28042019 - No delaying minimum wage, go ahead and pay, FG tells MDAs, states, others

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PAGE 4 — SUNDAY VANGUARD, APRIL 28, 2019 L-R: CEO, Jumia Nigeria, Mrs. Juliet Anammah; Chairman, Senate Committee on Works and a former governor of Kano State, Kabir Gaya; Nigerian Agent Manager, Xiaomi, Kevin Zeng; and Head, Regional Marketing, Xiaomi Global, Steven Wang, during the official launch of Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 Phone in Lagos. L-R: Mr. Seun Oloketuyi , Founder, Best of Nollywood Awards; Mr Tunde Fatuntele, CEO, Kobz Media; Ajuka Peniel, General Manager, Media Panache Nigeria; Mr. Michael Makinde, Managing Director, Passion Broadcasting Television Services Limited; Mrs Toun Okewale-Sonaiya, CEO, WomenFM 91.7, and Mr. Tolu Olorunmoteni, Sports Analyst, during a press conference by Passion TV Provision of Entertainment Programmers in the UK, US and Nigeria held in Lagos on Friday. CONTROVERSY 2019 PRESIDENTIAL POLL: The Story Of INEC’S IT Server •Facts •Fiction •Myth By Jide Ajani If there is anything, or a combination of things, that is fanning the embers of doubt about the credibility of the 2019 general elections, it is to be located in the response of the All Progressives Congress, APC, to the petition of the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. Perhaps, whether owing to a lack of understanding of the letters and the spirit of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, or a lack of understanding of the powers of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, “to make its own rules or otherwise regulate its own procedure (which) shall not be subject to the approval or control of the president,” or a cognitively distant syndrome that appears to be very pervasive now, or deliberate mischief, or a combination of all of the above, the recent brouhaha about the authenticity, appropriateness or otherwise of some social media content, wherein officials of INEC were explaining the intendment of its decision to use ICT to ensure the fidelity of the 2019 general elections, signpost the very reason why Nigeria remains both undeveloped and underdeveloped (depending on which you choose to apply). A recent voter education video recorded before the 2019 general elections, which has been trending on the social media, explaining the use of e-collating officers, has created doubts about the status of the Commission’s IT Server used during the elections. This does not, in any way, validate or debunk the claims made as part of Atiku’s petition before the Presidential Election Tribunal. What the videos merely do is to create a recapitulation of what was said before the elections as a basis to either defend INEC or crucify it as an Election Management Body. In one of the videos, INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, said INEC “…will deploy a new platform for electronic collation and transmission of results.” In another video, INEC’s Resident Electoral Commissioners, RECs, for Akwa Ibom and Ekiti States, Mike Igini and Agbaje, gave hints of an existence of a server, explaining the potency of same to guarantee free, fair and credible elections. In fact, in another video, the INEC Chairman gave details of how and why the platform may not be fully used, citing problems of ICT nonconvergence. Unfortunately, responses from APC, particularly Festus Keyamo, its presidential election committee spokesman, are only providing more fuel for those opposed to the election of P r e s i d e n t Muhammadu Buhari. This, too, does not mean Keyamo is wrong on his score that only the Supreme Court, and not social media videos, would determine the success or failure of Atiku’s petition. Inquiries made within INEC, to unearth why the Commission was denying the status of its IT Server and the election results compiled by it, revealed some distinction between the purport of the videos and the actual claims made by the PDP regarding results purportedly obtained from the server. According to sources in INEC, they have never retreated from the fact that the Commission made plans and procured facilities for electronic transmission. In fact, information available to Sunday Vanguard suggests that this has been ongoing since 2011 and the Commission had put everything in place prior to the elections to kick-start the use of electronic transmission of election result. However, all the procurements made and the hardware that were used had been done with the hope that the enabling law will be signed in the form of the new Amended 2019 Electoral Act, but when assent for the Act was not obtained, the Commission had to downgrade the full implementation of the electronic transmission back to pilot status. What this then meant was that it resulted in asymmetrical use of the electronic transmission in some areas more than others, hence the Commission realized that any data emanating therefrom could not be wholly relied on, which was why it relied more on the hard data compiled directly in the old format for compiling the final results of the 2019 general elections. Taking this explanation by sources within the Commission, it can be evinced that the INEC is not denying the existence of data from its IT server but is only trying to clarify that the data that the PDP may be referring to, in their reference and supporting with the trending videos, refers to the ongoing pilot the Commission hopes to use fully in future elections when the enabling law is assented to. However, there is the decision of the Supreme Court regarding some governorship elections of 2015, that the Card Reader is alien to the 1999 Constitution, as amended, because electronic identification process was not included. By the same token, the refusal to give assent to the amended Electoral Act, wherein details of the processes of electronic transmission of result had been captured, poured cold water on all the efforts to have it used in the 2019 elections. Unfortunately, the emphasis on politics continues to trump the need for a solid jurisprudence that would enthrone a culture of civility in a growing democracy like Nigeria’s. Section 52(2) of the Electoral Act, that was signed into law some few days before the 2015 general elections, an amendment which, in more ways than one, paved the way for an APC victory, but which is now being junked by the selfsame APC, specifically, states:”Voting a t •Mahmood Yakubu, INEC Boss an election under this Act shall be in accordance with the procedure determined by the Independent National Electoral Commission.” What this provision does is to remove the prohibitive clause(s) earlier placed on the path of INEC in ensuring that its electoral guidelines are given effectuation, specifically, in the area of ICT. Now, the question to ask is, did those Supreme Court justices who gave judgment regarding some elections held in 2015 not know about this clause? Contrary to the hoopla generated when President Muhammadu Buhari did not sign the amended Electoral Act into law, the absence of a new Electoral Act couldn’t have been basis for Nigerians not to have free, fair and credible elections in 2019. Section 153 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, guarantees INEC the latitude to do as it wishes in the area of regulating its activities. Under paragraph 15 of the Third Schedule, the power to “organise, undertake and supervise” conduct of elections into certain offices is listed in the Constitution. Section 160 of the same 1999 Constitution goes ahead to state categorically that “… any of the bodies may with the approval of the president, by rules or otherwise regulate its own procedure or confer powers and impose duties on any officer or authority for the purpose of discharging its function; provided that in the case of the Independent National Electoral Commission, its powers to make its own rules or otherwise regulate its own procedure shall not be subject to the approval or control of the president”. Those who granted INEC this unfettered powers to determine how best to regulate its affairs regarding elections appeared to have done so with a view to ensuring that the Commission is able to conduct elections that would be free, fair, credible and devoid of interference. The truth that needs to be told now, according to sources from INEC Chairman’s office, is that when the negativity, occasioned by President Buhari’s refusal to sign the Electoral Act, cast a pall on the entire process, the Commission needed to explain that its processes were still unique and secure enough to guarantee free, fair and credible 2019 polls. The question that INEC is tongue-tied to fully explain to Nigerians now is: Why did the Commission go to town to promise electronic transfer of results, particularly when its election manual captured the training of e- collation officers - mind you, at the ward collation centres, INEC had two officers, one for manual recording and the other for electronic transmission of result? Only INEC can answer truthfully what happened. On President Buhari’s part, nothing would hurt his reputation and electoral victory if he engages a Blue Ocean Strategy to admit - as did late President Muar Musa Yar’Adua - that an election result process that was televised live, where figures didn’t add up in some instances, is not the best for Nigeria. He can also swing into action by signing the amended Electoral Act. Furthermore, he can prevail on some loquacious party members, who continue to pour cold water on his manifest humility, to stop fanning the embers of division and hate, but help the process of healing the nation by avoiding comments that only continue to divide, rather than unite Nigerians.
SUNDAY VANGUARD, APRIL 28, 2019, PAGE 5 L-R: Brand Manager, Goldberg, Olufunmilayo Ogunbodede, Senior Brand, Goldberg and Life, Maria Shadeko, Goldberg Brand Ambassador, Olamide Adedeji and Portfolio Manager, Mainstream Brands, Nigerian Breweries, Omotunde Adenusi at the Official Announcement of Olamide as Brand Ambassador for Goldberg. L-R: Emmanuel Daniel, Chairman, Asian Banker; Dolapo Orelaja, Head, Consumer Propositions, Access Bank Plc; and Ashan Abeyratne, Senior Manager, Business Development – Africa , Asian Banker at the Prestigious Asian Banker “Excellence in Retail Financial Services”, Awards held in Lagos. No delaying minimum wage, go ahead and pay, FG tells MDAs, states, others By Soni Daniel, Editor, Northern Region With the assent of President Mu hammadu Buhari to the new minimum wage of N30,000, there is no other hurdle barring or delaying state governments, ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) from implementing the new pay structure, the Federal Government clarified last night. The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, who made the clarification told Sunday Vanguard that there was no other requirement on the part of the government for the commencement of the payment of the new wage. The minister’s explanation came amid a report that his office was yet to release a certain instrument authorizing payment, the absence of which would unduly delay the takeoff date of the new pay. Malami told our correspondent that the signing into law by Mr. President completed the process of implementing the new wage, which takes effect from this month (April). According to the minister, the minimum wage law does not authorize the office of the AGF to do anything more for payment to commence once the President has given his assent to the bill. He said: “The incidence, operation and application of a law is automatic unless otherwise stated by its commencement provision. The new minimum wage law is automatic and envisages no further action on the part of the Hon. Attorney General of the Federation, not having been so mandated by the enabling law. “Bureaucratic processes are not rooted in the action or inaction of the Attorney General, legal obligation having arisen by the commencement of the law upon assent by the President. UNITY SCHOOLS ENTRANCE EXAMINATION Lagos tops list with 25,000 candidates as Zamfara fields 59 *Sanitation exercise delays commencement By Dayo Adesulu and Joseph Erunke National Examination Council, NECO, and parents of candidates, yesterday, commended the conduct of the entrance examination into the 104 Unity Colleges across the 36 states in the country. At the examination centre monitored by Sunday Vanguard, parents and NECO officials, who spoke with Sunday Vanguard, lauded the conduct, adding that the examination was orderly and peaceful. According to them, no stranger or parent was allowed to get close to the centre, as parents were asked to keep a distance from candidates at the examination hall. The students were tested in Mathematics, Basic Science, English Language, Social Studies, Quantitative and Verbal Attitude. The NECO official in charge of Oriwu Senior Model College Centre, Ikorodu, Lagos, Mrs Ijeoma Elekwe, said: “Unlike last year, the examination started 5 minutes past 12 noon because of the clean-up exercise in many parts of the country”. Parents and candidates, she noted, who came as early as 7am, felt they were unduly delayed for the commencement of the examination, as Lagos and some other states in the South-west and Southeast were not observing the environmental sanitation like other states. She explained The Nigerians Citizens Association in South Africa (NICASA) says another Nigerian, Mr Tony Elochukwu, from Nnobi Anambra State, has been killed by an unidentified gunman in South Africa. The President of NICASA, Prince Ben Okoli, said this in a letter sent to the Consular General, Nigerian Consulate in Johanesburg. Three Nigerians had been killed between April 6 and April 9 at different locations in the country. In the letter, obtained by “Ministries, Departments and agencies of government are automatically expected to execute their own side of statutory obligations in giving effect to the law that has taken effect and remains applicable, valid and subsisting. “This is a law the application of which commences upon assent by the President”. The report, yesterday, had said that the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission had blamed the delay on paying the new wage on non-release of a copy of the Act to enable it prepare that for the examination to start the same time, the authorities shifted it to 12 noon. Elekwe said that the only complaint from parents was those whose children’s passport photographs were missing on the registration form. Meanwhile, Lagos maintained its lead as state with the highest number of registered candidates for the examination. News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja, yesterday, Okoli decried the death and continued killings of Nigerians in South Africa. “We received yet again the sad news of the death of another Nigerian in Witbank Mpumalanga province”, he said. “Mr Tony Elochukwu from Nnobi Anambra State was shot twice in the head by an unidentified Nigerian gunman on April 24 at around 2:45pm”. Okoli said that a lone Nigerian man walked to some Zamfara State,which had the least registered candidates for the examination in 2018,was equally seen trailing behind all the states of the federation including the Federal Capital Territory,FCT, Abuja. 75,635 candidates wrote the examination across the country. The registration data, obtained from the Federal Ministry of Education, showed that Lagos had over 25, 000 the memo for state governments to commence payment. The Chief Press Secretary of the agency, Mr Emma Njoku, was also quoted as saying that they were still expecting a signed copy of the Act assented to by Mr. President. But, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Garba Shehu, was quoted as saying that there was no issue to be sorted out again once the President had directed that the new pay should start in April. registered applications while Zamfara fielded 59 applicants. Speaking to newsmen after monitoring the exercise in some centres in the FCT,the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Sonny Echono,who represented the Minister of Education,Mallam Adamu Adamu, said the Federal Government had begun the renovation and rehabilitation of the 104 Unity Colleges. Another Nigerian shot dead in South Africa Heavy security as APC narrowly wins House of Reps re-run election in Ajeromi Ifelodun By Olasunkanmi Akoni & Monsuru Olowopejo mid heavy deployment Aof military and other security personnel, the All Progressives Congress, APC, candidate for Ajeromi/ Ifelodun Federal Constituency, House of Representatives, Kolawole Taiwo, has been declared the winner of the rerun election held, yesterday. Taiwo defeated the incumbent and close rival, Rita Orji, of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, with a narrow margin. The supplementary election was conducted in 71 polling units across eight wards in the constituency following the inconclusive February 23 House of Representatives election. Declaring Taiwo as winner of the rerun, the Returning Officer, Prof. Mathew Ilori, from University of Lagos, said he scored 36,115 votes as against Orji who scored 32,557 votes. Earlier, there was mild drama when some voters in the area attacked journalists in some polling units shouting, “We don’t want media in this place.” Some correspondents were nearly beaten up at Polling Unit 002, Turner Street in Ward 10, Mosafejo area of the constituency. “Don’t take our picture, we don’t want media. We will destroy your phone. We will punch out your eye,” one of the voters shouted at reporters. Police officers on election duty at the unit, who could not guarantee safety of the reporters, had to tell them to leave. Stakeholders to discuss petroleum sector reforms S takeholders in oil and gas will tomorrow in Lagos brainstorm on the way forward for the sector in terms of reforms and securing greater benefits for Nigeria and her citizens. The event, organized by the Nigeria Natural Resource Charter (NNRC), a not-forprofit, policy institute that promotes reforms in Nigeria’s petroleum sector; and Order- Paper Advocacy Initiative (OAI), will take place at the Eko Hotel, Victoria Island Lagos. The programme is an offshoot of the Development Dialogue Series (DDS) of OrderPaper Advocacy, a nongovernmental organization focused on policy-related, especially legislative engagements that expand the frontiers of good governance and deepening of democratic practice in Nigeria. It is being organized against the backdrop of the ding-dong affair between the National Assembly and President Muhammadu Buhari on the Petroleum Industry and Governance Bill (PIGB) which was recently passed again by the former after an initial rejection by the latter. In a statement signed by Tengi George-Ikoli, Program Coordinator, NNRC and Oke Epia, Executive Director of OAI, the dialogue seeks to consider the economic, financial and social implications of not embracing reforms in the petroleum sector. Nigerians at a restaurant and inquired from them where to get some weed to smoke He said those standing, however, told him that they did not know where since they do not smoke. Okoli said the man then pulled out his gun and shot Elochukwu on the head and sped off in a car parked down the street. He added that a case of murder had been opened at the police station by NICASA Chairman in Mpumalanga, Mr Obeji Chukwuma. “This look like another case of Nigeria killing themselves. This ugly trend of Nigerians killed by fellow Nigerians is on the increase and is disturbing to our community”, the President said. “NICASA is deeply worried over the death and continued killings of our citizens in South Africa. “People are worried and scared, since none of the perpetrators had been arrested or charged over it”. He appealed to the consulate to pressure the South African police to pursue the case of death of any Nigerian with seriousness. “The South African police must stop attempting to encourage this killings by lack of investigation and prosecution with aim of bringing to justice every criminal involved in these heinous crimes,” he said. The Consul General, Nigerian Consulate Johannesburg, Mr Godwin Adama, had condemned the killing of Nigerians at different locations in the country. “It is clear that as much as any form of criminality and xenophobic attacks against foreigners, including Nigerians in South Africa is condemnable, the killings do not fit into xenophobic attacks”, Adama said.
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