Nigeria Content Online

The
counsel to the Lagos State House of Assembly, Festus Keyamo, on
Thursday, wrote to the lawmakers informing them of an appeal filed by
Richard Akinola, a human rights activist, on Wednesday, challenging the
power of the legislative House to probe the executive government.

“I have received
the notice of appeal filed by the claimant [Richard Akinola] against
that part of the decision of the High Court which declared that the
power of the House to investigate the governor cannot be interfered
with,” the letter stated.

According to the
letter, Mr. Akinola is appealing part of Justice Hakeem Abiru’s
judgement of March 16 where the Mr. Abiru held that the counsel to the
claimant, Babatunde Aturu, did not refer the court to any section of
the Constitution that prohibits the defendant, House of Assembly, from
constituting probe panel, as long as it follows due process.

For non-compliance
with due process, Justice Abiru quashed the first attempt by the House
to probe the activities of the executive government based on
allegations from a group called True Face of Lagos.

Last week, having
complied with the directive of the court, the House reconstituted
another probe panel which will have its first sitting on Monday, April
26.

However, while the
House has cordially entertained every request of the petitioner up till
now, the last request that the House allow the probe committee to sit
publicly seems to have been trashed.

There also is a
sense of urgency in the House’s attitude towards the probe issue, as
alleged by some pro-Fashola groups, when it gave the committee just two
weeks to conduct a thorough investigation into allegations that the
EFCC cannot finish within a month.

However, as alleged
by Mr. Keyamo in the letter, “they have also rushed to the Court to
obtain an injunction restricting the House from continuing with the
present effort to probe the activities of the governor.”

No date has been fixed for the hearing and no injunction has been given.

The Abia State
police command on Thursday said it is investigating the alleged
abduction of two foreigners believed to be Germans even though no
official report of the incident has been made to them.

The kidnapped men
were said to be on a picnic at the Azumini Blue River in Ukwa East local
government of the state last weekend when they were taken hostage.

The spokesperson of
the police, Alli Okechukwu, told journalists in Umuahia that the command
learned of the alleged abduction from the media as it was not reported
at any station. He, however, said the police was able to confirm the
incident.

Mr. Okechukwu said
“I want to make it categorically clear that the command also got the
news from the press. As I speak with you, there is no official report of
that alleged kidnap incident anywhere in the Abia State Police
command”.

Mr. Okechukwu said
after the command was besieged by journalists seeking to confirm the
report, its leadership dispatched officers to Azumini to investigate the
incident.

He said the
investigation revealed that the missing men had been at the river with
three girls.

“Our investigators
were told that when the expatriates ended their visit and were about to
go, some people shot sporadically in the air, scared away people and
whisked away the two in a waiting van and drove towards the boundary of
Abia and Akwa Ibom States,” Mr. Okechukwu said.

“In the melee, the
three girls and the driver were said to have run into the swamp but
reemerged later to drive back to Port Harcourt where they came from,
after the expatriates had been taken away by their abductors.”

The police spokesperson said the command was yet to ascertain the
nationalities of the abducted men and advised expatriates wishing to
travel to seek for police protection.

The Acting President, Goodluck Jonathan, Thursday commended the
Nigerian Armed Forces for their loyalty and respect for civil authority and the
rule of law.

He stated this when he inaugurated a new barracks named after
late Shehu Musa Yar’Adua yesterday in Asokoro, Abuja.

He commended the army for being consciously subordinate to civil
authority, and urged them to continue their efforts. He said it is a hallmark
of the loyalty which the country expects from them. He also urged them to
maintain the high level of professionalism and healthy civil-military relations
they have shown so far.

Mr. Jonathan assured the military of the federal government’s
commitment to its welfare, saying its members “are daily confronted with the
realities of [the] dearth of comfortable accommodation, particularly in the
Federal Capital Territory.”

Commenting on the efforts of army engineers who put up the
barracks, Mr. Jonathan said he was impressed that “for the first time in the
history of our existence as a nation, our army has been able to bring its
professional expertise to bear in the concept, designing, and actual
construction of an entire army barracks for the use of its personnel.”

He expressed optimism that, as the Nigerian army had single-handedly
managed a project of this magnitude at such reduced cost, the defence sector
has the capacity to undertake any engineering project successfully and can
compete favourably in the industry.

Army’s response

The Chief of Army Staff, Abdulrahman Dambazau, thanked the
federal government for its unflinching support towards the building of the
barracks, which has underscored the government’s commitment to the welfare of
the military.

He said that with the completion of the barracks, 105 of the
families of military personnel would be accommodated and, by June this year,
another 105 families would be accommodated. He noted that the building project
was conceived in August 2008 by the Nigerian Army’s engineers under their
direct labour scheme, and this had cut down cost by more than 80 percent.

He explained that the barracks is named after late Shehu Musa Yar’Adua in
recognition of his contributions to the development of the Nigerian army.

After weeks of rescheduling, our House of Representatives
suspended voting on the 1999 constitution review on Thursday, once more
deferring by an extra week, the crucial exercise needed to conclude the amendment.

The Deputy Speaker, Usman Nafada, said the process will now be
completed next week, but gave no reasons for the new date.

“We will stay here till 6pm today to conclude the consideration
today and then start the voting on Tuesday next,” he told about 200 members who
attended yesterday’s plenary session.

In a schedule released last week by the House and confirmed by
the Deputy Speaker, the lawmakers were billed to debate the separate provisions
of the amendments on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, while the electronic
voting was planned for Thursday, April 22, 2010.

Ita Enang, the Chairman House committee on Business and Rules,
who announced the plan, said the sundry legislative business will be suspended
during this week, while the House, already behind the Senate in the exercise,
focuses on its completion.

“It is exclusively a week we devote to the consideration and
passage of the amendment of the constitution and we will do all we can to avoid
anything that will be like a distraction,” he affirmed.

Through the week, the House has hardly adhered to its timetable,
admitting motions and other deliberations during the three days that always
commenced with hours of closed door sessions.

On Tuesday, it adjourned shortly after the executive session. On
Wednesday, lawmakers commiserated with Poland over the death of its president
and considered a motion on wind storm damage in Gombi town of Adamawa State on
Wednesday, before beginning a late afternoon debate on the amendment, drawing
past 6pm.

The lawmakers also took scores of minutes debating a
controversial remark of a colleague, Femi Gbajabiamila, who said the House
leadership has led the House away from the interest of Nigerians.

By Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Nafada affirmed that voting will
still hold Thursday.

Waiting till Tuesday

The exercise will now hold on Tuesday, April 27, 2010, he
announced again on Thursday, after voting cards were earlier assigned to
members and a mock voting carried out. He offered no explanation.

He only pleaded with all members to be in attendance during the voting next
week. “Your constituency will be watching you, so we should all try and be
present during the voting,” he advised, highlighting the suggestion that the
exercise was shifted since the House could not make for the required minimum of
240 members to pass a clause.

Two weeks after its take-off, the Social Democratic Mega Party
is already being besieged by politicians who have expressed their interest to
contest at gubernatorial and presidential levels on the platform of the party,
the Party’s Protem National Chairman, Pat Utomi, said on Wednesday.

Mr. Utomi was speaking on the political strength of the new
party, amidst statements by some politicians that it is just a paper formation
and dispute among two of its former backers, Atiku Abubakar and Balarabe Musa,
on their roles in the project.

“All the candidates, including myself, are getting ready for a
long primary-season during which we would go to the length and breadth of our
constituency to canvas members of our party to support certain ideas that we
stand for and how to serve the Nigerian people in a disciplined manner and
bring an end to this curse of poor leadership that has bedevilled Nigeria for
so many years,” he said.

“For the avoidance of all doubts, the movement is strong,
healthy and surging forward.” He said a number of those who initially
participated in the process that led to the formation of the party had
different ideas of what its outlook would be.

“Different players have had different understandings of the
issues in the run of process. The situation is that different perspectives of
the structure of the party that should result from the Mega Summit Movement
have been expressed from the very beginning as should rightly have been the
case in a democratic process,” he said.

Misfits will leave

On the challenges that the party faced at its beginning, Mr.
Utomi said two schools of thought were dominant.

“One school led by Balarabe Musa wanted the process to result in
the coalition of political parties where members continue to belong to their
parties and decide whether they wanted to concentrate on local or state
election while all collaboratively work towards issues at the national level,”
Mr Utomi said.

“The second school of thought suggested that, with the experience
that we as a nation have had in the matter of political party coalition, it is
better that people coming into MSM should come, leaving their political parties
behind and come to join as individual.”

Mr. Utomi said that the group finally agreed to a model that
fuses both schools of thought.

“People who lack discipline, who cannot follow party discipline and rigorous
visionary decision-making aimed at uplifting the majority of the Nigerian
people, self-serving persons in their orientation, would eventually leave the
party,” he said.