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Consumer prices in
China rose 2.7 per cent in February over the year-earlier period,
according to data released on Thursday, partly attributable to the
Lunar New Year holiday but also to the rising inflationary pressures in
China’s economy.

Other data, on
Thursday, reflected China’s continued strong recovery from the global
economic crisis. For the combined January to February period, which
factors out distortions from the Lunar New Year holidays, industrial
output expanded by 20.7 percent and retail sales rose 18 per cent
compared to a year ago.

Those figures followed data on Wednesday that showed robust growth in both China’s exports and imports in February.

No shift in economic policy

Overall, economists
said the picture suggests no shift in economic policy is in store,
although interest rates on loans are likely to rise as China strives to
hold down inflation.

While inflationary
pressures are clearly building, “current inflation is still modest,”
said Ken Peng, an economist with Citigroup Global Markets in Beijing.
“Right now, we are still okay. This is not going to cause any panic
among policy makers.”

Jinny Yan, an
economist with Standard Chartered Bank in Shanghai, said the data
released this week does not suggest China’s economy is overheating,
despite pockets of speculation, especially in the red-hot property
market.

“We see the recovery continuing to keep its momentum,” she said. “The policy makers will continue to hold their stance.”

Drop in food production

China’s leaders
insist that inflation as firmly in check, below the government’s target
of three percent. The 2.7 per cent increase in February followed a 1.5
percent increase in January. Food prices led the way, a potentially
troublesome sign for the leaders of a country where as much as 40 per
cent of poorer household budgets go to food.

But prices are
typically jacked up during the Chinese New Year holidays, when families
tend to splurge on food and gifts. The National Bureau of Statistics
also blamed the harsh winter, which it said hurt food production.

A spokesman for the
bureau, Sheng Laiyun, predicted prices would come down after the spring
harvests. “We don’t see any signs of economic overheating,” he said.

China’s deputy
central bank governor, Su Ning, told reporters last week: “We believe
we can successfully contain inflationary pressure this year.” He said
the bank was more concerned last year, when prices fell for nine months.

“While we don’t
want to see prices rising too fast, the current situation is necessary
for the development of our economy and cannot be described as
inflation,” he said.

Other data released
on Thursday showed the government’s efforts to rein in loans after last
year’s lending spree, which was designed to spur the economy. Chinese
banks lent only about half as much money in February as they did in
January.

Premier Wen Jiabao
announced that China would lower its lending target for this year to
7.5 trillion renminbi, or $1.1 trillion, about 72 per cent of the 9.6
trillion renminbi in 2009.

The central
government, twice this year, increased the amount of money that banks
are required to deposit with the central bank as a monetary reserve
rather than lend to customers.

Many economists predict one or more interest rate increases in the
coming months, but higher interest rates are unlikely to threaten
China’s economic recovery because growth is governed more by the
availability of loans more than their cost, economists said.

Unilever Nigeria
Plc has earmarked N25.2 million for the provision of boreholes and
toilets as part of its contribution to the promotion of the Water,
Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Campaign.

Thomas Boedinger,
the company’s Managing Director, made the announcement on Wednesday at
Okpoga, Benue State, during a WASH campaign organised in conjunction
with WaterAid Nigeria.

The campaign was organised for primary schools in Okpokwu, Ogbadibo and Ado Local Government Areas of the state.

Mr. Boedinger, represented by Yemi Adeboye, said the campaign was a
testimony of Unilever’s concern for the welfare of its customers.

The Senate has approved the request of the acting president, Goodluck Jonathan, to appoint five new special advisers.

Mr. Jonathan had on Tuesday written the Senate seeking their approval for the appointment of five more advisers following his recent elevation from vice president and the attendant higher work load he has to shoulder.

Mr. Jonathan made the request less than 24 hours after he sacked Sarki Mukhtar and appointed Aliyu Gusau as the new National Security Adviser.

Needing help

In the letter to the Senate, Mr. Jonathan said the appointments are to compliment the exigencies of his new office. He however did not mention the names or offices for which he intends to deploy the new special advisers. The Senate did not also bother to ask for the names or offices because the law empowers the president to appoint and deploy advisers as he wishes.

Senate sources, however, say they believe the acting president will fix the nominees in key areas such as politics, economy, National Assembly and petroleum. The advisers are expected to hold the office as long as Mr. Jonathan is acting president.

What Uwais report?

The senators however denied reports that the acting president sent unedited copies of the report of the Mohammed Uwais-led Electoral Reform Committee to the Senate a fortnight ago.

Anthony Manzo, the deputy spokesman of the Senate, said the Senate had the unedited copies of the report since last year, before President Umaru Yar’Adua left the country.

He said the Senate got the report when it began to consider the six electoral reform bills sent to the National Assembly by President Yar’Adua.

“The various legislations that imply the amendment of the 1999 constitution accompanied the Uwais report and the Senate has already taken a lot of decisions on the various bills that are implied in the Uwais report,” Mr. Manzo said. “Already, some of these bills have been referred to the committee on the amendment of the 1999 constitution. If we got it from the acting president two weeks ago, there is no way we could act on it and pass the necessary legislations before the 2011 elections. It is not correct to say the acting president sent it two weeks ago.”

The House of
Representatives on Thursday passed an order suspending further drafting
of fresh graduates to Plateau State to participate in the National
Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme in the state.

This order came in
the wake of the devastating violence that claimed hundreds of lives in
a neighbourhood of Jos, the state capital, last Sunday.

The legislative
resolution, the second in the week after the massacre, also called on
the management of the NYSC to re-deploy serving corps members in
Plateau to neighbouring states, even as the government attempts to
restore peace to the area.

Saving the people

“I am not a
pessimist,” said Ekperikpe Ekpo, a member from Akwa Ibom state, who
sponsored the resolution. “But we cannot say as of now, total peace has
returned to Jos. We have to find a way to save these people in the
event of reprisal attacks.”

The resolution will empower calls from Nigerians who have asked that youth corps members be re-assigned from Plateau state.

However, a few
members of the House of Representatives, mostly from the affected
state, opposed the proposal. They complained that such an order will
imply a failure of the government and a total breakdown of law and
order in Plateau state.

Leo Dilkon, who
represents Pashkin, Kanke and Kanam Local government areas of the
state, said the crisis was concentrated around Jos, and it will be
undue punishment on the rest of the state if the youths are withdrawn.

Support for motion

But the motion
gathered rapid support after the mention of several cases of slain
corps members in several parts of the north including Grace Ushang,
whose murder in Borno State last year drew international condemnation,
and three members of the scheme who died during the December 2008
fighting in Plateau State.

In the aftermath of
such deaths, the government has been advised to reconsider the
continued relevance of the scheme and the NYSC has been urged to
restrict its posting to certain states.

After the killings
of last Sunday, the NYSC Director General, Maharazu Tsiga, reportedly
announced that his office will reassign serving members from the state
pending the restoration of normalcy.

Lawmakers said
although they are aware of the decision, they will push for a
legislative resolution to compel the director general to act fast.

“I will be
surprised if anyone will oppose the fact that the situation in Plateau
poses a clear and present danger, said Patrick Obahiagbon, who
represents Oredo in Edo state. “Whether there are newspaper reports
that they will be redeployed or not, we have to rise up and make it
known that this parliament says no. We cannot send our brothers and
sisters to go and pay the ultimate price.”

Women in black

Meanwhile, hundreds
of Plateau women clad in black dresses and placards showed up at the
premises of the National Assembly, where they held hands, singing
sombre songs to protest the latest killings.

The women, who said
they will seek the intervention of the United Nations (UN) if they fail
to get justice from the Nigerian government, called on the acting
president, Goodluck Jonathan, to remove the current General Officer
Commanding the 3rd Armoured Division of the Nigerian Army, located in
Jos, Plateau State, who has been accused of negligence as the crisis
erupted.

“We want a change
of the security chiefs in Plateau State, they have not guaranteed any
security on us, we have lost confidence in them,” the group’s
spokesperson and its secretary general, Zipporah Kpamor, said.

The women also
accused the Chief of Army Staff, Abdurahman Danbazzau, as well as the
Bauchi State government of complicity in the mayhem in Jos.

“If the FG cannot stop the premeditated genocide and ensure peace in
the state, then we will be compelled to go to the United Nations (UN)
for intervention on the matter,” Ms. Kpamor said.

A
man claiming to be the Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly has
been arrested by officials of the Ogun State Police Command over
alleged armed robbery.

The suspect, identified as Idris Apena,
was on Thursday paraded at the Eleweran Police Headquarters, Abeokuta,
where the Commissioner of Police, Musa Daura, informed journalists
about the alleged misdeeds of the suspect.

The police boss said Mr. Apena
disguised himself as Speaker of the Lagos House of Assembly and sent
one of his ‘aides’ to go and find out if the Divisional Police Officer
(DPO) of Sagamu was in his office. He said the police later discovered
this to be a ploy to establish the location of the police officer to
pave way for his (the suspect’s) gang to operate.

Mr. Daura explained further that the
action of the self-acclaimed speaker arose suspicion, and the
divisional officer ordered his men to visit the suspect where he was
and subsequently bring him to the station.

The audacity of pomp

However, the ‘Speaker’s’ audacity took
a dramatic turn when, on further interrogation at the police station, a
fake assembly identity card was found on him. He later confessed to be
a fake speaker, but explained that he had contested for the Lagos State
House of Assembly seat in Lagos State on the platform of the Democratic
Peoples Alliance at Epe but lost.

“He sent an ‘okada’ rider to find out
if the DPO Sagamu was on seat and his action aroused suspicion and the
DPO mobilised team for his arrest,” Mr. Daura said. “Eventually, the
suspect confessed to be a member of an armed robbery syndicate and that
they wanted to know if the DPO was on seat so that they could operate.”

The ‘Honourable’

But the suspect, while speaking with
journalists, admitted to disguising himself as speaker of the assembly
because “after I lost the election to Action Congress (AC), people
still addressed me as ‘Honourable’ because of my popularity.”

He said what led to his arrest was that
he had gone to seek money being owed him by a debtor, and, in an
attempt to use his political influence and get the man arrested, he
sought to know whether the DPO was around to help him effect the arrest
of his debtor.

The suspect, who claimed to be a
graduate of Mechanical Engineering from Lagos State University (LASU),
however, said luck ran against him when the police discovered that he
was not an authentic Speaker.

“The DPO saw it as an insult for me to have asked to know if he was on seat, and effected my arrest,” he said.