Monday, 1 October 2012

Is Nigeria a toilet of a country? By Femi Fani-Kayode


Fani-Kayode argues that the only way real change can come to Nigeria is by breaking up or a peoples revolution
”Nigeria is just a toilet of a country where evil reigns”- Lord Apsley.
Lord Apsley and I were colleagues at Harrow School in England approximately 36 years ago. I have never forgotten his uncharitable remarks about Nigeria, which led to a heated argument between us. At that time I found it ironic, and I still do, that this quintessential member of the English upper class not only had the nerve to say such things to me about my country but that he could say it with such confidence. My response to him was that if Nigeria was indeed a ”toilet where evil reigns” then it was a toilet that was created by his British forefathers who not only dumped the evil there by defecating in it but who also refused to wash their hands, to flush and to leave the toilet after they had finished. My point was simple and it was that Nigeria was as much their mess as it was ours. For a young man who had been born into wealth and power and who had been brought up to believe that ”Brittania” had civilised the world and had brought nothing but immense benefits to the natives of her colonies, he found my response most disconcerting. I have never forgotten what he said about my beloved country on that occasion. It was painful and regrettable.
Yet I look at what has happened to us in the last 52 years of our existence as an independent nation and what we have suffered in the last 98 years since the 1914 amalgamation of the northern and southern protectorates and I really do wonder. If the truth must be told, things have not gone too well for us. I was born in the same year as we gained our independence and as I ponder and reflect on the last 52 years, all I see is violence, bloodshed, dashed hopes, lost opportunities and shattered dreams. I see a brutal civil war in which two million people died. I see a string of violent military coups and repressive military dictatorships and I see suspicion and division between the peoples of the north and the south. I see dangerous tensions between the numerous ethnic nationalities, continuous strife and sectarian violence. I see church bombings, the slaughter of the innocents, Islamic fundamentalist rebellions, battle-ready ethnic militias and bloodthirsty local warlords. I see economic degradation, decaying infrastructures, environmental disasters and untold suffering and hardship. And finally I see poverty and unemployment, poor quality leadership and a dysfunctional semi-failed state, which is still struggling to find its true identity. If this sounds like a scene from Dante’s hell, please forgive me but this is what I see.
On October 1st every year, we make nostalgic and inspirational speeches about the ”labours of our heroes past”, pop the champagne, pat each other on the back, go to churches and mosques to give thanks to God, dance at owambe parties and congratulate one another on our independence. Yet we refuse to sit back in deep reflection, take stock of what has really been going on in our country and carry out an honest and candid appraisal of our situation. We are not ”a toilet of a country where evil reigns” but we must admit that we are in a mess. A really terrible mess. And the question is why are we in such a mess, how did we get there, why have we not been able to get out of it in 52 years and what role did our former colonial masters play, and are still playing, in creating and sustaining that mess. That is the subject of this essay.
If we want to answer these questions we must go back to the beginning. The problem is that the British established a faulty foundation for Nigeria right from the start, which they knew could not produce anything wholesome. The Nigeria they handed over to us in 1960 was nothing but an unworkable artificial state and a ”poisoned chalice”. It was destined to fail right from the outset. Worse still, they handed us that poisoned chalice with a malicious and mischievous intent and without any recourse to our people in terms of any form of a national referendum. The British did the same thing in varying degrees when they left virtually each and every one of their other ”third world” colonies. The most obvious cases however were Nigeria, the Sudan, India and the nation that was formerly known as Malaya. Every single one of these four countries had monumental problems with sustaining their unity after independence and all of them, with the exception of Nigeria, were compelled to break up into smaller entities before they could bring out the best in themselves as a people and fully exercise their human potentials. Consequently India broke up into three and became India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the Sudan broke into two and became Southern Sudan and the Sudan and Malaya broke into two and became Malaysia and Singapore. Nigeria is yet to find the courage and fortitude to go that far and whether we will eventually break up or not remains to be seen.
Yet the truth is that when you force two incompatibles with completely different world views together into an unhappy marriage, lock the gates of the house, throw away the keys and bestow leadership upon a “poor husband” to rule over a ”rich wife” in perpetuity, you are looking for trouble. The bible says, “if the foundation be faulty what can the righteous do?” Our foundation as a nation is faulty and the consequence of that is that everything that is built on that faulty foundation is unproductive, unsustainable and unpleasant. And until that foundation is fixed the biblical ”righteous”, no matter how well intentioned, can do nothing about it. It will always be a case of one step forward and ten steps back. Some have made the point that what exists in the Nigerian space today was once a collection of confederations and that our level of integration centuries before the British came to our shores was far greater than many care to admit. This may be true but upon their arrival the British, rather than build on that and allow us to forge a united nation ourselves based on dialogue, trust and consensus, instead played up our differences, drove us further apart, set us against each other all the more and compelled us to remain in the same cage hoping that we would eventually kill each other in the process.
The result of the amalgamation was therefore predictable. It was either that Lord Lugard’s “poor husband” (the north) would fully subjugate and eventually kill the “rich wife”(the south) or the “rich wife” would fully subjugate and eventually kill the “poor husband”. And we are right in the middle of that struggle for mutual subjugation till today. In 1960 the British ensured that power was handed over to the most pliable region at the Federal level by establishing an alliance with the northern traditional institutions and political ruling elite and fixing the census figures in their favour. Consequently by 1960 we had a situation where the well-educated, enlightened, progressive and predominantly Christian south was played out through intrigue, deceit and fixed census figures and instead power was given to a fatalistic and ultra-conservative Muslim north who were prepared to do anything the British wanted them to do, who had already overwhelmed and suppressed their own ethnic and Christian minority groups and whose major preoccupation was to dominate and control the entire federation, to keep the south out of power at the centre and to “dip the Koran in the Atlantic ocean”. It did not stop there.
Even after the British left in 1960 they continued to meddle in our affairs and they encouraged, sponsored and supported a string of repressive military regimes, all of which derived their power from a northern-controlled army officers corps whose retired generals, up until today, are the ones that determine who will be what in our country. That is our story.
Some have argued that despite the ignoble intentions of the British we ought to have been able to sort out our own problems 52 years after they left us. This is a good point. It does however betray a tinge of naivety and a lack of appreciation of just how chronic those problems were right from the start and just how malevolent a hand the British dealt us. I say this because the bitter truth is that the system in Nigeria cannot be changed simply because the forces that have controlled our country since 1960 are deeply conservative and the foundation and the structure upon which she has been established has been designed in such a way that makes radical and fundamental change impossible.
Some have compared Nigeria to a badly wounded, gangrenous and diseased leg which can only be cured through restructuring or which needs to be cut off in order to save the rest of the body. The consequence of doing neither is death for the whole body. It follows that the only way real change can come is if the country is broken up into two or more independent nations or, if we insist on remaining as one, through the auspices of a peoples revolution (our very own ”Nigerian Spring”, similar to the ”Arab spring” that we witnessed in Libya, Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain and Egypt last year and that we are witnessing in Syria today) which will sweep away the old order, convene a Sovereign National Conference, restructure the country drastically and devolve power from the centre.  If you are looking for fundamental change in Nigeria these are the only two courses of action that can produce it.
The line up in our country is therefore clear – on the one hand you have the ordinary people, who have nothing and little hope for a brighter future, and on the other you have the ruling elite, who have everything. Those that are waiting for such a change to evolve under the present system and structure will wait forever. This is because under the present system there is no hope for a peaceful, purposeful and meaningful change because justice, equity and fairness have no place. Worse still, the most courageous people with the best minds, that are prepared to speak the truth, no matter how bitter that truth is, and that have an element of vision are always destroyed, discredited or set aside. If anyone doubts this they should consider the fate of Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Chief Moshood Abiola. Those that have a clear vision about the way that Nigeria needs to go have no say and those that have a say have no vision. Our country is in the hands and grip of mediocre that just don’t care.
Unfortunately the Nigerian people do not seem to have the resilience or strength to effect either of the two options for true change anytime soon. They seem to have been so traumatised, demoralised and subjugated in the last 50 years that they have lost their will to resist inequity, tyranny and injustice, to insist on determining their own fate and to fight for their own future. And who can blame them because the state itself is extremely violent and ruthless in the way and manner in which it fights and resists change and those that advocate it. Very few good leaders can emerge at the federal level in such a system because it was not designed to produce truly progressive leaders. There are a few exceptions to the rule but generally speaking the type of leaders that the Nigerian system is designed to throw up are leaders that are not minded to bring any benefit or hope to the ordinary people but rather that are there to protect the archaic system and to maintain the nebulous and dysfunctional status quo. The relevance of the British today is that they are not only the architects of this monumental monstrosity but they are also the ones that have continued to encourage and support the ruling elite that runs and sustains it.
If they were being fair to us they would have been amongst those encouraging the idea of restructuring our country, devolving power from the centre and effecting a fundamental and radical change in our attitudes and affairs. That is precisely what they are doing in the United Kingdom itself today where power is being systematically and gradually devolved from the centre at Westminster in England to the hitherto supressed and occupied regions of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. This is good enough for them yet our erstwhile colonial masters have never supported a similar course of action for us. Instead they have done all they can to support those that believe that power should continue to be centralised and concentrated in Abuja, to maintain the “ancient regime” and to preserve the chronically conservative system and the status quo. The idea of a properly led, prosperous, peaceful and truly united Nigeria has never been something that the British ever sought to establish. It is for this reason that we can blame Lord Apsley’s forefathers almost as much as we can blame ourselves for the mess that our country is in up until today.
May God deliver Nigeria!
 Premium Times

Deportation of Nigerian Pilgrims: The world is teaching us a lesson, Aliyu U. Tilde


Mr. Tilde says deportation of Nigerian pilgrims by Saudi authorities should teach Nigerian leaders a lesson in discipline & good leadership
Other nations will continue to teach Nigeria basic lessons in civilization and governance so long as its leaders fail to live up to their responsibilities by ensuring that rule of law in entrenched in our society.
Three things have happened of recent in this regard. After the corrupt Nigerian judicial system gave a clean bill of health to James Ibori, a former state governor, a powerful adviser to former President Yar’adua and the biggest financier of the ruling PDP in 2007, British courts found him guilty of the same corruption charges and sent him straight to jail. Our judges should burry their heads in shame. Some Niger Delta youths that were on his payroll even threatened to attack British oil interests in the Niger Delta, proving further that Nigeria is a jungle where thieves and cannibals go about free and celebrated as leaders.
South Africa refused some Nigerian passengers entry when it discovered that their claim to vaccination was false. When a Nigerian presents a yellow card at any airport in the world, the general perception is that it is false. And, truly, it is, except in few cases. Nigerians, as usual, complained. The third case is the recent deportation of 1226 Nigerian Muslim female pilgrims from Jeddah for the failure of each to comply with the requirement of the company of a mahram – a person who is prohibited for live under shariah law to marry the woman. Space is made on the visa form and card for the name of the mahram but Nigerian pilgrim officials always play “419” by writing false names on the card and presenting them to the Saudi embassy for approval. The embassy has no option but to issue the visa. When the female pilgrim arrives Jeddah, there would be nobody answering the false name she provided during her visa her.
During the lesser hajj, female pilgrims concoct what is called “mijin visa”, or visa husband, to get around the rule. This is just any man the woman picks among pilgrims in the trip. Nigerians! The Saudis have been overlooking this perfidy for years. This year they decided to put an end to the nonsense. Nigerians, again, complained. The President sent a delegation to plead with the Saudi authorities. No one cared to listen.
In spite of the appeals, the pilgrims who were detained in a cage like kangaroos under subhuman conditions were eventually deported back to the jungle. Officials of the National Hajj Commission and the state Muslim Pilgrims Welfare Boards, like our corrupt judges, should burry their heads in shame. They have brought unnecessary hardship on the female pilgrims and disgraced the nation in no small measure.
But they are not alone. They are just like numerous other Nigerian officials at various levels of government: nobody feels that it is imperative to apply rules. Their perception of office is that it is a shop for making profit. Against these officials should our anger be directed, not against the Kingdom that is simply applying its laws. This, however, I understand, is not the popular reaction of Nigerians to the crisis.
Now that we have been hurt by the deportation of Nigerian pilgrims, our officials will finally start to pay attention to the provision. But only now, after the damage is done to the pilgrims and to our image. The world has realized that the only way to get us know that laws are important in the management of any nation is to strictly apply them on us. If we have destroyed our country by turning away from rule of law, they are telling us that other nations are not that primitive. They are ready to teach us a lesson.
The question is: Are we ready to learn? No, unless it becomes necessary, like when we go on pilgrimage or visit other countries. But once in Nigeria, we are happy to lead a life of the jungle where the strong flouts every rule and go Scot-free. No wonder, our security problem continues to increase by the day. I am sorry to say that the end of our desire to live primitively is not in sight, yet. Thank God, we are not the only Homo sapiens inhabiting the planet. Other nations are ready not to allow us destroy it as we destroyed our country.
PremiumTimes

3 out of 10 Nigerian men are not the fathers of their children – DNA Expert


Is paternity testing becoming an issue in Nigeria?
We have seen that there is serious need for it because in many homes things are happening that are scary both to the lives of children and their parents. And for the general statistics that is now available, it is found that three out of every ten men are not the fathers of their babies. Similarly, three out of every ten children are not fathered by men they have seen as their biological fathers. What we have found out is that, anytime we take ten men, at least three of them eventually found that they are not the fathers of the children they call their own. And these men would have taken care of the children for all their lives.
Now, the global statistics is 100, 000 out of every 300, 000 men. But what we have found that is that the situation is higher in Nigeria than other places. For example in our laboratory here, 50 per cent of the cases comes out negative. And we also realised that majority of the first-borns are affected. You only need to be here to see big men cry like little kids and watch children weep in agony. It has been that bad. And I dare say it is becoming something every home must do and you may be quite surprised at the level of dastard revelation.
About thirty per cent of fathers are unknowingly bringing up children who are not biologically theirs. And it is suspected that this percentage may be on the increase due to sexual recklessness. According to recent trends in sexual health, especially in Nigeria, it was suggested that unprotected sex and multiple partners are comparatively common occurrences with a large proportion of conceptions still unplanned. So, more than half, that is, 50 per cent of all paternity tests carried out by our lab comes out negative and the most affected are first-borns, except in a few cases.
Do these cases happen mostly in matrimonial settings or in casual relationships?
In both matrimony and casual affiliations! I tell you, we have had series of married men come here and go back home devastated. In one instance, a man came here with his wife. Out of the five children he thought were his own, he discovered that only two belonged to him. And they are both duly married, living together as husband and wife. You see, the major problem we have in our country is that most of these cases are not duly documented. So, people don’t know we have such issues among us. In fact, some even don’t know where to go for the test to determine their child or children’s paternity. And I tell you, if you go to ten homes as we speak, you will be amazed to find that in almost all of them the children there do not belong to the men. It is that rampant.
If it is that rampant, how would you describe the three years since you started testing men?
Now, the general statistics by the American Association of Blood Banks is that globally, 100, 000 out of 300, 000 men are not the actual fathers of their presumed children. And like I said earlier, the Nigerian situation is even alarming. Also, Duess International, the condom manufacturers, once noted that Nigeria has the most reckless sexual life. So, you can then imagine what the outcome would be like if we say okay, let’s start taking statistics one-by-one.
How many families do you attend to each week?
We test about 15 to 20 families. People come here as a result of various types of controversies over the paternity of certain children. You know, families have come to us with claims that a child neither takes after the mother nor the father in looks and character. So, the man of the house would be curious to ascertain facts. And when they come here with such children, the fears of the fathers have often been affirmed. Fathers usually have the doubts; maybe he has been hearing some rumours, and you know, men are often the last to hear such things about themselves. Until many of them come here to take the test, they have nurtured other men’s children before realising it.
What does it take to do a paternity test?
Technology has made it so easy. It is just like any other deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) test. In less than two seconds, we take the sample from the man. We use the Helix Swabs like a “big cotton buds” to extract some cells from the man’s mouth. We rub the ‘Swab’ up-and-down the mouth to get some epithelial cells from around the cheek bone. In the nucleus of every cell, there is DNA. Once we collect that, we purify, extract and then multiply it and get the genetic profile which we then send to DNA laboratory abroad for testing.
What happens in situations where DNA samples do not match as we saw with some DANA victims?
So many reasons could be responsible for that. We have had a case in which a boy went to an hospital to claim the body of his deceased dad and on testing him, it was found that he was not fathered by the dead man. The genetic profile of the boy does not match with that of the man he claimed to be his father. And DNAs don’t lie. The medical experts conducting these tests have nothing personal against the people that come to them for testing. Every human being take half of the genetic profile from either parent. Therefore, it is a matter of case closed if the genetic profile of the living does not match with that of the dead man. He is simply not that father.
DailyPost

Okonjo Iweala Drops Economic Wisdom on How to Solve Nigera’s Unemployment Problem


Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
The coordinating minister of the Economy and Finance Minister has labeled unemploymment as the biggest problem facing the growth of the Nigerian state.
According to a research report released by Nigeria’s leading investment bank, Renaissance Capital, and entitled Reforming the Unreformable, the former World Bank chief spells out four solutions policy makers and economists must adopt in order to surpass the challenge.
Below is an abridged excerpt from the report:
The need to create jobs is the most important problem confronting the Nigerian economy now and for years to come, especially for the increasing numbers of youths entering the job market. Studies show that as much as a quarter of Nigeria ’ s working age population aged 15 – 65 years is not in the labor force (Treichel 2010, p. 19). Fully 70 percent of Nigeria ’ s 160 million people are 30 years of age or younger, and there is evidence of rising unemployment among youth (Treichel 2010, p. 23). If Nigeria could create the needed number of jobs, it could turn this demographic dividend of a young working-age population into a development dividend.
To do this, Nigeria must build a strong economic foundation by focusing on the following four things.
Strengthening the Macroeconomic Framework Since 2007, Nigeria has been fiscally lax, sometimes running deficits in excess of 3 percent of GDP and directing most of these resources to salaries out of other ever-increasing recurrent expenditures (now 74 percent of the federal budget), with little left for capital expenditures. There is a great need to put the fiscal house in order, particularly to increase resources available for investment. In this context, the ever-rising levels of domestic debt, though not yet a threat, should be watched. In addition, in view of the continued dependence on oil, management of volatility through application of the Oil Price-based Fiscal Rule and prudent operation of the new Sovereign Wealth Fund will be important to ensuring fiscal stability and prudence. All this should be accompanied by appropriate monetary and exchange-rate policies conducive to economic diversification.
Improving the Investment Climate Nigeria ’ s rank of 133 out of 183 countries surveyed in the World Bank ’ s Doing Business report 2012 is evidence of how difficult it is to invest and to grow businesses there — the very actions that are needed to create jobs. 4 Nigeria has been slipping in the rankings, going from 120 in 2009 to 133 in the latest survey. On some of the most critical business indicators, Nigeria performs badly. It ranks 180 in registering property, 84 in dealing with construction permits, 149 in trading across borders, 138 in paying taxes, and 116 in starting a business. Nigeria badly needs to pursue reform of its investment climate in order to become more attractive to domestic and foreign investors.
Fighting Corruption Corruption in Nigeria remains a serious problem, both in perception and in reality. Progress was made during the reform program in improving transparency, in building anti-corruption institutions, and in checking impunity among the corrupt elite. The vast majority of Nigerians are honest and hard-working citizens; only a tiny minority gives the country a bad name. Fighting corruption must remain a centerpiece of efforts to grow and develop Nigeria ’ s economy. At the onset of the second Obasanjo administration, in 2003, when we began the reforms, Nigeria had one of the worst Transparency International (TI) corruption perception index scores, ranking of 132 out of 133 countries assessed. 5 By the end of the reform program, in 2007, Nigeria ranked 147 out of 179 countries assessed. In 2010, Nigeria ’ s score was 2.4, with a ranking of 134 out of 178 countries. Though there has been some improvement by this one measure, Nigeria is still in the wrong neighborhood as far as the rankings are concerned. To make further gains on the anti-corruption front, specific impediments that encourage rent-seeking behavior must be identified and dealt with.
One good way to fight corruption is to work on the investment climate. Reducing requirements for business and property registration and for trade transactions, including improving the Customs Service, will lead to reduced corruption, with measurable
effects on business development and job creation.
Improving the transparency of the oil accounts and the transparency of government finances at both federal and state levels are other areas for action. The private sector in Nigeria itself is not immune to corruption. Continued actions to clean up and strengthen the banking sector and sanitize capital markets will be crucial.
Action against impunity must continue. Cynicism about the fight against is greatest when allegations of corrupt acts on the part of the elite are not investigated with any vigor or even investigated at all. That is why it is important to bring credibility to the effort with specific actions and measurable results.
Efforts need to be intensified at the international level to recover the billions of dollars
of Nigeria ’ s stolen assets lying in the banks of developed countries. Though there has been progress since 2005, there is still a long way to go. Some developed countries continue to use unhelpful laws and legal procedures to prevent their banks from returning assets. It is unfortunate that developed countries have been aggressive in exerting pressure on perceived tax havens to return the proceeds of their citizens ’ tax evasion but are not willing to press jurisdictions harboring stolen assets to return those assets to developing countries. Nigeria must make this issue an integral part of its fight against corruption to recover these monies so they can be used to fund poverty-reducing projects, and to send a message of “ no impunity ” to those who would spirit corruptly acquired assets abroad.
Completing Structural Reforms The unfinished deregulation, liberalization, and privatization agenda for several sectors must be completed. Deregulating the downstream petroleum sector and phasing out of the huge US$13 billion in subsidies to the price of petroleum products should be top priorities. The mechanism for administering the subsidies has proven imperfect and subject to fraud and corruption. The subsidies are poorly targeted and are a burden to the treasury. They benefit the upper classes disproportionately relative to the poor.
Phase-out should be accompanied with a sound safety net program to cushion the impact on poor people and build trust with the population. Education and communication with the public on this issue is paramount. Action by government to fully phase out the subsidy in January 2012 was courageous and the right thing to do but had all the hallmarks of déjà vu in implementation. This is why the experience was particularly painful for me.
Deregulation will also serve as an incentive for private-sector investment in petroleum refining. Nigeria refines only a small fraction of the refined products that it consumes per day. The rest is imported. It is sad that citizens of a country that is a leading exporter of oil and gas often have to queue up to buy gasoline. Passage of a cogent Petroleum Industry Bill will provide the framework needed to guide the development of the industry.
Equally important is completion of ongoing work on unbundling of power-sector assets, their privatization, and liberalization of the sector. This should be accompanied by strengthening of the regulatory framework to protect consumer interests and to maintain a proper balance of interests between electric power consumers and operators.
It will also be important to complete the work on port concessions and focus on needed investments by both government and the private sector to make the ports efficient and cost effective. This should be accompanied by trade and customs reforms. The ports are rife with corruption, and Nigeria is falling behind in the competitiveness of its ports relative to those in neighboring countries. If these reforms are not completed soon, Nigeria will lose an even larger amount of its trade to neighboring countries.
Civil-service reform is another difficult unfinished agenda. More than streamlining is needed. Capacity must be built, and rules that provide no incentives to top performers or to those with specialized skills must be scrapped.
In the financial sector, ongoing work to sanitize and strengthen the banking sector and to restore confidence in capital markets must be completed. Continued attention is critical to building capacity and strengthening financial-sector regulators to enable them to perform their functions properly.
BusinessNews

How security vote is tearing apart FCT ministers

by Stanley Azuakola

What President Jonathan joined together, reports have emerged that the security vote is trying to put asunder. The minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Administration, Senator Bala Mohammed and minister of State for FCT, Oloye Olajumoke Akinjide, are reportedly on a collision course over the security vote allocated to that ministry.
Of course, the report is being denied by officials from the two camps but the evidence seems like there truly is something wrong in their working relationship.
First, Akinjide was absent at the conferment of national honour on Senator Bala Mohammed. Then she also skipped the three-day Good Governance Tour of the FCT Administration.
Read the Vanguard investigation below:
The tension between both ministers may be connected with the manner the senior minister managed FCT’s security vote without involving the junior minister. Insider speaks
A source in FCTA told Vanguard that the junior minister was not in the picture of the administration’s security vote.
The source, who sought anonymity, said: “Akinjide is not happy with the way things are done here. She has even threatened to petition the Presidency if the situation persist.
“On one occasion, she argued that all ministers are members of the Federal Executive Council and the dichotomy between the senior and junior ministers are mere creation of the media.”
Specifically, some of the staff working under the minister of State have expressed displeasure over the silent face-off between Senator Bala and Oloye Akinjide, saying “when two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.”
One of the staff, who does not want his name in print, said: “To be frank with you, I am not comfortable with the recent face-off between the two ministers. Most of you will not know what some of us have suffered in the past.
“Not too long ago, similar scenario played out during Dr. Aliyu Umar and Sen. John Akpanudoedehe. During that period of in-house fighting between them, our entire land request was KIV (Keep in View) by Modibbo, while our colleagues working with the minister got approval.
“A similar thing occurred during the era of Sen. Adamu Aliero and Mr. Chuka Udom. We are dying in silence because when two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.”
‘There’s no fight’ However, special assistant to the Minister on Media, Mr. Nosike Ogbuenyi, dismissed insinuations of a rift between both ministers, describing the relationship between them as normal.
Ogbuenyi said: “She travelled out of the country with the minister of National Planning during the Good Governance Tour of the FCT to negotiate business investment for the development of Area Councils and satellite towns. “There is no quarrel anywhere. The two of them are working harmoniously for the development of FCT.”
Meanwhile, some of the participants at the Good Governance Tour of the FCT, who spoke to Vanguard, claimed that the Minister of National Planning, Dr. Shamsudeen Usman, was part of the tour, describing the foreign trip as figment of Ogbuenyi’s imagination.
YNaija.com

60% of Pension funds were borrowed by FG – PFAs


Pension Fund Operators in the country have said that 60 per cent of the total pension fund assets have been borrowed by the Federal Government.
The borrowing, according to them, was done through the issuance of bonds having maturity dates of between three and 10 years.
Addressing journalists on the developments in the industry in Abuja, the Managing Director, Legacy Pensions Manager Limited, Mr. Misbahu Yola, said the borrowing, though huge, did not call for panic as the Federal Government had over the years demonstrated its ability to repay debts.
Present at the briefing were representatives of PFAs, such as Stanbic IBTC Pension Managers, ARM Pensions, IEI Anchor Pension Manager and Sigma Pensions.
Yola said it was less risky to lend to the Federal Government than corporate organisations.
He said, “The total employees registered in the Contributory Retirement Savings as at August 2012 were 5.23 million and the assets under management in the Retirement Savings Account Funds as at May 2012 is N1.4tn.
“The FG has borrowed about 60 per cent of the pension fund assets through the bond market.
“The bonds range from three to 10 year bonds and these are long-term instruments. Since pension fund assets are long-term funds, lending to the Federal Government is one of the safest and less riskier way to preserve this fund because government bonds attract the highest returns on investment.”
A breakdown of the N1.41tn Retirement Savings Accounts Fund Investments as at May 31, 2012, included ordinary shares, N136.6bn; FGN securities, N1.009tn; state government securities N64.01bn; corporate debt securities N27.16bn; and money market securities N150.58bn.
Others were open/close-ended fund, N7.25bn; real estate, N386m; private equity, N2.48bn; and other assets, N16.99bn.
Earlier, the Head, Risk and Compliance, Mrs. Idu Okwuosa, called on employers to embrace the Contributory Pension Scheme by ensuring timely funding of RSAs.
She said since accumulated pension assets could be invested in infrastructure development, there was the need for the government to come up with effective policies that would drive the process.
 BusinessNews

Armed robbers raid Lagbaja’s house in Lagos


Robbers invaded Lagbaja’s home located at Omole Estate, Lagos and carted away with valuables worth millions of naira, on Saturday, September 29, 2012.
The masked music artiste was away in Atlanta, USA when the incident happened last night. It was the singer’s family members that were at his Lagos home when the robbers attacked them.
The case has already been reported to the police station located at Grammar School bus stop, Ojodu, Lagos. Lagbaja is a top Nigerian artiste with the trademark mask.
 DailyPost