Independence 2010 bombings: Okah’s trial resumes today in South Africa

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by Stanley Azuakola

As Nigeria marks its 52nd Independence Anniversary, memories of its 50th anniversary celebration resurfaced from far away South Africa.
That year, the celebrations were marred by twin bombings allegedly orchestrated by alleged ex-MEND leader, Henry Okah.
Shortly after the bombings, President Jonathan absolved MEND from the brutal blast which killed 12 people even though the group had claimed responsibility. Henry Okah was subsequently arrested in South Africa.
His trial which has been dogged by delays, opens on Monday in South Africa, according to his lawyer. In addition to the October 1, 2010 bombings, Okah also faces terrorism charges over two explosions in March 2010 in the southern Nigerian city of Warri, Delta State.
“It’s Okah’s first day of trial in the South Gauteng High Court today. The defence and prosecution teams are ready to proceed with the matter and a judge has been allocated,” said his lawyer Tsietsi Majang.
The last time the case was in court in January 2012, Okah’s lawyers had asked for more time to prepare their arguments.
South Africa is trying Okah as part of its international obligations because Nigerian authorities have not applied for his extradition.
Okah has denied both involvement in the attacks, as well as charges of being the leader of MEND.
YNaija.com

Off the hook: Femi Otedola settles N141billion debt with AMCON

 by Isi Esene

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by Akan Ido
The Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) has confirmed the settlement of debt owed by the Zenon and Forte Oil boss, Femi Otedola, to the asset management company.
The amount owed is said to be worth N140,999,620,395.80.
The AMCON boss, Mustafa Chike-Obi stated that the board of AMCON met last Thursday and approved the transfer of the businessman’s assets as well as an undisclosed sum of cash to it as full and final settlement for his liabilities.
Chike-Obi however declined to identify the assets which were transferred to the AMCON citing he confidentiality agreement binding the transaction.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had recently named Otedola as one of the 112 blacklisted individuals and companies owing huge amounts of money to the AMCON, it prevented his companies from taking further credit from banks, until full liquidation of the agreed indebtedness.
Chike-Obi said, “This is a positive development as the settlement by the biggest debtor to AMCON showed that there are no sacred cows because even a prominent businessman like Otedola has come out to settle.”
A source privy to Otedola’s financial dealings said the Zenon boss accumulated the debt after obtaining a syndicated loan from five banks which was adversely affected by the global economic downturn in 2008.
Reports say it took six months of long drawn negotiations between Otedola’s Zenon and the AMCON to reach an agreement on the modalities of settling the huge debt.
“Zenon Petroleum has paid AMCON the full and final settlement of its obligations/loans to some Nigerian banks, which was bought over by AMCON in May 2011,” the source said.
Also, a CBN official, who confirmed the settlement reached between AMCON and Otedola, described it as a positive development, stating: “Given that he (Otedola) had the highest exposure to the banking system and posed a systemic risk, we are pleased that he has settled his obligations.”
YNaija.com

Opinion: Nigeria at 52 – Myths and realities of leadership #Independence 52

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by Anya O. Anya

If all goes well and Nigeria holds out, it has been said that the country may be unrecognisable in 5-7 years when compared with her dismal present.

It is pertinent to remind ourselves at the outset that Nigeria is the prime product of British colonial adventure in Africa. It was constituted to abstract natural resources for the benefit of the British economy. As Sir Olanihun Ajayi has reminded us
“As at 7 January 1897 there was no place or area or country called Nigeria. The country known and called Nigeria came into being in 1897 as a result of an article in the Times of 8 January 1897 by Flora Shaw pressing that the aggregate of all the towns and villages or the protectorate consisting of many ethnic nationalities should be called Nigeria. That aggregation of several empires, kingdoms, various nations and tribes constituted what is now known as Nigeria….”
That the seeds of economic disabilities and structural deformities between the regions carried over from the colonial to the present have proved a major constraint to the efforts at building a modern nation-state can be illustrated from different episodes of our national history. This is not to say that the evident imbalances could not be redressed, given a patriotic, visionary and national leadership. But this has been lacking. In any case given over 50 years of co-evolution and co-existence of the nationalities new centres of equilibrium could have emerged to mould and drive new social forces in the direction of integration and harmonious coexistence. That this has not happened is the modern day dilemma that Nigerians and their friends must face.
Contemporary Nigeria is poised on a knife-edge. On the one hand are arrayed the forces of retrogression such as Boko Haram ready to drive the nation into the abyss never to rise again-sectarian conflicts with their attendant violence, divisiveness propelled by ethnic, religious or social inequalities and inequities. On the other hand are progressive forces pushing for economic and desirable social reforms. Indeed, the progressive institutionalisation of some of these reforms has led many outside observers such as Goldmann Sachs and the rating agencies to regard Nigeria as one of the emerging economic forces of the age of globalisation. If all goes well and Nigeria holds out, it has been said that the country may be unrecognisable in 5-7 years when compared with her dismal present. How can these contradictory visions of the Nigerian future emerge and co-exist from the same reality?
There is among the youth a sense of alienation, anomie and a brooding angst at what they regard as their betrayal by the post-independence generation of leaders particularly the military when they held sway in governance. Nasir el Rufai has given a graphic account of this leadership and its failures. Given the unacceptably high unemployment rates, the sense of deprivation amongst the youth is to be expected but this comes at a time that there is a total collapse of our values. High rate of corruption in both the public and private sectors as recently sign-posted by both the pension and petroleum subsidy scams are prevalent. The 419 scam is, as they would say, old hat. The collapse of the educational system has been facilitated by the high rates of examination malpractices often encouraged and facilitated by parents, teachers and those who would normally have passed off as role models. The total discount of merit and scant regard for excellence are emblems of the new order. The worship of money and materialism is in contradistinction to the apparently high level of religious zealotry and showmanship. We are now in the era of wealth without work. Hypocrisy, insincerity and pretentious display of phoney values is the order of the day. So where will national redemption come from and how did we get here?
It has often been said by some of our leaders that there are settled issues in the Nigerian political economy. The truth is that there are no such settled issues for we have not sincerely and dispassionately looked at the problems of Nigerian nationhood except from the vantage point of how we can take advantage of one another to advance our personal or sectional interests. Nevertheless, it is fair to state that given the state of the global environment, breaking up Nigeria into whatever number of constituent sovereignties is not an option. Globalisation enforces mutual interaction in an interlinked matrix of economic entities. Nations separate only to cooperate in new economic formations. That is the reality of our new world. Moving forward into the harmonious peaceful and united nation of our dreams enforces on us the duty to get rid of some shibboleths from the past that have dogged our every step in the journey to nationhood.
First and foremost we must re-establish and embrace the values of truth and justice as the unchanging foundations in the management of human affairs. There are some historical untruths that we as a nation must confront if we are to move forward together. In the documents British Documents at the End of Empire (BDEE) (ed. Martin Lynn) that I referred to earlier, there is irrefutable evidence that both the pre-independence census and elections were manipulated to produce a pre-determined result favourable to a section. The demands of truth enforce on us the obligation to rectify these anomalies. Justice, however, enforces on us a corollary obligation – we owe the duty of care and fairness to all Nigerians. No part of Nigeria can be allowed to wallow in poverty even as some revel in affluence. It is the obligation of the Nigerian state to ensure fairness in the management and distribution of the resources of the nation to all parts and to all citizens. It is also the obligation of the nation to ensure fair rewards and incentives to honest labour, enterprise innovation and creativity and to create the environment that promotes these conditions. These are necessary conditions for peace and unity.
Secondly, we must re-admit merit and the pursuit of excellence as part of our national objectives. In a merit-driven national endeavour ideally recruitment to national leadership cannot be on the basis of a roster or quota but on the basis of knowledge, competence and overall national interest. In societies that embrace these values, the recruitment of leadership and training of leaders in a common environment where they can compete even as they share visions of the future.
In Nigeria, there is the anomalous presumption that Nigerian leadership must emerge from particular sections of the country. This position discounts the position that localised leadership can only project a local rather that a national vision of leadership. Nigeria, and particularly the North, has paid a heavy price for this anomaly. In the 52 years of Nigeria’s independent existence, the North has produced nine of the 13 leaders and they have been in charge of the government for nearly 40 years. In much of that time development in the North has markedly regressed. Indeed, the post-election violence of 2011 had indications that it was an uprising against the leadership. Thus, the dominance of the north in the politics of Nigeria has contributed markedly to the under-development of the North and by extension of Nigeria. In other words sectionally-driven leadership recruitment has not enhanced Nigerian development, has conferred no obvious advantage to the section of the leader except to individual benefactors.
In the effort to rebuild Nigeria, there is a need for drastic restructuring and redesign of the architecture of the nation. We also need to reorganise the priorities of the nation such that the eradication of poverty and the creation of wealth will be pursued as necessary conditions for the rebuilding of the nation in an atmosphere of peace and unity. Towards this objective we need to focus on the immediate and/or expeditious solution of four problems-
• reconstituting leadership with a Pan-Nigerian vision
• reconciling and managing our diversities
• guaranteeing citizenship and citizen rights and
• restoring and realigning our value system
In the pursuit of these goals it is evident that we will need to cultivate a new mind set in tackling our problems. The challenge to put Nigeria on a fast track development needs priority attention being given to the hardware of infrastructure (power, transportation etc.) but also the software of our vanishing value system anchored on integrity, hard-work, entrepreneurship, thrift and sincerity. We must do away with the culture of impunity in governance and the entitlement complex that has put a wedge between different segments of our people. We must return compassion to one another and passion with vision to our leadership. The c-word corruption must be extirpated from our body politics.
We must not forget the challenge of our youth and women – by far the vast majority of our people. We must remember that over 60% of our population is under 30 while the gender parity between male and females suggest that releasing this explosive pent-up energy of our youths and women can guarantee us a quantum leap in our development trajectory. But the key is education. Given the release of this vast human capital, trained and skilled, the Chinese miracle that took precisely eleven short years can be upstaged. The missing link is leadership – a leadership that is well-educated, passionate and visionary. We must as a people pursue wealth with equity, truth with compassion, justice with fairness, and with reconciliation with empathy.
 YNaija.com

Kalu, Okonkwo, others blame Nigeria’s woes on bad leadership

Angry Nigerians and civil society groups have described Nigeria’s 52 years after independence as a ‘journey through hell’ saying that the nation has no reason to celebrate.They blamed Nigeria’s woes on leaders who they described as being greedy.
A group, Concerned Advocates for Good Governance, said instead of our leadership to work towards the betterment of the country, they decided to enriched themselves with public funds.
According to the Nation, Mr. Olusegun Bamgbose, said in Port Harcourt that leaders inability to build the nation has being the reason for the nation’s backwardness .
Also Campaign for Democracy, in a statement by its President, Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin, described 52 years of independence “as a complete waste, bungled opportunities and total ruination of a nation.”
“The last 52 years has seen Nigeria degenerating into hell on earth for millions of its citizens who do not have access to state treasury.”
The group added that “in spite of the country’s human and natural resources, the majority of its populace wallowed in abject poverty.”
Joining the league of critics, former governor of Abia State, Dr. Uzor Kalu, blamed leaders for being self-centered.
The erstwhile governor in a statement on Sunday said most of Nigeria’s leaders in power came there by chance.
While raising hope for a better tomorrow, respected cleric and the presiding Bishop of the Redeemed Evangelical Mission, Dr. Mike Okonkwo, called on Nigerians not to relent in praying for the country.
The cleric in a statement on Sunday, maintained that despite all odds, Nigeria must move forward economically, health wise, educationally and in other sociopolitical sectors.
DailyPost

“Nobody is more qualified to be president of Nigeria than an Igbo man” – Kalu

Former governor of Abia State, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu has said that those dismissing Igbo’s dream of becoming president in 2015 are insulting them.
He reiterated his earlier position that the best thing that would ever happen to Nigeria as a nation is for an Igbo man to take over the leadership of the country.
The former governor said this in a reaction to a statement credited to the northern political group, Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) that Igbo should forget about 2015 presidential dream.
He told the zonal leadership of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), in his country home, Igbere, Abia State that it is Igbo or nothing is 2015.
He called on Ndigbo to get ready to spearhead the affairs of the nation in 2015.
Said he: “The country is troubled because the God anointed people are not there yet, until they take over the mantle of leadership, Nigeria will not have a pride of place in the world; we have no pride of place, we go to the United Nations we look like a rat, we go to European Union we look like a rat, we go to comity of the world leaders we look as if Nigeria is not speaking. “Forty eight years after the civil war, it is an insult for somebody to tell you that Igbos cannot be president.
“If all these tribes can be president, who among them is more qualified than an Igbo man. We are the salt of this nation; we are the best things that happened to this nation. Anything good comes from the East and we are the genuine Easterners; unless we rule this country the country will never be okay.”
OUK as followers would call him 52 years after Independence, Nigeria is still yet to get it right.
He said: “It has also been shown that those who boot-lick presidents in Nigeria since independence never do well; they don’t even tar the roads, they don’t give free education, they do nothing to salvage their states because they believed the president is their boss; if the president asks them to go and put their house on fire they will go and do it, which I feel is not in consonance with democratic concept. “We have enough as a country to feed our 200 million people; we have enough in human and material resources to make our roads better. People are not being given what they bargained for because they are not genuinely elected; these results are written, supported by the army and the police, these people are shameless.”
He assured that he’s ready to eliminate election rigging out of the country. “They will never do it again. It is going to be one man, one vote and no army man will carry any ballot box again in Igboland or in Nigeria, we will not accept that. It will not happen again. Even if he is general to heaven, we will fight him and fight his whole family. If they do what is unconstitutional, we will repeat what will be unconstitutional too because that is the only way we are going to check this rubbish.”
He lamented that: “People of our area, leaders of Igbo people have turned to perpetual liars. Government rule now on television, on radio and on propaganda. You cannot say you are good Leave the people who are being governed to say who is good or is right.”
DailyPost

President Jonathan lied in Independence anniversary broadcast

Ogala Emmanuel

President Jonathan lied that Transparency International has endorsed and commended his administration’s war against corruption.

President Goodluck Jonathan lied to the world in his Independence Day anniversary speech about gains his administration has made in the fight against corruption, a PREMIUM TIMES investigation has revealed.
In what appears to be a major credibility stunt, President Jonathan read a speech in which he scored his government high on all sides.
In order to make his good performance appear holistic, the president included in his speech that global corruption watchdog, Transparency International, has endorsed and praised his administration’s war against corruption.
Mr. Jonathan’s words: “…the fight against the scourge of corruption is a top priority of our administration.
“We are fighting corruption in all facets of our economy, and we are succeeding. We have put an end to several decades of endemic corruption associated with fertilizer and tractor procurement and distribution.  We have exposed decades of scam in the management of pensions and fuel subsidy, and ensured that the culprits are being brought to book,” he added.
To give his claims international credibility, the presidents then said: “In its latest report, Transparency International (TI) noted that Nigeria is the second most improved country in the effort to curb corruption.”
The lie
PREMIUM TIMES contacted Transparency International seeking a copy of its latest report which the President referred to in his speech.
The group replied promptly disowning Mr. Jonathan and saying it had no such report.
“Transparency International does not have a recent rating or report that places Nigeria as the second most improved country in the fight against corruption,” the group said in an email to this newspaper.
The group said its most recent indexing of Nigeria’s corruption activities was in the 2011 Corruption Perceptions Index, which measured perceived level of public sector corruption in the country.
In that index, Nigeria scored 2.4 on a scale where 0 means highly corrupt and 10 means very clean. It was ranked 143 out of 183 countries.
That rating was actually a dip in performance for Nigeria as the country was rated 134 out of 183 countries the previous year, 2010.
The president’s spokesperson would not comment for this story. The Special Adviser on Media, Reuben Abati as well as the Special Assistant on Public Affairs, Doyin Okupe, did not answer or return calls.
They also did not reply text messages sent to their telephones.
Corruption cases Jonathan ignores
Since resuming office in 2010, President Jonathan is believed not to have shown vigour in the fight against corruption – including corruption involving past and current actors in his administration. The tipping point in the president’s profile, regarding reluctance in promoting transparency, came when, in his last media chat, he scoffed at a question on why he had not publicly declared his asset. On live television, the president snapped “I don’t give a damn!”
The petroleum minister, Diezani Madueke, a close ally of the president, has heaps of established corruption allegations against her, but none has been investigated by Mr. Jonathan’s administration; while she still remains in office as one of the favorite ministers.
In August 2011, President Goodluck Jonathan secretly ordered the payment of $155 million to Malabu oil, a firm owned by an ex-convict and former petroleum minister, Dan Etete. Not only was the payment done without the knowledge of the Finance Minister, as revealed by PREMIUM TIMES, Malabu transferred the money into dubious accounts including that owned by a man with links to Mr. Jonathan. Both the Senate and the House of Representatives have agreed to investigate the Malabu scandal.
Two members of the President’s cabinet, Godsday Orubebe and Stella Oduah, illegally registered an NGO, Neighbour to Neighbour, on whose board they sit, and which they then used in campaigning for the President’s election; in contravention of CAC registration guidelines and the CAMA Act. The presidency has kept mum on this.
There have been several cases of visitors to the Presidential Villa being given huge sums of money after their visits. The Save Nigeria Group was offered $30 thousand, and the Northern elders N20 million; both groups rejected the cash gifts given to them by the presidency.
There are also mounts of corruption cases involving government officials, politicians and ‘friends of the government’ that have been lingering for years while perpetrators roam free.
 PremiumTimes

Boko Haram Claims ‘Abu Qaqa’ Still Alive; Sect Plans To Attack Wives Of Nigerian Officials

Leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, said in a YouTube message today that the sect’s spokesman, Abu Qaqa, is still alive.

In a short video in Hausa language, Shekau claimed that 10 wives of Boko Haram members are currently being detained by Nigerian officials, an action he described as “demeaning,” and threatened a round of reprisals on wives of government officials.

In the video, the Boko Haram leader also threatened violence by the group over a recent anti-Islam video which denigrates Prophet Mohammed.

Two weeks ago, Nigeria troops recently claimed they had killed some senior commanders of Boko Haram near Kano and arrested others.  One of those reportedly killed was Qaqa.

Previously, last February, the JTF also claimed it had arrested Qaqa, but the Boko Haram leadership denied the announcement, insisting that the man under arrest was not Qaqa but Abu Darda, who was identified as the head of the group’s enlightenment committee.

“Qaqa” continued to speak for the group until last month when he was said to have been killed or arrested.  Nothing has been heard from him since then, and his status remains unclear.

Today’s announcement by Shekau is another challenge to the intelligence-management abilities of the Nigerian government and its Joint Task Force, which has been conducting unprecedented operations in some States in the North in the past two weeks.
Saharareporeters