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The Alliance of Kogi State Youth and Students Council, a
pressure group, has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC),
on Tuesday, to conduct free, fair, and credible elections.

Speaking in Lokoja, the national president of the group, Sani
Ojochenemi Salisu, said that Nigerian youth would not accept anything short of
credible elections from the Attaihiru Jega-led electoral body.

“This time around, the nation needs free, fair, and credible
elections and we hope INEC will not disappoint us in this regard,” said Mr.
Salisu.

Mr. Salisu appealed to all people of voting age to come out and
register during the forthcoming voters’ registration exercise, stressing that
their voters card are their weapon in electing credible leaders of their choice
at all levels.

“The principle of ‘one man one vote’ should be strictly
followed. All the votes of the electorate must count and the electorate must be
allowed to elect their leaders through their vote cast, and not through
imposition of leaders by some so-called godfathers,” he further said.

Shun violence

Mr. Salisu, who is a former president of the National
Association of Kogi State Students (NAKOSS) and the immediate past deputy
senate president of Igala Students Association (ISA), also enjoined youth to
shun any form of violence and thuggery during and after the elections.

“As leaders of tomorrow, the youth, who have been stakeholders in the polity
of the nation, should not allow themselves to be used as thugs by desperate
politicians who are after their pockets and not the collective socio-economic
and physical development of the country,” he said.

Lawmakers of the Nasarawa State Assembly have voted to end the tenure of all local government chairmen by November 3rd, 2010.

The decision came after lawmakers extended the
tenure of elected local government chairmen in the state’s 13 local
government and development areas.

The chairman, house committee on local government
and community development, Abdullahi Musa Aliyu, drew the attention of
the house to the issue. He noted that no election had been conducted at
the local government level, though the constitution and the local
government chairman amendment laws of 2008 only provided a tenure
period of two years for the position.

“They should hand over to the most senior civil
servants in their respective local government at the end of their
tenure,” he said.

Members of the state House of Assembly, led by Speaker of the House,
Musa Ahmed Mohammed, debated for two hours before arriving at a
unanimous decision.

The House of Representatives has ordered the minister of
finance, Olusegun Aganga, to appear before it today to explain why funding for
capital projects has averaged only 30%, barely two months to the end of the
year.

The lawmakers said Mr. Aganga must offer the explanations before
general session of the House and not a specific committee as is usually the
case.

Ahead of elections next year, lawmakers desperate to showcase
their achievements to the electorate are complaining that the federal
government’s implementation of capital budget has again failed due to poor
funding by the ministry of finance.

“All road contracts from Bauchi to Owerri have been suspended
because the contractors have not been paid,” said Mohammed Ndume, the House
minority leader, who moved the motion yesterday.

“By the time our people ask which projects were attracted to our
areas, what are we going to say? These projects are not there, and if they are
there, they have been stopped and yet our salaries are not stopped. The
salaries of the presidency have not been stopped.”

Members said according to figures from offices in charge of
various projects, while funding for the huge recurrent expenditure which
annually saps federal revenues have remained atop 70%, those for the capital
projects stay between 10% and 30%.

Mr. Aganga is said to have confirmed the amount to the
lawmakers, acknowledging that N3.2 trillion has been released for recurrent
expenditure so far out of the total N4.6trillion budget.

“We here at the legislature, the executive and the presidency,
are the only ones affected by the releases so far,” Mr. Ndume said.

The figures sparked outrage amongst members who condemned
government’s low spending on developmental projects, and admitted that the
criticisms have become routine yearly.

The House voted to refuse approval for next year’s budget, until
the previous proposals have been satisfactorily executed.

“Since 2003 that I have been in this house, every year we complain
about budget implementation. Can the federal government tell us why we need to
bring this issue every year? Are we serving Nigeria or are we serving
ourselves?” asked Samson Positive, who represents Kogi State.

Falling federal revenue

At $67 per barrel of crude oil benchmark approved for this
year’s budget, and an unstable oil production in the Niger Delta, the federal
government has complained about a falling funding and has stated its difficulty
in implementing projects inserted into the budget by lawmakers during
appropriation.

In separate letters to the lawmakers, President Goodluck
Jonathan has argued for a revision of the benchmark and alternative sourcing of
funds. The chairman House committee of Finance, John Enoh, supported that claim
yesterday and staged a lone walk out after failing to dissuade his colleagues
from taking a hard-line position against the executive. He said based several
interactions with Mr. Aganga, his committee has confirmed that various revenues
targets of the FG have not been met.

“The daily oil production quotas have not been reached in spite
of the amnesty. It is expected that it will take a while for government to
fully reach benefit from the programme,” he said.

Current production is said to be at 2.25million barrels a day.

In approving the order to suspend further appropriations, and to
summon the Finance minister, the deputy speaker, Usman Nafada, said the
benchmark for the budget was reached after a petroleum minister, assured the
National Assembly that government can “comfortably” produce 2.35million barrels
a day against 2.4 million proposed by the lawmakers.

“For them to now come and say they cannot produce that is simply
unacceptable,” Mr. Nafada said. He said however, if there were shortfalls, the
over $15 differential currently derived as excess sales per barrel should cover
for the falling mark.

“Oil is selling now for over $80 per barrel that should take care of the
shortfall. If they cannot implement the capital, they should not implement the
recurrent, you should not pay salaries.”

A Federal High Court sitting in Lagos
on Tuesday adjourned indefinitely further hearing in the suit filed by
the former boss of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, Ndi Okereke-Onyuike.

The former director-general of the Nigeria bourse is challenging her
removal from office by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
She is asking the court to declare that SEC lacked the authority to
terminate her appointment and demanded N3 billion compensation. She
equally asked for an order of perpetual injunction restraining SEC and
its agents from implementing the letter announcing her removal from
office.

The Bayelsa State
government has ordered the relocation of Community Secondary School,
Sagbama after the massive flooding of the school premises.

The commissioner
for education, Josephine Ezonbodor, said on Tuesday during an
assessment tour of the school that the decision to relocate the school
was a stop gap aimed at alleviating the suffering of the students.

Mrs. Ezonbodor
noted that the relocation to a primary school was just until the
government finds a permanent solution to the perennial flood in the
school.

She also warned the
school principal and teachers not to abandon their duty posts on
account of the flood and directed the principal to forward names of
defaulting teachers to her office.

Responding, the
principal, Nanakumo Peter, thanked the commissioner for her prompt
visit to the school and assured her that the staff of the school will
continue to teach in spite of the flood.

Meanwhile, the
Umaru Musa Yar’Adua International Airport, located on the Zarama axis
of the East/West road in Bayelsa has also been flooded following a
downpour.

A News Agency of
Nigeria (NAN) correspondent who visited the airport on Tuesday reports
that the site has virtually been taken over by flood as villagers now
fish in the bushy site.

The site, which has
been left fallow for several months, has become a grazing ground for
cattle rearers, and reptiles which has turned it into a comfortable
home.

The flood at the
airport site made the villagers and other fishermen in the community to
start fishing in the stagnant water to feed their families.

An indigene of Zarama, who simply gave his name as Okorie, told NAN that the airport has been flooded for about two months now.

When the community
discovered that fish now thrive in the stagnant pond, the villagers
began to harvest them since work had been abandoned at the site for
some time, Okorie said.

The British High
Commission in Nigeria said yesterday that it issued about 100,000 visas
to Nigerians wishing to travel to the United Kingdom, out of the
170,000 that applied.

The commission
stated this in a statement signed by its press secretary, Hooman
Nouruzi in Abuja. The statement said: “The British High Commission
would like to note that the UK is committed to providing a top class
visa service. The UK Border Agency works to strict customer service
standards which have been maintained during a busy summer in Nigeria
that has seen demand exceed expectations.” “Last year we received over
170,000 visa applications from Nigerians wishing to travel to the UK,
of which approximately 100,000 were successful.”

The High Commission claims it has no evidence to suggest that
tourists have given up on travel plans to the UK, as suggested in an
article “European Embassies Turn Down 450,000 Visa Requests Yearly’
recently published by a national daily.

Alex Adebayo
Jegede, an aide to the Chairman of Ikole Local Government in Ekiti
State, is now in police custody for allegedly looting the property of
the council in the wake of last week’s change of government in the
state.

The Director
General of the Broadcasting Service of Ekiti State (BSES), Segun
Aderiye, was also on Tuesday harassed by staff of the corporation who
forcefully retrieved his official car from him.

Mr Jegede was
arrested by the police on Monday in line with the order of the state
governor, Kayode Fayemi, that political appointees holding government
property must surrender them with immediate effect. The order became
necessary after reports that some officials of the sacked government
and those in the local councils are helping themselves with funds and
property, following the sack of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)
government led by Segun Oni.

The council
official was arrested at Odo-Ayedun during a community meeting held at
the palace and he is currently in detention at the Police Divisional
Headquarters in Ikole town. Some of the council property recovered from
Mr Jegede include: rugs, window blinds, six cartons of plates, among
other items.

The council
chairman, Wole Ayeni, who was contacted via phone, claimed to be in
Abuja at the time the alleged offence was committed.

The BSES staff on
Tuesday stripped Mr Aderiye of his official car to enforce the order of
the new government, and walked him out of the corporation’s premises.

Forced to leave

The staff, most of
whom had been posted to various ministries and departments following
the problem with the station’s broadcast equipment, returned to the
corporation following the change of government in the state at the
weekend.

Mr Aderiye’s
appearance at the corporation’s premises at about noon enraged the
staff, who queried his presence at the office after the sack of the Oni
government.

The enraged staff
said Mr Aderiye must release his official car, a grey Toyota Corolla
car marked EK 11 A-42, and prevented him from leaving the premises with
the car.

The BSES workers,
who were shouting at the top of their voices, called Mr Aderiye
unprintable names and accused him of running the corporation aground
through alleged intimidation and maladministration. The new state
government has not made any pronouncement on the fate of technocrats
appointed by the last administration to run some of the parastatals.

Mr Aderiye did not answer calls placed to his mobile phone for his reaction to the incident.

The Senate Committee on Aviation has
directed the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) to make public its
findings of aircraft accidents that occurred in the country between
2005 and 2006 which led to the untimely demise of hundreds of air
travellers.

Explaining that the move will assist in
the prevention of any future occurrence, the committee stated that
should the reports be published on national dailies, investors in the
aviation industry and the general public will be enlightened.
“Investigations are meant to provide insight into the cause or causes
of such accidents, and possibly proffer solution to future
occurrences,” said Anyim Ude, the Committee Chairman, on Tuesday, at an
Aviation Safety Conference organized by the AIB in Lagos. “Reports of
such investigations ought to be published for public consumption so
that people can know and learn from the findings and recommendations of
such investigations.”

Mr Ude noted that the findings of the
agency as regards the accidents involving Bellview and Sosoliso
airlines in 2005 are still unpublished by the bureau, adding that it is
part of the statutory responsibility of the agency to investigate,
prevent, and assist in the revealing of air accidents and effective
management in air safety. “This is the major way the Accident and
Investigation Bureau can impact positively on aviation safety,” he
said. “For now there is absence of published reports of previous air
crashes in Nigeria. Where are the Bellview and Sosoliso crashes? Where
is the report of the ADC 2008 plane crash?.”

An under utilized agency

Mr Ude, however, admitted that the only
agency in the aviation industry that is under regulated is the bureau,
stressing that out of the 40 sections of the Civil Aviation Act 2006,
only 29 deals with accident investigation. “As part of our over sight
responsibility, the senate committee on aviation has been concerned
about issues that will promote safety, security of our airspace and
airport,” he said. “Presently, the committee has in collaboration with
an international agency embark on the Act that establish our aviation
parastatals in order to solve the problems of overlapping, assignments
of responsibilities and inconsistencies inherent in these Acts. At the
appropriate time the committee will involve and request these
parastatals for their input. In the cause of this amendment, the
committee discovered that of all the aviation parastatals, only the AIB
is under regulated because only section 29 of the Civil Aviation Act of
2006 mentioned accident out of more than 40 sections of that Act, this
is inadequate.”

Sam Oduselu, the Commissioner of the AIB, said that the agency had
concluded investigations it carried out on the accidents and that there
are constitutional recommendations before these findings will be
published, adding that the report will be published on the agency’s
website once it goes through the statutory requirements. “To the glory
of God we have been able to do a research on these accidents and we
have actually finished our report but there are statutory requirements
for it to go over and that is just what we are waiting for,” he said.
“If you noticed when he was saying that I was just laughing because I
know I have done my job. Bear with us, very soon you will see it on our
website.”

The president is
not a police officer, but he should be able to give the police free
hand and be able to supervise them, Goodluck Jonathan said yesterday in
Abuja.

Speaking at the
16th National Economic Summit at the Transcorp Hilton, he also stated
that corruption is birthed out of greed, which is innate in every human
being.

“My vision is to
build a Nigeria that all Nigerians would be proud of, because people
are losing confidence in the nation. To develop a nation built on
unity, where we will all believe in ourselves that we are one person; a
unity that can encourage sound economy, based on solid education, so
that we can move further; where there the basic infrastructures, like
power, roads and others are available; where the private sector is
viable, and security would encourage investments locally and foreign
direct investments,” he said.

Speaking on the
current state of security in the country, which has become tense
following the October 1 twin bomb blasts in Abuja and the continuous
scare of a repeat attack, President Jonathan said security issues are a
challenge to any government and Nigeria is not an exemption. He also
promised to fight kidnapping and militancy.

“What is happening
now is commercial and anyone doing something to make money will not
stop,” he said. “However, we are getting a special fund to fund the
police in order to curb all these excesses. What we have now is no
longer agitation but criminality. Amnesty has ensured that militancy
ends. Yes, we have some challenges we are addressing, but we must
separate criminality from militancy.”

A former Chief
Justice of Nigeria, Alfa Belgore, who spoke on the issue of why
corruption has thrived in Nigeria, said “most of our laws are
antiquated and the procedures in which cases are tried should be looked
into.” He said Nigeria needs “a simple and cheap” procedure which will
speed up cases.

Generate jobs

Mr Jonathan also
identified lack of consistency in planning as one of the major
challenges the country is facing in its effort to achieve national
development goals and objectives.

According to him,
the longest period the country experienced stability in the development
of the country was during the Yakubu Gowon administration, about nine
years.

“The Ministry of
National Planning would be made to play a key role in the capital
budget process next year to ensure that the budgeting procedures
tallied with the national planning objectives,” he said. “If government
must follow the Vision 20-2020 document, which has been carefully
articulated, government must allow its plans to follow the vision to
the letter,” he said.

The president, who
noted that the growth of the nation is hinged on investment in the
power sector, said if his administration is able to stabilize power
supply in the country, small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) would
flourish and create jobs for the people.

Minister of
Finance, Segun Aganga, attributed the high level of poverty and
unemployment underlining the country’s economic situation to the boom
and bust experience in the international oil market. He said the
National Economic Management Team has been mandated to focus on job
creation through wide consultations with various stakeholders to build
a strong partnership between the private and public sectors to move the
economy forward.

Participants in the
programme included: Mr Belgore; Chairman of the Board of the NESG, Sam
Ohuabunwa; Managing Director, Legacy Pensions Nigeria Limited, Bello
Machido and Minister of National Planning, Shamusudeen Usman.

A motion to approve
the $4.427 billion loan requested by Goodluck Jonathan was dramatically
suspended yesterday in the House of Representatives after lawmakers
made clear moves to vote it down.

In a letter last
week, President Jonathan had urged the the National Assembly to approve
the amount, being the balance of the total $5.242 billion loan earlier
approved by the lawmakers. The legislators had earlier approved $915
million in April, 2010, leaving out the balance to roll up total
federal loan plan for 2010.

The amount, the
president said, will be channelled to “negotiated, appraised and
pipeline projects.” But after a prolonged debate on the motion Tuesday,
the House put the request aside for future consideration, after many
members spoke against it and voted to block the loan during preliminary
voice count.

The Speaker, Dimeji
Bankole, said the motion would be considered later because it was
“obvious that we need to do more work on this motion.” The request,
like others, has shored up concerns about reverting the nation to huge
external and internal debt profile, after struggling to ease off the
burden under the administration of former president, Olusegun Obasanjo.

Increasing debt profile

Nigeria’s local
debt profile has shot to $16 billion while foreign debt stands at about
$4 billion dollars, according to John Enoh, the Chairman of the House
Committee on Finance. The nation’s foreign reserves stands at $35
billion, an about 50 per cent drop in the last two years.

Lawmakers
questioned the relevance of the relief and the projects for which they
are earmarked for, according to the president’s proposals.

Part of the plan
includes $20 million for the development of national response to
HIV/AIDS pandemic. Another clause proposes $12 million for “state
governance capacity building project II” in 14 states of the federation
and another $15 million dollars for “national urban water sector reform
project II” in five states.

$105.5 million dollar of the sum would be applied to “economic and power sector reform,” and several other projects.

“At this age, how can we borrow money for AIDS control?” asked Ita Enang, the chairman House committee on Business and Rules.

The loan is to be
sourced from the International Development Association [IDA], African
Development Bank (ADB), Islamic Development Bank, International Fund
for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and Export Import Bank of China,
according to the president’s letter.

Lawmakers warned against hidden terms attached to the loans, urging
the House committees to give close attention to every term stated and
their desirability, before pushing for final approval.