The Lagos State
Police Command refused the media access to the suspected killers of
Bayo Ohu, the Guardian newspaper journalist who was murdered in his
residence in Odukoya Estate, Akowonjo, Egbeda, Lagos, on September 20,
2009.

Unlike other
parades where suspects are given the opportunity to give their own
account of an incident, the Lagos State Police Command on March 15,
2010, selected only the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) and The
Guardian Newspaper to be present at the parade of the three male
suspects.

The Police
identified them as Ganiu Suleman, 28, Idris Balogun, 26 and Dada Yemi
Adesanya, 23, who according to the Police, fired “the shots that sent
Bayo Ohu to his early grave.”

After the parade,
which was held at the Command in Ikeja, the Police spokesman, Frank
Mba, released a press release to other media houses, stating that their
investigation had been “meticulous, painstaking and discreet”.

He said the Police owed no one any explanation for its decision to exclude other media.

“We purposely did
not invite the media because Mr. Ohu’s case was a sensitive one. NTA
was invited because they are a federal government agency, and they are
like the grand-father of the media. And we invited Guardian out of
respect being that Mr. Ohu was their staff. We believe the two of them
adequately represent the print and broadcast media,” Mr. Mba said.

Amongst details
contained in the release, the Police claimed that out of 11 suspects
initially arrested, the three suspects paraded were “directly
implicated” in Mr. Ohu’s murder.

“After a meticulous
screening, only three of the suspects were implicated in the incident
that led to the death of Bayo Ohu. Police findings indicated that the
trio belong to a six-man deadly armed robbery gang that terrorised
parts of Lagos at the time,” the release read.

According to the
Police, on the day of Mr. Ohu’s murder, the trio, with other members of
the gang still at large, had embarked on “random robbery operations”
within Egbeda-Akonwonjo in a Honda Bull Dog Saloon Car, with
registration number LB 876 AAA . The gang later snatched a Toyota Camry
car, and after subsequent operations, they saw the gate to Mr. Ohu’s
residence open and struck.

“Thereafter, they
commenced their devilish operation, gaining entrance into the
deceased’s apartment through the kitchen door which was already open.
The deceased, Bayo Ohu, was said to have struggled with one of the
armed robbers, in the erroneous belief that it was only one of them
that was armed. His audacity was said to have infuriated the robbers
who wasted no time in shooting at him severally,” it read.

It was Mr. Ohu’s
daughter, Omolara Ohu, who on her return from fetching water at about
7am, discovered her father lying in a pool of blood. In her report to
the police, she mentioned seeing a white saloon car parked in front
their residence and four men wearing long robes and skull caps.

She said that it
was after the gun shots were fired that the men left the compound.
Later, she discovered the assailants left with the deceased’s Toshiba
laptop and two mobile telephone handsets. The police then used the call
logs of the phone numbers to trace and catch the suspects.

The tracking led to the arrest of one Rukayat Adeola, whose GSM number had been called with Mr. Ohu’s handset.

She later led the
police to two other suspects, Ismaila Adebisi and Victor Omogbehin, who
the police say confessed to having received stolen property including a
Nokia N97 handset having the same code number as that of Mr. Ohu’s.

“The Nokia N97
mobile phone and Toshiba laptop stolen from the deceased were sold by
the armed robbery gang to a notorious receiver of stolen property in
Lagos Island for the sum of N30,000. Both the Nokia phone and the
laptop have been recovered by investigators,” the police statement read.

The police said the three gang members will soon be taken to court
on charges of Conspiracy, Armed Robbery and Murder; while Mr. Omogbehin
and Mr. Adebisi will be charged for receiving stolen property, which
contravenes the Fire Arms Act.

The
Senate President, David Mark, has asked for the immortalisation of the
late traditional ruler of Adamawa State, Aliyu Mustapha, for ruling
Adamawa for half a century without any major incident of crises and
bloodletting.

He said this in a condolence message to the government and people of Adamawa State.

“It is a rare achievement that should be emulated by today’s leaders.”

Similarly, the Edo
State governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, described the death of the
late Lamido of Adamawa, as a big loss to Nigeria.

Also in a
condolence letter to the governor of Adamawa State, Admiral Murtala
Nyako (Rtd), Oshiomhole, who described his death as a rude shock not
only to his immediate kingdom, but also to Nigeria as a whole, said:

“The death of
Alhaji Mustapha could best be described as the end of a glorious era
for the institution of the Lamidoship. Through him, the throne of the
Lamido evolved over several tempestuous and eventful periods in the
evolution of Nigeria.

Throughout the
series of socio-political and economic changes that spanned almost six
decades, Alhaji Mustapha brought to bear on the throne great dignity,
which earned him respectability across regimes.”

Longest reigning king

Before his death,
Mr. Mustapha was the longest reigning monarch in the entire country. He
had immense relevance and influence within the corridors of power.

He was
father-in-law to Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president during
President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government. The late traditional ruler
died last Saturday, a month away to his 88th birthday. He was held at
high esteem by the northern political class. He was the chairman of the
Adamawa Emirate Council.

Mr. Mark implored
the government of Adamawa State to immortalise late Lamido for
posterity, “because his contributions to nation building are
immeasurable.”

His significance to Nigeria

“He was an epitome
of peace, unity and progress. The people of Adamawa and indeed all
Nigerians will miss his wise counsel,” Mr. Mark said, adding that he
was an astute administrator and a detribalised Nigerian who stood very
tall among his contemporaries.

Mr. Oshiomole added that he would be remembered by his people as an
accessible, caring and just leader, who was excellently versed in the
Islamic scriptures and who thoroughly applied Islam’s injunction of
compassion in leadership.

The House of
Representatives will, this week, begin its final consideration of the
2010 multi-trillion federal budget. The debate begins almost four
months after it received the estimates sent by President Umaru Yar’Adua
to the National Assembly.

The two chambers of
the legislature received Mr. Yar’Adua’s N4.079 trillion fiscal
proposals for the year, through the President’s Special Adviser on
National Assembly Affairs, Mohammed Abba-Aji, on November 24, 2009, a
day after he travelled to Saudi Arabia for medical attention.

The Senate later confirmed a proposal of about N300 billion was sent by the president for additional approval.

Blame delay on the president

Although the
estimates were detailed to respective legislative committees for
consideration, lawmakers admitted that the controversies created during
the president’s continued poor health, have affected the delivery of
the Assembly.

The House of
Representatives has listed the presentation and consideration of the
outcome of its committees’ work for Thursday this week, after which the
budget will be prepared for the third and final reading.

Ita Enang, who
heads the House committee on Business and Rules, said he is
“optimistic” the consideration of the report will be carried out this
week by the lawmakers

“I can say with a 70% to 80% certainty that the budget will be received for consideration this week,” Mr. Enang said.

He, however, said
the planned deliberation is not certain, and did not guarantee its
outcome. “We cannot conclusively say anything on its outcome.”

Lawmakers through
the 64 House committees will be expected to either scale up or down
specific provisions contained in the original document submitted by the
presidency before a subsequent harmonization with the Senate. The
Senate has yet to make clear its planned schedule for the consideration.

During the initial consideration of the appropriation bill last
year, many lawmakers faulted the president’s preference for a budget
led in majority by a recurrent expenditure of N3.382 trillion while the
development (capital) expenditure has N1.37 trillion.

Oxfam, a
development, relief and campaigning nongovernmental organisation that
works with other partners to find solution to poverty around the world
said that small scale farmers are being marginalised in the
implementation of policies that should impact positively on their
enterprises across Nigeria.

Ojobo Atuluku, lead
consultant of Development in Practice, engaged by Oxfam to access the
impact of the NGO0 programmes on some Nigerian farmers in the last one
year said the government would be able to go only so far in achieving
food security until the disregard of small scale farmers is erased.

Unfriendly policies

Presenting her
report at the annual monitoring and evaluation meeting of Oxfam and
partners in Abuja yesterday, Ms. Atuluku said “I have been in the field
looking at Oxfam work in the past year and by field, I mean the states
of Oyo, Ekiti, Nassarawa, Plateau, Benue, Katsina and FCT, and the
focus has been interacting with small scale farmers that Oxfam has been
working with as well as the partner organisations in those states and
all across it is so clear that small scale farmers find agricultural
policies very unfriendly.”

Ms. Atuluku said
that the complaints of the farmers remain that they are “invisible
within agricultural policy and that it is not possible for them to
benefit from those policies. The story across the country surrounds
issues of input, fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides, tractors, credit
facilities. They do not have access to all these and so the challenge
becomes ‘why is this the case even as the federal and state government
are placing a lot of emphasis on agricultural issues?’”

Marginalisation of small scale farmers

Ms. Atuluku cited
the example of how the federal government came up with a scheme that
provides N200 billion for farmers. N40bilion out of this had been set
aside for small scale farmers, but the conditions are that the farmers
must provide collateral. Unfortunately, this excludes farms with low
value.

“All these are conditions that the small scale farmers have no clue or access to,” she said.

This therefore
means that even if that money is set aside for small scale farmers, it
will remain un-accessed or eventually be gotten by people who are not
small scale farmers.

Ajayeoba Ayodeji,
campaign manager of Oxfam, said the meeting was an avenue to validate
the report of the consultant and plan ahead for effective delivery of
their mandate.

“We have
commissioned a consultant to go into field to go and meet with partners
and Nigerian NGOs that we work with communities where we are working
basically to access the impact of the work we are doing, the challenges
and the opportunities and lessons we have learnt. We sit here and
verify it,” said Mr. Ayodeji.

He said all the
efforts are geared towards improving the productivity of small scale
farmers and engaging the government for improved agricultural
governance while providing opportunities for women that will help
reduce inequality and poverty and support Nigeria attain food
sufficiency.

Voices for food security

One of the farmers, Amina Bala Jibrin from Bauchi State, said Oxfam programmes have been very impactful.

“Oxfam constituted the voices for food security and they want the
small scale farmers to be heard,” Ms. Jibrin said. “It is a very good
idea because farmers in the rural areas are not given proper attention.
What is due to them is not given to them. They do not benefit from
inputs because it has to go through other channels before it comes to
the small scale farmer it is gone.”

Seven cities are to benefit from the
integrated solid waste management facilities to be established by the
Federal Ministry of Environment, Garba Ahmad, Deputy Director, Federal
Ministry of Environment, said on Monday in Abuja.

According to Mr. Ahmad the facilities
were material recovery facility centre, composing plant, incinerator,
plastic recycling plant and land-filling plant and will be installed in
Kano, Uyo, Onitsha, Lagos, Kaduna, Maiduguri and Otta in Ogun.

He said under the first phase of
programme, the federal government undertook feasibility studies of 15
cities faced with acute environmental challenges.

He said the second phase of the
programme would involve a Public-Private Partnership arrangement
between the seven selected state governments, federal government and
the private sector.

The challenges of
development and national unity has been described as some of the major
obstacles to the effective delivery of Nigeria’s foreign policy, the
Permanent Secretary in the Foreign Affairs Ministry, Martins Uhomoibhi
said in Abuja on Monday.

“Nigeria, being a
developing country, faces challenges of development and national unity,
which often tend to undermine the effective delivery of the country’s
foreign policy.

“That is why there
has been a lack of coherence in the way our foreign policy has been
carried out over the years,” Mr. Uhomoibhi said. He however urged
Foreign Service officers and diplomats to always represent the country
in the best way possible, exhibiting a great deal of coherence and
logic in their policy presentations.