.

As part of activities marking his disengagement, Makinde will today conclude his nationwide farewell tour of 11 archdioceses of the church to bid the over five million Nigerian Methodists farewell after a glorious tenure as Prelate since 2006 with a return to where the voyage started---the Trinity Methodist Church, Tinubu, Lagos--where appreciation and outpouring of encomiums are expected to dominate the service ahead of a send forth party scheduled for the MUSON Centre, Lagos.

Methodist Church Nigeria, a major Christian denomination is said to be the first Christian Church in Nigeria.

It is said to have been founded in 1842 by British Wesleyan Methodist missionaries and gained autonomy from the British Methodist Conference in 1962. It is a member of the World Council of Churches as well as the World Methodist Council, among others. It also belongs to the Christian Council of Nigeria. It has an episcopal structure with a prelate, 11 archbishops and 59 bishops.

A new prelate and head of Methodist Church Nigeria (MCN) is expected to emerge on Sunday, September 1, 2013 during the 44th special conference of the church which is billed for Williams Memorial Methodist Cathedral, Ebute-Metta, Lagos Central Diocese of the church with the out-going prelate presiding.

The MCN constitution, according to the church's Director of Media and Communications, Rev. Dapo Daramola, says a new prelate shall be elected by an Electoral College made up of the prelate as chairman, Lay president of Conference, Secretary of Conference who shall act as Secretary; all the 11 archbishops and their archdiocesan lay presidents, 59 bishops and their diocesan

*Mbang

*Makinde

*THE CONTENDERS

*Stephen lay presidents, all registered trustees of the church and seven lay persons elected by Conference made up of two women, a Conference Legal Adviser, and four others which must include the national presidents of the Women’s Fellowship, Men’s Fellowship and the Youth Fellowship.

Qualification of Prelate The Electoral College is expected to elect from among ministers of Episcopal rank who must not be less than 60 years of age and is not under charge (disciplinary proceeding). The incumbent Prelate, or any minister of Episcopal rank acting in his stead, or any member of the Electoral College may nominate any qualified minister of Episcopal rank to the office of the prelate. Election shall be by secret ballot and a two third majority is required to elect a new prelate but in the absence of a clear winner, the two front-runners are expected to go for a second round where a simple majority will deter-

*Agwu mine the winner.

A Prelate shall be elected for an initial period of five years and shall be eligible for reelection for another term of five years and no more. Once elected the new prelate is expected to declare in writing his assent and allegiance to the constitution of the church in a form prescribed by the Conference and swear an oath of allegiance to God and the Constitution of the church.

Duties Apart from being the administrative head of the church, the prelate shall be the ecclesiastical, priestly, pastoral head of the church; he shall exercise pastoral and spiritual oversight over the whole church and to this end, he is expected to visit archdioceses and dioceses and such circuit in each diocese as time and opportunity allow. He shall also preside over the meetings of the Conference, registered trustees, MCN and conference connexional council. If any person appointed as minister of circuit shall die or

*Uche *U h desist from traveling or otherwise ceases to act, the prelate in consultation with the bishop of the affected diocese may appoint a person in his place to act until the next stationing under the constitution.

Three front runners In the Methodist Church there are about 15 archbishops and bishops who have the requisite qualifications and are therefore eligible to vie for the post but feelers from the church during the week indicate that three archbishop are the serious contenders.

They include the Archbishop of Umuahia, Most Rev. Sunday Ikechukwu Agwu who was born on December 1, 1952. He joined the church in 1974 and was commissioned in 1982. The second is the Archbishop of Ibadan, Most Rev. Michael Kehinde Stephen who was born on April 8, 1949. He entered the church in 1971 and was commissioned in 1974. It is also worthy of note that Stephen was the Secretary of Confer-

ence for about 10 years under the Prelate Emeritus Sunday Mbang. The third contender, according to inside sources is the Archbishop of Enugu, Most Rev. Samuel C.K. Uche who was born on January 29, 1953. He joined the mission in 1976 and was commissioned in 1979.

The Electoral College being an instrument of the Conference has the onerous responsibility for receiving nominations and recommendations for the post of the prelate. It is also expected to screen eligible candidates and make appropriate recommendations to the Conference; such nominations shall be by secret ballot.

In a telephone interview, the Media Director told our reporter that the church has intensified prayers asking God Himself to choose a worthy prelate for the church in the mould of the outgoing one, who is regarded as a fearless but warm pastor, inspired preacher and great prayer warrior, who believes that prayer changes things!

He urged all true Methodists in the country to pray fervently for the electoral exercise to produce a man with a large heart as the outgoing prelate.

Will ethnicity play any role in the forthcoming election?

A source close to the church told our reporter yesterday that it will self deceit for anybody to rule out such a possibility, saying that the Methodist Church, like any human organisation, is bound by the vagaries of human frailties. Our source is of the opinion that at the end of whole exercise the Holy Spirit will direct the affairs of the Electoral College to elect an acceptable candidate for the church of God, stressing the need for the leaders to be above any mundane considerations such as ethnicity or financial inducement to elect a mediocre who will take the church backward.

We aslso learnt that some persons will definitely campaign for certain candidates so they can vie for post of the Sercretary of Conference since it is normally by rotation.

As Methodist pray, the question on the lips of every member is: WHO IS SUCCEEDS OLA MAKINDE? WILL HE BE ANOTHER SUNDAY?

PAGE 46—SUNDAY VANGUARD, AUGUST 25, 2013

DIVINELY HEALED OF PARALYSIS:

Girl, 17, now wants to be a doctor

BY ALICE FESTUS

Treatment

A

BUJA---SOME might call this a miracle, oth ers might say she is favoured, but whichever way one chooses to classify this, it is interesting to know that Binta Danjuma, 17, could walk again after being paralyzed for over six years with a strange illness termed “Tuberculosis (TB) of the spine”. The girl, who is now a star in her school because of her superlative performance, was taken to several hospitals within the period of her paralysis in search of healing but the best the medical doctor could do was to recommend a wheelchair for her so that she could be taken anywhere she wanted to go.

However, her condition miraculously changed immediately she was taken to a prayer house for divine healing.

Prophet John Musa Ihiabe, a pastor at the Jesus Solution Ministry, Zone 1, Lugbe, Abuja declared that the miraculous healing was not of his making but of his heavenly father. According to him, the family of Binta initially had doubts about bringing her to his church as they claimed they had taken her to several churches for healing but they all ended up without results.

“I trust God that her own case will be taken care of, according to the mandate of heaven because on my own I cannot do miracles but with God all things are possible."

“They brought her on the day of our deliverance, Thursday and God did not disappoint us. When I told her to stand up, she stood up and by the time she stood I said nobody should allow her to use the wheelchair again because God who allowed her to stand up for the first time will make her to walk. She was lying on the floor and I told her to stand up again and she stood up. I started thanking God because it is God that did it,” said

El-Shaddai Bible Church ends convention

T

HE El-Shaddai Bible Church, Break through Cathedral, Ogudu Ojota, will today end its maiden convention/ anniversary with the theme, “Ignite the Flame.”

The three-day programme which kicked off on Friday with Ignite His Praise had a Business Seminar titled “Becoming an entrepreneur in a challenging environment” yesterday.

Today there will be special ministration tagged “A New Beginning” with guest ministers in attendance and commence by 10.00am.

According to the resident pastor, Pastor Peter Aiyegoro, “The convention is an opportunity to appreciate God for where He had

*Binta

I am happy to join my classmates and I can now move from one place to another, I give God the glory Prophet Ihiale.

Findings by Vanguard revealed that the girl in question was born without any disability and took all necessary health care treatment the parents could afford as a child, but at a stage, Binta started missing her steps, and at 11, lost total control of her legs completely. She could not walk and as a result couldn't do what her peers were doing including going to school. The development put the girl's parents, who couldn’t even

afford three square meals in a day, in a tight position and entirely helpless. Consequently, the father deserted the family, remarried and moved to Nassarawa State with his new wife, leaving Binta with her mother and five other siblings, to live with their grandfather, Baba Ibrahim Ladalo in Gaube village, a small community in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja.

Binta’s Medical

started with us, what is He is currently doing and the grace of a new beginning. It was also designed as an opportunity to further propagate the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and win more souls to His kingdom.”

Triumphant Baptist Church inducts Rev. Sunday Oladejo

T

HE induction service for Rev. and Mrs. Sunday Oladejo into the pastorate of Triumphant Baptist Church will hold today in the church at 19, Olufemi Ojo Street, Shasha Road, Akowonjo, Lagos at 10.00 a.m.

He has served as the pastor of Mobolorunduro

Two years into the strange affliction, a Non Governmental Organization, Action Aid Nigeria in collaboration with Society for Community Development, SCD, came across Binta’s case during its child message collection in 2011 and took it up. The programme advisor, Action Aid, Mr. Albert Pam, narrated their experience exclusively to Vanguard in an interview, saying they helped Binta to access quality health care at the Abuja National Hospital.

His words: “Binta is one of the children we discovered in Gaube community. When her case was reported to us, we immediately decided to take it up. We did a preliminary assessment and discovered that they are very poor and cannot afford food to eat talk less of finding medication for her.

The general conclusion in the community was that it was a witchcraft attack. We also did preliminary investigation at the community primary health centre, to find out whether they are aware of such situation, but they were no aware.

We also met with the chief in the area to tell him about our intention before we took her to the National Hospital where we ran different tests on her for almost six months."

Continuing, Mr. Pam said the tests revealed that the rare ailment is not transmitable, "so they said the best they could advise was to recommend her for some physiotherapy. They said something like the vertebra and some of the spinal bones were deformed and as a result, adding that she may never walk again. Finally, they suggested we get her a wheelchair, which we presented to her while placing her on local massaging with the hope that she will get some relief because she was determined to go to school as her mates."

After her return, Binta started school with the wheel chair. According to the mother, she was very excited joining her mates at school. Her mother expressed delight immediately Binta started rolling that wheelchair to school, seeing a new determination in her face. "This girl was determined, not just to live, but wants to stand up on her feet and walk, and apparently the medication might have helped some bones as some muscles may have begun to receive life again no one can say,” the mother said excitedly.

After the healing at the church, a brand new Binta is now determined to become a medical doctor, so that she will be helping people with strange ailments.

Binta’s Class Teacher at the Local Education Authority, LEA, Primary School, Gaube, Mr. Enesiok Idopeyen, acknowledged the impressive performance of Binta in his class, noting that she now tops her class of 40 students. That shows that she is very intelligent. “I have been Binta’s class teacher since last year, even when she was on a wheelchair. Binta is now in primary 5, and based on her performance in class, she is so wonderful. She's really upgrading her skill in academics."

Said to be an introvert, Binta, while narrating her feeling in Gbagi language, expressed her gratitude to God for His good works in her life, and also appreciated those that saw her through her ordeal. “I was not happy whenever I found myself on wheelchair. I was sad seeing my mates walking on their two feet. I thank God that now I can walk. I am happy to join my classmates and I can now move from one place to another, I give God the glory. I feel like a complete human being and this has brought joy to my heart,” Binta said.

Bishop Okonkwo clock 68

P

*Bishop Mike Okonkwo Baptist Church, Ogbomosho; New Life Baptist Church, Benin City and United English Baptist Church, Kaduna which was his last pastoral assignment. His experience in missionary and shepherding churches has spanned through 15 years and God has used him at various times as a point of contact to people of different races, tribes and culture.

RESIDING Bishop of The Redeemed Evangelical Mission, TREM, Dr. Mike Okonkwo will be 68 on September 6, 2013.

Activities marking his birthday anniversary include the 14 th annual lecture to be delivered by former Minister of Finance, Dr. Kalu Idika Kalu on September 5, at the Muson Centre, Onikan, Lagos under the chairmanship of Major General Ike Nwachukwu (rtd).

On September 6, the finals of Project Nu Wine, a music talent discovery and development initiative geared to beam the spotlight on unexposed singing talents; groom and project them to the forefront and be high fliers in the gospel music industry will take place.

On Saturday, the finals of the Mike Okonkwo’s soccer tournament will be played at Yaba College of Technology Sports ground, Yaba, Lagos at noon and on Sunday, September 8, there will be a special thanksgiving service to round up the celebration of Dr. Okonkwo at 68.

He was born on September 6, 1945 to the family of Pa and Ma Okonkwo of Ogbunike in Oyi Local Government Area of Anambra State.

He started his primary education at Salvation Army Primary School, Enugu, but later moved to Ijero Baptist Primary School in Ebute Metta, Lagos.

He started his secondary education at Mayflower College, Ikenne and completed it at Merchants of Light Grammar School, Oba

SUNDAY VANGUARD, AUGUST 25, 2013, PAGE 47

A

SK a Christian a question about Jesus, and he might answer with a quotation from Paul. But who tells us Paul speaks for Jesus? Why do we need Paul to speak for Jesus when Jesus speaks for himself? Why do we need Paul to speak for Jesus when Jesus himself warns us: “Be on your guard; I have told you everything ahead of time?” (Mark 13:23). If Jesus has told us all we need to know, why do we need someone else to add to, or subtract from, what he said?

Limitations of scripture The word of God is, and will forever be, with God. (John 1:1). God created all things with his word. He spoke his word to the patriarchs and the prophets of Israel. Then he sent his word to the world in the person of Jesus, his Son. The word of God now sits at the right hand of God from where he speaks into the hearts and minds of sons of God and judges all things. There is no scriptural basis whatsoever for concluding that this word of God is the same as the word of Paul.

Daniel says: “I, Daniel, understood from the scriptures, according to the word of the LORD given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years.”

(Daniel 9:2). This shows that the scriptures are separate and distinct from the word of God. The scriptures are given by men. The word of God is given by God. The scriptures are writ-

THE WORD OF PAUL IS NOT THE WORD OF GOD (1) ten by men. The word of God is spoken by God. Accordingly, Jesus points out that the word of God gives life: scriptures do not. He says to the Jews: “You search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of me.

But you are not willing to come to me that you may have life.” (John 5: 39-40).

Paul says: “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” (II Timothy 3:16). But this does not make the scriptures the word of God. There is a difference between what God says and what God inspires.

If God were to inspire me to write a book, the words in my book would still be my words. They would not be the word of God. All that can be said is that my words were written by the inspiration of God. If God were to inspire me to do a painting, it would not thereby be the painting of God? It would still be my painting.

Second Peter Contrary to popular perception, the writer of

If God were to inspire me to write a book, the words in my book would still be my words.

They would not be the word of God II Peter does Paul no favours. He says: “No prophecy of scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” (II Peter 1:20-21).

However, Paul is not a prophet. II Peter does not classify Paul’s writing as prophecy but as “scripture.” Christians need to understand that the law and the prophets are the highest form of inspired Jewish writings. Other “ writings” are considered of lower cadre.

II Peter does not even acknowledge Paul as an apostle of Christ. Instead, it pointedly refers to him as “Brother Paul.”

It does not say Paul writes by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Instead, it says Paul writes: “according to the wisdom that God gave him.” (II Peter 3:15).

That is certainly not a high commendation. It actually means II Peter does not accept Paul's

writings as the word of God. At best, they are words of wisdom. I also write according to the wisdom God gave me.

But that does not make my writings the word of God. Moreover, the major concern of II Peter is that Paul’s letters are inclined to lead unstable believers astray. I share that concern. However, there is no danger in the word of God leading anybody astray. Nowhere in the scriptures are we counseled to be careful that the word of God might lead us astray. II Peter says some of Paul’s writings are “hard to understand.” Again, this immediately shows they cannot be the word of God. The word of God is not hard to understand.

On the contrary, it "gives understanding to the simple." (Psalm 119:130).

Word of Paul When Paul wrote his letter to Timothy declar-

ing the scriptures to be the inspiration of God, the New Testament bible was non-existent. Therefore, Paul’s epistles can surely not be included in his classification of the scriptures. In any case, Paul’s view of the Old Testament contradicts that of Jeremiah. Jeremiah insists the scribes tampered with the bible.

He asks: “How can you say, ‘We are wise, for we have the law of the LORD,’ when actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely?” (Jeremiah 8:8).

Paul is the only writer in the bible who says his word is the word of God. He says to the Thessalonians: “When you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God.” (I Thessalonians 2:13). This is one of the most deceitful things Paul ever said. In the bible, Paul mostly speaks for himself and about himself. Time and again, he presents himself as his own authority, ensuring that his words should not be mistaken for the word of God. The word of God can only come from God. It cannot come from man.

Paul is a man; therefore, he cannot speak the word of God. John the

Baptist, whose heavenly calling Jesus authenticates, never claims he speaks the word of God. Instead he says: “He who comes from above is above all; he who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all.” (John 3:31). “He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God does not give the Spirit by measure.” (John 3:34).

John is talking here about Jesus and no one else. Only Jesus and the Holy Spirit are divinely authorised to speak the word of God on earth.

They are the only two people who come from heaven. They also never speak their own words. They only speak God’s words.

Jesus says: “I have not spoken on my own authority; but the Father who sent me gave me a command, what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that his command is everlasting life. Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told me, so I speak.” (John 12:49-50).

The same principle applies to the Holy Spirit.

Jesus says: “He will guide you into all truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak.” (John 16: 13).

These principles have no applicability to Paul.

Even by his own admission, Paul speaks his own words. He says: "What I speak, I speak not according to the Lord, but as it were, foolishly.” (II Corinthians 11:17). But God does not speak foolishly.

(To be Continued).

RIGHT TO REPLY: Femi, you are hunted by shadows of St. Paul

F

OR weeks, you painted the town red with venomous aggression and hostility against the Bible, not against St. Paul. You bastardised, terrorised and pounded the sensitivity of the Christendom all in attempt to prove to us that you do not believe in the Bible as the inspired Word of God, rather as the writings of Paul, Peter, or any other, upon which you unleash your unguarded carnal anger.

Reading your article, 1. I seriously doubt if you ever passed through the discipleship of any pastor or where young church, believers are tutored on the basics of Christianity and the Bible. That is to say, you are spiritually fatherless; and were not nurtured to maturity, and as a result, your approach to the Bible is pure human logic. That is why you’re a Star only to those with human brain-approach to the Bible.

Afterall it makes a lot of sense to take a moral perfectionist stand and lampoon Christians for traffic offenses; for example. But beyond that, to the spiritual, you’re zero and

hollow.

If you care to know, the Bible exists on two levels; namely the Letter and the Spirit of the Bible---the letter of the Bible is the literary, intellectual, black and white printed work while the spirit of the Bible is the Bible in its status as the Holy Scriptures, the Word of God inspired by the Holy Spirit and given to man as a compass through life. As the Word of God, it rises beyond man’s intellectual judgment.

At this level, any attempt to subject it to man’s literary criticism will meet with nothing but confusion because "...the letter kills but the spirit gives life’’ (II Corinthians 3:6). At the spirit level, the spirit of man has to submit to the Holy Spirit to receive light and insight into the Bible.

This level is called the Revelation Knowledge. Your failure to flow with the spirit of the Bible results in your faulty interpretation of the Scriptures, no wonder then that you see nothing but Paul’s 'contradictions' and 'plagiarism'. One of the crimes that Paul committed against you is that he encouraged the

churches that God used him to establish and nurture, to support the work of God by financially taking care of their spiritual fathers.

Is there anybody who doesn’t know that the meaning of God calling a man to His work means that He will take that man away from his means of livelihood and place him in the Vineyard? Is there anyone quarrelling with the fact that a man called by God ceases to fend for himself, rather is maintained from the offerings, tithes and gifts from the Temple? Is it not elementary Christian knowledge that any gift to men of God is therefore a gift to God? Paul said he had not enjoyed these ministers’ right to the fullest, but he fended for himself by labouring with his hands, to avoid being a burden to anybody. Yet it is even this partial application of this biblical provision by Paul that provoked your wrath, and you made sure you exhausted all the unprintable abuses in your books against St. Paul; Robber, Man of lawlessness, Manipulative Wizard, etc, etc.

On the issue of Law and Grace, not surprisingly, you again displayed a lack of understanding of the difference between Grace and Law dispensations of the Bible. If you can keep all the hundreds of laws in the Bible, goodluck to you, but we know it’s not possible.

In the first place, the purpose of the Laws is not for anybody to successfully keep, but the continuous failure to keep them is to prove the futility of pleasing God through human struggles and sweat (Religion). God now made it very easy for man by compressing all the laws into a package called 'Jesus Christ'; and by receiving Jesus Christ and being born again one has observed all the Laws in one single swoop of faith. It is this simple faith in Christ, as against the futile struggles to keep the laws, that earns anyone righteousness in the sight of God. "...for by the keeping of the law shall no flesh be made righteous in the sight of God" (Galatians 2:1617; 3:1-13; Philippians 3:8-9). “...for if righteousness cometh by the law then Christ is dead

in vain.” (Gal. 2:21). Then should we become lawless because of this grace? “God forbid’’ replies Paul. (Romans 6:14-15; Gal. 2:17).

It is this wonderful insight into a meaningful relationship with God through faith in Christ rather than the law, that has turned St. Paul to a Man of lawlessness and a criminal in the sight of Femi. So you would rather embark on the impossible task of climbing Mount Everest of the Law with bare hands instead of entering the motorised facility of grace God provided to lift you to the mountain top? But don’t forget that in keeping all the laws, if you fail in one you have failed in all. (James 2:10).

Finally, the Bible remains the most cherished book of all ages. If you have no reference for God, His Holy Book, and the men that He used to produce it, please keep it to yourself; don’t drag the whole world of Bible lovers and the fans of St. Paul to your little enclave of sacrilege, blasphemy, and rebellion.

Nathaniel N. Ngerem (ngeremnath@yahoo.com)

PAGE 48 — SUNDAY VANGUARD, AUGUST 25, 2013

ASUU strike and faltering University education

BY TAHIR HASHIM VIEWPOINT IN BRIEF The way out of lecturers’ strike

A

CCORDING to (Enrinco Fermi, 1901-1954) an Italian theoretical physicist, “It is no good to try to stop knowledge from going forward.

Ignorance is never better than knowledge”.

In the attempt of the Nigerian government to stop knowledge from going forward, it has consigned the university teachers to perpetually embark on strike because of its refusal to do what is right for the university education.

So it has become a ritual for the lecturers in the universities to embark on strike at least once every year with some strikes lasting up to four months or more.

University lecturers, under the aegis of Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, usually embark on strikes over agitations for improved salaries, allowances and infrastructural development of universities.

The ongoing strike, which commenced on July 1, 2013, was as a result of an agreement government reneged on. The union adopted a resolution to go on

strike after its NEC meeting at the Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU), Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State in June. Government’s response conveyed through the Minister of Education, Professor Ruqayyatu Rufa’i, was that it was working hard to resolve the impasse.

But ASUU National President, Dr. Nasiru Fagge, said Nigeria’s economy has been taken over by the Chinese as political leaders in Nigeria have refused to provide quality education to the people.

The Minister of Labour and

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VIEWPOINTS

the agreement.

However, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) threatened to join the strike if the Federal Government failed to address the demands of the lecturers. The threat was issued by the President of the NLC, Comrade Abdulwaheed Omar, at the opening ceremony of the 2013 Rain School in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State. Omar said, “We call on the Federal Government to have meaningful dialogue with ASUU with a view to implementing the agreement.

Should these strike persist, work-

It has become a ritual for the lecturers in the universities to embark on strike at least once every year with some strikes lasting up to four months or more

Productivity, Mr. Emeka Wogu, while presenting the scorecard of his stewardship to the leadership of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, in Abuja, also said government was re-negotiating the 2009 agreement with ASUU to make it implementable. But ASUU said it will not suspend the strike until government fulfills its part of

,

ers of Nigeria will not hesitate to join them in solidarity.”

At the stakeholders meeting held in Lagos, the Joint Action Front, JAF (a body of civil society coalition and the trade union movement), in sympathy with ASUU, also threatened to mobilize for a mass protest if government failed to call the lecturers

to negotiation table to resolve stalemate. In a statement by the Chairman and Secretary of JAF, Dr. Dipo Fashina and Abiodun Aremu, the body said preparations were in top gear to mobilize for nationwide mass protests.

While throwing more light on some of the issues at stake between the union and the government, a lecturer at the University of Abuja, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said ASUU was tired of government’s unwillingness and inconsistency on issues that affect university education in Nigeria. This lecturer said government is paying non-challant attitude to issues of university education in Nigeria because most of the people in government don’t have their children in Nigerian universities. According to him, some of the issues at stake between the union and government include Academic Earned Allowance, AEA, to be paid to lecturers for excess work load and allowance for supervision of post-graduate programmes. He said the highest AEA is N12, 500 per month and then wondered why it was difficult for government to pay such small amount when lawmakers take home millions of naira as Sallah and Christmas bonuses.

Some university students blamed government for the strike. Nanbal Panpe James, a final year student in the Depart-

ment of Mass Communication, University of Jos, said government is not concerned about the welfare of lecturers and infrastructural development in universities because almost all the children of the people in government are not schooling in Nigeria.

Eric Dakwo, also a final year student of Mass Communication Department of UNIJOS, was not happy that the strike has temporarily put on hold his desire to graduate before the end of the year. He queried why the government is saying that it does not have money to honour its agreement with ASUU but the same government has money to lavish on frivolous things like payment of huge allowances to members of the National Assembly.

Comrade Morgan Anigbo, a veteran trade union leader and former acting General Secretary of the NLC, speaking on the way out of lecturers’ strikes, wants government to call for a conference on university education.

According to him, until that is done, our educational system would continue to falter. He is of the view that government should have the political will to fund the universities and thus foster academic excellence among lecturers and students .I agree with Anigbo’s suggestion. *Hashim is a 400 level Mass Communication student of the University of Jos.

the present administration. The truth of the matter is that the institution of government in Nigeria lost the confidence of the people a long time ago because of its inability to meet their aspirations. This includes the administration in which El Rufai served and he knows it. But he keeps shedding crocodile tears, lamenting that the country would have been better than what it is now if the administrations which succeeded their own had continued their policies and programmes.

er supply in the nearest future.

Everything going on there now is public knowledge.

What is most worrisome in El Rufai’s conduct is his reckless disrespect for the office and person of the President. In fact, some of his statements, such as his description of the President as the godfather of the oil thieves in the Niger Delta, are not only abusive but also libellous. From all indications, he is still lacking the noble qualities of a statesman. If he could say all the uncharitable things he said about his benefactor, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, in his recent book, what could he not say about a political opponent that he and his principals are desperately forging conspiratorial alliances to unseat?

Finally, El Rufai is not somebody Nigerians should take seriously. He is not anywhere near the saint he wants people to believe he is. The legislative probe of the transactions at the Bureau of Public Enterprises, some time ago, showed breaches of due process committed under his watch as Director-General of the organization. Of course, he quickly put the blame on Obasanjo, claiming that he was not given free hand. Why did he not resign his appointment?

He played the good boy and was rewarded even with ministerial appointment. So, who is he deceiving? *Adeyemi can be reached via email: alphavision1970@yahoo.com

Deconstructing El-Rufai

BY MAYOWA ADEYEMI VIEWPOINT IN BRIEF How not to play opposition politics

F

ORMER Minister of Federal Capital Terri tory, Nasir Ahmad El Rufai’s relentless criticism of the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) seems to have become a regular feature of some Nigerian media in recent times.

What is so interesting, in this, is not the substance of his diatribe which is mostly vituperative but the virulence with which he had always responded to reactions to his criticisms

by Presidential and PDP aides.

It is quite obvious that he thinks of himself as irrepressively and unapologetically committed to bringing down the Jonathan government and its party platform at all costs.

Since he became the protem Deputy National Secretary of the newly registered All Progressive Congress (APC), some weeks ago, he has intensified his vicious campaign to discredit the government and the PDP, apparently, in a bid

to show that his party, which is yet to find its feet, can produce a viable alternative to the present administration. Nigeria is a democratic country and, therefore, no one can contest El Rufai’s right to criticise the government of the day, whether as an individual or as a spokesman for his party, the APC. In the same vein, he cannot be denied the right to sell his party, which is even yet to have a manifesto, to the electorate. But he can be taken up on the way and manner he exercises either or both of these rights, if it falls short of acceptable standards and global best practice.

Any intelligent observer of his vicious campaign against the present administration, and, in particular, Jonathan, cannot but notice his penchant for making allegations which are not substantiated. He is ever quick to blame the President and the PDP for everything that may be percieved to be wrong or inadequate in the country, including the challenges that the past administration, in which he served as minister.

El Rufai, recently, made some allegations against Vice President Namadi Sambo, one of which was that the man, during his watch as governor of Kaduna State, committed the state to a heavy loan burden. He was immediately challenged by the office of the Vice President to substantiate the allegation but he

has been unable to do so. Similarly, he has not been able to show evidence to prove any of the allegations he levelled against the President in his various commentaries in his newspaper column, opinion write ups and interviews in both the print and broadcast media. Each time he talks carelessly, he hopes somebody is listening but what he does not realize is that the people are not looking for scape goats to blame for their problems. They are looking for concrete answers and solu-

,

VIEWPOINTS

The truth of the matter is that the institution of government in Nigeria lost the confidence of the people a long time ago because of its inability to meet their aspirations

tions to the challenges facing the country. He keeps talking about unfulfilled promises of government but the Jonathan administration never promised to solve all the problems at once and it has been honest with the modest achievements it has recorded so far.

He is sure to be humbled and disappointed in the long run, if, as it is widely suspected, his motive is to incite the people against

,

But let us ask him what that administration achieved, for instance, in the power sector with all the billions of dollars it claimed to have spent on it. Why are we still grappling with the issue of erratic power supply?

Thank God for the Jonathan administration’s transparent handling of the current transactions in that sector, Nigerians can track the developments with hope of attaining sufficient pow-

Contribution of not more than 1,200 words should be sent to sundayvanguard@yahoo.com

SUNDAY VANGUARD, AUGUST 25, 2013, PAGE 49

SUNDAY TRIBUTES Goodnight, Baarohin Soniran Sowemimo

BY BODE OYEWOLE TRIBUTE IN BRIEF A veteran journalist passes on

H

AD he lived, Soniran Oluwole Sowemimo would have been 71 years . But the way of man is not the way of God.72 hours before he turned that curve of his life,the end came most unexpectedly. It seems only yesterday when he rolled out the drums to celebrate his 70th birthday, many of us totally unaware that he was warning us his time was nigh on. How I wish we had known then.

SOS, as he was fondly called, was a jolly good fellow in the true sense of the word. And I should know. His path and mine first crossed 37 years ago,that is 1976, in Lagos when I transferred my service to the then Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) from the defunct WNTV/ WNBS. He had just returned from The United States of America (USA) and was a senior sub-editor at the NBC Headquarters in Lagos. It was just a matter of time before we struck a strong bond. He was a gentleman. Quick to make friends. Full of wits. With SOS,

you could never be bored, be it in the Newsroom or outside of it.

However, I was posted back to Ibadan later that year. Even before I could settle down in Ibadan,SOS himself was transferred to Ibadan and our relationship could only get stronger.

Following the re-organisation of broadcasting in Nigeria by the then military government, Sowemimo opted to

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TRIBUTE

His ability to break the barrier of prejudices knew no bounds. Little surprise that in the highly unpredictable political environment in our country, he kept friends across the political divide

transfer his service to the Ogun State Broadcasting Corporation (OGBC), Abeokuta.

And that served a double purpose:as a thorough Egbaman, he was back home to live among his own people and help in the development of the community. He was also now well positioned to make his little contribution to the then young Ogun State.

On both fronts, he did not disappoint. Appreciation of his worth in his profession of journalism and of his contribution to the Egba Community and Ogun State came in rapid succession. His colleagues elected him Chairman of the State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) in

, Late Chief Soniran Sowemimo

1979 serving until 1981.Incidentallly,this was also the period I served as Chairman of the old Oyo State Council of the NUJ. He rose to become the Director of News and Current Affairs in OGBC until 1982 when the first civilian governor of the State,the late Chief Victor Olabisi Onabanjo,himself a distinguished journalist of all time, appointed him his Chief Press Secretary. It was a case of the deep calling to the deep as the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo would say.

By the end of 1983,the military once more took over pow-

er in the country. But,the man who succeeded Onabanjo as governor,the then Colonel Donaldson Oladipo Diya,could not resist retaining SOS as CPS, as did others that came after him-Col Oladayo Popoola,Col Raji Rasaki, etc.

That was the situation until he was made a Commissioner,serving at different times in the Ministries of Social Development,Youth and Sports; and Information and Culture.

The Egba Traditional Council had also taken note of Sowemimo’s contribution to the community and aptly honoured

him with a chieftaincy title.

Ibadan,the town of his wife, also honoured him with the title of Baarohin of Ibadanland.

His ability to break the barrier of prejudices knew no bounds. Little surprise that in the highly unpredictable political environment in our country, he kept friends across the political divide. He was very much at home with former Ogun State governor, Aremo Olusegun Osoba, as he was with the immediate past governor,Otunba Gbenga Daniel, both of whom spoke highly of him as a man of integrity.

Even after his retirement,he never gave up lending his assistance to the state such that he was, at different times,Chairman of the Gateway Radio and Chairman,Moshood Abiola P o l y t e c h n i c .

Even until his death,he kept learning and imparting knowledge as his rich library and books authored by him can bear testimony.

My condolences to his wife,children,numerous colleagues, friends and admire r s .

SOS,ara Oba,Omo tagbata, omo ilekile. May the good Lord rest your soul. *Oyewole a veteran journalist and media consultant, lives in Ibadan.

Mary Agbonifo (1935-2013) few women with gut and courage she radiated.

She was a woman of strong character: Self-confident, consistent and honest. She never took offenses but never suffered fools gladly. She loved hard work and was inspired by it.

She co-founded Joma Fishery Ltd-later Magulf Nig. Ltd,

BY DAN OKEME TRIBUTE IN BRIEF The life and times of an Urhobo amazon

W

HEN the news of the passing on of Chief (Mrs) Mary Agbonifo reached many of us, on the morning of July 26, 2013, we were thrown into deep mourni n g .

How could this be possible about a woman we all saw, full of life the previous day at the 5th anniversary of the death of Chief James Okpoko Edewor at Eku in Ethiope East Local Government Area of Delta State. Chief (Mrs) Mary Agbonifo was born in 1935 to the family of Chief Ogogo Ogbevire and Mrs. Irorovu Ogbevire nee Akpojotor both of Kokori in Ethiope East LGA of Delta State.

She was a role model this generation of leaders/business-

Late Chief(Mrs.) Mary Omafuakpore Agbonifo men/businesswomen must emulate if they must be successful.

I came across this great woman of our time three years ago at her business headquarters at Refinery Road, Effurun, and we had a three-hour session on the “get rich quick” syndrome of the youths of today. It was a great opportunity to be so close to this great agent of development.

The deceased saw things as black or white. There are very

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TRIBUTE

been told and retold in superlative terms.

She also went into property development and became the owner of vast estates, shopping centres and massive warehouses in Warri and Port Harcourt.

She was also a shareholder and director of several bluechip companies.

Her life was a shining exam-

I came across this great woman of our time three years ago at her business headquarters at Refinery Road, Effurun, and we had a threehour session on the “get rich quick” syndrome of the youths of today

for the importation of frozen fish, Magulf Global, for the distribution of products of Nigerian Breweries, Omovo Ltd. For the distribution of drinks from Guiness; and Malco, for transportation.

The story of these businesses over the last 30 years has

,

ple in self discipline, hard work and industry, unmitigated devotion to her husband.

She was a Christian versed in all the Catholic methods of praying. She could pray with the rosary flawlessly and attended Mass regularly hence the bishop prayed for the re-

pose of her soul few hours after her death.

She was a Matron of different societies in the Catholic Church. She lived for 78years and made positive impact on the lives of thousands of people.

In appreciation of her contributions to mankind, several titles and awards were bestowed on her. She was the Ufuoma of Ogor Kingdom, Delta State, the Patron of Kokori Elite Club, Patron Ekinadose Club Benin City, Edo State, Patron, Committee of Friends, and Patron, Catholic Women Organization.

She was also a recipient of several awards from the Church, and several companies.

Chief (Mrs) Mary Agbonifo was one of the greatest Urhobo women ever.

May her soul rest with the Lord. And may the good life she lived console her family, the Agbon people and the Urhobo ethnic nationality.

She will be laid to rest on Friday, September 13, 2013 at K o k o r i .

Contribution of not more than 1,200 words should be sent to sundayvanguard@yahoo.com

PAGE 50—SUNDAY VANGUARD, AUGUST 25, 2013

H

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•Eli, 30, resides in Lagos, needs a good lady, for a relationship, that can lead to marriage. 08021967587, 08159632811 •Mike, 36, employed and resides in Lagos, needs a caring and decent lady, for a relationship.08038459565 •Osi, 40, from Delta state, needs a 5.10ft tall, University graduate lady, who is good looking, busty, slow to anger and God fearing, aged 32-37, for a relationship, that might lead to marriage.

08039419898, 08025152808 •Dante,26, needs an employed lady, aged 30-40, who is ready to for a relationship. 07035451611, 08097291095 •A guy, needs a sexy man, for a relationship in Benin city.

07038896435, 08167228346 •David, 38, from Imo state and employed, needs a God fearing and employed lady, aged 25-33, preferably from Imo or Abia state, for marriage.

08035278791 •Leo,30, needs a fair in complexion lady, aged 20-40, who is ready to assist, him financially, for a serious relationship.08038661958 •Oscar, 25, a graduate and handsome, needs an employed and responsible lady, for a wife. 07086905414 •Chika, 25, tall, fair in complexion, handsome and resides in Lagos, needs a matured, beautiful and responsible lady, for relationship that will lead to marriage.07038558192 •Emma, slim dark in complexion, needs a lady, aged 30-35, for a serious relationship.

08029895242 •Anthony 23 Benin handsome needs a rich and nice looking lady who can take care him for relationship 40,08051759663, 08030727790, 08056929227 •Ayinky, sexy, needs a lady, for a relationship. 08028134560 •Ken, 26, resides in Lagos, needs a lady, who is sexy, for a relationship. 07060613400 •Richi, 23, handsome, caring and resides in Abuja, needs a rich lady, for a relationship.

07066334671 •Mac-Anthony, fair in complexion, average height and resides in PH, needs a lady, who is beautiful and sexy, from any tribe, aged 30-50, for a relationship. 08035752665, 08081052102 •Victor, a graduate, needs a lady, who is ready to settle down.07037965969 •Felix, 25, from Delta state, needs a God fearing, lovely and caring woman, aged 3045.omantic affairs.

07062208099 •Sam, 25, resides in Lagos, needs a good, and caring lady, for a serious relationship.

08137388301 •Ola, 29, employed and averagely ok, needs a responsible lady, aged 19-25, for a relationship. 08083421209 •Chibike, 50, needs a lady, aged 25-35, for a romantic affair.08037910977 •Desmond, 33, handsome, sexy and romantic, needs a lady, for a serious relationship.

08176113825, 07039583833 •Kenneth, tall, good looking and from Anambras state, needs a mature lady, for a serious relationship.

07081654655 •Chuks, 35, tall and from Imo state, needs an employed lady, who is also from Imo state, aged 30-33, for a serious rela-

tionship, that will lead to marriage.

07063351131, 08052407675 •Francis, 29, needs a lady, aged 20-26, for a serious relationship, that will lead to marriage.08102676274 •Babalola, 35, needs a religious Muslim lady, aged 30, for marriage.

08087074640, 08138856900, 08170141833.

•Goddy, 33, employed and resides in Lagos state, needs a kind, understanding, caring, loving, humble, educated and responsible mature lady, aged 25-30,for a serious relationship, that will lead to marriage.08079712411 •Mike, 48, needs a caring lady, who is God fearing and ready for a serious relationship,aged 28-32. 08032653209 •Emmanuel, 27, from Imo state, needs a matured lady, aged 2028, for a serious relationship, that will lead to marriage.08037169514 •A guy, needs a beautiful, tall, employed, graduate and God fearing lady, for a relationship, aged 22-31. 07087779682 •Uzochi, 28, needs a wealthy widow, for a relationship.

08135753765 •Desmond, from Delta state, needs a woman, for a relationship.07060633399 •Olamide, 6ft tall and good looking, needs a beautiful lady,, for a relationship.

08082678818,08052571619 •Oscar, 21, resides in Asaba, needs a lady, aged 19-20, for a relationship.07031597095 •Kene, 30, needs a lady, aged 25 -35 for a relationship.

07068054587 •Frank,45, needs a lady, aged 25-35, who is employed and resides in either Benin, Asaba, Agbor or Onitsha, for a serious relationship that will lead to marriage.08053320374 •Anthony, 50, needs a lady, aged 40, for marriage.

08064229724 •Joe, resides in Asaba, needs a financially ok lady, aged 3045, for a serious relationship.

08094985883.,08164500174 •Mohammed, 31,resides in Lagos, needs a charming lady, aged 32-40, for a relationship.

07089275066 •Kelvin, 23, needs a girl, aged 17-20, who is caring and loving, for a relationship.

08104013366

Sugar Cares Searching Female •Lawrrenter, 21,average height, slim, light in complexion and resides in Delta state, needs a caring sugar daddy that can take care of her.07052185830 •Juliet,24,sexy,attractive,bursty, and young undergraduate needs a kind and generous sugar daddy for a sexual relationship.08137140059 •Mary,24,pretty, bursty and well mannered undergraduate needs a sugar daddy that she can satisfy and take care of her.07052978915

Searching Male •A guy, 23, needs a sugar mummy. 07035072010 •Chris, 27, handsome, a student and resides in Delta state, needs a sugar mummy for a serious relationship.

07087779391 •Kelvin, 25, a student and resides in Warri, needs a sugar mummy for a relationship, aged 30-45. 07038485100, 08185751214,07053577664, 08121132908 •Justine, 25, handsome, tall,

SUNDAY VANGUARD, AUGUST 25, 2013,PAGE 51

fair in complexion and resides in Lagos, needs a sugar mummy, who will take good care of him, for a serious relationship.08082904343 •Tboy, 26, cute and gentle, needs a rich and wealthy sugar mummy, who can take care of him. 08063321487 •Jd, 25, needs a sugar mummy, that will take care of him.

08031876557 •Peter, 24, tall, slim and very jovial needs a sexy, caring and pretty sugar mummy, for a loving affair.

07067446977, 08186464270 •Honey, 31, 5.8ft, tall, light in complexion and athletic from PH, needs a sexy and caring sugar mummy either in PH or Calabar, aged 38-45.

08063587113 •Emma, 30, tall fair in complexion and handsome, needs a sugar mummy.07037632459, 08089112157 •Prince, from Abia state, needs a sexy sugar mummy from Abia state.

08161398403 •Sunday, 32, resides in Lagos, needs a sugar mummy who is ready to spend on him.

08189307060 •Cj, 22, a student in Enugu, needs a sugar mummy for a serious relationship. 08103467422, 08084567812 •Kelvin from Abia state needs a sugar mummy.

07060773220 •Peter, 24, from lmo state, needs a sugar mummy that will take care of him, aged 39-55.

07034269805 •Shola, 25, tall, fair in complexion and resides in Lagos, needs a sugar mummy for serious relationship.08182161099, 08121584994.

•Kelvin, romantic, active and resides in Delta state, needs a caring, rich sugar mummy, for a r e l a t i o n s h i p .

08085601403 •Ambrose, a student, from Delta state, needs a caring sugar mummy, aged 35-45, who can assist him. 08138391012 •Nd, 27, handsome and a graduate, from Enugu, needs a sugar mummy, aged 30 and above.

08036584905.

•Emmanuel, 26 and a student, needs sugar mummy who can take care of his welfare, aged 35 and above.

07069085831,070843610701.

•Goddy, 28, needs a sugar mummy, that can take good care of him.

07066118137 •Kiel, tall, dark in complexion, handsome and from Delta state needs a sugar mummy that is loving, caring and has a good heart for a serious r e l a t i o n s h i p .

08160904142 •A guy, 24, from Warri,

needs a sugar mummy within Warri and its environ. 07035299499 •Henry, 25, resides in Lagos, needs a sugar mummy, aged 50-60.

08131090874 •David, 22, slim fair in complexion, and active, needs a loving and sexy sugar mummy, who is busty and resides in either Warri or Benin, aged 37-43, who can take good

•Joseph, 25, an undergraduate, needs a sugar mummy, aged 30 and above. 07069512170 •Sunny, 32, resides in Lagos, needs a sugar mummy who is ready to spend on him. 08189307060 •Ken, 28, 6ft tall, slim, fair in complexion, fun loving, a graduate and self employed, needs a sugar mummy, y from Lagos, Port

care of him 0 7 0 6 8 8 6 7 6 8 3 , 08066280253 •Geeboy, 20, from Imo state, but resides in Lagos, needs a lovely and caring sugar mummy, aged 30 and above.

07064293157 F•lexy, from Delta state, needs a sugar mummy.

0 7 0 8 9 9 3 2 4 0 4 , 07058698904 •Maxy, 25, dark in complexion, average height and a student from Port Harcourt, needs a caring sugar mummy.

08186684132 •Hilary, 25, 6.2ft tall, dark in complexion and a student, needs a sugar mummy. 08066967827 •Elliot, 28, from Delta state, needs a wealthy and influential sugar mummy that can take care of him.

08164243536 •Steven, 28, from Delta, state, needs a rich sugar mummy, aged 3545.08155636126, 08030801203 •Goody, 31, resides in Abuja, needs responsible and God fearing sugar mummy, in Abuja, aged 50-65. 08152490288 •Chigozie, 23, from Abia state, needs a sugar mummy, who is caring, a g e d 3 9 - 6 0 .

07034269805 •Yoma, tall, handsome, dark in complexion and sexy, needs a sugar mummy, aged 30 and above, for a romantic relationship. 08154480295 •Lawrence, from Edo state, needs a sugar mummy, from either Edo or Delta state for friendship.08020826105 •Perry, 19, fair in complexion,handsome and resides in Lagos, needs a sugar mummy.

08176755937 •Ben, from Anambra state, needs a good sugar mummy that will take good care of him.

08100642466 •Desmond, 22, a student, resides in Benin, needs female friends and sugar mummy. 08163833703

Harcourt or Abuja, aged 48. 07087123368 •Goodness, resides in Lagos, needs a rich sugar mummy, who can take care of him. 08099586985 •Ken, 24, needs a very rich sugar mummy.

08100960948 •A guy, 28, handsome and from Uyo in Akwa Ibom state, needs a caring, loving and sexy sugar mummy, that will love and take care of him, aged 28-50. 08067124677 •Buzan, 27, needs a caring , sugar mummy, aged 2 9 5 0 .

07036329586,08135108298 •Justine, 25, handsame, tall, fair in complexion and resides in Lagos, needs a sugar mummy, for a serious relationship.

08082904343 •Ryan, 30, handsome, light in complexion, matured and resides in Bayelsa, needs a caring, romantic and attractive sugar mummy in Yenagoa and environ for an affair.

08060300816 •Sunny, needs a sexy sugar mummy, who can take good care of her, for a relationship.

0 8 0 3 2 3 2 2 2 4 4 , 08025330182 •Ben, from Anambra state, needs a good and well to do sugar mummy, that will take good care of him. 08100642466 •Steve, 39, tall, handsome and resides in Ikotun, needs a sexy sugar mummy. 08133008867 •Kelvin, 20, tall, dark in complexion and a student, needs a sugar mummy.08179125446 •Jackson, 30, handsome and tall, needs a sugar mummy. 07032874037, 08071660126 •Kenneth, tall, handsome and from Onitsha, needs a rich sugar mummy, who can take care of him.

08167615842,.08167615842 •Vicent, 30, tall, slim, handsome and employed, needs a sugar mummy.

08050511544 •Terry, 23, fair in complexion and resides in Delta state, needs a sugar mum-

my who is caring, trustworthy and faithful.08081923093 •Mack, 35, needs a rich sugar mummy for a serious relationship.

08033252705 •Pascal, 30, dark ion complexion, average height, a graduate and from Delta state, needs a sugar mummy. 08062522936 •A guy, 32, needs a good looking and nice sugar mummy, aged 30 and above. 08024374374 •Romjeo, 25, tall, handsome and resides in Delta state, needs a matured sugar mummy, for a serious relationship.

0 8 1 6 0 9 0 4 1 4 2 , 08159671802 •Andrew, 38, needs a sugar mummy.

0 7 0 8 5 3 0 6 4 0 9 , 0 8 1 6 0 0 4 8 7 2 6 , 08159904930 •Pp, 45, needs a sugar mummy, aged 55-65, for a romantic affair in Warri.07043788968, 08186697355 •Douglass, resides in Delta state, needs a sugar mummy. 08123114421 •Ben, 22, needs a sugar mummy, aged 39-50.

07068574912 •Edwin, needs a rich sugar mummy.

08066778597 •A guy, 24, resides in Warri, needs a sugar mummy, in Delta state.

07035299499 •A guy, 25, needs a sexy, busty, nice and generous sugar mummy that can take care of him.

08165929639 •George, handsome and resides in Benin, needs a tall beautiful and sexy sugar mummy for serious relationship. 07055594521 •Mavis, 32, resides in Lagos, needs a sugar mummy, aged 40-45, for serious relationship.

08030520606 •Onyeka, 27, handsome and good looking, needs a sugar mummy.

07063130399 •Anthony, 23,.handsome needs a God fearing, good looking and rich sugar mummy, for a rel a t i o n s h i p .

08030727790,08051759663 •John, 21, needs a sexy and loving sugar mummy.07067619191 •A matured man, needs a busty and neat sugar mummy.08092244450 •Kizito, 27, 5ft tall and dark in complexion, employed, from Imo state but resides in Owerri, needs a rich and caring sugar mummy, aged 3050, for an intimate and romantic relationship.08067233877 •Innocent, 29, resides in Abuja, needs a sugar mummy, in Abuja.

08079131963,08066052654 •Emma, 29, cute and cool, needs a nice sugar mummy from Warri.

08038033960 •Jeff, 30, 5.6ft tall, good looking and needs a

sexy and caring sugar mummy in Warri, aged 35-50. 08038033960 •Davis, 20, dark in complexion, average height, energetic, caring and a student, needs a sugar mummy, aged 30-50 to take care of him.

08080709672,07080953077, pin30bf39b7 •A guy, handsome, tall and slim, from Delta state, needs a sugar mummy, for al relationship.

0 8 1 2 2 5 3 5 8 4 6 , 08067543136 •John, 33, very active, .needs a sugar mummy, for a relationship.

0 8 1 7 0 0 5 7 4 5 5 , 07085738894 •A guy, y needs a sexy and wealthy sugar mummy, of any age. 08032613906 •Derick, 25, tall, cute, dark in complexion and nice, needs a sugar mummy, who is tall, fair in complexion and sexy in either Enugu or Anambra state, for a relationship.

08063737046 •Chris, 22, average height, intelligent, good looking, caring and understanding, who resides in Lagos, needs a sugar mummy, who will take care of him and show him love. 08106493162 •Olayemi, 30, a chef, needs a romantic, sexy and wealthy sugar mummy.08132270247 •Jerry, 29, tall, handsome, romantic, a model and from Benue state, needs a loving and caring sugar mummy.

07063392792 •Afolabi, 50, fair in complexion, needs a good, sexy and wealthy sugar mummy, aged 5258.08120099059, 07035366896 •A guy, needs a responsible sugar mummy.

08032613906 •Onyebuchi, 44, fair in complexion and resides in Lagos, needs a wealthy sugar mummy that can assist him financially.07088340275 •Dortman, 31, needs a sugar mummy that is financially ok, for a good relationship, aged 35-45.

08175381371 •Good luck, 30, resides in Ogun state, needs a sugar mummy to take care of him. 08153885829 •KC, 28, 6ft tall, needs a sugar mummy who can take care of him, in Delta state, aged 40-60.

08037413082 •A guy, needs a responsible sugar mummy, aged 35 and above.08032613906 •Chris, 26, needs a loving, wealthy and elegant sugar mummy, that can take care of him, aged 30 and above, for a relationship.08102113074 •Aaron, a student, from Delta State, needs a sugar mummy, from any part of the country.

07060553775 •JD, 25 and resides in Lagos, needs a sugar mummy, to take care of him.08031876557 •Dave, 28, good looking, from Asaba, in Delta state, needs a caring, kind, and sexy sugar mummy that can show him love and

take care of him, aged 30above. 08103862446 •Clinton, 20, fair in complexion, handsome and from Delta state, needs a sugar mummy, aged 3550.08131830242 •Charles, 23, needs a sexy sugar mummy.

07065504948 •James, needs a sexy sugar mummy in Warri.

07038810743or 07055126160 •Marxnuel, 26, tall and handsome, needs a rich sugar mummy, who resides in Lagos.

08138556983 •Kelvin, 24, a Diploma holder, needs a caring and trust worthy sugar mummy. 08155158407 •Peter, 27, needs a caring sugar mummy, who will take care of him.

08131834735 •Joseph, 5.8ft tall, a graduate, from Edo state, fair in complexion and handsome,needs a sugar mummy, that can assist him financially.

08164762044 •Dave, 28, good looking, from Asaba Delta state, needs a caring, kind, and sexy sugar mummy that can show him love and take care of him, aged 30 and above.

08103862446 •Frank, handsome and resides in Warri, needs a sugar mummy, who will take care of him.

0 7 0 5 6 1 7 7 0 2 4 , 08068159790 •Justine, 25, handsome, tall, fair in complexion and resides in Lagos, needs a sugar mummy, for a serious relationship, that will take good care of him.08082904343 •Isaac, 25, handsome and romantic, needs a sugar mummy, aged 35 and above. 07035329338 •Joseph, needs a beautiful sugar mummy, who can take care of him, for a serous relationship, aged.35 and above.

0 7 0 6 4 4 6 7 8 5 4 , 08025846292 •Romeo, 35, resides in Lagos, needs a supportive and caring sugar mummy, aged 45- 55.

0 7 0 4 2 6 9 2 7 6 8 , 08068553322 •Paul, 25, resides in Edo state, needs a neat and wealthy sugar mummy.

08093837852 •Moses, 35, from Akwa Ibom state, but resides in Lagos, needs a sugar mummy, for a relationship.07065827729 •Jesse, 20, handsome with broad shoulders, needs a rich sugar mummy, aged 25 and above.

0 8 1 6 6 7 7 3 7 7 4 , emailjesseprince30@gmail.com •Loveday, y 26, tall, fair in complexion and from Enugu state, needs a sexy and wealthy sugar mummy, aged 40-50.

0 8 1 7 6 5 3 1 0 2 5 , 08068460954 •Daniel, 30, needs a sugar mummy, aged 3550.07037236445 •Paddy, 32, handsome and resides in Abuja, needs a fat, busty and sexy sugar mummy, for a hot romance.

08060676333

UGUST 25 5 2013, PAGE 52—SUNDAY VANGUARD, A AUGUST 25,

By JAPHET ALAKAM chimeena@yahoo.com 08056180157

LECTURE

How to reposition Nollywood for Nigeria’s cultural diplomacy

BY PRISCA SAM DURU A scene from a Nigerian film

LECTURE

P

T

due to poor budget and hijack of the industry by marketers which have been the bane of the industry.

Prof Akinwale disclosed that during production, a lot of details are forgotten and most times, professionals are not involved, resulting in bad gram-

Although he commended practitioners especially veterans who have made remarkable impact which has placed Nigeria in the enviable position it is occupying presently in terms of Movie making, such as Richard Mofe Damijo, Any film that must be exported Late Justus Esiri, Jacob and his must have qualities to negotiate Olu wife, Joke Silva, Nigeria in the perception of Kunle Bamtefa, Olumide Bakare, other countries etc, he however mar, culture is left out where neces- lamented that some of the films still sary, repetition of scenes and location lacked basic qualities to be marketed representing different stories, are no- abroad. ticed, etc. “ As an observer and participant in

,

HE need to reposition the Nigeri a n movie industry known as Nollywood for it to be able to promote the nation’s cultural diplomacy, was the focus of the 4th Annual Public Lecture organized by the National Institute for Cultural Orientation (NICO).

Themed, “Nollywood As A Medium For the Promotion of Nigeria’s Cultural Diplomacy: A Reflection of a Cultural Administrator”, held last week at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Lagos.

Ranked second largest film producing nation all over the world and best in the continent, although Nollywood is at the moment, enjoying a lot of encomiums from around the world, a lot still has to be done in terms of quality of works produced.

And in his detailed lecture, the guest speaker, Dean, Faculty of Arts, University of Ilorin, Prof. Ayo Akinwale who has been both an observer and participant in the Nigerian Film Industry, critically examined the role of Nollywood in the promotion of the nation’s cultural diplomacy to the outside world.

He began by first, tracing the metamorphosis the industry has undergone from Television drama to Home Video.

Beginning with “Living In Bondage”

by Nek Videos, the Don noted that the transition was not a hitch free one

,

FG partners D’banj, PMAN on Fascinating Nigeria project

BY CALEB ANYANSINA MUSIC

F

EDERAL Government has ex pressed its readiness to partner with the Performing Musicians Association of Nigeria (PMAN) and the Nigerian Singer-Songwriter, Daniel Oyebanjo, popularly known as D’banji in its efforts to projecting the country to the rest of the

the movie industry, I have watched the growth and development of the industry and have discovered in spite of the large quantity of Nigerian films in circulation, very few can be exported while many have nothing to contribute to the nation’s cultural development” he Noted, stressing that culture is dynamic but Nigerians are yet to see culture dynamism in Nollywood films. rof Akinwale therefore, averred that it is of paramount importance that any film that must be exported, must have qualities to negotiate Nigeria in the perception of other countries.

He further said that a lot of progress has been recorded, with Yoruba film Industry covering more areas than any other part of the country, but regretted that it is yet to make meaningful impact in promoting Nigeria’s cultural diplomacy. Yoruba film maker Tunde Kelani was commended for being steadfast and for his efforts so far.

At this juncture, clips from films which do not represent Nigeria’s cultural diplomacy and those that do, were

world.

The Minister of Tourism, culture and National Orientation, Chief Edem Duke who made this known in Abuja during a separate visit by the D’banji and the PMAN in Abuja noted that Nigeria Music Industry had grown tremendously that it could not be ruled out in any strategy to positively project the country.

“The ministry as a citadel of entertainment sector wishes to work with you to re-

L-r: MD Prive International, Jolly Cole, D'banj and the Minister of Tourism, Culture and National Orientation, Chief Edem Duke.

define the Nigeria entertainment industry for better. It takes level headed professional to be able to resonate in the mind of the millions Nigerians,” the minister told D’banji. He added “whatever Nollywood had become today, the country’s music industry played a major role, therefore it will not be out of place to partner with you as it related to the centenary celebration”.

R

esponding, D’banji said Nigeria Entertainment Industry was one of the biggest in the world, and it had potential to turn the fortune of the country around, if properly managed, urging the federal government not to focus only on the oil.

“Right now, music is very universal and all of people all over the world are now listening to African music, I want every one to come and see how great Nigeria is, let them not focus only on the oil,” he urged.

In her separate remarks, the President of PMAN, Hajia Amina Dangaji applauded government’s effort to promote the country’s image through the project ‘Fascinating Nigeria’, and promised to assist “to make known our admirable features and diverse cultures to the world positively”.

shown to the audience.

If Nollywood must perform the task of promoting the nation’s cultural diplomacy, Prof Akinwale posited that there is need to correct the existing errors in recent productions, the attitude of putting commerce first before excellence must cease, there must be good training for practitioners and above all, artistes must change their attitude of being involved in more than one production at a time. “There is hope for Nigeria”, he concluded The chairman of the occasion, Deputy Vice Chancellor of the University of Lagos, Prof. Duro Oni, commended the Executive Secretary of NICO, Dr Barclays Anyakoroma and every staff of the organization for commencing the programme on schedule adding that they indeed lived up to what NICO preaches which is cultural orientation.

Golden rule for children

BY JAPHET ALAKAM REVIEW

T

he biblical injunction in Proverbs 22: 6, “train up a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not depart from it” is real as many children are lost because they were not brought up in a good way. Often times it is necessary to let children know why they should or should not do certain things, and in line with that N i k e Adekunle, a mother of three who takes interest in writing came up with a book titled, Etiq u e t t e Manual for Little Children.

T

he 69 page well illustrated book with questions and answers published by 4Springs Integrated Brands teaches children good values and offers them a good opportunity to think about why they should comply with the norms while also making them improve on their writing.

The book covers such topics as dinning manners, greetings, basic courtesy, basic consideration for others and general courtesy. A very valuable material for every child especially those below the age of six

5 2013, PAGE 53 SUNDAY VANGUARD, A AUGUST UGUST 25 25,

Nigeria: A new big bang idea?

America… that the Americans would not and oftentimes cannot know. This is what we call para-history. Alfred Whitehead, REVIEW mathematician and one of the finest historical minds first pointed out the new book is about to be brought troubling but exact insight to us”. to the reading public. Or This para-history is literally the big tool perhaps to put it better, a new idea the author deploys to probe into the nature is soon to be officially parachuted of reality in a number of disciplines. The down and unveiled to Nigerians. Dr para-history is the big tool. It can be Jimanze Ego-Alowes has just come devolved into other daughter tools that may up with what must amount to an next be used to excavate astonishing new incontrovertibly groundbreaking, if concepts, in economics and the place of controversial work. With the minorities in competitive environments. paradoxical title, Minorities as ComThe book’s economic thesis, and one petitive Overlords, the book might as well remark, it is the first such challenges old certainties as much thesis in the world, is that in a variant as it offers new vistas. competitor size economy, the minority In a sense the book is a work of parties or persons, have a dedicated belt history, but it is a new form of history, of the economy where they will always composite history, a cross of the beat and dust off the majorities to the political, economic and legal competition. This belt of the economy histories. It is a historical inquiry Jimanze names the brace sector. That is whose development the author says in all brace sector economies, the was influenced by the British majorities will find themselves ironically philosopher Whitehead. To put it in as the competitive underdogs. To delineate the words of the author, this style the brace sector, the author makes innovation in economic According to the author, this classifications.

The result is of situation of minority course the dominance is not an aberration b r a c e or an anomaly, but follows an categorization and its compleeconomic law... mentary other

POEM The age of Terror

BY SETH EBITIMI

A

,

history is the history that will bear the tales that will be true in all reference systems. He calls it, his invention para-history.

So the great task of this history is to forage for those vitalities that standard historical reportages ‘dutifully’ miss. To quote the book: “Now it is not essential that American historians and or philosophers know some of these things. In fact they do not need to know. It is the duty of the provincial, who is about to inquire and adapt the metropolitan civilization and ways, to study and unravel all what it is that makes

,

side, constitutive sector.

The author gives examples of the brace economies, as media, banking, entertainment, including humor and comedy business. In the author ’s well argued thesis these are the sectors that help bind variant peoples, communities or institutions together. And it is the minorities, the weaker parties that possess the economies of efficiency in that sector.

The truth of the day is that the minorities of the South-South control or own about 70% of banking and major media assets, yet they constitute a mere 12% plus, of the population.

Of course even the blind knows that the

By Yomi Oguntoyinbo

SouthSouth minorities control or own the top three of the 6odd national dailies: Vanguard, ThisDay, The Guardian, leaving the majorities to glean up the Sun, Punch, and Daily Trust. And of course again they dominate the commercial electronic media assets, almost exclusively, via AIT, Channels, Silverbird, ITV; yet these people are a minuscule 12%.

According to the author, this situation of minority dominance is not an aberration or an anomaly, but follows an economic law which has hitherto not been discovered and now discovered by him. To put it simply this is a major epistemic event, an intellectual big bang of sorts. Perhaps we should be glad that one of us has invented a theory by which the world may come to live by.

But the question is did he do that? The consensus of opinion is that he did, without one party dissenting. According to Chijama Ogbu, former Group Business Editor of Punch newspapers; it is a wonderful piece of work that establishes a thesis that is startlingly new.

Continuing he asserts that it is a ground breaking stuff that extends the frontiers of knowledge. For Dr. Boniface Chizea the work is uncommon, thought provoking, as it is enthralling and fundamental. In fact Chizea goes on to confess that some of the assertions of the book had the effect on him as that of coming into a sudden awareness and realization of some facts regarding the existential realities of Nigeria. Perhaps there is no greater tribute to be paid a scholar than this, that his conjectures open our eyes anew, that we come into increased or sudden awareness.

Odia Ofeimum, poet and polemicist weighs in that the book re-interprets the Nigerian media in a mode that challenges existing theories… and Ofeimum declares, ‘it demands to be read on its own terms’.

Stakeholders set to reposition creative industries for growth T

he creative sector has proven to be a viable contributor to the economic development of nations, especially with consideration to the immense export potentials of the sector.

Nollywood (the Nigerian film industry) is recognised as the second largest film industry in the world and Nigerian music, after conquering Africa, is generating conversation and growing interest across the world.

Despite the activity within the industry, the creative industry in Nigeria continues to maintain a relatively low profile in comparison to other economic sectors and this low profile is attributed to lack of verifiable data on the economic contribution, job creation and other macro economic indices of the sector.

Consequently, a stakeholder forum in July 2011 agreed unanimously that, in order to stimulate interest in the sector, grow its profile and aid policy making, it was imperative that an economic

study (a mapping) of the Nigerian Creative Industry sector be undertaken to provide information on size, employment profile and other trends in the sector.

Thereafter, a Mapping Working Group was commissioned by the British Council to facilitate the mapping of the sector.

The members of the Mapping Working Group were drawn from the Society for Nigerian Theatre Artistes (SONTA), Pan Atlantic University’s School of Media and Communications and the National Bureau of Statistics.

F

ollowing a scoping of methodology in 2012, the mapping is commencing with a pilot study of key creative industry sectors in Lagos. The subsectors selected for this pilot are: Fashion, Film and Music. The decisions were made in recognition of Lagos as one of the hubs of creative activity in these three sectors which are themselves vibrant and high profile sectors and which we are confi-

dent, will provide data that make the case for further investment in the mapping process.

S

peaking about the mapping, As sistant Country Director of British Council Nigeria, Ojoma Ochai, said that the mapping will be very advantageous to policy making. While Prof. E.S. Dandaura, Head of Department of Theatre & Cultural Studies, Nasarawa State University, President of the International Theatre Institute (ITI)-Nigeria and immediate past President of SONTA, who coordinates the Mapping Working Group,noted that the mapping project will provide the needed empirical data that will demonstrate the extent to which the Nigeria Creative industries offer Nigeria a viable alternative to oil..

The results of the mapping exercise will be announced to stake holders in the creative industry during the 3rd edition of the British Council’s Creative Industries Expo.

At first we were at peace Joy danced around our heart and hut Brothers dwelt with brothers at ease We co-existed peacefully with no but Our ancestors, though of different clans Watched diligently each other ’s back Endured and forgave others flaws On shoulder bore burdens of other ’s lack A golden future envisioned our sight.

With all hands strongly determined This herculean battle to fight Our strength not undermined In oneness we lived with one goal; Wining, dining together in one bowl.

II Suddenly, the tides turn everywhere Terrorism unleashes its claws on our clan Brothers now kill, terrorize brothers anywhere In dilemma becomes our horn Kidnappers holding destinies to ransom; Innocent lives blown into pieces Terror everywhere!

Its victims at random.

Patriotism, brotherly love decreases And now we are at war!

This explosion shattered our beautiful world.

Our riches a few squander raw; Terrorising clansmen with this terror sword.

But, how would it have been lovely, For brothers to live in harmony?

PAGE 54 — SUNDAY VANGUARD, AUGUST 25, 2013

Mourinho prods AVB, Moyes

2013 Afrobasket:

Mourinho was at D’Tigers play to avoid Cote d’Ivoire, Angola JOSE his imperious press conStories By PATRICK ference best – taunting TotOMORODION, Abidjan

A

S the 2013 Afrobasket holding at the Palais Des Sports in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire enters its sixth day today, Team Nigeria tutored

by Coach Ayo Bakare confront Cameroon with one thing uppermost on their mind, victory as it guarantees them an easier passage into the most crucial stages of the competition.

Bakare is plotting new strategies that will see his wards overcome the rugged and aggressive Cameroonians who, like their Nigerian counterparts, have garnered two wins against Congo and Mali, “The Cameroonians are equally a hard playing side like Mali and Congo and I just hope the officiating will improve to allow for a good game. With three players down and another not too certain to play, we will work out another strategy to carry on,” he said.

From the calculations, a top spot for Team Nigeria in Group D will see them battling for a quarter final ticket against a Central African Republic side who are now struggling at the bottom of Group C despite a last group match against tournament favourites and former champions, Angola who are on fire here.

If they survive the Central Africans in the second round which they are mostly likely to, they may confront Algeria, a good but

HAPPY BUNCH ... D’Tigers savouring their moment of glory. They are up against Cameroon today. beatable side in the quarter finals and prepare to tackle defending champion, Tunisia who battle Rwanda today for another maximum point in Group B’s last match.

On the other hand, if Cameroon triumph against

Team Nigeria today, then Olumide Oyedeji and Ike Diogu who co-captain Team Nigeria as second in Group D will have to face Mozambique, the same side they conquered on home ground to win the All Africa Games gold in 2011 in the second round.

Oguche not banned by Fibaafrica, says Bakare

C

ONTRARY to reports that Team Nigeria’s Chamberlain Oguche has been banned from the ongoing 2013 Afrobasket in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, Chief Coach of the team, Ayo Bakare has said the player is not on any ban.

According to Bakare, the sport’s continental governing body, Fibaafrica only advised the Nigeria Basketball Federation, NBBF not to feature him in this competition follow-

ing the withdrawal of his clearance of participation pending the completion of their investigation of some issues with his club.

“Fiba just advised that we do not play him because his clearance to play in this tournament has been temporarily suspended until they conclude their investigation on issues they have not disclosed. The issue, I leanrt has to do with his club in Spain and not the

Nigeria beat Congo at great cost •As injury hit team

N

IGERIA’s national male basketball team need to beat their Cameroonian counterparts in their last group match on today to top Group D and perennial rivals Angola before the final after the won their second match against Congo at the Palais des Sports in Abidjan yesterday In the first quarter which saw Team Nigeria ahead all through they had to rely on experience to checkmate the rugged Congolese who adopted rough tactics to end it at 53-32. They scored the best fast break points of 10

After the Mozambican hurdle is that of the quarter final against host, Cote d’Ivoire who have the privilege of having a mammoth and vociferous crowd behind them and have been on rampage so far.

to Congo’s 2 while the Congolese scored 15 turn over points to Nigeria’s 12.

The second quarter went Nigeria’s way as the team garnered 25 mre points to Congo’s 14 but the Congolese had the better of the third quarter with 26 points to Nigeria’s 25 but Team Nigeria still led at 72-58 In the last quarter, Stan Okoye got knocked down and was stretchered out but the team still held on despite the aggressive tactics of the Central Africans who had the better of three point shots all through the encounter.

Congo’s aggressive play

cost them Okemba Leo Ruddy Acard who was sent out after five mandatory fouls. The game wore on and Nigeria smiled at the end with 93-75 with 25 points to Congo’s 17 in the last quarter.

Meanwhile the victory came at a great cost as another player, Andy Ogide joined Richard Oruche on the injury list when he sustained a knee injury that may rule him out from further participation in the competition with one group match against another rugged side Cameroon left on Sunday.

national team,” he said.

He stressed that the NBBF and the coaching crew are particularly worried that the issue in question has to be communicated to the team a few days to the commencement of their first match, adding,”we have been in touch to tell us the reason for this action at this time and I must confess to you that it is a blow to us as he is the pivot of our team. We have already readjusted our strategies to accommodate the unfortunate incident.”

Coach Bakare added that both Oguche’s Spanish club and the NBBF are still communicating with Fibaafrica in order to resolve the issue as quickly as possible so the player can rejoin the team in their quest to win the trophy for the first.

Tunisia in stunning victory over Burkina Faso.

Defending champions of the Afrobasket, Tunisia yesterday virtually rolled over one of the debutants in the Afrobasket, Burkina Faso, creating a mark of the widest margin victory lead so far here after thumping their opponents 100-45.

tenham over his hijacking of the Willian transfer deal before also goading David Moyes over his career trophy haul.

The Chelsea boss told Spurs they should learn to do their medicals ‘in secret’, after Mourinho confirmed the £30m midfielder had chosen the Blues over their rivals - despite passing a medical earlier this week before Chelsea made a late swoop for him last night.

And he also took a sly dig at Manchester United rival David Moyes ahead of the two teams’ crunch clash.

Speaking ahead of Chelsea’s trip to Old Trafford on Monday, Mourinho told Spurs: ‘The best thing to do is do the medical in secret’, before offering a simple nod when asked whether Willian had opted to join his side.

But the Blues boss also insisted Willian wouldn’t be an alternative to Wayne Rooney, with Chelsea still pursuing the Manchester United striker.

‘He is an extra target,’ Mourinho said. ‘In previous press conferences I

couldn’t say much.’

And the Portuguese didn’t reserve his teasing jibes solely for Andre VillasBoas, as he also took a backhanded swipe at new United boss David Moyes.

When asked how well the Scot, who didn’t win a trophy in his 11-year spell at Everton, could perform at the Old Trafford helm, Mourinho said: ‘I hope he doesn’t win everything, I hope he leaves something for the others.’

Chelsea go into Monday night’s match with a threepoint lead over United Moyes said he is relishing the encounter with Chelsea, his first major test since succeeding Sir Alex Ferguson.

“I came for this sort of level, but I came to win trophies,” said Moyes.

“If you are going to win trophies, you do have to beat teams like Chelsea, because that’s the way our league is.

“I really like Jose. He’s one of the new era of modern managers and he’s had great success. I’ve not seen him for a long time, so I’m looking forward to seeing him at Old Trafford.’’

Nigerian coaches hail boxing federation boss

BY BEN EFE

N

IGERIAN boxing coaches have given kudos to the Nigeria Boxing Federation president, Kenneth Minimah who is spear heading a revival of boxing after being in a comatose state over the years.

As a start, Minimah a serving Nigerian Army Major-General bankrolled the National Open Boxing Championship which came to an end yesterday at the National Stadium Surulere, Lagos It was ten days of continuous boxing action with 21 States and the Nigeria Army, Police and Civil Defence slugging it out for recognition.

“We are very grateful to our president for providing financial muscle to run this competition. If he didn’t bail us out our preparations for forthcoming international events would have been ham-

pered,” said Babatunde Laguda who is the acting secretary of the federation.

Also speaking was former Nigeria international Christopher Ossai.

He submitted that holding the national championship was a step in the right direction as it would stimulate the States into action.

“Apart from Lagos State, boxing is virtually non existent in most of the states.

We are really glad that General Minimah is very active and we hope to see more of this championship in the coming years,” said Ossai who is Delta State head coach.

Ossai’s former coach Isaac Ikhuoria stated that Miminah was on the right track and he deserves the support of all boxing stakeholders Female boxer, Kehinde Obare also added that the championship was like a shot in the arm for the country’s boxers.

SUNDAY VANGUARD, AUGUST 25, 2013 — PAGE 55

Federation Cup: Warri Wolves plan Lagos invasion the 71st minute and just when Akwa thought they had it all wrapped up, Oghenekaro Etebo equalised in the 75th minute and the referee had to stop the match due to a heavy down pour. The fi-

BY BEN EFE

D

ELTA A sports officials plan to storm Lagos with a multitude of supports as Warri Wolves aim to win their first piece of silverware when they play Enyimba of Aba in the final of the 2013 Federation Cup to be decided at the Teslim Balogun Stadium in Lagos.

Warri Wolves, despite the millions that have been pumped into the club by the Delta State government have yet to make any impact in local and continental football.

But against high riding Enyimba FC, Warri Wolves coached by Solomon Ogbeide have high hopes that their moment of glory will arrive on September 15.

“First of all we are highly excited that we reached the final of the Federation

Former Nigeria Boxing Federation boss, Frank Okonta has blamed the dwindling sports fortune of Nigerian athletes on successive political leadership in the country’s democratic era.

He argued that under military rule, there was some level of development and achievement, adding that lack of planing and funding by those is author-

N Etebo Cup. After our league match against El Kanemi today, we will turn our focus to the final against Enyimba. “We will provide buses for every street in Warri to ferry our supporters to Lagos to cheer the club to victory,” said Wolves’ spokesman

Moses Etu. The club earned their bragging rights for the final after a hard fought semi-final against Akwa United in Bauchi. The game was played over two days. Akwa United drew the first blood after Ukeme Davis scored in

ity in present day politics, was responsible for the gradual slide into stagnation.

“During the military era, money meant for sports trickled down to the end users. But it is not so now our politicians are only interested in grabbing whatever was available.

“Just imagine the last World Championships in Moscow, Russia we placed all our hopes on one ath-

lete.

“But this was not the case in the past when we have about four athletes who are up to world standards.

“It is the same thing in boxing. We can not even win a single medal at the All Africa Games where our boxers once dominated. If things were working during the military days, why are we now searching for sports heroes? Okonta queried.

Stop this discrimination or face protest After Nigeria’s senior male basketball team won their first match at the ongoing 2013 Afrobasket in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire Wednesday, many thoughts ran through my mind all through the night.

And this include the injustice meted out to other sports men and women outside the world of football.

If Super Eagles were the ones who defeated their Malian counterparts yesterday, all the players would have been smiling with $5,000 each in their pocket. They even get

ba two-time CAF Champions’ League winners will be attepmting to win the cup for the third time.

They won it 2005 and 2009. They also played in the 2012 final against Heartland and lost 1-0.

FIFA Under-17 World Cup: NFF submits provisional list

Politicians are killing our sports — Okonta

BY BEN EFE

nal 15 minutes was decided on Thursday and Gift Atiluwa scored from the penalty spot to make it 2-1 for the Wolves.

Enyimba defeated Lobi Stars 1-0 in the other semi-final game. Enyim-

half of that if they drew any match. In basketball, players have only two options, win or lose.

But how much will they get for their victories so far, not even up to 10% of what the footballers get. Yet they both, that is, football and basketball players, carry the country’s flag at international tournaments. Why the discrimination? This has been happening over the years and questions should be asked and answers provided by those who hold public offices in trust for us Nigerians.

Is the football player more Nigerian than the

basketball, tennis, volleyball player or an athlete like Blessing Okagbare who wiped out tears from our eyes at the just concluded World Athletics Championships, an equivalent of football’s World Cup? Bringing it to the corridors of power, does the Minister of Finance collect more pay than his/ her Agriculture or Culture and Tourism counterpart? When they travel out on national assignments, are their estacode discriminatory? If not, then why must football players be rated higher than their counterparts in other sports.

For the first time I am

IGERIA Football Federation has submitted a provisional 35man list of the players to represent the country at the FIFA U-17 World Cup to the World Football governing body.

Golden Eaglets are one of Africa’s representatives in the FIFA U-17 World Cup billed for the United Arab Emirates from Oct. 17 to Nov. 8.

The provisional list is part of the regulations of the championship and it is from the pool of players that the final list of 21 would eventually be picked. Some of the players include those that won silver at the U-17 Africa Youth Championship (AYC) in Morocco in April and others who were picked during its two-weeks open camping in Abuja. ‘’The list have been carefully selected based on merit and there is no longer opportunity to try out new players as the preparations for the World Cup is well under-

getting close to a national team and I now know what they go though to represent our country. In football players sweat it out for 90 minutes for two halves of 45 minutes with an additional two or three minutes extra time. Except in knockout stages where a winner must emerge and they go for as much as 120 minutes plus the time for penalties. In basketball, they have four quarters of 10 minutes each but each quarter could take more than 20 minutes depending on the strength of both teams, so tell me how the football player is more superior.

Every sports minister that comes says he will not be a football minister but end up being exactly that. Co-captain of the basketball team, Olumide Oyedeji alluded to that in Abuja during a reception for the team before their departure to Abidjan when he ap-

way. ‘’We want to use this opportunity to thank all the players who came around during the past few weeks to see if they can get the opportunity

to be part of the team. ‘’We are happy with the calibre of players that we have selected with the confidence that we shall produce a formidable team for the World Cup.''

Isaac Success... Eaglets striker successful with the MRI test pealed to the sports minister, Malam Bolaji Abdullahi not to follow suit but support all sports.

The minister replied that he is not one hence he cut short his trip to Moscow where he went to motivate the athletics team to the World Championships to be with them and wish them luck in the 2013 Afrobasket.

I don’t expect it to end with that talk, let him practicalise it by ensuring that all Nigerian athletes are treated equally because our constitution says we all have equal rights. As a journalist, I expect the minister to lead the way in this campaign which I want to start and I believe my colleagues, like Jide Fashikun and Afolabi Gambari, among many others will join this crusade to free our lesser sports from discrimination.

Stand up and join in this crusade for the betterment of future g gener-

ations of our sports men and women. If tennis could do it in Wimbledon by making the prize money for men and women champions equal, why can’t the Nigerian government give equal recognition and compensation to our deserving athlete irrespective of the sport he or she is engaged in.

Remember it took the protest of Rosa Parks in a bus in the USA and the ultimate sacrifice of Rev Martin Luther King Jnr for blacks to get equal rights in the USA which has today culminated into the first black president in Barak Obama. If it was possible there, it will be possible here. Equal rights for Nigeria sports men and women. Please join in this campaign and God will bless you abundantly for standing on the side of justice and equal rights.

C M Y K

SUNDAY Vanguard, AUGUST 25, 2013

World Championships fall-out:

AFN top shots do ‘military science’ to save Nigerian athletics

BY BEN EFE

B

OTHERED by the over reliance on one

Don’t mind Malawi mind games, Commissioner tells Keshi S

UPER Eagles coach, Stephen Keshi appeared to have been boxed into a corner by his Malawian counter, Tom Saintfiet in their war of words ahead of the September 7 World Cup qualifier at the U.J Esuene Stadium.

The Belgian raised the stake yesterday when he accused Keshi of racism and has threated to report the former Super Eagles captain to FIFA. But Cross River commissioner for sports, Mr. Patrick Ugbe has told Keshi and his assistants to concentrate on their preparations and avoid falling for the mind games sparked off by Saintfiet.

“Keshi should let Saintfiet do all the talking. He should just put it in mind that the Malawi coach is trying to wind him up.

“The best thing is to keep quiet and concentrate on preparations. Keshi’s response should be on the pitch,” said Ugbe.

He added that everything has been put in place to make the Eagles comfortable in Calabar adding that the Cross River government will not offer any special incentives to the team to beat Malawi.

Meanwhile top shots of the Nigeria football federation have feigned ignorance of reported threated by Saintfiet to report Keshi to FIFA. The Belgian-born coach alleged that Keshi called him a “white dude”and he has instructed his lawyers to file a complaint to the world soccer governing

•NFF mum on Saintfeit’s threats

tional. It is very strategic to our efforts in reviving athletics in Nigeria.

“Once this structure is put in place, we will now look at the eminently qualified coaches who will be in to run it. We are hoping to have a performance director, who will co-ordinate the coaches and the training programmes,” said Nesiama a Nigeria Navy Commodore.

Already, there are speculations that Nigerianborn British coach, Michael Afilaka is one of the top coaches that will be running the show, having won the heart of Sports Minister, Bolaji Abdulahi with his graphic analysis of Nigerian athletes performances at the World Championships in Moscow, where Okagbare won a silver in Long Jump and bronze in the 200m. However, Commodore Nesiama waved off such speculations.

“Afilika, for now is like a resource person that will help with our seminars and recruit some of the qualified persons that may be considered for the programme.”

TODAY’S MATCHES

Sa ved Save d Us fro f rom m Di Dist stra racction ti ons. s... .. E Eag agle less pl play ayer erss Og Og-enyi en yi Ona Onazi zi and and Bro Brown wn IdIdeye ey e lo look ok u up p to h hea eave vens ns ffor or answ an swer ers, s, p per erha haps ps tto o sa save ve the th e te team am fro f rom m Ma Mala lawi wi mind mi nd g gam ames es a and nd b bon onus us dist di stra ract ctio ion. n. body.”

“I am not aware of any story about Keshi and Saintfiet. And so I have no comments,” said NFF technical committee chairman, Barister Chris

RESULTS England Fulham Everton Hull Newcastle Southampton Stoke Aston Villa Germany B/Leverkusen B/Munich Hannover 96 Hoffenheim Mainz 05 Spain Getafe Ath. Bilbao

athlete to rescue medals for Nigeria at international events, Athletics Federation of Nigeria officials have been meeting in Lagos to forge a plan that will guarantee the steady production of quality athletes for the country.

Before now things were done on trial and error basis with Nigerian athletes failing to get the desired results at the global stage even as the likes of Blessing Okagbare continue to show some promise. Athletics enthusiasts have continuously argued that for a country of Nigeria’s size and human endowment to be relying on only Okagbare, was a fundamental flaw and it must be corrected as the burden of expectation was weighing down the athlete in question.

However, AFN technical director, Omatseye Nesiama submitted that this phenomenon is about to change as the Federation will lay down structures that will put production of potential medals winners on auto-pilot.

“We are looking to make the high performance centre in Port Harcourt func-

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Green.

Another officicial who was contracted on phone

retorted that he was having a head-ache and he need rest, therefore he cannot make any comment on the matter.

CROSS WORD PUZZLE ACROSS 1.Nobel-winning Archbishop (7-4) 5.Sailor (3) 7.Consumed (5) 8.Domesticates (5) 9.Ovum (3) 10.Electricity counting gadgets (6) 13.Highlander (4) 15.Poem (3) 17.One that contests (9) 20.Nigerian tribe (5) 22.Cereal (5) 24.Demoted (9) 27.Pig’s pen (3) 29.No one (4) 30.Sulks (6) 33.Away (3) 35.Presses (5) 36.Till (5) 37. Swine (3) 38. “The Man Who Saw Tomorrow” (11)

DOWN 1.Sleeping vision (5) 2.Possessor (5) 3.Tax (4) 4.Depressing (9) 5.Argentinian dance (5) 6.Wash lightly (5) 11.Greek letter (3) 12.Distress call (1-1-1) 14.English boy’s name (5) 16.Obstacle (3) 17.Bovine animal (3) 18.Mindfulness (9) 19.Alarm (5) 21.Help (3) 23.Village house (3) 25.Gnome (3) 26.Vast age (3) 27.Condescend (5) 28.Youthful (5) 31.Circular (5) 32.Trades (5) 34.Old Russian King (4)

Results Glo NPL league El-Kanemi Kwara Utd Gombe Utd Bayelsa United Kano Pillars 1

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