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Federal lawmakers
are said to be mobilising their ranks for a crucial blow against the
latest controversial clause in the Electoral Act, which proposes an
automatic membership of parties’ National Executive Committees for
National Assembly members.

The proposal,
launched simultaneously with minor differences at the Senate and the
House of Representatives two weeks ago, awaits only the public hearing,
which is likely to take place this week. The amended bill was hastily
pushed through its second reading last Thursday.

If it eventually
sails a third reading, and receives the assent of the president, the
360 members of the House and the 109 Senators will automatically become
members of their parties’ NEC- the highest decision making organ – in
an unprecedented membership expansion that has sparked criticism.

At a fiery media
briefing yesterday, Patrick Obahiagbon, an Edo State member of the
House, tackled his colleagues for attempting to “poison” the new
amendment process with a “parliamentary ego-trip”. He said several
members, who could not block the bill’s second reading, are working
together to stop it at the final reading stage.

“Can the National
Assembly escape the harsh judgment of history that we desecrated our
privileged status as parliamentarians by embarking on a vacuous
trajectory of power mongering?” he asked rhetorically.

Mr. Obahiagbon’s
condemnation occurs days after his party, the Action Congress of
Nigeria, threatened to initiate legal action against the Assembly,
should the amendments go through. The party – through its publicity
secretary, Lai Mohammed, as well as others who have criticised the
legislators’ move, views the proposal as a self-perpetuating design for
the members to remain in office.

As the highest
decision making body of any party, the NEC leverages on the choice of
delegates to primary elections and has tremendous powers in choosing
who earns the party tickets to general elections.

If the amendment
succeeds, the ACN warned that the lawmakers stand to be the chief
beneficiaries of the contentious clause, which is regarded as a
backdoor reintroduction of the ill ‘Right of First Refusal’ provision.
That bill had sought to give lawmakers an advantage by proposing they
should have the first right to their seats, and those seats should only
be declared vacant if they are not interested in running again.

The House has
denied such intents. After the second reading last week, spokesperson,
Eseme Eyiboh, said the aim of the member-sponsored clause, is strictly
to disrupt the monopoly of the NEC of parties, and contribute to the
growth of democracy.

“The aim is to
expand the composition of NEC so that nobody will have monopoly over
any issue, not only in the election, but other programmes of the party
including its manifestoes,” he said.

He said membership
of the NEC does not exempt lawmakers from elections, citing the example
of All Nigeria Peoples Party, whereby all its members in the House
belong to the party’s NEC.

“This amendment is not for the next election, it is for the next generation,” he added.

The lead sponsors
at both chambers too, Cyril Maduabum and Ike Ekweremadu, for the House
and the Senate respectively, have also denied the plan.

However, Mr. Obahiagbon dismissed the arguments yesterday as being merely beautiful, but counter-productive.

“Is this not an
atavistic throwback to the past when military dictators wrote the
manifestoes for the political parties in the garrison days?” he
questioned.

He also warned
that Nigerians remain watchful to ensure that the questionable ‘Right
of First Refusal’, which both arms have consistently denied advancing,
is not introduced at the last minute, since in the Assembly, “it is not
over until it is over.”

At the Senate, the
bill was sponsored by deputy Senate President, Mr. Ekweremadu, and
co-sponsored by all the other 43 members of the adhoc constitution
amendment committee. Key amongst them were Ndoma Egba, Ayogu Eze, Lee
Maeba, Grace Bent, Nkechi Nworgu, Ikechukwu Obiora, Abubakar Sodangi.

At the House, it is sponsored by Mr. Maduabum (Enugu State) and Igo Aguma(Rivers State).

A source, who
choose to remain anonymous, told NEXT that two meetings aimed at
fighting the new amendment have taken place. At the first meeting, 35
members were reportedly in attendance; 72 hours later, at a second
meeting, there were supposedly 40 members present.

The numbers are important because if the amendment does not make it through in one legislative chamber, it is technically out.

According to our
source , the membership of those oppossed to the new amendment is drawn
across parties, but contains all ACN members. The PDP membership of
this group is reportedly led by Andrew Uchendu-Ikwerre/Emohua(Rivers
State) and another member, Asita Honourable, from Rivers State too.

The quest to give
the Nigerian women more roles in governance and party administration is
only possible when the country achieves free and fair elections next
year, the national chairman of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP)
Ogbonnaya Onu, said yesterday in Abuja.

Mr Onu, who spoke
at the ANPP national secretariat, while receiving the 100-member
consultative forum of the ministry of women affairs,

He however, told the women that the party would give females more administrative and elective opportunities.

According to the
ANPP boss, it would be fruitless to canvass the increase in the
participation of women in governance in line with the 35 percent
affirmative action aimed at remedying the gender gaps in politics if
the forthcoming elections are not transparent.

“All that you said
to us we are ready to do even more. We are prepared to give ANPP women
new personalities. Giving 35 per cent or one-thirds of positions is not
even enough because women make up half of the population of Nigeria.
All that we need is to provide the enabling environment.

So, we are ready to do more. ANPP is prepared and willing to ensure that we close the gender gaps” he said.

“But what you are
asking for can only be achieved if we can get free and fair elections.
A seat cannot be safe for us if somebody goes elsewhere and write the
result of the election different from the real result. So, it is good
for our nation if we have free and fair elections.”

Mr Onu told the
group led by the women affairs minister, Josephine Anenih that the ANPP
had since resolved to give the nomination form free to women and
physically-challenged Nigerians who are aspiring to elective positions
on the platform of the party at all levels in the forthcoming polls.

He said the decision was taken because of the they have in accessing funds for campaign.

He argued that it
is impossible for Nigeria to attain greatness without carrying along
the women who, according to him, constitutes half of the population of
the country.

The ANPP recalled
the roles played by some prominent Nigerian women during the struggle
for the country’s independence and expressed joy that the tradition is
being maintained by the contemporary women in politics and other
disciplines.

Earlier, Ms Anenih
asked ANPP chair to provide more positions for women in the party
administration and also give more opportunities to them to contest the
2011 elections.

She said that the forum was inaugurated last week following a resolution at a conference in June this year.

The minister said
that the group was floated to embark on advocacy visits to political
parties and other organizations because women failed in their quest to
secure reserves seats when the National Assembly was in the process of
amending the Electoral Act.

Ms Anenih also cited instances of other countries where similar
measures were taken to strengthen the participation of women in
politics and urged the parties and government to adopt the same
measures.

The Vice President, Namadi Sambo, has
said there is a need to accelerate the prioritization of projects to be
executed to meet up with the funding guidelines laid by international
financial institutions.

He stated this yesterday during a meeting on the funding of infrastructure in the country, at State House Abuja.

Mr. Sambo said “time is not on our
side, we are expecting to have our first visit by the President of the
African Development Bank (ADB), Donald Keberuka, on the 23rd of this
month and in line with our plan to fund some of our infrastructure
projects through this financing agencies, it has become expedient to
expedite action for their presentation to the Institution.” The VP
disclosed that the ADB has a three year cycle of concessional funding
and this year falls within the period.

“We are within the cycle for the Bank to consider our programmes for concessional funding,” he noted.

He therefore, directed that the
documentation of the identified projects be made available, for
presentation to the ADB President during his visit and should also be
forwarded to other international financial institutions like the
Islamic Development Bank (IDB), the World Bank, the European Investment
Bank (EIB), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and also the
Nordic countries.

The Projects identified were the
East-West and the South-West Gas truck lines; the East-West Standard
Gauge Line; the Niger Delta Costal Road, the Second Niger Bridge; the
Benin- Obajana road; Zungeru Hydro Power Project; and Itsi Small
Hydropower Dam, among others.

The Vice President tasked the
Infrastructure Concession Regulator Commission (ICRC) to include the
Yen Credit Facility and the EIB, who have shown readiness to fund
projects in the power sector like the Jabba and the Kanji Hydropower
Plants among the financial institutions to be approached.

He also said the World Bank is also ready to fund projects under Public Private Partnership.

He explained that Brazil plans to fund
the construction of the Mambilla Hydropower Project, while the Islamic
Development Bank, the Zungeru Hydropower Plant.

Mr. Sambo further tasked all relevant
Ministries to immediately conduct studies on all other identified
projects for presentation to the international financial institutions
for consideration.

Speaking, the Director General of the
ICRC, Mansur Ahmed, disclosed that the agency had categorized
identified projects into completed, ongoing, pre-contract and planned.
He said the projects will be funded through regular budget, enhanced
budget; bonds; concessionary funds and Public Private Partnerships
(PPP).

He said the completed projects are Waya
Small Hydropower Plant (0.15 megawatts); the Mbowo Small Hydropower
Plant ().125 megawatts) and the Gurara Small Hydropower Plant (30
megawatts).

The ongoing projects are Abuja-Lokoja,
Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos, Nnamdi Azikiwe
International Airport, Abuja, and those in Enugu, Kano and Port
Harcourt.

Other ongoing projects include the
Lagos-Ibadan and Abuja Kaduna Standard Gauge line. Projects that are
under the Pre-contract category are the Zungeru Hydropower Dam (700
megawatts), the Second Niger Bridge and the Loko-Oweto Bridge.

Those that are planned are the Mambilla
Hydropower Plant (2600 megawatts), the Gurara Phase II Hydropower Plant
(350 megawatts), Coal Power Plants at Enugu and Benue, Tiga, Dadin
Kowa, Chalawa, Itsi, Oyan, Ikere Gorge, Bakori small hydropower plants.

The East-West Standard Gauge Line;
Jakuru and Osara access roads, Oza-Nagogo-Agbor-Benin Road,
Borom-Nasarawa-Abaji Road and the rehabilitation of Okene-Ajaokuta Road.

Present at the meeting were the Minister of National Planning, Dr.
Shamsudeen Usman, Minister of Finance, Dr. Olusegun Aganga, Minister of
State Power, Nuhu Somo Wya, Minister of Works, Sanusi Dagash, Minister
of Transport, Yusuf Suleiman and other government functionaries.</

Deaths from diseases
such as tuberculosis, HIV/AIDs and malaria are declining while those
induced by tobacco consumption are on the increase.

This was disclosed
at the weekend by Thomas Frieden, director of the Centre for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, USA, while delivering a lecture
at the 41st Union World Conference on Lung Health in Berlin, Germany. He
said this trend could be reversed if governments across the world take
actions to stem the tide. Among the steps he recommended were the
imposition of heavy tax on cigarettes, adherence to and the
implementation of steps laid out in the Framework Convention on Tobacco
Control (FCTC).

The Framework is the
first health treaty negotiated under the auspices of the World Health
Organisation (WHO). It was adopted by the World Health Assembly seven
years ago and entered into force in 2005. It has since become one of the
most widely embraced treaties in UN history with about 171 parties. Mr
Frieden said it is unfortunate that tobacco has wreaked so much havoc
on the human race when death and illness from it could be curbed. He
advised governments to impose yearly heavy taxes on tobacco industries
as a way of making the commodity expensive and out of the reach of the
people.

According to the
WHO, tobacco is the leading cause of death, illness and impoverishment,
adding that its “use is one of the biggest public health threats the
world has ever faced. It kills more than five million people a year – an
average of one person every six seconds – and accounts for one in 10
adult deaths. Up to half of current users will eventually die of a
tobacco-related disease.” Mr Frieden said all efforts must be made to
reverse this dreadful trend.

Also speaking at
another event at the conference, Nils Billo, Executive Director of the
International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union)
made a case for more money to be invested in the fight against
tuberculosis (TB) so as to curb the drug-resistant epidemic of the
disease. He observed that there are increasing reports that TB drugs are
going out of stocks in several countries and this could lead to a
drug-resistant epidemic.

Poor man’s burden

Anthony Harris, an
advisor at The Union said poverty and malnutrition have strong links to
TB and that the poor are usually at greater risks. Lee Reichman, a
professor of medicine at the New Jersey Medical School of Global
Tuberculosis Institute, who described TB as “forgotten but not gone”
disease said the it could be eliminated because its cause was known.
According to him, “More people died from TB last year than any year in
history.” Mr Harris added that in the last 10 years there have been 300
million infections, 90 million cases and over 30 million deaths. He
regretted that TB kills about 1.7million people per year yet not much
attention was being paid to it compared to SARS which killed 813, Avian
influenza (6250), anthrax (5) and small pox which killed no one.

He also said the
cure for TB has remained a sort of mirage due to economic considerations
because it is not a disease that fetches big money.

“Nobody seems to
care. This wouldn’t be tolerated for any other disease. Why does TB
still infect one-third of the world’s population and remain a global
threat despite the fact that highly cost-effective drugs are available
to eradicate it?,” he said.

The ongoing Union World Conference is the largest annual conference
focusing on lung health issues as they affect low and middle-income
countries. It is organised each year by the Paris-based International
Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease. Some 2,500 delegates from
more than 100 countries are attending.

Investigators are
holding an Iranian in custody in connection with the shipment of arms
discovered last Month at the Apapa Port in Lagos. Security sources told
NEXT at the weekend that the man, who had taken refuge at the Iranian
embassy, has been with officials of the State Security Service for about
three days now and is already providing useful information.

“He is expected to
throw more light on the involvement of the Nigerian consignee, who is
also involved in the shipment of the arms,” the source said.

Nigeria’s Minister
of Foreign Affairs, Odein Ajumogobia had, last Friday after talks with
the Iranian Foreign Affairs minister, Manouchehr Mottak, told
journalists in Abuja that security agencies had been granted access to
the Iranian embassy to interrogate the Iranian in their probe of the
incident.

Mr Ajumogobia, who
travelled to New York at the weekend, is also expected to brief the
United Nations on the incident. The Nigerian official is in the United
States for a Security Council discussion on Sudan where participants
will be briefed on the preparations for the January 2011 referendum in
south Sudan, the situation in Darfur and progress of the Doha peace
talks.

UN
Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon is expected to do the briefing along with
the Head of the AU High-Level Implementation Monitoring Panel, Thabo
Mbeki; the Head of UN Mission in Sudan, Haile Menkerios and the Head of
UN/AU Mission in Darfur, Ibrahim Gambari.

UN arms sanction

But Mr Ajumogobia
is also expected to raise the issue of the arms export, especially as
Iran is under a UN conventional arms ban. The resolution affirming the
ban also empowers states to seize and dispose the prohibited items when
they are found.

On Oct. 26,
Nigeria’s State Security Service (SSS) discovered 13 containers of
illegal weapons at the port. A French-based shipping company, CNA CGM,
said the shipment originated from the southern Iranian port of Bandar
Abbas and was delivered to Lagos in July. The shipping company said
labels on the crates indicated they contained stone and glass wool.

The shipment was subsequently taken to a depot where it was left
untouched. The cargo was later opened and found to contain artillery
rockets and shells, mortars and hand grenades, among others.

World acclaimed
pro-democracy fighter, Aung San Suu Kyi, spent her first day of freedom
testing Myanmar’s political minefield with a vow to press ahead in her
decades-long fight for democracy and also calling for compromise with
other political parties and ruling military government.

Suu Kyi, who was
freed from house arrest Saturday after spending close to two decades in
jail, told journalists she faces a precarious position: manoeuvring
between the expectations of the country’s pro-democracy movement and the
realities of dealing with a clique of generals who have kept her locked
up for years. “I’ve always believed in compromise,” the Nobel Peace
laureate told reporters in the dilapidated offices of her party, the
National League for Democracy. “I am for national reconciliation. I am
for dialogue. Whatever authority I have, I will use it to that end … I
hope the people will support me.”

Myanmar, once known
as Burma, has been ruled by the military since 1962, leaving it isolated
from much of the international community and battered by poverty. The
junta has an abysmal human rights record, holding thousands of political
prisoners and waging brutal military campaigns against ethnic
minorities. The military annulled the last general election held in the
country, after the politicians it supported lost to Ms Suu Kyi’s NLD,
and the country has been placed under various sanctions by, mostly,
western nations. In recent years, though, it has also become an
increasingly important regional trading hub, and its natural gas
reserves and hydroelectric possibilities have brought it close to
energy-hungry China and India.

National reconciliation

Yesterday, Ms Suu
Kyi spoke to a rapturous crowd of as many as 10,000 people who jammed
the street in front of the office. While the speech was technically
illegal – any gathering of more than a handful of people needs
government permission in Myanmar – the authorities made no arrests.
Dozens of secret police officers were on hand Sunday to record her
comments and photograph those in attendance. “I believe in human rights
and I believe in the rule of law,” she said. “I will always fight for
these things. I want to work with all democratic forces and I need the
support of the people.” However, she also urged her followers to work
for national reconciliation. “If we want to get what we want, we have to
do it in the right way; otherwise we will not achieve our goal however
noble or correct it may be,” she said.

The Kogi State commissioner for education, Sylvester
Onoja has called on the federal government to be careful with phasing
out Colleges of Education so as not to destroy the education sector.

Mr Onoja, who was the first northerner appointed
principal of the famous Kings College, Lagos said frequent changes of
policy have impacted negatively on the education sector as no fewer than
45 ministers had, since independence 50 years ago, headed the ministry
of education and introduced different policies.

The commissioner said these changes had all but
damaged the sector and called on the federal government to be careful in
matters of education.

While advising government not to scrap Colleges of
Education, Mr Onoja suggested that what is needed to improve teacher
education is an improvement in the quality of entrance requirement,
curriculum, teaching personnel and facilities as well as the quality of
decision making process.

Orphans

The commissioner lamented the absence of a regulatory
body for secondary schools in the country, as against other organs of
education and called on federal government to establish a commission for
secondary schools to regulate its curriculum and activities as,
according to him, “secondary schools in the country today is an orphan”.

Mr Onoja commended federal government’s plan to
establish more federal universities in the country, stressing that this
would further reduce the problem of admission been experienced in the
country.

The Minister of State for Education, Kenneth Gbagi
had, while inaugurating the technical committee on the establishment of
six new federal universities, hinted that the government was thinking of
either phasing out Colleges of Education or upgrading them to degree
awarding institutions.

The University of Ibadan has pledged it continued effort in ensuring improved teaching and learning environment for its staff and students.Olufemi Bamiro, Vice chancellor of the institution, disclosed this at the weekend while presenting certificates to the first set of graduates for this year’s convocation programme of the university held at the Trenchard Hall.

The professor of Engineering noted that the university’s curricula is designed ‘to ensure that students acquire the capacity for deep inquiry, critical thinking and problem-solving, have the opportunities, as part of their classroom experience, to benefit from the research activities and findings of their teachers’.

He informed that introduction of post-UME examinations to the admission process has helped reduce incidence of withdrawal for poor academic performance, adding that the overall good performance recorded from this year’s graduands is a product of the efforts at weeding out the shaft from the grain through the post-UME.

The university graduated a total of 1,499 students at the weekend from faculties of Arts,Science, Basic Medical Sciences, Clinical Sciences, Dentistry, Pharmacy, Public Health, Technology and Law as it kick-started four-day 2010 graduation ceremonies.

Among these were 55 with First Class and 371 Second Class Upper Division Honours degrees, spread across faculties, while 77 others obtained Diploma Certificates from affiliated institutions.Mr.Bamiro, whose tenure as the UI vice chancellor end December 1, admonished the graduands to consider the certificates obtained from the university as a springboard and a call to greater challenges and aspirations in life.

The 2010 graduation ceremonies and founder’s day of the university, which commenced last week, continues today as graduands from some faculties will also receive their certificates at the Trenchard Hall.

Falling standards

Ade Adefuye, professor of History and ambassador of Nigeria to the United States of America, presented the convocation lectures last Thursday.

In the lecture, entitled, “Higher Education in Nigeria: Foreign Policy Dividend”,Mr. Adefuye said the falling standard of higher education in the country is a reflection of the challenges facing the nation.

He urged members of the academic community to seize the opportunity of the renewed interest of the federal government on the sector to play their own part in salvaging the situation.

He also beseeched the ex-students of the institution to find ways of repositioning the university to ‘continue flying its flags rather than expend precious time trying to defend its sliding rank among other universities’.

Mr Bamiro, in his speech at the lecture, had lamented the dearth of manpower in the institutions of higher learning across the country,describing it as one of the major roots of lack of development

Indigenous forests
in Africa are being cut down at an ‘alarming’ rate of about 3.4 million
hectares per year, making the continent the region with the second
highest net annual loss of forests in 2000-2010, United Nation’s Food
and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has said.

John Peacock,
manager of the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) –
Leventis Foundation Project said reforestation and education on the
benefits of conservation would help stop and reclaim Africa’s lost
forest and biodiversity, if necessary authorities could respond to its
safety.

Mr. Peacock who
spoke during the 2010 Open Day held last week added that conservation of
Africa’s forest offers great benefits preserving Africa’s surviving
tropical forests and that planting new trees to replace those lost to
deforestation could help reduce the severity of climate change.

The 2010 Open Day
was marked with the planting of indigenous trees by IITA staff in Ibadan
to help mitigate the effects of climate change and losses in
biodiversity.

Nigeria’s loss

According to the
group, the tree planting came at a time when deforestation rate in
Nigeria has reached a disturbing rate of 3.5% per year, translating to a
loss of350,000-400,000 hectares of forest per year.

In 1976,Nigeria had
23 million hectares of forest but today only 9.6 million hectares
remain, less than 10% of Nigeria’s total land area.Mr. Peacock added
that planting trees is part of a new initiative to restore rainforests
in Nigeria. IITA is also contributing to the important UN-REDD (Reducing
Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) initiative in
Nigeria.

Through the
IITA-Leventis Project, the team, particularly Olukunle Olasupo and Deni
Bown, have raised over 15,000 seedlings of 33 different species since
February 2010 in preparation for planting next year.“We would like every
family, represented by staff members in IITA, to plant an indigenous
tree next year as part of IITA’s activities to increase the forest
area,” Mr. Peacock said.

Earlier this year,
IITA and partners made effort to raise awareness of the need to preserve
biodiversity-a term that describes the variety of living
organisms-especially in forests that are increasingly lost or
threatened.

Statistics indicate
that Nigeria’s Milicia excelsa (iroko) has become endangered, with about
$100 million worth of Iroko timber illegally poached from remaining
forests last year.

“The unfortunate thing is that these very valuable trees are not being replaced,” he said.

The Action Congress
of Nigeria (ACN) at the weekend threatened to take federal lawmakers to
court if they amend parts of the electoral law to make themselves
automatic members of the National Executive Council (NEC) of political
parties.

Describing it as a
new manifestation of efforts by lawmakers to make laws in their interest
rather than in the national interest, the party’s National Publicity
Secretary, Lai Mohammed, said it was becoming clear that, as far as the
dominant PDP members of the National Assembly are concerned, the
interest of their party is the same as the interest of the nation.

The party however
called on other political parties to mount a legal challenge against
what it tagged, “the obnoxious, self-serving, greedy and
democracy-killing proposed insertion into the Electoral Act 2010.” The
party also called on labour, civil society organizations and political
parties to march on the National Assembly “to ensure such
anti-democratic law is not passed.” Mr Mohammed described the ongoing
amendment effort as the most expensive and anti people ever in Nigeria’s
history, saying it is time to stop federal lawmakers from ruining the
democracy that millions of Nigerians fought to entrench.

“Our legislators are the highest paid in the world, with those of Kenya a distant second,” he said. “Yet, they never consulted
us before padding their pay to such high levels. The widespread story
is that each of them earns a million naira per day, except on weekends
and public holidays! This is not far from the truth, since each one
smiles home with 45 million Naira per quarter, in a country where most
citizens live on less than US$1 a day, and the minimum wage being fought
for comes to US$4 per day! Add this to the fact that while it took 3%
of the national budget to service the National Assembly in the Second
Republic, the current National Assembly is gulping over 30% of the
national budget and one will get an idea of how these legislators are
draining the economy. If they dispute the figures quoted above, they
should tell Nigerians what they earn and what percentage of the national
budget is being used to service the National Assembly.”

Implications

The party said that
the proposed law offends the constitution, stifles the ability of the
parties to make their own constitutions and decide who attends their
executive councils and shows how those elected to serve the people
cannot differentiate between the interest of the PDP from the majority
in both chambers of the National Assembly, and the country.

“The proposed law will also make the lawmakers – in the case of the
PDP more than 300 National Assembly members’ gate crashing into the NEC
– the single biggest bloc in the NECs of the parties. Then, the
dictatorship of lawmakers would have been entrenched, with dangerous
consequences for all,” Mr. Mohammed said.