Opinion: Power sector reform – Is there light in the tunnel?.

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by Abraham Ogbodo

WHEN the matter was put to vote the ayes had it. When motion was proposed at the Tuesday plenary session of The Guardian on Sunday, it was approached with some trepidation. No single individual was too sure if the entire house would agree that electricity supply has witnessed improvement lately. But the reaction was uniform. “In my place, NEPA (it is surprising why people have refused to let PHCN replace NEPA for good) is doing too much,” said a member from Alagbado area of Lagos. Another from Ikotun added, “We now have more than 20 hours of uninterrupted power supply.” Yet a third contributor from Ikorodu said, “for some time now, I only run my generator to keep the battery from running down.”
It was the member from the Journalists’ Estate in Mowe, Ogun State who refused to be impressed by “these fleeting moments of excellence” by the authorities in charge of electricity in Nigeria. He claimed to generate his own power completely outside the national grid, pending when the signals from the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) would be much more dependable. Otherwise, across the floor, there was agreement that the phrase ‘Up NEPA’ or ‘Up PHCN’ can now apply in acknowledgement of the developments in the power sector.
One statement by the Ministry of Power last week said the country attained an unprecedented 4,237 megawatts (MW) plus 70 MW spinning reserve on August 7, 2012. This is what has translated to improved supply in the last one-month or so. But there is a problem. The seemingly good times are in spite of the industrial tensions in the power sector. The statement was actually issued to refute media reports that the 600 MW Shiroro hydro station, which is running at near full capacity (550) had been shut down by protesting electricity junior workers. It added that the damaging report would have been planted by persons in the leadership of the National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE), “who do not consider anything sacred in their self-assigned mission of agitation and propaganda (agit-prop) against the ongoing power sector reform.”
The roadmap to reforms in the Power Sector is definite on one point. To make progress, PHCN must be unbundled and taken off the track. This is proving even a greater challenge than building facilities to enhance the power output nationwide. The Niger Dam Authority and the Electricity Corporation of Nigeria (ECN) were merged in 1972 to form NEPA, rechristened PHCN in the wake of reforms to increase the operational efficiency of the electricity company. But after 40 years of operating as the sole provider of public electricity in Nigeria, the institution and its operators are not able to comprehend the new language of competition being preached.
Instead of quitting the stage for failing to do the needful, the workers are curiously itching to make a super point they could not make in 40 years. Systematically in four decades, PHCN worked to frustrate the provision of public electricity than it worked to promote it. The result is that Africa’s second largest economy runs almost permanently on generators. When known manufacturers in Europe and Japan could not keep pace with the skyrocketing demand, China massively moved in to cover the shortfall in supply. The Chinese even conducted market studies to fully domesticate designs and make generator affordable across board. The brand called “I Pass My Neighbour” is the most basic. It generates just 500 watts, but enough to offer illumination in a three-bedroom apartment without encumbrances.
The good news though is that government has managed eventually, to take the octopus PHCN off the track and in its stead, created 17 private companies that will conduct business in two aspects of public electricity namely – generation and distribution. The arrangement allows government to wholly control the transmission of power from where it is generated to where it will be consumed. But in the spirit of the reform, the state owned Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) would be run by a Canadian firm with a robust track record in that area. The emerging template leaves no role for civil servants in the PHCN and government has accordingly served them notice of disengagement.
The ongoing furore in the power sector occasioned by strike threats by the workers union is over what is adequate as severance package for the about 50000 electricity workers that will be asked to make way for efficiency to reign in public electricity supply.
Both sides are bandying figures. While one side is standing on 25 per cent of a sum that is determined by the length of service, the other is talking of adoption of a 15 per cent contributory pension scheme, which is paid equally by the employer and employee. The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) is seeking to make it a larger labour matter by threatening to shut down the sector if government does not play ball within a specified time. A mediation session set up mid last week between the labour leaders and Emeka Wogu, labour and productivity minister to straighten the issues reportedly ended without a clear understanding.
About the same time, the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Madueke was briefing the media on progress recorded by the ministry through its subsidiary, the Nigeria Gas Company, in ensuring steady gas supply to the thermal power stations spread across the country. She said the ministry is now fully primed to do its bit in the concerted efforts to increase electricity output. With that assurance, one major question in the operation of gas-propelled thermal stations, which account for about 70 per cent power generation might be answered. It is only left for the relevant agencies including the Joint Military Task Force (JTF) and the Amnesty Office to maintain the new found peace in the Niger Delta, so that the all important gas can flow ceaselessly from the near infinite reserves in the region into the numerous thermal power stations.
At other forums, the Power Minister Prof Barth Nnaji presented a picture that made it look as if the country is already in the Promised Land. He said more capacity would be off-loaded onto the grid from completed National Integrated Power Projects (NIPPs) between now and December to bring the national output to an unprecedented 9000mw. Estimates put current national requirement at 6000mw and if the minister’s projections faithfully come on stream, a slightly comfortable spare capacity of 3000mw would be created, enough to stabilize supply in the short run.
These are the kind of stories Nigerians want to hear after years of literally living in the dark. The point does not require emphasis. It has been empty promises of improved electricity supply since 1999. Against that ugly past, the prevailing reality of availability of public electricity is almost looking too good to be true. Perhaps the point needs to be stressed that the people may likely defend these good times with the last drop of their blood, so that the NLC, which is threatening to destroy the mood can get its perspective right. That some aggrieved workers would not give light a chance and the Federal Government has had to deploy soldiers to secure power facilities to guarantee the observed improvement is bad enough. Whatever their grievances are, will not be weighty enough to invoke the sympathy of many Nigerians who have waited patiently for this day of reckoning.
At the risk of exaggeration, if the choice is strictly between constant power supply and the severance benefits of the 50000 PHCN workers, Nigerians will go for the former. Every adult Nigerian living independently has had a raw deal with the national electricity company either as NEPA or PHCN. Due to its persistent under performance, it was sarcastically rechristened Never Expect Power Always (NEPA) and now as PHCN, the people say an appropriate description is Power Hoarding Company of Nigeria (PHCN)
This succinctly captures the profile of a public electricity corporation that is better defined by its gross inefficiency, corruption and monopolistic ruthlessness, than it is known for any glowing attribute. Under it, everybody is a victim. This is precisely why the NLC’s characteristic combativeness may fail in the PHCN workers cum government negotiation.
In fact, one group, the Northern Union, has warned the NLC to thread softly. “Where was the NLC when the PHCN was punishing innocent Nigerians?” it asked, stressing, “any strike at this moment will be seen as selfish and will not enjoy public support and sympathy.”
Like soccer, public electricity supply or absence of it is one issue that brings Nigerians on a common page. It is also an index that attracts high scores in performance rating. At the dawn of this dispensation in 1999, former President Olusegun Obasanjo had made loud statements about making public electricity available 24/7 in a matter of two years. He finished eight years, leaving the sector more confused and prostrate than he met it. His successor, late Umaru Musa Ya’Adua threatened all through to declare an emergency in the power sector, which he couldn’t do before he died.
President Jonathan changed the semantics upon assumption of office. Instead of emergency, he launched a Roadmap to Power Reforms in Lagos on August 26, 2010. It is only two years down the road and the distance covered is relatively impressive. It promises to smash for good the diesel and generators importing cabal. If there is no retracing of steps or derailment off the straight path, the distance that will be covered in another two years (that is even before 2015) could actually translate to transformation in the power sector.
Nobody has a billing metre that determines consumption; the entire area is on estimation because it is usually easier to remain on estimation than to pass through the crucible of trying to secure a PHCN billing metre. The bill is settled as presented and life continues.

Again, Tukur Says Son To Be Prosecuted If Culpable In Subsidy Fraud.

THEWILL.

PDP CHAIRMAN, ALHAJI BAMANGA TUKUR (L) AND HIS SON, MAHMUD TUKUR
ABUJA, August 19, (THEWILL) – National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur on Sunday reiterated his earlier position not to interfere with the trial and possible conviction of his son, Mahmud, who is alleged to have benefitted from illegal fuel subsidy payments.

Mahmud is one of tens of petroleum marketers indicted by the Presidential Committee on Fuel Subsidy Payments, led by Mr. Aigboje Aig-Imokhuede, which investigated infractions in the payment of petroleum subsidy funds to fuel marketers.

Tukur, who was speaking with State House correspondents on Sunday at the Presidential Villa, assured that his son would face the music should he be found guilty of the alleged charges by a court of law.

He also expressed indifference to the barrage of media criticisms directed at him since his son’s ordeal began.

“I am not perturbed and let's wait for the outcome of the court decision,” he said. “He is my son; [I] never disowned [him]. My son is an adult; I can assure you it is only the court of justice that will determine if he is guilty. It is not justice by public opinion; it is justice by the court. That is it. As I have said, we must follow justice. Whoever is found guilty will be so dealt. If he is, we will know.”

He described this year’s Eid-El-Fitri celebration as unique because the Ramadan month had five Fridays — a scenario he says will not reoccur until another 50 years — and because the celebration itself is on a Sunday, set aside both Muslims and Christians to offer prayers for the peace, unity and progress of the nation.

Nigeria On The Brink Of Collapse: This Is The End! By Bayo Oluwasanmi.

The door of the "newly" renovated airport toilet- Photo by Solomon Eyo

Bayo Oluwasanmi

By Bayo Oluwasanmi

Going home on vacation has become annual ritual for me. It’s not only sacred and majestic, but spiritual. Like a pilgrim, the yearly ‘pilgrimage’ renews my faith, hope, and love for my country. It’s also an opportunity to reconnect and reunite where my boyhood was formed and shaped with unrestrained exuberance. It was a land where I imagined Utopia was in process of becoming reality.
Though it’s too soon to forget about summer infatuation, mine ended immediately the Boeing 777 taxied at Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) in Lagos.
The smooth, bumpy-free, and flawless connecting flight from Houston’s International was punctuated by a downpour that greeted our arrival at MMIA.
Right from the time we set foot inside the airport, visible signs of neglect and decay from the rooftops to the floor of the airport advertised a microcosm of a nation parallaxed to hell.
Drops of July showers that escaped through the leaking roofs of MMIA baptized passengers with the ostensible truth that warned us to fasten our belts for the turbulence ahead.
The airport was partially boarded up and torn down. Looks like an abattoir undergoing some face lift ready for inspectors from department of agriculture.

Everywhere looks mangled, air-thirsty, decrepit, and filthy. Scraps of construction materials compete for space like trees hewed down by the storm: an ironic reminder of MMIA’s vestiges of its former greatness.
By now, the rain had become more violent and unfriendly. The waiting lounge was a bedlam. People waiting for their loved ones were pounded by the rain. The ‘madding crowd’ needless to say, had become inured and enamored with the copious beatings of the rain.
Out of the sea of heads, I managed to recognize my family completely bathed in the pre-noon rains. We collided into each other’s arms with a prolonged hallelujah that I made it safely home!
Thus the one month vacation has begun in earnest. Of course, a month vacation was not enough for me (or any visitor for that matter) to travel extensively and exhaustively to intimate me with the socio-politico-economic problems in Nigeria. Good enough, I’m no stranger to these problems.
The socio-politico-economic mess in the country is well known and well documented. Thus I believe it’ll amount to nauseating redundancy to laundry-list for the umpteenth time the lack of modern conveniences that Nigerians have come to accept as the norm.
These age-old problems make for equal opportunity in all the 36 states of the federation – see one see all. But on this trip, I’m hell troubled by corruption, today’s most lucrative industry in Nigeria.
Of all the social and economic plagues that badly afflicted and deformed our body politic, corruption is the most noxious. If superstitions are vestiges of ancient religion, corruption has become the creative destruction of a modern Nigeria. Poverty, one of its derivates, is on full scale war with our people.

To be a guest of corruption in Nigeria, you needn’t crisscross this huge country looking for hosts.
Corruption is all over the land: you can feel it, smell it, hear it, read it, watch it, and embrace it!
Corruption in Nigeria has assumed a special status with different species. There is collusive corruption and retail corruption. Collusive corruption is a phenomenon whereby the ruling class takes care of each other at the expense of the people who elected them as their representatives.
Retail corruption involves exploitation, scheming, scamming, and ripping of individuals by individuals on one hand, and bribery of individual law makers on the other hand by corporations. According to the World Bank report just released, 80% of businesses in Nigeria paid bribes to government officials on request to remain in business. Both forms and strands of corruption are visible, massive, deadly, and alive in Nigeria.
The scale and scope of stealing, looting, and fraud is riveting to the eyes. One can literally hear the screams of corruption in the banner headlines of the dailies.
From oil subsidy gate to pension scheme fraud, bank fraud, ghost workers, overseas junketing and jamboree of legislatures and their wives, forged and inflated contracts, senseless presidential trips with army of aides, unending meaningless retreats and unproductive seminars, and many other sickening evil and con devices have become intertwined to form a national catechism.
Whether it is collusive or retail corruption, the result is the same: it continues to ebb and eat away our human flourishing. Corruption has effectively abbreviated the exercise of liberty in the pursuit of happiness for our people.
The justified and lasting satisfaction with life is completely wiped clean by this greed and graft. The guarantee and expansion of economic liberty has been stunted and halted by the same malfeasance. Earned success and achievement from different endeavors have been supplanted by these assorted venalities.
It’s like expecting springs in the desert for Nigerians to earn a living for themselves and their families through hard work and own efforts. Finding decent work that not only pays the bill but that people enjoys is a rare commodity of Nigeria’s past.
Corruption has created a humiliating and primitive stagnation of our social life. With corruption, families have been ripped apart. Our children are not raised as proud members of the community with devotion to our culture of ingrained moral values.
Our young ones have become wild and homeless lot, culturally lost, spiritually disinherited, candidates for streets, highway robbery, and prisons. Lost generation, if you will!
The war of exploitation and marginalization of the poor on one hand, and the destruction of the middle class on the other hand, has been renewed with zealous impatience by corruption.
Every intervention of the government’s so called anti-graft agency EFCC to stem corruption has actually transformed corruption into a legalized and respectable profession. Indeed, Mr. Jonathan’s phony fight against corruption erects barriers to decriminalize the bane of the scourge in our national life.
Mr. Jonathan provides a great example of a leader with seriously misplaced passion and policies. The president has lost all bearings in both the corruption culture and the enemy culture of Boko Haram.
Where is the president in all these scandals? Complacency is complicity. As if President Jonathan was calling the shots on corruption, he proudly told Nigerians to shut up when he was asked to declare his assets by saying “I don’t give a damn!”
With the pronouncement, complacency, and complicity of Mr. Jonathan; it is safer to say that his PDP led federal government has fallen victim to the wiles and allure of corruption. Talent is a gift but character is a choice. Sadly, the president doesn’t give a damn for either.
The fastidious corrupt appetites of the ruling class have become the political face of our own brand of democracy. The president and his fellow travelers are obdurately blind to the wreckage and carnage done by corruption to our country and to Nigerians.
The Devil once lived in Heaven and those who have not met him are unlikely to recognize an angel when they see one. If you have not seen real poverty in action, visit Nigeria. Listen to the assessment of a writer on Nigeria’s self inflicted poverty: “Nigerians are living on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.”
The jungle dwellings, the mass unemployment and under employment, the open solicitation of prostitution by the young and the old, the biting hunger, the untamed malnourishment, the helplessness and hopelessness of now and the future, put the human suffering of Nigerians on Biblical proportions.
There is no medicine like hope. But it is one thing to speak of hope when things look doubtful. It is fearful to speak of hope when the future is uncertain. It is frustrating to speak of hope when the pestilence of poverty bears all the signs and symbols of satanic verses.
Yes, it is something else to speak of hope when there is no doubt that the present is a disaster, when the future is surely uninviting, when circumstances have consigned you to the gutters. Definitely, hope in the midst of utter turmoil cannot be starry-eyed optimism; it must be built upon bedrock reality.
Wherever you see persecution, truth is often on the persecuted side. How can we explain the inequalities in Nigeria today? The wicked, oppressive, and corrupt ruling class generally goes unpunished. Corruption covers them like a robe. They wear injustice like a turban.
The swindlers prosper, while the honest citizens go bankrupt. Everywhere I looked I saw distorted business ethics, perverted justice, unpunished criminals, and unjust suffering.
Everywhere I looked there was unsettling apprehension of pessimism. The architects of evil, wickedness, and tyranny (and we know them) prosper and enjoy the luxury of their looted wealth. They spend their days in prosperity. They’re spared calamity and they’re buried with honor.
They oppressed the poor and left them destitute. Pictures of utter helplessness and desperation are everywhere. The poor are left cold, hungry, and at the mercy of the elements.
The dying groans for comfort. The wounded cry for help. The Boko Haram continues to consume the poor, the needy, and the innocent just as drought and heat consume snow.
Faced with the prospect of being swept away by the tidal wave of corruption, Nigeria is as good as dead. The choice before us is merely between a grey twilight and total darkness. With corruption on the rise and unabated, Nigeria is headed for total darkness.
 I may sound like a boastful apocalyptist, but I tell you this: Nigeria is closer to the brink of collapse today than yesterday. This is the end!

Why are we still borrowing? – Henry Boyo.

The national debt burden, which was about $32bn in 2006, was regarded as excessive and unsustainable. Consequently, we were encouraged to part with $18bn in order to cancel most of the external debt. Inexplicably, just six years down the line, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who as Finance Minister incidentally shepherded the controversial debt payout in 2006, now confidently assures Nigerians that our current debt burden of about $45bn is nothing to worry about, since, at only 17 per cent, it falls well below the critical debt to the Gross Domestic Product benchmark of 40 per cent! The Coordinating Minister of the Economy is obviously unfazed that the average cost of servicing over N6tn of these debts annually is in excess of 15 per cent in place of 1 – 7 per cent for such risk-free sovereign debts elsewhere.

Nonetheless, Okonjo-Iweala has advised that N25bn will be set aside from monthly budget allocations into a sinking fund to service and ultimately repay our debts as and when due. Curiously, the minister has chosen to create a repayment fund rather than identify the actual cause of our burgeoning debt base, and drastically reduce the spate of ‘purposeless’ government borrowing.

Nigerians are naturally alarmed that the rapid debt increase over the last six years has not tangibly improved our infrastructural base, neither has it enhanced our social welfare. What is patently evident, however, is that most of the $40bn current domestic debts were in fact incurred from the Central Bank of Nigeria’s huge borrowings with treasury bills and the issue of bonds by the Debt Management Office. Incidentally, since its inception, the DMO debt portfolio of N3.714tn is responsible for over 60 per cent of the total domestic debt, while the CBN’s borrowings with treasury bills and bonds account for the balance.

While the object of the CBN’s borrowings is targeted at taming the ever present ‘ghost’ of excess liquidity (excess cash) in the economy, the DMO’s bond issues were initially targeted at establishing a benchmark for long-term borrowing and deepening of the market for government securities. Subsequently, in response to critics of these expensive and non-impactful debts, the DMO began to include funding of budget deficits as part of the purposes for its borrowings.

Instructively, however, discerning Nigerians have doubted the claim of budget deficits in the recent past. Such analysts argue that crude oil price has never fallen below budget benchmark in the last seven years! In addition, crude exports have also on average generally exceeded budget benchmarks. Government’s claims of substantial deficits, when actual incomes from productive revenue streams exceed approved expenditure budgets, have become worrisome to analysts; a case in point is that of revenue expectations in the budget 2012. We recall that in spite of the budget benchmark of $72 per barrel, and output benchmark of 2.4mbpd, in reality, crude oil price has hardly fallen below $90/barrel, while output has not only been stable above the budget benchmark but has in fact been reported by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation to have exceeded 2.7mbpd for some months.

Fortuitously, also, the Federal Inland Revenue Service has reported that about N2.5tn has so far been collected as revenue between January and June 2012. If this excellent performance is projected for the rest of the year, then, we may expect that internally generated revenue alone for 2012 may exceed the N4.8tn aggregate expenditure vote in the 2012 budget! In such an event, the rationale for the DMO’s borrowing spree becomes questionable, as it is inappropriate for the agency to borrow money for ‘undisclosed’ expenses, which have not been captured in the approved budget statement.

Indeed, the DMO’s borrowing binge in spite of apparently extant surplus funds becomes more bewildering when considered alongside additional monthly accruals from crude oil exports. If earlier budgets are anything to go by, export crude revenue (even in times of unstable crude prices) has traditionally accounted for over 80 per cent of government income. In this event, we may realistically expect minimal additional inflow of over N4tn (over $24bn) into the federal treasury this year.

In summary, therefore, total revenue expectations from the foregoing sources would be a total of N9.5tn, made up of N5tn internally generated revenue, N4tn from crude export and at least a minimum of N500bn from customs duties!!

Indeed, the above revenue estimate may still be a gross understatement, as crude prices and output have remained well above budget benchmarks this year, and consequently, crude export revenue could exceed $40bn.

Curiously, however, the DMO (read as Debt Creating Office) has still succeeded, according to its reports, in adding almost N500bn to our national debt portfolio so far this year!

In the light of the foregoing, the Finance Minister, CBN Governor, Lamido Sanusi, and the DMO would need to provide clear figures not only on government borrowing in the last six years, but also transparent information on the respective application of such funds.

The economic management team would also need to justify why government’s appetite for borrowing has increased in spite of apparent revenue surpluses over the years.

The National Assembly would have failed in its oversight duties if it does not also demand cogent reasons why Nigerian government’s borrowings attract outrageous and oppressive interest rates in excess of 15 per cent, when the risk-free sovereign borrowings in growing economies generally attract less than five per cent.

Indeed, in spite of the CBN’s admission that the trillions of excess liquidity mopped up with its bi-weekly sale of treasury bills are simply kept idle, it is particularly worrisome that the Nigerian citizenry have acquiesced in the face of the unwillingness of the federal executive and the legislature to question why the CBN pays such extravagant interest rates for needless and purposeless borrowings, while our own reserves of over $35bn earn less than three per cent.

Incidentally, this process becomes more farcical when we consider that the scourge of excess cash is self-inflicted, when the CBN captures monthly distributable dollar revenue and substitutes naira allocations at its own unilaterally determined rate. Consequently, the Nigerian economy is besieged by the paradox of ever-increasing burden of excess liquidity, and its train of adverse economic consequences, whenever export crude revenue fortuitously increases!

Indeed, it behooves the National Assembly to immediately halt further borrowing by the CBN and the DMO for any purpose whatsoever, until they provide convincing explanation of the need for legislative approval for such borrowings. To do otherwise is to mortgage our nation’s future to the reckless fiscal and monetary models of the government.

•Henry Boyo, an economist, wrote in from Abel Sell Nig Ltd, Lagos, via lesleba@lesleba.com

via Punch

No genuine talks between FG, Boko Haram – Sani.

 by David Attah.

A coalition of civil rights organisations in the  North  under the aegis of the Civil Rights  Congress  have said the Federal Government may be deceiving Nigerians about the dialogue between it and Boko Haram.
National President of the CRC, Mallam Shehu Sani, noted that the talks might have been designed by the government to give Nigerians  false belief that the government was on  the verge of combating  insecurity in the country.
The CRC boss, while reacting to the  said talks between the sect and the government on Sunday in a telephone interview insisted that the leadership of the Islamic sect had not come out categorically to the public through its channel of communication, on such decision to enter into round-table talks.
Sani said, “I am not aware of any talks going on. No credible talks are going on. If there is going to be any genuine talks, there should be confirmation from the leadership of the group and not the government. The only channel of communication by the group is through YouTube posting by the leader, Mallam Shekarau. And as far as I am concerned, I do not think or believe that there is any dialogue going on because it has not come from the usual source.”
Sani argued that the reported talks between the government and the sect  were raising a false sense of hope while on the ground there  was  no credible evidence to establish what the government had claimed.
The CRC boss said, “The talks between the Federal Government and Boko Haram is not impossible, but it must be done honestly and sincerely and through channels that are credible. From my own understanding, the Federal Government must have been drawn into dubious talks or it is more of ‘arranged’ talks.
“I am of the belief that this arrangee talks will only undermine the search for peace. And then I will add that this senseless killings and bombing going on in the North should be ended by honest and sincere commitment and not by  seizing, misinforming and misdirecting the conscience of Nigerians.
“A genuine talk can only be recognised by a cease-fire and cessation of all hostilities and that can only be believed if it comes from the leader of the group. So, what we should understand is that Nigerians are tired of this violence, and many innocent lives have been lost; and the solution to it must not be through bogus peace talks or concocted dialogue.”

August 20, 2012 by David Attah 78 Comments

A coalition of civil rights organisations in the  North  under the aegis of the Civil Rights  Congress  have said the Federal Government may be deceiving Nigerians about the dialogue between it and Boko Haram.
National President of the CRC, Mallam Shehu Sani, noted that the talks might have been designed by the government to give Nigerians  false belief that the government was on  the verge of combating  insecurity in the country.
The CRC boss, while reacting to the  said talks between the sect and the government on Sunday in a telephone interview insisted that the leadership of the Islamic sect had not come out categorically to the public through its channel of communication, on such decision to enter into round-table talks.
Sani said, “I am not aware of any talks going on. No credible talks are going on. If there is going to be any genuine talks, there should be confirmation from the leadership of the group and not the government. The only channel of communication by the group is through YouTube posting by the leader, Mallam Shekarau. And as far as I am concerned, I do not think or believe that there is any dialogue going on because it has not come from the usual source.”
Sani argued that the reported talks between the government and the sect  were raising a false sense of hope while on the ground there  was  no credible evidence to establish what the government had claimed.
The CRC boss said, “The talks between the Federal Government and Boko Haram is not impossible, but it must be done honestly and sincerely and through channels that are credible. From my own understanding, the Federal Government must have been drawn into dubious talks or it is more of ‘arranged’ talks.
“I am of the belief that this arrangee talks will only undermine the search for peace. And then I will add that this senseless killings and bombing going on in the North should be ended by honest and sincere commitment and not by  seizing, misinforming and misdirecting the conscience of Nigerians.
“A genuine talk can only be recognised by a cease-fire and cessation of all hostilities and that can only be believed if it comes from the leader of the group. So, what we should understand is that Nigerians are tired of this violence, and many innocent lives have been lost; and the solution to it must not be through bogus peace talks or concocted dialogue.”

Police Confirms Attempted Jail Break In Edo State, Says No "Explosives" Involved.

CP Olayinka Balogun

By SaharaReporters, New York

The Edo State Commissioner of Police, Olayinka Balogun, has confirmed attempts by prisoners at the federal prison Oko in Edo state to organize a prison break.
In a telephone interview with SaharaReporters today, Mr. Balogun said some prisoners attempted to escape from the prison by digging a large hole through a cell wall. According to him, the escapees were overpowered by prison guards at 2 AM Nigerian time.
The police commissioner denied that explosives were used in the attack, but admitted that the fierce gun firing from guards at the prison must have been mistaken for bombs by people around the vicinity of the prison.
Mr. Balogun stated that two inmates have been arrested stating that everything is now under control at the prison.

Ukraine Racism: Nigerian student, Olaolu Femi face life imprisonment in Ukraine – Lets support Olaolu Femi – Share the news.

 naijamayor.

On August 14, 2012,  in the Leninsky district court of Lugansk Ukraine, the regular hearing Olaolu Sunki Femi – Nigerian student accused of attempted murder-planned 4 people. The basis of the charges – nothing but reading “victims.” Olaolu face life imprisonment.

 

On August 14, 2012,  in the Leninsky district court of Lugansk Ukraine, the regular hearing Olaolu Sunki Femi – Nigerian student accused of attempted murder-planned 4 people. The basis of the charges – nothing but reading “victims.” Olaolu face life imprisonment.

The meeting lasted about 40 minutes. Board considered a petition Olaolu Femi lawyers to change the measure of restraint. The request is rejected, Femi remains in prison. Immediately after the announcement of the decision, the court adjourned until September 3. That is legally innocent man in  prison conditions for another three weeks. Incidentally, it is worth adding that the hearings on the case earlier transferred because the prosecutors and the State Prosecutor six months (!) Could not find a translator from English to the defendant.

THE FULL STORY
African Outlook gathered that the Nigerian identified as Olaolu Sunkanmi Femi and one of his friends were physically attacked in front of his apartment by four Ukrainian young men and two women who pulled them to the ground while hurling racist slurs on them.
According to eye witness account, Sunkanmi was said to have managed to get up and defended himself against the assailants with a glass from a broken bottle.
“It was while he was defending himself that police arrived at the scene and the Nigerian was subsequently arrested and charged with attempted murder of five people” a Nigerian embassy staff who has knowledge of the case told African Outlook, adding that the victim thus became an accused in a case which has become a celebrated case in Ukraine.
Photo 2: Osarumen David-Izevbokun, (R) one of the protest organizers talking to journalists
African Outlook gathered that  Olasunkanmi has since been remanded in detention by the  Ukrainian police who refused to take the case to court citing unavailability of the police to get an interpreter for him.
But the Nigerian students’ community in Ukraine under the leadership of Osarumen David-Izevbokun, a Phd student in international relations has been working tirelessly to ensure justice for the Nigerian by organizing protests as well as drawing the attentions of the human right groups in Ukraine to the plight of Olasunkanmi who has spent almost seven months in jail without trial.
David-Izevbokun told African Outlook that he alongside other Nigerian students in conjunctions with some members of the Ukrainian human right groups staged a protest on April, 9 outside the Leninsky District Court in Luhanski demanding the release of Olasunkanmi.




The actions, according to David-Izevbokun has put the Ukraine police on the spot as the case came up for hearing on May 3. ”We had a lot of media coverage on the protest ” David-Izevbokun said, noting that he was sure the attention given the case may have prompted the May 3 court appearance of the suspect.
Photo 3: Protesters with placards
David-Izevbokun who was at the May 3, court hearing told African Outlook that Olasunkanmi appeared depressed when he showed up in court.
Many other Nigerian students spoken to by African Outlook however raised concern about the competence of the female lawyer: Ludmila Havrysh handling Olasunkanmi’s case.
The Ukrainian lawyer was reported to have told  protesters that her client has not been able to read the file material since it is all written in Ukrainian or Russian which he doesn’t understand and that was why her client had remained in jail.
“We heard she wanted to be paid $10,000 when she had not even been able to secure bail for her client who has been in detention for more than six months” an irate Nigerian told African Outlook wondering whether the lawyer was capable of defending Olasunkanmi.
Another source also told African Outlook that one of the attackers’s family who has a connection with the Ukrainian police may have been the reason why the Nigerian student  was being detained without trial.
“They went to the hospital and documents were secured for infliction of wounds. I learnt that one of the supposed victim (Ukrainian) has a police relative or parent, and so vowed to deal ruthlessly with Olasunkanmi” a  Nigerian student quoted one narrator as saying while lamenting that the Nigerian embassy’s representative came to visit Olasunkanmi in jail once but did not return again after the first visit.
But an embassy spokesperson who pleaded anonymity (because he is not authorized to comment on the case) told African Outlook that the Nigerian consulate had not abandoned the Nigerian to his fate ”We are in torch with the Ukrainian authority and we have been doing everything to ensure the boy is released unconditionally using diplomatic channel” he said, adding that the Olasunkanmi was being charged for attempted murder, an offense which under Ukrainian law is not bailable.
“There are ways in which we handle cases like this so that we would not appear to be hostile or criticizing our host countries’ laws” the embassy staff said while assuring that he was confident Olasunkanmi would be released soon.
When asked if the embassy has been able to secure the service of an attorney for the Nigerian student, the embassy staff said: “It is not within our mandate to pay for attorney’s fees for any Nigerian in distress, you may check this out with other Nigerian embassies abroad, but we have been working with the Nigerian community leaders here to ensure that we do everything within our means to help Olasunkanmi in time of his need” the staff added hinting that the representative of the embassy was at the May 3 hearing.
In a related development African Outlook gathered that a 28-year-old Nigerian student of Kharkiv National Radio Electronic University is in intensive care unit with knife injuries to his neck following an attack on him by people believed to be racists.
Another 19-year-old Nigerian student from the Poltava Agrarian Academy is also lying critically ill in the Ukrainian hospital following knife injury inflicted on him by yet to be identified persons.
African Outlook gathered that the two Nigerian students were attacked late in the evenings by assailants who fled the scene immediately after the attacks.
The Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Ukraine are treating both cases as attempted murder motivated by racial intolerance.
Speaking on the two recent attacks, the Nigerian embassy said they were yet to be briefed on the case.
“When you (African Outlook) called to inquire about the attacks, we made several calls and have confirmed it happened, but we do not have details yet, we will let you know the identities of the victims as soon as we have information on it and be rest assure we will do our best to ensure the Nigerians get justice” the embassy staff added.
Photo 4: Some of the placards carried by the protesters
African Outlook can confirm that many Africans including Nigerians have been killed in Ukraine by white supremacy gangs known as Skin heads in the past.
On January 18, 2009, Shefiu Salawudeen, a Nigerian  was stabbed to death in Lviv, Ukraine around 8pm  while waiting at the bus stop to board a bus.
Same year, a Nigerian girl was also killed in Kharkiv, Ukraine while a staff of the Nigerian consulate escaped death by a whisker when he was attacked in 2008 by the Ukrainians  gang.
No less than five racial killings of African were reported in 2008 alone.
“Racially motivated attacks occur in Ukraine while police and courts do little to intervene” the Council of Europe said in a report made public February 2008 in Strasbourg. 
The report also expressed concern about attacks against rabbis and Jewish students, as well as the vandalism of synagogues, cemeteries and cultural centers.

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