Dino Melaye, a disgrace to the Senate - Tinubu

Court annuls 45% electricity tariff hike 

By Innocent Anaba, 

Victor Ahiuma-Young & 

Johnbosco Agbakwuru 

AFEDERAL High Court 

sitting in Lagos, yesterday, 

annulled the 

increment in electricity tariff 

recently announced by the 

Nigerian Electricity Regulatory 

Commission, NERC. 

Trial judge, Justice Mohammed 

Idris in his judgment 

in the suit by a human 

rights lawyer, Mr. Toluwani 

Adebiyi, challenging the 

increment, described 

NERC’s action as 

procedurally ultra vires, irrational, 

irregular and 

illegal. In a swift reaction, 

labour applauded the judgment 

and asked NERC and 

$200bn scam: EFCC seals First Group's offices - P8 

DISCOs to immediately 

respect the ruling, describing 

it as a “victory for the 

ordinary Nigerian who had 

been crushed by exploitative 

bills.” 

These developments 

came on a day the House 

of Representatives 

described the Distribution 

Companies, DISCOs, as 

the biggest scam in Nigeria 

and called on the Federal 

Government to halt any 

Continues on page 19 

...towards a better life for the people 

VOL. 25: NO. 63071 

** 

THURSDAY, JULY 14, 2016 

ONLINE | www.vanguardngr.com 

N200 

Dino Melaye, a disgrace 

to the Senate —TINUBU 

•Says something'll happen if he beats another senator 

•Lagos senators warn Melaye; Okun Parapo disowns him 

•Apologise to the Tinubus —Lagos APC 

•Impeachment threat, joke taken too far, says APC — Page 14 

CHANGE OF BATON IN BRITAIN: New leader of the Conservative Party, Theresa May (left) kneels as she is greeted 

by Britain's Queen Elizabeth II at the start of an audience in Buckingham Palace in central London, yesterday, where the Queen 

invited the former Home Secretary to become Prime Minister and form a new government. RIGHT: Former Prime Minister, 

David Cameron accompanied by his wife, Samantha and their children. AFP Photos. 

Nigeria's earnings down by 40%, says SGF 

Alleged Senate forgery: No going back on case, AGF insists •P 8 

Osinbajo 

commits political 

apostasy 

COLUMNISTS: 

•P.31 

FRSC, crying 

more than the 

bereaved? 

•P.31 

Still on 

Buhari's 

appointments 

•P.17 

•P39 

Senate calls 

for thorough 

investigation of Abuja 

preacher's murder 

•P 7 

By Henry Umoru, 

Charles Kumolu & 

Joseph Erunke 

BUJA— FORMER 

Agovernor of Lagos 

State and National 

Leader of the All 

Progressives Congress, 

APC, Bola Tinubu, 

yesterday, described 

Dino Melaye as a 

disgrace to the Senate. 


Factionalisation: 

Police 

seal 

Lagos 

PDP 

secretariat 

•P 10 

Mr & Mrs

2— Vanguard, THURSDAY, JULY 14, 2016

Vanguard, THURSDAY, JULY 14, 2016—3

4—Vanguard, THURSDAY, JULY 14, 2016 

CRISIS: PDP holds stakeholders meeting today 

•We remain open to reconciliation —Makarfi 

•I'm the authentic chairman —Sheriff 

By Ben Agande 

ABUJA—A meeting of 

Peoples Democratic Party 

stakeholders is to be held in 

Abuja today to discuss the crisis 

in the party as well as the 

programmes put in place by the 

caretaker committee, headed by 

Senator Ahmed Makarfi, for the 

party’s convention and 

forthcoming governorship 

elections in Edo and Ondo 

states. 

The meeting is coming on the 

heels of a call by Senator Makarfi 

on the former chairman of the 

party, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, 

and his supporters to come back 

to the mainstream of the party. 

But Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, 

whose candidate for the 

September governorship 

election in Edo State was 

rejected by the Independent 

National Electoral Commission, 

INEC, on Tuesday, insisted that 

he remains the authentic 

chairman of the party. 

He added that his candidate 

should be recognized by the 

commission based on the 

decision of Abuja High Court. 

Speaking on the stakeholders 

meeting, a member of the 

caretaker committee in charge of 

Publicity, Prince Dayo Adeyeye, 

said the meeting, which will 

have in attendance governors 

elected on the platform of the 

party as well as members of the 

Board of Trustees, BOT, and the 

National Assembly members, 

would discuss the programme 

drawn up by the committee for 

the convention of the party 

Reps move to criminalise non-payment of workers' salaries 

By Johnbosco 

Agbakwuru 

ABUJA—THE House of 

Representatives yesterday 

moved to prescribe punishment 

for employers in the country who 

either fail to pay salaries to their 

workers or pay salaries, wages 

and pensions late. 

The bill, sponsored by the 

Majority Leader of the House, 

Femi Gbajabiamila, was 

however, stepped down by the 

sponsor, following observations 

made by some members that the 

bill was not justifiable and could 

only come up through an Act. 

The speaker, Yakubu Dogara, 

who presided over the plenary, 

also in a diplomatic manner, 

advised the House Leader to 

have a second look at the bill and 

make all the necessary 

amendments on it, so it could 

be represented on the floor for 

consideration. 

The bill, entitled A bill for an 

act to prohibit late payment, nonpayment 

and under payment of 

workers’ wages, pension and 

other related emolument in 

Nigeria and prescribes penalties 

for violations and for other 

Fitch affirms Diamond Bank's ‘BBB'+ rating 

with stable outlook 

By Nkiruka Nnorom 

LAGOS—GLOBAL credit 

ratings and research 

agency, Fitch Ratings, has 

reaffirmed Diamond Bank’s 

strong fundamentals in its 2016 

ratings Review of Nigerian 

banks. 

In the recently released 2016 

ratings, Fitch affirmed a ‘B’ 

Rating, with stable outlook for 

Diamond Bank’s short-term and 

long-term Foreign Currency 

Issuer Default Ratings, IDR. 

The bank’s National Longterm 

Rating was also affirmed 

at ‘BBB'+ (nga)’; while the 

National short-term rating was 

which may hold in August. 

The meeting will also discuss 

preparations for the forthcoming 

governorship elections in Edo 

and Ondo state. 

According to him, members of 

the caretaker committee are ready 

to hold the party’s convention 

within the specified time frame 

given to it at the party’s national 

convention in Port Harcourt. 

Meanwhile, chairman of the 

caretaker committee of the party, 

Senator Ahmed Makarfi, has 

again extended an olive branch 

to Senator Ali Modu Sheriff to 

come back to the fold of the party. 

Speaking yesterday when he 

received state chairmen of the 

party from the North West geopolitical 

zone, Senator Makarfi 

said the problems in the party 

could not be settled through the 

courts, no matter the legality of 

court judgments. 

“So far, all legal intervention has 

been in favour of the decisions of 

the Port Harcourt national 

convention. That is not to say that 

the job is finished. 

‘’In the past, I have said 

severally that the path of peace 

and reconciliation is the best path. 

Litigation can resolve issues on 

legal grounds but not between 

brothers and sisters. 

“We will never foreclose that 

window, even if the legal issue 

terminates at this stage. If the legal 

issue continues, we will not 

foreclose the window of 

reconciliation. I assure you that 

we will work very hard to do the 

needful. 

“I don’t want to talk too much 

on what we want to do because 

we are yet to be in full comfort 

zone. God willing, we will deliver 

to the satisfaction of PDP 

members,” he said. 

However, the man at the centre 

of the leadership crisis in the 

party, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, 

has said that contrary to the news 

making the rounds, the 

Independent National Electoral 

Commission, INEC, had not 

formally notified him that it had 

rejected the candidate presented 

by his faction for the governorship 

election in Edo State. 

Speaking yesterday when he 

COMMISSION OF INQUIRY: From left: Secretary of the Commission of Inquiry into 

Nimbo herdsmen attack, Mr Emmanuel Agbo; Counsel to the Commission, Mr Richard 

Udeichi, and Counsel to Nimbo community, Mr Sadiq Nwabuezeh, during the commission's 

sitting in Enugu, yesterday. Photo: NAN. 

matters connected thereto” was 

slated for second reading 

yesterday before withdrawal. 

The House, after listening to 

the sponsor, resolved that since 

there was an existing minimum 

wage Act, the sponsor should 

convert it to an amendment to 

the minimum wage Act instead 

of coming as a fresh law. 

But in his lead debate, 

Gbajabiamila explained that the 

intention behind the bill was for 

“every employer of labour in 

Nigeria, whether private or 

public; and whether it is 

employing any worker on 

permanent or contract basis must 

ensure that all payment of wages, 

salaries, pensions and all benefits 

to workers are paid promptly 

without any delay weekly, 

affirmed at ‘F2 (nga)’. Viability 

Rating was affirmed at ‘b’; 

Support Rating affirmed at ‘4’; 

Support Rating Floor: affirmed at 

‘B’; while the Senior unsecured 

notes Rating was affirmed at ‘B’/ 

’RR4'. 

The ‘B’ IDR Rating indicates that 

Diamond Bank has the capacity 

to meet financial commitments, 

subject to the country’s business 

and economic environment; while 

the ‘BBB'+ (nga)’ National 

Ratings denote a “moderate 

default risk relative to other 

issuers or obligations in the same 

country”. Further, the ‘F2 (nga)’ 

National Short-term Rating 

fortnightly, monthly, quarterly as 

may be agreed by parties in the 

contract of employment of the 

individual employee.” 

According to him, non-payment 

or delay in the payment of 

workers’ salaries and 

emoluments is an infringement 

on their rights as enshrined in the 

1999 constitution. 

“indicates a good capacity for 

timely payment of financial 

commitments relative to other 

issuers or obligations in the same 

country”. These ratings were 

premised partly on Fitch’s 

downgrade of Nigeria’s 

sovereign ratings (to ‘B+’) on 23 

June 2016, in addition to the 

bank’s strong capital, operational 

and liquidity positions. 

Reacting to the report, the bank’s 

spokesperson, Ayona Trimnell, said: 

“These ratings affirm the precision of our 

corporate strategy in deploying new 

technologies and digital applications to 

drive financial inclusion, convenient 

banking, enhanced customer friendly 

services and our overall retail banking 

approach.” 

IPMAN seeks 

probe of past 

leaders over 

alleged 

N10.9bn 

subsidy fraud 

By Mike Eboh 

A BUJA—THE 

Independent 

Petroleum Marketers 

Association of Nigeria, 

IPMAN, has called on the 

Federal Government to reopen 

the probe on the N10.9 billion 

alleged subsidy fraud 

involving IPMAN 

Investments Limited. 

Speaking at IPMAN’s Extra- 

Ordinary General Meeting in 

Abuja, factional President of 

the association, Mr. Chinedu 

Okoronkwo, said this became 

necessary as individuals 

allegedly involved in the 

scandal were currently 

fomenting trouble within the 

association. 

Okoronkwo stated that the 

Federal Government should 

probe IPMAN’s Premium 

Motor Spirit, PMS, imports 

into the country within the 

period the controversial and 

suspicious subsidy payments 

were made. 

According to him, 

individuals found culpable 

should be brought to book and 

made to answer for their 

wrongdoings. 

FG to increase 

Health Budget 

in 2017 

—UDOMA 

By Emma Elebeke 

ABUJA—MINISTER of 

Budget and National 

Planning, Udoma Udo 

Udoma, said yesterday that the 

Federal Government was 

determined to improve the 

health sector by providing 

adequate funds for it in the 

2017 budgetary allocation. 

The minister disclosed this 

when he hosted the Regional 

Director of World Health 

Organisation, Dr. Matshidiso 

Rebecca Moeti, in his office. 

Udoma, said the 

administration was committed 

to provide adequate funds for 

quality health care delivery 

and would demonstrate same 

by scaling up the budget for 

health sector next year, 

compared to what was 

obtained in this year’s budget. 

“Will increase budgetary 

allocation to the health sector 

in 2017 budget in its 

commitment to improving the 

sector in Nigeria. 

‘’This administration is 

committed to providing 

adequate funds for the health 

sector."

Vanguard, THURSDAY, JULY 14, 2016—5 

POCKET CARTOON 

VISIT: From left, President Muhammadu Buhari; Emir of Gusau, Alhaji Ibrahim Bello and Governor 

Abdulaziz Abubakar Yari of Zamfara State, during a courtesy call on the Emir as part of the President's 

working visit to Zamfara State, yesterday. 

Dino Melaye, a disgrace to the Senate —Tinubu 

Continues from page 1 

His reaction came 

against the backdrop of 

last Tuesday’s shouting 

match between his wife, 

Senator Oluremi Tinubu, 

and Melaye during the 

closed-door session of 

the Senate. 

Melaye, who 

represents Kogi West 

senatorial district in the 

Senate, had reportedly 

threatened to beat up the 

APC leader’s wife 

during the altercation 

between them, boasting 

allegedly that nothing 

would happen if he did 

so. 

But Tinubu in a 

statement by his 

spokesman, Sunday 

Dare, yesterday, warned 

Melaye that something 

would happen, if he 

dared it. 

“Dino Melaye sank to 

the lowest ever on 

Tuesday. From this point, 

it is downhill for him. A 

disgrace to the Senate of 

the Federal Republic of 

Nigeria. 

“If Dino thinks nothing 

will happen if he dares 

to beat up another 

senator, then he must be 

living in a fool's paradise. 

Things will happen,” 

Tinubu’s spokesman 

wrote on Twitter. 

Efforts, last night, to 

reach Melaye for his 

reaction failed as calls to 

his mobile number were 

not returned; he also 

failed to respond to text 

messages sent to his 

phone. 

Lagos senators 

warn Melaye 

However, senators 

representing Lagos State 

in the Senate, yesterday, 

warned Senator Melaye 

to desist from harassing 

and intimidating Senator 

Oluremi Tinubu or face 

their wrath. 

The senators, who 

described Melaye as 

lilly-livered, vowed to 

testify in court on the 

side of truth, as part of 

the resolution of any 

IT'S UP TO YOU 

BY AYO ADIO - 08104802192 

LET your mind be at peace at all times because a 

still and quite mind is the creative engine of 

humanity. 

TAKE HEART 

BY ELLA RANDLE- O8084919482 

Let go and let contentment come to you— Take 

Heart Quotes 

IF you’re going through the experience of rejection 

or disappointment, learn not to resist the taking 

away. Know what they represent, it's another chance 

to grow beyond limits, and see the million 

opportunities in the journey of soul to excel and 

thrive in divine love. And when you feel pain, it 

has a purpose. It is what jolts you into more 

awakening. Remember, joy is always present. 

Everything happens for you. 

SAYINGS OF OUR PEOPLE 

WHEN you follow the path of your father, you 

learn to walk like him. 

conflict in the Upper 

Chambers. 

Recall that Senate 

President, Dr Bukola 

Saraki, and his deputy, 

Ike Ekweremadu, are 

currently standing trial 

over forgery of Senate 

Standing Rules. 

The Lagos senators, 

Olugbenga Ashafa 

(APC, Lagos East), and 

Solomon Olamilekan 

Adeola (APC, Lagos 

West), said in a 

statement: 

“We, the two senators 

representing Lagos East 

and Lagos West, having 

reviewed the recent 

happenings in the 

hallowed Chamber of the 

Senate of the Federal 

Republic of Nigeria, 

particularly at the 

executive session of July 

12, 2016, which dwelt on 

the running of the Senate 

and now in the public 

domain without any 

denial from the affected 

parties, feel compelled to 

state as follows: 

“We deplore in very 

strong terms the use of 

abusive, threatening, 

uncouth, vulgar and unparliamentary 

language 

by any senator against 

any other senator, 

particularly our female 

colleagues. 

“As distinguished 

members of the Red 

Chamber, we are strongly 

in favour of resolving 

any conflict that has 

arisen in the course of 

our representation and 

national duty through 

dialogue and due 

process and we will not 

be part of any solution 

obtained through any 

form of coercion, threat, 

intimidation and 

ungentlemanly conduct 

of the distinguished 

office of a senator. 

“We dissociate 

ourselves from the 

comments and behaviour 

of Senator Dino Melaye 

(APC, Kogi West) at the 

executive session of July 

12, 2016, as we represent 

people known for finer 

character and nobler 

culture of social 

interaction. 

“We equally state that 

we will be part of efforts 

to instill and enshrine 

decorum and 

gentlemanly conduct 

associated with the 

Upper Chamber of the 

National Assembly of the 

Federal Republic of 

Nigeria. 

“While condemning 

the use of any vulgar and 

un-senatorial language 

in all ramifications, we 

particularly take offence 

at the use of such abusive 

and denigrating words 

against the person of 

distinguished Senator 

Oluremi Tinubu (APC, 

Lagos Central) as such 

words greatly demeaned 

the female gender and 

the hallowed chamber of 

the Senate. 

“Finally, pursuant to 

the threat of physical 

abuse against Senator 

Oluremi Tinubu (APC, 

Lagos Central) by 

Senator Dino Melaye 

(APC, Kogi West), we 

state that we are not lilylivered 

and cannot be 

intimidated or deterred 

from our primary 

assignment of 

representing the good 

people of Lagos State 

and carrying out our 

national duties of lawmaking, 

even if it entails 

testifying in court on the 

side of the truth as part 

of the resolution of any 

conflict in the upper 

chamber.” 

Lagos APC asks 

Melaye to 

apologise 

to Tinubu 

Reacting to the 

development, Lagos 

State chapter of APC 

also, yesterday, 

condemned Melaye’s 

action, and called on the 

Kogi senator to 

apologise to Senator 

Oluremi Tinubu and her 

husband, Bola Tinubu. 

The party in a 

statement signed by 

Publicity Secretary, Joe 

Igbokwe, said: 

"Our attention has been 

drawn to a reckless and 

unguided statement 

credited to one Senator 

Dino Melaye from Kogi 

State, who said he will 

beat up our own 

distinguished Senator 

Oluremi Tinubu, 

representing Lagos 

Central and that nothing 

will happen. 

"We take it that this is a 

slip of tongue but if it is, 

indeed, true that this 

statement came from the 

heart of Dino Melaye, we 

need a psychiatric doctor 

to examine the state of 

his mind. 

"Senator Dino Melaye 

has been in the news in 

the Senate of the Federal 

Republic of Nigeria for 

the wrong reasons. His 

actions and deeds in 

recent times have 

contributed in no 

uncertain terms to 

various setbacks we have 

witnessed in the 8th 

Senate since its 

inception on June 9 

2015. 

"The hallowed chamber 

of the Senate of the 

Federal Republic of 

Nigeria is a prestigious 

place for the seriousminded, 

cerebral men 

and women of honour 

and integrity, those who 

can hold their heads 

when others are losing 

theirs, experienced but 

humble men and women. 

"It is not for lunatics, 

rascals, street urchins, 

ethically-challenged 

bigots or integritychallenged 

charlatans. 

"It seems to us in Lagos 

APC that Senator Dino 

Melaye has reached a 

point of diminishing 

returns. The unstable 

and funny man from Kogi 

State has reached a point 

where there is no other 

place to go but to go 

down irretrievably. 

"He can only go down 

with his likes and not 

with our own Senator 

Oluremi Tinubu, the 

highly revered, 

honoured and 

distinguished wife of our 

national leader, Asiwaju 

Bola Ahmed Tinubu. 

"Lagos APC wants Dino 

Melaye to move quickly 

to apologize to Senator 

Oluremi Tinubu and her 

beloved husband, 

Asiwaju Bola Ahmed 

Tinubu, and have the 

statement credited to him 

withdrawn without any 

further delay." 

Okun Parapo 

disowns Melaye 

Also reacting to the 

issue, a socio-cultural 

group of the Yoruba 

speaking areas of Kogi 

State, Okun Parapo, 

berated Melaye over 

claims of threatening to 

beat up Senator Tinubu, 

saying Melaye had not 

been a good 

representative of the 

people of Kogi West 

senatorial district. 

The group, in a 

statement by Mr. 

Adekunle Adeite, 

lamented that the senator 

was making mockery of 

Okunland that boasts of 

eminent Nigerians as 

John Cardinal 

Onaiyekan, Prof Eyitayo 

Lambo, the late Chief 

Sunday Awoniyi, Gen 

David Jemibewon, Mr. 

Bayo Ojo, Darey Art 

Alade and Nike Davies- 

Okundaye, among 

others. 

The statement read: 

"Okunland in Kogi State, 

Nigeria can boast of 

many prominent and 

illustrious sons. Notable 

among them are: John 

Cardinal Onaiyekan, 

Shola Ameobi (soccer 

player), Eyitayo Lambo, 

David Jemibewon, Darey 

Art Alade, Bayo Ojo, and 

Nike Davies-Okundaye. 

How this great land 

ended up with a senator 

like Dino still beats me."


08023019505 

08034073107 

Man, 24, 

rapes 

12-yr-old 

girl in Benin 

A 

24-year-old man, 

Jeremiah Ethe, 

allegedly defiled a 12- 

year-old girl and was 

charged before an 

Evbouriaria Magistrate’s 

Court in Benin, 

yesterday. 

The prosecutor, 

Inspector Olatoye 

Oluwaseun, told the court 

that the accused 

committed the offence on 

May 1, at about 6p.m. at 

13, Igbinegie Str., off 

Okabere Street, Upper 

Sakponba Road, Benin. 

He said that the offence 

contravened Section 218 

of the criminal Code Cap. 

48 Vol. ll, Laws of the 

defunct Bendel State of 

Nigeria, 1976, as 

applicable in Edo. 

Chief Magistrate C. E. 

Oghuma admitted the 

accused to a N250,000 

bail, with one surety in 

like sum, who must own 

a house and adjourned 

the case till September 9, 

for hearing. 

... another 

rapes 23-yr-old 

woman in Ogun 

A 

23-year-old man, 

Bright Gbarane, 

charged with rape of a 

23-year-old woman, was 

yesterday remanded in 

prison custody by an Ota 

Chief Magistrate’s Court 

in Ogun State. 

Gbarane, who lives at 

14, Daramila Street, 

behind Winners Chapel, 

Canaanland, Ota, was 

alleged to have had 

carnal knowledge of the 

girl without her consent. 

The prosecutor, 

Corporal Abdulkareem 

Mustapha, told the court 

that the accused 

committed the offence on 

June 14 at about 9a.m. in 

his residence. 

Mustapha said that the 

offence contravened 

Section 8 of the Criminal 

Code, Laws of Ogun, 

2006. 

The accused, however, 

pleaded not guilty to the 

charge. 

Chief Magistrate A. I. 

Adelaja, in her ruling 

ordered that the accused 

should be remanded in 

prison custody, pending 

the report of the Director 

of Public Prosecutions in 

the state. 

The magistrate 

adjourned the case till 

August 5. 

REMAINS OF THE DAY: Scavengers busy at the scene of an accident involving a fully-loaded fuel tanker, which claimed 

lives, along Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. PHOTO: Lamidi Bamidele. 

3 die, landlord survives as 

building collapses in Anambra 

By Chimaobi Nwaiwu 

AWKA—A 

two-storey 

building under 

construction at Ndiagu in 

Idemili North Local 

Government Area of Anambra 

State has collapsed, killing 

three workers. 

It was gathered that the 

owner of the building and two 

By Davies Iheamnachor 

PORT 

HARCOURT— 

POLICE detectives on a 

rescue mission of kidnapped 

victims in Ikwerre Local 

Government Area of Rivers 

State were reportedly engaged 

in a gun battle by suspected 

cultists along Ubima-Omerelu 

Road, yesterday. Two of them 

were killed. 

The police reportedly acted on 

information that the gunmen, 

who had earlier attacked and 

killed two mobile policemen 

attached to 48 PMF at Omerelu 

and made away with their rifles, 

were in the area with about six 

men suspected to have been 

kidnapped. 

A member of the community, 

simply identified as Miss. 

Miracle, said the police had 

rescued the victims before they 

were ambushed by the 

kidnappers. 

Miracle noted that the 

incident caused confusion in 

Ubima community and its 

environs as residents 

scampered for safety. 

She hinted that the policemen 

and other security operatives 

immediately reinforced and 

took over two communities in 

the area. 

others narrowly escaped 

death as they were on site 

supervising workers when 

the building went down. An 

eyewitness said they 

sustained severe injuries and 

were taken to a nearby 

hospital. 

Those that rushed to the 

scene of the incident and 

assisted in the rescue mission 

Miracle said two young 

men believed to be relations 

of the gunmen had been 

arrested in Omuanwa 

community by the furious 

security operatives. 

Similarly, a resident of the 

area, Mr. Madu Amadi, said: 

“The cultists killed four 

policemen, while police killed 

two of the cultists. Police also 

included the state 

Commissioner of Police, Mr. 

Hosea Karma and the 

Divisional Police Officer in 

Ogidi, Mr. Hassan Musa. 

Karma, who said the deaths 

were “unfortunate and 

untimely,” urged the people in 

the area to take heart and 

prayed for the repose of the 

souls of the dead. 

4 policemen, 2 cultists die in Rivers gun battle 

By Evelyn Usman & 

Olasunkanmi Akoni 

LAGOS—A 27-year-old 

man, Oluwayelu 

Adeboye, has been arrested 

by the Lagos State Task Force, 

for allegedly posing as a 2nd 

Lieutenant of the Nigerian 

Army. 

The Head of Public Affairs 

Unit of the task force, Mr. 

Adebayo Taofiq, confirmed 

the arrest yesterday. 

Taofiq said the suspect had 

been deceiving members of 

the public and security agents 

by presenting himself as a 

military officer, adding that 

the suspect was arrested 

arrested two of the boys. 

“Police got information that 

some victims were kidnapped 

and kept somewhere in the 

bush between Ubima and 

Omerelu. 

“The kidnappers attacked 

members of Special Anti- 

Robbery Squad, SARS, who 

were coming to rescue the 

victims. So, there was 

when he attempted to release 

a vehicle impounded by the 

task force over traffic 

obstruction. 

He said: “The suspect 

followed the owner of the 

impounded vehicle to the task 

force office to see the 

Chairman, SP Olayinka 

Egbeyemi. 

“The suspect introduced 

himself as a 2nd Lieutenant in 

the Nigerian Army come to 

secure the release of the 

vehicle. After interrogation, 

the chairman discovered that 

he was a fake. 

“The chairman immediately 

ordered his arrest. He 

confessed that he was 

The police boss said that the 

corpses had been taken to Iyi- 

Enu Hospital’s morgue. 

President-General of Ogidi 

community, Chief Chuka 

Onubogu, blamed the incident 

on substandard materials. He 

appealed to contractors and 

those involved in building 

projects to ensure that genuine 

materials were used. 

exchange of gunfire between 

the cultist and the policemen, 

which led to the recorded 

deaths.” 

Contacted, the Public 

Relations Officer of Rivers State 

Police Command, DSP Omoni 

Nnamdi, said the police were 

aware of the incident, adding 

that some hostages were 

rescued. 

Fake 2nd Lieutenant exposed in 

attempt to release impounded vehicle 

rusticated from the Federal 

Polytechnic, Ilaro, in 2014, for 

impersonation.” 

Taofiq further said that the 

suspect had been a habitual 

impostor, including posing as 

son of a general in the Army. 

According to Taofiq, “he 

claimed he has been posing as 

an officer of Nigerian Army, 

Nigerian Navy and Nigerian 

Police Force to secure the 

release of anyone arrested at 

different Police Stations across 

Lagos. 

“After the release of 

impounded vehicles, he would 

collect a fee of N15,000 or more 

from the owner of the vehicle. 

He also claimed to have been


08023019505 

08034073107 

Abuja preacher's murder must be 

thoroughly investigated—SENATE 

By Henry Umoru 

& Joseph Erunke 

ABUJA—THE 

Senate, 

yesterday, condemned the 

weekend murder of the 

Redeemed Christian Church of 

God, RCCG, preacher, 

Deaconess Eunice Mojisola 

Olawale, during evangelism in 

Kubwa, a suburb of Abuja, the 

Federal Capital Territory, FCT. 

The Senate urged police and 

other security agencies to 

intensify investigation, arrest 

and prosecute the culprits, just 

as it asked governments at all 

levels to provide more security 

facilities, such as closed-circuit 

television, CCTV, all over the 

country. 

The Senate also observed a 

minute silence in honour of the 

deceased and prayed that such 

should not occur again, 

especially the kind of killing 

which left the widower with 

seven children. 

The Senate recalled that 

Eunice Olawale had been into 

early morning preaching for 

years without complaints from 

any quarters, and expressed 

pains that “as she was being 

Heading for Kuje Market, Abuja, yesterday. NAN PHOTO. 

short-listed for recruitment into 

the Nigeria Police.” 

He said the Lagos State 

Commissioner of Police, Mr. 

Fatai Owoseni, has directed that 

the suspect be charged to court. 

‘2nd Liuetenant’ Adeboye 

Deaconess Eunice Olawale 

attacked and was shouting for 

help, no one came to her 

rescue.” 

Senator Tinubu 

These resolutions were sequel 

to a motion by Senator Oluremi 

Tinubu, APC, Lagos Central. 

In her presentation, Senator 

Tinubu noted that unwarranted 

killings were becoming rampant 

in the country. 

She said: “The Senate notes 

the gruesome murder of 

Deaconess Eunice Mojisola 

Olawale, a woman preacher, on 

Saturday July, 9 at about 5a.m. 

at Kubwa. The Senate is 

By Esther Onyegbula 

LAGOS—A middle-aged 

man, yesterday, met his 

waterloo while attempting to 

steal recharge cards worth 

N44,000 from a female vendor 

at a complex around Bode 

Thomas area of Lagos State. 

The suspect was 

apprehended, beaten up and 

taken to the police station. 

According to an eyewitness, 

Temitope Ajayi: “The suspect, 

who was well dressed, told the 

young lady selling recharge 

cards that he owned an office in 

the complex and one of the 

parked Sport Utility Vehicles. 

“He took all the lady's recharge 

cards and asked her to sit 

somewhere in the compound to 

saddened by the unfortunate 

incident which leaves the 

widower with seven children. 

“The Senate observes that 

unwarranted killings are 

becoming rampant in Nigeria. 

The Senate observes further 

that it is unlawful to take 

another life of a citizen as 

enshrined in Chapter Four, 

Sections 33, 38, 39 and 41 of 

the Constitution of the Federal 

Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as 

amended). 

“The Senate commiserates 

with the widower, Pastor 

Elisha Olawale and the seven 

children left behind by the 

deceased. 

By Ochuko Akuopha 

O BIARUKU—ONE 

person was feared dead 

and two others injured as 

members of rival cult groups 

went on rampage at Obiaruku 

community, Ukwuani Local 

Government Area, Delta 

calculate the total cost, while 

he informs his Secretary to 

bring her the money. 

“After pretending to climb 

the stairs into the building, the 

suspect returned and told the 

young lady that her money is 

on the way, she should wait 

for his Secretary.” 

“Unknown to him, the 

vendor was watching. The 

suspect quickly got to the 

gate, jumped into a tricycle 

(Keke Napep) but was 

grabbed by the observant 

vendor, who pulled him off 

the Keke and raised the alarm. 

“He was then given a light 

beating and has since been 

handed over to the Bode 

Thomas Police Unit.” 

Confirming the incident, 

“The Senate urge members 

of the public to always 

respond to distress calls, at 

least calling emergency police 

numbers where they cannot 

physically intervene.” 

In his remarks, the Senate 

President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, 

said: “In line with our rules, 

there can be no further 

debate. I think that this case 

is one that is of great 

concern to all of us.” 

He added that the security 

agencies must do all they can 

to get the culprits and find a 

way of bringing an end to 

this kind of unwarranted 

killings. 

One killed, 2 injured as cultists 

clash in Delta beer parlour 

State. 

The cultists, it was learned, 

took to the streets of the 

community, Tuesday, 

unleashing hostilities on 

residents, dispossessing them 

of valuables. 

A source in the community 

said trouble started when 

members of the rival cult 

groups met at a beer parlour 

and engaged in a fight after 

a heated argument. 

“It was like they had some 

unresolved issues among 

themselves, and in the course 

of the clash, one of the cultists 

was killed,” a source who 

craved anonymity said. 

According to the source, 

members of the deceased’s 

cultist’s group went on 

rampage, invaded the home 

of the former vigilante team 

Chairman and injured him 

with some sharp objects. 

Police Public Relations 

Officer of the state police 

command, Celestina Kalu 

confirmed the incident and 

said no arrest has been made. 

Vendor escapes N44,000 recharge card scam 

The suspect 

Lagos State Police Command 

Public Relations Officer, SP 

Dolapo Badmos, said she 

would get back to us, but had 

not done so at press time. 

Delta Poly 

exonerates 

self from 

student's 

death 

•... as Itsekiri 

unions petition 

police 

By Perez Brisibe 

O GHARA—THE 

Rector of Delta State 

Polytechnic, Otefe- 

Oghara, Dr. Clara 

Sogbaike, has said that the 

student whose corpse was 

found at the institution’s 

staff quarters junction on 

Saturday, July 2, had 

been away from school for 

about two weeks and 

came back a day before 

her dead body was found. 

The student, Miss 

Oritsegbubemi Udu, an 

ND II student of the 

institution, was found 

dead with white 

substances oozing from 

her mouth. 

Dr. Sogbaike, in a 

statement by the 

institution’s Public 

Relations Officer, 

Wilberforce Ofotokun, 

said: “The student was 

said to have been away 

from school for about two 

weeks and came back on 

Friday, July I, at the end 

of the student week. 

“She left again, in the 

same car that brought her, 

after dropping her 

luggage that evening 

only for her corpse to be 

found off campus in the 

morning of the next day. 

Till now, no 

representative of the 

family has come to inform 

the management of the 

institution of the 

incidence.” 

Meanwhile, the 

National Association of 

Itsekiri Graduates, NAIG, 

and National Association 

of Itsekiri Students, NAIS, 

have petitioned the 

Deputy Inspector General 

of Police, Force Criminal 

Investigation and 

Intelligence Department 

over the mysterious death 

of the student owing to 

what they referred to as 

the lacklustre manner the 

police in the division is 

handling the case. 

According to the 

petitions, which were 

signed by their counsel, 

Dokpegboritse 

Atotuomah, “the deceased 

was very healthy on 

the day before her murder. 

“She had planned to 

attend the beauty pageant 

commemorating the 

polytechnic students’ 

celebration.”


Jonathan’s 

ministers, 

others 

returning 

diplomatic 

passports — 

Immigration 

CG 

By Omeiza Ajayi 

A BUJA—THE 

Comptroller- 

General of the Nigerian 

Immigration Service NIS, 

Mohammed Babandede, 

has announced the 

retrieval of diplomatic 

passports and other 

official travel documents 

from immediate past 

government officials. 

Babandede had on 

assumption of office about 

two months ago, 

threatened to arrest 

former ministers, 

governors and others who 

served under the last 

administration of 

President Goodluck 

Jonathan but refused to 

return such diplomatic 

documents since they left 

office over a year ago. 

The CG, who spoke 

during an interaction with 

journalists in Abuja, 

maintained that the 

strategy to collect the 

passports from their 

holders at the borders 

would be sustained. 

“Some of them have 

started returning the 

passports. The response 

has been very impressive, 

but I cannot immediately 

give you the number of 

those that have returned 

theirs,” he said. 

Babandede said 

additional measures, 

including prosecution of 

defaulters, might also be 

considered. 

According to him, the 

NIS has received approval 

to write to federal, state, 

local government 

institutions to, henceforth, 

include the return of the 

government documents as 

some of the things to return 

before payment of 

severance or retirement 

benefits. 

“Also you cannot cross the 

border with the diplomatic 

passport whether going or 

coming if you are not 

entitled to it, we will collect 

it. 

“The next thing we will 

do is to go house to house 

to collect it. It is an offence. 

I told a former minister that 

it is an offence for you to 

hold a passport when you 

do not deserve it. 

‘’It attracts a two-year jail 

term. We will soon begin to 

catch defaulters. People 

have started returning a lot 

of the passports,” he said. 

$200bn scam: EFCC seals First Group office 

in Abuja 

By Soni Daniel, 

Northern Region Editor 

AFTER MANY months of 

investigating the atrocities 

allegedly committed by the First 

Group, a property firm said to be 

based in Dubai, United Arab 

Emirate, the Economic and 

Financial Crimes Commission, 

EFCC, yesterday, closed down 

the Abuja Office of the entity, 

accusing it of fleecing 

unsuspecting Nigerians to the 

tune of $200 billion. 

The sealed office of the 

company is located on the 7th 

floor of Bank of Industry Building 

in the Central Business District, 

Abuja. 

A top source in EFCC said the 

firm was shut because it was 

implicated in what it called ‘phony 

real estate scam in which 

innocent Nigerians were duped 

to the tune of $200 billion. 

According to the anti-graft 

agency, it is as a result of the scam 

that the commission raided the 

Abuja office in May this year as 

part of its investigations into the 

alleged large-scale fraud 

perpetrated by the Group. 

“Investigations into the scam 

revealed that the company 

originally known as TFG Real 

Estate Limited operates in 

Nigeria in the guise of being The 

First Group Company, a Dubaibased 

real estate firm, which is 

not registered in Nigeria. 

“The modus operandi of the 

company is to lure innocent 

Nigerians interested in owning 

properties in Dubai, into parting 

with their hard-earned money. 

“They are mandated to make 

the payment in instalments; 

however, the payment is 

deliberately structured in such a 

way that the debt is difficult to 

offset, and as soon as one 

defaults, the money will be 

MEETING: From left, Director of Public Prosecutions, Mohammed Diri; Attorney General of Federation 

and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami; Mr. Taiwo Abidogun, and Director, Civil Litigation, Dayo 

Apata, at a meeting with the Senate committee on Judiciary over the alleged forgery of 2015 Senate 

Rules, at National Assembly, yesterday. Photo: Gbemiga Olamikan 

Alleged Senate Forgery: No going back on 

case, AGF insists 

By Henry Umoru & 

Joseph Erunke 

A BUJA—ATTORNEY 

General of the 

Federation and Minister of 

Justice, Abubakar Malami, 

yesterday, vowed not to 

withdraw the forgery case 

against Senate President 

Bukola Saraki and his deputy, 

Senator Ike Ekweremadu, from 

the courts on the claim that it 

was in the public interest. 

Malami, who appeared before 

the Senate Committee on 

Judiciary, Human Rights, and 

Legal Matters, said the case was 

on the basis of a police report 

which predated his 

appointment as the chief law 

officer of the country. He, 

however, in deference to the 

Senate Standing Rules 

forbidding discussion of issues 

in court, drew back from 

discussing the merit or 

otherwise of the case. 

The about two-hour session 

also saw a sharp exchange of 

words between pro- and anti- 

Saraki senators. 

Malami, who noted that the 

amendment of the 2015 

Standing Order was carried out 

illegally, appeared after about 

three weeks after the invitation 

was sent to him and was barely 

24 hours after Senate President 

Saraki threatened to invoke the 

relevant sections of the 

constitution to compel him to 

appear before the Senate 

Committee. 

Answering questions from the 

senators, Malami noted that he 

had a clear obligation to do 

whatever should be done within 

the context of the constitution to 

sustain the democratic process. 

“The issue that constitutes the 

basis of this invitation is a criminal 

case instituted against certain 

members of the Senate. It is an 

act that predates my appointment. 

There are series of suits. The date 

of interest is July 23, 2015. 

“I was appointed on November 

12, 2015. That is four months 

after the investigation was 

concluded by the NPF. I have 

an obligation in the sustenance 

of democracy to institute a legal 

action from an investigation that 

had been concluded. It was 

based on this that I took the 

action. 

“The action was not taken to 

truncate any democratic process 

but to protect it. There are now 

two pending cases in court. One 

is a civil case instituted by some 

senators. The other is a criminal 

case instituted by the office of the 

AGF. These two matters are subjudice. 

When a matter is before a 

court of law, nobody is entitled to 

look into it. 

“seized” by the company. 

“The company is implicated in 

a phony real estate scam in 

which innocent Nigerians were 

duped to the tune of $200 billion. 

“EFCC operatives had in May 

2016 raided the office as part of 

investigations in the alleged 

property fraud. Several 

implicating documents were 

discovered, including a list of 

high profile patrons,” the source 

said. 

Attempts to get reaction from the 

corporate headquarters of the 

firm in Dubai were unsuccessful 

as the office claimed ignorance 

of sealing of the property in 

Abuja. The office, which was 

contacted by Vanguard around 

6p.m. on ++971 4 455 0282, said 

they would, however, get in touch 

with our correspondent in future 

date in order to respond to the 

development. 

A message on the TFG website 

claims, among other things, that: 

“When you invest in property 

with The First Group, our promise 

is to provide you with much more 

than amazing real estate and 

lucrative returns. 

“Ownership with us gives you 

instant membership to our 

prestigious club and access to a 

world of exciting rewards and 

privileges, from cash returns and 

investment property credit to fully 

paid Dubai holidays. We invite 

you to discover more about these 

outstanding benefits, created 

exclusively for our owners. 

“As a property owner with The 

First Group, you are our top 

priority. Our commitment to you 

is to ensure you enjoy a superior 

level of service that goes above 

and beyond simply buying an 

amazing property in Dubai. 

“This is why we have created a 

specialised company, The First 

Group Asset Management, to 

look after every aspect of your 

finished investment property. 

“Their highly skilled team of 

industry specialists have an 

impressive track record spanning 

decades of experience in the 

global hotel and property market. 

Our property investors can rest 

assured that they are in expert 

hands. All you need to do is sit 

back and enjoy the rewards of a 

truly effortless investment.” 

Contractors under pressure to comply with 

Workmen’s Compensation Act 

By Favour Nnabugwu 

THE FEDERAL Government 

has taken the lead to ensure 

that contractors in the country 

comply with the 2010 Workmen’s 

Compensation Act. 

Minister of Power Works and 

Housing, Mr. Babatunde 

Fashola, who dropped the hint as 

guest speaker at the concluded 

2016 National Insurance 

Conference in Abuja, yesterday, 

vowed to lead the campaign for 

compliance to the Act by 

government contractors to ensure 

protection of their workers. 

According to him, this will 

encourage commitment and 

dedication among the workers. 

The 2010 Federal Workmen’s 

Compensation Act, which 

repealed and replaced the 2004 

legislation, makes provision for 

insurance cover for workmen in 

respect of occupational disease(s) 

(arising from exposure to risk 

factors), injuries from accidents at 

the workplace or in the course of 

employment. 

The Minster, who spoke on the 

'Expected Role of Insurance in 

Infrastructural development,' a 

topic of the overall theme of 

'Expanding National Resources 

and Infrastructure in Challenging 

Times,' said he would use his 

position as Minister of Power, 

Works and Housing, to insist that 

all the state Controllers of Works 

in the country took steps to 

demand and ensure that all 

government contractors provided 

proof of compliance with the law.


10 — Vanguard, THURSDAY JULY 14 , 2016 

Court summons 

Shonekan’s son 

By Onozure Dania & 

Gladys Ezeagu 

LAGOS—AN Igbosere 

Magistrate’s Court 

yesterday ordered that a son 

of Chief Ernest Shonekan, 

former head of Nigeria's 

Interim Government, 

Adeboye, should appear 

before the Court on the next 

adjourned date of a matter he 

instituted before it. 

Magistrate Miss Olanike 

Olagbende gave this order at 

the resumed hearing of a case 

over alleged entering of his 

sitting room. 

Olagbende said that a 

witness summon should be 

issued to Shonekan, 

following his absence in court 

during the hearing in a case 

of breach of peace; he 

instituted against two men. 

She however adjourned the 

case till September 21 for 

mention. 

The police had on May 5, 

2016, arraigned two men, 

Lucky Nwene, 38 and Friday 

Obinna, 37, for allegedly 

entering into the sitting room 

of Shonekan without any 

invitation. 

The defendants were 

docked on the charge of 

breach of peace, preferred 

against them by the police. 

Badejo-Okusanya 

bags Nkrumah 

Leadership 

Award 

L AGOS—THE 

President of the 

African Public Relations 

Association, APRA and 

Managing Director of CMC 

Connect Group, Mr. Yomi 

Badejo-Okusanya, has 

received the Dr. Kwame 

Nkrumah Leadership Award 

of Integrity and Transparency 

as the Most Outstanding 

African Personality of the 

Year. 

A statement signed by Mrs 

Bola Ayejuni, CMC Connect 

Business Manager ( Media 

Unit ) said; ‘’Badejo- 

Okusanya was conferred 

with the award in Lagos 

recently by the ECOWAS 

Youth Parliament (EYP). He 

surpassed other nominees 

from Liberia, Ghana and 

Cape Verde to clinch the 

award after being nominated 

by the Nigerian Youth Forum. 

‘’He was commended for 

promoting African Image, 

exemplary leadership, 

distinct reputation 

throughout his business 

career. The award, titled 

“Championing the Course of 

the African Next Generation”, 

has made him a Grand 

Commander of the ECOWAS 

Youth Parliament.’’ 

FACTIONALISATION: Police seal Lagos PDP secretariat 

By Dapo Akinrefon 

L AGOS—VIOLENCE 

yesterday broke out at the 

secretariat of the Peoples 

Democratic Party, PDP in Lagos 

State, which led to the seal-off of 

the secretariat. 

Vanguard gathered that fight 

broke out when a faction loyal to 

Senator Ali Modu Sheriff led by 

Mr Segun Adewale invaded the 

PDP secretariat situated around 

Shogunle bus-stop. 

In an effort to resist Adewale, 

who was alleged to have led thugs 

to the party secretariat, the other 

faction led by Mr Moshood 

Salvador engaged Adewale in a 

free for all. 

The pandemonium led to the 

two factions shooting sporadically 

and using matchetes on each 

other, which led to some members 

to sustain injuries in the fracas. 

In a bid to douse the situation, 

police officers were drafted to the 

scene leading to the sealing of the 

party secretariat. 

Efforts to get across to the Police 

Public Relations Officer, PPRO, of 

Lagos State Command, Dolapo 

Opeyemi Badmos proved abortive 

as her phones were switched off. 

I’m a peace loving person 

– Adewale 

Speaking to Vanguard, the 

Senator Ali Modu Sheriff factional 

chairman of the party, Mr Segun 

Adewale absolved his supporters 

LECTURE: From left; Prof. Dafe Otobo, Chairman, Planning Committee, of Distinguished 

Public Lecture; Dr Matthew Oladele, President, Nigerian Institute of Public Relations Nigeria, 

(NIPRN), Mazi Sam. Ohuabunwa; founder/chairman, Sam Ohuabunwa Foundation for Economic 

Empowerment, Prof. Sunday Owualah, representing Dean, Faculty of Business Admin., Prof R. 

K. Ojikutu; Dr. Kalu Idika Kalu, Chairman of the Institute For Policy and Economic development; 

Elder Felix Ohiwerei, former Chairman, Nigerian Breweries Plc and chairman of the occasion 

and distinguished guest lecturer, Dr. Imonitie Chris Imoisili during the Distinguished Public 

Lecture organised by Department of Industrial Relations & Personnel Management, Faculty of 

Business Administration, University of Lagos Yaba Lagos. Photo by Diran Oshe. 

of any wrongdoing. 

Adewale said; “We had a 

meeting at the party secretariat, our 

meeting started from 8 am. In the 

course of our meeting, the Bode 

George faction disrupted our 

meeting and started shooting and 

even matcheted some of our 

people. As a result of that, I had to 

call off the meeting. That was what 

happened.” 

Denying the claim that he led 

thugs to the party secretariat, 

Adewale said; “So my people were 

Ambode makes history, holds exco meeting in Badagry 

By Olasunkanmi Akoni 

with Agency Reports 

BADAGRY—TO give the 

ancient town of Badagry a 

sense of belonging, Governor 

Akinwunmi Ambode yesterday 

made history, holding the State 

Executive Council (SEC) meeting 

for the first time at the VIP Chalet 

in Badagry. He was accompanied 

by members of the SEC. 

Commenting on the 

development, the Secretary to the 

State Government, Mr. Tunji 

Bello, said this was the first time, 

that the state government would 

be holding its Executive Council 

meeting in Badagry. 

This, according to him, was a 

good sign of the visionary 

leadership Governor Ambode was 

providing in the State. 

Also speaking, the 

Commissioner for Information and 

Strategy, Mr. Steve Ayorinde, 

reiterated the symbolism and 

importance of the SEC meeting 

Buhari, Osinbajo wives, Elumelu sign 

women empowerment initiative 

THE wife of the President, Mrs. 

Aisha Buhari, wife of the Vice 

President, Mrs. Dolapo Osinbajo and 

leading African businessman, Tony 

Elumelu, have signed a call-to-action 

through partnership with The Tony 

Elumelu Foundation and Africa’s global 

bank, UBA, to empower Nigerian 

women. 

The initiative, which was brought to 

bear at a forum and exhibition on 

Nigerian Women in Export in Abuja, is 

to connect one million women to the 

international market by 2020. 

Delivering the keynote address at the 

forum, Mrs. Buhari said: ‘’Nigerian 

women are extremely hardworking. We 

need only a push and this is the time. 

“I would like to lead a call to the Federal 

Government to assign 20% of public 

procurement to women-owned 

businesses.” 

Speaking at the forum, Chairman of 

Heirs Holdings, United Bank for Africa 

and Transcorp Plc, Mr. Tony Elumelu, 

stated that the capacity of women in the 

private sector to contribute to the 

development of the country was 

underestimated. 

He validated this remark by sharing 

the significant value created by the 

female beneficiaries of the $100 million 

Tony Elumelu Foundation 

Entrepreneurship Programme, who are 

impacting their communities in many 

ways. 

He said: “Africa is in need of 

economic and social development 

and investing in women is one of the 

smartest ways to go about it. 

the ones who shot and matcheted 

themselves? Is it possible to 

unleash mayhem on ourselves? 

They are presently at the hospital, 

I have photographs and pictorial 

evidence to back up my claim.” 

Adewale has no claim to 

Lagos PDP — Apena 

Meantime, the Vice Chairman 

of the party, Mr Ola Apena said; 

“I heard of what happened. I was 

told that Segun Adewale came to 

the PDP secretariat with thugs to 

Ayorinde said the decision of the 

Governor to take the meeting 

outside the Lagos House, Ikeja, 

for the very first time, was a clear 

indication of his readiness and 

commitment to spread 

development to every nook and 

cranny of the state. 

He said the governor had spent 

three days in Badagry, which 

according to him, goes to show 

that every part of the state is safe 

and the governor can perform his 

duty anywhere in the state. 

disrupt the secretariat. We were 

to have a general assembly today 

(yesterday), it was a successful 

one. I was even standing in for 

the state chairman of the party. I 

did not witness what they said 

happened but I was told and I 

want to believe what they said 

because that is very consistent 

with the personality of Segun 

Adewale. He believes in violence 

and he believes in moving about 

with thugs. 

On Adewale’s claim that he 

remains the chairman of the party 

in Lagos State, Apena said; 

“There is nothing to claim 

because the PDP is one family and 

we do not have two PDP. We have 

only one party recognised by law 

and that party is under the 

leadership of Senator Ahmed 

Makarfi as the caretaker 

chairman. As a founding member 

of this party, I belong to the 

establishment of my party lineage. 

I think we should ask Segun 

Adewale, which of the PDP he 

belongs to because the only 

authentic PDP is under my party. 

There is a court pronouncement 

that confirms it, I don’t know 

which party he is.”

Vanguard, THURSDAY, JULY 14, 2016 — 11 

HALLIBURTON: Fayose justifies claim of Buhari 

wife’s involvement 

By Rotimi Ojomoyela 

A DO-EKITI—COUNSEL 

to Governor Ayodele 

Fayose of Ekiti State, Chief Mike 

Ozekhome, SAN, has replied the 

wife of President Muhammadu 

Buhari, Mrs Aisha Buhari 

through her counsel, Mary 

Ekpere & Co, saying the 

governor’s claim as regards her 

involvement in the infamous 

Halliburton scandal was correct 

and justified in law. 

Ozekhome insisted that there 

are documentary evidences to 

support the governor’s claim that 

Mrs Buhari was indeed 

mentioned in the scandal. 

In the letter dated July 8, 2016, 

Ozekhome affirmed that the 

statement made regarding the 

involvement of Mrs Aisha Buhari 

in the Halliburton scandal was 

“correct and justified in law, 

having regards to a court 

judgment convicting one Mr 

William Jefferson for bribery in 

the Halliburton case.” 

Counsel to the president’s wife, 

Mary Ekpere & Co had written to 

Governor Fayose on June 22, 2016, 

demanding a retraction of the 

governor’s statement that the 

President’s wife was involved in 

the Halliburton scandal, 

threatening legal action if the 

retraction was not made within five 

days. 

However, Ozekhome said the 

statement of Governor Fayose was 

correct and justified, having been 

factually premised on an existing 

court judgment. 

The letter read; “Our client has 

referred to us your letter dated 

June 22, 2016, on alleged 

defamation of the character of your 

client , Her Excellency, Mrs Aisha 

Buhari, the wife of Muhammadu 

Buhari, GCFR, with firm 

instructions to reply to and reject 

same in its entirety. 

“Our client states and reaffirms 

categorically that the statement he 

made as regards the involvement 

of Mrs Aisha Buhari, the wife of 

President Buhari, in the 

Halliburton scandal, is correct and 

justified in law; having regards 

to a court judgement convicting 

one Mr William Jefferson for 

bribery in the Halliburton case. 

“Therein, the name of the 

President’s wife featured 

conspicuously. At page 22 of the 

said judgment delivered by the 

United State District Court, 

Eastern District of Virginia, 

Alexandria Division, USA, in 

criminal No 1: 07CR209, the said 

Mr William Jefferson was 

sentenced at 9.00 am on 

November 13, 2009, by Mark D, 

Lytle. Your client, Mrs Aisha 

Buhari was specifically mentioned 

in the judgment. 

The judge referred to Exhibits 

36-87 in the following words, for 

clarification; “See also 

Government Exhibits 36-87 (6/26/ 

02 $170,000 wire transfer from 

account in Nigeria in the name 

of Aisha Buhari to an account in 

the name of The ANJ Group, LLC, 

identifying “William Jefferson” as 

Beneficiary)… Given the age of 

the defendant, the severity of the 

sentence calculated by the 

Probation Office, the defendant’s 

frequent travel overseas and 

unexplained wire transfers from 

overseas locations to financial 

accounts used by the defendant, 

the defendant cannot rebut the 

presumption at sentencing that he 

is a risk of flight. 

“The said Williams Jefferson is 

currently serving a jail term in the 

USA and to the best of our client’s 

knowledge; this judgment has not 

been challenged, or set aside by 

any Appellate court of law 

anywhere in the world. 

“The statement of His 

Excellency, our client, is therefore 

correct and justified, same 

having been factually 

premised on an existing court 

judgment above referred to.” 

GROUND-BREAKING: From left: Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Lagos Chairman, Mr. Deji 

Elumoye; Nigeria Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ) National President, Mrs Ifeyinwa 

Omowole; GM/Editor in Chief, Vanguard Newspapers, Mr. Gbenga Adefaye; GMD/CEO, Primewater 

View Holdings, Mrs Olabisi Babalola and the Company’s Chairman, Prince Adetunji Ogunwusi, 

during the groundbreaking of NUJ Jewel building project at Mowe in Ogun State. 

ONDO GOV POLL: Borrofice favoured to pick APC’s ticket 

By Our Reporter 

AHEAD of the November 

26 governorship election 

in Ondo State, the pulse of 

majority stakeholders in the All 

Progressives Congress, APC, 

seems swayed towards the 

emergence of Senator Ajayi 

Borrofice as the flag bearer of the 

Why Ikpeazu must step down as Abia 

gov immediately — KEYAMO 

LAGOS—HUMAN rights 

activist and Lagos lawyer, 

Mr. Festus Keyamo, has asked 

Abia State governor, Okezie 

Ikpeazu, to step down, following 

his sack by a Federal High Court 

in Abuja two weeks ago. 

Keyamo, in a statement issued 

in Lagos yesterday, said it would 

have been permissible for Dr. 

Ikpeazu to continue in office as 

governor, if Dr. Sampson Ogah 

had not been issued a Certificate 

of Return instantly by the 


Commission, INEC. 

He contended that having been 

issued a Certificate of Return, it 

was constitutionally abnormal and 

legally paradoxical that a person 

with a validly issued Certificate of 

Return should not occupy that 

office immediately, while the 

person with an invalidated 

Certificate of Return continued to 

occupy the office. 

He said: ‘’That is why the Interim 

Order restraining the Chief Judge 

of Abia State or any other Judicial 

Officer from swearing in Dr. 

Sampson Uchechukwu Ogah is a 

non-sequitor as the judgment of 

Abang J has already been 

complied with by the Independent 

National Electoral Commission. 

‘’The scenario we have now is 

that of a person, without any 

document entitling him to that 

office, occupying the office of 

governor of Abia State, whilst a 

person who has both a valid court 

judgment and a valid Certificate 

of Return is unable to assume 

office as governor of the state.'' 

party, acording to an on-line 

report by Sahel Standard. 

Though the party in the state 

had denied anointing any of the 

aspirants for its ticket, feelers in 

the party is that leaders are wary 

of fielding a less popular 

candidate that will affect its 

chances of forming the next 

government in the state. 

According to sources in the 

party, the scheming within the 

party, which is largely subtle is 

directed at the emergence of a 

candidate that will guarantee the 

party victory at the poll. 

The arrangement will 

consolidate the party’s growing 

strength in the state, place the 

Oka-Akoko-born politician at a 

pole position to pick the party’s 

ticket as most of the party’s 

leaders agreed it will produce 

victory. 

While other aspirants jostling 

for the ticket of the party were as 

well considered, the general 

consensus by most leaders of the 

party who considered the 

advantage of the party taking 

over the Alagbaka government 

house favoured Borrofice. 

The Professor of Zoology, 

who is currently representing 

Ondo North Senatorial District 

in the senate for the second 

term, is believed by most of the 

leaders to have the necessary 

political wherewithal to 

deliver victory for the party. 

He noted that; “ He, Borrofice, 

is considered by many as the 

ideal candidate that can give 

our party, APC, victory in the 

governorship election. Not only 

is he well entrenched among 

electorates in the state, the 

manner in which he dared 

Mimiko and went ahead to win 

his re-election to the senate is 

intimidating and cannot be 

easily ignored. 

T h e 

source 

said that 

to ensure 

Borrofice 

emerges 

t h e 

party’s 

f l a g 

bearer, 

there 

h a v e 

b e e n 

moves by 

s o m e 

leaders 

within 

the party 

t o 

mobilise 

their 

structures 

to back 

him. 

S-West PDP 

exco wants 

end to Nigerians’ 

suffering 

By Dayo Johnson 

AKURE—THE Peoples 

Democratic Party, PDP, 

in the South West has called 

for measures that will 

ameliorate the sufferings of the 

masses in the country. 

It wondered why the ruling 

All Progressives Congress, 

APC, administration was 

dissipating most of its energy 

on anti-corruption crusade at 

the detriment of Nigerians who 

are hungry. 

This was contained in a. 

Communique issued at the 

end of the inaugural meeting 

of the party. Zonal executive 

committee held in Akure. 

Reading the communique, 

the Chairman of the party in 

the zone, Dr Eddy Olafeso 

asked the federal government 

to tackle the issue of 

unemployment in the country, 

Insurgency in the North East, 

Avengers and Fulani 

herdsmen. 


communique; ‘’Also of 

importance are economic 

crises, inflation, infrastructural 

decadence and suffering that 

have permeated every part of 

this country without prompt 

actions to forestall continued 

lack and anxiety of the masses 

of this country.’’ 

It also advised the President 

Buhari administration on the 

need for observance of the rule 

of law in the country. 

“The zonal chapter of PDP 

reiterates the call for the 

restructuring of the country 

without further delay as a 

panacea for the continued 

peace, stability and progress 

of the country. 

“And we are also calling 

for the immediate release of 

all our political leaders 

held in illegal detention by 

the Economic and Financial 

Crimes Commission 

(EFCC),'' the position 

document said.



PIPELINE BOMBINGS: Militant group announces 

ceasefire 

•Waits on Buhari to reconsider stance on dialogue 

•ExxonMobil lied about Qua Iboe crude export pipeline attack—Avengers 

By Emma Amaize, 

Regional Editor, South 

South, Perez Brisibe & 

Emem Idio 

YENAGOA— A militant 

group, Niger Delta 

Revolutionary Crusaders, 

NDRC, based in Bayelsa State, 

yesterday, declared a twoweek 

ceasefire within which it 

urged President Muhammadu 

Buhari to review his hard-line 

stance to dialogue with 

militants and first-rate leaders 

of Niger Delta to prevent total 

devastation of crude oil export 

facilities in the region. 

This came as the Niger Delta 

Avengers, NDA, accused 

ExxonMobil of telling lies 

about the bombing of its Qua 

Iboe 48-inch crude export 

pipeline on Monday. 

Spokesperson of Avengers, selfappointed 

Brig-Gen Murdoch 

Agbinibo, stated: “ExxonMobil 

can deny or fool the general public 

about their export pipeline blown 

up on Monday. How long can 

they lie to their investors? Just in 

matter of days, the whole world 

will see the truth. Qua Iboe 48” 

crude oil export pipeline is down, 

so says the Avengers.” 

NDRC, which recently blew up 

the Brass Creek Manifold, the 

largest in West Africa, situated in 

Peretorugbene, Ekeremor Local 

Government Area, Bayelsa State, 

said: “With clear evaluation of the 

happenings and advice of wellmeaning 

Nigerians and Niger 

Delta stakeholders, we hereby, 

declare a two-week ceasefire for 

a sincere and proper dialogue.” 

Spokesperson of the group, 

WOI Izon-Ebi, said in a statement: 

“We want the Federal Government 

Oshiomhole advocates stringent laws against child 

defilers, rapists 

By Simon Ebegbulem 

BENIN CITY—GOVERNOR 

Adams Oshiomhole of Edo 

State has raised alarm over the 

increasing cases of child 

defilement in the country, calling 

on state Houses of Assemby to 

pass stringent laws that will check 

the situation which he described 

as unacceptable. 

The governor, when he received 

the new leadership of the 

International Federation of 

Women Lawyers, Edo State 

branch, led by Mrs Maria Edekor, 

at his office, yesterday, said it takes 

a lunatic to defile children aged 

6,7 or 10, adding that such person 

must be sent to prison to serve as 

deterrent to others. 

According to him, “We will not 

do enough if we continue to 

lament defilement, rape, and other 

violent crimes that are targeted at 

women. The number of rape cases 

has been on the increase, 

including cases of defilement of 

to consult distinguished 

personalities, royal fathers and 

chiefs of the Niger Delta 

communities. Government 

should disassociate itself from 

negotiating with political jobbers 

in Abuja, but come down to the 

Niger Delta communities. 

“If after the two weeks of 

ceasefire, nothing meaningful 

happens, we have no option but 

to redirect our next phase of 

action to the exporting terminals 

to stop total export of our 

resources. 

“We hereby, call on Mr. 

President to do the needful by 

being sincere to himself and 

Nigerians in engaging in 

meaningful dialogue to ensure 

a lasting peace in the Niger Delta 

and Nigeria in particular. 

“We have lived all our lives as 

children and it is totally 

unacceptable. 

“I am not sure anybody can 

really explain why these vices are 

on the increase. These are not 

normal people and we need to 

put such people out of circulation 

by sending them to prison. I think 

we also need to amend our law 

By Emem Idio 

YENAGOA—THE Bayelsa 

State Government has set up 

an eight-man panel to 

investigate the circumstances 

surrounding the collapse of a 

three-storey building in Imiringi, 

Ogbia Local Government Area of 


Executive Secretary of Bayelsa 

State Physical and Development 

Board, Chief Iboro Idaba, who 

inaugurated the panel in 

victims and like fishes constantly 

immersed in pools of pollution, 

so it is no longer new to us. 

Come to talk about explosion 

and degradation, it did not start 

today, it has been so for the past 

50 years. That is why the 

colonial masters pointed it out 

categorically to Nigerians before 

independence that the Ijaws 

and the Ogoni communities 

were priority areas of 

concentration and development 

by the Nigerian government. 

“All we need is a clean 

environment devoid of pollution, 

development, good drinking 

water, motor-able roads cutting 

across our communities, 

electricity, universities, resource 

control.” 

The group expressed 

reservation about the Minister 

on defilement to prescribe stiffer 

penalties. Part of the challenge 

of the Nigeria’s condition is that 

people are happy to tell you to 

charge them to court, so we need 

to set up special courts or assign 

some judges to dedicate their 

time in hearing cases that have 

to do with defilement or crimes 

Bayelsa gets 8-man c'ttee to probe 

collapse of 3 storey building 

of Transport, Mr Chibuike 

Amaechi, saying, “He is taking 

his hatred against former 

President, Dr. Goodluck 

Jonathan and Ijaw nation too far, 

which is too bad for the peace 

and unity of the Niger Delta and 

Nigeria in general. 

“Maybe Amaechi, the current 

Minister of Transport is not a 

good historian, otherwise, he 

should have known that the 

three higher institutions in his 

Ikwerre land except Rivers 

State Polytechnic were 

established by an Ijaw man, 

Chief Diette Spiff, the then 

military administrator of Rivers 

State. They are Rivers State 

University of Science and 

Technology and University of 

Port-Harcourt." 

INSPECTION: Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State (2nd right), inspecting the 

remodeling of Port Harcourt Civic Centre project, venue to host the forthcoming 2016 

NBA Conference in Port Harcourt, yesterday. Photo: NAN. 

Yenagoa, said that the action was 

to “forestall any further building 

collapse in the state.” 

The terms of reference of the 

panel include “investigating the 

remote and the immediate 

causes of the collapsed building, 

integrity test on other existing 

structures at the project site and 

ascertaining their sustainability 

for habitation among others.” 

Idaba said that the panel’s 

recommendation “will help 

against women and children.” 

Earlier in his address, Mrs 

Edekor said that the visit was to 

inform the governor of their 

forthcoming FIDA week, with 

the theme: “Women 

Representations; a Catalyst for 

Global Development.” 

sensitise the populace on the 

need to contract professionals 

for their projects, while 

encouraging commitment on 

the part of professionals in the 

industry.” 

Idaba, who expressed 

confidence in the panel made 

up of professionals in the 

building industry, urged them 

to make sacrifices and 

thoroughly and diligently look 

at the assignment before them 

and make recommendations to 

the state government. 

Youths task 

NWC on 

resolution of 

Delta APC 

crisis 

By Tare Youdeowei 

ASABA—YOUTHS of the 

All Progressives Congress, 

APC, Delta State chapter, have 

called on the National Working 

Committee, NWC, of the party 

to urgently settle the 

leadership impasse rocking the 

party in the state. 

The youths urged the NWC 

to within seven days set up a 

non-biased and broad-based 

Caretaker Committee to pilot 

the affairs of the party in the 

state. 

Rising from an emergency 

meeting, the Delta APC youths 

vowed to disrupt the party’s 

meetings in all wards, local 

governments and state level, 

as well as declare a state of 

emergency in the state chapter 

if the crisis was unresolved. 

The youths in a statement, 

‘Gen’ Black Man said: 

“Nothing can destroy a 

government more quickly than 

its failure to observe its own 

laws or worse, its disrespect to 

party faithful at the grassroots. 

These same activities of the past 

executives led to the shameful 

loss of the APC during the 

April 11, 2015 gubernatorial 

election in the state.” 

....As party 

stalwart 

appeals to VP 

on dialogue 

with militants 

By Elizabeth Uwandu 

WARRI—A Lawyer and 

Delta All Progressives 

Congress, APC, chieftain, in 

Delta State, Jesutega 

Onokpasa, has appealed to 

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo 

to rethink his submission on 

dialogue with the Niger Delta 

Avengers, NDA. 

In a chat with newsmen, 

yesterday in Warri, Onokpasa 

described the statement 

credited to the Vice President 

as being “rather confusing,” 

since he “would have thought 

that the major problem posed 

by the Avengers will be to get 

them to come to the 

negotiating table since they 

seem to be deliberately elusive 

and committed to remaining so. 

“If government will not 

negotiate with the Avengers, 

because according to 

Osinbajo, they are economic 

opportunists, then one must 

wonder who government aims 

to negotiate with if at all it is 

willing to negotiate in the first 

place. 

“The Avengers, if at all they 

are willing to talk, must be 

constructively engaged by 

government," he said.


2010-2015 

FG audits 

parastatals 

with N100bn 

turnover 

By Emma Ujah, 

Abuja Bureau Chief 

ABUJA—THE Office 

of the Accountant- 

General of the 

Federation, OAGF, has 

engaged 18 professional 

audit companies to 

undertake the audit of 

federal paraststals and 

agencies with more than 

N100 billion annual 

turnover. 


Accountant-General of 

the Federation, Alhaji 

Ahmed Idris, the audit 

which would cover 2010 

to 2015, would be 

completed in 18 months. 

The move, he said, “is 

in line with the Federal 

Government’s agenda to 

institutionalise fiscal 

discipline, transparency, 

probity 

and 

accountability in the 

management of public 

finances.” 

He told the auditors 

that the exercise “will 

enable government to 

assess the true state of its 

revenue generation, 

capital and recurrent 

(personnel and 

overhead) expenditure 

across the ministries, 

departments and 

agencies. 

“This is to enable 

Federal Government 

reach better decisions in 

view of dwindling inflow 

of revenue.” 

Alhaji Idris, who was 

represented by the 

Director, Funds, Alhaji 

Salau Zubairu, at a 

meeting with the 

consultants in Abuja, 

Tuesday, underscored 

the importance of the 

assignment and urged 

them to be “effective and 

professional while 

carrying out their 

assignment”. 

The AGF also charged 

them to engage young 

qualified Nigerians to 

assist them in the 

assignment, especially 

considering the volume 

of work to be done. 

The first phase of this 

assignment, the AGF 

said, was divided into 

two categories and would 

involve 33 agencies. 

Category A comprises 

eight agencies with a 

turnover of above N100 

billion, while category B 

involves 25 agencies 

with a turnover of below 

N100 billion. 

COMRADES: From left— Deputy General Secretary, Mr. Ismaeel Bello; President, Mr. John Adaji, and Deputy 

General Secretary, Kaduna Area and Kano Zone, Mr. Dele Ojo, all of National Union of Textile, Garment & Tailoring 

Workers of Nigeria, NUTGTWN, at its Kaduna unit's general meeting and election, yesterday. PHOTO: Olu Ajayi. 

PENGASSAN suspends strike 

•… as FG, IOCs agree to recall sacked 2,000 oil workers 

•FG to pay $4.8bn JV arrears 

By Johnbosco 

Agbakwuru 

ABUJA—THE National 

Executive Council, NEC, 

of Petroleum and Natural Gas 

Senior Staff Association of 

Nigeria, PENGASSAN, in the 

early hours of yesterday, 

suspended the strike it 

embarked on over unresolved 

issues in the oil and gas sector. 

The suspension by the 

leadership of PENGASSAN 

was made possible after the 

association, the government 

team and international oil 

companies, IOCs, entered into 

a compromise for the recall of 

over 2,000 sacked workers. 

Addressing journalists in 

Abuja after its NEC meeting, 

National President of 

PENGASSAN, Mr. Francis 

Johnson, announced that the 

association had suspended 

the strike, adding that it was 

agreed by all the parties 

involved in the dispute that no 

worker that participated in the 

strike would be victimised. 

He directed all oil workers 

to commence work 

immediately. 

Meeting 

Before PENGASSAN 

suspended the strike, the 

Minister of Labour and 

Employment, Senator Chris 

Ngige, had embarked on a 

marathon meeting with the 

association and management 

of major oil producing 

companies, which lasted till 

about 3a.m., yesterday. 

The tripartite reconciliatory 

meeting, which also included 

the leadership of Nigeria 

Union of Petroleum and 

Natural Gas Workers, 

NUPENG, led by its 

President, Mr. Igwe Achese, 

did not end without heated 

arguments on some of the 

contentious issues before they 

were resolved. 

Also, as part of the peace 

deal, the Federal Government 

agreed to pay off an estimated 

$4.8 billion arrears of the old 

joint venture cash calls 

inherited by the President 

Muhammadu Buhari’s 

administration. 

PENGASSAN President, 

Johnson, explained that the 

$4.8 billion would “help the 

IOCs stem the tide of 

redundancies being declared 

in the industry and help 

address job losses.” 

Reading the communiqué 

issued at the end of the 

meeting between the Federal 

Government, leaders of the oil 

workers and the management 

By Soni Daniel & 

Omeiza Ajayi 

ABUJA—THE 

All 


APC, has formally reacted to 

reports alleging that the 

Senate was contemplating to 

initiate impeachment 

proceedings against President 

Muhammadu Buhari, 

describing the purported move 

as ‘a huge joke taken too far.’ 

This came on a day 

Chairman, Senate Committee 

on Basic and Secondary 

Education, Senator Aliyu 

Wamakko, said senators’ 

meetings held in his house 

were designed to repair the 

frosty relationship between the 

executive and legislature and 

not to initiate impeachment 

move against the President. 

This is even as Senator Dino 

of the international oil 

workers, Senator Ngige said: 

“The meeting agreed that 

where redundancy had been 

declared by some IOCs 

without going through 

Section 20 of the Labour Act, 

Cap L1 LFN 2004, such 

companies should revert to 

status quo ante bellum.” 

To meet again 

The parties, however, 

agreed that other negotiations 

not concluded as at yesterday 

morning, with collective 

bargaining agreement, 

should be deferred to Tuesday 

and Thursday, July 19 and 21, 

respectively, for further action. 

In the report presented at 

Melaye denied ever initiating 

impeachment proceedings 

against President Buhari. 

In a statement yesterday, 

entitled President Buhari’s 

Purported Impeachment 

Threat, A Huge Joke by its 

scribe, Mai Mala Buni, APC 

advised the senators “to stop 

this huge joke and concentrate 

on their primary constitutional 

responsibilities of lawmaking 

and discharging of their 

legislative mandates to their 

constituents at the National 

Assembly.” 

The Senate President, Dr. 

Bukola Saraki, his deputy, Ike 

Ekweremadu and two others 

are currently standing trial for 

alleged forgery of the Senate 

Standing Rules. 

On another score, Saraki is 

facing the Code of Conduct 

Tribunal, CCT, for offences 

the first day of negotiation 

meeting held in Abuja, Ibe 

Kachikwu, Minister of State for 

Petroleum Resources, disclosed 

that “almost all the IOCs have 

signed into these proposals.” 

In response to the questions 

raised on the ongoing 

restructuring of agencies under 

the ministry, the parties adopted 

Kachikwu’s presentation that “the 

restructuring of PPPRA, PEF, 

DPR, PTI, NNRA, PTDF and 

NCDMB had been done in these 

agencies and no jobs were lost 

or will be lost.” 

Federal Government also 

conceded to the demand for the 

repairs of major roads leading to 

the refineries, including the 

depot at Mosimi. 

Impeachment move, joke taken too far, APC 

tells Saraki, Ekweremadu, Melaye, others 

bordering on anticipatory 

declaration of assets, among 


The senate has constantly 

accused the executive of trying 

to stampede it into changing its 

leadership, warning that it would 

not bow to whims of some 

elements in the executive arm. 

However, APC has described 

the allegations as puerile and 

baseless. 

The statement read in part: 

“The party will not join issues on 

the Senate forgery suit and other 

court cases concerning some 

members of the 8th Senate. 

“We advise the Senators in 

question to tow the same line and 

allow judicial processes run its 

normal and legitimate course. 

“Repeated allegations that the 

court cases are politicallymotivated 

by the President and 

APC are baseless.”

Vanguard, TUESDAY, JULY 14, 2016—15 

Panel discovers 3,916 ghost workers in 

Enugu State LG system 

By Emeka Mamah 

ENUGU—A 

local 

government audit panel 

set up by the Enugu State 

government has discovered 

nearly 4,000 ghost workers in the 

17 local government councils. 

The panel which submitted its 

report to Governor Ifeanyi 

Ugwuanyi stated that 3,916 

workers whose names were in the 

payment vouchers could not be 

traced, adding that this would 

save the state about N161, 494, 

570 monthly or N1.938 billion 

annually. 

The Chairman of the panel and 

Speaker of the state House of 

Assembly, Hon. Edward Ubosi, 

who presented the report, said 

that the money would be the 

difference in the wage bill now 

that the exercise had been 

completed. 

Ubosi said: “From the above, 

N64, 882, 033 and N96, 612, 

337.20 from local government 

staff gross salaries and teachers’ 

salaries respectively should be 

regarded as monthly savings.” 

Ugwuanyi, who received the 

report, commended the panel for 

a job well done, saying that the 

report would go a long way in 

helping the state government in 

the on-going efforts to track down 

ghost workers in the state public 

service. 

The committee made a total of 

26 recommendations for 

AfDB in Abia to fix Aba roads 

By Anayo Okoli 

UMUAHIA—A delegation 

from the headquarters of 

the African Development Bank, 

AfDB, in Abidjan, was in Abia 

State, Tuesday, to inspect the 

various dilapidated Federal 

Roads in Aba with a view to 

working on them. 

Led by Mr. Mwila Aeron 

Katambula, the Bank’s Transport 

Specialist, the visit, according to 

officials of Abia State government, 

was the final lap of talks between 

the government and AfDB on 

some projects of interest to the 

bank in the state. 

Receiving the AfDB team and 

some officials from the Federal 

consideration by the government 

among which is the removal of 

all staff in the system found out 

to have falsified their ages; 

impersonators, those incapacitated 

by ill-health as well 

as those employed contrary to 

civil service rules. 

Ministry of Works Abuja, 

Governor Okezie Ikpeazu said 

that Abia State was eager to see 

the commencement of 

reconstruction of some major 

roads in Aba, particularly, the 

strategic Port Harcourt and Ikot 

Ekpene roads. 

“Road infrastructure is very 

important to us in Aba. Apart from 

'Politicians plan to recruit touts for Imo re-runs' 

By Chidi Nkwopara 

OWERRI—IMO State 

Police Command says it 

has got wind of a clandestine 

plan by some politicians, to 

recruit touts ahead of the re-run 

elections scheduled to hold July 

23, 2016, in the state. 

According to a press statement 

signed by the Police Public 

Relations Officer, PPRO, Mr. 

Andrew Enwerem, a deputy 

superintendent of police, DSP, the 

Command would not hesitate to 

deal ruthlessly with those found 

culpable. 

“Intelligence report at the 

disposal of the Imo State Police 

Command reveals that some 

politicians in the state, are 

recruiting cultists and thugs from 

within and outside the state and 

are holding nocturnal meetings 

in hotels and other secret places 

with intent to scuttle the conduct 

of the forth-coming Imo North 

Senatorial and other House of 

Assembly re-run elections 

scheduled for July 23, 2016,” 

Enwerem said. 

The Command equally warned 

politicians in the state, to desist 

from any act capable of disrupting 

the peaceful election process in 


“The Command will not 

hesitate to deal with any 

politician(s) involved in any 

criminal act. Parents and 

guardians are also advised not 

to allow their children or wards 

to be used as tools by politicians”, 

the PPRO said. 

Ohanaeze youths urge Igbo elders to 

intervene in Abia crisis 


THE OHANAEZE Ndigbo 

Youths Council has called on 

Igbo elders to intervene in the 

political crisis in Abia State, 

saying that they should not keep 

quiet on issues like that. 

The Council also attacked the 

Vice President, Prof. Yemi 

Osinbajo for his stand against 

restructuring of Nigeria and 

insisted that only restructuring 

can address the numerous 

challenges facing Nigeria. 

The group in a statement signed 

by Mazi Alex Okemiri, chairman 

of all the State Chairmen of the 

Youth council, urged Igbo leaders 

not to keep quiet in the face of 

the political logjam in Abia State. 

According to the the group, 

Igbo culture requires elders not 

to keep quiet when things are 

getting out of hand, hence the 

need for them to declare their 

position with a view to finding a 

solution to it. 

Ohanaeze Ndigbo holds unity forum 

By Chidi Nkwopara 

O WERRI—BARRING 

any unforeseen 

circumstance, the Chief Gary 

Enwo Igariwey-led pan - 

Igbo socio-cultural 

organization, Ohanaeze 

Ndigbo, would hold a unity 

forum today in Owerri. 

Vanguard gathered that the 

participants would, during the 

meeting, critically look into the 

state of the nation, vis-a-vis 

the prospects and challenges 

of Ndigbo in contemporary 

Nigeria. 

It was also gathered that 

while the Imo State Governor, 

It also recommended that more 

teachers be engaged in the 

primary schools in the state. 

The committee also suggested 

general posting of local 

government staff after a biometric 

capturing exercise to 

ensure discipline in the system. 

FORUM: From left, Emeka Ene Chairman, PETAN & CEO OilData Group; Joe Ezigbo, Managing 

Director/CEO, Falcon Corporation; Victoria Gom, Sahara Power Group; Dada Thomas, CEO, Frontier 

Oil/1st Vice President, NGA, and Audrey Joe-Ezigbo, incoming NGA 2nd Vice-President/Executive 

Director & Co-Founder, Falcon Corporation, at the Nigerian Gas Association Business Forum and 

Annual General Meeting, in Lagos 

being the commercial nerve 

Centre of Abia, Aba is the Small 

and Medium Entrepreneurial 

Centre of Nigeria. Aba is very 

important to the economy of both 

Abia and Nigeria. 

“So, the issue of road 

infrastructure, waste 

management and storm water 

management are the challenges 

we face in Aba". 

In his remarks, Katambula said: 

“We are eager to participate in the 

development of Abia State. Our 

mission today is a follow up to the 

meeting we had before, we want 

to ensure that everything is ready 

because we want to fast-track the 

projects that the bank will take up 

in Abia”. 

The AfDB and FMW teams later 

held a meeting with the 

Commissioner for Works, Mr. 

Eziuche Ubani, and his Finance 

counterpart, Mr. Obinna Oriaku 

and other top state government 

officials after Ubani led the two 

teams to Aba for on the-spot 

assessment of the two key Federal 

Roads, Port Harcourt and Ikot 

Ekpene Roads. 

It learned that AfDB has since 

conducted technical analyses and 

studies of the roads before 

releasing funds for fixing them. 

Chief Rochas Okorocha, 

would play host to the visitors 

and his brother governors 

from Enugu, Abia, Anambra 

and Ebonyi States, Chief 

Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, Dr. 

Okezie Ikpeazu, Chief Willie 

Obiano and Dr. Dave Umahi 

respectively would be in 

attendance. 

25 robbery, 

cultism, 

kidnapping 

suspects 

paraded in 

Enugu 

By Francis Igata 

E NUGU—THE 

Enugu State Police 

Command, Tuesday, 

paraded a total of 25 

criminal suspects for 

various offences ranging 

from armed robbery, cultism 

and kidnapping. 

The State Commissioner 

of Police,CP, Emmanuel 

Ojukwu while briefing 

journalists before parading 

the suspects said the 25 

suspects being paraded, 

were arrested at different 

locations and days within 

Enugu and its environs. 

Nine of the suspected 

robbers who were later 

identified as members of 

Eiye cult group, a.k.a Axe 

men, were arrested by 

Special Anti-Robbery 

Squad,SARS, operatives of 

the command on July 7, 

2016, at the residence of 

one Sunday Noble at Bricks 

House Independence 

Layout Enugu where they 

were allegedly celebrating 

their Eiye cult day. 

According to the CP, 10 

other suspected cultists, 

belonging to Eiye cult 

fraternity, were also 

arrested on the same day. 

Artisans 

protest in 

Owerri, 

ground 

activities 

By Chidi 

Nkwopara 

O WERRI— 

ECONOMIC 

activities were held up for 

hours yesterday in Owerri, 

following a massive protest 

against the proposed plan 

by Imo State Government 

to move artisans from the 

Orji and Nekede mechanic 

villages to Avu in Owerri 

West local council area of 


Vanguard reliably 

gathered that Governor 

Rochas Okorocha invited 

the artisans to a meeting 

yesterday but it was not very 

clear at press time, what 

went wrong before the 

aggrieved self employed 

workers stormed the streets 

in a protest march. 

Some of the protesters 

expressed regret that the 

governor had made up his 

mind to forcibly move them 

to a virgin land, where no 

amenity is in existence.

16—VANGUARD, THURSDAY, JULY 14, 2016 

Ize-Iyamu, Obaseki divide NURTW 


THE governorship election 

has apparently splited the 

National Union of Road 

Transport Workers (NURTW) in 

Edo State with two different 

groups pledging support for 

the two major candidates, 

Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu of the 

PDP and Godwin Obaseki of 

the APC, respectively. 

The split became evident yesterday 

when Comrade Odion 

Olaye, a factional chairman of 

the drivers’ union debunked 

the earlier endorsement of Ize- 

Iyamu by a faction of the union 

led by Comrade Warriman Erhengbo. 

Erhengbo had led the state 

president of the Drivers’ 

Welfare Association, Comrade 

Sunday Eke, and 12 other local 

government chairmen of the 

NURTW to the PDP state 

secretariat to endorse Ize- 

Iyamu. 

By Gabriel Enogholase 

PDP candidate, Pastor 

Osagie Ize-Iyamu 

yesterday described as 

inhuman, the concentration of 

projects meant for Edo North 

in Iyamho, Etsako West LGA, 

the hometown of the outgoing 

governor, saying that if elected 

he would ensure that all 

sections of Edo North and the 

state are equally treated. 

Affirming that it was wicked 

that there was no functional 

health facility in the entire 

Etsako East Local Government 

Area, the PDP candidate 

lamented that the historical 

position of Agenebode had over 

time been eroded on account 

of lack of attention. 

The PDP governorship 

candidate, spoke in 

Agenebode, Etsako East Local 

Government Area when he took 

his campaign train to the area. 

He said a community such as 

Agenebode that is situated on 

the bank of the River Niger 

ought to be a tourist centre and 

a rich commercial hub. 

He regretted that the only 

tertiary institution in the 

Agenebode, the College of 

Agriculture, Agenebode, has 

been neglected and that the 

state government has not 

developed the college in about 

eight years. 

He said the local government 

voted for Governor Oshiomhole 

and his party in 2007 and 2012 

but got nothing in return from 

him, insisting that the state 

government has failed to make 

use of the agricultural 

potentials and the mineral 

resources in the council to 

•Ize-Iyamu 

Dismissing the endorsement 

of Ize-Iyamu yesterday, 

Comrade Olaye said the union 

is solidly behind the Obaseki 

in the forthcoming governorship 

election and appealed to 

Concentration of projects in 

Iyamho inhuman — Ize-Iyamu 

develop it and create 

employment. 

Also speaking, the PDP state 

chairman, Dan Orbih, regretted 

that Governor Oshiomhole’s 

Iyamho community had been 

the beneficiary of virtually all 

the projects undertaken in the 

Edo North area by the 

governor. 

Defectors from the All 

Progressives Congress (APC) 

led by a former APC Ward 2 

chairman in the council, Mr. 

John Odidi, were received into 

the PDP. 


ENGR. Chris Ogiemwonyi, 

one of the eleven 

governorship aspirants that 

contested the APC primaries has 

said that he will not leave the 

party despite his dissatisfaction 

with the emergence of Godwin 

Obaseki as the party’s candidate. 

Ogiemwonyi, who spoke with 

journalists in Benin yesterday 

shortly after addressing his 

supporters at his campaign office 

in Benin said that as a man who 

believes in the unity of the party, 

he has told his supporters that 

they should not leave the party 

because it was a house they 

jointly built. 

He also pledged to join the 

Godwin Obaseki Campaign team 

after his holidays. 

He said, “My vision for Edo 

State is that we should take 

advantage to be in alignment 

with the party with the 

government at the centre, we 

should, therefore, remain to have 

the benefit of the party at the 

•Obaseki 

the state Commissioner of Police, 

Chris Ezike to arrest one 

Mr. Warriman Erhengbo whom 

he described as an impersonator. 

“I was just sworn in last 

month on the 2nd of June, 2016 

as chairman of NURTW in the 

state, and I have my certificate 

right here in my office. I know 

Erhengbo as a security man at 

Egor. I was sworn in by the 

National President, Alhaji 

Najin Usman Yasin with the 

General Secretary, Comrade 

Clement Wesco. 

“After my swearing-in, we all 

went to pay a courtesy visit to 

Governor Adams Oshiomhole. 

So I am shocked when we read 

about somebody saying 

NURTW is supporting Ize- 

Iyamu. If that impostor wants 

to play politics, he should play 

it somewhere else. We have 

said it before now that we are 

backing the APC-led 

government in the state because 

they have impacted positively 

on the lives of our people. 

“So we are backing Godwin 

Obaseki for the governorship. 

And it is also not true that the 

state government banned our 

association in the state. We are 

working in collaboration with 

Road Transport Employers 

Association in rural areas. We 

have a 40/60 per cent 

agreement. The governor also 

promised us that the areas we 

are not operating on, that we 

will soon commence operation, 

and we are working out the 

modalities” he stated. 

I'm pained, but I 'll remain in APC — Ogiemwonyi 

centre and the party at the state 

level.” 

•Ogiemwonyi 

Oshiomhole’s reconciliation with Odubu 

'll kill PDP — Emiole 


A 

CHIEFTAIN of the All 


APC, in Edo Central 

Senatorial Zone, Comrade 

Matthew Emiole has said that 

the reconciliation of Governor 

Adams Oshiomhole with his 

deputy, Dr. Pius Odubu was 

the tonic needed by the party 


AREWA community Cow 

Dealers and Butchers 

Association have thrown their 

weight behind the APC 

governorship candidate, Mr. 

Godwin Obaseki, expressing 

to win the governorship 

election slated for 10, 

September 2016. 

He said in a statement in 

Benin yesterday that the 

reconciliation could lead to 

the end of the PDP in the 

state, just as he described the 

governor as a true democrat 

who needed peace in the 

party. 

PDP: 

Iduoriyekemwen 

kicks against 

INEC’s decision 


MR. 

Matthew 

Iduoriyekemwen has 

accused the Independent 

National Electoral Commission 

(INEC) of misinterpreting the 

law by accepting Pastor Osagie 

Ize-Iyamu rather than him as 

candidate of the party in Edo 

state. 

Iduoriyekemwen, who spoke 

through a member of his 

campaign organization, Mr. 

Nelson Edosanwan, said the 

Modu Sheriff faction of the PDP, 

to which he belongs, had earlier 

headed to the Appeal Court to 

contest the judgment of the 

Federal High Court, saying that 

as law abiding party leader, he 

will await the judgment of the 

Appeal Court. 

Iduoriyekemwen took second 

place to Ize-Iyamu in the 

primaries organised by the Dan 

Orbih led mainstream of the party 

but subsequently rebuffed the 

party to team up with the Sheriff 

tendency and emerged the 

consensus candidate of the 

faction but was, however, 

rejected by INEC. 

Cow dealers, goat sellers, back Obaseki 

On the reconciliation move by 

the party to reconcile all 

aggrieved aspirants and their 

supporters, he said, “Only God 

can comfort you when you are 

hurt and angry. I don’t look at 

physical reconciliation; I look at 

it spiritually. What touches my 

heart is what God has put there. 

God has spoken to me and said, 

my son, move on; you lost 

money, you lost your integrity but 

all these losses, you will in one 

day regain them. 

optimism that he would make 

available loan facilities for Hausa 

traders. 

The chairman of the 

Association, Alhaji Sani 

Abdullahi, who spoke when the 

APC candidate visited the Hausa 

community, noted that the APCled 

government in the state had 

provided a conducive 

environment for them to execute 

their businesses and also 

ensured their safety in the state 

each time there was tension. 

“We will support Obaseki to be 

governor and our people in 

another area will equally support 

him whether in the day or night. 

We have the crowd, and since 

our people have their voters’ card 

we will vote Obaseki,” Abdullahi 

said. 

Also speaking, Alhaji Ismaila 

Kamamawa, the chairman of the 

Goat Market traders group 

thanked Obaseki for deeming it 

fit to visit them. 

Obaseki, who was represented 

by a member of the Campaign 

Organization, Mr. Ayuba Sedenu 

explained to the traders that 

Obaseki as an economic expert, 

“wants to form a government 

where someone who is selling 

tomatoes, goat, and cow will have 

a clean environment to do 

business and make a profit and 

earn your living. What Obaseki 

will do for you is to provide you 

with interest-free loans from time 

to time that would boost your 

businesses,” he said.

IT is amazing nowadays the 

extent many of us can get in 

the blatant defense of ‘wrong’ or 

even in selectively moralizing 

about what is ‘right’. We seem to 

have ‘good reasons’ always why 

the right thing must not be done 

and we are prepared every time 

to array our might in defense even 

of what is palpably wrong. 

When we say that ‘justice in the 

land must be done no matter 

whose ox is gored’, what we 

actually mean is that ‘it matters 

really if it is our own ox that is 

gored’. And often we make such 

a show of righteous indignation 

about a particular ‘wrong’ you’d 

never imagine we could also be 

the worst culprits of that of that 

very offence. 

Those who once strained logic 

to disprove the ‘good’ inherent in 

the equitable principle of zoning’, 

were the same ‘pious priests’ of 

‘geo-ethnic balance’ who vilified 

Buhari for not applying ‘federal 

character’ even in the 

appointment of his ‘personal’ 

presidential aides. 

Yet you dared not to remind 

them that Buhari’s predecessor, 

Jonathan had in fact only one 

Northerner of note –namely his 

Principal Secretary- on the entire 

team of his own ‘presidential 

aides’. Yet you are the ethnic bigot 

who dares to bring this up and 

not ‘they’ who choose selectively 

to moralize about it. 

Many have cited Jonathan’s 

ethno-centric appointments as 

worthy grounds to justify 

retaliatory measure even from a 

Buhari that is not known to be 

malevolent. But it’ll not be right 

to ‘trade a Rolland for an Oliver’! 

In fact my grouse with 

Jonathan’s appointments was not 

so much for its geo-ethnic bias as 

it was the gross non-performance 

of his appointees and the brazen 

theft of our common patrimony 

which they had made the very 

purpose of governance. Baring 

that it should not have mattered 

that they all came from a section 


Commanding 

heights 

Jonathan’s team of presidential 

aides was virtually an ‘all-South- 

South’ list mostly of his Ijaw 

kinsmen with some gratuitous 

sprinkling perhaps of a few South 

Easterners many of whom now 

feel obligated to play the vengeful 

mourners-in-chief of his lost bid 

for a second term. 

I have not the vaguest 

recollection that those who cried 

wolf over Buhari’s so called 

‘sectional’ list of presidential 

aides had batted an eyelid over 

Jonathan’s all-kith-kin-andkindred 

list. The English call this 

‘straining at a gnat and ignoring 

a whole camel’. 

Nor do I have any recollection 

of other geo-political zones 

splitting any hairs about the 

Jonathan tribe-team, or even the 

subsequent list of heads of forty 

key federal parastatals and 

agencies in which there were only 

four South Westerners and one 

Northerner. 

The rest were virtually all South- 

South –mostly of Ijaws extractionput 

deliberately at the 

commanding heights of key 

economic sectors of the nation – 

Still on Buhari's appointments 

President Muhammadu Buhari 

Dr. Goodluck Jonathan 

ranging from the Sovereign 

Wealth Fund, Bank of Industry, 

Nigerian Content Development 

Agency, Consumer Protection 

Agency, Maritime Academy of 

Nigeria, Railway Corporation, 

Nigerian Tourism Development 

Corporation, Surveyor General of 

the Federation, Statistician 

General of the Federation, 

Accountant General of the 

What does it matter 

if ethnic groups are 

‘equally’ 

represented in 

appointments but do 

not get an 

‘equitable’ share of 

the common 

resource? 

Federation and Auditor General 

of the Federation and others like 

NIMET, NIMASA, PENCOM, 

FERMA, NCC, NAMA, NCAA, 

FAAN, NCAT, NAFDAC, FIIRO, 

NESREA, NEPZA, NOA, MDG, 

NAN, NERDC, SON, NBC, ITF 

and NUC . 

And now an 

NNPC Board 

list of eight 

members 

comprising 

f i v e 

Northerners 

and three 

Southerners is 

made a point 

of by these 

same ‘pious 

priest’ of geoethnic 

balance, 

as an example 

of how 

incorrigibly 

‘sectional’ 

Buhari is in his 

appointments. 

But if memory 

serves right, 

the same 

NNPC Board 

of eight 

members 

u n d e r 

Jonathan had 

only one 

Northerner on 

it. Yet you are 

the ethnic bigot 

who dares to 

bring this up 

and not ‘they’ 

who choose 

selectively to moralize about it. 

WE have always aped 

often in base imitation, 

especially of America, the way 

she practices her democracy. Yet 

we have not the patriotism to 

grow the courage of America the 

way she sacrifices to grow her 

democracy. 

Fathers and sons are on record 

to have led America; and maybe 

soon Hillary Clinton, whose 

husband had been president 

will soon be elected too. At our 

cynical wit-end we are quick to 

cite America as the veritable 

touchstone of the democratic 

process. but when we want to 

justify our lack of democratic 

will to be like America, without 

shame we say that it has taken 

America over 200 years to 

perfect her democracy. 


17 

Many have cited Jonathan’s 

ethno-centric appointments as 

worthy grounds to justify 

retaliatory measure even from a 

Buhari that is not known to be 

malevolent. 

But it’ll be right to ‘trade a 

Rolland for an Oliver’! In fact my 

grouse with Jonathan’s 

appointments was not so much 

for its geo-ethnic bias as it was 

the gross non-performance of 

his appointees and the brazen 

theft of our common patrimony 

which they had made the very 

purpose of governance. Barring 

that it should not have mattered 

that they all came from a section 


Equal 

opportunity 

In fact, the irony of it is that it is 

those who make a creed of decampaigning 

‘quota system’ as 

retrogressive that are also 

preaching ‘federal character’ now 

as the veritable political 

correctness. Yet ‘quota system’ 

seems to me to be more morally 

justifiable for the reason that it 

ensures ‘equal-opportunity’ in 

the allocation of an inadequate 

resource and thus requires to be 

equitably –if not equallyallocated. 

Federal character merely 

imposes a ‘duty’ strictly of service 

via appointment into public office, 

and therefore must not necessarily 

be squared up equally or 

equitably by tribes and tongues, 

religion or geography. 

May be it was necessary in the 

past for political appointees to 

double as ‘dogs of hunt’ for their 

respective sectional or ethnic 

enclaves. But that should not be 

necessary any longer, especially 

From a reader 

Re: ‘Biafra’s secessionist right revisited’ 

MOHAMMED Adamu 

good afternoon. Your 

write-up on ‘Biafra’s 

Secessionist Right Revisited’ 

published in the Vanguard 

Thursday July 7, 2016, made 

interesting reading. 

You seem to base your writeup 

on outdated postulations 

forgetting that global affairs is 

dynamic, more so Abraham 

Lincoln’s era predated advent 

of the UNO and its modern 

resolutions that empower any 

Postscript 

But must we wait 200 years to 

develop the virtues of America 

when we have not waited that 

long to enjoy the superfluous 

leisure too of technological 

advancement that it has taken 

America the same length of time 

to produce? 

If we are not mature enough 

to bear the duties that 200 years 

of democratic nation building 

has placed on the Americans, 

we should not be ripe enough 

also to enjoy the pleasures 

thereof. 

In any case we probably do not 

even know the implication of 

this new geo-ethnic monster of 

‘equality’ in appointment which 

we are trying to create; because 

in due course when it takes a 

life of its own –as monsters often 

ethnic nationality the right to 

self determination. Please 

Google the UNO General 

Assembly resolution of 

September 13, 2007 (which) 

confers the right to selfdetermination. 

You know that the Soviet Union 

comprised of various 

nationalities, but by 1989 the 

bubble burst and the old 

octopus disintegrated. You 

recall former Czechoslovakia? 

Peacefully it split into Czech 

and Slovak nations without a 

with a Buhari in office who has 

sufficiently proved in just a year 

that governance will no longer be 

‘business as usual’. 

Nonetheless even that 

psychogenic foreboding of being 

left out because your ‘personal 

person’ had not been brought 

near the ‘cake’ was largely 

misplaced because in reality 

politicians brought near the 

national cake did not necessarily 

return home to share the loot with 

their people. It had always been 

‘to every dog its day, and to every 

dog its bone’! 

The justice we must seek should 

be the ‘equitable’ distribution of 

national resources and not 

necessarily the ‘equal’ 

appointment of those who 

distribute the resources. By the 

way what does it matter if ethnic 

groups are ‘equally’ represented 

in appointments but do not get 

an ‘equitable’ share of the 

common resource? Or what does 

it matter if they are ‘un-equally’ 

represented but are ‘equitably’ 

provided for from the common 

resource? 

In any case if we are to 

distribute appointments ‘equally’ 

instead of sharing resources 

‘equitably’, how do we go about 

it? By regions? Why not by zones? 

-to achieve balance. By states? 

Why not by local governments? - 

to achieve spread. By ethnic 

groups? 

Why not by tribes? -to create a 

sense of belonging! Why don’t we 

do it by household? -to achieve 

the utopia of ‘EQUALITY’ we 

always wanted! That way, in no 

time we’ll get to a higher state of 

nirvana when every individual 

can claim a right to be his own 

representative as a political 

appointee of government. 

do- we may not be able to return 

the genie the bottle. We may no 

longer give even our National 

Coaches free hand to select 

players purely on merit without 

the obligation to consider geoethnic 

balance or spread. 

Many will begin to ask ‘why 

should a national football team 

of 22 members have only two 

players from a whole zone or 

region? You will not tell them 

‘this is a talent-dependent area’ 

because these talents too 

abound in every nook and 

cranny of the country just like 

you argue there are competent 

hands for political 

appointments in every part of 

the country. That is how bad it 

can get. 

shot being fired. South Sudan 

eventually got independence 

based on the provisions of the 

UN resolution. Mohammed, I 

am not an advocate of the 

disintegration of Nigeria at all 

because I am enlightened 

enough to know the 

advantages of staying together, 

the size, large 

population(market), etc; all 

these are our collective pride. 

Mohammed your write-up is 

provocative and based on 

delusions. Sanu”. 

C 

M 

YK

18— Vanguard, THURSDAY, JULY 14, 2016 

ON June 10, 2016, Nigerian 

Army Spokesman, Colonel Sani 

Kukasheka Usman, informed 

Nigerians that thirty eight senior 

army officers were retired based 

on “service exigencies”. 

His statement defended the 

retirement on the basis that: “It 

should be recalled that not too 

long ago, some officers were 

investigated for being partisan 

during the 2015 general elections. 

Similarly, the investigations by 

the Presidential Committee 

investigating the Defence 

Contracts revealed a lot. Some 

officers have already been 

arraigned in Court by the 

Economic and Financial Crimes 

Commission (EFCC). People 

should therefore not read this out 

of context. The military must 

remain apolitical and 

professional at all times. We must 

applaud and support this 

laudable initiative by the 

government.” 

The Army Chief, Lt General 

Tukur Buratai and the Defence 

Minister, Brigadier-General Dan- 

Ali (retd) in attempts to justify 

the retirements, noted publicly 

Wanted: Justice for retired senior 

army officers 

that all officers were granted a 

fair hearing and given 

opportunities to defend 

themselves before being retired. 

The Army, through one Gen 

Nicholas on June 14, 2016 during 

an interview on Channels News 

TV, stated categorically that all 

the officers were allowed to 

defend themselves during the 

investigation process. 

Recently, the media has been 

awash with stories that not all the 

officers were granted fair 

hearing. However, some of the 

affected officers alleged a witchhunt, 

stating that the Army did 

not give them fair hearing. 

Further investigations revealed 

that as many as twenty officers 

were not given fair hearing. It is 

now public knowledge that more 

than half of those retired were not 

called before any panel of inquiry. 

They just found their names on 

the Internet, falsely accused and 

were retired!!! 

If this is true, then we have a 

situation that has created more 

questions than answers. First, did 

the Army Chief and the Minister 

of Defence deliberately mislead 

the President and Nigerians, 

when they said everyone retired 

was granted fair hearing? This is 

very serious and places grave 

doubts on the credibility and 

sincerity of the whole exercise. 

Second, was the retirement a 

witch-hunt? If so, it implies that 

some of the retired officers were 

innocent. It does not augur well 

for the military if its officers can 

be summarily retired without 

recourse to laid-down 

administrative and judicial 

procedures. It would, therefore, 

be grossly unfair and unjust to 

retire innocent Nigerians from 

their careers in which they and 

government have invested 

heavily. 

President Muhammadu Buhari 

is a man of high integrity, and 

Nigerians elected him into office 

based on his proven track record. 

Furthermore, as a man who has 

been a victim of injustice in the 

past, he should not allow 

Nigerians to be treated unjustly 

under his leadership. 

As the Commander-in-Chief, if 

indeed there were irregularities 

in the processes leading up to 

the retirements, he should 

immediately intervene and direct 

the Army to reinstate those 

affected. While Nigerians support 

the laudable initiatives by 

government, the same Nigerians 

do not like injustice. 

Over to you, Mr President. 

OPINION 

Edo 2016: Time for Edo APC to close ranks 

By Dan Owegie 

SIGNALS emanating from supporters of 

the Edo State chairman of the All Progressives 

Congress, APC, Prince Anselm Ojezua 

and supporters of the National Chairman 

of the party, Chief John Odigie Oyegun 

are not soothing as we approach the crucial 

September 10 governorship poll. 

Prince Ojezua while fielding questions to a 

Vanguard reporter recently on the just concluded 

APC governorship primaries, stated, 

among others, that “the delegates’ register 

was mutilated by the National Chairman, 

Chief John Odigie-Oyegun at the behest of 

this same people (referring to Chris Ogiewomnyi 

and Ken Imasuagbon). 

Commenting further, Ojezua said: “This 

was done before people like Ogienwonyi and 

Imasuangbon came into the party. Yet when 

they shouted, the national chairman removed 

all those names numbering 115. The national 

chairman forgot that these same 115 party 

members voted in the primaries that 

brought in our current House of Assembly 

members, including the primaries that 

brought in Samson Osagie and other APC 

candidates in the last general election.” 

Some supporters of Chief Odigie-Oyegun 

otherwise known as “The Oyegunarians” 

in their reaction to the interview described 

the allegation by Ojezua as “false, baseless 

and unfounded.” The group in a statement in 

Benin signed by its Secretary-General, Mr. 

Osazee Okundia, described Ojezua’s 

It is in the common interest 

of all APC members for 

its leaders to work 

harmoniously going 

forward 

comments as unbridled insults, as they 

reminded him of the process he passed 

through before he became the State Chairman 

of the APC. 

What seems to be happening appears to be 

some undercurrents within the party, prior to 

the just concluded primaries that are now 

being blown open. But I believe that both 

groups need to exercise restraint and caution 

in their commentaries and interphase with 

the media and hence, members of the public. 

Prince Ojezua must know that as the Chairman 

of the party, he is the father of all APC 

members in Edo State. When reporters come 

calling after a successful primaries, he ought 

to have exercised prudence while fielding 

questions. This has nothing to do with whether 

his comments had merits or not, but because 

of the possible multiplier effects it could 

wreak on the party’s chances on September 

10. 

Irrespective of what Chief Odigie Oyegun’s 

role may have been before, during and after 

the primaries, Prince Ojezua must also know 

that Chief Oyegun is not just the National 

Chairman of the party, but an elder statesman 

who should not be corrected on the pages 

of newspapers since we are all members of 

one APC family. 

That said, the supporters of Chief Oyegun, 

led by the Publicity Secretary of the APC, Mr. 

Godwin Erahon and others, equally need to 

know that they do not have to scratch their 

skins the way it itches, to avoid spilling one’s 

blood for a disorder that can be internally 

corrected. Insulting or vilifying Prince Ojezua 

in the media was unnecessary. The resort to 

accusing the Edo State Governor, Comrade 

Adams Oshiomhole of doubling as the party’s 

state chairman, in addition to their claim that 

Ojezua was incompetent, amount to taking 

their anger too far. 

In the same light, I find the claim by Prince 

Ojezua that the state chapter of the party were 

not carried along in the primaries really 

disturbing and that ought not to have been if 

what obtained in other states as claimed by 

Ojezua was anything to go by. I believe 

strongly that what is good for the goose, is 

equally good for the gander. 

As a party man, I am aware that the responsibility 

to conduct the primaries rests squarely 

on the shoulders of the National Working 

Committee, NWC, currently headed by 

Chief Odigie-Oyegun. I equally find very 

disturbing Ojezua’s claim that: “ In all other 

states and in all governorship primaries that 

have been conducted, forms had been sold by 

the state chapter of the party; in this case the 

NWC chose to sell the forms directly. 

Screening usually takes place at the states 

where the election is to take place, but in this 

case the screening took place in Abuja.” The 

implication of these allegations, if correct is 

that the state chapter executives do not have 

to be blamed for elections they did not 

conduct or have a say, as it were. 

But the state executive members also owed 

the generality of the party men and women 

the responsibility of informing them of the 

goings-on in the party at all times. Regular 

and effective communication among party 

men and women could have averted some of 

the misunderstanding of issues before, during 

and after the primaries. 

I am happy that the party has put in place a 

reconciliation committee, which should know 

that they owe all our party men and women a 

major duty of ensuring that all of these issues 

are dispassionately looked into and frayed 

nerves calmed as we move into the elections 

proper. The loyalists of Chief Odigie- 

Oyegun, Governor Oshiomhole; Deputy 

Governor, Dr. Pius Odubu; Prince Ojezua and 

other leaders of the party must close ranks in 

the overall interest of the state. We need unity 

more than ever before. It is in the common 

interest of all APC members for its leaders to 

work harmoniously going forward. When we 

work together continuously, we would also 

harvest the benefits of hard work together. 

Now that the primaries are over and we 

have a candidate in the person of Mr. Godwin 

Obaseki, we all owe our party the duty of 

returning him as the next governor of the 

state. Obaseki has all it takes to take Edo 

State to the next level. 

•Mr. Owegie, a chieftain of the APC, wrote 

from Benin City, Edo State.


Court annuls 45% electricity tariff hike 

•Labour hails judgement, seeks immediate compliance 

Continues from Page 1 

tariff by 100 per cent in the 

country. On the judgement,the 

court, relying on Sections 31, 

32 and 76 of the Electricity 

Power Sector Reform 

Act(EPSRA) 2005, in deciding 

the substantive suit, held that, 

“NERC acted outside the powers 

conferred on it by the Act 

and failed to follow the prescribed 

procedure.” 

The court said that “NERC 

has not shown that it acted in 

due obedience to the prescribed 

procedures and that 

there is no evidence that 

NERC complied with Section 

76(6)(7)and (9) of the EPSRA 

Act. “Of all the legal requirements, 

it appeared the only 

one complied with by NERC 

was that it announced the new 

tariff in the newspapers. It is 

clear from the affidavit evidence 

that the increase in tariff 

was done by NERC in defiance 

of the order of this court 

made on May 28, 2015, which 

directed parties in the case to 

maintain the status quo. The 

law is that every person upon 

whom an order is made by a 

court of competent jurisdiction 

must obey it, unless and until 

the order is discharged and set 

aside on appeal.” 

The court consequently, held 

that,” The tariff increase from 

July 1, 2015 was done in 

breach of the ‘status quo’ order. 

NERC’s action, was therefore, 

clearly hasty, reckless and 

irresponsible. 

“This country is in a democracy 

where the rule of law 

shall prevail over impunity or 

whimsical desires. Anything to 

CURRENCY BUYING SELLING 

US DOLLAR 

POUNDS 

EURO 

FRANC 

YEN 

CFA 

WAUA 

RENMINBI 

RIYAL 

KRONA 

SDR 

$147.70 1. 75 

$3,155.00 17.00 

$ 19.79 0.07 

$46.26 -2.21 

$44.85 -1.95 

282.25 282.75 282.25 

371. 3846 372.0425 372. 7004 

313. 1564 313. 7111 314. 2659 

286. 8977 287.406 287.9142 

2.716 2.7208 2.7257 

0.4542 0.4642 0.4742 

389.797 390.4875 391.178 

42.2091 42.2843 42.3596 

75. 2446 75.3779 75.5112 

42. 0879 42. 3779 42. 237 

392. 8638 393.5597 394. 2557 

CBN Exchange rate as at 13/07/2016 

the contrary will be an invitation 

to anarchy. It is the law 

that what is done officially 

must be done in accordance to 

the law. Investors are free to 

do business in Nigeria but 

they shall abide by the law of 

this country. Nigeria is not a 

kangaroo State. Nigeria is not 

a banana Republic. It is intolerance 

and extremely dangerous 

for any branch of the executive 

to create a posture it 

The increment 

in electricity 

tariff which took 

effect after the 

institution of 

this action and 

while a restraining 

order is subsisting 

is, 

hereby, declared 

illegal and same 

is hereby set 

aside 

may not obey certain orders of 

the court. That is tantamount 

to executive recklessness 

which will lead to lawlessness.” 

Invoking its disciplinary jurisdiction, 

the court ordered: 

“The increment in electricity 

tariff which took effect after the 

institution of this action and 

while a restraining order is 

subsisting is, hereby, declared 

illegal and same is hereby set 

aside. NERC is, 

hereby, directed to 

revevert to the status 

quo and the commission 

is, hereby, restrained 

from further 

increasing electricity 

tariff except it complies 

strictly with the relevant 

provisions of the 

EPSRA.” The sum of 

N50,000 was awarded 

in favour of the plaintiff. 

Reacting to the 

judgement, organised 

labour applauded it 

and asked NERC and 

DISCOs to 

immediately respect 

the ruling and revert to 

the old tariff without 

further delay. 

According to labour, 

the judgement is a 

“victory for the ordinary 

Nigerian who has 

been crushed by 

WORKSHOP: From left, Co-Author, African Competitive Report, Barrack Hoffman; Senior 

Special Assistant to President on Industry, Trade & Investment, Dr. Jumoke Oduwole; CEO, 

Nigeria Economic Summit Group, Mr. Laoye Jaiyeola; CEO, Stanbic IBTC, Mrs. Sola David- 

Borha; and Director General, DAWN Commission, Mr. Dipo Famakinwa, during a workshop 

on Economic Competitiveness in Nigeria, in Lagos, yesterday. 

exploitative bills.” 

Labour 

hails ruling 

Speaking through the chairman 

of Nigeria Labour Congress, 

NLC, Ayuba Wabba, 

Labour said: “We, at the Nigeria 

Labour Congress, wish 

to state that this is a courageous 

judgment deserving of 

commendation. ‘’We also consider 

it victory for the ordinary 

Nigerian who have been 

crushed by exploitative bills. 

We urge NERC and DISCOs 

to obey the judgment and 

revert to the old rates without 

further delay. 

We demand that the NERC 

and DISCOs observe all the 

conditions precedent as contained 

in the sales agreement 

before any increase is made.’’ 

DISCOs, biggest 

scam in Nigeria 

— Reps 

Meanwhile, the House of 

Representatives yesterday described 

the Distributions 

Companies, DISCOs as the 

biggest scam in Nigeria and 

called on the Federal Government 

to halt any plan to increase 

electricity tariff by 100 

per cent in the country. 

This is just as the Majority 

Leader in the House alleged 

that Electricity Distribution 

Companies didn’t have the financial 

capacity and technical 

know-how to handle distributions 

of electricity in the 

country. 

The House in a resolution, 

after hearing a motion under 

matters of urgent public importance 

sponsored by Aliyu 

Madaki, representing Dala 

Federal Constituency of Kano 

State on the platform of the All 

Progressives Congress, APC, 

said that the plan by Discos to 

increase electricity tariff from 

N24 to N50 per kilowatt for 

residential consumers was not 

in the interest of Nigerians. 

The lawmaker expressed 

worry that epileptic and erratic 

power supply by distribution 

companies had persisted and 

affected both households and 

commercial activities, adding 

that the planned new tariff 

would amount to disobedience 

of an injunction by the Federal 

High Court, Lagos that had 

restrained National Electricity 

Regulatory Commission, 

NERC, from any increase in 

electricity tariff. 

He said: “I recall that in February 

2016, NERC had increased 

electricity tariff by 45 

per cent with no correspondent 

result as the electricity 

supply has dropped affecting 

both households and commercial 

activities. 

“The planned 100 per cent 

increase in electricity tariff by 

NERC on the request of distribution 

companies is illegal 

and abuse of court process. “If 

the proposed hike in electricity 

tariff is not put on halt, its 

multiplying effect on the 

economy and the social wellbeing 

of Nigeria cannot be 

quantified.” 

Contributing to the debate, 

the House Majority Leader, 

Femi Gbajabiamila, said there 

was need to review the sale 

of DISCOs to private 

individuals, noting that the 

companies lacked the 

financial and infrastructural 

capacity to deliver quality 

services to Nigerians. 

Resolutions and 

court orders 

He said: “The issue of 

DISCOs is the biggest scam; 

people are paying huge 

money and DISCO are 

smiling to the banks without 

commensurate services. 

‘’In other countries, they do 

not privatize a large life wire 

of their economies. It is as if 

somebody powerful 

somewhere is protecting the 

DISCOs, so this House must 

remain resolute in finding out 

what gives the companies the 

effrontery to disobey 

resolutions and court orders.” 

Speaker of the House, 

Yakubu Dogara, who presided 

over the plenary, told the 

Committee of Power to 

investigate the matter. 

He also referred the matter 

to the ad hoc committee to 

investigate the sale of power 

assets and also investigate the 

rationale behind the last 

increase in electricity tariff by 

DISCOs which was not 

commensurate with their 

investment in the power 

sector.

○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ 


, 

We need to have processing 

plants to be able to dry ginger 

rather than spreading it by 

the roadside which is not 

healthy 

, 

BUSINESS 

Ginger growers seek 

assistance on 

export processing 

THE President of Ginger Growers and 

Marketers Association of Nigeria, Dr. 

Florence Edwards, has said that the 

greatest challenge restraining the 

association from exporting is the lack of 

processing plants to make the product meet 

international standards. She disclosed this 

in Abuja, pointing out that the only 

processing plant in Kaduna State was not 

functional. “We need to have processing 

plants to be able to dry ginger rather than 

spreading it by the roadside which is not 

healthy. When ginger is dried by the 

roadside, lots of dust and dirty things go 

into it which makes it not to meet 

international standards,’’ she said. 

Edwards said ginger could be cultivated 

anywhere in the country against the belief 

that it could only grow in the North. She 

said the association was carrying out 

demonstration farming of ginger in all states 

in the southern part of the country to create 

awareness that it could grow in all parts of 

Nigeria. She said that the association had 

planted ginger in Okada in Edo State and 

the production was great. “We are trying 

to encourage ginger farmers to go into 

commercial farming not just farming for 

personal use,” she said. 

Major 

producer 

The Ginger Growers president said that 

Nigeria is the third largest ginger 

producing country in the world after China 

and India but stressed that Nigeria had the 

spiciest ginger in the world. She said the 

association had put in place strategies to 

create awareness on the benefits of ginger, 

including its use in medicine and food. She 

said ginger could be used to relieve 

digestive problems, such as nausea, loss 

of appetite, motion sickness and pain. 

Edwards said ginger root or 

underground stem could be consumed 

fresh, processed in powder form, dried or 

prepared as a spice in oil or juice form. She 

said the association would need funds to 

encourage the youth to farm ginger because 

seeds, fertilizer, and tools would be 

provided for them. She added that the 

Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) 

had done a lot for the association, especially 

on how to improve ginger exportation. 

In 2013, with a global production of 2.1 

m i l l i o n t o n n e s o f 

ginger, India accounted for 33 percent, 

followed by China (19 

percent), Nepal, Indonesia, and Nigeria 

(7.6 percent). Ginger produces a hot, 

fragrant kitchen spice. Young ginger 

rhizomes are juicy and fleshy with a very 

mild taste. They are often pickled 

in vinegar or sherry as a snack or cooked 

as an ingredient in many dishes. They can 

be steeped in boiling water to make 

ginger tisane, to which honey is often 

added; sliced orange or lemon fruit may be 

added. Ginger can be made into candy, 

or ginger wine, which has been made 

commercially since 1740. Fresh ginger may 

be peeled before eating. For longer-term 

storage, the ginger can be placed in a plastic 

bag and refrigerated or frozen. 

How entrepreneurs can start export 

business 

By Yinka Kolawole, with 

agency report 

EXPORTING is not a casual 

business. Venturing into an 

export campaign requires energy and 

determination and the intention of 

persevering in it. A businessman usually 

cannot or will not turn into a successful 

exporter within weeks or even months. 

It will probably take much longer. But 

the time and care taken to select the right 

product and the right place or places for 

an initial export venture can minimise 

the risk and make 

ultimate success 

quicker and more 

certain. 

Exporting begins 

with a state of mind 

that a firm’s 

management must 

share. The 

management must 

believe in the 

importance of 

exporting, and 

must realise that it 

is wise and will be 

profitable to 

diversify its 

markets. To start 

with, it must ensure 

that export orders 

always receive the 

same attention as 

domestic orders; 

that money is set 

aside for research 

into markets, travel, 

EXPORT FACILITATORS: 

THE Nigerian Export 

Promotion Council (NEPC) is one 

of the institutions in Nigeria that help 

exporters. NEPC was established 

primarily with the mandate of boosting 

Nigeria’s non-oil exports and reducing 

trade deficits. It was established through 

the promulgation of the Nigerian Export 

Promotion Decree No. 26 of 1976 and 

formally inaugurated in March, 1977. The 

Act was amended by Decree No.72 of 

1979 and further amended by the 

Nigerian Export Promotion Decree No. 

41 of 1988 and complimented by the 

Export (Incentives and Miscellaneous 

Provisions) Decree No. 18 of 1986. 

Furthermore, the Nigerian Export 

Promotion Council Amendment Decree 

No.64 of 1992 was promulgated to 

enhance the performance of the Council 

by minimising bureaucratic bottlenecks 

and increasing autonomy in dealing with 

members of the organised private sector. 

The statutory roles of NEPC are: To 

promote the development and 

diversification of Nigerian’s export trade; 

to assist in promoting the development 

and promotion; that knowledge 

about foreign markets is 

systematically acquired and kept 

up-to-date. 

Many entrepreneurs jump into 

export business without weighing 

the pros and cons and rather than 

laughing their way to the bank, it 

turns into a nightmare experience. 

So how do you know if your venture 

is ready to enter the export market? 

Know the market: The export 

market in Nigeria is so com-plex 

that you will fail if you take a plunge 

of export related industries in Nigeria; to 

spearhead the creation of appropriate export 

incentives and; to actively articulate and 

promote the implementation of export 

policies and programs of the Nigerian 

government. 

Segun Awolowo, Executive Director/CEO, 

NEPC, said since its inception, the Council 

has made significant strides into the world 

market to claim a continuously growing 

portion of market share in several sectors; 

ranging from manufacturing, semiprocessed, 

commodities, handicraft, 

horticulture, garments and textiles, 

aquaculture and sea products, wood and 

wood products, leather and leather 

products, solid minerals, services, among 


Activities: The core activities of NEPC 

are: Trade Information Service; Products 

and Market Development; Administration 

of export and incentives; Human Resources 

Training and Development on Exports and; 

Coordination and co-operation with multilateral 

Institution such as International 

Trade Center (ITC), United Nations 

Development Programme (UNDP), World 

Bank, etc. 

without having enough knowledge 

and experience about it. So, before 

starting out, you need to take your 

time to learn vital details about the 

export business such as licensing 

requirements, port procedures, 

product sourcing, working with 

foreign agents and distributors, 

locating profitable foreign markets, 

and so on. 

In Nigeria, you will find many e- 

books on how to become a 

successful exporter. Ironically, most 

of these e-books are written by 

SUMMIT: From left, Mr. Meka Olowola, Chairman, Youth Entrepreneurship 

Summit (YES); Mr. Ndiana Matthew, Founder, YES; Mr. Kennedy Okonkwo, GMD/ 

CEO, Nedcom Oaks and Mr. Ubong King, GMD/CEO, Protection Plus Service Ltd, 

at the 2016 Youth Entrepreneurship Summit, in Lagos. PHOTO: AKEEM SALAU. 

Nigerian Export Promotion Council 

Other activities of the Council 

include: Working closely with 

foreign missions in Nigeria which 

has resulted in getting training 

programmes and sponsorship of 

the staff of the Council; market 

research/survey to establish 

demand and protocol; receiving 

and responding to trade enquiries; 

follow up on orders generated by 

exporters through the Council 

during Trade Fairs or missions; 

market adaptation through 

product development and; 

registration of Nigerian exporters. 

Others are: Collection and 

dissemination of information on 

products and market available for 

export; provision of market entry 

support services; administration 

of export incentives; organising 

and planning the participation of 

Nigeria in international trade fairs 

and exhibitions in other 

countries;planning and 

organising outward trade 

missions; dissemination of both 

domestic and international 

commodities prices and; 

Publication and servicing of trade 

enquiries and opportunities from 

within and abroad.

Vanguard, THURSDAY, JULY14, 2016 — 21 

& YOU 

, 

It is not enough to have a 

vision. We need to have 

processes and structures in 

place that will help us achieve 

the vision 

, 

people who are not exporters 

themselves. You need to be wary of 

these. 

The best way to learn about the 

export business is to contact a 

seasoned exporter with years of 

experience in the business and ask 

him/her to teach you all you need 

to know before starting your own 

business. Practical teaching in a 

face-to-face setting is best. 

Identify products to sell: In 

Nigeria, there are many 

commodities and resources that can 

fetch you huge profits in the 

international market. But you will 

fail woefully if you try to sell too 

many items at once. 

So, you should focus on only one 

product from the start. As you gain 

more experience, you can expand 

your scope to include other 

products. Start with products that 

you can easily make available in the 

The best way to 

learn about the 

export business is 

to contact a 

seasoned 

exporter with 

years of 

experience in the 

business 

required quantity whenever there 

is demand for it. Cassava, cashew 

nuts, bitter kola, cocoa, charcoal, 

and kola nuts are very good 

examples of products to start with. 

Product sourcing: After 

deciding which product you would 

like to export, you need to decide 

how you will source the product. 

Basically, you have two options: you 

can either produce the product 

yourself or buy from manufacturers 

or producers in wholesale 

quantities. 

For a start, buying from someone 

else is the easier and cheaper 

option, as you might not be able to 

afford the cost of setting up and 

maintaining a production point. If 

you are going for this option, then 

you need to find suppliers or 

producers of the product. 

Register your business: 

Legalising your business is one of 

the most important steps towards 

starting any business in Nigeria 

and the export business is no 

exception. You must register your 

export business with the Corporate 

Affairs Commission. Aside giving 

you the legal permission to operate 

your export business, registering your 

business will boost your credibility. 

Before doing business with you, most 

foreign distributors will try to 

establish your credibility by 

requesting a Certificate of 

Incorporation and other documents 

showing that your business has been 

legally registered in Nigeria. 

Find your buyers: With the internet, 

export business has become easier 

than ever. You can find buyers for your 

products and seal trade deals right 

from the comfort of your room without 

necessarily holding a face-to-face 

meeting with the buyers. All you 

need to do is join trade websites, 

become an active member, and start 

sealing trade deals with interested 

buyers. 

Exhibit your products: Trade 

fairs and missions provide great 

opportunities for exporters to 

showcase their products. As your 

export business grows, you will need 

to attend more of these events to 

create awareness about your export 

products. You have bright chances of 

meeting with potential buyers and 

sealing additional lucrative trade 

deals. 

Challenges: As a beginner in the 

trade, some of the initial challenges 

one can encounter are: Lack of 

product and market information; 

Logistics management of export trade; 

Non-conversance with export 

procedures and documentation; Lack 

of access to funds to start export 

business; and Lack of export culture. 

Other 

requirements 

To start exporting, individuals, 

companies/cooperatives should seek 

further understanding on the 

following subjects: Registration with 

NEPC as an exporter; Export 

Quotation; Product sourcing; Market 

knowledge; Funds sourcing; Making 

an export offer; Payment methods 

and; Export documentations. Other 

information required are: Preshipment 

inspection of exports 

(NESS); INCOTERMS 2010 and; 

ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation 

Scheme. 

Financing your export : One 

major factor that stops most aspiring 

exporters in Nigeria from kickstarting 

their export business is 

funding. When you are sourcing 

funds for your export business, do not 

overlook any possible source. 

Approach members of your family 

as well as your friends who you think 

can afford to lend or give you all or 

some of the money you need. The 

advantage of seeking startup funds 

from your close ones is that there is 

little or no protocol or formality 

involved. Trust won’t be an issue, 

since they have known you for years. 

Angel investors are wealthy 

individuals and serial entrepreneurs 

who are willing to invest in business 

opportunities with huge profit 

potential. In return they will take a 

share of your business. 

Whose role is it to run an 

organisation's vision? 

“Action springs not from thought, but from a 

readiness for responsibility.”…Dietrich 

Bonhoeffer 

IT is a big risk when the leaders 

are the only people that 

understand the vision of an 

organisation. There is yet a bigger 

risk when they chose to run with 

the vision alone. 

Developing the vision is the first 

step; the second and most 

important step is running with the 

vision. Two pertinent questions to 

ask are: who owns the vision of an 

organisation, and who runs with 

the vision? 

The CEO (with the board or 

senior management) is expected 

to develop the vision of any 

organisation. The vision helps 

them to know where they are 

going to, and what their end state 

results will look like. That 

does not mean that the 

CEO or senior 

management owns the 

vision. As soon as any 

vision is being 

developed, it ceases to be 

the CEO’s “property”. 

Everyone in the 

organisation now owns 

the vision. 

Core 

strategies 

Running with the vision 

is akin to implementing 

Leaders 

are to lead 

and 

navigate 

change in a 

way that 

will yield 

sustainable 

results 

core strategies that will help 

organisations achieve their end state. 

The CEO’s job is not to implement the 

core strategies, his primary roles are 

planning and change. Employees 

implement the change, in other words 

they run with the vision. 

I am disturbed. Why is it that in most 

organisations, only the senior 

management sees the organisational 

“big picture”? These people constitute 

about 20-30 percent in population. 

What happens to the other 70 percent 

who are middle officers? 

These groups of people in one way 

or the other are expected to run with 

the vision. Can you see why I am 

disturbed? 

Why is it easier for senior 

management to see the big picture? The 

answer is because they have been 

taken to a “helicopter ride” and from 

5000 feet above the ground level they 

were able to see the big picture. 

The CEO must ensure that everyone 

in the organisation sees and knows 

where the organisation is going to – 

this is a critical task. 

Whenever I am teaching Strategic 

Thinking to organisations, I always 

include a slide titled “Danger”. Why 

danger? Yes, there is a big danger 

when the 

CEO or 

Senior 

Management 

thinks that 

his/her idea 

is the best 

and only 

idea. 

Nobody 

has the 

monopoly of 

best ideas. BY ‘UJU ONWUZULIKE 

When the 

ideas of some group of people (younger 

officers) are disregarded and slighted, it 

negates the true fact that “people support 

what they help create”. When this happens, 

the people involved might not work with their 

minds and hearts the way they 

ought to. 

Points to ponder: 

For a CEO to achieve the organisation’s 

vision, everyone in 

the organisation must begin to 

see the “big picture”. Mildly 

speaking, some employees do 

not know what their vision statement 

is. They also do not know 

what their core values are, so 

what guides them and what have 

they been doing? 

Leaders and Managers must 

avoid “DAD” syndrome when 

running the affairs of the entire 

organisation.(“DAD” stands for: Deciding 

– Announcing – Defending). 

They should rather enforce “Parallel Involvement 

Process”- where the views of 

employees are valued. Being a leader does 

not confer on us the right to use veto powers 

on subordinates. Remember people support 

what they help create. 

Final Note: 

It is not enough to have a vision. We 

need to have processes and structures in 

place that will help us achieve the vision. 

Remember structures influence behavior. 

The roles of leaders are to lead and 

navigate change in a way that will yield 

sustainable results. 

These results are achieved collectively. 

Senior management and the collective 

workforce should not focus on their 

personal goals but rather on the goals of 

the organisation. It is much easier to 

achieve one’s personal goal(s) after 

helping the organisation achieve its goal 

first. 

For your views or perspectives: 

Email: uju.onwuzulike@mclgroup.net 

Mobile: 09091142093 

C 

M 

YK


Unsold finished products fuel salary cuts, 

retrenchments in firms 

By Franklin Alli 

SOME manufacturing 

companies in the country 

have started applying 

Hobson’s choice of “Take it 

or leave it “ by reviewing the 

salaries of their staff downward 

instead of retrenching 

them. 

They are blaming high unsold 

finished products in the 

markets and their warehouses 

which they attributed 

to falling purchasing power of 

average Nigerians and stiff 

competition from foreign 

brands as well as smuggling. 

Investigation by Vanguard 

revealed that companies in 

pharmaceutical sector, food 

and beverage including flour 

mills have started using this 

rule to compel their staff to 

either accept salary cut and 

remain on their payroll, or 

resign their appointments. 

Vanguard further learned 

that pharmaceutical company 

GlaxoSmithKline Consumer 

Nigeria Plc in Agbara , Ogun 

state, recently laid off 55 of 

its workforce, due to high 

level of unsold products . 

Likewise, a Flour Milling 

company in Apapa has also 

reviewed downward the 

wages of workers who are 

earning N90,000 to 

N40,000and and urged 

those who can not accept the 

offer to quit. 

One of the affected staff, who 

does not want his name in 

print, told Vanguard that as 

a result of this development, 

workers that are earning 

N200,000 and above are jittery 

adding that some of them 

have resigned their appointments 

before the axe fall on 

them. According to Manufacturers 

Association of Nigeria, 

MAN, the apex body of all 

manufacturers in the country, 

the sector in recent years, 

is challenged by persistent 

weak micro-macroeconomic 

fundamentals and lower pur- 

Lafiagi Sugar mill, refinery & ethanol plant to gulp N85bn 

AWARD: Chief Eric Umeofia, CEO, Erisco Foods Ltd/ Recipient of the Zik Prize in Business 

Leadership (middle); his wife, Nmachukwu Umeofia (2nd right); Governor Willie Obiano 

of Anambra State (left); Governor lbikunle Amosu of Ogun State (right) and Ooni of lle-Ife, 

Adeyeye Ogunwusi during the Zik awards, in Lagos. 

The Flour Mills 

industry, which is 

worth N100 billion, 

the market is highly 

price sensitive as 

consumers can 

hardly tolerate a 

minute price 

increase without 

corresponding 

value addition 

By Demola Akinyemi 

BUA Group is making 

a total investment of N85 

billion) in Lafiagi Sugar Company 

(LASUCO) to cover the 

sugar mill, its refinery, the ethanol 

and power plant as well as 

the complete agricultural aspects 

of the project. 

The project is located at Edu 

local government area of kwara 

state. 

The group executive director 

of BUA group, Alh Kabiru Rabiu 

disclosed this during the flag off 

of a 500 hectares sugar cane 

nursery plantation at the Lafiagi 

Sugar Company. 

According to him, “Our 

planned 500 hectares nursery 

development is unprecedented 

in the history of Nigerian Sugar 

Industry. And with the achievement 

of this important milestone, 

we intend to break yet 

another record by replanting 

over 3,000 hectares of land next 

year.” 

He also noted that as part of 

the group’s strategic plans to 

ensure local sugar production 

and reduce the importation of 

raw sugar, BUA Group acquired 

Lafiagi Sugar Company in 2008 

through the Federal Government 

Privatisation exercise. 

Alh Rabiu stressed that although 

the acquisition predated 

the establishment of the Nigerian 

Sugar Master plan, 

LASUCO has become an integral 

part of effective implementation 

of the Federal 

Government’s Policy on Sugar 

Backward Integration program. 

He said the Lafiagi Sugar 

Company is expected to employ 

at least 3,000 workers directly 

during the peak season of operation, 

while indirect employment 

is certain to reach up to 

10,000 people. 

He stressed that BUA will establish 

a fully integrated sugar 

factory and refinery with a capacity 

to crush nearly 7,000 tons 

of sugar cane per day. 

He also said that within the 

two estates, “we will grow over 

1.2 million tons of sugar cane per 

annum, which will be processed 

to produce over 140,000 tons of 

pure refined sugar. 

He further disclosed that the 

plant will generate about 35 MW 

of electricity using bagasse as 

feedstock. Part of this will be used 

to power the factory, while the 

excess will be sold to the distribution 

company to help improve 

the public power supply in the 

State. 

He said,” When fully operational, 

LASUCO will also produce 

over 25 million liters of 

ethanol. In line with today’s global 

trend, we expect this ethanol 

output to contribute toward 

Nigeria’s transition to a more 

eco-friendly energy mix, especially 

as hybrid vehicles become 

increasingly popular on our 

roads. Of course this will go a 

long way in relieving Nigeria’s 

over dependence on imported 

petroleum products in the coming 

years.” 

He added that,the acquisition and 

reactivation of the Lafiagi Sugar 

Company was important to both 

BUA Group and the general sugar 

industry for various reasons: 

According to him, “Firstly, 

LASUCO has one of the best land 

available for sugar cane production 

because of its flatness, soil fertility, 

proximity to river Niger and 

favourable climatic conditions that 

are conducive for sugar cane production, 

“Secondly, the company is strategically 

located to serve both the 

Northern and Southern markets of 

the country. Being located in Kwara 

State, LASUCO will also enjoy easy 

logistics to deliver products across 

all markets.” 

chasing power of consumers. 

MAN said that all of these 

to a large extent have contributed 

to the untimely closure 

of peripheral manufacturers 

with their market share 

taken up by market controllers, 

new entrants, importers and 

smugglers. 

MAN noted that the Flour 

Mills industry which is worth 

N100 billion, the market is 

highly price sensitive as consumers 

can hardly tolerate a 

minute price increase without 

corresponding value addition. 

He described Kwara State as the 

birthplace of Nigeria’s sugar industry 

as it is home to Nigeria’s pioneer 

sugar company in Bacita; and 

as an offshoot of Bacita, he said 

LASUCO enjoys access to highly 

skilled manpower on sugar cane 

production and processing by virtue 

of its proximity to Bacita. 

He however noted that Lafiagi 

Sugar Company has a historic land 

bank of about 16,000 hectares, out 

of which, just over 10,000 hectares 

is best suited for sugar cane production. 

Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed expressed 

optimism that the development 

would positively 

revolutionalise the economy of the 

state and Nigeria in general 

He stressed that it would create 

wealth and massive gainful employment 

for the youths in the community 

and the state in general because 

of the nature of the production. 

He also urged other investors to 

come to kwara state and explore the 

maximum advantage of abundant 

lands,perfect nature and the attractive 

needed infrastructures aside 

being the gate way of the southern 

and northern part of Nigeria to establish 

their industries. 

Entrepreneur 

seeks revival of 

moribund mud 

brick factories 

AJOURNALIST and en 

trepreneur, Ayodele 

Samuel Ayo-Oloye has called 

on the Federal Government to 

revive moribund mud brick factories 

across the country to reduce 

cost of building materials 

and create jobs. 

Ayo-Oloye who is the Chief 

Executive of Farm Plus Foods 

Solution Center, said “We must 

begin to look inward in solving 

mirage of problems facing this 

country including reducing 

housing deficits. 

“Am currently carrying out a 

research on using latrite mud 

for building houses, they are 

new technologies and improved 

models of constructing mud 

houses. 

“ Till date building with mud 

remains the cheapest, phasing 

it out will be suffocating lives out 

of rural dwellers and low income 

earners in the country,” Ayo- 

Oloye said. 

He added that many countries 

in the West Africa sub region 

have been able to meet their 

housing needs through effective 

use of laterite mud. 

“Laterite soil, the main material 

used in making mud bricks, 

is often cheaply found in any 

part of Nigeria. Houses built 

with laterite soil are durable, aesthetically 

pleasant, cool in hot 

weather and warm in cold 

weather. And the production 

technique is easy to learn.” 

He noted that his company is 

at the verge of launching a 

mud estate project to reduce 

housing deficit in the country by 

40 per cent. 

Young 

entrepreneurs to 

learn from 

industry experts 

By Naomi Uzor 

YOUTHPRENEUR Busi 

ness Summit has said that 

it is bringing over 700 young 

entrepreneurs to learn from industry 

experts at its forthcoming 

summit in Lagos. 

According to the Convener, 

Mrs. Abimbola Oligbinde, the 

theme of the summit, ‘‘Passion 

to Wealth: Road to Economic 

Diversification” was chosen to 

underscore the need for urgent 

diversification of the nation’s 

economy, beyond lip-service 

and that the project, which aims 

to enhance enterprise development 

in Nigeria, will run for ten 

years. 

“The summit will create a platform 

for young entrepreneurs to 

also learn from industry experts 

and successful but young entrepreneurs. 

It will also create a 

platform for networking and 

business-to-business partnerships. 

We hope to impact 20,000 

businesses through mentoring, 

partnerships, capacity development 

and funding. Womenowned 

businesses would get 55 

per cent of the funding. 

“The focus of this competition 

is for young entrepreneurs to 

share their ideas with angel investors. 

C 

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Vanguard, THURSDAY, JULY 14, 2016 

16—23 

Mr. Segun Oshinowo, NECA DG 

Why employment crisis 

persists — NECA DG 

By Victor Ahiuma-Young & 

Elizabeth Uwandu 

D IRECTOR-GENERAL 

of Nigeria Employers' 

Consultative Association, NECA, 

Mr. Segun Oshinowo, in a chat 

with Vanguard, speaks on the 

employment crisis in Nigeria and 

ways to address same. 

Employment crisis: Nigeria is 

looking for a microwave solution 

to unemployment. That is why we 

are all disappointed, that in spite 

of what may seem to be 

government seriousness and 

sensitivity in handling the issue 

of unemployment, we are not 

getting result. 

Fundamental 

approach 

The question we should be 

asking ourselves is, why are we 

not getting it right? We are not 

getting results because we are not 

doing the right things. 

Let me repeat myself again, we 

are looking for a microwave 

solution to a problem that requires 

a far more robust and 

fundamental approach. The first 

thing we must realise as a country 

is that employment comes from 

meaningful inclusive and 

consistent growth. Now when 

you look at the state of our 

economy particularly, in the last 

three to four years, we have not 

really posted meaningful growth. 

Even in time past, when Nigeria 

was posting an average of 6 

percent and 7.5 percent Gross 

Domestic Product, GDP growth 

rate, it did not result into 

meaningful employment. That 

was why I said earlier that what 

we require is sustainable and 

inclusive growth. 

Now, when we talk about 

sustainable inclusive growth, we 

bear in mind critically four 

components. In the four key 

components that drive growth, 

take consumer expenditure. 

What is the level of our 

disposable income in this 

economy? When you look at the 

US economy as an example, you 

discover that the GDP growth, it 

is principally propelled by the 

consumer expenditure. So, the 

level of the income of your people 

is a key factor in determining 

whether you going to have a 

meaningful growth. 

The second factor is investment. 

How well have we done in 

attracting foreign investment into 

Nigerian economy? The third 

component is government 

expenditure. When we are talk 

of expenditure in this regard, I 

will qualify the expenditure on 

critical infrastructure that your 

economy requires for growth. 

How consistence has our 

government been investing in 

infrastructure? If you check the 

profile of government budgets in 

the past six to seven years, you 

will discover that the chunk of 

your budgets, has been going into 

recurrent expenditure rather than 

capital expenditure. When you 

now look at the balance of trade 

in terms of our export access. You 

discover that we are far more 

income dependent and less 

export economy. 

So, all on those variables that 

drive growth, consumer 

expenditure, flow of foreign 

investment, government 

expenditure, particularly on 

capital expenditure, and then on 

our balance of trade, we have 

not fared well. 

Those are the key fundamentals 

we really need to look at if we are 

to solve this huge unemployment. 

We will not solve this by 

government rhetorics, we will not 

It is possible for 

somebody to have 

acquired functional 

skill, but if the state 

of the economy is 

unhealthy, the 

person will not 

have a place to 

utilise the 

functional skill 

acquired 

solve unemployment by creating 

agencies, we will not solve this 

unemployment by imparting skill 

on our youth, though it is part of 

it. We will not solve by 

addressing the quality of our 

education. 

Now, don’t get me wrong, 

quality of education is important, 

technical and vocational skills are 

important. But, at the end of the 

day, we are going to focus on the 

market. It is possible for you to 

give youths the best quality 

education and impart on them 

with the most contemporary 

technical and vocational skills, 

yet they remain unemployed if 

your economy is not doing well. 

So, those are key inputs. But you 

need to address the demand 

needs for it, has to do with posting 

a sustainable inclusive growth. 

That is really the way forward. 

Education, economy: There are 

two issues here now. First one 

has to do with functionality. As 

to whether, the graduates we are 

churning out are in the areas of 

the needs of your economy .The 

second issue whether the 

number we are churning out are 

far more than the numbers the 

industries required. Because, It 

is possible to address the issue of 

functionality, but to produce 

functional graduates far beyond 

what the economy requires is 

another issue. 

So, we should not mix these two 

issues together. Nevertheless, 

these two issues are key to us. 

Why are they key to us? Let us 

even assume that we are 

addressing the issue of 

functionality. 

Sustainable 

enterprises 

We are not producing these 

graduates for their own use, we 

are producing them for the use of 

the economy. In which case, it is 

possible for somebody to have 

acquired functional skill, but if the 

state of the economy is unhealthy, 

the person will not have a place 

to utilise the functional skill 

acquired. 

That is where the basis issue of 

promoting sustainable enterprises 

and creating enabling 

enviroment is extremely important 

in an attempt to solve 

unemployment. We are 

beginning to see large numbers 

of Nigerian youths that attended 

the best universities abroad 

coming back to the country, only 

to join the queue of the 

unemployed. 

In which case, if the argument 

had been that universities were 

churning out now qualitative 

graduates, how would you now 

explain that those who have had 

the best education are unable to 

get job? That is why I am quite 

convinced that the issue of 

unemployment goes beyond 

having quality graduates. 

Market dynamics: If you don’t 

get the market dynamics right, if 

you don’t create avenue where 

wealth creation will be 

encouraged and businesses will 

thrive, you may have the best of 

graduates in the world, you may 

have the best functional workforce, 

you will still end up being 

unemployed. Because the market 

which will provide for functional 

or skilled graduates is in 

comatose. That is the key issue 

in Nigeria, and if you analyse it 

further, it comes down to quality 

choices over the years. 

I would give you an example. 

Why should a graduate of 

Chemical Engineering be 

unemployed in Nigeria, the 

largest crude oil exporter in 

Africa? Which industries should 

provide jobs for graduates of 

Chemical Engineering , the oil 

and gas. But, what have we been 

doing over the years? We built 

four refineries that are nonfunctional, 

we ended up 

importing petroleum products 

and other derivertives. 

We instituted a policy that 

discourages investment and 

establishment of industries. So, if 

you got it wrong in the area of 

your policy choices, it will reflect 

on the labour market in terms of 

unemployment. That is one 

example, we could go on and 

on. You are a consumption 

country, importing rice from Asia, 

meanwhile, we have ariable 

land. 

Graduate of 

agriculture 

So, why should a graduate of 

Agriculture be unemployed? It is 

because of our policy choices. If 

we have embraced policies that 

would support diversification, 

backwards integration, local 

content, graduates of Agriculture 

will have no business being 

unemployed, graduates of 

Industrial Chemical will also have 

no business being unemployed. 

So, the quality and 

appropriateness of our policy is 

a major cause of our 

unemployment problems. 

Apart from the keys that drive 

growth, we need to look at our 

quality choices. At any point in 

time, we need to ask our 

questions, these choices we are 

about to articulate, and 

implement, is it job rich or will it 

promote employment? These 

questions need to be answered, 

else we continue creating jobs for 

non Nigerians. 

What do you make up of the 

500 millions naira budget for 

social security? 

Those are unsustainable choices 

of policy. While it is 

commendable, at least, it will get 

some youths off the streets. it is 

certainly not sustainable. If you 

spend such budget now, next 

year, are you doing to get such 

amount for the budget? At what 

point in time are you going to step 

up and see that education is just 

one sector of the entire economy 

. Let’s assume that all the 

unemployed youths want to be 

teachers. Yes, some of them 

would embrace for survival. We 

might not be getting the best from 

them, because that might not be 

their aspiration in life. They will 

receive it and embrace it, but if 

that is not their aspiration, it is a 

question of time , we start having 

problems with them I terms of 

motivation. But, it is 

commendable, but we need to 

look beyond that.


Vanguard, THURSDAY JULY 14, 2016—25 

ICAN calls for law restricting banks’lending 

to directors 

By Providence Obuh 

THE Institute of 

Chartered Accountants 

of Nigeria ICAN, yesterday, 

called on the Central 

Bank of Nigeria (CBN) 

to enact a law that would 

restrict banks’ lending to 

their directors. The Institute 

also urged the federal goevrnment 

to strengthen its 

anti-corruption agencies. It 

also called on well meaning 

Nigerians to partner with 

the Federal Government for 

effective results. 

Speaking at a Luncheon 

with Media Chiefs, 52nd President 

of ICAN, Deacon Titus 

Soetan, said that the judiciary 

must be alive to its responsibility 

in fighting corruption and 

that cases of corruption should 

not only be expeditiously prosecuted 

and adjudicated upon, 

but that those found guilty 

must be punished to serve as 

a deterrent to others. 

He said: “In case of the 

indicted bank, we have been 

told that some of the directors 

collected high value loans, 

which some people have 

called corporate governance 

issues, well, may be they are 

just trying to embellish it, so 

that it will not seem frightening 

and to some extent I see it 

as corruption in the private 

sector. 

Corruption in 

public sector 

“There could be a lot of corruption 

in public sector but 

there is more corruption in 

the private sector. If I as a director 

can just dip my hand 

into the bank and collect so 

many billions for myself and 

my company, that is a form of 

corruption because from the 

foregoing the facilities are not 

well appraised by the system. 

“I will encourage the CBN 

to probably pass a law that if 

you are a director in a bank, 

don’t seek for loan in that 

bank. Go to another bank if 

you have need for a loan, so 

that they can be able to look at 

the application with objectivity 

rather than your bank where 

they see you as the boss. Until 

this is done we will continue 

to have cases of insider abuses 

and once they are there and 

we don’t take away this 

problem, these banks might 

find it difficult to operate. 

“The regulators: CBN and 

the Nigeria Deposit Insurance 

Commission, NDIC, must be 

up and doing, they should 

not wait until some of these 

banks go bust, they see banks’ 

returns on monthly and quarterly 

basis, so they should take 

immediate action when they 

see some of these things happening 

in the baking sector 

instead of waiting till the 

loans become delinquent 

before they act. 

“When somebody brings 

money into the bank to save, 

he/she can come the next day 

to say I want to collect my 

money back, if you don’t give 

‘FG’s monetary policy will 

boost maritime business’ 

By Godfrey Bivbere 

IN spite of complaints 

about the effect of 

the new monetary policy 

introduced by the federal 

government, Acting Managing 

Director of Ports and 

Cargo Handling Services 

Limited, Alhaji Mohammed 

Bulangu, has said that 

the new policy will soon 

result in steady growth in 

the maritime sector. Reviewing 

the impact of the 

new policy on the maritime 

industry, Bulangu noted 

that the policy signifies a 

new dawn for both the port 

terminal operators and their 

clients, particularly importers, 

who had experienced 

a great deal of difficulty in 

sourcing foreign exchange 

for their business transactions. 

He said the new flexible 

foreign exchange (forex) 

regime recently adopted by 

the government makes it 

easy to source foreign exchange. 

A statement signed by 

Muyiwa Akande, Corporate 

Affairs Manager of SI- 

FAX the parent body of 

PCHSL, quoted Bulangu 

saying that the new forex 

policy now allows commercial 

banks transfer foreign 

currency in customers’ 

domiciliary accounts to their 

local and international business 

partners subject to a 

daily cumulative limit of 

$10,000. 

According to him, “I can 

tell you that within few 

weeks of this new forex policy, 

the signs are already 

him his money back that is 

corruption. The bank cannot 

give the money back if 

the money deposited has 

been taken away by some 

people in form of loans that 

L-R: Oscar N. Onyema, OON, President, African 

Securities Exchanges Association (ASEA) and CEO, the 

Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) and Dr. Akinwumi 

Adesina, President, African Development Bank (AfDB) 

at the signing of MoU between AfDB and ASEA 

in Abidjan. 

there that the sector would 

gain tremendously. More 

activities are now returning 

to the terminal, which is a 

good sign for us as operators 

and the country’s 

economy as a whole. 

“The new forex policy 

by the Federal Government 

is a welcome development. 

Prior to this, 

importers found it difficult 

to get dollars to do 

their businesses and 

this greatly affected almost 

all the stakeholders 

in the industry, especially 

the port operators 

as there was a 

sharp decline in 

throughput and as a 

consequence, loss of 

revenue.” 

Bulangu further noted 

that the outlook for the 

sector in the second half 

of the year is very positive, 

adding that with 

the expected surge in 

throughput volume and 

increased revenue, the 

sector is well positioned 

to contribute substantially 

to the country’s 

economy. 

“The maritime sector 

has the potentials to be 

one of the mainstays of 

the Nigerian economy. 

Like the Minister of 

Transportation said recently, 

the sector should 

be providing about a 

quarter of the nation’s 

annual budget. I believe 

it is achievable and the 

new forex policy is a step 

towards achieving this,” 

he said. 

were never paid back,” he 

said. 

Dwindling economy redeemable 

On the economy, Soetan 

maintained that it is redeemable 

and that identified 

loop holes such as looting 

and other corrupt activities 

must be stopped if 

the country wants to make 

head way. 

His word, “the economy 

is redeemable but it will 

take some time, for it to be 

redeemable, the first thing 

is that the loop holes must 

be sealed, no matter how 

much we generate as income, 

even if oil price goes 

up to $200 per barrel, if 

looting, corruption are still 

at the pace we are, then we 

are not going anywhere. So 

the loop holes must be 

sealed and we must work 

towards that, so that the little 

we earn can be channeled 

into the right and 

appropriate sources so as 

to better the living condition 

of our people.” 

Fitch affirms UBA’s viability rating 

as Agusto upgrades rating to ‘Aa-’ 

FITCH International, 

one of the foremost global 

rating agencies has affirmed 

United Bank for Africa 

(UBA) Plc’s viability rating at 

“B”, as the pan-African 

banking group continues to 

sustain its benchmark asset 

quality and strong profitability 

amidst industry and 

macroeconomic challenges. 

UBA is one of the few banks 

with strong risk management 

framework, which has helped 

keep non-performing loans 

ratio at a moderate level of 1.74 

percent as at the end-March 

2016. 

Fitch also upgraded UBA’s 

outlook to stable from Negative, 

thus reinforcing the 

strong outlook on the Bank, 

especially as its diversified 

network across eighteen other 

African countries make it 

relatively immune against the 

potential cyclical volatilities in 

any of its countries of 

operations. 

Also, the foremost local rating 

agency in Nigeria, Agusto 

& Co, at its rating review of 

UBA Plc, upgraded the bank’s 

rating from “A+” to “Aa-”, with 

a stable outlook. According to 

Agusto & Co, “The rating of 

United Bank for Africa Plc 

(UBA) is upheld by the bank’s 

improved capitalization, good 

liquidity and large pool of stable 

deposits, strong domestic 

presence supported by the 

bank’s extensive branch network 

and growing alternative 

banking channels. 

“We note improvement in 

profitability and the bank’s 

good asset quality. The rating 

takes into cognizance the 

weak macroeconomic climate 

on the banking industry’s 

asset quality, which we do not 

expect UBA to be excluded. 

Just as the credit rating 

agencies are strong on the 

fundamentals of UBA Plc, 

equity analysts have also 

affirmed the asset quality, 

profitability and broad investment 

case of the Bank, 

particularly as UBA has 

maintained an average return 

on equity of over 20% in the 

past three years, bucking the 

challenging economic 

environment and dwarfing 

peer performance track. 

C 

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By Josephine Agbonkhese 

& Anino Aganbi 

FROM the suspension of 

one industrial action to the 

wake of another…all leaving 

patients in the hands of merciless 

death, the recurrent crisis in the 

public health sector doesn’t seem 

to go away soon. 

At least not with government’s 

seeming inability to immediately 

resolve the demands over 

agreements entered into years 

back with various health sector 

unions on improved working 

conditions, equipment, facilities 

and infrastructure across public 

health institutions in the country. 

SPECIAL REPORT 

Health sector’s unending crisis, maternal 

health and traditional birth attendants 

Buhari’s latest 

medical trip 

While the public health sector 

begs for aid to jerk back to its foot 

however, political leaders have 

long ‘shamelessly’ found 

themselves alternatives in the 

health facilities of other nations, 

and would, at the slightest 

discomfort, travel across seas and 

oceans to seek treatment at the 

expense of the entire public. 

That ‘norm’ was only recently 

restricted by the Buhari 

administration. Though it didn’t 

take long for it to be flouted when 

he himself embarked on a 10-day 

trip to the UK to further treat an 

ear infection on the alleged advice 

of his in-country physician. The 

uproar from both the public and 

medical bigwigs will definitely 

not be forgotten in a hurry as it 

further opened doors for 

discussions on the state of 

healthcare in the country. 

Is ‘He’ cheating? 

WHAT you don’t know does 

not hurt you, is the 

wisdom of the elders; but for some 

reason, women will hunt and lay 

in wait, not having a moment’s 

rest until they catch a cheating 

mate. 

Unknown to them, their male 

counterparts have imbibed the 

saying made popular by late 

Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe 

which says since the hunter has 

learnt to shoot without missing, 

the birds have learnt to fly without 

perching. 

Anyway, some self-styled 

experts insist they know the deal. 

The usual suspects 

Lipstick on his collar or clothes, 

unexpected marks indicative of 

sexual activity on his body, 

another woman’s scent on his 

clothes or hair. Especially if this 

happens more than once. His 

sister came by the office that day? 

Yeah, right! 

Longer days, shorter nights 

All of a sudden, his working 

days are longer, maybe he even 

has to travel, so he’s away from 

you overnight, for a couple of 

Traditional birth attendants with a pregnant woman 

days at a time, or even longer. 

Especially when this is coupled 

with some of the other signs, 

these are clear pointers that he 

probably is playing away. The 

same holds true of sudden, 

increased lifestyle expenses 

(drinks, meals, hotels) that don’t 

include you. 

In his own world 

Even when he’s physically 

present, he’s off in his own world. 

He’s not really there with you. 

He takes himself seriously 

Suddenly, he takes a lot more 

trouble over his appearance, 

whether that means dressing 

Traditional medicine practice 

Nature abhors vacuum, no 

doubt. Thus, while healthcareespecially 

primary healthcare 

which is supposed to be the 

better, or a sudden heavy use of 

aftershave. Now he goes to the 

gym and lifting weights. This is 

more worrisome 

Showering before coming to 

bed. 

Sometimes signifies guilt or a 

desire to avoid detection of the 

scent of a lover. He may also be 

cleaning his car to remove any 

signs of another woman. Look out 

for earrings, hair accessories, 

even chipped nails. 

He’s talking of her a lot 

A new enthusiasm for a 


closest to grassroots peoplesuffers 

serious decline and 

remains inaccessible in most 

areas; traditional medicine 

practice has continued to boom 

even though it’s the 21 st 

The group of 

traditional 

medicine 

practitioners 

who seem to be 

smiling more 

to the banks 

appear to be 

the Traditional 

Birth 

Attendants, 

TBAs 

century—and of course 

hounding orthodox medicine. 

“At least these practitioners are 

available 24/7 (no strike) and are 

quite affordable,” a regular patron 

of one of them around Ikotun area 

of Lagos, quipped. 

However, the group of 

traditional medicine practitioners 

who seem to be smiling more to 

the banks appear to be the 

Traditional Birth Attendants, 

TBAs, a group described by the 

United Nations as persons who 

assist mothers during childbirth 

and initially acquired her skills 

by delivering babies herself or 

through apprenticeship to other 

TBAs. 

A recent report by the United 

Nations Children’s Fund, 

UNICEF, revealed that about 

65% of deliveries are taken by 

TBAs, as clients prefer them for 

reasons ranging from culture and 

religion to proximity, service 

charge and attitude of orthodox 

health workers to mention but 

few. 

Attitude of orthodox 

health workers 

According to recent studies, in 

2013, 154,304 attended antenatal 

at the Primary healthcare centres, 

while only 16,699 delivered 

there. The same trend continued 

in 2014, where between January 

and August, 121,451 attended 

primary healthcare centres s for 

antenatal, but only 13,000 

delivered there. 

Visit to TBAs: An observational 

survey of some TBAs in Lagos 

State by Woman’s Own further 

affirmed UNICEF’s report. At 

Shibiri, a popular bus-stop on 

Lagos-Badagry expressway, is a 

popular TBA simply identified as 

‘Mama Ada. There were over 50 

women when we arrived, the 

massive one-storey building 

Continues on page 28


Traditional birth attendant with a patient 

Health sector’s unending crisis, maternal 

health and traditional birth attendants 


facility. We observed that most of 

the women were in search of 

fertility treatments while some 

were pregnant and attending 

ante-natal. Some who had just put 

to bed were in the wards receiving 

postnatal care. 

Most of the women seemed to 

hold in their hands a bottle of 

herbal concoctions which we 

gathered were refilled at the cost 

of N500 weekly, after leaving the 

facility. 

Although the practice runs in 

Mama Ada’s family tree, she has 

however upgraded hers by even 

employing several orthodox 

nurses to assist in the facility. 

In all fairness, as gathered from 

the women interviewed at the 

facility, maternal death is hardly 

heard of at the facility and except 

for two women who claimed to 

have followed-up their 

appointments religiously without 

being able to conceive for almost 

a year, majority testified in the 

affirmative of Mama Ada’s ability 

to satisfy their various maternal 

health needs. 

Traditional 

birth facility 

In a rather more discreet area 

at Lawanson in Lagos also is a 

traditional birth facility run by an 

elderly woman in maybe her 60s. 

This facility, we gathered, has 

operated for over 30 years as it 

also doubles as a residential 

apartment. We however could not 

ascertain if it is registered under 

the state Traditional Medicine 

Board. 

The crowd here was quite 

minimal; only about three clients 

when we arrived there last 

Sunday evening. 

However, Woman’s Own was 

somewhat fortunate to run into a 

mother in her early thirties who 

claimed to have had all her three 

children at the facility. Virginia, 

as she later simply identified 

herself, is expecting her fourth 

child and had come for her 

regular ante-natal check-up. 

The interesting National 

Diploma holder in Science 

Laboratory Technology from one 

of the notable polytechnics in the 

South-South; told Woman’s Own 

she was very comfortable with the 

delivery services there and never 

wishes to deliver in a hospital. 

“I hear people go through hell 

in hospitals but for me, this is my 

fourth child and the entire 

procedure has been quite easy 

right from my first experience. All 

my births have also been normal. 

“Usually, she would ask me to 

buy a snail which I would throw 

to the floor between my legs while 

standing. If the snail breaks 

immediately at the first exercise, 

my delivery is interpreted to be 

very very easy. But if it doesn’t, it 

is interpreted to be a bit difficult. 

But thank God the snails I’ve 

thrown have always broken 

immediately,” she said. 

Another traditional birth home 

visited at Ikotun area of Lagos 

had about seven women on the 

queue when we arrived. The 

women, we noticed, were all 

pregnant and largely in their third 

trimester. 

Two of them who accepted to 

speak with Woman’s Own 

however admitted they were also 

registered with the General 

Hospital in the area in case of any 

emergency, as advised by the 

Cross River-born middle-aged 


colleague at work, a newly single 

female, or even a friend of yours. 

In fact, he’s almost over-helpful! 

It feels like a crush, to you. 

He stops noticing you. 

You could probably wear a bag 

over your head and he wouldn’t 

notice. Even when he ‘makes an 

effort’ to be with you, he doesn’t 

really notice you. 

They said so 

So, your marriage counsellor 

has told you not to listen to third 

woman who runs the facility. 

Here, the concoctions served 

the women looked very slimy and 

according to one of the women, 

this substance would be drank 

TBAs were also 

interestingly 

saddled with the 

responsibility of 

conducting routine 

immunisation on 

newborns as a 

viable means of 

eradicating 

diseases such as 

polio 

once daily from the beginning of 

the third trimester, and when it’s 

time to deliver, the baby will 

almost ‘swim’ out of the birth 

canal. 

A common medication given to 

patients at the centres visited 

included leaves, roots, snail, hot 

drinks. In extreme cases, rituals 

are said to be carried out. 

As against modern medicine 

parties Yet hints and warnings 

from colleagues, friends and 

families probably have your best 

interests at heart, and they know 

something you don’t. 

Your instincts say so 

Your intuition is screaming at 

you that he’s having an affair. You 

may not be able to substantiate 

what your intuition is saying, but 

that doesn’t stop it being true. 

Your intuition doesn’t have an 

agenda. It doesn’t want you to 

hold onto this man at all costs. It 

which leans on clinical diagnosis 

for assessment, most of the TBAs 

visited, we gathered, assessed 

women using mere observation, 

divination, womb palpitation, as 

well as patients’ history and 

complaints. 

Training of TBAs: Since the 

adoption of the Primary Health 

Care, PHC, approach in Nigeria 

in 1979, government has 

recognized the need for 

integrating traditional birth 

attendants into the PHC system 

and had consequently initiated 

TBAs training programmes. In 

spite of the high patronage of 

traditional birth attendants, many 

of their practices during 

childbirth, such as pressing of the 

abdomen of pregnant women, as 

well as infection control methods, 

have been found to adversely 

affect the health of mothers. 

Some states’ efforts: 

Notwithstanding, some state 

governments very well recognise 

the relevance of TBAs, especially 

in very remote areas, and are 

working hard to integrate them 

into the primary healthcare 

system. 

Modern 

techniques 

Is ‘He’ cheating? 

A reliable source at the Lagos 

State Traditional Medicine Board 

disclosed to Woman’s Own that 

there are presently over 4,000 

registered traditional medicine 

attendants, including birth 

attendants, in Lagos State. The 

state’s Ministry of Health, 

through the board, Woman’s Own 

also gathered, regularly trains 

TBAs in modern techniques in an 

effort to curb maternal deaths. 

Over 190 persons benefitted 

from one of such training done in 

2011. Another 195 were trained 

in 2012 and since then, the trend 

has continued. 

TBAs in the state have been 

classified as Community Based 

Health Workers, CBHW, by the 

National Primary Health Care 

Development Agency, NPHCDA, 

in line with the World Health 

Assembly, WHA, strategy on 

development of traditional 

medicine to improve healthcare 

coverage. 

Further investigation revealed 

that registered TBAs, after 

undergoing the board’s training, 

are sent to general hospital for 6- 

weeks orientation, where they 

just tells you the truth that it picks 

up from a thousand subtle clues. 

He accuses you 

His accusations that you’re 

jealous and/or crazy. Attack is a 

cheater’s best form of defence. 

These are classic ploys for making 

you doubt yourself. Unless you 

are a habitually jealous person, 

you need to trust your gut. 

Suddenly nice 

Is he they suddenly being 

overly nice? For some, having an 

affair can make them act happier 

observe procedures and 

thereafter take deliveries. An 

estimated 400 persons recently 

benefitted from one of such 6- 

week training and got licensed 

by the state government last 

month, May 2016. 

In Kano State also, August 2015 

witnessed the training of 1,936 

TBAs. According to the state 

governor, Abdullahi Umar 

Ganduje, while flagging-off the 

five-day intensive training on 

effective maternal care services, 

the TBAs were also provided with 

tricycle ambulances to transport 

patients when complication looms. 

Routine 

immunisation 

According to Umar, the TBAs 

were also interestingly saddled 

with the responsibility of 

conducting routine immunisation 

on newborns as a viable means 

of eradicating diseases such as 

polio. 

In Adamawa State, particularly 

in the Internally Displaced 

Persons camps, TBAs are filling 

the blank spaces following 

training in midwifery from nongovernmental 

organisations. 

In Edo and Enugu also, nongovernmental 

organisations are 

working hard to train TBAs in 

modern delivery techniques. 

Ondo state however has a 

rather different approach which 

is geared more towards 

eliminating traditional birth 

practice, unlike states seeking 

enhancement of the practice 

through training of practitioners. 

As revealed by Abiola 

Oshunniyi, Co-Partner, 

Becoming Change Institute, an 

organization working in 

collaboration with the Ondo State 

government to reduce maternal 

deaths, what is being done is try 

to limit the scope of intervention 

of TBAs across the state. 

He told Woman’s Own: “The 

highest number of maternal 

deaths in Ondo State came as a 

result of the interventions of 

TBAs, particularly because they 

do not know their limits. Preeclampsia, 

postpartum 

haemorrhage and the rest, are the 

highest causes of maternal deaths 

in Nigeria, and there is no way a 

traditional birth attendant can 

handle a woman who has pre- 


in their life... or guilt can make 

them try to make it up to you 

subconsciously 

He’s pointing fingers 

Maybe the opposite is true and 

they are constantly picking fault 

with you or accusing you of 

cheating. Once someone has 

successfully cheated undetected 

they start to think if they could do 

it why cant you? 

Next week: Is She cheating?

Vanguard, THURSDAY, JULY 14, 2016 —29 

Fever in children can be dangerous 

— Dr Efunbo Dosekun, CEO Outreach Group of Hospitals 

By Kehinde Ajose 

ACCORDING to WHO 

(World Health 

Organization) statistics, a child 

dies every minutes from malaria 

in Africa. In 2013, there were 

528, 000 deaths from malaria and 

about 78% of these were in 

children under 5 years of age. 

Children under 5 years of age are 

the most vulnerable group 

affected by malaria. There was an 

estimated 438000 malaria deaths 

around the world in 2015, of 

which approximately 69% were in 

children under 5 years of age. 

Despite these scary indicators, 

little has been done to curtail the 

menace. In what seems like a call 

to action, Dr Efunbo Dosekun 

Chief Executive Officer of the 

Outreach Group of Hospitals has 

launched a campaign Fever in 

Children that will serve as a 

public enlightenment project 

According to Dosekun, Fever is 

the most common symptom in 

children who attend healthcare 

facilities, pharmacies or laboratory 

diagnostic units in Lagos. “Fever 

in Children Campaign is a very 

innovative idea that has been 

initiated by the Outreach Group 

of Hospitals. Our organization 

started six years ago with the 

From L-R Dr Segun Ebitanmi, Chief Operating Officer,Outreach Group of Hospitals,Dr 

Efunbo Dosekun Chief Executive Officer Outreach Group of Hospitals, Dr Motilewa Elizabeth, 

Community Health Officer 

found out that the majority of the 

children that come to our hospital, 

up to 90% of them have a fever 

.There is a way this fever can be 

prevented. The commonest 

causes of fever in children are 

infections. So we decided to have 

Health sector’s unending crisis, maternal health and traditional birth attendants 


eclampsia for example, because 

her knowledge is limited to just 

delivering a child. There is 

supposed to be a limit to their 

intervention. 

“The Ondo State Government 

created a program called the 

Agbebiye to create demand in 

orthodox healthcare facilities by 

getting traditional birth 

attendants to refer pregnant 

women who come to them, to 

public health centres. 

“The government created a 

referral voucher as an incentive 

to keep the TBAs referring their 

clients. At specific intervals, the 

government redeems this voucher 

and pays them cash. The 

government further trained these 

TBAs in vocational skills. This 

drastically reduced the 

attendance of pregnant women to 

traditional birth attendants as 

some of these women had 

different infections caused by 

whatever treatments they were 

receiving from their TBAs. 

Traditional 

birth attendants 

With public 

enlightenment we 

haven’t done well 

in the area of fever 

in children 

main emphasis on taking up one 

area of the health system which 

is curative services. We have a 

public health perspective. If we 

see that there is a health problem 

in our community, we start asking 

questions. From our audit we 

of medical practice. 

As a senior medical personnel 

with one of the General Hospitals 

in Lagos State who spoke on 

anonymity puts it: “Traditional 

birth attendants do not have the 

slightest idea about what standard 

practice is all about. That’s why 

they don’t come out plain until 

their clients have become bombshells 

about to explode (give up). 

“They only usually refer them 

to us at General Hospitals when 

they can no longer handle them. 

Various factors 

have been 

identified as 

responsible for 

Nigeria’s poor 

maternal and 

child health 

statistics 

He further likened future 

consequence of current advocacy 

for the development of TB 

practice by different state 

governments to the regretted 

outcome of the creation of 

auxiliary nurses in the health 

sector many years ago, 

describing that move as one of 

the major blunders responsible 

for the dearth of medical practice 

in the country. 

He went on: “This, plus the 

advent and existence of fake 

drugs being sold across the 

country, have remained major 

problems. People now mistake 

the inefficiency of drugs for 

doctors’ incompetence. 

“Government has realised its 

mistake about auxiliary nurses 

and is now trying to eradicate 

them, but it has already allowed 

it to stay for too long and has thus 

a public health campaign on the 

issue. In that arena of prevention, 

health education comes in. With 

public enlightenment we haven’t 

done well in the area of fever in 

children. We have to take it to every 

nook and crannies in Nigeria , that 

fever can be dangerous .With 

that, we are sensitizing the 

parents to know that you just 

don’t assume your child has 

simple fever and engage in 

self -medication .” 

dented the image of orthodox 

medical practice in Nigeria. That’s 

even one of the reasons doctors are 

poorly paid; because people now 

believe they have alternatives. 

“Many people therefore no 

longer trust (doctors) because of 

that. Whereas, we still know what 

we are doing. But such vices 

militate against our credibility.” 

The good, the ugly: Indeed, 

although Nigeria has made great 

progress in maternal and child 

health, current statistics are still 

very unsettling. According to 

UNICEF, Nigeria loses about 2,300 

children under five and 145 women 

of childbearing age daily; making 

the country second largest 

contributor to the maternal and 

under-five mortality rate globally. 

It also accounts for about 30% of 

the burden in mother-to-childtransmission 

of HIV in the 

world, which is also very high 

compared to most African 

countries. 

Various factors have been 

identified as responsible for 

Nigeria’s poor maternal and 

child health statistics; such as 

low access and utilization of 

quality healthcare services, low 

literacy level, poor healthcare 

practices, inadequate skilled 

human resource, funding, low 

awareness and distance from 

healthcare centers, etc. 

However, some researchers 

have identified traditional birth 

practice as another contributory 

factor which may have been 

downplayed in government’s 

quest to drastically reduce 

maternal and infant mortality 

rates. 

“Ondo State had the highest 

rate of maternal deaths in tthe 

South-West between 2010 and 

2013 according to the Nigeria 

Demographic and Health Survey, 

NDHS. However, from the data 

gathered recently, we have been 

able to drop down maternal 

deaths to 50%-70%.” 

Orthodox medicine against 

TBAs: The training of TBAs to 

complement the efforts of 

orthodox healthcare workers is 

however unacceptable to medical 

practitioners who see TBAs as a 

total compromise on the standard 

“The most common we get here 

are pre-eclampsia cases (people 

with high blood-pressure). These 

people usually do not release 

them until when there’s 

complication and such people will 

now become a bomb to us— 

people whose medical records we 

do not even have. Worst of all, 

they toss them to us at nights 

when consultants are not even at 

work. It’s a terrible practice,” he 

said. 

Wife of the Governor of Lagos State, Mrs Bolanle Ambode (middle); Winner of the 2016 Spelling 

Bee Competition and One-Day Governor of Lagos State, Master Olaseinde Olufemi (3 rd right); 

and Cabinet members, during the 2016 One-Day Governor and his Cabinet members when they 

paid a courtesy visit to the wife of the Governor, at Lagos House, Ikeja, today.


How early years 

professional, 

Mrs Itoro Ugorji, 

is revolutionising 

child care 

•Itoro Ugorji 

By Chioma Obinna 

WHEN you think of child 

care, your mind 

automatically goes to women 

irrespective of their status in the 

society. According to the 

UNICEF, pre-school age 

corresponds to a critical period of 

rapid physical, cognitive and 

psychosocial development of the 

child. The quality and intensity 

of care, nutrition and stimulation 

a child receives during this period 

determines to a large extent the 

level of physical and cognitive 

development a child can attain. 

Today, appreciable progress has 

been made in early childhood 

care; unfortunately, in Nigeria 

caregivers of these centres are 

generally unqualified. About 85 

per cent do not possess basic 

qualifications and more than half 

have no formal education. 

Poor state of 

infrastructure 

Investigations have shown that 

another major issue in Nigeria’s 

early childhood care and 

development is the poor state of 

the infrastructure, equipment, 

facilities and learning resources. 

Essential learning resources are 

lacking in most facilities while the 

national curriculum is not yet 

widely operational. 

Mrs. Itoro Ugorji, an Early Years 

professional believes that early 

childhood care centres remains 

inadequate in Nigeria. The 

Founder of Baby Lounge, an 

independent facility, and 

Kidstone, which focuses on 

designing, set up and 

management of crèches; said 

childcare is an exciting and 

fulfilling prospect for anyone with 

a passion and natural energy for 

children. 

Itoro spoke to Chioma 

Obinna on the need for 

Besides learning, 

care is also critical. 

We track their 

development 

periodically, we look 

at how they develop 

in different areas, 

physical, and 

emotional cognitive; 

certain things and 

skills 

standardised childcare centres. 

What motivated your interest 

into child care? 

I had always have interest in 

child care. In Nigeria today, the 

number of full-time housewives 

in urban areas is on the decline. 

Many women are working at 

paid jobs or running their own 

small businesses. As a result of 

this trend, there is a growing 

opportunity for convenience 

services like crèche and day-care 

centre businesses. Many of the 

centres you find in the country 

today cannot be classified as good 

centres. We talk about work 

and life balancing, the balance of 

life comes from the family and the 

other part should come from the 

employer. Some companies have 

spent a lot on less benefiting 

projects, but setting up crèches 

won’t cost much and it needs to 

be run by proven professionals. 

This is why our focus was 

initially on the corporate 

organisations. And what we are 

looking forward to achieving is to 

provide support for working 

moms of young children, infant 

and toddlers. 

Working 

mothers 

We build, design, set up and 

manage child care centres for 

corporate organisations all in 

effort to ensure that children of 

working mothers do not suffer 

and denied access to good 

nutrition and education among 

others. We work with children 

in early years within age 0 to 5 

years, so it’s care and education. 

How would you describe your 

outfit and what you do here? 

The Baby Lounge is an 

independent facility, of a 

company called Kidstone. It is 

not a school in strict sense of it, 

but a support for parent. 

We have managed to calve a 

niche for ourselves. We go to 

companies and convinced them 

why they should have a crèche 

for their female employees and 

their babies within the work place. 

We also educate people on how 

to run the centre. Day care 

centres are meant for 

professionals not just anybody 

because it has to do with the well 

being of a child including early 

development and education. We 

could also go ahead and manage 

it for you, which mean that, we 

would bring in our expertise, a 

team of professionals and 

manage the day to day running, 

of the facility. 

But we realised in the process 

that most companies have space 

challenges, within their office, so 

we decided to set up Baby 

Lounge. At the Baby lounge, 

companies are allowed to buy 

block of spaces, and for such 

subscriptions, we have group 

discounts. 

Again, another challenge is 

location. It is very critical, which 

is about comfortability, and that 

was why we located where we 

have the target markets. Many 

Lagosians work in the Island. 

How would you assess day care 

centres in Nigeria? 

Day care should not be a 

business venture because we are 

having the life of these children 

entrusted to us, so it is a sensitive 

thing and it should be treated as 

such. Nowadays mothers are 

contending with so much, and it 

will be unfair to describe it as a 

failure on the part of mothers. 

Emotional and 

cognitive 

That is why we believe that day 

care is not all about keeping a 

child till the mom comes back to 

pick him or her. Besides learning, 

care is also critical. We track their 

development periodically, we look 

at how they develop in different 

areas, physical, and emotional 

cognitive; certain things and skills 

a child is supposed to have 

achieved in those areas, so we 

track them and if a child is falling 

short we are able to identify that 

and communicate it to their 

moms.. 

At the end of each day, we give 

parents a report. For the toddlers 

we teach them how to be 

responsible, social skills, they 

know how to interact and 

appropriate behaviour. We also 

have reading programmes and 

the objective is to rekindle reading 

culture among young children. 

These children grow up very fast. 

It is much more than academic. 

How would an ideal crèche or 

day care look like? 

The environment alone must be 

stimulating enough for a child to 

be comfortable and learn. It has 

to be clean, it has to be well laid 

and well ventilated. Another 

thing is content, what the children 

are taught and the qualities of the 

personnel in the centre. 

We invested in surveillance, 

CCTV so that we can monitor the 

activities and interaction of 

children and care givers. 

Secondly, we located ourselves in 

a building that is largely secured. 

In which access is very limited. 

What should be government’s 

role in monitoring day care 

centres? 

The government needs to step 

up their game in terms of putting 

in place monitoring mechanisms 

so that they have a data base of 

every day-care and this has to be 

updated regularly. 

Proper 

registration 

There should be proper 

registration and inspectors 

should come out periodically to 

check if standards are in place. 

Periodically, we have inspectors 

to check our facilities. 

How should children be fed in 

a day care? 

We recommend that children 

should not take juice; we 

encourage water, nutritious food. 

We say no to chololates and give 

them our own recommendation. 

We also have a food time table 

that parents can subscribe to and 

must abide with. 

What will you say is the 

uniqueness of this centre? 

Employees are the lifeline of 

any company and employees’ 

welfare is tied to the profitability 

of any company. 

They said generally that women 

are more loyal employees, so we 

need to think of how best to help 

them and better ways of doing it 

is by creating a welfare packages 

that will help them to be top 

performing employees and also 

successful at raising the children 

and supportive as wives. 

The initiative ensures that while 

women are at work, they know 

that their children are close by, 

safe and comfortable. 

Why do we need professionals 

to run Day care centres? 

To prevent mothers running in 

and out of the offices. The only 

people allowed to check their 

children are nursing mothers and 

in case of emergency we allow the 

mothers in, anything outside that 

they have to wait till pick up time.

Vanguard, THURSDAY, JULY 14, , 2016 –31 

Send Opinions & Letters to: 

opinions1234@yahoo.com 

Osinbajo commits 

political apostasy 

VICE President Yemi Osinbajo 

has lived the life of the quintessential 

vice president in the past 

14 months of his emergence. 

There is an old American anecdote 

that portrays the Vice Presidency 

as a particularly “irrelevant” 

post in a presidential democracy. 

It tells of how one Unlce 

Tom “lost” two of his sons: “one 

joined the Navy, the other became 

the Vice President”. 

Perhaps, that is American sarcasm 

taken too far. In Nigeria, 

the Vice President is important 

for three major reasons. He is the 

Second Citizen and constitutionally 

empowered to act as the 

Chairman of the National Economic 

Council, NEC. Apart from 

acting for the President whenever 

the latter is not available, he also 

carries out many assignments 

given him by his boss, especially 

if he enjoys the President’s confidence. 

But most importantly, 

though he acts the role of a "spare 

tyre” most of the time, he becomes 

President when the occupant of 

that position becomes permanently 

unavailable, as we saw in 

the case of Dr Goodluck 

Jonathan, former Vice President 

to the late President Umaru Yar’ 

Adua. 

Like all the Vice Presidents our 

presidential democracy has produced, 

Osinbajo boasts intimidating 

academic and public service 

credentials (dwarfed only by Dr 

Alex Ekwueme’s multiple doctorates 

and professional accomplishments). 

Indeed, our Vice Presidents 

(except, perhaps, Atiku 

Abubakar and Namadi Sambo) 

have tended to be academic 

Brobdingnagians but political 

Lilliputians compared to their 

principals. Of the lot, Osinbajo 

towers over Buhari many times 

over: while the authenticity of 

President Muhammadu Buhari’s 

School Certificate (with which he 

joined the Army to rise to the rank 

of Major General and Head of 

State) remains in doubt, Osinbajo 

is a Professor of Law and an epoch-making 

former Attorney- 

General of Lagos State during the 

tenure of Chief Ahmed Bola 

Tinubu as governor. 

When Tinubu submitted his 

name to Buhari, the presidential 

candidate of the upstart All 

Progressives Congress, APC, as 

running mate in 2014, the party’s 

famous (or infamous) propaganda 

machinery was immediately 

deployed in his favour. 

Osinbajo’s position as a pastor of 

the Redeemed Christian Church 

of God, RCCG, was tweaked and 

burnished to prove that Buhari 

who accepted him as his VP was 

not a religious extremist. It is up 

to you whether Buhari has proved 

his critics wrong after 14 months 

as President. 

Again, Osinbajo’s wife, Dolapo, 

is a grandchild of the Father of 

South West politics, Chief 

Obafemi Awolowo. As soon as he 

was picked as Buhari’s VP, 

Osinbajo, accompanied by top 

How could Awoism 

be accommodated by 

Buhari’s reactionary 

Caliphate fundamentalism 

(Fulani/ 

Muslim/Arewa-centric 

interests) which 

favours the 

centralised Federalism 

that the military 

foisted on the nation? 

APC chieftains, went to his 

mother in-law, Chief HID 

Awolowo’s residence in Ikenne, 

Ogun State, for blessings which 

he abundantly got. And to fit into 

the part of carrying the Awo imagery 

with him to Abuja, Osinbajo 

has also been wearing the type of 

cap popularised by Chief 

Awolowo. 

It is another story whether 

Osinbajo has lived up to the pretensions 

he and Buhari wore like 

ceremonial robes during the electioneering 

days. As a pastor, he 

has not shrunk from the lies often 

associated with many of the APC 

chieftains and figures in its Federal 

Government, all aimed at 

demonising the former ruling 

party, the Peoples Democratic 

Party, PDP. For instance, Osinbajo 

openly lied that the regimes of 

Yar’ Adua and Jonathan never 

built “a single road”. And he 

made this false claim at a pastors 

and leaders retreat of the Fountain 

of Life Church, Ilupeju, Lagos 

on February 26, 2016. The truth 

is that the Jonathan regime 

constructed roads in all the six 

geopolitical zones, including the 

beginning of the total reconstruction 

and widening of the Lagos- 

Ibadan and Apapa-Oshodi 

Expressways. What a place and 

occasion to peddle faslehood so 

brazenly! 

Osinbajo has, again, trounced 

the legacies of the Awolowo vision 

and philosophy which he leveraged 

on to get the votes of the 

South West electorate by saying 

that Nigeria does not need to restructure 

in order to move forward. 

In a lecture at the Elizade 

University, Ilara-Mokin, Ondo 

State, on Saturday July 9, 2016, 

Osinbajo declared that Nigeria 

needs the diversification of her 

economy, not restructuring, to 

move forward. He was obviously 

responding to calls by APC chiefs, 

former Vice President Atiku 

Abubakar, Governor Akinwunmi 

Abode and some regional leaders 

of the South East, South- 

South and South West who echoed 

the call for true federalism and 

restructuring as the only way to 

make Nigeria work. 

This is a clear political apostasy 

for a political leader whose core 

political platform climbed on the 

back of Awoism to buy over the 

South West electorate. The leader 

of Osinbajo’s faction of the APC, 

Tinubu, won the governorship of 

Lagos State and maintained his 

hold on it till date by posturing as 

a neo-Awoist. He even wears the 

Awo trade mark cap and round 

lenses. Tinubu successfully fought 

off rampaging President 

Olusegun Obasanjo’s quest to 

“capture” Lagos because he 

firmly rooted his resistance on 

Awoist rhetoric. 

Again, the Tinubu wing of the 

APC, which was the arrowhead of 

the Buhari Presidential Campaign 

Organisation, promised the 

restructuring of the country as 

one of the programmes an APC 

Federal Government under 

Buhari would immediately implement 

on assuming power. However, 

observers (including yours 

sincerely) wondered how oil and 

water could mix. How could 

Awoism be accommodated by 

Buhari’s reactionary Caliphate 

fundamentalism (Fulani/Muslim/Arewa-centric 

interests) 

which favours the centralised 

Federalism that the military 

foisted on the nation? 

At what point would Tinubu and 

his group begin to pressure 

Buhari to implement true federalism 

to prove that, indeed, APC 

was a properly negotiated political 

marriage? I have posed this 

question several times in the past 

one year. Tinubu’s camp remained 

mute, though Governor 

Ambode spoke out for it recently. 

The APC appears confused on this 

matter, as everybody is speaking 

discordant tunes. 

But Osinbajo’s unsolicited disavowal 

of restructuring and true 

federalism, and his trumpeting of 

mere “diversification” of the 

economy appears to have made 

it clear that the Tinubu political 

group has abandoned Awoism in 

order to be accommodated within 

Buhari’s Caliphate presidential 

dispensation. 

It is a sellout, and we have taken 

note. One more promise has been 

broken. Next item? 

FRSC, crying more than the 

bereaved? 

THIS piece begins with a testimony 

titled, “The many tyres I have seen”. 

Events leading to the testimony span over 

a 37-year period during which I owned 

many cars, in good times and in bad. 

I had some terrible ordeal with my car 

tyres that space will not permit full 

narration. The FIAT, Land Rover and the 

Peugeot 504 Saloon, all came at a time 

when tyres were the scarcest of all the 

essential commodities of that era. People 

knew a pregnant tyre when they saw one. 

We made friends with virtually all the 

vulcanizers in town as we were dealing at 

the critical level of condemned tyres. 

In my Honda Prelude, a journey from 

Benin City to Lagos, which ordinarily took 

about three hours at the time, took two 

full days. Between Okada Junction and 

Ijebu-Mushin, a distance of some 70 

kilometres, I experienced four tyre bursts, 

with the last burst occurring at Ijebu- 

Mushin around 7.30 p.m., when 

vulcanizers had closed for the day. 

I slept in the car on the roadside till the 

following morning when I went to Ijebu- 

Ode to buy another fairly condemned tyre 

to continue my journey. 

This type of journey would have been 

undertaken in public transportation but I 

was relocating to Lagos after politics 

collapsed during the June 12, 1993 

debacle. 

The relocation eventually paid off. The 

Lagos pastures became greener than one 

expected. Cars and tyres were no longer 

problems. When issues arose, I had a 

choice between changing the car and 

changing its entire tyres. Affordability was 

no longer an issue. 

The only time I had a near-fatal accident 

was under “the good tyres regime”. It 

occurred on the Benin-Agbor Highway 

after a heavy downpour when I ran into a 

deep pothole and lost a front tyre, a rim, a 

gearbox and other vital accessories. Many 

have perished even from smaller accidents 

but I emerged unscratched. TO GOD BE 

THE GLORY. [End of Testimony] 

What we find here is a paradox – bad 

tyres don’t kill but good ones do. And so 

paradoxically did former President 

Goodluck Jonathan once assert that bad 

roads don‘t cause accidents but good roads 

do. The logic is simple: The latter cases 

provide opportunity for the motorist to 

press down the throttle. Much as 

Jonathan’s stance might have been largely 

No one in his right 

senses would prefer 

expired tyres to the 

unexpired ones where he 

can afford the latter; last 

September, I spent about 

N80,000, including fixing 

charges, in changing the 

five tyres of my car 

escapist, our only stipulation here is that 

bad tyres are not the sole causes of road 

accidents. It is speed that kills. Campaign 

against over-speeding must be sustained. 

Suddenly, the Federal Road Safety 

Commission, FRSC, is coming up with a 

policy of NO EXPIRED TYRES on our 

roads. FRSC is currently engaged in an 

intensive sensitization of motorists on the 

dangers of expired tyres. We hear they will 

soon begin to impound vehicles with 

expired tyres only to release them after due 

remediation. 

Undoubtedly, 

FRSC means 

well. Everyone 

knows the 

importance of 

tyres as the only 

contact that 

vehicles have 

with the roads. 

No one in his 

right senses 

would prefer expired tyres to the unexpired 

ones where he can afford the latter. Last 

September, I spent about N80,000, 

including fixing charges, in changing the 

five tyres of my car. How many motorists 

can afford that in this distressed economy? 

And if it costs this much to change the tyres 

of a car, how much would we expect to pay 

for tyres on commercial buses, trailers 

and other heavy-duty vehicles? 

Times are hard. It does not take any 

advance psychology to see that there is no 

conviction even on the faces of the FRSC 

officials engaged in the sensitization 

exercise because they know what things 

look like out there. In all conscience, how 

many of them with cars can beat their chest 

that all their tyres are unexpired? 

Again, because of systems failure, the two 

major tyre manufacturing companies we 

once had in Nigeria – Dunlop and 

Michelin – have virtually closed shop and 

moved to friendlier environments. And 

that’s how Nigeria has since become a 

dumping ground for all sorts of 

condemned and expired tyres. 

Evidently, every expired product is bad. 

There is no doubt that expired drugs and 

expired food items are more dangerous 

than expired tyres. Yet, in its wisdom, 

NAFDAC goes after the manufacturers of, 

and dealers on, fake and adulterated 

products. Why is the FRSC now shifting 

the onus to the motorist instead of facing 

the importers of, and dealers on, expired 

tyres? We are yet to see anyone arrested 

for buying fake drugs. Why, then, must the 

motorist be punished for buying expired 

tyres? 

Why is the FRSC crying more than the 

bereaved? Whose life is the Commission 

really protecting? We cannot remember 

when the motorist lost his right to selfdetermination. 

Even assuming that 

expired tyres are instant killers (and they 

are not!); if a coherent and understanding 

adult chooses to die through expired tyres, 

who are we to insist that he must continue 

to live against his will? 

Elliot Slater is essentially right in 

maintaining that: “A man’s life is his own 

and if we say it is not, we are saying that he 

is a slave and not a free man. Slavery is 

still slavery even when it is the near and 

dear ones who are the slave masters”. 

Nothing in the foregoing should be 

misconstrued as our total surrender to 

condemned and expired tyres. FRSC must 

continue its campaign on the dangers of 

bad tyres. Their role should, however, not 

go beyond this advisory level. They must 

stop over-regulating the poor! 

Government must resist the urge to 

continue to make obnoxious laws that are 

insensitive to the plight of the people; and 

laws that are clearly unenforceable 

besides their propensity to provide 

veritable avenues for bribe collection by 

overzealous enforcers. 

If all vehicles with expired tyres were to 

be impounded, FRSC would be virtually 

left with no time for thorough safety checks 

on other parts; and we would have to 

devote a substantial part of our annual 

budgets to providing parking lots for 

impounded vehicles. Is that what we want? 

C 

M 

Y 

K


NBA ELECTION: SANs warn against manipulation 

By Innocent Anaba 

LAGOS—AHEAD of the 

Nigerian Bar Association, 

NBA, annual conference slated for 

Port Harcourt, Rivers State in 

August and as tension mounts over 

its planned national elections, the 

Body of Senior Advocates of 

Nigeria, BOSAN, has directed the 

NBA President, Mr. Augustine 

Alegeh, SAN to convene a 

meeting of past NBA presidents 

and Bar leaders to resolve the 

crisis bedeviling the planned 

elections. 

BOSAN made the call following 

a resolution by the body at its 

meeting held at the Nigerian Law 

School, Lagos. 

In the letter dated July 11, 2016 

and addressed to the NBA 

President, former NBA President, 

Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN 

informed Alegeh of the decision 

of the body, saying that “at the last 

meeting of the BOSAN held at the 

Nigerian Law School, Lagos on 

July 9, 2016, it was also resolved 

that Mr. President should convoke 

a meeting of past Presidents/Bar 

Leaders on the same subject, and 

that a level-playing field be 

afforded every candidate in the 

forthcoming elections.” 

Strong fears over 

partisanship by NBA 

leadership 

There are strong fears that the 

elections may be marred by 

partisanship by the NBA 

leadership, a position canvassed 

by one of the presidential 

candidates, Chief Joe-Kyari 

Gadzama, SAN. 

In a letter to the NBA President 

by the J-K Gadzama Campaign 

Organisation dated June 24, 2016 

by its Director-General, Alhaji 

Garba Gajam, the campaign outfit 

had accused Alegeh of working 

to ensure that a particular 

candidate “emerges by all means.” 

It further told Alegeh that “No 

President in the history of the 

NBA has openly showed support 

for any presidential candidate in 

the manner that you are now 

doing.” 

Tracing an earlier exchange of 

letters between him and the NBA 

President, Olanipekun stated, “As 

earlier advised in my letter of June 

30, 2016, I want to plead with you, 

Mr. President to allow a levelplaying 

field for all candidates in 

the forth-coming elections.” 

Recounting his personal 

experience where his name was 

omitted from the voters register, 

Olanipekun, said: “While 

appreciating the fact that my 

name has now been uploaded in 

the voters register after my 

complaint in my letter under 

reference, I see no reason why the 

name of any legal practitioner 

who is up to date in the payment 

of his national and branch dues 

should be missing on the voters 

register.” 

Most challenging phase of 

NBA President's tenure 

ALADJA/OGBE-IJOH CRISIS: Panel visits area in 

dispute, vows to end rift 

By Festus Ahon 

ASABA—CHAIRMAN of 

Panel of Inquiry set up by 

the Delta State Government to 

resolve the land dispute between 

Aladja in Udu Local Government 

and Ogbe-Ijoh in Warri South- 

West Local Government Areas of 

Delta State, Prof. Abednego 

Ekoko has said that the 

committee will proffer lasting 

solution to the lingering intercommunal 

crisis. 

Ekoko who spoke to journalists 

after the panel was taken to the 

areas in dispute on land and 

water by Aladja elders and 

community leaders to show their 

claims and boundary, described 

the exercise which was peaceful 

and smooth as a voyage of 

discovery. 

Noting that their assignment 

was sensitive and serious, he 

heaved a sigh of relief that the 

panel was making considerable 

progress. 

He assured that the panel 

would be fair to both communities 

in its final report and 

recommendations to the state 

government. 

“Aladja has shown the 

committee the extent of land, then 

extent by water. We now have a 

mental picture of their claim and 

With hindsight, Olanipekun 

admonished Alegeh that “the 

most challenging phase of any 

NBA President’s tenure is the 

election/handing over period. I 

speak from experience as one of 

your predecessors-in-office. 

Therefore, permit me once 

again, to counsel that on no 

account should any candidate, 

member or branch be allowed to 

deride the outcome of the 

forthcoming elections, 

particularly on the ground that 

it was/is rigged or manipulated. 

It can be very embarrassing to 

an association of legal practitioners.” 

The former NBA President 

suggested that election results 

should be declared at the branch 

level “just as INEC does at the 

Polling Unit level,” adding that 

“All of us must consciously work 

and pray against a repeat of the 

ugly incident of 1992.” 

Olanipekun further advised 

that it would be “expedient” to 

invite Gadzama and Mr. 

Abubakar Mahmoud, SAN, the 

two presidential candidates to 

the meeting of past NBA Presidents. 

Tell Agip to respect agreement on 

IPP step down, youths tell Okowa 

By Ochuko Akuopha 

OLEH—NDOKWA youths, 

under the aegis of Ndokwa 

Youth Alive Progressive Forum, 

NYAPF, have urged Governor 

Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State, to 

compel Nigeria Agip Oil 

Company, NAOC, to respect the 

agreement it reached with the 

Federal Government on the step 

down of the Independent Power 

Plant, located at Okpai in 

Ndokwa East Local Government 

Area of the state to avert the 

looming crisis in Ndokwa 

nation. 

NYAPF, in a letter to the 

governor, alleged that the 

company had since 2005, been 

flaunting all directives to step 

down the power from the plant 

to boost electricity supply in the 

various communities in Ndokwa 

East, Ndokwa West and 

Nkuwani Local Government 

Areas of the state, that make-up 

Letter to former 

NBA Presidents 

In the letter copied to all former 

NBA Presidents as well as the 

campaign organsiations of the 

two presidential candidates, 

Olanipekun warned that “we 

would lose the moral and 

spiritual right to criticise INEC 

any longer” if the election is 

compromised in any way. 

The election is scheduled to 

hold on July 30 and 31, 2016 

via electronic voting while 

results will be released 

immediately. 

WORKSHOP: From left: Mr Y.M Ibrahim, Assistant Director, Fiscal and Budget 

Monitoring, Budget Office, Federal Ministry of Finance; Mrs Uduak Etokowoh, Deputy 

Director, International Export Office/representing the ED/CEO, Nigerian Export Promotion 

Council, NEPC, Mr Olusegun Awolowo; Mr Mike Nworgu, Regional Co-ordinator, NEPC, 

Port Harcourt Regional Office and Mr Anthony Ayalogu, Assistant Comptroller, Tariff, 

Nigeria Customs Service, during the NEPC's sensitization workshop on Ecowas Common 

External Tariff in Port Harcourt. Photo: Nwankpa Chijioke. 

when we return to the office, we 

shall transfer what we have seen 

on paper. Ogbe-Ijoh will show 

us their claim in like manner and 

when we have seen these two, 

we shall now consider the two 

and produce a report, which 

shall be the solution to the crisis 

we are looking for,” Ekoko said. 

A member of the Aladja 

Elder’s Council, Alhaji Godon 

Djehwo, who took the eightman 

panel on the two day visit 

the Ndokwa nation. 

The letter by the group’s 

National President, Mr Ozegbe 

Adoh, said tension in Ndokwa 

nation had again, been 

exacerbated by statements from 

the company allegedly claiming 

to have taken care of the host 

communities in terms of the 

stepping down of power from 

the plant. 

Lamenting that the people had 

been in total darkness, the letter 

said that the company had failed 

to meet up with its corporate 

social responsibilities to the 

people. 

“Peaceful dialogues have been made 

but to no avail, they have proved 

stubborn to the detriment of the 

Ndokwa nation. 

“You, (the governor) having been 

coordinating Agip and Ndokwa youths 

on the issue of the IPP step down, we 

sincerely appreciate your efforts in 

trying to maintain peace in the state." 

Group moves 

to tackle 

unemployment 

in N-Delta 

By Samuel 

Oyadongha 

PORT HARCOURT—AN 

emerging business 

conglomerate, Celtic Pride 

Group, has reiterated its 

preparedness to create 

thousands of jobs for qualified 

youths to help address the 

unemployment gap in the 

Niger Delta region. 

The President/Chief 

Executive Officer of the group, 

Mr George Turnah, at the 

induction/orientation training 

for the newly recruited staff of 

the company held in Port 

Harcourt, Rivers State, said 

that the conglomerate with 

expertise in engineering, 

construction, food processing, 

water bottling, environmental 

services, event planning, 

management and delivery, 

consultancy, marine services, 

fisheries and aquaculture, 

would engage thousands of 

graduates, skilled and semiskilled 

labour to work at 

different stages of the 

company’s businesses in Niger 

Delta. 

The Bayelsa-born 

entrepreneur, said the group 

will invest in the fisheries and 

aquaculture arm of the 

conglomerate to play a role in 

the revival of agriculture to 

boost food production in the 

region. 

to show them their claims, 

boundary and extent of land 

belonging to them as contained in 

their memoranda, said that their 

fore fathers only gave a small 

portion of land close to the 

Okpavwa creek to Ogbe-Ijoh. 

Djehwo told the panel which 

flagged off its visit to the disputed 

land amidst tight security provided 

by the Nigerian Army, police and 

Anti-Bomb Squad, that other 

places currently occupied by 

Ogbe-Ijoh community outside the 

original area given to them was 

an encroachment on their land. 

The panel members who went 

by boat through the creeks and 

river to Ikperhi, new camp, 

Ovwarhanven camp, Ayama 

community and Ubame/Abama in 

a journey that lasted close to four 

hours to identify Aladja claims and 

its boundary, were also told to look 

into their claims and determine the 

true and bonafide owner of the 

land in dispute. 

At the various points claimed to 

be their land, including settlement 

camps, farm lands, ancestral 

shrines, river and creeks, 

professional Surveyors from the 

Delta State Surveyor-General’s 

Office led by the Surveyor- 

General, F.Osawa deployed Global 

Positioning System, GPS, 

instruments to record and establish 

the various points.



'We want to 

create more 

employments 

with digital 

farms' 

By Anozie Egole 

LAGOS—A frontline 

real estate investor 

and the Chief Executive 

Officer of Beyond Building 

Investment, Mr. Lanre 

Howells, has said the 

reason behind their digital 

farm estate is to bridge the 

gap between large scale 

farmers and small scale 

farmers and also to create 

more employment 

opportunities for Nigeria’s 

teaming youths. 

He made this known to 

press men, yesterday, at the 

unveiling of commercial 

farming in Lagos. 

Speaking at the event, 

Mr. Howells, also said that 

the main essence of the 

program is to enable the 

government know that for 

them to achieve the best in 

agriculture,the basic 

necessities should be 

provided to farmers. 

He said, “This event will 

help to close the gap that 

exists between small scale 

farming and large scale 

farming and also to create 

more job opportunities for 

our teaming youths. 

"It offers you the 

opportunity to monitor your 

farms at the comfort of your 

houses and there are also 

relaxation spots at the farm 

lands. 

"This platform will also 

help to let the government 

know that for them to 

acquire the desired result 

in farming in Nigeria, they 

have to give farmers full 

support by providing the 

basic necessities needed for 

the progress of the sector." 

Abia House affirms support for Ikpeazu 


UMUAHIA—IN the face of 

political impasse in Abia, 

the state House of Assembly has 

affirmed that the State has only 

one governor and one 

government even as the 

members passed a vote of 

confidence on Governor Okezie 

Ikpeazu,saying he is the only 

governor of the state. 

At its plenary yesterday, the 

House members said that they 

Pepsi Longthroat Campaign wins OAAN’s Grand Poster 

Award 

By Starrys Obazei 

NIGERIA’S 

MOST 

inspiring brand campaign 

in the last 12 months, Pepsi 

Longthroat has won the Grand 

Poster Award at the 10th Outdoor 

Advertising Association of 

Nigeria, OAAN, Poster Awards in 

Lagos. 

The Longthroat creative beat 84 

other brand entries to emerge the 

overall winner of the keenly 

contested Poster Awards. The 

brand also came tops in the Non- 

have implicit confidence on 

Ikpeazu as the governor of Abia 

State. 

The resolution followed a 

motion moved by Mr. 

Chidiebere Nkoro, representing 

Obingwa West State 

Constituency who said that the 

motion became necessary on 

account of the political turmoil 

that has enveloped the state, 

throwing it into confusion. 

Moving the motion, Nkoro 

frowned at the conflicting reports 

Constitution not fair to dep govs —Sibeudu 

Alcoholic Drinks Category. 

Speaking on the awards, Head 

of Marketing, Seven Up Bottling 

Company Plc, Mr. Norden 

Thurston said “The Grand Prix 

award for the Pepsi Longthroat 

campaign from a credible body 

in the marketing 

communications industry in 

Nigeria is further affirmation of 

the creativity and the impact of 

the campaign. The campaign 

delighted our consumers and 

showcased Pepsi as a truly 

consumer-centric brand” 

PEOPLE SPEAK 

emanating from the media which 

he said instilled fear in investors 

and Abians in general and 

stressed the need to express 

confidence in Governor Ikpeazu 

so as to assure the world that Abia 

has only one government. 

From their various contributions, 

the members enjoined all those 

involved in the litigation to drop 

their personal interests and 

consider the overall interest and 

wellbeing of Abians and the State 

in general. 

President of OAAN, Mr. Tunde 

Adedoyin, described the 10th 

Poster Awards as a landmark, which 

was aimed at appreciating 

creativity and organising a forum 

for stakeholders in the Marketing 

Communications to rub minds. 

"OAAN Poster Awards is a pride 

of the association, committed to 

rewarding excellent works by our 

members. The Pepsi Longthroat 

creative was a brilliant one by 

Insight Communications, and I 

think Pepsi deserves to win,” 

Adedoyin said. 

In his remarks, the Speaker of 

the House, Chief Martins 

Azubuike appealed to investors in 

the state to carry on with their 

businesses, saying that the House 

would make sure their businesses 

were not under any form of threat. 

He also appealed to the Federal 

Government and the international 

community to douse the situation, 

saying that the state would abide 

by court rulings when the issues 

before it were finally concluded. 

Ebonyi Assembly threatens to arrest gov candidate, 

others over alleged projects scam 

By Peter Okutu 

A BAKALIKI—EBONYI 

state House of Assembly, 

EBHA, yesterday threatened to 

issue warrant of arrest to some 

companies, contractors 

including former governorship 

aspirant of the Labour Party in 

the 2015 general election, Sir 

Edward Nkwegu over an alleged 

housing projects scam. 

The House handed down the 

threat through the Chief Whip, 

Hon. Chike Ogiji who is the 

Chairman of the Adhoc 

committee investigating ongoing 

house projects in the state 

According to him, if the 

companies and contractors 

including Nkwegu who is the 

Chief Executive Officer, CEO of 

Edon Nigeria Ltd, failed to 

appear before the committee on 

Thursday, they will be arrested. 

Ogiji further stressed that the 

By Vincent Ujumadu 

AWKA—THE immediate 

past deputy governor of 

Anambra State, Mr. Emeka 

Sibeudu is unhappy with the role 

assigned to the deputy governors 

contractors that would be arrested 

include: JMK Construction 

Company Ltd; Costain W.A, 

Aguiyi Nig. Ltd; Phinotech Nig. 

Ltd; Angele Standard Ltd; Zim 

Engineering Ltd; Eze Chibueze 

Agbo and son; Namik 

in the country’s constitution, 

which made them mere spare 

tyres, arguing that it was for that 

reason that friction often existed 

between some governors and 

their ambitious deputies. 

Speaking in an interview in 

Awka yesterday, Sibeudu 

construction Commerce Ltd and 

Fred Technical Ltd. 

Others include: CAT 

Construction Group; Danesworth 

International Ltd; WATA 

Construction Ltd and Tonimann 

Integrated Ltd. 

however said that deputy 

governors, who properly 

understood what the law 

provided for them, never had any 

friction with their governors as 

they waited for their bosses to 

assign them roles at their 

discretion. 

He cited example with himself, 

adding that because he read the 

constitution properly on 

assumption of duty and saw that 

it was the governor that was fully 

in charge and had to remain 

totally loyal and performed 

duties assigned to him by the 

governor. 

The former deputy governor, 

who is a chieftain of the ruling 

All Progressives Grand Alliance, 

APGA, in the state argued that 

since the governor and his 

deputy were elected on one 

ticket, there ought to be more 

constitutional provisions for the 

deputy governors to keep the two 

busy while in office. 

By Bartholomew Madukwe 

(08051019450) 

nwamad@yahoo.com 

The Avengers or NDA 

is not a freedom fighter. 

These guys are being 

used by disgruntled politicians 

to destabilize Buhari’s 

government. When GEJ 

was president, they got 

juicy contracts and shared 

billions among themselves. 

-Miss Victoria Kelvin, Student 

On FG’s non-negotiation with Avenger 

engers 

Niger Delta should be 

well informed and join 

President Buhari to fight 

this menace, so that proper 

development can take 

place in the region. I may 

have a Yoruba name but I 

understand everything going 

on there. -Mr. Timileyin 

Jaiyeola, Freight Forwarder 

Elders in Niger Delta 

should tell NDA to stop 

the bombing. If this President 

Buhari can confront 

Boko Haram, who are Muslims, 

and destroy them, 

they should not waste their 

time expecting Buhari to dialogue 

with them. -Mrs. 

Foluke Florence, Teacher 

Federal Government 

should go all out, get 

whichever help, arrest 

and execute those involved 

in pipeline bombings. 

Why did they not 

fight when the immediate 

past president was 

there? -Miss Ogochukwu 

Onwuatuegwu, Student 

NDA is an aggrieved 

group and knows 

that under the current 

administration their 

chance to become billionaires 

like Tompolo and 

many others is very slim 

because President Buhari 

does not roll out 

money. -Miss Lawrencia 

Ankrah, Graduate 

These would have 

been the best years 

ever for the Niger Delta 

people, but they do not 

want President Buhari to 

have that honour. This is 

all politics and we will 

regret our actions many 

years to come. -Mr. 

Ezugo Nwashili, Businessman


POWER SUPPLY: Faulty Shiroro Hydro Station 

generator comes on stream 

•To generate extra 150 megawatts 

By Wole Mosadomi 

MINNA—ONE of the 

four units of the turbine 

generator that collapsed at the 

multimillion Naira Shiroro Hydro 

station about six years ago has 

finally been repaired. 

The unit which has a capacity 

of 150 mega watts was repaired 

at a cost of 8.5 million dollars and 

is expected to generate to full 

capacity of 600MW from its 

present 450MW. 

Executive Vice Chairman of 

North South Power, NSP, 

Company Limited, Engineer 

Olubunmi Peters who made 

the disclosure at Shiroro in Niger 

State, described the 

development as a major 

breakthrough due to the 

technicalities encountered during 

the breakdown which lasted for 

some years. 

According to him, “the Unit 4 

collapsed since 2010 when a loud 

noise was heard from the water 

intake structure and discovered 

a large piece of concrete 

measuring about 6 meters by two 

meters in the Scroll Case of the 

Labour petitions FG, threatens unrest over activities of shipping firms 

By Victor Ahiuma-Young 

MARITIME 

Workers 

Union of Nigeria, 

MWUN, has petitioned the 

Federal Government through the 

Minister of Transport over 

activities of some shipping 

companies and consignees/agents 

considered anti-workers and 

inimical to the nation’s economy, 

threatening a nationwide 

industrial unrest, if government 

Pepsodent wins 2016 World Oral 

Health Challenge 

PEPSODENT Nigeria has 

emerged first in the World 

Oral Health Day 2016 challenge 

at both continental level and 

global levels. 

It emerged first ahead of nine 

countries at the continental level 

and first ahead of 31 countries at 

the global level. 

The #BrushBrush campaign 

was the digital leg of the World 

Oral Health Day 2016 campaign, 

is aimed at getting people to take 

their oral hygiene seriously by 

pledging to brush day and night. 

A key success to this campaign was 

the digital execution carried out by 

Terragon Group, Africa’s largest 

Digital Media Company. 

Speaking, Brand Manager, 

Pepsodent Nigeria, Umoh George, 

said the achievement was a major 

milestone for Nigeria as it was the 

first time an African country would 

emerge first in the global Oral 

Unit, hence the bulkhead had 

to be taken out for modifications 

and was reinstalled. 

The damage occurred about 

60 meters under zero visibility 

water and was therefore 

difficult to access and repair 

while there was raised 

VISIT: From left; Mr. Tony Ojobo, Director of Public Affairs, Nigerian Communications Commission 

(NCC); Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State; Prof. Umar Danbatta, Executive Vice Chairman, 

NCC; Mr. Usman Malah, Chief of Staff to the EVC during a courtesy visit to the Governor, yesterday. 

fails to intervene urgently. 

The union, in the petition dated 

July 11, 2016, claimed the affected 

shipping companies would berth 

without submitting their manifests 

to the Stevedoring Contractors for 

billing or allowing statutory 

bodies to board the vessels for 

inspection. 

MWUN in the petition by its 

President-General, Tony Nted 

Emmanuel and F.S Akingboye on 

behalf of the Secretary General, 

Care Social Mission’s Challenge 

with corresponding growth in 

market share and sales during the 

same period. 

“This award has demonstrated 

that our social mission equals 

business mission. In line with 

Unilever mission to improve the 

oral health of 10 million Nigerian 

children by 2020 through the 

Pepsodent Brush Day & Night 

schools programme. We are 

encouraging people to adopt the 

habit of brushing twice daily 

(morning and night) as a global 

best practice to healthy (oral-care) 

living,” he said. 

Also reacting, Head of Business 

and Strategic partnership at 

Terragon Group, Anu Sanya, 

congratulated the global brand on 

the achievement, adding that 

while it was important to deliver a 

world class campaign, there was 

need to sensitise the public on the 

need to improve oral hygiene. 

concern about the possibility 

of further catastrophic failure. 

Each of the Unit 1 to 4 has 

the capacity of 150 Mega Watts 

respectively but the collapse of 

one will affect the capacity of 

the entire station. 

But with the completion of 

Unit 4, Shiroro Hydro Power 

Station can now generate to 

full capacity of 600MW output 

alleged that there were 

connivance from some highlyplaced 

officials of Nigerian Ports 

Authority, NPA for personal gains 

at the expense of the nation’s and 

workers in the ports, especially 

dockworkers. 

The petition alleged that the 

latest were M.V. Eide and M.V. 

Hawk Vessels that berthed on 

Monday July 5, 2016 at Chevron 

EGPL jetty, calling for the 

immediate arrest of consignees/ 

agents 

According to the petition: “This 

call is premised on the ground 

that M.V.EIDE which berthed on 

Monday 5th July 2016 at Chevron 

EGPL jetty neither submitted its 

manifest to the Stevedoring 

Contractors for billing nor allowed 

all the Statutory bodies to board 

the vessels for inspection. M.V 

EIDE which carried jack ups 

barges and containers berthed on 

Northern CAN 

condemns 

klilling of cleric's 

wife in Abuja 

Rep urges support for Buhari, empowers constituents 

By Olasunkanmi Akoni 

MEMBER of the Federal 

House of 

Representatives, Hon. Ayodele 

Joseph, representing Apapa 

Federal Constituency, has 

expressed hope in the 

administration of President 

Muhammadu Buhari to bring 

about the desired change in the 

nation’s economy. 

Joseph, a member, House 

Committee on Ports, Harbours 

and Waterways, spoke during 

restored from 450MW.” 

Engineer Peters said the 

commissioning would soon be 

performed by the Minister of 

Power, Mr Raji Fashola, saying 

it would in no small way further 

boost power supply in the country. 

Shiroro Dam was 

commissioned on June 20,1990 by 

former military President, Gen. 

Ibrahim Babangida (retd) but had 

never undergone any major 

repair or maintenance. 

5th July 2016 and the following 

day, it moved to Mid-Stream to 

discharge. Photocopies (3 Nos) of 

the vessels are attached for 

sighting. We wish to state that this 

is not the first time the 

Consignees/ Agents in the same 

manner came and discharged at 

Bonny Mid-Stream on 15th 

October 2015, sailed without 

payment of the Stevedoring 

charges. 

“This, no doubt amounted to 

economic sabotage and a 

deprivation of Dockworkers 

legitimate earnings. We believe 

there is somebody somewhere in 

NPA that is aiding and abetting 

these Consignees/ Agents and 

this must be investigated. This is 

an unwholesome practice that 

must not be allowed to continue, 

hence we are calling on the 

Minister to order the immediate 

arrest of the Consignees/Agents.” 

maiden Town Hall Meeting and 

distribution of empowerment 

items to 70 beneficiaries in Apapa 

constituency. 

Some of the items include: 

Block molding machines, 

hairdryers, power- generating 

sets, commercial motorcycles, 

called “Okoda,” commercial 

tricycles, called, “Marwa,” 

sewing machines, among others. 

Speaking at the meeting with 

the theme: “Sustaining the 

change agenda through 

empowerment”, the lawmaker 

By Marie-Therese 

Nanlong 

J OS—FOLLOWING 

recent killing of Mrs 

Eunice Olawole, wife of the 

Parish Pastor of the Divine 

Touch Parish of the Redeemed 

Christian Church of God, 

RCCG at Kubwa Satellite town, 

Abuja, the Christian 

Association in 19 Northern 

states and the Federal Capital 

Territory, FCT, has condemned 

the killing, saying no stone 

should remain unturned to 

bring the perpetrators to book. 

Chairman of group, Rev. 

Yakubu Pam, in a statement 

lamented the untimely death 

of Deaconess Eunice, stressing 

that hacking to death of the 

innocent and defenseless 

woman of God came less than 

three months after similar 

incidents were recorded in 

Kano and Niger states, where 

a Christian woman and a man 

were hacked to death by Islamic 

extremists operating within the 

Northern axis of the country. 

Pam called on the Federal 

Government to ensure the 

perpetrators of the evil act were 

arrested and brought to book 

and, also ensure such act never 

repeated itself. 

According to him: “Those 

trying to foment religious and 

ethnic crisis in country from 

the North should be told in 

clear terms that when they 

attack and kill people from 

other faith from the Southern 

part of the country, the counter 

reaction puts their kits and kins 

living and doing businesses in 

the South in danger.” 

He condoled with the 

widower, Pastor Elisha and the 

General Overseer of RCCG, 

Pastor Enoch Adeboye over the 

death of Eunice and renewed 

his call on governors in the 

North and the Minister of the 

FCT to team up with the 

Federal Government to bring 

to an end the ugly incidents 

of attacking and killing of 

Christians by the Islamic 

extremists in the North. 

stressed the need to empower 

indigent people through 

meaningful and practical means. 

According to Joseph, “The 

path to destruction might be 

swift and devastating but the 

process of reconstruction is 

usually rigorous and tasking, 

and might seem slow. That is 

similar to what we are going 

through as a nation. I 

therefore, implore you all to 

keep up the faith and be 

patient to reap the fruits of this 

administration.''


AfDB/ASEA: From left— Director, Financial Sector Development 

Department, African Development Bank, AfDB, Stefan Nalletamby; CEO, 

Nairobi Securities Exchange, Mr. Geoffrey O. Odundo; President, African 

Securities Exchanges Association, ASEA, and CEO, Nigerian Stock Exchange, 

NSE, Oscar Onyema; President, AfDB, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina; CEO, 

Casablanca Stock Exchange and ASEA Deputy President, Mr. Karim Hajji, 

and CEO, BRVM, Mr. Edoh Amenonve, at the signing of MoU between AfDB 

and ASEA in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. 

MTN: From left— Akwa Ibom State Commissioner for Women Affairs and 

Social Welfare, Dr. Glory Emmanuel Edet; Dir., MTN Foundation, Reginald 

Okeya; representative of Akwa Ibom State Governor and Commissioner for 

Science and Technology, Dr. Elizabeth Obot; Executive Secretary, MTN 

Foundation, Ms. Nonny Ugboma, and Commissioner for Health, Dr. Dominic 

Ukpong, at the distribution of hearing aids to hearing impaired persons by the 

foundation in Akwa Ibom State. 

SPECTRANET: From left— Manager, 

Ibadan, Richard Ajayi; Chief Executive Officer, 

David Venn; Head of Technicals, Vikas Tyangi and 

Head of Marketing, Mike Ogor, all of Spectranet 

4G LTE, at the relaunch of Spectranet 4G LTE 

Ibadan. 

ICAN BRIEFING: From left— Registrar/ 

CEO, Mr. Rotimi Omotoso; 1st Deputy Vice 

President, Alhaji Razak Jaiyeola; 52nd President, 

Deacon Titus Soetan, and 2nd Deputy Vice 

President, Mrs Uche Erobu, all of Institute of 

Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, ICAN, during 

a briefing on the activities of the institute in Lagos. 

PHOTO: Joe Akintola, Photo Editor. 

ETUBOM ANTHONY ASUQUO'S ANI 80TH BIRTHDAY 

EAGLE RELAUNCH: From left— 

Representative of Iya-oloja of Oke-Arin, Alhaji 

Taoridi Agoro; Head, Sales, Intercontinental 

Distillers Limited, Mr. Hope Gbagi; Nollywood 

actor, Alesh Rilwan, and Senior Brand Manager, 

Intercontinental Distillers Limited, Mr. Zekeri 

Dokpesi, during the relaunch of 3cl Eagle Schnapps 

at Oke-Arin Market, Lagos. 

A thanksgiving mass to celebrate the 80th birthday anniversary of Etubom Anthony Asuquo Ani, past President, Institute of 

Chartered Accountant of Nigeria, ICAN, pioneer President, Accountancy Body of West Africa, ABWA, and former Minister of 

Finance, held at Holy Cross Cathedral, with the reception at Harbour Point, Victoria Island, Lagos, Wednesday. 

The celebrant, Etubom Anthony Asuquo Ani (4th left), 

his wife Chief Morin (6th left) and their children cutting 

the birthday cake. 

His Royal Majesty, Muri Munene of Efut, Professor Itam Hogan 

Itam Nyam, Nnakor I, Calabar, with his wife, Professor Edisua. 

Former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Odein 

Ajumogobia, his wife, Awuneba. 

Otunba Adekunle Ojora and his wife Erelu Olulape.


LECTURE; From left: Mrs. Otasowie Oshodin, Registrar, Prof. Lawrence Ezemonye, DVC, Admin, 

Prof. Julius Okojie, Guest Lecturer, Prof. O. Orumwense, Vice-Chancellor and Prof. Abiodun Falodun, 

DVC, Academics during a public lecture held at UNIBEN. 

ABU boosts MBA education with e-learning 

By Dayo Adesulu 

IN its quest to boost MBA 

education with e-learning, 

Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria 

has launched an online MBA 

programme where examinations 

could be written at designated 

centres in Lagos, Abuja and 

Zaria. 

Director of the Distance 

Learning Centre of the institution, 

Prof. Adamu Zoaka Hassan in a 

release explained that the 

program was designed to allow 

students to attend lectures without 

coming to the physical campus. 

He said the working class need 

not quit their jobs as lectures 

would be available electronically 

on both the web platform and 

mobile devices that can work even 

offline to give the desired 

flexibility needed to study at the 

pace of the students. 

He said: “The admission process 

is also fully electronic and is done 

on the website from application 

to payments, to course 

registration, to lectures. You do not 

have to submit physical forms or 

cash, everything can be done 

digitally on the website - 

www.abudlc.edu.ng. This is the 

e-learning revolution where 

learning is brought to the comfort 

of the students.” 

He added that after registration, 

Do children even know it’s holiday? 


For Mrs Monsurat Aiyegusi, a 

mother of one and a teacher, 

holiday periods, especially the 

long vacation should be a time 

children spend with their parents 

and if possible, enrol the children 

for holiday lessons. 

The teacher who frowned at 

parents that send their children 

to relatives for vocation, said 

experience has shown that when 

they are made to go for holiday 

in a relative's house, they are not 

always reminded to study the way 

they would have done in their 

parent’s place. 

Citing an example of her 

growing years, Aiyegusi said that 

when she was young, she and her 

siblings were sent to an aunt who 

maltreated them by sending them 

on all forms of errands which 

made them not to study their 

books. “We were once taken to 

spend the long vacation at an 

each student would be provided 

with a device to allow them 

watch lecture videos, take 

quizzes, submit assignments, 

interact with their lecturers and 

classmates, download and 

upload assignments, and have 

access to an endless collection 

Lone sec sch renovated, gets more 

classroom blocks 


EFANDION, a rural 

community in Uromi Kingdom, 

Edo State, came alive recently 

when the MD/CEO of Intercontinental 

Distillers Ltd, Engr. 

Patrick Anegbe, an indigene of 

Efandion, constructed four blocks 

of classrooms, staff room and 

Principal’s office, equipped and 

donated same to the Edo State 

Government. 

The only secondary school in 

the village was one of the schools 

founded by late Prof. Ambrose 

Alli, former governor of defunct 

Bendel State as part of the implementation 

of the free education 

policy of the then Unity Party 

of Nigeria, that no child should 

trek more than three kilometers 

to access secondary education. 

Over the years, due to the vagaries 

of weather, the students 

aunt's place. She never told us to 

read our books. Instead we were 

always doing one house chore or 

the other . In fact, she injured me 

on the left ear when I refused to 

eat a leftover meal that had gotten 

sour. This made our mum stop 

us from going to spend the 

holiday with anyone.” 

Also speaking on best ways to 

spend the third term break, a 

lecturer, Mr. Suliemon Hassan 

Biodun of School of Mass 

Communication, Lagos State 

University, Ojuelegba Campus, 

said holiday period is meant for 

parents to assess their wards and 

see how to engage them in other 

areas aside schooling. 

The scholar added that 

children, naturally endowed with 

three domain of knowledge in 

cognitive, affective and 

pyschomotor, needed to be 

engaged in community service 

like cleaning the drainage, 

of books from the e-library. 

Besides, he said for students 

who would be interested in 

getting financial assistance, an 

arrangement had already been 

made with financial institutions 

on how to provide low interest 

education loan to them. 

to study in an unwholesome environment. 

At the commissioning ceremony, 

Anegbe said he decided 

to embark on the project to celebrate 

his people who nurtured 

him in his life's journey. 

“Over the years, I have learnt 

that education is the yoke that 

breaks the bondage of illiteracy. 

Therefore I felt the best legacy to 

bequeath to the children of my 

community is education, thus 

necessitating my action to execute 

this fully furnished block of four 

classrooms, staff room and Principal’s 

office. 

“My belief is that you may give 

silver and gold but these have 

temporary sustainability but if you 

give a child a good education, 

you have given that child enduring 

and sustainable foundation 

in life." 

planting of trees, training in 

horticulture, career talk, 

choreography, drumming 

session, dancing and piano 

session, cake and pastries, 

swimming workshop, skipping 

and kinetics training. 

His words: ”Children, especially 

adolescents, are naturally 

endowed with raw energy and 

life. They are always inquisitive , 

looking forward to ways and 

opportunities to dissipate their 

raw potentials.” 

Mrs Onyinyechi Ukazu, a 

mother, said she is happy that the 

children will be on holidays soon 

as that will afford her some time 

to rest. “No more waking up very 

early to prepare them for school. 

They will rest for a month and then 

go for holiday classes before they 

resume. The good thing is that as 

children play, they also learn, so 

it doesn't have to be in the 

classroom alone." 

Stanbic IBTC counsels students on 

leadership, career 

By Elizabeth Uwandu 

AS part of its corporate social 

investment campaign for 

2016, management and staff of 

Stanbic IBTC, member of 

Standard Bank Group, devoted 

a day to mentor students of Lagos 

Progressive Schools, Surulere, on 

career choices and leadership. 

The mentorship class provided 

an opportunity for the students 

to have a one-on-one interaction 

with the staff members in a lively 

and stimulating class session. 

The sessions examined five 

steps to helping a child develop 

leadership skills. The classes 

were practical and engaging to 

gain and retain the students’ 

attention as well as ensure their 

full participation. 

Head, Marketing and 

Communications, Stanbic IBTC, 

Mrs Nkiru Olumide-Ojo, who 

led the staff to the school, said 

Awori Ang Sch Class of 92 elects executive 

By Amaka Abayomi 

The Class of 92 set of Awori 

Anglican Comprehensive 

High School Ipaja, Lagos, has 

held its first reunion and 

inaugural election of executives 

to man the affairs of the 

association. 

The then Senior Prefect, 

Gbenga Ogunwale, emerged 

President, while Christiana 

Esesuota and Toyin Sodipo were 

voted in as first and second Vice 

Presidents respectively. Dare 

Ogunmolu was voted General 

Secretary, Tracy Amungha-Oseni 

will serve as Assistant General 

Secretary, while Banke Adebola- 

Mogaji emerged Treasurer. 

Other elected officers are Tayo 

Adeyemo Publicity Secretary, 

the bank’s staff volunteerism CSI 

activities are meant to create 

shared value with communities 

where Stanbic IBTC operates. 

She said the mentorship 

initiative was in recognition of the 

need to instill the right values 

and skills in school children, as 

leaders of tomorrow, during their 

formative years. 

“As leaders in our various 

spheres of operation within the 

Stanbic IBTC family, we 

understand that leadership 

qualities are best imbibed and 

nurtured early. As our future 

leaders, we know it is essential 

that these children understand 

these qualities early enough and 

start to make them a part of their 

everyday lives,” Olumide-Ojo 

said, adding, “Our desire is to 

equip them with these skills that 

will help them aspire for 

greatness and make smarter 

career choices.” 

Remi Adeola Welfare Officer, 

Lekan Akindele Social Director, 

Alaba Ogundiran-Bello Assistant 

Social Director, and Pastor 

Ibrahim Badmus and Ponle 

Ademola will both serve as 

Advisers. 

Appreciating all for giving him 

the mandate to lead, the 

President, Ogunwale, solicited 

for cooperation and support from 

all members in a bid to carry out 

the objectives of the body. 

Also in attendance were three 

of their former Mathematics, 

Physics and Further 

Mathematics teachers, Mr. Yemi 

Ojedokun, Mr. Folarin Adebayo 

and Pastor Samuel Oluwibe, who 

praised their former students for 

their achievements. 

Mr. Charles Gerald, Corporate Affairs Officer, Vanguard Newspaper 

(middle), explaining the news production processes to students 

of A.B.I Computer Institute of Infotech during their educational 

visit to Vanguard Newspaper at the Lagos Office. Photo: 

Akinwunmi Ibrahim 

NB rewards media excellence 

THE 2016 edition of the 

Nigerian Breweries’ (NB) 

GoldenPen Awards has opened with 

the promise of exciting cash and other 

gift items for winners. 

Kufre Ekanem, NB's Corporate 

Affairs Adviser, who explained to 

newsmen at the flag-off of the 8 th 

edition of the competition in Lagos 

on Tuesday, added that the award 

which will be in three categories will 

reward the Golden Pen Reporter of 

the Year, Golden Pen Photo 

Journalists of the Year and Golden 

Pen Nigerian Breweries Report of the 

Year. Like the previous seven 

editions, Ekanem disclosed the 

theme of the award remains 

Education, Youth Empowerment 

and Talent Development. He noted 

that the award was introduced to 

promote professionalism and 

objective reportage of events in 

Nigeria. It is also meant to reward 

such journalists who abide by the 

ethics of the profession.

Vanguard, THURDAY, JULY 14 2016—39 

Nigeria's earnings down by 40%, says SGF 

•Says ‘comments on implementation of constituency projects, my personal opinion' 

By Henry Umoru & 

Joseph Erunke 

ABUJA—SECRETARY to 

the Government of the 

Federation, Babachir Lawal, 

yesterday, disclosed that 

Nigeria’s projected earnings in 

the 2016 budget has dropped 

by 40 per cent as he told political 

office holders to adjust 

themselves to the reality. 

This was even as he said the 

country’s oil production capacity 

had risen to 1.7 million barrels 

per day from its initial 800,000 

barrels. 

Appearing before 

Senate Ethics C'ttee 

Mr Lawal spoke when he 

appeared before the joint Senate 

Committee on Ethics, Privileges 

and Public Petitions, Finance 

and Appropriation, to defend the 

statement credited to him to the 

effect that the administration 

would not be able to implement 

constituency projects captured 

in the 2016 budget. 

But he told the Senator 

Samuel Anyanwu-led joint 

committee that the statement 

was his opinion and not the 

position of the Federal 

Government. 

To this end, the Senate 

fumed, warning that nonimplementation 

of constituency 

projects was a violation of the 

Appropriation Act that required 

necessary sanctions. 

Members of the Committee 

insisted that the projects, which 

only constituted 0.3 per cent of 

the money in the 2016 budget, 

must be fully implemented 

without any part unattended to. 

The SGF, who owned up to 

the statement, said he was not 

emphatic on his statement, 

saying it was based on the 

dwindling resources available 

to the government. 

Revenue profile 

“This morning, for example, 

the Minister of Budget said 

basically the revenue profile of 

the country is that we are now 

earning between 50 to 60 per 

cent of our projected earnings, 

meaning that there might be a 

loss of 40 per cent of the money 

appropriated for in the budget. 

‘“Forty per cent is quite a 

significant amount, not only 

oil,” which he said would affect 

all branches of government, 

including the National 

Assembly. 

“Oil export has fallen 

drastically but thank God for 

little mercies that the price has 

risen a bit. But it has started 

coming down again." 

Drop in revenue 

Noting that drop in revenue 

was bound to affect 

government’s projected 

expenditure, he said: “When 

constituency projects are 

appropriated along with other 

projects, it’s the duty of the 

executive to implement. As my 

statement quoted, there is one 

key word in a statement which 

is ‘might.’ 

"In the statement made by me 

to this effect, I said, of course, if 

the revenue profile of the 

government improves, we will 

implement all projects in the 

Appropriation Act. I want to be 

truthful on this. 

“We are all aware that you as 

legislators predicated the 

revenue of the government, for 

example, at 2.2 million barrels 

per day. 

“I’m sure that all of you here 

are aware that at one time, oil 

production had dwindled to almost 

800,000 barrels per day. The 

consequence of this, of course, is 

dwindling revenue base of the 

government, subsequent upon 

which there will be the inability to 

finance projects appropriated for 

by the executive. 

“Now, it is important for 

government and the politicians to 

prepare the minds of the electorate 

that there are challenges ahead, 

prepare their minds that there 

might be some challenges ahead 

in implementing the budget. 

“You are aware that the 

government based its budget on 

the principle of zero budgeting this 

year. That is to say that we will 

budget for only capital projects that 

are key to the mandate of the 

government, that the government 

considers very important. First of 

all, restoring security in the land, 

second, providing employment to 

Nigerians and possibly 

diversifying to other non-oil 

sectors of the economy. 

“For the executive arm of 

government, this was the focus 

and, therefore, all the MDAs were 

ordered to comply with this 

principle. Any project that 

government did not feel was key 

was not included in that budget. 

When the budget was concluded, 

the Minister of Budget and 

Planning issued circulars to MDAs 

to submit a list of projects that are 

considered key to their mandate, 

in view of the dwindling 

resources.” 

He explained that unlike in the 

past when funds were being 

released for execution of capital 

projects on a quarterly basis, the 

trend had changed in the new 

dispensation. 

‘’Hitherto, the practice had been 

that government would release 

funds to MDAs on quarterly basis. 

This time, government’s position 

is that funds would be released to 

key projects prioritized according 

to the level of importance and 

significance, in line with the key 

mandate of the government. 

“Let me illustrate why 

implementation of some projects 

would be very difficult in the light 

of the dwindling resources. 

“Government has a duty to 

communicate to the citizens, 

whether or not that information is 

going to be palatable to the 

legislature or even the electorate. 

“So, Distinguished Senators, yes, 

I made the statement.’” 

He told the senators not to claim 

a right to constituency projects, a 

development that made all the 20 

senators at the session charged at 

him with fury.

40 — VANGUARD, THURSDAY, JULY 14, 2016 

Abia Governorship Logjam: 

Judiciary To The Rescue? 

•as Ikpeazu, Ogah, Nwosu seek favourable court orders 

By Ikechukwu Nnochiri 

TO many pundits, the current 

governorship crisis 

rocking Abia State has placed the 

Nigerian judiciary on trial. A 

situation that could reinforce 

opinion of those that believe we 

are still practicing ‘democracy by 

court order’. 

Basically, Justice Okon Abang 

of the Federal High Court in 

Abuja had in a judgment he 

delivered on June 27, sacked 

Governor Okezie Ikpeazu from 

office over alleged tax fraud. 

Justice Abang further directed the 


Commission, INEC, to issue a 

fresh Certificate of Return to Mr. 

Uchechukwu Ogah who came 

second in the governorship 

primary election the Peoples 

Democratic Party, PDP, held on 

December 8, 2014. 

The court said evidence before 

it showed that Ikpeazu did not 

file his tax clearance in 2011, 2012 

and 2013, saying all payments he 

made before the 2014 primaries 

of the PDP were made in one day 

(on a Saturday) and not as at 

when due. 

Governorship 

election 

According to the court, the 2011 

tax clearance certificate and 

income tax receipt Ikpeazu 

submitted to INEC before the 

primaries contained false 

information, thus making him 

(Ikpeazu) ineligible to stand for 

the 2015 governorship election. 

Placing reliance on Supreme 

Court decided case law in INEC 

vs Obi, Justice Abang held: “It is 

hereby ordered that INEC, the 

third defendant, should 

immediately issue certificate of 

return to Dr Uch Ogah as 

governor of Abia state in the 

election held in 2015 and restore 

to him all the entitlements as the 

elected governor of Abia. 

“Dr Okezie Ikpeazu is hereby 

ordered to vacate office as 

governor of Abia immediately”. 

Meanwhile, Ikpeazu quickly 

appealed the judgment which he 

said occasioned a grave 

miscarriage of justice against him. 

In the notice of appeal he filed 

through his team of lawyers led 

by Chief Adegboyega Awomolo, 

SAN, Ikpeazu, insisted that 

Justice Abang misdirected himself 

and erred in law when he held 

that he presented false 

information to INEC. 

“The trial judge erred in law 

Governor Okezie Ikpeazu and Uche Ogah 

when he ordered as a 

consequential order that the 

appellant vacates his office as the 

Governor of Abia state 

immediately when there was no 

jurisdiction in the Federal High 

Court to remove, vacate the 

occupier of the office of the 

governor of a state or order the 

removal of such officer after the 

unsuccessful challenge of the 

result of the election at the 

Tribunal and swearing in of the 

appellant as the governor”, he 

argued. 

It is expected 

that the 

appellate court 

will promptly 

clear the 

‘judicial-mess’ 

created by the 

lower courts 

Besides, Ikpeazu, in his fivegrounds 

of appeal, maintained 

that the judge erred when he held 

that he did not pay his tax for the 

years 2011, 2012 and 2013, at 

when due. He said the judge got 

it wrong considering that he was 

just a public officer whose tax 

deduction was under Pay As You 

Earn (PAYE) scheme where tax 

deductions were from the source 

of his monthly salary by the tax 

authorities who issued all the tax 

receipts and certificates. 

Ikpeazu told the appellate court 

that Abia State Board of Internal 

Revenue Services that issued tax 

certificates to him had not 

declared the certificates forged. 

Aside the appeal which he 

lodged on June 28, Ikpeazu also 

approached Justice Abang with 

a motion to stay execution of the 

judgment. 

Certificate 

of return 

Meanwhile, two days after the 

appeal was filed, INEC, issued 

Certificate of Return to Ogar. 

Determined to retain his seat, 

Ikpeazu immediately ran to an 

Abia State High Court at 

Osisioma with an ex-parte motion, 

where he secured an order that 

stopped the Chief Judge of the 

state, Justice Theresa Uzoamaka 

Uzokwe from swearing Ogah in 

as governor. 

Meantime, Ikpeazu 

subsequently re-approached the 

high court in Abuja, praying it to 

set-aside its order that led to the 

issuance of Certificate of Return 

to Ogah. Ikpeazu whose legal 

team is now led by Chief Wole 

Olanipekun, SAN, urged the 

court to take judicial notice that 

INEC issued Certificate of Return 

to Ogah on June 30, despite the 

fact that it was served with the 

notice of appeal and application 

for stay of execution at exactly 

12:50am on June 28. He 

contended that INEC acted 

wrongly by going ahead to issue 

the Certificate to Ogah, two days 

after it was served with the appeal 

processes. 

On his part, Ogah who has 

engaged five SANs led by Dr. 

Alex Iziyon, urged the court to 

refuse Ikpeazu’s prayer for stay 

of execution of the judgment. He 

notified the court that Ikpeazu, 

despite the pendency of his 

application for stay of execution, 

went before another court to 

secure a restraining order, an 

action he said was tantamount to 

“self-help”. 

On the other hand, INEC 

justified its action in issuing 

Certificate of Return to Ogah, 

saying it merely obeyed an 

express order of the court. INEC 

lawyer, Mr. Alhassan Umar told 

the court that the commission had 

already issued the Certificate to 

Ogah before it was served with 

Ikpeazu’s motion for stay. 

“We had no difficulty to issue 

the Certificate because election 

matters are suis-generis. “Where 

the law intends that an appeal 

should operate as a stay it is 

expressly provided so. In our 

view, this matter is not regulated 

by section 143 of the Electoral 

Act”, INEC lawyer argued. 

Apart from declining to set-aside 

the enrolled order of the 

judgment, Justice Abang, in a 

ruling on July 8, held that 

Ikpeazu’s sack remained valid 

until a higher court decides 

otherwise. 

“The order of the court subsists 

until set aside by the Court of 

Appeal. Therefore, the INEC 

lawfully issued Certificate of 

Return to Dr. Sampson Ogah as 

it was in line with the judgment 

of this court”, the judge held. 

Justice Abang gave the ruling on 

a day another Federal High Court 

sitting in Owerri, Imo State, ruled 

that Ikpeazu was validly elected 

and remains the governor. 

Interestingly, both courts relied on 

the same tax receipts presented 

before them by Governor Ikpeazu 

which was alleged to have been 

forged. 

Justice A. I. Alagoa gave 

Ikpeazu the nod to remain on seat 

after he dismissed another suit by 

a third claimant to the 

governorship seat, Mr. Friday 

Nwosu who is also a member of 

the PDP. 

Court 

verdict 

Nwosu who also participated in 

the December 8, 2014, 

governorship primaries of the 

PDP has equally appealed the 

Abuja court verdict that cleared 

Ogah to replace Ikpeazu. He 

insisted that the court, having 

disqualified Ikpeazu as the 

governorship candidate of the 

PDP in Abia for the 2015 polls, 

should have declared him as 

governor-elect and not Ogah. 

He maintained that Ogah 

should not be allowed by the court 

to benefit from a primary election 

he condemned by refusing to 

sign the result, after he had 

petitioned the leadership of the 

party to conduct another primary 

election. 

In view of the contradictory 

positions of the three high courts 

which incidentally are of coordinate 

jurisdiction, all eyes are 

now focused on the Court of 

Appeal which is now seized of the 

facts of the case. 

It is expected that the appellate 

court will promptly clear the 

‘judicial-mess’ created by the 

lower courts. 

EDITORIAL 

Innocent Anaba 

( Head) 

Wahab Abdulah 

Ikechukwu Nnochiri 

Dayo Benson 

(Supervising Editor) 

08056180119 

dayobenson@yahoo.com

VANGUARD, THURSDAY, JULY 14, 2016 — 41 

By Onozure Dania 

HOW do you see the move 

by the Senate to commence 

the process of amending the 2010 

Electoral Act to pave way for early 

primaries to strengthen electoral 

process? 

This is a welcome development 

which is long overdue. Nigerians 

have been clamouring for the 

amendment of the Electoral Act. 

Even Nigerians in the diaspora 

have added their voice to the cry. 

Their inclusion in the process would 

be a positive development for many 

reasons. 

First of all it will represent true 

democracy and full inclusion of all 

Nigerian citizens stricto sensu. 

However, the amendments should 

not only be focused on party 

primaries. There should be a holistic 

amendment of the Act. Before the 

2015 general election, the 


Commission, INEC, submitted 

proposals to the National Assembly 

for amendment of some sections of 

the Act, which it said, were making 

its works “ambiguous and 

confusing,” especially in dealing 

with the antics of political parties and 

other stakeholders. I believe the time 

has come to take another look at the 

Act. 

Apart from this amendment, are 

there any other amendments you 

envisage that the Senate should 

look into? 

The National Assembly recently 

kick started the process of 

amending the constitution for the 

fourth time by inaugurating 

constitutional amendment 

committees to oversee the process 

which I believe is a step in the right 

direction. Going by the various 

security, economic and sociopolitical 

issues confronting the 

country, there is no gain saying that 

this is coming at the right time. 

Yearnings and 

aspirations 

The National Assembly should be 

looking at amendment which will 

grant some measure of autonomy 

and strengthen key institutions that 

support democracy such as the 

Courts, INEC, the Police, ICPC, 

EFCC and other key institutions. I 

will like to add that in carrying out 

the much needed Constitutional 

amendment, the National Assembly 

should take into consideration the 

yearnings and aspirations of 

Nigerians and also bear in mind 

the need to cut down the cost of 

governance in the country. 

Can the Supreme Court reverse 

itself? 

We are final not because we are 

infallible, rather we are infallible 

because we are final. – The late 

Justice Oputa. 

This memorable quote by the late 

Justice Chukwudifu Oputa speaks 

volume about the powers of the 

Supreme Court. There is no power 

in the Supreme Court to set aside 

or review its own judgment given 

in the same case. The only 

exception relates to correction under 

the slip rule, which cannot be 

regarded as a review properly so 

called. Thus, the Supreme Court 

may revisit its judgment under 

Order 8 Rule 16, Supreme Rules to 

Dafe Akpedeye SAN 

correct clerical errors or omissions or 

gabs to give meaning to the 

judgment or decision of the court and 

not to vary it. This is without prejudice 

to the inherent power of the Supreme 

Court to set aside its judgment in 

appropriate cases when; the 

judgment is obtained by fraud or 

deceit either on the court or by one 

or more of the parties. 

Such a judgment can be 

impeached or set aside by means of 

an action which may be brought 

without leave, or where the 

judgment is a nullity. A person 

affected by an order of court which 

can properly be described as a nullity 

is entitled ex debito justitiae to have 

it set aside, and when it is obvious 

that the court was misled into giving 

judgment under a mistaken belief 

that the parties had consented to it. 

For example, the case of Johnson v 

Lawanson (1971) 7 NSCC 82 is 

regarded as the trail-blazing case in 

which the Supreme Court exercised 

Petroleum Act is doing what PIB will do — Nwokedi 

By Dayo Benson 

AMID 

lingering 

controversy over the 

proposed Petroleum Industry Bill, 

PIB, which is currently before the 

National Assembly, a Senior 

Advocate of Nigeria, Mr Uche 

Nwokedi, has stated that there 

was nothing PIB would do for the 

country that the Petroleum Act 

was not doing at the moment. 

The senior lawyer who 

socialises in the Oil and Gas Law 

spoke at a media interactive 

session in Lagos. According to 

him, “What is it suppose to do that 

is not being done at present by 

the petroleum act?” 

Speaking on why refineries 

across the country are not 

working, he pointed out that “the 

problem is not a legal issue but it 

is a problem that has defied 

Supreme Court cannot set aside 

own judgment—Akpedeye, SAN 

Mr. Dafe Akpedeye, SAN, was former Attorney General and 

Commissioner for Justice in Delta State between 2007 and 2009. 

He is a law graduate from the University of Lagos and was 

called to the bar in 1984. He obtained his Masters in Law at 

Harvard Law School 1985. While in the United States, he 

practiced with White & Case Law Firm, Avenues of Americas, 

New York. Back in Nigeria, Akpedeye became a lecturer at the 

University of Lagos in 1985. He later founded Akpedeye & Co. 

He is currently a lecturer at Delta State University. In this 

interview, he spoke on the process of amending the 2010 

Electoral Act, the composition of the National Judicial Council 

and other sundry issues. Excerpts 

the power to overrule itself. Coker 

J.S.C. delivering the court’s 

judgment held that “when the court 

is faced with the alternative of 

perpetuating what it is satisfied is 

an erroneous decision which was 

reached per incuriam and will, if 

followed, inflict hardship and 

injustice upon the generations in 

the future or of causing temporary 

disturbances of rights acquired 

under such a decision, I do not 

think we shall hesitate to declare 

the law as we find it.” Again in 

Olorunfemi v Asho the Supreme 

Court set aside its judgment 

delivered in January 8, 1999 on the 

ground that, it failed to consider the 

respondents cross–appeal before 

allowing the appellant’s appeal. 

Panel of 

Justices 

The court then ordered that the 

appeal be re-heard de novo by 

another panel of Justices of the 

Supreme Court. 

The Supreme Court has been 

inundated with appeals to review 

its decision given in the same case 

and there has been a consistent 

refusal on the part of the court to act 

as an appeal court over itself. A case 

in point is that of Dr Andy Uba, who 

had earlier gone to the Supreme 

Court to ask for the revalidation of 

his alleged victory at the April 14, 

2007 governorship election and 

return him to office after the Supreme 

Court threw out his case, 

approached a seven man panel of 

the court to get the court to set aside 

its judgment which terminated his 

Uche Nwokedi 

solution.” Commenting on why 

it was difficult to secure 

judgement against major oil 

companies operating in the 

country, he explained that “major 

oil companies are thorough and 

very detailed, they are always 

well prepared.” 

two weeks tenure as the Governor 

of Anambra State in 2007. 

The court in its ruling delivered 

by the then Chief Justice of Nigeria, 

Justice Idris Kutigi, observed that 

Dr. Uba’s attempt at luring the court 

into setting aside its judgment 

which was delivered on June 14, 

2007 was a gross abuse of the court 

process and maintained that there 

must be an end to litigation. 

This was again reaffirmed in the 

case of Prof. Steve Torkuma Ugba 

vs. Gebriel Torwua Suswam, where 

the issue for determination was 

whether, given the facts of the case, 

the applicants satisfied the conditions 

to warrant the Supreme Court to set 

aside its earlier ruling. 

The advantage of this stance, is 

that it fosters stability, enhances 

development of consistent and 

coherent body of laws, preserves 

continuity and manifests respect for 

the past, assures equality of 

treatment for litigants similarly 

situated, spares the judges the task 

of re-examining rules of law or 

principles with each succeeding 

case and finally it affords the law a 

desirable measure of predictability. 

The composition of the National 

Judicial Council, NJC, has been 

seen by many lawyers as 

unconstitutional. Do you share this 

view? 

The National Judicial Council is 

one of the bodies created by virtue 

of Section 153 of the 1999 

Constitution of the Federal Republic 

of Nigeria to insulate the judiciary 

from the whims and caprices of the 

executive; thus guarantying the 

independence of the judiciary. By 

Reacting to insinuations that the 

practice of Oil and Gas is elitist 

and restricted to certain circles, 

he pointed out that “there is no 

special ingredient that make 

people feel included or 

excluded.” With the falling prices 

of crude oil at the international 

market, Nwokedi advised that the 

country should develop other 

minerals and reduce its 

dependence on oil. 

On the issue of Local Content 

Act in the oil and gas sector, the 

head of Nwokedi’s chamber, Mr 

Ashimiu Ayodeji observed that 

the Act has recorded a level of 

success, but stressed that the 

enforcement had not been 

encouraging. 

Nwokedi however, added that 

the Act “is a capacity building 

instrument.” He said that the 

the provision of Paragraph 20 of Part 

One of the Third Schedule to the 

1999 Constitution as amended, the 

National Judicial Council shall 

comprise the following Members: - 

The Chief Justice of Nigeria, who 

shall be the Chairman; The next 

most senior Justice of the Supreme 

Court, who shall be the Deputy 

Chairman; The President of the 

Court of Appeal; five retired Justices 

selected by the Chief Justice of 

Nigeria from the Supreme Court or 

Court of Appeal; the Chief Judge of 

the Federal High Court; the 

President, National Industrial Court; 

five Chief Judges of State to be 

appointed by the Chief Justice of 

Nigeria from among the Chief 

Judges of the States and of the High 

Court of the Federal Territory, Abuja 

in rotation to serve for two years; 

one Grand Kadi to be appointed 

by the Chief Justice of Nigeria from 

among Grand Kadis of the Sharia 

Courts of Appeal to serve in rotation 

for two years; one President of the 

Customary Court of Appeal to be 

appointed by the Chief Justice of 

Nigeria from among the Presidents 

of the Customary Courts of Appeal 

to serve in rotation for two years five 

members of the Nigerian Bar 

Association, NBA, who have been 

qualified to practice for a period of 

not less than 15 years, at least one 

of whom shall be a Senior Advocate 

of Nigeria, SAN, appointed by the 

Chief Justice of Nigeria on the 

recommendation of the National 

Executive Committee of the 

Nigerian Bar Association to serve 

for two years and subject to reappointment: 

Provided that the five members 

shall sit in the Council only for the 

purposes of considering the names 

of persons for appointment to the 

superior courts of record; and two 

person not being Legal 

Practitioners, who in the opinion of 

the Chief Justice of Nigeria, are of 

unquestionable integrity Going by 

the current membership of the NJC, 

I fail to see the unconstitutionality 

of its composition. 

indigenous oil companies had 

done well because they were 

responsible for 10 percent of 

production. The Senior Advocate 

who is also the publisher of 

Nigerian Oil and Gas cases in 

Nigeria said that the legal 

profession had done well in the 

country and it has played the role 

of the mediator. He commended 

the outgoing president of the 

Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, 

Mr Augustine Alegeh, SAN, 

whom he said had done well and 

urged the incoming NBA 

president should chart his own 

course, saying that there must be 

capacity building for lawyers. 

“For instance, it addresses the 

issue of who the oil company 

would pay compensation to 

between the community and the 

land owners,” he said.


Are eggs good or bad for your health? 

DEPENDING on who you ask, 

whole eggs are either healthy or 

unhealthy. Eggs are often considered an 

excellent and inexpensive source of 

protein and various nutrients. 

On the other hand, many people 

believe that the yolk can increase heart 

disease risk. So are eggs good or bad 

for your health? Let’s examine both sides 

of the argument. 

Eggs are sometimes considered 

unhealthy for certain reasons. Whole 

eggs have two main components -Egg 

white - the white part, which is mostly 

protein, and Egg yolk - the yellow/ 

orange part, which contains all sorts of 

nutrients. 

The main reason eggs were considered 

to be unhealthy in the past, is that the 

yolks are high in cholesterol. 

Cholesterol is a waxy substance found 

in food, and it’s also made by your body. 

Eggs are high in cholesterol. 

However, based on the latest research, 

it is no longer recommended that 

cholesterol intake be restricted. Just 

because a food is high in cholesterol, it 

doesn’t necessarily raise cholesterol 

levels in the blood. 

How eggs affect 

blood cholesterol 

Although it may seem logical that 

dietary cholesterol would raise blood 

cholesterol levels, it usually doesn’t work 

that way. 

Your liver actually produces cholesterol 

in large amounts, because cholesterol is a 

necessary nutrient for your cells. 

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What you are saying is that you want to be able to 

Eggs are good for health 

When you eat larger amounts of highcholesterol 

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FMC Owerri 

commissions 

outreach centre 

By Chidi Nwaokpara 

MANAGEMENT of Federal 

Medical Centre, Owerri, 

recently commissioned its Outreach 

Centre at Izombe, Oguta Local Council 

area of Imo State. 

The Medical Director, Professor Eke 

Ndu, reasoned that the Centre is in 

tandem with the programme of the 

Federal Government and would provide 

standard medical services for Izombe 

and adjoining communities. 

"The FMC Medical Centre, Izombe, 

would provide standard medical 

services, by making available health 

facilities needed to address the health 

challenges currently facing the people 

in that community and the adjoining 

communities", Professor Ndu said. 

He promised that adequate health 

personnel would be drafted to the 

Centre, to take over the responsibility of 

health care delivery in the 

establishment. 

"There would be a functional medical 

laboratory and other facilities. Surgical 

procedures would be carried out where 

the need arises," Ndu stated. 

President General, Izombe Central 

Union, Mr. Obioha Benjamin, pleaded 

with the management to provide standby 

generators, ambulances and other 

facilities to enable the Centre to function 

effectively.


Anyanwu's visual exploits brings 

Chinese culture to Nigeria 

By Japhet Alakam 

AFTER his last exhibition at 

Terra Kulture titled Faces 

and Phases, one of Nigeria’s 

contemporary artists, Uzoma 

Samuel Anyanwu recorded 

another major artistic success 

with his latest exhibition that 

brought some of the historic 

Chinese culture to Nigeria. 

Tagged Coming to China, an 

exhibition of selected Chinese 

heritage site photographs and 

other works, Anyanwu in the 

exhibition which was attended by 

notable art collectors and lovers 

showcased the historic sculptures 

of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, the 

first imperial dynasty in China. 

The exhibition which opened 

at the CIG Motors Co Ltd located 

in Ligali Ayorinde Street, Victoria 

Island featured about 13 body of 

works that provided viewers with 

the opportunity to visit China with 

him through the visual 

narratives. 

Transcultural 

exchange 

It was one of the gains of 

transcultural exchange, an 

opportunity offered by the 

occupant of the Engineer Yemisi 

Adedoyin Syhllon Chair for Fine 

Arts and Design, University of 

Port harcourt. With this, young 

Anyanwu has became the first 

African to bring the famous 

Chinese sculptures to Nigeria. 

Anyanwu through the body of 

works recalls culture through his 

lens in unique frames that initiate 

inter cultural dialogue. His 

interest in two dimensional arts 

which kicked off with 

explorations in painting at his 

school, before his exploration in 

art photography were brought to 

A sculptureby Uzoma Anyanwu 

the fore as he brings to focus 

the terracotta sculptures of the 

first dynasty which occupies a 

critical position in history and the 

Anyanwu recalls 

culture through his 

lens in unique 

frames that initiate 

intercultural 

dialogue 

photographs that cover an array 

of distinctively diverse insight 

and styles of the sites he 

visited while in China. 

Some of the works 

include the three 

terracotta pieces, the pits 

of the terracotta warriors, 

the ancient Qin Dynasty 

Terracotta warriors, 

Bronze chariots,The 

Temple of Heaven 

complex, The great wall 

of China The Manichan 

schemes at the 

contemporary theatre, 

Mao Zedond Fabric 

collage and other works. 

Looking at the images, 

the first stunning 

impression is the 

impersonal, extemporal 

and a-historic feeling 

emanating from many of 

the images of these 

ancient Chinese artefacts 

which could be likened to 

the Nigerian Nok 

terracotta sculptures 

excerpt for the large 

number. It shows how the 

Chinese manage their 

heritage sites unlike 

Nigeria where no one cares for 

cultural sites. 

Another feature of the 

photographs is that there is always 

a narrative behind each that shows 

the engagement he had with 

people while in China. 

Speaking about the exhibition, 

art patron and founder of 

OYASAF, Prince Shyllon who 

declared the exhibition open and 

unveiled the sculptures said, “I 

am impressed about the Chinese 

culture that is as old oas about 

2,500 years. Chinese love love 

their culture, but disappointed 

that I cannot find Nigerians loving 

their own culture the way 

Chinese love their culture and 

history.” 

Culture activists decry neglect of indigenous language 

By Prisca Sam-Duru 

accessed from 

other parts of the 

LANGUAGE and cultural 

world. In 

enthusiasts from corporate 

Adegbembo’s 

and social Nigeria who attended 

words, ‘Yorubas 

the fourth edition of Yoruba 

in Nigeria 

Lakotun promoted only one 

should not 

agenda which was, the urgent 

make the 

need to revive Nigeria's culture 

language lose 

and the use of indegenous 

its value 

languages both in schools and •Participants clad in cultural attires at the event in Lagos because people 

among the people. 

from other parts 

Guest writer at the event, Mr. hardcopies of the literatures that of the world, especially those in 

Kehinde Adepegba, said the have been published sometimes Jamaica, Brazil, Trindad and 

poor reading culture of the ago. He asserted that publishers Tobago, Cuba and the Caribbean, 

Yoruba, the development of should help writers by look up to us at the core areas 

Information 

and publishing the e-books versions where the language is spoken and 

Communications Technology, of their books on various we should not let them down in 

and late adoption of technology platforms and making it available speaking, writing, reading and 

have negatively impacted on the to the global audience and listening in the language.’ 

reading of Yoruba literature increasing profitability.’ 

The host of the programme, 

which has preserved the culture Adebayo Adegbembo, who Olutayo Irantiola, extolled the 

largely. According to the author developed ‘Asa’ app, said him stride of the Lagos State House 

of Okele Akobu, Ogbon Ologbon, and his team has been of Assembly, under the leadership 

Eku Eda ‘the youth of this assiduously working on the of Hon. Mudashiru Obasa that 

generation have unlimited preservation of the language wants Yoruba language to be 

access to materials online and through this app and they are spoken compulsorily at both 

they have deserted reading also working on other Nigerian public and private schools in 

languages which are being Lagos. 

Eucharia Anunobi 

Faith & Talent Junction: Nurturing 

talents for national development 

By Prisca Sam-Duru & 

Vera Anyagafu 

WHY you have been 

seeing me as a movie 

legend, all these years you’ve 

seen me act all the actables and 

am still acting and modeling 

because I’ve not left my talent, is 

because I discovered who I am, 

who I was and still to be at a very 

early age. This is why I act my 

roles very well.” Those were the 

words of Nollywood A-list actress, 

Eucharia Anunobi while 

mentoring young Nigerians on 

the importance of self discovery 

to national development. 

A lot of times, people engage 

in trial and error method in the 

course of discovering who they 

are and what they are endowed 

with. It becomes worse when 

upon discovering their talents, 

they are helpless as to how to 

nurture the talents and make 

good living out of them. 

It was in a bid to assist young 

Nigerians to discover their 

talents and subsequently, 

become self reliant in a poor and 

unstable economy such as 

Nigeria’s, that Koga Faith 

Foundation held talent discovery 

and empowerment workshop for 

youths. 

The maiden edition of Faith and 

Talent junction, was a wake up 

call to the Nigerian youths on 

the need to use their talents to 

make a living and then, bring 

about the change the country 

desires. It underscored the 

importance of having young and 

talented individuals in 

government who will help put 

an end to corruption and bad 

leadership rocking the country. 

Tagged Faith&Talent: 

Patnership that Rocks, the event 

which held weekend, featured 

the Nollywood Diva turned 

preacher, Apostle Euchariah 

Anunobi, who shook the entire 

hall of the Rock View Hotel, 

Festac town, with inspiring 

lectures enough to set every 

jobless individual on a viable 

track to achieving greatness. 

Emphasisng on the need to 

assist the youths discover their 

talents early in life, Anunobi who 

disclosed that she was a beauty 

queen, and still a fashion model 

as well as movie legend added 

that she discovered her talent 

early in life because she gave her 

life to Christ since 20 years ago. 

Anunobi further revealed that 

the reason people fail in life is 

because they serve in other 

individuals' positions or field 

stressing that youths need to 

discover and nurture their talent 

to survive in the difficult 

economic condition of Nigeria. 

She advised those seeking to 

excel in the entertainment 

industry, to ensure they deal with 

limitations before venturing into 

the industry. “To be an actor you 

need to be good in English, this 

enables you understand the 

script so as to be able to interpret 

your roles perfectly. 

Youths need to 

discover and 

nurture their 

talents to survive 

in difficult 

economic 

condition of 

Nigeria 

Serious 

limitations 

The truth is that everyone must 

not become an actor, so those with 

serious limitations in this regard 

can make impact in other 

departments in Nollywood like 

welfare, location management, 

costumier, props etc. I tell people 

that the fact that you read 

Theartre arts does not mean that 

you should become an actor. 

Apostle Anunobi also advised 

against trying to make it the fast 

way such as thinking of 

submitting to sexual assault all 

in the name of getting roles since 

such acts boomerang in the 

future. 

Also speaking, the Convener of 

the Faith and Talent Junction, 

Bishop Priscilla Otuya said God 

is depending on African youths 

to drive change in the country, 

urging Nigerian youths not to be 

left out of the transformation 

process in the country. 

She regretted that religious 

Christianity has so much caged 

youths that they need to first 

discover their roots and talents 

to make a change. "The system 

has separated faith from talent but 

in the real sense, both should 

work together. Self discovery is 

important and the youths should 

collaborate if they wish to make 

huge impact so that power would 

stop revolving round the old 

politicians."


Transformer explosion: Eyewitnesses, 

survivors narrate experiences 

By Gabriel Ewepu, Abuja 

FOR the average residents 

in Tudun-Wada, a suburb 

of Abuja, Saturday July 4, 2016 

began just like another bright 

and promising day. Members 

of the community woke up as 

usual to go about their daily activities 

without premonition of 

any lurking danger. Then the 

unexpected happened. Suddenly 

there was the deafening 

sound of an explosion which 

was later traced to a transformer 

in the area. 

The incident threw the community 

into pandemonium, as 

people began running for their 

dear lives. That was not the end 

of the story. It was later discovered 

that the explosion affected 

some houses in the area leading to the 

electrocution of some residents. The dead 

were two men and one woman, while five 

persons were injured. 

Residents of the community with a population 

of over 5, 000 people said the incident 

was an unusual one as they have never 

had this kind of experience before. 

An eye witness, Victor Adeyemi, said he 

first noticed sparks emanating from the cables 

linked to the 750kV transformer. He 

added that the sparks were immediately 

followed by fire which engulfed most of the 

makeshift buildings that served as shelter 

for low income residents in the area. 

According to him, “The electric sparks 

started from the cable which linked the transformer 

to the various transmission lines. As the 

sparks continued, there were screams about people 

being electrocuted in their houses. I ran home 

to rescue my family but found out they had already 

fled the house for safety. 

“This was a very terrible experience, made 

worse by the fact that 

the Abuja Electricity 

Distribution Company, 

AEDC, was not on 

ground to arrest the 

situation.” 

Narrating what happened 

on the fateful 

day, another resident 

simply identified as 

Nyinje, informed thus: 

“We were in our houses 

when our electric cables 

started sparking 

and out of fear for our 

lives we started rushing 

outside. All the 

houses connected to 

the transformer were 

on fire and in the process 

some people were 

electrocuted and died. 

*L-R Acting Chairman/CEO, NERC, Dr. Anthony Akah; Executive 

Director Technical, Joe Chiasa; Director, Regulatory, AEDC, 

Abimbola; Director, Safety NERC, Collins Chiabuka; survivor, 

Destiny Okoro and father, Mr. Peter Okoro, during the visit to families 

of the deceased survivors at Tudun-Wada, Abuja. 

All the 

houses connected 

to the 

transformer 

were on fire 

and in the 

process some 

people were 

electrocuted 

and died 

My in-law, a young 

man with two children, rushed to the powerchange 

to switch off the power supply and instantly 

got electrocuted and died. A woman was 

about switching off the fridge in her house and 

got electrocuted. She also died on the spot.” 

According to Nyinje, the management of 

ABUJA disco was duly informed but did not respond 

immediately. He said officials from the company 

only arrived the community on Monday 

with members of the Nigerian Security and Civil 

Defence Corps, NSCDC. 

“Had it been the staff of AEDC responded immediately 

that Saturday when we called and informed 

them that the transformer was about to 

explode, we would not have recorded any deaths 

or people injured. They were not on ground; had 

Mr Akah and some officials of AEDC at the scene 

of the transformer explosion, at Tudun-Wada. 

it been they were on duty this accident would not 

have happened.” 

He also said that the cause of the explosion could 

be traced to too many wrong connections by some 

residents who he accused of using substandard 

cables which are in any case wrongly positioned. 

He also cited as part of the problem poor power 

infrastructure which AEDC had failed to address, 

concentrating instead on issuing estimated bills 

and revenue generation from their underserved 

customers. 

Electric 

shocks 

A survivor, Ijeoma Nwoanu, a business woman 

in the community, said she was in her shop when 

the incident occurred. “I was in my shop that morning 

and suddenly I started feeling electric shocks 

all over the shop; I sustained injuries that seriously 

affected my legs. Some persons rushed me 

to the hospital where I spent three days before 

being discharged. I spent N40, 000 on my treatment,” 

Ms Nwoanu informed. 

Another survivor, a commercial motorcycle rider 

who was on his way to a local clinic could not 

speak to the press. He suffered injury and was 

bleeding from his bandaged feet. Some residents 

alleged that AEDC staff often tamper with electricity 

cables and habitually disconnect customers 

in the community. 

However, while the AEDC is getting all the knocks 

over the transformer explosion and the attendant 

fatalities, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, 

NERC, is being praised for responding 

promptly in rendering assistance to the victims. It 

was said that it was through the Commission's 

intervention that two of the victims were immediately 

taken to hospitals of their choice for proper 

medical attention and also footed their bills. 

The two survivors are presently receiving treatment 

at the Feather Crest Hospital, Apo, Abuja. 

Meantime, arrangements for the burial of the 

deceased are said to be ongoing, subject to the 

relevant laws and due process. 

Pastor Evan Mawarire who was accused of masterminding the 

recent anti-Mugabe protests in Zimbabwe appeared in a packed 

Harare courtroom yesterday draped in the Zimbabwean flag after 

spending the night in police cells. 

Indonesia to execute convicts from 

Nigeria, Zimbabwe this year 

INDONESIA plans to 

execute, this year, at least 

two foreign convicts, one from 

Nigeria and another from 

Zimbabwe, the attorney general 

said on Wednesday. 

President Joko Widodo has 

pledged to increase the number 

of executions this year and next 

as part of his crackdown on 

drugs. 

Asked if there were any 

foreigners on the list of convicts 

to be executed, Attorney General 

H.M. Prasetyo told reporters: “We 

have foreigners, among them 

from Nigeria and Zimbabwe.” 

He did not elaborate on the 

crimes of which they were 

convicted. 

Prasetyo added that no convicts 

from the United States, Europe 

or Australia were on the list to be 

executed this year. 

A 59-year-old British woman, 

Lindsay Sandiford, was 

sentenced to death after being 

convicted in 2013 of trying to 

smuggle cocaine worth $2.5 

million into the country. 

A Philippino maid, Mary Jane 

Veloso, got a last-minute reprieve 

last year in response to a request 

from Manila after an employment 

recruiter, whom Veloso had 

accused of planting drugs in her 

luggage, gave herself up to police 

in the Philippines. 

Last year Indonesia executed 14 

people, mostly foreign drug 

traffickers. Prasetyo previously 

said at least 16 prisoners would 

be executed this year and more 

than double that number next 

year. 

Foreigners 

evacuated from 

South Sudan 

ZIMBABWE: Court throws out case 

against anti-Mugabe pastor 

AZIMBABWEAN court on 

Wednesday dismissed 

charges against a religious 

leader accused of trying to 

overthrow the government 

through an internet campaign 

that inspired rare protests against 

President Robert Mugabe. 

Pastor Evan Mawarire 

appeared in a packed Harare 

courtroom draped in the 

Zimbabwean flag after spending 

the night in police cells as officers 

searched his house, church and 

office. 

Magistrate Vakayi Chikwekwe 

said prosecutors presented 

different charges from those read 

out to Mawarire when he was 

SEVERAL countries are 

evacuating their citizens 

from South Sudan following days 

of fighting that saw hundreds of 

people killed. 

Germany, the UK, Italy, Japan, 

India and Uganda have already 

started taking their citizens out of 

the country. 

A ceasefire between forces loyal 

to President Salva Kiir and Vice- 

President Riek Machar is holding 

for a second day in the capital, 

Juba. Mr Machar and his troops 

have also left Juba “to avoid 

further confrontation”. 

The evacuations are being 

carried out by military and 

chartered planes, as commercial 

flights have not yet resumed. 

However, Kenyan Foreign 

Minister Amina Mohammed said 

that Kenyan nationals would not 

be evacuated, as the ceasefire in 

South Sudan was holding. 

arrested. 

“It’s my finding that the 

National Prosecuting Authority 

cannot charge the accused for the 

first time in court without charges 

being read out to him,” 

Chikwekwe told the court. 

Mawarire’s lawyer Harrison 

Nkomo said his client initially 

faced charges of inciting violence 

before prosecutors changed the 

charge to attempting to overthrow 

the government, which carries up 

to 20 years in jail in found guilty. 

Hundreds of Mawarire’s 

supporters gathered outside the 

court, waving the national flag 

and singing protest songs, as antiriot 

police kept a watchful eye.


Osoba @77: The ‘recurrent comeback kid' 

By Kayode Odunaro 

ON Sunday April 3, 

2016, a most 

momentous event took 

place at the Bourdillion, 

Ikoyi residence of Aremo 

Olusegun Osoba, former 

two time governor of Ogun 

State. In attendance were 

the leading lights of current 

progressive politics in the 

South West and indeed 

Nigeria that were 

instrumental to midwifing 

an opposition party that 

electorally took over power 

from a ruling party since 

1999. Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, 

Chief Bisi Akande, Otunba 

Niyi Adebayo, a host of Segun Osoba 

sitting governors and their 

representatives and other diehard 

progressives all converged in the house 

of Osoba with a singular aim: Bring Back 

Osoba into APC. 

At the end of the day the aim was 

achieved and Osoba is back in APC that 

he helped midwife before local politics of 

his home state, Ogun, forced him to briefly 

sojourn in SDP. Details of the forces and 

events that led to his surprising exit from 

APC may rightly be situated in the merger 

of strange bedfellows that produced the 

APC and the dilution of progressive politics 

with individuals that hardly share the ideals 

of progressivism. And of course there were 

issues of personal animosities and clash 

of egos with some agenda to demystify if 

not erase the political stature of Osoba from 

the landscape of Ogun state politics once 

and for all times. Any intelligent political 

observer can readily see that the come-back 

bid of Osoba into APC is about one of the 

most important political developments in 

2016, not only in Ogun State, but in the 

South West and indeed our national politics 

as by all standards, Osoba is an elder 

statesman that 

had paid his 

d u e s 

adequately in 

national 

development 

first as a 

renowned 

journalist, 

t h e n 

administrator 

and politician. 

Indeed in the 

trajectory of his 

life Osoba has 

had many 

successful 

comeback bids 

in the past 

Rural areas 

of the state 

will always 

see his 

administration 

as a reference 

point when 

governance 

touched their 

lives 

with the man 

passing through some trying times that 

nearly snuff out his life in the struggle for 

a democratic Nigeria. In his home state of 

Ogun, there are probably no political 

leaders alive outside former President 

Olusegun Obasanjo that has had a more 

chequered political history over the years 

than Osoba. 

As the democratically elected successor 

to the first elected governor of the state, 

Chief Bisi Onabanjo, Osoba continued to 

build on the solid foundation laid by 

Onabanjo but the continuation was cut 

short barely two years after by a military 

interregnum that led Osoba to join the 

democratic struggle to free Nigeria from 

military rule. His roles with NADECO 

under the regime of General Sanni Abacha 

nearly cost him his life on more than one 

occasion and he had to go underground 

at some point at a great cost to his personal 

family life. 

The stories of his life during these periods 

are in the public domain and do not bear 

rehearsing here. But suffice to say that at 

the end of that era, Osoba made a 

comeback as the third elected governor of 

Ogun State in 1999 under the progressive 

party of Alliance for Democracy, AD. The 

next four years saw him executing perhaps 

the best rural development strategy in the 

history of the state in the area of provision 

of rural electrification, water and rural 

roads. Till date, the rural areas of the state 

will always see his administration as a 

reference point when governance touched 

their lives. 

The year 2003 saw him leaving the centre 

stage again as he ‘lost’ his re-election bid 

in the “capture politics” that saw the 

conservative ruling PDP at the Federal 

level sweeping the poll in South West states 

with the singular exception of Lagos State. 

But by 2011, Osoba’s progressive party that 

has now metamorphosised to Action 

Congress of Nigeria, ACN, was in the clear 

reckoning to present a winning candidate 

with Asiwaju Tinubu playing the yeoman’s 

role of a catalyzer. At the end of the day by 

the logic of using an opposition figure on 

a popular platform ACN fielded Senator 

Amosun as its candidates with Osoba as 

undisputed leader. 

Democratic 

politics 

Now Osoba is back in another comeback 

bid with his political structure backed by 

the progressives of the South West. There 

has been grumbling and uneasiness in 

some quarters in Ogun State about his 

return. However, the game of democratic 

politics is a game of numbers where every 

political group works to gain the most 

numbers among the electorate. Only 

selfish and exclusionist politicians would 

not welcome new members, more so 

members that they once co-habited with 

and benefitted from their membership and 

support. Indeed, we are daily regale with 

opposition PDP members decamping to 

APC and being welcome. So one sees no 

oddity in Osoba and his group returning 

to APC. 

Born to the family of Pa and Madam 

Jonathan Babatunde Osoba at an Egba 

settlement, Egbatedo, in Osogbo on July 

15, 1939, Osoba attended African Church 

School, Osogbo, Methodist Boys High 

School, Lagos. He was at University of 

Lagos for his Diploma in Journalism. 

•Odunaro was former Chief Press 

Secretary to Governor Segun Osoba 

From left: Mrs Emuesiri Agbeyi, member, Institute of Chartered Accountants of 

Nigeria, ICAN, Mr Opeyemi Agbaje, moderator/ member Lagos State Security Trust 

Fund, Mrs Edobong Akpabio, 2nd Vice President NECA Network Enterprise Women, 

Prof. Ropo Sekoni, chairman, Board of Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism, 

Mr Wahab Gbadamosi, Head Communication and Sericom Dept, Federal Inland 

Revenue Service, FIRS, and Mrs Adebimpe Balogun, guest speaker/ former president 

of the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria, CITN, during the eighth Wole Soyinka 

Centre Media Lecture with theme Tax Education, National Development and the Seminal 

role of the Media'' held in Lagos, yesterday. Photo: Kehinde Gbadamosi 

Economic depression: FG cautioned 

over 10% tax increment 

•It is suicidal, irrational – CITN former president 

•Legislators should live by examples in tax compliance 

•States should look inward for survival away from oil revenue 

By Nkiruka Nnorom, Ediri Ejoh 

and Monsuru Olowoopejo 

AFORMER president of Chartered 

Institute of Taxation of Nigeria, 

CITN, and Managing Partner, Saffron 

Professional Services, Mrs Adebimpe 

Balogun, yesterday, faulted the move by 

the Federal Government to increase 

Value Added Tax, VAT, to more than five 

per cent, saying the present economic 

situation in the country does not support 

such irrational development. 

Balogun who spoke at the eighth Wole 

Soyinka Centre Media Lecture Series, 

themed: “Tax Education, National 

Development and the Seminal Role of 

the Media”, said that rather than increase 

taxes payable by Nigerians as being 

mulled by the federal government, 

government at all levels should broaden 

their tax base by bringing more people 

in the formal and informal sectors into 

the tax net. 

Speaking on ‘Falling Crude Prices: 

How can effective taxes help limit the 

hardship’ , Balogun, who was the first 

female president of CITN charged the 

state governments to look inward and 

develop other products that could 

generate additional internally generated 

revenue that would help them cope well 

with the economic recession rather than 

depend solely on the monthly federal 

allocations. 

Dynamic 

tax reform 

She further called on the law makers 

and other highly placed government 

officials who earn heavy salaries to lead 

by example by paying taxes 

commensurate to what they earn. While 

noting that lawmakers were not 

exempted, she called for a more 

sustainable and dynamic tax reform 

system. She said: “Anybody that is 

thinking of increasing the VAT rate, is a 

suicidal attempt for our economy. Right 

now, people are suffering over the 

inability to pay for many tax required fees, 

ranging from the schools, rents, etc. 

“This is not the time to start asking tax 

payers for higher rate. But rather it is the 

time to expand the tax base and the tax 

net, to capture those who are not in the 

tax net at the moment. We have a 

misconception about who are the 

informal sector stakeholders. The 

informal sector are not just the traders, 

or the ‘Balogun, Ojo market traders', 

but rather those who do portfolio 

contracts and collect the juicy contracts 

from the government and are not 

charged adequately. The question I 

have for the Federal Inland Revenue 

Services, FIRS, is; to what extent are 

they using our withholding tax system 

to capture these people? This is 

because the federal government 

agencies that give out these contracts 

are obliged to withhold taxes. And so, 

how much of that do we leverage to be 

able to attract taxes from those informal 

sectors and not collecting much taxes 

from employees, though I am not 

saying that employees should not be 

taxed.” 

States’ IGR 

Balogun, further noted that there is 

need for the federal government to 

harness its local resources that will 

shore up development across the states 

away from dependency on the oil 

revenues allotted them from federal 

allocations. While regretting that about 

75 per cent of states in the country still 

depend on oil revenue, she said: “It is 

time to develop other products of our 

economy. The natural resources ranges 

from agriculture, tourism and 

entertainment industry. They should 

be improved upon as they employ 

quite a number of persons. Dubai for 

instance survives on tourism. Let us 

look inward, as well as other areas 

where we can actually improve their 

productivity and not just taxes. Also 

there is need to invest on exports and 

creating an attractive environment, as 

massive revenues are generated from 

export.” 

Meanwhile, on states with increased 

IGR, she identified Ogun, Anambra and 

Borno States, saying that they have 

done significantly well in developing 

other sources of revenue. For instance, 

she said that Ogun State increased its 

IGR by 49.42 percent from N17.57 

billion in 2014 to N34.65 billion in 2015, 

while Anambra achieved 29.32 percent 

increase from N10.45 billion in 2014 to 

N14.79 billion in 2015. Borno State on 

the other hand, increased its IGR by 

21.8 percent from N2.766 billion in


UK: Cameron quits as May takes over 

FORMER 

British 

Home Secretary, Mrs. 

Theresa May yesterday 

assumed the leadership 

of the United Kingdom 

after the exit of David 

Cameron, who said the 

job was the “greatest 

honour of his life”. 

As Cameron left 

Downing Street on 

Wednesday to tender his 

resignation to Queen 

Elizabeth II, he said: “It’s 

not been an easy journey 

and of course we’ve not 

got every decision right, 

but I do believe that our 

country is much stronger. 

Above all it was about 

turning around the 

economy.” 

The former home 

secretary travelled to 

Buckingham Palace 

where she officially 

accepted the Queen’s 

invitation to form a new 

government. 

She becomes the UK’s 

second ever female PM, 

after Margaret Thatcher. 

Earlier in the day, he 

made his final 

appearance in parliament 

as Britain’s leader, 

turning the normally 

raucous prime minister’s 

questions session into a 

time for praise, thanks, 

gentle ribbing and cheers. 

Prime Minister’s 

Questions, a weekly 

session, culminated in a 

standing ovation for the 

49-year old, who is 

leaving office after voters 

rejected his advice and 

decided to leave the 

European Union 

“I will miss the roar of 

the crowd. I will miss the 

barbs of the opposition,” 

Cameron said in 

parliament, promising to 

watch future exchanges 

as a regular Conservative 

Party politician on the 

back benches. 

Cameron also poked 

fun at the leadership 

turmoil going on in the 

Labour Party, telling 

opposition leader Jeremy 

Corbyn that the Tories 

have had “resignation, 

nomin-ation, competition 

and coronation” while 

Labour is still working out 

its leadership rules. 

“Those phone calls from 

German Chancellor 

Angela] Merkel and 

[French President 

Francois Hollande will be 

very interesting in context 

of the looming Brexit - a 

British exit from the EU.” 

May’s new cabinet is 

expected to include a 

minister in charge of 

implementing Brexit. 

May, who backed 

remaining in the EU, will 

also be expected to reward 

prominent campaigners 

for a “leave” vote with key 

jobs. 

Observers are keen to 

see if she appoints former 

London Mayor Boris 

Johnson and Justice 

•Advises May to be close to EU 

•New PM promises better Britain 

•Appoints Chancellor, Foreign Sec, 

Brexit Minister, Home Sec 

*Theresa May was applauded as she entered 10 Downing Street for the first 

time as PM 

Secretary Michael Gove, 

one-time Conservative 

leadership contenders who 

jointly headed the “leave” 

campaign before Gove 

turned on Johnson. 

There is also speculation 

that May, Britain’s second 

female prime minister - 

after Margaret Thatcher - 

will boost the number of 

women in top posts. 

“My advice to my 

successor, who is a brilliant 

negotiator, is that we 

should try to be as close to 

the European Union as we 

can be for the benefits of 

trade, cooperation and of 

security,” Cameron told 

parliament. “The 

Channel will not get any 

wider once we leave the 

European Union, and that 

is the relationship we 

should seek.” 

Who is Theresa May? 

Theresa Mary May is 

the Member of Parliament 

for Maidenhead 

andBritain’s new Prime 

Minister. 

She entered Parliament 

in 1997 and under Prime 

Minister David Cameron 

My advice to my 

successor, who is 

a brilliant 

negotiator, is that 

we should try to 

be as close to the 

European Union 

as we can be for 

the benefits of 

trade, 

cooperation and 

of security, 

has been the longestserving 

Home Secretary 

in 50 years. 

Her early years 

Vicar’s daughter Mrs 

May was born on 

October 1, 1956, in 

Eastbourne, Sussex. 

She grew up in 

Oxfordshire to parents 

Reverend Hubert Brasier 

and his wife, Zaidee. Her 

father died in a car 

accident in 1981 and she 

lost her mother months 

later. 

Mrs May was educated 

at Wheatley Park 

Comprehensive School 

near Oxford, before 

gaining a place at St 

Hugh’s College, Oxford 

where she read 

geography. 

She started her career 

at the Bank of England 

where she stayed for six 

years, before moving to 

the Association for 

Payment Clearing 

Services (APACS). 

She began her political 

career stuffing envelopes 

at her local Conservative 

Association before 

becoming a councillor in 

the London Borough of 

Merton from 1986 to 1994. 

She later headed to 

Westminster as MP for 

Maidenhead in 1997. 

She is married to 

banker Philip May and 

has no children. The 

couple, who have a shared 

love of cricket, met at a 

Conservative Association 

dance party andhave 

been married for 36 years. 

They live in Sonning, 

Berkshire. 

Mrs May is truly the 

quiet woman of British 

politics. The Home 

Secretary played a clever 

hand during the EU 

referendum by staying out 

of the fray and letting 

events play out around 

her. 

In an interview with the 

BBC she gave a taste of 

which direction the Party 

could go under her 

leadership when she 

made a clear call for 

“further reform” to EU free 

movement rules. 

Life outside of politics 

Appearing on BBC 

Radio 4’s Desert Island 

Discs, Abba’s Dancing 

Queen and Walk Like A 

Man, from the musical 

Jersey Boys, were among 

her picks. 

The fashion-conscious 

politician, known for her 

love of kitten heel shoes 

and designer outfits, chose 

a lifetime’s subscription to 

Vogue as her luxury item 

to take to the island. 

She also enjoys 

occasional mountain walks 

and 

culinary 

experimentation - she 

owns more than 100 

cookbooks. 

Mrs May is a 

practising member of the 

Anglican church, but said 

it was “right that we don’t 

flaunt these things here in 

British politics”. 

Mrs May has Type 1 

diabetes which means 

she must inject herself with 

insulin at least twice a day 

for the rest of her life. 

Political experience 

•Councillor, London 

Borough of Merton 1986- 

94 

•1992 parliamentary 

candidate NW Durham 

•1994 parliamentary 

candidate in the Barking 

by-election 

•MP for Maidenhead 

1997 to present 

•Shadow education 

secretary 1999-2001 

•Shadow transport 

2001-2003, Conservative 

Party Chairman 2002-3 

•Shadow transport 2003- 

4 

•Shadow culture media & 

sport 2004-5 

•Shadow leader of the 

House of Commons 2005- 

9 

•Shadow work & pensions 

2009-10 

•Home Secretary 2010- 

2016 

•Prime Minister 2016- 

What May is proposing 

Theresa May will barely 

have time to unpack her 

bags before she will face 

her first test - who she will 

choose to sit alongside her 

around the Cabinet table. 

The most important 

appointments - chancellor, 

foreign secretary and 

home secretary - are 

expected to be announced 

on Wednesday with a 

fuller government 

reshuffle following over 

the next couple of days. 

Mrs May will be 

expected to reward allies 

who supported her in the 

leadership contest but also 

maintain a balance 

between Brexiteers and 

Remainers in the Cabinet. 

She will need to find room 

for some new faces while 

also maintaining a core of 

experience. 

Mrs May has floated the 

idea of a new government 

department to take day-today 

charge of negotiating 

the UK’s exit from the EU 

- to be headed by someone 

who campaigned to leave 

in the referendum. Chris 

Grayling, a prominent 

Brexiteer who supported 

her leadership bid, acting 

as her campaign manager, 

has been touted as a 

possible candidate for this 

role. Liam Fox, another 

Leave supporter who got 

behind Mrs May, after his 

own leadership bid failed, 

will also have hopes of a 

top job. 

Brexiteers would also be 

keen to see Andrea 

Leadsom rewarded with a 

prominent role, after 

giving way to Mrs May in 

the leadership contest, 

although the crucial role of 

chancellor could go to 

someone with more 

experience. May ally and 

Remainer Philip 

Hammond, currently 

foreign secretary, is seen 

by some as the favourite. 

Then there is the 

dilemma of what to do with 

some of the “big beasts” of 

the party, such as George 

Osborne, Michael Gove 

and Boris Johnson. Will 

they want to stick around 

and serve under her given 

each had leadership 

ambitions of their own? 

How can you have a new 

PM without an election? 

British prime ministers 

are not directly elected - 

they become head of 

government by virtue of 

leading a party that can 

command a majority in the 

House of Commons. 

So when the party 

leader, in this case David 

Cameron of the 

*May visits Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace 

where she officially accepted the Queen’s invitation to 

form a new government. 

*David Cameron (L) and his wife, Samantha 

Cameron steps out of 10 Downing Street in central 

London yesterday with their children Nancy, 

Florence and Arthur Elwen 

Conservatives, resigns, his 

successor automatically 

becomes prime minister. 

In some cases, a new 

leader may decide to seek 

their own mandate by then 

calling a general election. 

But there is no 

requirement to do so. 

Some may remember 

that Labour’s Gordon 

Brown didn’t go to the 

public after succeeding 

Tony Blair in 2007. 

And the of 2011 now 

makes it more difficult to 

have an early election. 

This means new 

Conservative leader 

Theresa May could 

govern until 2020 before 

a general election is held.


Pogba, Man U agree terms over 

£100m move 

JUVENTUS legend, 

Gianluca Zambrotta, 

has urged the Bianconeri 

to cash in on 

£100million Paul Pogba, 

amid reports the 

midfielder has agreed a 

£208,000-a-week deal 

with Manchester 

United. 

Jose Mourinho is 

desperate for the 

Frenchman to follow 

Eric Bailly, Zlatan 

Ibrahimovic and 

Henrikh Mkhitaryan 

through the Old Trafford 

door. 

And the move is 

edging ever closer, with 

Spanish daily MARCA’s 

claims Pogba has agreed 

personal terms. 

Juve hero, Gianluca 

Zambrotta, is in no doubt 

as to what the club 

should do. 

The 2006 World Cup 

winner insists the Italian 

champions should sell 

Pogba and spend the 

proceeds on “other 

champions” — just as 

they did when Real 

Madrid broke the world 

record transfer fee to 

sign Zinedine Zidane 

from Turin in 2001. 

Speaking to Goal, he 

said: “I remember when 

I was playing with 

Juventus and Zinedine 

Zidane was there. 

“They sold him to Real 

Madrid for a record fee 

and with this money they 

bought [Gianluigi] 

Buffon, [Lilian] Thuram 

and [Pavel] Nedved. 

“So, even if Juventus 

have to sell Pogba, they 

could buy other 

champions.” 

Continues from BP 

resolution arising from 

the motion brought 

before the floor under 

matters of urgent public 

importance sponsored 

by Danburam Nuhu 

(APC-Kano), decried the 

non provision of funds to 

Team Nigeria to begin 

preparations ahead of 

the Games scheduled to 

kick off from August 5. 

He expressed concern 

that athletes were not in 

camp few days to the 

commencement of the 

Games, lamenting that 

late preparation 

hampered the country’s 

performance in previous 

competitions. 

He stated that since 

there was budgetary 

provision to enable the 

country participate in 

•Mikel 

Team Nigeria 

the Olympics, funds 

should be released to 

enable athletes compete 

favourably, adding that 

the immediate release of 

funds to commence 

preparations will 

promote winning spirit 

of the team 

According to him, 

“The fund required to 

participate in the 

Olympics was captured 

in the 2016 

Appropriation, which 

was passed by the House 

in March and signed 

into law since May 2016 

yet not released to the 

Ministry of Sports. 

“This kind of 

preparation and 11th 

hour release of funds 

usually mars the 

performance of Team 

Nigeria.” 

Eagles 


Algeria, Cameroon 

and Nigeria in Group B. 

However, Shinde says 

the players must just 

believe in their abilities 

and give their best. 

“Yes it is a group of 

death but we shouldn’t 

have mental blocks 

otherwise we will defeat 

ourselves. Zambia 

should not be the 

underdogs in this 

group,” Shinde said 

“We should ensure 

that we collect maximum 

points in all our home 

games. Our home 

ground must be a 

slaughter house. 

“Equally the players 

should learn to put in 

their best. We can say all 

these things but what 

about the commitment 

from the players. 

“I hope these boys can 

come to the party and 

realise they are carrying 

the nation’s banner, 

“Let’s galvanise 

ourselves. With proper 

team selection and good 

preparations we can 

compete.” 

Meanwhile it is not 

clear yet whether coach 

George Lwandamina 

will lead the team during 

the qualifiers as the 

chase for a new coach is 

underway. 

On the other hand, excoach 

Patrice Beaumelle 

turned down an offer 

from the Football 

Association of Zambia to 

return to the country. 

Philippe Troussier and 

Dario Bonetti are some 

of the names linked to 

the coaching job to 

replace Lwandamina. 

Sports betting: FG, states proffer 

solution on double taxation 

THE issue of double 

taxation in the 

Nigerian sports betting 

industry may soon be 

resolved as federal and 

states representatives 

have agreed to proffer a 

solution to the lingering 

problem. 

Operators of sports 

betting companies in the 

country last month in 

Lagos lamented the issue 

of double taxation by the 

Federal Government and 

states at a summit 

organised by the 

Association of Nigerian 

Bookmakers, saying it was 

killing the industry. 

Akin Alabi, founder of 

NairaBet.com and Acting 

Galatasaray boss loses interest in Mikel 

G ALATASARAY 

have cooled their 

interest in Chelsea’s 

defensive midfielder John 

Obi Mikel. 

The daily Turkish 

newspaper AMK have 

stated that Galatasaray boss 

Jan Olde Riekerink has 

instructed the board to look 

at other options as Mikel 

does not fit into his plans 

for season ahead. 

This is despite The 

Nigerian international 

winning the Champions 

League, Europa League, 

two Premier League titles, 

four FA Cups and two 

League Cups for Chelsea. 

The experienced 

midfielder has also had 

interest from Galatasaray 

but reportedly turned 

down a £110k-a-week 

offer from the Lion’s back 

in January. 

Nigeria Cup: Organising committee 

plans big for 20th edition 

By Chinwe Okeke 

AS preparations for 

the 20th Nigeria 

Cup gathers momentum, 

Chairman of the 

organizing committee, 

Bayo Alli has said that 

this year’s edition will 

be a special one even as 

he appealed to well 

meaning Nigerians, 

members of Ikoyi club 

and especially corporate 

organizations for 

support. 

Speaking in a chat with 

newsmen during the 

week, Alli said the 

appeal became 

necessary so as to 

enable the organizers 

raise needed fund to 

execute the programmes 

already earmarked for 

the event. 

While saying this 

year’s edition will be 

unique, he added that 

the organizing 

committee has promised 

value for all members of 

the club, sponsors and 

corporate Nigeria. “A 

Nigerianized Nigeria 

Cup is what we will see 

come October 1st”, he 

said. 

The Express states that 

Chelsea want £7.7 million 

on Mikel if he is to leave 

over the summer transfer 

market. The 29-year-old 

has just a year remaining 

on his contract and Antonio 

Conte has yet to make a 

decision on his future. 


Dallas Cowboys 

sports. 

The NFL franchise is 

valued at $4billion 

(£3billion). 

La Liga duo Real 

Madrid ($3.6bn) and 

Barcelona ($3.5bn) are 

second and third 

respectively while the 

New York Yankees 

($3.4bn), at No.4, are 

the most valuable 

baseball team. 

Manchester United, 

who complete the top 

five, are the highest 


provisionally given the 

responsibility ahead of 

Bangladesh’s playoff 

matches for the Asian 

Cup qualifiers. 

Saintfiet, who has 

coached Togo, Malawi, 

Yemen, Ethiopia, 

Zimbabwe and Namibia, 

confirmed the news of 

his taking over the 

coaching duties to the 

reporters and went to 

attend the practice 

session of his new 

apprentices. 

“When we sent him a 

draft of the contract, he 

was on the plane. We 

included some of our 

observations in the 

Chairman, ANB, said 

operators were in 

dilemma over whom to 

pay taxes. 

“Each state says they 

are in charge of gaming 

and betting and the 

National Lottery 

Regulatory Commission 

says they are the ones in 

charge. So who do we 

pay to? Do we pay twice? 

And that is not even 

talking about the 

company taxes that we 

pay. So, it’s strangling our 

businesses coupled with 

forex issues. So we need 

to be sure who we pay to,” 

Alabi said at the summit. 

But there appears to be 

light at the end of the 

tunnel after the summit. 

Precious Puanoni, a 

Special Assistant to the 

Director General, 

National Lottery 

Regulatory Commission, 

said the body was ready 

to collaborate with the 

state to resolve the issue. 

He expressed optimism 

that the National 

Assembly would “do the 

needful” in amending the 

lottery act to tackle the 

problem. 

Saintfiet 

ranking English team. 

Arsenal (No.23), 

Manchester City (28), 

Chelsea (36) and 

Liverpool (41) also make 

the list. 

The world’s most 

valuable basketball 

franchise, say Forbes, is 

the New York Knicks 

($3bn). 

In total, 27 NFL 

franchise feature in the 

list. There rest of the top 

50 is comprised of teams 

from European football 

(eight), NBA (eight) and 

MLB (seven). 

agreement. He told us 

he had sent it to his 

lawyer. 

“The official signing is 

yet to be done. But 

everything has been 

finalised verbally. There 

are some legal terms 

here, which he has to 

see…Hopefully, a deal 

can be struck in threefour 

days. 

“We have seen that he 

has been short-listed for 

Nigeria coaching job. 

We will take a decision 

according to the 

situation if he gets the 

job. But now we are 

employing him for three 

months,” Nabil said

Vanguard, THURSDAY, JULY 14, 2016 

Rio 2016: Reps order 

immediate release of 

funds to Team Nigeria 

•Tosin Oke 

TOD 

ODAY'S PUZZLE 

•Regina George 

How to Play Sudoku 

Place a number (1-9) in each blank cell. (No line can 

have two of the same number). 

Each row (nine lines from left to right), column, (also 

nine lines from top to bottom) and 3 X 3 block within a 

bold block (nine blocks) contains number from 1 

through 9. This means that no number can appear twice 

in any block, column or row. 

No mathematics is involved – no adding, subtraction, division 

or multiplication, just plain logic and your imagination. 

By Johnbosco 

Agbakwuru 

THE House of 

Representatives 

yesterday called on the 

Federal Government to 

immediately release 

funds to the Ministry of 

Sports to facilitate the 

country’s preparation for 

2016 Rio Olympic 

Games. 

It called on the 

Ministry of Sport, 

Accountant General of 

the Federation and 

Budget office to ensure 

the immediate release of 

funds and also 

mandated its Committee 

on Sports to invite the 

Minister of Sports and 

President, Nigeria 

Olympic Committee to 

ascertain the level of 

preparations and report 

back within one week. 

The House in a 

Continues on Page 47 

YESTERDAY'S 

ANSWERS 

Eagles must fall in Lusaka! 

•Ex-Zambia international 

FORMER Zambia 

and Nkana FC 

midfielder Jericho 

Shinde has sent a word 

•Saintfiet 

Dallas Cowboys overtake Real as 

world’s most valuable sports team 

THE 

Dallas 

Cowboys have 

overtaken Real Madrid 

as the world’s most 

valuable sports team. 

That is according to 

Forbes Magazine, who 

have compiled a list of 

the top 50 teams from all 


ACROSS 

1 Wish (6) 

5 Summit (4) 

8 Store (5) 

9 Conifer (3) 

10 Clergyman (4) 

11 Monster (4) 

12 Musty (5) 

13 Named (6 

16 Bearing (4) 

18 Close (4) 

20 Marry (3) 

22 Posed (3) 

23 Silence (3) 

24 Travel (4) 

25 Pace (4) 

28 Trader (6) 

30 Last (5) 

32 Peruse (4) 

33 Dale (4) 

34 Newt (3) 

35 Yielded (5) 

36 Fastened (4) 

37 Reviser (6) 

DOWN 

1 Fault (6) 

2 Ambled (8) 

3 Recover (6) 

4 Satisfied (9) 

5 Protract (7) 

6 Border (4) 

7 Retain (4) 

8 Possesses (3) 

14 Deterred (9) 

15 Droop (3) 

17 Consume (3) 

19 Soonest (3) 

20 Intelligence (3) 

21 Stripped (6) 

26 Stripped (6) 

27 Bomb-hole (6) 

29 Worry (4) 

30 Confront (4) 

31 Guided (3) 

ACROSS: 3, Essay 9, Target 10, Meddle 11, 

Latin 12, Arid 15, Sect 17, Deleted 20, Ray 21, 

Demon 23, Idea 25, Want 26, Rigid 28, Red 30, 

Towered 33, Edit 35, Dine 36, Civic 38, Abroad 

39, Latent 40, Dozen. 

of encouragement to his 

ex-Chipolopolo 

teammates ahead of the 

2018 FIFA World Cup 

Qualifiers. 

Shinde is quoted by the 

Lusaka Times website 

saying the team must not 

label themselves 

underdogs in their 

group. 

Chipolopolo are in the 

toughest group of the 

qualifiers as they find 

themselves together with 


Bangladesh 

appoints Saintfiet 

TOM Saintfiet one of 

the coaches shortlisted 

by the Nigeria 

Football Federation for 

the job of the Super 

Eagles has been hired to 

coach the Bangladesh 

national team for three 

Team Value ($mil) 

Dallas Cowboys 4000.00 

Real Madrid 3645.00 

Barcelona 3549.00 

New York Yankees 3400.00 

Manchester United 3317.00 

New England Patriots 3200.00 

New York Knicks 3000.00 

Washington Redskins 2850.00 

New York Giants 2800.00 

Los Angeles Lakers 2700.00 

QUICK CROSSWORD 

YESTERDAY'S SOLUTIONS 

Pogba, Man 

U agree 

terms over 

£100m move 

•Pogba 

months. 

The Belgian arrived 

Dhaka on Tuesday. 

According to BFF 

member Kazi Nabil 

Ahmed the 42-year-old 

manager was 


DOWN: 1, Stead 2, Trail 3, Eel 4, Stated 5, 

Amid 6, Yen 7, Adder 8, Deity 13, Retired 14, 

Defer 16, Canteen 18, Debit 19, Cow 22, 

Naked 24, Air 27, Docile 28, Regal 29, Diary 

31, Riper 32, Lido, 36, Cad 37, Can. 

Printed and Published by VANGUARD MEDIA LIMITED, Vanguard Avenue, Kirikiri Canal, P.M.B.1007, Apapa. Phone: Newsroom: 018773962. Deputy Editor: 01-4548355. Advert Dept Hotline: 01- 

4544821. Abuja Advert Hotline: 09-2921024. E-mail: editor@vanguardngr.com, news@vanguardngr.com, letters@vanguardngr.com. Advert:advertproduction@yahoo.com 

Website: www.vanguardngr.com (ISSN 0794-652X) Editor: MIDENO BAYAGBON. Phone: 01-7742861, All correspondence to P.M.B. 1007, Apapa Lagos.

Dino Melaye, a disgrace to the Senate - Tinubu

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