Nigeria Content Online

After weeks of rescheduling, our House of Representatives
suspended voting on the 1999 constitution review on Thursday, once more
deferring by an extra week, the crucial exercise needed to conclude the amendment.

The Deputy Speaker, Usman Nafada, said the process will now be
completed next week, but gave no reasons for the new date.

“We will stay here till 6pm today to conclude the consideration
today and then start the voting on Tuesday next,” he told about 200 members who
attended yesterday’s plenary session.

In a schedule released last week by the House and confirmed by
the Deputy Speaker, the lawmakers were billed to debate the separate provisions
of the amendments on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, while the electronic
voting was planned for Thursday, April 22, 2010.

Ita Enang, the Chairman House committee on Business and Rules,
who announced the plan, said the sundry legislative business will be suspended
during this week, while the House, already behind the Senate in the exercise,
focuses on its completion.

“It is exclusively a week we devote to the consideration and
passage of the amendment of the constitution and we will do all we can to avoid
anything that will be like a distraction,” he affirmed.

Through the week, the House has hardly adhered to its timetable,
admitting motions and other deliberations during the three days that always
commenced with hours of closed door sessions.

On Tuesday, it adjourned shortly after the executive session. On
Wednesday, lawmakers commiserated with Poland over the death of its president
and considered a motion on wind storm damage in Gombi town of Adamawa State on
Wednesday, before beginning a late afternoon debate on the amendment, drawing
past 6pm.

The lawmakers also took scores of minutes debating a
controversial remark of a colleague, Femi Gbajabiamila, who said the House
leadership has led the House away from the interest of Nigerians.

By Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Nafada affirmed that voting will
still hold Thursday.

Waiting till Tuesday

The exercise will now hold on Tuesday, April 27, 2010, he
announced again on Thursday, after voting cards were earlier assigned to
members and a mock voting carried out. He offered no explanation.

He only pleaded with all members to be in attendance during the voting next
week. “Your constituency will be watching you, so we should all try and be
present during the voting,” he advised, highlighting the suggestion that the
exercise was shifted since the House could not make for the required minimum of
240 members to pass a clause.

The Acting President, Goodluck Jonathan, Thursday commended the
Nigerian Armed Forces for their loyalty and respect for civil authority and the
rule of law.

He stated this when he inaugurated a new barracks named after
late Shehu Musa Yar’Adua yesterday in Asokoro, Abuja.

He commended the army for being consciously subordinate to civil
authority, and urged them to continue their efforts. He said it is a hallmark
of the loyalty which the country expects from them. He also urged them to
maintain the high level of professionalism and healthy civil-military relations
they have shown so far.

Mr. Jonathan assured the military of the federal government’s
commitment to its welfare, saying its members “are daily confronted with the
realities of [the] dearth of comfortable accommodation, particularly in the
Federal Capital Territory.”

Commenting on the efforts of army engineers who put up the
barracks, Mr. Jonathan said he was impressed that “for the first time in the
history of our existence as a nation, our army has been able to bring its
professional expertise to bear in the concept, designing, and actual
construction of an entire army barracks for the use of its personnel.”

He expressed optimism that, as the Nigerian army had single-handedly
managed a project of this magnitude at such reduced cost, the defence sector
has the capacity to undertake any engineering project successfully and can
compete favourably in the industry.

Army’s response

The Chief of Army Staff, Abdulrahman Dambazau, thanked the
federal government for its unflinching support towards the building of the
barracks, which has underscored the government’s commitment to the welfare of
the military.

He said that with the completion of the barracks, 105 of the
families of military personnel would be accommodated and, by June this year,
another 105 families would be accommodated. He noted that the building project
was conceived in August 2008 by the Nigerian Army’s engineers under their
direct labour scheme, and this had cut down cost by more than 80 percent.

He explained that the barracks is named after late Shehu Musa Yar’Adua in
recognition of his contributions to the development of the Nigerian army.

The Abia State
police command on Thursday said it is investigating the alleged
abduction of two foreigners believed to be Germans even though no
official report of the incident has been made to them.

The kidnapped men
were said to be on a picnic at the Azumini Blue River in Ukwa East local
government of the state last weekend when they were taken hostage.

The spokesperson of
the police, Alli Okechukwu, told journalists in Umuahia that the command
learned of the alleged abduction from the media as it was not reported
at any station. He, however, said the police was able to confirm the
incident.

Mr. Okechukwu said
“I want to make it categorically clear that the command also got the
news from the press. As I speak with you, there is no official report of
that alleged kidnap incident anywhere in the Abia State Police
command”.

Mr. Okechukwu said
after the command was besieged by journalists seeking to confirm the
report, its leadership dispatched officers to Azumini to investigate the
incident.

He said the
investigation revealed that the missing men had been at the river with
three girls.

“Our investigators
were told that when the expatriates ended their visit and were about to
go, some people shot sporadically in the air, scared away people and
whisked away the two in a waiting van and drove towards the boundary of
Abia and Akwa Ibom States,” Mr. Okechukwu said.

“In the melee, the
three girls and the driver were said to have run into the swamp but
reemerged later to drive back to Port Harcourt where they came from,
after the expatriates had been taken away by their abductors.”

The police spokesperson said the command was yet to ascertain the
nationalities of the abducted men and advised expatriates wishing to
travel to seek for police protection.

The Ekiti State House of Assembly, on
Wednesday, passed the public procurement bill sent to the House by the
state executive council in 2009 to ensure due process in award of
contracts and procurement of public utilities by ministries,
departments, and agencies.

Edward Asaolu, Chairman, House
Committee on Commerce, Industry and Cooperation, presented the report
of the committee to the House at its plenary in Ado-Ekiti.

He said that public hearing was conducted on the bill on March 15 to enable stakeholders make their contributions.

Mr. Asaolu said that the bill would
minimise corruption in the award of contracts as well as give room for
rule of law in public procurement.

It was after the report was presented that the House unanimously passed the bill.

The Nigeria Police has commenced training of its staff in preparation for the 2011 general elections.

The Deputy Inspector General of Police
(DIG) in charge of Administration, Uba Ringim announced this in Katsina
on Tuesday while addressing officers and staff of the command.

He said the training was necessary to ensure that they were free from the usual blames during and after the elections.

“You will find out that in most of the elections where there are
problems, whether police are at fault or not, people will say it is the
police,” he said.

The Sokoto State Police Command on
Tuesday arrested one Nasiru Mohammed, a Nigerien national, for
allegedly attempting to sell his five year old daughter for N7 million.

The state’s Commissioner of Police,
Mohammed Abubakar, announced this when the state’s chapter of the
Police Community Relations Committee (PCRC) led by its chairman, Bello
Abubakar visited him.

According to him, Mohammed and his accomplice, one Sirajo Hussaini also a national of Niger were arrested based on a tip off.

Mr. Abubakar explained that, the duo were arrested with the five year old girl.

“They were alleged to have brought the girl for sale in Nigeria to a yet -to-be identified buyer.

“Both suspects confessed to the crime
and admitted to have placed a price tag of N7 million on the girl for
any would be buyer,” the commissioner said.

Mr. Abubakar stated that investigations were in progress while
efforts were in top gear to track down the purported would be buyer.

For
allegedly torturing a suspect, Monsuru Akanji, to death, the Oyo State
Police Command has thrown one of its officers, Fakere Adegboyega, out
of the system.

Baba Adisa Bolanta,
Commissioner of Police of the state command, told journalists in Ibadan
on Wednesday that the dismissed cop would be arraigned in court soon to
prove to the world that the police would no longer condone any
unprofessional acts.

Mr. Adegboyega, who
had spent 20 years in the Police, reportedly tortured the suspect to
death after being brought to the Agodi police station, for allegedly
stealing a laptop.

Mr. Bolanta told
newsmen that the cop worsened his case when he absconded after the
death of the suspect, only to resurface about three weeks later.

Pledging the
resolve of the command to always expose the excesses of any police
officer engaged in activities that could endanger the lives of the
citizens they are paid to protect, Mr. Bolanta said his command only
got to know about the death of the suspect on March 30 after a rights
group sent a petition to his office.

He stated that the
report led him to direct the Homicide Section of the command to carry
out thorough investigation on the circumstances surrounding the death
of Mr. Akanji and the complaints that he did not die a natural death.

He said that the
reports from the investigation and result of the autopsy on the corpse
of the suspect confirmed he was subjected to excessive beating and that
he died of torture.

Mr. Bolanta
explained it took the command some time to parade the suspected killer
cop before the press because it wanted to carry out a comprehensive
investigation into the matter.

Dismissed cop’s denial

The dismissed cop
however, said he did not torture the 27-year-old suspect. He said the
deceased died as a result of the beatings he received from the mob
which originally arrested him.

He also denied the
allegations that he refused the father of the deceased the opportunity
to give him water and food, submitting that the man was allowed to feed
his son.

Mr. Adegboyega was
later moved to the State Criminal Investigation Department where he
will be detained, while a case against him is being prepared for his
prosecution.

Mixed
housing scheme is the most suitable for Lagos State, and by
implication, all emerging metropolis in Nigeria, says Akin Sawyer, the
Director of EBRAM Global Housing, a Dubai-based Real Estate Company.

Mr. Sawyer made the
proposal at the plenary session for real estate at the ongoing Lagos
Economic Summit, while responding to a question on state government’s
effort to provide low cost housing.

“We must be careful
when talking about low cost housing,” said Mr. Sawyer. “When you build
low cost housing as a unitary scheme, you end up building a slum, which
has its attendant problems like crime.” Mr. Sawyer said a mixed income
housing scheme, that will allow high income earners live in the same
locality with middle and low income earners, is better.

He explained that
separating the housing schemes explains why slums are springing up,
even in high profile areas like Lekki and Ikeja GRA; “after all, high
income earners need low income earners like drivers and maids to serve
them,” he said.

Low income housing impossible

“It is not possible
to build low cost housing because there is nothing like low cost
cement,” said Supo Sasore, the state’s Commissioner for Justice, in his
response to the question.

Against the
precedence already set by Lateef Jakande, a former governor of Lagos
State, the commissioner said “the public sector cannot build low income
houses. Houses have to be built in partnership with the private sector.”

Mr. Sasore had
earlier delivered a presentation of the real estate projects of the
state, all of which are designed to cater for the needs of high income
earners.

As observed by a
participant, the housing need is highest at the low income level. Also,
that the state government has no low income housing scheme policy
contradicts governor Babatunde Fashola’s statement, made last week, at
the annual Harvard University programme, ‘Africa Focus’, that “a
leadership that cannot protect the poor will be unable to protect the
rich.” However, some of the discussants, who are real estate investors,
disagreed with Mr. Sasore.

Tayo Amusan of
Persianas Group, said the state government can copy the example of the
US, where a demand for certain units of low income housing estates from
real estate developers, before granting the land needed for their
projects.

Mr. Sawyer has more
advice he considered useful for the megacity drive of the state
government. He corroborated another participant who said the state can
explore the use of other materials, like bamboo and bricks, to build
low cost houses, and sounded a warning: “Let us be careful so that we
do not bury Lagos in concrete.”

The
Lagos State government may soon start fining owners of public buildings
that do not have entry points for physically challenged people.

This was made known yesterday by the former Deputy Speaker of the state’s House of Assembly, Funmilayo Tejusoho.

The legislator made
the disclosure during the plenary session on Transportation (Road,
Rail, Water, Air): Infrastructure, Institution and Operations at the
ongoing 5th Lagos State Economic Summit at the Eko Hotel and Suites.

Mrs. Tejuosho said
that a bill on people with disabilities is already before the Assembly
and will soon be passed into law. She said the bill demands that “all
public buildings within the state will be given five years to put
everything in place that will allow easy entry for people with
disability to gain entry into the building.”

According to Mrs
Tejusoho, “the House recently got hold of reports of how a bank denied
access to a disabled person because the fellow had metals on his body.

“Once the law is
passed, it becomes an offence for any owner of a public building such
as the banks not to provide alternative or necessary entry points for
people with disabilities. The offender will be fined a fee of N20,000
per day till the bridge is appeased,” she stated.

The former Deputy
Speaker was reacting to a question posed to her by a member of the
Association of People with Disability in Nigeria, who alleged that the
state is neglecting physically challenged people in its infrastructural
development. According to him, the Bus Rapid Transport scheme in the
state does not provide for people with disabilities.

The Managing
Director of the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA),
Dayo Mobereola stated that “provisions are also being made in all
infrastructures being developed in the state to give access to the
physically challenged.”

He noted that
“highways and bridges that are being constructed are done with this
precaution in mind” assuring that the next set of BRT buses that will
soon be launched will have adequate provision for the disabled.

The official stated
that “the agency in the last two years has being conducting a study on
how to address the disability issue and the impact of the study will
soon be seen across the state.”

As disputing parties continue to accuse members of
the Ekiti State Election Petitions Tribunal of taking bribes, the state
chapter of the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties has warned
against the spreading of unfounded allegations.

The party’s chairman Tunji Ogunlola and its
secretary, Victor Akinola, said yesterday in Ado Ekiti that these
unfounded accusations could distract the five-man panel hearing the
petition.

The state government had alleged that a former
governor of Lagos State tried to sway the panel members with financial
inducement to favour the Action Congress.

“ We are urging the panel to pay no attention to
any disruption aimed at its way, we are also begging all the parties in
the state to desist from any action capable of worsening the tension in
the state,” the party said.

The party said it views with disdain the wild
allegations of inducements for tribunal members, which is capable of
heating up the polity unreasonably.

“It is our opinion that Ekiti people don’t need
these diversionary accusations at this period; rather, all parties must
await the judgment of the tribunal and depend on the evidence they have
presented to prove their case,” the statement said.

Strange attacks

The party also criticised the alleged
assassination attempt on the life of Kayode Fayemi, the gubernatorial
candidate of the Action Congress, by suspected thugs. Mr Fayemi is
challenging the election of the state governor, Segun Oni, at the
elections tribunal.

It noted that this kind of attack was strange to
Ekiti and appealed to those behind it to stop in the interest of peace
and justice.

“We were all in this state when Ekiti State,
twice, won the most peaceful state in Nigeria award and we wonder what
went wrong that we have now almost become the most violent state in the
country. We are supposed to build on the enviable award of a peaceful
state and not to negate it,” the party said.

It expressed hope that the judges will do their job fairly so that all the tension in the state can be resolved.