Ogbemudia, Akhigbe Battle Anenih

Party’s National Chairman Dr. Bamanga Tukur

Chuks Okocha in Abuja

The battle for the control of the Edo State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has now shifted to Abuja as a faction loyal to Dr. Samuel Ogbemudia and Admiral Mike Akhigbe (rtd) has urged the party’s National Chairman, Dr. Bamanga Tukur, to sack the faction loyal to Chief Tony Anenih.

The plot to remove the Anenih faction is hinged on the recent sack of the Adamawa executive that is loyal to Governor Murtala Nyako.
According to a letter to Tukur dated October 23 and jointly signed by Dr. Francis Omo-Osunde Iyasere and Solomon Ebuwa on behalf of Edo PDP stakeholders, they complained that it was undemocratic for Anenih to control the state chapter of PDP since he came from a senatorial zone that has only 15 per cent of the population of the state.
They said as the state is preparing for local government election, it has now become imperative to dissolve the state executive committee as their continued stay in office may spell doom for the party.

“For PDP to make remarkable impact in the forthcoming local government election, the right thing has to be done. And of course, if the right thing is done, indiscipline would have been totally eliminated from the party but if the right thing is not done, victory will again elude the party.
“To re-invigorate the party, as we earlier posited, is to first dissolve the present state and local government executive committees because they are not the true reflection of the interest of others leaders, including  Dr. S.O. Ogbemudia , Admiral Mike Akhigbe and others.”
They alleged that Anenih, the former chairman of the Board of Trustees, singlehandedly handpicked the present state executive committee without inputs from other stakeholders in the state.

“The present state, local government and ward executive committee were handpicked by Anenih, and of course, this cannot be said to be justifiable and true reflection of the interest of wider membership, as members of the committees were imposed.
“In our previous submission to you, we x-rayed the reason for the poor performances of PDP, in all the elections so far conducted in Edo State under the leadership of Chief Tony Anenih and his handpicked chairman, Chief Dan Orbih, without regard to the objection raised by Ogbemudia, Akhigbe and other key stakeholders.

“The time to act is now. The zone where Ogbemudia hails from, which is Edo South senatorial district accounts for 58 per cent of the population of the state while Akhigbe’s zone, which is Edo North senatorial district accounts for 27 per cent and Anenih, the central district senatorial accounts for 15 per cent.

The question is, should a zone which accounts for just 15 per cent continue to decide the fate of the majority in a democracy?,” it asked.
The Ogbemudia-Akhigbe faction also called for the suspension and the withdrawal of the list of board appointees submitted earlier from Edo State with a view to submitting an all inclusive list from the political gladiators.

ThisDay

ANPP Ready to Back Buhari as Alliance Candidate in 2015

Major-General Muhammadu Buhari

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja

The All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) yesterday offered to support the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) leader, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, should he emerge the candidate of a grand coalition being planned by opposition parties ahead of the 2015 polls.
It said backing Buhari was necessary for the success of the alliance to dislodge the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the next general election.

Buhari, who has been ambivalent as to whether he would contest for the presidency again after three unsuccessful attempts, had dumped the ANPP on whose platform he vied for the contest in his two previous bids.
After parting ways with his old party, he formed the CPC in 2010 and thereafter emerged its presidential candidate for the 2011 race.
ANPP National Chairman, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, told THISDAY in an exclusive interview that all those desirous of a change in the leadership of the country should rally round the opposition coalition to make it happen.

He said the party would be ready to support Buhari and other credible Nigerians as long as it is the consensus of the coalition parties.
“Who becomes the presidential candidate would come at the appropriate time and it is not what anyone will want to rush into. As for General Buhari, he is a man that has earned the respect of most Nigerians and we in ANPP will not hesitate to support his candidacy if he emerges as the choice of the coalition parties,” he said.

Onu's assertion is an affirmation of a similar position by the ANPP National Secretary, Alhaji Tijani Musa Tumsa, that the party would gladly yield its platform to Buhari in the next presidential election, if he so wishes.
Onu, however, said victory for the opposition coalition in the 2015 polls could only come under a free and fair electoral process.
He regretted that one major hindrance to the efforts of the party to win elections in the country has been the absence of free and fair elections.

He said without a transparent and credible electoral process, the efforts and aspirations of the opposition parties and indeed Nigerians who desire a change in leadership would not materialise.
“We are very interested in the issue of having a free and fair election, because if there is no free and fair election, it will be difficult for opposition parties to win elections and to form a government.

“Those who are in government will continue to act in a way that will prevent others from testing the will of the people.
“When the people elected through a free and fair process are in the office, then they would do well and will always remember that it is the people that put them there. They will be ready to use the public office for the common good,” he added.
The ANPP chairman stressed that the absence of free and fair elections had prevented the will of the people from manifesting through the elections and by extension has robbed the country of good governance.

On the state of affairs in the country, especially during its 52nd independence anniversary, Onu said though some remarkable achievements had been recorded, the last 13 years of the PDP-controlled Federal Government has witnessed low rate of development, while the poor implementation of national budgets has become a tradition of the ruling party.

ThisDay

Jonathan may back Oteh against N’Assembly

 by Olalekan Adetayo

Director-General, Securities and Exchange Commission, Ms. Arunma Oteh

The cold war between the executive and legislative arms of government may deepen, as there are indications that President Goodluck Jonathan may back the Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Arunma Oteh, against the National Assembly. The House had called for the sack of Oteh and the Director-General of the Bureau for Public Enterprises, Bola Onagoruwa.

The Senate, last week, adopted the report of its ad hoc committee on privatisation and commercialisation, which called for Onagoruwa’s removal for alleged gross incompetence and illegal and fraudulent sale of the five per cent of Federal Government’s residual shares in Eleme Petrochemicals Company Limited.

The House of Representatives had made a similar call on the President to sack Onagoruwa.

The  Lower Chamber of the National Assembly had accepted all the recommendations of the Ibrahim El Sudi-led ad hoc committee that investigated the near-collapse of the capital market, and called for the sack of Otteh, adding that she was unfit to hold the office.

Though a recent media report said the President might be planning a soft-landing for the two embattled officials by asking them to resign instead, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, said the powers to hire and fire officials were vested solely in the President. He accused the legislature of overstepping its boundary by dabbling in executive matters.

Abati, in an interview with our correspondent on Thursday, said it was against the tenets of democracy for executive power to be usurped by the legislative arm of government.

He said there would continue to be friction in the system if one arm of government continued to do the job of another arm.

He said, “The important thing to note is that respect for the principle of separation of powers is the heart of democracy.

“Legislators cannot be doing the work of the Executive. The power to hire and fire and delegate powers rests in the President.

“In a situation where the Legislature calls for the sack every day under the guise of oversight function, there will be confusion.

“We are not practising a parliamentary system of government in Nigeria. The Legislature can check the excesses of the Executive, but our legislators seem to be confusing a presidential system with parliamentary system.

“We must learn to respect the responsibilities and limits of powers given to institutions because there will be friction when one arm of government attempts to do the work assigned to another arm of government.

“Often times, the legislature oversteps its boundary by dabbling in Executive matters.”

If Jonathan refused to accede to the request of the lawmakers, this would not be the first time he would be doing so.

The President had earlier shunned a resolution of the House of Representatives asking him to come and brief the lawmakers on the efforts of his government to tackle insecurity in the country.

In his vote of thanks during the presentation of the 2013 Budget to the joint session of the National Assembly recently, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Aminu Tambuwwal, had frowned on Jonathan’s penchant for disregarding House resolutions, saying the country could only benefit if the two arms of government worked together to deliver their mandates.

“I am compelled however to state that the National Assembly is becoming increasingly concerned about the disregard for its resolutions and public comments by certain functionaries of the Executive on same. I cite the Senate Resolution on the Bureau of Public Enterprises, the House Resolution on the state of insecurity of the nation, requesting Mr. President to visit and brief the House, the House of Representatives Resolution on the Securities and Exchange Commission, the concurrent Resolution of the two Chambers on Bakassi among others. This does not promote cordial relationship between the Executive and Legislature and consequently stability in the polity,” Tambuwwal had said.

Currently, the two arms of government are also at loggerheads over the oil price benchmark for the 2013 Budget.

While government had pegged the oil price for the 2013 budget at $75 per barrel, members of the National Assembly wanted the government to jeck it up to $80 per barrel.

Punch

Police beg family of slain girl for settlement

 by Adelani Adepegba

Lucy Ukpong
| credits:

The police have pleaded with the family of Lucy Ukpong, a sales girl that was shot dead by policemen from the FCT Police Command, for an amicable settlement of the matter.

It was gathered that the parents of the deceased and other relations had met with some police officers over the killing of the girl, but the meeting was not conclusive on how the matter should be settled.

Our correspondent learnt that the family were considering settling the matter through judicial process or payment of compensation by the police.

This  revelation came just just as the family had concluded arrangements to collect Lucy’s remains from Garki Hospital on Friday (today) for burial in Akwa Ibom State on Saturday.

Lucy, a sales girl at a photography shop in Apo, Abuja was hit in the chest by bullets allegedly fired by policemen from the FCT Special Anti-robbery Squad on October 12. Three others sustained gunshot wounds during the incident.

The 20-year-old girl was inside the shop when she was killed by policemen who had come to enforce the order on demolition of illegal structures by officials of development control department. The deceased had only spent a month on her job before the incident.

Findings however indicated that the policemen were on an illegal duty as the Abuja Metropolitan Management Council said they were not authorised to enforce any demolition exercise during the period.

The residents of the area had resisted moves to carry out the demolition exercise, leading to a confrontation and sporadic gunshots by the policemen.

A family source told our correspondent on Thursday that the Federal Capital Territory Administration gave the family N1.8m for funeral expenses while the FCT Police  Command provided coffin, ambulance and what it called logistics support to the family.

The source stated that the police were begging Lucy’s family for an amicable settlement of the matter, though the family members were yet to accept their entreaties.

The source said, “The police have been pleading with the family to drop the case, but they (family members) are yet to take a position on the matter, they want to bury the girl first before taking a stand on the next point of action.

“Some family members want the police to pay compensation for killing the girl, but the police have not made any offer for now.”

The FCT Police Public Relations Officer, Doris England, could not be reached for comments as she did not respond to calls to her phone.

Punch

Ribadu report leakage planned to embarrass govt – Presidency

 by Everest Amaefule, Olalekan Adetayo and Stanley Opara 

Mallam Nuhu Ribadu
| credits: leadership.ng

The leakage of the report of the Mallam Nuhu Ribadu-led committee that probed oil and gas transactions covering 2002 to 2012 and which uncovered widespread corruption and abuse of processes, is meant to embarrass the government.

The Presidency said this while reacting to the publication of excerpts from the report by an international news agency, Reuters, and local media outfits on Wednesday.

The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, said the excerpts from the report could not be taken as an official document because the committee had not formally submitted its report to the appropriate authority.

Abati said as far as the Federal Government was concerned, the report in the public domain was suspicious.

He said if indeed the published report was the committee’s genuine work, whoever leaked it to the press did not mean well and was out to embarrass the government.

He said, “It is strange that government will set up a committee, that report has not been submitted to the authorities that set up the committee and the report will be found on the pages of newspapers.

“The report cannot be taken as an official document because the proper procedure is for committees set up by the government to submit their reports to the government. In principle, this report in the public domain is suspicious because it was not submitted to the appropriate authority.

“If every committee set up by government goes above the system to leak reports, there can be chaos. Whoever leaked the report, if indeed the report is genuine, does not mean well. Whoever is behind it is out to embarrass the government.”

When asked whether by his submission, the Federal Government might probe the alleged leakage, Abati said the first step was for members of the committee to come out and confirm whether it was indeed their report.

One of our correspondents learnt that the Senate Committees on Petroleum (Upstream) and Gas might subject the outcome of the report to further investigation, following the gravity of claims in it.

The Chairman, Senate Committee on Gas, Mrs. Nkechi Nwogu, told our correspondent on the telephone on Thursday that the committee would want to look at the report to find out the true position of things as contained in it.

Nwogu said, “With all these revelations, I can assure you that the Senate in particular will not want to sweep such accusations under the carpet.

“I am sure the Senate will want to find out things for itself.”

However, the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, said there was no plan to cover up the findings of the committee, but that another panel had been set up to look into the contents.

Alison-Madueke had said while reacting to Reuters enquiries that a committee had been set up by the Ministry of Petroleum Resources to look into differences in perspective on the Ribadu committee report.

She had said, “We have set up a team that is looking at them across the board to see if there is a difference in opinion or a difference in perspective.

“This team will complete its work and submit a comprehensive report in the next 10 days.”

The minister’s statement had fuelled speculations that the new committee would remove aspects that the government was not comfortable with from the report before making it public.

However, in a telephone interview with one of our correspondents in Abuja on Thursday, the spokesman of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Mr. Kingsley Agha, said no cover up was intended.

He said, “You cannot cover up the report of the committee. You cannot cover up the report of a committee made up of people of integrity. They will not agree to that. The minister does not have anything to hide; otherwise, she would not have set up the committee.

“It is too early for me to speak on the report since it has not gone to the President and I have not seen it.”

The Acting Group General Manager, Public Affairs, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mr. Fidel Pepple, said a reconciliation committee was necessary.

“When reports like this are produced, it is normal practice to reconcile and clarify aspects of it that may not be clear,” he said.

Reuters had on Wednesday quoted extensively from the report, which it said was confidential.

The Reuters report was widely quoted in the local media on Thursday.

The 146-page report, according to the international news agency, had stated that a total of $183m (N28.73bn) in signature bonuses paid by oil companies to the federation was missing.

The report said that Ministers of Petroleum Resources between 2008 and 2011 handed out seven discretionary oil licences, but that $183m in signature bonuses was missing from the deals.

Three of the oil licences were said to have been awarded since the current minister, Alison-Madueke, took up her position in 2010.

Punch

Why Nigeria is yet to win graft war – SAN

By Soni Daniel
 ABUJA — A senior member of the inner bar, Chief Chris Uche (SAN) said, yesterday, that it would be difficult for Nigeria to win the current war against corruption given intrinsic relationship between politics and graft.
Uche said in an exclusive interview with Vanguard that neither the establishment of a special court to try corrupt persons nor the change of type of government in Nigeria could halt the menace of graft.
According to him, corruption and politics cannot be easily separated and it will amount to a waste of efforts and resources by establishing a special court to try suspected corrupt persons without first addressing the forces that promote graft in the country.
The legal practitioner said: “We cannot solve the problem of corruption without adopting a holistic approach towards its elimination. Corruption has eaten deeply into the fabric of the nation’s life and it requires corresponding tough measures and political will to uproot it from the foundation.
“If you look at the way corruption is practised in Nigeria and the way politics is practised in the country, you will come to the inescapable conclusion that corruption is the oil that lubricates the machinery of politics in Nigeria.
“So, it is a siamese twin with politics in Nigeria. It is extremely difficult to separate corruption from politics in Nigeria. It is difficult to practice politics without corruption in Nigeria and it is very difficult to separate one from the other.
“We must remove all those things that make people to see public office as a do or die matter. We have to deliberately restructure public office to really be a platform for rendering service to the people.
“We have to restructure political offices in such a way that the capacity to steal public funds is limited, monitored and scrutinised.  Until that is done everybody will continue to see politics as a goldmine.”

On plea bargain

Although he supports the use of plea bargain in the Nigerian judicial system as a means of preventing prolonged and expensive legal prosecution, Uche lamented that the concept had also been largely abused in Nigerian to the extent that it had turned from “plea bargain to money bargain.”

Constitution amendment

On the current efforts to  amend the Nigerian Constitution, the legal practitioner described the move as a distraction by politicians to buy time and get Nigerian busy while they prepare for their political interest in 2015.
Uche noted: “To me, constitution amendment is not necessary. That is not fundamental. That is not the cause of our problem.  I don’t support constitution amendment at all.
“I see it as a distraction and something to keep us busy between now and 2015.  We have no problem with the constitution the way it is.  What we have problem with is the manner in which it is operated.

On the way forward

On how to move Nigeria forward, he appealed to President Goodluck Jonathan to do all within his powers to improve infrastructure in the country so that other sectors could strive.
He admonished the President to think passionately about transforming the nation to leave a legacy for generations yet unborn.
Uche cautioned: “One thing we must recognise, though, is that governance is not about an individual. We cannot lay on the feet of President Jonathan the blames for all we are suffering now.
“Understandably, most of these problems did not begin with him. But then, he is our figure-head and the buck stops on his table. So, he has to think passionately about transforming this country. This is a very unique opportunity he has to do something about changing things between now and 2015.
“Let him not allow those around him to keep him busy thinking about the next election and the opposition. Let him think of how to make sure that we have good roads and steady electricity, good educational and health facilities.”
“These are the areas he should concentrate on. If he can change these areas he can say at the end of his tenure that he indeed had a transformation agenda that served the people of Nigeria well and history will judge him well.”
Vanguard

‘Anything Japanese can do, Nigerians can do better

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…says 20-year-old student who designed amateur solid rocket propellant
From ALOYSIUS ATTAH, Onitsha
Are you one of those worried that our universities do not produce researchers and innovators anymore? Maybe you have lost hope that nothing good will ever come out of our ivory towers again, and because of that, are making plans to send your children abroad for higher education. There is hope. The indomitable spirit and ingenuity of Nigerians that were on display during Nigerian Civil War when Biafrans produced “shore batteries” rockets, “ogbunigwe” (the dread mass killer) and other war arsenals are still present with us. This was in evidence, recently, during projects defense organized by the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nigeria Nsukka.
A 20-year-old of the department called Idoko Modestus Chijioke stunned the panel of assessors when he presented an amateur solid rocket propellant as his own project. His lecturers not only marveled at his ingenuity, his supervisor, Dr. J. A. Alhassan, was so proud of him that he called on the federal government to assist the young genius to achieve the best so as to conquer hisworld. . The amateur rocket has PVC-pipe as the motor casing, aluminum as the nose cone, 1/2-inch pvc-cover, aluminum and a 1/2-inch diameter pipe as the nozzle.
The propellant is made up of 325 grams of potassium nitrate (oxidizer) and 175 grams of sorbitol (sugar), making a total of 500 grams. The PVC-pipe is of 3/4-inch diameter, and 65 cm in length. The rocket motor igniter is a mixture of potassium nitrate and charcoal at 80/20 ratio, to form it into a black powder (gun powder) Amateur rocketry is also known as experimental rocketry. The project design objective according to Chijioke was to test the workability of a potassium nitrate (oxidizer) and sorbitol (fuel) blended into a KN-SB propellant for the amateur rocket made with local materials. The rocket which was launched successfully on one of the hill-tops behind the university attained an estimated height of 35m in flight.
In a chance encounter with this reporter, Chijioke shed more light on how he came up with the idea for the project. “ I came up with this project because of a childhood dream of being a rocket scientist,” he said, “and this particularly led me into the Department of Physics and Astronomy, of UNN, to get a good grasp of the physics/science of rockets and an understanding of astronomy for which rocket is basically built.” Asked what challenges he encountered in the course of carrying out the project, the soft spoken young man said he cannot point to any because according to him, “life is all about challenges but with focus and determination, success will surely come.”
“Some people around me thought this was not possible,” he added. “But this only made me determined to prove them wrong. The other challenges were normal in amateur rocketry as several trials were made and several failures recorded. But at last the design objective was obtained. I have dreams and tall ambitions. One of them is to be in space one day.
I only pray that my dreams will get support both from government and well meaning individuals so that they will be actualized.” In a chat with Education Review, Alhassan, his project supervisor, said that, through his project, young Chijioke has demystified science. “The solid rocket propellant constructed by Idoko Chijioke, though an adaptation of an amateur astronomer experiments, is original. He fabricated the rocket from locally available materials from our environment.
Whenever we hear of rockets, our minds by reflex action go to the technologically advanced world. Chijioke has demystified science by his effort. If he is properly motivated and equipped, he can break the ice in scientific world. There is hope for Nigeria ’s national transformation if we can support and fund scientific innovations like my student has done” he said.
TheSun