Nigeria Content Online

Political appointees have been directed to pay five percent of
their basic salaries to the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) throughout their
stay in office.

Just last week, defaulting appointees were reminded of their dues
when the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mahmud Yayale
Ahmed, sent a terse letter to all ministers demanding the payment of the dues.

Citing a section of the PDP constitution as his backing, Mr Ahmed
instructed federal ministers to act as collectors and to deposit the collected
funds into the party’s account at Unity Bank.

“…all party men and women elected or appointed at the instance
of the PDP, including ambassadors and board chairmen at the federal level, are
required to contribute five percent of their basic allowances or remuneration
to the party. The directive is effective from the day they are appointed,” Mr
Ahmed said in the memo, exclusively obtained by NEXT.

This letter has allegedly been endorsed by relevant ministers and
passed on to all or most heads of parastatals.

Paying their dues

Sources who spoke to NEXT said all political appointees have to
pay the levy, whether or not they belong to the PDP. Others conceded that they
have been paying the dues and expressed no alarm at PDP’s demand.

In some instances, the percentage is taken from the source and
the appointee need not make a trip to the bank. It is not clear how many
ministers and top-level government officials make these payments, but according
to the SGF, the ministers must not only serve as collectors but as petty
accountants. The ministers are to forward duplicate copies of all payments made
to Mr Ahmed’s office.

“Thereafter, you are required to forward a copy of payments made
in this regard to my office for information,” he instructed, adding that “all
monthly contributions subsequently collected should also be treated in the same
manner.”

The PDP vs the people

Government officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity,
condemned Mr Ahmed, accusing him of abusing his office to pursue his political
affiliations.

“Should the structure and institutions of government be converted
into a PDP funding institution?” one source asked.

“This means that only people who will dance to their tunes of 5
percent will be appointed into political office, whether or not they are
qualified.”

Kayode Ajulo, an Abuja-based attorney, believes that Mr Ahmed
should be relieved of his duties for abuse of office. He said that for him to
use the instrument of government to “fan the interest of a political party is
absurd.”

“The office of the SGF is totally different from the person of
Yayale Ahmed. The office of the SGF has its own operating manual, and writing
memos for political parties is not one of it,” said Mr. Ajulo.

Mr. Ajulo said that the party should apologise to Nigerians and
return the money they have collected to the coffers of the government. He also
called for the resignation or the sack of the SGF within seven days.

“Any sensible and reasonable president would ensure that this is
redressed,” he said.

Another lawyer and human rights activist, Obo Effanga, believes
it is a breach of public office for the SGF, who is a public servant, to use
state apparatus to collect contributions and remit them to a private and
non-state institution, such as a political party.

Mr. Effanga said the PDP was at liberty to decide how much it wants
to levy its members who may be in government, but Mr Ahmed is working for the
country, not the party.

“I don’t care what responsibility his party gives him, as far as
he is the SGF, his responsibility is based on the oath of office and oath of
allegiance he took.

“The office he holds demands him to be neutral and do good to all
Nigerians. Will the SGF be right to set up a scheme to ensure that staff under
him pay and remit zakat and tithes to their respective religious bodies, in
fulfilment of their religious obligations, which the constitution allows them?
Certainly not, for those are private matters, not state matters. It would be
surprising if the president was unaware of this,” he said.

Drumming up funds

National publicity secretary of the Action Congress of Nigeria,
Lai Mohammed, said though paying the dues was not wrong, it should have been
done by the party itself.

“It is a problem. I see the SGF just as a minister and will it be
right for a minister to ask all his board members to contribute their dues? It
should have been the party doing that, not the SGF.”

While it is not certain that appointees who do not belong to the
PDP are required to pay the levy, an official who claims he does not belong to
any political party said he received the memo nonetheless.

The source accused the PDP of desperately trying to raise funds
for the 2011 elections.

“Are they becoming this desperate or is the SGF’s office now an
extension of Wadata house?” he asked.

All of our efforts to contact Mr. Ahmed for his response to our
findings were not successful, that is until just a few minutes before we went
to press. We then asked him why he wrote and sent the Memo. He said he
considers himself a politician and since the party constitution says members
should pay 5%, he merely wrote to remind them of their obligation. “If the ANPP
asked me to remind its appointees, I will do that for them,” he said.

Mr Ahmed however said that all payments will be done through the party.

The failure rate of students in Nigeria gets worse
by the day. Last week, the West African Examination Council (WAEC),
released the results of the 2010 West African Senior Secondary Schools
Examination and only 24 percent of the students passed, “with credits
in Maths, English and three other subjects.” The rest cannot be
admitted in any university.

In Lagos, a volunteer corps decided to organise an
ingenious forum for some of the students, to find out why they failed
so badly. They blamed their teachers, the government, and the sheer
lack of facilities that forced them to do “alternative to practical” in
school leaving examinations. Many of them have never heard of a Bunsen
Burner. All of it sounded like excuses and more excuses.

But then Chidera Ota, a 16 year old Nigerian girl
born in London led the entire United Kingdom with 15A* in the General
Certificate for Secondary School (GCSE) released about the same time as
the Nigerian results. She got the grades in English literature and
language, Mathematics, Statistics, French, German, Latin, History,
Sociology, Chemistry, Biology, Physics and an IT qualification.

Now, Miss Ota is going to King’s School,
Canterbury, on a scholarship to study Chemistry, Physics, Biology,
Maths and Further Maths A-levels.

Yet there is another story even more remarkable: A
five year old Nigerian girl, little Dee Alli, also sat for the same
examinations.

And she passed – becoming the youngest person ever
to do so. And suddenly it didn’t look like the students at the Lagos
youth forum were just sounding off. Surely, if Alli and Ota were living
here, attending dilapidated schools, they couldn’t have achieved those
feats?.

The UK authorities have recently introduced the A*
as the highest grade in the GCSE examinations when too many students
were getting As.

In Nigeria, the decline continues unabated. Last
year, 98 per cent of the 234,682 who sat for the NECO examinations
failed to get the requisite five credits. The Registrar of NECO,
Promise Okpalla, said although there was a 1.2 percent pass, Kogi,
Bauchi and Ondo excelled in another field, leading other states in
examination malpractices.

Chidera and Dee show what could be if our educational system is better managed.

Redeployment from Special Duties to the FCT

It happened swiftly. I did
not know about it. The president came into the Federal Executive
Council to swear in three new ministers to complete the gap. He made
the point that there have been a lot of rumour and that we should try
to give only information we have at our disposal, as speculation would
not help. After swearing in the new ministers, he announced our names.
So, to me it was a surprise. I think he stressed the point that it was
redeployment and on my own part, even while in the military, there is
usually a movement of officers from one post to another. I want to
assure you that if the president makes me his PA tomorrow, I will
smartly go there.

High level of youth unemployment

Unemployment has been there for quite
a while and I am particularly alarmed, considering the number of
graduates that we are turning out from our universities. When I was in
Special Duties, I had the task of monitoring all federal government
projects and carrying out the evaluation of the same. I was building a
team in each zone to carry out monitoring with a central coordinating
unit to do the same in Abuja. While doing that, I was monitoring
projects and I was also insisting that the contractors who got
contracts running into billions should employ our graduates. In my
handing over notes to my successor, I urged him to continue in that
crusade. It would be senseless for us to bring foreigners for a job
Nigerians can do. I strongly believe I would do so in the FCT, to
employ more Nigerians and enforce all those contractors who got jobs
from the Federal Government to take them. Luckily there is an enabling
law that would assist us in achieving that. What has happened in the
past is that nobody had cared or bothers to enforce it.

Controversies in PDP ahead of 2011

The coast is clear for all parties
to put their houses in order ahead the 2011 election, so they are all
mapping out strategies to do that. What is of great importance to us is
that we must, irrespective of parties, try what we can to ensure that
we have a free and fair election in Nigeria. That is of paramount
importance to the president and we would drive it to its logical
conclusion irrespective of parties. If you want to know specifically
what my party is doing, we have a plan in place and we would unveil it
as time progresses. But, by and large, what is of greatest concern to
the president is that we should have a free and fair election, devoid
of violence. It is a collective effort and I buy into that.

Controversies about national honours list

All I want to say regarding
national honours is that there is no how you nominate people that there
would not be complaints. If the responsibility is given to you to
handle, some of us here would still complain. It is always like that,
but whatever happened in the last national honours, I want to
specifically say here that the name of the nominees had already been
compiled before I got to the ministry. It was meant to be released in
2009 when the late President took ill, so that ceremony could not hold.
The only part we played was just to pass it on, either to be combined
with the one of 2010. In fact, that was our position. But the president
decided to do it separately and I played no role as far as names were
concerned. I want to say that it is an inherited complaints or problem,
as far as the ministry is concerned. There is a board set up for
national honours. That board is comprised of notable citizens who are,
in their own right, men of honour. It is a standing board. They would
take application and inputs from all over the states and see whether
they are credible people. But you know, only God is the best judge.

His
action plan

Well, I am the Minister of State. I still have a Minister
there, so I would look at the Minister’s plan and see what I can infuse
into it, so that we would have good governance in FCT, and we would do
that by
showing good leadership ourselves. Any idea I have, I would always put
it before him for consideration because I believe that in a ship, there
would always be a Captain. I would not want to play the role of that
Captain because I’m not the Minister of FCT. That is the way I would
want to go along, so that we can closely work together without rancour.
I would rather behave like an Ekiti man who is decent and easy going
and, I’m sure with that, we would be able to do a lot.

Relationship
with Ekiti State government

Segun Oni and I are best of friends. I opted to serve in his
administration as the Chairman, Project Monitoring Committee. There are
many former governors who had passed through the state but I did not
opt to serve.
That I opted to serve him is because I believe it would help my state
and I am happy that Mr Oni saw it as such. When I left, we have always
been relating well. Anytime I am in the state, I make sure that I spend
some time with him. I will never have a quarrel with any political
leader in the state, no matter his party. I will always share
experience and give any advice that would make our state a better one.

Challenges of administering the FCT

I know that Nigerians would complain at different times. It is their
right to complain. My own land was taken by El Rufai. He said I did not
develop it. I wrote him a personal letter that the land was given to me
when I was in Bayelsa State as the military administrator and that I
did not have money to develop it. I told him he should not penalize me
because I did not build it. In fact I told him that if I had stolen
money in Bayelsa, I would probably have built many houses and that he
should leave that single land for me because I don’t have two. I said
if he found out that I had two, he could take the two but he should
leave that one for me. I don’t know if the letter got to him, but up
till last week the land is still there. The man whom they gave it to
could not build it. And now I’m in FCT! I was a military administrator.
I administered a state which had nothing. Bayelsa was worse than Ekiti
when I got there. The terrain was difficult and yet we built something.
We would do what is possible to make middle class and low-income
earners to own a home. That would be my personal focus and I would beg
the minister of FCT to see it in the same light.

Nigeria’s umbrella body of civil society organizations is
concerned that transparency and accountability are still far from apparent in
the country’s extractive industries. The group is particularly worried that the
country has lost its way and momentum in its progress toward receiving
validation in the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI)
implementation exercise due to take place next month.

The Executive Director, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy
Centre (CISLAC), Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, told NEXT in Abuja that the way things
are playing out at NEITI’s secretariat in recent times, is a source worry for
most civil society groups in the country. According to him, internal wrangling
between top officers of the secretariat has turned the place into “a notorious
centre for corruption”, pointing out that the crisis has called into doubt the
country’s commitment to implementing the EITI principles.

“The Civil society organizations are incapacitated, because they
are not sufficiently mobilized to effectively engage the NEITI process based on
knowledge. The current leadership in NEITI has not shown sufficient zeal,
commitment and interest to get the EITI principles implemented in the country.
They have not been able to follow up on the progress recorded with the two
industry audits in 1999 and 2004, because of lack of commitment,” Mr.
Rafsanjani said.

The CISLAC boss, who said his organization is planning a
publication, “Gaps between commitment and implementation: Civil Societies’ assessment
of the performance of NEITI”, to show how ineffective NEITI has become, said
“the inability of NEITI management to assert itself and demand accountability
from erring companies has been the main reason why a lot of things have been
swept under the carpet in recent times.”

Corruption in the
Secretariat

Two weeks ago, the media was awash with reports of corruption
charges against some top NEITI officials involving illegal allowances running
into over N15 million.

The former Director of Services, Stan Rerri, who withdrew his
services from the agency last June in controversial circumstances, accused the
erstwhile Executive Secretary, Haruna Sa’eed, of abusing his office by
receiving a “double salary for over 12 months” from the both United Kingdom Department
for International Development (DFID) and the Federal Government.

In a petition No. NEITI/ PETITIONS/DS/01 dated August 10, 2010
to President Goodluck Jonathan, Mr. Rerri alleged that he was victimized by the
NEITI Board, which he said declared his office vacant when his appointment was
yet to be terminated, for blowing the whistle on Mr. Sa’eed’s corrupt
activities.

The Federal Government, through letter No. SGF.19/S.52/C.3/T/75
of August 9, 2010, signed by the Secretary to Government of the Federation
(SGF), Mahmud Yayale Ahmed, ordered the removal of Mr. Sa’eed as Executive
Secretary of NEITI for what they said was “in the public interest”.

The crisis between the two officials, NEXT investigations show,
is rooted in a power tussle, which resulted in the setting up of a five-member
committee to investigate the handling of the 2009 Civil Society training
programme following reports of discrepancies in payment records, abuse of due
process in the disbursement of funds and general administrative lapses in the
secretariat.

The committee, which uncovered procedural breaches in the
procurement processes allegedly supervised by Mr. Rerri, said in its final
report that: “There was a very clear case of over-inflated hotel rates, for as
much as 100 percent on line items.”

“The meeting room rate (in Homegate Resort, Lagos used for the
programme) was N115,000, inclusive of VAT (value added tax), and service charge
on the tariff collected, yet NEITI was invoiced N150,000 for the meeting room,
exclusive of VAT and service charge”, the report said. “There was absolute
leadership failure at the NEITI Secretariat. There are clearly account
management lapses in the NEITI system, which resulted in a loss of over
N500,000 from the transaction,” the report went further to note.

As a result of the committee’s report, the Procurement Officer,
Tony Onyekweli, who handled the bookings for the venue for the workshop, and
the Accountant, Sunkanmi Adeoti, who disbursed the N15million used for the
programme, were discharged from their posts for “collusion, forgery, and
non-adherence to due process standards in policy formulation and implementation
of monetization policy convention.”

But, Mr. Rerri described the committee as a “fraud and a hatchet
body used as a pretence to kick people out,” saying “My petition to the
President was based on facts. Board members collected money. Records bearing
their signatures and the amounts they collected are there for all to see.
NEITI, as an institution that has transparency in its name, should not tell
lies.”

Worries over validation

NEITI Chairman, Assisi Asobie, refused to speak on the matter,
saying providing answers to questions concerning corruption charges against the
sacked officials as well as allegations of general laxity in the management of
the agency would touch on the official explanations on the issue sent to the
Presidency in response to the query issued.

Mr. Asobie was also not ready to grant a formal interview on the
activities of the NEITI in respect of the forthcoming EITI validation exercise,
saying doing so would jeopardize the process and compromise the official
documentation in the final validation report submitted by NEITI on July 1 to
the EITI Board ahead of the review exercise scheduled for Dar es Salaam,
Tanzania next October.

“There is nothing like a deadline for validation. The true
position is that all candidate countries that have not been validated,
including Nigeria, were given July 9, 2010, which has since passed. There is no
new deadline. But, the EITI Board is meeting in October to take a report of the
Validation Committee,” he said.

The Managing Partner of S.S. Afemikhe & Company, the
Nigerian auditing firm that participated in the two previous oil and gas
industry audits conducted so far by NEITI, Sam Afemikhe, told NEXT that since
those exercises, Nigeria has made sufficient progress that would stand it in
good stead for the EITI validation.

According to Mr. Afemikhe, considering the situation before
NEITI, when the oil industry was relatively opaque, the industry is opening up
today, even more rapidly than in developed societies, pointing out; “today,
everything is in the open. One would visit websites and see operational
processes and actual figures and data about oil companies’ operations, which
was not the case before.

“The 2006 and 2008 audits are in progress. All parties,
including the National Stakeholder Working Group (NSWG), are very supportive.
Nothing has changed, in terms of NEITI’s capacity to discharge its functions,
as far as the auditors are concerned. There is good progress in what is going
on. If the validation was supposed to be based on whether the audit is going
well, then there would be no hesitation to say that there is no issue for
Nigerians to fear anything,” he said.

Despite this vote of confidence, the industry is still grappling
with problems of how to get certain institutions like the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to adhere to the basic EITI principles, which are
founded on the ethics of prudent management and use of natural resources, not
only for the benefit of the citizens but also for the promotion of sustainable
national socio-economic growth and development as well as poverty reduction
through a commitment to openness, transparency, and good governance.

Till date, the corporation is still unable to reconcile the
discrepancies uncovered in the 2004 and 2005 audits, and owes the Federal
Government N450 billion .

The National Coordinator, Publish What You Pay (PWUP) Nigeria,
Faith Nwadishi, said recently that it is illegal practices by institutions like
the NNPC that are undermining efforts by Nigeria to entrench transparency and
accountability in its extractive industry. “Why are we still talking on the
reconciliation of discrepancies in the 2005 audit report when we should be
talking about the 2008 report,” Ms. Nwadishi said, adding that it is issues
like this that show how unserious the government is with the commitment to get
EITI validation.

Nigeria in EITI

Nigeria, which signed to commit to EITI in November 2003,
launched the Nigeria EITI (NEITI) in February of the following year, followed
by a Bill to the National Assembly in December of the same year, to provide the
legal backing to the work of NEITI.

To demonstrate its commitment to meeting some of the EITI implementation
indicators, the first set of financial, physical and process audits for the
country’s oil and gas industry covering 1999 and 2004 was undertaken by a
consortium led by the London-based Hart Group in conjunction with a Nigerian
auditing firm, S.S. Afemikhe and Company.

With publication of the audit report, which identified several
weaknesses related to the management of oil revenues as well as poor governance
issues, an Inter-Ministerial Task Team (IMTT) put together a comprehensive
remediation action plan for implementation by the government.

The remediation plan covered five key areas: developing a
revenue-flow interface among government agencies; improving Nigeria’s oil and
gas metering infrastructure; developing a uniform approach to cost determination;
building human and physical capacities of critical government agencies; and
improving overall governance of the oil and gas sector.

With the passage of the NEITI Act on May 28, 2007, Nigeria
became the first EITI-implementing country with a statutory backing, while the
country was accepted as an EITI Candidate country on 27 September 2007, with
its final Validation report sent to the EITI Validation Committee on May 5,
2010, ahead of August 2010 deadline for the submission of its final report. The
deadline for Nigeria’s validation is September 9.

Nigeria is one of 28 EITI Candidate countries that would undergo
validation process to be listed as EITI Compliant country. Other Candidate
countries which have validation deadline ranging variously between September 9
and March 9, 2011, include Afghanistan, Madagascar, Albania, Mali, Burkina
Faso, Mauritania, Cameroon, Mongolia, Central African Republic (CAR),
Mozambique, Chad, Niger, Côte d´Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Norway,
Gabon, Peru, Ghana, Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, Iraq, Tanzania,
Kazakhstan, Yemen, Kyrgyzstan Republic, Yemen and Zambia.

Only three countries – Azerbaijan, Liberia and Timor-Leste – have so far
achieved EITI Compliant status.

The Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), a political platform
led by former military head of state, Muhammadu Buhari, who is reputed to be
one of the most incorruptible leaders since Nigeria attained independence in
1960, is one of the newly formed political parties. But it has had a markedly
greater impact than most within its short existence.

Supporters of this promising platform constitute the bulk of
those who left the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) due to the perception that
it has sold out to the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP). A reference
point was when the Edwin Ume Ezeoke-led ANPP declined to support the retired
general’s quest to fully challenge the disputed 2007 elections in which the
late Umar Musa Yar’Adua emerged as Nigeria’s president.

Mr Buhari, who enjoys massive support and goodwill from
academics, a section of the elites, and the downtrodden, is poised to take a
shot, for the third time, for the presidency, at the forthcoming 2011 polls and
this has excited his followers in states such as Kano, Katsina, and Jigawa.

His entrance into the political terrain in the build up to the
2003 elections was felt by the ruling PDP. In Kano, for instance, his political
machine, tagged ‘the Buhari hurricane’, ensured the victory of a former
classroom teacher, Ibrahim Shekarau, who lacked the funds to even campaign
vigorously, to become the unexpected governor of the state.

At the 2007 polls, it was the Buhari slogan that primarily
assisted Isa Yuguda, then on the platform of the ANPP (he is now back to the
PDP fold) to upstage the dominance hitherto enjoyed by the PDP under the former
governor, Ahmed Muazu, in Bauchi State.

A former University of Maiduguri lecturer and CPC’s governorship
aspirant in Kano, Auwalu Anwar, postulates that the situation will not be
different this time around, stressing that the hurricane will consume the PDP
beyond the traditional northern states.

Mr Anwar, who dumped the PDP for the CPC, believed that the new
party has what it takes to move Nigeria forward.

“The name PDP became so attractive to people like me in 1999. In
Kano, for instance, the party is no more democratic because it has been reduced
to a sectional club, and I cannot operate in that kind of environment. I dumped
it because I have the constitutional right to do so,” he said.

“The constitution gives me the right of belief and the right of
political participation as at when I feel like doing it, within the context of
the law of the land. My idea of dumping the PDP is appropriate this time
because the PDP has run out of its own goodwill in Kano.

“So, since I want to be with the people of Kano and lead the
people, I should not belong to anything that does not seem to have the approval
of Kano people. So, I dumped the PDP on ideological ground. Before now, I have
been a founding member of the PDP since 1999 and I actually attempted to
contest election then. I was in the PDP to serve, but the environment to serve
people selflessly is not in the PDP anymore.

“The PDP today has lost its soul; it is a ghost of what it used
to be, and the party doesn’t seem to have the ability to take the country to
the Promised Land,” Mr Anwar said.

Mr Anwar’s view is the one shared by many, as CPC’s leaders in
Kano, led by Ahmed Haruna Danzago, had embarked on a grassroots mobilisation
campaign across the 44 councils of the state, during which thousands of the
party’s supporters were duly issued party membership registration card.

NEXT witnessed the exercise in Garko council of the state and
there was evidence that the enthusiasm exhibited by the rural folks was a sign
that the CPC could spring surprises in the days ahead.

Kabiru Gwangwazo, a former chairman of the ANPP and now
governorship aspirant, said besides popular support, the CPC can now boast that
it is an organised party with key stakeholders who can ensure that the votes
count.

He cited the presence in the party of retired military personnel
and the political elites, including former speaker of the house of
representatives, Aminu Bello Masari, Audu Yandoma, M.T Liman, and Rufai Sani
Hanga, all senators; and a retired general, Jafaru Isa, as those who can stand
by the by CPC when it matters most.

Mr Gwangwazo, who played key role in the emergence of Mr Shekarau
as governor of Kano in 2003, admitted that popular support does not translate
to electoral victory at the poll.

“The good news this time around is that the class of the
aforementioned personalities cannot be intimidated as at the time poll results
are to be declared,” he said.

He contended that, unlike previous elections where votes scored
by Buhari were allegedly stolen by the PDP, the CPC will score resounding
victory across the country, particularly in states such as Bauchi, Kano, Borno,
Katsina, Sokoto, Kebbi, and Jigawa where Mr Buhari enjoys fanatical support.

Mr. Gwangwazo said he believes Mr Buhari will, for instance, win
his home state of Katsina effortlessly.

“We have always known he has the mass support, but the problem
all this while is that the elites that matter at the nick of time were the ones
sabotaging him. But now, there are changes for the better. Elites like Aminu
Bello Masari, Audu Yandoma, Dikko Radda, Sadiq YarAdua, Mustapha Inuwa, M.T
Liman, and several late Yar’Adua acolytes who have an axe to grind with
Governor Ibrahim Shema are now on the side of Buhari’s CPC,” he said.

The CPC also stands a good chance of winning in Kano State, in
view of the fact that the ANPP’s house is divided against itself due to
squabbles among its leaders on who succeeds Mr Shekarau, whose second term
tenure expires in May 2011. The PDP may not be able to put up much of a fight
because it shares similar fate with ANPP.

But Mr Gwangwazo said to achieve the desired objectives, the CPC
must put its house in order to be able to win at the poll.

“To be able to win elections, our national leaders have to
intervene because, right now, we don’t have competent leaders both at the state
and national level. They have to change these two persons before we can think
of winning election,” he said.

In nearby Jigawa State, where former House of Representatives
member, Farouk Aliyu Adamu, holds sway on behalf of the CPC, it promises to be
a Herculean task for the party that must contend with the overbearing influence
of state governor, Sule Lamido of the PDP. Luckily for CPC, Mr Lamido and his
predecessor, Saminu Turaki, have fallen apart politically. If the fight drags
on, it will not come as a surprise if Mr Turaki, a former ANPP leader, moves
with his supporters to the CPC.

Most importantly, the CPC can reap immensely from the dividends
of the electoral reform embarked upon by the federal government. Its leaders
said they feel emboldened by the promise of free and fair elections in next
year’s polls.

One of the recently
reinstated members of the Oyo State House of Assembly, Nafiu Baale, has
dissociated himself from the actions of his group and expressed a
desire to work with the leadership of the assembly.

Mr Baale, in a
letter addressed to the office of the speaker on Thursday, said he will
not participate in any further actions by those with whom he was
suspended on June 8.

Meanwhile, the
speaker, Olawale Atilola, has threatened to sanction the remaining
eight members if they miss the next plenary on Tuesday.

Speaking on the
floor of the house yesterday, Mr. Atilola said three of the reinstated
lawmakers were sighted in their offices before the sitting but they
deliberately refused to attend the plenary. He however did not specify
what sanction he will employ.

The eight members,
together with Mr Baale, were suspended by the House over a failed
attempt to remove the speaker on June 8. The development also led to
the assault on some of them by political thugs. However,

reprieve came their
way last week when an Oyo State high court, sitting in Ibadan, declared
their suspension null and void, and ordered their immediate
reinstatement.

Since the court’s
pronouncement, the lawmakers have not been able to join their
colleagues for business despite many promises to do so.

Shifting posts

Initially, they
alleged that they could not come to the floor of the house because of
their inability to get copies of the judgment that reinstated them.
They added another twist on Wednesday when they alleged that there were
threats to their lives.

Ademola Adejumobi,
the de facto leader of the group, told journalists that the speaker
called them on phone to warn them against coming to resume as earlier
planned, saying their safety could not be guaranteed. The speaker has
since denied this.

Speaking with journalists yesterday, Mr Adejumobi said the
reinstated lawmakers would, hopefully, join their colleagues next week
after all necessary arrangement on their safety have been put in place.

Scores of members
of the Ondo State chapter of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN),
yesterday, protested what they termed the ‘marginalisation’ of some
members by the chairman of the party, Sola Iji.

The
placards-carrying members almost disrupted the meeting of the state
executive council held in Akure, if not for the timely intervention of
security operatives.

The politicians,
who came in two 18-seater buses, invaded the party secretariat located
along the popular Oyemekun Road, Akure, and insisted that the meeting
would not hold as scheduled unless they were part of it.

The protesters, who
were led by the chairmen of Ondo east and west local government
chapters, Temitope Akintunde and Adebayo Ayodeji, vowed that they would
not allow the crisis that led to the death of the defunct Action
Congress (AC) in the state to swallow the newly established ACN.

“We, aggrieved
members of the party, wrote a letter to the chairman around 2008 and
said the executive of the party in Ondo west and east local governments
had been dissolved. Since then, he said they have not been attending
the state executive council meeting until the Mrs Jumoke Anifowose-led
reconciliatory committee directed that all suspensions, caretaker
committees, and factional offices should be dissolved.”

Sequel to the
directive, he said he came with the secretary of his party at the local
level to attend the state executive council meeting and was prevented
by suspected thugs posted to the party secretariat.

Mr Akintunde later
said his group would leave the venue of the meeting because some
leaders of the party had persuaded them to leave. The quick arrival of
the combined team of the men of State Security Service and regular
policemen also prevented the crisis from degenerating.

All attempts to reach the chairman for comments failed as all his mobile lines were switched off.

However, the
publicity secretary of the party, Rotimi Agbede, said the executive
council of the party would come out with a position on the grievances
of the members.

Aggrieved Labour supporters

In another
development, hundreds of aggrieved members of the Labour Party from
Ilaje area of the state yesterday protested the alleged hoarding of
forms for nomination of delegates towards the congress of the party,
scheduled to hold next month.

The protesters, who
barricaded the secretariat of the party in Akure, carried placards of
various inscriptions, such as ‘LP is not a personal party’; ‘Where are
nomination forms’; ‘Absence of Internal Democracy killed Parties’; to
register their displeasure.

They specifically
alleged that the state commissioner for environment, Omolebi Adepiti,
the newly elected house of assembly member, Kunle Odidi, and one Imisi
Ogungbure, a commissioner in the Teaching Service Commission (TESCOM),
hijacked the nomination forms for the constituency.

This, they said, was done in order to influence the delegates list for their selfish ambition.

But the party’s
director of publicity, Seyi James, defended those accused by the
protesters, saying, “nobody is hoarding the forms.”

Mr James, who noted
that the party would send more forms as soon as it is available, said
the party was aware of the shortage of the forms.

Two suspects have
been remanded in police custody over a possible assassination attempt
on the chairman of African Petroleum (AP), Femi Otedola. On the 25th of
July, Mr. Otedola, two directors and four members of his security
detail, were trapped on the first floor of the executive elevator of
the AP Plaza located in Lagos Island for two hours, prompting an
investigation by the Nigeria Police Force.

The men, Celestine
Omonobi and Moses Oluremi, were the elevator operators in the building
at the time. Both men deny any wrongdoing and police say there may be
further arrests as investigations continue. At the time, the
businessman and son of a former Lagos State governor, was on his way to
attend an emergency meeting of the AP board. NEXT investigations
revealed that Mr. Otedola was so highly discomfited by the incident,
that he required first aid services.

Briefing
journalists at the police headquarters yesterday, Deputy Inspector
General (DIG) John Hamza Amodu, said police are looking into a possible
assassination attempt on the businessman. “If not for the intervention
that was timely, the incident would have been tragic,” he said.

Foul Play

According to the
police, Mr. Otedola was ushered into an empty elevator with his team
which included two AP directors, Segun Senbanjo and Chris Adeyemi, and
four bodyguards. However, soon after the men entered, the elevator
stalled, trapping them inside for over two hours. An investigation
conducted by three elevator engineers discovered that the lift’s safety
control switch was pressed down. Once the switchboard was properly
placed, the executive elevator, which was installed by OTIS in 2009,
started working again.

Conflicting claim on load

The maintenance
unit of the plaza said the lift may have been overloaded. However, the
engineers disputed these claims, saying the mechanism would have
alerted the passengers and the doors would not have closed. Further
investigations by NEXT showed that the elevator was on a 625 KVA
generator at the time, and so could not have been affected by
electricity fluctuations. “It was obvious that the elevator was
tampered with,” said Mr. Amodu, “This led the Lagos State Police
Command to suspect foul play, bearing in mind the crucial decisions to
be taken at the meeting.”

His decision to dump ANPP

As a member of a
minority party in the National Assembly, one of the major problems we
have is that it is difficult to get leadership positions of key
committees that can be useful to our people.

For example, the
chairman of the committee on Agriculture is from Gombe State; and also,
the chairman of the committee on water resources is a senator from the
south-south. These are committees that are really very important to the
growth of Kano State.

Now, you would
realise that as a politician, if you agree that the essence of coming
into politics is to uplift the standards of living of your own people,
there is no need clinging on to the opposition party. That is why I
felt I should move out of the ANPP to achieve the objective.

A second reason is
that there is no internal democracy in the ANPP. Right now, the ANPP
has already made up its mind on who is going to be their governorship
candidate here in Kano in 2011. This is surprising because internal
democracy is one of the things that is responsible for the development
of democracy in its entirety. But when you impose candidates on them,
you would definitely face all kinds of difficulties.

In Kano, when you
look at the ANPP and the PDP, you discover that nobody has come out of
the PDP to tell anybody to stop campaigning for any seat. This is
against what we are witnessing today in the ANPP in Kano. These are
some of the things that motivated me to move from the ANPP to the PDP.

His governorship ambition

Up till now, even
in the ANPP, there are people who are still hopeful of emerging the
candidate of the ANPP. I do know that Kabiru Gaya is in the race. Like
I told you, it is not easy to defeat somebody who is an incumbent
governor. But you cannot say that the essence of moving to a political
party is purely because of a particular ambition; it is extremely
difficult to do that.

Like I said earlier
on, it is easier to develop your state when your state has a similar
political platform with that of the federal government. From my
experience, it has not been easy attracting federal projects to Kano as
a member of the opposition. So, it is not about governorship of Kano
because I don’t see it as a do or die affair. This thought is
inconsequential to the calculations that I am making.

His refusal to join others in CPC

All of us know that
Buhari is a very strong person, and he was very influential to the
formation of the ANPP administration in Kano in 2003. We all know that
he worked hard to achieve that feat. But the ANPP kept losing grips in
almost all the states. I have tried to identify the problem, but I have
not been able to put my finger on any reason. As part of the solution,
Buhari pulled out of the ANPP to form a political party. But you see it
is not easy to form a political party within two years and win the
elections, particularly in an area where majority of the people are not
educated.

I remember during
the PRP time, when people come to vote, all they ask you is that where
is the sign of the key; they don’t even know anything about the PRP.
The problem now is that out of the 56 political parties in the country,
how easy is it going to be for the people here to identify the symbol
of the CPC and get acquainted with it within the next 6 months? It is
not going to be an easy affair.

Don’t forget that
most of the people in the CPC were those who left the ANPP. What has
happened in essence is that they have already weakened the ANPP. So,
the moment they weakened the ANPP, they succeeded in strengthening the
position of the PDP in Kano. The Action Congress (AC) is back to the
PDP. If you make a simple mental calculation, you would observe that
the PDP has won the elections, even before the elections are conducted.

So, it is not an
issue of being sentimental or emotional about Buhari. There is nobody
that would be greater than Buhari in this country because he is a just,
fair and honest person. But politics is an entirely different ball game
because I want a platform that can enable me serve my people. I would
also want to be called the Buhari of Kano.

If Muhammed Bello
is moving from one political party to the other, it is for the sake of
the people. I am concerned about my people and I want to be responsive
to their needs. The issue is not about the person, but about the
political will.

Fear of Nigeria becoming one party state

It is really
difficult to have a one party state unless all the states are
controlled by one political party, which is not possible in Nigeria. If
you look at the trend going on in the south west and the south east,
you would realise that there is no way Nigeria is going to be under one
political party. If you take a look at the north west, Kano is the only
state that is not a PDP state. But the PDP had lost some states in the
south-east at the last poll. So, it is not going to be easy to have a
one party state in Nigeria.

Influence of the Kwankwasiya group within PDP

There is a lot of
fear about Kwankwaso and the Kwankwasiya group, but when you look at it
in practical terms, the issue is that was there an election to choose
the members of the executives of the party? Everybody saw that members
of the party’s executive contested election and the Farouk Iya led exco
won. So where is the fear of dictatorship? I cannot see that. It is
just speculations.

When you are
talking about the overbearing influence of Kwankwaso being the reason
for the failure of the PDP, I don’t agree with such views. There is no
single individual that can be responsible for the success of a party at
the polls. What is happening within the party now is an in-house
fighting over control of the party machinery.

His relationship to
the Kwankwaso, who lost power seven years ago, has worked hard to be
able to sustain people in the PDP. What is even surprising me is not
the top level; I have discovered that almost about 80 percent of the
entire state, including virtually all the wards, identify with
Kwankwaso. What you call Kwankwaso structure is a PDP structure. If
members of the exco identify with Kwankwaso, it is because he has
worked hard enough for them to be there and you cannot deny them that.

I recall that when
we wanted to vie for elective positions in 2007, people who identified
with Buhari had his posters pasted all over the state. But immediately
Shekarau became the governor, nobody was using Buhari’s pictures again.
Instead they were using Shekarau’s pictures.

His relevance to the people

If you look at the
trend of my activities as a politician, right from when I was chairman
of the ANPP in Kano, what bothers me on a daily basis is how I can use
my office to assist people.

As a senator, I have been able to assist about 25,000 people in Kano
with eye problems. I have been able to provide glasses for those of
them in need of this intervention. I know people who have lost their
eyesight simply because they could not afford N15, 000. And these are
the kind of things that prick my conscience and make me go out to look
for power.

The Nigerian Bar
Association has awarded its first Gani Fawehinmi Prize for Human Rights
and Social Justice to an advocacy group, Access to Justice, for its
work in defending the rights of marginalised people and addressing
critical problems in the Nigeria justice system.

In a statement
announcing the award, the Bar said Access to Justice’s efforts were
evident through its legislative reform work which “confront the chronic
and widespread abuses of human rights in Nigeria.”

“AJ has represented
indigent persons who have been unjustly imprisoned, tortured,
brutalised or otherwise oppressed, and provided services to families
whose relatives have been extrajudicially murdered.

“The list includes
releasing persons who were in prolonged under-trial detention for 13
years… and bringing an international litigation against Nigeria for
its horrific record of abusive policing,” the statement read.

It also mentioned
the organisation’s “extensive advocacy” leading to the passage of the
new coroner laws in Lagos and Cross River State in 2007, which now
enable families of victims of extralegal executions establish truths
concerning those killings.

The NBA also said
its judgment enforcement work has ensured court orders and judgments
and awards of compensation for human rights violations are complied
with and respected.

“AJ and the NBA
have collected information of the financial/liquid assets of many
public agencies to make available to lawyers who want to enforce,
(through garnishee proceedings), judgments obtained against these
public agencies,” the statement said.

Access to Justice’s
executive director, Joseph Otteh, said “we were very surprised by the
award”, citing several other people and organisations “doing
extraordinary work” worthy of the award.

Defending the voiceless

AJ’s priority “has
never been to capture the spotlight at any cost but to defend the rule
of law, strengthen the safeguards against torture and extrajudicial
killings, and ensure the courts understand Nigeria’s problems and play
a major role in ameliorating them,” he said.

He said the
organisation, which was founded in 1999, would strive to uphold the
values Gani Fawehinmi lived and stood for, by improving upon their
effectiveness, efficiency, and capacity to impact the lives of
“browbeaten” Nigerians subjected to daily indignities.

The NBA’s first
vice president and present chairman of the NBA Human Rights Institute
(HRI), Ikeazor Akaraiwe, said the Gani Fawehinmi Prize is aimed at
honouring and recognising “the path-breaking and inspirational work of
Gani Fawehinmi, Senior Advocate of the Masses.

“The prize will be
awarded annually on the decision of a prize panel to a person or
institution in Nigeria which has attained distinction through
consistent boldness, courage, independence, innovation, and risk taking
in the defence of the rule of law, upholding accountable government and
defending the rights of the voiceless,” Mr Aakaraiwe said.

Nominees for the
2010 Gani Fawehinmi Prize included Femi Falana, Asma’u Joda, Sadaatu
Mahdi, Tunji Gomez, Bukhari Bello, amongst others.