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African health and environment ministers, at the
weekend in Angola, agreed to advocate for and monitor an allocation of
15% of government budgets to the health sector, as stated in the 2001
Abuja Declaration by African heads of states.

The two-day meeting in Luanda, Angola, with the
adoption of the Luanda Commitment, which outlines the continent’s
health and environment priorities and commits countries to take actions
to address them, also agreed on accelerating the implementation of the
Libreville Declaration and a substantial increase of allocations of
government budgets to the environment sector.

“The Luanda Conference is a milestone, as the health
and environment sectors become credible and strategic partners. I leave
this meeting further convinced that the future of Africa is not cast
anywhere. It is we who determine this by our commitments, our
determination, and our actions,” the regional director and
Representative of UNEP in Africa, Mounkaila Goumandakoye, said.

The meeting, which was the second Inter-Ministerial
Conference on Health and Environment, was held at the initiative of the
World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP), in collaboration with the government of Angola.

According to a communiqué issued at the end of the
meeting, which was also attended by Nigeria delegates, the priorities
listed in the Luanda Commitment include “provision of safe drinking
water; provision of sanitation and hygiene services; management of
environmental and health risks related to climate change; sustainable
management of forests and wetlands; management of water, soil, and air
pollution; as well as biodiversity conservation.

“Other priorities are vector control and management
of chemicals, particularly pesticides and wastes; food safety and
security, including the management of genetically-modified organisms in
food production; children’s health and women’s environmental health;
health in the workplace; and the management of natural and
human-induced disasters.”

Breaking grounds

Following its agreement that a proper implementation
will have the right impact on the attainment of MDG goals 4, 5, 6 and 7
relating to child health, maternal health, communicable diseases, and
environmental sustainability, the ministers resolved to complete the
Situation Analyses and Needs Assessment (SANA) in all African countries
and the preparation of National Plans of Joint Action by the end of
2012.

So far, SANA has been completed in 17 African
countries. The ministers also established the Health and Environment
Strategic Alliance (HESA), which they said is “a novel mechanism that
will stimulate policies and investments in favour of enhanced joint
actions for health and environment in Africa.”

Also, for the first time, African ministers of health
and environment made their strongest pronouncement ever on climate
change and health in the region, with the adoption of a Joint Statement
on Climate Change and Health, which will be tabled before the ongoing
16th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change in Cancun, Mexico.

“The three tools that we have adopted at this conference are clear
and consistent, and the decisions we have taken will serve us well in
the implementation of the Libreville Declaration,” the WHO regional
director for Africa, Luis Sambo, said.

The Nigeria Labour
Congress (NLC) has called on the National Assembly to redress the
current rate of employers contributions into the contributory pension
scheme, asking that it should be reviewed upward whenever the Act comes
up for review in the parliament.

The congress, in
communiqué issued at the end an interactive session it held with the
National Pension Commission (PenCom) in Ibadan, said it reviewed the
most pertinent issues affecting workers in relation to the
implementation of the Pension Reform Act (PRA), 2004.

The general
secretary of the Labour group, John E. Odah, said that the group has
accepted and would continue to support the Contributory Pension Scheme
(CPS), but said “that there were still some challenges in the
implementation of the CPS.”

At the conclusion
of the meeting, the Congress said “the clarification by PenCom that the
PRA has not abolished gratuity and that it (gratuity) was a matter of
collective bargain that must be respected by the employers, in
accordance with agreed terms and conditions of employment.”

It, however, called
for government intervention in pension management for public sector
workers, claiming that “existing pensioners in the public sector were
not paid their pensions, as and when due. Government should take
necessary steps to ensure that pensions are paid timely.”

Work with workers

The meeting also
called on state governments to carry the workers along in the
implementation of the CPS, and noted with concern the agitation by the
military to withdraw from the scheme. It calls on the National Assembly
to further examine the implications of the withdrawal.

“Even countries in
Africa that are less endowed than Nigeria, employers’ contribution are
higher than that of the employee,” the NLC said.

“The current rate of contributions in section 9 of the Act is not in tandem with international best practices,” the body added.

The Oyo State
Governor, Adebayo Alao Akala, on Tuesday, urged opposition parties to
win elections at polling booths rather than running to the courts to
claim victories.

According to a
statement released through his Special Adviser on Public
Communications, Dotun Oyelade, the governor noted that the opposition
will be doing injustice to democracy “if it depends on judicial
technicalities rather that win legitimately through popular votes as he
has done.” The governor promised the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of
winning all the elections that will hold in the state in 2011, noting
that the political events in the last three and a half years in the
state are direct testimony to his claims.

The governor
boasted that, with the lack of focus from the opposition and support
from the people, the election will be a walk over. “As a direct result
of what the administration has been able to achieve in three and a half
years, the support of the people and the lack of focus of the
opposition, his electoral performance will be better next year,” he
said. He also bragged that he will win the elections not only at the
gubernatorial level but also national and state elections for the
party. He further argued that the only strategy opposition parties in
the state will use is to “raise spurious evidence of election
malpractices against him to thwart his victory at the Election
Petitions Tribunal next year.”

The statement recalled that “when the strategy was used against him
at Election Petition Tribunal of the 2007 polls, the appellate court
restored about 100,000 votes earlier expunged from his votes by the
tribunal.” According to the governor, that was “a clear indication that
the election was won fair and square.”

The fall in the
standards of both written and spoken English language portends danger
for the employment of fresh graduates because recruitment into large
national and international companies often has a requirement for
fluency in English, experts said yesterday at a conference organised by
the British Council in Abuja.

Ben Fisher,
director of programmes at the British Council, explained the result of
a study commissioned by the agency to find quantitative indicators that
demonstrate benefits of speaking English for countries, evidence for
the value of learning the language for the individual and for Nigeria.

The study observed
that “there is a little investment in English language by the federal
and state governments, as priority is given to basic education, which
receives assistance from international donors,” he said.

The research, which
was conducted by a Euromonitor team that went round the country and
interacted with people of all classes, shows that English is widely
used in Nigeria as the language of government, business, and education,
with numbers growing faster at 5.8 percent per year than the current
population increase.

“English is more
commonly used in the south and east, with Hausa being dominant language
in the north; English is less common in the rural areas throughout the
country,” the study shows.

It also revealed that primary school teachers in public schools speak very poor English.

“Higher standards
exist in the growing private education sector, and privately educated
students are more successful in reaching university level and are
preferred by many national and international companies. However, the
cost of private education is beyond most Nigerian families. English
language is also seen as a requisite for study overseas, which is
growing due to the lack of available university places and the
perceived low quality of courses,” the study says.

Those who do not
speak English language might be disadvantaged in the long run because
recruitment for large national and international companies often has a
requirement for fluent English. Fluent English speakers can command a
salary premium of up to 25 percent, especially in higher skilled jobs.

English is also
important in career progression, as most training undertaken in English
and new business opportunities require working across regional and
national boundaries.

The British Council
officials warned that the language is important to economic development
of Nigeria, as it is useful in securing foreign direct investment on
which Nigeria’s economic development is dependent.

Tackling the challenge

Ruqayattu Rufa’i,
minister of education, explained that there has been a sharp decline in
the communication skills of students in English language.

“There is,
therefore, the need to refocus our attention on the teaching and
learning of English language as medium of expression,” she said.

She identified the
major challenges facing the teaching and learning of English language
in Nigerian schools to include the shortage of teachers of English
language and, in some cases, available ones have low proficiency in the
use of English language, especially at basic level.

Other challenges,
according to her, include absence or irregular training and retraining
programmes; apathy on the part of students to read due to poor reading
culture; faulty delivery methodology; and shortage of books and other
instructional materials.

She, however, said government has the capability to address the challenges.

A non-governmental
organisation, Media for Ethnic Equality, has described the labelling of
Atiku Abubakar, former Vice President and presidential aspirant, as a
consensus candidate as faulty and an act of media manipulation.

In a statement
issued in Lagos on Tuesday, the group said that since there was a
voting, the process that led to the emergence of the former vice
president as the candidate for the Adamu Ciroma led-Northern Political
Leaders Forum on November 22, 2010 cannot be described as a
“consensus”. “We understand that out of the nine people who constituted
the committee, five voted for Atiku while four voted against him.
Though he had highest vote, this cannot in any way be described as a
consensus because we still have four dissenting votes,” read the
statement, which was signed by the group’s Publicity Secretary, Iyiola
Johnson. “It is even more dishonest to label him as a consensus
candidate going by the fact that the committee could not even reach a
consensus over his choice. Besides, consensus system which emanated
from United Nations (UN) processes is used to completely avoid voting.
Once a process is decided through voting then it is not consensus. We
just think it is time we correct this misinformation making the rounds
in the Nigerian media.”

Carrying everybody along

According to the
group, only five ethic nationalities, representing five states of the
North, selected Mr Atiku out of over 200 ethnic nationalities in the
Northern part of the country. “Who represented other Northern states
like Plateau, Nassarawa, Kaduna and Kogi in the Ciroma-led NPLF?,” said
Mr Johnson. “If the Ciroma group is to be taken serious, they ought to
have invited other ethnic nationalities to make Mr Atiku a popular
choice.”

The group said it is time for Nigerian politicians to respect
the rights of ethnic minorities, adding that taking decisions
arbitrarily has never helped the country and the advancement of
democracy. It also advised politicians to refrain from inflammatory
statements capable of heating up the polity, saying that Nigerians at
this time more than ever before need ethnic harmony and not divisions.

A former
commissioner for agricuture and natural resources in the defunct Bendel
State, Eddy Ehi Osifo, has criticised the Senate spokesperson, Ayogu
Eze, over his reaction to Central Bank governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s
recent comment on the high cost of running the National Assembly.

Mr. Sanusi had, at
the 8th convocation ceremony of Igbinedion University, Okada, last
weekend, alleged that the National Assembly alone consumes 25 percent
of the nation’s annual budget.

Mr. Osifo, a close
associate of late Obafemi Awolowo, described Mr. Eze as being ignorant
of simple English language, as was used by the CBN governor in
explaining the portion of the budget that goes to the National Assembly.

“The CBN governor
did not say that the National Assembly gulps 25 percent of the national
budget. There is a difference between the national budget, which is the
TOTAL budget, and recurrent expenditure, which is a portion the budget
as represented by the overhead cost of running the government.

“Ayogu Eze is
typical of the deceitful Nigerian who uses crooked arguments to cover
up real facts. This is unbecoming of an honourable member who claims to
be an experienced lawmaker. Nigeria is suffering in their hands,” he
said.

Mr. Osifo called
on President Jonathan and all concerned to, as a matter of urgency,
review the monthly salary and allowances of the national legislators
before a new set of legislators are elected and sworn-in next year.

Bayelsa State
government officials facing charges of money laundering and diversion
of public funds yesterday urged the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC) to speed up the prosecution of the case for them, to
clear their names.

The commission had,
on March 23, charged four top officials of the state government, namely
Francis Okoruko, Abbot Clinton, Ikhobo Anthony Howells, and Sylva
Opuala – Charles. But since their arraignment, trial until now was yet
to commence.

At the trial
yesterday, the accused persons, through their counsel, Chris Uche and
Sunday Ibrahim Ameh, expressed keenness to go into trial and withdrew
their objection to the admissibility of a document sought to be
tendered in evidence by the prosecuting counsel, Festus Keyamo.

Mr. Keyamo had
sought to tender the statement made to the EFCC by the 2nd accused
person, Clinton Abbot, through his prosecution witness 1, Mr. Adebayo
Adeniyi Oluwasegun, but Messrs. Uche and Ameh objected to the procedure
on the premise that it would offend Section 36 [a] of the Evidence Act
since he [Oluwasegun] was not incidental to the statement being made.

After a spell of
arguments, the judge, Donatus Okoronwo, was to adjourn the matter to
enable him rule. But Counsel to the accuse persons, eager to make
progress with the trial, agreed to withdraw the objection after Mr.
Keyamo had entered an undertaking that he would not rely on any other
Investigating Police Officer [IPO] to tender any further evidence.

“My lord, I want to
save our time and the time of the court by seeking to tender my
exhibits through this witness, who is an IPO. I will not call any other
if I am allowed to tender these documents through him,” Mr. Keyamo said.

In response,
Messrs. Uche and Ameh said since Mr. Keyamo had entered the
undertaking, the accused persons, in demonstration of their desire for
speedy trial, would withdraw their objection so that progress can be
made.

Trial date fixed

Accordingly, the
statement sought to be tendered was admitted in evidence, after which
the police officer recounted steps he took in the course of
investigating the case.

Eventually, Mr.
Keyamo applied for an adjournment, which the court granted. Trial was
adjourned to December 14 and 15, 2010, for continuation.

The charges against
the accused are, read in part, that “you, Francis Okokuro, Abbot T.
Clinton, Ikobho Anthony Howells, and Charles Sylva Osuala (now at
large), sometime between October 2009 and February 2010, at various
places in Nigeria, including Abuja, within the jurisdiction of the
Federal High Court, did conspire to commit a crime; to wit: conversion
of properties and resources amounting to N2billion, belonging to
Bayelsa State government and derived from an illegal act, with the aim
of concealing the illicit origin of the said amount and you thereby
committed an offence contrary to Section 17(a) of the Money Laundering
(Prohibition Act), 2004, and punishable under Section 14(1) of the same
Act.”

The officials were
accused of using the state government’s name to carry out several
financial transactions, using various account numbers in at least four
banks in the country with the intention of defrauding the state.

The Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) yesterday said its counsel
prosecuting top officials of the National Gallery of Arts, is afraid
for his life and the commission is no longer comfortable with both its
lawyer and witnesses appearing before that court over an alleged N2.2bn
fraud.

At the resumed
hearing of the case yesterday, the commission, through its counsel
Steve Odiase, told trial judge, Olukayode Adeniyi that the EFCC
authority instructed him to seek an immediate transfer of the case-file
to the Chief Judge of the Federal Capital Territory, following threats
by some undisclosed persons to kill him over the matter.

Mr Odiase, who came
to court yesterday with two heavily armed mobile police escorts,
further read one of the threat massages he said was sent to his phone
last night, adding that the operations department of the EFCC has
already commenced investigations aimed at unravelling those behind it.

“Last night they
sent me another one, and I promptly reported it to the police and the
director of operations in EFCC, Steven Otutoju. This was how they
killed our forensic expert in Kaduna recently, we no longer feel
protected in this court and therefore want the case-file transferred”.

The latest threat
message, according to him, reads: “You still have the honourable option
of opting out of Musa’s case now or accept the choice of preparing your
funeral oration yourself and or the possible extermination of your
family. This is the final warning!”.

No withdrawal

But Mr Adeniyi
refused to hands-off of the trial as requested by the EFCC, maintaining
that there was no basis for the anti-graft agency to seek a withdrawal
of the case-file.

“I will not
concede to this request because there is no basis to seek the
withdrawal of this case, if you are being threatened by anybody, then
report it to the police or other relevant agencies,” Mr Adeniyi said.
“Justice is a 3-way traffic. The accused persons were arraigned before
this court on July 7, 2009, and since then the case has suffered series
of adjournment at the instance of the prosecution.”

Those on trial are
the former Director-General of the establishment, Joe Musa; Director of
Finance, Olusegun Ogunba; Director of Research & Education, Dr.
Kweku Tandoh and Deputy Director Administration of the Gallery, Oparagu
Elizabeth.

They face a
14-count criminal charge bothering on alleged misappropriation,
falsification of account and illegal diversion of public funds
totalling over N2.2 billion.

Before the matter was adjourned till January 20, counsels to all the
accused persons took-turn to plead that the court strikes out the case
for want of diligent prosecution, alleging that the EFCC was being used
to witch-hunt them unnecessarily.

The Nigerian
National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has called on Petroleum Tanker
Drivers (PTD) to give dialogue a chance in the ongoing dispute over the
killing of its members, the seizure of its trucks, and issues of the
retrenchment of its members.

The Group Managing
Director of the NNPC, Austen Oniwon, in a statement signed by the
organisation’s spokesperson, Levi Ajuonuma, on Tuesday, appealed to
parties in the dispute to consider the wider interest of Nigerians in
this usually busy holiday season.

“I appeal to the
tanker drivers to give the Federal Government an opportunity to resolve
the matter and ensure that justice and fairness is done. I am calling
on all stakeholders to rally round to support the stability we have
continued to enjoy in the downstream sector,” Mr. Oniwon said.

He also said that
there is abundant supply of petroleum products across the nation, and
urged consumers not to indulge in panic buying and marketers not to
indulge in any sharp practice that will create undue hardship for
Nigerians.

He further said the
Federal Government is looking into the issue to ensure a lasting
resolution, and called on the tanker drivers to call off their threats
of a strike and embrace the offer of dialogue by government.

The Petroleum
Tanker Drivers, which is a wing of the National Union of Petroleum and
Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), had on Monday embarked on a nationwide
warning strike to protest what they term the “indiscriminate
victimisation” of their workers by soldiers and the ‘mysterious’
disappearance of petroleum products.

NUPENG’s Lagos zone
chairman, Tokunbo Korede, told NEXT on Monday that the seven days
warning strike is coming after a 21-day ultimatum, which elapsed on
November 26, 2010, following a meeting with the Chief of Army Staff,
the director general of the State Security Service (SSS), the minister
of labour, and the management of the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation (NNPC).

He said the failure
of the government officials at the meeting to apprehend and prosecute
the army officials behind the assassination of a tanker driver in Jos
and the disappearance of several tankers, along with their petroleum
products, within military installations has necessitated them to push
their case.

“For how long are
they going to take to fish out those criminal uniformed men who are
behind all this? This is a seven-day warning strike for those saying we
are working on it to bring out a solution. They need to take us serious
because it will be too disastrous for the coming elections,” he said.

The two-day old strike has brought queues back to the filling stations.