Nigeria Content Online

Thousands of job
seekers yesterday besieged the Ogun State office of the Independent
National Electoral Commission {INEC} to fill vacancies for which their
numbers vastly outnumbered.

The applicants, who
had earlier applied online, are seeking for employment as Legal
Officers, Executive Officers, Data Operators and Store Officers.

On arrival at the
Oke-Mosan office of the Commission, the applicants, who were locked
outside the gate of the commission to prevent them from bombarding the
premises, had to embark on what was described as general registration,
whereby they {applicants} registered their identities before they were
called in a batch for interview.

The job seekers include graduates of National Diploma, Higher National Diploma and Bsc. holders.

Some nursing
mothers were not left out, as they were seen with their babies under
the scorching sun, waiting for their turn for the interview.

Attempts to speak with the commission’s management proved abortive,
as they were said to be busy. But most of the applicants who spoke on
condition of anonymity said their fear was that the exercise may be
reduced to ‘who knows who.’ “Some of us just came to try our luck, we
don’t have any godfather except God, and with God all things are
possible, so we should not lose all hope,” one of the applicants said.
But talking seriously, one should not be 100 percent optimistic,
because those who will be employed may likely have had their names
pencilled down already.”

The federal
government yesterday reiterated its claim that the nation can achieve
the 2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) with proper coordination.

Senior Adviser to
the President on MDGs, Amina Ibrahim, spoke following the presentation
of the 4th quarter 2009, and 1st quarter 2010 report on MDGs by the
Presidential Committee on Assessment and Monitoring of MDGs.

Mrs. Ibrahim said
the nation has improved in three main sectors, namely health, education
and water and that about N112 billion invested in the 2009 budget in
those areas have yielded fruit.

“Going by the
recorded success, we believe we can reach the MDGs by 2015 but the
three tiers of government have to come together,” she said, noting that
of the N112 billion budget expenditure, health took about 35%, 23% went
to education and 25% to water.

“These are all areas that are reflective of the challenges we have in the MDGs.”

Documentation problems

The country is
actually making progress in the nine MDGs, said Mrs. Ibrahim, but the
agencies are grappling with the issue of documentation.

To address the
situation, she said the acting president directed that all agencies
involved in the implementation of the MDGs should “harmonise and get a
dateline data this year.”

“Data is a huge
challenge to us. If you ask now for the data of the success recorded we
will find it difficult and it is a very big challenge to us,” the
presidential aide added.

She said the
country is making progress, but it is not enough. The nation, will
“have to triple and quadruple” its progress in the next five years. She
did note that some initiatives have been thriving.

“The most successful intervention that we had, I think, can be that
of the governors, the conditional grant scheme. In 2009, 31 states
benefited from that.”

The exit of the former presidential
candidate of the Action Congress, Atiku Abubakar and his supporters
from the party is a “good riddance to bad rubbish”, Jide Awe, the Ekiti
State chairman of Action Congress, said yesterday.

Mr. Awe said people such as Mr.
Abubakar, who recently announced his return to the Peoples Democratic
Party (PDP), would find it difficult to remain in the progressive camp.

The AC leader also said the exit of the
former vice president from the party will not affect its performance in
the 2011 general elections.

“Consistently, I have been saying that
Atiku as a capitalist will find it very difficult to settle down in a
progressive camp,” he said.

“If he is moving back to PDP, to me, it
is good radiance to bad rubbish because, ideologically, Atiku is not
fit to be in any progressive camp judging from his background.

“Atiku’s staying with AC is like taking
a fish out of water. It is obvious that the AC saved him from the
humiliation and rescued him from political crisis in 2006 and the AC
has satisfied its conscience as party. We saved him from a very
difficult situation.

“The exit of Atiku will not affect the
fortune of AC in the 2011 general elections because we have a lot of
progressives in the North who are ready to come home to their normal
base.”

Jackson Adebayo, the Director of
Communication and Strategy for the Ekiti State chapter of the PDP,
however described the vice president’ decision as “courage of a
political icon and astute political leader.”

“Everybody in the PDP is waiting for
his return to the party. It is an advice to other opposition members
and those aggrieved to make sure that they come back to the party,” he
said.

Meanwhile, a leading member of the
Action Congress from the North East region of the country, Yusuf Buba
said that Mr. Abubakar has not officially informed the party of his
defection and described the proposed defection as a wrong step.

“I don’t think it is reasonable at this
time, because the country needs a strong opposition at this time. I
don’t support the politics of if you cannot beat them you join them. It
is not the best thing to do.” He said.

Also, the Conference of Nigerian
Political Parties (CNPP) described Mr, Abubakar’s return to PDP as a
blessing to the progressives.

According to its National Chairman Maxi
Okwu, “the defection will enable true progressives in Nigeria to work
toward achieving their goals. It would have been impossible for the
progressives to take over power in Nigeria with people like Atiku whose
ideologies differ from theirs”.

After several
minutes of recounting Nigeria’s political and economic travails, the
president of the Senate, David Mark, on his birthday, said he is
confident that “God will intervene in a positive way.”

Mr. Mark, who
turned 62 on Thursday, spoke in an early-morning prayer session at St.
Mulumba Catholic Chapel, Apo, Abuja. He said that regardless of the
challenges and difficulties Nigeria faces presently, “I am hopeful that
God will see us through”.

Prayer for leaders

Mr. Mark called on Nigerians to continue to pray for the nation and its leaders in order to overcome its challenges.

“There is no gift
that is bigger than the gift of prayers,” Mr. Mark said. “Politicians
go through a lot of temptations, countless in number, it is only
through our support, fasting and prayers that they can survive and
triumph.

“I am certain that
our prayers for the country and our leaders during the Easter
celebration will not go in vain to seeing Nigeria through.

“All we need as a nation is prayers that God in His infinite mercy should help our land”.

The Senate
president noted the temptations leaders in Nigeria face by the day and
concluded that only supplication to God could see them through.

Mr. Mark has often,
at most public religious events, requested for prayers from Nigerians
for either ailing President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua or the unsettled
political balance in Nigeria.

Guests pray

Scores of
politicians including Maurice Iwu, chairman of the Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) and the newly-appointed ministers attended
the early-morning prayer session.

In the homily, Rev.
Jerome Bello urged Nigerians to have faith and believe in the country
as a way to invoke God’s intervention on every aspect of the nation’s
plight.

“God wants us to
demonstrate our faith for our miracles to happen,” said Mr. Bello. “We
should also believe in ourselves to overcome any obstacles on our ways.
Miracles are not automatic, it happens when we play our own part of
faith.”

Mr. Bello and guests offered prayers for a democratic stability in the country and for wisdom for leaders.

Nigerians need to
hold their leaders accountable if the nation is to develop, the
chairperson of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC),
Farida Waziri, has said.

Mrs Waziri, who
received a delegation of the National Association of Nigerian Students
led by its president, Imagwe Jude Gabriel, at the commission’s office
yesterday, said it is the responsibility of citizens to ask relevant
questions and hold those that govern them accountable.

She attributed many of the problems the country is facing to corruption, which she said must be shunned by the youth.

While acknowledging
the role of young people in the anti- corruption war, Mrs. Waziri
lamented that the country still grapples with intractable problems such
as power outage and fuel shortage.

“Let me remind you
that as youths and future leaders, Nigeria’s hope of a better tomorrow
lies in you because quite a large number of our present leaders have
failed the nation,” she said.

She also called on
the student leaders to mobilise their peers to join the Anti-Corruption
Revolution Campaign, saying this would lend support to Acting President
Goodluck Jonathan’s commitment to the fight against graft.

The EFCC
chairperson berated those she called ‘arm-chair critics’, who, she
said, rather than contribute to nation building, find succour in
condemning those who do so.

She vowed to continue doing her job despite the recent spate of attacks on operatives of the commission.

“Even if they kill
all of us, the war shall continue. We shall continue to investigate and
prosecute corrupt elements in our midst; we shall continue to ask for
special court, asset forfeiture bill, anti- terrorism bill,” she said.

Mr. Imagwe, the
leader of the association, said it is unfortunate that Nigerians have
failed to identify with people who have excelled.

He called for a
closer relationship between students and the EFCC and demanded the
commission’s intervention in the education sector, which, he said, has
deteriorated badly.

Staff and students
of the Lagos State University (LASU), Ojo, on Thursday, again called
for the release of the report of the visitation panel set up by the
Lagos State government to look into the crisis in the university.

The report, which
would determine if the estranged Vice Chancellor (VC) of the school,
Lateef Hussain, would be retained, was due to be released by the end of
January, 2010. It is yet to be released two months after the deadline.

“We know that the
members of the panel are men and women of integrity, but the report is
taking too long. The delay is already affecting the institution in so
many ways. It is affecting so many people because nothing is moving in
the school again. So many things have been paralysed; even the signing
of certificates for graduating students has ceased. That is why the
report should come out on time. We are restive; we are agitating for
the result,” said the chairperson of the school’s chapter of Senior
Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), Funmi Sessi.

The situation in
the school, as confirmed by a staff in the VC’s office, who wanted
anonymity, is that Mr. Hussain has stopped signing school cheques and
students’ certificates since he came under investigation.

“Everything has come to a standstill; even the Social Sciences building construction has stopped since,” said the official.

Following a crisis
that left the school closed for four months, the State Executive
Council appointed a visitation panel for the purpose of hearing the
issues in the dispute. Both the student and staff unions of the school
had called for the removal of Mr. Hussain as the Vice Chancellor.

He was accused of fraud, intimidation, victimisation of staff and students, and “blatant display of arrogance”, amongst others.

Some of the staff and students have also accused the state government of playing politics with the school crisis.

“We believe that
justice delayed is justice denied,” said Senapon Ajasa, the student
union parliament speaker. “If the visitation panel wants to be fair and
just, then the report should be released on time. If he (Mr. Hussain)
is going to be vindicated or if he is going to be found guilty, let us
know on time. It is important to us.

“Is it until the VC
completes his tenure that the result will be released that he is found
guilty? He asked. “If he is guilty, let us know now because a guilty
person should not continue to remain in the office.”

“The students are
now sure that there is political undertone to the issue, because the
report is taking too long to come out,” said Ibrahim Bello, a student
and former press secretary of LASU chapter of National Association of
Nigerian Students (NANS).

Attempts to reach any member of the visitation panel since its inauguration have been unsuccessful.

An enlarged stakeholders’ forum of the
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Oyo state on Thursday endorsed the
state governor, Adebayo Alao-Akala, as candidate f the party in the
2011 governorship election.

The forum held a meeting at the Banquet
hall of the Government House Ibadan, but, for the umpteenth time, most
aggrieved members of the party were conspicuously absent at the meeting
and no formal reasons were given for their absence.

The likes of Lekan Balogun, Rashidi
ladoja, Yekeen Adeojo and Wole Oyelese, who have distanced themselves
from the state party hierarchy and keep agitating for a complete
departure from the legacies of the late Lamidi Adedibu within the
party, refused to show up at the meeting yesterday.

Loud silence

Unlike the one held last week, where it
was announced that all the absentees sent messages to explain the
reasons for not coming, the forum could not give any defence for the
absence of the main aggrieved members yesterday.

Their loud absence ignited open disagreement among the attendees of the meeting.

For instance, Victor Omololu Olunloyo,
former governor of the state, said the governor and his caucus have not
done enough to effectively woo the aggrieved members back to the fold,
urging more action in that direction.

But Richard Akinjide, former Minister
of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, disagreed with him
and said the governor had done more than enough to bring the aggrieved
members back, saying “there is limit to every patience”.

“The governor had bent backward to
accommodate them, we have begged them both in the open and in secret,
we have offered them money also in the secret and in the open, yet,
they have refused to be appeased. If I were the governor, I could not
have done what the governor did,” Akinjide offered as explanation of
the extent the governor has gone to win them back.

Unanimous adoption

The former chief legal officer of
Nigeria said the structure of the party empowers only the National
Vice-Chairmen of each geopolitical zone to look into issues within
their zones, and that in the case of the South-West, the leader so
empowered is based in Osogbo. He is to look into every issue concerning
the party in the zone, including Oyo State.

“If anybody feels he knows the Acting
Vice-President and runs to Abuja for issues to be handled in the zone,
we will let the people know that they don’t know him more than the rest
of us” he said.

Mr. Akinjide, who gave the welcome
address, told the gathering that the Elders’ Forum had summoned the
meeting to feed the people back on the decisions taken at the maiden
meeting of the forum held last week.

Gbenga Babalola, the senator
representing Oyo North Senatorial District at the National Assembly,
read out the communiqué of the closed door meeting. He informed that
the stakeholders unanimously adopted the candidature of the incumbent
for the 2011 governorship election.

Mr. Babalola, however, said the adoption is not ruling out the party
primary for interested candidates for the contest within the party. He
stressed the party will still make it open when the time comes, but
that the stakeholders, about 400 in number, would cast their votes for
Alao-Akala at the primary election.