21022021 - S/N govs. monarchs join forces against killer herdsman,crinimals

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PAGE 6 —SUNDAY Vanguard, FEBRUARY 21, 2021 Furore over Tinubu, Akande, Oshiomhole Continued from page 5 one. Asked what would happen to a member who did not revalidate his membership, he said: ‘’It’s at his liberty. That means he is no longer a member of the party. That means he is not interested in contesting for political positions on the platform of the party because membership is one of the requirements for you to vie for any office. “The National Executive Committee, NEC, of the APC gave us the mandate to revalidate our membership register; it doesn’t matter whether we are right or wrong. ‘’In their wisdom, the NEC said, ‘go and do this’. If you don’t or not a law abiding person or feel you are bigger than the process, or there is something you know and we don’t know, you can stay out of it. “But the fact is that you must follow the rules and regulations. That means you are a sympathizer of the party, with my understanding. “I am even shocked by the massive response. We were targeting the number of votes we got last time, but, as I’m talking to you now, we don’t have cards; we have to be rushing to print more cards. ‘’With due respect to what they did before, you can’t go to any ward and see your name in any register; it was stored in the cloud. Who does that? “Now, by the time we finish, we will return the membership to the wards. It is a continuous thing. If you are not joining today, may be you will join tomorrow and they will issue you the card. ‘’We can remember when someone said, ‘don’t do it because of COVID-19’. That was a trap. We disagreed and said ‘thank you, we are going to finish this in six months and get out of here. We will not over stay our welcome’”. Told that the caretaker committee had exceeded its six months without organising national convention and has been handed an extension of six months, he said: ‘’You are a living witness of what happened. We were in lock-down for many months. “We are on the right path and doing what exactly they asked us to do. The response to the revalidation is truly tremendous and unimaginable.’’ Asked if the party is doing biometric and other modern captures, he said: “Yes, for sure. You have to put your fingerprints. By the time we come down, it’s going to be the property of APC – the computer, data centre, etc. “It’s not going to be anywhere else. It is going to be here. We are going to print the kind of chip card like the INEC card. If you put your information everything will come out. When we finish we will send the cards to the wards for people to go and collect”. On comments that the party hierarchy wants to use the exercise to work against initial pillars of the party and check their 2023 ambition, Akpanudoedehe said: ‘’No, I don’t think that’s the truth. If you are a popular person and they want you to stop you... have you not been seeing people coming from the PDP and other parties and becoming what they want to become in APC? “That’s not the problem at all. To become President in Nigeria a lot of interests must be taken into consideration. We are trying to organise APC to be a disciplined party. “We need members of the APC to own the party. We have to do it because President Buhari is not going to be on the ballot. We have to be sure that those who are members of this party are also voters. “One of the requirements is voter’s card. You have to put your voter’s card number there. If you don’t vote on that day, we know our people have sold us out. We can calculate how many votes we can get in any state”. On comments that membership revalidation is unconstitutional because there is no provision for it in APC Constitution, he quipped: “Let’s say it is not in the constitution, what power has the constitution given to the NEC? “The NEC said we should go and do it and you say it is unconstitutional? NEC authorised it, what makes anyone feel it is not constitutional? ‘’Some said Tinubu said this, Akande and Oshiomhole said that. They know that the party is bigger than an individual. The President holds them in high esteem. He does not expect us to disrespect them. “Akande is an elder statesman. When he advises, whether right or wrong, you don’t expect me to start arguing with him. ‘’Tinubu is my personal friend; even though my loyalty has shifted to the President, you don’t expect me to forget my friendship with him and start abusing him. “These are elder statesmen that we must respect. Even if every other person can abuse them, I won’t. Besides I came from ACN. “If Oshiomhole talks, he is talking from the angle of anger, so we simply ignore it. ‘’We have internal mechanism of resolving grievances. We have been mandated to do the revalidation exercise, and until mandated otherwise, we will stick to our mandate. “Their opinion or whatever they say will not derail what we are doing”. On PDP leaders’ allegation that APC was doing the revalidation and registration to prepare a rigging template for 2023, he said: “When somebody is more technical and knowledgeable than you, what will you do? What does membership revalidation have to do with rigging techniques? Their argument does not hold water. It is senseless. “Membership revalidation is, for example, Tambuwal and Saraki left with their structures, if other people are coming to our party in those states, how do we know? “What about those coming to the party with their members? ‘’In the wisdom of NEC, it says ‘we are giving waivers to everybody’. So if you join the party now, it is like you are foundation member of the APC”. ‘They are wrong’ Caretaker Chairman of the APC in Enugu State, Dr Ben Nwoye, also faulted Tinubu, Akande and Oshiomhole. According to Nwoye, who spoke to Sunday Vanguard in an interview, Akande was wrong to have publicly faulted the initiatives of one of his successors when he had channels of making his submissions to the party leadership. He said; “On what our revered leader, Baba Akande, said, one of the guiding principles of The National Executive Committee, NEC, of the APC gave us the mandate to revalidate our membership register leadership is that when you leave office, your successors running the same office, you are supposed to allow them the peace of mind of handling the affairs of the party within the confines of the constitution as they deem fit. “This type of politics is normally not acceptable; you cannot stand up and begin to criticize what your successor does in office. “So, whatever informed the criticism of the methods on how this particular Caretaker Committee has decided to run the office, it is not expected that our elder, our leader, one of the founding fathers will go to the press to make his criticism. “What he should do is to advise and where the advice is given and perhaps not taken, you will watch the outcome of the decision which you advised against. “However, having said that, I beg to differ with Baba Akande on several fronts. One, it is in our Constitution that every so often, I believe it is six months, there shall be membership registration. “However, the revalidation I believe is occasioned by the fact that successive leadership, perhaps, did not maintain accurate register of members. “I am a founding member and I know that there were attempts by successive chairmen who promised that the registration would be electronically done and that everyone would receive a permanent card. They never did. “The first registration was done in 2013 and, up to this moment, we are still going about with slips of paper. “From July 31, 2013 when the party was formed till date, nobody has a permanent membership card. “So, one can say it is also a failure of successive leadership that led to this revalidation. “No member from 2013 to the present time has permanent membership card. It is a failure. “People are carrying slips that may have been torn, the data system is not well maintained, some people are dead and some names omitted Director General of the Progressive Governors’ Forum, PGF, Salihu Mohammed Lukman, on his part, said the fact that the three men revalidated their membership indicated that all party leaders are in sync with the decision of the APC. ‘APC leaders not opposed to registration’ Speaking on the issue, Lukman said, notwithstanding that after making those strongly worded remarks, Akande and Oshiomhole revalidated their membership of the APC, media reports were reduced to negative conclusions suggesting, perhaps, that part of the foundation leadership of the APC, including Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is in disagreement with the leadership of the party, especially the Caretaker Committee on the decision to conduct the membership registration/revalidation exercise. According to him, the disagreement among some leaders of the party is proof of the democratic credentials of the APC which allows for internal contestations. “Is it really true that because leaders are in disagreement, crisis will set in? Is it even possible for leaders of any political party not to disagree? Is there any political party worthy of any potential electoral victory whose leaders are in complete agreement with every position the party approves? If all leaders are in agreement, why do we have internal contests in political parties? Why should we even be interested in internal democracy?” the DG of Progressive Governors Forum said. “Once you eliminate internal disagreements among leaders of political parties, democracy will lose its appeal. “Rather than contest, what we will end up having in politics is some notional faith in the sanctity of the party and its leadership. “Like all our religious shrines, all that we will be talking of as members of our respective parties is some claims about the purity of our leaders and our party even as we know that our only justification in joining the party is far from any imagined purity. “Integral to our decisions to join the party is the expectations we all seem to have in terms of what being members should translate to. “This is where most times leaders often distinguish themselves. While to ordinary members, the issue is about political permutations of who is going to emerge as candidate for election, for leaders, it is more about ensuring that the party is able to retain its electoral viability. “Call it enlightened self-interest, every leader will be much more concerned about the capacity to win elections as the propelling factor for personal ambitions. “As members of APC, we should be proud of our leaders and their ability to make open their positions about all the issues around the challenges facing the party. “We should be inspired by their disciplined commitment to support the decisions of the party irrespective of their personal positions. “We should be proud of the illustrious leadership of Chief Akande, Asiwaju Tinubu and all our leaders in APC for demonstrating in very strong unequivocal terms that to remain united is not about denying what your personal preferences are with regard to choices open to the party in addressing challenges. “Being united should be about accepting decisions that are not necessarily supportive of our personal preferences. “Since the time of the APC merger negotiations between 2012 and 2013, there has never been time when all our leaders are in agreement. “This is partly why there have always been internal contests within the party. “Part of the challenge facing the party today is to ensure that internal contests in the party reflect the freedom of party leaders and members to express themselves within the limits of both the rules of the party and the country. “It must be emphasized, therefore, in all the debate leading to the current membership registration/revalidation exercise of the APC, no one has disputed the current membership register of the APC. “The emphasis has been that it should be updated to delete names of members who have left the party and register new members. “In addition, the register should be domiciled in the National Secretariat of the party and not with individual leaders. “Having the membership register in the custody of individual leaders especially when such leaders are being speculated to have ambitions for electoral contests is problematic. “With all leaders of the party, including Chief Akande and Asiwaju Tinubu, accepting to revalidate their membership, the message is that every party member should revalidate his/her membership. “There is no better evidence today that all APC leaders are united other than the ongoing membership registration/revalidation exercise.” Rules fair enough - Keyamo Minister of State, Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, dismissed the fear that the APC membership registration and revalidation was targeted at diminishing the influence of some party leaders. Keyamo told Sunday Vanguard that the rules set for the exercise appeared fair to all tendencies in the party but however conceded that in politics, uniform application of such rules could pose a serious challenge. “In the last four, five days, I have been in Delta where I flagged off the exercise in the state as the Minister from Delta”, he said. “I also received the state registration committees. So far, so good, the rules they have set for the purpose of conducting this exercise appear fair enough. The rules appear equitable enough. “However, in most cases in politics, the application of the rules would be the problem. “So, we are watching closely. We are watching the committees closely. So far, they have tried to engage all stakeholders; they have tried to get our opinion on every issue”. C M Y K
C M Y K SUNDAY Vanguard, FEBRUARY 21, 2021, PAGE 7 PIB: Origin of ‘oil war’ in Niger Delta communities In continuation of the story of the rivalry between two Niger Delta leaders, National Chairman, Host Communities of Nigeria (Producing Oil and Gas), HOSCON, Bishop Mike Emuh, and his Host Communities of Nigeria (Producing Oil and Gas), HOSTCOM, counterpart, Chief Benjamin Style Tamaranebi, which led to the exchange blows at the hallowed chamber of the House of Representatives during the public hearing on Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), Sunday Vanguard traces the origin of the feud. By Emma Amaize, Regional Editor, South-South, Sam Oyadongha, Jimitota Onoyume, Egufe Yafugborhi and Chioma Onuegbu Scrapping or no scrapping NDDC Maintaining that HOSTCOM scandalously demanded for the scrapping of NDDC, Bishop Mike Emuh told Sunday Vanguard: “The act that Benjamin performed at the National Assembly was not as a result of argument on the bill, no. “We have not made any presentation there. He has a limitation of education, which was why he said at the National Assembly that NDDC should be scrapped. Why should you ever think about scrapping NDDC?” But the HOSTCOM President (Benjamin Tamaranebi) shot back: “We are not opposed to the existence of NDDC but the Commission has failed on its mandate and is now a political tool. “Therefore, NDDC should be restructured. The Oil Production Development Areas Commission is the key to oil and gas bearing communities that will deliver sustainable development.” 13 per cent derivation Emuh also charged at Tamaranebi’s HOSTCOM for calling for 13 per cent derivation to be channeled directly to host communities, saying,” He has also said that 13 per cent derivation should be channeled to host communities in the PIB, that it should be Host Communities Development Commission and it should be paid directly to the Commission. “That is an error. 13 per cent derivation is a law that has been established. NDDC is a law that has been established. PIB law is yet to be established; so these are his deficiencies. “I want to say that NDDC should stay, nobody should scrap NDDC. You can only amend the law. At the same time, 13 per cent derivation, you can only review and you do not have to talk about taking it away from governors. PIB is that if Host Communities Development Commission is established, let the host communities do the nomination of directors and commissioners, not politicians, which is our stand.” ‘Our problem with the word settlor’ Tamaranebi also said: “HOSTCOM also wants expunged from PIB Sections 115 and 117. “Section 115 talks about settlors, which is that oil companies are settlors in our land. “How can they be settlors in our land, they should remain as tenants. Section 177 talks about giving them Certificate of Occupancy. “We want these things expunged from the bill. A settlor in their words cannot be a landlord, we do not want to see that word settlor.” Genesis of crisis A Niger Delta monarch privy to the formation of HOSCON told one of our reporters: “After forming HOSCON with other persons, Chief Wellington Okirika was called to head DESOPADEC but between 2010 and 2015 when he was away, some individuals, led by Chief Alfred Bubor, changed the acronym from HOSCON to HOSTCOM. “We began to educate them since that time because most of them were new members that the group was founded as HOSCON but they remained adamant until 2015 when it became clear to Okirika that these people were ready to cause more trouble. Bubor’s alleged deviation from other founders “He (Okrika) now brought in Bishop Mike Emuh. That was after much discussion. Bubor group agreed that he was about to finish his two terms of three years each. “He took over Chief Okirika in 2010, his first tenure ended in 2011, another one ended in 2015. “So in 2015, they agreed that Bubor would step down because it was not supposed to be a life thing. “The highest you can get is two tenures but on the day he was putting in another executive, Bubor disagreed and the other founders said this cannot be, you cannot be blindfolding us and Mike (Emuh) was put in place. “There is nothing they have not done against Mike. They worked against him to the extent that they said that the money collected on gas flare was not anywhere. “They said Mike is fake and published that Mike has been removed by host communities. We were not bothered The other group went to arrange their own certificate of incorporation at the CAC, there is nothing they have not done until this very last one (fight) at the National Assembly because we know that he is the National Chairman. “They took us before South-South monarchs, there was nothing the other group did not do, they took us before TROMPCON and, in that meeting, they brought a document for Mike to sign but he told them he was not signing. “We were invited to a reconciliatory meeting with 10 people but they came with more than 100 people. “Looking at the situation on ground, some people advised Mike to sign but write under that he signed under duress. “They required that him and one other executive member of HOSCON to sign the paper, but after he signed, the document was taken to Prince Whiskey, now a monarch, who declined to sign, saying he did not come to sign agreement but for reconciliation. “When they saw the way he spoke, they left the meeting. “After the meeting, the Emuh-led HOSCON was invited for a meeting at Aso Villa, Abuja. When the other group saw the photographs of our visit in newspapers, they were infuriated and that was when the current trouble started. “So the other group went to arrange their own certificate of incorporation at the CAC, there is nothing they have not done until this very last one (fight) at the National Assembly. “We were given the impression that we would be represented by two members and HOSCON was represented by two members; we also thought that HOSTCOM would be represented by two members. “The only thing I can remember is that HOSTCOM people just came and said Mike could not present his paper before them. “He, Benjamin, was raining blows on Mike, it is most unfortunate, and it is not as if Mike went to meet him and said ‘I must present first’, so Benjamin’s action looked unbelievable. “If you watched the video (of fight), you would see that Mike was seated and Benjamin was standing raining blows on him. “His position is that he would speak first, that he is the authentic Chairman. Note that Okirika handed over to Bubor, both are Ijaw, and he still thinks that he, an Ijaw from Bayelsa State, would continue as National Chairman. Emuh is Urhobo. Is the group owned by Ijaws? Are there no other tribes in the group?” The monarch explained that because Emuh is a bishop, he does not want crisis among host communities. “Even on that day that Benjamin fought him at the National Assembly, some people brought the police to arrest Benjamin but he (Emuh) said they should leave him”, he added. ‘We‘re duly registered’ HOSTCOM leader, Tamaranebi, responded to the claims: “My group (HOSTCOM) is a reliable structure. Oba of Benin is the life grand patron, King Edmund M Daukoru is the Chairman of BOT, TROMPCON President General is a board member while Pa Edwin Clark is the grand patron. Other well meaning personalities are involved. “The other group is not known anywhere; it is a political group going about with youths and claiming to be doing pipeline jobs, modular refinery and youth empowerment schemes etc. “They do not have structure in any community. The government of Delta State gave us office complex at 11 Uti Street, Effurun, Warri where our national secretariat is, so what are they saying? “We were duly elected and inaugurated, not just appointed by anyone and we are a registered organization and our operations are guided by our Constitution”. Intervention Meanwhile, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Niger-Delta, Senator Etang, who was disturbed by the dirty linen being washed in the public by leaders of the host communities, invited the warring factions to a peace meeting in Abuja. Emuh and Tamaranebi attended the meeting. A source in the Emuh-led HOSCON told Sunday Vanguard: “The Special Adviser explained that he was disturbed by what happened at the House of Representatives and wanted both sides to iron out their differences and present a common front on PIB. “It was resolved at the meeting that we will put on a common front on the PIB but other issues were not resolved. “In fact, he said it not him that will resolve them. “So we have not resolved, the battle continues at home, we only agreed to present a common front on PIB”. Addressing the two factions on the need to present a harmonized position before the House of Representatives’ Committee, Etang said: “We would request using the instrumentality of this Office for the House of Representatives and the Senate Committee, even in their Committee Session, to hear us present a harmonized position at the National Assembly. “We have not invited you to settle any dispute but we have invited you to shake hands with each other and move on because, in the Niger Delta, dispute and disputation is a regular feature; so we are not settling dispute. “I know you people do not have dispute with yourselves, you only agree to disagree on the procedure and the disagreement passed the elbow to the ankle.” The presidential adviser decried a situation in which oil companies divide host communities while they sponsor and put fire on both sides. “They take the oil, desecrate the environment, abuse your children and your youths, give them instrument of selfdestruction and while we keep fighting, they keep clapping and taking our resources”. “Under President Muhammed Buhari, this would not happen again, we would not be perpetually at war with ourselves and we have agreed to come together for the purpose of defending the interest of the entire community. “So what I intend to do is to work with you, put you on the same page on issues contend on the Host Communities Content of the Petroleum Industry Bill, to enable you put up a unified presentation on what you want for the Host Communities for the bill to become law”. But Tamaranebi explained that the pact at the meeting was to jettison the demand for 2.5 per cent and stick to 10 per cent equity for host communities. “We did not just ask for 10 per cent equity without knowing our left from our right. The system is 100 per cent, the Federal Government holds 60 per cent equity and the oil companies 40 per cent. We are saying that both sides should surrender five per cent each and let us have 10 per cent equity as host communities”, the HOSTCOM leader stated. “Who says we are going to make any financial contribution? Our land and other assets therein are already there as our 10 per cent contribution, we have surrendered our land to them for the business”. • N ext Sunday, Chief Wellington Okrika and more stakeholders in Niger Delta oil communities speak
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21022021 - S/N govs. monarchs join forces against killer herdsman,crinimals

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