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The Editor of Daily Independent,
Ikechukwu Amaechi, has replaced the executive director, publications of
The Punch Newspapers, Azubuike Ishiekwene, on the Panel of Judges for
the 2010 CNN MultiChoice African Journalists Awards.

NEXT could not confirm reports that Mr.
Ishiekwene, who was the chairperson of the panel of judges of the 2009
edition of the awards, might have been removed due to the allegation of
fraud levelled against him by the former editor of The Punch, Steve
Ayorinde.

The Punch’s Management is currently investigating the allegations.

A tough one

In a telephone interview, Gbenga
Adefaye, chairman of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, commended Mr.
Ameachi’s appointment, describing him and other Nigerians who had been
members of the panel as “worthy members of the guild.” He also said
that Mr. Amaechi’s appointment is “a judgement on the quality of
journalism coming out of Nigeria”.

However, when asked to react to the
replacement of Mr. Ishiekwene, Mr. Adefaye called it a “tough one.”
According to him, “The panel of judges of the CNN award is an
independent body with its own rules for appointment and engagement of
members of board and these rules and procedures I’m not familiar with.”

He explained since the Nigerian Guild
of Editors is not privy to these rules and procedures, it will be
difficult for it to say for sure why Mr. Ishiekwene was removed.

Though he allowed that the removal
“might be remotely connected to the on-going allegation against Azu,”
he also said it might mean nothing, recalling that Doyin Abiola, former
managing director of the defunct Concord Newspapers, used to be a
member of the panel of judges of the awards but Mr. Ishiekwene was
invited to serve on the panel after she vacated her position on the
panel.

Attempts to speak with Messrs
Ishiekwene and Amaechi did not succeed. Mr. Ishiekwene answered our
call, but did not say a word after our reporter introduced himself and
the reason for his call. Mr. Amaechi could not be reached on the phone,
although one of his associates at the Daily Independent said he
travelled to the east.

New panelists

Mr. Amaechi, who holds a masters degree
in International Journalism from the University of Cardiff, United
Kingdom started his journalism career with The Guardian and has worked
for publications such as The News, Tempo and PMNews.

On arrival from the United Kingdom in 2007, he was appointed the Editor of the Daily Independent.

According to the list of the judges
published on the CNN website for the prestigious awards, other members
of the panel are José Luís Mendonça, Press Counsellor to the Angolan
Permanent Delegation to UNESCO; Zipporah Musau, managing editor for
Magazines, The Standard Group Ltd Kenya, Joel Kibazo, journalist and
media consultant; Jean-Paul Gérouard, deputy editor-in-chief, France 3
TV; Arlindo Lopes, secretary general, Southern African Broadcasting
Association; FerialHaffajee, editor-in-chief, City Press, South Africa
and Kim Norgaard, CNN Bureau Chief, South Africa.

The Awards are in their fifteenth year and this year’s edition will take place in Kampala, Uganda in May.

The House of Representatives will today commence investigations into the controversial contract for Abuja airport’s second runway. The project, planned for a whopping N64 billion, can build two new airports, lawmakers say.
The House Aviation Committee has confirmed that key officials of the nation’s aviation industry are expected at the hearings. They will be required to explain their roles in the contract award, estimated as one of the highest in the world.
The former Minister of Aviation, Babatunde Omotoba, the Senior Special Assistant on Aviation to the ailing president, Shehu Iyal, and the Managing Director of the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria, Richard Asuebeogun, are some of the officials expected to appear before the committee today.
The House committee chairman, Bethel Amadi, explained over the weekend that the investigative hearings are not intended as an indictment, but to offer opportunities to the officials to explain their side of the story.
Contract inflation
Julius Berger Plc. was awarded the contract for the construction of a second runway for the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, on January 8, 2010, after initial bidding, at the sum of N63.4 billion, according to procurement documents obtained by the committee.
Ministry officials had argued that the job was necessary to compliment the aging first runway, which has endured heavy traffic for over three decades.
At the awarded amount, the project is considered possibly the most expensive globally, reflecting the nation’s poor procurement ethics that give room for contract inflation.
“Based on the information available to us,” Mr. Amadi had told his colleagues during debate on the issue in early March, 2010, “the amount is far too high, way too expensive and outrageous when compared to similar constructions around the globe.” When the cost of the contract became public knowledge, the House of Representatives ordered an investigation. They suspended further construction, arguing that based on indices available to it, the amount could turn over two new airports.
A member of the committee, Mayor Eze, who represents Imo State, told NEXT the investigations will go beyond an “ordinary hearing where noise will prevail,” as the lawmakers probe the unclear contracting procedures that saw the airport project sum allegedly inflated to the massive figure.
“We understand that appropriate work has to be done and at the end of the day, we will let Nigerians judge and appreciate the committee’s work,” he said.
Most expensive
Lawmakers heard details of airport and runway constructions in other countries and within Nigeria, where the cost hovered a little more than N40 billion. Mr. Amadi also explained how the ministry officials repeatedly turned down the committee’s invitation to give details of the award throughout 2009.
In details finally submitted in February 2010, the contract cost had soared to more than N80 billion from an initial proposed N4billion, and finally settled at the present award cost of N63.5 billion.
The committee was mandated to conduct investigative hearings and report in three weeks, while the construction remained suspended.
The former Aviation Minister, Mr. Omotoba, under whose tenure the contract was awarded, will be expected to explain how the ministry and Julius Berger Plc., arrived at the amount for a 4.5 km runway.

Seven Nigerians
arrested after a seaborne attack on Guinea’s presidential palace in
February last year have been sentenced to 12 years in prison, a Malabo
court said Monday.

The Nigerians were
found guilty of terrorism and also fined 149 million CFA francs
(230,000 euros, 310,000 dollars), court president Antonio Pascual Ojo
Ebobo said, reading the sentence.

The court also
announced the release of 11 Equatorial Guineans – all members of the
opposition People’s Union Party – who had been suspects in the February
17, 2009 attack. Seven of them had already been freed last month.

The accused
Nigerians told interrogators they were on their way by sea to Cameroon
when they were driven off course by a storm and stopped by the
Equatorial Guinea navy.

The army repelled
the attack which, officials said at the time, involved fighters from
the Nigerian rebel Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta
(MEND), which later denied involvement.

South Africa’s
antitrust watchdog said it raided the offices of South African Airways
SAA)and another airline, as part of an ongoing probe into price fixing
related to the soccer World Cup.

The competition
commission said in a statement on Tuesday that it had searched the
offices of South African Airways, budget airline Mango and an industry
group last week, seizing documents and electronic data.

The investigation
comes as demand for flights and accommodation during the FIFA 2010
World Cup has so far failed to meet expectations.

The probe – which
is also targeting airlines British Airways, Comair (COMJ.J) and 1Time
(1TMJ.J) – was first announced in January. At that time, the commission
said SAA had promised to cooperate with the investigation, provided it
was excluded from prosecution.

The searches last week were prompted by suspicion that SAA and Mango
may have withheld information from the investigation, the commission
said.

The National Poverty Alleviation
Programme (NAPEP) in Katsina State, in collaboration with an NGO,
Service to Humanity Foundation, has donated 100 goats to 50 women in
Bindawa Local Government Area of the state.

The goats were donated under the second
phase of NAPEP’s Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programme, which
covers seven local government areas in the state.

Speaking while launching the programme
on Tuesday in Bindawa, the wife of the state governor, Fatima Shema,
said the animals were given out to women, including widows, in addition
to cash given to them under the NAPEP CCT programme.

She noted that the cash being given to
the beneficiaries monthly is meant to assist them in educating their
children, especially the orphans.

She disclosed that, apart from the cash
and animals been given freely to the beneficiaries, economic trees
would also be given to them as part of efforts to improve their
socio-economic well being.

In his address, the Bindawa Local
Government Chairman, Abdu Umaru, commended NAPEP and the NGO for the
gesture, saying that the council had also given 2,000 exercise books to
pupils and 500 text books to teachers in the area to enhance learning
in schools.

Each of the 50 women in Bindawa got two goats and a cash donation of between N3,000 to N5,000.

Indigenes of Ibeno and fishermen operating in Akwa
Ibom have condemned the frequent oil spills from the Quo Iboe oil
fields, and its negative impact on fishing and marine life.

Ibeno community, near Eket in Akwa Ibom, last week
reported another oil spill suspected to be from the Qua Iboe oil field,
operated by Mobil Producing Nigeria (MPN).

It will also be recalled that MPN reported that a
leak on a crude pipeline on December 4, 2009 caused the discharge of
unknown volume of crude into the Atlantic Ocean.

However, Mobil in a statement released in Eket on
Tuesday, confirmed receiving reports of the crude oil deposits around
Ibeno, but said that the source of the crude oil was unknown as tests
conducted on the samples showed that the spill did not emanate from its
facilities.

Community sources in Ibeno however, dismissed the
claims of the oil company. They said that it was a way to evade paying
compensation for losses incurred by fishermen and repairing damages
done to the environment as a result of the spill.

Herkings Inyang, Secretary to Ibeno Clan Council,
said the community was surprised that Mobil denied responsibility for a
spill that occurred in its host communities where its pipelines ran
through. “It is hard to believe that a multi-national like Mobil will
be so dishonest to deny responsibility.

Which other oil company operates here?

“It is very funny because Addax operates far away near Nigeria’s
maritime boundary with Cameroun, while Total is also very far from
here, so did the oil fly to Ibeno?”

A major contentious
issue during the debate on the report of the House of Representatives
ad-hoc committee on the review of the 1999 Constitution last week was
that of the minimum qualification of aspirants to the House and the
Senate.

The 44-member
committee headed by the deputy speaker, Usman Nafada recommended that
any Nigerian aspiring to be a senator or a representative should have
at least a diploma.

The constitution,
in Section 65 (2) (a) stipulates that a person shall be qualified for
election into the National Assembly if, “he has been educated up to at
least School Certificate level or its equivalent…” But the committee
proposed an amendment to the section substituting for certificate the
words “Diploma level or its equivalent and obtained the relevant
certificates and has served as a member of the National Assembly.” The
clause “has served as a member of the National Assembly” means that
anyone who has served for at least three months as a member of the
federal legislature would be exempted since that would have afforded
him or her the opportunity of learning the legislative proceedings.

Not surprising, the issue generated an intense and prolonged debate during the plenary session.

For the lawmakers
in support of the recommendation, the reduction in the quality of
education in the country makes it imperative to review upward the
minimum qualification of those who make law for Nigerians at the
federal level. They also believed that if the qualification is raised,
it would compel many to embrace education, which is a major determinant
in the productivity of the lawmakers.

But those opposed
to the recommendation argued that if the amendment is carried through,
many Nigerians may be disenfranchised due to poor educational
background. From the tone of the debate, it was not difficult to fathom
that they were protecting many of their colleagues who possess only
school certificates.

In the current
National Assembly, about 0.94 per cent of the 109 senators are school
certificate holders while about 4.74 per cent of such people are in the
360-member lower chamber.

According to the
“The Lawmakers: Sixth Assembly,” the percentage of senators with
O’Level GCE in 1999 was 6.6 percent but dropped to 4 percent in 2003
while in the House, the statistics showed that in 1999, those with O’
Level Certificate were 9.4 percent in 1999 and 7 percent in 2003.

It also said that
the proportion of senators with the first degree has been fairly
stable, with 44.3 percent in 2007 as against 46.7 percent in 1999 and
43.2 in 2003; while in the House, the movement has been quite dramatic
– from 55.7 percent in 1999 to 44.6 percent in 2003 and 48.96 percent
in 2007. Senators with second degrees have risen from 20.6 percent in
1999 to 31.1 percent in 2007 while in the House they have grown from
17.7 percent in 1999 to 31.16 percent in 2007.

The book concludes:
“This trend seems to have been strengthened by the general awareness of
the need for better learning and deeper knowledge of policy making
among the earlier crop of lawmakers. Many of the 1999 class of
legislators were known to have either availed themselves of
opportunities for courses during their tenure or return to school at
the end of their tenure.” Despite the perceived improvement, the
quality of debates on the floor of both chambers is still low, and
sometimes embarrassing. Others are merely warming the seats.

For improved
training, educational qualification is a major determinant of the
quality of debate in any forum, including the legislature. Therefore,
the ad-hoc committee deserves some kudos for that recommendation.

However, as can be
seen, education is not all it takes for our lawmakers to be more
productive. Controversially, some of those certificates paraded by our
lawmakers are fake. How can one explain, for instance, why a senator
who served between 1999-2003 and who claimed to have a doctorate degree
could not make a simple sentence in English? Then there was the House
of Representatives member (between 2003 and 2007) with an advanced
diploma who could not say a word in English throughout the four years
he served.

It is common
knowledge that with some good money, you can obtain any certificate. It
is also not in doubt that some kinds of diploma can be obtained within
a space of three months, whether in Nigeria or abroad. So, it is not a
big deal obtaining a diploma certificate for the purpose of
participating in an election to come to the National Assembly as is
being proposed by the Nafada Panel.

What is important, therefore, is the kind of exposure the lawmakers
get when they come to the legislature. Our lawmakers need constant
training and re-training on legislative duties. It is necessary for the
relevant authorities to organise seminars and retreats to enable them
improve on their productivity.

Pick pockets that
got away with my mobile phone and a couple of thousands of naira from my
husband’s pocket, a one hour walk under the heatstroke weather, a son
that started palpitating after being crushed by a mass of people on the
steps of Tinubu Square (TBS) and a daughter that broke into tears in
sheer terror. This was the sum total of my family’s experience at the
much hyped Lagos carnival.

We had started the
day on a very hopeful note, convinced that we should not be in Lagos and
not attend the maiden edition of the carnival. I had invitation cards
that were beautiful to behold. They had been delivered to me well ahead
of today’s event and they came with passes for car parks leading us to
believe the carnival would be a well organised event. We were totally
wrong.

For starters, the
car park was in Marina, a bit of distance to TBS even on the coolest of
days. This didn’t give us much pause though, we just assumed all of
Lagos Island had been cordoned off and buses would be available on the
periphery of the Island that would ferry revellers to and from the
event. Again, we were wrong, twice we tried to board a Lagos red bus,
both times at CMS only for the driver to insist he would not going
anywhere near TBS.

But, the sweat
dripping down our faces and the sun beating down our heads was not going
to stop us from having a good time. So we trudged on. Eventually,
exhausted, stinky and sweaty, we triumphantly arrived at TBS.

We were then
confronted with trying to actually get into the venue. After shoving our
way into the grounds through a side entrance and blocking numerous
attempts by the many pick pockets to sneak their hands into our pockets,
we realised we had arrived at a place where we were cordoned off
completely from the activities taking place.

We had invitations
and we reasoned there must be another entrance. A young lady who was
also waving an invitation card confirmed what we thought. Actually, she
said, you need to go through the main entrance and offered to lead the
way. So we started climbing steps up to the terraces and in the
beginning it was quite straight forward but by the time we got to the
other side of terraces and had to make our way down the steps that
exited the building, it was total chaos.

There were no
ushers, it was almost a free for all shoving feast. If you didn’t push
and jostle you got squashed and didn’t move an inch. Eventually, we
found ourselves outside. Once we got out it should have been easy. Make
our way to the entrance, show our cards, walk in find a seat and
leisurely enjoy the spectacle. Wrong, again.

The chaos at the
gate was even worse than what we encountered on the terraces. There all
we saw was a heaving mass of humanity, again shoving, pushing, shouting
and swearing. No pretence of ushers or even security personnel to ensure
order although on the other side of the gate, there were security men
who were obviously not interested in their job of maintaining sanity. We
spent about a minute contemplating the horde and decided to give it a
try; after all we were already at TBS.

It quickly became
clear that we were about to experience a repeat of what we went through
on the steps of the terraces. So we quickly withdrew and decided to go
home. In those few minutes we spent at the gates, my phone had gone
missing and money too from my husband’s pockets.

Five hours after we set out to have a good time, we dispiritedly made
our way back to our car, without even sighting a single float. And, in
case anyone from the Lagos State government is reading this, let me say
here and now, no thank you to an invitation next year.

Almost a week after they were cleared by the Senate, the 38
ministerial nominees selected by the Acting President, Goodluck Jonathan, will
be inaugurated today at the presidential villa.

A statement released by the presidency yesterday, stated that
the inauguration will take place at the Council Chambers of the presidential
villa,at noon.

The nominees were screened in specially organised sittings of
the Senate, which held back to conclude the job before it proceeded on a
two-week recess. David Mark, the Senate President, said his colleagues rushed
the screening of the nominees in the interest of the country. Mr. Mark also
advised the Acting President to sack any of the ministers who fails to perform.

The ministers were picked from all the states of the federation,
except Taraba, whose nominee was rejected, and Ebonyi State.

“We have spent several hours to be able to screen and confirm
the ministers. It is our wish and hope that once these ministers are allocated
their portfolios and when they resume, they will earnestly do what they
promised us here,” Mr. Mark said.

The ministers will be assigned portfolios during the ceremony.

Lobbying intensified

Meanwhile, NEXT gathered that the ministers, their supporters,
and different interest groups, have intensified lobbying to make sure their
nominees get choice ministries.

A source at the presidency said this was the reason for the
shifting of the inauguration from last week Thursday to today.

The cabinet was dissolved on March 17, 2010 by Mr. Jonathan, who has had a
testy relation with the cabinet he inherited from his boss, Umaru Yar’Adua.