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The leadership of the Action Congress (AC) has said
the party will field a strong candidate against President Goodluck
Jonathan if the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) fields him as its
candidate. The party however refused to comment on whether Nuhu Ribadu,
former anti-graft czar, was a primary contender for its presidential
ticket.

A guarded affair

The National Chairman of the party, Bisi Akande, who
addressed the press in Abuja yesterday, said that the PDP has again
foisted another crisis on the country as a result of its zoning
arrangement. He also accused Mr. Jonathan of being too “inconsistent.”
Mr. Akande said that the AC has closely watched as the PDP has tried to
elevate the internal problem within the party to the level of national
discourse. “It has become an unnecessary distraction,” he said. The
ruling party, he remarked, is being pushed by a large pool of confusion
that may rapidly swell into “the abyss of destabilization, disunity and
abject poverty.” He added that the PDP has allowed the daunting
challenges of unemployment, poverty and security challenges to go
unchecked. Instead, he said, it has shifted its focus on where the
presidency should be zoned to.

Mr. Akande did not directly address which AC party
members are likely to run for office but took another swipe at the PDP
by saying that zoning is not an issue. “We have 50 well qualified
presidential candidates drawn from various parts of the country, he
said. “We are out to encourage and persuade a younger generation of
Nigerians to seize the moment and fashion out creative and practicable
solutions to the myriads of problems facing the country.” Mr. Akande
added that good and capable hands abound across the country,
irrespective of geo-political location or ethnic background.

According to him, while the ruling party has stolen
enough and is presently fighting on sharing formula for the heist,
those of them in AC have set up a high level committee to go round the
entire country to consult widely on what should be their attitude to
the issue of geopolitical, religion and ethnic separateness. On the
rumoured merger between the Progressive People’s Alliance and PDP, he
disclosed that the AC face pressure to merge with other political
parties, associations, groups and individuals.

“We are keeping this in view with an aim of expanding membership
composition and renewing our thinking horizon about leadership roles
that would encompass inspiring a shared vision and keeping hope alive,”
he said.</

In fulfilment of
the last critical step in the constitution amendment process, the state
Houses of Assemblies may today, hand in their resolutions on the
amended clauses.

There is hope that
the presentation will go ahead and that there won’t be a repeat of the
scenes that occurred last week when the presentation had to be aborted.
On that occasion, the leader of the group of speakers, Istifanus Gbana,
said some of the states were yet to conclude work on the amendments.

Report now ready

“We have been
assured by the speakers that this time around, it (the presentation)
will take place,” the Senate President, David Mark told his colleagues
on Thursday while inviting them to the venue of the presentation. The
National Assembly, on June 15 forwarded the first amended constitution
to the State Houses of Assembly containing about 87 amendments to the
1999 constitution.

The resolution of
the state assemblies on the constitution, will determine the shape and
tone of the new document. The current constitution stipulates that a
clause in it can only be amended with the consent of two-third majority
of the state assemblies.

Watered down constitution

Glimpses of the
returned constitution indicate that most of the major amendments to it,
especially those directly affecting the electoral reform program have
been watered down by the state assemblies. Sources at the National
Assembly, however, said the states have rejected clauses introducing
Independent candidates into the constitution. The introduction of
independent candidates followed the recommendation of the Justice
Mohammed Uwais led electoral reform committee. The state assemblies
also rejected the raise in the educational qualification of candidates
seeking political offices. The national lawmakers had raised the
minimum educational qualification of political office seekers from the
current school certificate level, to ordinary National Diploma
certificate or an experience in federal law making.

“The most
controversial of the rejected clauses,” the source said “is Section 121
which placed the state assemblies on the first line charge of the state
governments.”

Placing the state assemblies on the first line charge of the state
government, makes the state assemblies financially independent of the
state executive. According to the source, this particular clause
threatened the political authority of the state governors and they
pressured the state assemblies to reject it while passing a similar
clause granting the federal legislature financial independence from the
federal government.

A board reshuffle
occurred, yesterday, at First Bank, Nigeria’s largest bank, following
the exit of three top executive officers.

In a statement
signed by Steve Omanufeme, the spokesperson for the bank, Oladele
Oyelola (Chief Financial Officer), Bola Adesola (Executive Director,
Lagos), and Abdu Abubakar (Executive Director, Banking Operations and
Services) voluntarily resigned from the bank.

“We are very proud
of the achievements that each of these individuals has made, and of
their significant contributions towards strengthening and sustaining
First Bank’s leadership position,” Bisi Onasanya, the bank’s group
managing director, said in the statement added.

“Today we can boast
of a balance sheet that is more than 25 per cent larger than our next
competitor, profits that exceed all of our peers, and an enviable
position as the largest bank in Sub-Saharan Africa (ex-South Africa),
in no small way due to the invaluable contributions made by each of the
outgoing Executive Directors. They will be missed greatly by the First
Bank family and we wish them the very best in their future endeavours,”
Mr. Onasanya said.

Interim heads have been named to replace the departing officials pending the appointment of substantial ones.

There were no clues
as at last night on why the executives resigned as senior officers of
the bank did not hear about the resignations until the release was made
public. Officials of the bank’s communications unit could not be
contacted.

Muhammed Abdullahi, the head of corporate affairs of the Central Bank of Nigeria, said he was not aware of the development.

“Whether the bank
has been notified officially, I cannot say. I will find out from the
people that should know and I will get back to you.”

The Central Bank as regulator is supposed to be informed of such a
development because it must give its nod before replacements can be
appointed.

The federal
government is to explore the large deposit of coal discovered in some
states of the federation, according to the vice president, Namadi Sambo.

He told the States
and China Machinery and Equipment Company (CMEC) delegation which
visited him yesterday that the federal government is resolved to
diversify efforts in the positive search for solutions to the nation’s
power problem.

He expressed
concern over the way the China Exim Bank responded to the issue of the
provision of the planned 84 megawatt of electricity in Kaduna State,
noting that the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC)
contract was almost stalled by the bank’s response.

Coal as power provider

Mr Sambo charged
the company to explore the potentials inherent in the coal power sector
in the country, especially the large deposits of coal in Enugu, Benue,
Kogi and Nasarawa States. “I can confirm to you that one trillion of
coal deposit is being explored by a German firm in Gombe State, for the
purpose of generating a coal power plant,” he said.

He called on the company to fast-track its activities, to meet with the challenges of the time.

Earlier in his
address, Bashir Ishaq Bashir, the leader of the delegation and the
Nigerian partner to the company, Leda Green Power, had stated that the
purpose of their visit was to felicitate with the Vice President over
his appointment and to wish him success in his tenure.

Mr Bashir
associated the company with the efforts of the federal government in
trying to solve the perennial power problem in the country. He seized
the opportunity to invite the Mr Sambo to China to meet with officials
of the Ministry of Commerce in Beijing. He thanked Mr Sambo for
accepting their request for such a visit. Members of the delegation
included: Wang Quingxin, Chief Representative of the CMEC, Liu Bin of a
subsidiary of the Central Southern China Electric Power Design
Institute of China Power Engineering Consulting Group, and Li Nan, a
Director of the company.

In a related
development, the vice president also received in audience on behalf of
Goodluck Jonathan, a special message from the President of Zambia,
Rapiah Bwezani Banda. The special message was delivered by the Zambian
Envoy to Nigeria, Major Richard Kachingwe in the Vice President’s
office in State House, Abuja.

The Appeal Court,
on Thursday, dismissed the application brought on behalf of the 33
local government chairmen elected and sworn-in at the tail end of the
administration of the former governor, Rasidi Ladoja, in Oyo State.

The appellate court
ruled in favour of the defendant on the ground that since their tenure
had expired before the appeal, there was no point looking at the merit
of the case.

The applicants were
elected on 24 May, 2007 and sworn in the following day. But their
elections were upturned immediately after Adebayo Alao-Akala took oath
of office as the state governor, and another set of elections, which
produced the incumbent chairmen in the state councils, were held.

The ground of the
fresh elections was based on an existing High Court order which
restricted the then Oyo State Independent Electoral Commission (OYSIEC)
from conducting the original election.

Justice Iyabo
Yerima of the state High Court had acceded to the prayer of one Yinka
Olona and others, seeking to stop the OYSIEC from conducting the
election.

Since then, the two
elections have remained issues of litigation, and only climaxed
yesterday as the appellate court struck out the application to
reinstate the winners of the original election.

Chidi Uwa, who read
the lead judgement, said she was compelled to dismiss the application
because the term in question had expired and further examination of the
substantive matter would amount to mere academic exercise which would
not benefit any of the parties to the suit as well as the court.

Extinct rights

According to her,
all the record available before the court established the fact that the
election was held on 24 May, 2007 and that the elected officials were
sworn in the next day.

Among the records
was an affidavit deposed to by one of the applicants, which established
the fact that the tenure lapsed on 24 May. This, she added, assumed
that the three-year term of the elected officials started that time and
ended on 24 May.

The judge also
explained that the application of the applicant was brought before the
court in June, when the term had already expired.

“The rights of the
appellant as the chairmen of the local government have become extinct,
and the appellants are no longer in the position to lay claim to the
seats,” she said.

On the prayer by
the appellant to the court to allow them restart their tenure from the
day they were driven out of office and replaced by another set of local
government executives, the court held that: “The definite term cannot
be completed piecemeal, whether interrupted.”

Adesina Adeyemo,
who represented Akin Olujimi, counsel to the applicants, said he would
have to get the text of the judgment and meet with the lead counsel to
know whether or not they would proceed to the Supreme Court for further
action.

But Richard Ogunwole (SAN), counsel to the respondents, expressed satisfaction at the outcome of the matter yesterday.

The World Bank has earmarked $180 million for research in technology development in Africa universities.

The fund is to be
administered through the Africa Technology Policy Study (ATPS) the
Executive Director ATPS Network Kevin Chuka Urama disclosed in Yola, at
a workshop.

Participants urged
policy makers, researchers and the government to embrace the use of
local scientific and technological innovations in exploiting the vast
raw and mineral resources of their respective nations, for the
wellbeing of their members.

The Federal
University of technology Yola (FUTY), which hosted the event, is among
the category of institutions set to benefit from a $7 million dollar
funding grant benchmarked upon its successful award as ATPS’ centre of
excellence.

The Minister of
Science and Technology, Mohammed Abubakar, represented by the Director
General, Raw Materials Development Council, P.A. Onwualu, urged science
practitioners in the country to come up with strategies that can lead
to development of a “home grown” technology based policy for the
transformation of the Nigerian economy, and move it from its monolithic
economy of oil as its sole source of revenue.

The ATPS network
Nigerian chapter berated the failure of many African states to develop
their scientific and technological capacities through funding of
research and training in science and technology, explaining that “much
of the efforts made so far to develop research and training in science
and technology in Africa have been through Western international
scientific cooperation initiatives.

The Minister of Science and Technology said that most governments in
Africa have come to the realization that science and technology
education is the only way the continent can be “lighted” and move “from
being called the dark continent to a continent of light.”

Striking workers in Adamawa State have called off their six week long strike.

Mr Mohammed Tuki,
the chairman of the state Joint Public Service Negotiating Council,
communicated the decision to workers at the Labour House.

Nevertheless,
labour officials insisted they were calling off the strike only for a
two-week duration as a result of arbitration; they vowed to return if
negotiations with the government during that period fails.

The state
government had taken labour in the state before the Industrial
Arbitration Court in Abuja, as way of resolving the dispute with the
angry workers whose action grounded social and economic activities in
the state.

A two-week truce

“We urge you
workers to go back to work tomorrow. We are only calling off this
strike for two weeks only, and if the government fails to meet our
demands within this time, we shall call on you to continue the strike
action,” the chairman of the joint public service negotiating council
in the state said to the workers, also thanking them for their support.

Mr Dauda Buba, the
state chairman of the Labour Congress, in his statement, said the
workers were honouring the arbitration by the National Industrial Court
on the matter directing both labour and the government to go back to
the negotiating table. He said they were expected to submit a signed
and sealed agreement reached by both parties, to the industrial
arbitration court.

“On that basis, the
court appealed to the labour side,” he said. “So we are now suspending
the strike for two weeks to enable us complete all necessary
agreements.”

As the court awaits
both parties to appear before it with an agreement reached by both
parties, it remains to be seen what would transpire. However, the state
Attorney General is confident that the matter will be resolved amicably.

The bone of
contention in the dispute which has crippled governance in Adamawa
State, is Labour’s demand that the government re-instate 56 workers
claimed to have been arbitrarily sacked from two parastaltals in the
state – the College of Legal Studies and the state-owned Transport
Company. The state government on its part disagrees, accusing Labour of
“blackmail”, and maintaining that the striking workers have seen all of
their demands agreed to except its “refusal to remove the provost of
the College of Legal Studies and the General Manager of the State
Transport Company”.

Until the recent truce reached through arbitration, both the
government and labour had remained adamant, neither refusing to
compromise.