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His decision to go into politics

I have been in
politics for a while, but there was never a time I was really
interested in elective office. But in the last one year, I have
reflected on the events in the country, especially in Ekiti State, and
also my career. I now feel that if all of us that are critical of the
way things are going in this country stand aloof, if we allow the
people with no vision to rule over this country, things will continue
to be the way they are. That is why you find me doing what I’m doing
now.

Criticism of timetable for 2011 elections

I think the time
line is too close for the elections. If, by now, we have not done
registration, parties have not nominated their candidates, ballot
papers have not been printed and a lot of things have been left
untouched. There is no way we can do successful elections in January.
They have argued that the electoral act has specified a time. My
argument is that law is made for man, not man for the law. Those laws
are going to be impediments to free and fair elections. We could amend
those laws that have been passed. We could call the National Assembly
members together again to review, instead of hindering our election, or
we can suspend those laws for this election.

Challenges facing Ekiti State

If you look at
Ekiti State over the years, you will find that there has been a
collapse in the education sector. We have always seen education as an
end to needs, not as a means to an end. We have not used that education
to build industries and provide employment for our people. You can just
be acquiring degrees without adding to the value of the lives of our
people. People believe that to go to school and acquire degrees is the
end of the world. That is the kind of rebirth we want in Ekiti State.
We want to recreate and change the perspective of our people. It is
when other states see us from a good perspective that we will begin to
attract people from other states and these will bring good tidings to
our state.

His plans if elected senator

The problem facing
Ekiti State is the re-orientation of our people. We need to call
ourselves to the problem facing us. For example, all the roads in Ekiti
are not in good shape. We are going to vigorously call attention to all
these things.

If I get to the
National Assembly, I am going to network with my colleagues and lobby
those that can be lobbied. Because of my working here, I have also
discovered that there is so much ignorance, people not knowing what is
going on outside the state and people with degrees don’t even know
where to go for jobs. They don’t know that a lot of government
agencies, especially at the federal level, hire people annually on a
contract basis. They don’t have the knowledge of what is due to them.
We would organize seminars for our businessmen on where and how to take
opportunities of loan facilities. So those are the kind of things I
will do differently.

ACN’s chances in the elections

If you drive around
the town, opinion polls will show that ACN is the most popular party in
Ekiti State and you can also feel the popularity.

We shall be
vigilant and make sure that there is no rigging so that we can win our
elections. PDP do not love our people. We do not need to deceive
ourselves. At the national level, we will try as much as possible to
present a good candidate that is going to be well accepted by the
majority of Nigerians. If INEC will keep to its promise to conduct free
and fair elections, then why can’t we win? We can see the future is
bright for the party and we are waiting for it.

His confidence about his chances

I am not arrogant
and I’m always at home with the people. I am not a wealthy man and I am
not a silver spoon person. People have helped me in the past to be what
I am today. So why will I be arrogant? I could be self confident and if
that is what some people see as being arrogant, then I can’t help it. I
am self-confident and I don’t allow people to push me around. You can
accuse me of self-confidence and self-sufficiency, but not being
arrogant.

The British High Commission in Nigeria on Tuesday announced that Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom will be represented at our nation’s 50th independence anniversary by the Duke of Gloucester.

According to a statement from the commission, the Duke of Gloucester, Richard Alexander Walter George KG GCVO, will be visiting Nigeria from September 28 to October 3, 2010. “He will be representing Her Majesty the Queen and Her Majesty’s Government at the 50th Anniversary Celebrations of Nigeria as an independent nation.”

Nigeria got her independence from Great Britain in 1960, with the Queen in attendance.

“As part of his visit to Nigeria, the Duke of Gloucester will also undertake official engagements in both Lagos and Abuja,” the statement read. “As part of the United Kingdom’s contribution to Nigeria’s 50th Anniversary Celebrations, the Duke will visit Lagos and take part in the Presidential Fleet Review and undertake other naval training activities.”

The Cross River
State government has signed a joint venture agreement with Interswitch
Limited for the implementation of the Cross River State Identity
Management and E-Payment Backbone.

The state governor,
Liyel Imoke, described the occasion as a reflection of a new way of
doing business in Cross River, stating that the government will
continue to partner with the private sector to improve on service
delivery, and help make a difference in the lives of the citizens. He
said the project will be a success story for the combined effort
between the public and private sectors.

Mr Imoke said the
project has great potentials to improve the people and the government
of the state, by providing a strong backbone for E-Payment, as well as
opportunities to gather information and data in identifying the
citizens of the state and determine the number of people required in
the civil service. He added that the goal of the project is to build an
operation that will deliver identity management and payment processing
at no cost to the state government. It will also improve the internal
revenue generation capacity of the state, as well as provide accurate
data and fail-proof identification of citizens for development
purposes, social services and planning, he said.

He urged the
operators to ensure that the contents of the agreement are adhered to,
for the people to enjoy the service which they provide.

The state government will provide the legislation and support,
whilst Interswitch will provide the technical expertise and funding.

Nigerians imitate
so much from Americans that we resemble a US colony on the 50th
anniversary of our independence from the UK. All the same, I look
forward to that American tradition of moderated debates by presidential
candidates – this time, in Nigeria. Early days yet, maybe; but Jonathan
says it’s all God’s doing, Babaginda declares: the older the better,
and Saraki states it’s the turn of a new breed.

Slogans apart, a
would-be-president of Nigeria should confront and convince millions
within this country, as well as investors from outside, instantaneously
with an agenda of how he will pull the country out of the deep, dirty
hole we have lived in for 50 years. What plans, for example, do our
presidential aspirants have to combat the negative impacts of climate
change? What will they do about food insecurity? Some Nigerian
politicians are calling for a return to coal-mining to solve the energy
crisis. What is the opinion of Jonathan, or Saraki, Babangida, or
anyone else? Atiku, too. And if Nigerian coal miners got trapped 700
metres beneath the surface, what contingency plans would they have in
place to rescue them?

We often repeat all
those familiar statistics about Nigeria – forests gone, hundreds of
species endangered, rivers, lakes, coastal areas over-polluted and
over-fished, threats of erosion, floods, drought, the worst maternal
and infant mortality, the highest reported cases of snake bites in
Africa, thanks to Kaltungo Local Government in Gombe State. Do we have
someone who can turn things around, someone who will make a difference?

We need moving
rhetoric, ideas, plans and promises that will be kept, not patronizing
visits to re-assure the Igbo that they’ll give birth to the next
president, courtesy of a midwife called Babangida. Igbo people, like
other Nigerians, are more interested in when there will be light and
water, and jobs and health care, and no hankypanky and fraud in paying
pensions to the aged; no muggers and kidnappers, no policemen killing
drivers at checkpoints.

Babangida is sadly
out of touch with the recent realities of public affairs in Nigeria. We
are now in civilian times and marching to a different music of debate
and innovative thought processes, not commands and decrees. Long
retirement and hibernation has taken its toll on a once dashing General
of the Nigerian army. If it is correct, and I don’t still believe it,
that he picked Peter Odili to run with him, then IBB is very likely to
be frozen on the starting blocks once more. It appears that he has not
seen the handwriting on the wall, and I don’t think he will hear the
starter’s gun either. A great pity, but then soldiers are no strangers
to hara-kiri! I still would like the young Saraki to tell us what
lessons he learnt about farming from those white Zimbabweans. Has any
agricultural knowledge or technology been transferred to Kwarans? Why
did Mr Saraki approve land so rapidly for the Zimbabweans when many of
us are not able to own a plot to farm in our states of origin, talk
less of doing so in another state within the country? Is that what the
Land Use Decree is all about? That a state governor can hand over
productive land to foreigners with such ease?

If Mr Saraki was
enterprising enough to start a football academy in Ilorin, why hadn’t
he thought of a college of agriculture at which his Zimbabwean pals
would be lecturing?

Yet on Monday, Bukola Saraki wrote that we need young Nigerians to fix things. Yes, I agree, but not old Zimbaweans!

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The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Sanusi
Lamido Sanusi, yesterday reacted to recent criticisms credited to his
predecessor, Chukwuma Soludo, on the management of the nation’s
economic policies, describing it as “alarmist.”

Mr Sanusi, who was briefing reporters on the
resolutions by the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting yesterday in
Abuja, said Mr Soludo could not have been right to declare that the
country’s economy was facing imminent collapse, considering the damning
situation the global economy is currently going through.

“I wish he (Soludo) was specific on some of those
things he thinks we should do to save the economy from the crisis or
collapse he is talking about, and give recommendations,” Mr Sanusi
said, adding, “I think some of those remarks were alarmist and did not
take full cognizance of the situation we are in today.”

Failing short of tracing the root of the present
crisis in the economy to Mr Soludo’s administration, the CBN Governor
explained, “We are in the middle of global economic crisis (where our
country’s) banking system has lost 66 per cent of its capital. The
reality is that if we had intervened in 2007 or 2008, when the warning
signals were becoming clear that the banking system was heading towards
a point of crisis, due to the opaque situation in the capital market,
we would not be dealing with the kind of crisis we are facing at this
moment.

“Once it became clear that the banks had lost
capital, because of margin loans and exposure to petroleum products
importation and very weak regulation and supervision, it was clear that
the banks cannot continue to lend at the rate they were used to,” Mr
Sanusi said.

“For that reason, I supported the decision of the
National Economic Council that government should draw down on the
Excess Crude Account in order to augment government payments. And if
credit is not flowing into the economy and government is not lending,
we will have a full blown recession.

“Excess Crude Account was saving for a rainy day. And
when price of crude oil crashed from $147 per barrel to $40, and output
crashed from 2.3million barrels a day to less than one million barrels
per day, it is not just raining, it pouring.

“One needed to have counter-fiscal condition. The Excess crude Account was used to fund that counter-fiscality.”

Playing politics

Mr Sanusi said Mr Soludo himself pursued
counter-fiscal monetary policy measures and reduced the liquidity ratio
from 40 to 25 per cent, and cash reserve requirement from 42 per cent.

“These were appropriate quality responses in the time
of crisis,” he said. “For me, the decision of government to implement
financial sector reforms was long overdue. The announcement that
petroleum products distribution should be deregulated over time is also
a very good decision that should be implemented.

“The focus of the Minister of Finance on employment
generation and industrial development policy are long overdue and
should be encouraged. The reforms in the capital market are good. We
are not exactly there yet, but in terms of taking the right steps, I
think the government has done all that is necessary to do.”

Mr Sanusi said some of the comments credited to Mr Soludo might be political.

“Soludo had contested an election some time ago, and
as a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), one does not know
how much his statement is economics and how much of it is politics. But
I am responding to the economic aspect of the discussion and not
involved in the internal PDP family political affair,” he said

The
governors of the states in the southern part of the country, elected on
the platform of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), are still in
negotiation talks with their counterparts in the north on the party’s
presidential ticket in the 2011 election.

The Delta State
governor, Emmanuel Uduaghan, disclosed this in Abuja yesterday, shortly
after he submitted his Expression of Interest and nomination forms at
the party’s national secretariat.

Mr. Uduaghan also
dismissed the clamour by some members of the PDP in Delta State for the
dissolution of the executive committee of the state chapter of the
party.

Apparently
referring to the non-committal stance of some governors when they spoke
at the formal declaration of President Goodluck Jonathan for the
presidential race last Saturday, the governor said the southern
governors are still exploring the avenue to ensure that the president’s
candidature is acceptable to everybody.

Mr. Uduaghan said politics is all about negotiation, adding that what the southern governors are doing is not new.

“I have always said
this whole thing is about negotiation. Politics is about negotiation,
and I believe we should all go into negotiation. We are negotiating
with our colleagues in the North,” he stated.

Apart from the Delta Stategovernor, others who appeared at the
party’s national secretariat to either pick or submit their forms
include Theodore Orji (Abia State); Dambaba Suntai (Taraba State);
Saidu Dakingari of Kebbi State; and Jonathan Zwingina, who is gunning
for the Adamawa State governorship seat.

In ranking Nigeria
amongst the worst place for a child to be in 2010, a report by the
Global Campaign for Education (GCE) has stated that Nigeria has more
children out of education than any other country in the world.

The report claims
that an astounding 8.2 million children are not provided with adequate
education in Africa’s most populous country. Comparing the nation’s
wealth with the apparent low standard of education, the report claims
that “the report is made all the more appalling by the fact that
Nigeria is far from poor, by African standards. On paper at least it is
among the continent’s richest countries, the world’s sixth largest
producer of crude oil. But decades of failure to invest in education
have left the basic school system hardly functioning, especially in the
country’s impoverished north.”

For Primary
education, the report claims many students drop out of the school in
their first year of education due to ‘unequal provision of education’
and this it argued, is caused by the lack of political will to address
and arrest the issue. “A lack of political will is a major factor in
the country having the highest number of children out of school in the
world. Gross inequality in the provision of education has led to 8.2
million children out of primary school with many more dropping out
within the first year.”

Poor attendance, imbalanced education

The report
particularly criticised the northern region of the country for an
abysmal amount of children denied good education. “Over half of these
children are in the north of the country, with girls suffering the most
with many receiving just six months of education in their lives. In the
largely Muslim north of Nigeria……….attendance rates are below 50%
at primary school and of those only one in every three pupils is female
(nationwide, the proportion is five boys to four girls)” it noted.

The GCE report is
coming just as the National Education Council of Nigeria (NECO) on
Monday released the 2010 results and over 79% of the students that sat
for the examination failed in English language; the nation’s official
language.

While over 80% of the students failed the entire exam last year.

Nigeria was however
not listed in the list of the bottom 10 countries that are worst for a
child. The countries which are predominantly African nations include
Somalia, Eritrea, Comoros, Ethiopia, Chad, Burkina Faso, Central
African Republic, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Liberia and Haiti. Tanzania and
Mozambique were however commended for halving the number of children
out of school, while Rwanda is said to have made strong efforts to
ensure that there are enough professionally trained teachers.

The report noted
that delivering education for all is highly achievable and brings other
poverty dividends such as reducing HIV deaths by seven million and
doubling child survival by 50% if mothers are educated.

The President of
the Global Campaign for Education Kailash Satyarthi in a statement to
political leaders warned “if scientists can genetically modify food and
NASA can send missions to Mars, politicians must be able to find the
resources to get millions of children into school and change the
prospects of a generation of children.”

GCE called on
leaders meeting at the United Nations in New York this week, to make
funding for education a priority in order to meet the target of
universal access to basic schooling by 2015.

It argues that
“poor countries should spend 20% of their national budget on education,
abolishing school fees and be supported to hire an additional 1.9
million teachers so that every child can have access to education.” It
called on rich countries to “direct their aid budgets at the poorest
countries or where inequalities of education are most extreme, rather
using their aid budgets to underwrite the University systems.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) yesterday announced
the resumption of active open market operations for the purpose of
targeted liquidity management in the country. This was part of the
resolutions announced in Abuja by the apex bank’s governor, Lamido
Sanusi, at the end of the monthly Monetary Policy Committee (MPC)
meeting to review the country’s domestic economic conditions for the
first eight months of the year and the challenges facing the economy.

Other high points at the meeting included the
decision to increase the monetary policy rate (MPR) by 25 basis points,
from 6.0 percent to 6.25 percent, and adjustment of the asymmetric
corridor to 200 basis points above, and 300 basis points below the MPR,
for the standing lending and deposit facilities respectively. It also
agreed to raise forthwith interest payable on standing deposits with
CBN overnight by 200 basis points.

Mr. Sanusi, expressed the committee’s satisfaction
with the progress so far with the ongoing reforms in the financial
sector, and noted the inflationary pressures likely to be exerted on
the economy with the upsurge of government spending in an election
year, as well as the liquidity implication of the purchase of
non-performing loans by Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria
(AMCON). He, however, assured that the CBN is considering a policy
action to moderate the impact.

The committee, which also endorsed the CBN’s liaison
with the Pension Commission (PENCOM) to get part of the accumulated
pension fund to finance power sector projects on a long term basis,
commended government’s decision to resume the power sector reforms and
pointed out that this would impact positively on the core structure of
the country’s economy.

“We are trying to work out an arrangement that would
make the PENCOM fund to be available for power projects at single
digits interest rates. Between the PENCOM and the CBN, we should be
putting in about N500 to N600 billion in power sector development. That
potentially can create about 6,000 mega watts (MW) of electricity.

“This arrangement would help in shielding the power
sector from the vagaries of volatility in the international capital
market and the exchange and interest rates risks,” Mr. Sanusi said.

“We are sensitive at driving inflation. We do not
think at this point that it is something to panic about. However, we
recognise that with increase spending with AMCON, increase in salaries,
participation in deregulation, government is likely to have significant
equity injection towards rear end, which might further fuel inflation
in double digits,” he added.

Stock leadership crisis

On the operations at the capital market, the
committee expressed conviction that the early resolution of the
leadership impasse at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), as well as the
effective take off of AMCON would facilitate the return of the stock
market to the path of recovery.

The foreign exchange market, the committee noted,
remained relatively stable during the period, with total inflow in July
put at $2.25 billion, an increase of 9.22 percent over the $2.60
billion in the preceding month, out of which crude oil and gas revenue
was $2.16 billion, or 93.97 percent.

On the other hand, total outflows of payments for the
same period amounted to $4.03 billion, an increase of 3.78 percent,
from $3.88 billion for the previous month, while net outflow was put at
$1.78 billion. Total inflows of foreign exchange to the market between
January and August was $52 billion.

A breakdown of the total figures showed CBN funds
accounting for $14 billion, or 27 percent, with the balance coming from
autonomous foreign exchange sources, including oil companies,
international institutions, and other agencies, while gross external
reserve stood at $36.636 billion as at September 13, representing a
decrease of $0.5 billion, or 1.3 percent, when compared with the
$37.167 billion as at end July.

The committee described the current external reserve
level as still adequate and expected to remain robust, considering the
favourable outlook of oil prices at the international oil market,
pointing out that “there is no compelling reason to alter the exchange
rate regime, as stability will remain priority.”

On the AMCON board, Mr. Sanusi said a list of nominees submitted, in
consultation with the minister of finance, Segun Aganga, to the
presidency, has since been approved and passed on to the National
Assembly for screening and final confirmation. He assured that as soon
as the law makers resume from their vacation, the approved appointees
would be made public.

Time constraints may prevent the Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) from conducting credible elections next
year, but a little adjustment in the timetable will help it out of the
ongoing shoddy arrangement for the exercise, the Academic Staff Union
of Universities (ASUU) said yesterday in Calabar.

Rising from a-three day national executive meeting of
the union in Calabar, lecturers of public universities in the country
said the time between when their colleague, Attahiru Jega, was
appointed as the chairman of the electoral agency and early 2011 when
elections will come up, is “too short a time for free and fair polls to
be conducted.” The body’s national president, Ukachukwu Awuzie, told
the press in Calabar that it will take a miracle for the electoral body
to do a neat job, hence the timetable should be adjusted for the
exercise to come up at the middle of the first quarter of 2011, with
the May 29 handover date remaining unchanged.

According to him, if there is no shift in the
elections, Nigerians and the international community will be convinced
that Goodluck Jonathan and the INEC have “programmed the elections and
the entire process to fail. It will not help to guarantee the required
free, fair, and credible elections”.

A communiqué presented by the union suggested the
election time table be adjusted to provide time for a fresh voters
register, verification of the register and political enlightenment that
will guide the electorate in voting for candidates of their choice.
“ASUU believes that for the Nigerian political process to serve the
needs of the people of Nigeria, the NEC of our union is calling for an
adjustment of the election time table, but such adjustment must not
interfere with the handover date of May 29th, 2011,” Professor Awuzie
said.

Assessing activities

Assessing the political activities put in place by
the government for the 2011 elections, the ASUU leadership said the
federal government has not demonstrated enough sincerity in
institutionalizing true democracy in the country, as issues of party
bigotry and ethnic aspirations have not been properly addressed in the
electoral reform laws to serve as a step toward producing credible
leaders for the country.

On electoral reform, the union expressed confidence
in the INEC chairman, but expressed fears that the political class may
make votes not count again as was the case in 2007, stressing that
there was no sign in sight that the “people are ready to conduct free
and fair elections”.

“Attahiru Jega has integrity to deliver as INEC
chairman, but the fear is that he may not be given a free hand to
implement the electoral laws. Imo and Cross River State local
government council elections which were used recently to experiment the
new electoral law, were an indication that the ruling class are not yet
ready for democracy. Elections in the two states were fraught with
irregularities,” Mr Awuzie said.

“In Imo State, reports from the area revealed that
election results were declared without figures, while in Cross River
State, women demonstrated nude on the street against the conduct of the
polls. There is nothing in the offing to convince Nigerians that next
year’s general elections will be free and fair.”