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The minority leader of the House of Representatives, Muhammed
Ali Ndume, has said he is a beneficiary of what he describes as the
“allocation” of votes during the 2007 general elections in the country.

“In 1999, there was no election, there was selection,” Mr. Ndume
said. “In 2003, there was no election, there was selection. In 2007, it became
worse, there was allocation. I am a beneficiary. I want to be elected. I want
to be elected in 2011,” Mr. Ndume said.

The All Nigeria Peoples Party representative stated this while
addressing protesters at the National Assembly complex in Abuja yesterday.

The protest was organised by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC),
the Trade Union Congress and civil society groups to demand for electoral
reforms and for the removal of Maurice Iwu as the chairman of the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Mr. Ndume told the protesters that the opposition members in the
National Assembly have become incapacitated saying “the opposition in the
National Assembly and in a democracy is supposed to be doing what you are doing
now, but we are paralysed.”

Impartial umpire

The legislator, representing Damboa/Gwoza/Chibok federal
constituency of Borno State, said he supports the recommendations of the
Muhammadu Uwais-led commission on electoral reform and is opposed to the
senate’s recommendation that the president continues to appoint INEC heads.

“You can’t be a player and choose the umpire. The appointment of
the INEC chairman must be done according to Uwais recommendation. You should
stand up and support us that are struggling for that. Secondly, elections must
be completed before swearing in of anybody. Now there is a senator that is to
be sworn in or yet to be sworn in after three years of litigation,” Mr. Ndume
said.

The legislator further challenged the protesters not to relent
in their demand for electoral reforms and not to put the blame of failure of
the reforms on legislators alone.

“It is not enough to request for electoral reform. We must ask for credible
elections. It is not enough to put blame on the minority leader because I am a
Nigerian too.”

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and its affiliate unions,
yesterday, accused the leadership of the National Assembly of sidelining
national interest in its recent debate on constitution amendment.

At the end of a protest rally in Abuja, the NLC’s President,
Abdulwahed Omar, in a letter to the Senate President, David Mark and Speaker of
the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, restated the demand of labour and
other civil society organisations for genuine electoral reforms and the removal
of the incumbent Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission
(INEC), Maurice Iwu.

In the letter also signed by the President General, Trade union
Congress, Peter Esele, and co-chair, Labour and Civil Society Coalition, Dipo Fashina,
the NLC called for the establishment of an independent INEC, while persons
having issues with their elections should not be sworn into office until all
election petitions have been resolved.

It also made a case for the creation of a level playing field
for all political interests.

The NLC listed the issues, which it described as “the popular
aspirations of Nigerians” to include “the need to make the peoples’ vote count
by providing for an electoral arbiter in the INEC that would be truly
independent, fair, efficient and which would not do the bidding of the
President or political party in control of state power at each of the levels of
governance.”

The other issue has to do with “the need to ensure that those
who engage in massive rigging of elections do not get sworn into office until
election results had been validly challenged in the courts,” as well as “the
need to create a level playing field for all political interests, not cluttered
by big money, godfathers, gender identities, regionalism, ethnicity and other
primordial concerns.

“We strongly believe that the amendments to these key sections
will not augur well for entrenching democratic ethos and issues-based politics
in Nigeria,” it noted.

Citing the example of a public official elected on the political
platform crossing over to another party with different manifesto and
programmes, the NLC argued that in the light of recent political experience in
the country, such a movement would do “violent damage to the country’s desire
to consolidate on her democratic norms.”

Remove Iwu

It also said to continue to vest the powers to appoint the INEC
Chairman in the Presidency, despite the high level of partisanship experienced
in recent times amounts to an affront on the wishes of Nigerians.

Urging the National Assembly ensure that Mr. Iwu’s tenure is not renewed
when it comes to an end next June, as its electoral conduct brought shame on
the nation, the NLC said the “monumental costs in unprecedented re-run
elections should not be allowed a day more.”

The House of Representatives is set to reconstitute standing
committees which are currently without leadership. The deputy speaker, Usman
Nafada, gave the indication yesterday at the end of the plenary session of the
House, which began a three weeks recess. The House will reconvene on Tuesday,
April 20.

Of the 84 committees in the House, seven of them are presently
without chairmen. They include Information and National Orientation, Power,
Privatisation and Commercialisation, Lake Chad, Women in Parliament,
Cooperation and Integration in Africa, and Works. The committee chairmen either
resigned, died, or were removed.

For instance, Ndudi Elumelu, who chaired the Power Committee,
was removed following the allegations of bribery that trailed the celebrated
investigation into the $16 billion allegedly expended on power reform by the
administration of former president, Olusegun Obasanjo. Since then, the deputy
whip, Tambuwal, has been running the committee. The elections of the former
chairmen of Works, Women in Parliament, and Lake Chad, Chuma Nzeribe, Lynda
Chuba-Ikpeazu, and Ahmed Salik respectively, into the House in 2007, were quashed
at the Court of Appeal.

Dino Melaye, who headed the Information Committee, was removed
when he unsuccessfully campaigned for the ouster of some principal officers who
allegedly mismanaged public funds; while his counterpart in Cooperation and
Integration in Africa, Independence Ogunewe, was sacked when he joined a
campaign to have the Speaker, Dimeji Bankole, probed over some financial
impropriety.

The former chairman of the Privatisation and Commercialisation,
Njidda Gella, died last August.

The committees are being run by their deputies.

Wanted during break

Mr. Nafada, while closing the plenary session yesterday, asked
members of the Selection Committee of the House to be ready because they would
be called during the three weeks recess, to reconstitute the committees.

Members of the committee statutorily include all the principal
officers of the House drawn from the majority and minority parties.

“Let me inform members of the Selection Committee that their
attention may be needed during the break for the reconstitution of the
committees lying vacant. The leadership and membership of the committees may be
reconstituted during the break. So, they (members of the Selection Committee)
may be asked to come back for this purpose,” the deputy speaker announced.

Mr. Nafada also said that the electronic voting machine, which
has not been put to use since the return of democracy to the country in 1999,
would be repaired before the House reconvenes to enable the lawmakers vote on
the proposed constitution amendment.

He urged members to read copies of the report of the 44-member ad-hoc
committee, which he headed, in order “to come with useful input” into the
amendment process.

Attempts by some former Speakers of the State Houses of
Assembly, who are currently members of the House of Representatives, to include
themselves and their colleagues as beneficiaries of proposed remuneration for
former presiding officers of legislature, were yesterday rebuffed by the
members of the House.

The lawmakers also proposed that only elected former presidents
of the country, and not military heads of state who came to power via coup
de’tats, should benefit from the remuneration being proposed in a bill titled
‘A Bill for an Act to provide remuneration of former Presidents, Heads of
Federal Legislative Houses and Chief Justices of the Federation and Other
Ancillary Matters, 2010.’ The bill came up for second reading in the House.

Leading debate on the bill, House Leader, Tunde Akogun, said its
provisions were in line with the constitutional requirements and that it would
ensure that those who have served the country in those capacities are
adequately taken care of.

Among them, he said, are former Presidents of the country,
former Senate Presidents, former Speakers of the House of Representatives, and
former Chief Justices of Nigeria.

Friday Itulah (PDP, Edo), said former Speakers and deputy
speakers of the State Houses of Assembly should also benefit from the proposed
salary regime, adding “what is good for the goose is good for the gander.” Mr.
Itulah, who was a speaker of the Edo House of Assembly, drew the attention of
the members to Section 4 of the 1999 Constitution as well as Item 44 of the
Second Schedule of the same document, arguing that since the National Assembly
has powers to legislate for the entire federation, the state should also
benefit from the proposed law.

A former Speaker of the Abia State House of Assembly, Stanley
Ohajuruka, who also made similar demand as Mr. Itulah, said the inclusion of
the former speakers and deputy speakers in the proposed scheme would encourage
the state legislatures “to support whatever we are doing here.” Mr. Ohajuruka,
however, warned that the law should be made in such a way that it won’t
encourage frequent impeachment of Speakers of the state legislatures by those
who want to benefit from the scheme.

Another member and former Speaker of the Benue State House of
Assembly, Emmanuel Jime, argued that the inclusion of the former state Speakers
and their deputies would minimise corruption at the state level because “public
officers would now be aware that they will get something after leaving office.”
But Leo Ogor (PDP, Delta), Ita Enang (PDP, Akwa Ibom) and Elizabeth Ogbaga
(PDP, Ebonyi) kicked against the demands by the former Speakers. They argued
that it would not only contradict the provisions of the constitution but also
the doctrine of the separation of powers.

Wary of frequent removals

Mr. Ogor specifically noted that Section 124 of the Constitution
allows only the State Houses of Assembly to prescribe remuneration and salaries
for themselves and governors, but not exceeding the amounts determined by the
Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC).

Mr. Enang also recalled that the Akwa Ibom legislature has
already made law for the purpose of paying former public office holders,
stressing that the bill under consideration should be restricted to the federal
level.

Patrick Ikhariale (PDP, Edo) wanted a clause to be included in
the proposed law to ensure that only Senate Presidents and Speakers of the
House of Representatives that ended a particular tenure of a parliament would
benefit. This, according to him, would forestall a situation where presiding
officers are removed frequently by those who want to benefit from the proposed
remuneration regime.

Mr. Ikhariale recalled that in the last dispensation, four
Senate Presidents emerged from the South East geo-political zone alone, adding
that such situation would not encourage the implementation of the proposed law.

Alex Ukam (PDP, Cross River) called for the inclusion of a
clause which will make former state governors who eventually become presiding
officers of either the Senate or the House of Representatives not to receive
pension on their former positions until they leave the National Assembly.

Others who contributed to the debate include Abike Dabiri (AC,
Lagos) and Halims Agoda (PDP, Delta) both of who backed the bill.

The bill, which was read for the second time, was referred by the deputy
speaker, Usman Nafada, who presided over the session, to the Committee of the
Whole, for further legislative action.

The
Federal Government is yet to implement the report of the House on the
annual manipulation of unspent budget by senior officials and no arrest
has so far been made in regard to the report, the Speaker of the House
of Representative, Dimeji Bankole, said yesterday in Ibadan at the
inauguration of the leadership of the Yoruba Academy.

He also said there
should be more stringent monitoring of other arms of government, rather
than the usual focus on the executive arms of government alone, to
ensure accountability and faithful service delivery. According to Mr.
Bankole,

“We even
discovered in one single agency, Nigerian Ports Authority, how N11
billion was remitted out of N48 billion,” he said. “I don’t know who
EFCC and ICPC are looking for. It got so bad that I have to take the
floor myself sponsoring a bill to ensure that public funds are
judiciously accounted for. Of course, at the public hearing, civil
servants came and the people condemned it.”

Mr. Bankole, who
said his Speakership is part of the achievements of the Yoruba since the
inception of democracy, said the gap between the government and the
governed is getting wider by the day, as the governed have little to
sway in holding their leaders accountable.

“A week after I became the Speaker, the executive brought the budget
to the House. It was a budget of N1.6 trillion and in the budget
proposal, they brought an item called ‘unspent fund’ of N21billion out
of N1.6 trillion. This means that the budget must have performed to the
95%, but we all knew that the budget performance was between 30% and
35%. I was the deputy chairman of the finance committee before I became
the Speaker, so I had an idea of some of the things. After asking
questions, two weeks later, N21 billion became N450 billion. You now ask
the question, what could have happened to that money or what has been
happening to the money many years before. No arrest was made o! No
arrest was made!”

The country director of the World Bank in Nigeria, Onno Ruhle,
said yesterday that only states that meet pre-conditions for accessing the
bank’s loan, such as a vision with clear goals of what the money is for, would
qualify for such loan.

Mr. Ruhl, who led a team from the World bank for an assessment visit
to Abia State to ascertain its qualification for a $200million loan it is
seeking, said a key objective of the visit was to find ways to accelerate the
partnership between the state government and the Bank to ensure that results
are achieved.

The country director, who also said the team has noted some
progress in the state in some of the key areas, said what the state government
was able to achieve in the past would be a factor in determining whether the
loan will be granted or not. The World Bank loan has a repayment period of
about 40 years.

Receiving the delegation at the Government House, Umuahia, the
state’s governor, Theodore Orji, said the loan it is seeking from World Bank
would be used to execute projects and programmes that would have direct bearing
on the lives of people of the state.

“The state government had done its homework to determine
specific areas that the funds will be channelled into if granted,” he said, and
assured that the loan would be used in such a manner that future generations
would benefit from it.

Qualified for loan

The governor said the visit of the World Bank team afforded them
the opportunity to see things for themselves, and decide whether to grant the
loan to the state or not.

“Our state is qualified for the loan,” Mr Orji said, adding that
the state government feels safer to partner with the World Bank than local
banks.

“Previous partnership with the World Bank, particularly in Abia
State community and social development projects, has been rewarding,” he said.

Murtala Yar’adua,
the nephew of Umaru Yar’Adua, the president, yesterday appeared for the
Senate ministerial screening, promising “youthful energy” to the
cabinet, in a move seen as a knock on the group that tried to keep the
ailing president in power.

Mr. Yar’Adua was
the 16th nominee to be screened by the Senate on Tuesday. He harped on
offering the nation his private sector experience and “youthful
energy”, which will lead to finding “new ways of doing old things.”

“The energy of
youth is very important.” Mr. Yar’Adua told the senators. “I can draw a
lot of experience and advice on new ways of doing new things.”

Although he did not
condemn the ‘old ways’ of doing things, he said energy was apparently
lacking in the cabinet. “Energy is what we need,” he said, promising a
bridge to reconnect the old generation of leaders with the youth. “We
find there is (a) disconnect between our generation and yours, and I
hope to bring hope for that connect,” he added.

Mr. Yar’Adua’s
nomination is seen as an attempt by the acting president’s team to
dispel the uncertainty that has clouded President Yar’Adua’s tenure. He
faced less inquiry from the senators on Tuesday, as he made remarks
touching more on contemporary procedures of governance, rather than on
politics.

Organised plenary

Unlike the chaotic
screening session witnessed the previous day, the Tuesday plenary was a
lot more organised. The senate had taken about 45 minutes before the
plenary started properly to hold a closed door session during which
they resolved the grouse generated from the previous screening.

The senate plenary
started at about an hour before midday and lasted till about 6pm,
during which the senate screened 24 nominees, bringing the total number
of screened nominees to 27. A new nominee, Aliyu Idi Hong, the former
minister of state for health, was added to the list that already has 39
nominees.

Although the
screening of Sanusi Dagash, a former senator, was expected to be
stormy, he was allowed to ‘bow and go’, a gesture Mr. Dagash said
surprised him. He was accused of pitching the Senate against President
Yar’Adua over the 2008 budget passage. He, however, started out by
apologising to the senators collectively after he admitted lobbying the
senators individually before the screening. The senators chorused “go
and sin no more” as he headed out of the red chamber.

Evasive ministers

During the
screening, each nominee was asked an average of three questions, which
were answered swiftly. The re-appointed nominees were screened first.
They were each asked to assess their performance in the last cabinet
and then say why they should be re-appointed.

Most of the
re-appointed nominees were, however, evasive with their reactions to
questions. Most claimed they had performed well but could not state
specific projects they executed while in office.

Godswill Orubebe,
who headed the Niger Delta ministry, for instance, while reacting to a
question on whether the amnesty program for the repentant militants in
the Niger Delta has performed well, said, “Amnesty so far is on the
move and I believe (that) the level we have reached now only needs
re-invigoration to move forward.” Mr. Orubebe said the Niger Delta area
did not witness massive constructions during his reign because they
were still planning on how to develop the area. “Planning takes a long
time,” he said.

Other nominees like John Odeh, who headed the environment ministry,
and Humphrey Abba, who was a minister of state for commerce, also
claimed their best achievements as ministers were plans, studies,
program blue prints and “well organised” workshops.

The former Minister
of State for Power, Nuhu Wya, said Tuesday that Nigeria’s total power
generation slumped to 1500 Megawatts in the middle of his tenure, down
from the 3700 Megawatts he met in December 2007.

Mr. Wya has been
re-nominated for a new term by the acting president, Goodluck Jonathan,
while his colleague, the substantive minister of power, Rilwan
Babalola, has been dropped. It is, however, not yet known if he will
remain at the Ministry of Power.

Speaking at the
senate ministerial screening where his nomination was considered for
approval yesterday, Mr. Wya told lawmakers that our nation’s power
generation capacity was itself unstable from his assumption at the
ministry on December 24, 2007, to his removal in early March 2010.

“I don’t want to
delve too much into that,” he said in response to a question raised by
a Senator on what the actual problem with electricity in our country is.

“But it is
important to say that we were faced with a challenge of what we could
not control.” The challenge, he said, was the inadequate supply of gas
which officials of the ministry have echoed in the past.

During an earlier
remark, which the senators rebuffed, the former minister had claimed
that the ministry under his watch, “toured the nation and was able to
improve power supply to a level which, however, was not commensurable
with the money spent.”

Power failure

The former minister
admitted, in response to a question by the Senate President, David
Mark, that the power production level plunged to 1500MW in the middle
of his tenure as the Minister of state.

“I thought you will
answer in a straightforward manner, whether power generation dropped or
increased during your stay in office,” Mr. Mark said, to which the
nominee confirmed there was a significant crash in the generation
level, a situation which he said was mainly caused by gas shortage.

Key officials of the power ministry had, before the dissolution of
the federal cabinet by Mr. Jonathan, repeatedly explained the extent of
the fall in power generation in the country. This was especially as the
December 31, 2009, target date for increasing the power generation to
6000MW, elapsed.

In keeping with a common practice in
modern, participatory democracy, Nigerians should ideally witness the
screening of new ministers live on television. It is mandatory that we
comprehend the knowledge level a minister brings to the turbulence of
governance.
Any ministerial nominee that
demonstrates ignorance during the screening exercise of those natural
processes that feed into economic growth, and the impacts of climate
change on them, belongs to the 19th Century, and should either be kept
in the National Museum or be politely requested to go home and do
something else.
So here’s a brief tutorial as an assist, both to the examiners in the Senate and their candidates:

Terrestrial habitats
Nigeria’s
terrestrial habitats are mainly savanna woodland and grassland. Montane
vegetation grows on some elevations above 1 500m in the eastern margins
of the country. Mambilla and Obudu hills are accessible examples.
40 million people
live and procreate at a rate of 3 per cent per annum. This has
consequences. All but 10 per cent of the original forest estate is left
in Nigeria! The resulting high ecological footprint is gradually
spreading to the country’s semi-arid, northern borders. In southern
Nigeria, the oil industry has shaved off swathes of rich mangrove
forests in the Niger Delta. Population drifts to coastal cities, Lagos,
Port Harcourt, Calabar, Warri, Yenagoa, Badagry, impacts moist forests
that protect a low-lying Atlantic shoreline from storm surges and
erosion.
With the exception
of patches in Ogun, Edo, Bayelsa and Delta States, 30 per cent of the
remaining forests in Nigeria are in Cross River State. The gene pool
there is impressive, because this area survived the great ice age that
affected the whole of central and West Africa many millions of years
ago. There are more than 400 varieties of trees, around 170 species of
reptiles and amphibians, 140 fish species in Cross River State. Of the
904 bird species recorded in Nigeria, 425 occur in Cross River.
Increasing demands
on Nigerian forests are mainly for wood, food, fuels, industrial
materials, medicines, unsustainable (largely illegal) logging,
agricultural encroachment, over-harvesting of non-timber forest
products, overgrazing of livestock in the savanna, infrastructure
development without impact assessments, inadequate and ineffective
legal frameworks for forest governance, poor research and insecurity of
land tenure, are the major threats.

Sustainable energy sufficiency
In the process of
photosynthesis, tropical forests can absorb 10 per cent of annual
man-made greenhouse gas emissions. But destruction of these forests
contributes over 17 per cent to these emissions per annum. Nigeria must
establish programmes for energy efficiency, to move away from
over-dependence on combustion of fossil fuels, while making sure this
does not impact food security and biological diversity.
Destruction of forests is an environmental problem that needs an
economic solution. Carbon credits must be generated for forested states
if they reduce vegetation loss to an agreed level each year. This can
be monitored by satellite technology. The monies paid for such
environmental services could then be channelled into forest
conservation, agricultural intensification, renewable energy, education
and small businesses, building better roads and infrastructure in order
to stimulate development and create alternative livelihoods.

The Central Bank of
Nigeria (CBN) yesterday said it is developing a comprehensive template
to guide and regulate microfinance banking in the country.

Joe Alegienu, the
bank’s Director of Development Banking, said this at a meeting with the
management of the National Poverty Alleviation Programme (NAPEP) in
Abuja, adding that the new template will become operational before the
end of this year’s second quarter.

According to Mr.
Alegienu, microfinance banking has failed in the fight against poverty
as a result of the proliferation of mini-commercial bank operators
masquerading as microfinance operators.

The CBN, he said,
has observed with dismay the negative impact of the activities of these
operators, adding that most of them are former staff of commercial
financial institutions that failed to meet the conditions under the
recent banking sector consolidation policy.

“We do not want a
situation where the microfinance banks that were established to support
the fight against poverty among rural people are allowed to turn into a
monster that would consume the people,” Mr. Alegienu said. “We will
soon publish an operational template that would serve as a guide on how
microfinance banks are going to do business. It is time to tell those
not qualified to do the business to stay away.

“Every operator
must adapt itself to the principles of micro financing, which is that
microfinance banking does not succeed with large deposits mobilised
from depositors, but on large number of savings from ‘small peoples’,”
he said.

Beyond tricycle

Magnus Kpakol, the
Senior Special Adviser to the President and National Coordinator,
NAPEP, explained that the meeting was convened to enable coordinators
and microfinance bank operators discuss the various approaches to adopt
in the fight against poverty, which he said would not be won if the
people were not exposed to ways of applying the resources at their
disposal to their benefit.

“We want to go
beyond ‘keke NAPEP’,” Mr. Kpakol said. “We have to come up with
strategies on combating poverty. We must be seen as investing in
people. We are a wealthy nation in terms of resources, but to use the
resources to create wealth and raise income for the people is
important.”

He condemned the
practice where the government doles out money directly to cooperative
societies, saying this should be stopped or a way found to minimise the
practice, pointing out that the market place should henceforth be made
to allocate resources to the people.

“We have already written to state governments to lend interest-free
funds directly to the microfinance banks, which will lend to people at
commercial bank market rate of 20 percent and not cooperative
societies. These lending should be tied to performance and delivery. We
are also trying to involve the local government to ensure that they set
up at least five production activities every year.”