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The education minister, Ruqayyatu Ahmed-Rufai, has
urged fresh graduates not to depend on white collar jobs after leaving
school, saying government alone could not meet the challenges of
unemployment in the country.

Mrs. Ahmed-Rufai, who gave the advice at the weekend
at the 31st convocation ceremony of the Adeyemi College of Education,
Ondo, said few vacancies that existed in the civil service could not
meet the demands of thousands of fresh graduates searching for gainful
employment.

She, therefore, charged them to embrace
entrepreneurial skills and develop initiatives for self-employment
generation, noting that no nation can develop without adequately
investing in human capital development.

Represented by the permanent secretary in the federal
ministry of education, Oladapo Afolabi, the minister said the education
sector was presently being repositioned to enable it play the very
important role of providing the much-needed human capital to transform
the country to a better place to live.

“The Federal Ministry of Education has taken various
steps to transform the sector. One of such steps is the unveiling of
the Road Map for the sector in March, 2009,” he said.

“The aim of the Road Map is to provide the much
needed qualitative education and to address the four cardinal points of
Access and Equity; Standards and Quality; Standards and Quality
Assurance; Technical and Vocational Education; Training, as well as
Funding and Resource Utilization.”

Upgrade the school

The chairman, governing council of the institution,
Grace Ekong, lauded the ministry for its recent move to upgrade the
college to a university status. She urged the Federal Executive Council
to approve the proposal to elevate some federal colleges of education
in the country to degree awarding universities, stressing that efforts
had been made in the past towards upgrading the college to an
autonomous degree awarding university of education.

“We will still work towards attaining the status.
Adeyemi College of Education, no doubt, has on ground, facilities
suitable for a university of education and it is already producing
degree graduates,” she said.

About 6, 669 students of the institution will be presented with
degree certificates, while 4, 068 will have their Nigeria Certificate
of Education.

Following alleged plots by some of its
old members to hijack the ward and local government congresses, the
national leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday
threw the congress open to both the new and returnee members.

A statement by the party’s
spokesperson, Ahmed Rufai Alkali, in Abuja on Sunday, said it received
complaints by some new members that they were being prevented from
either contesting or voting during the congresses.

The party warned that nobody should be
excluded from the exercise, since both old and returnee members have
the constitutional right to participate in the exercise.

At its 53rd National Executive
Committee meeting last Wednesday, the PDP approved the guidelines for
the congresses where candidates for various elective offices will be
picked. It also fixed for October 23 its national convention, where the
presidential candidate will be ratified.

“The attention of the Peoples
Democratic Party ( PDP) has been drawn to several complaints by party
members nationwide on the eligibility of members to participate in the
election of party delegates in the forthcoming ward and local
government congresses,” it said.

“We have received reports that some
members of the PDP are likely to be prevented from either contesting to
be delegates or voting for candidates of their choice by some party
officials. We wish to state categorically that all PDP members are
constitutionally entitled to participate in the ward congresses. For
the avoidance of doubt, both the old and new membership cards remain
valid for the exercise,” it added.

Party for all

The party also warned its officials at
all levels to avoid creating scenarios where any member will be
disenfranchised under whatever guise.

Mr. Alkali added that the national chairman, Okwesilieze Nwodo,
wants all party faithful to conduct themselves in a peaceful and
orderly manner in order to ensure a free and fair process of electing
candidates for the polls.

Tayo Olarewaju, a Methodist Church
cleric yesterday, during the 3rd diocesan harvest thanksgiving
anniversary of Methodist Church Nigeria, Egba/Yewa Diocese, held at
Igbogila, Yewa north local government area of the state, asked God to
touch the hearts of the Ogun State governor, Gbenga Daniel, and the
state’s lawmakers over the incessant political crisis in the state
before it metamorphosed into bloodbath.

Mr. Olarewaju’s prayer, which lasted
for about 30 minutes, was centred on the political crisis which now
gives innocent residents and citizens of the state sleepless nights.

The hostility between the executive and
legislative arms of the state government reached its zenith two weeks
ago when a faction of the lawmakers staged an early morning meeting
during which they announced the removal of the principal officers of
the assembly and declared a new set of leaders. Although most people in
the state and beyond consider this a joke, the insurgent lawmakers have
received Mr. Daniel’s backing.

“God should touch the heart of Daniel.
He should touch the hearts of the lawmakers, all the aggrieved parties
should have their hearts touched, so that the state will not turn to
war,” the cleric said.

Change of heart

“I pray that God should soften the
hearts of the lawmakers and the governor. God should intervene for the
state to have peace. God should put love among them, mind of peace. If
Saul can change to Paul, God will change the hearts of all of them to
good,” he said.

Mr. Olarewaju also appealed to God to
choose responsible leaders for the country at all levels. He equally
advised the electorate not to sell their rights by collecting money to
vote, but should vote according to their conscience.

Notable politicians at the ceremony include Titi Ajanaku
(governorship aspirant); Albert Ashipa, chairman, Imeko-Afon local
government; Sunday Kojek, member, Ogun State House of Assembly; and
Oluwole Olumide, an Egba high chief.

The National
Security Adviser to the President, Aliyu Gusau, has resigned his
appointment. The retired army general is expected to apply to the
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) today in order to run as a presidential
candidate in the October primaries.

Although President
Goodluck Jonathan accepted his resignation over the weekend, sources
revealed yesterday that Mr. Gusau’s resignation letter was originally
submitted in July. According to a security source, Mr. Jonathan did not
ratify the resignation until after his declaration on Saturday, two
months after he received it.

Campaigns start

The source added
that both men met on Friday after it became clear that Mr. Gusau was
preparing to declare his intent to run for the presidency.

“Gusau’s
resignation letter has been sitting on the president’s desk since
July,” the source said. “In that time, he has carried on with his
duties normally until last week when PDP released the timetable.
Obviously, this has not given him much time to prepare his campaign but
he still had to act,” the source said.

Mr. Gusau’s deputy, Kayode Are, is expected to be named as the interim security adviser this week.

“The de-briefing was already done on Friday and handover notes will be sent to Col. Are by next week.” the source added.

The former army
general confirmed his exit in a brief telephone conversation yesterday.
He was, however, reticent about his future plans.

“It was the right
thing to do for my family,” he said. “As for the future we leave
everything to the will of Almighty God,” he said.

Mr. Gusau’s
resignation and its acceptance by Mr. Jonathan has put paid to all the
speculations that have been in the air about a month ago over his plans.

President Jonathan
had appointed Mr. Gusau as security adviser during the political crisis
that rocked the nation following the late President Yar’Adua’s ill
health and prolonged absence from office.

Mr. Gusau, who was
first named NSA in 1993 during the military rule of Ibrahim Babangida,
is resigning at a time wjhen the race for the presidency has kicked off
in full force. It is, however, unclear whether he is going to join
forces with Mr. Babangida, his former boss, or go it alone to seek the
nomination of the party.

PDP coalition

On Friday, Mr.
Gusau signed an agreement with three other PDP aspirants, Abubakar
Atiku, Mr. Babangida, and Bukola Saraki in which they vowed to present
a single presidential candidate from the north.

Mr. Gusau was
recalled as NSA during the Olusegun Obasanjo regime and in April, this
year, Mr. Jonathan appointed him for the fifth time to serve in the
same capacity, taking over from Sarki Mukhtar.

In 2007, he had planned to run in the PDP presidential primaries.

His resignation is one of many expected in the days ahead following Mr. Jonathan’s declaration of intent on Saturday.

Th e Labour Party
has not decided whether to field a presidential candidate during the
forthcoming general elections, the Deputy National Chairman of the
party, Joseph Iranola Akinalaja said at the weekend.

Mr. Akinalaja, who
was reacting to the recent declaration of interest of Dele Momodu, the
Publisher of Ovation Magazine, in the party’ presidential ticket, said
the party will decide the fate of Mr. Momodu at its National Executive
Council (NEC) meeting scheduled to hold tomorrow.

Mr. Momodu
presented his Letter of Intent to the National Chairman of the party,
Dan Uwanyanwu on Wednesday, September 15, at the party’s headquarters
in Abuja .

He was accompanied
by his Campaign Manager, Ohimai Godwin Amaize and other members of his
staff. They were received at the party headquarters by Mr Uwanyanwu;
Deputy National Chairman, Ali Abacha and National Secretary, Abdulsalam
Abdulkadir Salam. Mr. Akinalaja however said the party has not
finalized the condition for its presidential aspirants.

“Any Nigerian who
is a member of our party has the right to aspire for anything. We are
meeting on Tuesday at the NEC level to now finalise the condition and
there is no wrong in Dele Momodu’s interest,” he said.

“There is nothing
wrong in showing interest. We will now sit down. We will decide who
goes as our candidate. That is when we know the way forward as the
party has not decided on the presidential candidate. The decision to
field a presidential candidate will take place at our NEC meeting. It
is after the meeting that we will take a stand on the matter”.

He pointed out that expression of interest by Mr. Momodu was a clear
testimony that Labour Party is fast becoming a force to reckon with in
the nation’s polity.

A visit to any of the northern states in recent months will have
revealed a slew of campaign posters and billboards. Amongst them can be found
those which bear no party colours or candidate picture; instead, there are
inscribed with three Hausa phrases; Kasan Ku, Alladun Ku and Adinin Ku.
Translated, they mean, ‘Your land, your culture and your religion.’ The
proliferation of the posters indicates the sort of uphill task Goodluck
Jonathan faces if he is to capture northern hearts.

From a political standpoint, the northern opposition to
President Jonathan’s aspirations has already created an unlikely alliance in
Ibrahim Babangida and Atiku Abubakar. When Bukola Saraki threw his hat into the
ring earlier this week and with Aliyu Gusau waiting in the wings, it became
clear that Mr Jonathan faces a four-pronged threat in the primaries.

On Friday, the four leading northern PDP candidates gave the
clearest indication yet that they might be joining forces against Mr Jonathan.
The consensus candidate is likely to be the individual who has amassed the most
support in the run-in to the presidential primaries.

Mr Jonathan has already made some significant inroads in the war
against zoning. In July, he received a small fillip after seven out of the 17
northern governors voted against the issue. Although they were in the minority,
it gave the president a springboard to work with. He has since rewarded three
of them by asking them to co-ordinate his campaign in the north-central,
north-west and north-east geopolitical zones. Incidentally, one of the
appointed governors, Ibrahim Shema of Katsina, originally voted in support of
zoning in the July summit. The other two, Gabriel Suswam of Benue and Isa
Yuguda of Bauchi, have been tasked with generating support in the north-central
and north-east respectively.

The north-central in particular will be a huge challenge for the
President. The governors of Niger State and Kwara are immediately in
opposition. Aliyu Babangida, in spite of reports saying that he was undecided,
is likely to stick with Mr Babangida. In Kogi State, Ibrahim Idris, is
seemingly preoccupied with other matters, chief of which is to elongate his
tenure. Benue, Plateau and Nasarawa can be considered ‘safe’ for now, but Mr
Saraki has been specifically selected to split votes in the middle-belt and
amongst minorities.

In the north-east, Mr Abubakar will seek to repel Isa Yuguda’s
charge of Goodluck Jonathan support. The governors of Borno, Gombe and Yobe are
resilient on their pro-zoning stance. In Adamawa, Murtala Nyako ostensibly is
not backing Mr Abubakar but the former vice-president has enough delegate
support for that to be inconsequential.

The strongest opposition to Mr Jonathan undoubtedly comes from
the north-west zone. Aside from Katsina, and Kaduna, where the vice-president
was plucked from, the governors of Kano, Kebbi, Sokoto, Jigawa and Zamfara will
take some convincing.

Kano’s case throws up an interesting conundrum. The governor,
Ibrahim Shekarau, belongs to the ANPP, yet there are two main PDP factions
within the state, only one of which claims they will support Mr Jonathan.

Waning influence?

The influence of the governors themselves in anointing a
president may not be so important in the preliminary voting. Two things have
happened recently that indicate this.

Firstly, the governors have succeeded in switching the order of
the PDP primaries which works to the detriment of the president. The National
Executive Council of the party announced on Wednesday that the presidential
primaries will now be held last. What this means is that rather than governors
relying on presidential support for delegate votes, this has now been reversed.

Secondly, the abolition of automatic delegates means that governors have far
less control within their states over who the vote should swing to.
Traditionally, a state governor could sway up to 70 per cent of delegate voting
within his state but this is no longer the case. According to the new law, all
delegates who will vote in the primaries must be directly elected by party
members. In other words, the farcical tradition of governors appointing
thousands of special assistants in the prelude to an election will be avoided.

When the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party announced it would
hold a National Executive Council meeting on Wednesday, the same day chosen by
presidential candidate Ibrahim Babangida to announce his presidential ambition,
there were rumours that the timing was deliberate, to take the shine off the
Babangida declaration.

But the ‘event’ that would end up snatching the limelight from
the Babangida rally took place in the most unexpected of places, as far away as
possible from Abuja, or anywhere else for that matter – on the social
networking site, Facebook.

At 10 o’clock that morning, as the Babangida rally prepared to
kick off, a message appeared on Goodluck Jonathan’s Facebook page, confirming
his much speculated presidential bid. Within minutes, the Jonathan ‘coup’ had
come to the notice of the world – leaping from Facebook to Twitter, news
websites, wire services and mobile phones.

The next day, news headlines that would have been wholly devoted
to Mr Babangida’s declaration, shifted their emphasis to Mr Jonathan’s:
“Jonathan, IBB open Presidential bids,” The Guardian said. “Jonathan declares
ambition on Facebook,” said The Punch. Jonathan’s “crowd” – albeit virtual, made
up of his Facebook “followers” – was at least 200,000, far more than the number
that thronged the Eagle Square, Abuja, for the Babangida declaration.

In the beginning was
Obama

It is hard to believe that President Jonathan is barely three
months old on Facebook. In May, in his speech at the 26th Convocation Ceremony
of the University of Port Harcourt, the newly sworn in president promised to
launch a presence on the social networking site.

On June 28, he fulfilled his promise, becoming the first serving
Nigerian President to tap into the craze that is social networking.

Instantly following this was a feverish scramble by Nigerians to
become Facebook fans of the President. Less than two weeks after his page went
up, more than 100,000 persons had signed up as followers.

Today, Mr Jonathan has more than 200,000 Facebook followers,
making him by far the most popular Nigerian on the Internet. British Prime
Minister David Cameron, who came to power around the same time as Mr Jonathan,
currently has 87,000 followers. German Prime Minister Angela Merkel has 46,000;
South Africa’s Jacob Zuma, 11,700.

All of these, however, pale in comparison with Barack Obama’s
Facebook profile. The American President’s page has more than 13 million
followers. Indeed, when the history of the emergence of the Internet as a tool
for political mobilisation is written, the longest chapter will be reserved for
the 44th American President.

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, Digg – none of the most
well-known social networking sites, escaped the colonising force of the Obama
campaign team.

The team went further to launch MyBarackObama.com, a social
networking site devoted to Obama supporters. The site allowed users to create
personal accounts, blog and donate to the Obama campaign. More than a million
persons signed up. And more than 3 million Americans donated to the Obama
campaign, many of them through the Internet.

The unprecedented use of the web by Barack Obama has evidently
not gone unnoticed by Nigerian politicians. President Jonathan is far from
being the only example. In August, Ibrahim Babangida appeared in a YouTube
video asking Nigerians to visit his campaign website. Before then, a Babangida
aide had boasted, in a series of newspaper interviews, that the 69-year-old
candidate was an ardent Facebooker.

The Nuhu Ribadu campaign says it is aiming to use the web to
build an Obama-style “volunteer corps” and fund-raising mechanism. Last week,
Atiku Abubakar launched his campaign website, and Twitter and Facebook pages.
Also last week, Mr Dele Momodu launched his campaign logo on his Facebook page,
and posted photos of the event at which he formally notified the Labour Party
of his intention to run for President on its platform.

An audience of millions

When democracy returned to Nigeria at the turn of the century,
there were less than a hundred thousand Internet users in the country.

Today, a decade later, there are more than 20 million Internet
users in the country, according to the International Telecommunications Union
(ITU).

This makes Nigeria the country with the highest number of
Internet users in Africa.

In that same time, mobile phone use has also expanded.

From a negligible number in 1999, there are now more than 70 million
mobile lines in the country. Alongside the explosion of mobile phone access has
emerged a rash of companies providing bulk text messaging services. “Right now,
we have a database of 35 million Nigerian numbers,” says Wale Arowolo, of
Perfect Trend Guarantee, one of such firms. “Before January we should be
looking at about 50 million.”

Last week, many Nigerians received a message on their phones:
“We are on the road to rebuild our Nation. Stand with me, Stand for
transformation.” The sender: “J. Goodluck.” But politicians are not the only
new converts to bulk messaging, which has long been popular with the corporate
world. This month, NEXT launched its SMS news service, to deliver regular news
alerts to millions of mobile phones across the country.

The opportunities (web and mobile phone) indeed appear
limitless. Last November, Arianna Huffington, co-founder and Editor-in-chief of
the popular political news website, Huffington Post, told a gathering of media
executives in Lagos: “Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not be
President.” Time will tell if the man who will become Nigeria’s President on
May 29, 2011, will owe some, if not most, of his victory, to new media.

The Minister of State for Finance, Yabawa Lawani Wali, may have learnt early to tread cautiously where her predecessor, Remi Babalola, dared, as she appears determined to limit her official relationship with the media on critical issues.

Mr Babalola, before his reassignment last month to the Ministry of Special Duties in the wake of his controversial statement on the insolvency of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), had cultivated the habit of interacting extensively with reporters at the end of every meeting of the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC).

During such meetings, the former minister, who resigned from his new office last Thursday, usually fielded questions on all issues discussed during the closed door sessions, as well as provided factual details about resolutions that appeared controversial.

However, from the way she has handled the two FAAC meetings so far since she assumed office in August, Mrs Wali appears to loathe any opportunity that will bring her in close contact with journalists, apparently to avoid being asked questions on some sensitive issues capable of running her into ‘trouble’.

At the FAAC meeting for the month of August held in Abuja last Friday, the minister not only arrived more than one and half hours later than the scheduled 10am time, but also ordered journalists to clear the press gallery, before going straight into the meeting without the usual introductory remarks on the day’s agenda.

At the end of the meeting, which lasted about two hours, Mrs Wali, in the company of the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), Ibrahim Dankwambo; Chairman of Commissioners’ forum, Usman Rebo, as well as other top officials, spent less than three minutes to brief reporters on deliberations and outcomes of the meeting.

The minister, who described the meeting as “very successful”, told reporters that “everything was well understood, and went down very well with everybody. The meeting deliberated about outstanding issues, and at the same time distributed the resources for this month.

“In summary, we distributed the statutory amount of N362.379 billion; VAT of N46.581 billion, making it a sub-total of N408.960 billion. We also shared the augmentation arrears from January to July, of N24.738 billion. There was no exchange gain. Therefore, the total distributed for this month was N433.698 billion. Thank you.”

Unwanted journalists

Just as the reporters were settling down for questions, the Information Officer to the minister, Abel Nakorji, who had earlier declared that his boss would not entertain more than “three good questions”, hastily called off the briefing.

A Finance Commissioner from one of the northern states, who attended the meeting, told NEXT in confidence that the issue of the controversial N450b illion NNPC debt to the Federation Account, which the journalists were anxious for an update on from the minister, was one of the issues that topped the agenda of deliberations. We gathered that the meeting also discussed a similar issue pertaining to the investment in the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) project.

Meanwhile, Mr Dankwambo explained that the distributable statutory revenue for the month increased by about N946million, or 26 per cent, when compared to the allocation for July, pointing out that the increment was attributed to the revised monthly approved budget revenue benchmark from N365.888 billion to N369.422 billion.

Last June, the FAAC created a new excess revenue account where monthly revenue in excess of the about N365.888 billion pegged as the ceiling for allocations for sharing among the three tiers of government and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, would be saved.

>The International Monetary Fund said on Friday it had raised $8 billion in new
resources for poor countries from four donors, including China which has a
growing presence in Africa.

The IMF said in a statement it had signed financing agreements with Britain,
Japan, China and France as part of fund-raising efforts that would allow it to
offer low-cost loans to the world’s poorest countries.

In July last year the IMF unveiled a plan to help developing nations hard hit
by the global financial crisis and recession by boosting lending by up to $17
billion through 2014. It also suspended interest payments on loan payments
through the end of 2011 to temporarily free up resources for
governments.

Funds for the effort have already been received from Norway, Spain, the
Netherlands and Canada. The IMF is also raising money for poor countries by
selling 403.3 tonnes of its gold holdings.

IMF lending to poor countries rose sharply to $3.8 billion in 2009 from $1.2
billion in 2008, and just 0.2 billion in 2007.

So far in 2010 commitments of $1.7 billion have been made to developing
countries under the low-cost lending program.

The announcement on funds for poor countries comes days before a meeting of
140 world leaders at the United Nations to assess goals launched in 2000 to cut
global poverty by 2015.</

The kidnappers of Olubunmi Agbana, father of Gbenga
Agbana, a Punch editor, have reduced the ransom placed on the
74-year-old man to N15 million, almost a week after he was abducted on
his way to the farm at Irele, Ikole Local Government Area of Ekiti
State.

The kidnappers had initially demanded a ransom of N20 million to free the man.

Mr Agbana, who the kidnappers have been in contact
with, told journalists in Ado-Ekiti that his father’s abductors
threatened to kill their captive if the family failed to pay the ransom
before the end of the day.

“I spoke with my father again and those holding him
have reduced the ransom demanded to N15 million,” he said. “They also
threatened to waste him if we refuse to pay the money by 4pm. But where
can I get such money from?”

Full of hope

Mr Agbana said members of the extended family are
running round to see how the money can be raised, but he said that it
is almost impossible to raise such a huge sum of money.

“I offered to pay them N200,000, but they became very
angry and threatened to kill him. They also told me that he might die
in their hideout because of his ill health. They said that his legs had
swollen and he was very sick,” he said.

Mr Agbana said his father left the hospital a day
before he was abducted by some armed youth. He said the drugs given to
his father at the hospital were still at home, and the septuagenarian
had relapsed in the kidnappers’ den.

Despite this, he expressed hope that his father would soon regain
his freedom because “security operatives have identified some suspects.”