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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.

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.

As part of his many
duties, a conductor is expected to be a mobile map, a regular GPRS. He
must know where all the checkpoints are; the places where the police,
LASTMA, road safety and VIO officials are stationed. And when they
move, which they do often enough, he must find out where they have gone
and constantly update the driver who must then avoid such routes.

Yesterday, as soon
as we left Iyana-oworo for the Ogudu road we were stopped by the police
and the driver was livid – not at the police, but at the incompetence
of his conductor. “You are a fool,” he said. “Didn’t you tell me this
road was free?” And he proceeded to call the youth a string of
unpalatable names.

“But they are not
supposed to be here today,” the conductor said. This excuse enraged the
driver further. “So why are they here? Idiot, I am asking you why are
they here then?”

“Driver, I beg look
where you are going,” said a passenger beside him as the bus almost hit
a curb. As the driver turned to face the road however, the conductor
gave us a broad smile and made a face to indicate that the driver had
smoked something. Some passengers chuckled, there had been something
excessive about the drivers’ rant.

Unfortunately, the
driver caught the exchange in his rear view mirror. “Is it your father
that you are talking about back there?” he asked the conductor. “Your
father must have been a great fool to give birth to an idiot like you.
Oloshi.”

The conductor, who
seemed to have cared about his father some, stopped taking the matter
lightly. “Please stop insulting my father. The police took your money,
my father is dead let him rest in peace.”

“Well that is good
to hear,” said the driver. “It is good that YOUR FATHER IS NOT ALIVE TO
SEE THE IDIOT YOU HAVE BECOME.” The conducted seethed but said nothing.

As we rounded the
bend, we came upon the Ojota roundabout and a policewoman suddenly
stepped onto the road, barring movement. I felt some sympathy for the
driver: it was obviously not his day.

Yet, when I looked
at him, he was smiling. “Aaah,” he said to the woman in obvious banter,
“You want them to say I killed my own wife? Stop doing dangerous things
like that.” But the woman was in no mood for play. She just stood
there, her face black as night. “Ok, let me go and I will see you when
I come back,” the driver said. The woman said she would do no such
thing. “You think I be fool? That was what you said yesterday and I
didn’t see you again.”

There was no
getting past her so the driver forked out the N50, and the policewoman
smiled for the first time. And what a beautiful smile. But the episode
seemed to have disturbed a middle-aged woman sitting at the back of the
bus.

“This kind of thing is not good for a woman,” she said. “They should let the men collect the bribes. It is better that way.”

“Spoken like a true
woman,” said a man in thick glasses. “So as usual men should do the
dirty work while women enjoy the money. Is that what you are saying?”

“But look at it
now,” said the woman, “She is so young. Who will marry a woman like
that? Some things should be done by men is what am saying.”

“The women are more wicked o,” said the conductor. “They don’t like to show mercy.”

“Shut up,” shouted the driver. “People are talking and the fool is
also talking. If you do your job we won’t need to give all our profits
to these people, men or women!”

Isaiah Adewale is a
46-year-old ,part-time commercial motorcyclist, part-time bricklayer
who can barely cater for his wife and four children. He suffers from
vitiligo, a disease causing depigmentation of the skin; and as a result
he hardly gets customers to make a living.

But Mr. Adewale is
a millionaire-in-waiting, having being awarded N10 million by Deborah
Oluwayemi,a Lagos State High Court judge, “for the humiliation, pains,
inconvenience,injury, loss and damages” he suffered when Police
officers attached to the Ojodu Police Station unlawfully arrested,
arraigned and got him remanded at Kirikiri prison in 2006.

But four years on,
the Police has remained defiant to obey the court’s ruling of October
3, 2006. In a pathetic story of flagrant disregard to the rule of law
and constituted powers of the Judiciary, Mr. Adewale says there is no
justice for the poor in Nigeria.

“I am a poor man
and nobody listens to the poor. I have written to everybody in
government to help me get this money from the Police because I am dying
from suffering. But nothing! I can no longer get bricklaying jobs,
people don’t want to climb my Okada (commercial motorcycle) because
they are afraid I will transfer my skin problem to them,” says Mr.
Adewale.

Taking up Mr.
Adewale’s struggle,Know Your Rights International, a human rights
advocacy group, has at different periods in time written several
petition letters to the highest authorities of the police, the Ministry
of Police Affairs, the Police Service Commission, the National Human
Rights Commission, the National Judicial Council, the Nigeria Bar
Association, amongst other government establishments.

In a letter dated
January 15,2010, the then Inspector General of Police (IGP), Ogbonna
Onovo, was petitioned.In response, the IG’s Principal Staff Officer
III, Greg Esele, an Assistant Commissioner of Police, wrote to the
Commissioner of Police overseeing the Legal department of the Police
Force to take necessary action. Nothing was done.

One of the few
others to respond to Mr. Adewale’s plight was the secretary of the
National Judicial Council (NJC), Danladi Halilu, who on the orders of
the Chief Justice of Nigeria and Chairman of the NJC, on March 15, 2010
said “I have been directed to inform you to channel your complaint to
the Inspector of General of Police”.

But the IGP who is
supposed to be the chief enforcer of the law has remained the greatest
offender in refusing to obey court orders, says Olusegun Adeeko, Know
Your Rights lead activist. Mr.Adeeko also petitioned the new IGP, Hafiz
Ringim, reminding him that Mr. Onovo’s removal as IG “was due to his
lip-service attitude to rule of Law and his arrogant defiance of court
orders with impunity”.

In response, Mr.
Ringim in a letter dated September 20, 2010, through Mr. Esele, still
PSO III, directed the commissioner of the Police Legal department to
again “advise accordingly”.

“This is the game
the Police are playing. Since the new IG came on board, we have written
him appeal letters because we believed he will uphold the rule of law
and put the police in the right perspective of Nigerians. But it is
months now and he is paving the line of Mr. Onovo,” says Mr. Adeeko.

At different times,
the Public Complaints Commission also tried to get the Police to obey
the court and pay monetary compensation to Mr. Adewale. On behalf of
the commissioner, one B.A.Ogunyale wrote to the IGP on August 25,2010,
to “kindly request from your good office your appropriate comment in
connection with this petition”.

Phone calls and
email messages sent to several government establishments, including the
police force headquarters, who Mr. Adewale has over the years
petitioned to come to his aid were at the time of going to press
unanswered.

“The Police don’t respond to petitions because they are above the
law. This is dangerous for democracy. I am poor but I will fight for my
rights. I will follow this matter to the end. As Nigerians we need to
wake up from our slumber and speak out because my right is your right
too,” says Mr. Adewale.

The joy of motherhood was short-lived
for Sola Morufu, who lost her child barely 24 hours after its delivery.
Three months of strike by Lagos doctors has grounded activities in
state-owned hospitals, and made Mrs. Morufu’s child a casualty.

After putting to bed at a local
maternity centre at Orimedu in Ibeju-Lekki council three months ago,
Mrs. Morufu left for Akodo, a neighbouring community, in the same
council, to stay with her mother.

Counting costs in human lives

“It was on the second day that the
child started acting somehow and started shaking, so we took her to
Ibeju-Lekki General Hospital in Akodo here, but we were rejected
because of the strike,” said the grandmother of the deceased, Joke Olu.

“It was already around 9pm and by the
time we would get to another hospital, the child had died. Me and my
daughter, we cried like a baby that night, but there was nothing we
could do about it. I felt like it was a grown up that died.”

Along with losing her first child,
22-year-old Mrs. Morufu’s life was gravely threatened, prompting her to
seek medical attention in a nearby private hospital.

“The baby was also my first
grandchild, but it was really tough for his mother after then,” said
Mrs. Olu, the grandmother. “We almost lost her too, and eventually had
to get her to a private hospital in Magbon-Segun (a neighbouring
community) where she received treatment at double what we would have
spent in a public hospital. Only God saved her life, but she has still
not fully recovered now. She really feels bad about what happened and
has not been happy since then.”

Like Mrs. Olu, Abanise Wasiu, another
resident of Akodo community, lost his uncle, Sulu Eji, five weeks ago,
an incident he believes was caused by the doctors’ strike.

He said the delay in getting timely
medical treatment for his uncle, who had slumped at a community
meeting, had cost him his life, in spite of frantic efforts made by the
relatives.

“We quickly rushed him to Ibeju-Lekki
General Hospital after he slumped, but he was still shaking. On getting
there, the doctors were still on strike. He died on the way to a
private hospital in Iberikodo (a nearby community),” he said.

Two female doctors at Ibeju-Lekki
General Hospital, who spoke under condition of anonymity, denied that
patients had been outrightly rejected at the hospital.

“Even though we are on strike, we still try to do something for them (patients), however, small,” said one of the doctors.

Resort to alternative medicine

As the impact of the strike bites
harder, with its effects on residents some of who could only manage to
get private health-care, which is relatively more expensive,
investigation has shown that many Lagos residents have resorted to
patronising hawkers of alternative (traditional) medicine, whose
activities are less regulated.

Bidemi Salako, who is registered for
anti-natal care at the Island Maternity, Lagos Island, has been getting
her care from herbalists, popularly called ‘Alagbos’ in Lagos, since
the commencement of the doctors’ strike.

“There was nothing else I could do,”
she said in Yoruba. “I was having back pains, headache and various
other complaints, but there was no doctor to complain to at the
hospital, so I told the herbalist about it, and she has been treating
me since then. I pray they call off before my time to give birth, but
if not, I will use the herbalist,” she said.

In the meantime, the 13-week-old
strike continues, with the doctors rejecting the state government’s
offer of 75 per cent implementation of CONMESS (Consolidated Medical
Salary Scale), and accusing the government of insincerity in
negotiations which started last week, about three months into the
strike.

Speaking recently in an interview with
NEXT, Ayobode Williams, Medical Guild chairman, appealed to Lagos re
sidents “to prevail on the government to acce de to the doctors’
demands”, adding that the state government should be held responsible
for th e casualties recorded during the strike.