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The Minister of
Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Mohammed Bello Adoke
(SAN) is in receipt of the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the report
released on the administration of the Gulf Oil windfalls by the
military government of Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida .

NEXT investigation
revealed on Thursday in Abuja that Mr. Adoke was not only in receipt of
the document, but is also studying the content of the document with a
view to making a more informed reaction on behalf of the Federal
Government as soon as possible from now.

Some human rights
activists and civil society organisations have been pushing for a probe
of the tenure of Mr. Babangida, especially about a $12.4b which was
allegedly misappropriated and embezzled from the total proceeds of
crude oil during the first gulf war.

The minister’s request

Recently, a group
of NGOs told the media they had sent a certified true copy of the
report to the Justice Minister, in response to his request for it and a
promise to take proper and relevant action in the interest of the state
as soon as he received it.

Although the
special assistant to the minister on media and special duties, Onyema
Omenuwa, and his chief press secretary, Ambrose Momoh, would not
disclose any specific action being taken by the FG on the report. But
an official of the ministry said the minister will be making a proper
reaction as soon as he is done with the study of the report.

Although the office
of the minister had, last week, denied receiving the document, a source
said Mr. Adoke was at the time yet to see the document because he was
preparing for a journey to Cape Verde, where he attended an
international conference.

After Mr. Babangida
left office in 1993, government had commissioned a committee led by
Pius Okigbo to unravel the manner in which Nigeria’s earnings from the
sale of crude oil during the Gulf War era was used by the government of
Mr. Babangida, who was the Head of State at the time.

Last month, Mr. Babangida declared his intention to contest the 2011
presidential elections and challenged anybody that has any evidence
linking him to corruption in relation to the Gulf War oil windfall to
do so.

A driver attached
to Ondo State lawmaker, Kele Bolodeoku, Thursday morning committed
suicide by hanging himself in his room at Fanibi layout of Akure
metropolis, the state police command, said.

The driver, Dayo
Jumiju, from Irele Local Government Area of the state, was said to be
hale and hearty the previous day. He was said to have parted ways with
his boss with a promise to return to duty the following day to carry
his boss to the Assembly for a session in honour of late Umaru Yar’Adua.

The family of the deceased did not allow journalists to photograph the body of the late driver, whose body had been lowered.

Spokesperson of the state police command, Adeniran Aremu, said that an investigation into the tragedy had commenced.

“It is true that Mr
Bolodeoku’s driver hanged himself in the early hours of Thursday and
the State Police Command has swung into action to know the circumstance
surrounding the death of the driver,” he said.

Mr Aremu assured
that the command would let the whole world know what led to the death
of the driver as soon as the investigation into the matter is completed.

The lawmaker, colleagues said, was in a state of disbelief when he was told of the incident.

Mr Bolodeoku, who represents Ese Odo State Constituency, could not be reached on phone for further comment.

Banks and other
operators in the financial sector have kicked against the terms of a
legislation before the House of Representatives, which seeks to
criminalise the use of young females to solicit for funds deposits.

The new law
proposed by the house will prescribe jail terms, heavy fines on banks –
including a withdrawal of banks’ operational license – for those who
stray beyond the allowed standards of placing employees, particularly
female, on deposit sourcing.

This practice is often referred to as ‘corporate prostitution’ by its critics.

Facing prison

Banks or their
representatives may pay as much as N10 million and face up to three
years imprisonment if convicted of breaching the new law, which will
govern deposit sourcing and how existing and prospective employees are
commissioned for them.

The House said
banks and insurance companies have exploited their employees, mostly
female, by detailing them to secure customers and deposits at all cost
– including trading sex for deposit.

House Speaker
Dimeji Bankole said the legislation, sponsored by Femi Gbajabiamila, is
directed to curb the “unethical conduct and anti-labour practice.”

“These practices
are not just anti-labour but also dehumanising”, he said at the first
day of public hearings on the bill attended by financial sector
operatives. “Our values and cherished norms as a people, and the
philosophy that underpins them, can quite easily be eroded unless there
is a strong, indeed sacred, moral and ethical foundation, not just in
the defining principles of our legislations, but in the society as a
whole.”

Some banks however
fear the law will infringe on their capacity to raise capital and deny
they have abused their workers in attempting to get funds. A
representative of Stanbic IBTC, Christopher Knight, opposed two key
provisions of the bill which the banks called “draconian.”

No limit, please

The bank in its
presentation, said it considered as inappropriate the proposed Section
2 of the Bill, which seeks to limit monetary targets for employees in
banks and insurance companies and other related industries to a maximum
of N25 million in a year.

He argued that at
certain levels of employment, the generation of minimum amount is
reasonable, given the level of remuneration paid to the staff concerned
whether male or female.

“Any such limitation to N25million, will only lead to under performance for employees who earn jumbo pay,” he said.

Also, the bank kicked against the proposed penalty for defaulting
organisations and corporate institutions, explaining that the
revocation of operational license will be too harsh a penalty as the
bill already proposes a substantial fine and period of imprisonment for
law breakers.

The Conference of
Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP) says it is not impressed by the
changes President Goodluck Jonathan has made so far in the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC), insisting that there are still
men of questionable character in the national electoral body.

The group, in a
statement by its national spokesperson, Osita Okechukwu, in Abuja on
Thursday, said it has no confidence in the acting chairman of the
commission, Solomon Soyebi, who it alleged was chosen by the former
chairman, Maurice Iwu.

Commitment in doubt

It noted that Mr. Soyebo’s appointment is an indication that the president’s commitment to electoral reforms is in doubt.

“The idea of
appointment of Mr. Soyebi as acting chairman without prejudice to
Soyebi’s baggage of questionable integrity as evidenced in the conduct
of Abia and re-run in Ekiti states’ elections, recall of Mr. Victor
Chukwuani and indeed retaining any of the Commissioners; casts serious
doubt on the commitment of His Excellency, Dr Goodluck Jonathan to
genuine electoral reform.

“CNPP is outraged
that President Goodluck Jonathan is fiddling with rotten eggs in INEC
to the extent that he buckled to Professor Maurice Iwu, who for over
two weeks flagrantly disobeyed presidential directive to hand over to
the most senior National Commissioner, Mr Phillip Umeadi; instead he
approved Mr. Solomon Soyebi, Professor Iwu’s anointed,

despite his baggage
of gross misconduct. “How can a president prevaricate and be indecisive
on such sensitive matter and allow Professor to prevail?

The coalition of
opposition parties said it considered Mr. Soyebo’s appointment as part
of the plot to rig the 2011 elections, since, according to it, Mr. Iwu
is still in charge as the president has provided him soft-landing in an
unholy alliance and negotiated exit.

It alleged that the
former INEC boss was convinced that Mr. Soyebi, unlike Mr. Umeadi,
would not probe the monumental fraud in the heaps of file he left
behind.

The CNPP also said
it is at a loss as to why Mr. Jonathan, who at every forum promised
free, fair and transparent elections next year could “wittingly mandate
a thoroughly discredited Professor Iwu and his co-travelers to lay a
fake foundation for 2011 election?”

Prosecute the lot!

The group said it
has no confidence in Mr. Soyebi’s statement on assumption of duty that
he was in the commission to fine-tune certain strategies and then make
for continuity in the plan for the general elections.

“The only
continuity we can attest of Professor Iwu, Soyebi and co,” the CNPP
said, “is sham elections, culture of impunity and rape of democracy;
which are ignoble plans.”

It demanded that
Mr. Iwu, the INEC Commissioners and Resident Electoral Commissioners
should hand over to their various secretaries for gross misconduct and
submit themselves to anti-graft agencies for investigation and
prosecution.

“CNPP posits that the Augean Stable in INEC must be totally
cleansed, as the Third Schedule Section 14{1a} of the 1999 Constitution
is very explicit and frowns over the appointment or retention of people
of questionable integrity into INEC,” the group said, while also urging
the president to submit three bills in the Uwais Report to the National
Assembly for adoption.

The Minister of
Information and Communication, Dora Akunyili, on Thursday asked
journalists to promote “the courage to publish the truth and perish”
and make it a professional canon.

Mrs. Akunyili said
this as the special guest of honour, at a media stakeholders’ debate
titled “150 years of journalism, how far?”

The debate was organised by the Lagos chapter of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) to commemorate the 2010 Press Week.

As the 2011 general elections approach, Mrs. Akunyili called for “rigorous investigative reports.”

The minister noted
that, after 55 years of the existence of the NUJ, the profession should
bold, fair, and balance in its reports.

“The imperative
need for electoral matters to be reported with a spirit and principle
of dispassionate arbitration cannot be overstated,” she said. “For us
to have the much desired free and fair election, reports on the event
must be thoroughly and rigorously investigated to unearth and publicise
truth and truth only.”

Better pay for journalists

Ray Ekpu, the
event’s chairman, who is also the chairman of Newswatch, described
Nigerian journalism as a giant with feet of clay. Mr. Ekpu said
journalism has gone from being an “unprofitable, frustrating, and
soul-depressing career in the 1930s,” according to the late Obafemi
Awolowo, to being a profession where journalists now “wear nice clothes
and drive exotic cars.”

On the other hand,
Mrs. Akunyili condemned the poor remuneration of journalists, blaming
same for the “unethical journalism in which practitioners, powerless to
effect change within (their organisations), become outwardly oriented
and begin to trade both media space and professional conviction for
money and material.”

She promised to
champion the cause for a separate and enhanced salary structure for
journalists and appealed to “the ownership and management of the
private sector journalism centres to urgently revisit their personnel
policies, especially, as it relates to compensation.”

FOI Bill

Though Mrs.
Akunyili avoided the long-standing call for the passage of the freedom
of Information Bill into law, the Editor of THISDAY Sunday, Yusuph
Olaniyonu, described the failure of the National Assembly to pass the
bill as a lost opportunity.

Mr. Olaniyonu, in
his remark, asked the minister “to use her good office to re-initiate
the FoI Bill as an executive bill given its salience to achieve
objective reporting.”

The guest lecturer,
Ralph Akinfeleye, the head of the University of Lagos mass
communications department, called for the immediate passage of the bill
because more than eighty democracies in the world have passed the FoI
into laws.

“If our leaders are serious about transparency, rule of law, and
accountability, and good governance, this is the time to pass the FoI
bill that has been with them for over a decade,” he said.

The Lagos State
government on Thursday donated two three-bedroom apartments, one each
to the families of two journalists murdered in Lagos recently by gunmen
who are yet to be apprehended by the police.

The recipients are
the family the late Bayo Ohu, a political editor with The Guardian
until he was murdered on September 20, 2009, and the family of the late
Edo Sule Ugbagwu who was a judiciary correspondent with The Nation
until he was shot dead on April 25.

The state’s
commissioner for information and strategy, Opeyemi Bamidele, made the
presentation at a media stakeholders’ debate titled ‘150 years of
journalism, how far?’ The debate was organised by the Lagos chapter of
the Nigerian Union of Journalists to commemorate the 2010 Press Week.

Mr Bamidele, who
represented the state governor, Babatunde Fashola, at the event, also
announced the donation of N1m to the widow of Mr Ugbagwu, to a loud
applause from the participants, including the information and
communication minister, Dora Akunyili, who was the special guest of
honour at the event.

The donation
fulfilled the promise made by Mr Fashola following a rally held by the
Lagos NUJ complaining of the killings which have placed journalists and
their families on the endangered lists.

Reading from the
governor’s speech, the commissioner advised journalists “to adopt a
sociological approach in discharging their responsibilities. This
approach would help rebrand Nigeria and her citizens in the comity of
nations.” According to him, the same approach was used in South Africa
when the apartheid regime fell. “We can adopt the same approach in
Nigeria by deploying our cultural and traditional values to promote
ourselves. This is the only way we can attract foreign investors and
rebrand our country internationally.”

Mrs Akunyili expressed strong misgivings at the frequency with which
journalists constitute the victims of targeted killings in our country
but avoided the long-standing issue of the Freedom of Information Bill.