12032017 - We will ensure forex speculators lose money

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PAGE 2—SUNDAY Vanguard, MARCH 12, 2017

SUNDAY VANGUARD, MARCH 12, 2017, PAGE 3


SUNDAY VANGUARD, MARCH 12, 2017 — PAGE 5 

From left: Former Gov. Peter Obi of Anambra State; his wife, Margaret; Linda 

Edwards, CEO Build Africa; and Prof Peter Tufano, Dean, Said Business School, 

Oxford University, UK, at Oxford African Forum, held on Friday. 

How we formed PDP military wing — IBB 

By Wole Mosadomi 

FORMER Head of 

State, Gen. Ibrahim 

Babangida, says there was a 

military wing of Peoples 

Democratic Party (PDP), 

narrating how it was formed 

and those behind it. 

Babangida explained the 

motive behind the formation 

which was to rule for 60 

years. 

Speaking when members 

of the Strategy and Inter-Party 

Affairs of the PDP, led by its 

Chairman, Professor Jerry 

Gana, visited him in his Hill 

Top residence in Minna, 

yesterday, the former 

Nigerian leader said from 

inception, the brains behind 

Glo delights subscribers at Kaduna International 

Trade Fair 

THE 

38th International 

Trade Fair began 

on Friday, February 24, 

2017 in Kaduna with thousands 

of subscribers trooping 

to the Glo stand to experience 

the numerous 

products and services offered 

by the telecoms operator. 

The stand which was declared 

opened on Monday 

February 27, has been a beehive 

of activities with both 

prospective and existing 

subscribers resident in Kaduna 

and the neighboring 

states trooping in and out. 

Conspicuously displayed at 

the Glo stands were different 

phones and products including 

Glo Huawei GR3, 

Glo 4G MiFis, 4G Modems, 

Glo Huawei Y5, Y3, Glo 3G 

Modems and MiFis, Imose 

handsets and e-Recharge. 

In a statement, Globacom 

stated that it has enough 

quality products and services 

to meet the needs of the 

subscribers visiting the 

stand, adding that some of 

the company services including 

Glo Campus 

Booster Plan, “buy-data-getfree-smart-phone” 

offer, 

Borrow Me Data, IDD 

Packs, 11k per Second 

and 

Double 

the military wing included 

him and some retired military 

officers. 

“From foundation stage, I 

saw PDP as IRA-Irish 

Republic Army. We are the 

military wing of the PDP. We 

took a lot of interest and when 

I say we, I mean my boss - TY 

Danjuma, Obj, myself, Gen. 

Aliyu Mohammed. I term us 

as IRA-military wing of PDP. I 

thank God we came up with 

the old concept and one of 

our counterparts then said that 

PDP will rule for 60 years,” 

he stated. 

Babangida said he was 

happy that the party was 

trying to settle their 

differences to be formidable 

again and threw his weight 

Free Tomorrow are on display 

for the benefit of the visitors. 

“Globacom has always 

been in the fore-front of providing 

high quality services. 

Here at the Kaduna International 

Trade Fair, we 

have numerous products 

and VAS services for the 

delight of our customers,” 

the company said, adding, 

“we encourage Nigerians to 

take advantage of our super 

fast real time 4G LTE technology 

for ultra high definition 

video download without 

buffering which comes at the 

most affordable rates.” 

While urging subscribers 

T A M B U W A L A I D E 

A I A E X T O L M 

S T U D T S L A M P 

T A C U S T O M S L 

E Y O O H O A K O 

E H S N O U T S P Y 

G L E A M S R O L 

L X A L O N G Y A 

O E T E B O N Y I 

A W L K E N T E O E 

N A I A D O E D O 

G S D O L L A R S V 

O A T H K E T O N E 

L A N G L E S A N 

A V I D D E S T R O Y S 

behind a two-party system, 

adding that two parties are a 

right choice for Nigerians. 

Babangida described PDP 

as an acceptable party 

because it had been accepted 

from “top to down” because 

its presence had been felt and 

accepted nationwide and 

therefore advised the 

members to work harder in 

order to rule again. 

Gana had told Babangida 

on the moves by the All 

Progressives Congress to 

pocket opposition parties in the 

country and therefore asked 

him to prevail on the present 

government to give the parties 

a free hand to operate. 

•Mallam Umar Yahaya, a former President, Kaduna 

Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture 

(KADCCIMA) (r), presenting an award of Best Telecommunication 

Exhibitor to a Glo representative, Olufemi 

Akinkuowo (m), and Samuel Musa, during the Kaduna 

International Trade Fair. 

to make utmost use of the 

opportunity of getting free 

smart phones in the “buydata-get-free-smart-phone 

promo,” Globacom said a 

smart phone with the full 

complements of a 13 Megapixel 

camera, 16 gigabyte 

memory and dual SIM compartment 

worth N75,000 

await a subscriber who buys 

data worth N75,000. 

Also, a subscriber who procures 

N60,000 4G plan will 

get eight mega pixel, 8GB 

memory and the dual SIM 

smart phone worth same 

amount, while a N48,000 

plan gives a subscriber a 

5MP, 8GB memory and dual 

SIM smart phone worth 

same amount. 

Speaking on the Glo offerings, 

a bureau de change 

operator, Abdulkareem Bello, 

who explained that he 

came to the Glo stand to 

have a first-hand knowledge 

of the Glo 4G LTE service 

stated that, “I’m marveled 

at the range of services on 

display at the Glo stand particularly 

my understanding 

of what the 4G service 

would do. I’m experiencing 

it for the first time and believe 

me, its super fast. I just 

acquired the 4G-enabled 

phone and SIM here at the 

fair.”

PAGE 6—SUNDAY VANGUARD, MARCH 12, 2017 

Seven feared dead in 

Benue renewed 

herdsmen, natives’ clash 

By Peter Duru, Makurdi 

From left: Oba Ewuare II of Benin, Ag. President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, Minister of State for 

Petroleum and Mr. Godwin Obaseki, Governor Edo State, during Osinbajo’s visit to Edo, last week. 

Grandmother on pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia 

arrested with cocaine 

By Evelyn Usman 

A 

57-year-old 

grandmother, who 

was on a pilgrimage to 

Jeddah, Saudi-Arabia, has 

been arrested with 1.595kg 

of cocaine, at the Murtala 

Muhammed International 

Airport, Lagos. 

The suspect,Odeyemi 

Omolara Morayo, a textile 

merchant at Balogun 

Market, Lagos, allegedly concealed 

the two parcels of white 

powdery substance that later 

tested positive to cocaine inside 

her luggage. 

Explaining how she was 

arrested, the National Drug 

Law Enforcement Agency, 

NDLEA, Commander at the 

Lagos airport, Ahmadu 

Garba, said: “Odeyemi 

Omolara Morayo, with a 

valid Egypt air ticket from 

Lagos to Saudi Arabia, has 

been arrested with 1.595kg 

of cocaine. The cocaine 

concealed in a false bottom 

of her bag, was discovered 

during routine check on 

passengers at the departure 

hall. We had to cut the bag 

open to recover the cocaine 

because of the way it was 

neatly concealed. She was 

immediately arrested and 

the case is currently under investigation.” 

In her statement to antinarcotic 

agents, Morayo 

claimed that her friend and 

customer introduced her into 

drug trafficking. 

In his reaction, Chairman/ 

Chief Executive of the 

NDLEA, Col Muhammad 

Mustapha Abdallah (retd), 

who described the suspect’s 

action as condemnable, said: 

“Smuggling cocaine to Saudi 

Arabia under any guise is 

condemnable. It is good that 

she was arrested here 

because drug trafficking 

attracts capital punishment 

in Saudi. Apart from saving 

her from execution in Saudi, 

the prompt arrest also 

protected our country from 

disrepute. The agency will 

not relent in the fight against 

illicit drug production, 

trafficking and abuse”. 

Ogbemudia to get state burial — Edo Govt 

*Tinubu, Igbinedion, Onolememen pay tributes 

By Simon 

Ebegbulem 

THE All Progressives 

Congress (APC) in Edo 

State, led by the state leader 

and immediate past governor 

of the state, Comrade Adams 

Oshiomhole; Governor 

Godwin Obaseki, yesterday, 

paid a condolence visit to the 

family of the late Dr Samuel 

Ogbemudia, just as the state 

government disclosed plans to 

liase with the family and Delta 

State government to commence 

plans for his burial. 

A member of the family, 

Gentleman Amegor, had disclosed 

to the visitors that the 

former governor of the defunct 

Midwest had requested 

that he would not want to be 

kept at the mortuary for too 

long, adding therefore that 

the family intended to fulfill 

his wish. 

The Deputy Governor of 

Edo, Comrade Philip Shaibu, 

represented Obaseki during 

the visit. Other APC leaders 

in the team include the immediate 

past deputy governor 

of the state, Dr Pius Odubu; 

state Secretary of the APC, 

Chief Osaro Idah; Deputy 

Speaker of the state Assembly, 

Elizabeth Ativie; Patrick 

Obahiagbon; Clem Agba and 

some commissioners under 

Oshiomhole’s administration. 

Shaibu, who spoke on the 

preparedness of the state government 

to give Ogbemudia 

a state burial, said, “My governor, 

Obaseki, said we are 

going to give our father 

Ogbemudia a state burial.” 

Addressing the family, 

Oshiomhole, who said he was 

particularly pained over the 

death of Ogbemudia, said , “I 

have enjoyed a long history 

of relationship with our 

leader. It is not flattering when 

i say to people that God sent 

Ogbemudia to come and lay 

foundation for us. 

Meanwhile, Asiwaju Bola 

Ahmed Tinubu has described 

Ogbemudia as a disciplined 

military officer. 

He praised Ogbemudia’s 

record of infrastructural development 

as governor of old 

Mid-Western Region, saying 

it was still being appreciated 

and talked about till today. 

In another tribute, a former 

Minister of Works, Arc 

Michael Onolememen, said 

Ogbemudia “stood tall like an 

iroko tree among his peers, 

and distinguished himself as 

a transformational Military 

Governor of the then Mid- 

Western State and later Governor 

of Bendel State, and accomplished 

many ‘firsts’ in the 

process.” 

Ogbemudia’s monumental 

achievements in 

theeducational, agricultural, 

sports and industrial 

development of the entire 

then Mid-Western 

State(Bendel State), the 

former minister said, attest to 

his unparalleled visionary 

and transformational 

leadership at the time. “Little 

wonder, Bendel State was the 

envy of all and remains a 

vivid reference point in 

infrastructural and socioeconomic 

development in the 

comity of states in the 

country”. 

Obasanjo kicks against politicisation of 

basic amenities, appointments 

*Extols the virtues of Fakeye 

By Clifford Ndujihe 

TO ensure good 

governance, 

national stability and 

development, former 

President Olusegun 

Obasanjo has stressed the 

need for visionary and 

foresighted leadership. 

He also wants Nigerians 

to emulate the virtues of 

the late Dr Gabriel 

Olubunmi Fakeye and 

the Church to play its role 

as ‘’a formidable outpost 

for the implementation of 

leadership and corporate 

governance especially in 

developing countries such 

as Nigeria.’’ 

Obasanjo kicked against 

politicisation of 

appointments and 

distribution of basic 

necessities of life. ‘’There 

are a few welfare 

responsibilities of the 

nation that should be 

‘politics free’ including 

education, justice and 

health. Appointments at 

the leadership levels 

should be based on 

competence, knowledge 

and experience. Any 

other consideration will 

be at best sub-optimal.’’ 

Deputy High Commissioner, British High 

Commission, Laural Beaufils (middle), 

flanked by the 14 finalists during the British 

Council Alumni Awards 2017 held at 

Intercontinental Hotel, Lagos 

AT least seven persons were feared dead in 

renewed battle between suspected herdsmen and 

natives at Mkgovur village in Buruku local 

government area of Benue State. 

Sunday Vanguard gathered that the battle, which 

erupted on Friday, forced many in Buruku and 

neighboring Gboko local government areas to flee their 

homes for fear of being killed. 

“It all started on Friday when the herdsmen 

forcefully entered our village to graze on farmland 

but they were resisted by our youths”, an eye witness 

said. 

“They left only to mobilize and storm our village in 

large numbers, shooting sporadically and chasing us 

from our houses, 

“As we speak about seven people have been killed 

while many are still unaccounted for”. 

When contacted, the state Chairman of Maiyatti 

Allah Cattle Breeders Association, Alhaji Garus 

Gololo, said the invaders were not indigenous Fulani. 

“They came from Taraba and went to Mkgovur village 

on Friday but were resisted by the villagers”, Gololo 

said. 

Gunmen abduct Ekiti govt official 

in Edo, demand N20m ransom 

By Rotimi Ojomoyela 

CIVIL servants in Ekiti State are yet to come to 

terms with the abduction of one of their 

colleagues, Olaniyi Ibidunmoye, by gunmen in Ibillo, 

Edo State, on Wednesday. 

Ibidunmoye, a Director in the Office of Ekiti State 

Surveyor General and a pastor in Agape Christian 

Ministries, was said to be on his way back from a 

pastoral meeting held in Abuja when he was waylaid 

by kidnappers and taken to an unknown destination. 

Family sources said the captors have contacted the 

family, demanding a ransom of N20 million. 

Ibidunmoye was said to be traveling in his Sports 

Utility Vehicle when he encountered the gunmen and 

his whereabouts are presently unknown. 

The non-release of the senior civil servant four days 

after he was seized has heightened fears about his 

safety. 

We’ll uphold General Adebayo’s 

legacies — Fayose 

*Gov is ‘Omo Baba’, says Niyi 

Adebayo 

E 

KITI State Governor Ayodele Fayose says his 

administration will uphold the legacies of the 

late General Adeyinka Adebayo, a former Military 

Governor of the old Western State. 

He stated this, yesterday, in Ikeja, Lagos, when 

he paid a condolence visit to the family of the 

deceased. 

In a statement by the governor’s Chief Press 

Secretary, Mr Idowu Adelusi, Fayose said the late 

General was a many of many parts who wielded 

power with humility. 

Fayose also called on the family to let the Ekiti 

State Government know the update on the burial 

arrangements. 

A son of the deceased, who is also the first civilian 

governor of Ekiti State, Otunba Niyi Adebayo, in 

his remarks, described Governor Fayose as ‘Omo 

Baba’ (Daddy’s son), saying Fayose and his late 

father had good rapport. 

Ugwuanyi appoints Senior 

Advocate as ENSIEC Chairman 

GOVERNOR Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State 

yesterday approved the appointment of a Senior 

Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Dr. Michael Ezeugwu 

Ajogwu as Chairman of the Enugu State Independent 

Electoral Commission (ENSIEC). 

Other members of the Commission, according to a 

statement by the Secretary to the State Government, 

Dr. Gabriel Ajah include: 

Hon. David Okeke Ngene - Member 

Engr. Mrs MaryRose Obiageli Abba - Member 

Nwabueze Charles Ogbodo - Member 

Dr Green E. Anike-Nweze - Member 

Mr Nnamah, Tagbo Ozoemenam - Secretary. 

The names of the Appointees have been forwarded 

to Enugu State House of Assembly for confirmation, 

accordingly. 

Enugu State is in the hands of God!

TIMELINE 

SUNDAY VANGUARD, MARCH 12, 2017, PAGE 7 

2016 VANGUARD PERSONALITY OF THE YEAR AWARDS 

From right: Chief Edwin Clark, his wife and Aremo Olusegun Osoba. 

EMEFIELE, CBN GOV, WARNS 

‘We will ensure forex speculators 

lose money’ •Traces pressure on Naira to criminal activities 

By Emeka Anaeto, 

Babajide Komolafe and 

Peter Egwuatu 

GOVERNOR, Central 

Bank of Nigeria (CBN), 

Mr. Godwin Emefiele, 

yesterday, attributed the 

pressures on exchange rate in 

the parallel market to illegal 

and criminal activities of 

some individuals. 

Emefiele stated this while 

receiving the Vanguard 

Newspaper Personality of the 

Year Award at a colourful event 

held in Lagos. 

He also urged Nigerians to 

embrace the wave of 

nationalism sweeping 

across the globe as 

exemplified by the Brexit 

vote in Britain and election 

of Donald Trump as 

President of United States. 

In response to calls for the 

free float of the naira 

exchange rate in order to 

address the gap between the 

interbank and parallel 

market exchange rates, 

Emefiele said: “Even a 

simple Purchasing Power 

Parity analysis will conûrm 

that the Naira is not as weak 

as the rate in the parallel 

market is suggesting. Even 

if one were to allow for risk 

pricing and other 

uncertainties, it does appear 

that there is no basis in our 

economic fundamentals to 

support the prevailing 

exchange rate at the 

parallel market. The only 

logical explanation to the 

high rates in that market 

therefore is that a lot of 

illegal and criminal 

activities are being carried 

out there. 

“Given this scenario, the 

CBN cannot sit idly bye and 

allow such faceless and 

criminally minded people to 

destroy the currency under 

the guise of a free ûoat as is 

being canvassed by some so 

called experts.” 

Defending the foreign 

exchange restrictions 

imposed on some the 41 

items, Emefiele said: “Let 

me also take this 

opportunity to speak on the 

Bank’s policy on the socalled 

41 items. As I have 

hinted in previous 

paragraphs, this policy was 

basically borne out of 

necessity to conserve 

foreign exchange. I know 

that no policy is cast in stone 

and hence, we may have no 

need for it someday in this 

country. But, policymakers 

across this country need to 

pay attention to global 

trends and ensure that they 

reûect upon our strategy and 

thinking. 

Given the new realities of 

nationalist and populist 

sentiments sweeping across 

the world the calls from 

certain quarters for a 

reversal of this policy is 

quite saddening. 

“And here at home, this 

policy has been used to 

achieve signiûcant 

sufficiency in cement, a 

product whose importation 

could have been costing us 

over US$3.2 billion in FX 

Reserves annually. In effect, 

therefore, this policy needs 

to be supported not just in 

response to the pressure on 

the Naira but as an 

opportunity to change the 

economy’s 

resuscitate 

structure, 

local 

manufacturing, and expand 

job creation for our citizens. 

“Let me assure everyone 

listening that the CBN is 

acting in the best interests 

of ordinary Nigerians, 

regardless of the noise from 

the few entrenched interests 

whom our policies may be 

hurting. 

Let me also reiterate the 

central bank’s willingness, 

determination, and 

capacity to continue to meet 

all legitimate transactionbased 

FX demands in the 

market. I obviously cannot 

be of help to people or 

businesses who are into 

speculative FX demand. My 

promise instead to this 

group, whether foreign or 

local, is that the CBN will 

make sure they lose 

money!” 

On the challenge 

of rising inflation, high 

interest rate, and declining 

Gross Domestic Product 

(GDP), Emefiele said: “In 

view of the fact that our 

current episode of 

inûationary pressure is 

coinciding with contracting 

economic growth, we have 

to recognize the 

dilemma it poses to 

policymaking. 

“This is because no single 

macroeconomic policy can 

address rising inûation and 

slow 

growth 

simultaneously, because 

ûghting inûation may 

require implementing 

policies that might, in the 

short term, be inimical to 

economic growth, whereas, 

adopting expansionary 

policies to stimulate growth 

usually worsen inflation”. 

Ceremony brings Sheriff, PDP traducers 

under same roof 

By Dapo Akinrefon, 

Charles Kumolu and 

Gbenga Oke 

Yesterday’s Vanguard 2016 

Personality of the Year 

Awards ceremony held amid glitz 

and glamour with some of the 

country’s leading personalities in 

attendance. 

Even before the occasion 

commenced at 7.00 p.m., the 

Eko Convention Hall venue was 

practically overflowing with all 

seats taken. 

Politicians of all tendencies were 

there including leading lights of 

the two major factions of the 

Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, 

with National Chairman, 

Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, and his 

traducers from the mainstream 

led by Chief Olabode George 

gathered under the same roof. 

Editor-in-Chief of Vanguard, 

Mr. Gbenga Adefaye, who 

welcomed dignitaries on behalf 

of his publisher, Mr. Sam Amuka, 

said the ceremony was in 

continuation of the Vanguard 

spirit of recognising excellence in 

the professions saying, 

“In our usual tradition, we have 

meticulously handpicked these 

highly motivated individuals who 

have shone through challenging 

times and have gone beyond their 

call of duties for the sake of 

service.” 

The award ceremony which 

had former governor of Cross 

River State, Mr. Donald Duke as 

Chairman, kicked off with the 

recognition of the services to 

mankind rendered by some of the 

country’s leading lights. 

Gen. Yakubu Gowon, Alhaji 

Bamanga Tukur, Chief Emeka 

Anyaoku, Mr. Pascal Dozie, 

Anthony Cardinal Okogie, Chief 

Edwin Clark and Alhaji Isa 

Funtua were honoured with 

Lifetime Awards. 

In memorable recollection of 

his services to the country, 

practically all men and women 

present at the Eko Convention 

Hall rose in applause for Gowon 

as he was called upon to receive 

his award from the duo of 

Vanguard Chairman, Mr. Sam 

Amuka, and a former governor 

of Ogun State, Chief Segun 

Osoba. 

The event was also an 

opportunity for cultural bonding 

as Igbo traditional dancers came 

6-7 pm—Musical interlude 

7pm—Rendition of the National Anthem 

7:05pm—Ace comedian, Teju Babyface, introduces guests 

7:10—General Manager/Editor-in-Chief, Vanguard newspapers, Mr Gbenga 

Adefaye, gives opening remarks 

7:25—A former governor of Cross River State, Mr Donald Duke, gives his speech 

7:35—Musical interlude 

7:50—Alhaji Bamanga Tukur receives Lifetime Achievement Award 

7:52—Anthony Cardinal Okogie, Archbishop Emeritus of Lagos Catholic 

Archdiocese, represented by Father Gabriel Osu, receives Lifetime Achievement Award 

7:55—Rainmaker, Majek Fashek, performs 

8:15—Elder statesman, Chief Edwin Clark, receives Lifetime Achievement Award 

from a former governor of Jigawa State, Alhaji Saminu Turaki 

8:20— A former CommonWealth Secretary General, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, receives 

Lifetime Achievement Award from Chief Bode George 

8:30—GMD, Access Bank, Mr Herbert Wigwe, receives Banker of the Year Award 

8:35-Music sensation, Aramide, performs 

8:45—Founder of Diamond Bank, Dr Pascal Dozie, receives Lifetime Achievement 

Award 

8:47—Mallam Isa Funtua receives Lifetime Achievement Award from ThisDay 

publisher, Chief Nduka Obaigbena 

8:47— A former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, receives Lifetime 

Achievement Award from Vanguard Publisher, Sam Amuka, and a former governor 

of Ogun State, Aremo Segun Osoba 

9pm— Musical interlude 

9:05—Business magnate, Captain Idahosa Okunbo, receives Businessman of the 

Year Award 

9:15—Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr Godwin Emefiele, receives Personality 

of the Year Award 

9:30—Pop sensation, Dr Sid, dazzles the audience with his performance 

9:40—Kebbi governor, Alhaji Bagudu, receives Governor of the Year Award 

9:45—Cross River State Governor. Prof Ben Ayade, receives Governor of the Year 

Award 

9:55—Governor Ambode of Lagos State, represented by his deputy, Dr (Mrs) Idait 

Adegbule, receives Governor of the Year Award 

10:05—Emeka Anyaoku presents Governor of the Year award to Governor Willy 

Obiano, represented by the deputy governor, Dr Nkem Okonkwo 

10:15—Comedian, Kenny Black, cracks jokes 

ROLL CALL 

General Yakubu Gowon - a former military Head of State 

Prof. Ben Ayade - Governor of Cross River 

Abubakar Bagudu - Kebbi State governor 

Godwin Emefiele - Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) 

Ranti Adegbule - Deputy Governor of Lagos State (representing Governor Akinwumi 

Ambode) 

Chief Emeka Anyaoku - former Commonwealth Secretary General 

Chief Edwin Clark - elder statesman 

Bamanga Tukur - a former PDP Chairman 

Segun Osoba - a former governor of Ogun State 

Donald Duke - a former governor of Cross River State 

Erelu Abiola Dosunmu 

Dr Pascal Dozie - founder, Diamond Bank 

Chief Olabode George – PDP leader 

Saminu Turaki - a former governor of Jigawa State 

Senator Ali Modu Sheriff - a former governor of Borno State 

Senator Uzamere 

Pastor Ituah Ighodalo 

Captain Idahosa Okunbo 

Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu 

Alhaji Isa Funtua 

Dele Momodu - Ovation Publisher 

Senator Florence Ita-Giwa 

Chief Oba Otudeko – Honeywell Chairman 

Chief Alex Otti - a former MD/CEO, Diamond Bank 

Chief Comfort Obi 

Mr Jim OVIA – a former MD/CEO, Zenith 

Senator Ali Modu Sheriff - PDP Chairman 

Senator Daisy Danjuma 

Mr Nosa Igiebor - founding Editor-in-Chief, TELL Magazine 

Philip Oduoza - immediate past MD of UBA 

Chief (Mrs.) Bucknor Akerele – a former deputy governor of Lagos State 

Chief Cairo Ojoughoh – a PDP leader 

General David Jemibewon - a former military administrator of old Oyo State 

Kola Abiola 

Chief Nduka Obaigbena - Chairman of THISDAY Newspapers 

Senator Anthony Adefuye 

Senator Bassey Ewa Henshaw 

Eric Osagie – MD, Sun Newspapers 

Funke Egbemode - President, Nigeria Guild of Editors, and MD of New Telegraph 

Kayode Komolafe - DMD, This Day 

Steve Nwosu – DMD, Sun Newspapers 

Charles Aigbe - Head of Communications, Fidelity Bank 

to show solidarity not just to 

Anyaoku and Dozie, but 

remarkably with South-South 

leader, Chief Edwin Clark. 

Following the Lifetime Service 

Awards, honours were bestowed 

on Captain Hosa Okunbo as 

Businessman of the Year, 2016, Mr. 

Herbert Wigwe as Banker of the 

Year, 2016 and Mr. Godwin 

Emefiele as Personality of the Year, 

2016. Okunbo received his award 

as Bini dancers entertained on the 

sidelines. 

Governor Willie Obiano’s 

award was received on his behalf 

by his deputy, Dr Nkem Okonkwo, 

who thanked Vanguard for 

recognising what he described as 

the good things being done in 

Anambra State. 

“On behalf of my principal, I 

greet the publishers of Vanguard. 

If you do good things, you will 

realise that awards count. We have 

a leader in Governor Obiano who 

understands the private sector, 

who knows how to provide jobs 

and institutions. We have a 

Governor who understands what 

it is to pay salaries at the right time. 

I can guarantee you that if in the 

next four years, we have Governor 

Obiano at the helm of affairs, we 

will surely have a Dubai in 

Nigeria”. 

Receiving his award as 

Governor of the Year, Governor 

Ayade of Cross River State said it 

was a challenge for him to do 

more. “I accept this award as a 

catalytic energy to push me, to 

challenge me to do my very best 

because Vanguard is a credible 

organisation, I accept this award 

and dedicate it to the entire people 

of Cross River State, Nigeria and 

indeed Africa.” 

Kebbi State governor, Senator 

Abubakar Atiku Bagudu, said the 

award to him was made possible 

by many people. 

“So many people worked hard 

for this, I am humbled that 

Vanguard Newspapers 

acknowledged this and has been 

the medium supporting this 

initiative,” Bagudu said. 

Governor Akinwunmi 

Ambode of Lagos was 

represented by his deputy, Dr. Mrs. 

Ranti Adebule, who thanked 

Vanguard for the award given to 

her principal even as she 

promised that he would do more. 

Vanguard Editor, Mr. Eze 

Anaba, who gave the vote of 

thanks, appreciated the 

dignitaries who graced the 

occasion.



Faces at the Frontliners 2016 Vanguard Personality of the Year Awards held at Edo Hotel and Suites, Lagos, yesterday 

Photos by JOE AKINTOLA, KEHINDE GBADAMOSI, BUNMI AZEEZ , AKEEM SALAU, LAMIDI BAMIDELE AND AKINWUNMI IBRAHIM 

Chief John Odeyemi (right), presenting Vanguard Lifetime Achievement 

Award to Alhaji Bamanga Tukur 

Monsignor Gabriel Osu (left), receiving Lifetime Achievement Award on 

behalf of Anthony Cardinal Okogie from Major General David Jemibewon 

(retd) 

From left: Mr Sam Amuka, Publisher, Vanguard Newspapers; General Yakubu 

Gowon, a former Head of State and a recipient of Lifetime Achievement Award; 

Aremo Olusegun Osoba, a former Governor of Ogun State, and Alhaji Isa Funtua, 

a recipient of Lifetime Achievement Award. 

Chief (Mrs) Nike Akande (left) presenting Vanguard Businessman of the 

Year Award to Captain Idahosa Okunbo,while his wife watches 

From left: Chief Emeka Anyaoku with his Lifetime Achievement Award; wife, 

Bunmi; Chief (Mrs) Nike Akande and Chief Bode George. 

Senator Florence Ita-Giwa presenting Governor of the Year Award to Governor 

Ben Ayade of Cross River State. 

Dr Oluranti Adebule, Deputy Governor of Lagos State, receiving 

an award on behalf of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode. 

Cross section of guests



Faces at the Frontliners 2016 Vanguard Personality of the Year Awards held at Edo Hotel and Suites, Lagos, yesterday 

Photos by JOE AKINTOLA, KEHINDE GBADAMOSI, BUNMI AZEEZ , AKEEM SALAU, LAMIDI BAMIDELE AND AKINWUNMI IBRAHIM 

From left: Dr Ikem Okeke,Deputy Governor of Anambra State representing 

Governor Willie Obiano; Dr Paschal Dozie; Alhaji Isa Funtua; Chief Emeka 

Anyaoku; Mrs Rita Amuka; Mr Sam Amuka, Publisher, Vanguard 

Newspapers; General Yakubu Gowon; Mr Donald Duke; Alhaji Bamanga 

Tukur; Mr Godwin Emefiele; Captain Idahosa Okunbo; Governor Ben Ayade; 

Governor Atiku Bagudu, at Vanguard 2016 Awards held in Lagos yesterday. 

From left: Dr. (Mrs) Bisola Clark, her husband, Chief Edwin Clark and 

Chairman, Zenith Bank Plc, Mr. Jim Ovia 

Business magnate, Captain Idahosa Okunbo, and wife, Nosa 

From left: Founder, Diamond Bank Plc, Dr. Pascal Dozie; elder statesman, 

Alhaji Isa Funtua; Alhaji Mouktar Mohammed and a former Head of State, 

Gen. Yakubu Gowon (retd) 

From left: Mr Fola Adeyemi, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Information, 

Lagos State; Mrs Toro Oladapo, Director, Press/Public Affairs and Mr Habib 

Haruna, Chief Press Secretary to the Governor of Lagos State 

From left: Khaleel Bolaji, Air Commodore Ademola Onitiju and Tijjani Dandutse 

From left: Mr Emmanuel Ukeje, Special Adviser to the CBN Governor on 

Financial Markets; Isaac Okorafor, Ag. Director, Corporate Communications, 

CBN, and Ahmad Abdulahi, Director, Banking Supervision, CBN 

From left: Ebiere Helen Fumudoh, MD/CEO, TFS, Sec and Investment 

Co Ltd; Chief (Mrs) Adunni Udu, MD/CEO Acouns Nig Ltd; Dr Okon Akiba, 

Medical Director, Rabboni Hospitals Ltd, and Chief (Mrs) Kofo Bucknor- 

Akerele, a former deputy governor of Lagos State.





PAGE 14 — SUNDAY Vanguard, MARCH 12, 2017

SUNDAY Vanguard, MARCH 12, 2017, PAGE 15

PAGE 16— SUNDAY Vanguard, MARCH 12, 2017 

Satisfaction from sex 

toys not a bad idea 

— Ex Big Brother housemate, Ese Eriata 

BY ROTIMI AGBANA 

No doubt, evicted fake 

Big Brother Naija 

housemate, Ese Eriata, 

has big ideas about love, 

romance, and sexual 

satisfaction. Little 

wonder Big Brother 

specially hand-picked 

her alongside fake 

housemate, Jon, to storm 

the Big Brother house 

with the major task of 

putting the real 

housemates on their toes 

to bring their A-game to 

play in the reality TV 

show currently taking 

place in South Africa. 

In a recent chat with 

Potpourri, the model 

turned singer, who 

recently released her 

M 

avin 

debut single, Super Love, 

expressed her opinion 

about the use of sex toys 

to derive sexual 

satisfaction. To her, there 

is nothing wrong if a 

woman satisfies her 

libido with a sex toy, but 

she should make sure her 

man is in the know. 

“To me, I don’t think it’s 

a bad idea having a sex 

toy because it would 

reduce the level of 

cheating in relationships, 

but whenever you use sex 

Tiwa Savage scores 

Korede Bello’s debut 

album ‘Beloved’ high 

Records first lady, Tiwa Savage has 

expressed enthusiasm for Korede 

Bello’s debut album ‘Beloved’ which was 

released yesterday, Saturday, March , 2017. 

In a short video posted by Korede on his 

Instagram page, Tiwa Savage can be seen 

wearing a blue denim jacket and a hat 

expressing how much she appreciates Korede 

Bello’s album, congratulating him and going 

on to reveal she is incredibly proud of him. 

Tiwa remarked in the 23 seconds video; “So, 

I’m literally here listening to the final touches 

of the Beloved album; a few days before 

Korede drops it, and it’s incredible! I’m super 

excited! I can’t wait for you guys to 

experience it. Korede Mega Superstar, I love 

you – Congratulations!” 

The video has since amassed numerous 

views with hundreds of fans promising to 

purchase the album when it is out. She lauds 

Korede’s effort, declaring his craft as classic. 

‘Beloved’ has been available nationwide 

since yesterday. 

toys, you should always 

tell your man about it. I 

don’t think there is 

anything wrong for a lady 

having a sex toys”, the 

sensual singer, who 

recently returned to 

Nigeria after fulfilling her 

mission in the Big Brother 

house, believes that sex 

toys could help in the 

drastic reduction of crisis 

in relationships. 

The concert: Fela 

music can never 

die — Omawumi 

* As ticket sales begin 

As the count down begins to the most exciting concert 

this Easter, artistes have not held back in sharing their 

views on the late Fela Anikulapo-Kuti’s music. 

In a recent interview with internationally recognized singer/ 

actress/songwriter; Omawumi, the artiste could not help but 

express her immense admiration and love for Afrobeat legend 

and his music. 

“.... He is the creator of a genre of music; that kind of name 

doesn’t die! He used the only weapon he had, which was 

music. Fela’s music can never die,” she said. 

However, the organisers of the ‘Broadway Theatrical Concert 

Experience, Fela! The Concert’, SMOOTH FM have now 

announced the availability of tickets to the concert which will 

be live in Lagos this Easter, April 13, 14 and 15, 2017. 

Conceived by the iconic Bill T. Jones, the concert will star 

cast members of the Tony Award winning Broadway musical. 

Actress, Stephanie Linus, becomes 

UNFPA Regional Ambassador 

By Juliet Ebirim 

A-List Nollywood actress, Stephanie 

Okereke Linus was on Wednesday, 

March 8, 2017, unveiled as the UNFPA 

Regional Ambassador for West & Central 

Africa. The United Nations Population 

Fund made the appointment at the Eko 

Hotels and Suites, Victoria Island, 

Lagos. 

“It is my aspiration that access to 

reproductive health care for women and 

girls, especially family planning, will 

be seen not as a blessing to be wished 

for, but as a human right to be fought 

for,” said the elated Stephanie as she 

received the honour. 

She expressed willingness to partner 

with UNFPA in order to create an 

enabling environment for women, girls 

and every young person to fulfill their 

potential. “We fought for, not just 

because of equality, but because we are 

tired of women dying while giving birth; 

tired of teenage girls dropping out of 

school because they got pregnant too 

early; tired of women not having a 

choice to decide if, when and how many 

children they wish to have. I know I 

am tired of this. This is why I feel 

honoured to partner with UNFPA and 

to use my network to make these issues 

widely known” she said. 

As an ambassador of the UNFPA, 

Stephanie Linus will help raise 

awareness on these several issues. She 

will also help to encourage laws to 

protect the girl child as well 

as aid investments for young 

people. 

Some of her movie 

colleagues including Yemi 

Blaq, Femi Branch, Funke 

Adesiyan, Gabriel Afolayan 

were present to support her.


Networking/ 

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Dear readers, please note that we neither operate, nor are we an affiliate of any match–making agency in 

or outside the country. Any reader who transacts business with any one claiming to be our agent does 

so at his/her own risk. Our mission is only to provide a platform for social networking. 

Also note that neither Vanguard, nor Yetunde Arebi will be liable for any error in the publication of 

requests which may result in any form of embarrassment to any member of the public. We therefore 

request that text must be sent through at least one of the numbers for contact. This notice is necessary to 

enable us serve you better in our refreshingly different style. You can send your requests to 33055. For 

enquiries, text or call 08026651636 

relationship,aged 20 and 

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•Joe, 34, from PH, needs a nice 

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Sugar Cares 


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COMMON SEXUAL PROBLEMS AND THEIR NOVEL 

VELTY BASED SOLUTIONS (ADVER 

VERTORIAL) 

I had a great sex life years 

ago. Now I am 42 years and 

married with four children. I 

cannot remember the last 

time I had sex or felt like 

having sex - Fatima 

Fatima what causes lack of 

sexual desire in women, also 

known as hypoactive sexual 

desire disorder (HSDD) are 

many. Work, domestic 

stress, depression, sexual 

abuse, child birth, 

discomfort, fatigue, lack of 

emotional connection or 

satisfaction with your 

partner, dropping 

hormonal levels due to 

aging, health problems like 

fibroids, alcohol intake and 

certain medications as well 

can all cause it. 

You are not alone in this. 33 

percent of women from ages 18 

to 59 all experience a lack of 

sexual desire. So what you are 

experiencing is quite common 

but taking some time out to 

work on your sex life can help. 

Simply subjecting yourself to 

erotic images and fantasies can 

help distract your mind from 

some of the things preventing 

you from wanting to be sexual. 

Adult magazines, novels, 

films and sensual massage 

can all be very helpful. If you 

smoke and drink, quitting those 

habits can help too. 

Aphrodisiacs can also help 

especially if the problem is 

hormonal. A supplement like 

the Libigirl Pills can help 

make you desire intercourse 

again. So the solutions vary 

depending on the cause – Uche 

It is with a lot of excitement 

that I greeted the news of 

new products you wrote 

aboutmonths ago. Me I am 

interested in penis 

enlargement because my 

organ is quite small. After I 

read your article, I 

researched it a bit more and 

I was impressed to hear 

doctors say nice things 

about VigRx and Vimax 

penis enlargers. So I feel 

more confident about them 

but I don’t know which one 

to choose – Okey 

Depending on the reviews you 

read, some will tell you that 

VigRx is the best while others 

will say Vimax. But mostly, 

VigRx is ranked as the best. 

The most important thing 

however is that they are both 

very good and do the same 

thing so anyone you use is fine. 

But since you are having 

trouble making up your mind, 

I will say take VigRx penis 

enlarger but be sure to 

combine it with a Penis Pump 

to get up to four inches in 

length – Uche 

I received the Boss Rhino 

Gold I ordered last week 

Friday. I took it on Saturday 

and I have never 

experienced anything like it. 

This Monday morning I am 

on my way to work and I still 

feel like having sex. I am 

easily aroused even though 

I had sex like seven times 

between Saturday and 

Sunday. Anyway, just 

wanted to let you know – 

Okechukwu 

I am on your website trying 

to order the Vanessa 

Lubricant but I cannot see it 

– Linda 

Linda it is there. Call the 

numbers there to order by 

phone if you are not too 

familiar with online shopping 

– Uche 

Please I need a performance 

enhancer that is mild. I just 

need erection and I prefer 

gentle aphrodisiacs. 

Thanks – Maxwell 

Take Sex Volts Pills.It is a 

mild but effective erection 

enhancers with a lower 

grammage for people like you. 

Two capsules of each are still 

under 1,000 milligrams – 

Uche 

Please do you have the 

thrusting vibrators now 

and which ones do you 

have? Been waiting for it – 

Agnes 

We have the Thrusting 

Rabbit Stroker now and it is 

very good. We have it in purple 

and gold – Uche 

My problem is premature 

ejaculation and a friend of 

mine that you helped says 

you can help me too. He 

says I should ask for a 

spray like that – Chima 

That would be the LS Delay 

Spray. Yes you can go for it. 

Users have had very nice 

things to say about it – Uche 

That is all for today. The 

names of the people featured 

here have been changed for 

their privacy. Adults in need 

of these treatments/novelties 

can call us on 08171912551, 

08027901621 or 

07086754515 for help or visit 

www.zeevirtualmedia.comto 

place their orders with their 

computers or on their phones 

with thezee mobile 

shopping app. Zee Virtual 

Media delivers all over 

Nigeria. For enquiries email us 

at 

custserv@zeevirtualmedia.com- 

Uche Edochie, MD, Zee 

Virtual Media.


healthy living 

BY CHIOMA OBINNA 

March 9, 2017 was World 

Kidney Day, a day set aside 

for global awareness on 

the importance of kidney. The day was 

part of the campaign to urgently 

reduce the risk factors for chronic 

kidney disease, CKD, in the world. 

This year’s theme was “Kidney Disease 

& Obesity”. 

World Kidney Day promotes 

education on obesity and its 

association with kidney disease, 

advocating healthy lifestyle and 

health policy measures that make 

preventive behaviours an affordable 

option. 

Sunday Vanguard looks at the 

looming epidemic of kidney disease, 

the pains of getting treatment and the 

way out of the disorder. 

Statistics from the World Health 

Organisation (WHO) show that 

kidney and urinary tract diseases 

ranked 12 th on the list of major 

causes of deaths in Sub- Saharan 

Africa including Nigeria in 2012, 

with one million deaths. 

In Nigeria alone, nephrologists say 

at least 36.8 million Nigerians (23 

per cent), of the nation’s over 170 

million population, are suffering 

from various degrees of kidney 

disease. An estimated 17,000 new 

cases of kidney failure are diagnosed 

in the country with only 2,000 having 

access to life-saving dialysis. 

Most worrisome is the fact that 

children also fall victim to the 

disease. A study conducted at the 

Lagos University Teaching Hospital 

(LUTH) over a four-year period 

(2008-2011) showed that kidneyrelated 

diseases accounted for 8.9 per 

cent of paediatric admissions, with a 

prevalence rate of 22.3 admissions 

per 1,000 child admissions per 

annum. Yearly incidents also 

doubled during the study period. 

With the foregoing statistics, although 

WHO says about one in 10 people 

have some degree of CKD in 

Nigeria, one in seven Nigerians is 

affected. 

Kidney disease in medical circle 

means that the kidneys are damaged 

and cannot filter blood like they 

should. This damage can cause 

wastes to build up in the body. It can 

also cause other problems that can 

harm your health. For most people, 

kidney damage occurs slowly over 

many years, often due to diabetes or 

high blood pressure. When someone 

has a sudden change in kidney 

function—because of illness, or 

injury, or has taken certain 

medications—this is called acute 

kidney injury. This can occur in 

persons with normal kidneys or in 

someone who already has kidney 

problems. 

Anyone can develop kidney disease, 

regardless of age or race. 

The main risk factors for 

developing kidney disease are 

diabetes, high blood pressure, 

cardiovascular (heart and blood 

vessel) disease, and a family history 

of kidney failure. Out of these, experts 

say diabetes and high blood pressure 

are the most common causes of 

kidney disease. These conditions can 

slowly damage the kidneys. 

Unfortunately, early kidney disease 

has no signs or symptoms. Experts 

say you may not feel any different 

until your kidney disease is very 

advanced. Blood and urine tests are 

the only way to know if you have 

kidney disease. A blood test checks 

your glomerular filtration rate 

(GFR), which tells how well your 

kidneys are filtering. A urine test 

checks for protein in your urine. 

Havoc 

Today, kidney disease has 

continued to wreak havoc in 

communities across the country. 

Reports of Nigerians begging for 

alms to enable them have themselves 

treated in countries like India are 

common place in our national 

dailies, almost daily. 

Evidence abounds that more 

Nigerians are dying of kidney 

disease. Many notable Nigerians 

have succumbed to kidney disease. 

Ignorance kills kidney 

disorder patients 

•11 risk factors to avoid – Experts 

Kidney disease in 

medical circle means that 

the kidneys are damaged 

and cannot filter blood 

like they should 

Top on the list are Steve Kadiri, a veteran 

journalist, and Inspiration FM presenter Chaz 

B. Kidney disease is said to be one of the 

diseases that has dangerously dug a big hole 

in the pockets of many Nigerian families. 

Cases of families selling their properties to 

get their loved ones go through dialysis are 

everywhere. Dialysis is a treatment that filters 

and purifies the blood using a machine. It 

helps to keep the body in balance when the 

kidneys can’t do their job. 

The plight of patients 

Whither Nigeria in the fight against kidney 

disease? This is the million dollar question on 

the lips of many families. Many people are 

dying of kidney disease due to ignorance or 

cost of treatment. The challenge of managing 

kidney disease in Nigeria is basically finance, 

because there is no social support for kidney 

disease treatments from government; as we 

speak, the money comes from patients. The 

National Health Act is yet to be implemented. 

Despite the enormity of the pain and agony 

kidney disorder patients go through, the 

government is yet to prioritise it. A year ago, 

the worsening rise in cases of kidney disease 

was a top concern during one of the National 

Council on Health meetings, where it was 

disclosed that Yobe State accounted for 35 

per cent of the cases nationwide. Since then, 

there has not been any action at both state 

and national levels to tackle the deadly 

BY JOHNBOSCO AGBAKWURU 

National Association of Seadogs, NAS, 

has appealed to the federal and state 

governments to come to the aid of children 

suffering from autism spectrum disorder. 

The association has also taken up the 

challenge of taking care of the education of 

three children having the challenge. 

Speaking at a fund raising for the less 

privileged in Abuja, Kubwa Zone Chapter 

President of NAS, Samuel Ideagbon 

Abhulimen, appealed to government and the 

public to come to the aid of children with 

different disabilities to give them sense of 

belonging in the society. 

Abhulimen said, “The National Association 

disease. 

Although kidney disease is preventable and 

treatable, it is one of the most expensive disorders to 

treat and manage and, with the N18,000 minimum 

wage, the total lifetime cost of handling kidney 

disease in Nigeria is colossal. 

For instance, a kidney transplant goes for about 

N5 million to N8 million. Unfortunately, not many 

patients can afford it. Dialysis costs between N25,000 

and N30,000 per session, while most patients spend 

over N100,000 a week. One thing is that many of 

these patients do not have any inkling when they will 

be able to raise the money for transplant or find a 

suitable donor. 

According to the President, Nigeria Association of 

Nephrology, NAN, Dr. Ebun Bamgboye, in a 

presentation titled: ‘The looming epidemic of kidney 

failure in Nigeria: The magnitude of the problem’, 

the Federal Government should emulate the US 

government that spends about US$30 billion every 

year to look after patients with kidney failure. 

Bamgboye called for the prioritisation of treatment 

of kidney disorders by extending the period of dialysis 

under the National Health Insurance Scheme, 

NHIS, from six sessions (two weeks) to 36 sessions 

(three months). 

“Parents should take their children to hospital 

immediately any abnormality is noticed, rather than 

buying local herbs or taking them to native doctors. 

It has been discovered that local herbs are a major 

cause of kidney disease in Nigeria,” he warned. 

11 factors, including untreated microbial 

infections, especially urinary tract infections (UTI), 

diarrhoea, malaria, hepatitis, Human Immunodeficiency 

Virus (HIV)/Acquired Immune Deficiency 

Syndrome (AIDS), diabetes, hypertension, potassium 

bromate poisoning, teething powder, abuse of 

painkillers/ analgesics, particularly paracetamol, 

have been identified as responsible for the rising cases 

of kidney failure in the country. 

In a report, a consultant nephrologist, Dr 

Olugbenga Awobusuyi, also blamed the rising 

prevalence of CKD in Nigeria on the conditions 

such as uncontrolled diabetes and hypertension, 

explaining that the kidneys are endowed with 

functional reserves, which could prevent a patient 

from having any symptoms years after the disease 

might have set in. “In fact, this could delay symptoms 

until after 60 -70 percent of the kidney 

functions might have been damaged”, he 

added. 

Stages to seek medical care 

“CKD is preventable and many of the causes 

are treatable. If patients are diagnosed early 

enough, diabetes and hypertension can be 

well managed to prevent renal failure. This 

could be done by slowing down the 

deterioration rate of the kidney, thereby 

ensuring adequate management of the 

underlying conditions. Patients must always 

ensure they meet their doctors at the right time, 

as well as take their medications as prescribed. 

If this is done, there are chances that the rate 

of death associated with kidney failure would 

be reduced. 

“The kidney actually excretes water and 

other waste products from the body; regulates 

the internal environment, by making the 

system conducive for the internal organs, and 

once it starts failing to carry out these 

functions, then it’s a symptom of an ailment. 

“For instance, when a patient cannot 

eliminate the water he/she takes in, through 

sweat and urine, when he finds it difficult to 

pass out excreta, then there will be an 

accumulation of waste products in the body, 

which is an indication of kidney failure”. 

To another consultant nephrologist, Dr. 

Amisu Mumuni, it is better to avoid kidney 

disease at all costs. Mumuni, of Lagos State 

University Teaching Hospital, LASUTH, said 

although kidney transplant remains the 

utmost treatment for CKD, getting donors is a 

big challenge along with huge amount of 

money required to sustain dialysis. 

“Prevention is better than cure. If you have 

hypertension or you have a family history of 

hypertension, you should always check your 

blood pressure closely and be religious with 

your drugs by making sure that your blood 

pressure is monitored and controlled. The 

same thing is applicable to people who are 

diabetic as they must also watch their diets, 

do exercise, take a walk, avoid sedentary 

lifestyle, avoid alcohol, avoid smoking and 

food that contains excessive fat because fat 

doesn’t really work for kidney, it worsens 

complications and you also have to cut down 

intake of saturated fats.” 

Meanwhile, a study published in The Pan 

African Medical Journal in 2015, entitled: 

‘Prevalence of risk factors for chronic kidney 

disease among adults in a university 

community in southern Nigeria’, explained 

that the prevalence of CKD remains a global 

public health challenge, particularly in 

developing countries, like Nigeria, where 

people with the disease present late and may 

already be in need of renal replacement 

therapy. The study maintained that early 

detection of modifiable risk factors of CKD is 

a plausible strategy to reduce its prevalence 

and burden. 

According to the study, there is need for 

continuous education, regular screening for 

early detection and early intervention by risk 

factor modification to prevent and/or reduce 

the growing burden of CKD. 

However, in line with this year’s theme, the 

good news is that obesity, as well as CKD, is 

largely preventable. Education and awareness 

of the risks of obesity and healthy lifestyle, 

including proper nutrition and exercise, can 

dramatically prevent obesity and kidney 

disease. 

However, just as this year’s theme centres 

on kidney disease and obesity, health watchers 

are worried that with more Nigerians getting 

overweight, developing hypertension and 

diabetes, the looming epidemic of kidney 

failure in the country may continue unless 

urgent attention is paid to it. 

The health watchers also warned of the dire 

consequences of the inability of most patients 

to afford the high cost of treatment. 

NAS lifts three children suffering from autism spectrum disorder 

of Seadogs is a charitable organisation. It 

cares for humanity. We look at the less 

privileged children in secondary schools and 

we try to support them. 

“We look at children with disabilities who 

are willing to go to school. In this regard, we 

provide aid for them like wheel chairs. We 

also assist people with eye problems. 

“We closed 2016 by donating a wheel 

chair to a JSS3 student who was deformed. 

“There is also on-going scholarship 

programme for children who are not able to 

pay their school fees or exams like WAEC 

and NECO and we also support bright 

indigent students. “We do not only want to 

help these autism kids, we also want to draw 

the attention of children with autism and draw 

the attention of the public that there are less 

privileged children who have autism. 

“The children of the elite have this problem and 

they go to school freely and they get trained but 

these children of the less privileged also have the 

right to get good education.” 

Also speaking at the occasion, the Chairman of 

the NAS Fund Raising Committee for the Less 

Privileged, Chief Donatus Iyinbor, said, “We are here 

to take care of the autism children. We want to raise 

funds through this event and support their education. 

In our pilot scheme, we are going to support about 

two or three, then we will include more children. 

“The organisation was basically founded on the 

basis of taking care of the less privileged in the society 

and we intend to contribute our quota by ensuring 

that the less privileged have a better life”.


healthy living 

OBESITY 

Be healthy, not heavy 

BY SOLA OGUNDIPE 

Obesity means having far too 

much body fat. It’s about 

much more than your 

clothing size or how you 

look. It can seriously affect 

your health. Your whole body feels it, from 

your joints to your heart, blood pressure, 

blood sugar, and other systems. The extra 

fat cells produce inflammation and various 

hormones, which boosts your odds of 

chronic medical conditions. 

Obesity describes someone who is very 

overweight with a high degree of body fat. 

Being a little overweight may not cause 

many noticeable problems, but once you 

are carrying a few extra kilograms, you may 

develop symptoms that affect your daily life. 

Are you obese? 

Obesity is beyond being simply 

overweight. It’s very common — more than 

1 in 5 adults are obese. If you’re one of them, 

you can work to lose weight. Although it’s 

not easy, dropping some of those extra kilos 

— maybe fewer than you think — starts to 

turn things around for you. 

Body Mass Index 

The most widely used method to assess a 

person’s weight is the body mass index 

(BMI), which is your weight in kilograms 

divided by your height in metres squared. 

For adults, experts usually define obesity 

based on body mass index. If your BMI is 

between 25 and 29, you would be considered 

overweight; if between 30 and 40, you would 

be considered obese and if over 40, you 

would be considered very obese. 

What your BMI says 

If two people weigh the same amount but 

one is taller than the other, the taller person 

will have a lower BMI. To find your body 

mass index, plug your height and weight 

into a BMI calculator. 

If your BMI is: Below 18.5 you are 

underweight. If it is 18.5-24.9 you’re 

normal; 25-29.9 is overweight and 30 or 

higher is obese. If you’re obese, your doctor 

might talk about the categories of obesity: 

Obesity level l: BMI of 30-34.9 

Obesity level ll: BMI of 35-39.9 

Obesity level lll: BMI of 40 or higher 

(“morbid”) obesity 

Problems with BMI 

Body mass index doesn’t tell the whole 

story about your body, though. Your BMI 

doesn’t show whether your weight is fat or 

muscle. If you’re a super-fit athlete, your 

muscle might put you in the “overweight” 

or “obese” range. Or, if you’re elderly and 

have lost muscle mass over the years, your 

BMI could be normal, but you’re not in as 

good shape as you think. The formula also 

doesn’t show where your fat is located on 

your body. And it doesn’t consider differences 

among ethnic groups. 

As obese children also tend to be obese in 

later life, it is important for parents to set 

the right example for their children from 

an early age. If you are overweight or obese, 

visit your doctor to find out if you are at 

increased risk of health problems, and how 

you can safely lose weight. 

Underlying causes for obesity 

*certain medicine or a medical condition 

that causes weight gain, 

*your lifestyle particularly your diet and 

how much physical activity you do, and also 

whether you smoke, and how much alcohol 

you drink 

*how you feel about being overweight – 

for example, if you are feeling depressed 

about it or how motivated you are to lose 

weight 

*family history of obesity and other health 

conditions, such as diabetes 

As well as calculating your BMI, your 

doctor may also perform tests including 

measuring your blood pressure, the distance 

around your waist, as well as glucose (sugar) 

and lipid (fat) levels in your blood. 

Obesity is an important 

condition which causes 

significant morbidity 

and mortality through 

increased rates of type 

2 diabetes mellitus and 

heart disease, amongst 

other conditions 

Obesity vs overweight 

Being obese is different from being 

overweight. Obesity is an important 

condition which causes significant 

morbidity and mortality through increased 

rates of type 2 diabetes mellitus and heart 

disease, amongst other conditions. It can 

also cause sleep disturbances and lead to 

reduced fertility rates. 

Obesity and pain 

There now appears to be a strong link 

between obesity and pain. Studies show that 

obese people are much more likely to feel 

light to intense pain in many parts of the 

body. Scientists do not understand exactly 

how or why obesity causes pain, but it is 

clear that weight loss can help reduce pain 

and improve quality of life for obese 

patients. 

Check your Waist Size 

Another useful method is to measure 

around your waist. Men whose waist 

measurement is 40 inches or 94 cm or more 

and women whose waist measurment is 35 

inches or 80 cm or more are more likely to 

develop obesity-related health problems, 

such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and 

some types of cancer. 

If your waist is more than 35 inches 

around and you’re a woman, or if it’s more 

than 40 inches and you’re a man, you might 

have too much belly fat. Carrying extra fat 

around your stomach is unhealthy, no 

matter what your BMI is. 

The Edmonton Scale 

There are five stages: 

Stage 0: You don’t have any health 

problems related to your weight. 

Stage 1: Any weight-related health 

problems are mild (such as borderline high 

blood pressure or occasional aches and 

pains). 

Stage 2: You have an obesity-related 

chronic disease, such as high blood 

pressure, type 2 diabetes, sleep apnea, or 

osteoarthritis, and you have moderate 

problems doing daily activities or feeling 

well. 

Stage 3: You’ve had serious weight-related 

problems, such as a heart attack, heart 

failure, stroke, or other conditions. 

Stage 4: This is the most severe level of 

weight-related chronic health conditions, 

which are extreme and life-threatening.. 

What obesity does to your body 

The risks go up and up as BMI increases. 

Obesity puts extra stress on your bones, 

joints, and organs, making them work 

harder than they should. Too much body 

fat raises your blood pressure and 

cholesterol, and makes heart disease and 

stroke more likely. It also worsens 

conditions like osteoarthritis, back pain, 

asthma, and sleep apnea. 

Too much fat causes inflammation that 

can damage cells. Obesity is also linked to 

several types of cancers. It can also make 

your body respond less well to insulin, which 

controls your blood sugar. Over time, that 

can lead to type 2 diabetes. 

The weight makes it harder to be active, 

too. Carrying around extra pounds takes 

extra energy, so it can be difficult for obese 

people to exercise. 

What helps 

If you’ve tried to lose weight before, you 

know it’s much easier said than done. It’s 

not just about willpower, and the solutions 

go way beyond counting calories, fat grams, 

or carbs. What you eat and how active you 

are affects your whole day. You’ll need to 

makeover the habits that go into your meals, 

snacks, and activities. 

That’s a huge commitment. Take it one 

small step at a time. You can build on 

successes. Don’t try to do too much, too 

soon. If you often eat for emotional reasons, 

you’ll need to find other ways to handle the 

feelings that usually make you eat. Consider 

talking with a counselor. She can help you 

make those shifts in how you think, and how 

you relate to food and to your body. 

Meanwhile, your body might resist your 

weight-loss efforts. “If someone does lose 

20 or 30 pounds, their metabolism goes 

down and they start to burn fewer calories. 

Our bodies are designed to regain weight, 

so it’s much easier to prevent obesity than 

to treat it. 

Making changes 

Before you start to make changes, write 

down everything you eat and drink for a 

few days. This can help you decide what 

you need to change about your diet. 

Most people, at any weight, need to eat 

more fruits, vegetables, and lean proteins. 

They also need to cut out junk food and 

sugary drinks. 

Being active is also key. Any kind of 

movement helps, and you don’t have to go 

to a gym. Ask your doctor what’s OK for 

you to do. A certified personal trainer can 

help you plan a workout that fits your needs. 

If you find that you need more help than 

diet and exercise, talk with your doctor. 

Certain prescription drugs are approved for 

weight loss. They curb your appetite or 

prevent your body from absorbing fat. You’ll 

still need to watch what you eat and be 

active. 

Weight loss surgery can help people lose 

large amounts of weight. But it’s not right 

for everyone, and it does have risks. You 

won’t be able to eat like you used to, you 

might need to take vitamins to meet your 

nutritional needs, and you’ll need to work 

on diet and exercise to keep up the results. 

Keep your perspective 

If it all seems like too much to take on, or 

if your past tries to lose weight make you 

wonder if it will ever happen for you, take a 

moment to challenge those thoughts. It’s 

not about being a certain size. It’s about 

small steps that add up to better health over 

time. If you lose as little as 5-10 per cent of 

your weight, it starts to make a positive 

difference. Focus on what is possible for 

you and what you can commit to, even if it’s 

just for right now. You can make the decision 

again tomorrow and build your way to 

where you want to be, day by day.

PAGE 20—SUNDAY Vanguard, MARCH 12, 2017 

Her Husband’s Bit-on-the-Side Is A Randy Granny! 

When a woman sizes up 

the opposition and 

sees she could give her 

a good run for her money, she 

often doubles up her effort to win 

back her man. But what does she 

do if the opposition is a granny?! 

Andrey, and her husband, Caleb, 

had been married for eighty years 

when they were finally allocated 

the two-bedroomed flat they paid 

a deposit on ages ago. “It was a 

dream come true when we finally 

moved in,” said Andrey. “As 

typical of all these governmentbuilt 

apartments, most of the 

fixtures were half completed. But 

we gladly took on the finishing 

process which we completed in 

months. No more scowling 

landlord, we joked, and the 

neighbourhood was nice enough. 

“Our building is semi-detached 

and we often saw the other owner 

with his wife when they come to 

inspect the on-going construction 

works . You can imagine how 

disappointed I was when the 

couple introduced their 62-yearold 

mother as the occupant of 

their flat. She’d been widowed a 

few years back, explained the 

son, now they wanted her to be 

independent by living alone with 

a maid they provided for her. The 

woman didn’t look the part of a 

widow. She was wearing wellgroomed 

extensions and dressed 

like a young girl. Well made-up 

and freshly manicured, I was sure 

her daughter-in-law was glad to 

get her out of their house. 

“I disliked her immediately and 

I prayed she would just stay in her 

corner. As the months went by, she 

was always popping in for one 

favour or the other. Whenever her 

son visited with his wife, he would 

drop by for a chat and grandma 

would be at their heels. Once in a 

while, she would invite us over 

when her friends visited and these 

friends were even more outrageous 

than she was. Caleb and I are in 

our 30s, what would we be doing 

with this flighty mother-figure 

when both our mums were well 

and alive! 

“Unfortunately, Caleb was 

smitten by her sophisticated looks 

and her crazy friends. He went 

over as often as he could and I tried 

not to be jealous. What hold would 

a 62-year-old granny have over my 

young husband? Then one day, I 

got home only to be told by the 

maid that my husband had left 

with one of our friends. Getting 

dinner ready, I realised our mixer 

was still with ‘grandma’ so I went 

round to her apartment. As I 

approached, 1 heard a thumping 

noise coming from upstairs. Was 

she being attacked? Heart in my 

month, I tip toed upstairs only to 

realise it was her having sex in her 

bedroom! The grunts and shrieks 

were unmistakable. Shaking my 

head in disgust, I had to admit 

she was having a good time with 

whoever it was she had with her. 

I was about to turn and head 

back to her kitchen when I froze. 

Amidst the groaning, I could have 

sworn I just heard someone shout 

‘Caleb!’ “The walls weren’t all 

that thick and as I strained to hear, 

I could make out a voice saying 

‘Caleb, oh caleb, yes! That feels 

so good!’ That couldn’t be my 

own Caleb, could it? I listened 

intently to the male groans - and 

I recognised them instantly. I ran 

downstairs, rushed out and 

shouted at the bedroom window 

for them to come out. I yelled at 

Caleb that I just came from 

upstairs and knew he was there. I 

carried on shouting and 

screaming obscenities. On and 

on I went and a few of the 

neighbours came out to get a look 

at the crazy lady screaming and 

swearing. I didn’t care. In the end, 

they realised I wasn’t going 

anywhere and grandma opened 

the door downstairs wearing a 

lose boubou - I was sure she had 

nothing else under that gown! 

“She glared at me. ‘Calm down, 

will you. Everyone on the street is 

staring,’ she said. ‘Get out of my 

way!’ I yelled, pushing her inside 

and running up the stairs. As I 

opened her bedroom door, my 

worst fears were confirmed. There 

was Caleb, naked but for his under 

pants, and cowering in her bed. 

‘Andrey, I’m sorry ... ‘ he whined, 

but I didn’t let him finish. I dived 

at him, punching, slapping and 

screaming. ‘How could you,’ I 

yelled at him. ‘She’s a pensioner, 

for God’s sake! We haven’t even 

been married nine years!’ 

Grandma suddenly 

appeared. I saw red and slapped 

her hard across the face and 

ripped off her boubou. Her 

sagging boobs would have made 

me laugh but for the rage that I 

felt. ‘Why couldn’t you find a man 

of your own age?’ I asked her. 

‘Well, you are welcome to him!’ 

And with mat I went back to the 

house and locked Caleb out. I 

then called ‘grandma’s’ son to tell 

him what she’d been up to. 

“He was full of apologies when 

he came. He had no excuse for 

what his mum had done but 

begged me not to let it destroy our 

marriage. She was not likely to 

steal Caleb from me and he told 

me he spoke with Caleb before he 

came to the house. Caleb admitted 

mum had virtually thrown herself 

at him - complimenting his looks 

all the time and giving him meals 

he never admitted he’d eaten. No 

wonder he was always picky at 

dinner time, now I know why. 

“That was some four months 

ago. Caleb and I had stopped 

sleeping together for now. He’d 

apologised over and over again, 

but I need to get that picture of 

him cowering in the bed of that 

shameless granny out of my mind 

so I could truly forgive him. 

Thank goodness she’s now kept 

to herself - but she still dresses in 

her ridiculously young clothes 

and have friends trooping in and 

out of her house. Her son seldom 

visit now but says hello if he runs 

into us. It must have been the 

height of embarrassment to have 

a mother as shameless as his. But 

what could he do? 

“Divorce is not an option here. 

I still love my husband. I just need 

time to get over what he did to 

me. With time, our marriage will 

get back on course. We’ve invested 

too much in it to allow a randy 

granny to ruin it.” 

08052201867(Text Only) 

The Head-to-Knee Pose 

C 

M 

Y 

K 

Technique: 

SIT down with feet 

stretched in front of 

you and rather close 

together. 

Now raise both hands overhead 

and gently ease the trunk 

and hand as far down as you 

can then return upright with 

hands still overhead and then 

go back down again. Do this 

for a couple more times to limber 

the back and hamstrings 

for the head to knee pose. In 

the final stage of the posture 

you form a ring with the forefinger 

and thumb around the 

big toes with the forehead 

resting on the knees and the 

elbows touching the floor. 

In the initial stages when it’s 

impossible to assume the full 

posture, it will do to hold as 

far down the legs as you can 

and lower the trunk as well. 

Stay in the position for as long 

as 10 seconds and eventually 

hit the target of two minutes 

in one stretch. 

It ...... to allow the circulation 

to stabilise and also get 

in a little rest. 

Benefits: 

•The Head-to-Knee Pose 

The head to knee pose tones 

up the muscles of the back, the 

arms and the hamstrings. The 

effect of “doubling up” lends a 

gentle massage to the digestive 

organs improving the way the 

body handles nourishment. 

In the womenfolk, this pose 

is said to help painful periods 

and eventually stop it 

completely. It’s also a great 

exercise for long distance 

runners as the hamstrings are 

where the long distance 

runner is most likely to develop 

muscle pulls. 

Physical benefits: 

Powerfully massages all the 

abdominal organs, 

Yoga Classes 

STARTED 

Physical Therapy Centre 

@ 32 Adetokumbo Ademola, 

Victoria Island Lagos. 

9.00am — 10.00am 

on Saturdays 

* Stimulates and tones the 

digestive organs, increases 

peristalsis, and relieves constipation 

and other problems. 

* Counteracts obesity and enlargement 

of the spleen and 

liver. 

* Regulates the pancreatic 

function, providing a valuable 

aid for those with diabetes or 

hypogly-caemia. 

* Mobilises the joints and increases 

elasticity in the lumbar 

spine. 

* Relieves compression of the 

spine and sciatica. 

* Strengthens and stretches 

the hamstrings. 

Mental benefits: 

* Greatly enhances concentration 

and mental endurance. 

* Invigorates the mind and 

nervous system, controlling 

many nervous complaints.


More than 30,000 

children have lost 

or been 

separated from their 

parents during 

insurgency which has left 

nearly two million 

uprooted after fleeing 

Boko Haram in northeastern 

Nigeria” 

Running his fingers over the 

wide scars on his knee and 

thigh, 13-year-old Usman 

recalled the moment he 

thought he would die. 

The boy was fleeing a Boko 

Haram attack on his village 

in northeast Nigeria with his 

mother last year when two 

militants knocked him to the 

ground, and approached 

him wielding knives. 

“I was scared that I would 

die ... that I would never see 

my mother again,” said 

Usman, explaining how he 

limped to a nearby camp for 

the displaced in Bama town 

in Borno State, the heart of 

the jihadists’ brutal sevenyear 

bid to create an Islamic 

state. 

For two months, Usman 

heard nothing about his 

mother until two aid workers 

brought good news. They 

had tracked her down to her 

brother’s house in the 

nearby city of Maiduguri. 

“We cried when we saw 

each other, there was so 

much joy,” he told the 

Thomson Reuters 

Foundation, sitting next to 

his beaming mother, Biba, in 

the cramped, dusty yard of 

his uncle’s home. 

More than 30,000 children 

like Usman have lost or 

been separated from their 

parents during an 

insurgency which has left 

nearly two million people 

uprooted after fleeing Boko 

Haram. 

While two-thirds of these 

children are being cared for 

by a relative, the remainder 

- around 10,000 - are forced 

to fend for themselves, 

according to the U.N. 

children’s agency 

(UNICEF). 

With many of them relying 

on the help of local 

communities or displaced 

families to survive, aid 

workers are striving to 

reunite these solitary 

children with their parents. 

But tracing and tracking 

down relatives can take 

several months - leaving 

them prey to child marriage, 

sexual abuse and forced 

labour in the meantime, aid 

agencies say. 

“Children may even resort to 

begging, hawking and 

transactional sex to survive,” 

said Rachel Harvey, chief of 

child protection for UNICEF. 

TRACING AND 

TRACKING 

When children arrive in a 

camp or community without 

their parents, or alone, they 

are quickly referred to local 

aid groups which carry out 

family tracing and 

reunification programmes. 

Aid workers and volunteers 

take down as many details 

as possible from the children 

and share the information 

We still 

hope to find 

our families 

– Boko Haram child 

survivors 

with their colleagues across 

northeast Nigeria, who go 

from camp to camp, 

community to community, 

reading out names and 

following leads. 

But with three-quarters of 

the 1.8 million people 

displaced by Boko Haram 

living in communities across 

six states, rather than in 

camps, the work can be 

arduous and timeconsuming, 

said Myriem El 

Khatib of the International 

Committee of the Red Cross 

(ICRC). 

“It is much easier to trace 

relatives living in IDP 

(internally displaced 

persons) camps as people 

tend to gather together 

based on the village they 

fled from,” said El Khatib, 

co-ordinator of the ICRC’s 

Restoring Family Links 

programme. 

“Outside of the camps, the 

displacement pattern is 

But tracing and 

tracking down 

relatives can take 

several months - 

leaving them prey to 

child marriage, 

sexual abuse and 

forced labour in the 

meantime, aid 

agencies say 

more random, and there are 

many areas which we still 

cannot access due to the 

insurgency. The average 

process takes many 

months.” 

Even when parents or 

relatives are tracked down 

and told about their 

children, reuniting them is 

not always simple. 

The makeshift foster families 

and caregivers who look 

after unaccompanied 

children may refuse to let 

them go, according to the 

Centre for Community 

Health and Development 

(CHAD). 

Some people send the 

children to work or attempt 

to marry them off for money, 

while others hope having 

another child under their 

care will result in more 

humanitarian aid, said 

Shadrach Adawara, family 

tracing and reunification 

officer for CHAD. 

“In one case, an uncle 

refused to release his 

brother’s children, because 

he wanted to marry the 

eldest daughter off.” 

“Thankfully, a call between 

them resolved the issue, and 

the children returned to 

their father,” said Adawara, 

adding that aid workers 

regularly check up on 

reunited children, and refer 

them to services from 

healthcare to psychosocial 

support. 

‘TEARS OF HAPPINESS’ 

In some cases, children may 

decide not to go back to 

their parents or relatives, 

several tracing officers said. 

They may have suffered 

abuse or had been forced to 

work by their parents, or 

decide to spare their 

struggling families the 

added burden. 

When 17-year-old Fatima, a 

former Boko Haram captive 

who escaped after two years 

while heavily pregnant, was 

reunited with her mother, 

they could not stop crying 

and hugging - having 

presumed each dead for so 

long. 

But Fatima soon realised 

she and her baby could not 

stay with her mother and 

younger siblings in her 

hometown of Monguno. 

“I saw the poverty, and 

many responsibilities of my 

mother ... and decided it 

would be better for me and 

my baby boy to live with my 

older brother in this 

(Bakassi) IDP camp,” Fatima 

said, cradling and rocking 

her two-year-old to sleep. 

While Fatima is relieved to 

be with her brother, she is 

one of the lucky few. Only 

some 400 children - out of 

32,000 living alone or 

without a parent - have been 

reunited with their families 

so far, according to figures 

from UNICEF. 

“It can be very frustrating 

because it can take so long,” 

said El Khatib of the ICRC. 

“But it is worth it when you 

see the emotion from the 

families ... whether it is 

tears of happiness or just a 

pat on the arm and saying: 

‘Nice to have you home’.” 

Back at her brother’s house 

in Maiduguri, Biba fusses 

over 13-year-old Usman - 

much to his embarrassment - 

as she recalls the day they 

were reunited after two long 

months. 

“I could not stop smiling,” 

she said. “Everybody in the 

neighbourhood saw my face, 

and knew he was finally 

back.” 

Source: Thomson Reuters 

Foundation, the charitable 

arm of Thomson Reuters 

that covers humanitarian 

news, women’s rights, 

trafficking, property rights, 

climate change and 

resilience. 

C 

M 

Y 

K

PAGE 22— SUNDAY VANGUARD, MARCH 12, 2017 

By Sam Eyoboka 

G My ‘One 

ENERAL Overseer of Laughter 

Foundation Church International, 

Pastor Moses Gbenga Oso, fondly referred 

to as Daddy of One Million Babies, 

believes God answers prayers when it 

comes to having children. “In 1997, God 

Million Babies’ 

specifically told me that I was going to 

start a ministry and the only thing that 

ministry will focus on was child bearing 

matters,” Oso said last week. 

He spoke in Lagos ahead of the 20th 

anniversary of the ministry. According to 

him, the ministry started in March 1997 

with about eight people in attendance in 

Ibadan, the Oyo State capital. 

Story, by Pastor Gbenga Oso 

“So many testimonies abound. I will 

share a recent testimony with you: A couple 

came here few years ago. The woman, a 

hospital worker, had been married for 35 

from hospital, she called me that they 

years without a child. Before she came here, 

appreciate God for what He had done but 

she had run around and done everything 

there was another big problem. 

possible. Eventually she came here and, as 

“She explained to me what the doctor found 

God was doing it for people, she became 

inside her after delivery. She was still feeling 

pregnant”, the General Overseer told 

there’s another baby because the tummy was 

Sunday Vanguard. 

still big and heavy. She was telling me she 

“By the time she delivered that baby girl, 

didn’t want to go for another surgery. I told 

she was 59 years going to 60. If she was a 

her that the God that gave ‘you this through 

man, I would have said a man can make 

prayer will do something’. So I prayed for 

babies at any age but for a woman at that 

her and asked her to be calling me every day. 

age to have a baby was nothing but a 

I was praying for her every day. I asked her to 

miracle. These are some of the things we 

go back to the hospital after one week to 

see here. 

check. She went back and the thing was still 

“By the time one of the women that came 

there. It was very big, she could see it through 

here had her first baby boy, she was 54. 

the scan and she came back and we 

And people were surprised wondering how 

continued praying. After that first visit to 

she was able to have a child at 54. Then she 

the hospital, they gave her another two weeks 

had a second child at 56. That couple still 

to return so that they could decide what to 

come to church with those children. A 

do with it but I kept telling her that God will *Oso ...We do follow-up on our pregnant women 

Nigerian came from the UK to get married 

do something about this ovarian cyst. 

in Nigeria and afterwards the wife joined 

“By the time she went back two weeks later, came here about three months ago; they 

him in UK. Years went by but no child. The 

they checked and the lump had disappeared. came from the US to attend our monthly also been telling her that she would die 

lady knew about what we are doing here; 

She said the doctor was shocked and referred miracle service. They came on a Saturday during delivery. 

and they actually got married in one of 

her to a more powerful scan because he didn’t and travelled back the following day. When “The hospital that she was to deliver is 

our branches in Ibadan. 

understand. She went for the scan and there they were talking to me, they said what a Christian hospital. In that hospital, they 

“The husband was a deacon and the wife 

was nothing there. Then the doctor told her brought them was that their hitherto told her of a revelation that somebody 

was a deaconess in their church in the UK 

that she was free from the ovarian cyst. That childless friends kept telling them that if would die. Of course she knew she was 

but no child. She was always having bad 

was the second miracle. So these are some of they didn’t go to Laughter Foundation, the one they were referring to. When she 

dreams. Anytime she got pregnant, bad 

the things God does here from time to time. there was no way they could have came for prayers, I prayed for her. When 

dreams will come and she’ll lose the 

The reason is that this church is basically for children. 

she was due for delivery, she said ‘Daddy, 

pregnancy. At a point, she was no longer 

“The woman said after listening to four pray for me so that I won’t die.’ I asked 

getting pregnant, so they started doing IVF. 

residents of America who visited Nigeria her what was the matter and she 

After seven IVFs without success, the wife 

and returned with outstanding testimonies, explained everything to me. I told her 

told the husband that in Laughter 

she decided they must come and see that that what she could rely upon is that in all 

Foundation, this kind of thing is dealt with 

Laughter Foundation. She also told me the years of this church, no single woman 

easily. So she persuaded the husband to 

that she went to Canada to visit an old has died during delivery. I told her she 

relocate to Nigeria. As difficult as it was, 

friend and was surprised that the old friend would not be the first and told the 

the husband agreed with her because, to 

Oso exuded uncanny 

had a set of twins and, upon enquiry, the husband to call me before she goes into 

them, having children had become a big 

friend said they were products of Laughter labour. He did and I prayed for her in the 

issue. 

confidence that 

Foundation. So we have all these things hospital so that her mind will be at rest. 

“So the husband, who was working in 

an oil company in the UK, started applying 

leaves one with the 

happening here and there, God answering During delivery, I was talking with the 

people’s prayers, especially when it comes husband and within a short time she 

for jobs in Nigeria. Luckily for them, the 

impression that 

to having children,” he stressed. 

delivered safely and came out. 

man got a job in Lagos, while the wife 

The General Overseer, who refused to ‘Our pregnant women don’t die’ 

resigned from her job and they relocated 

childlessness is 

talk about his roots except to say that he “When she came to give testimony, I 

to Nigeria and started attending Laughter 

abominable and can 

was an accountant, acknowledged that he asked her in front of the congregation 

Foundation. Within a year of attending this 

has a divine mandate to increase the that I was telling her and she didn’t want 

church, the wife got pregnant and 

be reversed 

world’s population in accordance with the to believe me. So these are some of the 

naturally became afraid that she may lose 

prayerfull 

erfully, or that t it is 

biblical injunction to be ‘fruitful and things God does for us. Nobody has ever 

the pregnancy. Because of the level of the 

multiply and replenish the earth’. died in the delivery room and we have 

challenge, I had to invite them and started 

a sin that cannot be 

Monitoring pregnancies 

several and countless number of women 

praying with them”. 

dealt with 

One other thing unique to Laughter that have gone into the delivery room. 

Continuing the testimony, Oso said he 

Foundation, according to the cleric who We monitor them from the start of the 

reassured the wife that miscarriages don’t 

said he’s not been to Ibadan, the roots of pregnancy to the time the baby cries after 

happen in his church and she was able to 

carry the pregnancy through and travelled 

people believing God for children, people 

the ministry for a while, is that “we monitor delivery. We always ask the husband to 

to London to deliver a set of triplets. “That 

that have gone to several places and couldn’t 

pregnant women up till the time they be there with the wife and I will be talking 

was the first delivery in their nine years of 

find solution”. 

deliver, as in the case of the couple that with him and he will be giving me 

marriage; two boys and one girl. They 

Osho exuded uncanny confidence that 

had triplets”. 

progress report. At times, I talk to the 

returned to Nigeria to do dedication after 

leaves one with the impression that 

He continued: “They (couple) went doctors. If the delivery will be through 

which the wife went back to the UK with 

childlessness is abominable and can be 

outside the country and I kept monitoring caesarean section and the woman is 

the children. The husband is still here. I’ve 

reversed prayerfully, or that it is a sin that 

the pregnancy. That’s what we do for all refusing and the doctors are having 

told him to start looking for job in the UK 

cannot be dealt with at Laughter 

pregnant women here. The moment problems talking to her, the husband will 

because he has to be with his children. It’s 

Foundation. According to him, on several 

somebody is pregnant and she attends our ask me to talk to her. I will talk to her that 

not good for a woman to train the children 

occasions, people ask him why and how such 

pregnant women prayer meeting, which she should allow the operation to be 

without the father being around. So he’s 

unbelievable occurrences take place in the 

holds once in a month, we monitor them done. 

already searching for a job in the UK. He’s 

church and his simple reply had always been 

to make sure that they don’t lose the Caesarian sections are necessary for 

here every Sunday. He’s one of our deacons. 

that ‘it’s not that this place is better than any 

pregnancy or lose the baby during delivery the delivery of the baby if the baby is big, 

The wife calls once in a while to appreciate 

other; but the reason is that this is our focus.’ 

nor lose the mother because I can tell you and to avoid the death of the mother or 

God for everything He has done”, the 

“Every Sunday, if other churches use three 

women die during delivery in this part of the baby. In such instances, I will talk 

pastor stated. 

minutes to pray for people looking for 

the world.” 

with the woman and at times the doctors 

“Something happened during the 

children, we can use more than one hour 

At that juncture, we asked Oso if he talk to me. We follow up our pregnant 

delivery in London. They were always 

because it is our main focus. Because we have 

believes in efficacy of orthodox medicine women so that nothing bad will happen 

calling me when the expected date of 

taken time to deal with these things from 

and his answer was affirmative. “Of course in the course of delivery and that is why, 

delivery (EDD) was close and the husband 

time to time, it is easier for us to get solution 

we ask them (people looking for children) for 20 years, we’ve never had a single 

had taken permission from his work to be 

quicker than other places”, he said. 

to attend hospitals. We are not against woman die in hospital during delivery”. 

with his wife. I was praying with them. The 

Twins after 20 years of barrenness 

attending hospitals. We ask pregnant .Asked how many babies had been 

delivery was through caesarean section 

“Maybe I should just give one more recent 

women to attend the best hospitals possible produced in the 20 years of the church, he 

(CS). After the CS, the doctor told her that 

testimony. First delivery in 20 years of 

while we give them prayer attention. said there’s no way anybody could 

she had a very big ovarian cyst inside her, 

marriage, a set of twins; a boy and a girl, 

Because of the monitoring prayer attention ascertain the exact figure, noting that 

as big as a baby. According to her, the doctor 

delivered in LUTH. I can continue to talk 

up till the time they deliver, we don’t lose “this place is a church for people looking 

called the consultant to report his finding 

and talk about the massive things that God 

our babies during delivery. And for the 20 for babies from other churches as well as 

and asked if he should remove or leave it 

has been doing here. Just to tell you that God 

years of this ministry, we have never lost a those who are not Christians”. Oso went 

till some other time. The consultant said 

has been awesome. People come from all 

woman in the delivery room. There was a on, “They come and, as soon as God 

he should leave it. So she was discharged 

over the world to participate in what we are 

particular woman that met me with her answers their prayers, they return to their 

like that with a large ovarian cyst as big as 

doing here and God answers them. At times 

husband who said she had been dreaming churches. There’s no way we can pin - 

a baby. Five or six days after her discharge 

I move out of the country to preach in some 

that she would die in hospital when she point that this is the number. The people 

places and God attends to people. A couple 

goes to deliver and that some people have we don’t know are far more than the 

people we know,” he said. 

C 

M 

YK

SUNDAY Vanguard, MARCH 12, 2017, PAGE 23 

08116759757 

We took Otukpo thieves 

out of business 

—Ali, Sole Administrator 

BY PETER DURU, MAKURDI 

Mr. George Ali was a 

member of the 

Benue State 

House of Assembly. He is currently 

the Sole Administrator of Otukpo 

local government area. In this 

interview, he speaks about 

governance at the third tier of 

government, the challenges and 

prospects. 

You were a one-time lawmaker 

but, last November, you were 

appointed the Sole Administrator 

of Otukpo LGA. What has been 

the experience thus far? 

It has been worth the while, but it 

came with its own challenges. But 

we are weathering the storm and 

making the best of it by ensuring 

that the people enjoy dividends of 

democracy despite the obvious 

economic challenges. 

Talking about challenges, and 

the dwindling revenue at the 

disposal of government, how are 

you coping and what measures 

have you taken to boost your IGR? 

I will just say I have applied what 

I call simple knowledge of 

economies. Nothing more. 

The first thing I did on assumption 

of office four months ago was to 

reorganize the revenue generating 

mechanism in Otukpo. Before now, 

over 70 percent of revenue generated 

in Otukpo went into private pockets. 

But we are on top of the situation 

now. We have changed all our 

receipts and introduced new ones 

with security features. With that it 

has become difficult for anyone to 

forge our receipts. So it’s bad 

business for those behind the 

diversion of our revenue, the people 

have been advised to ensure that 

they are given new receipts whenever 

payments are made to the council. 

With that, we’ve been able to 

improve on our IGR which is now 

far higher that what was being 

realized. 

What have you been able to 

put on ground, so far, with the 

resources at your disposal? 

In the last four months, we’ve 

done quite a lot with the 

resources of our disposal since I 

assumed office as Sole 

Administrator. One of our 

projects is the rehabilitation of 

Ochi Idoma Road in Otukpo. 

That road was an eyesore. It was 

not motorable. But when we 

came in, we were able to grade, 

laterite and compacted the 

road. We also did surface 

dressing by putting tar and 

stones on it. I can tell you that, 

today, Otukpo local government 

is the only one in the whole of 

the North Central that is able to 

put tar on a road. Within this 

period, we have also 

rehabilitated the council 

secretariat and that complex is 

wearing a new look befitting of 

a metropolitan local 

government council. We also 

went into the opening up of rural 

roads, we took 

two roads within 

Otukpo. One of 

them is from 

Eupi to Idiku 

bypass. The 

length is about 

2.7km. It was 

graded and 

compacted. 

Before we 

did the road, 

o n l y 

motorcycles 

could ply it. 

But light 

and heavy duty vehicles ply the road 

now. We did same with Japan Street, 

that one is about 1.3km. One of the 

remarkable things we also did within this 

period is that we saw to the cleanliness of 

Otukpo town. The place is quite clean 

unlike what we had in the past. When we 

came in, we procured compactors, like 

the ones being used in Abuja and Lagos 

for environmental sanitation. We have 

two of them in Otukpo. They are being 

used to move refuse out of the town. 

Though people are paying a token to 

support the service, they are happy to see 

that their refuse is removed twice a week 

by these trucks. We were able to do this 

through partnership without putting a 

kobo into it. 

This service has also created job 

opportunities for our youths. Over 20 of 

our youths, both as crew and 

administrative staff, have been engaged 

and they are paid on regular basis. We’ve 

also introduced what is known as Otukpo 

Integrated Land Service, OTILS. That 

is the first in the whole of the 23 local 

government areas of the state. 

Before now, we had issues 

whereby people will have three 

to four titles to one particular 

land, but with OTILS, the 

computer has all the details of 

land ownership in Otukpo. 

With this, it is difficult for 

anyone to engage in 

land racketeering in 

the LGA. You now 

have at the tip of 

you fingers the 

details of any land 

you want to buy. 

Land speculators 

who deceive 

people into 

b u y i n g 

fraudulently 

acquired land 

are out of 

business. 

Besides, 

through that 

project, we 

have created job opportunities for 

lots of our youths. The firms 

handling the project has taken over 

50 of our youths off the streets by 

providing them gainful 

employment. 

On the issue of cultism and crime, 

we have also done a lot. In the last 

10 to 15 years, there was hardly any 

Christmas that people did not desert 

the streets of Otukpo anytime from 

8pm for fear of being attacked by 

gangs. But the situation has changed. 

Between last December and now we 

have not recorded any such case. It 

was the first time we had peaceful 

festivity. Everybody was happy 

including the security agencies who 

worked tirelessly to ensure peace in 

Otukpo. Like I said before now, the 

most important thing is for us to 

maintain the tempo. 

Within the same period we have 

built two blocks of classrooms, the 

type SUBEB is building and they are 

ready for commissioning by the 

Governor of the state. 

I mistakenly crushed one-year-old boy with my vehicle – Driver 

BY KENNEDY MBELE 

49-year-old driver, Kazeem Adesokan, 

who allegedly crushed a one and a half 

year old with his vehicle at Tinubu 

Close, Palm Groove, Lagos, has been 

arraigned before an Ikeja Magistrate 

Court, sitting at Ogba, Lagos, for 

allegedly driving in a dangerous 

manner, thereby causing the death of 

Dayo Johnson, Akure 

CONCERNED Group of Oil 

Producing Communities in 

Ondo State has alleged lack of 

development of the communities 

despite the state being the fifth largest 

oil producing state in the country. 

“There is virtually nothing to show 

in the oil producing communities 

despite the state ranking as the 5th 

largest oil producing state in Nigeria”, 

the group said at the weekend. 

The group’s Chairman, High Chief 

Loto Amehinola Finance, flanked by 

the Secretary Okiriji Ayubapiriye 

Nathaniel, and Legal Adviser, Kpiliboh 

Eddy, said oil exploration and 

exploitation in the area has had 

devastating consequences. 

“It is a surprise that we are still left in 

total darkness while underdevelopment 

is the order of the day in 

our communities, no thanks to poor 

attention by government,”the group 

added. 

“Regrettably, since the inception of 

the NDDC Board, no Ondo State 

person or individual has been 

Managing Director, Chairman or 

Executive Director. “This is the height 

of marginalization we have suffered 

in the unfair distribution of the NDDC 

positions. “The few areas where 

government attention would have been 

felt had always gone into wrongs 

the baby. The suspect, a driver with a security 

company, allegedly climbed and killed the baby 

identified as Abdulrahman Alhaji with the 

company’s Toyota Hilux van at about 0700hrs 

on January 21, 2017. 

According to the prosecution, the offence was 

contrary to the provisions of Sections 28 (1) and 

29 (1) Cap 172 Vol 7 of the Road Traffic Laws of 

Lagos Nigeria 2011. 

The suspect pleaded not guilty to the charge 

Ondo oil communities cry y out over alleged marginalisation 

hands,those who stand on the pillar of destruction”. The 

group pleaded with government to visit the core oil 

producing communities to verify their claims of underdevelopment, 

saying contracts given out on projects should 

be made public to the communities to ensure proper 

monitoring and supervision. 

187,000 sign petition on healthcare funding 

petition has been signed by 187,000 

A Nigerians in which they asked 

government to improve the funding of the 

health sector. The petition, presented to 

Senate President Bukola Saraki at a town 

hall meeting in Abuja, was held under the 

auspices of international campaigning and 

A young boy collects water for his 

family from a facility provided by 

ONE in Adamawa State. 

•Mr. George Ali 

and was granted bail in the sum of 

N100,000. The matter was adjourned to 

February 27, 2017. 

In his statement to the police, he said 

he had parked the vehicle in a certain 

position and was trying to re-park it when 

he observed that he had parked so close 

to another vehicle to enable him come out 

of the van when the incident occurred. 

“The suspect explained that as he was 

reversing, he heard people shouting and 

pointing under his vehicle. He claimed 

that he stopped immediately, came down, 

only to see that the vehicle he was driving 

had crushed a baby. He added that the 

baby was rushed to a near-by private 

hospital where he was confirmed dead”, 

a source familiar with the story quoted him 

as narrating in the statement. 

advocacy organisation, ONE. 

For the past one year, ONE has advocated 

for better healthcare in Nigeria under the 

Make Naija Stronger initiative which 

employed the voices of influential Nigerians 

to ask government to increase its investment 

in healthcare in the 2017 Budget. 

Some women in Tomaro, Lagos outside a 

hospital at the instance of ONE. 30% of women 

between 15-49 in Nigeria have problems 

accessing healthcare because of the distance 

to the nearest facility. 

Overah 

challenges Omo- 

Agege, Iwurhie 

over Sapele/ 

Abraka/Agbor 

Road project 

A 

former member 

representing Sapele/Okpe 

and Uvwie Constituency in the 

House of Representatives (2007 - 

2011), Hon. Joyce Overah, says 

he facilitated the rehabilitation of 

the Sapele/Eku/Abraka/Agbor 

Road project when he was in the 

House and not Hon. Evans 

Iwurhie currently representing 

Ughelli North and South 

Constituency in the House or the 

incumbent senator representing 

Delta Central, Ovie Omo-Agege. 

Iwurhie and Omo-Agege have 

been at loggerheads over who 

facilitated the ongoing project. 

Overah, who spoke at the weekend, 

said: “I was actually the person who 

facilitated it.” 

He went on: “That project has 

always been in the budget of the 

federal government since I 

facilitated it between 2007 and 

2011. The federal government 

initially awarded it at the cost of 

N2b and it was to commence at 

AT&P in Sapele to Amukpe, near 

Sapele, and to Eku/Abraka/Agbor 

and end at Ewu, when Uffot Ekaette 

was Minister of Niger Delta and 

Elder Godsday Orubebe was 

Minister of State. 

“As of that time, the project was 

divided into four parts of N500m 

each with a promise that more funds 

would be released to it. I was to 

supervise from Sapele to Aghalokpe 

axis, Hon. Halims Agoda to oversee 

Ethiope West and Ethiope East axis, 

Hon. Mercy Amonai to supervise 

from Ubiaruku to Agbor while Hon. 

Doris Amonai was to supervise from 

Agbor to Ewu axis.” 

“Unfortunately, it was yet to 

commence when Ekaette left office 

and, when Orubebe came in as 

Minister of Niger Delta, he chose to 

face the East/West Road first, and 

left that project. That is how the 

current government inherited it and 

since the Delta State government 

has completed the AT&P to Amukpe 

axis, the newly awarded contract 

Wade into UPU 

leadership 

crisis, youths 

tell Ibori 

By Festus Ahon, ASABA 

U 

rhobo youths under the eagis 

of Urhobo Youth Leaders Association, 

yesterday urged former 

Delta State Governor, Chief James 

Onanefe Ibori to wade into the Urhobo 

Progress Union, UPU, leadership 

crisis. 

Speaking when he led members of 

the association on a solidarity to 

Chief Ibori in Oghara, its National 

President, Comrade Francis Arhiyor 

stressed the need for the Urhobo 

to live together under a united UPU. 

Arhiyor in the address read by his 

National Secretary, Comrade Vincent 

Oyibode expressed gratitude to 

God for the safe return of Chief Ibori 

after serving a jail term in the United 

Kingdom, appealing to the former 

governor to intervene on their behalf. 

In his response, Chief Ibori 

thanked the group for the visit and 

advised against dissenting voices in 

the course of resolving the UPU leadership 

crisis. Holding that the interest 

of generality of Urhobo was bigger 

than the interest of any individual, 

he charged the visiting Urhobo 

youth leaders to assist in the settlement 

of the UPU crisis.


bunmsof@yahoo.co.uk 

08056180152, SMS only 

How that well-behaved son of yours could be addicted to porn! 

MARTIN stands out as 

an exceptionally 

polite, thoughtful 

young man the moment you 

meet him. With a master’s 

degree under his belt, he is 

everything you would hope for 

in a son or future son-in- law. 

But it is a testament to the 

pervasiveness of pornography 

that, by 15, Martin was addicted 

to hard-core internet filth. 

Having grown up in the first 

generation of children with free 

access to internet porn, Martin 

is speaking out to say that not 

only must we warn our sons 

about the 

corrosive effects of porn - we 

must also tell our daughters. 

Because, according to him: 

“Porn has become more than 

the most powerful form of sex 

education in young people’s 

lives. It has also become a 

template for the way young men 

view and treat women. 

“Porn brought me to the brink, 

triggering anxiety, depression 

and invasive sexual thoughts 

about every woman I set eyes on. 

It also had an incredible 

derogatory impact on the way I 

viewed every member of the 

opposite sex. Porn not only 

destroyed my peace of mind. It 

stopped me seeing women as 

human beings.” Martin believe 

that if this can happen to him, a 

well brought up, highly 

intelligent young man, it can 

surely happen to anyone. Raised 

in a happy home, Martin was a 

friendly, outgoing child who 

loved sport and excelled 

academically. As he entered 

puberty, like most boys his age, 

he stared becoming curious 

about the opposite sex. “The 

difference was that I hit 

adolescence just at the time 

when porn started being more 

easily and quickly available 

on the internet. 

“My family had a computer 

and after school I had an hour 

to kill before my mum came 

home from her job as a 

lecturer. I had been 

introduced to women with no 

clothes on through my older 

brother’s girlie mags, so it 

was not long before I was 

drawing the curtains and 

exploring what else I could 

find for free on the web. By the 

age of 15, I had been given a 

computer for my school work, 

allowing me to surf the internet 

in the privacy of my bedroom. 

Initially, I viewed ‘normal’ sex 

scenes. But before long the 

internet led me down dark 

paths never available in the 

days when the only access to 

porn was through top shelf 

magazines. My taste for porn 

became insatiable. What gave 

me a kick and satisfied my 

craving one day didn’t work the 

next. 

“During my teens, the internet 

went from dial-up to broadband 

and the static images of sex 

turned into sites featuring 

pages upon pages of liveaction 

video clips. Before long, 

I was led into watching more 

explicit stuff to get the same fixscenes 

filmed to look like rape, 

and degrading clips of guys 

pasting round the same girl. As 

I worked hard at school and 

got good marks in my exams, 

my parents never saw any 

reason to check upon me, so 

they never fitted computer 

filters. They had no idea what 

was freely available. I often 

swapped stories of the extreme 

acts I had seen with my friends 

at school the next day. I hid it 

from my parents, of course, but 

among my friends there was no 

guilt or embarrassment. I 

counted myself lucky to be 

growing up at a time when you 

could access porn for free at 

the touch of a button. There 

was no downside that I could 

see. 

“Sadly, there was already a 

price to be paid - and not just 

for me. Even before I’d dated 

my first girlfriend, porn was 

colouring my view of women. 

It had an incredibly damaging 

impact on the way I viewed 

girls because the videos 

portrayed them as objects 

whose role was to be used and 

dominated by men. After I lost 

my virginity at 16, I compared 

every girl I slept with to those 

I’d seen on the screen. I’d 

make fun of them with my 

friends if their bodies did not 

live up to my high ideals. At 

the university I had even more 

freedom to indulge my habit, 

and began looking at porn up 

to four times a day. Yet the girls 

who fell for my innocent looks 

had no idea how much porn 

affected the way I treated 

them. Sex to me was never 

about intimacy or affection. I 

saw it as the opportunity to 

play out what I had seen on 

screen. 

“I found it incredible that I 

never met much resistance to 

my request. Girls seemed to 

know what I expected - probably 

from seeing porn themselves. 

And, surrounded by other young 

men who grew up with the same 

influences none of my behaviour 

seemed unusual. All my mates 

acted the same. We all put down 

women with the same 

judgemental comments. It 

became a challenge to see how 

much we could get girls to do 

so we could brag about it. We 

persuaded girls to send naked 

pictures of themselves that we 

promised to keep secret, but 

which we kept on our phones 

and then showed each other. 

“At 25, and already with a 

master’s degree, I landed a job 

I was extremely proud of. Yet, 

Instead of feeling on top of the 

world, I was becoming 

concerned about the grip porn 

had over me for it had started 

to affect my mental well being. 

As well as making me more 

demanding of women, it also 

made me more critical of 

myself. I was 15 when I 

realised I was never going to 

match up to the bulked-up 

men with 12in manhoods I 

saw on my computer. As a 

result, I felt so ashamed I tried 

to avoid being seen naked in 

the shower after sports. 

Months after I started work 

the insecurity that I was not 

good enough became worse. I 

felt so insecure I suffered 

bouts of impotency when I had 

sex. I would then be so 

panicked that I would spend 

the evening after I got home 

from work searching the web 

for new clips to arouse me and 

reassure me nothing was 

wrong. Afterwards, I felt an 

incredible low - I felt 

degraded and alone. 

“Pornography had warmed 

its way so far into my brain 

that it affected my thoughts 

when I saw a woman. I had 

developed such an underwear 

fetish that if I so much as 

glimpsed a woman’s bra strap, 

I would start fantasising. If I 

met a lady who was much 

older or married and whom I 

had no sexual interest in, 

unwelcome images of her in a 

sexual situation would pop 

into my head. I kept it a secret, 

but inside I was depressed. I 

had also given up hope of ever 

finding love. I believed 

relationships were 

meaningless. 

“In a bid to free myself from 

my porn addiction, I started 

going to church with a friend 

where I also made new friends. 

I was made to realise that sex 

was something precious 

between two people. I was able 

to talk to people who accepted 

what I had done and supported 

me nevertheless. I haven’t 

looked at porn in three years 

and it’s been a hard fight to 

break free. Until recently I 

still had flashbacks of some of 

the videos I saw. That is why 

I’m deeply concerned about 

the effect freely available porn 

may have on the next 

generation, who can view 24 

hours a day on smart phones. 

I frequently meet youngsters 

who think nothing of showing 

each other graphic images on 

their phones of girls who think 

they have to pose naked to be 

liked. 

“Like I did, these boys don’t 

see porn as a bad thing - not 

yet anyway. I want to tell this 

generation, and the next, that 

porn is not harmless fun. I am 

scared for the girls growing up 

with men who behaved the way 

I did. It hurts in more ways than 

people realise and can do 

untold damage.” 

Deeply in love 

You are my bosom friend, my darling and inestimable 

jewel,my sweet mummy, my soulmate and 

adorable and loving heartbeat all roll into one. You 

came and changed my world, making it spin around 

in circles in many colours and in many ways. You 

Y 

are now deeply rooted right inside my heart and 

OUR column to express your loving thoughts in 

uprooting you is practically impossible. My dear 

words to your sweetheart. Don’t be shy. Let it 

flow and let him or her know how dearly you feel. 

EVELYN CHINELO AGU, I am not merely in love 

Write now in not more than 75 words to: The Editor, with you but I am deeply and passionately in love 

Sunday Vanguard, P.M.B. 1007, Apapa, Lagos. E.mail: with you. 

sunlovenotes@yahoo.com Please mark your envelope: Akachukwu Ferdinand. C. 

“LOVE NOTES" 

kachukwuferdinandc@yahoo.com, 

08063819314 

How to get a good husband 

The truth is that most of times, the signs are there for 

you, but you ignore them. Make your own money and 

stop being moved by money and gifts. These things are 

not proofs that a man loves you. Do you know that just 

one day beating can purge you of all the good things he 

got You. 

Some of you have good men around you, who are willing 

to worship you. Instead of marrying such men, you 

allow greed and desperation to put you into the wrong 

hands. Marriage is not a do-or-die affair. 

Take your time and observe a man. 

Don't just look at his actions, pay attention to his mind 

set. As a man thinketh, so is he. Watch his relationship 

with other females. Get his angry intentionally and 

watch his reaction. Sometimes push him to the wall. 

This is very important. 

Chris Onunaku 

08032988826/08184844015.


people 

By Bashir Adefaka 

Crescent University, Abeokuta 

(CUAB) is one of the early 

private universities in 

Nigeria and became the first 

Islamic university in southern 

Nigeria. It emerged as a life 

ambition of Prince Abdul-Jabbar 

Bolasodun Adesunbo Ajibola 

(SAN), a former Attorney-General 

and Minister of Justice and ex-High 

Commissioner to the United 

Kingdom. 

The man, simply called Prince Bola 

Ajibola, set out, in December 2005, 

to replicate his Baptist Boys’ High 

School disciplinarian experience to 

groom the youth of today who will, 

in turn, emerge as global citizens of 

tomorrow, hence the idea of the 

Islamic Mission for Africa (IMA), 

whose programmes are dominated 

mostly by education at all levels. To 

achieve this vision, Ajibola, who was 

also a judge at the International 

Court of Justice, established 

Crescent University. 

The mission statement reads: To 

produce graduates that are morally 

and academically sound and 

excellent and not brilliant beasts. 

And then the question comes as to 

whether Crescent is free or not from 

the dilemma emanating from the 

issue of drug use and abuse that are 

sometimes unnoticed but prevalent 

among students of higher 

institutions of learning in nations 

across the world. This led to 

Sunday Vanguard visit to Abeokuta 

where it keenly observed the 

disposition of Crescent, its 

proprietor, its management staff, 

students and even its neighbours to 

the issue. 

The Proprietor, Ajibola, who, during 

the visit, bared his mind on the state 

of the nation, warning that 

Nigerians should embrace the 

change programme of the Buhari 

government – and not stand on the 

side of corrupt people fighting back 

– for the nation to get better quickly, 

spoke on the attitude of the 

institution he established some 

eleven years back to wage war 

against drug abuse, describing it as 

a menace capable of hindering 

whatever achievement any 

university could make of morally 

and academically excellent 

students. This, according to him, will 

not make them to become brilliant 

beasts. 

“In Crescent University, our students 

are tailored towards emerging as 

global citizens so that, in the end, 

they won’t let Nigeria down 

wherever they go in the world. And 

to ensure that these aims and 

objectives are not derailed, we have 

put all necessary cautionary 

arrangements in place which is why 

we train our students to be Godfearing 

and graduating with degrees 

that are not only excellently achieved 

academically but also laced with 

fear of God and moral uprightness. 

In a nutshell, at Crescent University 

we produce morally and 

academically excellent human 

beings of the status of global 

citizens,” the former minister said. 

Asked to explain what he meant, 

Ajibola said, “When you have 

university products that are morally 

and academically excellent, you 

will have good leaders in position 

of authority who will rule or govern 

with the fear of God and then they 

will not corruptly enrich themselves 

because they know that, even though 

they do not see God, surely, God is 

seeing them and so they will fear 

Him and, instead of diverting state 

money to their personal pockets, 

they will use the money to better the 

lot of the masses by providing basic 

needs such as good roads, huge 

investments in agriculture towards 

ensuring food security, quality and 

affordable education, quality and 

affordable healthcare delivery 

services, security, electricity, potable 

water and jobs among other 

necessities of life for the people. 

NARCOTICS: 

Why I spearhead battle against 

‘brilliant beasts’ — Bola Ajibola 

•Our zero-tolerance for drug abuse – Prof. Gbajabiamila, Crescent VC 

•Medical Director: Students are selected at random for drug testing 

Ajibola described 

graduates who are 

‘brilliant beasts’ as 

the direct opposite 

of those that are 

morally and 

academically 

excellent in the 

degree they 

acquire 

“And when the food items, even 

products of natural resources, are 

taken to the market, such morally 

upright and academically excellent 

graduates, who are major 

distributors of essential needs of 

mankind such as food, petroleum 

products, will not hoard to create 

artificial scarcity, which sabotages 

the very good intention of 

government to make life easy for 

the people.” 

‘Brilliant beasts’ 

Ajibola described graduates who are 

‘brilliant beasts’ as the direct 

opposite of those that are morally 

and academically excellent in the 

degree they acquire. “Those are 

unemployable. If you give them 

trust, they will betray you. If you 

entrust the leadership of state in their 

hands, they will bastardise and 

won’t even care that they do any 

evil. They will embezzle state funds 

*Ajibola... I want to produce global citizens 

with impunity and will be ready to 

kill and maim anybody under the 

sky who will block their way of 

achieving it”, he stated. 

“That is the reason the school 

knowledge circle matters in 

achieving a Nigeria of our pride. 

If you observe us very well, you will 

see that we take the child that we 

hope, by the grace of Almighty God, 

will be leader of tomorrow from 

crèche through primary, secondary 

schools to the university. That is 

our own resolve to wield the truly 

quality education filled with Godfearing, 

good moral conduct and 

sound academic performance as a 

tool to make Nigeria great.” 

Already, the former Attorney- 

General said, “We are achieving it 

greatly. We started 11 years ago 

and now thank God that we are not 

just saying it but also, we are doing 

it and we are reaping the fruits of 

our efforts already.” 

On anti-drug war 

Drug abuse is a serious matter. It 

is a life - threatening situation. 

There is no way drug issue can be 

dealt removed from the university 

environment except deliberate 

efforts are made. 

Beaming a searchlight on Nigerian 

universities and drug abuse among 

youths, with Crescent University 

as case study, revealed that no 

matter how careful any 

university system could be, cases 

of drug abuse among youths may 

be inevitable but that with proper 

and sincere action plan, its 

eradication is not only possible but 

also doable. 

Vice Chancellor of the university, 

Prof. Ibraheem Gbajabiamila, said, 

“Worldwide, drug issue is a serious 

issue. Its use and abuse, especially 

among youths, have brought about 

so much concern to professionals 

and institutions. Through Global 

Citizenship, a specifically designed 

general study to guide students to 

be good citizens of the world, 

Crescent University, Abeokuta is 

championing a campaign against 

drug abuse in the institution founded 

by a former Judge of the 

International Court of Justice, His 

Excellency, Judge Bola Ajibola, who 

himself is an epitome of high moral 

standing. 

“Judge Ajibola, who is also a former 

Attorney General and Minister of 

Justice in Nigeria, has emphasised 

it for the umpteenth time that his 

university was established on a 

tripod namely, sound academic 

education, good morals and the fear 

of God. No doubt the institution 

prides itself as Citadel of Academic 

and Moral Excellence. That is 

what we are in this place. 

“And evidences abound that 

graduates of Crescent University 

who passed the first degree and had 

to do their post-graduate 

programmes in other universities 

within Nigeria and abroad ended 

up being commended to the root of 

their studies, that is, the Crescent 

University, Abeokuta, which had 

been represented at their respective 

graduation ceremonies. Example 

of this includes a product of the 

university, Rafiat Gawat, a first class 

mass communication graduate of 

Crescent University, who went to 

Robert Gordon University in 

Scotland on scholarship of Lagos 

State Government and ended up 

receiving distinction in the master’s 

degree that she meritoriously 

acquired”. 

On drug checks on students, 

Gbajabiamila went on, “At Crescent 

University, all hands are on deck at 

ensuring that our students are 

monitored and discouraged on 

abuse of drugs. The rules are there 

in black and white. Taking of hard 

drugs attracts punishment such as 

suspension or dismissal. And as a 

proactive measure, the University 

Task Force was put in place years 

back by my office to monitor 

students closely. 

“Section 12 (13) of Students’ 

Information Handbook of the 

university states inter alia, ‘Any 

student found in possession of 

dangerous and offensive 

instruments/substances, without 

evidence of prescription, will be 

expelled from the university.’ The 

dangerous and controlled 

substances include ketamine, 

amphetamines, cocaine, heroine, 

tobacco, alcohol, Indian hemp, 

volatile solvent like petrol and so 

on”. 

University clinic 

Health professionals are on hand to 

provide essential services and 

conduct tests on students on campus 

regularly. The university clinic, 

headed by Director of Medical 

Services, Dr. Maryam Oladipo, is 

charged with these responsibilities. 

When contacted, Oladipo said, 

“Students are selected at random 

for drug testing as this keeps them 

on their toes that Crescent University 

has zero tolerance for drug abuse, 

which, in most cases, are contracted 

through peer pressure.” 

According to the Medical Director, 

new students are lectured on the 

dangers of drug abuse during 

orientation while all students are 

routinely lectured by consultants 

from Neuropsychiatric Hospital, 

Aro, Abeokuta. 

Although Crescent University has 

adequate arrangements on ground 

which ensure that students tilt more 

towards being of good moral in 

pursuance of their academic studies 

than having the time to engage in 

illicit activities, it is still part of the 

responsibilities of the institution’s 

management to do the needful in 

areas of prayers and counselling by 

guidance counsellors and university 

imams. 

Roles of parents 

Parents get periodical reports on the 

school’s zero tolerance for drug 

abuse, so much so that even parents 

that have no children in Crescent 

University but who heard about 

the efforts being made in this 

direction now bring their children 

whom they suspect of doing drug 

for tests at the university clinic. If 

such children test negative, 

“great” but if positive, “the 

Crescent University Clinic has 

laboratory equipment capable of 

telling the quantity of drug used, 

since when and how.” The 

university Medical Director and 

her team are always on ground in 

the clinic, to offer consultancy to 

affected persons but whoever is 

discovered to have fallen in the act 

is not fit to remain in Crescent 

University. That is the school’s 

point on drug abuse. It was also 

learned that the university had 

even concluded now to make drug 

test part of tests to be conducted at 

the point of entry so that any 

prospective student found 

wanting is denied admission.


Our Foreign Affairs and 

Diaspora Controversy 

Following an executive 

order on immigration 

made at the beginning 

of the year, by the new US 

President, Donald Trump, the 

country’s immigration 

service allegedly became 

more aggressive creating 

anxiety for some travellers. 

Initially, Nigerians believed 

they were not likely to be hurt 

by the plan not just because 

its enforcement was blocked 

by federal courts but because 

the revised order did not 

include Nigeria among the 

seven countries on the target 

list. Unfortunately, some 

Nigerians have reportedly 

been refused entry without 

reasons. The development 

should ordinarily have 

bothered the handlers of our 

foreign affairs, but that was 

not exactly the case. It became 

the lot of concerned Nigerians 

in the Diaspora to fill the gap. 

Two influential Nigerian 

community associations in 

the U.S. the Nigerian Lawyers 

Association and the 

Organisation for the 

Advancement of Nigeria 

(OAN) were the first to act. 

Having found that some U.S. 

law enforcement officials had 

become overzealous with 

extreme vetting since the roll 

out of the travel order and 

were sometimes going beyond 

their Constitutional bound, 

the groups organized 

sensitization programmes for 

Nigerians who have relatives 

travelling to the U.S. 

The programmes revealed 

a number of rights. First, that 

a security officer does not have 

the right to ask unnecessary 

questions from travelers. 

Second, that the law 

prescribes that no one can be 

delayed for more than six 

hours. So if after six hours of 

arrival of the relevant flight, 

people do not see their 

relatives, then they should 

immediately meet 

immigration attorneys to file 

for their release. Third, that 

some Nigerian attorneys had 

volunteered to be part of the 

Legal Aid Society who can 

easily come to the aid of any 

Nigerian stranded at the 

airports. The proactive 

Nigerian patriotic groups 

were neither being 

confrontational nor were they 

questioning the executive 

orders; instead, they were 

bothered by what they termed 

“unintended consequences of 

inappropriate questioning.” 

Meanwhile, both the 

Nigerian Embassy in the US 

and our foreign affairs 

ministry did not appear to be 

What we have in the 

US or anywhere else 

are not viable foreign 

missions but some 

proliferated 

structures here and 

there described as 

embassies, 

consulates and high 

commissions 

aware of the development let 

alone to seek to stop the 

humiliation of any Nigerian. 

In due course, those 

adversely affected formally 

sent complaints to Abike 

Dabiri- Erewa, the Senior 

Special Assistant to the 

President on Foreign Affairs 

and Diaspora Matters. They 

complained that although 

they had valid visas, they were 

denied entry to the US and 

sent back to Nigeria on the 

next available flights. Dabiri- 

Erewa having received no less 

than four cases in 2 weeks 

advised Nigerians who had 

no “compelling or essential 

reasons to visit the US to 

consider delaying their trip 

until there is clarity in the new 

immigration policy.” Less 

than 24 hours later, Godfrey 

Onyema, our foreign affairs 

minister fiercely faulted 

Erewa’s position. At a news 

conference on the subject, the 

minister said: “On the issue 

of Nigerians being turned 

back from the US, this is not 

the case. I have reached out 

to the US Ambassador to 

Nigeria and the country’s 

high level officials who said 

nothing of such had 

happened. If the Nigerian 

government is speaking on 

any external relations, you 

will hear it from the 

Ministry of Foreign Affairs 

or the Office of the 

President. I can tell you to 

ignore the advice to 

reconsider travelling to the 

US because there is no basis 

for that.” 

Nigeria in our view was 

worse off with the minister’s 

supposed clarification on 

the subject. To start with, he 

didn’t say anything 

substantive about the issue 

at stake. Instead he was 

more interested in the 

territorial defence of his 

ministry. When asked by the 

media to define the 

functions of the office of the 

Senior Special Assistant to 

the President on Foreign 

affairs and Diaspora 

matters, he didn’t say. If so, 

how did he know what the 

office could not do? The 

claim that US officials also 

disagreed with Erewa does 

not prove that undue 

humiliation of Nigerians did 

not happen; the US officials 

were probably defending 

their country. Otherwise how 

do we explain the case of one 

Femi Olaniyi who was 

reportedly deported on the 

21 of February 2017, from 

his point of entry in Los 

Angeles? Femi said he was 

put in a cold cell and held 

for 4 days and that his phones 

were seized making it 

impossible for him to have 

access to his family or 

anyone else. Another 

Nigerian, Francis Adekola, 

who narrated his own travel 

ordeal to Punch 

newspapers, said he was 

detained for over 10 hours 

before he was placed on an 

aircraft and returned 

to Abuja via Johannesburg. 

The most irritating 

rationalization of the 

deportation allegations is 

the minister’s argument that 

the story could not have been 

true because the Nigeran 

Ambassador to the US was 

unaware of the reports. If a 

Nigerian was not allowed to 

enter the US at all, how does 

such a citizen reach our 

Ambassador? Besides, what 

we have in the US or 

anywhere else are not viable 

foreign missions but some 

proliferated structures here 

and there described as 

embassies, consulates and 

high commissions. Even 

when Nigeria was not in 

recession they always faced 

a lot of embarrassment for 

their inability to resolve 

basic challenges like settling 

ordinary electricity and 

telephone bills. At a point 

the irrepressible Ojo 

Madueke of blessed memory 

told our House of 

Representatives Committee 

on Foreign Policy that in 

New York “we have a 

mission where the 

Ambassador’s car would 

have to be pushed on the road 

in an important capital in 

the world.” Thus, we see as 

instructive, the statement by 

our own President, 

Muhammadu Buhari a few 

months back that “there is 

no point keeping embassies 

all over the world with 

dilapidated and 

demoralised staff.” Who can 

such people help? 

Nigerians can therefore 

not relate with our foreign 

missions until they are 

transformed - a job we 

assumed Onyema was 

brought in to do instead of 

getting engaged in 

territorial squabbles. 

Indeed, if his ministry was 

proactive, there would have 

been no vacuum for anyone 

else to seek to fill. Besides, 

our minister should not 

echo such rationalization as 

that Nigerians deported 

may have had personal 

problems; rather he is 

expected to take great pains 

to investigate and remedy 

any allegation of inhuman 

treatment meted on any 

Nigeria even if it is just one 

citizen. 

Scientific discovery 

and its enemies(2) 

Meanwhile, no philoso 

pher of science or epistemologist 

has done more 

than Karl Popper to provide 

an epistemological rationale 

for the falsification of theories 

in science. Popper argued that 

although the quest for truth is 

the cardinal aim of science, 

no scientific hypothesis or theory 

can be conclusively 

proved to be true because 

none is completely immune 

from falsification. What can 

be established deductively is 

the refutation of scientific hypotheses 

based on the modus 

tollens of formal logic. A theory 

that withstands severe 

tests, that is, one which has not 

been falsified as yet, can be 

said to be corroborated. Therefore, 

Popper’s falsificationist 

methodology sits comfortably 

with the possibility that Prof. 

Ezeibe’s claims might be erroneous, 

because it entails a 

paradigm-shift in the attitude 

of scientists to the falsification 

of their theories. Before Popper, 

verification or confirmation 

of theories in science was 

the norm for most epistemologists, 

such that falsification 

or refutation of a theory was 

considered a horrible thing, 

something scientists should 

feel really bad about, a possibility 

that they should do their 

best to avoid. But since his fundamental 

work entitled The 

Logic of Scientific Discovery 

was published in 1959, we 

now understand that a falsified 

scientific theory also contributes 

to the advancement 

of knowledge. Accordingly, a 

scientist should accept proven 

falsification of his or her 

PhD,Department of 

Philosophy, 

University of Lagos 

08116759758 

opuruiche2000@yahoo.com 

theory in good faith. Prof. 

John Eccles, the Australian 

brain scientist and a Nobel 

laureate, after imbibing Popper’s 

falsificationist methodology, 

was emboldened to carry 

out more fundamental researches 

in his area of specialisation 

despite the ever present 

possibility that his theories 

could be overthrown at any 

time. Nigerian scientists can 

borrow a leaf from Eccles’ 

example. As I stated earlier, 

Prof. Ezeibe’s claim could be 

verified by further scientific 

investigation; however, even 

if it turns out to be wrong, he 

should not be despondent or 

abandon his efforts to find an 

effective cure or vaccine 

against HIV. I believe Ezeibe’s 

research efforts might be useful 

in some way and should 

not be suppressed or ignored 

simply because of his alleged 

failure to obtain “ethical approval.” 

Our analysis thus far can be 

used as a springboard for reexamining 

the difficult 

problem of scientific and 

t e c h n o l o g i c a l 

underdevelopment in 

Nigeria. No reasonable 

Nigerian, no matter how 

patriotic he or she might be, 

can deny the fact that our 

country is lagging far behind 

less naturally endowed 

countries like Japan, South 

Korea, Singapore and several 

others in industrialisation and 

manufacturing. For instance, 

Nigeria’s economy is a one 

legged invalid heavily 

dependent on crude oil 

exports, and the foreign 

exchange realised is spent on 

able category of Third World 

countries with Nigeria in the 

1960s demonstrates that a 

country cannot develop its 

industrial capacity without 

consistent solid backing by 

the political leadership. In 

other words, for a country to 

industrialise, government 

must lead the way by incentivising 

educational institutions, 

firms and organisations 

specifically set up for 

research and development. 

That said, I wish to draw 

attention now to an 

impediment to scientific 

discovery often ignored or 

downplayed by those interested 

in the problem of scientific 

and technological underdevelopment 

in Nigeria. 

What I have in mind is the 

overarching primitive superstitious 

mentality dominant 

among Nigerians. Every 

adult human being has a 

worldview or philosophy of 

life that guides his or her acimportation 

of manufactured 

goods from other countries. 

Indeed, we import everything, 

including those items that can 

manufactured in the country 

based on comparative 

advantage with respect to the 

availability of raw materials 

and arable land for industrial 

agriculture. That Nigeria 

continues to import food 

items of all sorts, textile goods 

and refined petroleum 

products is a serious 

indictment of her leadership 

since the attainment of 

independence in 1960. The 

shameful situation of arrested 

development in 

industrialisation and 

manufacturing is largely 

responsible for our shambolic 

economy and horrible 

condition of a vast majority 

of the population. What is 

responsible for this? Why is 

Nigeria, in spite of her 

impressive human and 

natural resources, operating 

largely a mono product 

mixed-up economic system 

that relies too much on crude 

oil exports? What is hindering 

the attainment of home- 

ical inquiry, which is fundamental 

in scientific investigation. 

The problem of extremely 

weak political will by successive 

administrations to 

mobilise available talents 

and resources needed for research 

and innovation cannot 

be overemphasized. Rapid 

industrialisation of Singapore 

and South Korea, countries 

that were in the unenvi- 

Prof. Ezeibe’s claim 

could be verified by 

further scientific 

investigation; 

however, even if it 

turns out to be 

wrong, he should not 

be despondent or 

abandon his efforts 

to find an effective 

cure or vaccine 

against HIV 

tivities. If you want to appreciate 

the decisive role of a dominant 

general world outlook or 

what the Germans call weltanschauung 

in the development 

of human society, compare the 

situation in medieval Europe 

with the renaissance. In the 

middle ages, because of the 

overbearing influence of 

religion on both the elite and 

the masses, science and 

philosophy were subordinated 

to theology, and scientific 

research was neglected. The 

end result was prolonged 

stagnation in science and 

technology. After philosophers 

such as Francis Bacon and 

René Descartes had revolted 

against the epistemological 

sterility of medievalism, 

Europe witnessed the dawn of 

scientific and technological 

progress aptly called the 

renaissance. Presently, most 

Nigerians operate with 

precisely the same kind of 

antiquated religious mentality 

characteristic of medieval 

Europeans. Right from infancy, 

the typical Nigerian child is 

malnourished with the 

intelligence-destroying diet of 

religious superstition. The 

child grows up as a Christian, 

Muslim or, in a few instances, 

as an adherent of traditional 

African religion. 

Of course, there are some 

biblical and koranic passages 

that encourage the pursuit of 

knowledge, whereas indigenous 

cultures value knowledge 

and wisdom. But the overwhelming 

worldview projected 

by Christianity and Islam is 

fundamentally dogmatic, superstitious, 

unscientific and 

otherworldly. Mutatis 

mutandis, the same is largely 

true of traditional African religion. 

Therefore, a researcher 

who had internalised religious 

dogmas is very likely to be discouraged 

or hampered unconsciously 

in following through 

with a research finding that 

threatens to conflict with the 

teachings of his or her faith. In 

some cases, the outcomes of experiments 

are either manipulated 

to conform to religion or 

covered up because it contra- 

grown sustainable 

industrialisation in the 

country? Why are we not 

making real progress in 

science and technology? 

For decades and at different 

forums, government officials, 

scientists, engineers, scholars 

from different disciplines and 

other interested parties have 

identified reasons for the 

abysmal level of scientific 

development in Nigeria. 

These include mediocre 

political leadership that does 

not appreciate the critical role 

of scientific and technological 

research in national 

development, poor funding of 

individuals and institutions 

that ought to lead in research 

and innovative technology, 

absence of strong systematic 

linkage or symbiosis between 

research institutions and 

companies that can harness 

research findings for industrial 

purposes, as well as sociocultural 

impediments radioactive 

to the spirit of free critdicts 

the core religious beliefs 

of the investigator. This leads 

to cognitive dissonance characterised 

by conflict between 

experimental results and unconscious 

religious bias ingrained 

in the epistemic repertoire 

of the researcher. This 

is a serious issue because notwithstanding 

their highfalutin 

academic degrees and professorships, 

a sizeable number of 

Nigerian scientists in our universities 

and research institutes 

place their religion above 

science. Indeed, many of them 

abandon rigorous scientific 

research and become religious 

clerics and preachers. 

The net result of all this is significant 

reduction in both the 

number of scientists doing 

important research relevant 

to the country’s developmental 

needs and in the quality of 

research output. I am convinced 

that part of the problem 

of low productivity in research 

is due to uncritical acceptance 

of religious dogmas 

by Nigerian scientists. As Richard 

Dawkins argued in his 

splendid book, The God Delusion, 

uncritical acceptance 

of religious superstition is detrimental 

to the growth of science 

because whereas religion 

is based on the will to believe 

without adequate evidence 

science thrives on the unceasing 

desire to find out in the 

face of the possibility of error. 

Most scientists in developed 

countries are atheists, agnostics 

or nominal believers for 

whom religion is just an item 

in the social calendar, while 

99.9% percent of Nigerian scientists 

are devout Christians 

and Muslims who prefer the 

creation myths of their religion 

to the theories of Charles 

Darwin and Albert Einstein. 

Overall, referring back to 

Prof. Maduike Ezeibe’s episode, 

although hubristic disrespect 

of Nigerian scientists 

by so-called experts is deplorable, 

the fear-motivated childish 

elevation of religion above 

science by our researchers is 

the worst impediment hindering 

scientific progress in Nigeria 

today. Concluded.


SIBLING FROM HELL 

I arranged armed gang 

to rob my brother for 

cheating me on family 

land he sold 

— Generator repairer 

•Says he got N4,000 phone after 

plot was disposed for N1.4 million 

Dayo Johnson, Akure 

WHEN he was paraded 

alongside 15 other suspects, 

many had wondered what could 

have pushed him into committing 

such a heinous crime against his 

blood brother. 

Innocent looking, Dayo 

Adegbohun, 21, was arrested for 

allegedly organizing a gang of 

armed robbers to attack his brother 

for allegedly depriving him of his 

share of a family land that was sold. 

Adegbohun, a generator repairer, 

confessed to Sunday Vanguard in 

Akure, Ondo State capital that, for 

refusing to part with reasonable 

amount of money from the sale of a 

family land, he arranged a gang to 

rob his brother in Okitipupa area 

of the state. 

He said that he decided to teach 

his brother the lesson of his life after 

he cheated him of his alleged share 

of the proceeds from the land sale. 

The suspect lamented that his 

brother only gave him a telephone 

worth N4000 from the sale of fthe 

amily land worth N1.4m. 

However, after robbing his 

brother, he confessed that the gang 

he contracted the job to, gave him 

N100,000 out of the N780,000 

stolen from the sibling’s apartment. 

According to him, the brother, who 

sold the family land, had earlier 

agreed to set him up in business 

after the sale of the land but reneged. 

He said he was pissed off because 

his brother was the one who 

encouraged him to learn a trade 

only to snub him after the land was 

sold. 

“My brother told me not to go 

BY BOSE ADELAJA 

Residents of Oko Addo village, Addo 

Nla Town in Eti-Osa Local Government 

Area of Lagos, have begged Governor 

Akinwunmi Ambode to save them from 

land grabbers. 

Some of the residents, numbering over 

120, took to the streets in protest against 

what they described as encroachment on 

their land by the land grabbers who they 

claimed also launched attacks on them. 

The residents said they no longer sleep 

with their two eyes closed. 

The protesters marched from Lekki 

Gardens bus-stop to other parts of Oko- 

Addo. They alleged that the hoodlums 

However, after 

robbing his brother, 

he confessed that the 

gang he contracted 

the job to, gave him 

N100,000 out of the 

N780,000 stolen from 

the sibling’s 

apartment 

back to Lagos, and that he will open 

a shop for me. I followed him to sell 

a family land. But instead of giving 

me money to open the shop, he took 

me to Okitipupa and bought Nokia 

phone for me,” Adegbohun 

narrated. 

“I told my friends that my brother 

had cheated me on our family land. 

I told them to get my own share of 

the money for me. 

“The total amount of money with 

him was N1.4million. But I told 

them to collect only half of the 

money. I told them not to kill him 

because he is my blood brother.” 

His alleged accomplice, Sola 

Ogunyemi, confirmed that they 

were contacted by Adegbohun “to 

help rob his brother because he was 

cheated after a parcel of family land 

was sold” . 

Ogunyemi, who claimed to be an 

•Adegbohun 

ex-convict, said he robbed the brother and 

shared the money among his gang members. 

Meanwhile, 14 other suspected armed 

robbers were also paraded by the state 

police command. 

The suspects were allegedly picked up in 

different parts of Ondo State by the police, 

acting on tip- off. 

Police Commissioner in the state, Hilda 

Harrison, said the suspects were arrested in 

Akure, Okipupa, Oka-Akoko and Igbokoda. 

The suspects include Amabami Monday, 

Enetufo Ajinde, Patrick Emmanuel, Daisi 

Enetufo, Anifowose Alaba and Segun 

Matowobunmi. 

Others are Soji Akintokun, Olowolayemo 

Obebe, Olajide Olatayo, Amonimo Johnson, 

Tunbosun Ibitoye, Damilare Oyepo and 

Abiola Omolafe. 

Items recovered from the suspects, 

according to the commissioner, include 

guns, axes, live cartridges, charms and 

mobile phones. 

The police boss said the suspects had 

confessed to crimes and that all of them 

would soon be charged to court. 

In another development, a student of Rufus 

Giwa Polytechnic, Owo, Tosin Olusanya, 

a.k.a ‘Target’, who was said to have initiated 

many of her secondary school mates into 

cultism, has been sentenced to seven years 

imprisonment by an Akure High Court for 

cultism and gang-rape. 

His jail sentence came after weeks of trial. 

Tosin, 22, who claimed to have belonged 

to the Eiye cult, was himself initiated when 

he was in secondary school. 

The convict, according to the prosecution 

counsel, Mr Remi Olatubora, was notorious 

for arranging the gang-raping of any girl to 

be initiated by not less than ten boys and 

also in the habit of putting red pepper into 

the private part of the female convert, the 

act they called ‘baptism of fire’. 

Land grabbers attack 120 Lagos residents 

were hired by an influential business man (names 

withheld) who, according to them, evicted some of 

residents after reallocating their land to strangers. 

The protesters, who carried placards with various 

inscriptions, asked Ambode to invoke the Lagos 

Anti-land Grabbing Law on the suspects while 

also demanding that they be allowed back to their 

homes. 

The community head, Chief Riliwan Olayiwola, 

70, told Sunday Vanguard his people had cried 

to government on several occasions on the 

activities of the land grabbers. ‘’We have cried 

out for government intervention but it appears the 

hoodlums are more powerful as they have sent 

many of us packing by demolishing some 

structures and converting others to personal use. 

As you can see, we cannot fight government but 

all we want is peace to return to the land so that 

our people can go back home,” he said. 

One of the protesters, who gave his name as Prince K.O. 

Eshinloye, said his forefathers were the owners of the vast 

land through inheritance. Another protester, Ayo Onigbinde, 

said he lost millions of Naira to the development as his 

property was converted by the hoodlums. 

•The protesting residents 

SMUGGLING 

Onuesoke flays 

Customs directive 

on used vehicles, 

urges Senate, 

Presidency to 

inter 

ervene 

A 

chieftain of the Peoples 

Democratic Party (PDP) in Delta 

State, Chief Sunny Onuesoke, has 

condemned the pronouncement by 

the Comptroller-General of the 

Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), 

Col. Hameed Ibrahim Ali (retd), that 

the NCS would soon begin to 

impound vehicles being used in the 

country without Customs duties 

papers. 

Onuesoke, who spoke to 

journalists at Murtala Muhammed 

International Airport (MMIA), 

Ikeja, Lagos, appealed to the Senate 

and the Presidency not to allow the 

directive by the NCS to take effect, 

adding that the directive will put 

more hardship on the already 

financially distressed citizens and 

provide a platform for bullying and 

harassment by law enforcement 

agencies. 

He argued that the Customs policy 

has exposed the agency’s 

incapacitation and incompetence to 

perform its duty of preventing 

smuggled goods from entering the 

country. 

Asking the Presidency and the National 

Assembly to call Ali to order, Onuesoke 

said: “We need to examine the brains 

of the officers of the Customs. 

Instead of keeping quiet for failing the 

nation, they have turned their failure 

to strength to harass Nigerians. In 

civilised climes, this directive will be 

an admission of failure of the 

Customs to carry out its mandate 

efficiently. 

“Instead of organizing Customs to 

efficiently carry out its mandate, it 

wants to collect duties retroactively. 

If indeed duties were not 

correctly paid, who 

should be held 

responsible? This 

situation is thrust 

upon the nation by 

these same men of 

Customs. This 

directive is dead 

on arrival. It 

cannot stand. 

Nigerians 

must rise •Onuesoke 

against it.”


ILE-IFE MAYHEM 

I rescued over 1,000 

Hausa residents 

—Ooni Ogunwusi 

•How verbal disagreement turned 

into bloody clash – Eye witnesses 

By Gbenga Olarinoye, Osogbo 

“Ile-Ife has a king who talks of life of peace, 

love and harmony. Let every one in Ile-Ife 

eschew bitterness, rancour and violence. Let us 

all pray for Ooni Ogunwusi and the people of 

Ife. God’s spirit will calm every storm in Jesus 

name”. 

The above quote is a post from the Facebook 

page of Mr. Dele Salam, a foremost writer and 

journalist while reacting to the Wednesday’s 

bloody clash between the Hausa community 

and their host, Ile-Ife. 

The clash is uncalled for, particularly at a 

period when the Ooni of Ife, Oba Enitan 

Adeyeye Ogunwusi, has been doing everything 

possible since his ascension to the throne about 

two years ago to bring peace and development 

to the cradle of Yoruba and beyond. 

Both the Hausa community and their Ile-Ife 

hosts have been living for decades together 

without any crisis of the magnitude of the 

Wednesday clash. Their association had 

blossomed to the extent that there have been 

inter marriages between the Hausa and the 

Yoruba communities in the town. 

So, what could have been responsible for the 

disagreement between the two groups that 

degenerated into such a bloody clash with lives 

lost and scores wounded? 

The clash, which started Tuesday night, raged 

till the following day. It was as if the cradle of 

Yoruba race had become a war zone. By the 

time the clash was quelled, property and cash 

worth several millions of Naira had gone up in 

flames. 

A visit to the town by Sunday Vanguard, on 

Thursday, after the situation had been brought 

under control, made the heart bleed because of 

the level of destruction that took place. It brought 

back memories of the clashes between Ife and 

its neighbour, Modakeke, a wound Ogunwusi 

had made efforts to heal since coming to the 

throne. 

The Ooni, since receiving the staff and 

instrument of office, has been fighting youth 

restiveness in his domain through 

empowerment programmes. 

Sunday Vanguard learnt the monarch 

BY ALADE AROMASHODU 

Worried by the government neglect of traditional 

religion, the Baale of Okobaba, in Mainland Local 

Government Area of Lagos State, Chief Musbau Jinadu, 

says government should be fair to traditionalists and stop giving 

all attention to Christians and Muslims. 

He argued that government representatives often divert funds 

earmarked for traditionalists to Christians and Muslims. “A 

former LGA Chairman was assigned by the state government to 

give official cars to traditional rulers in the area, unfortunately, 

rather than do this, he allocated the cars to clergymen with 

customised number plates,” Jinadu said. 

“Christmas, Eid-el-Kabir and Eid-el-Fitri are usually observed 

with two days public holidays by Christians and Muslims, 

respectively, yet government cannot declare public holidays for 

traditionalists Isese Day which is observed every August 20. 

Improper approach to tradition has caused the nation so many 

damages. 

“The installation of Oba is normally done through Ifa oracle; 

through royal lineage. People are asked to nominate candidates 

for vacant stools. These nominations can be rejected by Ifa, but 

another person in the family could thence be nominated and 

eventually installed accordingly. Recently, a governor nominated 

C 

M 

YK 

•Ooni of Ife, Oba Enitan 

Adeyeye Ogunwusi 

embarked on the programmes in order to resettle 

youths who took part in the Ife-Modakeke war. 

The painful aspect of last week’s clash between 

the Hausa and the natives may be seen as throwing 

spanners into the reconcillatory efforts of Ogunwusi, 

not only between Ile-Ife and Modakeke, but also 

among some monarchs in Yorubaland who are 

considered as enemies of Ife before the Ooni 

ascended the throne. For his role in this regard, 

Ogunwusi, has received applause both locally and 

internationally. 

An account of what led to the Wednesday mayhem 

was given by a trader in the Sabo market, where the 

clash started. This was corroborated by the Serikin 

Hausawa. An argument ensued between a woman 

trader at Sabo market, simply identified as Kubura, 

Tuesday evening, but was resolved. 

The trader said, “The woman was sitting in her 

shop when a man came. The man wanted to drop 

some loads with her but the woman refused. She 

asked him to take his load away. Suddenly, the 

man slapped the woman after which the woman 

held the man by his dress. Later, we saw the woman 

making a call and some group of youths came to 

defend her.” 

It was gathered that the following day, some 

miscreants in the town, as early as 6am, armed 

with cutlasses, knives and clubs, stormed some shops 

said to be owned by Hausas and started breaking 

into them.As the situation degenerated, eyewitnesses 

said the people from both sides organised themselves 

into two formidable groups for the battle. 

Meanwhile, Governor Rauf Aregbesola has 

assured the Hausa community in Osun State of 

adequate protection as government is on top of the 

Ile-Ife mayhem. 

Aregbesola spoke when he visited the scene of the 

clash, expressing regret that the incident happened. 

He called on the natives of the state as well as other 

tribes resident in Osun to go about their lawful 

duties without fear of intimidation, as government 

had put every thing in place for their security. 

Aregbesola, who condemned the fracas, promised 

that those behind it will be made to face the full 

weight of the law. 

He was received at the entrance to the town by 

the Serikin Hausawa, who accompanied him to 

the scene of the mayhem. The governor later visited 

the palace of the Ooni for discussion on how to 

bring succour to the affected community. 

We have Yoruba also 

in the North and that 

is why we should live 

in harmony. I thank 

God I was yet to 

make a trip I had 

planned before the 

incident happened 

Ogunwusi did not hide his feeling when he 

received Aregbesola. His words: “I kick 

against war or violence in any form. I always 

preach peace and unity , not only among the 

Yoruba race but also among Nigerians at 

large. As Hausa are sojourners in Ile-Ife, so 

also are Ife indigenes live in other towns and 

cities across the country and in diaspora. 

Let’s give peace a chance and maintain peace 

and harmony in this land. 

“ We have Yoruba also in the North and 

that is why we should live in harmony. I thank 

God I was yet to make a trip I had planned 

before the incident happened”. 

The monarch explained that he had to 

abandon the trip to rescue over 1,000 Hausa 

people captured by the Yoruba and many of 

the Hausa sought refuge in his palace and 

they were all protected without 

discrimination. “I have been 

communicating with traditional rulers in 

the North since Wednesday to give them 

assurance that, the matter has been resolved 

amicably”, the Ooni said. 

“I am a man of peace. This incident will 

not deter me from agitating for peace in the 

country. Ife is a land created by God for 

peace. We embrace visitors but it is 

unfortunate that this happened. Many 

Hausas were born here, they have become 

Yoruba. Ife is a land of love. I am a king of 

Why Christians, Muslims, traditionalists should get equal govt attention 

—Jinadu, Lagos chief 

a candidate for a vacant Oba/baale stool, using his 

veto power. This later negatively affected the nation 

as due process was not traditionally observed in the 

installation. I, myself was installed Baale of Okobaba 

when our family chose my senior brother who 

indicated no interest, but hand-picked me as the 

immediate junior brother to ascend the throne”. 

Also speaking Chief Rasheed Olaitan Ogunyemi, the 

Balogun Eluku of Ibese, in Ikorodu Local Government 

Area of the state, said traditional rulers are clearminded 

people who always critically investigate 

matters referred to them before arriving at 

conclusions. “There is never a time we punish our 

subjects unjustly, because we are always mindful of 

the repercussion from Olokun, our deity,” Ogunyemi 

said. 

“We appease the Olokun deity by the Third Mainland 

bridge to protect the area and entire Lagos against 

flood from the river, as Lagos State is surrounded by 

water, so, whenever we appease the gods of the river, 

we catch enough fish, as fishing is our main 

occupation”. 

He said Christianity and Islam had superseded 

traditional religion as most children had deserted 

traditional religion. “We pray as traditionalists that 

as they do in Islam and Christianity, we are not killing 

people in our shrine, rather, we deliberate on state of 

the nation and appease 

to gods for peace to 

resolve challenges. 

“We do pray strongly, 

and we don’t keep 

malice; instead, we 

show love, guidance 

and pray for God’s 

protection at all times”, 

Ogunyemi stressed. 

The Balogun Eleku 

explained that before 

the computer age, 

discussions in the shrine 

were directed at 

peace and I detest crisis. We are one with 

Hausa and Igbo monarchs and we will 

do all we can to see that peace is upheld in 

the land. 

“Why are we setting our houses ablaze 

and fighting one another. God will console 

the families of those who lost their lives in 

the mayhem”. 

“I believe the mayhem was caused by 

strangers and not the Hausa in our midst 

who have become part of us with their 

contributions to the social and economic 

development of Ile-Ife. Those behind this 

heinous crime, I assure you, will be 

brought to book. 

“We should be wary of bad elements 

living with us in our communit”.. 

The two members of the National 

Assembly from Ife, Senator Babajide 

Omoworare and Hon. Abiodun Adeogun, 

also condemned the violence. 

Omoworare, in a statement, appealed 

to all frayed nerves in the community to 

give peace a chance. 

Adeogun, in his own statement, said: 

“Hausa and Yoruba people of Ile Ife have 

been living together, peacefully and 

harmoniously since a century ago. They 

are living together without rancour 

because they tolerate themselves by 

overlooking some minor problems that 

can spark off violence among themselves. 

“It is very worrisome and bizarre to 

notice what happened, yesterday, when hell 

was let loose. Many people were killed 

and property worth several millions of 

naira were destroyed. I extol the virtues of 

our law enforcement agents for their 

prompt intervention and Ooni of Ife, Oba 

Adeyeye Ogunwusi, for his fatherly role 

to douse the tension during and after the 

crisis. I wish to appeal to all residents of Ile 

ife to embrace peace and desist from 

anything that can further lead to another 

crisis in Ife township and its environs. 

People should cooperate with law 

enforcement agents to unravel the cause(s) 

of the bloody clash and obey the curfew 

imposed by the state government in other 

to have a permanent peace in Ife land”. 

•Chief Musbau Jinadu 

appeasing gods, saying, however, that technology had 

taken over. He stated that the situation now is such that 

shrine discussions could even appear on social media if 

not properly monitored. “In the olden days, offending 

children are jointly corrected by old people in a family 

compound, but presently, modernisation means that 

parents accompany their children to perform 

wrongful acts in the society. We are so insensitive 

to security that we entrust our duty to children and 

incapable persons,” he added.

Connect the anointing; 

get a miracle 

For some time, the 

Pentecostal 

churches have become 

more popular because 

of the emphasis on the Holy 

Spirit. Some Bible scholars 

regard the Holy Spirit 

as the third person in the trinity. 

Many others understand 

the Holy Spirit to be the 

powerhouse of the Almighty. 

Whichever way one looks 

at it, the Holy Spirit, God 

the Father and God the Son 

are ONE. That is, the Trinity 

Ṫhis edition of Joyful 

homes is not about the definition 

of the Holy Spirit or 

the gifts of the Holy Spirit 

but for us to appreciate the 

Spirit of God and his influence 

in our lives. 

According to the General 

Overseer of Laughter Foundation 

International Ministry, 

Pastor Gbenga Oso, in 

one of his sermons, he said 

that our first contact with the 

Holy Spirit is recorded in 

Genesis 1 verse 2 but let’s 

consider verses 1 and 2 to 

fully understand the Holy 

Spirit. 

“In the beginning God 

created the heaven and the 

earth. And the earth was 

without form, and void, and 

darkness was upon the face 

of the deep . And the Spirit 

of God moved upon the face 

of the waters”. 

During the Baptism of our 

Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy 

Sprit was again introduced 

to us. Luke 3 vs. 21 and 22 “ 

Now when all the people 

were baptized, it came to 

pass, that Jesus also being 

baptized, and praying, the 

heaven was opened. And the 

Holy Ghost descended in a 

bodily shape like a dove 

upon him, and a voice came 

from heaven, which said, 

Thou art my beloved Son; 

in thee I am well pleased”. 

Our Lord Jesus Christ introduced 

the Holy Spirit to 

us more than any other person. 

He fully introduced the 

Holy Spirit in John 14 up to 

chapter 16. 

Let’s consider, John 16 vs. 

7 “ Nevertheless I tell you 

the truth; It is expedient for 

you that I go away; for if I 

go not away, the Comforter 

will not come to you; but if I 

depart, I will send him to 

you”. 

Verse 13 of the same chapter, 

“ Howbeit when he, the 

Spirit of truth, is come, he 

will guide you into all truth: 

for he shall not speak of 


himself; but whatsoever he 

shall hear, that shall he 

speak: and he will shew you 

things to come”. 

But our focus is on the 

anointing of the Holy Spirit. 

Isaiah 10 vs. 27 states, “ 

And it shall come to pass in 

that day, that his burden 

shall be taken away from off 

thy shoulder, and his yoke 

from off thy neck, and the 

yoke shall be destroyed because 

of the anointing”. 

This is our assurance that 

the anointing is capable of 

breaking any yoke. 

So, when men and women 

of God conduct anointing 

services, it is the power of the 

Holy Spirit in the oil being 

administered that breaks the 

yoke. 

Let’s not forget that the 

Holy Spirit can manifest itself 

in several ways. 

In this season, by the 

anointing of the Holy Spirit, 

every yoke will disappear 

from your life in Jesus name. 

When we receive the 


there must be a turnaround. 

Things must change 

for the best. No one comes 

in contact with the Spirit of 

God and remains the same. 

Testimonies- I ‘ll share a 

testimony. A friend made an 

application to a bank for 

transfer of Dollars to her 

business partner abroad but 

there was a long queue and 

the lady she met was very 

hostile. 

She left her and decided 

to take her case to God. 

While praying God showed 

her how his wind would 

blow in her favour. In her 

dream, she saw a man ahead 

of her on the queue but suddenly 

a wind blew and her 

paper came forth. The officer 

said to her, I will give it to you 

now though it is not supposed 

to be your turn. This was in a 

dream. 

Within days, the bank officer, 

a man ( he had replaced 

the hostile woman) called her 

When we receive 

the anointing of the 

Holy Spirit, there 

must be a turnaround. 

Things 

must change for 

the best. No one 

comes in contact 

with the Spirit of 

God and remains 

the same 

to come over and sign the documents. 

On getting there, he said, it 

was to be the turn of a man 

but that the man had called 

in to say he was no longer interested. 

The lady boldly told him 

that it was the Holy Spirit that 

blew the wind to favour her . 

What am I saying? The power 

of the Holy Spirit is unlim- 

ited. It can break any 

yoke. It can make a way 

where there is no way. It is 

the manifestation of the 

awesome power of God. 

With our connection with 

the Holy Spirit, we are 

emboldened to move beyond 

the ordinary. The 

Holy Spirit makes our journey 

of life as Christians 

easy because the Spirit 

gives us direction. 

The anointing of the 

Holy Spirit sets us free 

from bondage. It heals and 

delivers one from evil spirits. 

It makes the barren to 

conceive, attracts a marriage 

partner to the single. 

The anointing of the 

Holy Spirit can change the 

tide in your favour. 

What is that challenge 

that has been giving you 

sleepless nights? By the 

grace of God, the anointing 

of the Holy Spirit will 

break the yoke in Jesus 

name. 

For instance a woman 

who was declared to have 

no womb participated in 

an anointing service, the 

power of God touched her, 

a new womb was created 

in her and to the amazement 

of those who have 

declared she would be 

barren for life, she gave 

birth to a baby girl. 

The Holy Spirit is our 

Comforter. When we come 

in contact with the Holy 

Spirit he comforts us. It 

restores whatever we may 

have lost. 

Our Lord Jesus said of 

the Holy Spirit in John 14 

vs. 26 “ But the Comforter, 

which is the Holy Ghost, 

whom the Father will send 

in my name, he shall teach 

you all things, and bring all 

things to your remembrance, 

whatsoever I have 

said unto you”. 

This is one reason why we 

should take anointing services 

by genuine men of God 

seriously. The anointing 

breaks all yokes. 

Are you unemployed and 

you have given up? Please 

don’t . The anointing of the 

Holy Spirit is available to 

make you an employer. Very 

soon, you will forget the 

pains of unemployment . 

As Christians, we must 

connect with the Holy Spirit. 

In whatever we do, we need 

the Holy Spirit to give us 

direction. With the Holy 

Spirit as our guide, we cannot 

take the wrong steps. 

However, obedience is 

crucial. Speaking about the 

importance of obedience in 

a sermon, Pastor Matthew 

Ashimolowo of Kingsway 

International Christian 

Centre (KICC), said obedience 

releases the blessings 

and grace of God. 

He said as Christians, we 

should learn to take God by 

his word. “ God’s word does 

not agree with your reasoning”. 

In other words, you must 

have a good knowledge of 

the Bible and identity the 

aspect that mentions God’s 

solution to your challenge. 

As you connect with the 


your testimony is certain. 

I end this article with a 

word of congratulations to 

Laughter Foundation International 

Ministry that 

marks its 20th anniversary 

with an anointing service 

today in Lagos. 

A Woman's Elegance 

When a woman dresses 

badly you notice the clothes, 

when a woman dresses well 

you notice the woman —- 

Coco Chane 

That quote could not be 

further from the truth 

one of many quotes I 

admire. I believe that every 

woman is beautiful both 

inside and out; and therefore 

is royalty in her own right. It 

depends very much on how 

you think of yourself, treat 

yourself and love yourself. 

Royalty is holding yourself in 

high esteem by His Grace 

without pride or prejudice. 

Unfortunately, many of us are 

constantly down and 

demoralised, lack confidence, 

have a low self esteem and are 

most times indecisive about 

our future. 

To be a great woman at 

whatever you do you will need 

etiquette elegance that stems 

from manner, Kindness, 

consideration, respect and 

honesty. Manners and 

etiquette work hand in hand, 

they are a result of a kind heart. 

If we were to measure the 

impact of etiquette and what 

it says about you the following 

will be the benchmark. In 

other words Your Etiquette 

tells us: 

(a) Who you are; 

(b) Your upbringing; 

(c) The level of education 

you have attained; 

(d) Your personality; 

(e) Your family background; 

(f) Your thought process 

(mind set); 

(g) Your class or economic 

status; 

(h) Your experiences (read, 

travel) 

To improve your awareness 

of etiquette and achieve 

excellent manners, you need 

to expose yourself to elegance, 

being elegant and to elegant 

woman. An elegant woman is 

a gracious woman with 

values and care for others. 

Many would ask what is the 

essence of all this? Why can’t 

a woman be left to be who she 

is? Well it is important for a 

number of reasons including 

the ability to increase your 

confidence, polish and 

posture, have a competitive 

edge at work or in your 

industry, enhance your 

professionalism in your 

chosen field and promote a 

lasting image. Let me leave 

you with a few etiquette 

elegance tips for your 

consumption. 

10 Etiquette Elegance Tips. 

1.) Start from the 

Heart. 

It is important to deal with 

the inside first so that the rest 

of your workings of elegant 

self (outside) will come with 

ease. When you smile, from 

your mouth, let it be seen in 

your eyes, your facial 

expression and in your 

speech. 

People will be 

automatically attracted to 

you when your elegance 

comes from the heart. 

2.) Your looks 

(Appearance)/ Posture. 

A large chunk of about 55% 

of my first impression of you 

will come from your 

appearances: -Choose your 

clothes well, colour coordinate 

tops, bottoms, shoes. Do not 

wear ruffled clothing, keep your 

hair neat and well groomed. 

Your feet should look 

glamorous, wear good shoes 

and keep toes well catered for. 

3.) Your Posture 

Stand elegantly, do not 

slouch, do not pick your nose or 

spit, watch your body language. 

4.) Your Voice/Speed 

Choose words with maturity, 

no insults, no slangs. Be friendly 

and have a light heart, do not 

name drop or speak with pride. 

Use magic words.ie, Please, 

Thank you, 

Excuse me, Hello. 

5 . ) Y o u r 

Mindset 

Have a kind 

heart full of love, 

kindness, 

compassion, with 

no rudeness 

Your attitude 

should be good 

with a lot of 

patience while 

you try to ignore 

faults. 

6.) Choose 

Quality not 

Quantity 

W h e n 

purchasing for yourself or 

home appreciate good 

things like flowers, books, 

places and clothing, you 

should try to buy value for 

money. They should also be 

durable things not 

necessarily expensive. 

7.)Invest in developing 

yourself 

Acquire education or 

knowledge in a chosen 

interesting field. Develop 

your IQ, your and your 

intellect. Better still find a 

sport of interest and engage 

in it. 

8.) Beauty 

Aspire to always look 

good, don’t be lackadaisical 

about how you look or what 

you wear, don’t settle for less. 

Make up should be applied 

according to comfort. Plain 

faces make men look 

elsewhere when you are 

talking. Make your face, 

respectful, presentable. 

9.) Elegant Home 

For me simple and elegant 

is a catch, your home should 

always be clean, clutter free, 

organized and colour 

coordinated. Touch up your 

home with flowers and 

decorations of pleasure; add 

pictures of yourself, family or 

real antique. Appreciate good 

things while making your 

home welcoming for all 

especially your husband and 

partner. 

10.) E l e g a n t 

Entertainment 

Finally an Elegant woman 

should have a heart of sharing, 

Invite friends and family 

home. Be that quintessential 

hostess, create social 

gatherings from there we learn 

a lot from one another. 

I believe that every woman 

should strive for elegance, a 

trait that helps you create your 

Panache Advantage. Let me 

leave you with a personal 

quote of mine: 

“Your Etiquette today will 

boost your personality and 

image, thus position you to 

become tomorrow’s successful 

leader” 

— Janet Adetu. 

FUPRE’s land belongs to Ugbomro people, not Effurun, Olughor insists 

The people of Ugbomro 

community, in Uvwie 

local government 

area of Delta State, where the 

Federal University of 

Petroleum Resources FUPRE 

is sited, have vowed to reject 

any further attempt by the 

Federal Government to deny 

them the right of ownership 

of the land hosting the 

Petroleum University. 

Briefing Journalists at his 

palace in Ugbomro, the 

traditional prime minister 

(Unuevoro) of Ugbomro 

community, High Chief 

Ambrose Tadafe Olughor JP, 

insisted that the Petroleum 

University is sited in Ugbmoro 

and requested for adequate 

recognition of Ugbomro as 

host to the university to avert 

further crisis and breakdown 

of law and order in the 

community. 

Olughor said: “Henceforth, 

it should be rightfully known 

as the Federal University of 

Petroleum Resources, 

FUPRE, Ugbomro, and not 

Effurun or Delta State. The 

distance between Ugbomro 

and Effurun is 12miles, 

therefore, it is fraudulent and 

wrong for Effurun claiming host 

to FUPRE, because when 

former President Olusegun 

Obasanjo wrote to me to 

provide a land for the 

University, the people of 

Ugbomro gladly gave the 

land to the Federal 

Government, we have all the 

documents, they even 

surveyed the land and did 

not pay any compensation 

to our people” 

He said Effurun 

community cannot claim 

ownership of the land, noting 

that it is very disturbing that 

Ugbomro people who own 

and freely donated the land 

to the Federal Government 

for the university are not 

recognized as host to the 

University by the Federal 

Government and 

management of the university.


Time to release Dasuki, El- 

Zakzaky and Kanu on bail (3) 

“He who sets out on revenge 

must first dig two graves.” 

Chinese Proverb. 

(VANGUARD BOOK OF 

QUOTATIONS, VBQ, p 215). 

The Chinese 

philosophers 

apparently wiser 

than those who believe in the 

principle of “an eye for an 

eye” advised mankind to 

eschew seeking revenge for 

wrongs done to us personally. 

But, we don’t always listen to 

good advice. That is why the 

world is in such a mess – 

which gets messier every time. 

Later, another sage, 

Mahatma Gandhi, 1869- 

1948, had warned us that “an 

eye for an eye makes the whole 

world go blind.” But, 

individuals and those in 

political power can still not 

resist seeking revenge. While 

avenging real or imagined 

wrongs might be excusable in 

private life, it is to be 

condemned when those in 

power are perceived to be 

using the mandates given 

them to govern to exact 

revenge for a private injury. 

Last week, the focus was on 

El-Zakzaky – the Shiites 

leader being held in detention 

despite a court order allowing 

bail. The week before, it was 

Kanu – leader of the pro- 

Biafra group whose bail was 

being canvassed. 

Coincidentally, early last 

week, Amnesty International, 

AI, carpeted the Federal 

Government of Nigeria for 

gross violation of the rights of 

some of its citizens. The 

Ministry of Foreign Affairs 

issued a rejoinder to the AI 

report claiming that Kanu 

and his group were threats 

to Nigerian security; while 

El-Zakzaky and the Shiites 

were declared “terrorist 

group like Boko Haram”. 

The Honourable Minister 

for Foreign Affairs who 

must have authorized the 

release of that rebuttal failed 

to demonstrate adequate 

grasp of the tenets of democracy 

and our constitution to 

which the Ministry referred 

in the ill-considered press 

release. 

A democratic society is a 

country where the Executive, 

Legislative and the Judiciary 

branches have well-defined 

roles. The Executive can 

accuse anybody of any crime 

under the sun. It is the judiciary 

which determines guilt based 

on the interpretation of the 

country’s laws. Where the 

Executive accuses, detains, 

prosecutes, judges and 

sentences individuals, 

democracy has fled that 

nation. What the AI and 

people like me are saying is 

simple. Kanu, El-Zakzaky 

and Dasuki were 

apprehended, detained, 

accused and are being 

prosecuted by the Executive 

branch. The Constitution 

stipulates that the accused 

should be taken before the 

Judiciary and evidence of the 

offences committed should be 

laid before the judges who will 

then determine guilt or 

innocence. The first order of 

business is the matter of bail 

for the accused. The Executive 

branch is entitled to argue 

against bail being granted; 

the accused is entitled to 

request for it. The power to 

grant bail had been given 

solely to the Judiciary and 

there is no provision for refusal 

by the Executive 

branch. That was why a “so 

called judge” in a state court 

in America could order the 

suspension of Trump’s 

Executive Order and the 

court’s order was obeyed. That 

is a true democracy. Trump 

also based his order on 

“security” – whatever that 

means – but the court was not 

impressed. The Federal 

government is basing its 

defiance of court order on the 

same claim and court order 

is ignored. The question is: is 

the refusal in the national 

interest or are in individuals 

now in power using the 

powers given to them by the 

people to subvert the law and 

settle personal scores? 

Even a child remembers the 

main causes of the Civil War 

– mainly the massacre of 

thousands of Igbos in the 

North. Till today, the wounds 

of that war have refused to be 

healed simply because the rest 

of Nigeria has not “forgiven” 

Igbos. Each time the word 

Biafra comes up, it is like 

waving a red flag before a 

raging bull for some people. 

So, their activities are 

branded treason. Well, why 

not prove it legally? 

When the Foreign Ministry 

branded all Shiites as 

terrorists, it threw Nigerian 

headlong into the Islamic 

sectarian conflicts ravaging 

the Arab world and paved the 

way for Nigeria to experience 

the horrors of Suni/Shiites 

immense bloodletting 

globally. The statement was 

irresponsible because it has 

placed all Nigerians – 

including non-Muslims -- at 

risk by implying that the 

Federal Government 

supports one Islamic sect. Yet, 

our Constitution forbids state 

religion. How can El- 

Zakzaky and Shiites ever 

obtain justice given the stated 

bias by the Ministry? 

Colonel Dasuki (rtd), 

former National Security 

Adviser, NSA, to former 

President Jonathan is the third 

in the series. And, the 

references to revenge pertain 

more to him than others. 

“Even God cannot change 

the past”, said Greek playwright 

Agathon, 447-401 

B.C. If the Almighty cannot 

do it, no power on earth can. 

It is part of Nigerian history 

that Dasuki was on the side of 

those who staged the coup 

which brought Buhari’s regime 

to an abrupt end in 1985. 

He was only obeying orders 

and, perhaps, trying to save 

his own life as well. Even now 

Buhari still bristles with anger 

whenever he touches on 

the subject of that coup. With 

all the others safely out of 

Like the last cow on the 

other side of the highway 

when others have crossed, 

Dasuki now receives the 

whip. Not necessarily 

because he did anything 

particularly wrong, but, 

because holders of transient 

power in Nigeria must have 

their pound of flesh 

reach – at least for now, unless 

we return to full blown 

dictatorship – the only one to 

“pay” for the historical 

humiliation is Dasuki. Like the 

last cow on the other side of the 

highway when others have 

crossed, Dasuki now receives 

the whip. Not necessarily 

because he did anything 

particularly wrong, but, 

because holders of transient 

power in Nigeria must have 

their pound of flesh. 

To be continued… 

WHY SHOULD NIGERIA 

EXTRADITE SEN. KASAMU 

TO THE US? – 3 

“Omo eni ki buru ka fi fun 

ekun pa je.” (Yoruba proverb). 

Translation: “Even a wayward 

son should not be thrown to a 

tiger to devour.” 

NOTE: Part two of this series 

ended abruptly last week. We 

pick up the trend of our defence 

of a fellow Nigerian unknown 

to me. Please read on. 

Hypocritical as Americans 

often are, their support for 

democracy in other countries 

is strongly situational. A 

democratically elected 

President, if it resists their 

overtures to dictate to her/ 

his country can be overthrown 

by the US Central 

Intelligence Agency, CIA, 

which readily does business 

with a dictator who is 

regarded as “friendly” – 

meaning a stooge of the US. 

The history of Iran, which is 

currently in the black books 

of America offers a classic 

example of US duplicity. 

Only recently did the CIA 

finally admit that it 

undertook the overthrow of 

a democratically elected 

government in Iran in 1953. 

In a document titled “The 

Battle for Iran”, the CIA in 

the internal CIA history 

recorded the following. “The 

military coup that overthrew 

Mosaddeq and his National 

Front cabinet was carried 

out under CIA as an act of 

US foreign policy, conceived 

and approved at the highest 

levels of the government.” 

What was Mosaddeq’s sin? 

He wanted the best deal for 

Iranian oil from American 

oil companies which were 

cheating – just as 

International Oil 

Companies, IOCs, have 

been cheating Nigeria from 

Oloibiri till today. The declassified 

documents 

revealed that Britain’s MI6 

collaborated with the CIA to 

get rid of Mosaddeq, who 

was regarded as a threat to 

their economic interests after 

the British Anglo-Iranian 

Oil Company was 

nationalized by the 

government of Iran. 

Mosaddeq was replaced 

with the Shah of Iran, an 

American stooge and a 

dictator but who was kept in 

power by the US until 1979 

when the Iranian revolution 

led by the Ayatollas swept off 

the American stooge. The 

US has not forgiven Iran till 

today for standing up to it. 

I have gone to great 

lengths to expose the often 

peddled propaganda that 

America believes in 

democracy and the rule of 

law. Nothing can be further 

from the truth. Globally, 

America allies itself with 

nations it can manipulate 

and opposes those that are 

independent. Those are regarded 

as enemies. 

In its arrogance of morality, 

the US does not trust any other 

nation in the world to sit in 

judgment over an American 

citizen – irrespective of the 

charges or the evidence. Once 

an American lands in the US, 

no extradition treaty can bring 

him out to be tried elsewhere 

in the world. Consequently, 

the so-called extradition 

treaty which the US relies 

upon to have citizens of other 

nations returned to the US for 

trial had been a one-sided 

affair. America can request for 

a Kenyan or an Indian, or 

Nigerian to be brought from 

his country for trial; but, 

Kenya or India or Nigeria 

cannot do the same. That, to 

me is an international insult 

which Nigeria must resist in 

the case of Senator Buruji 

Kashamu. 

In fact, recent events have 

reinforced the feeling that no 

Nigerian and this Nigerian in 

particular, will not get justice. 

The election of Fuhrer 

Donald Trump as American 

President and the executive 

orders he had signed, as well 

as other utterances of his have 

revealed America’s hypocrisy 

more than ever before. Trump 

hates Africans and other 

people of colour. Kashamu is 

an African. He detests 

Muslims intensely. Buruji is a 

Muslim. Trumps cabinet is 

full of those generally 

described as “red necks”. His 

Attorney General has a long 

record of racist utterances. 

Yet, that is the man who will 

receive out fellow Nigerian 

and assign his case to a 

“hanging judge”. A fat cat 

dropped into the midst of half 

a dozen hungry cats has a 

better chance of surviving the 

ordeal than Kashamu in 

Trump’s America. 

Finally, the same 

Madeleine Albright had 

made the point that the 

primary duty of every 

American government is to 

protect Americans wherever 

they may be. 

If you don’t have anything 

nice to say, don’t say anything 

At the time of going to 

press, the president 

has arrived safely 

back home in Nigeria after 

months of absence on medical 

vacation. I, for one, wish the 

President continued good 

health and he is very welcome. 

PMB chose well to leave the 

reins of power with the 

capable, Vice President, Prof. 

Osinbajo as the acting 

President of Nigeria. 

In his absence, Osinbajo 

who recently turned 60 has 

been open and very 

responsive. He travelled the 

length and breath of Nigeria 

to steady the nerves of the 

people. He listened to their 

concerns and he met with as 

many community leaders to 

take the message to where it 

matters the most; the people. 

His steady hand assured 

investors and the economy 

that there was nothing to worry 

about. For those who are keen 

to spew their brand of divide 

and conquer, hate and exploit. 

Try as they may, Osinbajo has 

let it be known that he is loyal 

to Buhari and he did not 

entertain the mischief makers 

ulterior agenda. Here is a 

man of principle and good 

manners, money cannot buy 

that. It is often thought that 

the more you shout of your 

position and importance in 

social standing, then the more 

important you are. No, the 

good Prof shows that you do 

not have to shout, you let your 

work speak for itself. There is 

no substitute for good 

upbringing and as I have 

always said, fine cloth doth 

not make the man. And sadly, 

it is a shame that such 

example is lost on many. 

This is a masterclass in 

leadership and many could 

learn from the professor and 

the way he interacts with 

people and organisations. 

Osinbajo has made clear his 

loyalty lies with Buhari, a 

retired general who has 

struggled to define a clear 

strategy to deal with Nigeria’s 

slide into recession and stands 

accused by opponents of 

inaction. 

This man led by example, 

sources at the government 

HQ said that Osinbajo works 

up until 7 pm and one official 

described him as a 

workaholic. His hard work 

has paid off. The food pricing 

has stabilised so has the 

currency. The Central Bank 

and “The reform agenda has 

always been there but is more 

visible now with the vice 

president,” he said. 

He met with people from 

the Niger Delta, in particular, 

millitant attacks have 

reduced as a result of his 

consultations to improve the 

region, encourage 

employment and commerce 

and he paid visits to Lagos , 

one notable trip was to 

Murtala Muhammed 

International Airport, where 

he went round with airport 

officials to inspect the state of 

the air conditioning, luggage 

carousel and there is a picture 

of him inspecting the toilets, 

and saw for himself the state 

of disrepair. It was not 

surprising that the top honcho 

of the Nigerian civil aviation 

was given their marching 

orders. The professor and 

acting President continues to 

check in and update the 

president regardless of what 

many have said to drive a 

wedge between the two men. 

This obviously is not going to 

work, those who wish it so do 

not want a better Nigeria, it 

does not suit their agenda for 

Nigeria to stabilise and thrive. 

The president’s political 

adviser, Babafemi Ojodu, said 

the two men, PMB and the 

Prof, that they speak daily; 

“There is nothing that has 

been done since the vice 

president started acting that is 

not something that started far 

back in the past”. 

What I find disturbing is the 

fanning of hatred so pernicious 

He is no appendage 

and carries his own. 

It is important to look 

back and appreciate 

the incredible work 

that vice president 

has done in the 

absence of the 

President 

this have nothing better to do 

nor are they contributing 

positively to Nigeria. They 

are really a waste of space 

and the progress will move 

with or without them. 

One of the rumours was 

that governors were 

pressuring the vice 

president’s to resign due to 

the president’s undisclosed 

health condition. And his 

office was quick to douse the 

rumour, the Special Adviser 

to the President on Political 

Matters, in the Vice 

President’s Office, Senator 

Femi Ojudu, promptly 

dismissed the resignation 

threat in a statement but 

there were more that came 

after and equally as 

incredulous as the last. There 

are some vile and crass 

Nigerians who are so odious 

that all they are good for is 

to peddle falsehoods and 

horror story. They have 

become their own tragedy. 

Nothing good comes from a 

bad mind. It is the law of 

Karma. 

Professor Osinbajo is 

made of sterner and 

principle stuff. A Pastor of the 

Redeemed Church of God, 

RCCG and Professor of Law. 

He seems to be very 

comfortable in his skin and 

around people, regardless of 

their social standing and 

age. He is no appendage and 

carries his own. It is 

important to look back and 

appreciate the incredible 

work that vice president has 

done in the absence of the 

President. HIs leveland 

the trouble some people go 

to plant fake news surrounding 

the health of the president. We 

have to show some decorum, 

we are better than this, no 

matter if you do not agree with 

someone’s politics or 

personality but to wish 

someone ill is the height of bad 

manners and disgust. 

It is a reflection on those that 

write this poisonous filth and 

the type of people that read and 

feed the rumour mill. I do not 

understand how grown people 

who should know better 

continue to think it is right to 

demean other people because 

they can hide behind the screen 

is beyond me. It is a disturbing 

development and people like 

headedness, calm 

composure, faith, intelligence, 

warm approach, 

responsiveness and hard 

work has helped to steer the 

country through the choppy 

seas. A big thank you! 

International Women’s 

Day 

“The purpose of life is not to 

be happy. It is to be useful, to 

be honourable, to be 

compassionate, and to have it 

make some difference that you 

have lived and lived well.” 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Last Wednesday was 

International women’s day 

and in the spirit of celebrating 

the contribution and 

advancement of women.In a 

country, where women 

regardless of obstacles, are 

hardworking, resourceful and 

they build businesses with a 

single determination to make 

a livelihood in order to 

contribute to the fortunes of 

their family. We know that 

their contributions often go 

unrecognised. 

Whenever I see women, in 

particular, doing well and 

showing innovation and 

selflessness, I am always 

excited on their behalf and I 

have to reach out and let them 

know. I was fascinated by the 

energy of Adegesin Zainab 

Ololade, the owner of 

Zainychop cocktail drinks 

and more. Her enthusiasm is 

contagious and that comes 

through her brand, she is a 

tour d’ force, her nonalcoholic 

fruity cocktails are 

as colourful and bright as the 

woman herself.


C 

M 

Y 

K 


exmarinus@hotmail.com 

Ben Obumselu (1930-2017) 

•Late Benedict Obumselu 

Benedict Ebele 

Obumselu was the 

critic’s critic, and a 

philosopher among philosophers. 

He was master and 

teacher of iconic intellectuals 

like Dan Izevbaye and Stanley 

Macebuh, who modelled his 

own intellectual aspirations 

after Obumselu’s endeavors; 

and the poet and scholar, 

Lara Ogundipe-Leslie, at 

Ibadan. He was certainly 

much more. He was as complex 

as he was approachable. 

He was born in Oba, in the 

East of Nigeria, and he attended 

the Dennis Memorial 

Grammar School from 1946 

to 1951, and that is, through 

the period covering the immediate 

post world war years 

that laid the grounds of a new 

sense of the Nigerian nationalist 

spirit. He was a child of 

that era, moulded by its idealism 

and its optimism. 

It was while at DMGS that 

his gifts in Language and 

Mathematics came to light, 

and his principal, E.D.C. 

Clark encouraged him to take 

Latin and Greek up to the 

School Certificate. Obumselu 

was the only boy in his year 

at DMGS to sit for Greek in 

the Cambridge exams. One 

blustery night in 1993, just 

before the June elections, I 

went from my office then at 

The Sunday Magazine, to his 

home in Maryland, and we 

drove to what turned out to 

be a small dinner at Pius Okigbo’s 

home then on Sanusi 

Fafunwa Street, on Victoria 

Island. And I was bowled over. 

At some point, the talk 

moved from a discussion on 

Nigerian politics into pure 

conversational Latin which I 

could only recognize by hints. 

That dead language came 

alive in the tongues of these 

two gentlemen. I felt locked 

out, and I was certainly locked 

out of what may have been 

more sensitive discussion. But 

I was impressed. From DMGS 

Obumselu had gone down to 

the University College 

Ibadan in 1951 to study the 

Classics as a University Scholar 

– that is, he enjoyed the 

stipends of the university administered 

by the University’s 

foundation – on merit. 

That was when, as the saying 

normally go these days, 

“Ibadan was, Ibadan.” Ben 

Obumselu could have studied 

for a general degree in Mathematics, 

but opted for honours 

in the Classics, which in those 

halcyon years of University education 

in Nigeria seemed the 

acme of scholarship. 

Ibadan in the 1950s was a 

gathering of a very small selection 

of the most talented of 

the nation – a sort of the “talented 

tenth” – who became 

the core of what came generally 

to be known as the aristocracy 

of the intellect. They 

were trained and prepared 

specifically for the task of nation-building 

in the looming 

era of decolonization. They 

were highly self-aware, and 

in many cases, indulged and 

self-indulgent, and some 

would even say they had a 

massive sense of entitlement. 

But they were brilliant. 

It was Ibadan of Christopher 

Okigbo, who would become 

the finest poet of his generation 

in Africa; Bola Ige whose 

forays into politics years later 

saw him become the radical 

publicist of the Action Group 

Party, the elected Governor 

of the old Oyo state, and years 

later Attorney General of Nigeria 

who was assassinated; 

Cornelius Adebayo, who became 

a permanent secretary 

in the federal government, 

Demas Akpore who became 

Deputy Governor of Bendel 

State: they were ahead of 

Obumselu in the Ibadan Classics. 

He was in the same Classics 

class with Gamaliel Onosode, 

who became well 

known as a boardroom technocrat, 

and Ignatius Olisaemeka, 

diplomat, and Nigeria’s 

foreign minister at some 

point; the Playwright and Nobel 

Laureate, who was taking 

the double in English and 

Greek was in that class too, 

while the likes of Blessing Akporede 

Clark, years later, Ambassador 

and Nigeria’s Permanent 

Rep at the UN, was in the 

Obumselu laid the 

grounds for the issueoriented 

activism of a 

generation of Nigerian 

students 

ing a degree in Zoology at 

Ibadan once said, “Ben Obumselu 

was the best of my generation.” 

It was a view put in a different 

way by the legendary 

journalist, Ignatius Atigbi, who 

cut his teeth at Reuters, “Ben 

was without compare!” These 

men preceded him in death. At 

Ibadan, Obumselu was something 

of a legend: socially active, 

colourful, and brilliant as 

a student who was much indulged 

and loved, both for his 

mind, and for his style. He was 

a founding member of the highly 

elitist Sigma Club of which 

he later became President after 

Banjo Solarun. 

He was also the very popular 

President of the University of 

Ibadan Students Union, and 

from that position, organized, 

and became the first President of 

the National Union of Nigerian 

Students, NUNS, which has since 

transmogrified to NANS. Obumselu 

laid the grounds for the issue-oriented 

activism of a generation 

of Nigerian students. There 


class just below in the classics. 

Obumselu stood out among 

them in Ibadan. As Leslie Harriman, 

who was at the foundation 

of the Nigerian Foreign 

Service and would later serve 

as Permanent Secretary of the 

Foreign Ministry, when Nigeria 

still had some weight in the 

world, and Ambassador to the 

United Nations and for years 

Chairman of the Anti-apartheid 

committee of the UN after takwere 

hints of romance between 

him and Molly Mahood, 

the then young English 

lecturer who came to teach 

in Ibadan after Oxford in 

1955, and who was instrumental, 

it has been said in 

convincing Obumselu to take 

an honors degree in English 

rather than Classics, and directing 

him later towards 

Oxford for higher honors. In 

a twist of fate, Molly Mahood 

herself was buried two weeks 

ago in Sussex, England. But 

the romance that marked 

Obumselu’s life in Ibadan 

was a tragic kind. Obumselu’s 

star was nearly marred at 

Ibadan by the death of Bisi 

Fagbenle, Vice-President of 

the UCI students Union, who 

was Obumselu’s lover in 

1956, in an abortion that went 

tragically wrong in his rooms 

at Mellanby Hall. It brought 

Obumselu to court on manslaughter 

charges in a case 

that became cause celebre, 

when the presiding magistrate 

declared, “I am considering 

your promise, and your 

brilliance in setting you free.” 

Words to that effect. That case 

has since gone to become one 

of the cornerstones of the Nigerian 

judicial precedents, the 

now famous “Obumselu vs 

State” in the criminal code. 

He later married Christie 

Clinton, famous in her years 

on the stages of the University 

College, Ibadan Drama 

Club of the 1950s, and who 

years later became the Chief 

Librarian of the National Institute 

for Policy and Strategic 

Studies, NIPPS, Kuru, 

Jos. Fresh out of Ibadan, 

Obumselu took a job as an 

Assistant Registrar of the 

West African Examination 

Council in Accra, and from 

there went on to Oxford for 

his doctorate in English in 

1958. 

On his return to Nigeria 

in 1963, he was appointed as 

the first Nigerian on the English 

faculty of the University 

of Ibadan, and perhaps with 

Oscar R. Dathorne, the only 

other black in that department. 

Back in Ibadan in the 

heady cultural ferment of the 

Mbari years after independence 

and the incendiary politics 

of “wild, wild west” staged 

fully in that city of the mythic 

hills, Obumselu found his 

mooring. He worked closely 

with the poet, Okigbo, and was 

very instrumental in the final 

shapes of at least three of his 

iconic poems, “Limits” “Silences” 

and “Path of Thunder” 

– a fact which the poet 

himself acknowledged. The 

political crisis of that era, 

particularly after the debacle 

of the 1963 census, the 

federal elections of 1964, and 

the Western elections of 

1965, snowballed into “wetie,” 

the January 15 coup, 

and the July 29, 1966 counter-coup, 

with its devastating 

bloodtide. Ben Obumselu 

was one of the Eastern intellectuals 

who was forced to 

flee Ibadan to the East to escape 

death. 

He was very active too in Biafra. 

He worked very closely 

with Ojukwu. He was appointed 

by Ojukwu as his special 

adviser on war documentation, 

and that is Biafra’s official War 

historian and recorder. 

In the progress of the War, 

Obumselu was appointed to 

the rank of a Colonel, and posted 

to help organize the S Brigade, 

a tactical operation arms 

of Biafran defence and Insurgency 

operations. With the end 

of the war, Obumselu returned 

to the classroom, but now at the 

University of Nigeria, Nsukka 

where he taught briefly in 1970. 

Ben Obumselu: critic and 

scholar, died on March 4 2017. 

He was a magnificent man – 

the best of his generation.



I dream of a Lagos without 

connectivity challenges, dumpsites 

waiting to explode —Gov. Ambode 

•Speaks on the N100bn bond to bring decent 5,000 buses to ‘mega-city’ 

•The mono-rail, Blue Line, Red Line, Fourth Mainland Bridge to come’ 

Governor Akinwumi, Ambode, in a session with some editors, last week, spoke on his dream for a 

new Lagos State. Excerpts: 

BY JIDE AJANI 

The Bus Reform Initiative of your 

administration looks quite ambitious. 

What is the cost implication and how 

do you intend to finance it? 

Generally, for Lagos to thrive, you need an 

effective integrated public transportation 

management system. It is very clear that one 

of the things that this government has decided 

to take on is that whenever we want to deal 

with any issue, we want to accept first that 

there are deficiencies. It is only when we 

know the deficiencies that we start to process 

how to find solution. So, one of the things 

you see in Lagos is that connectivity is a major 

challenge. We have almost 23 million people 

in the state out of which 11 million move at 

every point in time while about six million do 

it by walking. So, the concept there is that 

you want to find something that can move 

ordinary Lagosians from one point to the 

other so that productivity can increase. 

Having said that, road transportation is not 

the only means of moving people, but with 

the way Lagos is designed presently, road 

transportation is dominant. And we have 

these buses that do not work efficiently and 

government, on its part, has not been able to 

provide efficient alternative. So, should we 

continue with this private ownership of buses 

under which you have these yellow buses, 

also known as Danfo, since the time of 

Governor Lateef Jakande over 30 years ago? 

So, we decided that whatever solution that 

we want to give, we must also provide a 

comfortable means of moving people and 

allows the middle class and majority of people 

to leave their cars at home. The whole idea is 

that if we say Lagos is going to be globally 

competitive, we must change the way we 

move around. Now, we have 30,000 of these 

yellow buses in the city and each of them 

crams about 12 people inside it. And so, we 

decided to allow the buses to go and the bus 

reform initiative is a three-year plan that 

begins in 2017 and ends in 2019 under which 

we will bring in new buses of 5,000 units. 

Each of the big buses will carry 70 people 

while the medium will carry 30. We believe 

that the middle range buses will take about 

70 per cent of the total volume which will 

amount to about 3,600 units. So, how are we 

going to fund it? To start with, public 

transportation is not a profitable business and 

you are not likely to see major investors in it 

and so we decided to use our own vehicle, the 

LAGBUS, which is a private company to drive a 

public transportation infrastructure bond. That 

bond is coming to the capital market in which 

every Lagosian should be interested in buying into 

it and we believe the N100billion bond that takes 

seven to ten years to mature can take care of the 

structure that we have put in place. We are working 

on the financial template and this is the breakdown 

- government has a sinking fund of N14.5bn that 

we want to put into this bond. You are aware that 

the Federal Government paid the refund of the 

Paris Club loan last December. We have decided 

not to touch our own share of the refund. And we 

believe that the second batch of the refund should 

be paid next month to push the total refund to 

N29billion that we will have. I will add another 

N1billion to make it N30billion to kick start this 

initiative. By the time we have N30bn to drive the 

bus initiative against the bond of N100billion that 

we want to put into the market, there will be that 

credibility that the bond will drive itself. The second 

level of the initiative is that we intend to give out 

franchise to people and the franchise is going to 

come in multiple of 50 buses each, 100 buses, 200 

buses and so on. So, if you have that franchise, you 

are going to give us a down payment of 25 per 

cent for the buses. With the sinking fund, our 

exposure as a government is technically 75 per 

cent. So, from the kind of machinery we want to 

use to run the buses, there are no cash takings, 

everything is automated and, obviously, who ever 

has a franchise, whoever drives, takes part of the 

money while part of the intake also goes to the 

repayment of the facility and so it is a 

comprehensive template. Then you have a human 

angle to the project. Akin Ambode cannot drive 

the buses. A medium sized bus that we are 

providing replaces two yellow buses and it is from 

the community of the drivers that own the 

Danfos that we have to absorb into this new 

culture; they have to be the new drivers. The 

National Union of Road Transport Workers 

(NURTW), the Road Transport Employers 

Association of Nigeria (RTEAN) are the ones 

invited to own the buses. Government is just 

providing the infrastructure because they cannot 

buy these new buses by bringing one hundred per 

cent cash and so government needs to stand up for 

them. So, we are encouraging the manufacturers 

to continue to provide the buses, put an assembly 

plant in Lagos, do maintenance facility for us, 

produce spare parts in Lagos and then we create 

more employment. This is just a paradigm shift 

whereby the yellow buses drivers move from being 

addressed as Danfo drivers to being addressed 

as professional drivers. Ultimately, we will buy 

back the Danfos from them and what is realised 

So, should we continue 

with this private 

ownership of buses 

under which you have 

these yellow buses, also 

known as Danfo, since 

the time of Governor 

Lateef Jakande over 30 

years ago? 

becomes the seed money to become 

eventual owners of those buses in the years 

the facility is spread. We intend to start by 

going to the bus parks to educate people 

and the integral part of these buses is what 

you see us trying to provide bus terminals, 

laybys, bus stops. 

contract. In Anthony, which is supposed 

to be a terminal after Ojota, another 

depot is coming there. So, what I am 

saying technically is that you cannot have 

one hundred per cent infrastructure to 

allow your vision to be driven but they 

come in pieces. You also see that we did 

114 inner roads last year. This year, we 

will deliver 118 inner roads. There are 

5,000 roads inside Lagos but we have to 

create the infrastructures that allow our 

people to understand that there is a new 

culture without trying to do it like a 

switch and that is why we are saying it is 

a three-year plan and so we put Lagos 

into clusters of seven zones. My first set 

of buses that will prohibit Danfo will 

operate in Ikeja axis to be followed by 

the CMS-Ajah axis. We are already 

winning on the Ikorodu Road axis and 

the number of middle class people that 

are leaving their vehicles at home has 

multiplied and so all I need to do is just 

to take the cluster of Ikeja, the cluster of 

CMS down to Ajah, increase the number 

of buses on Ikorodu Road. If that is okay 

for year one, we are fine. Remember we 

say three years and, in those three years 

also, we would accelerate 

infrastructures. I am sure many are like 

me, anytime I see those yellow buses, 

the first thing that comes to my mind is, 

are we really a mega city? Yes, maybe by 

population but in terms of the 

connectivity, we cannot rely on Danfos 

and claim we are a mega city. 

In realizing this new culture, there 

are displacements and victims are 

saying you are not paying 

compensation. Moving forward, how 

do you intend to address this? 

My politics is about the people and I 

understand it very well. If there is any 

administration that has been really 

humanitarian, I can pride myself to be 

one. There is nowhere I have ever gone 

on demolition in overriding public 

interest that I don’t try to compensate 

them even in areas without legal 

standing. As much as I want to 

regenerate Oshodi to be a fantastic place, 

I have paid almost N700million to the 

traders and people there and they don’t 

have legal occupancy. The land belongs 

to Lagos State and if I were to stay on 

legal standing, I should not pay anybody 

but again I have said I want to serve the 

people. I made up my mind that instead 

of dislocating them, I can re-arrange 

their mode of business and so I paid 

some of them like one year rent. You can 

go and check. To be specific in Abule 

Egba, we have had to demolish houses 

and we are in the process of 

compensating them. But so many of 

them don’t really have papers but I have 

made up my mind that I would still 

compensate them anyway. Yes, we have 

brought development, we are going to 

improve on the economy in the area but 

I should not punish them unnecessarily. 

So, as we speak, we are in the process of 

paying them. Let them just be patient. 

But in every other place I have gone, we 

ensure that we give them something. The 

same thing is happening in Ojodu- 

Berger. I have had to buy back the petrol 

station to allow the pedestrian bridge to 

drop there and I had to pay the person 

that owns it. I paid the market and just 

to allow that pedestrian bridge to drop, 

I have paid about N150million in that 

place. But you know what, they also don’t 

have papers and that is a reflection of 

the kind of government I am running. 

The bus reform initiative seems very 

good and it shows there is a clear vision 

on your part. But is it not also good to 

have road infrastructures in place for 

people to get to the bus terminals? Has your government given up on 

Good. But look at it from my own prism. enforcement because you now find 

I am doing things that are quietly taking motorists especially Okada riders 

place but you are not seeing them yet. On breaking traffic rules at will? 

your way to the local airport immediately The day government reneges on 

after the post office, look to your right, enforcing law and order, then there is no 

what you see in that picture as Ikeja government and so we will never renege. 

Terminal is under construction to be The truth is this, in the whole reform 

delivered by May. What you see process, the idea of even driving tricycle 

happening in Oshodi is iconic transport or Okada should not be tolerated. But 

interchange to be delivered by December. here we have a law that says there is a 

When you go to Abule- Egba, just before place where you should not be. We have 

the flyover, there is a BRT construction decided to sometimes relax on our 

going to Oshodi to meet that terminal. enforcement maybe for some reasons. 

We have already awarded contract for the But you find out that, sometimes, we 

Mile 2 Depot. In Yaba, just beside the enforce the law aggressively. For 

Presbyterian Church where we wanted to instance, in the last few weeks, we have 

do the metroline, you have another depot been very aggressive in enforcing the 

there. The same kind of structure you see Okada ban in Ikoyi, Victoria Island and 

in Tafawa Balewa Square (TBS) today is 

coming up in Yaba. We have awarded the Continues on page 36


‘N100bn bond will bring 5,000 decent buses to ‘mega-city’ 

Continued from page 35 

Lekki and this is because the recklessness of 

the Okada riders is becoming intolerable. And 

just imagine that, because people want to feed 

or because some NGOs or activists will come 

out and say, ‘why are you making people not to 

have a living under an economy in recession’, 

it appears that government is relaxed and, when 

it becomes totally intolerable, we are out there. 

But then the most critical part of this is the 

security challenge. It is not about people getting 

employed. I mean who goes to school to learn 

how to ride Okada? Okada issue is a product 

of unemployment. Nobody wants a graduate 

to ride Okada and this is because there is no 

platform for them to be suitably employed. So, 

what we should do as government is to go one 

hundred per cent headlong on each and every 

one of them. But inside this bus reform, you 

will never have schedule one or schedule two, 

we are banning Okada forever. The whole idea 

of having Okada or tricycle in some routes is 

not tolerable for a competitive city and I like 

people to accept that we are not isolated from 

the rest of the world. What makes me not to 

spend my money in Dubai and come and spend 

it in Lagos is the aesthetics of the city. Lagos is 

not only for those of us that are living here but 

also those who bring in investments to come in 

and to also enjoy their stay. So, if we are going 

to be globally competitive, we must take 

decisions that drive competitiveness. The city 

does not want Okada and the question is, can 

the city provide alternative for them, and that 

is what we are doing as a government. We have 

created the Employment Trust Fund, we have 

created drivers that can drive modern buses. 

You know the interplay of politics and 

enforcement are emotional and we try as much 

as possible to balance but with more emphasis 

on enforcement. 

But the indiscipline on Lagos roads these 

days has gone bad even from private car 

owners. You even see people parking by the 

road to go to the market and LASTMA officers 

seem to be doing nothing about it which 

eventually creates a lot of traffic and slows 

down movement. Ladipo market is a good 

example where traders have blocked part of 

the road. What are you doing about this? 

I do agree that there is a lot of indiscipline on 

Lagos roads but what I know is that we have 

had major improvement on our highways. 

There used to be a time that people drive one 

way on Third Mainland Bridge but that era is 

gone forever. Now, we are concentrating efforts 

in trying to recruit more law enforcement 

officers for the system. 

There have been so much talk about the 

bus reform but what about the other modes of 

transportation like water transportation, 

mono-rail, the Fourth Mainland Bridge? What 

is slowing down these gargantuan projects? 

At the inception of this administration, we 

said we must have an effective integrated 

transportation system to allow the city to move 

well. We have commenced the channelization 

of our waterways. We have actually identified 

31 routes for water transportation. One fifth of 

Lagos is water and there is nothing going on, 

on the water. We have given out concession to 

about four private companies to develop our 

jetties and drive some of the routes. But again, 

they cannot bring their boat or ferries if we 

don’t create that road path on water which is 

the dredging and channelization which just 

commenced. This is also part of the public 

transportation infrastructure bond that we are 

trying to do. We have given concession out for 

Mile 2 and Badore. We have ordered for ferries 

to be able to drive the initiatives because we 

must lead by example. Before the year runs 

out, people will see a lot of activities on our 

waterways. On the rail system, I once said I 

would deliver by December 2016 but we are 

all living witnesses to the foreign exchange 

challenge that we have in the system. The 

challenge affects public expenditure and public 

contracts and that is a major limiting factor to 

deliver. But beyond that, I cannot say precisely 

when the Blue Rail Line from Mile 2 to CMS 

will start operating. But, we are in the process 

of issuing out concession for the Red Line that 

takes you from Ijoko to CMS. So, we are 

dealing with issues of rail, water, road and, by 

the way, air. Lagos deserves three airports. The 

Ikeja airport cannot even take big facilities 

and so we have in our concession the Epe 

airport and then Lekki airport. Smart City 

Lagos is embedded inside the Epe airport, while 

the other part is the fact that the Apapa port 

cannot do the real business of what the Nigerian 

commercial industry is right now. It is not deep 

enough to take the kind of ship that will bring 

the kind of goods we need and that is why we 

ventured into the Badagry Deep Sea Port project 

and the Lekki Free Trade Zone project. Like I 

•Ambode...One fifth of 

Lagos is water 

I am a dreamer and I 

want the people to 

dream along with me. 

This is like a vision 

said, the private sector is also driven by capital. While 

government is suffering from capital inflow, some of those 

projects are delayed but they are in place and there is a 

master plan to integrate modes of transportation to 

develop and fuse into one. We are also developing a lot 

of walkways on our road construction. More people walk 

around than the people driving cars and so we are also 

creating that path for them properly. You can also walk 

easily at night courtesy of our Light Up Lagos project. 

Just recently, in fulfillment of your electioneering 

promise, you presented cheques to the beneficiaries 

of the N25billion Employment Trust Fund (ETF). How 

is it going in terms of its impact on entrepreneurs? 

I can beat my chest to say the ETF has lived up to its 

billing. As we speak, over a billion Naira has been 

released to over 2,000 people and the whole idea is to 

create a vehicle that allows one person to employ five 

people. That is what I want and that has allowed us to 

bring more small scale entrepreneurs into the larger fold. 

Don’t forget also that the framework to drive service never 

existed and if you are going to create avenue for people 

to get N200,000, 500,000, N5million, you need to create 

the framework or else the project will collapse and 

everybody will run away with the money. So, that 

framework was what we have been working on in the 

last six to seven months and then disbursement started in 

January and then they have been doing it monthly. More 

importantly is the medium scale entrepreneurs and the 

businessmen who don’t really do cheque presentation 

but the whole idea is this; if your business is employing 

ten people, I should be able to facilitate it in such a way 

that you employ another twenty and then create a platform 

that allows the money to come back for other people and 

it has been working. The selection process has been devoid 

of bias. You don’t have to know me to apply and the 

feedback has been good. Like it has been said, it is a 

N25billion investment that we are doing it for four years, 

but so far, we have only given out N7billion. I have to see 

that the money is moving out before I put more. 

What is the Cleaner Lagos Initiative (CLI) all about? 

I am a dreamer and I want the people to dream along 

with me. This is like a vision. I have been given the 

opportunity to process something and improve on it. That 

is the singular opportunity that this office bestows on me 

and I don’t want to misuse it. I have lived in this city for 

over 50 years. What I see is wrong I don’t like it and I 

want to change it. I don’t like yellow buses, is it possible 

for me to change it? The answer is yes. I enter Lagos from 

Ibadan and the first thing I see on the right side is a dump 

site. Should I sit down and continue to watch? The answer 

is no. The city is very dirty. It is not healthy and our total 

well-being is defined by our health status and our 

productivity but the health status has been diminished by 

the state of what we have. Now, the first identification of 

this dream is that government must provide the 

infrastructure to make the city clean. Secondly, do I have 

the resources to keep a clean city? I don’t but how do I get 

the resources? Should I tax my people to death? The 

answer is no. Under the prevailing condition when the 

country is in a recession, can I go and 

meet them to say ‘pay me more to 

collect refuse?’ The answer is no. What 

then do we have as a government? 

We have about 150 rickety 

compactors and the private sector 

participants also have some 

compactors. We added everything 

together and mapped Lagos and 

findings showed that what we have is 

not enough. So, when what we have 

is not enough, people start to put 

refuse in the drains and, at the end of 

the day, government spends more 

public expenditure to clear the drains, 

spends more money to give free drugs 

in the hospitals to children and all 

that. So, government now thought of 

going frontally to face the issue of 

refuse to reduce public expenditure 

in those other sectors, and the first 

step was a review of the laws to make 

them investor-friendly so as to allow 

Public Private Partnership in the 

business of collecting refuse not only 

in Ikoyi but also in Ayobo. So, we have 

consolidated all our environmental 

laws and I also told myself that it is 

not by making people to sit down at 

home three hours once a month that 

would make the city clean. That is 

not competitive. They don’t do that 

in New York and so, we accepted that 

punishing people to stay at home for 

three hours in the name of sanitation 

would not clean the city. What this 

new law is trying to achieve is that we 

can invite private sector investment 

in the collection of refuse. What you 

have in Igando and Olusosun are not 

landfill sites, they are dump sites. 

Land-fill sites are clinically 

engineered and treated but what you 

have in Olusosun and Igando are 

bombs waiting to explode and we 

cannot allow that to continue. So, the 

whole thing about the consortium is 

that can we divide refuse collection 

into different layers. The consortium 

coming will be collecting domestic 

refuse across the state. The existing 

PSP operators that really don’t have 

enough capital to carry out domestic 

refuse collection, we will make their 

business bankable and then push 

them to commercial refuse. So, they 

can go to the companies around and 

collect their money directly. With that, 

the PSP operators will be able to 

employ more people and be 

bankable because they can go to 

bank to say they have clientele so and 

so companies, this is the total revenue 

they give them in a month and so ‘can 

you give us this amount to buy new 

equipment?’ In this new 

arrangement, all the people need to 

do is just pay your public utility levy 

which is once a year and your refuse 

is collected 24/7. The template we are 

using is that in every ward, we will 

employ 100 street sweepers which 

translates to 27,500 people that will 

be kitted the same way all over the 

state. On our part, we will invest in 

equipment just like you see in London 

and say that we don’t want to ever see 

the streets dirty. And the design of the 

arrangement is this, the company is 

not paid except on the tonnage of the 

refuse collected and so it is in their 

best interest to collect more. So, it is a 

reform and when you have a reform, 

it comes with all forms of difficulties 

but the good thing is that we have 

started. The consortium will also 

have to provide us with new landfill 

sites and people will also start seeing 

a lot of changes on the transfer 

loading stations that we have around. 

The ultimate goal is to increase the 

GDP of Lagos. When I have a healthy 

people, they are likely to be more 

productive and productivity is about 

services and goods. So, if there are 

more people working day and night, 

government will get more tax from 

them and that is where we are going. 

Can we get insight into your vision 

of feeding Lagos? Your government 

invested a lot on the Lake Rice 

initiative but what is the rationale 

behind government selling rice? 

Let me tell you where I am coming 

from so that you understand me. The 

Federal Government decided to ban 

importation of rice and this has 

always been in the hands of the private 

sector to the extent that, when they 

give you the license and you are just 

able to produce a particular percentage 

here, you are given license to import 

more and I don’t understand that kind 

of license but the truth is the Lake Rice 

intervention was about standing up for 

leadership in the interest of the people. 

If you are driving a policy and you 

cannot drive it by example, your policy 

will never work. It was a wake-up call. 

People will see more of the Lake Rice. 

We are going to have our own mill. I 

don’t want to be a rice seller but I can 

be a catalyst to drive a policy to be 

effective and immediately we made 

our pronouncement, the price of rice 

crashed. That is governance. 

How far have you gone on 

education? Your government 

promised free meal for pupils of 

primary schools but nothing is 

happening in that direction. 

If there is anything I have not done 

properly in the last 22 months, maybe 

it is the issue of A-Meal-A-Day. Yes, it 

was in our manifesto but in practical 

terms, we are still on it. The number of 

students in Lagos and the budgetary 

provision also do not really match for 

us to start. I don’t like a situation 

whereby we come out for two to three 

months and then stop. I like to sustain 

it when we start and don’t forget also 

that the project is a combination of 

resources from the federal in 

partnership with state governments. 

So, obviously, in terms of provisions 

and resources, we in Lagos think we 

should have a long drawn sustainable 

plan and that is why we have not started 

it. What I can assure the people is that 

we are working on it. 

Lagos is surrounded by water but 

pipe borne water is a problem in the 

state. What is your government doing 

about it? 

If there is any sector that we have 

actually not been too impactful, I would 

say it is the water sector. What Lagos 

requires right now is 700million 

gallons per day of water. But the 

capacity that Lagos has is 210million 

per day. So, there is a deficit of about 

500million gallons per day. But the 

investment in the water sector in the 

last 50 years is the result of the deficit 

we have now. But, what we have tried 

to do in the last 20 months is to see that 

even the ones that we say are our miniwater 

works and major water works 

should be working hundred per cent 

efficiently. In addition to that, we are 

doing a new major water works in 

Adiyan but the ultimate solution is the 

same thing that I have applied in other 

sectors which is to invite private sector 

participation in water solution. 

Is it true that there is a plan to start 

to tax people for sinking of bore holes? 

It is not true. If I have my way, I don’t 

even want people to dig bore holes 

anymore because the accumulation of 

those bore holes altogether put Lagos 

in danger. If we provide water, people 

don’t need to dig bore holes and that is 

why we want to accelerate private 

sector participation in the provision of 

water to solve that problem. 

Still on schools, many of the 

infrastructures in public schools in the 

State are in dilapidated conditions. 

What are you doing to reverse this 

trend? 

I did a study last year and it has to do 

with rehabilitation of schools and also 

provision of schools in the riverine 

areas. The result showed that we need 

about N60billion to put our schools 

together. But we started the massive 

rehabilitation of our schools last year 

and you can go round to confirm. We 

expended about N10billion trying to 

put the worst set of schools back in 

place. This year, a major intervention 

is also going to take place from our 

budget to see that the existing schools 

compete favourably with the private 

sector schools. 

What are your plans for security 

surveillance on the waterways? 

That is one area that we are focused 

on right now. We have improved on land 

and we have been able to secure the 

city properly but the issue of waterways, 

we are applying technology and I can 

tell you that we are investing heavily 

on our waterways.

SUNDAY VANGUARD, MARCH 12, 2017 PAGE 37 

BY LEVINUS 

NWABUGHIOGU 

“President Muhammadu 

Buhari is expected to return to 

the country tomorrow, Friday 

March 10, 2017.” 

With the above lines, he 

set the country agog 

that Thursday night. 

But there is a guess that he was 

very careful in choosing the 

word and the lines to avoid 

controversy. 

For many Nigerians, the word 

“expect”, was a lazy verb. The 

stronger phrase needed was “is 

coming”. 

But it really didn’t matter what 

words Mr. Femi Adesina, the 

Presidential Media Adviser 

employed in his statement that 

late night to announce the 

coming of President 

Muhammadu Buhari from 

London, United Kingdom. 

What mattered was that 

Adesina succeeded in 

animating the country that 

night. Hopes were, indeed, 

rekindled and faces lifted again. 

But even with the 

announcement, there were still 

a litany of doubts in some 

quarters that Buhari wouldn’t be 

coming back as “expected”. To 

these people, Adesina’s 

statement was one of those 

gimmicks of government to 

either divert attention or get 

some sympathy from the people. 

The President had been away 

in London for a vacation and 

“routine” medical check-ups 

and in his absence, so much 

politics was played about his 

health. Strong rumours 

emerged that he was dead and 

so, with the unhealthy 

development, many Nigerians 

became skeptical about further 

move of the government. 

But this time, Adesina was not 

bluffing. He meant it and as 

early as 6:am, the Presidential 

Villa, Abuja was alive with 

people. 

Of course, the sudden influx 

of government officials at the 

helipad, Aso Villa, an usual 

place for convergence at the 

early hours of Friday was one 

signal of a great expectation. 

Just then, words filtered that 

Buhari’s Air Force One had 

touched ground in Kaduna 

enroute to Abuja. Then, 

emotions took the air. 

This was so because, the 

President had been way for 51 

whole days. He left the shores 

of the country on January 19, 

promising, in a letter to the 

National Assembly, to return and 

resume work on February 6. But 

that never happened as he 

wrote another letter to the 

National Assembly, extending 

his vacation. 

Back home, speculations were 

rife that Buhari was dead. But 

by 8:42am, the military 

helicopter carrying the president 

landed at the Villa. This was 

Buhari in flesh and blood. Joy 

erupted the air and faces smiled. 

The President later exchanged 

pleasantries with the officials 

whose roll call included the Vice 

President,Yemi Osinbajo,Chief 

of Staff to the President, Abba 

Kyari, Special Assistant to the 

President on Media and 

Publicity,Femi Adesina,Senior 

Special Assistant to the 

President on Media and 

Publicity,Garba Shehu, Minister 

BUHARI BACK: 

Emotions rule 

Aso Rock 

of Federal Capital 

Territory,Mohammed Bello,National 

Security Adviser,Maj-Gen Babagana 

Mongunu(Rtd),Inspector General of 

Police,Idris Abubakar. 

The list also included the Service 

Chiefs,namely Chief of Air 

Staff,AVM Sadique Abubakar,Chief 

of Naval Staff,Real Admiral,Ibok-Ete 

Ekwe Iba,Chief of Defence 

Staff,Maj-Gen Abayomi 

Olonisakin,Chief of Army Staff,Maj- 

Gen. Tukur Buratai, Zamfara State 

Governor,Abdullaziz Yari,Minister 

of 

Transport,Rotimi 

Amaechi,Minister 

of 

Information,Lai Muhammed, 

among others. 

Buhari was later driven to the First 

Lady’s Conference room where he 

had a brief meeting with the officials, 

sharing his experience of his 51 days 

sojourn in London. 

Jokes and smiles were also not far 

from his lips and face occasionally as 

he spoke. His vocal chord was still 

strong even though he looked 

emaciated. 

His remarks about the wonders of 

technology and the importance of 

education were significant probably 

because he got help through the 

application of advanced medical 

tools. 

Buhari, the retired military General 

would not change from being who he 

is in terms principles and policies. 

While thanking Nigerians for their 

fervent prayers and care, he said that 

his return on a weekend was 

deliberate to get some rest, meaning 

that he wouldn’t want too many 

visitors. 

Jokes and smiles 

were also not far 

from his lips and 

face occasionally 

as he spoke. His 

vocal chord was 

still strong even 

though he looked 

emaciated 

Buhari also pricked those 

planning to send a delegation to 

visit him in London to return to 

Nigeria. 

Above all, the President said the 

only way to pay Nigerians back for 

their prayers and great wishes was 

to rededicate himself for service to 

the people. 

He said: “I am deeply grateful to 

all Nigerians, Muslims and 

Christians alike who have prayed 

and continue to pray for my good 

health. 

“This is a testimony that inspite 

of the hardship being 

experienced, Nigerians support 

the government in its efforts to 

tackle our country’s challenges. 

“The best way for me to pay you 

all is to rededicate myself to serving 

you, protecting your interest and 

keeping your trust. I thank you very 

much. 

“I feel much better now. All I will 

need is to do further follow ups within 

some weeks. 

“Rather than sending delegations 

to Abuja to welcome me, may I appeal 

to our people to continue to pray for 

the country’s unity, progress and 

prosperity. I thank you very much and 

may God bless our country. 

“For me I feel that I was a little more 

tired than I probably was in the last 

eighteen months. Whatever the case 

, I am very grateful that Nigerians are 

appreciative of what all of us are 

doing as a group. I am very pleased 

with them. 

“I was also cost conscious and I 

think the Vice President knows about 

the expenditure. So please if you are 

clever enough re-route your way, on 

your official duties either from US 

back to Nigeria. 

“I am very conscious of the 

economy. I have rested as much as 

humanly possible, I have received 

the best of treatment anyone ilI could 

receive. I couldn’t recall being so 

sick since I was a young man, 

including the military with its ups 

and downs. 

“I found out that technology is 

going so fast that if you have a lot 

of confidence you better keep it 

because you need it. 

“There were also blood 

transfusions, going to the 

laboratories, and so on and so forth, 

but I am very pleased that we, when 

I say we, I mean the government 

and the people all over are trying 

to keep up with technology. 

I couldn’t recall when last I had 

blood transfusion, I couldn’t recall 

honestly I can say in my seventy 

years. 

“I cannot remember this drug that 

Nigerians take so much, a very 

common drug, all the same I think 

one of our terrible thing is self 

medication. We have to trust our 

doctors more and trust ourselves 

more, I realised they only take 

drugs when it is absolutely 

necessary. They don’t just swallow 

anything 

“Having said all these, I am 

pleased that I am back, I am pleased 

that the Vice President enjoyed this 

break and he has to do much more 

this time around. Youth and 

intellect is squarely behind him, age 

and purely military experience is 

behind me. 

“Continue to do the work, Nigeria will 

continue whether we are here or not 

and my single most important advise is 

take education of everybody under your 

responsibility very seriously, your 

children our relatives, our 

constituencies. We must do more on 

education. 

“I deliberately came back towards the 

weekend, so that the Vice President will 

continue and I will continue to rest. 

Thank you very much”. 

Osinbajo’s Acting Presidency 

ends 

Buhari’s return would be formally 

communicated to the National 

Assembly tomorrow and when this 

is done, it would end the Acting 

Presidency of the Vice President, 

Yemi Osinbajo who had so far 

steered the ship of governance in 

Buhari’s absence. This will also end 

the Vanguard Acting Presidency 

series that had in the last seven 

weeks closely followed Osinbajo’s 

activities.

PAGE 38 —SUNDAY VANGUARD, MARCH 12, 2017 

BY LEVINUS NWABUGHIOGU 

News of his departure was not hidden that 

Thursday, January, 19. He had announced 

it to Nigerians through a letter delivered to 

Senate President Bukola Saraki and 

Speaker of the House of Representatives, 

Yakubu Dogara, that same day. 

And before the end of that day, his Special 

Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi 

Adesina, issued a press statement, 

disclosing that he was proceeding on 

vacation in London. 

By that day’s evening, pictures of his 

departure at the Nnamdi Azikiwe 

International Airport, Abuja were on 

national television. For President 

Muhammadu Buhari, only a few departing 

remarks which, however, came in the form 

of rhetoric questions would dispel any 

rumours about his health and trip. “What’s 

wrong with going on vacation? Didn’t I go 

last year at the same time?”, he asked 

journalists who had accosted him at the 

airport. 

In quick succession, his spokesman, 

Adesina, who accompanied him to the 

airport alongside other officials, said Buhari 

was going to rest and do routine medical 

check-ups, dismissing any insinuations of 

serious ill health. 

But by the morning of Saturday, January 

21, 2017, speculations had become rife that 

the President had died in a London hospital. 

What? How? The questions came in 

torrents. 

This set the cyberspace busy as people 

started working their phones and surfing 

the internet to confirm the news. By evening, 

no major news medium in Nigeria, London, 

US or elsewhere had reported the incident. 

Much later in the night, the two media 

aides of the President, Adesina and Mallam 

Garba Shehu, on their Facebook account 

and twitter handle respectively, dismissed 

the rumored death of their boss. 

One would have thought that the media 

aides statements, which were massively 

reported in the media, would have put paid 

to the rumors, but no, they rather gained 

acceleration. Adesina, on Sunday, January 

22, appeared on a television programme to 

give more clarification. But the currency of 

the issue became so high that the picture of 

Buhari watching the programmes which 

later appeared on the internet never 

convinced many people that the President 

was fine. 

The next day, Monday, the Office of the 

Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, sent 

a statement that Osinbajo spoke with 

Buhari on matters of the economy and about 

the situation in the then volatile The 

Gambia. Yet, the fire kept raging. 

This is not the first time speculations 

about the death of a sitting president of 

Nigeria would be reaching such crescendo. 

In June 1998, there were rumbles over the 

health status of General Sani Abacha, then 

Head of State. 

In May 2010, President Umaru Musa 

Yar’Adua gave up the ghost after being ill 

for months. Before the news of his death 

became public knowledge, high-wire 

politics played out. Now, it is Buhari.. But 

there are no similarities here. In the case 

of Yar’Adua, Nigerians were kept in the 

dark about his health situation. Hardly 

did Nigerians know when and how he left 

and returned to the country. But Buhari has 

chosen not to tread that path. In the first 

place, the President was not dead and he 

had never been shy to say he was sick 

anytime he took ill. 

Smugs of the first week 

Meanwhile, if there was a time Buhari’s 

media aides, Adesina and Shehu, had been 

bombarded by calls for explanation of their 

boss’ whereabouts or health status since 

their appointments early June, 2015, it was 

in the first week of Buhari’s departure. 

Ditto journalists covering the Presidential 

Villa. 

In that first week, I was inundated with 

calls from my office, colleagues, friends, 

classmates, even relations who called, trying 

to get updates on the health status of the 

President. Perhaps, I was mistaken for a 

member of the presidential media team 

whereas I was just a reporter. Apart from 

the calls I placed to the media aides who 

were usually the first port of call for 

confirmation of high profile Villa stories, I 

also went the extra mile, surfing the internet 

for information on Buhari. I couldn’t also 

stop checking the facebook accounts, twitter 

No journalist covering the 

Presidential Villa had a rest of 

mind between February 4 and 

5. Know why? We were in high 

spirit, expecting to go to the 

airport for Buhari’s return the 

following day. After all, he had 

promised to make it back to 

the country to resume work on 

February 6 

handles of the presidential media aides for 

updates. All I could gathered was that Mr. 

President was hale and hearty. Hale and hearty? 

It got to a point that I had to call Mallam Shehu 

on phone one night to, in confidence, keep me 

abreast of developments. But he kept repeating 

what the presidential media team had been 

saying publicly that Buhari was alive and active. 

On one occasion, I pressed Adesina to send a 

formal statement, telling him that the pressure I 

had on my shoulders were too heavy. He simply 

replied that it was baseless writing a press 

release to counter the rumours. To him, that would 

mean giving wings to speculations. 

Beyond that, I did try placing calls to my 

contacts abroad for underground checks, at least 

to satisfy my journalistic thirst. But nothing 

concrete came out. But the curious public 

wouldn’t budge, especially when speculations 

became rife that state governors met in Abuja 

over the health of the President. 

That is not all. The political atmosphere in 

Abuja became charged at a time with rumours 

that the state governors were pressuring Acting 

President Osinbajo to resign with the aim of 

elevating the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, 

a northerner, to Buhari’s place to serve out the 

tenure for the North. 

Special Adviser to the President on Political 

Matters in the Office of the Vice President, 

Senator Femi Ojudu, dismissed the claim. 

Similarly, the Minister of Information, Lai 

Mohammed, at the end of the meeting of Federal 

Executive Council, FEC, that week, described the 

death rumoured as “silly”. 

Perhaps, one development that appeared very 

convincing was when, on a Thursday, Adesina, 

in a live interview on SNBC, told the world that 

Buhari was not ill and not on admission in any 

London hospital. 

The media aide emphasized that the President 

was on vacation in London even though he could 

see his doctors. He stated that his boss would 

be back in Nigeria on February 6, a date he had 

announced since January 19. 

But just when I was thinking of advising that 

the President could do a televised phone call to 

Nigerians to convince them he was alive and 

well, Adesina already had a response. 

A REPORTER'S DIARY 

The President's 

surprise return 

“The fact that he is a President, he still 

has his rights. Compelling him to come 

out and talk will be infringing on his 

rights,”the media aide stated. 

“The President will talk if he wishes to; 

if he doesn’t wish to, nobody will compel 

him to talk. “The truth is that the President 

is on vacation and he has given a date on 

which he will return to work.” 

February 6 night 

No journalist covering the Presidential 

Villa had a rest of mind between February 

4 and 5. Know why? We were in high spirit, 

expecting to go to the airport for Buhari’s 

return the following day. After all, he had 

promised to make it back to the country 

to resume work on February 6. 

Meanwhile, the phone numbers of 

Adesina and Shehu almost permanently 

remained the last dialed on my phones. I 

bothered them so much so that they began 

to pre-empt me whenever they saw my 

calls. “Levinus, what have I done again 

o”, Adesina would say jocularly any time 

he picked my calls. Sometimes, I would 

go tactical, telling him I was just calling 

to say “Hello”. But before he 

acknowledged the greeting, I would ask 

my question and he would say, “Levinus, 

I thought you called to greet me?” We 

would both burst into laughter. 

Similarly, Shehu was always ready to 

give answers to your questions to the 

best of his knowledge. And the two men 

will always return your calls when they 

miss them and their offices are always 

accessible to journalists. 

Other weeks 

Then the trips to London. No one knew 

when they left Nigeria but almost 

everyone saw their pictures on the 

internet. It was Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Pa 

Bisi Akande, two top leaders of the ruling 

APC, who first visited Buhari in London. 

Later, the picture of former Vice President 

Atiku Abubakar with Buhari in London 

surfaced on the net. 

The wife of the President, Aisha, also 

visited London and the photos of the visit 

splashed on the net. For one week, the 

rumours died down. Buhari was alive. But 

it wasn’t long when doubts about Buhari’s 

health status mounted again. This seemed 

to prompt the Senate President, Saraki, 

and the Speaker of the House, Dogara, to 

head to London to see the President. 

Though they returned with positive 

statements on the situation of Buhari, that, 

too, didn’t dissuade many rumour 

peddlers. 

“The pictures were photoshopped,” one 

telephone caller told me. “I have it on 

good authority that the man is no more. 

We can bet it if you care”. 

The last picture that we saw just before 

the President returned on Friday showed 

him with the Bishop of Cantebury, Justin 

Welby, in London. And I bet you that if 

Buhari had stayed a day after the pictures 

were released, it would have resurrected 

the doubts. 

Season of calls Just before the last 

picture came, a new twist was added to 

the Buhari episode. It was what poets 

would call a season of calls. The President 

spoke on telephone with the President of 

the United States of America, Donald 

Trump, a former Head of State, General 

Yakubu Gowon, and former President 

Olusegun Obasanjo. 

But before speaking to Gowon and 

Obasanjo, Buhari, on Saturday, February 

25, called his media team members, 

notably Adesina, Shehu and Lai 

Mohammed, thanking Adesina for 

“holding out against mischief makers”. 

Expectation of Buhari’s return high every 

passing weekend 

Since the February 6 return date failed, 

State House correspondents hadn’t slept 

well on weekends. Every passing 

weekend had its challenge as we 

continued to think the President would 

return. Such was the case on Saturday, 

February 11. Everyone had anxiously 

waited for a call to proceed to the airport 

for Buhari. But that didn’t happen. What 

happened instead was the arrival of 

Buhari’s wife from Saudi Arabia. 

A surprise return 

To say that Buhari’s return on Friday was 

very well anticipated unlike other 

weekends was to tell a huge lie. But as 

earlier announced in a press statement by 

Adesina late Thursday night that the 

president was being “expected” Friday, he 

made it back on Friday in flesh and blood, 

putting to rest every doubt. 

Lessons from Buhari’s trip 

Within me, I have tried to conjecture why 

there was a plethora of interests in the 

President’s whereabouts even after he had 

said he was going on vacation. I deduced 

that, yes, every Nigerian has the right to 

ask about the welfare of the President, after 

all, he still feeds on tax payers’ money. 

But what I am yet to understand is why 

most people would wish their fellow 

human beings (it doesn’t have to be a 

president) dead to prompt Adesina to pray 

for their repentance as was the case. While 

this is morally wrong, the president and 

his men shouldn’t take this to heart now 

that Buhari is back to the country. After 

all, there were millions of Nigeria who 

prayed and are still praying for him. 

But however, a huge lesson has to be 

learnt from this episode that the state of 

the economy, the exchange rate that is skyrocking 

affecting the prices of virtually 

every item in the market to mention but a 

few constitute a major concern to 

Nigerians.


VANGUARD ECONOMIC DISCOURSE: 

Policy options for Nigeria's 

recovery, growth, by Soludo, 

Aremu, Rewane, Alex Otti, others 

By Emeka Anaeto, Business Editor, 

Babajide Komolafe & Elizabeth Amihor, 

Sebastine Obasi and Ediri Ejoor, 

Frankline Alli, Peter Egwuatu, Godwin 

Oritse, Yinka Kolawole & Providence 

Emmanuel 

Nigeria’s economy thought 

leaders bared the hard facts 

to rescue the economy from 

recession. Below are the key 

contents of their presentations at the 

Vanguard Economic Discourse held in Lagos 

on Friday. 

New economic plan needs 

review before implementation 

– Soludo 

A former Governor of the Central Bank of 

Nigeria, Professor Chukwuma Charles 

Soludo, and the Keynote Speaker at the 

Discourse, led the thought leadership 

campaign. He called for a review of the 

Federal Government’s Economic Recovery 

and Growth Plan, ERGP, barely three days 

after it was announced. His words: 

We already published the details of his 

erudite speech in our yesterday edition. So 

we present just the highlights which set the 

ball rolling as follows: 

•In domestic currency terms, the 

economy is in a recession, but that in US 

dollar terms, the economy has suffered 

massive compression. 

•The last PDP government was blaming 

“external shocks” while the current APC 

government blames not only the fall in oil 

price/output but also the past PDP 

government. No one admits of policy errors, 

and that is the problem. 

•The current government is responding 

exactly like some did in the past: treating 

oil price/quantity fall as temporary while 

treating a rise as permanent/normal. It is 

merely embarking on short term demand 

management—just as “coping strategy” 

while waiting for oil price/quantity to return 

to “normal” and we get back to business as 

usual. 

•The Plan (Economic Recovery and 

Growth Plan, ERGP, rolled out by the federal 

government last week) envisages to 

continue the practice of the last government 

of borrowing to finance recurrent 

If you look at all the 

advanced emerging 

economy, the first 

thing that they had to 

get right was a broad 

national consensus 

with regard to national 

development 

expenditure. The deficit will continue to 

exceed the capital budget, meaning that 

every penny of capital expenditure will 

continue to be borrowed as done by the 

last government. So, what has changed? 

•Every Plan however is a life document. 

Perhaps before it goes into full 

implementation, there is a need for 

Extended ERGP or ERGP Plus Plus! 

Eight blind spots in 

national development 

– Mailafia, Former Deputy 

Governor of CBN 

A former Deputy Governor, Central Bank 

of Nigeria, Dr. Obadiah Mailafia spoke 

on the blind spots. 

I want to talk on what I call the blind 

spot of national development. 

I agree with the key trust of his lecture 

and also on the Economic Growth and 

Recovery Plan, ERGP. I don’t think the 

objective of the Plan is structural 

diversification of the economy. It was 

never really part of the plan. What they 

have is a fire fighting framework to get 

the country out of recession. So I don’t 

think we can accuse them for something 

that they really did not set out to do. 

But I will agree with you that they ought 

to have made it part of the Plan. But they 

have not. 

I will like to point out a few blind spots, 

that perhaps in a lot of our popular 

discusses and economy we hardly ever 

make mention to. 

Broad national concensus: First, the 

absence of a national consensus. We 

have become a much divided country, 

more divided than ever. If you look at 

all the advanced emerging economy, 

the first thing that they had to get right 

was a broad national consensus with 

regard to national development. That 

was the case with in South Korea. That 

was the case in Indonesia; it was the 

same case in Singapore among others. 

We need to get that kind of broad 

national consensus if this country is to 

move forward. 

Security and Rule of law: Secondly, 

I don’t care really much among 

economist especially, on the key issue 

of human security and crime. What is 

the economic cost of that to this 

country? It is very huge. As you know 

the flight to Abuja has been diverted 

now to Kaduna. Many of the 

international airlines say they are not 

going to Kaduna and this is mainly 

because of the fear and insecurity. If 

we are to become an industrial 

civilized nation we must get rid of this 

culture of nihilistic violence, rampant 

and unpredictable lawlessness. This 

must be stopped and of course added 

to that is the rule of law, respect to 

property rights and the rest of it. 

Regional and Urban planning: 

Another blind spot if I may is the 

regional and urban planning. We have 

virtually forgotten that. Of course 

Lagos has made some huge 

improvement in terms of its mega city 

project, but many of our cities and towns 

no longer get involved in anything 

called regional and urban planning 

and yet this is very crucial to manage 

the massive increase in population, 

rapid rural-urban migration and the 

rest of them. 

Youth development: I have read the 

EGRP and the reference to youth is very 

very minimal, yet they are the majority. 

The young people of this country are 

the vast majority and yet they don’t 

really have a voice. If we don’t plan for 

them, if we don’t build opportunities 

for them, definitely we will be sitting 

on a time bomb. And then linked to 

that of course is chaos. Many of these young 

people, many of them are graduates, with 

all respect, some of them barely literate, 

are in the job market and many are 

unemployable. They don’t have the 

requisite skills. 

Women empowerment: And of course if 

I may also add the gender dimension of 

development. Women are slightly more 

than men in population. Ours is still a 

society that is very bias against women and 

I will say particularly the northern part of 

the country. We need to emancipate our 

women, empower them and re-engineer 

growth by integrating women into the 

development process. 

Social Policy: And my last two points are 

social policy. The plan talks about inclusive 

development. I welcomed that. It is very 

important. My worry is that, like typical of 

many things in this country, it is done 

without clarity of policy, clarity of purpose. 

The way they did it in Brazil, they have to 

do very rigorous analysis to find out the 

geography and social strata of poverty in 

Brazil. It was much targeted, very rigorously 

administered and with zero tolerance to 

corrupt and rent-seeking behaviour in the 

process. 

Industrialisation: And also the issue of 

industrialization, technology and 

innovation. Some of us are brought up in 

the western development classical 

paradigm but when it comes to Africa you 

never mention industrialization and you 

never mention technology. But I dare say 

we must industrialize or perish. 

Civil Service: The government, the 

quality of government. Nobody talks about 

bureaucracy. I know that the Keynote 

speaker mentioned it in passing. But you 

see no matter how noble, no matter how 

visionary your policies are as a politician; 

you need the civil servants to implement 

them. And if they are not competent or if 

they are lazy or unwilling, they will simply 

sit there. That is really the big elephant in 

the room, the civil servants. The days where 

we have a high breed, well respected civil 

service, the days are long gone. We need to 

go back to that. 

More visioning needed in 

economic planning - Aremu 

Vice President, Nigeria 

Labour Congress 

Frontline labour leader, Comrade Issa 

Aremu, said the following: 

I want to say that one hard fact on how to 

rescue Nigeria out of recession is a hard 

discussion. 

Maybe we need to be talking about not 

just economy but political economy. Why 

are we going up and down looking for hard 

facts when we have a good number of them 

written in the constitution of the country? 

Soludo talked about whether the new 

Plan, ERGP, is consistent with the manifesto 

of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC. 

I think the real document we should refer 

to is the constitution of the Federal Republic 

of Nigeria. 

With all its limitations, the 1999 

constitution is clear about the direction and 

thrust of this Republic. Chapter two, Section 

Continues on page 40


'Policy options for Nigeria's recovery, growth' 


16, states that government will harness 

national resources to promote national 

prosperity. Government will ensure 

planned and balanced development and 

that is the key word. Government will 

promote the welfare of the people. I think 

we should relate the new growth plan to 

that. Politicians take the oath of office based 

on the constitution. 

I have always been saying that maybe we 

should not waste time to harass our 

politicians for non performance, but we 

should charge them for what they refused to 

do to keep to the spirit and content of the 

constitution. 

One of the things we appreciate as labour 

about the Plan or growth is that there is an 

attempt to return to national planning 

because the bane of our development has 

been the absence of a road map. This 

government has done well in terms of 

security, anti-corruption to a large extent. 

But on the issue of the economy, we have not 

seen the real road map. But now we have 

plan and I am excited that we have a full 

blown ministry in charge of planning. The 

budget and planning are now put together. 

You cannot drive the agenda of the 

constitution of 180 million Nigerians based 

on lack of agenda for planning. But we must 

also do this within the context of a vision. 

There is no vision. A nation without a vision 

will definitely be operating blindly. 

It is sad that a country like Tanzania is 

operating a visionary programme and it is 

verifiable as you can see a lot of development 

taking place there. They are now talking 

about vision 2025. China is implementing 

5 th development plan. Anytime you are 

engaging with them, it is based on their own 

terms. I think without limitations we must 

return to some vision process. 

Before, we started with vision 2010. Later 

we had 2020. There are some vague 

references to these in this recent document. 

And I thought that we should read through 

and to some extent there were levels of 

consultations. 

What I am saying is that we need some 

visioning; we need to improve on this 

document to be within a broad contest with 

the vision to know where we are going within 

the next 10 years and thereabout. 

The second point I want to talk about is 

that we hear a lot about diversification, but 

I have not really seen the commitment to 

real practical diversification. As a matter of 

fact, this new Plan is still operating within 

the oil and gas paradigm. It is talking about 

2.2 million barrels per day which I think is 

not really ambitious for the Federal Republic 

of Nigeria. 

I graduated in the 80s and we said Nigeria 

was the highest oil producer in Africa, but 

we have been beaten by Angola, and others 

are coming in. Saudi Arabia is talking about 

close to 6 million barrels per day. I think 

people like Nike Akande would like to know 

what do we want to achieve in terms of 

manufacturing value added and those 

indicators are not there. 

On job creation, I think we should take 

Soludo’s speech seriously. I am more 

optimistic that they will deliver and that is 

why we are here. I operate from the point of 

view that things can be done better. There 

are 10 critical sectors that I think we should 

look into. 

I think the one that concerns me is that we 

should look at textile and it is one quick win 

that we can achieve. It is capital intensive 

and it can absorb a lot of labour. 

There cannot be industrialization without 

electrification. There should be electricity. 

We can’t drive this issue further because 

Fashola is not here. 

I think he is a lucky person. With such 

massive underemployment, he is over 

employed. He should have been here to be 

interrogated on how DISCOs and GENCOs 

will deliver power to the industry. 

Our current budget is N7.3 trillion. The 

question is, what do we use this money for? 

Is it for made in China or Nigerian goods? 

I think we can use this money to turn the 

economy around. I am happy that a factory 

From left: Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, Dr Kayode Fayemi and 

Prof Charles Soludo, at the Vanguard discourse 

Purchasing power 

is low and the only 

way you can 

ensure real fiscal 

stimulus is to 

improve the pay of 

the working people 

in Umuahia is now producing booths for 

soldiers and that alone has provided over 

3000 jobs for Nigerians. Our textile 

industry can produce uniforms for police, 

customs and children rather than going 

to China. Budget and public spending can 

be brought in to encourage local content. 

The last quick one I will add is about 

issue of compensation. When I talk of 

working people, it is that you can’t drive 

recovery with miserably paid poor 

working people. You can’t drive 

productivity from this. And I think at the 

heart of this is crisis of production. You 

cannot have production without 

productive workforce that is well 

motivated and paid for. 

As regards N18,000 minimum wage, 

when we signed it eight years ago, the 

exchange rate was N115 to a dollar. 

Inflation rate was single digit and now it 

is about 18 percent. And today we use any 

rate. 

Minimum wage has collapsed to about 

$45 and the key crisis facing the industry 

today is that there is no demand. 

Purchasing power is low and the only 

way you can ensure real fiscal stimulus is 

to improve the pay of the working people. 

I want to say here that we must as much 

as possible revamp the economy by 

increasing the wage of the working people 

and pay them as at when due. Not only 

that, pensioners must be paid 

appropriately. 

As we are addressing the economy, we 

must also curb the indulgence of the ruling 

elite. The pay is not sustainable, 

unacceptable and most be reduced. Some 

of them collect double pay and every 

opportunity is to extract more. 

We have xenophobic attack in South 

Africa and Senators want to take a trip. 

This economy can hardly sustain that. 

Yes we must fix exchange rate. I think 

the exchange rate policy must drive 

production, must be seen to be stable and 

should be such that will promote public 

welfare. The recent one we have on Naira 

was done by speculators and in the process 

we are suffering from it. CBN has done few 

things and I think they could do more. There 

is a lot of distortions that they must address. 

You see CBN-anchored borrowing for rice 

production. Today, we are more or less 

building food security in terms of rice 

production. 

We can target resources for productive 

sector of the economy. For the 41 items 

banned, I think it should be more than that, 

especially, where we have productive 

advantage at home. Why should we import 

textile materials from China? I think we 

should encourage Nigerian textile 

production and create jobs for the masses. 

That is the way to go. 

Present policies are antiinvestment 

– Yusuf, DG, Lagos 

Chamber of Commerce and 

Industry 

The Director General of the Lagos Chamber 

of Commerce and Industry, LCCI, Mr. Muda 

Yusuf, listed the challenges. 

We are talking about rescuing the 

economy and what can the private sector 

put on the table to rescue the economy? 

You know that the economy has 

challenges, recession and all of that, and to 

get the economy out of the recession, we 

need to bring investment on the table. There 

are a number of investments: we have 

domestic investments, we have foreign direct 

investments, and we have foreign portfolio 

investments; those are the key components 

of investments. So, if the private sector has 

to be part of the rescue mission, we need to 

see how we can activate the private sector to 

move along this direction. 

But the key driver, just as the Keynote 

speaker said, is confidence in the economy. 

If there is no confidence, there is no way to 

get these investments to come into the 

economy. And the policy environment is a 

major driver of confidence. I will just briefly 

highlight some of the confidence effects of 

policy. 

The Keynote speaker dwelt extensively on 

the significance of the exchange rate regime. 

That for me is very central because no 

economy can live in isolation of other 

economies. That is why getting it right with 

the foreign exchange policy is very critical 

and very central. 

Now, the foreign exchange policy regimes 

that we have experienced in the last two years 

or thereabout have had a number of effects. 

First, critical scarcity of foreign exchange 

for the manufacturing and other critical 

sectors of the economy has been affecting 

the capacity of a lot of investors to move on 

with their investments. 

Then there has been very serious 

transparency problem in the foreign 

exchange market across the entire chains. 

All manner of under-hands dealing have 

been taking place in the foreign exchange 

market across the entire chains. That has 

been a major problem in the market. 

Investors have suffered significantly, either 

dividends, profits, revenue; the airlines, for 

instances, are good example. There have been 

major disincentives to inflow of foreign direct 

investments either from exporters, from foreign 

portfolio investors. People have suffered very 

serious losses especially from transition of the 

former exchange rate regime to the current 

exchange policy particularly transactions we 

referred to as matured obligations. 

The servicing of offshore obligations has 

become very difficult to all businesses; in fact, 

many businesses have gone bad because of their 

inability to service offshore obligations. 

Also, a lot of businesses have lost credible 

credit lines that they relied upon for their 

services. All those credit lines have virtually 

vanished because of the issues of defaulting 

and credibility problem that has arisen from 

it. 

There is a huge incentive for round-tripping. 

If there is any business now that is very lucrative, 

it is round-tripping of foreign exchange 

because the gains are so huge that it will take 

an angel to resist round-tripping. 

Of course, we have the exclusion of 41 items. 

I agree with the Keynote speaker that we need 

to fix the liquidity issue in the foreign exchange 

market and the way to do that is to allow the 

market to play a much bigger role in the 

foreign exchange market. We should move 

away from allocation of dollars, pieces of 

intervention, and so on; the economy doesn’t 

work that way. 

So we need to give more room for the market 

to play the rule in the foreign exchange market. 

Then there should be full liberalisation of 

foreign exchange inflows into the economy. 

Right now, there are too many restrictions 

on investors who want to bring money into the 

economy. It’s an irony; you have a supply crisis, 

you have people who want to bring in money 

into the economy to support you on the supply 

side, but you are creating problem for them. I 

mean one can’t really understand the rationale 

behind that kind of policy. So, as a rescue 

options, I think these are things that we need to 

tackle concerning the forex. 

Also, we have monetary policy effects on 

business confidence. The monetary policy 

regime has not been supportive of efforts to 

rescue the economy. 

First, on account of interest rates, it is ranging 

between 25-30 per cent. How can domestic 

investors invest profitably when you are having 

an interest rate of 25-30 per cent? There are no 

incentives for domestic investors to even play 

significant role, and these are the kind of things 

that shape economy and the investments people 

do. Because as they say, “an economy gets the 

kind of investments it deserves.” It is the 

incentives, the policy that determines the kind 

of business people will do, and that is why there 

are so many disincentives for investors to go 

into real sector (Manufacturing, Agriculture, 

Solid minerals) investments because of the 

issue of cost of fund. How can you make any 

reasonable returns on investment at 30 per cent 

in agriculture, industry, property? Maybe it 

is buying and selling which is even very difficult 

now. So, monetary policy regimes have been 

big issue. 

Then, there is the challenge of the way 

government borrows. Government’s borrowing 

has become a major problem for investors; 

government is borrowing at 18 per cent, 20 per 

cent; zero risks, how can the private sector 

compete? And that is why all funds in the 

economy now are going into treasury bills, they 

are going into federal government wallet, so 

that has made it very difficult for the private 

sector to play its role in the economy in terms 

of this rescue mission. 

As it is now, there is no way you can compete 

with government in the financial market, even 

the banks, they would rather buy treasury bills 

and bonds than to give money to 

manufacturers. That is the kind of 

investments disincentives or structure that the 

policy has created. 

So, one thing is to talk about wanting to 

diversify the economy, and yet the policies are 

moving in a complete opposite direction. 

So, another rescue option is we need to 

check the rate at which government is 

borrowing, government can’t continue to 

borrow at 18 per cent, at 20 per cent; it is simply 

crowding out the private sector and even 

creating a lot of problem for government 

finances. 

In the 2017 Budget, N1.6 trillion had been 

earmarked for debt servicing, how much was 

earmarked for infrastructure? So, this thing is 

completely lopsided and we need to ensure that 

we deal with it. 




Also, we need to look at our trade 

policy. No economy exits in 

isolation of other economies. It is 

good to protect but we need to be 

strategic in the way we protect and in 

the way we make our trade policy 

choices. Many citizens today are 

complaining of high cost; if there is 

any major cause of poverty today, it is 

inflation and the key drivers of 

inflation , first, the foreign exchange 

challenge; second, the trade policy 

because trade policy determines what 

comes in and what doesn’t come in. 

You have cases where the domestic 

capacity is so weak and yet we 

slammed a trade policy that pose a 

lot of restrictions. This has been 

driving up cost and affecting income 

and poverty up to every person on the 

street particularly those on the bottom 

of the pyramid. The greatest challenge 

of this administration is the high cost 

of goods and services and you need 

the right kind of trade policy frame 

work to address that. 

Ideological differences 

stall clear direction 

—Rewane 

Managing Director, Financial 

Derivatives Company, Bismarck 

Rewane, reeled out several stumbling 

blocks that need to be cleared for 

development to happen. 

First, the question is, hard facts to 

rescue Nigeria’s economy. The word 

rescue connotes something. Flight 

MH 370, Malaysian Airline search 

and rescue mission. You rescue when 

there is an emergency or when there 

is accident. The question therefore is 

where is the Nigerian economy now? 

In an emergency ward, or on the site 

of accident, and what are we going to 

do to rescue it in the short term? 

The Economic Growth and 

Recovery Plan for 2020 assume that 

we would get to 2020, but before we 

get to 2020, you must face 2017. 

Number 2, is that February last year, 

February 11, on this stage, Comrade 

Issa Aremu, Governor Oshiomole, we 

were here debating about the Naira. 

On that day, the parallel market was 

N275 per dollar, on that day the 

official rate was N199. The spread 

was N76 and was considered 

unacceptable, on that day, the price 

of oil was $29, it was 100 percent less 

than what it is today. On that day I 

said, if you do not reform the foreign 

exchange market it will be a 

catastrophe, please don’t confuse the 

exchange rate and the forex market 

mechanism. They are two different 

things. An exchange rate is the product 

of the mechanism that comes from 

the market, if you don’t fix the 

exchange rate system, what you will 

have is, I referred them to Fela’s song, 

‘palaver’. On that day, the bankers 

committee met and made a comment 

that they have recommended to the 

CBN to remove education, medical 

bills and others from the interbank 

forex market that was 2pm. By 

3.o’clock the exchange rate went from 

N275 to N310, by 4, O’clock it went 

up to N325. Then the CBN came out 

to say, we never said we would stop 

selling dollars for school fees and the 

rest as they say is history, in any case 

the exchange rate never appreciated, 

because the exchange rate is sensitive 

to signals, demand and supply and 

confidence. 

On June 22nd, we announced a 

flexible exchange rate policy, two 

months later we suspended 9 banks 

from participating in the foreign 

exchange market. The exchange rate 

moved that day from N410 to N430, 

the next day it moved to N440, within 

a week, we got to N490. We readmitted 

the banks back, but the exchange rate 

never came back. 

So, hard facts to rescue the Nigerian 

economy! Where is the Nigerian 

economy today? First and foremost 

the Nigerian economy is on the site of 

an accident. You can stabilise the guy, 

put him in an ambulance, put him on 

From left: Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, Aremo Olusegun Osoba, Mr. Fola Adeola 

and Prof. Charles Soludo, at the Vanguard discourse 

'Policy options for Nigeria's 

recovery, growth' 

life support, or you can discuss how you 

are going to treat him when you get to 

the hospital. We are not at the hospital, 

we are at the site of an accident and we 

need to rescue the patient. The Economic 

patient is Nigeria and what are the 

symptoms of this patient. 

First the economy is under performing. 

It is projected to grow at one per cent 

this year, and targeted to grow at 7 per 

cent in 2020. This year, the nine French 

speaking West African countries are 

estimated to grow at 7 per cent. This 

year, Ivory Coast, post-conflict economy, 

is projected to grow at 8 per cent. This 

year, Nigeria’s labour productivity 

growth is minus 4%. This year the 

magnitude and quantity of the stimulus 

package in Nigeria is 20 per cent less in 

dollar terms than what it was in 2016. 

In nominal Naira terms there seems to 

be an increase but in dollar terms, 

Professor Soludo referred to it, actually 

contracted. 

Dr. Malafia talked about consensus, 

one thing I agree with him, because in 

2016 every time everybody agreed on 

anything, we got it wrong. For example, 

in 2016, everybody in this room agreed 

that Leicester will not win the premier 

league last year, and if you had bet on it, 

you would have become a billionaire. 

Everybody in this room agree that 

Britain will never leave the European 

Union, everybody in this room agreed 

that Trump is an outsider, and everybody 

in this room agreed that Barcelona will 

never come back. In the champions 

league, in modern day discourse, 

because we are talking about elevating 

the level of discourse, the more 

consensus you have, and alignment, the 

more likely that you are going to get it 

We have a price 

discriminating monopoly 

which thrives on an 

imperfect market, creating 

barriers to entry, which 

people will call roundtripping, 

we call it financial 

osmosis because you are 

moving in different 

directions buying in one 

market selling in another 

using influence peddling 

and connections 

wrong because the world has moved into 

what is called disruptive innovation, where 

people just do the reverse of the obvious. 

Now coming back to the issue of the 

Nigerian economy, the fact is that if you do 

not reform the foreign exchange market and 

you continue to tinker with it, nothing will 

happen. This economy will remain in the 

doldrums forever. 

Now I say this again with all sense of 

humility, subsidies are reverse taxes. You 

either have a government-led, export-led or 

consumer-led strategy for growth and that is 

not development, growth is not economic. 

Now for you to have that, you need to have 

government spend on development 

investment, not government spending on 

wasted resources. Now the exchange rate and 

petroleum subsidy are the biggest drain on 

government resources. 

When you talk of taxes, Dr. Fayemi talks 

about the tax base, one of the ways to address 

the tax base is to eliminate or reduce subsidy 

so that the government will have more to 

spend. We talk about sale of assets; 

government should use the proceeds on 

impactful investment. The Economic 

Growth and Recovery Plan actually addresses 

some of these issues but the time frame is 

short, because we have a short frame which 

is recovering from recession, then we have 

the medium term frame and then the long 

term plan. 

But more than anything else, the structural 

subsidies in the economy comes to about $20 

billion to $25 billion, that is significant. We 

have a price discriminating monopoly which 

thrives on an imperfect market, creating 

barriers to entry, which people will call 

round-tripping, we call it financial osmosis 

because you are moving in different 

directions buying in one market selling in 

another using influence peddling and 

connections. It’s like a fibroid in a woman, 

which is taking all the resources from the 

baby in the womb and leading to a still birth. 

That is what this misaligned exchange rate, 

the dysfunctional relationship, which we 

have, is doing to this economy. And we 

continue to run around in circles. 

But fundamentally there are ideological 

differences and this country is divided into 

three clear ideological schools of thought. 

One, those who believe in the patronising 

and anachronistic system of the past, who 

hold on closely to it. We have those who are 

reform oriented and market driven, and there 

are those who want a mixed economy. If we 

don’t resolve this ideological differences and 

come up with facts which allows a clear 

direction, then nothing will happen. 

Also, because we have the interest rate, the 

exchange rate, all of that is monetary policy, 

monetary policy is for short term, structural 

or fiscal policy is for long term, but there 

must be consistency between the long term 

and the short term. If that is not addressed 

and we have these vested interest who are 

benefiting from the exchange rate system, 

well, so I borrow money in intervention fund at 6 

per cent. I use that money to invest in treasury bills 

at 18 per cent, I use the treasury bills as collateral 

to borrow money to buy foreign exchange at N305 

per dollar, I sell the foreign exchange at N500 per 

dollar. Nobody in the world, even the Pope will not 

be tempted. So you must remove what is called 

structurally induced corruption. Corruption is not 

about missing money, it is about taking advantage 

of position to earn rent and selling patronage. 

We have always assume the oil boom will always 

be here, $100 per barrel will be here, and there are 

those who have positioned themselves. 

That vicious cycle, that political cycle, where 

you scramble for power, squabble for spoils of 

office, and use the spoils to fight for the next 

election. That is the cause of the economic crises 

we have in Nigeria. So if we do not fix the electoral 

system, and I am not talking about verification of 

votes, I am talking about electronic voting, this 

economy will go no where. 

We need massive economic, 

polity restructuring —Otti 

Dr. Alex Otti, a former Managing Director/CEO, 

Diamond Bank Plc, one of the panellists, stated: 

There are things you cannot control; if you ban 

41 items somehow they will still find their way to 

come in. If you mention a 100 items, they will still 

find a way to come in. So when you talk about 

control and speculators, the speculator will only 

operate when you create incentive for them to 

operate. So when you have multiple foreign 

exchange rates people will go and buy things in 

foreign currency and find a way to bring them 

back. Therefore you must do things differently so 

that they don’t operate. 

I want to talk a little bit about stagflation, which 

we call recession. The right word is stagflation. 

Before 1970, economists did not believe that it 

was possible for us to have recession together with 

inflation. Subsequently, when it happened they 

coined a new word for it and called it stagflation. 

Now is it a major threat? My answer is no. 

This is because the same way you got into 

stagflationary situation, you can also get out of it. 

I also know that some government representatives 

have told us that recession will end before 2016 

what so ever. Some of us who write have written to 

say it is going to be here for a little while longer. I 

have said it may be here for two to three years if we 

do the right things. We have done a few right things, 

but we still have a lot of things to do. 

On interest rate, I think the interest rate as it is 

today is maintained at that level because monetary 

policy rate has been fixed at 14 per cent. You cannot 

be increasing interest rate in a recession. When 

you have a recession what you need to do is to 

reflate the economy .When you increase interest 

rate you just crowd out every other person and 

I understand all the argument that inflation is 

about 18 per cent and we want to stop speculators 

and we want to do this and that. There are one 

other argument, what drive savings and the 

bankers know you can adjust your interest rate a 

million times and a lot of people will not even 

feel it .There are a lot of other things, politics 

that will determine whether people will save money 

or not. 

I must say clearly that CBN will need to think 

about bringing interest rate down and when you 

bring interest rate down people can borrow, they 

can spend in the economy; they can jump-start 

consumption, which will eventually jump-start 

production; more people will be employed and 

that is the way it goes. 

Of course government spending is very 

important. Stimulus package have been talked 

about. But I think the major point that I want to 

make is that you can get out of recession if there is 

a positive GDP growth tomorrow and yet nothing 

has changed. Oil price for instance, could for 

some reason recover and we begin to see another 

$100 per barrel of oil tomorrow. What will happen, 

we will be out of recession but whatever that has 

been holding us down will continue to hold us 

down. 

I thank Professor Soludo for talking about some 

of the things that I thought we should be addressing. 

One of them is the structure of the Nigerian 

economy. But, we have come into this defeat, I call 

it the big defeat, where we like to eulogise ourselves, 

we are a big oil economy, we rebase our economy 

and GDP in 2014 and our GDP became $520 

billion and there is nothing wrong with that. 

We should rebase our GDP every five years; we 

have not done that in the last fifteen years or so. It 

was a good exercise but we started celebrating too 

early, we were the biggest economy in Africa and 

26th in the World. 

That was one part of the story but the other part 

of the story that we were not told is that what is 

important is not absolute GDP but GDP per capita. 




So we have 183 million mouths to feed, when 

you divide your $520 billion as at 2015 into 

about 180 million people, what you get is 

about $2,800 per head. 

And when you now begin to look at 

yourself vis-a-vis other countries, at least 

IMF did that. As at that time, we were 

somewhere about 145 th or 146 th out of 

the 258 countries that were rated. As at the 

end of 2016, we had dropped to 188th out of 

the 258 countries and I think that is 

important. It is not the absolute number. 

I do not think that there is anything wrong 

with our population. Because some people 

may feel the best way to do it is to shift people 

out of Nigeria and lets share the dollar. It 

does not work that way. 

When you look at the oil economy that we 

claim we are, you find out that oil contributes 

just about 7.15 percent of the GDP. 

Meanwhile, it also contributes over 90 

percent of our foreign exchange earnings 

that means something is wrong. The part 

of the economy that contributes about 93 

or 95 percent contribute less that 10 per 

cent of our foreign exchange earnings and 

that is where I come to the issue of 

structure. 

Our current situation has presented an 

opportunity for us to re-examine ourselves 

and begin to think of what we can do 

differently and I think one thing we need 

to do differently is to look at the structure 

of this economy. 

And I agree with Isa Aremu, we should 

not just be talking about the economy 

without talking about the politics. 

So as we are re-structuring the economy, 

we should also be re-structuring the polity. 

I do not agree that we need the kind of 

presidential system of government that we 

are currently running today, we cannot 

afford it. 

We cannot afford a President with a Vice 

President, all the Special Assistants, 

Senior Special Assistants, Advisers and 

all that. We cannot afford 109 Senators, 

and with due respect most of them do 

absolutely nothing. 

A friend of mine who moved from the 

private sector to the Senate shared with 

me that he has never seen such an idle 

moment in his entire life. He says he works 

on Tuesdays, Wednesday and Thursdays, 

three days in a week. They do not sit on 

Mondays and Fridays. We cannot afford 

360 House of Representatives members. 

We cannot afford 36 Governors and 36 

Deputy Governors and all of them taking 

fat security votes. I am aware that some 

State Governors collect over N1billion 

per month as security votes and nobody 

ask questions. What are they doing, are 

they fighting a war? 

We really cannot afford a thousand 

House of Assembly members scattered all 

over the place. We cannot afford 774 

idle local government chairmen and 

counsellors. 

So, I think it is time for us to sit down 

and ask ourselves questions. My support 

for re-structuring is not to divide Nigeria. 

My support for re-structuring is for us to say 

what we can afford and what we cannot 

afford. 

I believe that this country can do with six 

Governors, six and no more. I like to reassure 

Fola (Adeola) that if that happens I will drop 

my ambition to become a Governor. 

There are still a whole lot of things we can 

do and is not just the political structure. I 

also agree with Isa Aremu completely. Where 

we are today is because we refused to plan 

and it is not enough for somebody to say 

what we are experiencing now happened 

today but several decades ago. 

It is not too late; we can sit down and plan 

this economy. Yes, the Economic Recovery 

and Growth Plan is a good start but we need 

a more robust economic plan. When you 

fail to plan, you plan to fail. 

We’re linking planning 

to budget – Fayemi 

In defence of the Federal Government’s 

positions on all the issues raised, the Minister 

of Solid Mineral Development, Dr. Kayode 

Fayemi, had this to say: 

Prof. Soludo started by first presenting the 

‘alternative facts’. I’m a historian and not 

an economist like Soludo, and one of the 

very key things that we learn in history is 

'Policy options for Nigeria's 

recovery, growth' 

From left: Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, Dr Kayode Fayemi, Prof. Charles Soludo, Mr 

Muda Yusuf, Mr Bismarck Rewane, Dr Alex Otti, Mr Issa Aremu and Dr. Obadiah Mailafia, 

at the Vanguard discourse 

that context is everything, not just facts. 

And the pain that one really suffers from 

the exchanges that we have these days is 

that there is often a tendency to decontextualize 

the situation we have found 

ourselves in. I’m not suggesting that is 

what Soludo has done. Soludo actually 

provided some contexts to his own 

discussion and I wouldn’t really want to 

do a line by line rebuttal or response to 

what he has done. But what is important 

for me is to say two things – first that the 

bulk of what he has said is actually what 

the ERGP seeks to do. 

If you look at all the issues he has raised 

on stabilizing the macro-economic 

environment, on achieving energy 

sufficiency, foreign exchange 

predictability, driving industrialization 

– these are all points that we have in the 

Economic Recovery and Growth Plan. 

And the Plan also does not pretend that 

there was nothing beforehand. As a 

matter of fact, it refers to a range of other 

Plans. In fact, if you look at the sectoral 

issues, these are products of the 

roadmaps of the different areas – 

agriculture, solid minerals, 

infrastructure, it refers to the industrial 

revolution plan, integrated 

infrastructure plan, it even refers to 

NEEDS (National Economic 

Empowerment and Development 

Strategy) in one or two places. 

So, this is not a plan that has just 

come out of the blues; it’s something 

that speaks to some of all the good 

things that we can identify and that 

Nigerians already agree with around 

how do we take this economy out of 

recession, but much more 

fundamentally, how do we 

restructure the economy for 

sustainable growth rather than just 

consumption-driven growth. And I 

think these are things that the plan 

seeks to achieve. 

You refer to improving on 

implementation, it’s simply because 

these are the banes of previous plans. 

It’s not lack of plans that we suffer 

from, it’s lack of implementation of 

the previous plans that has gotten us 

to where we are now. Yes I agree that 

we haven’t had long-term prospective 

planning and this is what this 

government is attempting to do, 

particularly in linking planning to 

budget because that has been 

disconnected for too long in our 

previous occasions. 

We can argue back and forth about 

missed opportunities, about things 

we ought to have done that we 

haven’t done or we haven’t done in a 

much deeper manner that we should 

have done it. But it just simply brings 

to mind what my favourite 

If you look at all the issues 

he has raised on stabilizing 

the macro-economic 

environment, on achieving 

energy sufficiency, foreign 

exchange predictability, 

driving industrialization – 

these are all points that we 

have in the Economic 

Recovery and Growth Plan 

sociologist, Antonio Gramsci, said that 

“when the old is dying and the new is not 

yet born, what you have in-between is a whole 

range of confusion”. And there is an element 

of that in what we are dealing with. But the 

reason why I said history is important to me is 

that we did not just get to this point accidentally, 

this rain has been beating us from way back. 

And yes, there are people that will tell you 

that ‘the Jonathan administration was this or 

that, but that was why we elected you’. Yes, 

that’s why we were elected but we are not 

going to perform magic overnight in order 

to address these fundamental facts. People 

may not want to hear that, but the structural 

cycle and the electoral cycle are not the 

same. And that is an academic point that is 

backed up by reality – the structural cycle 

or the restructuring cycle is not aligned to 

the electoral cycle. We can do all that we 

want to do in our political reform, but before 

we get there we need to look at other ways 

of addressing this problem and that is what 

this plan has done. 

Over the last year, let us look at some 

specific areas of restructuring that we are 

either taking for granted or that we don’t 

pay enough attention to, like the Anchor 

Borrowers Programme in the Agric sector 

which is leading us to self-sufficiency in 

some areas, particularly rice and other 

staple produce. What this government has 

done, for example, with cash calls in the 

Oil and Gas sector is not often talked about 

and we need to be much more open than 

that because this a problem that this country 

has faced over the last two decades - refusal 

to settle cash calls to companies and that 

in turn affects productive capacity in the 

Oil and Gas sector. 

And no matter how much we diversify, 

which is an agenda of this government, we 

still need oil revenue to diversify because the 

money that we are going to use for building 

the infrastructure, for improving exploration 

in the solid mineral sector, for supporting the 

farmers will come from somewhere. And one 

of the main sources of our revenue remains 

oil, so I don’t think we should make a light 

commentary of it that we are not doing 

enough on diversification because we are still 

focusing on improving on oil and gas 

production, we will continue to improve on 

it. And talking about diversification is not 

tantamount to talking about ignoring oil and 

gas; it is about deepening whatever benefits 

that come from oil and gas in other sectors of 

the economy. That for me is one key point 

that we can make. 

There is no doubt Nigeria is 

underperforming and that we need fiscal 

stimulus. And Soludo said something about 

what we have in the Plan not being enough, 

almost peanuts as he referred to it in terms of 

the stimulus, and I do agree with him. But 

that same Plan talks about two things which 

we don’t also often acknowledge. One is the 

reference to some assets sales; the second is 

the widening of the tax base because our tax 

base is one of the lowest on the continent of 

Africa, not to even talk about the world. And 

there are people who have the capacity to 

actually meet their own obligations to the 

State but refuse to do so because our tax 

system has given them the freedom to 

continue to shy, if you like, from meeting their 

obligation to the Nigerian State. 

Now Soludo started on the premise of what 

our manifesto said. I happen to know one or 

two things about that manifesto. Yes, 

restructuring and evolution are in that 

manifesto and there is no failure of 

commitment to that, and I can tell you, at 

least in the sector where I superintend, we 

have already started on an administrative 

basis not on a legislative basis yet because 

the legislative aspect of it belong to another 

arm of government. If you talk to state 

governments now they will confirm to you 

how we are reshaping the relationship 

between the sub-nationals and the federal in 

terms of mineral resources management. 

And I believe that is something that is being 

replicated across the sectors on a practical 

basis, but I do agree with you that on a 

constitutional/legislative basis we need to 

fast-track whatever we are doing in terms of 

that. 

But if you also look at the commitment 

that the federal government has shown to the 

States in helping to address a fundamental 

challenge on default on salary payment, it’s 

an element of that. Because we’ve spent, at 

least in the last 18 months now, three sets of 

funds have gone to States, whether you call it 

bail-out, or Paris Club, or whatever you want 

to call it. These were things that were never 

really the features of the previous 

administration but it’s gone down to the same 

citizens we are talking about because there is 

a multiplier effect to the funds that have been 

released to States in order to address the 

problems that they had. 

I think on foreign exchange, that we have 

been hit by a double whammy; oil prices have 

gone significantly down, militancy has 

affected what is happening to oil production 

but this government has also taken 

significant steps to improve on the situation. 

Today, the figure that I have is two million 

barrels; the plan talks about 2.5 million 

barrels by 2020. I believe that is realistic, we 

are even going beyond that and given the 

current arrangement with States and the host 

communities, militancy is also going to go 

down and production will increase. And if 

you look at the big wins that the Minister incharge 

is also pursuing, I have no doubt that 

these resources, by way of foreign exchange, 

will come. The challenge is what we do when 

this money comes back. Do we use it for 

consumption or do we use it for investment? 

That is a challenge that all Nigerians must 

confront because we all like this goody-goody 

things that we don’t want to get rid of, even 

though we really don’t need them in order to 

live a decent life. So, it’s a question back to 

values, what are our values and what is the 

consensus that we have as Nigerians in order 

to move this system forward? Unless we 

address these things, I don’t see how we can 

ever get to the point where we ignore the good 

because we are searching for the perfect; I 

think we should continue to work on the good 

in order to get to the perfect.

SUNDAY Vanguard, MARCH 12, 2017, PAGE 43 

PDP CRISIS RAGES DESPITE 

JONATHAN’S INTERVENTION 

Makarfi can’t stop 

me from presiding at 

convention — Sheriff 

The National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, 

in this interview, speaks on the crisis in the party, his alleged link with Boko Haram 

and how he would like to be remembered when the story of the PDP is written. 

We are aware there are 

meetings going on to 

find lasting solution to 

the internal crisis in the PDP. 

One of such meetings was the 

one held between the PDP Governors’ 

Forum and former President 

Goodluck Jonathan which 

came up with the suggestion 

that there should be political 

solution to this crisis. What is 

your position on this? 

I don’t have any problem with 

it. I am not against it. I am not 

opposed to it. Party politics is 

about people and nobody does 

it alone. President Jonathan has 

spoken to me and I told him that 

I am not opposed to the suggestion. 

But he said he would get 

back to all the people that were 

talking to him, he said he wanted 

to find out my own thinking 

about it and that he would get 

back to me. So I am not opposed 

to that initiative. 

So you would be glad if the 

Ahmed Makarfi committee 

withdraws its case from Supreme 

Court? 

This party is not about Ali 

Modu Sheriff or Ahmed 

Makarfi. It is about the Nigerian 

people and what they want 

to have in their party. We had 

misunderstanding in the party. 

After the botched convention in 

Port Harcourt, we went to various 

courts. Makaffi went to the 

Federal High Court in Port Harcourt 

where he got a favourable 

judgment and we went to the 

Federal High Court in Abuja, 

and we got a judgment. We decided 

at that time that since we 

had two judgments from courts 

of coordinate jurisdiction, ‘let’s 

stay away from the secretariat 

until the Court of Appeal makes 

a pronouncement’. 

And we also agreed that the decision 

of the Court of Appeal 

would be the end of the matter 

and we would all come together. 

So if today Makarfi is talking 

about going to the Supreme 

Court, he can go to court but the 

issue is how do we bring this party 

back? Nigerian people want a 

strong opposition party that 

would be ready to take over government 

any day there is election. 

That is what I am thinking 

about, I am not thinking about 

myself. 

I have told Nigerians that I did 

not want to be the National 

Chairman in the first place and 

I am not going to run. But it 

doesn’t stop me from going 

ahead to bring everybody together 

to have a credible convention 

so that we can have one united, 

strong party. 

How soon will this political 

solution be achieved? 

If convention is possible within 

the next one month, we are 

ready but what is important to 

us is that everybody should come 

together and have a united party. 

Former President Olusegun 

Obasanjo, during his 80th 

thanksgiving, described PDP 

as a dead party. As party Chairman, 

what is your reaction? 

Obasanjo is a leader; he is African 

leader, Nigerian leader. 

His reactions are borne by the 

fact that he was hurt by certain 

things that happened in the past 

in the party. But as of today I 

don’t look at it that way. I was 

not there when he made that 

statement. I was in Otta for two 

days but I did not hear him make 

such a statement. But if he did, I 

will tell him that Baba this statement 

is not right. PDP is not a 

dying baby, it will not die, PDP 

will come back, PDP will be united 

and PDP will be strongest party 

in Africa very soon as it used 

to be. 

One of the issues we have had 

is the issue of trust. Now that 

former President Jonathan has 

intervened, he has got the governors 

to speak. Do you have 

confidence that this governors 

will not renege? 

You see confidence is something 

that is earned; confidence 

is something that people give 

based on history and records. I 

don’t have ill feelings for anybody 

or thinking about anybody. 

I was a governor for eight years 

and the governor of a state is an 

important person. He is the 

head of that state. I have no 

reason to doubt that they were 

saying what they do not mean. 

Of course, people are created 

differently, even the governors 

are created differently. Temperaments 

of people are not the 

same, peoples values are not the 

same. But it is not good to generalize 

just because you have reservations 

about one or two people 

in a group. And in any case, 

they have the right to their opinion. 

But what is important is that 

if the generality of people believe 

that certain things should be 

done, we will do the right thing. 

Some people have argued 

that in view of the issues that 

have arisen recently that the 

best way to build trust is for you 

and Makarfi to come together 

and nominate somebody who 

will organize a convention. 

You people are making a complete 

mistake. You cannot have 

a convention without a Chairman 

and that is the mistake that 

Of course I do 

regret that we lost 

Ondo and Edo 

states. We had no 

reason to lose 

those elections 

whatsoever but it 

happened, so what 

can you do? 

you people are making. The 

Chairman of the convention is 

the National Chairman of the 

party; he opens that convention 

before it becomes valid. So whatever 

suggestions you are making 

must be within the frame 

work of the law and the Constitution 

of the party. It doesn’t 

make sense for you to suggest 

something that does not work. 

So when people talk like this, 

they are talking out of ignorance 

because you cannot hold a convention 

without a National 

Chairman. The Constitution of 

the party says the National 

Chairman is the Chairman of the 

convention committee; it is there 

in the Constitution. So, whatever 

arrangements you put in 

place, there must be a Chairman 

that will pronounce that ‘this 

convention is hereby declared 

open’. 

•Sheriff....Makarfi breached pact on Court of Appeal verdict 

Looking at some of the events 

that happened recently, especially 

if you look at the issue of 

Edo and Ondo states where 

many people thought that PDP 

was rightly placed to win elections, 

do you regret that PDP 

lost those states? 

Of course I do regret that we 

lost Ondo and Edo states. We 

had no reason to lose those elections 

whatsoever but it happened, 

so what can you do? It 

happened because some people 

believe that they have power of 

god. Whenever you feel you can 

arrogate the power of God to 

yourself, you are getting it 

wrong. God is only God and He 

alone can say ‘be’ and it shall 

be, not a human being. And 

when human beings begin to 

think that way then there is something 

wrong. Yes, every meaningful 

person must regret that we 

lost Edo and Ondo State elections. 

The forces arrayed against 

you while this crisis lasted 

seem very formidable. In all 

these you have remained very 

stoic and determined. What 

gives Senator Ali Modu Sheriff 

strength? 

The strength is that I believe I 

am doing the right thing. What 

are we quarrelling about? We are 

quarrelling that we must move 

this party back to the owners; get 

it right so that we can win elections 

again. And as long as you 

do not deviate from the truth, you 

know whatever religion we belong 

to, we serve God and God 

is a living God. What you and I 

are hiding in our inner hearts, 

God knows it and God makes 

his decision based on what He 

believes is fair. I was never worried 

because I know that I am 

doing the right thing. 

You have maintained that you 

are a victim of Boko Haram, yet 

people keep accusing you of 

being a sponsor of Boko 

Haram. When you look back, 

why do you think that people 

want to rope you into a crisis 

that you said you are a victim 

of? 

Thank God that today the truth 

is coming out. In this country we 

have the best security apparatus 

if they want to work. They know 

what I stand for and they know 

what I suffered. You run government 

with security everywhere. 

The only time you don’t have security 

is, maybe, when you are 

in your bedroom with your wife. 

But as a governor, as a senator, 

you are surrounded by security. 

My conduct, my associations 

are open to everybody and the 

reason today I am seated here 

not killed by Boko Haram is 

because I believe in God. I believe 

that life is given by God and 

it is only God that can take life. 

You are aware that I lost three of 

my sibling, my brother, same father, 

same mother. Boko Haram 

went to the mosque to look for 

me; they killed him because he 

looked like me. 

Those trying to implicate me 

are scared of my profile. They 

are scared that they could not 

destroy me politically, ‘so let’s 

find another reason to destroy Ali 

Modu Sheriff’. 

What is your ideal quality of 

a candidate to be Chairman of 

the People’s Democratic Party? 

The ideal candidate must be a 

candidate that is detribalised, a 

candidate that can look at you 

in the eyes and tell you the truth 

when you are wrong, a candidate 

that will always work for the will 

of the people and not his own 

view. Democracy is government 

of the people, by the people 

and for the people. You must 

allow the people to decide what 

they want because once you interfere 

you will lose it. 

How do you want to be remembered 

when the story of 

PDP is written? 

When the story of PDP is written, 

I want everybody in Nigeria 

to remember that there is one 

Kanuri man from Borno that 

kept the party right and made 

sure that the rights of other people 

are not trampled upon. I 

want to be remembered as somebody 

that put the party back to 

its vantage position. I want me 

to be remembered as somebody 

who repositioned the PDP to its 

glorious period like in 1999. 

Do you have a candidate in 

mind? 

I don’t have any candidate. If 

you are interested and people of 

Nigeria want you, I will support 

you.

PAGE 44 — SUNDAY VANGUARD, MARCH 12, 2017 

HEROD was a Jew and 

not an atheist. 

However, when Wise Men 

came looking for little Jesus, 

he inquired of the chief priests 

and the scribes where the 

Messiah would be born. He 

was told it would be in 

Bethlehem, according to the 

scriptures. Herod believed. 

Nevertheless, determined to 

frustrate the will of God, he 

ordered all young male 

children in Bethlehem to be 

killed. Herod’s days became 

numbered. 

Jonah was a prophet of 

God. But when God told him 

to call the people of Nineveh 

to repentance, Jonah would 

have none of that. He did not 

just refuse to go to Nineveh; 

he decided to go in precisely 

the opposite direction. He 

took a ship headed for 

Tarshish. He ended up in the 

belly of a fish. 

My will be done 

Many of the difficulties and 

problems of a believer are 

those he brings on himself. 

When he gets bogged down, 

it is because he is not relying 

on the resurrection power of 

Jesus. We are not called to 

walk in the light of our 

conscience. We are 

specifically enjoined not to 

lean on our own 

understanding. We are called 

to walk in the light of the word 

of God. 

When we do anything from 

reason or from a sense of duty, 

we can always back it up by 

argument. But when we do 

anything by obedience to the 

Lord, there is no argument 

possible. That is why true 

believers are easily subject to 

ridicule. When a Christian 

walks in obedience to God, 

he is often a fool for Christ. 

WHAT EXACTLY IS WRITTEN ABOUT YOU? 

James says: “My brethren, 

count it all joy when you fall 

into various trials, knowing 

that the testing of your faith 

produces patience. But let 

patience have its perfect work, 

that you may be perfect and 

complete, lacking nothing.” 

(James 1:2-4). 

But because we do not 

know what the word of God 

says, or because we do not 

believe what it says, we 

despair when we fall into 

temptations. Some even jump 

to the ridiculous conclusion 

that God does not love them 

anymore. 

Rejoicing in the word 

When the disciples of Jesus 

were arrested by the Jewish 

Council and flogged for 

preaching Jesus, they 

departed from their 

persecutors rejoicing that they 

were counted worthy to suffer 

shame for the name of the 

Lord. (Acts 5:41 ). Jesus had 

fore-warned them that: 

“Blessed are you when they 

revile and persecute you, and 

say all kinds of evil against 

you falsely for my sake. 

Rejoice and be exceedingly 

glad, for great is your reward 

in heaven, for so they 

persecuted the prophets who 

God does not want his children 

to be ignorant; therefore he tells 

us vital things beforehand 

were before you.” (Matthew 

5:11-12). 

The disciples rejoiced 

because the word of God tells 

them to do so. We should also 

rejoice in similar 

circumstances today because 

the law, the prophets and the 

epistles tell us to do so. Thus 

James says: “My brethren, 

take the prophets, who spoke 

in the name of the Lord, as an 

example of suffering and 

patience. Indeed we count 

them blessed who endure. You 

have heard of the 

perseverance of Job and seen 

the end intended by the Lordthat 

the Lord is very 

compassionate and 

merciful.” (James 5:10-11). 

For every temptation Jesus 

has an answer: “it is written.” 

We cannot resist the devil 

successfully unless we know 

what is written. Eve was 

deceived because she did not 

know the word of God. The 

devil told her God does not 

want her to be like God. But 

the word of God would be 

written saying: “you are Gods 

and all of you are children of 

the most high.” It would also 

be written: “His divine power 

has given to us all things that 

pertain to life and godliness, 

through the knowledge of 

him who called us by glory 

and virtue.” (2 Peter 1:3). 

The devil told Eve if she ate 

the fruit of the tree of the 

knowledge of good and evil 

she would surely not die. But 

it would be written: “the soul 

who sins shall die.” (Ezekiel 

18:4). Poor Adam and Eve, 

they did not have the 

scriptures. But the word of 

God exists and has always 

existed and will always exist. 

(Remember this: Jesus is the 

word of God). 

Resisting the devil 

Realising that Jesus knew 

what is written, the devil tried 

to distort the scriptures by 

saying to him: “If you are the 

Son of God, throw yourself 

down. For it is written: ‘He 

shall give his angels 

charge over you,’ and, ‘in 

their hands they shall 

bear you up, lest you dash 

your foot against a 

stone.’” (Matthew 4:6). 

But Jesus had a ready 

answer: “It is written 

again, ‘you shall not 

tempt the Lord your 

God.’” (Matthew 4:7). 

God does not want his 

children to be ignorant; 

therefore he tells us vital 

things beforehand. In this 

life, some people are 

going to die, some are 

going to fail, some are 

going to be broke, some 

are going to be divorced, 

and some are going to be 

raped. What about you? 

What is going to happen 

to you? 

Only the things written 

in the book of life will 

happen to a believer. 

Indeed, some will die, but 

believers will not. It is 

written: “whoever lives 

and believes in Jesus 

Christ shall never die.” 

(John 11:26). The names 

of those appointed to 

death are written in the 

book of death. But the 

believer’s name is written 

in the book of life. It is written in 

the book of the abundant life: 

““God did not appoint us to wrath, 

but to obtain salvation through our 

Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 

Thessalonians 5:9). 

Only the purpose that God has 

purposed will take place in the life 

of the believer. How do you know 

the purpose that is purposed? It is 

written. Theophilus, (lover of God) 

your life is following a script written 

by the most High. You are predestined 

to glory. 

Catch the revelation. God does 

everything by the book. He does 

everything by the word. Who is the 

word? Jesus. In the beginning was 

the word, and the word was with 

God and the word was God. All 

things were made by him and 

without him was not made 

anything that was made. 

God made everything by the 

word. That is why God fulfils every 

promise by the word. God fulfils 

every promise by the book. Every 

promise of God is fulfilled in Christ 

and by Christ. 

Kings and king of kings 

King Ahaseurus could not sleep. 

What does a king do when he 

cannot sleep? He reads the 

scriptures. Who is a king? A king, 

of course, is the believer. So King 

Ahaseurus says: “bring me the 

book.” “Bring me the book of the 

records of the chronicles.” 

King Ahaseurus is a king in the 

Old Testament. He is the shadow 

of the substance of the King of 

Kings, King Jesus. King Ahaseurus 

says: “Bring me the book of the 

records of the chronicles.” King 

Jesus says: “bring me the book of 

life.” And what does he find in the 

book? It is written about you: “This 

is my beloved son, in whom I am 

well pleased.” 

That is the portion of the believer, 

in the name of Jesus. 

New book presents Pastor Adeboye’s story 

IN a new book, General Overseer of the 

Redeemed Christian Church of God 

(RCCG), Pastor E. A. Adeboye, tells the story of 

his amazing transformation from debilitating 

poverty into a powerful man of God revered 

by millions of people across the world. 

Entitled “Stories of Pastor E. A. Adeboye,” 

the man fondly called Daddy G.O. tells the 

story in his own words in testimonies compiled 

to read like an autobiography by seasoned 

author and journalist, Bisi Daniels. 

The 350-page book, which shows for the 

first time the house in which Pastor Adeboye 

was born and the primary school he attended 

in Ifewara, Osun State, was released last week 

to mark his 75th birthday. 

A man revered by millions across the world 

as a true man of God, Pastor Adeboye is a 

great believer in the power of testimony. He is 

himself a living testimony of the power of God. 

His sermons always contain stories about how 

people have experienced the power of Jesus 

Christ in their lives. This book is a collection of 

those testimonies, which reads like his 

biography right from his birth in Ifewara in 

strange circumstances to the present moment. 

According to Daniels, the story of Pastor 

Adeboye becomes a compelling read, when 

after breaking free from the vicious cycle of 

poverty in his family to become a university 

lecturer and living in a palatial home, he 

abandoned all that to live in a one-bedroom 

apartment in Mushin, Lagos, as General 

•Pastor E. A. Adeboye 

Overseer of RCCG. 

Daddy G.O. confesses that at that point he was 

scared but God assured him of His support. 

Instructively it was at that point God promised him 

a city, which has turned out to be the now famous 

Redemption Camp. “God’s response to me was, ‘Son, 

don’t ask for house because I have decided to build 

you a city’,” he said. 

“That response was beyond what I could 

comprehend. After this encounter, I began to dream 

of a city where everybody would be a Christian; a 

city where there would be no molestation; a city where 

there would be no power failure or water shortages. 

God began to stretch my mind to see a city where 

His praises would fill every mouth.” 

The church had only 40 parishes then but it now 

OBJ to deliver church anniversary lecture 

FORMER President Olusegun Obasanjo will on April 8, deliver 

a special lecture titled; “The role of the church in the fight 

against corruption in Nigeria,” at Victory Life Bible Church, Abeokuta, 

Ogun State at 10.00 a.m. as part of activities marking the 14th 

anniversary of the church. 

General Overseer of the church, Apostle Lawrence Achudume said 

the week-long event begins on April 2 and end on April 9 at 9.00 

a.m. and 5.00 p.m. daily with notable speakers like Dr. Felix Omobude, 

Bishop Mike Okonkwo, Pastor Sam Adeyemi, Rev. Kunle Adesina 

and Bishop Tim Gbasha expected to handle different sessions. 

has over 32,000 parishes in Nigeria, over 700 

parishes in the United Kingdom, and many 

more spread across over 196 countries 

including Samoa, Fiji, Serbia, Pakistan, 

Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates. 

The subjects covered in the book dedicated 

to Pastor Adeboye and his wife, Pastor Folu 

Adeboye, who stood by him during his most 

difficult times, include: The RCCG, and 

testimonies on Faith, Salvation, Miracles, 

Marriage, Fruit of the womb, Temptation, 

Unforgiveness, the dark world of Power and 

Principalities amongst many others. Mixed in 

with them is the fascinating story of Pastor 

Adeboye himself and how, having been born 

again, he rose from debilitating depravation 

to become the famous and much-loved leader 

of the RCCG. 

In a testimony about Mrs Adeboye, fondly 

called Mummy G.O, Pastor Adeboye revealed 

how he got his ever supportive wife, even when 

he was clearly the least qualified suitor: “There 

were many of us contesting for the hand of my 

wife. I wanted to marry a beautiful princess but 

I was the least qualified among the many 

suitors. Out of the number, three of us were in 

the forefront. But I was a student, while one of 

us was a lawyer who owned a car. All I had was 

a “foot wagon” (move around on foot). I decided 

to let her know my financial status 

I said to her, “Please listen. I have nothing, no 

money, no house, no influence, nothing.” 

I told her that if I had anything at all, it was 

the little brain God gave to me. 

“I have nothing to offer you except myself. If 

you will marry me, you will have me to yourself 

completely,” I said. 

Surprisingly, she replied, “Because you are 

so honest, I will marry you.” 

Daniels feels privileged and honoured “to 

work on this great book of a very great man of 

God; a rare person of our times, who so many 

people around the world are grateful to be alive 

to see at work for God.” 

He adds: “I have written many books but 

this is the most important and most impactful 

of them all, with the promise to touch lives of 

many people around the world. 

MOTHERING WEEK: 

Women’s Guild fellowship 

with female inmates 

BY OLAYINKA LATONA 

AS part of activities marking the annual 

mothering week of Women’s Guild of 

Yaba Presbyterian Church, the group on 

Thursday donated relief materials to the 

female wing of the Kirikiri Prison’s in Lagos. 

Members of the Women’s Guild did not 

hide their motherly tears and sympathy for 

the female inmates as they prayed and asked 

for God’s intervention and mercy for the 

inmates. 

Leading the prayer session, the president 

of the group, Mrs. Ogbonne Olua counselled 

the inmates to be hopeful, stressing that 

despite the circumstances they have found 

themselves, their dreams oould still be 

realised, adding that God is not blind nor 

deaf to their plight. 

Mrs. Olua urged the Kirikiri inmates to be 

prayerful and obedient to authorities. “Be 

obedient, do not be hostile, we know how 

you feel being here but learn to be obedient 

to the authorities who watch over you. Hold 

on to God, He alone can do what no man 

can do and I know He will not forsake you 

nor leave you,” she said. 

In her message, the group’s prayer 

coordinator, Mrs. Ngozi Okoroafor assured the 

inmates that God feels their pains and 

challenges and He will show them mercy 

notwithstanding the duration of their 

confinement in the prison. “God will send help 

to you, change your name and He is able to 

change your situation and meet all your 

challenges,” she said 

Addressing journalists after the tour, Olua 

said: “We feel it is necessary that we visit the 

female inmates to show them love that despite 

their incanceration, God still love them. We have 

been to the prison severally and we know that 

some of them have babies hence we decided to 

go with baby needs ranging from milk, pampers, 

clothing materials for mothers and babies, food 

stuff among others.”

SUNDAY Vanguard, MARCH 12, 2017, Page 45 

NDDC: Charting a new path for transparency, accountability 

By Soni Daniel 

IT certainly did not come as a sur 

prise to many watchers of the Niger 

Delta Development 

Commission,NDDC, penultimate 

week, when the Chairman of the Presidential 

Advisory Committee Against 

Corruption, Prof Itse Sagay, lambasted 

the agency for always having the 

penchant for wasting scarce resources 

on extravagance at the expense of developing 

the squalor-ridden region. 

Sagay, a legal luminary, cited the 

purchase of exotic vehicles valued at 

N560 million by a former Board of the 

Commission without adherence to procedures 

for public procurement. 

Although Sagay’s accusation was 

initially mistaken for the current Board 

and management, which came into 

office about four months ago, a member 

of the NDDC Presidential Advisory 

Committee, Prof Okon Eminue, later 

cleared the air stating that the acquisition 

took place long before the composition 

of the Board headed by Senator 

Victor Ndoma-Egba as Chairman and 

Obong Nsima Ekere as Managing 

Director. 

It would be apt to expect that with the 

two men in the saddle, a new era of 

rapid physical development driven by 

accountability will for once dominate 

the affairs of the NDDC. 

Indeed, those who have taken time to 

By Gbenga Coker 

ONE of the major challeng 

es of cosmopolitan cities in 

the world is environmental pollution. 

What invariably separates 

the men (clean cities) from the 

boys (filthy cities) is how effective, 

and even preemptive, multiethnic 

cities are in managing 

their waste disposal processes. 

That is the bedrock of a clean society. 

For Lagos, with its titanicpopulation, 

coupled with the 

congested city centres, which 

had given rise to satellite towns 

and slums, the inability to maintain 

statewide pristine environmental 

sanitation has been a 

serious clog in the wheel of 

progress. 

Though attempts were made 

in the past by successive administrations 

in the state to tackle 

the problems headlong, the issue 

of proper waste disposal and 

transformation of Lagos into an 

immaculate environment, 

proved a hard nut to crack. The 

desire for a cleaner Lagos pigheadedly 

remaineda mirage. 

While concerted efforts were 

made to make the state live up to 

its sobriquet, the Centre of Excellence, 

by making its environment 

cleaner and serene, little result 

was achieved as Lagos state 

continued to expand to accommodate 

itsgrowing population. 

The waterways and canals had 

been turned into dumpsites, 

while the ugly sight of people 

defecating openly into the canals 

and drainages became a routine. 

Areas designated as public 

parks and open spaces, were 

turned to safe havens for criminals. 

All these aberrations largely 

turned the state to an eyesore 

and one of the dirtiest in the 

country despite being the commercial 

nerve centre, not only of 

Nigeria but the West Africa 

sub-region. 

Apparently determined to reverse 

the horrid trend, the administration 

of Asiwaju Bola 

Ahmed Tinubu set up Kick 

Against Indiscipline (KAI) to 

ensure a neater and cleaner 

Lagos. With the establishment of 

KAI, it became an offence to litter 

the environment and failure 

to properly dispose waste was no 

•Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba 

look into the books of the Commission 

are quick to point out that the amount 

of money received by the intervention 

agency, since its establishment in 2000, 

is not commensurate with the quantity 

and quality of projects in the nine states 

of Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross 

River, Imo, Delta, Edo, Ondo and Rivers. 

The bane of the Commission seems 

to stem from the mentality of the leadership 

that once they are appointed, it 

is their turn to rip off the agency. 

But the new Board and management 

of the NDDC appear to have understood 

where they are coming from and 

what the people expect from them and 

have decided to depart from the ugly 

route of the past. 

Evidence abounds that as soon as the 

Board and management came into 

•Obong Nsima Ekere 

office, they immediately tried to put their 

house in order and change the way 

things were being done in the Commission. 

Perhaps, to show its seriousness and 

desire to stick to accountability and 

achieve the much-needed development, 

the management assembled key staff 

and development partners for a retreat 

in February 2017. 

The three-day retreat, with the theme, 

“Collaboration for Sustainable Development”, 

held in Onne, Rivers State, 

was attended by members of the Governing 

Board, Directors, and strategic 

stakeholders from within and outside 

the region. 

Ndoma-Egba, in opening the retreat, 

made it clear that it was solely dedicated 

to integrity, efficiency, transparency 

and accountability. 

The Chairman explained that the 

NDDC under their watch would no 

longer serve as a place where things 

would be done without adhering strictly 

to set rules and order. 

As a first step, he pledged to revive 

the Governing Board of the Commission, 

which had since been jettisoned so 

as to play its role in the administration 

of the agency. 

The Chairman said, “A full functional 

Advisory Committee will ensure harmonisation 

of projects and programmes 

with the member states and 

will make the Commission a partner 

to the states, rather than the competitor 

it now appears to be.” 

He stated that the Monitoring Committee 

“consisting of such number of 

persons as the President may deem fit 

to appoint from the public or civil service 

of the federation, will also be revived, 

in order to “monitor the management 

of the funds of the Commission.” 

He declared that the Committee 

“will have access to the books of account 

and other records of the Commission 

at all times, and submit periodic 

reports to the President.’’ 

The Chairman also blamed the budget 

process for being “largely responsible 

for the spate of abandoned projects 

in the region.’’ 

He said: “The approach to projects 

has been ad hoc, arbitrary and self-serving, 

with very little end-user content. 

Many projects appear strange to beneficiary 

communities. The projects are 

imposed on them and it creates a crisis 

of ownership.’’ 

And to set the record straight about 

where the new management is headed, 

Ekere revealed what is wrong with 

the processes. 

The MD said: ‘’We must begin to do 

the right thing in the Commission no 

matter what it takes. Two things are likely 

to happen: it’s either we tame the 

beast or we get bitten by the beast. We 

hope to tame the beast, for the good of 

the people.’’ 

He disclosed that the Niger Delta 

Master Plan, which originally required 

15 years to implement at a cost of $50 

billion, has failed to achieve its vision 

and objectives, despite the region receiving, 

according to figures released by 

the Ministry of Petroleum, $40 billion 

in ten years. 

“The 4-R strategy encapsulates the 

solution required to address the myriad 

challenges facing NDDC. The Board 

will restructure the balance sheet, reform 

governance protocols, restore the 

core mandate of the Commission and 

reaffirm “a commitment to doing 

what’s right and proper,” Ekere added. 

If the speeches by the two top officials 

of the NDDC were anything to go by, 

then, there is hope that the right thing 

will be done in the short period of two 

years that they are to pilot the affairs of 

the commission. 

However, from the speeches and body 

language of Ndome-Egba and Ekere, 

it is clear they mean well for the region. 

Lagos’ chance to join the league of world’s cleanest cities 

longer tolerated. The culture of 

indiscriminate throwing of waste 

out of vehicles abated, as commercial 

vehicles were mandated 

to provide wastebaskets. 

Equally, the Lagos State Waste 

Management Authority (LAW- 

MA) was repositioned to offer 

quality and timely services in the 

area of waste disposal, while 

dumpsters were provided in major 

locations for the populace to 

dispose their waste. The fear of 

KAI officials and their mobile 

courtsbecame the beginning of 

wisdom for Lagosians who realized 

that failure to observe 

environmental norms would 

henceforth have dire consequences. 

Lagos residents suddenly realized 

that the task to keep a tidier 

Lagos was no longer a joke. 

In the area of environmental 

pollution, emission test on vehicles 

was introduced and made 

compulsory, while a great leap 

was achieved in curbing blockage 

of the waterways, drainages 

and canals with refuse. No 

doubt, the steps by Lagos towards 

a garbage-free environment 

were on a sound footing. 

Consequently, the Babatunde 

Raji Fashola (SAN) 

administration concentrated on 

the beautification of Lagos landscape, 

with a view to creating 

an aesthetic, serene and idyllic 

environment so that Lagos could 

wear the look it deserved. 

Obviously determined to consolidate 

on the efforts of his predecessors 

in actualising a 

cleaner Lagos, the incumbent 

administration of Akiwunmi 

Ambode, decided to raise the ante 

with the inauguration of the 

Cleaner Lagos Initiative. 

To bridge the lacuna and cater 

for the inadequacies that had 

bedeviled prior attempts by Lagos 

State to achieve a cleaner 

environment, Governor Ambode 

pushed and ensured necessary 

legal reforms (legislation) 

were put in place. So,with the 

new Environmental Management 

and Protection Bill, passed 

by the Lagos State House of Assembly, 

Kick AgainstIndiscipline 

(KAI), will be transformed 

into the Lagos State Environmental 

Sanitation Corps Agency. 

Also in the new law, 

anyone who wants to 

sink borehole or any 

structure connected 

with the supply of 

water must obtain 

permit from the office 

of drainage services 

parks and will have the primary 

responsibility of ensuring that citizens 

fulfill their civic duty by 

paying the Public Utilities Levya 

property-based charge, payable 

by property occupants for the 

management of solid and liquid 

waste, wastewater and environmental 

intervention for Lagos 

State. 

In the same vein, LASECORPS 

will be supported by PUMAU 

(Public Utilities Monitoring Assurance 

Unit) a unit that will have 

oversight responsibility by using 

innovative monitoring tools to 

ensure the new standards are effectively 

enforced. 

Depending on the nature of the 

offence, defaulters of the new 

laws will face stiff penalties 

ranging from N250,000 to 

N5,000,000 and/or imprisonment. 

The state government has 

deliberately set a stringent penalty 

in order to discourage environmental 

misdemeanor and 

consciously navigate an attitudinal 

change towards acceptable 

ecological norms. The message 

is clear, mess up Lagos and 

pay through the nose. 

On the mandatory provision of 

litterbins in commercial vehicles, 

the law expressly says: “If the driving 

boreholes. 

Meanwhile, when KAI officers 

are fully integrated into LA- 

SECORPS, the agency will be 

tasked with monitoring and 

maintaining surveillance along 

the highways, streets and public 

drainages, canals, markets and 

This agency will spearhead enforcement 

of the stringent penalties 

imposed on defaulters. This 

bill, which has been accented to 

by Ambode, would ensure, 

among others, that structures on 

sewage systems without approval 

aredemolished, all commercial 

drivers have litter bins in their 

vehicles, enforce the ban on street 

trading as well as ensurethat residents 

obtain permits before sink- 

er fails to provide the litter bin, 

the driver will also be penalized 

alongside the passenger or the 

occupier of the vehicle who commits 

the offence”. 

On all illegal structures built on 

the sewage systems without approval, 

the expressly stated 

that such structures will be demolished. 

Also in the new law, anyone who 

wants to sink borehole or any 

structure connected with the supply 

of water must obtain permit 

from the office of drainage services. 

Though, the new environmental 

bill was meant to ensure a 

cleaner Lagos, tackle air and 

water pollution, prevent diseases 

and halt the deterioration of the 

environment to avert advert effects 

on socio-economic activities, 

the attendant benefit of 

creating about 27,500 new jobs 

for teeming Lagosians, will indeed 

be a welcome relief. 

With this giant leap towards 

ensuring a well protected and 

dirt-free environment, Lagos, under 

the leadership of Ambode, 

despite its huge population 

(human and vehicular), is set to 

provide the best salubrious environment 

for Nigerians to live in. 

Dakuku assures US on compliance with international code 

BY UDEME CLEMENT 

The Director General, Nigerian 

Maritime Administration and 

Safety Agency (NIMASA) Dr. 

Dakuku Peterside has assured the 

United States Coast Guard (USCG) 

of it determination to ensure total 

compliance with the International 

Ships and Ports Facility (ISPS) Code 

in all ports, terminals and jetties in 

Nigeria, for the security of the nation’s 

territorial ways. 

He made this know in Lagos, when 

a delegation of the United States 

Coast Guard (USCG) led by Commander 

Thomas Foster, came on an 

assessment visit of Nigerian ports 

and terminals across the country, 

describing USCG as the most valued 

partner in ensuring that Nigerian 

ports are safe for business. He said, 

“Nigeria places high premium on 

issues that border on security, as such, 

NIMASA as the designated author- 

•Dr. Dakuku Peterside(right), 

presenting a plaque to the leader of 

the United States Coast Guard 

(USCG) delegation to Nigeria, 

Commander Thomas Foster. 

ity for the ISPS Code implementation 

is leaving no stone unturned to 

achieve 100 per cent implementation 

of ISPS Code in Nigeria. This 

will guarantee the safety of vessels 

calling or leaving our ports.” 

He went on, “There is no doubt that 

we are determined to get it right. We 

are determined to work with the United 

States Coast Guard to get it right, 

in order to ensure our ports are safe. 

As a country, we appreciate the importance 

of getting security right at 

our ports, jetties and terminals and 

that we are committed to it. We appeal 

to the USCG to continue in rendering 

necessary assistance to NIMA- 

SA, as the Agency is open to support 

and partnership from them. 

In his remarks, Foster commended 

NIMASA for its strides in ensuring 

safety at the ports and expressed 

satisfaction with the infrastructure 

development as regarding ISPS 

Code implementation in the ports. 

“It appears the energy that NIMA- 

SA has at the ports is very tremendous, 

as seen in all the ports we visited 

in Lagos”.

46 — SUNDAY Vanguard, MARCH 12, 2017 

Eagles’ friendly: Senegal FA gives players 

March 20 deadline 

SENEGALESE Football 

Federation (FSF) has 

instructed players called up 

for the international friendly 

against the Super Eagles to 

report to camp on Monday, 

March 20 at 1300 hours. Like 

the Super Eagles German 

tactician Rohr, manager 

Aliou Cissé will start running 

the rule over the Téranga 

Lions on the same day they 

arrive in London. 

The Senegalese squad 

have been booked in to stay 

Rangers 

Continued from B/P 

confront five-time 

champions, Zamalek of 

Egypt in the first leg, 

second round of the CAF 

Champions League today. 

The match begins 5 pm 

Nigerian time. 

The Flying Antelopes 

reached this stage after 

overcoming Algeria’s JS 

Saoura on the away goal 

rule after drawing them 1- 

1 in Algiers before 

drawing 0-0 in the return 

leg in Nigeria. 

It’s worth mentioning 

that this is Rangers’ tenth 

Champions League 

appearances as their last 

one came in 2013, and they 

have never won the trophy 

despite reaching the final 

in 1975, when they lost the 

title to Guinea’s Hafia FC. 

The Nigerian 

representatives have 

declared war on their hosts 

at Holiday Inn Hotel, 

Wembley, and will have a 

minimum of two training 

sessions before facing off 

against Nigeria. 

Nigeria will tackle the West 

African opponents on March 

23 at Hive Stadium, home 

ground of League Two club 

Barnet. The Nigeria Football 

Federation has invited 25 

players for the friendly, while 

the Senegalese Federation 

will announce its roster next 

week. 

Kwese Sport brings back 

ESPN to Africa 

ECONET Media’s Kwesé 

Sports and ESPN have 

launched the exclusive 

ESPN channel on the Kwesé 

TV bouquet. This collaboration 

with Africa’s 

emerging home of premium 

sports marks the much 

anticipated return of ESPN to 

the African continent. The 

channel comes after the 

announcement of the gamechanging 

long-term agreement 

between the two sports 

broadcasting powerhouses 

which confirmed Kwesé 

Sports as the home of ESPN 

in Africa. 

The channel will deliver the 

most comprehensive sports 

coverage on the continent 

bringing the best in sports to 

African fans through live 

coverage of events from across 

the globe. Along with live 

sports, the channel 

introduces unique original 

programming including an 

African edition of the popular 

SportsCenter programme, an 

iconic and hugely popular 

show with fans across the 

world. Hosted by ESPN’s 

Philip Murphy, SportsCenter 

will cover the latest in sports 

news, highlights and 

updates in its signature fastpaced 

format, which has 

made it one of the most loved 

and awarded shows in 

television. 

as they have promised to 

attack to the final whistle. 

Rangers midfielder, 

Aguda Godwin insisted 

that the team would upset 

their Egyptian 

counterparts in Cairo 

despite having won the 

competition five times. 

“I do not believe 

Zamalek is too strong for 

us. We will go to Egypt 

looking to at least get a 

draw as that will give us 

something to build on 

ahead of the return leg in 

Enugu,” Godwin said at 

the Akanu Ibiam 

International Airport, before 

their departure Wednesday. 

“We believe in ourselves 

and know it is possible to 

avoid defeat in Egypt.” 

The Nigerian Champions 

are currently 16th in the 

league with 12 points from 

10 matches, and will hope 

to find their form against 

Zamalek. 

In the same vein, 

Rangers’ Daniel Etor says 

that they will ensure to get 

a decent result in their 2017 

CAF Champions League 

first round, first leg 

encounter against Zamalek 

SC. 

“We are currently doing 

what we can to ensure that 

we get a decent result in 

Cairo this weekend,” Etor 

told Goal. 

“We know it won’t be an 

easy match but we are 

banking on the fact that we 

want to make name for 

ourselves and with our 

determination, we are 

going to give a good account 

of ourselves and hopefully 

seal it up during the second 

leg. 

“We know their fans will 

be behind them but we 

won’t be intimidated by their 

antics because we know the 

reason why we are going 

to Egypt and by God’s 

grace we shall come out 

victorious.” 

PSG 


kept teasing him over 

PSG’s humiliating 6-1 loss 

to Barcelona, which they 

had watched while drinking 

in a working-class district 

of the capital, L’Union 

reported. 

Asked by AFP, a judicial 

source confirmed that the 

mockery was at the root of 

LMC 


competition on Sunday in 

Port Harcourt. 

The LMC, through its 

player’s relationship 

advisor, Victor Ezeji made 

this known during a visit to 

the players and coaches of 

Rivers United at their team 

hotel. 

“I have been mandated 

by the LMC to charge you 

(Rivers United) and 

Rangers International to 

understand that you carry 

the hopes of the entire 

country as far as this 

competition is concerned 

this year. 

“We want you to act as 

good ambassadors of this 

Mali risks Fifa ban 

MALI is facing a 

possible FIFA suspension 

after the country’s 

sports minister missed a 

deadline to revoke his 

dissolution of the football 

federation’s Executive 

Committee. 

Mali Sports Minister 

Housseini Amion Guindo 

took his action on 

Wednesday and duly 

installed an interim 

committee to lead the 

federation (Femafoot) until 

a new board can be elected. 

Femafoot informed Fifa 

the same day whereupon 

football’s world governing 

body gave Mali until Friday 

to cancel the suspension or 

face possible consequences. 

FIFA outlaws governmental 

interference in the 

Eagles to train at ‘The Hive’ for Senegal, Burkina Faso 

THE national team 

will start training for 

their eagerly anticipated 

friendlies on Monday, 

March 20, same day the 

Nigerian Federation 

have instructed the 

invited players to arrive 

at Crowne Plaza Hotel 

Ealing. 

Ahead of their first 

game of 2017, the Super 

Dikko hails Star’s commitment to 

development of NPFL 

CHAIRMAN of the 

League Management 

Company, Shehu Dikko has 

showered encomiums on 

Star lager beer, official 

partners of the Nigeria 

Professional Football 

League for their consistency 

and commitment to the 

development of the local 

league. 

Speaking in Port Harcourt, 

when Rivers United hosted 

Rangers in an NPFL match, 

where Star entertained 

thousand of football fans 

•Serigne Mbodji of Senegal is challenged by Sofiane 

Hanni of Algeria. 

with fun competitions and 

refreshments, The premium 

fan experience also included 

a live performance by one of 

Nigeria’s finest artistes 

Reekado Banks. 

Dikko said, “From the 

league season’s finale, in 

Enugu, last year it was 

obvious that Star came 

prepared and I’m not 

surprised with the premium 

fans’ experience at the 

stadium today. 

“We are very pleased to see 

terms of the partnership come 

Eagles will train at 

Barnet’s training 

ground, otherwise 

known as The Hive. 

The training center 

located at Canons Park, 

to fruition, as our efforts to 

restore the passion around 

local football are proving 

successful.” 

An energetic match 

between Rivers United and 

Enugu Rangers saw the 

home team triumph over 

their visiting opponents by 

a lone goal. 

London has a gym and 

medical center. 

Ikechukwu Ezenwa, 

who is the only domesticbased 

player in the 25- 

man roster, will also start 

training with the squad 

at the start of 

preparations as he is 

expected to arrive in 

London along with 

coaches Salisu Yusuf, 

Imama Amapakabo and 

Alloy Agu on March 20. 

After the game with 

Senegal on March 23, 

another friendly game 

awaits the Super Eagles 

against Burkina Faso on 

March 27. 

the killing. 

The victim died on the 

spot. His alleged attacker 

was arrested and admitted 

what he had done, but said 

he had not intended to 

murder his friend. 

The 6-1 defeat and the 

exit from the last 16 of the 

competition was a historic 

defeat for PSG after they 

had won the first leg 4-0 in 

Paris. 

country by going all out to 

record a resounding victory 

against Al-Merreikh on 

Sunday,” Ezeji said. 

Responding on behalf of 

the team, club captain, 

Festus Austine expressed 

gratitude to the LMC and 

Ezeji for the visit and 

promised that the players 

will give their best on 

Sunday. 

“We want to thank you 

(Ezeji) personally for this 

visit and also the LMC as 

well. 

“Everybody will give his 

best to do Nigeria proud on 

Sunday,” he said. 

The game between Rivers 

United and Al-Merreikh 

will be played at the 

Yakubu Gowon Stadium 

from 4pm on Sunday. 

running of any of its 

member associations. 

“We remind you that 

according to the Fifa 

statutes, all our member 

associations must handle 

their affairs in an 

independent fashion,” Fifa 

Secretary General Fatma 

Samoura informed 

Femafoot president 

Boubacar Baba Diarra. 

“If they are not in position 

to do this, they are liable to 

sanctions, including a 

possible suspension. 

“The ministerial decision 

of 8 March 2017 goes 

against this principle and 

its implementation would 

constitute an interference in 

Femafoot’s internal affairs. 

“If the decision is not 

revoked by Friday, 10 

March 2017, the case will 

automatically be submitted 

to the Fifa Council for 

consideration,” added the 

Senegalese, in a letter dated 

9 March. 

Africa Cup of Nations 

runners-up in 1972, Mali 

have appeared at eight of 

the last nine Nations Cups. 

They exited in the group 

stages of this year’s 

competition, after contesting 

a pool including eventual 

semi-finalists Ghana and 

Egypt, who lost to 

Cameroon in the final. 

•Boubacar Baba Diarra. 

Toure, Iheancho 


Silva, while Sergio Aguero 

netted the second goal 

midway through the 

second half. 

Toure started and played 

86 minutes before he was 

replaced in midfield by 

Fernando, while 

Iheanacho made a brief 

substitute appearance in 

place of Aguero. 

Both West African 

players will be keen on 

more action this coming 

midweek when City face 

the return leg match of their 

UEFA Champions League 

last 16 tie against Monaco. 

The other FA Cup 

quarterfinals see Arsenal 

host Lincoln City later this 

evening, Tottenham 

Hotspur will tackle 

Milwall on Sunday and 

the big match sees Chelsea 

and Manchester United 

cross swords at Stamford 

Bridge on Monday night.

SUNDAY Vanguard, MARCH 12, 2017 —47 

Zambia battle Senegal in AFCON 

U-20 final 

The U-20 Africa Cup of 

Nations comes to a close 

today with hosts Zambia facing 

Senegal in the final where a new 

champion will be crowned at 

Lusaka’s Heroes Stadium. 

Both finalists, Zambia and 

Senegal, have never won this 

trophy and are the only sides in 

the tournament that are 

unbeaten. 

Home hopes will be firmly 

pinned on Zambia as they bid for 

the title, while South Africa and 

Guinea will battle for bronze in 

the third place play-off fixture 

before the title decider. 

Hosts Zambia have had the 

highest number of goals scored 

with 11 and have conceded just 

two at this Nations Cup. 

It makes for an intriguing 

contest considering the junior 

Teranga Lions have had to sweep 

aside tough opposition to reach 

the finale and finished top of their 

group. 

Senegal may also have 

unfinished business with the 

junior tournament having 

narrowly lost to Nigeria at the 

2015 edition that they hosted. 

Krepin Diatta has been carrying 

the Senegalese hopes with his 

aggressive style of play and will 

be the man they may count on 

to break the host nation that has 

50, 000 fans cheering them on. 

Senegal coach Ibrahima 

Ndiaye will have his hopes on 

Dickson Wrestling Championship 

begins with early upsets 

*As governor commissions new gym 

THE Second Governor 

Dickson Wrestling Classic 

Championship began at the 

Samson Siasia Stadium, 

Yenagoa, Bayelsa Friday with 

performances which showed 

that Nigeria is inching her way 

into becoming a global power 

house in wrestling. 

The number of wrestlers who 

registered for the championship 

was unprecedented as over 300 

in both female and male 

categories have been sweating 

to make the national team even 

as there were early upsets. 

Commonwealth champion, 

Sinivie Boltic was humiliated by 

an unknown wrestler from Delta 

State. 

The championship which 

involves 30 weight classes in 

Greco Roman and Freestyle is 

aimed at selecting athletes for 

the national team as president 

READY . . . Zambia's Enock Mwepu ready for 2017 

U20 AFCON final 

semi-finals hero Aliou Badji to 

pull something out of his bag of 

tricks to steal the show from 

Zambia. 

As for the hosts, their semi-final 

opponents South Africa showed 

of the Nigeria Wrestling 

Federation, Dr Daniel Igali said 

that any athlete who fails the 

championship may have lost his 

or her place in the build-up for 

the Commonwealth Games next 

Edo FA U-13, U-17 Super league 

kicks off in Benin 

THE 18th edition of the 

Edo FA U-13 and U-17 

Super League kicks off 

yesterday at the Samuel 

Ogbemudia Stadium Benin- city 

Edo State. 

The Co-coordinator of the 

competition, Sampele 

Uwadiae, said the aim of the 

event since its commencement 

years ago is to fish out young 

football talents from the 18 

local government areas that 

could become future world 

stars. 

that Zambia could be vulnerable 

even before a partisan crowd, as 

they fought until extra time 

before succumbing to an Edward 

Chilufya goal. 

Chuma Anosike Cricket Cup: Imo, Anambra in final face-off 

HIGH scoring Team 

Imo is to slug it out 

with Team Anambra in the 

final of the 7th edition of 

South-East Cricket 

championship tagged Chuma 

Anosike Cup at Saint Paul’s 

University Cricket Oval, Awka. 

Anambra today, after defeating 

Team Anambra 2, by 54 runs. 

Imo batted first and scored 126 

runs for the loss of 9 wickets in 

15 overs. Ikpewe Aniekan 

scored 32 runs off 25 balls in 41 

minutes, Onwuliri Chukwudi 

scored 17 runs off 22 balls in 

73 minutes. Anambra’s 13 

year-old Ifeakor Makuohukwu 

took 4 wickets in 3 overs, 

Omeifeukwu Walter, Diobi 

Ebuka, Okafor Martins all took 

a wicket each. 

In the second innings 

Anambra II fizzled out after 

garnering 72 runs for the loss 

of 9 in 15 overs. That gave Imo 

a 54-run victory to propel them 

to the final. 

Captain Ogbue Chukwuka 

Prince of the victorious Team 

Imo described their semi final 

victory against Anambra II, as 

awesome adding that it was as a 

result of their hard work and 

concentration. 

He disclosed that the football 

fiesta which will last for four 

months is sponsored by the 

Edo Football Association in 

conjunction with Edebiri 

Sports Foundation. 

According to him, “We are 

very elated that Edo FA was 

able to put this year’s edition 

of the state Super League 

together in spite of the nation’s 

economic crisis. I want to 

thank the Edebiri Sports 

Foundation for their 

partnership. 

The Ogbemudia I knew 

I 

T is with heavy heart that I summed up courage to put this 

down. I didn’t know how to start writing about a man, Dr. 

Samuel Osaigbovo Ogbemudia, who did so much for Midwest 

region, which later became a state, as a military governor and 

then Bendel state, before it was split into Edo and Delta, as civilian 

governor, in past tense. 

I was still in bed early Friday morning, precisely 4a.m. when 

my cousin, another die hard fan of Dr. Ogbemudia, Joe Ehizode 

sent me an sms from his base in Canada, asking me to confirm the 

news of the former governor’s death. 

I replied, with sleepy eyes, that I don’t know but I’ll get back to 

him after confirming it. I quickly sent an sms to a Vanguard 

colleague in Benin, Simon Ebegbulem and his positive reply gave 

me goose pimples. I had to send the message to Joe that it was true. 

Just six months ago, I had put a call to Dr Ogbemudia, asking for 

an interview with him. Nigeria had a few months earlier returned 

from the Rio 2016 Olympics empty handed except for the bronze 

medal won by Samson Siasia-led U-23 male football team. 

He didn’t hesitate to accept and invited me to his Benin City 

home. He had told me two years earlier that he took personal likeness 

for me because of my postulations in Sunday Vanguard on my 

column, SportsGuard. 

After I was appointed Special Assistant, Media to immediate past 

Sports Minister, Dr Tammy Danagogo, he sent a letter to me one 

afternoon. I was shocked when the man who brought it told me it 

was from Dr Ogbemudia. I told the man to wait for me to see its 

content first. 

I was overwhelmed when in the congratulatory letter to me that 

he personally signed he wrote that “Omorodion’s appointment as 

Special Assistant on Media has come at a very important time.” 

Immediately tears welled up in my eyes. Not tears of joy but of the 

realisation that highly placed Nigerians, especially of Dr 

Ogbemudia’s calibre are looking up to me to make an impact on a 

system I had before then talked so much about. 

He really followed my arguments every Sunday on why Nigeria 

sports was nose-diving, why it shouldn’t and how it could be saved 

by these lines in the congratulatory letter. “It is a time when there 

is the need to formulate a National Sports Policy that will clearly 

draw the line on whether our sports should be for recreation only 

or for national mobilisation, economic growth and international 

diplomacy.” 

He then threw a challenge at me in another line of the letter that 

I should use my position as SA to “advocate (my) lofty ideas to 

(my) principals who will ensure the formulation and 

implementation of people-oriented policies which will change the 

fortunes of sports in Nigeria”. 

That challenge prompted me to proffer advice when necessary to 

my boss. I had also planned that my boss should create time to see 

him, knowing that he would find his (Ogbemudia’s) advice useful 

in the discharge of his duty. I also listed names like Alhaji Ibrahim 

Galadima and retired General Ishola Williams as people he should 

see but will politicians running sports ever have time when they 

are always busy with party politics? That proposal never saw the 

light of day. 

My experience at the National Sports Commission opened my 

eyes to why things will never get to work especially with politicians 

in charge. Dr Ogbemudia also knew it that is why he kept saying 

that sports should be removed from the control of politicians and 

put under the care of technocrats who should work with a Board. 

He told me this much even during the last interview I had with 

him. 

As the 2015 elections approached and knowing that the Jonathan 

regime, especially the 2011-2015 tenure, was winding up and 

nothing, especially the thoughts of Ogbemudia, was achieved, I 

put a call to him, asking to see him in his Gwarimpa, Abuja home, 

and he obliged. 

After explaining my experiences to him and before I could even 

tell him why things may not work in sports with the way politicians 

see sports, he quipped in with this, “My son don’t worry yourself, I 

knew you will find it very difficult. Our politicians these days are 

not serious about development, most of them are just after what 

they can get”. I was dumbstruck and just sank into the settee in his 

living room. 

Incidentally that day was the same day the APC convention 

where Muhammadu Buhari was picked as the party’s flagbearer 

was going on. Dr Ogbemudia was a PDP member but he was 

watching the APC convention with keen interest. 

I remember him telling some of his guests that day the delay or 

refusal of Jonathan to begin campaign early may count against 

him with APC naming Muhammadu Buhari as its candidate. 

As I made to leave at that stage he told me that his door was open 

to me always whether in Lagos, Abuja or Benin City. That was 

why I had to book for that last interview to ask him why he thinks 

Nigeria failed at the Olympics and what he thinks was the way out 

of the woods. 

The first impression I had about Dr Ogbemudia was as a primary 

school boy when my father talked glowingly about him. My father 

and all Midwesterners living in Port Harcourt in the 70s were 

very proud of the Midwest and later Bendel Lines he introduced. 

Apart from infrastructural development, he made Midwest and 

Bendel number one in sports. I can’t forget his legacies like the 

great Afuze camp where Bendel athletes trained far from the lure 

of city life. It made them concentrate and hence always came out 

tops. At that last interview, he was still lamenting the total collapse 

of that camp which he said, “has been turned into a cassava farm.” 

Ogbemudia touched lives in several areas, education, sports, 

transportation, agriculture, you can go on and on. Nigeria will 

miss him greatly. Adieu the peoples’ General.

SUNDAY Vanguard, MARCH 12, 2017 

Mali risks FIFA ban 

-p.46 

CAF Champions League: 

Rangers dare 

Zamalek 

REIGNING Nigeria 

champions, Rangers 

International Football 

Club of Enugu will have 

a daunting task at the 

Cairo International 

Stadium when they 

Continues on Page 46 

...LMC charges Rivers 

Utd, Rangers to beat 

opponents 

THE League Management 

Company 

(LMC) has tasked Rivers 

United on the need to 

give a good showing in 

Sunday’s Caf Champions 

League game 

Zambia 

battles 

Senegal in 

AFCON U-20 

final 

–p.47 

against Sudanese club, 

Al-Merreikh. 

United and Merreikh 

go toe to toe in the first 

leg of the first round in 

Africa’s premiere club 


STRENGTH IN UNITY: Rangers players get together to celebrate a recent victory. 

Toure, Iheanacho help Man City into FA Cup semis 

Yahaya Toure (r) relishing City's FA Cup s/final ticket. 

1 2 3 4 5 6 

8 9 10 

13 14 15 

7 

11 12 

16 17 18 19 

20 21 22 23 

24 

27 28 29 30 

25 26 

34 35 

36 37 38 

39 

40 41 

See solution on page 5 

31 32 33 

ACROSS 

1. Governor of Sokoto 

State (8) 

5. Assistant (4) 

7. Praise (5) 

8. Upright (4) 

9. Lantern (4) 

11. Tradition (6) 

13. Lagos masquerade (3) 

15. Exclamation (2) 

16. Pig’s nose (5) 

18. Agent (3) 

20. Glitters (6) 

24. Forward (5) 

25. Nigerian state (6) 

27. Boring tool (3) 

29. Ghanaian fabric (5) 

31. Perform (2) 

32. Oshiomhole’s 

state (3) 

34. U.S. currency (6) 

36. Vow (4) 

38. Musical quality (4) 

39. Inclination (5) 

40. Eager (4) 

41. Damages (8) 

IVORY Coast midfielder 

Yaya Toure and 

Nigerian attacker Kelechi 

both played in 

Manchester City’s 2-0 

win over Middlesbrough 

at the weekend which 

secured passage into the 

PSG fan kills friend in Gabon after 

being mocked 

AParis Saint-Germain 

fan in Gabon killed 

his friend after getting fed 

up with being mocked 

about the French club’s 

Champions League defeat 

over post-match 

drinks, a judicial source 

said Friday. 

DOWN 

1. Sample (5) 

2. Niger state town (4) 

3. Observe (5) 

4. Lecture (6) 

5. Everyone (3) 

6. Use (6) 

10. Inquires (4) 

12. Carpet (3) 

14. Colour (6) 

15. Resistance unit (3) 

17. Coax (4) 

19. Rollicked (6) 

21. Hatchet (3) 

22. Satisfied (4) 

23. Nigerian state (3) 

26. Cry of derision (3) 

27 . African country (6) 

28. Endure (4) 

29. Child (3) 

30. Spoke (6) 

31. Adorn (5) 

33. Baking chambers 

(5) 

35. Asterisk (4) 

37. Possessed (3) 

semifinals of the FA 

Cup. 

The Citizens won 2-0 

at the Riverside 

Stadium thanks to an 

early strike from David 


The 18-year-old 

stabbed his friend in the 

neck after watching the 

match late Wednesday 

•Falcao, PSG star. 

Rivers United players rejoice with one another after 

scoring a goal. 

in Libreville, the judicial The young man, visibly 

source told AFP, confirming 

a front-page report in take it when his friend 

intoxicated, could not 

the daily L’Union. 


RESULTS 

EPL 

Bournemouth 3 West Ham 2 

Everton 3 West Brom 0 

Hull City 2 Swansea City 1 

NPFL 

Enyimba 1 MFM 1 

England - FA Cup 

M’brough 0 Man City 2 

Arsenal 5 Lincoln 0 

TODAY'S MATCHES 

EPL 

Liverpool v Burnley 5.00pm 

CAF Champions League 

Ferroviario Beira v BYC 2 pm 

Al Ahli Tripoli v FUS Rabat 2:30 pm 

TP Mazembe v CAPS United 2:30 pm 

AC Leopards v Saint George 3:30 pm 

Coton Sport v CNaPS Sport 3:30 pm 

Rivers Utd v Al-Merrikh 4:00 pm 

Zamalek v Rangers 5:00 pm 

Gambia PA v Vita Club 5:00 pm 

Al-Hilal v AS P/Louis 6:00 pm 

Étoile du Sahel v AS Tanda 6:00 pm 

Printed and Published by VANGUARD MEDIA LIMITED, Vanguard Avenue, Kirikiri Canal, P.M.B.1007, Apapa. Advert Dept: :01- 7924470; Hotline: 01-4544821; Abuja Advert Hotline: 09-2921024. 

E-mail website: sundayvanguard@yahoo.com, editor@vanguardngr.com, news@vanguardngr.com, sunvanguardmail@yahoo.com. Advert:advert@vanguardngr.com. Internet: www.vanguardngr.com (ISSN 

0794-652X) Editor: JIDE AJANI. 08111813023 All correspondence to P.M.B. 1007, Apapa Lagos.

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