Abdulsalami’s company captures four power DISCOs

Integrated Energy, chaired by Nigeria’s former head of state, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, emerged the preferred bidder in four out of the 10 distribution companies that the Nigeria’s Privatization Council offered for sale to the highest bidders today for 197.25 billion naira ($1.25 billion) as part of a plan to reform the country’s moribund electricity sector.
The company partnered by the Philippines’ largest power retailer Manila Electric, bid the highest efficiency target for four DISCOs in Yola, Ibadan and the two covering the commercial capital Lagos; Eko and Ikeja.
It’s high scores were bad news for other companies such as the OANDO consortium, Honeywell Energy Resources International Limited and Vigeo Holdings, which were also prequalified on September 18 to have their commercial bids opened today. The NCP, which is headed by Vice-President Namadi Sambo, had approved the eligibility of the firms for the exercise, which was initially billed for October 10 but later postponed till today
Apart from Integrated Energy topping the bids for the four discos, Chrome Energy, which is chaired by billionaire businessman Emeka Offor, is part of the highest bid for assets in Enugu and Abuja.
Aura Energy, which according to its website was created to buy a coal mine, was the sole bidder for the Jos DISCO and could win by default, while 4Power Consortium, which is made up of several Nigerian companies and an Indian firm, was the only bidder for Port Harcourt, which covers the oil producing region.
Sahelian Energy, a three year old company with no experience of running power assets, was the lead company in the only consortium bidding for the Kano firm.
There were no qualified bids for the Kaduna firm.
“The NCP (National Council on Privatisation) is fairly confident that this process will produce the most appropriate core investors and fulfil the government’s objectives of rapid transformation,” NCP technical committee chairman Atedo Peterside said at the bid announcement in the capital Abuja.
The distribution firms (DISCOs), which are responsible for delivering electricity to end-users and collecting payment, were sold at a fixed price set by regulators, so bids were ranked on how efficiently the company promised to run the businesses.
Four of the firms – covering Jos, Kano, Port Harcourt and Yola – only had one approved bidder each.
Many of the companies involved in the bids have little or no power sector experience, while others are backed by powerful political interests but have technically capable partners.
In 2010, President Goodluck Jonathan announced plans to break up the state power company and sell it off as 11 distribution and six generation companies. He has promised a tenfold increase in electricity by 2020.
Previous state sell-offs in Nigeria were blighted by political infighting and corruption, which have caused years of delays. Regulators said this process has been more transparent.
Power outages, which amount to several hours per day, are the biggest brake on growth in Africa’s second biggest economy and a frequent complaint of Nigeria’s 160 million people.
Despite holding the world’s seventh largest gas reserves, Nigeria only produces a tenth of the amount of electricity as South Africa for a population three times the size.
LibertyReport

Subscriber group petitions GSM operators over alleged anti-competitive activities

inShare

by Isi Esene
A consumer advocacy group wants Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to investigate alleged anti-competitive conducts by Airtel, Glo and MTN, Nigeria’s three major GSM operators.
The advocacy group named, Consumers Empowerment Organization of Nigeria urged the NCC to investigate and determine if the named GSM service providers engage in what it described as “concerted  practices”.
The letter, signed by Adedeji Babatunde, coordinator of the group, and addressed to the commission’s executive vice chairman, Eugene Juwah, seeks to find out whether the operators abuse their dominant positions in the market for access to 2G and 2.5G mobile network infrastructure by discriminating in the provision of access to their mobile network infrastructure to competing MCSPs.
According to reports, the group pointed out in the petition that such discriminatory conduct by the mentioned GSM operators is capable of distorting competition in the Mobile Content Applications space through constraining the choice of consumers as well as retarding innovation.
The CEON went further to urge the NCC to invoke Section 1 of the Competition Practice Regulation 2007 under which the commission is expected to issue a written notice to the parties, identifying whether it will take action, the specific action to be taken, and the basis for its decision within thirty days of submission of the complaint by CEON.
The last has certainly not been heard about this battle for Nigeria’s mobile market-space.
YNaija.com

RCCG, Winners Chapel Estates, 35 more to be demolished in Abuja

Despite the controversy generated by the demolition of over 500 housing units by officials of the Federal Capital Territory Administration’s department of development control in Lugbe 1 Extension, Gosa, recently, the FCT A says 37 more estates have been pencilled in for demolition. There is no going back on the demolitions of the “illegal” structures, it said.
The development control department, on September 28 and 29, demolished about 500 housing units at Minanuel Estate. The demolition of the houses has received a lot of negative reactions from the media and various other stakeholders and rights activists.
The National Assembly joint committee on the FCT led by Senator Smart Adeyemi had visited the Minanuel Estate where the senator expressed shock that development was going on land allocated to “National Assembly members and other Nigerians”.
Adeyemi had, during the visit to the estate, queried the development control for allowing the development to continue to about 80 per cent completion unabated and had demanded that both officials of the department and the developers should meet with the Senate. A meeting was held and another meeting was rescheduled for October 2, 2012, to further deliberate on the matter but, before that date, the development control rolled out its bulldozers and demolished the estate.
Subscribers to the estate, under the auspices of Coalition of Minanuel Estate Subscribers Union, on Tuesday carried out a peaceful protest at the entrance of the National Assembly where they presented a petition address to Senate president David Mark, calling on the legislators to intervene and see to it that justice is done in the matter, Deputy director of the department, Hamza Madaki, who was a guest on Raypower FM public affairs programme, “Political Platform”, yesterday threatened that there was no going back on demolition of any illegal structure in the territory.
He said that, apart from the estates so far demolished, 37 other estates had been earmarked for demolition.
A list from the department of development control shows that RCCG Estates; Sites A, B, C and D belonging to the Redeemed Christian Church of God; and Goshen Estate 1 and 2, belonging to Living Faith Church (AKA Winners Chapel) located in Pyakasa as well as NEPA Cooperative Estate and Civil Defence/Defenders Estate located in Lugbe CRD and Sabon Lugbe respectively are among the estates to be affected by the demolitions.
Other estates to be demolished are Trademore Estate, Sabon Lugbe; Lento Estate, Pyakasa; Pent House Estate, Sabon Lugbe; Grenland Estate, Kyami; Doctor’s Court Estate, Sabon Lugbe; Isvin Estate, Kyami; Ejima Group Estate, Kyami; Good Heart Grup Estate, Lugbe CRD; Redwood/Bidmusdruhill Estate, Kyami; and Weather Field Estate, Sabon Lugbe, among others.
The deputy director insisted that several notices had been served the demolished estates right from the time of excavation at the construction sites of the affected estates, apart from public announcements warning people not to patronise estates after Lugbe.
 DailyPost

Explosions Rock Bauchi Church And A Factory Building-NAN

By SaharaReporters, New York

An explosion on Wednesday night slightly damaged the building of Church of Christ in Nigeria (COCIN) in Zango area of Bauchi metropolis.
Bauchi State Commissioner of Police, Alhaji Mohammed Ladan, confirmed the incident in a telephone chat with the News Agency of Nigeria.
He said the church building was slightly damaged, adding that there was no casualty.
Ladan also confirmed that another explosion occurred in a building located at the Bauchi Industrial Area, saying that there was also no casualty.
“We have commenced investigation into the two incidents and will do our best to apprehend the culprits,” the commissioner assured.

Awo Not Guilty As Charged By Chinua Achebe: Here Is Why!-Part 1

Late Chief Obafemi Awolowo

By Dr. Wumi Akintide

I have vowed never to comment on Chinua Achebe’s controversial best seller titled “There was a Country” until I have had a chance to read it from cover to cover. Having read the book, I now feel at liberty to do a 3 part series on it starting with this one. I do not believe anyone can do justice to all of the issues raised in that book in one or two articles.
   
I have read some of the comments by prominent Igbo leaders supporting the central thesis of Chinua Achebe’s indictment of Obafemi Awolowo as the man who arguably crafted, engineered and implemented the genocidal policies that led to the Biafran War. Chinua Achebe has argued that Awolowo and by implication the Yoruba people as a whole should be held responsible for the more than 2 million deaths from Biafra and half that number or more from the Federal side because nobody was able to keep an accurate record of how many people died in that war on both sides. I was an Assistant Secretary (Army) in Defense Headquarters in Lagos and I know that to be the truth. All I can tell you is that there was needless loss of lives on both sides.
 
The Abagana disaster which was the most successful ambush of the Nigerian troops by the Biafran troops who effectively deployed the “Ugbunigwe” land mines against  Federal troops in that war was a case in point. The inference can be drawn from Chinua Achebe’s analysis and conclusions and those who support him that Obafemi Awolowo and the Yorubas were the “fons et origo” of the Biafran apocalyptic misadventure. I would beg to disagree with that observation on hindsight. If Chinua Achebe in this book has added that here was plenty of blame to go around on both sides, and if he has gone ahead to correctly analyze and itemize those blames and those responsible for them, I would have been less critical of the learned Professor in this write-up. Why? Because the learned Professor to me remains one of the greatest literary giants Nigeria has ever produced. He has been a hero of mine from my Secondary School days when I first read his “Things Fall Apart”.
 
If I was one of the judges in the Board of Assessors for the Nobel Peace Prize in Literature, I would have picked the man before I pick my former Lecturer and fellow Yoruba juggernaut, Professor Emeritus of English Language, Wole Soyinka.  I honestly consider “Things Fall Apart” as Chinua Achebe’s greatest literary gift to the Universe. The book has now been translated into more than 192 foreign languages the last time I checked. That to me is an eloquent testimony to the distinction of Chinua Achebe’s as  Nigeria’s closest runners-up to William Shakespeare.
 
I will therefore be the last person to cast aspersion on anything Chinua Achebe has ever written. It is in fact beyond my pay grade to want to do that. But that said, I am a bit disillusioned that Chinua Achebe who is not saying anything new about what many among his tribe have said about Obafemi Awolowo and the Yorubas would choose this particular time of all times to start lending his powerful voice to uninformed speculations about any role Awolowo and the Yorubas must have played in cajoling Biafrans to fight a war in which they lost so much. The Achebe book could not have come at a worse moment for the South at a time the Jonathan Government has now finally agreed to allow the Sovereign National Conference to go forward.
 
The three dominant tribes in Nigeria i.e. the Hausa/Fulani Oligarchy in the North, the Igbos in the South East and the Yorubas in the Southwest and now the Ijaws in the South/South should not have to face this kind of wedge issue that could predictably weaken the solidarity of the South as we prepare for that conference to drastically restructure Nigeria for the good of the country. The Igbos and the Yorubas - two of the most progressive, educated, civilized and economically vibrant tribes in Nigeria would be doing ourselves a huge disfavor to go into that national conference with a mind set that emphasizes what divides us rather than what unites us. Chinua Achebe who I consider as one of the powerful voices to decide where Nigeria goes from here in that conference should not have allowed himself to be used as enabler to further divide the South at this time.
 
I personally regret that the Ikemba Odumegwu Ojukwu, the undisputed leader of the Igbos and the Commander-in-Chief of the Biafran forces in that war did not live long enough to complete his memoirs on that war like he had promised to do. That memoir would have cleared the air once and for all. The central thesis of Chinua Achebe in that book would have been more credible to me if that conclusion had come from the Ikemba himself. I could care less about what the so-called Commander of Biafran Army, “General” Alex  Madiebo had said that Chinua Achebe had understated the hostility of Obafemi Awolowo to Igbo nation. I am fully aware of how Okwealieze Nwodo and Dr. Mbadinuju have already endorsed the Chinua Achebe’s view point in the book. I am also aware that former Governor Ezeife has issued a statement which I totally agree with that we must all remember that “Awolowo did not join the war against Nigeria and neither did he start the war against Eastern Region but he eventually joined Gowon”
   
What Governor Ezeife did not add and should have added was that Ogbuefi Nnamdi Azikiwe, the Igbos foremost leader who reportedly composed the Biafran National Anthem has  also had cause to desert Biafra and to side with Gowon at the most critical phase of the war. As a matter of fact, it could be argued that the Azikiwe’s retreat or betrayal had dealt a far more fatal blow to the Biafran struggle than anything that Awolowo ever did. Ogbuefi Nnamdi Azikiwe far more than Odumegwu Ojukwu at the time was like the Ayatollah, the spiritual and ultimate leader of Iran while Ojukwu could be compared to Ahmadinejad the transient political leader of Iran. “Ayatollah” Azikiwe taking a U turn and siding with General Gowon at the time was a major blow to Biafra“ far more damaging than anything Awolowo ever did.
 
 It was only a question of time before the Ikemba clearly saw the hand writing on the wall by quickly flying to exile in the Ivory Coast thereby leaving “General” Philip Effiong to handle the surrender formalities that ended the War. Chinua Achebe did not dwell so much on that development in his book but he found it convenient to put all the blame on Obafemi Awolowo and the Yorubas and their ambition to subjugate and forever humiliate the Igbos using genocide as a convenient weapon.
 
Socrates was right when he said that “what any man is saying or seeing is often a factor of where that man is sitting or standing at any given point” I will concede to Professor Chinua Achebe that he probably drew his conclusion based on where he was sitting or standing when he made his observation, But there is more to what really happened in that war than the totality of what Chinua Achebe has stated in that book. It was as if Chinua Achebe was less concerned about the sequence of events leading to the Biafran War in 1967 which included the murder of Ahmadu Bello in January 15, 1966,  the assassination Aguiyi Ironsi at Ibadan 6 months later and the heroic role played by Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi, a Yoruba man who laid down his own life rather than betray his Igbo Commander-in-Chief. Chinua Achebe seemed to forget that the Igbos and the Hausas dominated the Nigerian Military pre and post- Independence era because the Hausas dominated the rank and file of the Military in Nigeria while the Igbos clearly dominated the officer rank.
 
The Yorubas at that particular time in our history did not particularly value the Military and the Nigerian Police and the Para-military establishments in Nigeria as career points for our people. Yorubas preferred joining the Civil Service or going to teach than seeking a career in the Military. When I graduated from the University of Ife in June 1966 as the first child of all Nigerian veterans of the Second World War to win the British/Canadian Legion Scholarship to do my first degree, the Military should have been the first choice for me. I could easily have been commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Nigerian Defense Academy in Kaduna. I was actually made an offer and encouraged to join the Army by then Major and late General Agbazika Innih as I recall. I rejected the offer because my mother would not let me take it because I was my mother’s only child.
 
I did not think I lost anything at the time because smart and educated Yorubas would rather take a teaching job or join the Civil Service than join the Military. I predictably ended up taking up a teaching job first at Aquinas College, Akure from June 1966 before crossing over to Igbobi College, Lagos from where I joined the Federal Public Service as an Administrative Officer in the Federal Ministry of Defense on January 3rd 1968 with late Yusuf Gobir from Kwara as my Permanent Secretary and late B. G. Popo as my Deputy Permanent Secretary.
 
It would have been naïve and foolish of the Yorubas under Awolowo to simply join forces with the Igbos to fight or confront the Hausa/Fulani dominance of Nigeria with only a few Yorubas in the Military at the time. That was one of Awolowo’s calculations. Awolowo was among the few prominent Yoruba men bold enough to visit the East to try to persuade Ojukwu to reconsider his declaration of war against Nigeria because he clearly told Ojukwu that the West was not militarily and mentally ready to join in, if the East decided to go forward with her plan to break away. The same Awo who did not suffer fools gladly did not hesitate to convey to General Yakubu Gowon in an unmistakable language that if the East is allowed to break away then the West would have no other choice than to separate from the North. It was an honest position to take because Awolowo had always demonstrated his preference to form a coalition with the East than with the North because he was convinced it would make more sense to team up with the East and the Yorubas supported him in that decision. If Awolowo was the kind of leader Chinua Achebe was painting him to be in that book he would have preferred going with the North which was more educationally backward and disadvantaged at the time.

Awolowo was by far the strongest Nigerian leader of that era who knew what he wanted and the courage to state his case very clearly. Another Yoruba leader who made it clear he totally supported the Igbos for wanting to break away because of the genocide unleashed on them in the North by the Hausa/Fulani oligarchy was Professor Wole Soyinka.  The third Yoruba man who was a self-confessed confidant of Odumegwu Ojukwu and a great friend of the Igbos in general was the late Professor Samuel Adepoju Aluko who lectured for many years at the great University of Nsukka. There was also late Tai Solarin who wrote several articles opposing the killing of the Igbos in the North. These distinguished Yoruba men plus Colonel Banjo who actually gave up his life fighting under the Biafran flag and Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi who gave up his life like I said earlier, were all out rooting for the Igbos during the war. Let anyone with facts dispute the facts I am making here if they have them.
 
How for goodness sake can Professor Achebe not remember some of the peaceful and friendly overtures the Yorubas have made to the Igbos on so many occasions in the history of Nigeria. It baffles me that the Professor would not mention anything about these larger than life overtures the Yorubas have always made to the Igbos because we view the Igbos as being more compatible with us than the Hausa/Fulani Oligarchy and majority of us still feel the same way till now. The Yorubas have demonstrated that goodwill every now and then. When Nigeria became independent in 1960, Awolowo had proposed to Azikiwe for the NCNC and the Action Group to form a coalition to run the central Government with Awolowo agreeing to let Azikiwe become Prime Minister while he himself would be happy to settle for Finance Minister. The man did the right thing but Azikiwe turned him down. Look where the NCNC/NPC coalition has led Nigeria today 52 years later. Need I say more?
 
Azikiwe and the Igbos instead chose to go with the Northerners because they have made the calculation that the Igbos were going to be able to  dominate the Hausas more than they could ever hope to dominate the Yorubas who were equally as educated as the Igbos. Come on folks. There is plenty of blame to go around, if we want to be realistic. The Igbos have made a few mistakes like the Yorubas. What the hell is Chinua Achebe talking about? Wasn’t Azikiwe going to become the first Premier of Western Nigeria while Imoke was going to be the first Premier of Eastern Nigeria? Who voted for the NCNC and Azikiwe to initially win the majority at Ibadan in 1952?  Was it not the Yorubas? Can the Igbos ever point to any similar concessions for the Yorubas in their own enclave?  If it exists let them say it if there is any. I am more than willing to learn.
 
The Yorubas have been great supporters of the Igbos for as long as any of us can remember. The NCNC led by Azikiwe have always won in Ibadan, Ilesha and Akure Metropolis even in Awolowo days? Akure as I recall was among the Yoruba towns begging the Igbos to not return to the East because they were guaranteed their safety in Akure and not one of their abandoned properties in Akure were taken over after they left Akure during the war. The properties were all kept safe for them till after the war, Compare that with what happened to the Igbo’s abandoned properties in Port Harcourt and much of River’s State after the war was over!
 
I am offended that Chinua Achebe has applied such a wide brush to use his book to chastise Awolowo and all the Yorubas as pursuing an agenda to suppress and humiliate the Igbos. That indictment is not supported by any reality check. It is sad that very few things are documented in Nigeria. There is no substitute for documented history. Those who know Awolowo very well would realize that he had political ambition to rule Nigeria but certainly not at the expense of the Igbos or any other tribe in Nigeria.

Awolowo predicted long time ago that the minority Ijaws are going to rule Nigeria. The prediction has come to pass with the coronation of Jonathan. Awolowo was fighting for Democracy and development and purposeful leadership to take root in Nigeria and not a one party dictatorship where the blind will be leading the blind. If Chinua Achebe reads Awolowo’s “Path to Nigerian Freedom” the “Voice of Reason” and The Peoples’ Republic he would appreciate that Awolowo was totally above those petty ethnic jealousies and squabbles. He wanted a Nigeria we all can be proud of, with Freedom for all and Life more abundant just like he did for the old Western Region.

I wish Awolowo were still alive to defend himself. I knew Obafemi Awolowo. Obafemi Awolowo was in many ways my mentor. I worked under him very closely for a year in the Federal Ministry of Finance. I was born into the Action Group, my father was one of the foundation pillars of the Action Group in the defunct Western Nigeria and in Akure the Ondo State Capital. Nigeria would never know a fighter and a braver Nigerian leader who fears nobody and will tell you his mind, come rain or shine. Awolowo was never a leader to be taken for granted or taken lightly. He drove himself far much harder than he drove others. Awolowo would look you straight in the face and tell you not what he thought you wanted to hear but what you needed to hear loud and clear.
 
I witnessed a little bit of that when in 1974 or 1975 he addressed a Convocation at the University that now bears his name. I personally prepared the first draft of the speech he was supposed to read as Chancellor of the University. I passed on the draft of that speech for clearance thru my then Deputy Permanent Secretary, Alhaji Aminu Saleh  who passed on the draft to late Abdul Azeez Attah the Permanent Secretary who made a few cosmetic changes before passing the draft to Obafemi Awolowo as Federal Commissioner for Finance and Deputy Chairman of the Federal Executive Council at the time.
 
We were all expecting Awolowo to read our draft on the Convocation Day. Awo did not use a single word from the draft. He read the speech he himself had prepared without clearing it with Dodan Barracks or General Yakubu Gowon, his boss at the time. Awolowo was the only Federal Commissioner who could have done that without being queried by anybody. It took a lot of courage and hard work for him to do that because the speech he read was totally devoted to the 1973 or 1974 Census conducted by the Yakubu Gowon Government. Awolowo demolished the Census as dead on arrival because “it has defied all the known rules and norms of Demography in the whole world “ to use Awolowo’s exact words at the Convocation.
 
I have never in my life seen anything like that. The late President Leopold Senghor of Senegal and Prime Minister late Eric Williams of Trinidad and Tobago were in the audience to be honored by the University and so was Yakubu Gowon himself. By that single stroke Obafemi Awolowo killed the Census that day. When Murtala Mohammed took over from Gowon in 1975, one of his first actions as the new Head of State was to annul the Census altogether and to order a recount. He, Murtala Mohammed, had lifted verbatim part of Awolowo’s speech in so doing.

It is not for fun that the Ikemba himself, Odumegwu Ojukwu who had shown so much respect for Awolowo by describing “Awo as the best President Nigeria never had” I don’t know what Chinua Achebe is talking about. If the Ikemba has shared the views canvassed by Professor Achebe in this controversial book, he most certainly would have said so without mincing words.

 I have personally read a narrative of Rudolf Okonkwo’s interview with the Ikemba carried verbatim by the Sahara Reporters before the Ikemba’s death. If the Ikemba truly believed that Awolowo was to blame for all the genocidal policies against Biafra, he would have said so without any doubt. Awolowo was neither the head of the Federal Government nor the head of the Military when the genocide occurred. He was the Federal Commissioner and the Deputy Chairman to Gowon in the Federal Executive Council at the time.

The policy was a joint decision of the Federal Executive Council at the time. It is totally disingenuous of Professor Achebe to now put the blame on Awolowo as if Awo was Head of Government. I totally reject that attempt.
.
  Awolowo as Federal Commissioner for Finance had managed the finances of Nigeria at the time with distinction making sure that Nigeria did not borrow a penny to prosecute that war. He did so by persuading the Federal Executive Council to stop wasting money by creating white elephant missions abroad while the nation was engaged in a very expensive and destructive civil war. His colleague Okoi Arikpo could easily have condemned Awolowo for dabbling into the affairs of his Ministry at the time. He did not do so like because he knew Awolowo was right to champion such a cause and to master-mind and influence the implementation of that policy with clock-like precision.
 
That was Awo for all of us during his entire public life. Nigeria was blessed to have a man of his caliber managing the nation’s finances during the civil war. By the same token Awolowo personally confided in me when I worked under him about his rational for telling General Yakubu Gowon it made no sense for his Government to continue to prolong the war and to continue to enrich the pockets of all the war commanders who did not want the war to end at all because they were substantially benefiting from it.
 
If the war had continued beyond 3 to 5 or more years, the Biafra and Nigeria side would have lost a lot more than the 2 million Chinua Achebe wants Awolowo to be crucified for. Chinua Achebe has completely forgotten that Awolowo was an economist and a lawyer by training and profession. He realized that the Law of diminishing returns had already set in and it was his duty and responsibility as Finance Minister to stop the hemorrhage and he did by asking why it made sense to continue to actively feed the Biafran troops while they continue to have access to fresh supplies of arms and food supplies from Ivory Coast, Gabon, and one or two countries openly supporting Biafra at the time.
 
America, right now, has unleashed very tough and harsh economic sanctions on Iran today because they don’t want Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. Only God can tell how many Iranians are dying today from those sanctions or how many Libyans died when NATO forces led by America cut off supplies to Libyan troops and when America started giving drones to the Libyan opposition to topple Moammar Ghadafi.

When there is a war, compassion has to take a back seat. That is the plain truth that Awolowo as a leader clearly understood. Very few rational people would fault Awolowo for raising the points he has raised as the effective manager of the Nigerian finances at the time. Awolowo’s decision to persuade the Federal Government to all of a sudden change the Nigerian Currency half way thru the war so as not to allow Biafra to continue to spend the money they have looted from the Enugu branch of the Central Bank was exactly the right thing to do. The decision had forced the Biafra to go print her own money which was not internationally recognized at the time. Once Nigeria took away their financial capacity to   continue the war, their Commander-in-Chief Odumegwu Ojukwu had to know it was time to end the war and he did as a rational leader. That was exactly what happened.
 
I can understand Chinua Achebe complaining out of sympathy for his own people but for him to then take the quantum leap and start putting all the blame on Obafemi Awolowo and the Yorubas leaving out General Gowon and the Northerners who started the war as less blameless is a total outrage as far as I am concerned. It is even a worse outrage that General Yakubu Gowon and many of his commanders who are still alive and many of the northerners who started and justified the pogrom against the Igbos in the North would not stand up to put defend Obafemi Awolowo who is no longer in a position to defend himself. One would expect the Yoruba war commanders like Benjamin Adekunle, General Adeyinka Adebayo, General Olusegun Obasanjo, General Alani Akinrinade who are still alive to come out in defense of Obafemi Awolowo and the Yorubas if the northern war commanders and Yakubu Gowon are too timid to do so .

 I would be the first to admit that Awolowo, like every human being, is not perfect. But if you put all Nigerian leaders on a ranking scale, Awolowo without any question has proved himself to be a leader of consequence in Nigeria and a democrat without blemish. His track record in the old West has proved just that. That is why the man would continue to loom larger than life even in death.

When he started the free education and free health program in the old West in 1955 many nihilists said the program would not work. When it started working, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe tried the same concept in the former Eastern region. The whole thing collapsed in less than 3 years. Many Igbo and Hausa parents relocated to the old West to take full advantage of free education for their children. Awolowo did not stop them. All he did was to find a way to sustain and consolidate the program by creating what he called Modern Schools to absorb the excess from Awolowo schools.
 
Sad to say, Boko Haram is thriving today in much of the North and spreading like bush fire in the Harmattan because the northern leaders had failed to do for their own people what Obafemi Awolowo was able to do for the Yorubas. Awolowo had done what he had to do as a leader and I take off my hat for him. Let the chips fall where they may, Awolowo is not the villain that the learned Professor wants to make him with his new book written in flawless language as usual.
      I rest my case.           
Saharareporters

Merger: Tinubu won’t fail us - CPC

Written by Olawale Rasheed

The Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) has reaffirmed its confidence in the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) over ongoing merger talks between the two parties, affirming that “Senator Tinubu will not fail us.”
Responding to the  allegation of hobnobbing with President Goodluck Jonathan by Senator Tinubu, the National Publicity Secretary of  CPC, Mr Rotimi Fashakin, told the Nigerian Tribune that his party trusted the ACN leader despite reports that the ACN might not be committed to the merger talks.
“We in the CPC believe that the merger is irreversible. We believe the ACN  is a close ally and we believe Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu will not fail us in the ongoing efforts to build a formidable party to dethrone PDP,” Fashakin said.
NigerianTribune

2015: Is Jonathan Eligible to Contest?

Goodluck Jonathan

Amid rumours that President Goodluck Jonathan may seek a second term in office in 2015, one question that needs to be asked is: Is he eligible to contest the election at all? This is what a Federal High Court in Abuja will determine tomorrow. In this report, Davidson Iriekpen reviews the arguments, both for and against

Barring any last minute adjournment, a Federal High Court in Abuja will, in the next 24 hours, decide whether President Goodluck Jonathan can seek re-election in the 2015 presidential election. The presiding judge, Justice Mudashiru Oniyangi, had in July fixed the date for judgment after listening to the arguments of the counsels.

As 2015 is fast approaching, the issue has been a subject of controversy. It actually started immediately Jonathan was elected President and sworn in on May 29, 2011. Jonathan was elected Vice-President and sworn in on May 29, 2007 alongside his boss, the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. The tenure was for a term of four years subject to another term of four years.

Yar’Adua, whose tenure was to end in 2011, was President until on May 5, 2010 when he passed on. This, constitutionally, brought Jonathan on board as president and to complete Yar’Adua’s remaining 12 months of the four years tenure.  On the completion of that term, Jonathan contested and won the 2011 presidential election and was sworn in on May 29, 2011.

Soon after he was sworn in, the controversy of whether he is eligible to contest the 2015 came up. This had compelled a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr. Cyriacus Njoku, to approach the court with a suit seeking to stop Jonathan from seeking re-election in 2015.

Njoku is asking the court to declare that Jonathan’s tenure of office began on May 6, 2010 when his first term began. He also urged the court to hold that Jonathan's two terms should end on May 29, 2015 having taken his second oath of office on May 29, 2011.
Consequently, he urged the court to determine whether in the light of the express provisions of section 137(1) (b) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, president Jonathan can be administered the presidential oath of office for the third time.

The plaintiff also wants the court to hold that by virtue of Section 136 (1) (b) of the Constitution, no person (including Jonathan) should take the oath of allegiance and the oath of office prescribed in the Seventh Schedule to this Constitution more than twice. He also wanted an order of injunction restraining Jonathan from further contesting or attempting to vie for President after May 29, 2015 when his tenure should by the constitution, end.

He also asked the court to determine “whether Section 135(2) of the Constitution, which specifies a period of four years in office for the President, is only available or applicable to a person elected on the basis of an actual election or includes one in which a person assumes the position of President by operation of law, as in the case of Jonathan.

“Whether Section 137(1) (b) of the Constitution, which provides that a person shall not be qualified for election to the office of President, if he has been elected to such office at any two previous elections, applies to the first defendant, who first took the oath of office as substantive President on May 6, 2010 and took a second oath as President on May 29, 2011.”

That aside, Njoku sought a declaration that “the President’s tenure of office began on May 6, 2010 when his first term began and his two terms shall end on May 29, 2015 after taking his second oath of office on May 29, 2011; and by virtue of Section 136 (1) (b) of the Constitution, no person (including the first defendant) shall take the oath of allegiance and the oath of office prescribed to in the Seventh Schedule to this Constitution more than twice.

He beseeched the court for an order of injunction restraining the PDP from further sponsoring or attempting to sponsor the first defendant as candidate for election to the office of the President in the 2015; and an order directing the third defendant, INEC, from accepting the name of the first defendant where sponsored by his party again to run for president in the 2015 presidential election to be supervised and conducted by the third defendant (INEC). Others joined in the suit are the PDP and INEC.

However, Jonathan through his counsel, Kelechi Normeh, in a preliminary objection, asked the court to discountenance the suit. The lawyer who was holding brief of Ade Okeaya-Inneh (SAN) described the suit as frivolous and vexatious and meant to make the court to labour in futility because the suit was purely an academic exercise.

Normeh also urged the court to hold that the suit did not disclose any reasonable cause of action. In his submissions, he argued that Jonathan was currently doing his first term of four years in office as the President of Nigeria as provided by the 1999 Constitution as amended.

“President Jonathan’s status and position is formidably backed by the1999 Constitution. The constitution of Nigeria only makes provisions for a president to contest for not more than two terms of four years each. The constitution recognises the President’s tenure of office to be four years."

He said Jonathan had not indicated or announced anywhere whether in words or in writing that he would contest for the presidential election in 2015. Even at that, the counsel argued: “The late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua contested and won the presidential elections conducted in 2007 for a term of four years. He was the President from May 29, 2007 until sometime in May 2010 when he passed on. Yar’Adua’s four years was to end in 2011.”

He further told the court that on May 6, 2010, Jonathan was sworn in as the president after the demise of Yar’Adua thereby completing Yar’Adua’s 12 months of the four year tenure and that it was the first time Jonathan is coming to power as the president of Nigeria through a conducted election wherein he was voted as the presidential candidate of his party, the PDP.

Also in a preliminary objection, counsel to the PDP, Christopher Paul, urged the court to dismiss Njoku’s suit. He said Njoku lacks the locus standi to institute the suit. The counsel argued that even if Jonathan had made up his mind to contest, his aspiration in 2015 would not jeopardise any other Nigerian’s interest.

Paul explained that contrary to the depositions by the plaintiff in paragraphs 4, 7 and 8 of the said affidavit, the first defendant (Jonathan) would only be completing his first term of office as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in May 2015.

“The first defendant has contested election as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria only once, and that is at the April 2011 general election. Even if the first defendant vies for President in 2015, the plaintiff and other eligible Nigerians would not be denied the opportunity of taking a shot at the presidency in 2015.

But counsel to Njoku, Osuagwu Ugochukwu, raised two questions for determination by the court. These are: “Whether Section 135(2) of the Constitution which specifies a period of four years in office for the President is only available or applicable to a person elected on the basis of an actual election. Or does it include one in which a person assumes the position of President by operation of law as in the case of Jonathan.”

He further contended that whether Section 137(1) (b) of the 1999 Constitution which provides that a person shall not be qualified for election to the office of President if he has been elected to such office at any two previous elections applies to Jonathan “because he first took an oath of office as substantive President on May 6, 2010 and took a second oath of office as President on May 29, 2011."
He therefore prayed the court not to dismiss the suit, but hear it on its merit. He wants the court to give an order of injunction restraining Jonathan from further contesting or attempting to vie for President after May 29, 2015, when his tenure shall by the Nigerian Constitution end.

Remarkably, this is the second time Njoku is dragging President Jonathan to court with a view to thwarting his political ambitions. He had in August 2010, attempted to stop the PDP from allowing Jonathan to participate in the PDP presidential primaries of January 2011.

Njoku, from Zuba Ward in Gwagwalada Area Council of Abuja and with PDP registration number 1622735, urged the court to ask the PDP to respect its principle on zoning formula in line with Article 7.2(c) of the party’s constitution.

He insisted that the declaration of Jonathan (third defendant) to contest the presidency on the PDP platform was contrary to Article7.2 (c) of the 2009 Constitution of the PDP, as amended.

But the Chief Judge of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court, Justice Lawan Gummi, dismissed the zoning suit and thus paved the way for Jonathan to emerge PDP’s flag-bearer in the last general election.

Though, the Yar’Adua-Jonathan change of guard was the first time in the history of the country at the federal level, it is certainly not the first time it is happening at the state level. When the Governor of Yobe State, Alhaji Mamman Ali who was elected in 2007 died after two years in office, his then deputy, Alhaji Ibrahim Geidam served out his tenure before contesting afresh in 2011. Today, he is strongly looking forward to contesting again in 2015.

His argument is that, he merely served out the tenure of his late boss.
But outside the courtroom, analysts have divergent views on the issue. While a lot of them feel Jonathan does not have the constitutional right to seek another mandate from the Nigerian electorate come 2015, others feel otherwise.

For instance, a constitutional lawyer, Mr. Sabastine Hon (SAN), is of the view that President Jonathan is not constitutionally barred from contesting the 2015 presidential election. But others feel otherwise, toeing Njoku’s argument that he had been sworn in twice and as such does not need to come back again, constitutionally.

Hon submitted that the constitution does not bar him from contesting if he so wishes. He argued that because the President took the first oath of office as a mid-term or as inter mid-term successor to his late boss, Yar Adua, he is eligible to contest the election if he so chooses.

The constitutional lawyer explained that Jonathan did not set out to become the president at the initial stage, stressing that he was only elected as the deputy to the late Yar’Adua, adding that as vice-president, the constitution requires him to step into the position of President. It was still the same mandate.

“Can we say in all sincerity that the first two years that he occupied that seat he was the man in driving seat? He was not; he was only deputizing for the man in the driving seat. If the president does not assign a deputy responsibility to the vice-president, he will be there redundant,” he said.

But former Military President, General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida has said the rash of activities around Jonathan’s suspected second term bid were unnecessary and diversionary. Babangida in an interview with THISDAY at the weekend said speculations on whether or not the President would seek re-election were unnecessary at this time in the life of the nation.

Babangida who did not delve into the constitutional slant of the argument said: “You can’t make a view or you can’t make opinion on something Jonathan didn’t say anything about. So it will be unfair. I think we should allow him to run the course; he has a job to do now. He has just been elected. I think it’s not up to one year or one year plus. So, he has got three more years. What he did or what he does will recommend him to the public and to the Nigerians.”

Certainly, except the unexpected happens, the court is sure to put paid to this debate tomorrow when it would decide whether or not the President, based on constitutional and legal inferences, is eligible to seek re-election in the 2015 general election.

ThisDay