Nigeria Content Online

There is nothing wrong with the fat
allowances the federal lawmakers get quarterly, newly-appointed
chairman of the House Services Committee, Yakubu Dogara, has said,
insisting that his colleagues deserve the reward, not only because of
the amount of work they do, but also because of the billions of naira
they have saved for the country.

Mr Dogara, whose committee oversees the
welfare of members as well as the budget and appropriation of the
House, said the National Assembly gets a mere 1.5 percent allocation of
the total federal budget yearly, and upbraided Nigerians, particularly
journalists, for raising issues pertaining to the allowances of the
lawmakers instead of asking questions on what the executive arm does
with the remaining 98.5 percent.

The members of the House have been
demanding an increment in their quarterly allowances from N27.2 million
each to N42 million, while the senators want theirs raised from N45
million to N80 million. If the demand sails through, each member will
get N168 million per annum, while each senator will take home N192
million.

“What I want to talk about is this
issue of allowances that they heard that members have been collecting
N27.2 million per head and senators N80 million. In fact, some media
houses have speculated that what we now earn is N42 million per
quarter. Now this quarterly payment has become an issue,” he said.

“I remember, even the agencies involved
in fighting corruption are raising issues, particularly media reports
suggest that the Chairperson of the EFCC once said that there is
corruption in the National Assembly. To this, my response has been that
what Nigerians forget is that the entire money in the allocation. If
you check the 2010 budget, the entire allocation to the National
Assembly is 1.5 per cent. Unfortunately, that is what most Nigerians
focus on. But do we ask questions from those managing the remaining
98.5 per cent? Have we asked questions?

“This parliament has done a lot, but
Nigerians do not appreciate because they do not even know what the
parliament has done. When we came in 2008, in the course of our budget,
we raised the allocation of the National Assembly from one per cent of
the total budget to 1.5 per cent that year; we saved over N450 billion
for the nation in unspent and un-remitted budgetary allocations. In
2009, more than N350 billion was paid back into the national treasury
as unspent funds. Now, if you sum the two, we are almost hitting a
trillion.”

Mr Dogara, who addressed journalists at
the weekend, also said Nigerians should rather be worried about what
happened to these unspent funds from 1999 to the time they came in, and
start insisting that MDAs should return unspent money at the end of the
year.

“What happened? How much would it have been? That is the investigation that I thought media houses would have done,” he said.

The lawmaker, who was until June 3 the
chairman of the House Committee on Customs and Excise, said though the
discovery of the unspent funds will not be used as justification,
Nigerians have enough issues to raise with the executive arm, which
manages most of the budget.

Holding back billions

The PDP member from Bauchi State also
said he wondered why Nigerians are not asking institutions that
generate revenue for government how much of this they hold back for
themselves.

“And then we talk about revenue
generating institutions of government where billions, if not trillions,
are generated and not remitted.

As a result of our oversight functions,
we have said, look there are limits that some these agencies can go,”
he said. “That those monies must be paid back into the government
treasury. Nobody has ever given us credit for that. We do not want to
use that as justification for whatever allowances that we collect but
certainly they are issues worth looking at.”

On the demand by the “progressives
members” for investigation into the finances of the House, Mr Dogara
said they did not avail themselves of its standing rules and other
extant laws, in making their demand.

“They should have recourse to the
resolutions of the House that was passed vis-à-vis the Rules of the
House and the provisions of section 24 of the Legislative Powers and
Privileges Act. But, unfortunately, that was not done,” he said.

“I have heard a lot of people allude to
the fact that Integrity Group had similar campaign against Patricia
Olubunmi Etteh when she was the Speaker and nothing happened to the
members of the Integrity Group; they were not suspended, but they first
went to the press.

“The appropriate response to this is that you cannot say you want to
steal because there was thief somewhere that has not been caught. Once
you know this is a rule, this is what we have adopted in the House,
therefore, whatever the House follows is there in the rules and nobody
has ever challenged it since we have been members in 1999.”

The Conference of
Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP), on Sunday, asked the Inspector
General of Police, Ogbonnaya Onovo to ensure that the office of the
Deputy Governor of Bauchi State is opened to Garba Gadi to enable him
serve the people of the state.

It also asked Babayo Gamawa to stop parading himself as deputy governor following the return of Mr. Gadi.

The Bauchi High
Court recently ordered the reinstatement of Mr. Gadi, who was impeached
by the state’s House of Assembly last year.

Following his
reinstatement, Mr. Gadi went to the office, now occupied by Mr. Gamawa,
the former Speaker of the State Assembly, to work, but was denied
access.

The CNPP, in a
statement by its spokesperson, Osita Okechukwu, said Mr. Onovo should
direct the state police commissioner to open the office, as a matter of
urgent national importance, to enable Mr. Gadi resume work.

“CNPP position is
that the Commissioner of Police and indeed all security agencies in
Bauchi State must ensure that the court judgment which reinstated
Alhaji Garba Gadi as the Deputy Governor of Bauchi State; must be
obeyed to the letter and Alhaji Gadi’s security guaranteed,” the
statement said.

“Accordingly CNPP challenges the Executive Governor Bauchi State,
Isa Yuguda, as the Chief Security Officer of the state to come down
from the high horse and accept the reality posted by the court judgment
for the interest of peace and security of Bauchi State,” the group said.

Government and
community officials have expressed worry over reports of persistent
oil-spill across the Niger-delta, Nigeria’s zone of oil exploration
activities. Oil-leakages and spillages of ranging quantity has been
reported in the last one month across the region, in states which
includes Bayelsa, Ondo,Akwa Ibom and Rivers.

At the weekend, an
association of 49 communities in the oil producing areas of Ondo State
called on the federal government to put in place a law that will make
it mandatory for all oil companies to always pay compensations to
victims of oil spills in the oil producing areas in the state. “Most
times when oil spills occurred, the oil companies always trade words
over which company is responsible for the spills,” said Wole Ogungbeje,
an official of one of the communities. “The spills always affect the
lives of the people of the area. Their water, farmland and fish are
always affected, living them at the mercy of these oil companies who
are avoiding their responsibilities.” He appealed to the state
government to compel the oil companies to visit communities in the
riverside area to access the extent of the effect of oil spills in the
affected area.

The Minister of Environment, John Odey, recently summoned officials
of ExxonMobil (parent company to Mobil Producing Nigeria) to a meeting
to discuss what the government said were a series of spills far
offshore, where militant attacks and sabotage are infrequent. Mobil has
also been at the heart of a controversy over recent spills in Akwa
Ibom. But the company said told NEXT that though there was oil spill in
Akwa Ibom, the volume was not as large as was reported. The company
also said it carries out its activities as a responsible corporate
citizen. “On May 1, a leak occurred in one of MPN’s offshore pipelines
more than 20 km offshore,” the company’s spokesperson, Nigel Cookey,
said. “MPN immediately isolated and depressured the line, shut in
production and notified regulatory authorities.”

The Economic
Commission of West African States (ECOWAS) has entered into a strong
agreement that will boost economic and political cooperation with the
South American country of Brazil.

ECOWAS leaders,
speaking at the end of a special summit of regional leaders and their
Brazilian counterpart in Sal, Cape Verde, at the weekend, said the two
parties agreed to focus their political initiatives on the promotion of
political dialogue, security collaboration, private sector
partnerships, improving infrastructure, capacity building, and cultural
exchange.

Speaking at the
opening of the maiden ECOWAS-Brazil Summit, ECOWAS chairman and
Nigerian president, Goodluck Jonathan, identified the establishment of
a special fund to support the capital base of the ECOWAS Bank for
Investments and Development as one of the key outcomes of the summit.

“It is expected
that the proposals in the presentations will facilitate collaboration
between Brazil and the relevant institutions of the sub-region,
particularly our financial institutions, with an objective to set up a
special fund to support the capital base of the ECOWAS Bank for
Investments and Development. This will be a welcomed initiative in the
interest of our sub-region,” Mr. Jonathan said.

Mutual benefits

He said the
opportunities that will accrue from this summit and subsequent ones
range from collaboration in the areas of renewable energy,
infrastructural development, to combating organised crime and other
related matters such as illicit trafficking in small arms and light
weapons, and the illicit traffic in drugs.

The eight page
declaration, announced at the end of the summit, includes a desire to
improve capacities to cope with development challenges, as well as to
strengthen the political, social, and economic institutions, and the
process of peace and stability-building.

The meeting also
called for the urgent reform of the international financial system in
order to make it fair, just, and inclusive and enable developing
countries to be represented in the decision-making process of such
institutions.

The summit, a
follow-up to the Africa-South America Summit, held in Abuja in November
2006, agreed to progressively uphold and open free and fair trade and
investment opportunities through the promotion of two-way trade,
investment, and business development for their mutual benefit.

In order to give
expression to their proposed cooperation in the area of transport, the
parties agreed to “deepen … cooperation in the area of air transport
in order to improve regular air transport services between Brazil and
ECOWAS Member States.”

Consequently, they
directed the ECOWAS Commission and the relevant institutions in Brazil
to convene a meeting of their national aviation authorities to discuss
the modalities for such a cooperation, including the expansion of
existing air transport arrangements and the signing of new ones.

Both parties also
committed themselves to cooperate in the promotion of clean and
sustainable energy and to support the activities of the ECOWAS Centre
for Renewable Energy, which is based in Praia, Cape Verde.

The ECOWAS-BRAZIL summit was held a day after the 38th ordinary
session of the ECOWAS heads of state meeting in Sal, Cape Verde, that
was attended by all ECOWAS heads of state, except the two suspended
ones of Guinea and Niger Republic.

Nigeria has assumed Chairmanship of the
Commission of D-8 countries for two years, as it hosts the current 28th
Session of the Commission. The D-8 Commission comprises the developing
nations of Nigeria, Egypt, Turkey, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Indonesia,
Iran, and Pakistan, and aims at promoting economic growth and
development among member-countries.

The session, which opened yesterday,
had the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Martin
Uhomoibhi, representing the country as Chairman of Commissioners at the
opening ceremony. Mr Uhomoibhi lauded the achievements of the
Commission since inception in 1997, noting that “bilateral trade
relations are on the upswing among member-states”. He noted that the
achievements would be improved upon to include other areas of
development, as contained in the D-8 Roadmap.

Uhomoibhi said that under the chair of Nigeria, issues bordering on
Preferential Trade Agreement and harmonisation of visa regimes would be
addressed, in a bid to boost the contribution of members to global
trade, from 5 per cent or $1.2 trillion to 15-20 per cent by 2018.

A non-partisan Group, Niger Delta Youths Movement
(NDYM), has criticised the allocation of money meant for the
development of the oil producing communities, on projects that are not
sited in the mandate area of the Ondo State Oil Producing Areas
Development Commission (OSOPADEC).

The group, in a statement issued by its National
Officer, Bright Omogbuyi, said it is an aberration for the state
government to use OSOPADEC fund to fund projects located outside the
riverside communities.

Specifically, the group cited the use of the
commission’s funds to carry out projects in some tertiary institutions,
saying the OSOPADEC fund is exclusively meant to develop the oil
producing communities.

“We want to state categorically that OSOPADEC fund
is meant to develop the communities in the oil producing areas, and not
the entire state. The fund is exclusively meant for the development of
the people where the fund that is being used to develop the entire
nation is found,” the NDYM said.

“By the virtue of the edict that establishes the
commission, it is wrong for government to use money meant for oil
producing communities to fund communities outside the mandate area. It
is an aberration for government to use such money to fund institutions
outside the mandate area. Since the government is not using state money
to fund the commission, we want to beg the present administration not
to follow the footstep of the past government.”

The group also pleaded with the state governor,
Olusegun Mimiko, to urgently pay the money being owed some contractors
handling projects awarded to them by the immediate past government in
the state.

The group also urged Mr Mimiko to revive all the ailing industries
sited in the Southern Senatorial district of the state, including Oluwa
Glass and Okitipupa Oilpalm industry.”

Governor Mamuda
Shinkafi, of Zamfara State, at the weekend expressed his support for
the 2011 presidential ambition of former military ruler, Ibrahim
Badamosi Babangida. Mr Shinkafi spoke with newsmen in Abeokuta after he
was conferred with chieftaincy title of ‘Aare Rotoba’ and his wife,
Aishat Babangida-Shinkafi as ‘Yeye Aare Rotoba’ of Owu Kingdom by the
Olowu of Owu, Adegboyega Dosunmu.

“He is the most
popular candidate at the moment because he has people in all the local
government in Nigeria and, as the president said, everybody is free to
contest election, we can see all aspiring now,” said Mr Shinkafi. The
governor, who is son-in-law to the former dictator, said it is his
belief that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will
conduct free and fair elections. “There is internal democracy, there is
general democracy,” he said. “We belief President Jonathan will give
free and fair election in Nigeria which everybody, both within Nigeria
and outside, are going to be impressed with.”

Mrs
Babangida-Shinkafi said she is happy with the chieftaincy honour. “I am
very very happy,” she said. “This is the happiest moment in my life.
This has shown that I am their blood, and they are my blood.” She
called on all Nigerians to be united, saying “let us put our head
together and be one as a nation. Let us be our brothers’ and our
sisters’ keepers.”

The zoning gimmick

Mr Shinkafi also
said that the fuss over zoning by some members of the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) is not necessary. Speaking to aviation
correspondents at the General Aviation Terminal, Murtala Mohammed
Airport, Lagos, on his way back to Zamfara after receiving the
chieftaincy title, the governor described zoning as an arithmetic
adopted by the PDP for the 2011 general elections. “Professionally,
there shouldn’t be any zoning; but it was the party’s arrangement to do
some arithmetic to capture the centre but this is no longer useful and
PDP can do whatever they feel is good for them to capture the centre,”
he said.

He said it was his
view that anyone should be allowed to contest and that the ruling party
should be left to manage the issue of zoning. “Everybody is free to
contest and that is a party democracy and joint democracy in a
country,” he said. “Zoning is only a PDP arrangement and many people
have said that it should not have to be a problem, the PDP should be
left to manage associations and circumstances that come up in the
process.” He also described the process as a “political gimmick” by the
PDP that has been beneficial to the party, stressing that it is left
for the party to decide when to do away with practice.

“Zoning is a political gimmick to have power, it is only for the
PDP, and it was used by them to get power; I think when it is good for
them they will use it and when it isn’t they will abandon it,” he said.

About two years after foreign law enforcement agencies slammed punitive fines in the US and Germany on Siemens for bribing officials of foreign countries – including Nigeria – to secure contracts, no Nigerian has been prosecuted.

As
Nigerian law enforcement agencies engage in what appears to be an
everlasting investigation of government officials indicted abroad for
corruption, one country, the United States, is busy raking in massive
revenue on account of Nigeria’s dereliction.

Nigeria’s bribery
misfortune has so far generated over N300 billion (approximately $2
billion) in revenue for the United States government, from fines it
imposed on companies which bribed Nigerian officials to corner
government contracts. Our analysis of the three current major
international bribery scandals (Siemens, Halliburton/TSKJ, Daimler)
involving Nigerian officials, indicates no traction or indictment from
the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the agency that
leads investigations relating to economic and financial crimes.

This
finding also coincides with the release of a business survey on crime
and corruption in our country, which indicates that Nigerians have
“little trust in anti-corruption authorities.”

The report is a
collaboration between the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the European Union
(EU), and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

“It
is hard to have any confidence in these agencies, and all these endless
investigations point at nothing but a case of dereliction, and probably
collaboration, or both,” said Jiti Ogunye, a leading public interest
lawyer in Lagos, who wondered angrily “how come that 19 years after
Siemens, (the Germany-based multinational electrical firm) agreed to
pay fines to both the US and German authorities for bribing officials
of foreign countries – including Nigeria – to secure contracts, no
Nigerian has been prosecuted?”

Another attorney, Abuja-based Charles
Musa, said if the US government is fining its own citizens, and its
companies, it is unfortunate that Nigeria, where all the bribery took
place, be it Anammco or Halliburton, is just grandstanding and playing
to the gallery, and not serious about prosecuting its citizens.

“In
a proper country, those companies should have been fined themselves,
and they’ll be blacklisted. It’s unfortunate that we don’t have the
political will to prosecute any crime in this country as long as it
doesn’t involve a poor man. These people are well known, they (their
names) are on the Internet, they are in US court papers, and nothing
has happened to them. It is unfortunate,” he said.

US revenue

The
revenue made by the United States represents fines paid by bribe
givers: Siemens, Kellogg Brown & Root, Technip and Daimler AG, to
the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of
Justice in settlement agreements, for giving kickbacks to Nigerian
officials in exchange for multibillion dollar contracts. And by the
time investigations are completed in the $182 million Halliburton
bribery scandal, which has so far yielded $917 million dollars for the
U.S. government, the country is likely to rake in an additional N68
billion (approximately $449million) in fines from a former Halliburton
executive Albert Jackson Stanley, two United Kingdom citizens, Jeffrey
Tesler and Wojciech Chodan, and ENI of France, a member of the infamous
TSKJ consortium.

Already, Mr Stanley has been sentenced to seven
years in jail and he is to pay $10.8 million in restitution. Tesler and
Chodan, who allegedly coordinated the elaborate bribery scheme on
behalf of the TSKJ consortium, have also been indicted by a federal
grand jury in Houston and might forfeit $132 million to the American
government.

Investigations into ENI’s involvement in the bribery
scheme is still ongoing but in anticipation of its indictment, the
company has already set aside 250 million euro, an amount it plans to
deploy in a settlement agreement with the SEC and the Department of
Justice.

America has accused the company of violating its Foreign
Corrupt Practices Act, which forbids “certain classes of persons and
entities to make payments to foreign government officials to assist in
obtaining or retaining business.”

Unwilling Nigeria

But
while the U.S. is prosecuting its citizens involved in the scams and
compelling concerned companies to pay huge fines, Nigeria, where the
offences were committed and whose citizens received the bribes, has
failed to properly investigate the cases and punish those involved.

“What
that means is that Nigerian laws and institutions are not working and
we are paying dearly for that,” said Bunmi Aborisade, an adjunct
professor at the State University of New York. “If those fines had been
paid to our country, it would have gone a long way in alleviating
poverty among our people. But that is even if the fine proceeds are not
stolen again.”

Siemens was the first to enter into a settlement
agreement with the SEC and the American justice department. On December
12, 2008, in a charge brought against it in a US District Court for the
District of Columbia, the German company agreed to pay $350 million in
disgorgement to SEC and a $450 million criminal fine to the justice
department.

The company had earlier paid fines of 395 million Euro
(approximately $569 million) and 201 million Euro(approximately $285
million) to the office of the Prosecutor-General in Munich, Germany,
over the same charge that it bribed Nigerian officials to corner four
telecommunication contracts.

When Siemens first entered into these
plea agreements, the Nigerian government blacklisted it and suspended
it from handling government contracts. But the Umaru Yar’Adua
administration soon lifted the suspension, saying the company had
repented. The company did not pay any fine and nobody was prosecuted
for the crime.

Two months later, in February 2009, Kellog Brown and
Root parted with $177 million and $402 million in payments it made to
SEC and the department of justice for its role in the bribing of
top-level Nigerian officials in exchange for the contract to build our
$6 billion Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas plant.

The two U.S.
agencies then went after German automaker, Daimler, and got it to cough
out a total $185 million in fines to settle charges that it compromised
Nigerian officials to award several vehicle supply contracts to it.

With
the announcement on Monday that Technip, a member of the TSKJ
consortium, had agreed to pay $338 million for its role in the bribery
of Nigerian officials, America’s total earning from enforcement
proceedings in the $182 million Halliburton bribery scam alone now
stands at $917 million (approximately N138 billion).

“The
resolutions announced today demonstrate once again the department’s
commitment to aggressively investigate and prosecute international
bribery by U.S. and foreign corporations alike,” the justice
department’s Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Mythili
Raman, said in a statement. “The fact that Technip now must pay
criminal penalties and civil disgorgement totalling $338 million should
make clear that, in the end, bribery of foreign officials will have
consequences.”

Not finished

Yet the Americans
are not finished. ENI, another member of the TSKJ consortium, is being
investigated and both SEC and the Justice department are likely to file
separate charges against the company before long. The fourth member of
the TSKJ Consortium, JGC Corporation of Japan, may, however, escape
U.S. sanctions because it is not listed in the New York Stock Exchange.
It is listed in the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

The U.S. authorities said
it was determined to bring to book all those involved in bribing
foreign officials in exchange for business favours.

“The FBI is
committed to pursuing those who disrupt the level playing field to
which companies in the U.S. and around the world are entitled,” said
FBI Assistant Director Kevin L. Perkins. “This case (Technip’s)
demonstrates the FBI’s commitment to aggressively investigate
violations of this law. We will continue to investigate FCPA matters by
working in partnership with other law enforcement agencies, both
foreign and domestic, to ensure that both corporations and executives
who bribe foreign officials in return for lucrative business contracts
are punished.” Analysts say while America’s FBI and SEC are matching
words with action, Nigeria’s EFCC, responsible for the Nigerian end of
the investigation, is running round in circles and barking without
biting.

Not lifting a finger

“It is quite
unfortunate and pathetic that foreign countries have brought to justice
those who have engaged in bribery while doing businesses in Nigeria,
while Nigeria, the victim of these corrupt practices, has not lifted a
finger in such despicable acts against the country,” said Bukola
Oreofe, executive director, Nigeria Liberty Democratic Forum, a New
York-based pro-democracy group.

“One can only leave to the
imagination the number of schools, hospitals, roads, agricultural
development, avoidable deaths that would have been averted if Nigeria
had been protected from this fleecing or if the country, through her
own criminal statutes, could bring the local and foreign perpetrators
to justice.

“If the United States can earn millions from such punishment, it is sad that Nigeria looks the other way,” Oreofe said.

Idris Akinbajo and Elor Nkereuwem contributed to this report.

The law enforcement crises that
has followed the marriage between Ahmed Yerima, a 49-year-old senator,
to a 13-year-old Egyptian girl, has bolstered the cases of paedophilia
in Nigeria, child rights activists have said.

The activists, who gathered at
Abuja during the week for a support dinner for the Global Association
of Women Attorneys (GAFA), identified the inability of the attorney
general of the federation and the inspector general of police to
prosecute Mr Yerima for breaking a child rights law, as an
encouragement for gender-based violence.

“Though there is little statistics
to document the trend, there is no gainsaying that both at the home
front and in the workplace, the female gender has had her psych
adversely affected by this assault,” Chinelo Irele, President of the
GAFA said.

“Law enforcement in this regard
has been less than satisfactory, owing in part to factors of tradition,
religion, and economic disempowerment.”

The GAFA had led a group of other
women organizations to the National Assembly to protest Mr Yerima’s
marriage to his Egyptian driver’s 13-year-old child, at the wake of the
marriage which was contracted in the national mosque early this year.

Chidi Odinkalu, the director of
Africa Program Open Society Justice Initiative, who was a guest speaker
at the dinner, described the pattern as fallout of the law enforcement
crises the senator’s marriage caused; juxtaposing Mr Yerima’s position
as a lawmaker with the lack of will on the part of the law enforcement
agencies to prosecute him.

“Increasingly, a lot of us now see cases of paedophilia on the pages of our newspapers every day,” Mr Odinkalu said.

He countered Mr Yerima’s logic
that his religion permits such marriages, saying it is not tenable in a
civilized society like Nigeria’s. He argued that Mr Yerima’s marriage
to the child was not destined by faith, but a choice he made. “When a
man makes such a choice, society should be able to say, ‘that man is
unfit to make laws for us. That man is unfit to answer distinguished,
and unsafe for any civilised society.’”

Law enforcement crises

Emmanuel Ojukwu, the national
public relations officer of the Nigeria police, who also spoke at the
event, blamed the increasing incidences of girl child abuse on the
economy, and “politics and the lack of will to implement all decisions
made at every strata of government.” He also argued that the Nigerian
society and culture covers crime to save the face of the families
involved.

He narrated a case in which a man
above 50 years raped his about-four-year-old niece, and the mother of
the child tried to hide it, saying it is a family matter.

“These issues continue because we
all compromise,” Mr Ojukwu said. “Those who are supposed to speak keep
silent. When evil persists, we keep quiet; after all, it is our
culture, it is our religion, we don’t want our family to be exposed and
then we keep encouraging evil to continue and look for people to blame.

“What have you done when it
happens next to you? This gathering is a clarion call to all of us to
wake up to our responsibilities. We’ve kept quiet for too long. Now is
time to act.”

He advised the public to act by
supporting organisations like the GAFA that take it upon themselves to
dig out the vices in the society and sensitise the nation.

Other speakers at the event took
turns to condemn gender-based violence and marriages to children who
are mostly coerced into the contract. They argued that such sexual
relationships are rape and should be handled as strictly so by the law
enforcement agencies, notwithstanding the office of the individual
involved.

Ishak Bello, a justice of the
Federal Capital Territory Appeal Court, who also identified the
narrow-mindedness of the Nigerian society and family with regards to
handling issues of girl child abuse, argued differently, saying sexual
intercourse with children is defilement, and not rape.

“Of course she is not in the
position to give consent, in law,” the judge said. “It is not even
love-making; you are just having sex with her.”

Besides the condemnations, the
dinner was good and donations rolled out generously in support of the
GAFA who have also asked to be joined in the suit the Islamic community
have filed against the federal government and the senate over the
matter.

There is apprehension in the National
Assembly over the rejection by state legislatures of the some aspects
of the 1999 constitution recommended by the federal legislature for
amendment.

Members of the ad-hoc committees of the
two chambers, which reviewed the document, are worried that the rate at
which the state legislatures are rejecting the recommendations
contained in the report presented to the Speakers last month may
endanger the process of producing a brand new constitution for the
country.

The committees are particularly worried
that getting the two-thirds majority of the state legislatures to
approve the document may be a mirage, thereby, scuttling the process
which has consumed time and resources in the last two years.

About 12 state Houses of Assembly have
rejected some key amendments contained in the report presented to them
at a ceremony in Abuja. Among the key issues that have been dumped by
assemblies is the provision for independent candidacy.

The states that have reportedly
concluded work on the report forwarded to them included: Adamawa, Imo,
Ogun, Zamfara, Edo and Enugu. Others are Jigawa, Kaduna, Osun, Gombe,
Plateau, Benue, Ebonyi and Rivers. Others are still conducting public
hearings on the amended constitution.

Among the aspects rejected by the state
legislatures are independent candidacy, financial autonomy for the
legislature, raising of educational qualification for candidates for
National Assembly elections and cross carpeting.

A source in the committees said last
Friday that the federal lawmakers are particularly unhappy over feelers
that the rejection of some aspects of the amended constitution was
instigated by the state governors and, therefore, not in the national
interest. They are said to have expressed sadness that those aspects
were rejected even though the ad-hoc committees of the Senate and House
were always in touch with the Speakers of the State Assemblies while
the review lasted.

It was learnt that the governors, who
want to second terms in office, are behind the rejection of the
independent candidacy clause in the amended document because it will
increase the competition for their positions during next year’s general
election if the constitution comes into operation.

The federal lawmakers, the source said,
are also worried that their state counterparts are tampering with the
document even though the constitution only requires them to approve.

“We have it on good authority that the
governors are tele-guiding the lawmakers in their states to do their
bidding. The issue of independent candidacy, for instance, is one of
those aspects the governors are asking them not to approve because that
will narrow the competition during the elections.

“The failure or even delay in approving
the document by the state may pose a great danger to the entire
exercise. It may mean that the job the National Assembly did was in
vain, especially as the general elections approach. This is worrisome,”
the source said.

Some of the federal lawmakers are
already brainstorming on what to do to check the development, which in
their thinking could derail the whole process of reviewing the
11-year-old constitution.

Apart from convening a meeting with the
Speakers, the leaderships of the Senate and the House of
Representatives are also considering dispatching all the principal
officers and influential members of both chambers to their states to
lobby for the approval.

“Yes, they are already thinking of what to do, like lobbying the Speakers in many ways,” said the source.

The chairmen of the Senate ad-hoc
committee on the constitution review and Deputy Senate President, Ike
Ekweremadu and his House counterpart, Usman Nafada, could not be
reached for comments. Their spokespersons, Paul Odenyi and Hammeed
Bello, refused to comment, saying their principals have not briefed
them, especially since it is the lawmakers’ affairs.

Also, attempts to speak to the
consultant to the National Assembly on the review on Friday were also
rebuffed, as they said they are not competent to speak.

“Go to the lawmakers,” one of them told our reporter.

Not preempt the states

Speaking on the
issue, Senate spokesperson, Ayogu Eze, says the National Assembly will
not preempt the report of the State Assemblies because they are yet to
submit them.

“It is not for us
to comment on what we read in the newspapers. That will amount to
preempting the report of the state legislatures. They are yet to
forward their reports to us and so we cannot begin to say this is their
position or this is what we will do,” Mr Eze said last Friday.

His House
counterpart, Eseme Eyiboh, who spoke in the same vein said it is only
when a formal report is submitted to the National Assembly that an
action can be taken. He said he cannot predict what will happen.

Mr Eyiboh also
denied that there is apprehension among his colleagues over the
positions of the state lawmakers, saying, “That cannot be true. What
you are saying cannot jeopardize the process because it is already on
course. Everything the National Assembly did in the course of the
amendment was done taking into consideration the national interest.”
The lawmaker also denied claims that the State Assemblies were given a
deadline for reporting back to the National Assembly.

On June 15, the
National Assembly, at an elaborate ceremony in Abuja handed over the
amended constitution to the State Assemblies. The chairman of the
Conference of the Speakers of the State Houses of Assembly and the
Speaker of the Taraba State House of Assembly, Sylvanus Gbana, received
the document on behalf of his colleagues.

Besides, the Clerk of the National Assembly also transmitted a copy of the document to the state legislatures.

However, about
eight days later, there was a controversy over the document, as the
House of Representatives, at its plenary session on June 24, complained
that the clean copy forwarded to the states was the Senate version and
not the harmonised version of the conference committee set up by both
chambers and subsequently approved by the two chambers on June 2 and 3,
respectively. It, therefore, directed the Clerk of the House to liaise
with the Clerk to the National Assembly with a view to withdrawing the
document.

The matter has
since been settled. The chairman of the House ad-hoc committee on the
review of the constitution, Usman Nafada, who is also the Deputy
Speaker, said in a statement that the mistake had been rectified.
According to him, the cover of the harmonised version sent to the state
legislature carried the imprint of the Senate but with the right
contents, instead of the imprint of both chambers.

That controversy was just one of the many that followed the amendment of the constitution in the last two years.

The very first
controversy was over the actual position of Mr Nafada in the National
Assembly Joint Committee on Constitution Review (JCCR). While senators
said the Deputy Speaker should merely be deputy chairman of the joint
committee, members of the House insisted he should be a co-chairman
since both chambers are equal.

The disagreement led to both Houses conducting the amendment separately until they reached the harmonization stage.

Earlier in June,
members were at a loss over whether the amended document should be sent
to Goodluck Jonathan for his assent just like he does to other laws
made by the National Assembly.