Nigeria Content Online

A nongovernmental organization, The Patriots, has called on the
National Assembly to pass a law to prescribe death penalty on anyone found
guilty of aiding and abetting production and distribution of counterfeit drugs
in the country.

The organization made the appeal at the 8th edition of its free
mobile clinic held at Papalanto, in Ewekoro Local Government area of Ogun
State. President of the organization, Olatubosun Fadeyi, said introduction of
death penalty for producers and hawkers of substandard drugs would prevent
perennial problems of loss of lives as a result of consumption of these drugs.

“The government should also come up with a legislation which
will establish a death penalty for anyone guilty of aiding and abetting the
production and distributions of fake drugs in the country,” he said. Mr Fadeyi,
who is also the Senior Registrar, Family Medicine, Sacred Heart Hospital,
Lantoro, Abeokuta expressed worry that many Nigerians have lost their lives due
to lack of access to modern healthcare services.

“It is disturbing to note that many of our people are dying
slowly of ailments which could have been prevented had our governments put in
place adequate health enlightenment programmes,” he said. “It is pertinent to recognize
the fact that the government cannot do it alone. It requires the concerted
efforts of all and sundry, this is why The Patriots came in to educate and
enlighten people on health-related matters, as well as provide free healthcare
services.”

Stop the crime

The Permanent Secretary in the Ogun State Ministry of Project
Monitoring, Tokunbo Odebunmi, said the group’s call was one way to stop the
crime. “Death sentence is synonymous to the people who can kill like armed
robbers,” he said. “Anybody that produces fake drugs wants to kill, so, if he
is caught before he kills, he should be killed too before he kills anybody. I
don’t have anything against very penal and stiff penalty against fake drugs
hawkers, because of money you want to kill other people. I don’t think that is
good.”

The representative of Lafarge, the company that sponsored the exercise,
Irene Adesina, advised beneficiaries to use the free drugs given to them as
prescribed by the physicians and urged the people in the community to support their
leaders for the development of the area. “Three months ago, they (The Patriots)
came to us and we supported them financially; they must be commended because
despite their educational background, they are involved in social services,”
she said. Over 500 people were given free medical services, including screening
for diabetes, hypertension, mass de worming exercise, health education and free
distribution of drugs worth N800, 000

When he first came into Nigeria and paid a visit
to Ministry of Information and Communications, Enrique Fernando Arrundell,
Ambassador of Venezuela to Nigeria courted controversy after expressing
dissatisfaction with the suffering of Nigerian masses.

Now, his embassy has decided to lend a helping
hand by providing 30 Nigerian students with scholarship in Venezuela.

In this interview, he talks about his expectations and how the scholarship
works. Excerpts:

The scholarship programme
for Nigerians

What I will like the people of Nigeria to know is that this
scholarship is a programme put in place few years ago in Venezuela, called
Programas de Becas Scholarship and involves collaborating with developing
nations where we have our embassies. We have stepped in to give the less
privileged a scholarship.

This scholarship basically is for students aspiring to study
Medicine and Agriculture. Children who will benefit from this scholarship will
have great advantage over other children. When they get to my country, they
will be attended to by my people with all the love and we will make them at
home. It is not only education package that we are offering them, we will give
them love, inspiration and hope. Because we know the tragedy that Africa
somehow is passing through: the aftermath of colonization.

The wound is very fresh in the lives of the Africans. So we will
offer them tenderness, make them understand that they have a future and that
they can be individuals that will change their nations. It will offer them
opportunity to mix with children from other parts of the world. Something that
is going to happen is that when these children come back to Nigeria, they also
would have learnt Spanish language. They will understand the other parts of the
planet. We want them to be citizens of the world.

The selection process

This year, we have 30 Nigerian students who have obtained
scholarships to study either Medicine or Agriculture in Venezuela. Time was
very short and we sent a letter to the federal ministry of education, informing
them of what we wanted to do. But next year, we hope to send a large number of
Nigerian students to Venezuela and I hope the Ministry of education will work
together with the embassy in order to achieve this.

I would like the ministry to be more involved because last year
we sent a letter to them; they replied us saying they were going to send a
list. We were not asking them for a list, but for them to know what we intended
doing. So what we did was to speak to principals of some public schools in
Kaduna, Nasarawa, Imo State, Taraba and other parts of Nigeria.

We wanted a majority of students from different places, so we
went to the public schools and the principal gave us a list of students that
have just graduated. A delegation from the Becas Foundation came here and
interviewed them. The main set of children we are looking for are the less
privileged. None of those we selected had been to an airport before. None of
them had stepped onto an aircraft and some did not have the money to the
airport on the day of their departure. Even one of the governors in north-east
helped out in supporting some of them, especially with the clothes they wore
while leaving Nigeria.

2011 Selection Exercise

We will continue. My only expectation is for the ministries of
education and foreign affairs to participate more closely. We need to have
meetings so they can help us coordinate everything. We are expecting to
increase the number of children participating in this programme next year. We
are planning that, from the 36 states, we will have about four or five children
each.

This will add up to about 180 Nigerian children travelling to
Venezuela next year to study Medicine and Agriculture. So we will have a full
representation of Nigerians in my country. Right now, I am also building a
school in Taraba State for about 600 children and we have a programme in which
we locate schools that are severely damaged and we renovate them. We believe
that more than businesses and politics, we have to think about the people. They
need us and what they demand for us is attention. In my country, our attention
is focused on the people.

Venezuela education
policies

Since our president, Hugo Chavez came to power, we have built
over 19 new universities in my country in less than ten years. Education is absolutely
free from kindergarten to university and we have a programme in which we feed
children in school.

We give them books and give then everything because we know that
if a nation is well educated, the possibility of its being successful in the
future will be much higher. Few years ago, the United Nations Educational
Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO declared Venezuela a
non-illiterate country. So we do not have illiterate people.

Government introduced a particular programme that made it possible
that, within one year and half, we taught over one million and half Venezuelans
that cannot read and write how to be literate.

We copied the programme from Cuba and it is called ‘I CAN’. What
works is cooperation, brotherhood and love for the nation.

Utilisation of petroleum
resources

We are an oil producing country and 60 per cent of oil money in
my country goes to social programmes. Drugs are given free also. Education is
free and this because the oil belongs to the Venezuelans. We control our resources
and distribute it in appropriate way that each Venezuelan can enjoy the
resources.

We also have the lowest cost for fuel in the world. We only need
two dollars to fill a fuel tank. That is why we can say now that we are totally
independent – politically, economically, and educationally. In Venezuela in
1919, we made a constitution and, in one of the chapters of the constitution,
it was agreed by all the masses that no one can rent it, lease our natural
resources, because it belongs to Venezuelans. So, if the gold, iron, oil,
diamond, uranium belong to the Venezuelans, they have to first enjoy all the
resources. It is not a big thing.

Advice to Nigeria

I do not like giving advice because I know Nigerians are
capable. They are one of the most important and intelligent people. I am not
saying this because I am a diplomat in Nigeria, but it is something that is
true and has been proved. The only way we can help is through collaboration and
cooperation and that is why we are here.

If the people that are in charge of health or education can sit
down with us, we can share our experiences and it is up to them to take what is
convenient for them. We cannot pretend because it is only Nigerians that have
solution to their problems. If Nigerians have control of their resources, they
will have solution to their problems. It is only Nigerians that can do that. We
want them to get closer to us just as we want to get closer to them.

Africa has to erase colonialism from her brain and stop looking
to the North (Europe) for assistance.

The Federal Government on Tuesday, in Abuja,
released 45,000 tonnes of assorted grains, from the National Strategic
Food Reserve (NSFR), to the general public, to cushion the effect of
high prices of food commodities in the country.

The grains are paddy rice, gari, millet, maize, and sorghum.

The minister of agriculture, Sheik Ahmed Abdallah,
while flagging off the occasion, said it was meant to ease the high
prices of food stuff in the country, adding that the president,
Goodluck Jonathan, had directed that the grains be sold at subsidised
prices.

According to Mr. Abdallah, the commodities are to
be sold at 30 percent subsidy as follows: 50kg of maize N1, 855 or N37,
100 per tonne; sorghum N33,600 per tonne and N1, 680 per 50kg bag; 50kg
of millet, N1, 890 or N37, 800 per tonne; while 20kg of gari would go
for N1,050 or N42, 100 per tonne. Paddy rice goes for N42, 000 per
tonne, and per 50kg of the commodity would be sold at N2, 100.

He disclosed that 15,000 tonnes of assorted grains
had been approved as donation to Niger and Chad Republics, to fight
hunger in the two countries, as requested by the ECOWAS Committee of
Ministers.

He said a similar exercise would be carried out in
eight other states where the food reserve silos were located, pointing
out that some allocations had been made for sale to some stakeholders
and various groups in the states.

The National Association of Ondo State Students, has urged
members of the National Assembly to urgently pass the anti kidnapping bill
before it.

The National President of the group, Temidayo Temola also
criticised security operatives for failing to combat the increasing rate of
abduction in the country.

“It is glaring that the police have failed in discharging their
duties. They have failed to track down the kidnappers of journalists. They are
only effective on the pages of newspapers parading innocent people as
criminals,” he said.

“Our senators and House of Representative members need to brace
up and make sure that the anti-kidnapping is urgently passed into law. So that
those who have made abduction their source of daily living can be prosecuted
and sent to jail.

The students however lauded the Ondo State House of assembly for
passing the anti-kidnapping bill.

The bill, which recommends twenty year jail term for kidnappers,
will go along way in reducing the trend, the students said.

The union also pleaded with government to spend more money to
fund education which, they said, is not receiving the it needs to grow.

“It is not funny that the money allocated to education is too ridiculous
compare to what is being experienced in the other countries. It is high time
our government increased the budgetary allocation to education, so that
graduates being churned out by tertiary institutions across the country can
compete favourable with their colleagues all over the world,” he added

President Goodluck
Jonathan has reiterated the determination of the government to tackle
the problem of insecurity in the country.

The President was responding to concerns of leaders from the South East, who visited the State House on Monday.

In their letter of
demands, read to Mr. Jonathan by the Chairman of South-East Governors
Forum and Anambra State governor, Peter Obi, the leaders said: “We are
heartened that Your Excellency has personally acknowledged the special
menace of insecurity in the Southeast zone with embarrassing
manifestations in kidnapping, armed robbery and other violent crimes.

Responding to the
issue, the President said, “We are very concerned about the issue of
security, and with the various options available to us, we are
gradually getting on top of the situation.”

Other issues

Another issue
brought to the attention of the President by the group was the
appointment of South-Easterners into federal establishments, claiming
the practice has been declining.

“Some examples
include the headship of Independent National Electoral Commission,
Bureau of Public Enterprises, National Agency for Foods and Drugs
Administration, Central Bank of Nigeria, Nigeria Immigration Service,
among others”.

The leaders further
stated that “the South-East is not proportionately represented at the
Supreme Court in spite of large number of qualified legal luminaries in
the South-East or even at the Appeal Courts”, and urged the president
to correct the disparities.

The President
promised the delegation that all their concerns would receive due
attention from the appropriate ministries and departments of
government, .

Besides asking for
an additional state for the South-East zone, the delegation pleaded for
the attention of the federal government to ecological problems in the
zone; the construction of the second Niger Bridge and rehabilitation of
federal roads in the South-East; upgrading of the Akanu Ibiam Airport
in Enugu to international status and the reactivation of the Enugu coal
mines.

Mr. Jonathan told
the South East leaders that he has directed the Ministry of Environment
to provide funds in the next Federal Government budget for the fight
against erosion in the country, because the Ecological Funds were
inadequate. He added that Vice President Namadi Sambo would take a
critical look at the various Ecological Fund projects to ensure proper
execution and timely completion.

The President said
the construction of the second Niger Bridge would be funded by the
government because of its critical role as a link between the South
East and other parts of country, and that efforts at the rehabilitation
of various road projects would continue.

A week after the
Chief Justice of Nigeria, Aloysius Iyorgher Katsina-Alu, admitted that
there is corruption in the judiciary, the Chief Judge of the Federal
High Court, Daniel Abutu, yesterday in Abuja urged Chief Registrars and
Directors of Courts to shun acts of corruption and arbitrariness in the
discharge of their duties.

Speaking at the
opening ceremony of a five-day national workshop for judicial
administrators organized by the National Judicial Institute (NJI), Mr.
Abutu emphasized the need for these judicial administrators to be above
board in the discharge of their duties. “In the management of both the
human and material resources of the courts, transparency and
accountability should be your watchwords,” he said. “You should
meticulously follow the rules and regulations guiding your operations,
for it is only by doing so that you can attain efficiency. Above all,
let the fear of God and the love for your country and your fellow men
control all your actions.”

The judge commended the NJI for putting together the event, saying
“It is intended to expose you all to recent measures development and
best practices not only in the Nigerian Court System, but in all other
court systems around the world.” In his address, the administrator of
NJI, Umaru Eri called the officers “the behind-the-scene operators that
oil the wheel of justice.” He said justice delivery cannot be improved
upon if these crucial administrators in the judiciary are not
constantly trained and re-trained to enable them understand their
duties and execute them properly. “No justice, judge, kadi, [or]
magistrate can sit, hear and determine a matter without your
contributions.”

Ibrahim Makama
Misau, a member of the House of Representatives yesterday renounced his
membership of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) – the platform on
which he was elected in 2007.

Mr Misau,
representing Misau/Dambam federal constituency of Bauchi State joined
the newly formed Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), becoming the

first lawmaker to
join the party floated by the former head of state, Muhammadu Buhari
and his political associates few months ago.

With the
development, there are now five minority parties in the PDP-dominated
360-member House. The others are ANPP, Action Congress, Progressive
Peoples Alliance and Labour Party.

Mr Misau attributed his exit from the ANPP to the crises in the party.

He added that
efforts to resolve crisis in the Bauchi State branch of the party
proved futile, hence his decision to leave the party and join one
“where conscience reigns supreme”.

The lawmaker
explained that his constituent also influenced his decision to join the
CPC since Mr Buhari has been like a father figure to him.

The legislator also
disclosed that he intends to contest next year’s gubernatorial election
on the platform of the CPC adding that he would accept any decision
that may come from the party on his ambition.

So far, 15 members of the Senate and the House have defected from the parties under which they were elected.

The Minister of
Labour and Productivity, Chukwuemeka Wogu, has said a recent report by
the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation
(UNESCO) that the Igbo language might become extinct in the next 50
years is worrisome and calls for prompt attention.

Mr. Wogu, who
represented President Goodluck Jonathan, stated this in an address at
the second International Conference on the Extinction of the Igbo
language in Owerri, Imo State.

“Until the shocking
revelation that Igbo language may go into extinction in the next 50
years, most of us had thought that [the] Igbo language enjoyed a high
level of scholarship,” he said.

Mr. Wogu blamed parents for downplaying the language and called on stakeholders to look inwards for solutions.

“I am of the view
that neither the school system nor the Diaspora factor is responsible
for this problem, for if they were, other major Nigerian languages
would be suffering the same fate. That this is not the case tells the
Igbo to look inwards for the solution,” he said.

“[The] Igbo
language may be getting extinct because the Igbo family stopped
speaking to their children in their mother tongue.”

He also called on other Nigerian groups to emulate the efforts of the Igbo to preserve their language.

“I therefore call on all other ethnic nationalities in Nigeria to
emulate ‘Ndi Igbo’ in demonstrating the urgent need to preserve and
safeguard her language. We must not let our native languages die.”

A Turkish court
indicted 196 people on Monday, among them retired military commanders,
over an alleged plot to overthrow the government, which has its roots
in political Islam, state-run Anatolian news agency said.

Revelations this
year of an alleged 2003 plot codenamed “Sledgehammer” shocked Turkey
and aggravated simmering tensions between the government and the
secularist armed forces, as scores of retired and serving military
officers were arrested.

According to
Turkish media, the plot was said to involve bombing historic mosques
and provoking Greece into shooting down a Turkish war plane to create a
war-like situation and destabilise the AK Party government, in power
since 2002.

Among those named
in the indictment are Cetin Dogan, former head of Turkey’s prestigious
First Army, and retired air force commander Ibrahim Firtina, both of
whom were first arrested early this year.

The indictment,
prepared by Istanbul prosecutors, included calls for jail sentences of
15 to 20 years for the alleged perpetrators, Anatolian said. No date
has been set for a trial.

Turkey’s military,
the second largest in NATO, has overthrown three governments since 1960
and pressured Turkey’s first Islamist-led government into resignation
in 1997.

The military has
said there was no conspiracy and operation “Sledgehammer” was merely a
war game exercise presented at a seminar.

The arrests of
former military top brass highlight a major social transition in
EU-membership candidate Turkey, as power shifts from traditional
secular elites such as the armed forces and judiciary, to a new
political class of conservative Muslims, epitomised by Prime Minister
Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party.

REUTERS

The Federal High Court, Lagos, on
Monday, adjourned hearing till 28 October in the application filed by
Sebastian Adigwe, the former managing director of Afribank, to quash
the charge against him.

Mr. Adigwe was re-arrested by the
Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC), on 21 April, with four
directors of the bank on a fresh 33-count charge of granting credit
facilities to the tune of N55 billion, without collaterals, after they
had earlier been arraigned and granted bail on a 36-count charge to the
tune of N38 billion in September 2009.

The directors are Osa Osunde, Isa
Zailani, Chinedu Onyia, and Henry Arogundade. Also joined in the suit
are Peter Ololo, the managing director of Falcon Securities, and his
company.

After spending five days in the custody
of the EFCC, the court in Lagos, on 26 April, granted bail to Mr.
Adigwe after EFCC had re-arraigned him and six others including the
chairman of the bank, Osa Osunde, over their alleged involvement.

The accused were said to have failed to
take all reasonable steps to ensure that the account books of Afribank
as at 31 May, 2009, gave a true and fair view of the state of affairs
of the bank as required by Sections 24 (1), 24 (2) of the Banks and
Other Financial Institutions Act. Cap. B3, Laws of the Federation, by
understating the loan portfolio of the bank.

More charges

Specifically, Mr. Adigwe was said to
have perpetrated shares scam by creating a misleading appearance of
active trading in the shares of Afribank on the Nigeria Stock Exchange
(NSE) and also by approving N2 billion credit facilities to Alsmiths
Nigeria Limited to purchase large volume of Afribank’s shares, an
offence contrary to Section 105 (1) (a) of the Investment and
Securities Act, 2007 and punishable under Section 115 (a) of the same
Act.

However, at the resumed hearing of the
case on Monday, counsel to the accused, Tony Idigbe (SAN), told the
court that an application had been filed to quash the charge,
contending that the proof of evidence did not link the accused with the
case.

Mr. Idigbe urged the court to order the
EFCC to release the international passports of the accused, stressing
“it is illegal for the EFCC to hold on to their passports.”

The prosecution counsel, Rotimi Jacobs,
however, did not object to the release of the passports to the court,
but raised objections to the verification of the bail terms.

Justice Jonathan Tsoho ruled that the passports should be deposited with the court and adjourned the case till October 28.