14012020 - 50 years after: Let's revisit issues that caused Civil War

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16—Vanguard, TUESDAY, JANUARY 14, 2020 INSPECTION: From left— Oyo State Governor, Engr. Seyi M a k i n d e ; Commissioner for Works, Prof. Raphael Afonja; Director of Highways, Emmanuel Akinpelu; Managing Director, KOPEK, Issam Fegnali and Contracts Manager, Pascal Hafouch, during the inspection of Jakata/Bembo/ Apata road, Ibadan. Power: FG approves two c'ttees for Mambilla hydro project By Chris Ochayi ABUJA—TO ensure its speedy take-off, the Federal Government, yesterday, approved the constitution of two committees for the multibillion naira Mambilla Hydroelectric Power Project in Taraba State. The committees, which include Inter-ministerial Steering Committee, IMSC, and Project Delivery Committee, PDC, are expected to be inaugurated soon. A statement by Aaron Artimas, Special Adviser, Media and Communications to the Minister of Power, said, members of the Interministerial Steering Committee are representatives of federal agencies and Taraba State government. It noted that the Minister of Power, Mr Sale Mamman, will chair the Inter-ministerial Steering Committee, while the Director in-charge of Renewable Energy in the Federal Ministry of Power will head the Project Delivery Committee, reporting to the Minister of Power through the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry. The federal agencies named in the committees include Ministries of Water Resources, Environment, Finance, Budget and National Planning, Works and Housing, Justice, Information and Culture, and Mines and Steel Development. ‘MC Oluomo' wades into Lagos Island NURTW clash By Olasunkanmi Akoni LAGOS—THE Chairman of the National Union of Road Transport Workers, NURTW, Lagos Branch, Alhaji Musliu Akinsanya has urged members on Lagos Island to embrace peace at all times in the interest of the state. The plea became necessary following frequent clashes, particularly the latest among warring parties in which several lives and properties worth millions of naira were destroyed. Meanwhile, the recent intervention by Akinsanya to restore peace in the state union in Lagos has been commended by a union leader in the area, Alhaji Fatai Okoosi, alias, Ottun who also debunked allegation that the Chairman was bias against some group. Okoosi, at a stakeholder’s event, held at the weekend, explained that after a security meeting with the state govern- ...hands over suspects to police, sues for peace ment and the Commissioner of Police, Akinsanya, popularly known as “MC Oluomo,” called a peace meeting of every stakeholder from Lagos Island where the matter was resolved and rested. According to him, at the meeting, MC Oluomo called on Alhaji Azeez Lawal aka Kunle 2ND term bid: Edo CAN postpones election By Ozioruva Aliu BENIN CITY—THE Edo State chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, has been enmeshed in a leadership crisis as the state leadership led by Bishop Oyonnude Kure's bid to secure a second term yesterday hit the rocks. A state executive committee meeting of CAN was called but the meeting which started smoothly became rowdy after the address by the chairman and Rev Fr. Richard Ofere, Others are representatives of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, National Security Adviser, NSA, Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority, NSIA, and the Nigeria Customs Service, NCS. The terms of reference of the Inter-ministerial Steering Committee include facilitating and fasttracking the execution and project delivery of the Mambilla Hydroelectric power project; finalizing within six months the review of the project engineering and technical design concept to achieve optimal efficiency and benefit the immediate target market (the Northeast geopolitical zone); as well as obtaining approval of the Loan Facility from the Poly to reveal trouble makers from the area which he did. He also asked Alhaji Yusuf Aweniya, aka Bobo to also reveal trouble makers from his own faction before he handed the accused persons to the police for further investigation. Okoosi, simply, described the manner of intervention by Oluomo to resolve the crisis as, “Divine” stating, moved a motion calling for automatic second term for Kure and his team “because they have performed well in the last three years”. But while waiting for a secondment, Rev Chris Igbinosa moved a point of order where he said that the motion was premature. He said there was no financial report of the association in the last three years, arguing that there was need for such basic expectations to be met before talking about re-election. The meeting which started 11am was not concluded until 3 China Exim Bank for the Off-shore component of the project based on the reviewed contract price. The Inter-ministerial Steering Committee will be supported by Project Delivery Committee, which will be responsible for overseeing the implementation of the project in line with agreed timelines and deliverables, including designing a framework for post-project operational management that will ensure that the project starts performing from the point of delivery. Also, an independent consultant will serve as a project coordinator to coordinate the administrative and stakeholder aspects of project implementation. “the method was wisdom from God, given to MC Oluomo to resolve the crisis.” Collaborating Okoosi, another union leader, Alhaji Isiaka Emmanuel-Babanla, said that peace had since returned to NURTW in Lagos Island in the last five days after the peace meeting. pm when Kure adjourned and thereafter informed members that a new date for a fresh meeting for election would be communicated to voting members of the association. Efforts to get the views of the chairman after the meeting was not successful as the Secretary of the Association, Humphrey Iriabe said he did not invite journalists for the event since it was a private meeting. Several calls to the mobile line of Bishop Kure were not picked and he is yet to respond to an SMS sent to his number as at the time of filing this report. LEKOIL provides update on Qatari ari Investment authority facility LEKOIL Limited (LEKOIL), the oil and gas exploration and production company with focus on Nigeria and West Africa, has provided further update on the facility it purportedly entered into with the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA). Following announcement by LEKOIL on 2, January 2020, representatives of the QIA approached LEKOIL's advisers yesterday, questioning the validity of the agreement. The company is currently seeking to establish, alongside its legal counsel and Nominated Adviser, the full facts of the matter, and pending this clarification, the Company’s ordinary shares were suspended from trading on AIM at 7.37am on 13 January 2020. However, the release of this announcement facilitates lifting of the suspension, and trading on AIM of the Company's shares is expected to recommence from 7.30 a.m, 14 January 2020. The Facility Agreement can no longer be considered to be legally binding or enforceable and it should therefore be assumed that none of the funding, as set out in the announcement of 2 January 2020, will be forthcoming. Lekoil continues to generate positive cash flows at the operational and corporate level and will seek alternative funding for the future development of OPL 310 as a priority. South Africa's Massmart t could cut 1,4 ,440 40 jobs SOUTH Africa's Massmart Holdings could cut up to 1,440 jobs under a plan to close some stores, the retailer said on Monday as it struggles to grow sales in a tough economy. Massmart, majority owned by U.S. retail giant Walmart, swung to its first half-year trading loss in two decades last August, as low growth, high unemployment and a rising cost of living hurt South Africans' spending power. The retailer said in a statement it had started consultations with unions and other stakeholders around the closure of up to 34 stores, following a review that identified a number of outlets that were underperforming. "A total of 34 Dion-Wired and Masscash stores and approximately 1 440 employees are potentially affected by this process," it said. Dion-Wired is Massmart's electronics and appliances subsidiary, while Masscash is its wholesale division including cash and carry, food and cosmetics outlets. Massmart shares, which sunk to a 13-year low last year after the retailer issued a profit warning, were up 2.4 percent. Zimbabwe finance minister sticks to 3% growth forecast despite poor rains ZIMBABWE'S finance minister maintained on Monday that the country's economy would grow 3 percent this year despite poor rains that have hurt some crops and persistent power cuts that have hit mines and industry. The southern African nation is experiencing its worst economic crisis in a decade, compounded by shortages of foreign exchange, fuel and power as well as a drought last year that has left half the population in need of food aid. Mthuli Ncube told reporters in the capital that he felt the government undervalued the contribution of the informal sector to the economy. Less than 20 percent of the working population hold formal jobs. Ncube said in November the economy, which contracted by 6.5 percent in 2019, would this year rebound as from agriculture and mining output improved. But many economic analysts expect the economy to worsen. US STOCKS-Wall St t hover ers near all- time high as trade deal, earnings awaited U .S. stock indexes traded just below all-time highs on Monday as investors awaited the signing of a preliminary trade deal between the United States and China, as well as the start of the fourth-quarter earnings season. High-profile technology and internet companies including Apple Inc, Facebook Inc, Microsoft Corp and Amazon.com Inc, which have recently powered Wall Street to all-time highs, boosted the main indexes. Google-owner Alphabet Inc was on course to become the fourth publicly traded U.S. company to be valued at $1 trillion. An easing of Middle East tensions and signs that the Phase 1 U.S.-China trade agreement will be signed have encouraged buying of risky assets, even though investors know little in the way of details of an agreement expected to be signed in Washington on Wednesday. "There is some concern about translation of the contract (with China)," said Randy Frederick, vice president of trading and derivatives for Charles Schwab in Austin, Texas. Stories credited to Reuters
@war 50 years after the war TOMORROW marks the 50th anniversary of the end of the Nigerian civil war (1967-1970) but we have remained locked in lowintensity warfare ever since because we are a senseless country. Our last civil war broke out over unresolved nationality question and its most unfortunate that our fault lines are more pronounced in January 2020 than they were in July 1967 when we started killing ourselves like the “enemy tribes” Lord Lugard once called us. Cerebral fathers from my neck of the wood said from the depth of their wisdom that when a child falls down, he gets up and continues the journey without looking because of lack of reflection. On the other hand, an elderly person who falls down gets up and looks back to see the cause of the trip so he can avoid such as he continues. Nigeria remains the child who stumbles and gets up without finding out the cause of the fall and continues to walk on carelessly. The truth of the matter is that there was never a need for a country like Nigeria. It is a perfect example of one disappeared entity Brian Hall called “The Impossible Country” (Yugoslavia). A country is never borders or infrastructures. It is about unity of goals which has never been available around here. It has always been a perpetual feud between different nationalities in the worst clash of civilizations ever seen around the world. Anti-colonial struggle Something happened in 1953. A leading light of anti-colonial struggle and a prominent member of the Obafemi Awolowo-led Action Group, AG, Anthony Enahoro had moved a motion that Nigeria should become independent in 1956 at the Federal parliament. That motion should have been unanimously supported by members of parliament if an “impossible country” was not the setting. Enahoro had said in the preamble to his motion on the floor of the Federal House of Representatives that any proposal short of full political independence for Nigeria “has ceased to be a progressive view because Nigerian nationalism has moved forward from that position”. But in a response that showed the fault lines of •Nigeria and the defunct Biafra flags and leaders Nigerian nationalism in the late colonial era, Sir Ahmadu Bello of the Northern Peoples Congress, NPC, introduced a dilatory motion substituting the phrasing “as soon as practicable” for the year “1956” proposed by Enahoro. A negotiated settlement that understands our differences is the best way out; its other name is federalism In an undisguised reference to the superficiality of the “Nigerian nationalism” which Enahoro and his Southern compatriots were lionising, Bello added: “Sixty years ago, there was no Nigeria but merely a collection of communities very different in outlook and mode of life”. The North threatened to leave Nigeria over the quest for independence by the South. In anticipation that the NPC which had more numbers in the House was going to win the vote, the NCNC and AG members in the House of Representatives walked out. The meeting of the House was adjourned and members of NPC met very unfriendly crowd in Lagos who could not understand why “fellow Nigerians” would be opposed to independence. They were called all sorts of names before they left for the North. A retaliatory move by Northern leaders after the adjournment on March 31, 1953 self-government motion, came during the tour of the Northern Region by the AG led by Chief S. L. Akintola; it was viewed by Northerners as an invasion of another man’s territory. It was while Akintola and his group were in Kano that a riot broke out. Several people lost their lives while many were wounded. After the crisis, the NPC members issued an “eightpoint-programme” to the colonial government to the FEEDBACK Vanguard, TUESDAY, JANUARY 14 effect that until their demands were met, they would not return to the House in Lagos. The demands spelt confederacy. By the time Nigeria became free in 1960, Awolowo, whose party moved the motion for independence in 1953 that was opposed by the North was seated among ex-servicemen at independence dinner and by 1962 was already thrown into jail. By 1966, events already peaked with the first coup on January 15 led by some junior officers who were dissatisfied with the state of the country. The coup eliminated political leaders mainly from the North and West. The dominant presence of Eastern officers among the leaders of the coup made Northern officers to conclude that the coup was planned against the North and they immediately started to plan a revenge coup which they staged on July 29, 1966. Diplomatic officials They codenamed the coup operation “Araba”(Hausa word for let’s divide it). And for 48 hours after the coup there was no government in Nigeria as Northern officers were bent on pulling out of Nigeria. It took efforts of American and British diplomatic officials and the top of bureaucracy to convince them to stay within the country. They initially said they were going to blow up the Central Bank of Nigeria when they were told that the money that would be used to service their government if they broke away was locked in that place. By the time they agreed to remain in Nigeria they had destroyed the army for ever as rank and file soldiers from the North would no longer take instruction from Re: Godwin Obaseki: My man of the year Dear Yinka, THANK you for nominating Governor Obaseki as your man of the year. I also join you to nominate Obaseki as my man of the year 2019 for the reasons you gave and more. In your well written article, you made the following, among other reasons, for declaring him as the man of the year. 1. Godfatherism is a form of political corruption in which an influential member of the party climbs to leadership. Permit me to add that it also ensures that loyalty of elected members is to the godfather and not to the people who elected the godson. It also ensures that cash (corruption) is the determinant of election not votes. 2. You identified the predatory behaviour of godfathers in many states in the country in the last 20 years. (a) You gave the examples of Chris Uba and Chris Ngige; (b) The case of Ladoja and Adedibu where Ladoja had to “surrender to the authority of Adedibu to unseat Lam Adesina in 2003” at the peak of which crisis Adedibu boasted on TV thus: “I asked him (Ladoja) to let us share his security vote and he refused. Now, he knows that I am the major insecurity in the state”. 3.You argued that the godfathers have not relented even when none of them had had it easy all through as political office holders continued to pander to them to get what they want. This shows the qualities of these godfathers; 4. That Governor Godwin Obaseki who used to be his political boy is now looking eyeball to eyeball and is poised to wrestle him to the ground with sweat all over him. You came to the above conclusion based on Tinubu, Fashola and Ambode in Lagos State. I am particularly pleased to note that the Deputy Governor of Edo State, Philip Shuaibu, was reported to have said “our people have spoken loud and clear that they believe in democracy, they just don’t want to be beneficiaries, they want to be the drivers of the process.” Governor Obaseki himself in JANUARY 14, 2020 — 17 very senior officers from the South. Brigadier Ogundipe who was the most senior officer in the army had a swift dialogue with his feet. By then the rebellious officers from the North had insisted the most senior among them, Lt-Col Yakubu Gowon would be the new Head of State above his seniors from the South. Events moved from there until the Republic of Biafra was declared and we fought a war in which millions of lives were wasted. As we mark the 50th anniversary of the “end” of that war, we are frenetically manipulating our fault lines that led to the last civil war; it is the worst exclusive use of power that has never been seen in this country before. Today we have the three arms of government headed by core Northerners, with 15 out of 17 service chiefs in Nigeria from the North. All heads of anything that has to do with money, except the CBN, are from the North: Ministry of Finance, Customs, NPA, FIRS, AMCON, etc. Once any Fowler is taken out now, a Nami must replace him. There are no more pretenses. It is in-your-face impunity bordering on extreme provocations that makes all look like the immediate pre-1994 days in Rwanda. Can those behind all we are going through step back and ask just one question: where is the coalition that fought the last war? The honest answer is that it has collapsed for ever. The very reason why nobody should drive the country to another war ever again as it would be decisive and fought on different fronts with different goals. A negotiated settlement that understands our differences is the best way out. Its other name is federalism. the Vanguard of January 3, 2020 said that “my pact with the citizens of the state is to defend their interest and to end godfatherism - which threatens the democratic right of the people.” For the above reasons, I also “elect” Governor Godwin Obaseki as my Man of the Year 2019. In the hope that vicechancellors and professors who are to conduct elections this year for office of governors will spare the people of Edo State what happened in Ekiti and Osun with the connivance of the intelligence and security units who do not believe in democracy. We, the people of Edo State, will resist as the people in Rivers did when attempts were made to make the value of one man, one vote irrelevant so as to promote Sharia. As Governor Obaseki has said, Edo like Rivers State is a Christian state and democracy is preferred for its inclusiveness not totalitarianism of the alternative. God bless. Solomon Asemota, SAN Benin City . C M Y K
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14012020 - 50 years after: Let's revisit issues that caused Civil War

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