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Generic logic would
seem to suggest that when a problem mutates into a priority, which then
becomes a re-current objective, there should be a question mark over
the potential for lasting solutions to it. In recent months, Acting
President Jonathan has opted to wear a few more hats, including the
burning Stetson of the power sector. Cynics wish him good luck with a
wry smile.

Not many Nigerians
know this rather taciturn man. Jonathan had been sitting on the reserve
bench for a long time, perhaps sulking, but certainly observing and
mulling over the progress of the team’s attacking strength and tactics.
Suddenly, the coaching crew has called on him to replace the team’s
injury-prone striker, and also to wear the captain’s armband in green
and white colours. Instructions are specific – organise the midfield
and defence, score some badly-needed goals! A first back pass from the
new skipper is the statement in the US to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour,
that the power sector would be one of his priorities. The lady appeared
somewhat startled, but quickly regained composure before pinning
Jonathan down to agree he meant, “electricity.” Nobody suffering in
Nigeria would quarrel with that, but have we not repeatedly heard about
this priority in the last 50 years?

Did Awolowo and
Azikiwe not promise it in their 1959 and 1979 manifestos? So did Gowon,
Murtala, Buhari, Shagari, Babangida, Obasanjo, Shonekan, Abacha! Awo
and Zik were unfortunately condemned to the reserve bench as well, from
where they watched the destruction of a nation they freed from colonial
rule. In ‘The Problem with Nigeria,’ Chinua Achebe had written that the
country never plays its matches with the best eleven.

As always, when a
team is replaced in the federal or state governments of our nation,
ministers leave in a pique, some removing cars and the office air
conditioners in revenge. We then read in the tabloids that the handing
over was done amicably, and in 30 minutes! Why should anyone hand over
the national affairs of prioritised development objectives such as
power, water, health or agriculture so rapidly? What is the hurry to
destroy the development continuum by our public office holders?

There are now many
calling for this probe or that audit in the power sector, and in
particular, the NNPC. The thinking is to unearth misused funds and get
someone nailed. The NNPC was famous worldwide for awarding expensive
consultancies to foreigners or expatriates, which practice it believed
was commensurate with its high profile.

Foreign ‘expertise’

Unfortunately, not
every expatriate equates to an expert. In view of Nigeria’s shameful
energy predicament, either of two things or both happen at the NNPC –
taxpayers’ money and oil revenues are drawn down to pay charlatan
consultants who write fairy tales, or experts do a fantastic brief and
nobody reads or understands what subsequently gathers harmattan dust in
the ministerial vaults and presidential villa.

An audit or probe should also constitute finding out how published knowledge had been misused or ignored.

An Abuja Senior
Magistrate’s Court, on Tuesday, sentenced to one month imprisonment
without an option of a fine, a Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps
personnel, Mathias Odeh, for stealing a car radio.

Mr. Odeh, 26, was
said to have committed the offence on April 8, while trying to force
open a car marked AG 908 KLU, belonging to one O.E. Esangbedo.

The Police
Prosecutor, Mohammed Ahmed, a corporal, told the court that the
complainant reported the convict to the Maitama Police Station the same
date the theft occurred.

Mr. Ahmed also said
that the police, during the course of their investigations, were able
the recover the said car radio from the convict.

The convict pleaded guilty to the charge, and the prosecutor urged the court to summarily sentence him.

Delivering judgment, Senior Magistrate Aminu Abdullahi, sentenced
the convict to one month imprisonment without any option of a fine.

Human Rights
Writers Association (HRWAN), an NGO, on Wednesday criticised the
decision of the Federal Government to execute all convicted persons
serving death penalties as a way of decongesting prisons.

Emmanuel Onwubiko, the Chief Operating Officer of HRWAN, made the criticism while briefing journalists in Abuja.

Theodore Orjji, the
Abia State governor, had said on Tuesday after the 11th National
Conference of the National Council on Finance and Economic Development
that the Federal Government decided to carry out the execution to
decongest the prisons.

Mr. Onwubiko called
on Acting President Goodluck Jonathan and governors not to go ahead
with the policy, saying the execution would amount to an abuse of human
rights.

“Life cannot be restored after it has been terminated,’’ he said.

He recommended that the death penalty be replaced with life imprisonment with no option of fine.

“There is a need to rehabilitate these people, life imprisonment can be an option,’’ according to Mr. Onwubiko.

“The Association is demanding the implementation of section 33 (1)
of the 1999 constitution which reads that every person has a right to
life,’’ he said.

The
Acting President, Goodluck Jonathan, has urged the National Assembly to
quicken its delivery of two key executive-sponsored legislations,
namely: the anti-corruption bill and the anti-terrorism bill, which are
expected to help turn around his brief administration.

In a fresh
correspondence with the Senate and the House of Representatives, Mr.
Jonathan expressed his concern that the two bills be passed into law
before the end of June.

“Given this
administration’s commitment to combat corruption and terror and boost
the country’s economic development, a blacklisting by the Financial
Action Task Force (FATF) will no doubt seriously hamper these laudable
efforts,” the acting president wrote in a letter read yesterday in the
House of Representatives. The letter is dated April 8, 2010, a few days
before he travelled to the United States of America where he made
renewed commitments to combat the two issues. “Mr. Speaker and the
respected Honourable members of the Federal House of Representatives
are therefore, kindly requested to ensure the passage of the two bills
into law before the end of June, 2010,” Mr. Jonathan concluded.

The two bills were
introduced at the National Assembly in 2009 and have both reached the
committee stage after passing the second reading.

Getting back on track

Mr. Jonathan
recalled that in October 2009, ailing President Umaru Yar’Adua
constituted a Presidential Inter-Ministerial/Agency Committee to engage
the global task force and review Nigeria’s deficiencies in tackling
money laundering and possible funding of terrorist activities. The
engagement, according to the acting president, observed a lack of
comprehensive anti-terrorism laws in the nation, as well as an absence
of the FATF’s recommended standard provisions in the existing
anti-money laundering law.

At its last meeting
with the FATF in Bahrain in February this year, Nigeria promised to
address the issues raised before June 30 2010 through the passage of
the two legislations currently at the National Assembly. Mr. Jonathan
noted that this was not the nation’s first attempt at complying with
the FATF’s strictures. An earlier promise by Mr. Yar’Adua had assured
the bills would be ready before the end of 2009.

Close to deadline

With about two
months to the deadline, the acting president told the lawmakers that if
Nigeria defaulted on its latest vow, it could be blacklisted again by
the FATF and face potentially stifling economic consequences. “It will
frustrate and hamper legitimate international financial transactions
flowing from Nigeria. Some countries will not honour international
financial instruments emanating from Nigeria, including letters of
credit,” the acting president explained. “International investors will
be scared to invest in Nigeria, and those willing to do so will request
for the most stringent conditions. Nigeria’s international image will
be highly dented as a country without the political will to cooperate
in the global war on terror.”

Inmates
of Kaduna Prisons went on rampage Tuesday morning, allegedly because of
reports that convicted former head of the Christ Praying Assembly,
Reverend King, had been killed.

Mr. King, according to a prison official, was recently transferred to Kaduna from Kirikiri prisons.

The officer, who
asked to remain anonymous, said when Mr. King, who was awaiting a death
sentence, was moved from the jail to another prison in Kaduna, other
inmates thought the free-spending convict had been executed and went on
rampage to protest this.

An unspecified
number of inmates died in the melee as they attempted to flee the
prison. The inmates had set part of the prison on fire and dug part of
the wall, in order to escape, but hundreds of police officers, prison
guards and other security agents were deployed to the scene to curb the
crisis.

Abdul Bola, the
Public Relations Officer of the Nigeria Prison Service, Kaduna, also
said order has been restored to the prison, that the inmates have been
returned to their cells and that no one escaped during the disturbance.

A source at the prison added that the prisoners were also not happy
with the poor feeding arrangement at the prison and its overcrowded
cells.

The
National Economic Council (NEC) has decided to decongest prisons by
hastening the execution of inmates on death row, and commute some death
sentences to life terms.

According to the
Abia State governor, Theodore Orji, who spoke on the resolution of the
council yesterday, government is also determined to assist the
judiciary and police to reduce the number of inmates awaiting trial.
These inmates account for 80 per cent of the prison population.

The governor said
he believes that these measures will go a long way in decongesting
prisons and reducing incidences of jail breaks.

“There is no basis
that somebody who [has] not been committed, at least has not been
condemned, [should] be in prison for ten years for an offence committed
which the court has not ruled against him,” Mr, Orji explained. “So the
proper thing is to decongest the prison by looking at these cases and
leaving them to go. And that will also on the long run make sure that
this upheavals and protest that we have in the prisons are also taken
care of and curtailed adequately.”

Other decisions

The council
further decided that the N31 billion Universal Basic Education
Commission (UBEC) fund should be made accessible to states that are
still unable to provide their 50 percent counterpart funding. The fund
will given to commercial banks that will lend it to the states at a
single-digit interest rate.

On the problem of
multiple-taxation, the governors noted that this has led to higher
prices for commodities across the country. The council resolved that
states should do away with tax consultants or collectors and ensure
their boards of internal revenue do their professional duties while the
federal government properly coordinates and implements national tax
policies.

The council also
decided to replace the Workmen Compensation Act with a
recently-proposed Employees Compensation Bill that they hope will be
passed into law by the National Assembly. One per cent of the states’
and federal budget is to be committed to the implementation of the new
Act when it becomes law.

Meanwhile, a
central database of statistics is to be developed by the National
Bureau of Statistics with the support of the African Development Bank
and the United Nations Development Programme.

Seventeen states have already been linked to Abuja electronically
for the project which will gather data on all aspects of the nation
from federal to state levels for the purpose of proper planning of
policies.

The
National Economic Council rose from its meeting yesterday at the
presidential villa determined to replace the Excess Crude Account with
a National Sovereign Wealth Fund to manage the country’s excess funds.
All but five governors, who were stranded in various countries due to
weather problems, were in attendance. The inspector general of police
and the central bank governor were also at the event. The meeting,
which holds quarterly, was chaired by Acting President Goodluck
Jonathan. After the closed-door meeting, the Minister of Finance, Segun
Aganga; his National planning counterpart, Shamsudeen Usman and the
governors of Ogun and Abia states, explained that the fund is designed
to boost the institutional framework and improve the fiscal policy for
managing excess crude earnings. “This is a concept which is quite
familiar, particularly to oil-producing countries. It is a very robust
institutional framework for managing excess revenue which today we do
have in the excess crude account,” said Mr. Aganga.

Use of the fund

Mr. Aganga pointed
out that it would be irresponsible to spend all the nation’s crude oil
earnings now, explaining that the fund will be deployed to critical
infrastructure needs like power and mass transportation.

He noted that the
fund is similar to the excess crude account except that the new fund
will have legitimacy instead of being a product of political and
economic expediency that crude account became under former president
Olusegun Obasanjo.

“The acting
president today said he wanted us to get to a position where we should
be able to do something within the next three months. Already there was
a presidential committee set up by the president which has been looking
at this.”

Mr. Usman added
that Nigeria is the only country within the Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries (OPEC) without a sovereign wealth fund, adding that
the idea was discussed two years ago but its implementation was delayed
because of inconsistent government polices.

Mr. Aganga said it was important to begin the fund as soon as possible, regardless of the initial cost.

“So even if it is
$1 billion we start with, the idea, the institutional framework, the
fiscal discipline is so important to the credibility of the country
itself and the credit rating of the country,” he said.

Meanwhile, Mr Jonathan yesterday sent two additional ministerial nominees to the Senate for confirmation.

The nominees are
Obadiah Ando (Taraba) and Christian Chukwu (Ebonyi). Senate President
David Mark informed the senate of the appointments during the plenary
session of the upper chamber on Tuesday. The Senate had earlier
confirmed the appointments of 38 ministerial nominees who had since
been sworn-in by the Acting President.

Meanwhile, Jonathan in a separate letter condoled with the Senate
over the death of Tawar Wada and Kawo Dukku both senators from Gombe
who died on March 31 and April 2 respectively.

As
the 5th edition of the annual Lagos Economic Summit commenced
yesterday, the state’s commissioner for economic planning and budget,
Ben Akabueze, stated that 34 out of the 37 recommendations issued at
the end of the last summit have been met by the state government.

Mr Akabueze, who
also doubles as chairman of the Lagos Economic Summit Group, made the
declaration at the opening of the 2010 edition of the summit while
reviewing the last summit. Amongst issues listed by the commissioner in
which the state government had made giant strides are the increasing
volume of the state’s internally generated revenue, adequate
accountability of the funds, more road constructions and effective
implementation of sustainable reforms in the state’s civil service.

He assured delegates that their contributions will be adequately utilised in developing the state.

World class hub

The state’s
governor, Babatunde Fashola, was unavoidably absent at the opening day
of the summit as he was reportedly stuck in London due to the Icelandic
volcanic eruption ash that has prevented airlines from flying in the
European airspace for over a week.

Representing him,
the deputy governor, Sarah Sosan, urged the private sector to come and
support the government’s plan in building Lagos state to become a model
mega-city in Africa.

“Lagos State
sovereign rating now ranks at par with the federal government,” she
said, adding that the state now “generates 70% of its income and relies
on the federal government for just 30% of the shared revenue.” The
keynote speaker, Paul Collier, a professor at Oxford University in the
United Kingdom, was also unable to attend the event as he was also held
back in England due to cancellation of flights as a result of the
volcanic ash.

His speech, titled
“Making Lagos, a world class Economic Hub”, was delivered via video
streaming from the UK to the delegates present at the summit.

In the speech, Mr.
Collier urged the Lagos government to adequately reform the state’s
civil service and the process in public financing of infrastructural
projects by reducing bottlenecks such as red tapes and bureaucracies so
as to make the state an attractive place to do business.

The speaker was
full of praise for the state governor whom he said has demonstrated
good leadership. According to Mr. Collier, “building Lagos state into a
model mega city of Africa is hinged on confidence”, and confidence, he
said, is “built on strong institutions.”

He described Mr.
Fashola as a good leader who makes great leadership less stressful in
the future by building the institutions needed for the future.”

Place of Lagos in Africa

A documentary was
aired at the event to showcase the growing essence of Lagos as a major
economic hub in the continent. Highlighting the areas of the state’s
economy that the government is strategising to further develop, the
government solicited the support of the private sector and investors in
developing the state’s infrastructure such as power generation, water
supply, transportation, real estate, sanitation and tourism.

According to Mr.
Fashola, who was featured in the documentary, “Lagos State with an
estimated population of 25 million people demands a power generation
capacity of 12,000MW but currently generates only 1,000MW and the power
consumption is estimated to grow to 20,000MW by the year 2020. There is
immense opportunity for the private sector to come and benefit from
this as we strive as much as possible to create the necessary conducive
and viable environment for them to run their businesses.”

The three day summit enters its second day today at the Eko Hotel
and Suites where there will be more deliberations on a number of issues
affecting infrastructural development of the state, as it works towards
becoming “Africa’s model mega-city.”

Federal
and state health authorities should train and empower nurses in the
rural areas to work independently of doctors to deliver health services
to the people, the minister of state for health, Suleman Bello, said
yesterday in Benin.

Mr. Bello, who was
represented at the opening ceremony of the 2010 Annual Conference of
Principals/Heads of Nursing Education Programmes in Nigeria by Animaeze
Ezenwa Ike, Director of Nursing Services, Federal Ministry of Health,
said nurses in rural areas should also be allowed to play a more active
part in the medical surveillance of clients with chronic illnesses.

The minister, who
said government should expand healthcare services by creating special
nursing clinics in rural areas where nurses could provide medical care
to the people, also advised the nurses to press for licences to enable
them issue prescriptions for common drugs.

He, however, advised the nurses against leaving our country for greener pastures abroad.

“While it is
important that sufficient number of nursing graduates acquire new
knowledge in their chosen field, it is equally important that adequate
effort must be put in place to prevent human capital flight of nurses
from the country to other nations,” he said.

The Edo State
government congratulated organizers of the conference. The state
governor was represented by the state commissioner for health, Moses
Momoh, who said a vibrant nursing profession will ensure a healthy
nation, and reduce the negative consequences of the global economic
meltdown.

Improved midwife scheme

Mr. Momoh also said
that a midwife scheme, aimed at reducing maternal and infant mortality,
has taken off in Edo State. He advised principals and heads of nursing
programmes to “put in more effort to ensure that your products (nurses)
show more empathy and respect to all their clients in the face of the
economic meltdown.” The conference, with the theme, “Global Economic
Meltdown: A Challenge to Nursing Education and Practice,” attracted
participants from across the nation.

Billboards
and posters of any politician who does not register with and pay
stipulated fees to the Ekiti State Signage and Advertisement Agency
will henceforth be removed, the Agency’s Director General, Femi Ajayi,
said yesterday in Ado Ekiti.

Mr. Ajayi, who addressed a news conference in
Ado-Ekiti, warned advertisers and politicians flouting the signage law
in the state, to desist or be charged to court.

“Outdoor advertisements are not free in any part of
the world and no political party is free from conforming to the law.
The signage law surpasses either political divisions or partisanship,”
he said. “The signage law is designed to control and sanitize the
outdoor landscape in the state. It is compulsory for all political
parties, all aspirants for councillorship, chairmanship, assembly,
senatorial, governorship and presidential, to register and pay for
their outdoor billboards and posters. It also covers all private and
religious bodies.”

He stressed that hiding under political sentiment to disobey the signage law is unacceptable to the government.

“Whipping up sentiment through pasting of posters is
highly diversionary,” he said. “Those flouting the law using their
political clout will be held accountable and punished, with their
advertising billboards removed, confiscated and fined.

Since we all want a rule-based environment, to make
the state better, leaders have the responsibility of upholding those
rules.”

Task force on law

He added that the government would soon establish a task force to make sure that politicians comply with the signage law.

While calling on the state government to create a
mobile court which will have the responsibility of prosecuting on the
spot those who flout the law, the director general also said that a
signage fee must be paid on all branded vehicles, and other items used
either for political campaign or to advertise products and services.

He said the signage law was not aimed at preventing
any political parties from enjoying publicity, adding that churches,
mosques and other places of worship were not left out.