thursday, july 17, 2014

Vol. 3 N0. 657 Thursday, July 4, 2013 N150

CONTINUED ON PAGE 5>>

Vol. 4 N0. 897 Thursday, July 17, 2014 N150

NAFDAC failed to remit N1.4bn to Federation Account –FRC

Reps summon Jega over distribution of voter cards

TOLA AKINMUTIMIABUJA

The Fiscal Respon-sibility Commis-sion, FRC, yester-

day indicted the National

Agency for Food, Drug Ad-ministration and Control, NAFDAC, for its alleged failure to remit N1.439bn operational surplus to the Federation Account as re-quired by law.

Speaking on the agency’s audited financial statements from year 2007 to 2009 when NAFDAC officials honoured the commission’s invita-tion in Abuja, FRC Head of

...says exercise can disenfrachise voters P.2

...to upgrade military equipment, training, logistics

Insurgency:

GEORGE OJI, ROTIMI FADEYI AND INUSA NDAHI

President Goodluck Jonathan has sought the approval of the

National Assembly to bor-row $1bn to upgrade military hardware in the fight against insurgency in the country.

The President’s request

APC alleges monetary inducement to sack 4 more govs P.4

Presidency seeks NASS approval to borrow $1bn

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How Keshi, Maigari, Eagles dashed Nigeria’s W’Cup hope

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National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.net2 Thursday, July 17, 2014News

Reps summon Jega over distribution of voter cards

Presidency seeks NASS approval to borrow $1bnwas contained in a letter to the Senate President, David Mark, which was read on the floor of the Senate, yes-terday.

The request is coming barely two months after receiving the National Assembly’s nod to spend N968.127bn in 2014 budget for security.

The source of the loan was, however, not stated in the letter.

The President stated in the letter:”You are no doubt aware of the ongoing and serious security challenges which the nation is facing as typified by the Boko Haram terrorists’ threat.

“I would like to bring to your attention the urgent need to upgrade the equip-ment, training and logistic of our armed forces and security services to enable them more forcefully con-front this serious threat.

“For this reason, I seek the concurrence of the Na-tional Assembly for exter-nal borrowing of not more than $1bn, including gov-ernment-to-government ar-rangement for this upgrade.

“While counting on the steadfast support of the dis-tinguished members of the Senate as always, please ac-cept.”

Since 2011, the Federal Government has spent not less than N1trn yearly on security.

Also yesterday, former Chief of Defence Staff, Lt.-Gen. Theophilus Danjuma (rtd), raised the alarm that the Boko Haram insurgents were gaining the upper hand in the ongoing war in the North- East.

His remark came just as President Jonathan vowed that the Federal Govern-ment would ensure that ter-rorists had no hiding place in the country, stressing that his administration would win the war against the sect.

They spoke in Abuja dur-ing the inauguration of the Committee on the Victims Support Fund initiated by the Federal Government to compensate victims of Boko Haram insurgency and other terrorist groups in the country.

The committee is saddle with the task of raising about N30bn for the victims.

The Federal Government will contribute N10bn to the fund over time while state governments are also ex-pected to jointly contribute another N10bn. The private sector and other concerned stakeholders will also be in-volved in the establishment of the fund.

Danjuma, who is the Chairman of the commit-tee, noted that the sect was not only having the upper hand, “they pick and choose where to strike and even holding positions and dis-placing people”.

He stated that the war against terrorism must be won immediately as it was taking too long already.

“One thing we will not do is to go to Sambisa forest. The Commander-in- Chief will lead and we will follow.

“But seriously, this war must be brought to an end. We must win this war im-mediately, it is taking too long. I called it civil war when it began, people say it is insurgency. The insur-gents appear to be having

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

President Goodluck Jonathan (6th left); Vice-President Namadi Sambo (5th left); Chairman, Committee on Victims Support Fund, Lt.- Gen. T.Y. Danjuma and other members, during the inauguration of the committee in Abuja, yesterday. PHOTO: STATE HOUSE

TORDUE SALEMABUJA

The House of Repre-sentatives yester-day summoned the

Chairman, Independent National Electoral Com-mission, INEC, Prof. At-tahiru Jega, over alleged haphazard distribution of the permanent voter cards in some states.

Jega is also expected to explain the modalities for the distribution of the cards before the 2015 elections.

This resolution followed a motion by Hon. Yakubu Balogun, which was adopt-

ed without debate.The motion was entitled:

“Alleged haphazard distri-bution of permanent voter cards by the Independent National Electoral Commis-sion, INEC, and the immi-nent disenfranchisement of eligible voters in some states of the federation.”

Balogun said INEC had not replaced all the tempo-rary voter cards in some states where the distribu-tion was currently going on.

He noted that the haphaz-ard distribution might lead to the disenfranchisement of eligible voters.

The legislator alleged

that eligible voters were told that the commission was not ready for the exercise.

He said that part of the responsibilities of INEC was to ensure free, fair, cred-ible and peaceful elections as well as provision of voter cards to eligible Nigerians.

Balogun noted that INEC succeeded in providing tem-porary voter cards used and widely accepted for the con-duct of the 2011 general elec-tions in the country.

The motion directed INEC to present its progress report on the distribution of permanent voter cards tom-morrow to the House Com-

mittee on Electoral Matters. “Aware that INEC has suc-

ceeded in providing tempo-rary voter cards which were used and widely accepted for the conduct of the 2011 Gen-eral Elections in Nigeria.

“Further aware that INEC has directed that all holders of temporary voter cards will not be allowed to vote in subsequent elections in Nigeria and also directed that all eligible voters must compulsorily replace their temporary voter cards with the new permanent voter cards.

“Worried that available report from the states where

the distribution is at pres-ent ongoing indicated that INEC has not been able to ef-fectively replace all the tem-porary voter cards with per-manent ones in those states.

“Further worried that the haphazard distribution of permanent voter cards may lead to disenfranchise-ment of eligible voters, which violates the spirit and letters of Electoral Act 2010 (as amended).

“Concerned that it was alleged that in some states, eligible voters who had ap-proached INEC for the re-placement of their voters cards were turned back on

the account that their indi-vidual permanent voters’ cards were not ready.

“The House thereby re-solved to invite INEC to appear within the next 48 hours before the House� Committee on Electoral Matters with details of progress report on the ongo-ing distribution of perma-nent voter cards in all the states where the exercise is presently going on as well as the modalities for distribu-tion of the permanent voter cards’ in all other states of the federation before the 2015 elections,” the motion stated.

an upper hand at this very moment.

“They pick and choose where to strike; they are even holding positions and displacing us. We must win this war, Mr. President, we must do so immediately.

“We will raise the funds, we will disburse it, I prom-ise you we will do so dili-gently and transparently, but we must win this war, Mr. President,” Danjuma said.

President Jonathan said that 2009 appeared to be a tragic turning point as Boko Haram took it upon itself to bring evil upon the country.

He noted that they had in their mission turned wom-en to widows and reduced children to orphans, killed, maimed and struck fear into law-abiding citizens.

According to him, the country is facing the real-ity that it is confronted with individuals whose minds have been so twisted and tutored to believe they are doing God a service by their actions.

He stated that evil would never prevail over good, stressing that those taking advantage of the vulnerabil-ity of the people to spread extremist doctrines and re-cruit them for murderous errands were enemies of humanity.

The President assured the people that government would not waste any effort in bringing the individu-als responsible for crimes against humanity to justice.

The President noted that those who had been victims of terrorism in the country

needed comfort and suc-cour.

“We cannot replace the life of a child that has been snuffed out. We cannot re-place the lives of men and women who have been killed. We cannot return broken limbs to their origi-nal state. We cannot take away the trauma that people have been put through,” he said.

Jonathan explained that the Victim Support Fund Committee was part of on-going efforts to provide a comprehensive solution to the menace of terrorism, stressing that government was determined to resolve the crisis.

The committee, which has Mr. Fola Adeola as vice-chairman, has the mandate to identify sources and ways

of raising sustainable fund-ing to support victims of terror activities; develop ap-propriate strategies for the fund raising; ascertain the persons, communities, fa-cilities and economic assets affected by terror activities; and assess and determine the appropriate support re-quired in each case.

The committee will also manage, disburse and/or administer support to the victims as appropriate; ad-dress related challenges as may be appropriate and ad-vise government on other matter(s) necessary or inci-dental to support victims of terror activities.

In Borno State, no fewer than 27 people were killed when some suspected mem-bers of Boko Haram sect in-


National Mirrorwww.nationalmirroronline.net Thursday, July 17, 2014 3

L-R: Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Emefiele; Deputy Governor, Dr. Sarah Alade and ECOWAS Representative, Dr. Nelson Magbagbeola, during the meeting of the Committee of Governors of the West African Monetary Zone, in Abuja, yesterday. PHOTO: ROTIMI OSASONA

L-R: Area Director, British American Tobacco West Africa, Mr. Freddy Messanvi; Chairman, Committee on Social Justice, House of Representatives, Honourable Ali Ahmad and Partner, Simmons Cooper Partners, Mr. Babatunde Irukera, at the Public Hearing on the Tobacco Control Bill, organised by the Committee on Health, House of Representatives, in collaboration with the the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, in Abuja, yesterday.

L-R: Plateau Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Development, Mrs. Sarah Yusuf; Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Women Affairs, Mrs. Sumaye Hamja and representative of Category Business Manager, Nutrition, Nestle Nigeria Plc, Mrs. Abiola Ofulue, at a workshop on Nutrition for Managers and Care Givers of Orphanages, in Jos, yesterday.

L-R: Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Airtel Nigeria, Mr. Segun Ogunsanya; Mrs.Tijani Azizat representing Lagos State First Lady, Dame Abimbola Fashola and Producer, Airtel Touching Lives Programme, Mr. Patricious Spero at the unveiling of Airtel Touching Lives CSR programme in Lagos, yesterday.

National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.net4 Thursday, July 17, 2014Photo News

National News

OBIORA IFOH AND TORDUE SALEM ABUJA

The All Progressives Congress, APC, has alleged that President

Goodluck Jonathan is cham-pioning impeachments of four more governors of Nasarawa, Edo, Rivers and Borno states, with massive financial inducement of law-makers.

The party also said that the impeachment of Adama-wa State Governor, Murtala Nyako, was made possible because of heavy financial inducement of members of the state House of Assembly.

While addressing the me-dia yesterday at the party secretariat, APC National Chairman, John Odigie Oyegun, also said President Jonathan is destroying Ni-geria in his obsessive bid for re-election.

The party said that in Adamawa, each member of

the state House of Assembly was allegedly given $300,000 as part payment to impeach Nyako.

“Some N500 million has allegedly been moved to Na-sarawa to induce the state’s lawmakers to impeach Governor Umaru Tanko Al-Makura and, in Edo, each lawmaker has allegedly been offered N75 million to im-peach Governor Adams Osh-iomhole,” APC alleged.

Oyegun noted that Nyako was impeached for an of-fence allegedly committed five years ago. “Those of-fences were not impeachable when he was in the PDP. But the moment he decamped to the APC, they became im-peachable.

“Now, who is more guilty of gross misconduct than a President who is frittering away our commonwealth to induce perfidious legislators to impeach their state gover-nors?

“Who is more guilty

of gross misconduct than a president who deploys troops to harass, intimidate and arrest the opposition during an election? Who de-serves to be impeached for gross misconduct more than a president who uses nation-al institutions against the op-position, and shuts airports arbitrarily?

“President Jonathan’s desperation knows no bounds, and he is willing to set a record of presiding over the greatest number of impeachments under his tenure.

“Before Nyako’s impeach-ment on Tuesday, a total of five impeachments have been carried out in all of the 15 years of the Fourth Re-public.

“But between now and 2015, President Jonathan is championing five impeach-ments, in Adamawa, Nasara-wa, Edo, Rivers and Borno,” the APC chairman said.

The party also said the

army has been so compro-mised that it can no longer be trusted by anyone to be neutral.

“The army has been so abused that it now carries out police duties. Soldiers were deployed to guard the residence of the Chief Judge of Adamawa while the im-peachment proceedings were on. Soldiers were de-ployed to guard each mem-ber of the impeachment panel. Soldiers were also deployed to guard the venue where the panel sat.

“In Ekiti, soldiers were deployed to hunt down the opposition and prevent them from moving around freely, in contravention of the na-tion’s constitution. In Osun, soldiers are again to be de-ployed to shut down the state and go after the opposition.

“By using the military for election duties, Presi-dent Jonathan is clearly dis-obeying a court order as the Court of Appeal had ruled

as far back as 2005 that the involvement of the military in the conduct of elections is an aberration and therefore unconstitutional. Indeed in the words of Salami, JCA on page 176 in the case of Yusuf v Obasanjo (2005) 18 NWLR (Pt. 956 96@174-5)

“It is up to the police to protect our nascent democ-racy and not the military, otherwise the democracy might be wittingly or unwit-tingly militarised. This is not what the citizenry bargained for after 1999. Conscious step or steps should be taken to civilianise the polity and thereby ensure survival and sustenance of democracy,” it advised.

The party said it has raised the alarm several times that President Jona-than’s obsession with his re-election is a clear and pres-ent danger to the nation’s democracy.

“Today, we say this Presi-dent’s obsession with re-

election is threatening the very existence of our nation. Never in the history of our dear nation has any presi-dent waged war on the coun-try the way this president is doing.” The party charged.

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives may be get-ting set to join the impeach-ment fray sweeping across the states.

The lawmakers’ target, our correspondent gathered yesterday, is President Good-luck Jonathan.

A member of the House of Representative told our correspondent that the House would consider the ouster of Jonathan as they adjourn for a six-week break today.

The lawmaker in an exclu-sive chat with National Mir-ror, said the move against the President was patriotic and for the good of the country.

He also disclosed that the

Jonathan fi nancing removal of four more govs, says APC Nasarawa, Edo, Rivers, Borno affected allegation baseless -PDP

CONTINUED ON PAGE 5

L-R: National Publicity Secretary, All Progressives Congress, Alhaji Lai Mohammed; National Treasurer, Alhaji Bala Gwagwarawa; former Kwara State Governor, Bukola Saraki and National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun during a press conference on the removal of Adamawa State Governor Murtala Nyako in Abuja, yesterday.

Jonathan fi nancing ouster of four more govs, says APC

NAFDAC failed to remit N1.4bn to Federation Account –FRC CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1



Presidency seeks NASS approval to borrow $1bn

Policy and Standard, Mo-hammed Ola Tijani, said the indictment folowed the discovery of unremitted N1.439bn into the Federa-tion Account by NAFDAC.

Tijani said that a close assessment of the ac-counts showed that it gener-ated N491.2m, N857.1m and N607.6m surpluses in 2007, 2008 and 2009 respectively but paid only N64m in 2007, N93m in 2008 and N105m in 2009 into the Federation Ac-count.

He explained that a breakdown of the unremit-ted funds in the audited financial statements indi-cated that NAFDAC had ar-rears of unpaid remittances of N427.2m in 2007; N763.5m in 2008 and N502.6m in 2009.

He said: “We have re-viewed your accounts from 2007- 2009 and discovered that you have to pay N1.439bn to the Federation Accounts as demanded by law.’’

The Acting FRC Chair-man, Mr. Victor Muruako, said that NAFDAC would be sanctioned if it delayed the payments into the Federation Accounts as required by law.

“I would have appreci-ated if the DG of NAFDAC himself was here. I will only appeal to your man-agement to hurriedly pay this money to government’s purse failure of which will make us to write damaging reports on your agency,” the chairman said.

He restated the com-mission’s commitment to government’s efforts aimed

at ensuring improved fis-cal responsibility in public sector finance, adding that this was important if the funds required to enhance infrastructure and create employment for our youths were to be generated.

He advised the officials of the agency to consult with the Director-General, Mr. Paul Orhii, to indicate the date the outstanding money would be paid.

The representative of NAFDAC and Director of Finance and Accounts, Mr. Ademola Mogbojumi, prom-ised that the director-gener-al would be appropriately briefed and all the issues raised by the commission addressed.

The Fiscal Responsibil-ity Act of 2007, Section 2 has

made it mandatory that gov-ernment agencies such as NAFDAC and other govern-ment corporations should remit certain per cent of their operational surplus to the Federation Account.

The Act states: “Notwith-standing the provisions of any written law governing the corporation, each corpo-ration shall establish a gen-eral reserve fund and shall allocate thereto at the end of each financial year, one-fifth of its operating surplus for the year, the balance of the operating surplus shall be paid into the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Fed-eral Government not later than one month following the statutory deadline for publishing each corpora-tion’s accounts.”

vaded Sabon Gari village in Damboa Local Government Area.

A few days ago, gunmen attacked neighbouring Mandafuma village in Biu Local Government, injuring one person while property worth millions of naira was destroyed.

Also the main bridge linking Maiduguri- Dam-boa-Madafuma-Biu road was blown off by terrorists

last week.Sources said the latest at-

tack, which took place about 6pm on Tuesday, left about 20 civilians dead, while an-other seven people lost their lives in an attempt to bury their dead ones yesterday morning when the terror-ists regrouped and opened fire on residents at the Sa-bon Gari cemetery/grave-yards.

Fleeing residents dis-closed that many people

were seriously injured dur-ing the attack, while prop-erty worth millions of naira destroyed.

The attack was the sec-ond in 12 days after the dead-ly attack on Damboa town where a Commanding Offi-cer of 195 Battalion and the divisional police officer, 16 soldiers and six policemen as well as several terrorists died.

The situation led to the withdrawal of troops from Sabon Gari village.

A resident, Mallam Ili-yasu Ibrahim, told our cor-respondent that his cousin was among those killed by the terrorists on Tuesday, adding that two of his sis-ters were still missing after the attack.

He added that already the village was now deserted as

the people had fled for safety with no security operatives deployed to restore normal-cy.

Efforts to get confirma-tion from the Police Public Relations Officer, Gideon Ju-brin, yielded no result.

Meanwhile, the Borno State chapter of Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, has urged the Federal Government to deploy more troops to the state following the continuous attack on vil-lages and communities by Boko Haram terrorists.

CAN Chairman, Rev. Ti-tus Pona, gave the advice in a statement made available to journalists in Maiduguri, the state capital.

The statement reads: “Our members in the state are very much worried and concerned on the gross

shortage of security person-nel that will effectively fight terrorism and the killings of many innocent people in Borno.

“We also express sadness on the gross shortage of se-curity personnel in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states because several villages in the affected states are either being sacked and people killed from their homes as a result of the increasing waves of attacks.”

The statement also ex-pressed sadness that for over 90 days of being held hostage in Sambisa Forest, the Chibok schoolgirls had not been rescued from their abductors; a situation that had traumatised parents and guardians of the stu-dents.

“It’s 90 days now we have

not seen our girls! Our trau-matised parents are being eliminated village by village due to lack of enough secu-rity,” said Rev. Pona.

The cleric added that the poor villagers were on the run for their dear lives for fear of attack by the mili-tants from village to village.

He, therefore, called on the federal and state govern-ments as well as foreign part-ners to come to the rescue of the people who had become slaves in their fatherland.

“Who can help us? State government, Federal Gov-ernment or foreign part-ners?” Pona said, adding that well-meaning individu-als, groups and associations should play their roles in restoring peace in the three affected states in the North-East sub-region.”

APC Caucus was spear-heading the removal of the President and was hop-ing that other progressive members of the PDP would join them.

“The prevailing circum-stances in the country to-day, you will agree with me, calls for a stronger and bet-ter leadership. But in our opinion, we don’t have that and it is our duty to lead the country in making this de-cision at a critical time like this.

“The Constitution em-powers us under section 143 of the 1999 Constitution to remove an ineffective president and that is what we intend to do and Nigeri-ans and our respectable col-leagues in the PDP should understand that this is about country first, and not the issue of political party or region,” he said.

The lawmaker from one of the northern states, said he would disclose details of the President’s offences in due time.

“I think you already know the offences this gov-ernment has committed against the country, but we will officially give the press details of the offences of the president shortly,” he added.

The lawmaker however denied that lawmakers are spoiling for a fight against Jonathan in retaliation for the impeachment of former governor Nyako.

This impeachment move would be the second time the House would be threat-ening to remove Jonathan for alleged constitutional breaches.

Last year, the leader of the opposition, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila had raised a motion calling for the re-

moval of Jonathan for al-leged failure to implement the 2012 budget.

In a related develop-ment, three members of the House from Borno State, Abdulrahman Terab, Isa Lawan and Peter Biye Gumtha have defected to the PDP from APC.

The defectors are loyal-ists of the former governor of the state and now a mem-ber of the PDP, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff

However, APC scored an additional member in the name of Ali Yakubu from Yobe State.

Meanwhile, the PDP has described the APC allega-tion as baseless and a rant-ing of a dying breed.

The party’s spokesman, Chief Olisa Metuh, in a statement said the allega-tion was calculated to cause confusion and incite the people against President Jonathan, the PDP and in-stitutions of government. He said: “While we do not wish to join issues with a party that has become no-torious for falsehood, deceit and blackmail, we wish to alert Nigerians that this is part of the orchestrated plot by the APC to discredit and blackmail institutions of government, particularly the legislature, the citadel of democracy and stronghold of the will of the people and ultimately set the stage to destabilize the polity.

“We note that this on-slaught against the legisla-ture is not spontaneous. Ni-gerians may indeed recall the vicious attack on the National Assembly early this year wherein the APC also raised a false alarm that federal lawmakers were being induced with millions of dollars to defect to the PDP.”

National Mirrorwww.nationalmirroronline.net 5Thursday, July 17, 2014 News

National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.net6 Thursday July 17, 2014 News6

ROTIMI FADEYIABUJA

The Federal Execu-tive Council, FEC, yesterday approved

the sum of N1.3 billion for feasibility studies for the development of standard rail gauge system across the country.

The contact for the stan-dard rail gauge that would cover 4,430 kilometres in length would be along six rail corridors and with a completion period of six months.

Briefing State House Correspondents after the FEC meeting, Minister of Transport, Idris Umar, disclosed that the rail

corridors were identified under the 25 years strate-gic railway development policy of the federal gov-ernment.

Umar explained that the contract would also include studies of the vi-ability of the rail project and identification of busi-ness and economic activi-ties along the six rail cor-ridors.

The corridors include Kano/ Dai/Jimbia, an ap-proximate distance of 354 kilometres; Ilela/Sokoto/Jega/ Kontagora (408 kilometres); Aba/ Ikot Ekpene/Itu/Uyo/Udop-kani/Calabar (340 kilome-tres).

Other corridors are

Kano/Nguru/ Geshua/Damaturu/Maiduguri/ Gamburu Ngala (707 kilo-metres); Calabar/ Ikom/Obudu/Ogoja/ Katsina Ala/ Wukari/ Jalingo/Yola/ Maiduguri (1669 ki-lometres) and Port Har-cour t/Aba/Umuahia/Enugu/ Lafia/ Jos/ Bau-chi/Biu/ Maidiguri (550 kilometres).

He explained that the scope of work to be car-ried out by the consul-tants for the feasibility studies would cover de-tailed studies to bring out the technical, economic and financial models to establish the viability of the project.

The feasibility studies

would also include pro-posal for the alignment and connections of the urban and commercial settlements along the pro-posed routes as well as de-tailed surveys and design of the selected alignments to identify potential train stations and other rail base infrastructure to in-corporate them into the design.

According to him, the rail corridors were care-fully selected to cover ar-eas with strong economic potentials including min-ing, petro chemicals, solid mineral deposits, agricul-tural zones, linkages to airports and state capitals across the country.

Reps, stakeholders to set up electricity management agency

FEC approves N1.3bn for rail gauge system

National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Adamu Muazu, (3rd right), Akwa Ibom State Governor, Godswill Akpabio (3rd left), Gombe State Governor Ibrahim Dakwambo (2nd right) and other members of the party’s National Working Committee, during their visit to Akwa Ibom State, yesterday.

TORDUE SALEMABUJA

Ongoing efforts to ensure effective and quality ser-

vice delivery in the power sector gained a boost as stakeholders expressed support for the establish-ment of Nigerian Electric-ity Management Services Authority, NEMSA.

The functions of the Authority, as proposed in the NEMSA bill, include enforcement of techni-cal standards, inspection, testing and certification of electrical equipment/materials, power systems, networks, safety regula-tion and adherence to best

practices. Aminu Tambu-wal, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Phil-lip Aduda, chairman, Sen-ate Committee on Power, Standard Organisation of Nigeria, SON, and other operators all spoke in fa-vour of the bill.

The bill was however opposed by the chair-man, Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, Sam Amadi who accused Federal Ministry of Power and other stake-holders of propagating personal interest.

Amadi urged the House to dump the bill, as ac-cording to him, it would intrude on the statutory powers of his commis-

sion.He alleged that the min-

istry had since 2009 made efforts to frustrate the commission.

He argued that the pro-posed “bill does not serve any useful purpose but would deter the achieve-ments recorded so far in the power sector.”

But in a swift reaction to Amadi’s presentation, Godknows Igali who was visibly angry debunked the allegations against Prof Chinedu Nebo, the Minister of Power and himself.

The bill seeks to address various challenges in the electricity generation and distribution by new own-

ers. Speaking on the intent

of the bill, Patrick Ikhari-ale, chairman House Com-mittee on Power noted that the proposed bill would en-sure safe, reliable and un-interrupted power supply to the citizenry as well as guarantee safety of lives and properties in homes, offices, work places, indus-tries, among others.

He noted that the agen-cy when functional will address the non-committal attitude of the utility op-erators as well as address various challenges ham-pering power generation and distribution despite the unbundling of the PHCN.

Umar explained that the seven corridors ear-lier awarded have been completed, adding that contract for the construc-tion of standard rail line would soon be awarded.

Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr. Olusegun Aganga, also disclosed at the briefing that the Unit-ed Nations Industrial De-velopment Organisation, UNIDO, has established two regional offices in Nigeria and Ethiopia in recognition of the poten-tials and the industrial development efforts of the two countries.

According to him, UNI-DO has categorised the two countries under the accelerated intervention programme for industri-al development.

Aganga said the devel-opment was in recogni-tion of the potentials and the industrial develop-ment efforts of the two countries.

He noted that UNIDO has also established an Investment and Technol-ogy Promotion Office, ITPO, in Nigeria to accel-erate Nigeria’s ability to attract industrial invest-ment.

GEORGE OJIABUJA

The Senate yester-day confirmed the nominations of the

Corps Marshall of Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC, Osita Chidoka, and a Political Science Lec-turer at the University of Abuja, Dr Abubakar Olanrewaju Sulaiman, as ministers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

The two nominees now Ministers Designate, whose names were for-warded to the Senate by President Goodluck Jona-than last week for screen-ing and confirmation, are from Anambra and Kwara states. If cleared, they are expected to be posted to the ministries of Aviation and National Planning respectively.

Chidoka in his re-sponse to how he met the FRSC in 2007 when appointed the Corp Mar-shall, and how the traffic regulatory agency is now, disclosed that within his seven years in office as the FRSC boss, he ex-panded and opened the organisation to the world in terms of personnel, infrastructure training facilities and operational vehicles.

He added that with automation of the opera-tions of the commission, the agency now has abil-ity to know the number of deaths resulting from accidents in the country as well as the states with the highest crashes and fatalities in the country.

He noted that the FRSC is now a data and knowl-edge driven organisa-tion, a situation that has made some West African countries like Ghana and Sierra Leone seek the or-ganisation’s help to set up similar organisation.

He said it took an av-erage of eight weeks for communications to pass from unit commands and back when he took over, but that has reduced to a few minutes through in-ternet connections.

On Aviation related questions, he said he didn’t have good picture of the nation’s National Carrier but added that Nigeria is not doing well in terms of air passenger traffic.

He also in his response to alleged relocation of FRSC School from Jos to Enugu, denied the allega-tion. He said there was never a Federal Execu-tive Council decision to site the FRSC school in Jos.

According to him, the school was meant to be in Enugu but because they could not provide a site for it, it was temporarily located in Jos, adding that “And when the Enugu state government provid-ed the required place, the school was relocated.”

Senator Chris Ngige (APC Anambra Central) in his comments concern-ing the suitability of Chi-doka for the post of min-ister said: “A good product is a good product. This is our good son in whom we are well pleased.”

Senate confi rms Chidoka, Suleiman as ministers

National Mirrorwww.nationalmirroronline.net 7Thursday, July 17, 2014

Amosun appoints new aides, reconstitutes TASUED Governing Council

Prof. Samuel Abogunrin (left), receiving a Life Patron Award from Olomu of Omu-Aran, Oba Charles Ibitoye (right), at the 27th Annual Conference of Nigerian Association of Biblical Studies in Ibadan yesterday. With them is President of the association, Mr. Je’adayibe Gwamna (middle).

No refund of 35% duty tariff to stakeholders —Customs

Infl ation rate up 8.2% in June

Court voids sack of Oyo directors KEMI OLAITAN IBADAN

The National Indus-trial Court, NIC, Ibadan division, has

declared as illegal the Feb-ruary 7, 2013 termination of appointments of seven directors in the service of the Oyo State Local Gov-ernment Service Commis-sion and ruled for their reinstatement.

The presiding judge, Edith Agbakoba, said the sacking of the seven direc-tors was wrong, null and void and of no effect, and also ordered that each of the affected personalities be re-instated to the civil service with compensation of N100,000 each.

The affected officers in

a suit NCIN/IB/44/2013 filed by Prince John Adey-inka Adeleye, sued the Oyo State governor, the state government, state Attor-ney General and Commis-sioner for Justice and the Local Government Service Commission over their wrongful dismissal from service last year.

They jointly claimed that the “purported retire-ment of the claimants from the services of the defen-dants vide letter dated Feb-ruary 7, 2013 is premature, unlawful, illegal, null and void.”

The affected officers included Adeleye; Fajimi Kayode Eyitayo, Oyewole Samuel Oloyede, Alhaji Lawal Ismaila Ayansiju, Oyerinde Kolawole Olu-

sola and Ayoola Clement Akintunde who are Direc-tors of Administration & General Services with the Local Government Service Commission. The seventh person, Obadokun Onaola-po Titilayo, is a director of Finance & Supplies in the same commission.

Other prayers of the claimants which was granted by Justice Agbako-ba included that the claim-ants are still in the services of the defendants “until they attain the age of 60 years or put in 35 years of service, that the services of the complainant can only be brought to an end by due compliance with the law regulating the Civil Ser-vice of Oyo State and order directing the defendants to

reinstate the claimants to its services henceforth.

The judge said the claim by the defendants that the claimants were redundant could not be sustained since the defendants re-posted the claimants to the stations where they were alleged to be redundant.

She also noted that their dismissal did not follow due process as stipulated by law.

She then ordered that they be reinstated accord-ingly because their ter-mination of appointment was “wrong, unlawful, null and void and of no ef-fect.”

She also ordered that the seven complainants be paid the sum of N100,000 each as compensation.

Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State has appoint-

ed four new aides on stu-dent and youth affairs, as well as rectors for the state-owned institutes of Technology, located in Ije-bu-Igbo, Igbesa, Itori and Sapade.

Also, the state govern-ment has constituted a new Governing Council for the Tai Solarin University of Education (TASUED), Ijagun.

A statement signed by Secretary to the State Gov-ernment, Taiwo Adeoluwa, said the new special assis-tants, who would be sworn

Deputy Comptroller, Tin-can Island Con-tainer Terminal

(TICT), Peters Olugboyeon, yesterday said the 35 per-cent duty already paid by some stakeholders on im-ported vehicles would not be refunded.

Olugboye disclosed this in an interview in Lagos with the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, in spite of the clamour by many mari-time operators that collec-tion of duty and levy on used imported vehicles be stopped until 2015.

“The 35 percent duty tar-iff is not refundable though the total collection of 70 per cent tariff on used ve-hicles had been postponed till January 1, 2015. It is not reversible.

“The Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, will always implement government policies. The 70 per cent tar-iff is supposed to be fully implemented from July 1, but was shifted to January 1, 2015,’’ he said.

The TICT deputy comp-troller said Customs had never collected 35 percent tariff on levy and that clearing agents had not been paying levy on im-


Nigeria’s Composite Price Index, CPI, which measures

the average change in price level or inflation rate, rose 8.2 per cent year-on-year in June, up marginally by 0.2 per cent from the 8.0 per cent recorded the previous month.

The National Statistical CPI News, published yester-day by the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, in Abuja, attributed the marginal rise in the general price level on year-on-year basis for the fourth consecutive month after February in the month under review, to an increase in all divisions that contrib-ute to the index, particu-larly the Food and Core sub indices.

Specifically, the bureau reported that food prices again edged higher to 9.8 percent, up from 9.7 per-cent in May due to higher prices in the Bread and Cereals, Meats, Fish and Dairy groups. However, the agency noted that the price increases in the food sub-in-

in at a later date, are Mr. Clement Olusegun (Student Affairs), Kunle Adegboyega (Youth Affairs - Central), Mr. Rafiu Awoyemi (Youth Affairs - East) and Muse-fiu Lamidi (Youth Affairs - West).

The new rectors whose appointments take immedi-ate effect are Prof. Jumoke Bilesanmi-Awoderu for the Institute of Technology, Ijebu Igbo, Dr. Olufunke Olanike Akinkurolere for Institute of Technology, Ig-besa, Dr. Adeola Odedina for the Institute of Technol-ogy, Itori, and Dr. Kolawole Oyeyinka for the Institute of Technology, Sapade.

The statement said the 16-man council of TASUED is to be headed by Prof Olu-femi Bamiro, former Vice Chancellor of the Univer-sity of Ibadan, who will serve as Pro-Chancellor and Chairman.

Other members are Prof Oluyemisi Obilade, who is the Vice Chancellor, Engr. Afolabi Sorinmade, Prof. Ayo Alabi, Prof. Seun Omo-tayo, Dr. Mulikat Salaam, Kunle Elegbede, Comrade Tunde Oladunjoye, High Chief George Afolabi Ibirinde and Chief Derin Adebiyi.

Also to serve on the council are permanent sec-

retaries in the Ministries of Finance and Education, two members of the Senate appointed by the varsity’s Senate, two members of the congregation elected by the congregation, one of whom shall be a mem-ber of the administrative staff of the university, a graduate of the institu-tion elected by the Alumni Association and a repre-sentative of the National Universities Commission, NUC, nominated by the commission.

Date for the inaugura-tion of the council mem-bers, the statement added, would soon be announced.

ported vehicles.He said the current 35

percent duty tariff collect-ed by the NCS was based on government law.

“The system of clearing goods is automated. If any agent or importer insists that he had paid 35 percent tariff on levy, it can be veri-fied so that there will be no further allegation,’’ Olug-boye said.

He said it was regret-table that some agents blamed Customs for the de-lay in clearing their goods on time even when there were other government agencies at the nation’s ports.

He advised importers and agents to genuinely de-clare their goods to ensure quick clearance of their cargoes.

“It is wrong for an im-porter to declare that he or she imported only tiles while vehicle parts are in-cluded in the cargo because he does not want to pay the right duty,’’ he said.

The federal government had on November 4, 2013 introduced a policy that increased the tariff on im-ported vehicles to 70 per cent from 20 per cent.

dex were weighed down by relatively slower increases in the Oils and Fats, Fruits and Vegetable groups.

Expatiating on the gen-eral food price level in the month under review, the bureau reported that on a month-on-month basis, the highest price increases were recorded in Potatoes, Yams and Other tubers, Bread and cereals, Meat, and Fish groups.

It added that the average annual rate of change of the Food sub-index for the 12-month period ending in June 2014 was 9.5 percent, marginally higher from the average annual rate of change of the 12-month pe-riod ending in May 2014 at 9.4 percent.

According to NBS, when measured by the “All items Less Farm Produce” or Core sub-index prices the increase was recorded at a faster rate in June, as prices rose by 8.1 percent year-on-year or 0.4 percent-age points higher from the rate recorded in May and surpassing the previous high for the year recorded in the month.

National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.netSouth West Thursday, July 17, 2014 8

Celestial churches hold revival

Community stranded as bridge collapses in Oyo

Ekiti Election Tribunal strikes out APC motion

Customs agents resume at airportsPeople from Irare-Ekiti, Erinmope-Ekiti, Ikosun-Ekiti and Ikun-Ekiti, Moba Local Government Area of Ekiti, protesting over the proposed Ero Local Government Council and siting of its headquarters at Igogo-Ekiti, at the state Assembly complex in Ado-Ekiti, yesterday. PHOTO: NAN

United Aladura churches will hold a three-day pro-

gramme with the theme: ‘Peace and Prosperity in a God-fearing Nation’, be-tween July 24 and 26 in Lagos.

The programme, which would be hosted by the Celestial Church of Christ, CCC, kicks off on Thursday, July 24, with a revival service at the gymnastics hall of

the National Stadium at 5.00pm.

It will be followed by a seminar on Friday, July 25, at the CCC, 4, Celestial Church Street, off Am-araolu Street, Agidingbi, Ikeja, at noon.

The programme will be rounded up on Sat-urday, July 26, with a thanksgiving service at the same venue by noon, with eminent personali-ties in attendance.

KEMI OLAITANIBADAN

Less than a month after the pedestrian bridge at Apete, a

community on the outskirts of Ibadan, collapsed, an-other incident has thrown the area into a season of mourning.

Ten residents were re-ported dead at the commu-nity located in Ido local gov-ernment area on Tuesday night, as the area was cut off by a downpour.

The facility, which was meant to be a palliative pe-destrian bridge, had hur-riedly been erected on the river by the state govern-ment last week.

It would be recalled that the densely populated com-munity courted the news in August 2011, following a flood disaster that ravaged the Oyo State capital.

The havoc washed away the only bridge linking the

community with the rest of the world, and several lives were lost and proper-ties worth billions of naira destroyed.

The government has since embarked on the re-construction of the bridge, and rehabilitation of the road linking Ijokodo junc-tion on Sango/Eleyele road with the community, but the slow pace of work has not helped the residents of the community.

Penultimate week, three people were killed on a commercial motorcycle, popularly called ‘Okada’ by a runaway driver along Aji-bode road.

That was the only route available to residents after the collapse of the previous bridge due to heavy traffic.

A distraught resident, Alhaja Risikat Alowonle, said, “We are back again on another agonising moment because our movement will be hampered.”

ABIODUN NEJOADO EKITI

Ekiti State gover-norship election petition tribunal

yesterday started consid-ering the petition filed by the All Progressives Con-gress, APC, challenging the victory of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP, and its candidate, Ayo-dele Fayose, in the June 21 election.

At a sitting, the chair-man of the three-man panel, Justice Mohammad Siraj, struck out the motion ex-parte filed by the APC, seeking to compel the Inde-pendent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to al-low it inspect the materials used for the poll, following the withdrawal of the mo-

tion by the APC.APC counsel, Kabir Ak-

ingbolu, who held the brief for Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), said the motion was with-drawn on the premises that the event had overtaken the demand, and that the par-ties that were joined in the application were different from those in the substan-tive petition filed against the respondents.

The first and second re-spondents, Fayose and the PDP, did not make any legal representation in the argu-ment on motion ex-parte at the tribunal.

The APC had on July 11, in a petition deposed to by its interim state chairman, Jide Awe, asked the tribu-nal to challenge the result of the election as declared by INEC. OLUSEGUN KOIKI

Murtala Moham-med Interna-tional Airport,

MMIA, Lagos, was tense yesterday, as members of the Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents, ANLCA, staged a peaceful protest.

The protest was over the imposition of consolidated charges by Association of Foreign Airlines Represen-tatives in Nigeria, AFARN.

ANLCA, however, re-turned to work later in the afternoon after a meeting with major stakeholders in the aviation industry.

Present at the meeting were the Nigerian Customs Service, NCS, Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, State Security Ser-vice, SSS, and the leader-ship of the Nigerian Civil

Aviation Authority, NCAA.The meeting was held at

the headquarters of the Ni-gerian Aviation Handling Company, NAHCo Plc., of Nigeria.

Earlier, the members of the association protested with inscriptions like ‘For-eign Airlines, Stop Milking Nigerians’, ‘No More Charg-es for all Airlines, ‘Don’t Kill Cargo Business in Nigeria’, among others.

The rest bore banners like ‘Say No to Illegal charg-es’ and ‘Foreign Airlines Are Stealing from our Econ-omy’, sort of, suggesting ex-tortion by the authorities.

Addressing journalists at the airport, National Presi-dent of ANLCA, Olayiwola Shittu, said that the strike had been called off after a closed-door meeting with stakeholders at NAHCo.

He, however, insisted that members of the union

CHANGE OF NAMECHANGE OF NAMELAWAL: Formerly known and addressed as Miss Lawal Mariam Adejoke, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Garuba Mariam Adejoke. All former documents remain valid. General public take note.

OMOLOJA: Formerly known and addressed as Omoloja Falilat Alaba Bukola, now wish to be known, called and addressed as Adejumo Falilat Alaba Bukola. All former documents remain valid. General public should please take note.

SIGNED: AYO AROWOSAFE ESQ., NO. 24, OSUNTOKUN AVENUE, OLD BODIJA, IBADAN

PUBLIC NOTICESECONDARY TECHNICAL SCHOOL, IJERO-EKITI

OLD STUDENTS ASSOCIATION

THE AIMS AND OBJECTIVES:

The above-named association has applied for registration with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), Abuja under Part C of the Companies and Allied Matters Act, 1990

1. Pastor Rufus Asawe2. Engr. Kayode Omotayo3. Mrs. Victoria Owoeye.4. Capt. Toyin Ayilara5. Ayo Arowosafe Esq.

1. General welfare and brotherliness among old Students of Secondary Technical School, Ijero-Ekiti

Any objection to the registration should be forwarded to the Registrar-General, Corporate Affairs Commission, Plot 420, Tigris Crescent, off Aguiyi Ironsi Street,

Maitama Abuja within twenty-eight (28) days of this publication.

THE TRUSTEES ARE:

would no longer pay the charges, which he de-scribed as arbitrary, and warned that any attempt to further impose the charges on its members would be resisted.

Shittu stated that NCAA had waded into the matter and had assured that the foreign airlines would com-ply with the international best practices in the sector.

He alleged that the ‘ille-gal’ collection had been on for long, and that the prac-tice would no longer be tol-

erated by members.The ANCLA leader stat-

ed that the charges varied according to airlines, not-ing that not all foreign car-riers were involved in the collection.

His words: “The for-eign airlines have been us-ing Nigerians to commit scams by collecting money illegally. They collect mon-ey under the guise of docu-mentation on a daily basis, and this money runs into several billions of naira daily.”

National Mirrorwww.nationalmirroronline.net 9Thursday, July 17, 2014 South West

Commissioner’s death triggers suspicion, fears among kinsmen

L-R: Deputy Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Land Transport, Dr. Sokonte Davies; Director, Civil Engineering, Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC), Mr. Halim Amodu; District Manager, Eastern Region, Mr. Donatus Ogbodo and Managing Director, Mr. Seyi Sijuwade, during an inspection of reconstructed NRC Bridge ‘15’ at Nyama in Enugu State, yesterday.

NYSC DG tasks members on patriotism, integrity

Ebonyi NULGE tasks members on voter registration ALIUNA GODWINABAKALIKI

The leadership of the Nigerian Union of Local Government

Employees, NULGE, Ebonyi State chapter, yesterday reiterated its readiness to mobilise its members across the 13 lo-cal government areas to participate in the forth-coming voter registration exercise in the state.

Speaking to our cor-

respondent in Abakaliki, the union’s president, Chief Leonard Nkah, said members would be enlightened and mobil-ised to participate in the exercise as the election of bad leaders into office would make them suffer.

“The workers are now more politically con-scious than other unions in the councils because our duties bring us into direct interaction with politicians,” he said.

He noted that the union visited Abakaliki Local Government Area branch with the intent to unite the workers and ensure good relationship with their management.

He noted that the coun-cils’ leaderships would be urged to devote more time to activities of devel-opment centres, as most councils were perform-ing well while the devel-opment centres were not.

Chairman of the

council, Mr Barthlomew Otah, said he had offset most promotion, leave and other allowances of the council workers, promising to tackle the rest before December this year.

The union’s chair-man in the council, Mr Paul Mbam, thanked the state leadership for the visit, saying it would provide opportunity for the members to air their problems.

CHARLES OKEKEAWKA

The Director-Gen-eral of National Youth Service

Corps, NYSC, Briga-dier General Johnson B. Olawumi, has urged corps members to imbibe core values of patriotism and integrity.

Delivering his address at the opening ceremony of the pre-orientation

workshop for 2014 Batch ‘B’ Corpers in Awka, Anambra State capital, yesterday, Olawumi said the workshop will help to acquaint corps members with the spirit of patrio-tism, integrity, efficiency and commitment to team work.

He said the workshop, which is designed to x-ray the past orientation course, would also discuss fundamental issues aris-

ing therefrom, with the view to coming up with practical and workable so-lutions for improved ser-vice delivery.

He lauded the efforts of Anambra State governor, Willie Obiano, and people of the state for their sus-tained assistance and com-mitment to providing the enabling environment for optimal performance of the scheme.

According to him: “Wor-

thy of note are prompt and regular release of statu-tory annual subvention, allocation of land for con-struction of NYSC per-manent office complex at Amawbia, commencement of construction work at NYSC permanent orienta-tion camp at Umuawulu as well as augmentation of corps members feeding allowance at camp among others.”

He appealed to host

communities and employ-ers of labour to emulate the kind gestures of Obia-no by ensuring that corps members who excel dur-ing service are given per-manent employment.

In his remarks, Obiano who hailed the then Fed-eral Government efforts for introducing the scheme which he said had served as a major factor for build-ing unity in Nigeria, re-vealed that his experience

during the service year helped to reshape his vi-sion of Nigeria.

The governor said his administration has con-tributed immensely to-wards the success of the scheme in Anambra by donating ambulance vans, buses, safety jackets for corps members posted to the riverine areas, as well as ensuring that construc-tion work at the perma-nent site is progressing.

GEORGE OPARAABIA

The death of Abia State Commissioner for Agriculture, Dr.

Kenneth Nwosu, who was shot by unknown gunmen last Wednesday, has de-generated into unhealthy suspicions that could ig-nite grievous legal battle among his kinsmen and community leaders.

Nwosu, a native of Olo-

koro in Umuahia South local government area of Abia State, was shot around 8pm, while return-ing to his house in Olo-koro.

Consequently, his com-munity has since been characterised by mutual suspicions and fears of the unknown on how to unrav-el the perpetrators of the wicked act.

Confirming the death, the Commissioner for

Information, Mr. Eze Chikamnayo, said the gov-ernment made spirited ef-fort to save the life of the late commissioner after the incident.

“The state government with a heavy heart regrets to announce the death of Dr Ken Nwosu.

“We had last week Thursday received the news of the shooting of Dr. Nwosu by unknown gun-men while he was on his

way home after close of work and the state govern-ment made every effort to save his life.

“The state governor, Chief Theodore Orji, im-mediately directed the state medical team to do everything possible to save his life and equally vis-ited him twice that night and the next morning, to ensure he is stabilised be-fore taking him abroad,” Chikamnayo said.

Okorocha says members responsible for APC’s future CHRIS NJOKUOWERRI

Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State has said that

the success or failure of the All Progressives Con-gress, APC, at all levels in 2015 lies in the hands of the party members.

He disclosed this during a breakfast meeting with the political appointees and APC stakeholders at Government House, Ow-erri.

He, therefore, urged APC members to have a change of attitude to en-able the party achieve its objectives in the 2015 gen-eral elections.

Okorocha condemned the internal party crisis existing in some local gov-ernment areas in the state and urged party faithful to settle their differences and come together to move the party forward.

He stressed the need for political appointees to have change of attitude and cul-tivate the habit of sacrifice, as well as to carry people at the grassroots along in the scheme of things.

The governor reminded that the elite and grass-roots people cost the APC the election in Ekiti, as leaders of APC in the area were not on ground.

Apparently refuting the rumour that APC is behind the activities of Boko Ha-ram terrorism in Nigeria, the governor stated that APC has no hand in such an ugly act.

Okorocha said the Boko Haram had been in exis-tence before the formation of APC and urged party members not to allow such rumour to distract them from the love and support they have for the party.

He expressed optimism that APC would win all the elective positions as well as produce the next presi-dent come 2015, stating that APC has concluded arrangement to embark on programmes and projects that will make the party more vibrant in the state.

The state chairman of APC, Dr. Hilary Ekeh, thanked the governor for such a meeting and as-sured him that members of APC will not disappoint him come 2015.

Nwosu was receiving treatment at the ultra-mod-ern Abia Specialist Hospi-tal, from where he was to have been taken overseas for further medical atten-tion, but could not make it.

Nwosu was said to have been attacked at a spot af-ter the bridge leading the Olokoro community which is said to be close to his house.

For now it has not been ascertained whether the at-

tack was an assassination attempt or a case of armed robbery.

The deceased, who was the immediate past Execu-tive Secretary of the Na-tional Roots and Crop Re-search Institute, Umudike, had in the past also been a victim of kidnapping when kidnappers invaded his Olokoro home and ab-ducted him. He however regained his freedom days after.

‘… Abia govt did everything to save him’

National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.netThursday, July 17, 2014South East10

CLO, Rivers disagree on World Bank fundsDENNIS NAKUPORT HARCOURT

Rivers State chapter of the Civil Liber-ties Organissation,

CLO, and the state Com-missioner for Agriculture, Mr. Emma Chinda, appear set to be on a collision course over an alleged N100m counterpart fund from the World Bank and International Fund for Ag-ricultural Development, IFAD.

While the CLO is say-ing that the commissioner should be probed for embez-zling the funds, the former said the ministry did not receive the money from the

international agencies.In a statement in Port

Harcourt, CLO’s Director of Publicity and Research, Livingstone Wechie, al-leged that the commis-sioner failed to remit to FA-DAMA and IFAD projects, the sum of N50m. He called on Governor Rotimi Amae-chi to investigate him.

The statement read: “He (Emma Chinda) has failed to remit to FADAMA and IFAD the sum of N50m each even after the Accountant-General of Rivers State had in a written instruction dated March 31, authorised Zenith Bank Plc to pay the Ministry of Agriculture the sum of N100m, only for

Youths threaten showdown on Warri communityTHEOPHILUS ONOJEGHENWARRI

Barely after a seven-day ultimatum to halt oil activities,

the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, NPDC, has again been served a threat notice to va-cate Opuama/Ikpotogbene community in the Warri North local government area.

The community called on the NPDC management to immediately stop oil ex-ploration and exploitation activities in the area imme-diately.

They also accused NPDC of failing to follow due pro-cess in initiating a Global

Memorandum of Under-standing, GMoU, before embarking on any opera-tion in the area.

Addressing newsmen at a briefing in Sapele yester-day, a group: ‘Concerned Oloduwa Descendants’, lamented that since NPDC took over oil installations in the area, it had not lived up to agreed arrangements.

The statement titled: ‘Our Demand’, was signed by Mr. French Ukuto, Sam-uel Peggy, Chief Stephen Ukulor, Mr. Elisha Ukuto, as well as Mrs. Alero Ugedi.

Other sigantories are Ati Reach, Mrs. Evelyn Ukulor, Abel Sule, Ebipade Elisha and Damage-Clark Aboh.

The community said:

“Entering our native land and commencing clearing, as well as dredging work without conducting the necessary Environmental Impact Assessment, EIA, has impacted negatively.”

It stated that, apart from the issues of MoU and EIA, other demands included ac-ceptable terms of engage-ment with the NPDC.

This is even as youths, women and elders of Pol-obubo (Tsekelewu) commu-nity last week gave a seven-day ultimatum to NPDC, a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Cor-poration, NNPC, to vacate their environment.

They threatened to sab-otage oil facilities in the area if the ultimatum was

onward remittance to IFAD and FADAMA accounts respectively for the benefit of Rivers people in the agri-cultural project.

“We have been moni-toring some activities of MDA’s in Rivers State and the ministry of agric in particular. We feel that the commissioner of agricul-ture, along with his co-trav-ellers in some of the MDA’s, are hell-bent on running down Rivers State, possibly without the knowledge of the governor, who has made several promises to Rivers people.

“It follows that, if the governor fails to act now, Emma Chinda and his

co-conspirators will join in running down Rivers State,” the group said.

But in a swift reaction, Chindah, in a statement is-sued by his press secretary, Florence Romeo, debunked the allegation of the civil society group, describing it as a politically-sponsored media attack.

He said the World Bank that funds the FADAMA project was a well-organ-ised body that should know when funds made available by them were not properly utilised, adding that IFAD was also well-organised in-ternational body that will not need likes of Wechie to speak on its behalf.

L-R: Cross River State Governor, Liyel Imoke; representative of the Association of Nze, Ozo and Chiefs in United States of America, Chief F. Akpamgbo and Secretary, Dr. Dan Egeonigwe, during the presentation of the Award of Excellence to Imoke in Calabar, yesterday.

RICHARD NDOMACALABAR

The Cross River State Internal Revenue Service, IRS, yester-

day sealed up the premises of the Nigerian Television Authority, NTA Channel 9, Calabar, for allegedly evading Pay-As-You-Earn, PAYE tax payment.

The Service had claimed that the television station was owing it for six years tax, between 2006 and 2012.

The shutdown was done in company of policemen and IRS staff, led by Mr Ata Emmanuel, who said they were acting on the direc-tives of the revenue court’s judgement.

Emmanuel, an assistant director in state’s IRS, said the court order No. RCT/MSC./6/2014, to seal up the premises, came from the state chief judge, Okoi Itam.

Justice Itam’s ‘Warrant of Distrain’, obtained by the News Agency of Ni-geria, NAN, directed that the warrant ought to be issued against the NTA Calabar’s goods, chattels, lands, premises or places,

C’River seals TV station over ‘tax evasion’

bonds and securities for non-payment of more than N42.5m.

The warrant stated that the amount represented “outstanding tax liability payable by the respondent to the applicant under the PAYE deductions, and de-velopment levy for the pe-riod of 2006-2011.’’

But the station’s man-agement told NAN on Wednesday that the exer-cise had largely embar-rassed the management of the Federal Government-owned news organisation.

The station’s general manager, Gbolahan So-muyiwa, said: “The issue at stake has to do with tax liability.’’

According to him, “There were reconcilia-tions, dialogues between us and the IRS, and it came down to a particular amount. Actually, the NTA headquarters had inter-vened in this matter.

“I do not know why it came to this when 48 IRS personnel and eight armed policemen came to shut down our operations. It amounts to bravado that was not necessary.

Police deny Bayelsa cult killings

not adhered to.National President of

PNC, Ebilate Mac-Yoroki, who addressed the brief-ing, flanked by leaders and representatives of the community, stated that the NPDC, which operates the divested stakes of the oil multinational, Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, in their area, lauded the opera-tions without striking an agreement with the com-munity.

Mac-Yoroki said that an earlier lease existing be-tween his community and the Shell 40 years ago had lapsed, stressing that the people were in the process of signing another agree-ment with the company.

OSAHON JULIUSYENAGOA

The Bayelsa State Po-lice Command has faulted the reported

killing of three students of the state-owned Niger Delta University, NDU, Ammassoma.

It described the report as misguided, unfounded and lacking in merit, as well as “a calculated attempt to cause apprehension and incite students against the school authorities and the government of the state.”

The police said though the suspected cult clash oc-curred outside the campus of NDU, students were not killed, but sustained ma-chete cuts.

Police spokesman, Alex Akhigbe, had while react-ing to a report published in a national daily, said that three students were shot dead by cultists, saying that the report was false.

He said it was a calculat-ed attempt to cause appre-hension and incite students against the school’s author-ity.”

Akhigbe said: “The cult

clash between AY Vagas cult groups, which the re-port alluded to, happened outside NDU campus and not inside an examination hall.

“One of the cultists sus-tained machete cut injury on his forehead, while in another clash, a 100-level student had his palm sev-ered. No life was lost in the two cult-related incidents.”

According to him, “The people of the state, particu-larly the authorities and students of the NDU, are advised to disregard the reported killing as security agencies are working tena-ciously to provide and sus-tain the existing peace and security in the state.”

In another development, the command also stated that a suspected armed robber captured during a cash transaction at an Au-tomated Teller Machine, ATM point in Pansia area of Yenagoa, had led to his arrest.

The suspect identified as Peresuede, it was gathered, was arrested after using an ATM card to withdraw N19,000.

National Mirrorwww.nationalmirroronline.net Thursday, July 17, 2014 11South South

ADEOLA TUKURUABUJA

The Chibok com-munity and repre-sentatives of the

parents of escaped girls held by Boko Haram have justified their shunning of a proposed meeting in Abuja.

Speaking to journalists yesterday, a spokesperson of Chibok community, Dauda Iliya, said the vis-it was on the invitation of Malala, the Pakistani child-girl education cam-paigner, and not the presi-dent.

The community elder described as misleading, unjust and without foun-dation, to hold the citizen platform, ‘BringBackOur-Girls’ or any individual(s) responsible for the deci-sion.

“The logistics and meet-ing between the 12 fathers and five girls and Malala was facilitated by the Abu-ja Chibok community and citizen’s platform, ‘Bring-BackOurGirls’, with our consent and on trust, con-sidering their sustained and focused advocacy to

bringing back our daugh-ters.

“These parents and es-caped girls did not come to Abuja at the instance of government or its rep-resentatives for a meeting with Mr. President, but on the full understanding that they were coming to meet with Malala.

“In the course of the interaction with Malala, neither the parents nor the escaped girls asked for a meeting with the presi-dent or any government functionary, rather, the narrative back home was to persistently asking why Mr. President has not vis-ited them in Chibok since the abduction,” he noted.

Iliya stated: “It is obvi-ous that the numbers of 12 fathers and five girls is about two per cent of the parents of the 219 abduct-ed girls still with their abductors and the 57 girls that escaped.

“Therefore, these par-ents decided on their own accord to review the announced visit of Mr. President, which they first heard of, like other persons, during Malala’s

Malala invited us, not FG, say Chibok parents

NSCDC operatives assault JAMB staff, journalists

Christian Association of Nigeria Chairman, Irepodun LGA Chapter, Pastor David Omorinoye, Praying for the graduating pupils of Concordia Faith International Nursery and Primary School, Omu-Aran, during the School’s speech and prize giving day in Omu-Aran, Kwara State, yesterday.

PRISCILLA DENNISMINNA

The Chairman, North-ern States Gover-nors’ Forum, NSGF,

Babangida Aliyu, has de-scribed as horrible com-ments by some members of the National Conference that northern states were leeches, as a result of the heated debate on resource control.

He said such a comment can lead to trouble that would not require religion or some level of education to spin it out of control.

Aliyu, who is also the Gov-ernor of Niger State, said this in Minna while break-ing his fast with members of an inter-religious group led by Mr. Solomon Dalung.

The group had called for religious harmony in the nation, saying that, apart from the current security situation confronting the nation, religion was not re-ally the problem that influ-ence negative comments and actions by people.

“Only a few days ago, I hosted some members of the National Conference and I was saddened to hear

that some members of the conference were calling the northern states leeches on account of the ongoing de-bate on resource control.

“For someone to call a section of the country leech is a matter that can cause trouble, and that does not need religion or level of edu-cation to make it go out of control.

“Oil is not something that anyone owns, and it is sad if some people want to change that law now,” he said.

The governor also pledged the commitment of the forum to exploring solu-tions for the challenges in the region, saying any well-meaning group with good intention for the region and the country could partner with the forum.

Earlier, Dalung had said that the group was in the state to solicit the support of the NSGF to keying into its vision of fostering religious tolerance and harmony in the northern states.

He told the governor that as part of the efforts to en-suring a peaceful north, the group had already visited the Sultan of Sokoto, being a ‘po-litical’ leader in the region.

Confab: North rejects ‘leech’ tag

WALE IBRAHIMLOKOJA

Operatives of Ni-geria Security and Civil Defence

Corps, NSCDC, yesterday pounced on some staff of Joint Admissions and Ma-triculation Board, JAMB, as well as journalists in the course of their duties.

The incident occurred at 10am when the NSCDC men surrounded the JAMB office and went on the rampage, beating up everyone in the office.

The officer in charge of the sales of JAMB forms was said to have beaten to pulp and dragged to the civil defenders’ offices nearby.

A certain Mrs. Victo-ria Thatcheo, who was reportedly sympathising with her colleague in the office, was also reportedly beaten u black and blue, even as she was about to be stripped naked.

Members of the Nige-

ria Union of Journalists, NUJ, Correspondents’ Chapel, who came to in-vestigate the matter at the commandant’s office, were also assaulted by men of the command.

The journalists said they had to run for cover to save their lives when the men started threaten-ing them with guns.

An eyewitness at JAMB, said the NSCDC operatives came to the office brandishing their weapons, and were told to leave the gate so as not scare away prospective candidates coming to buy forms.

This apparently an-noyed them as they broke down the gate and forced their way in, and started beating up the workers.

He urged the Federal Government to immedi-ately withdraw the weap-ons given to the NSCDC because of lack of proper training and the ‘per-chance’ of the operatives

speech at Hilton Hotel. “That consequence of

their decision to revert to other family members, in order to incorporate ev-ery stakeholders on the matter, as well as avoid discord and suspicion on a change of plans from original mission to Abuja, they may have reached out to the Malala team, and through them to the presi-dency, to request for a new

date for an expanded and more representative meet-ing that has legitimate mandate to meet with the president,” he said.

To him, their request for a new date for the meeting was also in recog-nition of the huge oppor-tunity of a meeting with the president for the first time, and after 90 days of the tragic abduction of their daughters, and

“therefore required better consultations, structure and formality as against an instant advocacy re-quest.”

Iliya, however, said they received a formal invitation from the Presi-dency yesterday and were ‘eagerly’ waiting for the date.

His words: “We, there-fore, take full responsibil-ity for our decision and

welcome the formal invi-tation by the presidency, as a follow up to Malala’s visit, which we received this morning.”

It would be recalled that the presidency yes-terday accused former ed-ucation minister, Dr. Obi Ezekwesili, a leader of the BringBackOurGirls team, as being the brain behind the botched meeting with the president.

to use the weapons on any excuse.

Speaking with jour-nalists in his office, the Kogi State coordinator of JAMB, Daniel Agbo, said the NSCDC had earlier approached his office to sack the private security guards on alleged grounds of illegality.

He stated that the or-ganisation had equally asked him to replace the private guards with NSCDC men.

According to him, the coordinator had no pow-ers as such employments were usually done at the head office.

Agbo expressed regret that NSCDC men invaded his office and started beat-ing up every staff in sight.

He said all entreaties for them to be civil fell on deaf ears, as they lost their sanity, “beating one of my staff, a married woman, Victoria Tasiu.”

The coordinator said he was thrown on the

floor by the men, adding that some of his staff who sells forms and phone charge scratch cards was dragged from his office, while the money and cards missed in the pro-cess.

He said they came to at-tack his staff “as if they were fighting armed rob-bers.”

When reporters arrived at NSCDC state headquar-ters, the chairman of the correspondents’ chapel told Akusepio that his men wanted to see the commandant.

“Akusepio was shout-ing on the journalists, and before long, the men surrounded the reporters, saying, you cannot see the commandant without a prior appointment,” he said.

When the journalists sensed danger from the threats, including bodily harm, on a reporter, the rest have to run for their lives.

National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.netThursday, July 17, 2014North12


Politics

Thorny issues as confab winds upAfter about four months of political horse-trading, the plenary session of the National Conference drew to a close last Monday, but effectively adjourned till August 4 to take a final look at its resolutions. GEORGE OJI, WOLE OLADIMEJI and OMEIZA AJAYI examine some contentious issues thrown up by the conference.

Following the completion of debate on and adop-tion of resolutions from reports of the 20 com-mittees set up to consider critical issues at the

National Conference, its chairman and former Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Justice Idris Kutigi, fixed the next plenary session for August 4, when delegates would reassemble to consider and approve the final reports of the conference for presentation to the Federal Govern-ment.

Having been inaugurated on March 17 by President Goodluck Jonathan, the conference was mandated to dis-cuss all issues concerning the country and proffer the way forward. The only no-go area, according to the President was negotiating the division of the country.

Expectedly, the conference touched on many vexed is-sues which often caused tension and these vexed issues nearly brought the exercise to an abrupt end.

The situation got so bad that delegates could not reach a compromise on the issue of derivation, a development which forced the conference leadership to recommend that the Federal Government be advised to set up a techni-cal committee to address the issue, taking into cognizance some technical issues. Some of the grey areas touched by the conference are listed here.

Political restructuring The conference recommended that Nigeria shall retain

a federal system of government. Thus, Nigeria shall be a federation comprising of states and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, and shall be a republic by the name of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Interestingly, the core elements of the federation, as rec-ommended by the confab shall be as follows: a federation (central) government with states as the federating units. Without prejudice to states constituting the federating units, the conference recommends that those that wish to merge may do so in accordance with the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

It added that a group of states may create a self-funding zonal commission to promote economic development, good governance, equity, peace and security in accordance with the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

The confab also recommended for constitutional re cognition of zonal structure of geo-political zones, as ad-ministrative units for co-operation, collaboration and the establishment of joint commissions as may become expe-dient among such states.

Constitution for the statesThe conference is also proposing a constitution for the

states as part of political restructuring. It said the execu-tive authority of a federating unit shall extend to the ex-ecution and maintenance of the Constitution of the fed-erating unit and to all matters with respect to which the legislature of the federating unit has for the time being power to make laws for but shall be so exercised as not to impede or prejudice the exercise of the executive author-ity of the federation or endanger the continuance of the

Federal Government of Nigeria. The caveat however is that if any article of the said

federating unit constitution or any other law is in conflict with the national constitution, the national constitution shall prevail and that law shall to the extent of its incon-sistency be null and void.

States as federating unitsIn trying to restructure the existing system of govern-

ment and to devolve power from the centre, the delegates agreed that since regionalism, as pushed for by South-West geo-political zone delegates was defeated, the states as federating units should be given more power and re-

sponsibilities.Such power includes: power to be able to control their

own police, power to dispense with cases by having some-thing similar to the supreme court, power to control their own prisons and even build theirs, instead of concentrat-ing everything in the hands of the Federal Government where things are left undone because of red-tapism or bu-reaucratic bottleneck.

Curiously, while some delegates had been vociferous in their demands for the scrap of the State Independent Electoral Commissions, SIECs, the conference-in-plenary however resolved that the states should be allowed to con-duct their own elections.

States creationThe conference also held that there shall be created an

additional state for the South-East zone.The committee on state creation recommended: “We

support the creation of more states in all the geo-political zones in order to resolve ethno-religious conflicts, ensure minority rights are protected and to ensure parity of states within zones.”

However, when the report was presented to the confer-ence, it was agreed that states should be created, but in-stead of creating one for the South East alone, states to be created should be increased to 18. Delegates believed that creation of additional states would give room for develop-ment.

After very heated debates, the conference in its wisdom

otoiwr

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S

EXPECTEDLY, THE CONFERENCE TOUCHED ON MANY VEXED ISSUES WHICH

OFTEN CAUSED TENSION, AND THESE VEXED ISSUES NEARLY BROUGHT THE EXERCISE TO

AN ABRUPT END

Jonathan Kutigi

CONTINUED ON PAGE 14

Thorny issues as

POLICE SHOULD BE DECENTRALISED IN SUCH A WAY THAT STATES ARE ALLOWED TO RUN POLICE

ON THEIR OWN, BUT SHOULD BE COORDINATED FROM THE

FEDERAL LEVEL

proposed that in the interim, one more state should be for the South-East geo-political zone of the country to bring the zone at par with the rest other zones.

The recommendation of the conference in this regard has been greatly criticised for not taking into cognizance, the viability of most of the existing states in the country. It also came under attack because, it failed to consider the rigorous state creation processes contained in Section 8(1) of the constitution.

Section 8(1) states that: An act of the National Assembly for the purpose of creating a new state shall only be passed if (a) a request, supported by at least two-thirds majority of members (representing the area demanding the cre-ation of new state) in each of the following: (i) the Senate and House of Representatives, (ii) the House of Assembly in respect of the area, is received by the National Assem-bly, (b) a proposal for the creation of the state is thereafter approved in a referendum by at least two-third majority of the people of the area where the demand for creation of the state originated, (c) the result of the referendum is then approved by a simple majority of all the states of the federation, supported by a simple majority of members of the Houses of Assembly, and (d) the proposal is approved by a resolution passed by two-thirds majority of members of each House of the National Assembly.

During the last constitution review exercise, a total of 61 requests were made by Nigerians for new states. Unfortu-nately, none of those requests, according to the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Constitution Review, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, met the constitutional requirement.

Against that background and also against the back-ground of that most of the existing states now are eco-nomically insolvent, it is doubtful if the recommenda-tion of the National Conference on new states would sail through at the National Assembly.

State policeOn state police, the Committee on Security recommend-

ed that there should be state police in order to effectively provide security for the people. It said police should be decentralised in such a way that states are allowed to run police on their own, but coordinated from the federal level.

It also posited that nomination and appointment of the Inspector General of Police, IGP, should remain with the

President and the National Council of State, subject to confirmation by the Senate.

Local government administrationThe conference reaffirmed Section 7 of the 1999 Con-

stitution (as amended), that a system of local government by democratically elected local government councils is guaranteed.

It added that local governments shall at present not be the third tier of government. States that wish to, may cre-ate local governments, which shall be under the jurisdic-tion of the states. In this case, the number, structure, form and administration of local governments shall be deter-mined by the states.

It said: “Without prejudice to the existing local govern-ments, states that wish to, may create or reduce the num-ber of existing local governments, which shall be under the jurisdiction of the state.”


Mark Tanbuwal

‘States can’t have their

What would you say are some of the contentious issues thrown up by the National Conference?

The issue of practicing true federalism has been the bone of contention, even before the conference was set in place. I do not know whether we should bother our-selves too much about the outcome, especially as it still has to be subjected to final ratification by the National Assembly. But if you look at the issue of states having their own constitutions, I do not think that it is going to work, because you will recall that during the region-al system of government, we agreed that the regions should have their own constitution, police and some other features but now the country has been fragment-ed that it will be practically impossible for the various states to have their own constitutions. They might have their edicts or regulations in certain areas like the state police. I have been an advocate of state police. It is the same conference that has approved the creation of new states so it becomes contradictory that you are advocat-ing true federalism and you still want to balkanise or

WE HOPE THAT GOVERNMENT WOULD PUT MACHINERIES IN PLACE TO ENSURE IT

IMPLEMENTS SOME OF THESE RESOLUTIONS

Barr. Mike Ejiofor is a retired Director in the Department of State Service, DSS. He tells OMEIZA AJAYI that while true federalism is desirable, Nigeria’s present security challenges would make it practically impossible to allow states have their own consti-tutions. Excerpts:

fragment the country into multi-states; but I agree that we should practice true federalism to some extent as far as we will continue to modify it.

Do you foresee any implication(s) of having state police, prisons and others?

Already we have three arms of government. So the states have their own judiciary too and so if we have state police, the majority of the people from that state would form the police. If they are recruiting, they will look at the indigenes of that state. It therefore follows that if we have a judiciary and then the state police, the normal thing is to have a state prison too because the products of the criminal justice system in that state, would have to be taken care of by that state because you do not expect prisoners of the state to go to the federal prisons if you are practicing true federalism.

It logically follows that if you have your state police which is part of the criminal justice system, you should also have your prison because the product of the crimi-nal procedure system will be absorbed by the state pris-ons.

If you have the state commissioner of police for the state, it will be so defined. Then we can now change the nomenclature of the commissioner of police in the state that is federally controlled to maybe something like fed-eral commissioner of police as it is practiced in other places.

Why I also think that state police will be more effec-tive, is in the area of intelligence gathering. They must be used to the terrain and the people will have more con-fidence in opening up to their own. Take for instance, Borno State, if the bulk of the police in that state were from there, it will be easier for them to understand the terrain of that area, because they come from that area too. Somebody from Lagos or from the South-South can-not operate effectively in Sambisa and that is why Boko Haram is holding sway in that forest because they are very used to that terrain unlike strangers who make up the security forces.

How about concerns that the system could be abused?

14 Politics National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.netThursday, July 17, 2014

confab winds up

Edward Clark

Ejiofor

constitutions now’

The confab opined that the list of the local governments contained in the First Schedule of 1999 Constitution (as amended) be removed, and transferred to the states to be covered by a law of the state Houses of Assembly; and that the functions of the local governments as contained in Schedule 4 of 1999 Constitution (as amended) shall be transferred to the states subject to the power of the state Houses of Assembly to add or reduce the said functions of the local government.

Local government fundingThe conference also recommended the scrapping of the

Joint State/Local Government Account and in its place the establishment of a State Revenue Mobilization, Allo-cation and Fiscal Commission, SRMAFC, with represen-tatives of local governments and a chairman nominated by the governor. It also recommended that all nominees of SRMAFC be screened by the state House of Assembly.

Derivation and resource controlVarious positions have been canvassed on the issue of

resource control and derivation. South-South delegates remained adamant on their position. Although they have been able to shift ground from their initial demand of 100 percent to 50 percent and now to 18 percent, Northern delegates remained absolute that there should not be any increment in derivation. After much argument, Northern delegates stated that should derivation be increased, then they too should be given five percent for reconstruction of Northern states.

This issue has been the major bone of contention in re-cent times and the confab leadership set up a team of ’50 wise men’ to holistically look at the contentious issue and recommend to the conference.

The 50 ‘wise men’ proposed some amendments to the recommendation of the Committee on Devolution of Pow-er. The crux of the amendment is: “That there shall be a National Intervention Fund, NIF, which will be 5 per cent of the annual revenue accruing to the account of the Fed-eral Government for the stabilisation, rehabilitation and

reconstruction of areas affected by terrorism and insur-gency, in the first instance in the North East of Nigeria and any other part of the country affected.”

The North has however proposed its own amendment, which seem not to go down well with other delegates. Its amendment is: “That there shall be an NIF, which will be 5 per cent of the annual revenue accruing to the account of the Federal Government for the stabilisation, rehabilita-tion and reconstruction of areas affected by terrorism and insurgency, in the first instance in the North-East, North-Central and North-West of Nigeria and any other parts of the country affected.”

Though the conference adopted the recommendations of the committee, it failed to take a conclusive decision on the issue of derivation principle and what percentage should be paid mineral producing areas.

Conference chairman, Kutigi said on Monday: “I’m still of the view that the Committee that is handling the matter of coming to a compromise will still do their job.

“We couldn’t have the meeting on Friday. So, I am pro-posing that we give them two hours to meet with us.”

He thereafter invited the ‘50 wise men’, committees co-chairmen, chairmen and deputy chairmen to meet now in “our usual place.”

After five hours of close-door deliberation with the leadership of the confab, both the Southern and Northern delegates refused to agree on some of the issues thrown up in the initial meetings of some regional leaders.

From the presentations of the leaders, three issues were raised during their discussions. The issues were: 18 per cent derivation for mineral producing area, five per cent for the development of solid minerals and five per cent for the reconstruction of states in the Northern re-gion ravaged by insurgency and internal conflicts. The last seemed to have been the point of controversy as some of the leaders insisted that the intervention fund should be for the entire country where such was required.

Conference shifts burden to the federal governmentThe conference has now shifted the burden of deciding

on the issue of derivation to the Federal Government os-tensibly to avoid rocking its own boat.

The decisions it took were:a) Review the percentage of revenue to states produc-

ing oil (and other resources)b) Reconstruct and rehabilitate areas affected by prob-

lems of insurgency and internal conflicts; andc) Diversify the Nigerian economy by fast-tracking the

development of the solid minerals sector.Conference spokesman, James Akpandem, said: “The

Conference also notes that assigning percentages for the increase in derivation principle, and setting up Special Intervention Funds to address issues of reconstruction and rehabilitation of areas ravaged by insurgency and internal conflicts as well as solid minerals development, require some technical details and considerations.

“Conference therefore recommends that government should set up technical committee to determine the appro-priate percentages on the three issues and advise govern-ment accordingly.”

Unicameral LegislatureOne of the very controversial recommendations

reached by the National Conference was the reversion of the current bi-cameral National Assembly, which com-prises the Senate and the House of Representatives to a unicameral parliament. The implication of this is that, if finally implemented, the nation would have only one na-tional parliament.

Obviously, the logic behind this recommendation flows from the current perception of Nigerians that the bi-cam-eral National Assembly as presently constituted is serious financial drain on the national treasury.

The National Assembly is perceived by many Nigeri-ans as not only very corrupt, but constitutes high cost of governance in the current democracy.

The proponents of unicameral parliament believe that this will enable fewer and more serious lawmakers to be elected to the National Assembly.

This is not the first time such recommendations have been put forward in the country. Unfortunately, before such a decision would be taken, it is the lawmakers them-selves that would do so. It is therefore doubtful, if the law-makers, who would be affected by the new law will have the political and moral courage to lend their support to such a law.

Indeed, as some political observers have noted, support-ing such a proposal by the lawmakers would amount to committing political suicide.

Much as I agree with the argument people put up is that state police would be abused by the governors, but if there is no abuse, there will be no offence. So if you are a state governor and you decide to abuse the powers of the police, by the time you step down, because you had immunity, you will answer for it. You will remember that before the establishment of the Economic and Fi-nancial Crimes Commission, EFCC, the governors from 1999 were virtually above the law. So the fear of what the EFCC would do to you when you leave office tends to moderate some of them to an extent, even though the EFCC has not been very effective as it was designed to be. So if we have state police, any governor that abuses his power of control of the police, will answer for his offences by the time he leaves office.

What is your general perception of the conference?Generally speaking, most of the resolutions are wel-

comed and we hope that government would put machin-eries in place to ensure it implements some of these res-olutions because some of those resolutions will address some of our security challenges.

If it is able to resolve the issue of resource control and derivation, the country would have gone a step fur-ther in tackling some of its challenges and I only hope that the government will set up machineries to see to the implementation of these resolutions through a con-stitutional amendment.

National Mirrorwww.nationalmirroronline.net 15PoliticsThursday, July 17, 2014

Abia guber: Orji’s selection panel angers citizens, PDP

Rivers senator receives over 90 PDP decampees from Oyigbo

2015: APGA’ll reclaim Imo –Umeh

APC alleges plans to burn Ekiti INEC offi ce

Speaker, House of Representatives, Hon. Aminu Wazir Tambuwal (right) and a member of the “BringBackOurGirls” campaign, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, during the group’s visit to the National Assembly, in Abuja, on Wednesday.

OBIORA IFOHABUJA

There is a growing disquiet in Abia State over alleged

setting up of a 17-man se-lection committee outside the statutory political par-ty structure, by Governor Theodore Orji to shop for his successor in 2015.

The development, sources disclosed, has pitched the governor against the people of the state and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP,

in particular, which said the move was illegal and could throw the party into needless crisis.

Sources in the state disclosed that Orji, said to be bent on hand pick-ing his successor, secretly constituted the commit-tee allegedly chaired by

his kinsman, Chief Ony-enma Ugochukwu and peopled by others from his clan, like former National Chairman of the PDP, Prince Vincent Ogbulafor, to help him rubber stamp his suggested crony.

Other members of the committee were: Sena-

tor Ike Nwachukwu, a serving Commissioner for Environment, Chief Chinwe Nwanganga, who was Ugochukwu’s run-ning mate when he con-tested against Orji, Mr Chijioke Nwankodo and mostly members of the self styled ‘Elders Council

DENNIS NAKUPORT HARCOURT

No fewer than 90 members of the Peoples Democrat-

ic Party, PDP in Oyigbo Local Government Area of Rivers State have de-camped to the All Progres-sives Congress, APC.

The former PDP mem-bers, including youths and women, were officially re-ceived into the APC by a member of the National Assembly representing Rivers South-East senato-rial district, Senator Mag-nus Abe.

Senator Abe who was in Afam, the headquarters of Oyigbo Local Govern-ment Area in continua-tion of his empowerment initiative danced round the arena with the new party members, all of who were holding brooms.

Addressing the new members, Abe assured that they will not re-gret their decision, say-ing: “You will be carried along,” describing the APC as the party to beat.

He disclosed that the leader of the party in the

state, Governor Rotimi Amaechi was not fighting for himself, but for the bet-terment of the state, call-ing on the people to con-tinue to support him.

He said: “Our leader, Amaechi is clear with what we want for Rivers State. He is not fighting for himself, he is fighting because of us, so that our state will be better; we made him governor and nobody can stay anywhere and dictate to Rivers peo-ple. If they want anything they should talk to him.”

The Senate Com-mittee on Petroleum (Downstream) chairman assured the over 90 defec-tors that they were now major stakeholders in the party, urging those who have not officially regis-tered with the party to do so in order to strengthen their participation in party activities.

He said: “That thing that you have seen is what we saw and we left that place. And in this busi-ness, every human being is valuable, that is why we are receiving you with open arms.”

OBIORA IFOHABUJA

National Chairman of All Progres-sives Grand Alli-

ance, Chief Victor Umeh, yesterday in Abuja de-clared that the party will reclaim its mandate in Imo State and other states of the federation in the 2015 general elections.

Speaking while inaugu-rating the reconstituted membership of Imo State Caretaker Working Com-mittee, Umeh charged the new exco to work hard to reclaim its mandate in the state.

He stated that the party will sweep all positions in the next elections in the state, while also charging them to “comb Imo State for membership drive.”

Describing the defec-

OLAJIDE OMOJOLOMOJU

All Progressives Con-gress, APC, in Ekiti State has said that

it has uncovered plans to burn down the state office of the Independent Nation-al Electoral Commission,

of Abia State’.Sources revealed that

apparently angry party chiefs are considering petitioning the National Working Committee, NWC, and the Presidency, on the premise that the move negates the new policy of the party, to al-low for a primary election freely conducted by the party as the only way to guarantee its victory and avoid prolonged post-pri-mary inter party crisis.

It was however learnt that the committee has already run into stormy waters, with some of them said to have rejected the offer to serve in the com-mittee on the basis that its goal has long been pre-de-termined, wondering why Orji, who bemoaned the syndrome of godfatherism in politics would also at-tempt to set himself up as a godfather using eminent personalities like Ugo-chukwu and Ogbulafor.

tion of Governor Rochas Okorocha to the All Pro-gressives Congress, APC, as no threat to APGA, Umeh added: “But we are fired with greater deter-mination to recover Imo state from APC.”

His words: “You should all work hard for the par-ty’s victory in 2015. Don’t go there to work for any-body, but for the party’s victory and win all seats in Imo State House of As-sembly. We shall win the governorship, National Assembly and House of Assembly elections in Imo State. Lagos State is open for grabs. Nasarawa State is there and there are many other states, whose citizens are begging to be saved. We want all mem-bers of the party to con-tribute to the victory song of APGA in 2015.

He charged the exco to get people of good charac-ter in Imo State, warning that they should not allow themselves to be manipu-lated by anybody, “so that at the end of the day, all of us will smile and we will all take the glory.”

He added: “Get the good people who will fly our flag. Go for membership drive in Imo State. Go and knock on their doors and bring them to APGA. Go and look for the materi-als that you need. All the people jostling to fly our flag, you must get them well, but they will have to prove themselves. We know what to do with all the people who have con-stituted a cog in the wheel of progress.”

Umeh also warned the new executives not to al-low their personal interest

to override the interest of APGA in Imo State.

Imo APGA chairman, Peter Ezeobi, promised that “we will deliver Imo State to APGA in 2015. We also promise to settle all differences in the party and work with unity. We pledge our loyalty to you once more and we will not fail the National Working Committee, NWC, of the party.”

Other members of the exco are deputy chair-man, Dr. David Iwuagwu; secretary, Victor Chidi Di-ala; vice chairman, Okig-we, Chief Ben Ogbuehi; vice chairman, Orlu, Sir Eugene Obi; vice chair-man, Owerri, Dr. Chima Nwosu; organising secre-tary, Chief John Iwuala; Women Leader, Mrs Uche Duruzoe Agbasi, amongst others.

One of the elders on condition of anonymity said: “Posterity will not forgive us, if we are used to enthrone another gov-ernment in the state that will not reflect the people’s choice, especially against the feeling of general de-spondency on the level of development in the state, even in the country.”

Sources also revealed of a possible crack in the committee occasioned by crisis of confidence as some members ques-tioned ther terms of ref-erence saying that there is little they can do when the party is yet to come out with its gubernatorial guidelines.

The source added: “Or-ji’s disposition towards zoning the governorship is already seen as infringing on people’s right, so put-ting the choice of the next governor on the laps of few individuals makes this committee a still birth.”

INEC.In a statement by the par-

ty’s state Director of Media and Publicity, Segun Dipe, it said that it got information from “reliable source that plans are being hatched to have ‘strange fire’ occur-rence at the INEC office in Ado Ekiti and all the mate-

rials relating to the just con-cluded governorship elec-tion election will get burnt.”

Wondering why a strange fire incident would occur at the INEC’s Ekiti State office at a time APC has decided to test the result of the June 21 poll at the tribunal, Dipe said: “The fire incidence

would be blamed on some faulty power surge. But why would any person or persons want to set the bal-lot papers of a ‘free and fair’ election on fire, especially now that the APC has decid-ed to test the result with the tribunal? Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.”

Politics National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.netThursday, July 17, 201416

Matters arising as National Conference winds downEverything that has a beginning must

have an end, so the 2014 National Conference which started on March

17, 2014, officially ends today with all the committees winding up their functions af-ter the plenary session had ended last Mon-day. Time, inevitably has therefore come for candid review and stocktaking to assess the success of the conference on which huge national fortune had been expended.

As the conference ends, the big question is “Has the Nigerians expectations been met?” Let the truth be told, very few Nigerians, outside the establishment purview, would adjudge the conference to be successful. Most of the problems envisaged to be solved by the conference were left unaddressed whilst the patterns of debate and cleavages of opinions constituted sad commentaries on the Nigeria’s claim to nationhood.

Most of the views canvassed by the del-egates were not only coloured by ethno-reli-gious sentiments, they were also inexorably intolerant of other peoples’ rights and inter-ests. Each of the regions went into the con-ference with its own agenda, the South-West basically wanted more devolution of powers to the regions, or precisely put, regionalism, the South-East wanted structural equity and balanced federation, the South-South’s fixation, understandably, was on resource control, while the North generally would prefer status quo on many issues.

There is of course, nothing wrong with this geopolitical ideological cleavages and prefer-ences, what was however wrong was the in-capacity of the delegates to reach consensus through mature consensus building and tacti-cal compromises on cores intertwining issues.

To start with, in the speech in which President Goodluck Jonathan announced the convocation of the national conference, he managed to create appreciable dose of excitement by saying, inter alia, “The con-ference is sincere and constitutes funda-mental undertaking aimed at realistically resolving the long-standing impediments to our cohesion and development as truly a truly united nation.”

The excitement was grounded in the in-terpretation of the above statement to the effect that conference would not be foisted with the paralyzing virus of “No go areas” But the delegates soon learn otherwise when the conference started; issues on uni-ty of Nigeria forbidden area of discussion as the our unity is not negotiable.

It was then skeptics who had not even re-mained silent all along became more vocif-erous in their criticisms of the conference, stressing nothing good would come out of it and that it would go the same unproduc-tive and useless ways previous conferences like the 1994 Constitutional Conference convened by the late General Sani Abacha, and the National Political Reform Confer-ence convened by Olusegun Obasanjo in

2007, had gone. These skeptics felt if our unity is not negotiable, the representa-tives of the people should be the one to say so and it ought not to have been foisted on them as fait accompli.

Another criticism against the conference was its composition, both structural lyand qualitatively. In terms, the government rep-resentatives dominated the membership in what was seen as a strategic measure to engineer some pre-determined outcomes. Qualitatively, the conference boasts of many old worn-out people who have circu-lated around the government corridors for decades and had not proven they had any-thing to offer the country. These, coupled with many other lightweight were adjudged to have gone to the conference to collect the mouth-watering allowances only. Of course the most disappointing aspects of this con-ference is the utter failure to reach consen-sus and provisions on core issues of national importance. Precious times of the confer-ence were expended on relatively insignifi-cant issues like religion, grazing reserves, homes and other non-critical matters while important issues were either rushed or ulti-mately reserved for “technical committee” to be constituted later! For avoidance of doubt there was no consensus on the issues like resource control, state creation and de-volution of powers to the regions while the quest for removal of Land Use Act (LUA) from the 1999 Constitution could not sailed through (though some amendment to LUA was approved)

On state creation delegates met one day and approved creation of 18n more states only for delegates from North to return the

following day to reject the proposal vehe-mently except if disproportional numbers of the new states were not zoned to the North. The result was stalemate.

On revenue derivation, the quest to in-crease the derivation formula from the ex-tant to 13 per cent to a more reasonable 18 per cent was opposed in another enactment of North/South dichotomous warfare. The conference Chairman, retired justice Idris Kutigi, said the matter should be referred to a “technical committee” to be constituted to advise the Federal Government on what measure to take on the issue. In other words, the national conference has failed to ad-dress this nagging issue. Many Nigerians are already wondering if the over N7billion expended on the conference had not been flagrantly flushed down the drain.

ANOTHER CRITICISM AGAINST THE

CONFERENCE WAS ITS COMPOSITION, BOTH STRUCTURALLY AND

QUALITATIVELY

FRYNDUBUISI

[email protected] (08023016709 SMS only)

Professor Ndubuisi is of the Dept of Philosophy, UNILAG

EXISTENTIAL HUMANISM

A decent society is where there is law and order. Law and order is prevalent only in an environment

where there is unpolluted justice deliv-ery system. Justice that has meaning is one that is all embracing, one that takes every stakeholder into consideration. In such circumstance, the entire society, the accused, victims and the health of the so-ciety are intermingled. The impression that one party is more important than the other is a myopic approach to justice, which is not only appalling but detracts from the health of such society.

There has been serious concern for the nation’s judicial system. Nigerians from all walks of life have voiced their dissat-isfaction with the present justice system. The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and civil society organisations have also been critical of the system generally believed to hold the key to our democratic and social health. Quite recently the Chief Justice of the Federation, Justice Mariam Aloma Mukhtar, expressed anxiety over the un-

wholesomeness in the Bench. Speaking at the opening ceremony of Judicial Reforms Conference held recently in Abuja, which was organised by Access to Justice, the CJN expressed worry over the wide spread corruption in the judiciary. She frowned at some Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANS) that run to defend judges that compromise their office.

Contributing to the issue, the President of NBA, Mr.Okey Wali (SAN), submitted that nobody should be appointed a judge without input from the Bar. In his welcome address the director of Access to Justice, Mr. Joseph Otter, deposed that ‘’there is increasing public distrust of the judiciary as well as disconnect from and disenchant-ment with the quality of services offered by the judiciary in many countries’’. These observations represent the views of most Nigerians on the country’s justice system. It is illusory to hope for a civilized and hu-mane society where justice is only for the strong and mighty.

The experience in Nigeria has been quite unpleasant. Administration of justice com-mences the moment a crime is committed. This calls for diligence investigation prior to the commencement of trial. It is an open secret that the Nigeria Police is one of the greatest problems the nation has, espe-cially in security matter, and not the least in the judicial delivery system. Courts rely largely on the products of police investiga-tion machineries and the witnesses avail-able. How reliable are the outcome of po-

lice investigations when it is an open secret that the Nigerian Police Force is anything but effective when it comes to the issue of criminal investigation. The police force should be embarrassed and highly scandal-ized that in some instances investigative police officers (IPOs) aid criminalities by appealling to the courts to grant bails to ac-cused persons.

The other logjam is at the trial level. To ‘file in’ the required papers and com-mence the process of prosecution is another hellish process. The officers at the court registrar are as tainted as the police. If this phase is successfully sur-mounted, trials become an uphill task. This is where lawyers show their skills, albeit in negative ways. Issues bordering on technicalities are as numerous as the facts of the case. At every step, technicali-

ties are raised, which most often becloud the issue of justice and doing justice to the accused, the victims and the society in general. All this leads to constant, and in most cases, long adjournments that re-move the excitements and positive skills in litigation. Judges allow this to be, es-pecially those that care less on the need to do justice. It is immoral and a disser-vice to the society to see law largely as procedure, while procedure is salient in diligent prosecution, the crux of the mat-ter, if we are anxious to do justice to the issues at stake. The judiciary and the so-ciety at large owe legal and moral obliga-tions to ensure that justice is not done, but seen to have been done. There is very little to cheer about in the performance of the nation’s judiciary and security agents, where innocent blood is wasted unceasingly with nobody paying dearly for such.

That is why many believe that both the ju-diciary and security agencies need complete overhauling. The piece meal approach has not yielded any dividends. It is a fact that the innovative fast track system introduced by the Lagos State government has not yielded the much needed dividends also. Unless and until the nation comes to appreciate the need to create specialized courts, especially for criminal matters, justice will continue to elude many Nigerians. This is in addition to appointing experienced and tested lawyers and academics to both the appellate and apex supreme courts.

Still on our tragic judicial system UNLESS AND UNTIL

THE NATION COMES TO APPRECIATE THE NEED

TO CREATE SPECIALIZED COURTS, ESPECIALLY

FOR CRIMINAL MATTERS, JUSTICE WILL

CONTINUE TO ELUDE MANY NIGERIANS

Send your views by mail or sms to PMB 10001, Ikoyi, or our Email: [email protected] [email protected] or 08164966858 (SMS only). The Editor reserves the right to edit and reject views or photographs. Pseudonyms may be used but must be clearly marked as such.

National Mirrorwww.nationalmirroronline.net 17Thursday, July 17, 2014 Views

KAYODEKETEFE

[email protected] 08032147720 (SMS only)

CRITICAL STROKES

18 National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.net

Soldiers’ attack on BRT buses

‘Concorde’ was brought back into service nearly a year after the July 2000 crash. Aérospatiale-BAC (Concorde) is a retired turbojet-powered supersonic passenger airliner or supersonic transport (SST). It is one of only two SSTs to have entered commercial service; the other being the Tupolev Tu-144. Concorde was jointly developed and pro-duced by Aérospatiale and the British Aircraft Corpora-tion (BAC) under an Anglo-French treaty.

July 17, 2001July 17, 1979

After his overthrow, followed by an insurrection, Ni-caraguan President, General Anastasio Somoza Debayle, resigned from his position and fled to Miami, Florida, United States. Anastasio (1925 – 1980) was the 73rd and 76th President of Nicaragua from May 1, 1967 to May 1, 1972 and from December 1, 1974 to July 17, 1979. He was the last member of the Somoza family to be president, ending a dynasty that had been in power since 1936.

A diplomatic conference adopted the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, establishing a per-manent international court to prosecute individuals for genocide, crime against humanity, war crimes, as well as the crime of aggression. The statute was adopted at a diplomatic conference in Rome on July 17, 1998 and it entered into force on July 1, 2002. As of February 1, 2012, 121 states were party to the statute.

ON THIS DAY

Nigerians witnessed the festering culture of brazen impunity

with recent reports that soldiers viciously attacked Lagos State-owned Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) buses. Eye-witness account said one of the buses accidentally hit and killed a soldier riding on the BRT lane – a portion of the road reserved exclusively for BRT buses and forbid-den for all other vehicles. Following the death of their colleague, the soldiers alleg-edly mobilized to avenge his death. They grounded both human and vehicular move-ments along Ikorodu Road, Lagos, and started vandal-izing and burning any BRT bus in sight. Some innocent commuters aboard the buses were also pulled down and beaten with utmost cruelty. It was a sad day for the rule of law in Nigeria, as one of the institutions charged with the nation’s security unleashed violence on hapless citizens.

More worrisome is the fact that the show of shame has spilled over from the era of military rule to a democratic dispensation. Reference may be made to the burning by soldiers of the late Fela Aiku-lapo Kuti’s ‘Kalakuta Repub-

lic’ the late 1970s. There was the ‘mad dog’ saga, a popular description of the assault the late Chief MKO Abiola suffered in the hands of men of the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) while General Ibra-him Babangida (retired) held court as the military leader. Following a dispute between some policemen and their col-leagues, soldiers, a few years ago, raided and razed a police barracks at Surulere, Lagos, among others.

Recall also the case of a young lady, Uzoma Okere in 2008, who was beaten and stripped naked by six armed naval ratings attached to one Rear Admiral Harry Arogun-dade, purportedly for ob-structing the passage of their boss; another victim and an official of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commis-sion, (EFCC) Mrs. Obase Mor-di, reportedly lost her six-week-old pregnancy after she was thoroughly beaten on Au-gust 27, 2011 by naval ratings who alleged she insulted their boss’ wife. Some soldiers, like a lot of unscrupulous police-men do, also indulge in the illegal duty of debt collection or recovery in the most brutal manner. The attack on BRT is the latest. Sadly, in all such

cases, not one culprit has been brought to book after each of their mob justice, to public knowledge. With the claim by the military authori-ties that the mayhem was perpetrated by so-called ‘Area Boys’, the felons in uniform may again disappear into thin air unpunished, as ‘unknown soldiers’.

Generally speaking, the abuse the nation’s security agencies subject their uni-form to is unspeakable. In the instant case, the precipi-tate response by the military that area boys were respon-sible for the attack on BRT is unacceptable. The image laundering is in bad faith, since no proper investigation has been carried out on the incident. Reports said, for ex-ample, that there were video clips recorded by a passer-by, which vividly captured the soldiers doing the harm. The

least the public expect from the Federal Government is to conduct diligent investigation into the matter with a view to fishing out the soldiers in-volved in the brigandage and bringing them to book. The matter is beyond the Lagos State Government to handle single-handedly. The Nige-rian military has always been protective of its image when-ever its members indulge in shows of shame, but the military high command has failed woefully to rein in the beastly behaviour of its reck-less junior ranks, especially. It is an indictment on the FG that security agencies that should assist in the enforce-ment of law and order have, over the years, been taking the law into their hands with unprintable impunity.

The nation has witnessed military brutality for too long, but no nation that claims to be democratic can look the other way while members of the armed forces turn to law unto themselves. Recourse to self-help is only meant for the jungle and not for a decent society. The Presidency should act fast. For, not acting is a risk that could be likened to the man who chose to ride on a tiger’s back.

THE PRESIDENCY SHOULD ACT FAST…

NOT ACTING IS A RISK THAT CAN BE LIKENED

TO THE MAN WHO CHOSE TO RIDE ON A

TIGER’S BACK

July 17, 1998

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Thursday July 17, 2014Editorial

TUNBOSUN OGUNDARE

The appointment of former governor of Kano State, Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau, by Presi-dent Goodluck Jonathan as the new Minister

of Education has finally laid to rest the agitation by Nigerians for a substantive minister for the ministry.

Until Shekarau’s appointment last week, the of-fice had been vacant for 10 months following the sack of the former minister, Professor Ruqayyatu Ruffai alongside eight others by the president last Septem-ber.

And throughout this period, the Minister of State for the ministry, Mr. Nyesom Wike was in charge in acting capacity.

While Shekarau’s appointment has brought some relief to Nigerians, there are however so many unre-solved issues and challenges waiting for him. These include: poor infrastructural facilities, workers’ strike, underfunding, students’ protest, overcrowded classrooms and dearth of competent teachers.

Others are mass failure, poor remuneration and welfare package, poor library facilities and high cost of textbooks and instructional materials, poorly equipped laboratories, poor and inadequate toilet fa-cilities and lately insecurity to mention a few.

Although the minister has immediately swung into action as he was able to get the polytechnic lec-turers who had been on strike for 10 months back to class with a promise to meet their demands within three months, the same is also expected from him to-day when he will be meeting the striking colleges of education lecturers.

The minister is expected not to renege on this promise like many of his predecessors did but to bring a permanent solution to the recurring strike in the interest of economic development.

He is also expected to speed up government ef-forts towards the release of the 219 abducted Chibok school girls who have been in the Boko Haram den for over three months. Sadly, the kidnapping saga has drastically reduced school enrolment, particu-larly of girls and 19.5 estimated almajiri children in northern states.

Another task before the minister who is a former teacher, school administrator and lover of education, is to address the problem of inadequate school-based data which experts attributed to poor management of annual school census.

It is sad that at this 21st Century, the country still relies heavily on information and statistics provided by international organisations like UNESCO even though some of these statistics are also unreliable.

A report by the world body in 2012, for instance, showed that 10.5 million Nigerians of primary school

ams.For instance, in the 2012

May/June WAEC exams, only 38.81 per cent, rep-

resenting 649,156 out of 1,695,878 candidates, who

sat for the exam, ob-tained credits in five subjects and above, including

English Language and Mathemat-

ics while 6.70 per cent were alleged of

examination malprac-tices.Similarly, only 37.97 per

cent of the candidates from around the country, who sat for

the November/December of the exam obtained credit and above

pass in five subjects, including Eng-lish Language and Mathematics, a

minimum academic qualification for admission into tertiary academic insti-tutions in the country.

By this outing, the best in the recent years, it means 62.10 per cent of the candidates failed the exam.

The results were not any better in the UTME. Out of over 1.5 million candidates who sat for this year’s exam, only about 200,000 candi-dates scored 50 per cent and above and hence qualified for consider-ation for admission into the uni-versities, a reflection of the rot in

the primary and secondary schools.Another challenge before the min-

ister will be how to ensure that the country improves in its world univer-

sity. Today, no Nigerian university ei-ther public or private is among the top 100 in the world.

No doubt, the new minister will require the support of all stakeholders to tackle

the myriads of problems awaiting him as he assumes office. He well need more than

that. Perhaps, a revisit to the Needs Assess-ment Report on university

education submitted to the Federal Government two years ago will give

a hint or two on how to shoulder the nation’s huge educa-

tion burden.

ams.For insta

May/Juneonly 38.81

resenting1,695,878

sat

Ea

icscent

examitices.Similarl

cent of the around the cou

the November/exam obtained c

pass in five subjectlish Language and

minimum academicadmission into tertiartutions in the country

By this outing, the years, it means 62.10candidates failed the

The results werethe UTME. Out ofcandidates who saexam, only aboudates scored 50 peand hence qualifation for admissiversities, a reflect

the primary and seAnother challeng

ister will be how tocountry improves in

sity. Today, no Nigeriather public or private i100 in the world.

No doubt, the new minthe support of all stakeh

the myriads of problemshe assumes office. He well

that. Perhaps, a revisit to tment Repor

educatiothe Fedetwo yea

a hint orshoulder the natio

tion burden.

22

Benue School of Nursing may shut down

Heroic welcome as Lagos One-Day Governor visits school

Most lecturer strikes have hidden agenda —Lawson

Huge load of problems awaiting new ministerage are out-of-school while about 35 million adults are illiterates.

Evidence has shown that many teachers and students coming out of the public primary school system cannot read and write simple Eng-lish language.

The major-ity of teachers in the primary schools from dif-ferent states includ-ing Edo for in-stance could not pass a primary four level c o m p e t e n cy test.

Also, the first school leav-ing certificate exam which was scrapped many years ago has since been r e i n t r o -duced by m a n y s t a t e s , causing lots of c o n f u -sion in b o t h p o l i c y t h r u s t a n d imple-m e n -t a t i o n strategies.

The situation at the secondary school level is not better with con-stant report of mass failure and mal-

practice in public ex-

National Mirrorwww.nationalmirroronline.net 19

IN CONJUNCTION WITHEducation Today

Thursday, July 17, 2014

AFE BABALOLA UNIVERSITY,ADO-EKITI (ABUAD)

AFE BABALOLA UNIVERSITY,ADO-EKITI (ABUAD)

“The setting of this University is ‘Superlative’ and ‘Impressive’, with nothing of its kind that I have seen so far in the country or anywhere else” (Gen. Dr. Yakubu Gowon, GCFR,)

2220

Chief Alaba Lawson, an educationist and philanthropist, Chairman, Governing Council, Moshood Abiola Poly-technic, (MAPOLY) Abeokuta, Ogun State, in this interview with National Mirror correspondent, FRANKA OSAK-WE, speaks on why MAPOLY did not join the just suspended 10 months old strike by the nation’s polytechnic lecturers, her passion for education and her growing up, among other issues. Excerpts:

Rector, Kogi State Polytechnic, Lokoja, Prof. Idowu Ajibero (left) presenting a certificate of Fellow of the polytechnic to Governor Idris Wada at the institution’s convocation ceremony in Lokoja, recently.

Lawson

HAKEEM GBADAMOSIAKURE.

The Chairman of Ondo State Scholarship Board, Dayo Awude, has said arrangements have been

concluded between the state govern-ment and the private sector to improve on the state scholarship scheme.

He disclosed this while speaking with newsmen on the effort of the scholarship committee to reposition the board in the last few months.

The chairman said the effort was not only to develop education and encourage more youths to go to tertiary schools, but also to incorporate the post-graduate stu-dents in the scheme.

The board according to him is planning for a Scholarship Trust Fund and make it a pool to finance scholarship, bursary and other education aids to students in tertia-ry schools.

He recalled that while about N396 mil-lion was disbursed as students’ allowance and scholarship last year, a little over the amount has been approved for this year.

He noted that while scholarship award has been increased from N25, 000 to N100, 000 per beneficiary, the allowance remains N10, 000 for every qualified student except physically challenged.

Ondo to lift scholarship scheme

Nigerian teachers have phobia for exam —Provost

Provost, Federal College of Educa-tion, Katsina, Prof. Mamman Wasa-gu, has said that the average Nige-

rian teacher has phobia for examinations and, therefore do not like to be tested.

He stated this while presenting a keynote paper at the annual University Press Plc Authors’ Forum in Ibadan, Oyo State capital, recently. The forum, which was sixth in the series focused on education in Nigeria, particularly as re-gards science and technology.

Pointing out that Nigeria is still far behind in technological advancement when compared to the developed coun-tries, Waku said it was abnormal for teachers to be afraid of writing exam.

The rector, who is also the President of the Science Teachers Association of Nigeria (STAN) decried policy somer-salt as affecting the sector.

He blamed the problem confronting education in the country on a big void between theory and practice, saying it is a pity that many Nigerian universi-ties have been localised such that only indigenes can become their vice-chan-cellors.

The provost equally lamented the fre-quent changing of curriculum, saying the practice have done the system more harm than good.

He said the focus should be more on the teaching of entrepreneurship and that lecturers not equipped with such experience should not teach students about starting businesses.

For students to get the best, he said, real entrepreneurs should be engaged if the search for white colour jobs is to end and unemployment become a thing of the past.

The Academic Staff Union of Poly-technics (ASUP) has just suspended its 10 months old strike with a threat to resume another round after three months if the government fails to meet its demands. What in your opinion is the implication of strike on education in the country?

Well, it is unfortunate that we are having industrial actions here and there in our ter-tiary institutions. For me, I don’t believe in strike because the differences can actually be ironed out amicably on a round table. For ASUP strike, the lecturers involved would need to have a change of heart and know that we are dealing with the future of this great country. A situation whereby a student who is supposed to spend three or four years for a certain course is ending up spending eight years is unacceptable. I think we should all sit down on a table and iron this out properly to prevent re-currence. We have to put a stop to all these strike today, strike tomorrow. But I think most of the strikes have hidden agenda and that is unacceptable to me because it is destroying the country’s educational sys-tem. Before now, Nigerian graduates who travelled abroad for jobs were been placed in high positions. But the First Class gradu-ates from Nigerian universities today will have to spend another two years before be-ing considered for the right position. So, why are we going on strike when what we are agitating for will still be giving to us? And why would those who supposed to make things available are waiting for peo-ple to be asking for them before doing so? These are issues we all need to address to make things work in the sector.

But what if the union’s demands are justified?

I don’t want to know their demands. All I know is that strike has negative effect on the future of students as well as the society. We should know that it is not all the stu-dents who started with the strike that will return to school after the strike. I can as-sure you of that. So, whatever they are ask-ing for can be addressed through dialogue.

Was that why MAPOLY lecturers did not join the last strike, or are they not part of ASUP?

They are part of it. But when I came on board, I made them understand that the school leadership would give them all nec-essary welfare packages and provide those things that would aid their effective teach-ing and we have not reneged on the prom-ise. So, they don’t need to go on strike and that is the method I would ask other schools as well as people in the corridors of power to always do the needful in order to enjoy steady academic calender.

As Chairman, Governing Council of

Most lecturer strikes have hidden agenda —Lawson

MAPOLY and by virtue of your other high positions elsewhere, how do you cope, especially with males serving un-der you?

There is nothing different in one coor-dinating others, either as a male or female superior officer. It all depends on upbring-ing and home training, and the way one re-lates with people. I was trained to be polite. For instance, as a member of governing council at Chambers of Commerce and In-dustry, I sometimes find myself as the only woman in the midst of 20 men and I don’t feel bad on that. I only see it as a challenge that I must rise up and live up to expecta-tion. That is the way I see it. So to me, that doesn’t mean I should shout at or be bossy on anybody because I know what we need is to work as a team. So, at MAPOLY for example, we are working as a team and the team work is where the school is drawing its strength. And I want to also thank God for the type of Rector we have, Prof. Itiola, an experienced administrator who togeth-

er with his team are working to see things move forward in MAPOLY.

You have devoted so much resources and time to youth development in the country, where did the inspiration come from?

This is something I am endowed with by God. I have passion for younger ones. I believe their development is like securing their future and that of the nation. When you succeeded in showing the youths the right path, they will not depart from it as they grow older. From young ages, you give them good manners and good education. These are some of the areas we are looking into for them so that by the time they get to the tertiary institutions they won’t go into cultism or do anything that will tarnish their family names and that of the nation.

Does it mean you are looking towards establishing a tertiary school to join Al-aba Lawson Group of Schools?

With the help of Jehovah God, everything is possible. There is a vision like that. I have already secured an expanse of land along Lagos-Ibadan expressway. But I don’t want a tertiary institution that won’t be able to fend for itself, and I have already been talk-ing to a good friend of mine in Canada, Mrs. Obakusi over that. I want to build a voca-tional higher institution.

How was your growing up like?It was a Christian life upbringing. My fa-

ther was a strict man and my mother was always ensured that we the children must do all the chores of the house before going to school. And all these have really helped me and my siblings. Another thing I want to say about my parents is that they believed that you must satisfy other people first be-fore yourself and that virtue people can also see in me. We were trained to make our environment well kept and be respectful to others. So, all that I had leant I am enjoying till today.

National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.net20 Thursday, July 17, 2014Education Today

An expanded view of the school.

One of the blocks of classrooms after renovation (INSET: the building before renovation)

SAIDAT ALAUSA

The trend in the country now is that parents prefer to send their chil-dren to private schools because of

the belief that private schools have it all, especially in terms of infrastructure.

They believe that public schools are al-ways faced with the challenges of decayed infrastructure, unkempt environment, ill-mannered students, and poor or non-existing facilities, among others.

Also, it is not unusual seeing students roaming the streets and those who go to school end up sitting on bare floors in the classroom while some could be seen re-ceiving lectures under trees or perching on window sills.

But a visit to Sasa Community Junior High School in Alimosho Local Govern-ment area of Lagos State will definitely convince anybody that there are indeed positive developments in the area of pub-lic education.

From the bus-stop to the school, one hardly sees any student roaming the streets. Another thing noticed during a visit was the neat and well kept environ-ment.

National Mirror’s reporter also dis-covered that all the students were in the classrooms during school hours and only ventured out at break period. The school principal, Mrs. Itiade Ladigbolu revealed that such discipline was possible due to the cooperation of the parents and teach-ers.

“When I assumed office as the school principal, I took time to acquaint myself with the environment and its peculiari-ties.

“Although, it was not easy, I wanted to be as near perfect as possible. Naturally, I love neat environment and wanted the school to look so. What you are seeing here was not achieved in one day. Initial-ly, people did not understand my vision for the school. But today, they are all in-volved”, she explained.

Ladigbolu, who had won the best prin-cipal at the district level and Governors’ award for three consecutive years, said the commitment of her deputy and other teachers motivated her to work to uplift the school.

“I was always complaining of students’ lateness to school, so I appealed to the par-ents’ forum to help change the situation. That was how they came up with the ini-tiative to monitor their children and ev-erything changed for the better,” she said.

“Yes, it was our sacrifice for the devel-opment of the students”, chairman of the taskforce, Mr. Joshua Odeyemi, cut in.

He said what the Parents’ Forum met on ground was not heartwarming, as the students were always roaming the streets, even as they came late to school and their academic performance low.

“But since the constitution of the task-force, things have started looking up, espe-cially with the active participation of the principal”, he stressed.

Sasa Community Junior High School, public institution with a difference

He noted that parents also agreed to moni-tor students’ activities by themselves as they did not want money spent by the govern-ment to be wasted.

Odeyemi advised that the government should make the taskforce initiative compul-sory in all public schools in the state.

He thanked the state government for its efforts towards education but pleaded for more classrooms due to the growing stu-dents’ population.

Another taskforce member, Mrs. Ruth Ad-eyemi said, “We engage in the taskforce ini-tiative because we want our children to excel in their endeavours.

“The fact that they are product of Sasa Community School does not mean they can-not be somebody in life. We have been doing this for four years and the parents can tes-tify that their academic performance has improved.”

The members of the taskforce, all on green jacket with the inscription, “Sasa com-munity Junior High School taskforce boldly written on it consists of men and women who go around the community to monitor the students’ movement.

The school with a population of 1,541 students has well-equipped laboratory, new classroom blocks, and library courtesy of the Eko Project initiative of the state govern-ment.

“I still want to thank our Governor, Ba-batunde Fashola for this initiative because when we started it in 2009; many of us in-cluding my humble self did not believe it would work. I couldn’t believe that they will actually allow us (principals) to handle money and that we are going to spend it by ourselves”.

She explained further, “They told us to look at what we need in our schools and fix them. They also told us how to spend the money, we have a portion for training of teachers, quoted amount for procurement, and it can be laboratory equipment or rel-evant textbooks because the main purpose of the project is to improve academic perfor-mance.”

“So, when we started, I looked at my build-ings, the roof has blown off; the flooring was bad and when it rained, the student would be

drenched right inside the classes”. She said that was when she decided to use

part of the money and help from the com-munity leaders like the Oba of Sasa and the leader of the School-Based Management Committee, Alhaja Serifat Ajao to get the new buildings where students are now stay-ing comfortably to learn.

Ladigbolu who had worked at Ifesowapo Aboru Junior High School and as a principal at Government Junior College, Agege told National Mirror that she always ensures she makes strong impact wherever she works.

“At Aboru, the area is always flooded, the students didn’t want to come to school but before I left there, the population rose from 250 to 1,500 with enough classrooms. I planted trees in the schools even before the govern-ment started tree planting. My trees are there at Government College,” she said confidently.

Despite everything, she said the school still needs government intervention. “The government has tried but Sasa community being a peculiar place; we still need govern-ment help because we are in a village set up.

“Some people don’t believe this is Sasa, I will need the governor’s visit, I want him to come and see that even in villages, we have wonderful things. The roads are bad, not ac-cessible and the fence is endangered. I know he can still do something for us, I want him to give us additional classroom buildings,” she appealed.

To the parents’ forum, Mrs. Ladigbolu said they should not be tired, “though we don’t

pay them for what they are doing but I believe our children will be better for it”.

Vice Principal Academics, Mrs. Mui-bat Adebowale also corroborated the principal that all they achieved so far was through hard work and the principal’s commitment to excellence.

On students’ performance, she told Na-tional Mirror that the students are sound both academically and morally, adding that for many occasions, they have won laurels for the school.

“From the records of our Basic Edu-cation Certificate Examination (BECE) it shows the students are doing well, in 2010, we scored 82 per cent, 2011, 76 per cent, 2012, 100 per cent and 2013, 95.3 per-cent,” she revealed.

In sports and extra curricula activi-ties, the Vice Principal, Administration, Mrs. Victoria Oyegunle told National Mirror that the students are performing well in sport and extra- curricular activi-ties.

Expectedly the students are excited about the new look of Sasa Community Junior High School.

The head boy and girl of the school, master olufemi Olaseinde and Yesirat Oduola said they are proud to be students of the school.

They said they are confident that they can compete with any private school student because they have all it takes to achieve excellence.

National Mirrorwww.nationalmirroronline.net 21Education TodayThursday, July 17, 2014

Governor Babatunde Fashola (2nd left) presenting a gift to the Lagos One- Day Governor, Olabanji Edun, flanked by his parents, Mr. Sunkanmi and Mrs. Blessing Edun, at the Governor’s Office in IKeja.

Students of Amville School, Lagos during their musical performance, at the school graduation and award ceremony, last week.

He has made us proud —Parents

AISHA TITILAYO

He has been looking for-ward this day. That was the day he performed

pseudo roles of a governor of Lagos State for one-day along-side his adhoc cabinet mem-bers.

As usual, for 13 years run-ning in Lagos State, any stu-dent who emerges winner of the Spelling Bee quiz competi-tion at the senior secondary school level becomes auto-matic one-day governor for the state. Olabanji Edun, an SS2 student of Army Children Sec-ondary School, Ikeja won this year’s edition held on Wednes-day March 19 by beating 55 oth-er finalists from across the six

educational districts of the state. And by virtue of this excel-

lence performance, he per-formed the pseudo roles of a state governor on July 2nd as he moved round the city of Lagos in an open roof SUV jeep with a siren-blaring convoy like that of a state governor. He visited some companies and establishments where he met with the leader-ship of the organisactions. He also chaired the state executive council meeting at the Gover-nor’s Office with Governor Baba-tunde Fashola with his cabinet members in attendance.

The highpoint of his activi-ties for the day was his visit to his school where his co-students, teachers and the management staff had waited for many hours before his arrival. It was a mo-

ment of joy for them as they waved at him as a way of hon-ouring him while he waved back at them from his open roof jeep as a way of showing apprecia-tion for the gesture.

A mini celebration was held in his honour in the school. This featured a cultural dance from students who dressed in Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba attires. Some beautifully dressed young girls also took to the stage to sing his praise for making them proud.

Addressing them, Edun beam-ing with smiles, expressed his appreciation and thanked the school management, teachers as well as co-students for giving him such heroic welcome.

He however used the occa-sion to call on students in both primary and secondary schools

to take their studies and other lawful engagements very seri-ously, saying it is only by doing so that they would be able to achieve success in life.

He noted that his achieve-ment was hinged on three vir-tues which he mentioned to be hardwork, determination and grace of God.

His parents, Mr. Sunkanmi and Mrs. Blessing Edun were proud to associate with the achievement. Words alone could not be enough to illus-trate the joyful expressions on their faces.

Edun’s mother, a truck driver with the Lagos State Waste Management (LAWMA) told National Mirror that she was particularly on top of the world seeing her son moving around Lagos with security attaché and siren-blaring con-voy.

His father, who is a carpen-ter, explained that his son had been academically sound from his primary school days and that he and his wife would con-tinue to support him in his fu-ture engagements.

As an addition to the hon-our, Edun was given N250, 000, a gold trophy, certificate of participation and scholarship award to a university of his choice anywhere in the world.

His first and second runners-up also received N150, 000 and N100, 000, respectively, among other rewards for their efforts.

HENRY IYORKASEMAKURDI

In about a year and half the Benue state school of Nursing and Mid-

wifery, Makurdi will lose its ability to provide nurs-es to augment medical institutions due to refusal to renew accreditation because of dilapidated structures by the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria.

Indications to this fact emerged Monday, when National Mirror visited the school where a source close to the institution disclosed that since the council has withdrawn its accreditation, the state government has not effect renovation works as well

as building new ones. The school which was

established since 1977 today is a shadow of it-self and during a visit by some officials of the Council; they directed that its decaying struc-ture be renovated.

The renovation ac-cording to the Council includes rooftops which was leaking and provi-sion of hostel facilities among others.

Despite the deplorable state of the buildings the sanitary condition of the school is also so bad that a bad odor welcomes visi-tors to the school.

A student who pre-ferred to remain anony-mous said the premises including student hostels

is a complete eye sore as the old structures are in-fested with rats and bats without a solution in sight to change the situ-ation.

Further investiga-tions also reveals that in recent times no fewer

than six senior nurses of the institution were sacked due to efforts to-wards trimming down the work force as it ap-proaches its peak of shut-ing down after the cur-rent set of students might have graduated.

When contacted the Principal of the school Mrs. Pauline Atser said the state government is doing its best to resusci-tate the institution and further declined to enter-tain further comments on the matter.

Al-Makura restates commitment to agric education IGBAWASE UKUMBALAFIA

Governor Umaru Tanko Al-Makura of Nasarawa State has restated his administration’s

commitment to equip the state’s col-lege of agriculture in Lafia with neces-sary facilities and manpower to make it more effective in its service.

He made the promise at the recent convocation ceremony of the college, where a total of 8,838 students graduated and were given certificates.

The governor, who acknowledged the importance of the college and related institutions to the economy, maintained that institutions like Nassara College of Agriculture would greatly help in train-ing students on modern farm, operations as well as carrying out researches for op-timum performance in the sector.

He however disclosed that his govern-ment would soon release two additional tractors to the college to further enhance its activities.

In his address, the acting Provost of the college, Dr. Mohammed Salihu charged the fresh graduates to make pos-itive impact in their future engagements.

He commended the state government for its strong support so far to the growth of the college, saying the efforts had re-ally yielded positive fruits.

Ado Poly committed to entrepreneurship education

Benue School of Nursing may shut down

Heroic welcome as Lagos One-Day Governor visits school

ABIODUN NEJOADO EKITI

The Federal Polytechnic, Ado Ekiti has reiterated its commitment to strengthen its Centre for Entre-

preneurship Development and Vocation-al Studies (CEDVS) through enhanced partnership with relevant bodies to be-come a reference point and prototype in the country.

The institution’s Rector, Dr Taiwo Akande said this would be done in terms of bringing forth large scale ag-ricultural products for sale to the pub-lic which would ultimately improve the institution’s internally generated revenue.

Akande spoke while playing host to Mr. Mike Bassey, country’s Director and Prof Matt Baker of WINROCK In-ternational, a United States-based non-profit organisation working with the people around the world to empower the disadvantaged to increase their eco-nomic opportunities and sustain natu-ral resource endowment in Ado Ekiti.

She said it had become imperative for the polytechnic to concentrate on large scale farming since the resources from government towards education in the country were dwindling by the day, hence the need to explore other avenues to shore up needed funds.

She added that her institution would look into working with WINROCK in terms of sharing ideas and helping to provide necessary technical skills to improve and make more viable the school entrepreneurship centre.

National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.net22 Education Today Thursday, July 17, 2014

MIRACLE CENTRES HAVE CONTINUED TO PERMEATE THE TERRAIN OF

NIGERIAN PUBLIC EXAMINATIONS AT THE SECONDARY SCHOOL CERTIFICATE LEVEL AND THE TERM ‘MIRACLE CENTRE’ HAS BECOME A PERMANENT FEATURE OF THE

NIGERIAN LEXICON.

Education as I see itby Tosanwumi Otokunefor

[email protected] (email/SMS only)

TUNBOSUN OGUNDARE

Muslims school proprietors have been urged to

improve on their services and make their institutions centres of excellence.

The President, National Association of Propri-etors of Private Schools, Lagos State chapter, Otun-ba Yomi Odubela gave the charge in his lecture at a summit organised by the League of Muslim School Proprietors, Lagos chap-ter held in Ikeja last week.

He said it was only by doing so that they could remain relevant in the business.

Odubela, who was a guest lecturer at the fo-rum, spoke on “School business: A means to sus-tainable development.”

He noted that consider-ing education as either a social service or business venture, school owners should have to move along with the development

Guest lecturer and President, National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools, Lagos chapter, Chief Yomi Odubela (left) and Chairman, League of Muslim School Proprietors (LEAMSP), Lagos chapter at the LEAMSP’s annual summit in Lagos, recently

A brief to education minister

Muslim school proprietors tasked on quality service

is why I will enjoin you to always run after quality as that is the surest way to prepare the children well for future challenges,” he counselled.

In his keynote address, the National President of the league, Alhaji Taiwo Tijani told participants to see the improvement of their schools’ facilities a daily affair so as to be able to produce globally competitive graduates.

trend in the sector for sus-tainability.

Proprietor, according to him should not only make their schools friend-ly to learning and teach-ing, but also make them globally competitive by providing all what it takes to achieve that.

“But it is sad that even at this computer age, most proprietors are not ready for a change. You see them using old meth-

od of teaching and doing other things in the old poor ways. Those are pro-prietors whose interest is all about money. They just want to be involved in vir-tually all aspects of their schools such that when-ever they are not around, things especially that have to do with finance will be grounded. To me, such practice cannot in anyway help a school to enjoy steady growth. That

Dr. Adesanmi

Welcome! It is indeed with great expectations that we congratulate you

Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau on your appointment as the Minis-ter of Education. We believe that yours is one of the most important among those appointed to serve this nation. Though, we had no input in your appointment as the substantive minister of education as that is the sole prerogative of Mr. President, but as victims of a sector that has been grossly mis-managed over the years we have great expectations that you would bring about the much needed change.

We are however under no illu-sions that you are the messiah that we were expecting because you do not bear the hallmarks of the mes-siah those of us in the education sector have been waiting for.

But in times like this, even the slimmest possibility for change gives us the hope to press forward, if perchance we may consum-mate the change we have longed for these many years. To keep this hope alive, we would like to ac-quaint you with some of the multi-ple problems that have bedevilled the education sector with the ear-nest expectation that at least some of them might be resolved.

Our basic education is in sham-bles. A UNESCO report of 2011 showed that 10.5 million Nigerian of primary school age are out-of- school. The same report noted that 35 million adult Nigerians are illiterates. While we cannot vouch for the veracity of the data and the yardstick for measuring illiteracy,

it nevertheless suggests we have some problem in our hands.

Worse still is the observation by some Nigerian teachers that about 90 per cent of the products of our public primary school sys-tem cannot read and write.

Recent evidence from different parts of the country suggests that the majority of teachers in the pri-mary school system cannot pass a primary four level competency test.

The first school leaving cer-tificate examination which was scrapped many years ago has since been reintroduced by many states in the federation. It appears there is a lot of confusion in both

policy trust and implementation strategies.

The secondary school system has not fared better. It is encum-bered with the many problems associated with the shaky foun-dation provided by the primary school education system. The technical and vocational compo-nents have been neglected to our own peril. There are no work-shops for the vocational courses and virtually no laboratories for the science subjects at the senior secondary level in most public and private secondary schools; on what then do we base our techno-logical ambition? The problem of poor quality teachers is also very

visible here.The problem of examination

malpractice has also reached the climax at the secondary school level. There is no incentive for academic excellence because of the all pervading examination malpractice. Teaching and learn-ing are at very low ebb in these institutions.

Miracle centres have contin-ued to permeate the terrain of Ni-gerian public examinations at the secondary school certificate level and the term ‘Miracle Centre’ has become a permanent feature of the Nigerian lexicon. Paradoxi-cally, the secondary school certifi-cate examinations have contin-ued to record unacceptably high failure rates.

The tertiary education sys-tem is currently in the eye of the storm.

Until recently, the entire sector was shut down as a result of wide-spread unrest. Though, the uni-versities are now opened, there are no lectures on many cam-puses because of student agita-tions sequel to massive increases in school fees in publicly funded institutions.

Lecture theatres and class-rooms are still massively congest-ed and the laboratories are still de-void of equipment and reagents. It is becoming commonplace for a student or lecturer to collapse during classes due to exhaustion from prolonged standing or suf-

focation.The failure rate in the UTME

conducted by JAMB has contin-ued to climb. In the just concluded 2014/2015 UTME exercise, only about 200,000 candidates scored 50 per cent and above and hence quali-fied for consideration for admis-sion into the universities. JAMB is not to blame here; this is a reflec-tion of the rot in the primary and secondary schools.

The NUC appears to have abdi-cated her responsibility as the prin-cipal quality control agency of the university education system.

There are gross inconsistencies in the quality of graduates from Ni-gerian universities. The poor qual-ity teachers in the primary and sec-ondary systems are all products of the malfunctioning tertiary institu-tions. The National Teachers Insti-tute in nearly 40 years of operation has not made any impact on the quality of teachers in the nation’s primary school. The problems are multiple Sir!

Now that you are on the saddle, we expect you would try to change some of these negative statistics.

We sincerely wish you do not intend to run for any elected posi-tion in the near future because that would be a distraction. You should be audacious and resilient and your zeal should be guided with knowledge if you would succeed in solving some of the problems of the Nigerian educational system! We wish you a good tenure!

Expert blames economic woes on poor science education SAIDAT ALAUSA

An educationist and Chairman, Banquar-ies SMS Consultants

Nigeria Ltd, Dr. Adeduro Ad-esanmi has called on stake-holders in education sector, including government to give science and technology education a deserved prior-ity.

He said this was necessary to make students technologi-cally inclined for national growth and development.

Adesanmi, who made the observation in a chat with National Mirror in Lagos attributed the nation’s eco-nomic woes to poor manner the country is handing sci-ence education.

According to him, what the bricklayers, mechanics, carpenters and other tech-nicians out there lack is not knowledge but scientific skills to do their job profes-sionaly.

Adesanmi explained that his consultancy firm, which

represents Amity Univer-sity, India in the country in-troduced laboratory kit for science education to make the subject simple for stu-dents.

He noted that despite the usefulness of the kit, only private schools adopted it while publicly owned did not since it was introduced four years back.

He however pointed out that the teaching and learn-ing of mathematics and sciences could be made sim-pler in the country only if universities will handle the subjects.

On curriculum, Adesan-mi said the problem was not about curriculum but poor implementation hence the need to have effective minis-tries of education.

National Mirrorwww.nationalmirroronline.net Education Today 23Thursday, July 17, 2014

YAKUBU TEMITOPE FEDPOLY, ADO EKITI

A member of the Students’ Representa-tives Council, Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA), Oluwa-

femi Williams has advised the government to make education tuition-free at all levels.

He said it was disheartening that succes-sive governments in recent times have turned education to be a privilege rather than right of the citizenry.

Williams, who is vying for the post of Vice

President of the National Association of Ni-geria Students (NANS) also lamented that management of various universities, are increasing their school fees at a time when many parents are living from hands to mouth.

“That is just too bad. I don’t really care if a private university charge about US$3 mil-lion per semester, after all, they are private, but a public university should not just wake up one day and announce increment in its tuition fees. That is not acceptable to me and I believe to other students and our parents,” he said.

He argued that children of petty traders, civil servants, market men and women, car-penters, among other down trodden people in the society should be able to afford education conveniently with their meager incomes.

“And if you look at it critically, many of those in corridors of power in political or ac-ademic circles are children of blacksmiths, hunters, farmers, petty traders, among oth-ers. They were able to enjoy quality educa-tion free of charge in their time but they are now making things difficult for those from poor homes,” he stressed.

Edited by: Saidat [email protected], 08027633686

FUTA steps up effort to combat climate change effects

The Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA) has intensified ef-

forts in combating the effect of climate change in the country.

To this end, the university has installed a high performance computing system recently do-nated by the United Nations De-velopment Programme (UNDP) at its West African Science Ser-vice Centre on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WAS-CAL).

The facility according to the institution is to monitor and analyse data and information related to climate change in the country.

Speaking at a training work-shop on the use of the system, the Vice-Chancellor of the uni-versity, Prof. Adebiyi Daramola said the information getting through the system would help in climate change decision and policy making and forecast.

While urging the trainees to use the knowledge gained at the forum to address the problems associated with climate change in and outside Nigeria, the vice-chancellor said the situation has gotten to a stage that all hands must be on deck.

On her part, the Minister of Environment, Mrs. Laurentia Mallam, who was represented by the Director, Department of Climate Change, Dr. S.A. Adeju-won, said the installation of the new computer system as well as training workshop would help Africa comes up with better comprehensive and real time climate data that will help the continent in making appropri-ate decisions, predictions and preparations towards the loom-ing negative impacts of climate change.

The Director of WASCAL, Prof. Jerome Omotosho and Mr. Oladipo Osibo from the UNDP Office Abuja were part of other people in attendance.

FUPRE to represent Africa in world geological contest

VC calls for vocational education for youths

Daramola

Vice-Chancellor, Federal University of Petroleum Resources, Efffurun, FUPRE, Prof John Etu-Efeotor (middle) with members of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, Warri Correspondents Chapel, recently.

THEOPHILUS ONOJEGHENWARRI

Three students from the Department of Geology, Federal University of Pe-

troleum Resources, Effurun Delta State are to represent Africa in this year World Geological Map-ping Exercise, WGME, holding in the United States of America in September.

This was disclosed to newsmen by the Vice Chancellor of the in-stitution, Prof. John Ovwata Etu-Efeotor when the Mr. Michael Ikeogwu-led Nigerian Union of Journalists, NUJ, Warri Cor-respondents Chapel paid him a courtesy call at the university premises.

Prof Etu-Efetor observed that against the backdrop of negative reports concerning the institu-tion, it was doing its best to meet the developmental needs of the institution, saying that his admin-istration was striving to achieve its mission statement.

According to him, the three students from the school ranked second best in a recently held second Africa Geo-science Stu-dents Conference, AGSC 2014, in Ghana, adding that FUPRE was matching on the path of develop-ment and academic excellence.

He said: “FUPRE is making greater stride than what many

people think, we just have a pouch of students who went to Ghana and made wave and they are going to represent Africa in the World Geological Mapping Exercise hold-ing in US. This is the kind of news we want to hear in the institution.”

The Vice Chancellor explained that out of the six students who submitted entries for the confer-ence, three made it to Ghana and performed excellently well.

He gave the names of the stu-dents to participate in the map-

ping exercise as Anine Lawrence (best poster presenter), Eze Stan-ley (Tech Paper) and Idoko Rose.

He pointed out that the bad im-age the institution was known for in the past has changed stating that peace has returned to the uni-versity, promising that his tenure will be devoid of acrimony as the entire management was working together to develop the school.

Etu-Efeotor, who was the first student to make first class in Geol-ogy from the University of Ife now

Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife maintained that development, can only come in an atmosphere of peace.

While commending the Nigeri-an media for setting agenda of dis-course for the development of the country, Prof Etu-Efeotor called on good spirited Nigerians especially people from the university com-munity to come to the aid of the school in provision of administra-tive buildings, engineering work-shops and roads.

SAIDAT ALAUSA

Vice Chancellor of Caleb University, Prof. Ayodeji Olukoju has advocated that deliberate efforts should be made

by government to get everyone engaged in for-mal, informal vocational education and skill acquisition.

He made the call while delivering the con-vocation lecture of the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta stressing that practical

skills acquisition or vocational training should be properly integrated in the school and after school curricular.

The lecture titled, ‘Leadership, Economic Nationalism and Development: Nigeria and the Challenge from the Global South’, Olukoju stated that practical skills acqusition or voca-tional training should be properly integrated in the school and after-school curricula, with focus on training and re-training of workers.

Olukoju further explained that the nation’s apprenticeship system should be revamped to ensure that trainee’ artisans in formal and

informal settings are properly trained licensed and registered before they are unleashed on the socio-economy.

The Vice-Chancellor also noted that Nigeri-ans in leadership positions should learn to be civil, humane, exemplary and self sacrificing for the nation to successfully push the agenda of real transformation.

According to him, Nigeria needs visionary leadership with a Big Nigerian Dream that rests upon the fundamental restructuring of government and a radical change in the way the business of governance is conducted.

Student leader advocates free education

National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.net24 Thursday, July 17, 2014

UI Sociology Dept marks 50th anniversary

UNILORIN inducts student lawmakersODEYEMI AFIS 300L, HIS. EDU., UNILORIN

In what could be described a brief but colorful cer-emony at the University of

Ilorin,Kwara State, the Vice- Chancellor of the University, Prof. Abdul-Ganiyu Ambali and other management team formerly inducted the newly elected Student’s Union Gov-ernment for the 2014/2015 aca-demic session.

In his speech, the Dean Stu-

35 schools for 2014 Enactus contest

‘Use your youth time wisely’ ... FUNAAB students urged

AISHA TITILAYO

No fewer than 35 universities and polytechnics across the country are participating in this year’s edi-

tion of Enactus national competition hold-ing in Lagos.

The four- day event which commenced on Tuesday with a press conference will be rounded-off tomorrow. It is themed: “See possibility” and the winning team will rep-resent Nigeria at the World Enactus Com-petition scheduled for US in September.

Addressing journalists on Tuesday at Eko Hotel and Suites, the venue of the event, the Country Director, Enactus Ni-geria, Mrs. Ifedi Adesuwa said the yearly competition was designed to make under-graduates develop entrepreneurial spirit by coming up with developmental projects that can impact their immediate environ-ment on yearly basis.

She said as the students are impacting people around them through their projects, they will also be developing themselves for future engagements.

According to her, Enactus as an inter-national organisation brings together a diverse network of tertiary institution stu-dents, lecturers and industry leaders who share the vision of creating a better sus-tainable world through the positive power of business.

She noted that the many business organ-isations have been supporting the project since inception in Nigeria 12 years ago.

The Head of Communications and CSR, First City Monument Bank, Uche Mojekwu said the bank which is one of the strong supporters of the project as part of its corporate social responsibility since four years ago would continue to support the programme.

A cross section of the newly inducted Students’ Representative Council and principal academic officers of the university

Vice-Chancellor, National Open University of Nigeria, Prof. Vincent Tenebe (left) with the Consul General of Nigeria in Shanghai, China, Mr. Ayo Otepola during a conference at the Shanghai Open University, China, recently.

The Executive Director (Engineering), Ogun-Oshun River Basin Develop-ment Authority (OORBDA), Mr Jimi

Sokunle has advised students of the Col-lege of Engineering, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, (FUNAAB), to take advantage of their youth to make wise deci-sions and move up the ladder of success.

He said this while delivering a lecture titled: “Prime time” at the college’s first in-duction ceremony of fresh graduates into engineering profession recently.

According to him, being young comes only once, thus, any choice you make at your prime time of life can either make or mar you in fulfilling your destiny.

Earlier in his address, the Vice-Chancel-lor of the university, Prof. Olusola Oyewole stated that the university was fully commit-ted to encouraging its engineering students to procure equipment for road rehabilita-tion to be used by the college alongside the students.

He said in a bid to expose the students to practical-oriented teaching, the univer-sity had floated a consultancy firm and an engineering company in the name of the college.

He therefore charged the young engi-neers not to rest on their oars but to take the occasion as a stepping platform towards enhancing their capabilities and preparing for greater challenges.

dent’s Affairs Unit of the Uni-versity, Prof. Omotesho congrat-ulated the out-going executive members for conducting them-selves well during their term as well as being worthy ambassa-dors of the university.

‘I must say that you, the out-going executives are one of the finest executive members in the history of the University.

To the new executives, he said they should emulate the outgo-ing executive so that the univer-sity would have a peaceful and

rewarding academic year. The out-going president in

his speech, Abiodun said, “Most people might find it difficult to give a handing over speech, but with this incredible year, I am more than happy to hand over my office to a capable hand.”

He encouraged the new ex-ecutive to be good ambassador of the university and to always resolve issues amicably.

The Vice- Chancellor, Prof. Abdulganiyu Ambali in his speech said, ‘I know I inherited

an executive union when I as-sumed office, but permit me to say that this out-going executive is one I can truly call my own.”

He said if second term is al-lowed in the unions’ guiding principle, he would have advo-cated for a second term. “Thank you for making twelve months looks like one week”.

The newly elected President, Muhammed Ishowo told the gathering that his team would work very hard to take the uni-versity to greater height.

KEMI OLAITANIBADAN

The Head of the Sociol-ogy Department, Uni-versity of Ibadan, Prof.

Ayodele Jegede, has assured that the department will con-tinue to live to the expecta-tions of the founding fathers through effective teaching and research development.

He said this while address-ing a press conference to kick start the 50th years anniver-sary of the department.

He said as a department which started as a sub-de-partment within the Depart-ment of Economics, it has set a standard in impacting teaching and learning of So-ciology in the country.

According to him, while it has faced many challenges as with the rest of the Nigerian university system, the de-partment was able to weather the storm.

“The department has over the past years taken the bull by the horn by teaching and research facilities, the use of information technology, expanding research scope in-creasing, in town-to-gown re-lationship and scholarship”,

he said.He also said that the depart-

ment has approved a new vision document outlining direction to reposition it for part role as a centre of excellence in teaching and research.

He added that towards repo-sitioning the department for the next 50 years, a number of strategies that include curricu-lum review, promotion of staff development, improved teach-

ing facilities, communication as well as research ethics have been adopted.

The National President, So-ciological and Anthropologi-cal Association of Nigeria in his speech, berated the Federal Government for jettisoning re-search findings by scholars in the ivory tower thus putting a stop to the spate of insecurity in some part of the country by the deadly Boko Haram.

Don bemoans poor funding of education

A Professor of Educa-tional Management in Ekiti State University,

(EKSU) Prof. Abiodun Ajayi has observed that Nigeria re-mains a poor nation despite her vast resources and growing economy.

He made the observation while delivering the 38th Inau-gural Lecture of the university recently.

He said that it was pathetic to note that despite the growing economy of Nigeria the propor-tion of Nigerians living in pov-erty was increasing every year.

He said, “The World Bank rated Nigeria’ as one of the fastest growing emerging economies in the world yet, the country’s level of poverty is in-creasing”.

Prof. Ajayi stressed that the poor economy of the country has resulted in gross inadequa-cy of financial, human and ma-terials resources in the educa-tion sector.

Ajayi in lecture entitled “Managing the Education Sys-tem in a Poverty- Ridden Econ-omy: The Unhealthy Rivalry between Efficiency and Effec-tiveness”, noted that the situa-tion led to inadequate funding of the education Sector.

National Mirrorwww.nationalmirroronline.net 25Thursday, July 17, 2014 Education Today

z

Waste basket or waste-paper basketMOST NIGERIAN JOURNALISTS...DO NOT READ, HENCE

THE RECURRENCE OF BLUNDERS IN THE MEDIA

USE OF LANGUAGE.

UNICEF advocates water, sanitation programmes in Nigerian schoolsMARCUS FATUNMOLEABUJA

The United Nations Children Fund, UNI-CEF, has called on

tiers of government in Ni-geria to assist the nation’s primary and secondary schools with measures for improving water and sani-tation programmes.

UNICEF made the call in Enugu recently at a seminar organised for journalists on Water, Sanitation and Hy-giene, WASH.

WASH specialist of the agency, Amose Kudzala quoted former United Na-tions Secretary General, Kofi Annan as saying that “Water is intimately linked with education and gender equality. Girls who have to spend time gathering water for the family tend not to be in school. And where schools

have sanitation, attendance is higher, especially for girls. Water is connected to health, since millions of children get sick and die ev-ery year from water-borne diseases and for lack of ba-sic sanitation and hygiene”.

He informed that effec-tive learning for children enable them perform better

in a hygienic and clean en-vironment; adding that con-sistent enrolment of girls with lack of clean toilets for girls could discourage parents from sending their girls to schools, thereby contributing to drop-out of girls.

According to the global health body, “implement-

ing child rights enable them to have the right to be as healthy and happy as pos-sible. Good health and sani-tation is one key to a happy childhood. It reduces diseas-es and worm infestations. Clean, well-used toilets and good hygiene practices will prevent infections and in-festation.

L-R: Country Manager, Verve International, Oremeyi Akah; Head of Corporate Communications, Sahara Group, Bethel Obioma; Head of Communications & CRS, First City Monument Bank Ltd, Uche Mojekwu and Country Director, Enactus Nigeria, Adesuwa Ifedi at a press conference to kick-start this year’s Enactus competition among the nation’s tertiary institution students in Lagos…on Tuesday.

Gratuities: Bauchi commissioner lied, ex-teacher alleges EZEKIEL TITUSBAUCHI

The embattle Chair-man of Academic Staff Union of Sec-

ondary Schools (ASUSS) in Bauchi State, Mr. Abdullahi Tanko has debunked a state-ment credited to the state Commissioner for Educa-tion, Ibrahim Aminu that he had been paid all his retire-ment entitlements.

He debunked the claim in his chat with journalists, de-scribing the claim as a slap on the face of the Commis-sioner’s Office, the state gov-ernment, Bauchi citizens and entire Nigerians.

He said if Nigeria were to be a place where ac-countability and personal-ity count, the commissioner ought to have resigned his

position for deliberately passing wrong information, particularly about persons working under him,

Tanko noted that what that had given to him so far were cheques of his Febru-ary and March 2013

salaries which he said had been the major bone of contention between him and government and cumu-lated into his compulsory retirement.

It would be recalled that Tanko and other 2, 337 other teachers filed a court case against the state govern-ment for non-payment of their salaries.

Tanko however attrib-uted the commissioner’s false claim to either lack of knowledge of retirement benefits or as a political pro-paganda.

Our first two extracts today are from DAILY SUN of July 14: “Guards (Guards’) cruel fate”

“FG to create 390,000 jobs in cocoa produc-ing (cocoa-producing) states”

DAILY Sun Front Page Window Headline of July 7 goofed: “More accolades trail Obiano’s 100 days (days’) performance”

NATIONAL MIRROR front and inside pag-es of July 3 take over from DAILY Sun with this kindergarten goof: “…the first set of ca-sualities was recorded yesterday.” Spell-check: casualties

From the front page to Views: “…why did he not use his immense power against few (a few) individuals that want him out….”

“These nouveau riche (nouveaux riches) could channel their resources to insurgency cause if it suits them.”

“This is a welcomed (welcome) develop-ment….”

“Dumpsites takeover (take over) Lagos com-munities”

“Group raises alarm (the alarm) on drug abuse” Incredible! Most Nigerian journalists, particularly reporters and copy editors, do not read hence the recurrence of blunders in the media use of language. It is indeed a tragedy of gargantuan implications!

“Youth Ministry inaugurates anti corrup-tion (anti-corruption) unit”

Finally from the Back Page of NATIONAL MIRROR under review: “In October 2002, tens of heavily armed members of Islamist mili-tant separatist movement from Chechnya laid siege on (to) the crowded….”

DAILY SUN of June 30 posted advertorial and editorial faulty lines: “This is one game we have all been impatiently waiting for and the pride and honour of the nation will be upheld

as the Super Eagles knockout (knock out) the French.” (Full-page advertisement by Guinness Nigeria PLC)

Drink (and write) responsibly if you are 18 or above: “To leave your good will (goodwill) messages for the Super Ea-gles….”

Next is DAILY Sun EDITORIAL of the above edition which circulated four blun-ders: “Altogether, the apex bank said it has (had) observed that….”

“…as some BDCs (BDC) operators are reportedly using foreign exchange pur-chased from its window to fund unauthor-ized transactions.”

“For instance, the foreign reserves which early this year was $40bn have (had) fallen to $35bn last month….”

“Beyond this, there is strong indication (a strong indication) that the operation of BDCs has encouraged the dollarisa-tion (dollarization—no spelling variation in this particular etymological circum-stance) of the economy and money laun-dering.”

“We most sincerely thank God on (for) your aptly deserved recognition….”

“Fondly (Fond) regards from us all.” (Hanging sign-off sentence…!)

Corrigendum: A critical and eagle-eyed reader intervened last week, after some scholasticism, and professorially declared that the phrase ‘nooks and cran-nies’ exists. This columnist agrees with him based on the revelations of Oxford Learner’s Dictionary (International Stu-dent’s Edition) with Compass CD-ROM.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY of June 29 smuggled in ‘lexical contraband’: “Inhab-itants of Totowu Village, Igbesa in Ogun

State (another comma) may not be fisher-men but they cannot do without canoes as their daily activities revolve around it (them)….”

“Why Ogoni is at logger heads (logger-heads) with Shell”

“…he gives fresh insights on (into) the lingering crisis between Shell and its host community in Ogoni land.”

DAILY SUN of April 9 slipped several times: “NDLEA arrests food vendor over (for) cocaine in private part”

“…the minister said no fewer than 5.3 million youths are (were) jobless in the country, while 1.8 million graduates enter (entered) the labour market every year.” (EDITORIAL)

“…top shots spill the bean (beans)”DAILY SUN of April 10 fumbled so

many times: “Bravo, Our God-sent Gover-nor” (Full-page advertisement by Ezeagu LGA of Anambra State) For Barrister Sul-livan Iheanacho Chime at 55: our God-send governor

“Why Fulani, farmers clash may con-tinue—Northern Christian youths” Na-tional News: farmers’ clash

“FG okays 6 months (months’) impris-onment for smoking in public”

“Marketing Edge holds stakeholders

(stakeholders’) summit”“Atiku’s friend, Gado (another comma)

who told the heart rendering story said….” Crime Watch: heart-rending story

FEEDBACK‘Deworming’ (sometimes known as worm-

ing or drenching) is a medical/animal science terminology. It is a procedure for expelling worms from the intestines etcetera of humans and animals. Hence the familiar drugs known as ‘worm expellers’ or ‘dewormers’ which scientists call anti-helmintics. The Global Charity Evidence Action Initiative is well known for its ‘Deworm the World Program’. Merriam Webster Dictionary and online dic-tionaries like The Free Dictionary and portals like Google, Wikipedia, Ask.com, Dictionary.com and Grammarly.com approve the word. (Sunny Agbontaen/Benin City/08055162531), with additional information by this columnist

THE next five blunders from THE NATION ON SUNDAY of June 29 and Vanguard Allure of June 22 were casually detected by Mr. Kola Danisa (07068074257): “Oyegun paid a courte-sy on (to or called on) Gov. Oshiomhole”

“A majority of the youths having not at-tended primary schools….” Get it right: youths or the youth

“And for the medical school to be at per (par or on a par) with others….”

“When somebody is in a dire straight (in dire straits)….”

“Indeed, people seat (sit) in their comfort zone and blame….” (DAILY SUN OPINION Page, June 30)

MIKE Oluranti Ayodele (08034065353) rounds off this week’s contributions: “…on a daily basis to irk (eke) out a living for them-selves.” (THE NATION, Saturday, June 28, 2014, Page 2)

26 National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.netThursday, July 17, 2014

L-R: CEO, Stanbic IBTC Bank, Mr. Yinka Sanni; Director General, Securities and Exchange Commission, Arumah Oteh; Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Olusegun Aganga; Managing Director/CEO, Bank of Agriculture, Dr. Mohammed Santuraki, and Managing Director, Nigeria Commodity Exchange (NCX), Yusuf Abdurrahim, at the launch of Electronic Warehouse Receipt System in Abuja, recently.

Arik Air

FLIGHTSCHEDULE

Lag-Abj:07.15, 09.15, 10.20, 13.05, 15.20, 16.20, 16.50,18.45 (Mon-Fri/Sat/Sun).Abj-Lag: 07:15, 09.40, 10.20, 12.15, 15.15, 16.15, 17:10, (Mon-Fri/Sat/Sun); 12.15, 15.15, 16.15 (Sun) Lag-PH: 07:15, 11.40, 14.00, 16.10, 17.15 (Mon-Fri); 07.30, 11.40, 15.50 (Sat) 11.50, 3.50, 17.05 Sun) Abj-PH: 07.15, 11.20, 15.30 (Mon-Fri) 07.15, 16.00 (Sat) 13.10, 16.00 Sun)PH-Abj: 08.45, 12.50, 17.00 (Mon-Fri) 08.45, 17.30 (Sat) 14.40, 17.30 (Sun) Abv-Beni:08.00, 12.10 (Mon-Fri/Sat)08.56, 12.10 (Sun) Benin-Abj:09.55,13.30

Lagos- Abuja (Mon-Fri): 07.00, 08.50, 12.00, 16.30. Abuja- Lagos (Mon-Fri): 09.00, 14.00, 15.00, 18.30. Lagos-Yola (Mon-Fri): 8.50am. Yola-Lagos (Mon-Fri): 13.00. Lagos- PHC (Mon-Fri): 17.00. PHC-Lagos: 19.00. Abuja-Yola: 11.00. Yola-Abuja: 13.00. Lagos-Abuja (Sat): 08.00, 08.50.Abuja-Lagos (Sat): 10.00, 15.00. Lagos-PHC (Sat): 17.00. PHC-La-gos (Sat): 19.00. Lagos-Yola (Sat): 08.50. Yola-Lagos (Sat): 13.00

Lag-Abj: 06.50, 13.30, 16.30, 19.45 (Mon-Fri/Sat/Sun), 12.30 (Sun) 16.45 (Sat) Abj-Los: 07.30, 13.00, 19.00 (Mon-Fri/Sat, 10.30, 14.30, 19.30 (Sun, 18.30 Sat) Lag-Benin: 07.45, 11.00, 15.30 (Mon-Fri/Sat/Sun) 12.30 (Sun 15.30 (Sat)Ben-Lag: 09.15, 12.30, 17.00 (Mon-Fri/Sat/Sun) 17.00 (Sat) 14.00 (Sun)Lag-Owe: 7.45am, 2pm daily

Med-View Airline

Aero Contractors

27

KUNLE AZEEZ

A new report by global TMT, research leader for Deliotte, indicates tele-

coms operators are bound to shed part of their revenue as Average Revenue Per User, ARPU, value is predicted to maintain consistent decline of up to 5 per cent per month over the next five years.

Apart from decline in ARPU, the increase in Smartphone own-ership in Nigeria and penchant to use chat apps to communicate instead of voice is another fac-tor that will affect operators’ rev-enue.

According to a director at TMT research, Mr. Paul Lee, says the widespread adoption and us-age of instant messaging services ,MIM, from Over-the-Top ,OTT, providers like Whatsapp, Viber, Facebook, and BBM, is an indica-tion that communication no lon-ger occurs exclusively on voice, especially amongst the nation’s vibrant youth population.

This development is contrib-uting significantly to declining voice revenues. Average Revenue per User, ARPU, for voice services is expected to decline steeply by around $5 per month over the next five years.

This figure is down from $6-

KUNLE AZEEZ

The myriad of socio-eco-nomic and political chal-lenges being confronted

by Nigeria can be solved through the application digital approach-es made possible by Information and Communication Technology.

This was the position of the Nigerian Computer Society, um-brella body of all Information Technology professionals, inter-est groups and stakeholders in the country at a conference or-ganised on Tuesday to intimate the media on its forthcoming annual national conference next

week. According to the President,

NCS, Prof. David Adewumi, “Countries around the world are fast catching in on ICT or digital solutions to tackle their socio-po-litical ills and I want to believe Ni-geria should not be an exemption and that is one thing the Society is driving towards engendering digital revolution in the country.”

According to him, be it in poli-tics, security, economic system cutting across different sectors, ICT deployment has become a veritable tool for engendering ef-ficiency and increased productiv-ity in the country.

Speaking on details of the

NCS confab, Adewumi said the event scheduled to hold from July 23 and 24, at Nike Lake Resort Enugu, Enugu State with the con-ference theme being ‘Building a Knowledge-Based Economy in Nigeria: The Role of IT’ would be graced by high-profile dignitaries and erudite guest speakers.

He said: “The event would be graced by the Minister of Com-munication Technology, Mrsm Omobola Johnson as keynote speaker; Vice President, Econom-ic Community of West Africa, ECOWAS, Dr. Toga Mcintosh; and Director-General, National Information Technology Devel-opment Agency, Mr. Peter Jack.

“Others are Executive Vice Chairman, Nigerian Communi-cation Commission, Dr. Eugene Juwah and Vice Chancellor, Uni-versity of Nigeria Nsukka, Prof. Benjamin Ozumba and Governor Sullivan Chime of Enugu State.”

Also, Edewumi said critical issues that will be focused during the conference include: Broad-band Access foe all: Strategies and Tactics; Business Process Outsourcing; E-Government So-lutions: Improving Transparency and Public Sector Service Deliv-ery through Technology; Secu-rity Issues in a Knowledge-Based Economy, among others.

Telcos face declining revenue

NCS seeks digital approaches to solving Nigeria’s problems

28 33

Counterfeiting: Computer Village under regulatory

watch

Internet banking: Banks step up security measures

Nigeria’s retail market, promising haven for investors

BusinessNational Mirror

www.nationalmirroronline.netThursday, July 17, 2014

31

$7 in April 2013 and $10 in 2008. Top officials sources at MTBN and Etisalat Nigeria also confirm that currently ARPU is between $6-5.

However, operators say they are strategising to make up for the projected decline in voice ARPU by ensuring that they latch onto the provision various value added services, VAS, as they provide broadband services across the country.

“We are aggressively work-ing with the original equipment manufacturers, OEMs, to push smartphones into the hands of

Nigerians,” said Osondu Nwo-koro, Director, Regulatory Af-fairs, Airtel Nigeria.

With this, Nigeria’s N162 bil-lion, mobile Value Added Service market may be set for significant growth in the next few years, rid-ing on the back of rising smart-phone acquisition, the opening of new markets as well as sus-tained efforts by government and telecommunication companies ,telcos, to enhance broadband availability, industry insiders have said.

The National Broadband Council is pushing for increased

3G coverage to 50 percent of the Nigerian population by 2015.

The number of smartphone users is, however, expected to rise to more than 35 million in 2017 from 5.6 million at the end of 2012, according to research com-pany, Informa Telecoms & Media.

Africa’s mobile VAS market is expected to reach $11.5 billion by the end 2014.

“The mobile VAS sector will witness significant growth due to rising smartphone penetra-tion,” said Chief Executive Offi-cer, CEO, iConcept Limited, Ugo Okoye.

...deploy value added services to boost earnings

L-R: Director General, Nigeria Employers Consultative Association, Mr. O.A. Oshinowo; Treasurer, Mrs. Titilola Bakare; 2nd Vice President, Mr. Joe Hudson, and President, Trade Union Congress, Comrade Bobboi Bala Kaigama, during the 57th Annual General Meeting of NECA, in Lagos on Tuesday.

FG tasks BoI over SME loans

Internet banking: Banks step up security measures to protect customers

Climate change puts dev in Africa at risk

UDO ONYEKA

The Nigeria Deposit Insur-ance Corporation, NDIC, has signed a memoran-

dum of understanding, MoU with the Bank Guarantee Fund, BGF, of Poland to promote ca-pacity building and experience sharing in the supervision of fi-nance institutions and Deposit Insurance Law and Practice.

According to a statement by NDIC and signed by Head, Com-munication & Public Affairs, Mr. Hadi Birchi the choice of BGF Poland which was signed on June 24, 2014 in Warsaw, is based on the BGF accomplishment and recog-nition of the Polish stable finan-cial system.

NDIC said BGF of Poland is being led by the current Presi-dent of International Association of Deposit Insurance, IADI, Mr. Jerzy Pruski, who has wealth of experience in banking and depos-it insurance and has been an Ex-ecutive Council Member and one time Vice President of the IADI and he is also the current Eco-nomic Advisor to the President

of the Republic of Poland and representative of the President at the Polish Financial Supervision Authority.

“By signing the MOU with the BGF of Poland, the Corporation will benefit immensely towards enhancing its effective implemen-tation of the deposit insurance system in Nigeria.

“The International Association of Deposit Insurers ,IADI, a body set-up in 2002 with the vision of “sharing deposit insurance exper-tise with the world” encourages member countries to interact and create a platform for sharing in-formation through various chan-nels such as workshops, confer-ences, seminars, attachments and knowledge sharing”, the corpora-tion said.

Being a founding and execu-tive council member of IADI as well as a member of several IADI Standing Committees, the NDIC is in the forefront of championing the ideals of IADI by tapping from the experiences and expertise of other deposit insurance systems and sharing its own expertise and experiences with all the IADI members.

OLUFEMI ADEOSUNABUJA

The Federal Government has directed Bank of Industry to review the current loan

portfolio to small business opera-tors to achieve the needed rapid industrial development, stressing that the current 15 per cent loan-able funds set aside the sector was abysmally low and therefore unac-ceptable.

Minister of Trade, Industry and Investment, Mr. Olusegun Aganga made the directive while constitut-ing the board of the development bank in Abuja on Tuesday.

The Chairman of the 8-man board of the bank is Mr Abdulsa-

mad Rabiu.He said the need for the upward

review of the loan portfolio could not be over-emphasised in view of the multiplier effects of Small, Me-dium Enterprises, SMEs, on the nation’s industrial base, employ-ment generation’s drive and its potential contribution to the GDP

Aganga said, “The current ar-rangement where less than 15 per cent loanable funds is being set aside for MSMEs need is unac-ceptable and must be reviewed upwards having regard to the po-tential of the sector to create jobs and generate wealth

“The practice in China and In-donesia where significant portion of loanable funds in most cases

without collateral is extended to MSMEs with close to 97 percent repayment rate should encourage you to emulate and do even more for Nigeria’s MSMEs”

In line with administration’s quest to leverage on the nation’s new economic status to manifest on the people’s lives, the minister urged the board members to brace up for working, adding that his ministry track the performance of the board on a quarterly basis.

“I expect your board to forward to me quarterly progress reports showing performance in the quar-ter and year to date with details of analysis of loan book by gender, by sector, impact on National Indus-trial revolution Plan, NIRP and

UDO ONYEKA

Climate change threatens to undo decades of earnest effort to develop Africa

unless sufficient investment can be mobilized to spur sustainable development and make the conti-nent more resilient.

This was the message deliv-

ered at the 6th Africa Carbon Forum held July 2-4 to about 400 participants who gathered to share and learn the latest about market and financial opportu-nities associated with the in-ternational response to climate change.

In a statement by AfDB, the forum was opened by the Minis-ter of Environment and Natural Resources of Namibia, Uaheka

Herunga, who stressed that the question now is not whether carbon markets will continue, but how they can be improved, and whether new mechanisms should be developed.

According to him in the con-text of the 2015 Paris agreement, the Minister urged participants to “send a strong message to gov-ernments around the world that the carbon market can make an

important contribution to the objective of managing the chal-lenge posed by climate change.

“Climate change will force a steep ramping up of investment in Africa from both public and private sources to move the con-tinent along a clean, secure, low-carbon path to development,” said Chairman, Executive Board of the Clean Development Mech-anism, CDM, Hugh Sealy.

UDO ONYEKA

Following the rising trend of internet fraud, a grow-ing number of Deposit

Money Banks, DMBs),in Nige-ria have intensified security measures to protect their cus-tomers.

Thus, in a drive towards pro-tecting customers’ interest Fidel-ity Bank Plc has joined its peers by implementing a state of the art security solution which effectively protects the bank’s Verve and Deb-it MasterCard holders in all their online transactions on Nigerian websites.

Some of the leading Nigerian banks with Internet banking plat-forms include GTBank, Zenith bank, Diamond bank, Stanbic IBTC, United Bank for Africa, and FirstBank Nigeria.

In a statement from the bank, the Managing Director/ Chief Ex-ecutive Officer, Nnamdi Okonkwo, said the solution will help custom-ers accomplish transactions such as; airtime recharge, tickets, and general shopping, adding that

NDIC, Poland sign MoU on capacity building

National Enterprise Development Programme, NEDEP, job created and contribution to national de-velopment”.

In order to achieve the desired results, Aganga charged the board to formulate good policies, set target, monitor project and pro-grammes that would drive the op-erations of the bank and encour-age growth in priority sectors of the economy.

The minister urged the newly constituted board to work with other sector players with a view to achieving government’s vision in establishing the bank.

He also said,”The bank and its board are expected as partners, in the business sphere, to share in the common national vision towards achieving those objec-tives for which the bank was es-tablished. This should and must be done with every sense of duty to ensure striking a balance be-

tween the bank’s quest for higher dividends and its social obligation to the nation.”

Responding to questions, the new Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of BoI, Mr. Ra-sheed Olaoluwa, gave the assur-ance the management would work hand-in-hand with the board with a view to strengthening the bank’s operations for global competitive-ness

He added that the task of in-creasing the contribution of the manufacturing sector to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product cannot be undertaken by BoI alone.

For the bank to effectively de-liver on its mandate, Olaoluwa said the institution would have to work closely with other relevant stakeholders towards addressing the non-financial issues facing the manufacturing sector and Micro Small and Medium Enterprises, MSMEs.

customers would be sent a one-time-password on their registered mobile phones.

He explained that the solution will enable customers use the code to complete their transactions even if someone else had seen their card details. According to him; “that person will also need to have their phones to conclude the transactions”.

Okonkwo who spoke through the Divisional Head, Electronic Banking, Adedeji Olowe noted that the initiative is in addition to the security system that the bank already has put in place, which

constantly scans customers’ trans-actions for unusual activities.

“Also our Visa cards have iPIN which provides additional layer of security when doing internet transactions, “he said.

According to Olowe, “Fidel-ity Bank takes customers’ security banking transactions very seri-ous and we believe you should be cashless with ease while we take care of the small details”.Indus-try watchers believe that I nternet banking is still under-developed in Nigeria as most banks offer lim-ited banking services on their In-ternet banking platforms.

28 National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.netThursday, July 17, 2014Business News

Business News

Freight forwarders lament non-refund of N750m container deposits

Halliburton signs joint venture agreement with SPT

Technology will boost healthcare delivery, says Philips

FG fl ags off 2nd phase of 1,000 Girls ICT training programme

FRANCIS EZEM

Freight forwarders and ship-ping companies are cur-rently at daggers drawn

over the non refund of container deposits estimated at over N750 million.

It is a requirement especially in the shipment of containerised goods that importers or their accredited agents pay certain amount of money as deposit for the use of the container, which is expected to be refunded in full when the empty container is re-turned in good condition.

Chief Executive Officer of Ub-uru Maritime Limited, Mr. David Pius, one of the freight forward-ers, who spoke on this develop-ment, disclosed that shipping companies most of the time de-vice various means to ensure that the importers forfeit the deposits,

which has led to accumulation of well over N750 million unpaid container deposit refund.

Investigations showed that the importers are made to pay as much as N100,000 for 20-foot con-tainers while 40-foot containers at-tract N200,000 for containers that would not go beyond Lagos while those going outside Lagos attract twice this amounts since the rates are fixed at the whims and capric-es of the shipping companies.

According to him, some times even when the containers are returned in good condition, the shipping companies come up with frivolous claims designed to make the importer or his agent forfeit

the money.“Could you believe that the

shipping companies have always insisted that the importer must come in person to collect the re-fund, when in actual fact the de-posit is always paid by the agent or freight forwarder who repre-sented the importer the whole process of clearing the cargo”, he said.

He also raised concerns over the poor handling of some of the containers by the terminal op-erators because of the use of old and obsolete equipment, which leads to the damage containers and eventual destruction of both the cargo and the container, thus

UDEME AKPAN

Halliburton a major oil servicing firm with pres-ence in Nigeria and other

nations has signed an agreement with the SPT Energy Group Inc. affiliate, Petrotech (Xinjiang) En-gineering Co., Ltd., to establish a joint venture company focused on hydraulic fracturing and pro-duction enhancement services in Xinjiang, China.

The new company, Xinjiang HDTD Oilfield Services Co. Ltd., will provide fracture stimulation services, including design and analysis, data acquisition, and pumping and chemical services in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. This is Halliburton’s first joint venture for hydraulic frac-turing services in China.

The firm stated in a statement that an estimated 200 guests repre-senting the oil and gas industry in China, as well as a number of lo-cal government officials, attended the event. Halliburton Chairman, President and CEO Dave Lesar de-livered the keynote address.

It stated, “SPT Energy Group has provided oilfield technical

services in Xinjiang’s Tarim oil-field for 20 years, with a market share ranked first among private-ly-owned companies.

The firm stated that Seventy-five percent of the market share in high-end completion services in the field was achieved through SPT’s collaboration with Halli-burton over the past seven years, and the market for horizontal drilling and fracturing services is increasing rapidly.

By 2025 the total barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) in the Tarim oilfield is expected to be 50 million tons, while total BOE throughout Xinjiang province is expected to reach 100 million tons and ac-count for up to one-third of Chi-na’s BOE.

Lesar said, “Halliburton looks forward to strengthening our part-nership with SPT Energy Group by bringing a suite of integrated, comprehensive solutions to the challenge of developing China’s unconventional reservoirs.

Our basin-specific knowledge, industry-leading technologies and expert people have solved uncon-ventional challenges around the world, and we are excited about growing our presence in China.”

The Minister of Commu-nications Technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson,

yesterday restated the Federal Government’s determination to bridge the ICT skills gap between young Nigerian girls and their male counterparts by providing the girls training on IT skills and encouraging those that excel to pursue careers in ICT after their trainings.

The training programme , which is part of the Federal Gov-ernment’s GWIN programme aimed at empowering girls and women in Nigeria is in two phas-es. The first is fundamental ICT training for 1000 girls while the second phase is the selection and certification of the best 200 girls

on Huawei Certified Network As-sociates, HCNA, certification.

It was reliably gathered by Na-tional Mirror that under the first phase of the training, over 600 girls had been trained so far and that December 2014 deadline had been set to complete it.

Giving the assurance when she visited the Huawei West Africa Learning Service Centre Abuja for the formal kick off of the sec-ond phase for which 80 girls had been selected, the minister said that the intention of government was to use them as models whom others could learn from and build their careers in the ICT profes-sion.

She said: “For us in ICT, this particular programme is impor-tant, because when you look at the statistics there is a big gender divide in the world of ICT. And when you look at the way ICT is

relevant in all sectors and begin-ning to take over the way things are done in everything, that gen-der divide in ICT means that wom-en will be left further behind if we don’t encourage them to embrace ICTs.

“So what we have is that the Ministry of Communication Tech-nology has three programmes under the GWIN programme and this is one of them and it is called the 1,000 Girls Programme.

Here what we have done is to train 1000 girls from all over the country in ICT skills. We gave them three days of training in basic ICT skills and out of those 1000 girls, we are selecting the best 200 that showed the most promise with the expectation that they will then continue in the field of ICT, working with any of the IT com-panies so that they can start their careers in ICT.

L-R: General Manager, Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency, Mr. Adebola Shabi; Director, Supply Chain, Guinness Nigeria Plc, Mr. Cephas Afebuameh and Chairman, Promasidor Nigeria Limited, Mr. Keith Richards, during the 2014 Tree Planting Day organised by LASEPA in partnership with Guinness Nigeria Plc, in Lagos, recently.

warranting the shipping firms to confiscate the deposits.

“Several years after the port concession, many of the terminal operators still use old equipment and container handlers and this makes the container to fall while being handled and thus incurring costs on the deposit”

It was also gathered that the

recent staking of containers up to 10 containers high facilitated by the introduction of Rubber Tyred Gantry RTG, Cranes in or-der to maximise the capacity of the stacking areas also helps to destroy the containers since the weight of the nine containers rest on the one at the bottom, thus dis-figuring it.


A leading technology com-pany, Royal Philips, has said extensive applica-

tion of latest technological in-novation and solutions will ease difficulties associated with healthcare delivery in Nigeria. The company stated this during the unveiling of its new ultra-mobile ultrasound system VISIQ to the Nigerian market during the Lagos leg of its annual pan-Afri-can Cairo to Cape Town Roadshow. Currently in its fifth consecutive year, the roadshow enables Phil-ips to engage in dialogue with cus-tomers, governments, non-gov-ernmental organisations, NGOs

and media to ascertain a better understanding of each country’s unique requirements and to de-velop relevant technology to sup-port their needs on maternal and infant care.

The size of a tablet, the VISIQ is the first ultra-mobile system from Philips. It provides high qual-ity images for expectant mothers wherever care is taking place.

VISIQ exemplifies Philips com-mitment to more cost effective, simplified, patient-focused health care innovations with high clini-cal performance.

By launching this new system in Nigeria, Philips says it contin-ues to demonstrate its dedicated support to the Nigerian Ministry of Health.

KUNLE AZEEZ


BABALOLA YUSUF

The Lagos State Governor, Babaunde Fashola has said that the state has planted

over six million trees since the state government initiated the tree planting campaign in the state.

This was disclosed during the commemoration of the 2014 edi-tion of the annual tree planting day in Lagos.

The governor said the tree planting was part of the measure to reduce the impacts of global cli-mate change in the state.

The 2014 Tree Planting Day tagged “Life is better with tree” was jointly organized by Lagos State Government through the Lagos State Environmental Pro-tection Agency in partnership with Guinness Nigeria Limited.

He added that besides aesthet-

ic, health and environmental val-ues of tree planting, the campaign has generated over 75, 168 em-ployment opportunities for hor-ticulturists, gardeners, pruners, welder, tanker drivers, security personnel as well as water hawk-ers and sellers.

Fashola spoke through the General Manager, Lagos State En-vironmental Protection Agency, LASEPA, Mr. Adebola Shabi.

According to the Lagos State Governor,” apart from aesthetic value of the trees, the health and environmental benefits are also innumerable. This exercise has also generated over 75,168 em-ployment opportunities for hor-ticulturists, pruners, gardeners, welders, tanker drivers, security personnel, down to the water boy,

all of who help to keep the trees alive”.

In his remarks, Managing Di-rector and Chief Executive Of-ficer, Guinness Nigeria Plc, Mr. Seni Adetu who was represented by Director, Supply Chain, Guin-ness Nigeria Plc, Mr. Cephas Afe-buameh, noted that Guinness Ni-geria Plc was honoured to partner the Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency, LASEPA, on environmental preservation and restoration through this year’s in-dustrial tree planting exercise.

Adetu said that “Guinness Ni-geria Plc is committed to minimis-ing environmental impact across the full range of our operations, and we are working to extend en-vironmental standards further through our supply chain.”

L-R: President/CEO Chartered Institutes of Bankers of Nigeria Otunba (Mrs.) Debola Osigbogun and Herbert Wigwe, Group Managing Director, Access Bank Plc during the latter’s courtesy visit to the bank recently.

Nigeria others worried as US embarks on aggressive explorationUDEME AKPAN

The United States of Amer-ica which increased oil supply has taken up the

market share of Nigeria and other members of the Organ-isation of Petroleum Exporting Countries; OPEC has embarked on an aggressive exploration in order to further pump more oil to the global oil market.

Baker Hughes Incorporated which has been monitoring de-velopments stated in latest report that the U.S. onshore well count for the second quarter 2014 was 9,394 wells, up 428 wells or 5% compared to the first quarter 2014. Compared to the second quarter 2013, the well count was up 383 wells or 4per cent.

It stated, “Compared to the first quarter 2014, the well count in-creased most notably in the Perm-ian basin (up 265 wells or 11%), Marcellus (up 78 wells or 16%), and

Granite Wash (up 31 wells or 23%) basins. This increase was slightly offset by decreases predominately in the Barnett (down 57 wells or 18%) and Cana Woodford (down 23 wells or 26%).

The report stated that the aver-age US onshore rig count for the second quarter 2014 was 1,796 rigs, up 72 rigs or 4per cent from the first quarter 2014 and up 87 rigs or 5per cent from the second quarter 2013.

It stated that on average, the US onshore rig fleet produced 5.23 new wells during the quarter, which represents a slight improvement in drilling efficiencies compared to the same quarter in 2013.

It stated, “The Baker Hughes Well Count is a natural extension of the Baker Hughes Rig Count, which has provided key activity data for more than 70 years. The index provides U.S. onshore well count data to the oil and gas indus-try.

The report has it that as new

technologies and methodologies are introduced to the market, there is a continual evolution of drilling efficiencies.

It stated, “The Baker Hughes Well Count provides a greater un-derstanding of key market forces, capturing the number of wells that were spud in each major U.S. basin. When combined with the Baker Hughes Rig Count, drilling efficiencies can be tracked by ba-sin.

The July, 2014 market report of OPEC stated that Global oil de-mand growth in 2014 is forecast at 1.13 mb/d, broadly unchanged from the previous report.

It stated that the World oil de-mand in 2015 is anticipated to in-crease at a faster pace of 1.21 mb/d. OECD demand is expected to see positive growth for the first time since 2010, increasing around 40 tb/d, while non-OECD consump-tion is expected to provide the bulk of oil demand growth with 1.18 mb/d.

Lagos plants 6 million trees to combat climate change

The rate of UK inflation rose sharply in June, pushed up by higher clothing,

footwear, food and non-alcoholic drinks prices, official figures show.

The Consumer Prices Index rose to 1.9 per cent, up from 1.5 per cent in May, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Women’s clothing prices con-tributed heavily to the rise.

Air fares and furniture prices also pushed the inflation rate up, the ONS said.

The rate is now close to the Bank of England’s 2 per cent tar-get. It has remained below the tar-get for seven consecutive months.

The pound jumped against the dollar following the inflation fig-ures, climbing as high as $1.7144,

around three quarters of a cent higher on the day.

Inflation as measured by the Retail Prices Index (RPI), which includes housing costs, rose to 2.6 per cent, up from 2.4 per cent in May.

Separately, figures from the ONS showed that annual house price inflation hit 10.5% in May.

Food and non-alcoholic drinks prices rose overall, with vegeta-bles, bread and chocolate among the foodstuffs going up in price.

Economists said that the price rises may strengthen the case for a rise in UK interest rates, which have been held at a record low of 0.5%, especially against a back-drop of rising house prices and falling unemployment.

Subscribers to the services of leading pay-TV provider, MultiChoice, have been as-

sured of continuous access to pre-mium content. In addition, sub-scribers will also benefit from the advances in broadcast technology that MultiChoice is always striv-ing to adopt to boost its services.

These assurances were made at the Ibadan leg of MultiChoice Customer fora, which was held at the SDM House, Secretariat area of the city.

Public Relations Manager, DStv, Caroline Oghuma, while welcoming customers to the fo-rum, stated that the objective of the forum is to thank subscribers for their loyalty and listen to their suggestions, advice and com-plaints, which provide construc-tive feedback necessary for the company’s effective operation. She added that MultiChoice is an

innovation-driven organisation that continues to add value to its subscribers.

“This forum is equally de-signed to bring customers closer to the DStv brand in order for our esteemed subscribers to know and meet some of the people be-hind their pay-TV of choice,” she said, adding that DStv will not relent in its focus on offering pre-mium content and service.

Hundreds of DStv subscrib-ers at the forum commended MultiChoice for the initiative, urging the company to ensure sustenance of such engagement, which they said portrays DStv as a brand that engages its custom-ers positively.

Chief Monitoring Officer, Na-tional Broadcasting Commission, NBC, Mrs. Pauline Ehusani co-mended MultiChoice for the cus-tomer forum initiative.

MultiChoice promises more premium content

UK Infl ation in sharp rise to 1.9% in June

Ebonyi State re-strategies to boost rice production ALIUNA GODWINEBONYI

Ebonyi state government has yesterday reiterated its readiness to boost rice

production through with the collaboration of West African Agricultural Production Pro-gramme ,WAAPP, as to bring to an end lack of food in the state.

Speaking with our correspon-dent in Abakaliki, the Permanent Secretary of the State Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resourc-es, Chief Steve Orogwu, said that the anchor point of the collabora-tion is the System of Rice Intensi-fication, SIR.

According to him, “This aims at ensuring adequate production of rice in the state to meet both in-

ternal and external needs. Orog-wu expressed that the state has taken consignment of about 200 metric tonnes of improved rice seedlings from the project which are being distributed to rice farm-ers free of charge.

“The seedlings are disease resistant, high yielding and can adapt to adverse weather condi-tions, as these measures are aimed at ensuring improved production of rice to agitate for the banning of rice importation by the federal government.

He noted that when rice impor-tation is hopefully banned in 2015, Ebonyi is expected as a leading rice producer in the country to effectively take up the challenge of meeting the rice needs of the country.

30 National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.netThursday, July 17, 2014Business News

The preponderance of shady activi-ties of traders who bring all sorts of sub-standard mobile devices into

Nigeria with key distribution point being the Ikeja Computer Village is increasingly attracting the attention of the regulatory authorities which are currently putting activities in the market under close watch.

On many occasions, the Nigerian Com-munications Commission has raised en-forcement team to come to the market in search of phones being sold in the market without type-approval by the NCC.

In Nigeria, before any brand of phone can be sold in the country’s mobile market, units of the device models must be made available to the Commission to examine if they meet necessary technical standards and health regulations, an exercise most phone manufacturers often ignored.

Also, the Standard Organisation of Ni-geria, SON, also focuses its own activities on whether the devices are not subs-stan-dard devices and if they have been dully registered with it bringing them into the market for sales.

In one of such efforts to rid the market and country at large of substandard prod-ucts, especially telephone handsets and accessories, SON last week stormed and smashed a syndicate at the popular Com-puter Village in Ikeja, Lagos, confiscating over worth of fake telephone handsets. The regulatory orgainsations also put a number of shops in the market under lock.

Speaking after the raid on Saturday, the Head of Intelligence and Compliance Di-rectorate, SON, Mr. Bede Obayi, said the exercise was diligently carried out follow-ing its surveillance team reports, which monitor products displayed for sale in all the markets across the country.

Obayi explained that a handset dealer at Otigba Road, Computer Village market, Lagos, Trinity Technologies and Commu-nication Limited came to SON and reg-istered one H-Mobile phone in his name only for SON to discover thereafter that the company had embarked on the importa-tion of different brands of telephone hand-sets other than the H-Mobile registered by SON.

According to him, the company also

Counterfeiting: Computer Village under regulatory watchA surprise raid staged by the Standard Orgainsations of Nigeria on traders of substandard/counterfeit IT products at the popular Computer Village market at the heart of Ikeja last week has left commercial activities in the IT cluster in limbo, even as the regulatory body says it is keeping activities in the market under close watch. KUNLE AZEEZ reports.

Ikeja Computer Village market

Federal and state authorities have oFten carried out raids all aimed at

ensuring that the market, whose value has been put at over $2.5 billion is rid oF substandard products that Fail to meet

necessary regulatory conditions, even as the market is being put under increased

regulatory watch

imported large quantity of unbranded handsets into the country and was busy labeling them with popular brands in the market thereby deceiving the unsuspect-ing innocent buyers.

The managing director of the company who apparently got wind of SON’s pres-ence in his shop was said to have taken to his heels but two of his staff were appre-hended and handed over to the police.

However, the raid nearly turned into a full-blown face-off between the SON en-forcement officials and some traders in the market, who thought the exercise would be a market-wide one.

Lamenting this, Obayi, however, ex-pressed shock at the attitude of the market leaders, who, he alleged, instigated their boys to fight SON officials and the police with dangerous weapons during which some of its vehicles were destroyed.

‘‘Our operation in the market was very smooth as our target was only targeted at Trinity Technologies and Communication Limited shop and we requested other trad-ers who converged around us to go about their normal businesses.

“Nobody was molested or insulted by our men nor the police as we consulted with the police in charge of the market and they provided us with a parking space for our vehicles.

“Even their market leaders were also in-formed about our operation in the market as SON and market associations in major markets across the country have been col-laborating to rid markets of fake and sub-standard goods. So, if Lagos Computer Vil-lage Market Association leaders are now colluding with dealers of fake and sub-

also averred that the operation was not tar-geted at the market but at some specific businesses, which, he said, were now un-der regulatory locks.

“As far as we are concerned, the opera-tion is not targeted at the market. It was focus on some businesses. The SON people went to some plazas and discovered some discrepancies in their dealings. Some of their products were seized.

“What actually led to wanton destruc-tion of properties was that some people thought it was Techno, a particular phone brand alleged to have instigated the raid, which were yet to unravel.”

An official source at Techno, however, said that the company did not instigate the latest SON raid of the market, saying as a regulator, it is not unexpected that routine market raid is carried out as part of its mandate to ensure standard in the market place.

Meanwhile, CAPDAN has challenged the regulators, namely the SON and the Ni-geria Customs Service, NCS, for failing in their duty to do proper checks on substan-dard products before gaining entry into the market.

According to him, there was no way such products will get to the market without the knowledge of the regulators, including SON, and the Nigeria Custom Service.

He said, “I challenge them to check their system, there are bad eggs among them. They cannot totally absolve themselves of any complicity in this case. Their sys-tem should be overhauled. They should examine products coming into the coun-try thoroughly. Most of these products come in through the ports, what is Nigeria Customs doing? These are questions that require answers. As much as we want the market sanitized, we want things done ac-curately from their end too,” Oboro stated.

Meanwhile, the Deputy Superintendent of Police, in charge of the Police Post at Computer Village, Mr. Joseph Nku said the Lagos State Commissioner of Police has ordered investigation into the matter, stressing that it is until the investigation is completed that is when other things will follow.

Computer Village, located in the heart of Ikeja, Lagos, is daily a beehive of com-mercial activities where all sorts of IT products are sold.

However, the legitimate trading activi-ties in the market has been infiltrated with the influx of substandard products leaving tales of disappointments and losses on the lips of victims of street traders, who often orchestrated most of the deceit on their un-suspecting customers.

Unscrupulous elements, most of whom are street traders, lure unsuspecting cus-tomers into buying fake products as genu-ine ones, since most buyers in Nigeria of-ten place price consideration above quality factor.

Federal and states authorities have often carried out raids all aimed at ensuring that the market, whose value has been put at over $2.5 billion is rid of substandard prod-ucts that fail to meet necessary regulatory conditions, even as the market is benig put under increased close regulatory watch.

standard goods in their market, that will be the next thing SON management has to decide on how to handle,” he lamented.

The SON Head of Intelligence and Com-pliance further said that the Director Gen-eral of the Organisation had before now given all the importers five months grace to register their products with the agency.

‘‘Those who have refused to take advan-tage of this grace period must be ready to face the full wrath of the law but those companies that have keyed in to the e-prod-uct regime of the organisation must be protected by law.

“SON does not derive pleasure in seiz-ing and destroying goods but rather to protect and guide innocent consumers not to fall prey to the antics of unscrupulous business men whose stock in trade is reap their customers off,” he said.

Meanwhile, the quality control orgain-sations has on Monday issued a seven-day ultimatum to authorities of the market to rid the market of sub-standard phones or get the market shut.

Meanwhile, the Computers and Allied Products Dealers Association of Nigeria, CAPDAN, the umbrella body of traders in the market, has thrown its weight behind last weekend’s raid of the market.

When contacted, CAPDAN President, Mr. Tunji Balogun, said “When people do illegal things; they should be made to face the music.”

In the same vein, the Secretary General of CAPDAN, Mr. John Oboro, also said that the action should not be seen as anti-peo-ple, stressing that there is need for checks and balances at times.

Oboro, who said the market is now calm,

31National Mirrorwww.nationalmirroronline.netThursday, July 17, 2014

Info Tech

32 National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.netThursday, July 17, 2014

Global electronics devices manufacturer, LG Elec-tronics continues to lead

innovation in the development of smart devices that align the life-style of people.

Technology products of vari-ous brands are today at the epi-center of human living and in-creasingly they have become a way of life and LG is ahead in this technological drive.

LG smart products now range from mobile devices, home and office electronic appliances and to other smart technological de-vices, all of which continue to change the way people live, com-municate, and interact.

One product that does help bring great expectations into a simpler focus however is LG’s HomeChat interface.

Allowing users to give com-mands to their machines via their smartphones, HomeChat also un-locks the ability to hold two-way conversations with appliances by using the popular LINE messag-ing app to receive recommenda-tions and feedback from devices as per their current status.

According to LG, “The prem-ise of home appliances have remained virtually unchanged since entering our everyday lives decades ago: Make the home sim-pler.”

Previously this has seen a boom in the size, shape and over-

all selection of hardware items which are geared at easing conve-nience and saving time across a host of household tasks.

With pick-up-and-go appli-ances now ubiquitous, the latest innovation battleground has been to give these items a brain.

The resulting trend of the ‘In-ternet of Things’ is to ‘digitally empower’ previously inanimate products such as fridges, ovens and dishwashers with the abil-ity to be smart and interact with their owners.

Also, the wave of simplicity focused companies is not just con-fined to technology.

Moreover, standing at the fore-front of cutting-edge technology, the Smart TV is one of the last devices that even tech-savvy con-sumers have trouble fully exploit-ing.

While there are many Smart TVs on the market, LG’s built in webOS is designed to streamline the process and bring the full power of the Smart TV to the con-sumer.

Tech BoxLG simplifies living with smart devices

Kunle Azeez

The Federal Government has said the nation’s tele-coms sector has the po-

tential to create over 20 million direct and indirect jobs for the country in the next years.

This was disclosed by the Min-istry of Communication Tech-nology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson in an interview in Lagos.

According to Johnson, cur-rently, the sector contributes close to 2.5 million jobs in Nige-ria with close to 9 per cent con-tribution to the national Gross Domestic Product, GDP.

She said the sector, which is growing at an annual growth rate of 30per cent can help address the issue of underlayment in Ni-geria as one of the yardsticks to determine Nigeria’s ability to at-tain its Vision 20:2020.

“Our objective is to drive vari-

ous initiatives aimed at driving local content development in Nigeria with a view to ensuring that the sector is able to one of the critical challenge of youth unemployment in the country. The sector’s job creation is ex-pected to increase to about 20 million in the next few years,” she said.

The minister said the broad-band revolution being driven by the Federal Government would be an accelerator to achieving such target.

Data released the National Bu-reau of Statistics, NBS, indicates that no fewer than 5.3 million youths are jobless in the country, while 1.8 million graduates enter the labour market every year.

However, this figure is be-lieved to be a conservative esti-mate of the actual number of unemployed youths in the coun-try, going by previous statistics released by NBS, which put the

number of jobless Nigerians at 20.3 million.

While stating measures be-ing adopted by the ministry to increase the role of telecoms in addressing unemployment rate, Johnson said her ministry had recently created guideline for increasing local participation of Nigerians and Nigerian compa-nies in the handling of IT proj-ects in the industry.

“We are also creating differ-ent initiatives aimed at develop-ing starts-up who will grow their businesses to a level where they can also begin to employ Nigeri-ans,” she said.

Also, the minister said the application of IT tools to drive processes and operations in all other sectors of the economy is another way through which “we believe telecoms industry would be of assistance to addressing the nation’s unemployment de-bacle.”

FG sees more job creation potential in telecoms sector

Kunle Azeez

Telecoms operators in Nige-ria have listed fresh threats hindering their ability to

run their business operations to provide satisfactory service deliv-ery to subscribers in some loca-tions in the country.

They identified ‘incriminate shutdown of their infrastructures and threats to their operations by all manners of government authorities in some parts of the country as lingering obstacle to their efforts at delivering im-proved quality services.

The development, the operators said, is creating serious challeng-es which are making it increas-ingly difficult for them to provide satisfactory services to their cus-tomers in some locations, in spite of their continuous investment in network expansion.

According to the operators, who spoke at the first re-packaged

Telcos decry threats to operations

L-R: Managing Director, Philips West Africa Hub, Mr. Abdallah H. Khamis; Chief Executive Officer, Philips Africa, Mr. JJ Van Dongen; Vice President and General Manager Philips Health Care Africa, Mr. Peter van de Ven and Marketing Director, Africa, Ms Sharon Karuga, unveiling Philips’ new ultra-mobile ultrasound system VISIQ to the Nigerian market in Lagos recently.

Telecoms Consumer Parliament held in Lagos, the greatest threat zones for most telecoms operators in recent times have been Enugu and Abuja.

“In Enugu, a lot of the infra-structures of three big operators have been shut down. In Abuja, the development work going on is making it difficult for the op-erators to lay fibre optic cables while in crisis-ridden states such as Borno State and others in the South-Eastern part of the country, the states of insecurity there, is discouraging maintenance work,” says Corporate Services Execu-tive, MTN Nigeria, Mr. wale Good-luck.

Goodluck, who spoke at a re-cent industry event in Lagos, said telecoms operators were working daily to better their quality of ser-vice to their growing subscribers.

“No telecom operator wants to deliver bad service but circum-stances that we face in some loca-tions have made this inevitable. No operator wants to be sanc-

tioned by the regulator for not sat-isfying its customers, who are the ones generate for the operator its revenue.

“Poor service delivery also results in revenue losses to the operators. So, as much as we struggle to defy all the challenges confronting service rollout, there are environmental and regulatory constraints that continue to stare us in the face,” Goodluck says.

Providing another factor for the erratic service delivery on some of the networks, Goodluck cited the negative impact rain-storm as another major factor in-ducing poor services.

Goodluck said “Rain and wind-storm are affecting our opera-tions, limiting our network expan-sion.”

The Director, Regulatory Af-fairs, Etisalat, Ibrahim Dikko cor-roborated Goodluck`s claim, say-ing that the weather has become a major factor, affecting operators performance to deliver improve telecoms service.

For many months now, the media has been predict-ing the imminent demise

of Blackberry, whose phone-cum-messenger became one of the most iconic communication products of this century.

But Blackberry is refusing to die. Last year, it moved beyond the classic Blackberry keyboard to launch a touch phone, the Z10. It followed this with the Z30, an-other touch phone but costing over twice as much and, today, it is the Z3.

The new Blackberry Z3, which is being launched in Ni-geria today (Thursday) is best described as a premium product based on its features yet meant for the masses.

This is true because when the BlackBerry Z10 and Black-berry Q10 were launched in Ni-geria last year, interest was red hot, but the exorbitant price tag killed interest as they went for as high as over N100, 000 at launch, making them unaffordable for average Nigerian youths and en-trepreneurs with penchant for smartphone.

Indeed, BlackBerry was hardly a brand with the appeal of Apple so pricing the Z10 close

to Apple’s top-of-the-line iPhone was suicidal.

Now Blackberry is back with the Z3, which, National Mirror found, is likely to be priced be-low N30,000 but with much bet-ter specs. As such, the Z3 now squarely competes with what should have been its far more premium predecessor – the Z10 – thanks to fairly close price tags.

Built by Foxconn and jointly designed by BlackBerry and Foxconn, with the Taiwanese ODM taking up supply chain risks, the BlackBerry Z3 may fall in the mid-range for Nige-rian smartphone buyers but for BlackBerry, it’s at the low end of its BlackBerry 10 line of smart-phones.

Blackberry Z3: A device for the masses

LG HomeChat

Info Tech

Nigeria’s retail market, promising haven for investors

With the retail trade sector in Ni-geria attracting over N205.4bn worth of investment in the last

two years, according to the Minister of In-dustry, Trade and Investment, Olusegun Aganga, and contributing about 16 per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Products, GDP, experts are saying Nigeria’s retail market remains an untapped territory for investors.

Although Nigeria’s GDP per capita is about $1,443, analysts believe that with a projected $40bn growth opportunity in food and consumer goods before 2020, the highest in any African nation formal retail chains have a significant opportunity to capture real growth as a result of the emerging middle class, a new generation of Nigerian consumers with sophisticated taste.

In the same vein, speaking on retail po-tential in Nigeria recently, Regional Direc-tor of Howe’s Consulting Group and Direc-tor of Business School Netherlands, Mr. Lere Baale, in a paper he presented recently titled: ‘Nigeria- Gold Mine of Opportuni-ties’, notes that the retail space in Nigeria, which is gradually being transformed with the rise of modern shopping outlets that are targeting the emerging middle class, has significant opportunity for growth. He said the increasing proliferation of shop-ping malls is also matching the increasing sophistication of consumers.

A report by Mckinsey & Company in December 2013 noted that “although 90 per cent of Nigerians have limited discre-tionary income, there is an important and growing opportunity within a subset of the population. Given the country’s large popu-lation (174 million and 37 million house-holds), the portion of people defined as middle and upper class represent a sizeable pool of potential consumers. A significant 11 to18 per cent of urban households – num-bering over two million – have purchasing power and annual incomes over $10,000, which puts them in the modest affluent class. “The report noted further that half of the country’s growth in wealth will come from these households, and businesses which take this segment of the population into consideration have great prospects.

It is not surprising therefore, that some multinational retail firms are latching in on this seemingly fertile ground of oppor-tunity in retail trade sector and are already

Thursday, July 17, 2014 National Mirrorwww.nationalmirroronline.net 33

Brands & Marketing

One thing market analysts have agreed is that in spite Of the

presumably harsh ecOnOmic

envirOnment, these shOps

are recOrding tremendOus

patrOnage amOng nigerians

making their foot prints obvious. They are not only coming but embarking on aggres-sive expansion in their numbers as retail stores keep springing up urban areas in the country.

For example, Shoprite, which opened shop in Nigeria in 2004, is quickly staking out its claim as one of the retail champions in Nigeria and have already opened up to ten shops across the country.

The retail giant recently opened one of the biggest outlet in Ibadan.

Shoprite CEO Whitey Basson while ad-dressing the media last year said: “Nigeria can handle 600 to 800 stores if you look at the size of the cities and the penetration of supermarkets; and it can happen quickly”.

Others, such Cash ‘N’ Carry, Park N Shop are playing prominent role in shaping the shopping lifestyle of people. Adide, a Leba-nese chain store with stores in major cities across the country is also staking claim in the retail stores segment of the Nigerian economy.

In the apparel sector, the South African Pepkor group has ensured that no major street, particularly in major cities, is left without the presence of PEP Store. Though PEP’s target market is the mass lower to middle income end, its stores in Nigeria is rapidly gaining ground as families relish the affordability of the premium brand clothes. In the last five years, South African retailers have opened almost 200 stores in Nigeria and that pace keeps increasing.

Mr. Price, Woolworth, Hugo Boss have also made significant inroad into the Ni-geria market, but these have remained up-scale in their target market.

One thing market analysts have agreed is that in spite of the presumably harsh economic environment, these shops are recording tremendous patronage among Nigerians.

Speaking to National Mirror on the booming retail market in Nigeria, a staff of Mr. Price at the Ikeja Shopping Mall, who

Nigerians of modern retail shops, he at-tributed it largely the increased purchasing power of the average Nigerian as a result of economic growth in recent years, particu-larly in areas such as banking and telecom-munications – a development which has resulted in the growth of the middle class, and bringing some level of sophistication to match.

A regular shopper at The Palms Shop-ping Mall, Ngozi Opara said convenience and comfort are responsible for her regular vists to the mall.

According to her, in addition to grocer-ies, retailers also sell items such as clothes and footwear, consumer electronics and ap-pliances, books, toys, personal and home care products, as well as household furni-ture and furnishings.

“With these in one place, tell me who will not want to walk in and pick one items or the other instead going where you will be pushed here and there both in price bar-gain and market women”, she explained

No doubt government efforts in recent years have helped to further encourage an environment conducive for retailing busi-ness. According to Aganga, while speak-ing at a forum during the inauguration of Retailers Council of Nigeria, RCN, late last year, assured that the Federal Government would address the challenges facing the sec-tor, which include the need to promote do-mestic sourcing of goods.

“Globally retail trade accounts for 27 per cent of the world’s GDP, which means we have about $19 trillion of retail sales each year,” the minister said.

He said the retail sector also employs about 17 per cent of the global workforce, which is about 800 million people. In the United States alone, one in every 10 people works in the retail sector. If retail is the sec-tor to grow, then Nigeria is the market to be. There is simply no better retail market right now than the Nigerian market,” he added.

The rising population of upwardly mobile middle class, increasingly sophisticated consumer tastes and renewed focus on consumer lending by banks are driving retail growth. DAVID AUDU reports.

did not want his name mentioned before the expansion of international retailers into Nigeria, small neighbourhood stores had an effect on consumers, and now these new global stores have adapted to consumer tastes and are changing the profile of the products they offer as well as the layout and design of their stores. He said before the economic downturn in the 80s, urban peo-ple were used to departmental stores such as Leventis of old, and now a lot of people have found convenient shopping in these modern stores.

He explained further that modern shop-ping malls in Nigeria are what in other ad-vanced countries are called discount shops, where goods are expected to be relatively cheap. But here in Nigeria, probably be-cause of the locations of these shops, and the expensive shelf space, items displayed there seem to be expensive. He however said that prices of some items in the shops are comparable to any other anywhere.

On the increasing level of patronage of

Modern shopping mall in Lagos

34 Thursday, July 17, 2014 National Mirrorwww.nationalmirroronline.netBrands & Marketing

Following the successful launch of Season 1 of Coke Studio Africa last year, the

non-alcoholic beverage giant Co-ca-Cola Nigeria has released the names of the performing artistes that will feature in Coke Studio Africa Season 2 which will air in September. Eight Nigerian music stars – Olamide, Omawumi, Bur-na Boy, Flavour, Phyno, Iyanya, Chidinma and Sheyi Shay – will feature on the show for the first time, together with Waje from the last season, they will be join-ing an equally exciting line up of stars from across Africa.

According to Olufem iAshipa, Brand Manager, Colas for Coca-Cola Nigeria, the selection of these artistes for the 2014 edi-tion was spurred by consumers’ request. “We decided to feature these artistes because they are currently the rave of the moment in the Nigerian entertainment in-dustry.”

Coke Studio Season 2 will showcase collaborations by over 13leading music artistes from Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania as well as Mozambique which has just joined the bandwagon – to create a modern and authentic African sound through intercultural mu-sical fusion.

Coke Studio Africa is an excit-ing live musical collaboration that brings together 24 artistes from Sub-Saharan Africa. Season 1 of Coke Studio featured a line-up of African artistes including legendary King Sunny Ade, MI, Waje, Jimmy Jatt and Bez from Nigeria; Salif Keita from Mali; Octopizzo, Miss Karun and Just a Band from Kenya; Hip Hop Pant-sula and Tumi from South Africa; Boddhi Satva from the Central African Republic; Diamond Plat-inumz, Lady Jaydee and the Cul-ture Music Club from Tanzania; Joel Sebunjo, Qwela and Lillian Mbabazi from Uganda.

Nigeria’s foremost beer brand, Star Lager in partnership with cre-

ators of global singing show, The Voice, Talpa International B.V. have announced Uti Nwa-chuwu as host for its new and exciting TV game show ‘Star The Winner Is’.

The unusual show which saw thousands of hopefuls audition in 5 cities in Nigeria for a chance to step on the big stage is now set to deliver a nail-biting and excit-ing 3months as it will infuse the performance of a singing com-petition show and the strategy of a game show into a thrilling series.

To be hosted by Big Brother Africa All Stars Winner, Actor and Model and TV show host Uti Nwachukwu, each episode

will feature six acts that will go head-to-head each week and sing with everything they have for a shot at the Ten Million Naira and brand new car grand prize.

A recording artist himself, Uti Nwachukwu continues to connect with reality TV lovers on an unprecedented scale and has proven himself a capable en-tertainer and TV host, combin-ing his trademark charm and an unforced affability.

Uti is a versatile, seasoned host and we are thrilled to be working with him,” said Tokun-boAdodo, Marketing Manager Star, Goldberg and Export. “With Uti at the helm on air introducing surprising and competitive twists, viewers are sure to be immersed and enter-tained’’. Adds Adodo.

Flavour, Iyanya, others perform in Coke Studio Season II

Uti Nwachukwu to host Star the Winner is TV music game show

The 2014 edition Legend Extra Stout National Consumer Promo has of-

ficially ended with the return of the last set of lucky consumers from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. This was in fulfilment of the brand’s promise to take lucky consumers to shop for gift items worth N1 million in one of the biggest shopping malls in Dubai.

They are Nenga kZunji, a Po-lice Corporal, Samuel Ogbonna Chidera, an auto mechanic, Ab-dulkareem Dantata, a plumber and Peter Dike, a trader. Others are Oriladewo Adeleke Adeju-won, a ticketing agent, Okafor Ugochukwu, a student, Chikezie Bethel Nwankwo and Prince Pe-ter Onyeali, both businessmen.

Zunji who described the ex-perience as fantastic said: “The

Legend Real Deal promo is real. This is my first time of travel-ling in a plane and also out of Nigeria. When I received the call that I had won, I thought it was a fraud. It was when they called me the second time that I believed that this was real. There was jubilation in the barracks on the day I was departing. My fel-low policemen prayed for me.”

Chidera, an auto mechanic based in Aba, would have been satisfied with winning airtime. When he sent the code inscribed under his crown cork to the des-ignated short code, he expected a text message crediting his phone with N200. Instead, he received a phone call congratulating him on his emergence as one of the lucky consumers who would em-bark on an all-expense paid trip to Dubai.

Policeman, plumber, others, win Legend’s Dubai promo

DaviD auDu

Two of Nigeria’s brightest young entrepreneurs have had a business master class

from Sir Richard Branson, after winning a competition by British Council and Virgin Atlantic in Partnership with Zenith Bank.

EseogheneIse Odiete and Na-sir Abdulqadir Yammama won the Enterprise Challenge online competition for Nigerians entre-preneurs aged 18-35 and living in Nigeria or studying in the UK. The Apprentice-style competition took place over three rounds, dur-ing which candidates wrote an essay on their entrepreneurial journeys, created a video pitch

Two young Nigerians receive lessons on entrepreneurship

for their businesses or business plans, and had their ideas scruti-nised by a panel of experts in Ni-geria and the UK.

The mentoring session between the two winners of the competi-tion and Sir Richard Branson took place on the 1st of July in London, and session was designed so that the winners could ask about and learn from the magnate’s life and business experiences.

According to the organisers, at

the end of the meeting it turned out to be more than a mentor-ing session, it was a master class which everyone benefitted from.

Sir Richard Branson, Founder and Chairman Virgin Group, said Virgin Atlantic is delighted

to have supported the Enterprise Challenge program dedicated to supporting young Nigerian entre-preneurs and fostering new ideas.

He congratulated the winners, saying “innovation has been an important part of Virgin’s heri-tage and I was pleased to see so many young Nigerians keen to embrace new ideas through the competition. Many congratula-tions to Ese and Nasir who had fantastic business plans and I’m sure will have very bright futures.

EseogheneIse Odiete runs He-sey Designs, an online store sell-ing African-inspired accessories, which also helps to empower and mentor other young African wom-en. She said: “It was an awesome experience meeting and learning from Richard Branson; one that will change my life and business and take it to a whole new level. I am super grateful for the opportu-nity.”

DaviD auDu

The new president of the As-sociation of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria AAAN,

Mr. Kelechi Nwosu, has pledged to operate an open door policy in order to carry members along for a new vibrant and result oriented association

Nwosu, who is the CEO of TBWA/ Concepts Nigeria, was last weekend elected president of the 41 year old association. He has also promised to consolidate on the achievements of the body, while pushing for APCON reforms and to deepen the association’s re-lationship with government.

According to him, his vision for the association revolves around respect, value and professional-ism believes that as the market becomes more dynamic, the asso-ciation needs to be on a good stead to do more business with govern-ment.

With the determination to build

the creative industry and attract government trust, Nwosu said if anybody wants to build reputa-tion, get value he or she has to show some skills and prove that he has some capability. “These will open doors. We need more busi-ness coming to us and one of the strong things my administration has promised to do and I hope to accomplish it is to embark on a strong campaign for the govern-ment on pro bono”.

On Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria reforms, Nwosu said his administration will “lobby people to let them know about the reforms and they should abide by them. We have to talk to our people to believe in the reforms as we can’t wait for AP-CON to push it for us”.

Also interested in empower-ing his over 80 members, Nwosu who had served the association in various capacities also promised to make professionalism his focal point as he said he will energise the committees particularly the

training and development com-mittee. “We need our training to be more often and more qualita-tive and get revenue from there. We are looking towards starting the training academy in the next 12 months. We need to plan for the academy and not just jump into it given the experience we have had in the past”.

LAIF will be given more and whether it will have a commercial part. “I also will look at improv-ing the capability, leadership and professionalism of the secretariat so that we have better training for the secretariat as engine room of the association” the new AAAN president as he promised to give the LAIF more live.

Nwosu contested against Lanre Adisa, the CEO of Noah’s Ark. Over the years, election into the office of the president of the asso-ciation has followed an unwritten order of allowing Vice president to become president but some people within the association believe in altering the order this time.

New AAAN president promises open door policy… to engage more with government

L - R: Chikezie Bethel Nwankwo, Ogbonna Chidera, Abdulkareem Dantata, Okafor Ugochukwu, winners of Legend’s Trip To Dubai, Emmanuel Agu, Marketing Manager, Gulder, Legend & Life, Nengak Zunji, Oriladewo Adeleke, Prince Peter Onyeali and Peter Dike, winners of Legend’s Trip. To Dubai, at The Carrefour, Dubai Shopping Mall, Dubai, after they shopped for gift items, at the just concluded Legend Dubai Shopping Experience recently.

The global economy, es-pecially those of many emerging markets have

slowed due to many months of recession, and the recovery rate is not as fast as politicians and stakeholders want. As econo-mies begin to recover around the world, marketers face new challenges in relating to their consumers. A new post-reces-sion era has dawned. Consum-ers have revised their priorities, and advertising needs to speak differently to these consumers if brands are to survive and thrive in the years to come.

Nigerian consumers have also been impacted by the reverberat-ing effect of the global slowdown. The Nigerian economy has grown at an average of 6.8 per cent between 2005 and 2013 and is currently growing at about 6.5 per cent, but it could decline fur-ther - according to the National Bureau of Statistics in Abuja.

The global recession is just one of many events that have undermined people’s sense of se-curity in the past decade. Terror-ism, political instability, global warming, and the degradation

of the environment were all looming large as concerns even before financial markets and the government organisations meant to oversee them began to fail.

As a result, a mood of mis-trust and anxiety developed among many people around the world, and that mood sparked a re-examination of priorities and values. In Nigeria, the insurgen-cy in the North East of the coun-try triggered apprehension and concern. Many people stopped finding joy in excessive con-sumption and heedless spend-ing, and a new trend, which we call “mindful consumption,” has emerged. Mindful consumption is demonstrated by consumers buying fewer products and fewer brands, and being more consid-ered in their choices.

Though it is most apparent in mature markets, we expect mindful consumption to even-tually affect all global markets, even the emerging ones, because it represents more than just a re-sponse to the present crisis. It is a response to the idea that happi-ness can be purchased.

New times, new attitudes, new behaviour by consumers: How should brands react?

Tel: 08023117969/08031100462

with Michael Umogun

BRAND talk

Email: [email protected]

To be continued...

Tel: 08023448199 E-mail: [email protected]

with Ayodeji Ayopo

Brand X-Ray


The true value of a brand identity is captured by the identified target audience.

It is the perception of the consum-ers about the brand that gives it the required identity. The brand identity reveals several things about the brand and differenti-ates it through its unique selling proposition.

Meristem Securities reflects the image of a financial brand that has remained credible in the nation’s financial landscape. The brand has positioned itself as a consistent and virile institution while exploring opportunities within the financial services sec-tor. The company has the deter-mination to meet and satisfy the client’s need through expertise and professionalism. Meristem has over years maximized its ability to increase awareness and promote brand loyalty with its customers. This is achievable through proving great value to the clients with a compelling tech-nical expertise that gives cred-

ibility to its professional edge in the industry. Meristem is poised to create a high quality profes-sional service delivery to meet the needs of its customers. It has also leveraged its competitive edge to position itself as a capital market conglomerate. Meristem has also developed several closer relation-ships with customers in order to gain their trust and confidence. This has manifested in utilising such effective platforms to build affinity which ultimately trans-lates to loyalty.

Meristem has also been able to standout in its industry of opera-tions through its dynamic and vi-brant approach. It has developed several innovative products to communicate its brand essence not only to its customers but also the industry as a whole. With-out any iota of doubt, Meristem brand has been consistent, pro-ac-tive and dynamic in its corporate projection.

A good corporate citizen, Meri-stem has managed business re-

Thursday, July 17, 2014 Brands & Marketing

Meristem Securities: Building a strong financial brand

L-R: Deputy Managing Director, Ecobank Nigeria, Mr.Tony Okpanachi; Group ED, Domstic Bank, Ecobank Transnational, Mr. Patrick Akinwutan; Chairman, Ecobank Nigeria, Chief Sonny Kuku and MD, Mr. Jibril Aku, at the launch of Ecobank Premier Banking in Lagos, recently.

sponsibly as it realized that its real currency is the trust and credibility it has built over the years.

A strong player in the finan-cial services sector, the Meristem brand believes its business deci-sion should impact both its em-ployees and the communities it is domiciled positively. The brand has also a strong commitment to address the aspiration and expec-tation of customers, employees and stake holders. Meristem has an inimitable clout in the finan-cial advisory, investment banking and securities dealings. The solid reputation of the brand and cus-

tomer centric services cannot also be underestimated.

The Meristem brand commu-nicates both professional intelli-gence and technical depth within the financial services sector. It has positioned itself as an innovative financial services operator with differentiation and relevance for its brand. Meristem in its profes-sional output and operational platforms stand apart from its competitors. The CEO of Meri-stem, Oluwole Abegunde, is a test-ed and well rounded professional. He provides the strategic direc-tion for the organization in order to remain a competitive player in

the nation’s financial services in-dustry.

Meristem offers differentiating service to its customers and deliv-ers such unique offerings to lever-age a high value. This has helped the brand to distinguish itself through a compelling customer experience.

The online stock trading plat-form recently unveiled by Meri-stem is one of the many innova-tive services intended to deepen brand equity. The online platform is a virtual stock broking platform that will help users trade stocks from anywhere in the world. This is an innovation that will offer in-vestors control and convenience over their investments. The ser-vice tagged Meritrade which gives users unique experience is highly endorsed by industry stakehold-ers as reliable and convenient. This is one of the many laudable platforms the Meristem brand has deployed to remain a versatile and innovative in the industry.

FG’s appointment of new APCON chairman an error –MakuDaviD auDu

The Minister of Informa-tion, Mr. Labaran Maku, has admitted that the Fed-

eral Government erred in an-nouncing the appointment of a new chairman for the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria, APCON, last year when the presi-dent appointed new board of fed-eral parastatals and agencies.

He said “There have been some mistakes because the law setting up APCON is very clear on who becomes the chairman of the council

He said APCON is a specific professional board that is guided by an act that should be followed. He however promised that the is-sue of a chairman for APCON would soon be sorted out

Maku, who spoke during the Advertising Agencies Associa-tion of Nigeria, AAAN, Annual General Meeting, AGM, in Abuja recently, also charged media prac-titioners to discharge their duties professionally.

“The only thing we complain about is that let the media be free and don’t invest in the media and subordinate it to a political party or interest and individual. Having invested in the media, let them operate professionally, so that the professionals that are working there, whether TV, or press should determine what is news.

He pleaded with media owner to allow the professionals they employ do their job according to their conscience. “We want news to be free so that Nigerians can make the right choice’, he said.

On the hiring of foreign public relations agencies by some politi-

cal parties, Maku said the world has gone global, and people are looking for those who have pro-fessional and cutting edge knowl-edge to sell their ideas.

He advised local agencies to horn their professional skills to a level where they will have the capacity to withstand any body from anywhere.

He also advised Nigerian poli-ticians to look inward by making use of local expertise where they exist to avoid incidences of capi-tal flight.

“We understand that there is a lot of talent at home and I will advice our politicians to patron-ize them. You are spending more patronizing foreigners for a tal-ent that is at home, it leads to capital flight but when you spend at home, you are promoting job creation and enriching the econ-omy”.

The top U.S. and German diplomats met in a bid to overcome a spying dis-

pute after Germany asked an American intelligence officer to leave the country.

Amid their alliance’s most serious conflict in a decade, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier talk-ed yesterday for about an hour while in Vienna for meetings on Iran’s nuclear program.

Airbus Group NV, AIR, ex-tended its lead over Boe-ing Co., BA, on the second

day of the Farnborough Air Show by pulling in a record deal for single-aisle aircraft and bolster-ing sales of its new A330neo wide-body model.

The European manufacturer pushed out a rapid-fire string of announcements that included SMBC Aviation Capital Ltd. buy-ing jets for $11.8 billion, followed by BOC Aviation Ltd. taking 43 single-aisle aircraft, as well as deals from two other leasing com-panies worth a combined $8.8 bil-lion at list price. Boeing’s accords from two customers came in at $5.8 billion.

“Airbus has a fondness for air-show fireworks,” Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst with Fairfax, Virginia-based Teal Group, said in a phone interview. Airbus’s fast start at the aviation industry’s largest expo offered welcome news to a company that amassed only 290 net aircraft or-ders after cancellations during the first half, trailing Boeing’s 499. Toulouse, France-based Airbus also used the show’s opening day to offer an upgraded version of the A330.

The company may pack in more punch today when it wins AirAsia Group Bhd. as the first

“The German-American re-lationship is essential and in-dispensable and that goes for us both,” Steinmeier told reporters in the Austrian capital. “We’ll continue to work on our rela-tionship on the basis of trust and mutual respect.”

Chancellor Angela Merkel renewed her objections to what she called the U.S.’s Cold War-style intelligence gathering even as she sought to shield joint projects such as trade talks and curbing Iran’s nuclear pro-gram.

“The relationship between the U.S. and Germany is a stra-tegic one,” Kerry told reporters in a statement alongside Stein-meier. “We have enormous po-litical cooperation. And we are great friends.”

Germany expelled the Cen-tral Intelligence Agency’s sta-tion chief in Berlin last week as German prosecutors investigate two alleged American spies in Germany’s government. The U.S. tried to head off the expul-sion by offering an intelligence-sharing agreement resembling

one available to nations known as the Five Eyes -- the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zea-land, according to a U.S. official.

Germany went ahead with the expulsion anyway as author-ities pursue leads to possible double agents working within the government for the U.S. The revelations have compounded anger in Germany over mass surveillance and reported tap-ping Merkel’s mobile phone.

“We don’t live in the Cold War anymore, where everybody probably mistrusted everybody else,” Merkel told broadcaster ZDF on July 12. “The notion that you always have to ask yourself in close cooperation whether the one sitting across from you could be working for the others –- that’s not a basis for trust.”

An employee of Germany’s BND foreign-intelligence ser-vice suspected of passing along information to the U.S. was run by CIA agents out of the em-bassy in Vienna since 2012, Der Spiegel magazine reported. He met with handlers several times in Salzburg, the magazine said.

airline customer for the A330neo. The low-cost carrier group, run by Tony Fernandes, may order about 50 of the aircraft, people familiar with the talks said.

The annual forum, which alter-nates between Paris and Farnbor-ough, spotlights the competition between Airbus and Boeing for global sales supremacy. The event brings together manufacturers, airlines, lessors, suppliers and in-ventors for a flurry of meetings and dealmaking.

Airbus owed most of its show bounce to lessors, whose support is important because they place jets with multiple airlines -- a step toward ensuring wider customer

acceptance of planemakers’ offer-ings.

The A330neo’s first buyer at the show was Los Angeles-based Air Lease, whose chief executive offi-cer, Steven Udvar-Hazy, had urged Airbus to offer a version of the 20-year-old A330 with upgraded, more-efficient engines. Air Lease also booked an order for 60 of Air-bus’s single-aisle A321 model.

AerCap Holdings NV, AER, said it would buy 50 A321neos worth $5.14 billion, the first jet purchase since the world’s biggest indepen-dent aircraft lessor bought Hazy’s former company, International Lease Finance Corp., for $7.6 bil-lion in May.

Angela Merkel

U.S.-German spy clash prompts pledge to repair relations

Airbus $21 billion sales blitz tops boeing as show opens

36 National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.netThursday, July 17, 2014Global News

U.S. business inventories rose in May, suggesting restocking will still be

a boost to growth in the second quarter even as stocks at non-automobile retailers rose mar-ginally.

The Commerce Department said on Tuesday inventories in-creased 0.5 per cent after rising 0.6 percent in April.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast inventories, which are a key component of gross domestic product changes, ris-ing 0.6 per cent in May. Retail inventories, excluding autos, which go into the calculation of GDP, edged up 0.1 percent after a similar gain in April.

A sharp slowdown in the pace of inventory accumulation

U.S. business inventories up, retail stocks rise modestly

helped to weigh down on the economy, which contracted at a 2.9 per cent annual pace in the first quarter.

Inventories subtracted 1.7 percentage points from GDP and a swing in restocking is ex-pected to raise growth above a 3.0 per cent pace in the second quarter.

Data already released has shown a steady increase in wholesale inventories and a jump in stocks at manufactur-ers.

Business sales rose 0.4 per cent in May after advancing 0.8 per cent in April. At May’s sales pace, it would take 1.29 months for businesses to clear shelves, unchanged from April.

JPMorgan Chase & Co., JPM, Chief Executive Officer Ja-mie Dimon plans to be in-

volved running the bank at a less intense pace as he fights throat cancer and said that the company is prepared for “all scenarios.”

Doctors told him he will need to rest after he undergoes an eight-week regimen of radiation and chemotherapy, he said today on a conference call with journal-ists. Dimon said he’ll continue to spend time in his office and take phone calls.

The plan is “to take it easy,” Dimon said. “It doesn’t mean not to work at all, but to focus on my health.”

Dimon, 58, raised fresh ques-tions about succession planning at the New York-based bank when he announced the diagno-sis July 1. He said today that Lee Raymond, the company’s lead director, is available if manag-ers need guidance while Dimon is unavailable and that the board already had protocols in place for succession planning.

The best option is to turn to an internal candidate first, he said. Dimon praised his deputies for expertise in businesses including fixed income, consumer lending and commercial banking and said a background in trading and investment banking shouldn’t be a requirement for the next CEO.

“We are fortunate enough to have an exceptional group of executives,” Dimon said in a separate conference call with analysts. “I think that many of them can run a major financial company, and the board feels the same way.”

Should an immediate replace-ment be needed, potential candi-dates include Gordon Smith, 55,

Dimon says JPMorgan prepared for all scenarios amid cancer fight

who leads the consumer bank, and Mary Erdoes, 46, head of as-set management, a person with knowledge of the situation said earlier.

Other candidates include Matt Zames, 43, co-chief operating of-ficer; Daniel Pinto, 51, who runs the corporate and investment bank; Doug Petno, CEO of the commercial bank; and Chief Fi-nancial Officer Marianne Lake.

Dimon discussed succession planning today after the compa-ny reported second-quarter profit that beat analysts’ estimates. The CEO said he feels great and is be-ing treated by some of the world’s best doctors.

“The board will be continually briefed on my condition, if they feel there is any reason to say something material we will let you know,” said Dimon, who has led the bank for eight years. “I’m hoping the next time I talk about this at all will be in about eight weeks.”

About 27,000 cases of throat cancer are diagnosed annually with an estimated 6,100 deaths at-tributed to the disease each year in the U.S., according to the Na-tional Cancer Institute.

Airbus

Jamie Dimon

U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen

After German authorities exposed two suspected American agents last

week, Merkel condemned the activities and asked the U.S. to withdraw the Central Intelli-gence Agency station chief in Berlin. Her insistence that the affair doesn’t undermine the U.S.’s status as a key partner shows she won’t let it sunder re-lations with President Barack Obama, even at the risk of buck-ing public opinion and critics in her governing coalition.

“She’s not about to jeopardise the close relationship with the U.S.,” Jan Techau, head of the Carnegie Endowment’s office in Brussels, said in an interview. While Merkel has criticised the U.S. for its alleged actions, “that’s mainly for domestic po-litical reasons,” he said.

Binding the two nations to-gether are $223 billion in bi-lateral trade, joint military missions, cooperation on intel-ligence and plans to create the world’s biggest free-trade area between the U.S. and Europe. Since espionage revelations in Germany began on July 4, Merkel has signaled that she wants to isolate the fallout and

BitOcean, a Chinese bitcoin startup, joined with New York-based exchange plat-

form Atlas ATS Inc. to bid for the assets of Mt. Gox, the exchange platform that filed for bankrupt-cy in Japan earlier this year.

BitOcean and Atlas will invest $1 million worth of bitcoins to start an exchange platform in Japan by August, Nan Xiaon-ing, the Beijing-based founder and chief executive officer of BitOcean, said in an interview today.

Virtual currencies have come under increased scrutiny from regulators and prosecutors around the globe. The European Commission signaled on July 4 it would try to impose rules on vir-tual currencies such as bitcoin after the bloc’s banking regulator ordered lenders to shun them.

Mt. Gox, once the world’s big-gest bitcoin exchanges, in Feb-ruary sought court protection in Japan after losing 850,000 bitcoins, then valued at about $473 million. The company later found 200,000 in an old-format digital wallet.

“Mt. Gox’s bankruptcy left a big void in the bitcoin trading market and we hope to fill that gap,” Nan said.

Should BitOcean’s proposal to buy Mt. Gox’s assets be success-

Chinese Bitcoin firm joins Atlas ATS in bid for Mt. Gox Assets

Merkel resists cutting U.S. ties over spying affair

Goldman Sachs Group Inc GS.N posted a five per cent rise in quarterly

profit, spurred by higher rev-enue from stock underwriting and a smaller decline in fixed-income trading than many on Wall Street had predicted.

The bank’s stock was up 0.7 per cent at $168.17 on Tuesday morn-ing on the New York Stock Ex-change.

Goldman posted net income for shareholders of $1.95 billion, or $4.10 per share, in the three months ended June 30, up from $1.86 billion or $3.70 per share in the same period a year earlier.

Analysts on average had expect-ed earnings of $3.05 per share, ac-cording to Thomson Institutional investors have been shying away from the bond market because of a lack of strong opinions about in-terest rates and currency moves.

Rival banks Citigroup Inc C.N and JPMorgan Chase & Co JPM.N said a pickup in trading volume in June helped offset slowness in April and May.

“The sustainability of that trend is in question,” said Brian Kleinhanzl, a research analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods who rates Goldman a “market perform.”

JPMorgan said on Tuesday that the June improvement in bond trading has not carried over to July.

Goldman’s net revenue from

The U.S. economic recovery remains incomplete, with a still-ailing job market and

stagnant wages justifying loose monetary policy for the foresee-able future, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen told a Senate commit-tee on Tuesday.

In a strong defense of the cen-tral bank’s current stance, Yellen said that early signs of a pickup in inflation aren’t enough for the Fed to accelerate its plans for raising interest rates, a move currently expected in the middle of next year.

That could change, with inter-est rates rising sooner and faster, if data show labor markets im-proving more quickly than expect-ed, she said.

But as it stands, “although the economy continues to improve, the recovery is not yet complete,” Yellen said in semi-annual testi-mony before the Senate Banking Committee, repeating her focus on lagging labor force participa-tion and weak wage growth as key to any conclusions about the economy’s health.

fixed-income, currency and com-modity trading for customers, known as FICC, fell 10 percent to $2.22 billion.

Analysts had expected a bigger decline. Bernstein Research ana-lyst Brad Hintz had estimated $1.8 billion in fixed-income trading rev-enue for the quarter.

In May, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Citigroup forecasted declines in overall trading revenue closer to 20 per cent for the second quarter, compared with the same period last year.

Goldman’s net revenue in its investing and lending division jumped 46 per cent to $2.07 billion. This included net gains of $1.25 bil-lion from investments in equities.

The bank was also helped by better results in investment bank-ing, where it ranked No. 1 in merg-ers and acquisitions, as well as equity underwriting, for the first half of 2014, according to Thomson Reuters data.

In equity underwriting, the bank’s revenue rose 47 per cent to $545 million, helped by Goldman’s work on deals including the initial public offering of Ally Financial. ALLY.N

Investment banking revenue overall, which includes M&A, debt underwriting and stock underwrit-ing, rose 15 per cent to $1.78 billion.

Goldman executives often say that investment banking is the center of its broader franchise,

because those clients also generate revenue for its trading, investment management and lending busi-nesses.

The bank makes most of its money from trading and invest-ing in capital markets. This sets it apart from JPMorgan Chase & Co, Citigroup and Bank of America Corp BAC.N, which have big con-sumer and corporate lending busi-nesses.

JPMorgan, the biggest U.S. bank by assets, on Tuesday reported an eight per cent decline in second-quarter profit as a pullback in trad-ing of bonds and currencies by big institutions hit revenue in its secu-rities trading business.

On Monday, Citigroup reported a 16 per cent drop in trading rev-enue.

“Too many Americans remain unemployed,” Yellen said.

Yellen presented a broad over-view of an economy still in transi-tion from the 2007-2009 economic crisis. In an accompanying report, the Fed said its balance sheet would top out at $4.5 trillion when its bond-buying program ends in October, a sign of how much stimu-lus the central bank has had to un-leash to support the economy.

With another $2.6 trillion held in

reserve by banks, the report said it “will not be feasible” for the Fed to rely on the traditional Fed Funds market to manage interest rates - a judgment implicit in its recent work on new interest rate tools.

In her remarks, Yellen said the economy continues to generate jobs and steady growth. But she said Fed policymakers currently expect their preferred measure of inflation to stand at between 1.5 per cent and 1.75 per cent for 2014, short of the central bank’s 2 percent tar-get. The housing market remains weak, Yellen said, and business in-vestment less than hoped.

Thriving equity and security markets have raised concerns of a possible bubble, but Yellen said that the values of stocks, bonds and other assets “remain generally in line with historic norms.”

Fed chairs are mandated by law to report to Congress twice a year on monetary policy, and the hear-ing on Tuesday is Yellen’s second such appearance. Her first turned into a marathon grilling about her philosophy and views of the econ-omy..

David Cameron

Higher stock underwriting revenue boosts Goldman profit

Fed’s Yellen says U.S. recovery incomplete, defends loose policy

move on.“Right now we have differing

views as far as the intelligence services are concerned,” she said in an interview with ZDF television on July 12. “But other policy areas, such as the free-trade agreement, are absolutely in our interest.”

Merkel’s weighing of Ger-man interests has led her to defy public opposition and co-alition dissent before. During the euro area’s debt crisis, she beat back a challenge by a party in her government that flirted with breaking up the currency union.

ful, current debtors of Mt. Gox would have the option of with-drawing their bitcoins or owning up to 49 per cent in the new part-nership, named BitOcean Japan, Nan said. All the members of BitOcean Japan are all creditors of Mt. Gox, according to the com-pany’s website.

BitOcean which makes bit-coin automated teller machines, was started in 2013 and currently has 20 employees in China and Japan, Nan said. Atlas ATS is a trading platform for digital cur-rencies which is used by Wall Street trading firms, according to its website.

Mt. Gox has suffered from bad management and security wor-ries, and the partners would im-prove on this area by using the trading platform technology for crypto-currencies provided by Atlas, which has proven to be se-cure, Nan said. The new trading platform will primarily target investors in Japan and Asia, and may expand to North America and Europe later, he said.

BitOcean Japan doesn’t know when a decision on Mt. Gox as-sets would be reached, and has reached out to the administrator of the former exchange’s assets, BitOcean cofounder Daniel Kel-man said in a telephone inter-view.

Obama

National Mirrorwww.nationalmirroronline.net 37Thursday, July 17, 2014 Global News

The 20th FIFA World Cup was hosted by Brazil, a country being ruled by a woman, Mrs. Dilma Rousseff, from June 12 – July 13, 2014 and won by Germany, ruled by another woman, Mrs. Angela Merkel. EVEREST ONYEWUCHI who covered the tournament reports that African cham-pions, Nigeria, would have set continental record, but for the bonus row Super Eagles got en-tangled in with the Nigeria Football Federation.

The 20th FIFA World Cup ended in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil last Sun-day, with Germany winning the

13.61 pounds of 75 per cent pure 18-carat gold trophy, medal and USD$35million at stake at the expense of Argentina.

Germany’s 1-0 victory over the Lio-nel Messi inspired Argentina was against the pre-tournament prediction of pun-dits, who had named hosts Brazil as fa-vourites to lift the Cup and if the samba boys failed, the winner of the Brazil 2014 World Cup, they posited, would emerge from Group B, which had then defending champions, Spain; South Africa 2010 Fi-nalist, The Netherlands; South American no-pushover, Chile and Oceania champi-ons, Australia.

Yes, pundits had reckoned with Group G that comprised now champion again Germany, overrated Cristiano Ron-aldo-led Portugal, CONCACAF champion, United States of America and African su-per power, Ghana.

Group D that contained three former World Cup winners in Uruguay, England and Italy, with Costa Rica then regarded as outsiders was also highly rated.

Argentina was the only reason Group F was in focus, even when reigning Afri-can champions, Super Eagles of Nigeria, were there with Bosnia-Herzegovina and Iran. But near consensus before the tour-nament kicked-off in Sao Paulo on June 12 was that the Selecao would win their sixth title, especially given the ease with which they won the FIFA Confederations Cup in June 2013 on home soil.

But the pundits ate their words once the competition started and results of matches began to prove most of the pre-dictions wrong and those who betted on games began to lose their deposits. Spain were humiliated out, Portugal, England and Italy were sent packing after the group stage.

As the competition became tougher, the obvious lapses of the hosts were ex-posed even before Neymar exited because of injury. Brazil in spite of their bravado and massive home support they enjoyed, were not a champion stuff. But whereas Argentina still managed to stay on course because of individual brilliance of Mes-si. Germany and Holland got tested and shone.

Indeed, the German Machine proved its resilience early against the Black Stars of Ghana and the USA Yankees before lay-ing real claim to the Cup in their tango with the Desert Foxes of Algeria and Les Bleus of France, which it followed with the vicious record 7-1 demolition of what-ever honour Brazil hitherto had in global soccer.

This victory, thus, is the first time a united Germany has won the World Cup, as West Germany had earlier lifted the tro-phy in 1954 in Switzerland, won at home in 1974 and clinched the trophy again at Italia 1990.

Nigeria had qualified for the Mundial in Brazil as reigning continental cham-pions, having won the last Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) in 2013 in South Africa against all expectations, under Stephen

equal the existing African record and may be, perhaps reach the last four stage.

Money was not going to be a problem in attaining this goal because the Minis-ter of Sports/Chairman of the National Sports Commission (NSC), Dr. Tammy Danagogo, had told sports editors in La-gos a fortnight before Eagles departed for training tour that he was in receipt of the N1.5billion World Cup budget.

“The NFF and Super Eagles have no problem; their budget of N1.5bn has been released by the Federal Government. We have equally released to them the sum

BUT THE PUNDITS ATE THEIR

WORDS ONCE THE COMPETITION STARTED AND

RESULTS OF MATCHES BEGAN

TO PROVE MOST OF THE PREDICTIONS

WRONG, AND THOSE WHO BETTED ON

GAMES BEGAN TO LOSE THEIR

DEPOSITS

Keshi, an indigenous coach. The victory in South Africa was Ni-

geria’s third AFCON title, having earlier won on home soil in 1980, before Keshi, as captain of the Super Eagles led the team to win the second title in Tunisia in 1994, the same year Nigeria made its maiden appear-ance at the World Cup, debuting at USA `94 with Keshi still the skipper, though in his twilight playing days.

Keshi became a hero and legend of Ni-gerian football after winning the AFCON, first as a player and later as coach, espe-cially using home-based players that had been abandoned, neglected and overlooked by successive expatriate and indigenous coaches in national team selection, to daz-zle Africa at South Africa 2013.

The world expected to see more of Keshi’s Eagles at the World Cup, as Nigeria led Algeria, Cameroun, Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana to Brazil, but a combination of fac-tors ranging from egoistic administrators, selfish/sentimental technical or coaching decisions and players’ lack of commitment dashed the hopes.

Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) did not set official target for Keshi and his tech-nical crew and the team. But before Brazil 2014, Nigeria had played at four World Cup finals in USA 1994, France 1998, Korea/Ja-pan 2002 and South Africa 2010, reaching the second round in USA and France.

Therefore, without saying it, all expec-tations were that given Super Eagles pedi-gree and Nigeria’s rising profile in global soccer, more so that Cameroun, Senegal and Ghana had at different finals reached the quarter-finals stage, Nigeria would

they need to prosecute the first round. As they go ahead, they receive their money,” Danagogo had said.

However, Keshi, Aminu Maigari-led NFF Executive Committee and the players aborted Nigerians’ dream.

First Keshi selected his final 23-man squad based on sentiments: the players he took to Brazil were not the best Nige-ria could feature in every department of the game. Nigerians forced him to include Stoke City forward, Osaze Odemwingie, in the team. For inexplicable reasons, he excluded the nation’s most potent striker last season in Europe, Ikechukwu Uche of Spanish club, Villarreal, and sold a dummy to stakeholders and fans on why AFCON 2013 hero, Sunday Mba, was left out.

Keshi has no explanation for taking former Newcastle boy, Shola Ameobi; Ukraine-based Michael Babatunde, Ruben Gabriel and Okechukwu Uchebo to the World Cup. Yet, when he was asked if he missed any players after France sent Ni-geria packing in Brasilia, the former Togo and Mali coach without remorse said, “I wanted Bright Dike and Leon Balogun to be in the squad, but for the injuries they copped.”

Tried as they did to make him alter his final selection and failed because of Keshi’s recalcitrance, connection to the presidency and his relationship with the Senate Presi-dent, David Mark, Maigari and his board members concerned themselves with their re-election bids as their first term in office ends.

The World Cup for them was used and turned into a huge platform to campaign for re-election to their offices, with the NFF General Assembly earlier fixing elec-tions to hold on August 26. The budget and resources released by the Federal Govern-ment, grants from FIFA and money from their sponsors to prosecute the World Cup were equally used as campaign funds.

A chartered flight first conveyed all manner of “stakeholders” to Brazil, while other flights brought in scores of more “delegates” who were accommodated in two four-star hotels in Sao Paulo, flown to match venues with free tickets, given es-tacode and fed daily by caterers hired in Nigeria.

Maigari attached his deputy, Chief Mike Umeh, to the Super Eagles camp in Campinas and paid more attention from his own hotel abode to the various stakeholders and delegates who would decide his re-elec-tion fate on August 26.

At every major international competi-tion, Super Eagles and the NFF usually had bonus row. In the run in to the World Cup qualification, the players declared a strike in Windhoek after playing a 1-1 draw with Namibia because the NFF reduced their winning bonus from $10,000 to $5,000, mean-ing that they were offered $3,000 for the draw.

Nigeria’s captain, Joseph Yobo (left) scoring own goal in the match against France

How Keshi, Maigari and Eagles 38 National Mirror

www.nationalmirroronline.netThursday, July 17, 2014 Insight

German players celebrating their victory last Sunday

Results from second round

The Eagles refused to board their flight to Brazil for the Confederations Cup until the then Minister of Sports, Bolaji Abdul-lahi, intervened from Abuja and restored their slashed bonus so as to save the image of the country and avoid Africa embarrass-ment as the continent’s representative was about to miss out from the tournament.

Consequently a code of conduct was drawn by the NFF detailing the dos and donts in the various national teams, play-ers’ rights and entitlements and obliga-tions. Based on this, the NFF and the play-ers agreed on their graduated win bonuses ahead of the Mundial.

FIFA had earlier released $1.5million to each of the 32 participating countries to prepare their teams and further stated the prizes as follows: Group stage $8m each,

THE WORLD EXPECTED TO SEE MORE OF

KESHI’S EAGLES AT THE WORLD

CUP, AS NIGERIA LED ALGERIA, CAMEROUN,

COTE D’IVOIRE AND GHANA TO BRAZIL, BUT A

COMBINATION OF FACTORS DASHED

THE HOPES

xxxx

dashed Nigeria’s World Cup hope

match they lost, a demand the NFF refused. Back at their camp in Campinas, Sao Paulo, the Eagles boycotted training on June 26 before flying to Brasilia on the 27th with a fresh demand to be paid their share of Ni-geria’s $9m (not paid by FIFA) for reaching the second round or they would not lace boots against France.

President Goodluck Jonathan who was praying to make political capital out of the likely defeat of the Les Bleus and probable last eight berthe panicked and released $3.8million to Danagogo to ferry to the Ea-gles in Brasilia in a presidential plane.

On arrival on Sunday, June 29th night, the minister by-passed the NFF hierarchy and handed over the cash to the team’s administrator for sharing, thus incurring disapproval and anger of Maigari and his members.

The coaches, players and other officials were involved in the mathematics and ac-counting procedure of sharing the money based on the input of each person from the qualification series till about 2.30am day of the match that started at 1pm.

In retaliation to the lack of trust in them which the minister displayed by giv-ing Eagles their $3.8m direct, the NFF failed to provide ticket to Danagogo to watch the game in the VIP Box but for the interven-tion of the Nigerian Ambassador to Brazil, Mr. V.A. Okoedion, who pulled diplomatic strings to rescue the minister from sitting in the popular stands.

It is part of the reasons Danagogo did not waste time in carrying out the Jos High Court injunction secured by the proprietor of Nembe FC, Mrs. Ebiakpo Rumson Bari-bote, against Maigari and his board that has earned Nigerian football FIFA ban and set in a chain of crisis.

The rest is now history. And when Keshi was asked by a German journalist at

Round of 16 $9m each, Quarter-finals $14m each, Fourth place $20m, Bronze medal $22m, Silver medal $25m and Winner $35million. These monies will be remitted to the federations about three months after the World Cup.

The NFF agreed with the players to pay the team graduated percentages of partici-pating fees, beginning from 40% if they got to the second round. And eventually Nige-ria managed to cross the group stage after playing a barren draw with Iran in Curi-tiba, beat Bosnia 1-0 with a goal from ear-lier ostracised Osaze and lost gallantly to Argentina 3-2, with CSKA Moscow striker, Ahmed Musa, scoring the brace.

While still in their dressing room af-ter the match in Porto Alegre, the players demanded to be paid winning bonus for a

the post-match press conference why they didn’t at least wait till after the game to share the money, in order to avoid the dis-traction they faced, unruffled he replied, “It is our bonus, there is nothing wrong in collecting our bonus meant to motivate the team.”

Among millions of Africans and Bra-zilians who rooted for Nigeria to go far in the just-ended World Cup are Frenchman, Arsene Wenger.

The Arsenal manager told Daily Mail, “I don’t think it’s purely down to qual-ity. I think it comes down to organisational problems before the World Cup and during the World Cup…I think what hurt football fans was not that (they) did not reach the quarter-finals. It was the fact that (they) had no solidarity and they had problems that were exposed all over the world before the competition and that’s the main rea-son. Football is difficult enough when you are united, but if you are not united at that stage then you have no chance.”

President General of the Nigeria Foot-ball Supporters Club, Dr. Rafiu Oladipo, told our correspondent in his hotel room in Sao Paulo that the jinx of not progressing beyond the second round must be broken.

“We had opportunity to write history at this biggest stage, at this World Cup, but we fluffed it. We played four matches, won one, drew one and lost two. For me, that’s not good enough.”

With Keshi’s contract with the NFF ended, Oladipo said Keshi must be ready to work with several other experienced Nige-rian coaches if he wants to remain in his job.

“We need to determine if there are rea-sons for the renewal of his contract. That is if he is still good and if he believes that he is still good for Nigeria. But he must be ready to work with experienced coaches like Shuaib Amodu, Adegboye Oningbinde, Samson Siasia and even Sunday Oliseh.

“We must have experienced coaches working on players and watching different departments of the game during training and matches,” Oladipo added.

National Mirrorwww.nationalmirroronline.net 39Thursday, July 17, 2014 Insight

National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.net40 Thursday, July 17, 2014Cocktail

Watermelons for sale in China

A judge in England ruled that a restau-rant owner must

give half of his $1.7 mil-lion lottery jackpot to an employee who helped con-vince him to play by pre-dicting the win. As a result, Fatih Ozcan stands to col-lect about $857,000.

Turkish restaurant owner Hayati Kucukkoylu bought a EuroMllions tick-et in January 2012 and won the jackpot.

Kucukkoylu paid for the ticket and chose the win-ning numbers, but Ozcan

insisted that half of the winnings were his because he went and physically purchased the ticket af-ter having a premonition about Kucukkoylu’s good fortune.

“He dreamt that he was holding a large bundle of cash and standing in front of him was his boss,” Judge Mark Gosnell explained in his ruling. “Mr. Ozcan is a strong believer in the power of dreams and inter-preted this to mean that he and Mr. Kucukkoylu would win the lottery.”

A Connecticut man has been charged with second-de-

gree threatening and dis-orderly conduct after he allegedly stabbed a wa-termelon with a butcher knife in a “passive-aggres-sive” way.

Carmine Cervellino allegedly stabbed the wa-termelon and left it in the kitchen for a woman to see. The woman thought it was a “menacing ges-ture” and called police, the Register Citizen re-ported.

After the woman spot-ted the stabbed melon, Cervillino entered the room and began silent-ly slicing pieces of the punctured fruit.

Thomaston Offi-cer Keith Koval wrote that the alleged victim thought the 49-year-old was using “passive ag-gressive” tactics to “in-timidate her because he is angry at her.”

Oddities

Man faces charges after allegedly stabbing watermelon

Judge rules boss must give waiter half of $1.7M lottery jackpot for predicting win

Woman sets car on fi re after man refused to buy her ice cream

According to wit-nesses, the woman set a man’s car on

fire in the parking lot of a Jacksonville McDonald’s after he refused to buy her a McFlurry on Sunday.

An eyewitness told WFTV the woman poured alcohol and gasoline on the car and then lit it on fire.

Witness Sabryna Maré talked to Action News about what she saw after she was stuck behind the couple in line.

“They were going at it,” Maré said. “She was saying she wanted this and wanted that, and she wanted either a McFlurry or an ice cream on top and he was not in for it. Then he was yelling at her say-ing he’s not going to do it.”

The car was a 1994 El Dorado.

“Next thing you know, she says ‘I’m going to blow it up,’ and we were wonder-ing what are you going to blow up?” Maré said.

Earlier this month, the woman alerted police about marijuana and pills

that she had found stashed in Cervellino’s tool box.

The items were never

recovered and Cervillino is not looking at any drug charges.

National Mirrorwww.nationalmirroronline.net 41Thursday, July 17, 2014 Capital Market

Stock markets around the world rose yester-day, as strong China

growth data and solid United States company earnings boosted sentiment and con-cerns eased over the strength of Portugal’s largest listed lender.

Commodity prices were also supported by the China economic data, which point-ed to improving demand, while gold rebounded off a two-day drop.

China’s economy expand-ed at a 7.5 per cent annual pace in the second quarter, the statistics bureau said, just beating the 7.4 per cent medi-an forecast in a Reuter’s poll.

The data confirmed the

United States stocks edged up yesterday, buoyed by the lat-

est merger news, but pulled back from earlier highs as investors sifted through the latest batch of corporate earnings.

Merger and acquisition activity continued to thrive on Wall Street. Time War-ner shares jumped 16.4 per cent to $82.63 as the best per-former on the S&P 500 after Twenty-First Century Fox confirmed it made an $80bn takeover offer for the com-pany that was turned down.

Twenty-First Century Fox shares lost 5.2 per cent to $33.37.

Also supporting gains was chipmaker Intel, which climbed 6.7 per cent to $33.85 following second-quarter

Intel climbs on earnings, outlook

Global stocks rally on China growth data

JOHNSON OKALAWON

Trading in equities continued on a bull-ish note on the Nige-

rian Stock Exchange yester-day, as more investors took position on stocks.

The All Share Index ap-preciated 0.14 per cent to close at 43,030.27 points, compared to the rise of 0.09 per cent recorded the preceding day to close at 42,971.56 points.

Market capitalization gained N19bn to close at N14.21trn, compared to the increase of N14bn recorded the preceding day to close at N14.19trn.

Equities gain 0.14% as naira steady on offshore dollar flows

Stock Updates

GAINERSCOMPANY OPENING CLOSING CHANGE % CHANGE

NPFMCRFBK 1.00 1.05 0.05 5.00

TOTAL 171.05 179.60 8.55 5.00

MOBIL 140.15 147.15 7.00 4.99

IKEJAHOTEL 0.75 0.78 0.03 4.00

AFRIPRUD 3.33 3.43 0.10 3.00

NB 172.22 176.80 4.58 2.66

ABCTRANS 0.87 0.89 0.02 2.30

HONYFLOUR 4.40 4.50 0.10 2.27

WAPCO 117.60 119.85 2.25 1.91

JAPAULOIL 0.58 0.59 0.01 1.72

LOSERSCOMPANY OPENING CLOSING CHANGE % CHANGE

MAYBAKER 1.80 1.71 -0.09 -5.00

UPDCREIT 10.47 9.95 -0.52 -4.97

NNFM 19.75 18.77 -0.98 -4.96

COSTAIN 1.25 1.19 -0.06 -4.80

AIRSERVICE 2.34 2.23 -0.11 -4.70

CONTINSURE 1.17 1.12 -0.05 -4.27

OANDO 27.70 26.57 -1.13 -4.08

JBERGER 67.00 64.28 -2.72 -4.06

AIICO 0.83 0.80 -0.03 -3.61

DANGSUGAR 9.36 9.05 -0.31 -3.31

Market indicatorsAll-Share Index 43,030.27 points

Market capitalisation 14.21trn

Source: NSE

economy had stabilized after a shaky start to the year, though analysts said the pick-up was largely driven by government stimulus.

“There’s a lot of good news to go around today, but given all the worries there were about China, the data there is especially a positive,” said Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at the ConvergEx Group in New York.

The MSCI International ACWI Price Index rose 0.4 per cent.

Equity prices have stalled recently, with many indexes at record or multi-year highs, as investors questioned whether fundamentals justified the levels. On Tuesday, shares

dipped after US Federal Re-serve Chair Janet Yellen said some sectors of the US stock market had “substantially stretched valuations.”

Merger activity in the United States also boosted stocks, along with a round of positive earnings, including from tech bellwether Intel Corporation, which rose 6.4 percent to $33.73 on better-than-expected results.

Time Warner Incorpora-tion jumped 18 per cent after Twenty-First Century Fox confirmed it had made an $80bn takeover offer for the company, an offer that was turned down.

“The M&A activity and results really validate cur-

rent levels, which Yellen had raised a red flag on,” Colas said.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 46.81 points or 0.27 per cent, to 17,107.49, while the S&P 500 .SPX gained 6.16 points or 0.31 per cent, to 1,979.44 and the Nas-daq Composite added 19.83 points or 0.45 per cent, to 4,436.22.

In Europe, the pan-Euro-pean FTSEurofirst 300 equi-ty index popped 1.2 per cent, the biggest one-day advance since April 29 as concerns eased over the exposure of Portugal’s Banco Espirito Santo, BES, to the troubled companies of its founding family.

Description Price Yield Price Yield

13.05 16-AUG-2016 2.09 103.30 11.22 103.45 11.14

15.10 27-APR-2017 2.78 108.75 11.32 108.90 11.26

16.00 29-JUN-2019 4.95 116.65 11.49 116.95 11.42

16.39 27-JAN-2022 7.54 121.35 12.00 121.65 11.95

14.20 14-MAR-2024 9.66 111.10 12.20 111.40 12.15

10.00 23-JUL-2030 16.02 84.40 12.24 84.70 12.19

Tenor Rate (%)

O/N 10.9583

1M 12.5783

3M 13.4040

6M 14.4336

Maturity Date Bid Offer

16-Oct-14 10.60 10.35

8-Jan-15 10.35 10.10

7-May-15 9.90 9.65

Treasury Bills

NIBOR

FGN Bonds

Bid Offer

Closing Market Prices of July 16, 2014

The Fixings - NIBOR, NITTY and NIFEX of July 16, 2014

PF Microfinance Bank Plc led the gainers’ table with five kobo or five per cent to close at N1.05 per share, followed by Total Plc with N8.55 or five per cent to close at N179.60 per share.

Mobil Plc added N7.00 or 4.99 per cent to close at N147.15 per share, while Ikeja Hotel Plc was up three kobo or four per cent to close at 78 kobo per share.

African Prudent Insur-ance Plc gained 10 kobo or three per cent to close at N3.43 per share.

Conversely, May and Bak-er Plc lost nine kobo or five per cent to close at N1.71 per share, while NNFM Plc shed

98 kobo or 4.96 per cent to close at N18.77 per share.

UPDC REIT Plc dropped 52 kobo or 4.97 per cent to close at N18.77 per share, while Costain West Africa Plc dipped six kobo or 4.80 per cent to close at N1.19 per share.

Air Service Plc depreci-ated 11 kobo or 4.70 per cent to close at 2.23 per share.

A total of 317.2 million shares valued at N3.06bn were traded in 5,098 deals.

Meanwhile, naira cur-rency was unchanged at N161.90 to the US dollar yes-terday, supported by inflows from offshore investors par-ticipating at a government

debt auction, amid lower dollar demand, dealers said.

The naira closed at the same level as the previous day, remaining at a 7-week high it touched against the US currency on Tuesday.

“The market remains very liquid to support the naira,” one dealer said.

Nigeria sold 100bn ($617.8m) in bonds at an auc-tion on Wednesday. Auction result are expected today.

Dealers expect the naira to trade within a range of N161.50-N162.30 as more oil companies start to sell dol-lars towards the end of the month to fund their local obligations.

results that topped analysts’ estimates. The company also forecast third-quarter revenue above Wall Street’s expectations.

“It’s a combination of M&A that has been pretty consistent - about every day we wake up to at least one, if not two deals - and earn-ings have continued to be good,” said Bill Stone, chief investment strategist at PNC Wealth Management in Phil-adelphia.

“Things have started off pretty well, we haven’t seen a whole lot outside of the fi-nancials but the few we have seen have been pretty good.”

A partnership struck be-tween IBM and Apple Inc helped boost indexes. IBM will exclusively sell iPhones and iPads loaded with appli-

cations geared at enterprise clients this fall.

IBM shares gained 2.1 per cent to $191.53 as the Dow’s biggest boost, while Apple advanced one per cent to $96.24.

The S&P technology sec-tor gained 0.8 per cent.

Bank of America lost 2.2 per cent to $15.48 after the second-largest US bank by assets reported a 43 per cent drop in second-quarter profit as mortgage revenue fell and litigation costs increased.

The bank has also offered $13b to settle a probe into mortgage securities it sold, the Wall Street Journal re-ported.

Yahoo shares slumped five per cent to $34.03 af-ter disappointing results and outlook, although the

company pledged to pay shareholders at least half the proceeds from Alibaba Group Holding Limited mega-IPO this fall.

The Dow Jones industri-al average rose 34.49 points or 0.2 per cent, to 17,095.17, the S&P 500 gained 2.89 points or 0.15 per cent, to 1,976.17 and the Nasdaq Composite added 5.28 points or 0.12 per cent, to 4,421.67.

US Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen’s tes-timony as prepared for delivery to the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee on Wednesday was a repeat of remarks from the prior day when Yellen said the eco-nomic recovery remains incomplete.

1st Tier Securities1st Tier SecuritiesSector Company name No Of Deals Quotation(N) Quantity Traded Value of Shares(N)

Stock exchange daily equities summaryEquities as at July 16, 2014

Sector Company name No Of Deals Quotation(N) Quantity Traded Value of Shares(N)

National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.netThursday, July 17, 2014 Capital Market42

National Mirrorwww.nationalmirroronline.net 43Thursday July 17, 2014 National Mirror

www.nationalmirroronline.net

It now appears that our fi ght to get the girls of Chibok back is not only a fi ght against a terrorist insurgency, but also against a political opposition.

PRESIDENT GOODLUCK JONATHAN

Community Mirror

RICHARD NDOMACALABAR

Two suspects have been arrested by the police for rap-

ing and defiling young girls in Ekpo Edem area of Calabar South local government area of Cross River State.

The suspects who have

been on the run, were arrested following com-plaints by the victims.

A tricyclist, Monday, said the rapists, Edem and Etekamba, are al-

ways in the habit of luring little girls, and teenagers into their apartment where they are defiled and raped.

“Luck ran out of the

Two arrested for defi ling 10-year-old girl

Community threatens oil fi rm with eviction in DeltaTHEOPHILUS ONOJEGHENWARRI

A week after being issued a seven-day ultimatum to halt

oil prospecting activities, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, NPDC, has again been served notice by the peo-ple of Opuama/Ikpotog-bene Community in Warri North Local Government Area to leave the area.

Apparently disappoint-ed with the company’s activities, the community accused it of failing to fol-low due process in initiat-ing the Global Memoran-dum of Understanding, GMoU before embarking on operation in the area.

Speaking in Sapele, members of the commu-nity under the aegis of Concerned Oloduwa De-scendants lamented that

since NPDC took over oil installations in the area, it has failed to honour the agreement reached with them.

The statement titled “Our Demand” was signed by Mr French O. Ukuto, Chief Samuel Peg-gy, Chief Stephen Ukulor, Engineer Elisha Ukuto as well as Mrs Alero Ugedi, Ati Reach, Mrs Evelyn Ukulor, Abel Sule, Ebi-pade Elisha and Damage-Clark Aboh.

They said the company entered their native land and commenced clearing as well as dredging works without conducting the necessary Environmental Impact Assessment, EIA”.

Aside the issue of MoU and environmental impact assessment, the people listed a number of other demands which they insisted must be part

DANJUMA WILLIAMSGOMBE

The chairman of Nafa-da local government area of Gombe State,

Alhaji Mohammed Haruna Abdullahi, has been urged to continue the good lega-cies of his late predecessor for the peaceful coexistence of the people.

Governor Ibrahim Has-san Dankwambo, who made the charge at the swearing-

in ceremony of Haruna Abdullahi and three other permanent secretaries, also called on the people to coop-erate with the chairman to enable him discharge his official duties.

The governor also en-joined the people to be security conscious and co-operate with security agen-cies in their effort to pro-tect lives and property by reporting any suspicious character to them.

He told his Special Ad-viser, Hon. Manga Musa Bojude, who was a former Speaker of the state House of Assembly to bring his wealth of experience to bear in the discharge of his new responsibility.

For the permanent sec-retaries, the governor said their appointment was as result of the recommen-dations of the committee on civil service which was inaugurated to investigate

reasons for the low morale in the civil service.

He said “in line with the recommendations of the committee, we em-barked on the employ-ment of young graduates to fill critical vacancies in the civil service and we have also been mak-ing concerted efforts to re-instill discipline and seniority, reward hard work, loyalty and dedica-tion to duty”.

Representative of Executive Secretary, Plateau State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), Mr. Bintan Wuyep (3rd r) with his team going through fungal infected irish-potatoes, during their inspection of infected farms at Bokkos and Mangu local government areas of Plateau State, yesterday.

suspects when they lured a 10 year old girl into their apartment, while four men defiled her. The girl raised alarm, as her father im-mediately alerted the police who stormed the compound and arrested two of them while others escaped”.

Monday alleged that

the mother to one of the suspects had tried to bribe the police for the release of her son from police cell.

But a police officer at Mbukpa station who pleaded anonymity de-nied they were bribed, even as he confirmed that the suspects are in their custody.

43

The Lagos State Wa-terways Authority, LASWA, has urged

boat operators to travel at safe speed to avoid ac-cidents with loggers and bigger vessels.

The Managing Direc-tor, Mr Olayinka Marinho, said that over speeding was the cause of accidents on the waterways.

According to him, a safe speed is one at which the vessel can be stopped in time to avert sudden dan-ger.

“We will continue to enforce and enlighten. Be mindful and careful when going around these cargo ships and vessels. Because they are of very high wave actions that most of those boats cannot take when they are speeding.

At a recent stakehold-ers meeting with boat operators, we warned on the dangers of going near

such big ships and that smaller vessels need to be very careful and reduce their speed. We also ad-vised against people trav-elling at night”.

Marinho said that most of the waterways have been channelised with navigational buoys to en-hance visibility and en-sure safety.

He, however, advised the public to desist from stealing the buoys or alter-ing their position, saying that that such action was criminal and inimical to the safety of waterways users.

The Managing Direc-tor said the navigational buoys will assist boat op-erators to find their way through the lagoon and avert grounding.

He also said that the au-thority was making efforts to monitor the movement and activities of loggers.

Agency cautions boat operators on speeding

Dankwambo charges citizens on security

of the agreement between them and NPDC.

In another develop-ment, the youths, women and elders of Polobubo community have given a seven-day ultimatum to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, to vacate the area, even as they threatened to

sabotage their facilities. The national presi-

dent of Polobubo, Ebilate Mac-Yoroki, noted that the NPDC, which repre-sents the Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC in the area, com-menced operations with-out reaching any agree-ment with the community.

Nigeria’s foremost beer brand, Star Lager, in partnership with creators of global singing show,

The Voice, Talpa International B.V. has announced Uti Nwachukwu as host for its new and exciting TV game show ‘Star The Winner Is’.

The unusual show which saw thousands of hopefuls audition in five cities in Nige-ria for a chance to step on the big stage is now set to deliver a nail-biting and exciting three months as it will infuse the perfor-mance of a singing competition show and the strategy of a game show into a thrilling series.

To be hosted by Big Brother Africa All Stars winner, actor and model and TV show host Uti Nwachukwu, each episode will feature six acts that will go head-to-head each week and sing with everything they have for a shot at the 10 million naira and a brand new car grand prize.

A recording artist himself, Nwachukwu continues to connect with reality TV lov-ers on an unprecedented scale and has proven himself a capable entertainer and TV host, combining his trademark charm and an unforced affability.

“Uti is a versatile, seasoned host and we are thrilled to be working with him,” said Tokunbo Adodo, Marketing Manag-er Star, Goldberg and Export. “With Uti at the helm on air introducing surpris-ing and competitive twists, viewers are sure to be immersed and entertained’’, adds Adodo.

“It is a head-to-head singing competi-tion, and after they perform, the 101 jury members cast their votes,” says Uti, on the uniqueness of the show. “The contestants have to believe in themselves because as much as performers need confidence, they also have to be objective and say, I won’t win this round, that is where the mental warfare begins,” adds Uti.

The first ever season of the show which offers a centre stage to a wide variety of talents from different genres and musical backgrounds is set to air from July 19 as follows: Saturdays African Magic 10:00pm, Sundays AIT Network 10:30pm, Sundays WAP TV 10:30pm, Thursdays ONTV 10pm and other stations nationwide.

‘Star The Winner’ is a singing show-down where an unusual 101 jury con-sisting of music enthusiasts and spe-cialists vote for the best performer.

Uti Nwachukwu to host ‘Star The Winner Is’

National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.net44

StorieS: Leonard okachie

The United Nations officials com-memorated the World Population Day last Friday with a renewed

call to helping young people improve their lives and their common future.

With the theme ‘Investing in Young People’, this year’s celebration focused on 1.8 billion young people around the world, the largest generation of youth in history.

The United Nations’ (UN) World Popu-lation Day is annually observed on July 11 to reaffirm the human right to plan for a family. It encourages activities, events and information to help make this right a reality throughout the world.

In his message for the Day, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for urgent action, noting that too many young are denied a right to a quality edu-cation, a decent job, and participation in the political life of their societies.

“The solution lies in investment in health, education, training and employ-ment for young people as they undergo the critical transition to adulthood,” said Ki-moon who was particularly concerned about adolescent girls who may face dis-crimination, sexual violence, early mar-riage and unwanted pregnancies.

“I call on all with influence to pri-oritize youth in development plans, strengthen partnerships with youth-led organizations, and involve young people in all decisions that affect them,” the UN chief said. “By empowering today’s youth, we will lay the groundwork for a more sustainable future for generations to come.”

He pointed that more than 1,000 youth organizations endorsed a Global Youth Call to recommend youth-focused goals and targets in the sustainable develop-ment agenda that will start after 2015, the deadline for the Millennium Develop-ment Goals (MDGs).

Thursday, July 17, 2014Young & Next Generation

Investing in 1.8b youth worldwide

Nigerian youths at a rally.

Contestants at the audition of ‘Star The Winner Is’

Uti

bly, Mr John Ashe equally reminded the international community that it is only by partnering with young people that the planet can be made more resilient and our future more prosperous.

Ashe, who said in message he issued at the UN headquarters, New York to mark the Day, assured that the UN was commit-ted to creating spaces for young people’s participation and promoting their priori-ties.

“Half of the world’s population is un-der the age of 25. This largest generation of young people in history is changing the world. Yet, these young people face disproportionate challenges and are of-ten unable to get a quality education, ac-cess health services or find decent work”, Ashe maintained.

Also, Chairman of the National Popu-lation Commission (NPC), Chief Eze Du-ruiheoma urge d the government at all levels and key stakeholders, to invest in young people to achieve sustainable de-velopment.

Duruiheoma, who was represented by the Kogi State Director of NPC, Ojo Abio-du Titus, made the call at Lokoja during

the 2014 World Population Day.He recognised that present administra-

tion was making giant strides in invest-ing in young people, but said there was the need for appropriate polices to be put in place, with more facilities provided for their benefits.

Incidentally, has the youngest popula-tion and is said to remain so for decades in a rapidly ageing world.

Africa Regional Review for the Inter-national Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) the continent says Africa is experiencing substantial demo-graphic shifts, which have seen about 21 million persons a year being added to the population since 1994.

“The median age for Africa will in-crease to 25, while the average for the world as a whole will climb to about 38” the report says.

According to Regional Communica-tions Advisor for the UNFPA East and Southern Africa Regional Office, Africa’s largely youthful population makes up the next generation of workers, parents, and leaders and their challenges can no lon-ger be ignored.

Similarly, Executive Director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), Babatunde Osotimehin stated that a sustainable fu-ture depends on having resilient popula-tions, which cannot be achieved without investments in young people.

“We know that healthy, educated, pro-ductive and fully engaged young people can help break the cycle of intergen-erational poverty and are more resil-ient in the face of individual and soci-etal challenges,” Osotimehin said in his message.

He stressed that young people not only form a large proportion of the world’s population and deserve their fair share as a matter of equity, but are also in a criti-cal stage of their lifecycle that will deter-mine their future - and thus those of their families, communities, and societies.

President of the UN General Assem-

Losing a duel means a contestant is out of the game.

However, before the winner is revealed, the players must test their nerves by re-sisting a cash offer from the host to leave the game for good. If they are confident they performed better than their oppo-nent, they can await the jury vote to see if they have made it to the next round and one step closer to the life-changing grand prize.

Science For Kids

Sleeping ;baby

Nothing appears more peace-ful than a sleeping baby. But behind that serene little ex-

pression are fantastic dramas unfold-ing, like theatre performances behind closed stage curtains? Or is the stage vacant?

According to the psychologist David Foulkes, one of the world’s leading experts on paediatric dreaming, people often mis-takenly equate their babies’ ability to per-ceive with an ability to dream. “If an or-ganism gives evidence that it can perceive a reality, then we are prone to imagine that it can dream one as well,” Foulkes wrote in “Children’s Dreaming and the Develop-ment of Consciousness”.

But considering babies’ limited pool of experiences and their brains’ immaturity, Foulkes and other neuroscientists think they are actually dreamless for the first few years of life.

That’s in spite of the fact that, from birth onward, sleeping babies enter the REM (rapid eye movement) sleep phase — the one in which adults dream. And, do they: Newborns spend half their sleep time in REM, accompanied by jerking eye-balls, twitching bodies and a characteristic

What do babies dream about?

saw-toothed pattern on brain scans. For comparison, adults spend just one quarter of their sleeping time in REM and the rest in the dreamless non-REM phase, marked by slowly varying brain waves. If babies did dream during REM, then they would dream for the equivalent of a full eight-hour workday. That would be a lot of mile-age to get out of the few images they’ve col-lected of their bedroom, toys and parents’ faces.

Source : Livesicence

National Mirrorwww.nationalmirroronline.net 45Young & Next GenerationThursday, July 17, 2014

More youths have graduated from the Technical Skills Develop-ment Programme (TSDP) of the

Industrial Training Fund (ITF) and Nige-ria Employers Consultative Association (NECA). Their graduation took place last week at ITF’s office in Oregun, Lagos.

The youths, 45 in number, were the 4th batch of trainees to graduate from the project since its inception in 2010. They were trained in automobile mechanic works, electrical installation and mainte-nance, instrumentation and process con-trol, mechanical machining and mainte-nance, welding and fabrication.

Daniel Uzenabor was given a special gift for being the best student in auto-mobile mechanics, Edjokpaniovo Tina for being the best electrical electronics

Should a girl propose marriage to a man?

More youths graduate from ITF’s training programme

student, Osa Ewaen Gregory, the best in IPC, Olopele Samson Timibra, the best in MMC and Aniude Cosmas Ikechukwu for the best in W&F.

Giving the valedictory speech on be-half of his fellow graduates, Ikechukwu, who was also the overall best student, thanked ITF and NECA for training them not only in the latest technology but also totally free.

Speaking on the occasion, Director-General/Chief Executive of ITF, Dr. Mrs Juliet Chukkas-Onaeko said, “TSDP is an initiative which aims at producing appropriate technical skilled workforce with a view to reducing unemployment and youth restiveness by empowering Nigerians with industrial and vocational skills for paid or self employment.

In Nigeria, as in some other parts of the world, it is believed that a man should propose to a girl for marriage. But these days, some girls are doing the opposite. BISOLA ADERIBIGBE samples opinions of youths on this issue:

It is not right for a girl to propose to a man, be-cause the girl will lose her self-esteem. As a lady, even though your feeling is very strong hold on to that feeling, because if you tell most men how you feel towards them they will ac-tually misuse it and think you are very cheap.

No, it is wrong for a girl to propose to a man. Some people do it, but I can never do that. I prefer staying alone to working up to a man and tell him that hello I love you, will you marry me? It is odd, we have dig-nity and pride in us. That pride in me as a girl will not allow me to do so. If the guy does not propose to me he will not know my worth. If he doesn’t do that, I will feel that love does not exist in our relationship. But if he does so I will feel confi-dent that our relationship will last.

I am not sure that it is in the right perspective for a girl to propose to a man because it is the guy who will pay the dowry and not the girl. Also, is not the girl who will get married to the guy, rather it is the guy who will get married to the girl.

To me, it is right for a girl to propose to a man, this is because there are some guys who are in love with a girl, but they are very shy to approach the girl. But if the girl loves the guy so much that she cannot con-trol it within herself, then she should take a bold step to him and propose to him. I have a friend that proposed to a guy and they are still in a strong relationship.

It is totally unaccept-able for a girl to propose to a man. It is not in our culture that a girl should approach a guy and say, “will you marry me?” We are Africans, we are not the West. These days, our girls are involved in all manner of practices in the name of civilization. From the beginning such ideas is not welcomed. So I am totally against it, a girl should let a guy propose to her about marriage instead of doing

It is wrong for a girl to tell a guy to marry her. This is because the man will take the girl for granted. It is not the girl who will get married to the guy; it is the guy who will get married to the girl. Unfortunately, some girls are so desper-ate nowadays that they do otherwise. No wonder mar-riages are tearing apart these days unlike olden days when our parents fol-lowed the right steps.

It has never been done and it is forbidden and un-acceptable in our culture. Why should a girl ask me to marry her? Will she be the one to also pay the bride price?

It is strange for a girl to propose to a man. Marriage is serious business. When a guy is ready for marriage, he takes the girl to his par-ents and introduces her to them. It is not in our cul-ture for a girl to tell the guy to marry her because if she does so, the guy will take advantage of her and see her as being cheap.

There is nothing wrong for a girl to propose to a man. It depends on both of them and it also depends on how strong their love is. The girl can take the lead to propose to the man after all marriage is mutual re-lationship. Many girls who are due for marriage are not yet married because they are waiting for that particular guy that they love to take the first step, unfortunately the guy may not be aware of that. So there is nothing wrong if the girl expresses such feel-ing but telling him.

It is not right; it does not make any sense for a girl to propose to a man. We have to consider our cultural aspect. If a girl proposes to me my mum will take me to church for deliverance.

It happens, it is not wrong and it is not right, as they say change is con-stant. If the girl and the guy are in a relationship, they should know what they are in for, whether it will lead to a marriage or an affair.

Actually, the guy bears the family name and not the girl. Outside the coun-try there are some girls that propose to a guy. I

Mary ayeMere

Mayowa oladapoKayode FasanMi

Ben ayeMere

GeorGe CleMent

Harrison Fave

preCious aderiBiGBe williaMs david

uCHe nzeGBuna

tolu oladele

ConFidenCe MaCHarry

Juliet oKaFor

In western culture you can find a girl proposing to a guy, but in our culture in Nigeria, it is totally unac-cepted for a girl to propose to a guy. Any girl that pro-poses to a guy should check herself properly.

think why some women don’t propose to a guy is because they are shy that it is not proper. I have seen a girl in Lagos that pro-posed to me and it has hap-pened to so many people.

If a gIrl proposes to me, my mum wIll

take me to church for

delIverance

DAME invites entries in 31 categories The Diamond Awards for Media Ex-

cellence (DAME) has invited entries in 31 categories for the 23rd edition

of the award first held in 1992. The works are those produced and pub-

lished in 2013. Eighteen of the categories are in print journalism, six each in broad-casting and advertising and one that cuts across all media, including online.

The Print Journalism categories are: Agriculture Reporting, Business Report-ing, Child Friendly Reporting, Child Friendly Media, Development Report-ing, Editorial Writing, Editorial Integrity, Editorial Cartooning, Editor of the Year, Health Reporting, Informed Commentary, Insurance Reporting, Judicial Reporting, Political Reporting, Sports Reporting, Pho-tography, Telecoms Reporting, and News-paper of the year.

Broadcast categories include: Radio Drama, Radio Reporting, Radio Present-ing, Television Drama, Television Docu-

Stakeholders laud pilot digital TV switchover launchStorieS: Leonard okachie

The National Broadcasting Com-mission, NBC, gave hope that Ni-geria is on course in its switcho-

ver process from analogue television streaming to digital television stream-ing, with the recent successful flag-off of Nigeria’s Pilot Digital Switchover.

The flag-off ceremony which took place at the upscale Eliel Centre, Gold and Base, Jos, Plateau State, was graced by stakeholders who lauded the NBC for its efforts to ensure that the country’s broadcasting scheme is in line with glob-al best practices.

The International Telecoms Union (ITU), had given June 17, 2015 deadline to Nigeria, to attain 90 per cent coverage in digital switchover.

Following the deadline, Nigerians were worried over such possibility as many believed that government was not making any meaning progress.

But the government is allaying such fear with the first phase of the switcho-ver.

The Director General, National Broadcasting Commission, Mr. Emeka Mba in his address thanked the Plateau State government for supporting the pi-lot project to succeed.

He noted that the ultimate goal of striving to keep up with the global revolu-tion of digital TV transition is to ensure that broadcasting continues to serve the needs of Nigerians and remains socially relevant in the lives of the nation and its people.

He thanked the President Goodluck Jonathan-led Federal Government for approving the process of the switch over

National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.netThursday, July 17, 2014

mentary, and Television ReportingAdvertising are: Press Advertising

(Consumer Goods), Press Advertising (Services), Radio Commercial (Consumer Goods), Radio Commercial (services), Tele-vision Commercial (consumer Goods), and Television Commercial (services)

The Cross media category is the Investi-gative Reporter of the Year.

According to the statement by the or-ganisers, entries in the Reporting catego-ries should conform to DAME’s ABCADER principle of: Accuracy, Balance, Contex-tual Analysis, Depth of Research/Inves-tigation, Engaging use of language, and Relevance of subject.

Entries in the Commentary category (Editorial Writing and Informed Commen-tary) will be judged on the basis of Subject, Substance, Significance, Structure, Style and Size. Works to be entered for this cat-egory must therefore have this essential sextet.

Stakeholders at the launch

and equally setting a deadline of Janu-ary 1, 2015, as the switch off date.

In his remarks, the Pioneer Direc-tor General of the NBC, Dr. Tom Adaba hailed NBC and challenged broadcasters at the event to create programmes that are relevant, interesting and educative; and of high quality.

Adaba, while stressing on the need for the development of strong and high quality content production to meet the anticipated increase in demand for con-tent in the digital era, maintained that content providers need to brace up for the serious competition ahead and work hard on developing content.

While giving a background on Nige-ria’s digital journey so far, Chairman of Digiteam Nigeria – Engr. Edward Ama-na pledged the committee’s resolve to see the project to a successful conclusion.

Similarly in his goodwill message, National President of Radio, Televi-

DAME trustee, Lanre Idowu

sion and Theatre Art Workers Union, RATTAWU, Mr. Yemisi Bamgbose urged the federal government to promptly provide adequate funding for the digi-tization project to achieve a seamless transition.

Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku in his keynote address gave assur-ance that the Federal Government, be-ing fully aware of the global necessity to switch over with the rest of the world by the ITU’s deadline, would do all that is required to make the project a success and ensure that come July 17 2015, Nige-ria is not left in a digital darkness.

He stressed that with the white paper issued, the federal government is fully behind the National Broadcasting Com-mission and poised to support the transi-tion project with adequate funding and the necessary legislation to enable the NBC function effectively in the new era and give the transition legal teeth.

Maku thanked the people and govern-ment of Plateau State for accepting the honour of being the pilot city and for the cooperation and support given the proj-ect so far.

He congratulated the people of the state and remarked that the historic event has once more put Plateau state back on the map of positive news and na-tional relevance.

The Plateau State Commissioner of Information and Chairperson of the Jos Pilot Digital Switchover Taskforce, Mrs. Olivia Dazyem expressed gratitude to all who made a success and congratulated the state and the National Broadcasting Commission for successfully implement-ing the Pilot project.

Expected to be completed in Nige-ria by January 1st 2015, the digitiza-tion programme will be implemented in phases.

Entries in the Advertising category should be works that satisfy the AIDA prin-ciple of attracting Attention, stimulating Interest, Desire and urging Action at the end of the process.

All entries are expected to be marked 23rd DAME and sent to 9, James Robert-son Street, Surulere, or by email to dame-awards.com.

Media organisations based in the North are to send theirs through the Nigerian Press Council Office at 26, Bissau Street, Wuse Zone 6, Abuja.

All entries are to be submitted in trip-licate. Print Journalism entries are ex-pected have an original newspaper clip of the work being presented. Broadcast cat-egories should have inserts produced on CDs, whilst Advertising entries should be grouped in categories on individual CDs.

A one page profile of the author/orga-nization; the author’s recent photograph/corporate logo; and a one-page cover letter,

explaining the genesis of the submitted work, the challenges (if any) in getting the job done, and how the work differs from similar efforts on the subject should ac-company the entries. A maximum of 3 en-tries per person/agency is allowed for each category while series adverts on the same subject will be counted as one. Closing date is August 8.

Jude Okwe on sick bed

Senate leader visits late Okwe family

RichaRd NdomaCALABAR

Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma -Egba, has appealed to the Cross River State Council of the Nigeria Union

of Journalists (NUJ) to institute a wel-fare fund for members.

Ndoma-Egba made the appeal in Cala-bar when he paid a condolence visit to family of the late Thisday Correspon-dent, Mr. Jude Okwe.

The Senate Leader who spoke on the need for the leadership of the union to set up the welfare fund added members could at least fall back on the fund to take care of exigencies including death of members and families left behind where

a journalist dies in the course of his duty.Ndoma-Egba who had earlier stopped

over by the NUJ Press Centre to sign the condolence register was later led to the family house of the deceased by the state executive of NUJ.

Received by the Okwe’s eldest daugh-ter, Supol Juliana Jude Okwe, and the deceased brother Mr. Dominic Orim, he urged the children to take heart and be assured that he would try his best for them and assist them where necessary.

``We should ensure that Jude’s death does not affect the children. Whatever is being done by the NUJ, they should let me know. I want to be fully involved,” he assured.

Responding, Juliana Okwe thanked the Senate Leader for all the efforts made by him to ensure that late Okwe survives but dead came and stole him.

She appealed to senator Leader to kindly continue to relate with them as he did when their father was alive, adding that the father had on several occasions told them of his goodwill to him.

In the condolence register, the Senate Leader wrote: “You lived for values and stood on principles. You will live forever in our hearts. Great, courageous and principled friend rest in peace’’.


The editor of two Russian-language newspapers, who was seized last month in eastern Ukraine and

believed to have been held by Ukrainian government forces, has been found dead, his colleague said in an online post.

The body of Sergei Dolgov, who was an editor at newspapers Hochu v SSSR, or “I want to be in the USSR,” and Vestnik Pri-azovya, or “The Azov Region Courier” was found in a park near the eastern Ukraini-an city of Dnipropetrovsk, according to a message posted on the Vkontakte page of Konstantin Dolgov, the editor of Glagol on-line news portal.

Konstatin Dolgov, who is also a leader of the pro-separatist People’s Front of Novo-rossiya movement, added that his name-sake had been “tortured” by kidnappers, saying “the enhanced interrogation ended in the death of the journalist.”

According to employees of Vestnik Pri-azovya, Dolgov had been missing since mid-June when masked men armed with automatic rifles barged into their edito-rial offices in the eastern Ukrainian town

SekiNah LawaL

The need for stronger synergy be-tween the media and the electoral management body has been reiter-

ated in order for the nation to progress.This was contained in a communiqué

issued at the end of the bridge train-ing held at Valencia Hotel, Abuja, by stakeholders, including the Nigeria As-sociation of Women Journalists, NA-WOJ, United Nations Development Pro-gramme, UNDP, Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, European Union, EU and Building Resources In Democracy, Governance and Elections, BRIDGE, media and others.

The stakeholders resolved that NA-WOJ should be co-opted into the Na-tional Inter-Agency Advisory Committee on Voters’ Education and Publicity with

MediaThursday, July 17, 2014

Russian-language newspaper editor killed in Ukraine

INEC trains journalists, others for 2015

China bans reporters from sharing information with foreign mediaChinese regulators have banned the

country’s journalists from sharing information they have obtained on

the job with overseas media or publish-ing it in any venue outside the media in which they are employed, in a move that critics have said will further stifle press freedom.

The regulations, which were detailed in a June 30 document but released this week, come at a time when Chinese jour-nalists have been accused of using their positions for blackmail. But the rules will also impact journalists who, frustrated with tight controls over what they can publish in their companies, have some-times released information they have ob-tained to outlets outside mainland China or on social media, such as their personal blogs.

In an explanatory note, the State Ad-ministration of Press, Publication, Ra-dio, Film and Television said those acts have “disturbed the normal news order” and hurt the interest of the ruling Com-munist Party as well as China’s national interest.

Invoking laws on national secrecy, in-tellectual property rights and labour con-tracts, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television said Chinese journalists accredited to work for the state media shall not provide information to overseas news outlets as special contributors or release informa-tion on venues such as blogs, microblogs, forums or seminars.

Mr Chen Min, a former journalist, said the new rules will undoubtedly clamp down on freedom of information. The

Media Abroad

Chinese President Xi Jinping

Journalists at a workshop

Dolgov

government has long maintained tight controls over media outlets but journal-ists have sought ways to break down the barriers.

“This, in essence, is depriving the pub-lic of the right to know,” said Mr Chen, who now works as an independent com-mentator and a visiting scholar in Tai-wan.

He said Beijing had vaguely defined laws on state secrets, making it easy to punish journalists whom the govern-ment says have overstepped the rules.

“To put it bluntly, you now can only say what has been sanctioned by China’s propaganda officials,” Mr Chen said.

The lack of media freedom is accom-panied by an environment where some reporters solicit bribes in return for not running stories that may embarrass a company or person.

-EIN Newsweek

of Mariupol and abducted Dolgov, tying up his hands with wire, 24.com.ua reported.

Serhiy Spasitel, the head of the Mari-upol regional branch of Ukraine’s Se-curity Service, or SBU, said a few days later that Dolgov was alive and well, but that questions about his specific where-abouts should be addressed to Ukraine’s Anti-Terror Center — the SBU agency in charge of combating the separatist move-ment in the country’s east — i24.com.ua reported.

Mariupol Prosecutor Serhiy Reznitsky also denied any knowledge of the supposed abduction, saying police and prosecutors “do not always know what is happening [at the Anti-Terror Center]” i24.com.ua re-ported.

Oleksandr Kofman, a pro-Moscow ac-tivist in eastern Ukraine, accused govern-ment forces of killing Dolgov in retaliation for his political views.

“He was a principled journalist who up-held a position that contradicted the view of the new Kiev government,” Kofman was quoted as saying by Interfax. “Sergei’s murder is another crime for which the rep-resentatives of the Kiev administration will receive their due punishment sooner or later.”

At least five foreign journalists — four Russians and one Italian — have been killed since the start of the conflict in east-ern Ukraine, while a number of journal-ists have been detained or banned from entering the country in what some have dubbed a “war on information.”

The Moscow Times

beneficiaries of the training accredited by INEC (EMB) as observers for all elec-tions in the country.

It was also resolved that social me-dia should not be seen as a threat to the practice of journalism, rather, it should be used to enhance the profession while more training programmes should be introduced to bridge the communication gap between the electoral body and the media.

“To be able to deter the activities of fake journalists in the profession, it was necessary for INEC to liaise with the Ni-geria Union of Journalists (NUJ) while there should be free access of informa-tion to all qualified journalists,” the statement said.

In a manner of training the trainers, all participants were expected to go back to their respective zones/states to give feedback and train their members.

... seeks welfare fund for journalists

health services, education, foodstuff and other social amenities to victims of in-surgency.

Many victims of insur-gency and communal clash-es thronged the centre to collect relief materials.

Bauchi State governor, Isa Yuguda, who was repre-sented by his deputy, Sagir Aminu Saleh, said the state

was seriously hit by insur-gency attacks, communal clashes and flood disaster.

Yuguda added that gov-ernment had put in place resettlement centres in the villages of Lere, Zabir, Magamma Gumau among other areas in the state and provided health services, schools, access roads to bet-ter the life of the victims in

collaboration with the state emergency relief agency (SEMA).

According to the gov-ernor, about N9 million was disbursed for the re-settlement of Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, thereby increasing the pop-ulation density of the state.

Yuguda commended President Goodluck Jona-

than when he admitted that Bauchi has been a benefi-ciary of relief materials fol-lowing series of disasters in the state.

The governor assured the presidential committee of his assurance to judi-ciously distribute the mate-rials to the affected victims in the various IDP centres in the state.

The Police Command in Nasarawa State yesterday beefed up

security in major towns, following protest by youths over the House of Assem-bly’s notice of impeach-ment on Governor Umaru Al-Makura.

The command’s spokes-man, ASP Ismaila Numan, told the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, that some youths in Lafia, Mararaba and Keffi demonstrated over the notice of impeach-ment on Al-Makura.

Numan, however, said the police dispersed them before it could get out of control in all the affected towns.

He said no life or prop-erty was lost and that po-licemen had been deployed to strategic locations to forestall any breach of the peace.

“We have also intensi-fied patrol across the nooks and crannies of the state to ensure the security of lives and property,’’ Numan said.

He assured members of the public of adequate pro-tection, and urged them to go about their normal business without fear of molestation.

Some youths took to the streets in Lafia on Wednes-day morning chanting soli-darity slogans in support of Al-Makura.

The youths had set bon-

AZA MSUE KADUNA

The Jama’atu Nasril Islam, JNI, under the leadership of the

Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar, yesterday called on insurgents to lay down their arms against the state and embrace

peace for forgiveness in the last days of Ramadan.

The group in a state-ment by its Secretary General, Dr. Khalid Aliyu Abubakar, also called on Muslim faithful not to re-turn to abominable acts after Ramadan.

The statement implored Muslims to intensify their

Flood: Presidential c’ttee spends N5bn in 10 states

Youths protest Al-Makura’s planned removal

Embrace peace, JNI urges Boko Haram Representative of wife of the President, Ms. Rifkatu Samson (right) presenting a donation to Women Fellowship of Evangelical Church of West Africa at Dass District in Bauchi, recently.WALE IBRAHIM

LOKOJA

Kogi State Governor, Captain Idris Wada, has forwarded the

names of 17 commissioner nominees to the state House of Assembly for clearance.

The list contained the names of nine sitting commissioners and eight new ones.

Wada had in April this year dissolved his cabinet in a bid to strengthen gover-nance in the state.

Those who returned are

Yabagi Bologi, Alih Ajuh, Abdrahman Wuya, Dr Idris Omede, Tunji Oshanusi, Joe Abraham, Steve Maiyaki, Abdul Mumumi Usman and Abubarka Sadiq.

The new commissioner nominees are Zainabe Okino, Stephen Aremu, Zaccheaus Oluwagnotemi Atte, Kayode Olowonkran, Agnes Okai, Zakari Alfa and Field Ogwuche.

All the nominees are expected to appear for the screening before the House of Assembly today by 10a.m.

The police yesterday arraigned a civil servant, Alexander

Omale, 34, before a Karu Senior Magistrates’ Court, Abuja, over alleged cru-elty to his two-year-old daughter.

Omale, who resides in Karu, Abuja, is facing a one-count charge of cruelty to the child.

The police prosecutor, Sgt. Stephen Eimoga, told the court that the matter was reported at the Karu Police Station by Omale’s wife, Eliz-abeth, on July 10.

Eimoga said the accused allegedly took the two-year-old baby to an unknown

destination following a mis-understanding between him and his wife.

He said by Omale’s ac-tion, the baby was denied the mother’s love and care, add-ing that the offence contra-vened the provisions of Sec-tion 238 of the Penal Code.

If convicted, Omale faces up to five years in prison with an option of fine or both.

Omale, however, pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Magistrate Ann Akobi admitted the accused on bail in the sum of N100,000, and a surety in like sum who must possess a landed property and reside within the juris-diction of the court.

Wada submits names of commissioners for screening

Man docked over alleged cruelty to baby

fires in strategic areas, in-cluding Emir Palace Road, Doma Road, Keffi-Marara-ba Road, and had attempted to block the federal high-way before the police inter-vened.

The protest had also re-sulted in heavy gridlock on Keffi-Abuja Road with the placard- carrying youths calling on the state legisla-tors to rescind their actions.

It would be recalled that the Assembly had on Mon-day directed that Al-Maku-ra be served with notice of impeachment for alleged gross misconduct.

Meanwhile, a member of the state House of As-sembly representing Tunga

state constituency under the platform of the All Pro-gressives Congress, APC, Tanko Tunga, yesterday said anything that will stop Al-Makura as governor in 2015 would be a sin.

Tunga during a chat with some journalists in La-fia, the state capital, likened his colleagues’ brazen push for impeachment of the governor to scavengers and vultures who do not mean well for the state.

“My people are of the opinion that anybody try-ing to force the man (Al-Makura) from office is a sinner,” Tunga said and called for a change of atti-tude among his colleagues.

generosities in giving alms to the poor, the needy, the or-phans and the handicapped in the society, adding that “many families are just liv-ing from hand to mouth.”

It added: “While wishing all Muslim faithful Allah’s pardon in these sacred days and after (for He cherishes pardoning His creatures),

we pray fervently for His benevolent acceptance of our Ramadan fast even as we urge all Muslims never to return to abomi-nable acts after Ramadan. We also once again call on those who take up arms against the state to rescind their decision and become peaceful.

EZEKIEL TITUSBAUCHI

The Presidential Com-mittee on Flood Re-lief and Rehabilita-

tion said it spent about N5 billion since its inaugura-tion in 2012 for the re-set-tlement of victims of flood disaster and communal clashes in 10 states in the North.

Dr. Sani Abubakar Lug-ga, who represented Alhaji Aliko Dangote who is the chairman of the commit-tee, made the statement in Bauchi State while flagging off the distribution of the relief materials to victims of insurgency and commu-nal clashes.

According to the com-mittee, the decision to set aside about N750 million is to cushion the effect of suf-ferings among victims of insurgency attacks and to

re-settle them so they can have a sense of belonging.

The 10 states that ben-efitted from the commit-tee’s gesture are Nasarawa, Bauchi, Plateau, Benue, Gombe, Katsina, Taraba, Yobe, Borno and Adamawa.

The committee said part of the N5 billion was used to construct warehouses in the respective states to en-able the committee stock all the materials procured as a measure to ensure its safety.

Lugga maintained that though the committee was only mandated to cater for victims of flood disaster, deemed it fit to extend its services to victims of insur-gency and communal clash-es owing to the barbaric killings by terrorist group, Boko Haram, in the North.

The committee, accord-ing to chairman, was able to provide sustainable

….budgets N750m for victims of insurgency, others

…stopping gov is a sin –Lawmaker

National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.netThursday, July 17, 201448 North

World NewsNever be afraid to talk about these issues, particularly the

issue of race. Because even today, we still struggle to do that. Because this issue is so sensitive, is so complicated

– United States First Lady, Michelle Obama

Syrian President Assad Syrian President Assad sworn in for another term sworn in for another term There is a chance the Aids epi-

demic can be brought under control by 2030, according to a report by the United Nations Aids agency.

It said the number of new HIV in-fections and deaths from Aids were both falling.

However, it called for far more international effort as the “current pace cannot end the epidemic”.

And charity Medecins Sans Fron-tieres warned most of those in need of HIV drugs still had no access to them.

The report showed that 35 million people around the world were living with HIV.

There were 2.1 million new cases in 2013 - 38% less than the 3.4 mil-lion figure in 2001.

Aids-related deaths have fallen by a fifth in the past three years, standing at 1.5 million a year. South Africa and Ethiopia have particularly improved.

Many factors contribute to the im-proving picture, including increased access to drugs. There has even been a doubling in the number of men opting for circumcision to reduce the risk of spreading or contracting HIV.

Fewer than four in 10 people with HIV are getting life-saving antiretrovi-ral therapy.

And just 15 countries account for three-quarters of all new HIV infec-tions.

‘End to Aids epidemic possible by 2030’

More Ukrainian soldiers killed as fighting rages in east

Fighting raged in Ukraine’s east on Wednesday when separatists tried to break through the lines of government forces near the border with Russia and a tentative step towards agreeing conditions for a ceasefire failed.

Eleven more Ukrainian soldiers were killed in the space of 24 hours while hundreds of bodies of rebels were found in shallow graves in a former separatist stronghold, the army said.

Fighting has escalated sharply since Friday with the downing of a Ukrainian military transport plane and the deaths of civilians in air and artillery attacks on residential areas on both sides of the border, which Russia and Ukraine have blamed on each other.

Accusations of direct Russian involvement in the three and a half month conflict, in which hundreds have died, is being pushed hard by Ukraine to persuade the United States and its European allies to impose tougher sanctions on Russia.

WORLD BULLETIN

for a sectarian struggle be-tween groups supported by Sunni Muslim states including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and Assad’s government backed by Shi’ite Iran.

Last month it spread dra-matically in Iraq, where an al Qaeda offshoot operating on both sides of the frontier, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), seized cities,

changed its name to the Islam-ic State and declared its leader ruler of all Muslims.

ISIL has officially been re-jected as a terrorist group by the Gulf states that support other Sunni fighters in Syria, but Damascus, Baghdad and Tehran all blame the Gulf kingdoms for supporting the wider Sunni militancy that feeds it.

A Swedish court upheld yesterday an arrest warrant for WikiLeaks

founder Julian Assange who has spent two years at Ecuador’s London embassy to avoid extra-dition to Sweden over allega-tions of sexual assault.

Swedish prosecutors want to question Assange over the al-legations made by two female former WikiLeaks volunteers.

Assange denies the allega-tions and has been fighting a legal battle against extradition since his arrest in Britain in Dec. 2010.

Assange says he fears Swe-den could in turn extradite him to the United States to be tried for one of the largest leaks of classified information in U.S. history.

“All in all, the district court makes the assessment that the reasons for the arrest warrant offset the infringement and adverse effects the measure entails for Julian Assange,” District court judge Lena Ege-lin said.

“He should therefore con-tinue to be wanted for arrest in his absence.”

Assange’s lawyers have ar-gued the arrest warrant should be repealed because it cannot be enforced while Assange is in the embassy and the Swed-ish prosecutor had not consid-ered the possibility of interro-gating him in London.

Thomas Olsson, one of As-sange’s Swedish lawyers, said he would appeal the verdict.Ec-uador, which has granted As-

Swedish court upholds arrest warrant for Assange

Israeli shelling in Gaza kills four children – Medical offi cials

PAUL ARHEWEWITH AGENCY REPORTS

Bashar al-Assad was sworn in for a new term as Syria’s president yes-

terday, after an election which his opponents dismiss as a sham but which he said proved he had achieved victory after a “dirty war” to unseat him.

Once written off in the West as certain to fall, he launches his seven-year term in his se-curest position since the early days of the three-year-old war. Those close to Damascus say he now believes his Western and regional foes will be forced to deal with him as a bulwark against Sunni Islamist mili-tants who advanced across northern Iraq last month.

At his inauguration he de-livered a defiant speech, vow-ing to recover all Syria from Islamist insurgents and warn-ing that Western and Arab countries would pay dearly for supporting rebels he described as terrorists.

Looking calm and confident, the president of 14 years re-peatedly took aim at the West

Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaking as he is sworn in for a new seven-year term at the presidential palace in Damascus, yesterday. PHOTO: AP

Assange

National Mirrorwww.nationalmirroronline.net 49Thursday July 17, 2014

sange political asylum, wants London to assure him safe pas-sage to Quito. But Britain has surrounded the Ecuadorian embassy with police officers round the clock ready to detain him if he leaves it.

British police say they have spent 6 million pounds ($10.28 million) from June 2012 until March this year on policing costs at the Ecuadorian em-bassy.

Four Palestinian children were killed and one was critically wounded on a

Gaza beach yesterday by a shell fired by an Israeli naval gun-boat, a Palestinian health offi-cial said.

Asked about the incident, an Israeli military spokesman in Tel Aviv said he was checking the report.

“The kids were playing foot-ball on the beach. They were all ... under the age of 15,” said Ahmed Abu Hassera, 22.

“When the first shell hit the land, they ran away but an-other shell hit them all,” said Abu Hassera, whose shirt was stained with blood.

“It looked as if the shells were chasing them,” he told Reuters.

and Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab monarchies who have funded and armed the rebels that have taken control of much of the north and east of his country.

“Soon we will see the Arab, regional and Western states that supported terrorism pay a high price,” he said in the speech at the presidential pal-ace in Damascus, broadcast on state TV.

“I repeat my call today to those who were misled to put down their guns, because we will not stop fighting terror-ism and striking it wherever it is until we restore security to every spot of Syria,” Assad said. But with swathes of the country still in rebel hands, opponents said the speech showed Assad was delusional.

“This is completely separat-ed from reality. Assad is going on as if everything is normal and as if he didn’t lose two-thirds of the country,” Monzer Akbik of the Western-backed National Coalition opposition group told Reuters. “It was a theatrical election and this is a theatrical swearing in.”Syria’s war has been the battleground

Ramadan Special Ramadan 20 1435 A.H. Thursday, July 17, 2014

Follow dictates of Islam -UNIFEMGA

Stop persecuting Muslims in south-east –MURIC

FOMWAN helps the needy

AISHA TITILAYO

Muslims nation-wide have been admonished to

always follow the dictates of Islam in all they engage in rather doing things blindly.

This admonition was given by the chairman of University of Ife Mus-lim Graduate Associa-tion, UNIFEMGA, Lagos Branch, Buari Moham-med while speaking at the Ramadan Tafsir/Iftar of the association at Eric

AISHA TITILAYO

The Muslim Rights Concern, MURIC, has denounced the

constant raids on mosques which have become recur-ring decimal in the South Eastern part of Nigeria and called on the Nigerian security agencies to stop coercing Northerners and Muslims resident in the South-East.

According to MURIC’s Director, Prof. Ishaq Akin-tola said the unfolding pattern reveals overzeal-ousness on the part of Easterners and the secu-rity operatives based in the South-East. “Flimsy excuses are being used to persecute Muslims and Northerners resident in their midst. Men of the Ni-gerian Army on Monday raided several mosques in Aba, Abia State. They ar-rested the Chief Imam of Aba Central Mosque, Alha-ji Bashir Idris and fourteen others.”

Although the Chief Imam and twelve of those arrested were set free after rigorous interrogation that lasted hours at the 144 Bat-talion, Asa in Ukwa West council area of the state, two teachers of the New Horizon Academy which is attached to Aba Central

HAKEEM GBADAMOSIAKURE.

The Federation of Muslims of Wom-en Association of

Nigeria, FOMWAN, has called on well-spirited individuals across the nation to uplift the less-privileged and the needy in the society

This charge was given by FOMWAN Elders Fo-rum Chairperson in Ondo

Manuel Crescent, Su-rulere, Lagos.

Buari, while giving an explanation on Surah 49 of the holy Qur’an, noted that everything a Muslim does must be based on knowledge of the deen. “Islam is all encompass-ing; it is a complete way of life. We have stated guidelines on how things should be done.”

He also implored Mus-lims to be just in their dealings, he noted that there is nothing like com-promise.

Mosque were not released. It was alleged that the sol-diers discovered substanc-es suspected to be chemical in the school.

“It is also a usurpation of the Allah-given and fun-damental human rights of Muslims and Northerners residing in the South-East as enshrined in Chapter IV, Section 41(1) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria which stipulates that “Every citizen of Nigeria is entitled to move freely throughout Nigeria and to reside in any part thereof, and no citizen of Ni-geria shall be expelled from Nigeria or refused entry thereto or exit therefrom.”

MURIC stated that by constantly raiding mosques, Nigerian soldiers are setting a bad precedent. “By molesting Imams and Islamic scholars, Nigerian security agencies are en-gaging in religious stigmati-zation, ethnic profiling and undue scapegoatism. These actions are not only most unethical but also highly unprofessional. They stand in contradistinction to in-ternational best practices among security agencies around the world where the focus is on intelligence gathering instead of the manifestation of Stone Age security gimmicks and dic-tatorial Gestapo tactics.”

State, Amirah Sidikat Ajibua during the pre-sentation of gifts items and cash to widows, less-privileged and the sick in Akure on Sunday.

Alhaja Ajibua said the forum decided to orga-nise the empowerment programme in order to bring succour to the less-privileged in the society especially during the sa-cred month of Ramadan. According to her, no fewer

A cross section of men members at the UNIFEMGA Ramadan Tafsir/Iftar of the association held at Eric Manuel Crescent, Su-rulere, Lagos.

L-R: Assistant secretary general, University of Ife Muslim Graduate Association, UNIFEMGA, Lagos Branch, Sulaiman Ibitoye; member, UNIFEMGA, Luqman Obileye; guest lecturer, AbdurRaheem Sayy and another guest at the UNIFEMGA Ramadan Tafsir/Iftar of the association held at Eric Manuel Crescent, Surulere, Lagos .

Mallam Ahmed Ma’aruf, the Operations Manager Zakat & Sadaqat Foundation, ZSF, presenting food items for fasting Muslims to Ustadh Yusuf AbdulAzeez, Chief missioner, Bah-Buh-As-Salam Foundation Nigeria standing left while another member looks on.

National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.net50

than 36 people were se-lected across the 18 local government areas of the state.

She however solicited for the supports of gov-ernment at all levels to create a synergy between them and FOMWAN in order to increase the as-sistance being given to the less-privileged in our society. One of the bene-ficiaries, Mukaila Oyem-itan commended and ap-

preciated the association gestures towards putting smiles on the faces of the needy.

The 34 year old man from Ilaje Akoko said he has been bedridden for many years arising from the lower spine injury and appealed to individu-al who can help him to get back on his feet. He solic-ited for a wheel chair to be mobile.

RamadanMubarakWatch out for our daily Special Package on message from Islamic clerics, scholars and variety of events.

Contact: 08055102994, e: [email protected]

W/Cup: Falconets intensify Falconets intensify training despite bantraining despite ban

51National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.net

Final 8: Pillars, Warriors chase fi nal ticket 54

Thursday July 17, 2014

There is only one reason that I have resigned as Juventus coach. I want new

challenge–Former Juventus coach, Antonio Conte

Sportw

FIFA had on July 9 suspend-ed the NFF due to what it called government interference. With the suspension, no team from Nigeria, including clubs, can have any international sporting contact.

Also, the NFF will not be represented in any regional, continental or international competitions, including at club level or in friendly matches.

FIFA, however, gave July 15 as the deadline for the govern-

after the match that the friendly match was organised to keep the players in shape hoping to still participate in the World Cup.

“Although we have not heard anything so far, we just played the match to keep the players in shape hoping that we will still go for the World Cup. And we are hoping to play an-other friendly match either on Thursday (today) or Friday,” Dedevbo said.

Nigeria’s U-20 National female team, Falconets, have continued prepa-

rations for the U-20 Women’s World Cup in spite of FIFA’s the suspension of the Nigeria Foot-ball Federation (NFF).

News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that with Tues-day originally been the deadline given for the sacked NFF Board members to be reinstated, the Falconets still played a friendly match.

ment to reinstate the sacked board or the Falconets would not participate in the forthcom-ing FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup scheduled to hold in Cana-da from August 5 to August 24. FIFA later gave Nigeria a July 17 (today) deadline extension.

In the friendly match, played at the FIFA Goal Project pitch of the National Stadium, Abuja, the Peter Dedevbo-tutored side, beat State House Queens 3-0.

Dedevbo, however, told NAN Adamu

…New FIFA deadline ends today

ADEOLU JOHNSON

Former FIFA Executive Committee member, Dr Amos Adamu, who

led the Nigerian delegation to the meeting with world football governing body last week over Nigeria’s suspen-sion from football, has re-vealed that he will speak af-ter consulting with relevant authorities.

A strong delegation headed by Adamu was sent to Brazil, where FIFA temporarily relo-cated its head office because of the just-ended World Cup with the sole purpose of meet-ing with FIFA bigwigs and dis-cuss the issue of alleged Nige-rian Government interference in the Nigeria Football Fed-eration (NFF) that resulted in the suspension.

“I must brief the authori-ties first before I talk,” Adamu said on a radio interview mon-itored in Lagos yesterday.

A member of the delega-tion and Chairman of Ebonyi State Football Association, Chief Obinna Ogba, also re-frained from commenting on the trip.

“Dr. Amos Adamu is the only one who can make com-ments on this issue,” Ogba said

The Aminu Maigari-led board was sacked on return-ing home after Nigeria’s sec-ond round ouster at the Bra-zil 2014 World Cup based on a court injunction that barred the members from holding of-fices.

Why I won’t speak –Adamu

Falconets in training

52 Sports National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.netThursday July 17, 2014

BaChelsea striker, Demba Ba, has joined Turk-

ish club Besiktas, the Istanbul-based outfit announced yesterday.

A third-choice option in the Blues’ attacking front last season after Fernando Torres and Samu-el Eto’o, Ba has undoubtedly secured more playing time with the move, as well as the opportunity to still compete in the next UEFA Champions League.

The ‘Black Eagles’ have paid £8 million for the 29-year-old Senegal international, who was also targetted by Everton, who still hope to seal a per-manent transfer of Ba’s former Chelsea teammate Romelu Lukaku.

After a short spell at West Ham United, the for-mer Hoffenheim forward had landed at Newcastle United in June 2011 before joining Chelsea in Janu-ary 2013 on a three-and-a-half-year contract.

Ba’s lack of game time at Stamford Bridge also cost him his spot in Senegal’s national team, with whom he has earned 18 international caps since 2007.

h l t ik D b B h j i d T

makes makes Besiktas Besiktas switchswitch

Reports yesterday said Arsenal has agreed a fee with Real Madrid

for midfielder Sami Khedira.The reports also said Khedi-

ra, who has been celebrating Germany’s World Cup win at the weekend, could soon be heading to the Emirates for a medical prior to unveiling.

The 27-year-old has one year left on his contract at the Bernabeu, but faces competi-tion for a midfield berth fol-lowing the anticipated arrival of international team-mate Toni Kroos.

He is yet to agree personal terms with the Gunners, who have already raided Spanish club Barcelona for the sign-ing of exciting forward Alexis Sanchez.

Lukas Podolski voiced his desire for Khedira to join him at Arsenal during Germany’s World Cup homecoming and he would also link up with compatriots Per Mertesacker and Mesut Ozil in north Lon-don.

Khedira played a promi-nent role en-route to the final, but an injury in the warm-up prevented him from facing Ar-gentina in Sunday’s 1-0 extra-time triumph.

Khedira set for Arsenal medical

Manchester United Man-ager, Louis van Gaal, yesterday arrived at

Old Trafford and met the play-ers for the first time prior to be-ginning his reign.

The Dutchman, who guided the Netherlands to the World Cup semi-finals, met with chief execu-tive Ed Woodward and Assistant Coach Ryan Giggs, along with the United players, and oversaw a pe-riod of their pre-season training session.

Van Gaal will take training in earnest today before holding his first press conference in the af-ternoon.

He has already spoken about building a strong bond within the squad, with reports suggest-ing the players will be told to eat together at Carrington every day.

United fans will be hoping

for an immediate impact from the 62-year-old, after last season finished not only trophyless but without Champions League foot-ball for the first time in 18 years.

Van Gaal has acquired a fiery reputation during his hugely suc-cessful managerial career and it is believed the players must ac-cept it or face a swift exit from the club.

Van Gaal lands at Old Trafford

Demba Ba

Van Gaal

Khedira

National Mirrorwww.nationalmirroronline.net 53Thursday July 17, 2014 Sports

C’wealth:Team Nigeria departs in batches

Barca defend Suarez

NNL: Supreme Court thrash Wikki 3-0

ADEOLU JOHNSON

Nigeria’s contingent to the 2014 Commonwealth Games holding in

Glasgow, Scotland have depart-ed the country in batches, fol-lowing the non-release of funds to enable them to attend train-ing tours ahead of the games.

The situation was a depar-ture from the past when the athletes were handed over to the Nigeria Olympic Committee (NOC) as representative of the International Olympic Commit-tee (IOC) in Nigeria.

Nigeria will compete in box-ing, wrestling, weightlifting,

shooting, athletics, table tennis and para-powerlifting.

Secretary of the Nigeria Box-ing Federation (NBF), Olushola Luke, told National Mirror that only the National Sports Com-mission (NSC) could decide on the athletes’ foreign training while declining further com-ments.

Secretary of the Nige-ria Table Tennis Federation (NTTF), Mrs. Chinedu Ezealah-Ogundare, said her team would wait for orders from the NSC before departing Lagos for Lon-don.

President of the Athletic Fed-eration of Nigeria (AFN), Solo-mon Ogba, has however solicit-

Barcelona sports director, Andoni Zubizarreta, de-fended new signing, Luis

Suarez, over his World Cup bit-ing scandal yesterday, saying that nobody was perfect.

Suarez joined the Catalan club in a five-year deal last week from Liverpool despite receiv-ing a nine-match international ban and a four-month suspen-sion from all football-related ac-tivities for biting Giorgio Chiel-lini in Uruguay’s group stage clash with Italy.

“We accept that we are all

JOEL AJAYI ABUJA

Supreme Court FC yesterday bounced back to winning ways by thrashing Wikki

Tourists of Bauchi 3-0 in one

earlier 0-2 deficit suffered by the Abuja-based side in Bauchi.

The game started in a low key, but later changed into harvest of goals beginning with a powerful shot by Samson Folorunsho in the 42th minute after he got an

ed funds from private concerns to meet obligations towards the games.

“I have personally visited the athletes abroad to provide mon-etary incentives, in addition to organising championships without funds from the NSC,” Ogba said.

Interestingly, Director Gen-eral of National Sports Com-mission (NSC), Hon. Gbenga Elegbeleye, had said that the Sports Ministry had budgeted N4billion for the games.

Meanwhile, Elegbeleye will be Nigeria’s Chef De Mission to Glasgow while NSC’s Direc-tor of Elite Athletes, Bolaji Ojo-Oba, is the Deputy.

humans and that we have our imperfections. We try to learn from when we make mistakes,” said Zubizarreta.

“Our history is full of bad days as well as good days. Luis Suarez will be a star at Barcelo-na although Barcelona is more important than one player.”

Suarez, who cost 81 mil-lion euros (£75million) ($110 million) according to Spanish media, has yet to be presented at the Nou Camp due to the ban, which Barca are appealing against

of the Nigeria National League (NNL) Week 19 matches decided at Area 3 Play Ground in Abuja.

The Apex Court Boys made a mince meat of the visitors all through the thrilling encounter in a cool evening which redeemed

assist from Eric Eric before slot-ting in home.

Getting into second half, Supreme Court came in like a charged horse and launched more attacks on the Tourists, earning a penalty in the process,

which Eric stepped forward to convert in the 70th minute.

As the match was about to end, new signing, Friday Jacob, made it three, lashing onto a set piece effort to send the spectators into ecstasy.

Suarez

A Nigerian wrestler (left) during a bout

National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.netThursday July 17, 2014 54


There are strong in-dications that the governors of the

central banks in the Eco-nomic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, may have agreed with the recommendations of the heads of state and govern-ment for a shift of the full implementation of the sub-regional monetary in-tegration project to 2020.

Although major deci-sions of the WAMZ meet-ing, which will be conclud-ed today in Abuja, have not been made public, feelers that the January 1, 2015 implementation date would be postponed were reflected in the position of Nigeria’s governor of the Central Bank, Godwin Emefiele.

He had stated this in his keynote address at the 31st meeting of the Com-mittee of Governors of the WAMZ delivered yes-terday in Abuja.

Recalling the prog-ress made so far by the 15-member countries’ gov-ernments in their efforts over the past few years on the monetary union agen-da, the governor stated that the road to meeting the January 1, 2015 imple-mentation target date ap-peared bumpy, especially when the member coun-

tries were still grappling with macroeconomic con-vergence challenges and lacking the capacity to meet the criteria for the proposed union on a sus-tainable basis.

He, therefore, urged his colleagues to objectively examine the numerous challenges facing the vari-ous countries and criti-cally assess the state of preparedness of member states for the monetary integration at short notice and realistically appraise the directive of the Afri-can leaders realistically, with a view to ensuring a sustainable monetary union in the zone.

While agreeing that remarkable progress was being made in putting the required institutions and systems in place to realise the monetary integration dream, including the es-tablishment of the College of Supervisors of the West African Monetary Zone, CSWAMZ, and the rati-fication of the protocols on ECOWAS Trade Liber-alisation Scheme, among others, Emefiele urged the committee members to think outside the box and come up with realistic options for achieving the sub-regional agenda.

Justifying his stance further, the financial ex-pert said the results of the state of the prepared- LIVINUS MENEDI

YOLA

The Acting Gover-nor of Adamawa State, Ahmadu

Umaru Fintiri, has stat-ed that the consolidated revenue account of the state was indebted to the tune of N6bn.

Fintiri, after a day in office, sought the assis-tance of the leadership of the Peoples Demo-cratic Party, PDP, when

the caucus of the party members at the National Assembly, led by Hon. Anthony Madwate, in the company of state party chairman, Joel Madaki, paid him a solidarity visit.

Ahmadu promised to operate an open ad-ministration told the delegation, stressing that working with other stakeholders of the party, he had been able to offset the June salaries of civil

servants and also re-im-bursed the N142m, alleg-edly illegally deducted from their May salaries.

He explained that his administration was al-ready taking bold steps, despite inheriting liabili-ties of over N6bn in the state coffers.

Fintiri added that, in spite of that, he was still committed to paying the N2.3bn outstanding work-ers’ salaries of Septem-ber and October 2011 of

the civil servants in the state.

“We are putting heads together with our stake-holders and already we have paid workers’ sala-ries for the month of June, and the N142m that were cut in workers’ sala-ries have also been paid.

“This is to share with you some of the bold steps we have taken to salvage this state out of the doldrums,” he stat-ed.

Nyako left N6bn debt, says Acting Gov

Flood claims six lives in Edo

‘Monetary union date might be shifted to 2020’

L-R: Commissioner, Lagos State Scout Council, Chief Joseph Tawose; Chief Commissioner of Scout in Nigeria, Olori Omo Oba Olusoga Sofolahan; Donor, Sen. Bode Olajumoke; Mrs. Remi Olajumoke and Chief Adminstrative Officer, Lagos State Emergency Agency, Mr. Khalidson Ademola, during the commissioning and donation of a four bedroom apartment to the Lagos State Scout Council in Lagos, yesterday.

SEBASTINE EBHUOMHANBENIN

Families in Igarra and environs at Akoko-Edo local

government area in Edo State have been thrown into confusion, following last Sunday’s flood that claimed lives and prop-erty.

That followed fresh re-ports that the corpse of a middle-aged woman who was apparently swept away by the flood along with some other people was found yesterday near Sasaro, a village located three kilometres to Igar-ra, the council’s head-quarters.

With the yet-to-be-identified corpse, the to-tal number of those who reportedly died from the flood is said to be six.

They are made up of five females and a male,

who was identified as a pastor at the Afekhai area of Igarra.

Meanwhile, a police-man reportedly died in the same area on Wednes-day, in an accident involv-ing a police patrol vehicle and truck.

The accident also left two other policemen seri-ously injured.

A leader of the vigi-lance team in the area told our correspondent that the policemen were detached from Afuze Divi-sion and were on the trail of persons suspected to be conveying cannabis near Sasaro, when their vehi-cle, in an attempt to inter-cept the vehicle convey-ing the suspected banned substance, rammed into another moving truck.

According to Edo State Police Public Relations Officer, Noble Uwoh, a life was lost in the accident.

ness study commissioned by the 32nd meeting of the Convergence Council showed that the perfor-mance of member states on convergence scale, rela-tive to that required for the proposed union that was still inadequate.

He also stated that mem-ber countries’ business cycle synchronisation in

terms of real GDP, infla-tion, broad money and interests, remained weak, just as their level of insti-tutional preparedness for the monetary union re-mained inadequate.

Noting that the results of the study showed on a positive note that some lev-el of progress was being made in the drive towards

establishing a common market and the imple-mentation of the ECOW-AS Trade Integration Protocols and Convention and Financial Systems Reforms, the CBN gover-nor urged his colleagues on the need to for mem-ber-countries’ buy-in on the WAMZ project.

Emefiele asked the

apex banks’ governors to constantly update them-selves with the level of progress made, challeng-es and level of coopera-tion required.

He added that to re-alise the laudable project, there was need for the in-tensification of efforts in the area of sensitisation of all stakeholders.

OSAHON JULIUSYENAGOA

A dismissed police corporal from Del-ta State and staff

of the Nigerian Prisons Service, NPS, in Rivers State and were, yesterday, arrested by men of the Bayelsa State Police Com-mand for alleged car theft.

While the dismissed po-liceman was arrested at Patani, Delta State, for the alleged theft of a Mazda

323 car with registration number AR 244 UGH, the prisons staff was arrested at the weekend for the al-leged theft of a golf car with registration number KMR 128 XA.

In a statement yester-day by the spokesman of Bayelsa State Police Command, Alex Akhigbe, the dismissed corporal was identified as James Bekem.

According to the state-ment, “the Mazda 323 was

stolen in Yenagoa, Bay-elsa State, and traced to Patani in Delta State. One Corporal James Bekem, a dismissed corporal who served in Delta State, was arrested in connection with the stolen car. He has confessed to the crime and will soon be charged to court.”

On the arrest of the staff of the prison staff, identi-fied as Uche Onuigie, the state police command stat-ed that though he claimed

to have bought the car for N200,000, “investigation showed that he hired a golf car with registration number KMR 128 XA from a driver by name Paul God-frey in Yenagoa to take him to Owerri, Imo State.

“At a point along the road, he told the driver that his driving was bad and de-nuded to drive due to time. When the driver handed over the key and came down to move to passenger seat, he drove off.

Car theft: Police nab dismissed corporal, prison staff

National News

Akinbade promises to create jobs for youth

Don’t politicise civil service, Akinwusi urges Osun govt

Probe seven suspected thugs arrested in Ilesa –PDP STORIES: BOLADALE BAMIGBOLAOSOGBO

Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Osun State has urged

the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Mohammed Abubakar and the Osun State Commissioner of Police, Ibrahim Maishanu,

to ensure proper investi-gation of some suspected thugs arrested on Tuesday in Ilesa.

PDP, in a release signed by its chairman, Alhaji Ganiyu Olaoluwa, and made available to news-men in Osogbo, said those arrested in Ilesa were members of a group called ‘state boys’.

Olaoluwa said: “It is quite worrisome that the APC would be importing thugs and bringing arms and ammunitions into the state barely three weeks to the election. We hereby de-mand for immediate inves-tigation and arraignment of those picked up in Ilesa during the APC rally.

“Security sources have

informed us that those ar-rested were carrying arms by the time they were picked and that pressure is mounting on the leadership of Osun Police Command to compromise the matter.

“As a responsible party, we call on the Force Head-quarters and Osun Police Command, in the interest of the helpless citizens of

Labour Party, LP, can-didate in the forth-coming Osun gover-

norship poll, Alhaji Fatai Akinbade, yesterday prom-ised to create gainful em-ployment for unemployed youths, if elected governor.

To achieve this, he as-sured that skill acquisition centres would be estab-lished to serve as platforms to equip youth with rel-evant skills.

Akinbade, who said this while addressing a cross section of youths in Ilesa, added that skills acquired by the youths would be enduring to help create wealth and reduce poverty.

His words: “To really bring this to the fore, em-phasis will be placed on the development of medium enterprises for the purpose of structural transforma-tion.”

Governorship can-didate of Social Democratic Party,

SDP, Mr. Olusegun Akin-wusi, has urged the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, not to politicise the state civil service.

In a statement issued yesterday in Osogbo, the Osun State capital yester-day and titled: “Stop this dangerous trend of politi-cising the civil service,” Akinwusi alleged the APC and the present administra-tion of inducing the state public workers for votes.”

The former Head of Service, HoS, said public servants are saddled with the sacred duties of ensur-ing continuity of govern-ment institution and are expected to be anonymous, neutral and impartial and therefore should enjoy se-

Pledging that enabling environment would be created for the youths to thrive in their chosen fields by providing the needed training and the resources that would be required, the former Secretary to Osun State Government, SSG, averred that youths would be engaged for the collec-tion of relevant data need-ed for development plan-ning, adding that “without this, nothing tangible can be achieved.”

Responding on behalf of the youths, said to have been drawn from the 10 lo-cal government areas in the Ife/Ijesa senatorial district, Mr Isaac Kunle Odewale, said they have studied the programmes of all the candidates before choosing Akinbade, vowing mobil-ise voters to ensure that he wins the governorship poll.

curity of tenure.He however, called on

workers to be wary of APC tactics, saying: “It was a mockery for a regime that failed to recognise the worth and importance of civil servants,” but sud-denly changed tactics to get their votes.

He said: “In Osun today, the yardstick to enjoying a measure of freedom on the job is to be a card carry-ing member of a political party.

“It is a regular routine now for state commission-ers to enquire openly those who would vote for them. The latest is the sharing of money and rice to induce and buy workers’ support. Large sums of money are regularly disbursed to lo-cal government staffers to buy their conscience.”

L-R: Members, Senate Committee on Privatisation, Senator Barnabas Gemade; Senator Ibrahim Gobir; Secretary of the commit-tee, Senator Abubakar Tutare, and Osun State governor, Rauf Aregbesola, during the committee’s courtesy call on the governor in Osogbo, yesterday.

torate in the area not to panic over heavy security presence on Election Day.

Chairman of the cam-paign committee for the constituency, Wale Bolo-runduro, while address-ing a crowd in Ilase, said that the threat by some Peoples Democratic Par-ty, PDP, leaders that they would use federal power to oppress the electorate was “mere vituperations.”

He said the threats were

just filed by the outgoing governor of Osun State, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, to stop the lawful deploy-ment of military and other security agencies to provide security to protect lives and property in the forthcoming governor-ship election.

Describing it reprehen-sible that a supposed chief security officer of a state can take judicial action to stop maintenance of law and order while he active-ly allows armed thugs and miscreants to cause may-hem during the election, Omisore said the court

Osun State elec-torate have been charged not to en-

tertain any fear by the presence of security oper-atives during the August 9 governorship election, as they are meant to protect them and their votes.

Speaking during the campaign by All Progres-sives Congress, APC, in Obokun/Oriade federal constituency, leaders of the party informed elec-

Governorship can-didate of Peoples Democratic Party,

PDP, Senator Iyiola Omi-sore, yesterday said the court action instituted in a Federal High Court, Lagos, seeking to stop de-ployment of soldiers dur-ing the August 9 poll by All Progressive Congress, APC, suggested that the party has hidden agenda.

Omisore, in a statement signed by by his Director of Publicity and Strategy, Prince Diran Odeyemi, said: “Our attention has been drawn to an anti-law and order litigation

Don’t be scared of security men, APC charges electorate

Court action: APC has hidden agenda –Omisore

meant to scare the people so that they would not be able to come out Election Day to re-elect Rauf Aregbesola, who, according to him, has affected their lives.

He said: “It is a known fact that Aregbesola has af-fected the lives of our people in Ijesaland and Osun in general and we must support him through our votes to do more. Come out enmasse and vote Aregbesola again.”

Also addressing the

action has exposed the governor’s hidden agenda to unleash mayhem on the people of Osun before, during and after the Au-gust 9 gubernatorial elec-tion.

He added that Aregbe-sola’s latest act has “lent credence to the fact that he is training a killer squad known as ‘state boys’ which he has flaunted at several fora to kill and maim those who do not share the same political belief with him.”

But, the APC Director of Publicity and Strategy, Barr Kunle Oyatomi said: “The PDP is anti-democrat-

the state, who will be ex-posed to dangers, to order a full scale investigation and ensure that all the culprits are made to face the full wrath of the law.”

State Police Public Re-lations Officer, PPRO, Mrs Folasade Odoro, con-firmed that “seven sus-pected thugs were arrest-ed by the police in Ilesa on Tuesday,” adding that “we have commenced investi-gation to know who they really are.” DAYS TO GO

2323

crowd in some of the com-munities, the committee secretary, Mr Olatunbo-sun Oyintiloye, said part of the antics the PDP is employing is to resort to threat, so that it can have opportunity to steal votes.

He sensitised the people to ensure that they collect their Permanent Voters’ Cards, PVCs, to be able to vote in the election, urg-ing them not to allow any politician to induce them

ic and has no respect for the rule of law.”

“Our primary law which is the constitution of the Federal Republic of Ni-geria has no provision whatsoever for the use of military in the electoral process. The use of the military by the PDP is the height of cowardice usu-ally associated with dicta-torship.

“If the PDP is popular, what does it need soldiers for in a democratic elec-tion. Only gangsters in banana republics resort to the use of the military to conduct election.”

National Mirrorwww.nationalmirroronline.net Politics 55Thursday, July 17, 2014

In a lucent case of a stubbornly opaque, intentional fallacy, Nobel laureate, Pro-fessor Wole Soyinka, still talks and

writes to the effect that the ripest fruit is, af-ter all, not the saddest. One grants that at 80, Soyinka is constitutionally entitled to have, within the limits of decency and honesty, his say. One grants, besides, that Soyinka’s famously, visible silver hairs, are, indeed, a sign of wisdom and mental alertness; the one of a quill whose mind and brain are still stubbornly whet. And so, far from being ripe and sad, Soyinka is stubbornly green. Those who may disagree with him would point, for political reason, to the sec-ond coming of street-wise, ruggedly bent and mercurial Mr. Ayodele Fayose, the standard-bearer of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), as the governor of Ekiti State. By his stunning victory on June 21, 2014, Fayose seems to be telling Soyinka, rather

stubbornly, that “in vain” his impeachment, many fulgent moons and destructive deluge ago, by political thugs and dirty pigs who were, shamelessly, Baba’s errand boys.

Soyinka, in his perspicacious best, ar-gues that Fayose’s second coming, was prophesied by Brother Jero, and this is quite heartening for some reasons.

The first is that it was Soyinka’s some-times wily, sometimes nakedly ambitious, with devious intents, creation – Brother Jero – that prophesied Fayose’s second coming. Therefore, Soyinka thinks he can predict, correctly, who’ll succeed Fayose. The sec-ond reason is that, for Soyinka, Fayose is a solid representation of political rascality, tenacity, ruggedness, ‘unbendingness’ and more than anything else, constructive and much-applauded political stubbornness – a la Uncle Kongi. And the third reason: Fay-ose is a promising, welcome addition to the class of the politically-stubborn in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic. And so, somewhat un-wittingly, both Soyinka’s opaque quill and Brother Jero were instrumental in fashion-ing Fayose, who now promises to be, for the foreseeable future, a stubbornly recurring, influential decimal in Ekiti politics.

Soyinka is visibly sad, though, that a polit-ically-stubborn Fayose is not a top member of the Progressive Front for People’s Federa-tion (PFPF). Were governor-designate Fay-ose an operative of the PFPF, Soyinka, Oso-fisan and Ofeimun calculate that his victory would have had a distinguished, long lasting shift in the paradigm of the politics of the

South-West. Fayose, as a PFPF governor, Soy-inka thinks, would have signalled a stubborn intention of a squad of exceptionally gifted, wild, revolutionary pigs – about 1,934 of them, all frighteningly armed with machine guns and AK-95 rifles – to invade and occupy all radio stations, seats of government and legislative houses in the South-West in 2015. In the course of all that, the lawless pigs would demolish every newspaper house, ha-rass supposedly stubborn journalists and, in extreme instances, such journalists, who think they know too much, would be shack-led and held for, at least 1,934 seconds in Tar-tarus, in obedience to orders from above.

In that event, Soyinka told Osofisan and Ofeimun, rather cooingly, “our gloriously peaceful party would have been transformed to Progressive Pig-head Front for Pigs Fed-eration (PPFPF)”. Sad, indeed, that all that sounds poetically in vain. Sad, still, that a rev-erent Fayose has sent a text message to Soyin-ka to the effect that he would have no business

with the apostles of conservative, cerebral politics – as opposed to politics of rascality and “service to the good people of Ekiti state who voted for me”. Quote he: “Nigeria is not ripe – as ripe as the opaque quill at four score – for a brand of politics that would be skippered solely by a literary titan; the kind of opaque politics that would be played in the image and likeness of a certain lawless idiot who prides himself – with a stubborn touch – in invading and occupying radio stations like an excep-tionally gifted, wild revolutionary pig, so that the Independent National Electoral Commis-sion (INEC) would be held, in a stubbornly firm leash, from announcing false gubernato-rial election results.”

And, if one may ask, what is Soyinka’s business with an electoral body that elects to announce false election results? Why is Soyinka so morbidly obsessed with elector-al rectitude? Besides, can he win cleanly in his ward, in Abeokuta – in the event of an energy-sapping race for the chairman of his local government? Truth is that Soyinka is so unpopular in his over-crowded ward that he’s sure to lose, abysmally, in such a race – even if decides to snatch the ballot box in an unconstitutional and criminal attempt to rig the vote. And given the character that Soyinka is, he’s the kind that would go to the Electoral Tribunal – in the company of Oso-fisan and Ofeimun – to contest the results of the ward election all because he, too, wants to be chairman of a local government.

At 80, Soyinka is an appealling represen-tation of the poet’s metaphorical object con-cerning the mysteriously seamless proxim-ity of life and death: a ripe fruit. And yet, it’s no less true that the green, guarding and guiding fruit, long produced by a wild Chris-tian tree, is still waxing, inexorably, hard, in defiance of his favourite subject. He’s more of a great grand-father of a people opposed to corruption, impunity, inexplicable brutal-ity by agents of the state, impoverishment of a majority of Nigerians, soaring youth unemployment and unbridled looting of the country’s brimming treasury.

Uzuakpundu is a Lagos-based jour-nalist.

Sport Extra

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Reports yesterday said English Pre-mier League side

Stoke City is looking at Super Eagles striker, Mi-chael Babatunde after the Ukraine-based shone at the Brazil 2014 World Cup.

Babatunde was a rev-elation in the Nigerian squad until a hand inju-ry forced him out of the competition after a group match against Argentina.

According to the player’s agent, Nureni Makanjuola, Stoke’s in-terest in Babatunde was motivated by compatriot Osaze Odemwingie who

is also on the pay roll of the Britannia club.

|It is true that Stoke City have made enqui-ries about Michael and they have been calling for

some days now,” Makan-juola disclosed.

“But nothing has been agreed on. There are oth-er clubs from other parts of Europe that have been showing interest in him as well,” he added.

Transfer:Transfer: Stoke eyes Eagles star, Babatunde Stoke eyes Eagles star, Babatunde

Babatunde

Vol. 04 No. 897 Thursday, July 17, 2014 N150

WORLD RECORD

The largest collection of keys belongs to Lisa J. Large (USA) and consists of 3,604 keys as of 20 November 2013, in Kansas

City, Missouri, USA.

Largest collection of keys

Nduka Uzuakpundu

Guest Columnist

Soyinka: Rust isn’t ripeness

AT 80, SOYINKA IS AN APPEALLING

REPRESENTATION OF THE POET’S METAPHORICAL

OBJECT CONCERNING THE MYSTERIOUSLY SEAMLESS

PROXIMITY OF LIFE AND DEATH: A RIPE FRUIT

thursday, july 17, 2014

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