Nigeria’s reform of its state oil company will be cosmetic without cutting corrupt ties

Matthew Page

March 11, 2016 Quartz africa

Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation offices in Abuja (Reuters/Afolabi Sotunde/Files)

For decades, Nigeria’s state oil company, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has been the leading symbol of official corruption and a seemingly boundless source of political patronage. Faced with plummeting global oil prices and dwindling state coffers, president Muhammadu Buhari cannot afford to allow the NNPC, under a veneer of reform, to operate much as it did before. Yet nine months into his term, NNPC continues to do business with several disreputable, politically-connected companies.

Last August, Buhari tasked Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, a Harvard-trained lawyer and former general counsel for ExxonMobil Africa, with fixing a broken NNPC. A few months later, Buhari dual-hatted Kachikwu as minister of state (deputy minister) for petroleum, giving him enormous power over Nigeria’s oil industry. While Buhari kept the position of petroleum minister for himself, he is unlikely to be able to concentrate on the role given his many other responsibilities.

 Besides producing crude oil, NNPC makes petroleum policy, generates its own budget, and regulates the industry: all clear conflicts of interest. 

In a surprise announcement last week, Kachikwu rolled out a plan to restructure NNPC into seven independent business units. Though the business rationale behind this move is unclear, Kachikwu’s previous decisions, such as shaking up the senior management of NNPC and its subsidiaries and cutting the number of short-term crude marketing contract recipients, have received widespread praise. Under Kachikwu, fewer featherweight front companies are being allowed to market NNPC crude. He has also promised to replace corruption-prone crude oil swaps and offshore processing agreements with more transparent and cost-effective arrangements. While laudable, these changes only partially address NNPC’s biggest flaws as outlined in a comprehensive report by the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI) published last year. They also disguise that NNPC maintains relationships with many of the same companies and individuals accused of corruption under the 2012 Fuel Subsidy scandal and similar schemes.

Same old perennial contracts

The two most significant contract decisions made by Kachikwu thus far suggest that it is business as usual at the NNPC—at least for now. Looking at the list of companies he awarded crude oil lifting contracts or granted permission to import refined petroleum products (e.g. gasoline and jet fuel), many have clear links to political power brokers or have been connected to fraud cases: They include:

• Matrix Energy. A 2012 investigation identified Matrix as one of several oil traders who fraudulently charged the government up to 23.1 billion naira ($11.5 million) in refined petroleum products it never delivered. The company’s CEO Abdulkabir Aliu was arrested for fraud, though the status of his case is unclear. In late 2015, Matrix nevertheless received a license to import refined products.

• Northwest Petroleum. Northwest CEO Winifred Akpani once served as comptroller and later executive director of Flame Petroleum, an oil trading company that Kachikwu operated from 1992 to 2001. One of Northwest’s three shareholders is Maria Katrina Investment Company, a mysterious corporate vehicle. Akpani, meanwhile, also serves on the board of a company controlled by Jide Omokore, an oil tycoon under investigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). In December it received an NNPC contract for crude oil lifting.

• Eterna Oil and Gas. In 2012, Eterna was charged by the EFCC with cheating the government out of 1.8 billion naira ($9 million) in fuel subsidies. Eterna is run by Mahmud Tukur, son of Bamanga Tukur, chairman of the People’s Democratic Party under president Jonathan. Even as Eterna and Tukur’s trial was still ongoing, the NNPC in December granted Eterna a crude oil lifting contract.

• Emo Oil. Emo Oil belongs to Emmanuel Ojei, a veritable éminence grise whose entrepreneurial skills are matched only by his ability to cultivate contacts with Nigeria’s top elites. Insiders credit Ojei with helping many former heads of state and other senior officials manage their finances for more than three decades. Emo received many crude oil lifting contracts over the years, in some cases without a formal contract. Other Ojei-owned companies, meanwhile, control stakes in multiple oil blocks. In December Emo also received an NNPC contract for crude oil lifting.

• Shorelink Oil and Gas. Shorelink is managed by Obamarije Stanley, allegedly the cousin of Reginald Stanley, a longtime NNPC official who was head of the NNPC’s downstream regulatory body, the Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), from 2011 to 2014. On Kachikwu’s watch, PPPRA renewed a lucrative importation license Shorelink may have received due to nepotism.

 Breaking up NNPC will not necessarily make it more profitable and could instead increase operational costs and make oversight difficult. 

Another toxic legacy inherited by the NNPC is the Strategic Alliance Agreement its exploration arm, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, concluded with Atlantic Energy Drilling Concept Limited, a company allegedly linked to former petroleum minister Diezani Allison-Madueke. Under the agreement, Atlantic helps fund the operating costs of eight oil blocks in exchange for rights to lift a portion of the oil they produce. Kachikwu could terminate this agreement, which reportedly disadvantages NNPC. He recently said that NNPC soon expected to conclude a deal in which a new partner will pay up to $1.3 billion to take over the Atlantic agreement. With oil prices low relative to operating costs, however, Kachikwu may fail to find a reputable buyer willing to renegotiate this deal on his terms.

Buhari’s Bigger Challenge

Nigerian Oil Minister Emmanuel Ibe Kachiwku(Reuters/Afolabi Sotunde)

Although Buhari undoubtedly wants to overhaul the country’s oil sector, NNPC appears to be dragging its feet. With global oil prices low and government finances under pressure, Buhari needs to carefully scrutinize NNPC decision making, including the latest unbundling plan. He should also ask his officials tough questions about shady arrangements inherited from his predecessor, such as the Atlantic Energy agreement and an opaque crude oil transportation contract criticized by industry experts.

But Buhari has a task greater than just stopping NNPC from falling back into bad habits: transforming Nigeria’s national oil company into a cost-effective, profit-driven, transparent institution. Creating 30 separate companies out of NNPC will not necessarily make them more profitable and could instead increase operational costs and make oversight more difficult. As it stands, NNPC receives far less government oversight than its global peers.

Besides producing crude oil, NNPC also makes national petroleum policy, generates its own budget, and regulates the petroleum industry: all clear conflicts of interest and practices unheard of elsewhere in the world. Buhari must take these important oversight roles away from NNPC (or its successor companies) and address the their deeper ills before time, inertia, and powerful elites long pampered by patronage conspire against him.

Buhari May Sack Rotimi Amaechi, Here’s Why (DETAILS)

by Chidinma Unigwe

Nigeria's Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi

Strong indications emerged over the weekend that President Muhammadu Buhari might consider sacking his Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, following serious pressure from foreign diplomats over his indictment for corruption by the Rivers State Judicial Commission of Inquiry.

The commission led by Justice George Omeregi was set up to investigate the sale of state assets and the consequent Whitepaper issued by the state government during his tenure as the governor.

The indications of Amaechi’s possible sack was informed by the supposed anti-corruption stance of the Buhari-led Federal Government which the foreign diplomats presume has been greatly compromised.

Also, Buhari was said to be reportedly disposed to easing out of office the current Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, Lawal Babachir and his Chief of Staff, Alhaji Abba Kyari following the reports about their disposition of corruption.

A Western diplomat said: “There is now increased and general erosion of confidence in the president’s ability to prosecute his administration’s anti-graft war.

“About five senior diplomats have had reason to pass similar observations to the presidency after the Rivers State government Whitepaper that indicted the Minister of Aviation, Amaechi over alleged corruption during his years as governor.

“If I can recall very vividly, they told the president that until people like Amaechi in his government are excused from government to defend the telling allegations against him, the corruption fight will not be taken seriously.”

The declaration by the diplomats he said was buoyed by a letter written by Governor Nyesom Wike to foreign missions and Embassies detailing findings and related documentary evidences including the government Whitepaper of the Justice George Omeregi commission probe report on the state’s finances during the Amaechi years as governor, according to reports.

Speaking to newsmen on behalf of Governor Nyesome Wike, the Rivers state’s Commissioner of Housing, Emma Okah, had last year disclosed that the state’s Attorney-General had been mandated to start all legal processes against Amaechi; a former military administrator of Rivers State, Brigadier Anthony Ukpo (Rtd) and some other former political office holders to refund over N97 billion allegedly misappropriated in the sale of the state’s valued assets.

A foreign diplomat who was privy to the matter said: “The president being a leader desirous of returning Nigeria to the path of sanity and prosperity contracted the consultants recommended by former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

“But the president gave them his own terms of reference which were not envisaged by his earlier understanding with Obasanjo.”

He said that the report concluded that the Buhari administration was better off when the President was working with permanent secretaries adding that he should have retained some of the “good and patriotic hands among them” instead of the almost clean sweep that sent all of them away leaving a wide vacuum in positive governance.

“They were effective either because they understood the workings of government very well given their experiences or they dreaded any tendency to act outside the directives of President Buhari.

“The president contracted a firm from the U.S. to assess the performance of his government and officials. The result is far from complimentary in respect to some officials, number one of which is the SGF, Engr. Lawal.

“The SGF’s supervisory role over the MDAs was also brought to question in the report; but it is surprising that the president has allowed him to stay this long after that report. I am aware too that somebody is being considered for that position.”

One of the instances mentioned in the consultant’s report is the sacking of heads of MDAs recently whereby other political appointees in such MDAs were left out of the action.

The source said: “Some departments and agencies’ staffers have expressed the worry that executive directors were left in office while chief executives of some agencies have been sacked by the present regime.

“The aggrieved staff argued that executive directors ought to have gone with the chief executives since they are all political appointees, stressing that the executive directors could not be excused from any impropriety that may have happened in such departments and agencies.

“The affected staff appealed to the president to as a matter of urgency sack the executive directors and probe their time in office.”

He said the case of the Chief of Staff is not different as his effectiveness as the bridge between the president and his aides alongside other federal, states and foreign governments’ officials has long been in doubt.

The source allegedly accused the ineffectiveness of the duo has contributed largely to the steep nose-dive of government in the past months.

My office not under threat, says Oyegun

Fresh facts have emerged on what the leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) discussed at their national caucus meeting on Tuesday. The meeting, which held at the new Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa, had President Muhammadu Buhari, his vice, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, leadership of the National Assembly, serving and past governors, among others, in attendance.

New Telegraph gathered that the leaders discussed the issue of appointments of party members into positions, party’s finances and the review of the party’s constitution to accommodate the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the party.

The state of the economy, the national budget and the crises in some state chapters of the party were among issues the party leaders discussed. A source stated that discussions focused on the appointment of members of the party into some positions by the Federal Government in a bid to reduce tension within the party. According to the source, it was agreed that more appointments would help the party settle down better as a political machine.

He said: “What happened was that we reviewed the performance of the party and also looked at the 2014 expenditure and also the budget of the party. “We also hammered on the issue of appointments.

If there are appointments, there would be less tension in the party.” State chapters of the party had submitted list of 50 members each for consideration for appointments into boards of federal agencies, commissions and parastatals.

The president is yet to constitute the boards and delay in appointing party members has heightened tension in APC. It was gathered that the caucus members agreed that the party’s constitution was a little bit defective on its BoT.

The members suggested the need to amend its constitution. A member of the caucus, who spoke with New Telegraph, stated that the caucus could not set up constitution review committee because it has no such mandate.

According to him, only the National Working Committee (NWC) or the National Executive Committee (NEC) can set up such. It was further learnt that the NEC, which holds today, would set up the constitution review committee.

The last time APC reviewed its constitution was 2014 to accommodate new entrants into the party and to allow them stand for elections. As previously reported by this newspaper, the party leaders were concerned by its finances.

The national chairman briefed the national caucus on the state of finance of the party, which is not encouraging. He, however, stated that the issue of replacement of the national chairman was not raised at the meeting. He rather said that the leaders agreed to go back to the spirit that made them to win elections last year. He said:

“I never heard anything like that. No! No!! No!!! What has the national chairman done for anybody to remove him? If the party loses election, was it the fault of the national chairman?” The security at the party’s national secretariat has been tightened ahead of today’s NEC meeting. Security men from the Presidential Villa were at the secretariat to assess the security situation and reorganise some. Meanwhile, Oyegun has denied reports that his position in the party was currently being threatened.

The APC chairman stated this in an interview with State House Correspondents after a meeting of the national caucus of the party with Buhari on Tuesday night at the presidential villa, Abuja. He said having led the NWC to such an important meeting, it was clear that he is still in charge of the party affairs. Oyegun said: “I am not aware that my office is under threat. I led the party to the State House. It amazes me, occasionally it annoys me.

“That is one of the things you have to endure when you are in a position like mine.” The party chairman explained that holding public office in Nigeria required a lot of patience. He told reporters that the national caucus of the party discussed all the challenges that have occurred since the elections. He said: “We did decide on the way forward. It was a very serious meeting that discussed serious issues that have to do with the progress of the party. Basically, we are expecting the budget to be out, and once that is done, implementation of our policies will start.

“That is what we will use to deliver on our promises to the people. So, we are waiting. “Skirmishes among party members are normal. We have set up a committee that is looking into all those issues and will resolve those issues.

“We don’t just recover money and spend it. We recover money and it will go into revenue, it will be deployed appropriately with the normal legislative approach.” On the performance of the party, he stressed that: “Don’t say one year into the present administration, count this year because this is the year we are presenting our budget and implementation will start.”

Asia’s city-statesman - Lee Kuan Yew’s memoirs

Asia’s city-statesman

The founder of Singapore, who died on March 23rd, turned the island into an economic success story while curbing democratic freedoms.

THERE was no vainglory in the title of the first volume of Lee Kuan Yew’s memoirs: “The Singapore Story”. Few leaders have so embodied and dominated their countries: Fidel Castro, perhaps, and Kim Il Sung, in their day. But both of those signally failed to match Mr Lee’s achievement in propelling Singapore “From Third World to First” (as the second volume is called). Moreover, he managed it against far worse odds: no space, beyond a crowded little island; no natural resources; and, as an island of polyglot immigrants, not much shared history. The search for a common heritage may have been why, in the 1990s, Mr Lee’s Singapore championed “Asian values”. By then, Singapore was the most Westernised place in Asia.
Mr Lee himself, whose anglophile grandfather had added “Harry” to his Chinese name, was once called by George Brown, a British foreign secretary, “the best bloody Englishman east of Suez”. He was proud of his success in colonial society. He was a star student in pre-war Singapore, and, after an interlude during the Japanese occupation of 1942-45, again at the London School of Economics (LSE) and Cambridge. He and his wife, Kwa Geok Choo, both got firsts in law.
When Geok Choo first appears in “The Singapore Story” it is as a student who, horror of horrors, beats young Harry in economics and English exams. Mr Lee always excelled at co-option as well as coercion. When he returned to Singapore in 1950, he was confident in the knowledge that she “could be a sole breadwinner and bring up the children”, giving him an “insurance policy” that would let him enter politics. He remained devoted to her. Before her death, when she lay bedridden and mute for two years, he maintained a spreadsheet listing the books he read to her: Lewis Carroll, Jane Austen, Shakespeare’s sonnets.

In his political life he gave few hints of such inner tenderness. Influenced by Harold Laski, a British academic whom he had met at the LSE, he was in the anti-colonial movement of the 1950s, and in Britain had campaigned for the Labour Party. But for him ideology always took second place to a pragmatic appreciation of how power works. He also boasted of his streetfighting prowess: “Nobody doubts that if you take me on, I will put on knuckle-dusters and catch you in a cul-de-sac.” He was a ruthless operator, manoeuvring himself into a position at the head of the People’s Action Party (PAP) to become Singapore’s first prime minister when self-governance arrived in 1959. He remained so for 31 years.
Just once in that time the steely mask slipped. Having led Singapore into a federation with Malaysia in 1963, Mr Lee led it out again when it was expelled in August 1965, with Malaysia’s prime minister accusing him of leading a state government “that showed no measure of loyalty to its central government”. For his part, he had become convinced that Chinese-majority Singapore would always be at a disadvantage in a Malay-dominated polity. Still he had believed in and worked for the merger all his life. Announcing its dissolution, he wept.
In compensation, he turned Singapore into a hugely admired economic success story. As he and his government would often note, this seemed far from the likeliest outcome in the dark days of the 1960s. Among the many resources that Singapore lacked was an adequate water supply, which left it alarmingly dependent on a pipeline from peninsular Malaysia, from which it had just divorced. It was beholden to America’s goodwill and the crumbling might of the former colonial power, Britain, for its defence. The regional giant, Indonesia, had been engaged in a policy of Konfrontasi—hostility to the Malaysian federation just short of open warfare—to stress that it was only an accident of colonial history that had left British-ruled Malaya and its offshoots separate from the Dutch-ruled East Indies, which became Indonesia.
Singapore as a country did not exist. “How were we to create a nation out of a polyglot collection of migrants from China, India, Malaysia, Indonesia and several other parts of Asia?” asked Mr Lee in retrospect. Race riots in the 1960s, in Singapore itself as well as in Malaysia, coloured Mr Lee’s thinking for the rest of his life. Even when Singapore appeared to outsiders a peaceful, harmonious, indeed rather boringly stable place, its government often behaved as if it were dancing on the edge of an abyss of ethnic animosity. Public housing, one of the government’s greatest successes, remains subject to ethnic quotas to prevent the minority Malays and Indians from coalescing into ghettoes.
That sense of external weakness and internal fragility was central to Mr Lee’s policies for the young country. Abandoned by Britain in 1971 when it withdrew from “east of Suez”, Singapore has always made national defence a high priority, although direct threats to its security have eased. Relations with Malaysia have frequently been fraught, but never to the point when a military conflict seemed likely. And Indonesia ended Konfrontasi in the mid-1960s. The formation in 1967 of the Association of South-East Asian Nations, with Mr Lee as one of the founding fathers, helped unite the region. Yet Singaporean men still perform nearly two years of national service in the armed forces. Defence spending, in a country of 5.3m, is more than in Indonesia, with nearly 250m; in 2014 it soaked up over one-fifth of the budget.
Singapore’s vulnerability also justified, for Mr Lee, some curtailment of democratic freedoms. In the early days this involved strong-arm methods—locking up suspected communists, for example. But it became more subtle: a combination of economic success, gerrymandering, stifling press controls and the legal hounding of opposition politicians and critics, including the foreign press. Singapore has had regular, free and fair elections. Indeed, voting is compulsory, though Mr Lee said in 1994 that he was “not intellectually convinced that one-man, one-vote is the best”. He said Singapore practised it because the British had left it behind. So he designed a system where clean elections are held, but it has also been almost inconceivable for the PAP to lose power.
The biggest reason for that has been its economic success: growth has averaged nearly 7% a year for four decades. But Mr Lee’s party has left nothing to chance. The traditional media are toothless; opposition politicians have been hounded into bankruptcy by defamation laws inherited from Britain; voters have faced the threat that, if they elect opposition candidates, their constituencies will get less money; constituency boundaries have been manipulated by the government. The advantage of Mr Lee’s system, proponents say, is that it introduced just enough electoral competition to keep the government honest, but not so much that it risks losing power. So it can look round corners on behalf of its people, plan for the long term and resist the temptation to pander to populist pressures.

Click for an expanded version of this graphic including a timeline history of Singapore

Mr Lee was a firm believer in “meritocracy”, or government by the most able, defined in large part by scholastic success. “We decide what is right. Never mind what the people think,” as he put it in 1987. His government’s ministers were the world’s best-paid, to attract talent from the private sector and curb corruption. Corruption did indeed become rare in Singapore. Like other crime, it was deterred in part by harsh punishments, ranging from brutal caning for vandalism to hanging for murder or drug-smuggling. As Mr Lee also said: “Between being loved and feared, I have always believed Machiavelli was right. If nobody is afraid of me, I’m meaningless.” As a police state, however, Singapore is such a success that you rarely see a cop.

A cool guy

In some ways, Mr Lee was a bit of a crank. Among a number of 20th-century luminaries asked by the Wall Street Journal in 1999 to pick the most influential invention of the millennium, he alone shunned the printing press, the internal combustion engine and the internet and chose the air-conditioner. He explained that, before A/C, people living in the tropics were at a disadvantage because the heat and humidity damaged the quality of their work. Now, they “need no longer lag behind”. Cherian George, a journalist and scholar, spotted in this a metaphor for Mr Lee’s style of government, and wrote one of the best books about it: “The air-conditioned nation: Essays on the politics of comfort and control”. Mr Lee made Singapore comfortable, but was careful to control the thermostat.
Singaporeans, seeing their island transform itself and modernise, seemed to accept this. But in 2011 the PAP did worse than ever in a general election (just 60% of the vote but 93% of the elected seats). Many thought change would have to come, and that the structure Mr Lee had built was unsuitable for the age of Facebook and the burgeoning of unbiddable networks. They began to chafe at the restrictions on their lives, no longer so convinced of Singapore’s fragility, and less afraid of the consequences of criticising the government.
They resented above all that many people, despite a much-vaunted compulsory savings scheme, did not have enough money for their retirement. And they blamed high levels of immigration for keeping their wages down and living costs up. This was a consequence of a unique failure among Mr Lee’s many campaigns to make Singaporeans change their ways. He succeeded in creating a nation of Mandarin speakers who are politer than they used to be and neither jaywalk nor chew gum; but he could not make them have more children. In the early 1980s he dropped his “stop at two” policy and started to encourage larger families among the better-educated. But, three decades later, Singaporean women have as low a fertility rate as any in the world.

The hereditary principle

The “setback” of the 2011 election led Mr Lee into the final stage of retirement. In 1990 he had moved from prime minister to “senior minister”, and in 2004 to “minister mentor”. Now he left the cabinet, but remained in parliament. By then, Singapore’s prime minister for seven years had been Lee Hsien Loong, his son. The Lee family would sue anyone who hinted at nepotism. And for the elder Mr Lee, talent was obviously inherited. “Occasionally two grey horses produce a white horse, but very few. If you have two white horses, the chances are you breed white horses.”
Such ideas, applied ethnically, veer close to racism. The stream of distinguished Western visitors who trooped to see Mr Lee in Singapore would steer clear of such touchy areas. They preferred to seek his views on the rise of China or America’s decline. They also admired the comfort and the economic success of Singapore, and sought his advice on how to replicate it. Meanwhile, the control and good “social order” there attracted admirers, too, including Chinese leaders, notably Deng Xiaoping, who was, like Mr Lee, a member of the Hakka Chinese minority. Thus a man who was both a scourge of communists at home and a critic of Western decadence and its wishy-washy idealism was revered as a geopolitical sage in China and the West alike. What, he must have wondered, if fate had allotted him a superpower instead of a city-state?

The Economist.

There will be no vacancy in the Presidency in 2019,

There will be no vacancy in the Presidency in 2019,
members of the National Caucus of the All
Progressives Congress, APC, have declared in a
seeming lure to President Muhammadu Buhari to
seek a second term.
The national caucus, comprising serving and former
governors, the National Assembly leadership, and
selected members of the national executive of the
party, at the meeting said the endorsement of
President Buhari for a second term would help to
stabilise the polity in the face of what members
described as the 16-year rot inherited from Peoples
Democratic Party, PDP.
Meanwhile, the national chairman of the party, Chief
John Odigie-Oyegun, has dismissed insinuations of
a threat against his position, just as the caucus,
Tuesday night, constituted a committee to resolve
all pending issues in the party.
One of the issues agreed on at the meeting, was
that President Buhari should be given opportunity
to seek a second term. Though the issue of a
second term for the President was generally agreed,
caucus members, however, also agreed that it
would be too early in the day to kick start a second
term campaign for the President.
It was also gathered that the issue was brought up
as a way of resting restiveness among some party
leaders, who have been divided over their various
aspirations for 2019. The positioning by different
party leaders on 2019 has been blamed for the
problems that led to the crisis in the National
Assembly and also the inability of the party to
inaugurate its Board of Trustees, BoT, till date.
“With Buhari contesting in 2019, those who have
been squabbling will now have to queue up behind
him and put the interest of the party ahead,” a
source privy to the development revealed
yesterday. Remarkably, leading senators in the
party on Tuesday night met in Abuja where they
also pledged to unify themselves in the face of the
prospect of losing their influence to the more united
PDP caucus.
Odigie-Oyegun dismisses threat to his office
Meanwhile, Odigie-Oyegun speaking to reporters at
the end of the caucus meeting on Tuesday night
dismissed reports of pressures on him to resign his
office. He said: “I am not aware that my office is
under threat.
I led the party to the State House. It amazes me,
occasionally it annoys me. That is one of the things
you have to endure when you are in a position like
mine.” Noting the trend of the meeting, Odigie-
Oyegun said that a committee had been constituted
to resolve all the crises in the party.
Speaking on the performance of his party’s
government almost one year after taking over
power, the national chairman pleaded for time on
the part of Nigerians. He said the government
would come on full stream when the 2016 budget is
passed.

EDO 2016: OSHIOMHOLE AND THE “EDO AGENDA”

BY NASAMU JACOBSON
Edo state is commonly described as a homogeneous entity with all its different peoples tracing their roots and ancestry to one source. While the people of Edo North and Edo Central trace their roots back to the Bini Kingdom, the Binis point far to the West as well as the East in locating boundaries of the original empire. Much of what has happened to shrink those boundaries to the present Edo state can be traced to administrative divisions based purely on linguistic and cultural affinities. What is left as Edo state today is one large family of brothers and sisters who speak the same broad language with different dialectics and owe allegiance to one paramount traditional headship, the Oba of Benin. It is, therefore right and proper to say that Edo State is one and indivisible.
This year is an election year in the state and the usual rabble rousing talk will soon commence. Each party must formulate a vote-catching agenda with the central theme focussed on the development of the state. The choice between the candidates soon to be elected/selected and the parties they represent should be which one has a demonstrable capacity to implement people-oriented programmes and policies.
The people of Edo state have tasted governance under PDP and have also tasted governance under APC. They must, therefore, ask themselves whether they fared better during the almost ten years of PDP rule from May 29, 1999 to November 11, 2008 or during the last almost seven and half years of ACN/APC government since November 12, 2008. The people must ask themselves the question: Which government has benefited us more, PDP or APC? The parties have a duty to assist the people answer  this question by displaying before them the score card of their achievements while in office for ten years as in the case of the PDP and in the last seven years for the APC.
The choice Edo people make on September 10, 2016 will represent their understanding (or otherwise) of the EDO AGENDA which encapsulates the all round, all inclusive development of the state. The Edo Agenda is the implementation of an irreversible and sustainable development in roads, education, health, electricity, transport, sport, empowerment, electricity, water, job creation, agriculture, peace and security.
The agenda of the Adams Oshiomhole administration on assumption of office in November 2008 was to reclaim the state from backwardness and transform it to a state that works to advance the cause of development and reposition the state.
TODAY in Edo State there is concrete evidence that the state is working. The Comrade Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole administration has brought development in all spheres to the three senatorial districts of the state.
IN road construction, reconstruction and rehabilitation, over 50 contracts have been executed with many of them already completed. The roads include Sapele road, Sakpomba road, Oba Market road, Akpakpava street, Siluko road, Stadium road, Constain Isonorho area consisting of many roads, Airport road, Guobadia street, Ivbiye street, Uwa  street, Five Junction consisting of several streets like Oro, Iheya and adjourning streets, Second East Circular road, Second West and Third Cementary streets all in Benin City. Mission road, Forestry road, Butcher street and other link roads have been reconstructed in Benin City. Several other roads have been constructed, reconstructed, rehabilitated or are on-going in all the local government areas in Edo South.
ASIDE the many roads and streets constructed, reconstructed and rehabilitated in Benin City, the city centre otherwise called The Oba Ovonramen Square or Ring Road, has undergone radical transformation to enhance its aesthetics. The installation and construction of a rhythmic musical water fountain at the inner Ring Road has been an attraction, playing host to thousands of visitors daily, particularly at night time.
ALL over Edo State, the renovation and construction of schools were executed with many already  commissioned. These include Maria Goretti Girls Grammar School, Niger College, Idia College, Adolo College, Olua, Payne and Ohomba Primary Schools and many more all in Benin City, Urhonigbe Grammar School, Urhonigbe, Iguobazuwa Grammar School, Iguobazuwa. All renovated schools have been supplied modern furniture items including electric fans.
Comrade Adams Oshiomhole laid the foundation stone of three model secondary schools, one each in the three senatorial districts of the state. They are located in Benin City, Iyamho and Ewohimi for South, North and Central senatorial districts respectively. Described as truly ,modern, the schools will each have two blocks of twenty seven standard classrooms, three fully equipped science laboratories, a fully stocked library, a canteen, 1,500 capacity hall and sporting facilities. The model schools are also to have boarding facilities. Infrastructural facilities at the Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, were given a boost while a new Edo University, Iyamho was established.
THE health sector has also witnessed massive infrastructural development. While many Primary Healthcare Centres across the state were renovated or rehabilitated with additional facilities like staff quarters, perimeter fences and boreholes, there is the construction of a new 200-bed Central Hospital in Benin City. Great attention is paid to the uplift of primary and secondary healthcare with regular and genuine drug and equipment supply as well as the training and retraining of core and ancillary medical personnel.
THE Oshiomhole administration has also considered transportation as very important to the socio-economic development of the state as it aids the movement of people and goods in addition to creating a means of livelihood for its operators. The Comrade Governor provided 100 units of brand new luxury buses to kick-start a dedicated inter and intra-city commuter bus service. The COMRADE BUS is very popular in the state as it offers free ride to school children daily.. The state-owned Edo City Transport Service, ECTS, has, therefore, been repositioned to effectively operate, remain self-sustaining, compete on purely economic terms and make profit.
ANOTHER area in which the Comrade Adams Oshiomhole administration has transformed Edo State is youth and sports development with the repair and renovation of the Olympic size swimming pool of the Sam Ogbemudia stadium; rehabilitation of the main bowl through excavation and re-grassing, repair and rehabilitation of the State Box as well as the repair and renovation of both the Indoor Sports Hall and the Medical Centre.
IN the administration of justice, peace and security, women affairs, chieftaincy, arts and culture, commerce and industry as well as labour relations, the Adams Oshiomhole administration has not only demonstrated a commitment to reposition Edo State, it has ensured that the people are carried along to guarantee sustainability. There is, therefore, no doubt that Comrade Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole and the APC have in the last seven and a half years brought Edo State out of the doldrums and positioned it on the road to sustainable development and greatness. Will Edo people abandon this laudable agenda of development when the election comes? I think not.
NASAMU JACOBSON, A PUBLIC AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR, RESIDES IN BENIN CITY.

FRAUD ALERT! - ‪#‎ISTANDWITHBUHARI‬ IS A MULTI-BILLION NAIRA FRAUD!

Fraud Alert: #IstandwithBuhari is registered as a business name. Soliciting over a Billion Naira from public officials. We have strong evidences of FRAUD against some elements parading themselves as members of #IstandwithBuhari.
1. I Stand With Buhari (ISWB) Concept
This is a registered business name (not an NGO) founded by Chinedu Okpalanma, the erstwhile DG of ISWB. Documents show that himself and some other elements are its founders. The attached letterhead clearly shows the business name ISWB concept in two places.
2. Soliciting for Money
Contrary to many assertions by the ISWB elements that they are not looking to make or share money, that they are purely funded by members of the ISWB organization, we have evidence on the contrary by way of the attached letter. (Refer to page 2).
As seen on page 2, ISWB members have sent out many letters to Nigerians soliciting for ridiculous amounts of money. We obtained the attached letter from a VIP who was criminally approached for a sum in excess of N1 Billion Naira. We were approached by this same VIP in confidence.
This VIP has already informed us that he intends to petition the relevant security agencies to look into the matter as he believes this is clearly fraudulent. We also have proof of several other politicians and heads of industry that have been approached by this dubious criminals. We will publish more letters/documents in due course.
We reckon it is criminal case and misleading to use a registered business name, as an NGO (i.e not for profit entity) soliciting for monies from Nigerians running into several billions. We have already sent a petition to the relevant authorities to look into the matter.
3. Chinedu Okpalanma
We have evidence showing Chinedu is the main founder, he remains within the organization as its arrow head working from the background never showing himself to the public while using other puppets to call the shots. He never resigned. He only changed his public role from DG to the Board Secretary of ISWB and still runs the show.
4. Ogochukwu Ezeaku
He is the founder & CEO of montage Africa. He is notoriously known for coveting top Government officials in return for favors. Montage Africa is known to host the annual MAWEA (Montage Africa Women in Excellence Award).
In 2013 he hosted an award where he celebrated several PDP bigwigs including many persons that have stolen from Nigeria (and they claim they are fighting corruption). Amongst the list of his award recipients, Patience GEJ tops the list, with the likes of Diezani & Stella Oduah amongst those he celebrated. He is the Board Chairman of ISWB and now wants us to believe he is leading a campaign against corruption. We are yet to see ISWB attack Diezani or Stella Oduah in its anti corruption campaign. We attach relevant information which is widely available in the Internet.
In November 2015, he unsuccessfully organized another MAWEA event where he lobbied APC women faithful which turned out to be a disaster due to amount of those that shunned the event. This is why he is hell bent on coming at this government with deceit at any cost.
Ogochukwu operates completely out of the media reach just like his accomplice Chinedu. We know why they are hiding!
NB - 15 lungi Street Wuse 2 Abuja is the corporate HQ of both montage Africa and ISWB. Refer to the bottom corner of the letterhead.
NB - the GSM number 08087777318 is the official number of ISWB on its letterhead, fliers and billboard. It was the number our investigators reached Chinedu!
5. Nine million man rally
We call on the security agencies to invite the ISWB members to firstly deny them clearance for this deceitful rally. It is neither beneficial to the president nor does it justify the yearnings of many poor who do not even stand a chance of affording the trip to Abuja. If any group is allowed to assemble even 100,000 people on a working day (which 31st March is), that group is capable of undermining security and only Gods knows the type of agenda these people have. We have already sent a petition to relevant security agencies for further action.
OUR POSITION
We call on the Commander in Chief to immediately deploy the necessary government officials to dissociate his government from this group, to arrest the people responsible for this campaign of calumny, and have this group dissolved immediately.
We call on the elements of ISWB to call off their shameless plot of FRAUD within the next 24 hours. Failure to heed advice, will result in an all out assault as we plan to release full identities of members and their financial backers, pictures taken, proof of meetings, voice recordings, copies of letters and other documentation of this monumental FRAUD.
More to come…..
Signed,
FraudHorn.
Committed to reporting verified FRAUD Activity in Nigeria.

C

CUPS