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President Goodluck Jonathan has congratulated Moslems on the occasion of this year’s Eid-El-Fitr celebrations.

A release signed by
the special adviser to the president on media and publicity, Ima Niboro
said Mr. Jonathan urged “all Nigerians to seize the opportunity of the
Sallah celebrations to reflect on their spiritual life as individuals
and on how they can contribute more meaningfully towards making Nigeria
better”.

He said his
administration has taken notable steps to revitalize the machinery of
governance at the federal level so as to improve the lives of all
Nigerians.

“With your
continued support and goodwill, we shall, in the coming months carry
forward our plans to further stabilize all sectors of our economy,
improve national infrastructure and power supply” the statement said.

“Following the
recent announcement by the Independent National Electoral Commission
(INEC) of the timetable for the 2011 general elections, I would also
like, on this occasion, to reaffirm that my administration will give
INEC all the support and assistance it will require to deliver free,
fair and credible elections.”

In his message, the
Senate President, David Mark, assured Nigerians that all necessary
structures will be put in place to guarantee free, fair, and credible
elections so that all stake holders take pride in the 2011 elections.

Mr Mark said,
“There is need for all of us to be dedicated and committed more than
ever before. Fifty years of nationhood is a milestone. No matter the
challenges, we should be hopeful that we are capable of addressing our
problems, as a people bound by a common heritage and mission. The
challenges ahead of the 2011 polls should not be left in hands of
government alone. All of us, all citizens are stakeholders in the
project, Nigeria. It therefore behooves on all of us to make it work.”
He also urged politicians not to see the forthcoming elections as a do
or die affair, saying, “We must abide by the rules of the game and
ensure that our ultimate aim is to serve our people and provide
dividend of democracy for them.”

The Rivers State
governor, Chibuike Amaechi commended Muslims in the state for their
understanding and support to the government in the task of restoring
peace to the state. In his sallah message for the Eid-el Fitri
celebrations, he urged them to use the occasion to pray for the peace,
unity and progress of the nation, as well as for the success of the
2011 elections.

The governor
thanked Muslims in the state for living harmoniously with their
Christian brothers and enjoined them to sustain the cordial
relationship, noting that the state government will continue to
encourage religious tolerance.

Delta State
governorship aspirant, Obarisi Ovie Omo-Agege also enjoined Nigerians,
irrespective of their religious leanings to continue praying for the
success of the 2011 general elections and for peace to reign in the
country.

The PDP
governorship aspirant called on Nigerians to support the efforts of Mr
Jonathan in enthroning acceptable electoral standards in the country.

He also urged the
people, especially politicians and the youth to eschew violence, adding
that this period calls for sober reflection by all Nigerians on the
state of affairs in the country. He called on Nigerians to support the
adoption of ‘one man one vote’, which he said, will ensure the conduct
of a credible election by the Independent National Electoral Commission
(INEC).

A legal
practitioner, Juwon Semudara was yesterday sentenced to six-month
imprisonment by an Okitipupa Chief Magistrate Court in Ondo State for
forging a land document.

The lawyer had
allegedly claimed ownership of plots of land at Igbokoda, headquarters
of Ilaje local government with falsified documents. He was said to have
claimed that he bought the plots from the people of Ilaje community.

The community however denied selling any plot of land to the lawyer.

Delivering
judgment in a four-count charge of forgery and altering of land
documents against the legal practitioner, the presiding chief
magistrate, Siji Akinrinsola found the accused guilty on two-counts and
sentenced him to six months on each, with an option of fine. The
sentences are to run concurrently.

The accused person
called one Estron Omowole as his witness but the court held that the
prosecution proved that the documents were forged.

Clever by half

Mr Akinrinsola
said contrary to the claims of Mr Omowole who said he was the signatory
to the document, the signature he signed in court and in his statement
to the police were different from the one on the land document. He
added that Mr Omowole was “only being clever by half.”

“Being a retired
teacher, a legal veteran and litigant of note, he should know the
importance of appending signature to a document,” the judge said.

Mr Akinrinsola
said “cogent, direct and conclusive circumstantial evidence led to one
possible conclusion, and that was that the accused, who is a sole
beneficiary of the forged document and who has presented it in several
fora, including at Igbokoda and Oktipupa High court, was the forger of
the document.

Members of the
Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in the 33 local government areas of
Oyo State have petitioned the national chairman of the party, Bisi
Akande over the manner the party is run in the state.

The petitioners,
numbering 165, warned that unless the national leadership wades in to
arrest the crisis, the party may not make any impact in the forthcoming
general elections.

They said the
leadership style of certain members of the party does not encourage
popular participation and equal opportunity is not given to those
aspiring to various elective offices.

They complained of
deliberate exclusion of members from the executive councils of the
party from wards to the state level, while some others are denied
membership cards of the party.

The petitioners
specifically accused a former governor of the state, Lam Adesina of
appointing his stooges into the councils, thereby depriving others from
participating in the running of the party.

“We have watched
with keen interest and admiration the quality of leadership being
provided at the National level by your good self and Ahmed Bola Tinubu
to integrate new and old members in order to move party forward, but in
Oyo State reverse is the case because the leadership here is about how
to exploit members through self interest,” the petitioners said.

“Pursuant to the
above, Lam Adesina has excluded new members from ANPP and other parties
whose involvement would have been as an asset to the party as a whole.
It is on record that the EXCO of Oyo State was handpicked by him alone
which is contrary to the constitution of the party ACN and the
Electoral Act.”

Attempts to speak with Mr Adesina was not successful. But the state
spokesperson for the party, Wasiu Olatubosun, said the petition amounts
to “crying wolf where there was none.”

Ogbonna Onovo, the
immediate past inspector general of police, was sacked due to his
inability to quell the alarming rate of kidnappings in the country, a
source in the police who asked not to be named, told NEXT yesterday.

The source added
that the recent resurgence the fanatical group Boko Haram was the last
straw that sealed the fate of Mr. Onovo, who replaced Mike Okiro in
August, last year. He thus became the Inspector-General of Police with
the shortest stay in office in the nation’s history.

Tainted record

“The president was
not happy with the way Onovo handled the killing of Mallam Mohammed
Yussuf [Boko Haram leader] while in police custody,” the source said,
adding that “The recent uprising forced the president to act.”

Under Mr. Onovo’s
watch, kidnapping had gone virtually unchecked in the South-East and
various parts of the country. The former Inspector-General was also at
the centre of huge controversy throughout his one year tenure.

The police source suggested that there were also some ethnic pressure in the sacking.

“From day one, the northerners were not happy with the appointment,” the source said.

“They had wanted
Yar’Adua to bring in John Hamza Amodu to replace Okiro.” The source
revealed that Mr. Jonathan who is travelling to America for the United
Nations general assembly wants to ensure that his house was in order
before the trip.

“Mr. President is travelling to US now, removing the IG now would
make him appear proactive in the eyes of international communities’’
the source said.

The decision to
replace service chiefs is no light one, even for the most courageous
commander-in-chief. But when a president, who is largely considered
weak or content with the status quo, upsets the apple cart, people
can’t help being jolted.

Since ‘inheriting’
our nation’s topmost job from his former boss, Musa Yar’Adua, who died,
Goodluck Jonathan’s approach to decision making would, at best, be
described as cautious.

Comparing Mr
Jonathan with former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, is like comparing
chalk and cheese. The former president was unabashed when making
decisions. In a move akin to what President Jonathan is just doing
after five months in power, it took Mr Obasanjo just days into what
then was still a fragile transition from years of military
dictatorship, to retire all service chiefs. He did not stop there; he
proceeded to root out all military officers that have been “tainted” by
political appointments.

Despite obstacles
placed before him by some prominent members of the Yar’Adua presidency,
it was surprising in the extreme to watch Mr Jonathan pondering matters
before he took the initiative. But with yesterday’s sacking of the
former service chiefs and the appointment of their replacements, Mr
Jonathan is beginning to show that he has what it takes to make the big
decisions.

Show of power or not, opinions are divided as to what might be the significance of this move.

Kayode Soremekun, a
professor of political science at the Covenant University, Ota, said
this might have everything to do with the general elections in January.
He explained that this might be a move by the president to guarantee
his success at the poll next year, saying that in “Third World
post-colonial context, this type of situation is not new”.

Mr Soremekun’s
supposition may not be far-fetched. Could it be that Mr Jonathan has
held on to this very moment before drawing this clever card, to warn
his opponents that he too is astute in this political ping pong? We can
only speculate and wait to see how things unfold.

But one thing is not in doubt. The president is obviously displeased with the deplorable state of security in the country.

Tired of incompetency

The list is
endless. There is the simmering sectarian violence in Jos; and in the
south-east, kidnappers reign supreme. The former Inspector General of
Police, Ogbonnaya Onovo’s incompetence was exposed like an offensive
sore when he could not apprehend the kidnappers of five journalists
snatched along the Aba-Ikot-Epkene Road even after relocating his
office to the state.

The sack of the
service chiefs coming barely 24 hours after a band of extremists
suspected to belong to the infamous Boko Haram sect almost effortlessly
ransacked the Bauchi Central Prison, is an indication that the
president is definitely fed up with incompetence.

The interesting
twist in all this that most people may be missing is Mr Jonathan’s real
strength: making his opponents to perpetually underrate him.

The Conference of
Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP) yesterday criticized the Enugu State
government and the Nigeria Police Force for aborting the protest march
by the Academic Staff Union of Universities in Enugu.

The group also
asked the Inspector General of Police, Ogbonna Onovo to warn police
personnel against stopping peaceful protests in the country since the
Public Order Act has been repealed by the court since 2007.

The police had on
Monday disrupted a rally organized by some members of ASUU to protest
the non-implementation of the salary structure agreed between the union
and the federal government. The police allegedly acted on the orders of
the Enugu State government.

Illegal action

National Publicity
Secretary, Osita Okechukwu told journalists in Abuja that the action of
the police was illegal because there is no law in the country that
gives them the power to stop any person or group of people from
carrying out legitimate and peaceful protests.

He recounted that
in 2005, the CNPP instituted a case in the Federal High Court, Abuja,
presided over by Justice Anwuli, which subsequently repealed the Act.
He added that the Court of Appeal also confirmed the repeal of the Act.

“For peaceful
assembly, the least the people should do is to protect the group in
protest and not to intimidate, harass and restrict them,” Mr Okechukwu
said. “It is painful that all the members of ASUU from all the
south-east states were prevented from entering Enugu. The police need
to be reminded that the obnoxious colonial Public Order Act has been
repealed and so Mr Onovo should call his men to order.”

Freedom to associate

Mr Okechukwu
reminded the police authorities that freedom of association is one of
the dividends of democracy, noting that it is one of the things
Nigerians have been enjoying in the last 11 years.

“Any organization,
especially the police, that encroaches on freedom of association,
cannot in any way be said to be carrying out their statutory duties as
enshrined in the constitution and there can be no democracy without
freedom,” he said.

The CNPP spokesman
described as unfortunate the refusal of the five states in the
south-east geopolitical zones to place education on the front burner,
which he said was one of the reasons for the ASUU protest. He said the
education budget of the state governments hovers around 7 per cent for
education, as against the 26 per cent recommended by UNESCO.

Former Director
General, Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke, is blaming
erstwhile President and Chairman of the Council, Aliko Dangote, for the
inability of her management to present the audited accounts for 2009.

Mrs
Okereke-Onyiuke’s declaration was contained in her response to the memo
issued by the Director General, Securities & Exchange Commission
(SEC), Arunma Oteh, in the wake of recent allegations of corporate
governance lapses levelled against her by Mr Dangote, which were
considered detrimental to investors’ interest.

Mr Dangote, in a
petition, had alleged that the Exchange under her leadership was not
only insolvent, but may face bankruptcy as well as be unable to meet
its financial obligations.

But
Okereke-Onyiuke, in her response to the SEC memo obtained by NEXT
yesterday in Abuja, dismissed the allegations as a confirmation of her
suspicion that Dangote was “bent on destroying the Exchange following
the ruling of the Federal High Court nullifying his acclamation as the
President and Chairman of the Council of the Nigerian Stock Exchange.”

A Federal High
Court in Lagos had annulled Mr Dangote’s election as President of the
NSE following its ruling in the legal case instituted against him by
aggrieved shareholders in the wake of allegations of manipulation of
the shares of African Petroleum PLC in the Stock Exchange two years
ago.

According to the
former Director-General, Mr Dangote was mischievous with his
allegations of insolvency of the Exchange, considering that as a member
of the NSE Council at the time the accounts were considered and
approved, he never brought any of the allegations to the attention of
the Council for discussion or investigation.

Blame to Accenture

On why the
management of the Exchange was unable to produce, for consideration of
the Finance and General Purpose Committee of the Council, the interim
financial statement for the first and second quarters of 2010, the
former NSE boss said that though the first quarter and half-year
accounts were prepared and filed with the SEC by May 13 and July 27
respectively, Mr Dangote should be held responsible for why the Council
could not meet to consider them.

“As a member of the
Finance and General Purpose Committee, the petitioner (Dangote) should
be in a better position to give reasons as to why the Finance and
General Purpose Committee of the Council could not meet to consider the
accounts. This is obvious, because of the court judgment against him,”
she said.

On the outstanding
indebtedness of the Exchange to Accenture Consultancy, Mrs
Okereke-Oyiuke blamed the company for creating the payment difficulties
for themselves, saying they “completely avoided (NSE) management in the
drive to generate more business for themselves under questionable and
uncompetitive manner by dealing directly with Alhaji Dangote as if he
is the Chief Executive Officer of the Exchange.”

Accenture, she
pointed out, “was foisted on the Exchange without subjecting them to
due process or competitive bidding process”, adding that “no other
consultancy firm was invited to submit a proposal to the Exchange for a
project valued at N212 million, out of which a total of N166 million
was paid, with the last payment of N60 million done on June 15, 2010.”

On insinuations that she planned to perpetuate herself in office, Mrs Okereke Onyiuke denied any such ambition.

The Independent National Electoral Commission
yesterday officially released the schedule for next year’s general
elections, listing the presidential and gubernatorial polls for January
22 and 29 respectively.

With a new Electoral Act as guide, and a hefty N87.7
billion budget, the timetable represents the commission’s first major
move towards the decisive elections, and ends weeks of public concern,
which peaked with the worry about government’s inability to finance the
election budget.

Attahiru Jega, the commission chairman, however,
denied the stories over the weekend, saying the commission had what it
required financially. He announced on Monday that a fresh voters’
register, a key element in the buildup, will be ready by December 9,
2010, while the actual polls may hold as early as January 8, 2011.

The schedule, released late Tuesday afternoon,
contained marked differences from earlier approved dates, which
political parties said were sent to them last week.

The National Assembly elections come first, as
prescribed in the Electoral Act, and would hold on January 15, 2011;
followed by the presidential election, which is to be conducted on
January 22.

Governorship elections and the state Houses of
Assembly elections are to hold the same day: January 29, 2011,
according to the INEC released table.

Run-offs for the governorships and the presidential
polls, if any, will hold within seven days after the announcement of
the result of the respective elections, in accordance with sections 174
and 134 of the amended constitution.

The timetable, delivered to journalists by Solomon
Shuebi, the commission’s chairman on information and publicity, showed
an ambitious drive by the commission to overcome a pertinent challenge,
which Mr. Jega acknowledged on Monday: time.

“Obviously, the more time we have, the better job we can do on this assignment,” he said on Monday.

“We have made a case for funding, and we have
received the funding that we have requested for. However, the time
constraint is still of concern, although we are doing our best to see
that we overcome it,” he said.

Start with primaries

That concern is reflected in the released table, with
critical preliminary electioneering processes, which kick up with the
voters’ registration, spanning just between September through December,
2011.

The conduct of party primaries is the first, and opens on Saturday, September 11 to October 30, 2010.

“This is to enable political parties democratically
nominate candidates for the elections, as required by section 87 of the
Electoral Act,” the commission said in the statement.

The much expected voters’ registration holds between
November 1 and 14, 2010, while substitution and replacement of
candidates by parties will end December 14.

For the registration, Mr. Jega said the commission targets 70 million Nigerians and will be rounded off in two weeks.

“We have estimated that it may take between 9 to 10
minutes to register one person using the Direct Capture Machine with
one registration officer. If we are to work 8 hours daily, we expect
that we can register up to about 70 million in 14 days.

“This has taken into consideration even possibility
of unexpected delays and so on. If there are 70 million registerable
Nigerians out there, we believe that with the deployment capacity that
we have planned for, we should be able, within a period of two weeks of
capturing with 8 hours in a day, to capture all of these,” he said.

A Federal High Court judge, David
Okorowo, disqualified himself from hearing the $180 million Halliburton
bribery scandal on Tuesday, after the federal government failed to
produce the accused persons in court.

Three weeks ago, the attorney general
of the federation and minister of justice, Bello Adoke, assured that
the suspects involved in the case would be arraigned in court. However,
when the matter came up yesterday, there were no suspects in court.

The Federal government’s counsel, Olu
Fatunde, informed the court that he had yet to serve the suspects with
court processes. Mr. Okorowo said the matter could not be mentioned if
the suspects were not in court and had not been served yet. He sent the
case file to the chief judge for re-assignment to another judge and
adjourned the suit, pending when it is assigned.

“I have no jurisdiction to entertain this matter,” declared Mr. Okorowo.

Scrambling for explanations

Several foreign companies, most notably
the U.S. oil and gas giant, Halliburton, are accused of paying bribes
worth millions of dollars to high-ranking government officials during
the process to award the contract for Africa’s first liquefied natural
gas plant in 2002 and 2003.

Mr. Adoke, who just returned from a
trip to the UK, admitted that the suspects have not been formally
served, despite being charged last week.

“The files were returned because the suspects have not been formally charged,” he said.

The attornery general added that the defendants would be served tomorrow and a new trial date would be “formally announced.”

However, in an earlier interview with NEXT, he promised that all those involved in the scam would be charged to court.

The suspects include some of the
nation’s most powerful people, but Mr. Adoke assured that the trial
would be conducted without bias, as it would boost President Goodluck
Jonathan’s anti-corruption credentials as the 2011 elections approached.

Though Mr. Adoke’s counsel refused to
release the charges to the press, suspects to be arraigned are George
Mark, the former personal assistant to ex-president, Olusegun Obasanjo
; Ibrahim Aliyu, a former federal permanent secretary; Hans George
Christ; Heinrich J. Stockhausen; Julius Berger Nigeria Plc; Bilfinger
Berger GMBH; AVM Abdullahi Dominic Bello; Mohammed Gidado Bakare; Urban
Shelter Limited; Intercellular Nigeria Limited; Sheerwood Petroleum
Limited; Tri-Star Investment Limited; Maizube Holdings Limited; TSKJ
Nigeria Limited – (a) Technip S.A.; (b)Snamprogetti Netherlands B.V.;
(c) Kellog Brown and Root Inc.; (d) Japan Gasoline Corporation of Japan.

Already in US courts

A court in the United States has already begun prosecution of the case.

In 2008, one of the suspects, Albert J.
Stanley, admitted that he orchestrated more than $180 million in bribes
to senior government officials in Nigeria. Mr. Stanley said that the
bribes were channelled through a UK-based lawyer, Jeffery Tesler, in
four installments of $60 million, $32.5 million, $51 million, and $23
million between 1995 and 2005 in London.

Top government officials and their
accomplices stashed the funds in private accounts in France, the United
Kingdom, Switzerland, Portugal, and The Seychelles.

Last week, $130 million worth of funds were uncovered in Mr. Tesler’s account in Switzerland and frozen by the US government.

Why he wants to contest

Ekiti is a place
that I know very well. I grew up there, I know the challenges that
people face day in, day out, and things are not the way they should be.
I believe we have all it takes to be a developed state. We have the
resources that God has endowed us with. Our land is very good for
agriculture. I think that is one of the things our forbearers like
Obafemi Awolowo worked on. He was able to do a lot. We want to put all
these resources together to liberate us from the bondage of poverty
that is already depressing our lives.

His line-up of programmes

If you travel from
round most of the towns in Ekiti State, apart from the state capital,
there is not much economic activity going on. I know we have the
capacity to feed Nigeria and that means many people would be gainfully
employed. The government focus would be to provide the environment for
it, either in agricultural input, and also to provide infrastructures
that are needed to make these work, good roads and hospitals that are
really functional.

It is not a strange
thing if we are saying what we had as industry, which is education, has
crumbled. We want to revive it. We are getting back to the basics.
Ekiti was different from others, so we are getting back to the basics
to build our land. If I come in as governor, we would give opportunity
to people to excel. There would be a lot of programmes to re-orientate
the youth on how they can channel their energy into productive use.

His ability to confront the incumbent state executive

It is a beautiful
thing that the reform that is being carried out in the party is
providing a level playing field for everybody. The party chairman has
said it several times over that the issue of special delegates would be
looked into so that it would create the same opportunity for everybody.
So, we are praying that such reform would be carried through to the end
so that each would almost be at the same level, selling our ideas to
the people. Ekiti people are intelligent. They know what they want.
Once they listen to ideas, they would be able to identify which one can
work, which suits their purpose, which one can really deliver. We have
seen things that are not working and we cannot just continue to fold
our hands and continue the same way, thinking that things would change.
I’m happy that there is an opportunity that there is an opportunity for
all of us to sell our ideas to the people and the people would decide.

Revenue generation challenges

If we are used to a
way of life and it is not giving us a desired result, it is time we
start thinking of other ways and I believe that just relying on
something that comes from the centre would not be strong enough to
deliver us economically. Ekiti State is regarded as a civil service
state. There are so many in the civil service that are not supposed to
be there. Their passion and talent is probably elsewhere. People are
just managing where they are and, of course, the best would not
necessarily come from them. I’m sure a lot of people would be
encouraged to resign voluntarily from that civil service to come and do
something that is more profitable to them and they would pay their
taxes and we would all be better off. We are going to have some
agencies, and their goals are to generate funds for us and they would
be given targets of which at the end of the day what comes from Abuja
would look like peanuts compared to what we are making here.

Challenges of getting people to pay taxes

Let me bring up two
that I am familiar with. There is no rich man in the world that is not
involved in the stock market. There is no financial institution in the
world, especially the big banks, that does not have a platform for
Forex and people are making huge money from it every day and these are
markets everybody can access. So, if we have an agency that we task:
grow this money to this point, it is money that every individual can
access. We employ people that can do the trading for us. If you hear
banks are declaring so much profit, most of it come from this trading.
If we have such a platform too, or we have an agency that can do that
on our behalf, I see no reason why we can’t be grossing or netting N35
billion per month.

Lack of power and his plan to transform the state

Let’s take the
present situation as a thing that would not prevail for much longer,
because we are hoping that the power problem would be tackled. There
are so many inventions in power supply, small and medium scale, that
can power little communities. I believe that by the time we have 10
communities coming together, acquiring power generation, gradually the
whole state would be covered. We want a situation whereby people would
say in Ekiti, no power interruption and before you know it, people are
relocating to Ekiti. In fact, when people think of a place to relocate
to, they would think of Ekiti and it would become a destination choice.

Reviving moribund industries in the state

Government has no
business in business. What we can do is to encourage people and of
course we would do that. I did not know the importance of burnt bricks
until I travelled outside the country. Most of the houses you see in
Europe are made with burnt bricks. Whatever inputs we can put in, and
with proper monitoring, many of those industries would come up, not
just Ire and Ikun but many of them in different parts of the state. All
these businesses, we want to ensure that we put them in the hands of
the right people, if we have to sell them through bids and of course
see how we can come in to support. Once those companies are coming up,
people are employed and everything is on.

His background

I gained admission
to Ife in 1989, where I bagged a first degree in Mathematics, and after
my service year, I went for further studies in Mathematics at the
University of Ibadan. After that, I went for another Masters in Agric
Econs before I started working in the banks. I worked in two banks. The
first was the defunct Allstates Trust Bank, then later Intercontinental
Bank before I now decided to be on my own. Presently, I’m into a little
bit of farming, property and also into electronic Forex trading.