The
Senate President, David Mark, has asked for the immortalisation of the
late traditional ruler of Adamawa State, Aliyu Mustapha, for ruling
Adamawa for half a century without any major incident of crises and
bloodletting.

He said this in a condolence message to the government and people of Adamawa State.

“It is a rare achievement that should be emulated by today’s leaders.”

Similarly, the Edo
State governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, described the death of the
late Lamido of Adamawa, as a big loss to Nigeria.

Also in a
condolence letter to the governor of Adamawa State, Admiral Murtala
Nyako (Rtd), Oshiomhole, who described his death as a rude shock not
only to his immediate kingdom, but also to Nigeria as a whole, said:

“The death of
Alhaji Mustapha could best be described as the end of a glorious era
for the institution of the Lamidoship. Through him, the throne of the
Lamido evolved over several tempestuous and eventful periods in the
evolution of Nigeria.

Throughout the
series of socio-political and economic changes that spanned almost six
decades, Alhaji Mustapha brought to bear on the throne great dignity,
which earned him respectability across regimes.”

Longest reigning king

Before his death,
Mr. Mustapha was the longest reigning monarch in the entire country. He
had immense relevance and influence within the corridors of power.

He was
father-in-law to Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president during
President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government. The late traditional ruler
died last Saturday, a month away to his 88th birthday. He was held at
high esteem by the northern political class. He was the chairman of the
Adamawa Emirate Council.

Mr. Mark implored
the government of Adamawa State to immortalise late Lamido for
posterity, “because his contributions to nation building are
immeasurable.”

His significance to Nigeria

“He was an epitome
of peace, unity and progress. The people of Adamawa and indeed all
Nigerians will miss his wise counsel,” Mr. Mark said, adding that he
was an astute administrator and a detribalised Nigerian who stood very
tall among his contemporaries.

Mr. Oshiomole added that he would be remembered by his people as an
accessible, caring and just leader, who was excellently versed in the
Islamic scriptures and who thoroughly applied Islam’s injunction of
compassion in leadership.

The House of
Representatives will, this week, begin its final consideration of the
2010 multi-trillion federal budget. The debate begins almost four
months after it received the estimates sent by President Umaru Yar’Adua
to the National Assembly.

The two chambers of
the legislature received Mr. Yar’Adua’s N4.079 trillion fiscal
proposals for the year, through the President’s Special Adviser on
National Assembly Affairs, Mohammed Abba-Aji, on November 24, 2009, a
day after he travelled to Saudi Arabia for medical attention.

The Senate later confirmed a proposal of about N300 billion was sent by the president for additional approval.

Blame delay on the president

Although the
estimates were detailed to respective legislative committees for
consideration, lawmakers admitted that the controversies created during
the president’s continued poor health, have affected the delivery of
the Assembly.

The House of
Representatives has listed the presentation and consideration of the
outcome of its committees’ work for Thursday this week, after which the
budget will be prepared for the third and final reading.

Ita Enang, who
heads the House committee on Business and Rules, said he is
“optimistic” the consideration of the report will be carried out this
week by the lawmakers

“I can say with a 70% to 80% certainty that the budget will be received for consideration this week,” Mr. Enang said.

He, however, said
the planned deliberation is not certain, and did not guarantee its
outcome. “We cannot conclusively say anything on its outcome.”

Lawmakers through
the 64 House committees will be expected to either scale up or down
specific provisions contained in the original document submitted by the
presidency before a subsequent harmonization with the Senate. The
Senate has yet to make clear its planned schedule for the consideration.

During the initial consideration of the appropriation bill last
year, many lawmakers faulted the president’s preference for a budget
led in majority by a recurrent expenditure of N3.382 trillion while the
development (capital) expenditure has N1.37 trillion.

Oxfam, a
development, relief and campaigning nongovernmental organisation that
works with other partners to find solution to poverty around the world
said that small scale farmers are being marginalised in the
implementation of policies that should impact positively on their
enterprises across Nigeria.

Ojobo Atuluku, lead
consultant of Development in Practice, engaged by Oxfam to access the
impact of the NGO0 programmes on some Nigerian farmers in the last one
year said the government would be able to go only so far in achieving
food security until the disregard of small scale farmers is erased.

Unfriendly policies

Presenting her
report at the annual monitoring and evaluation meeting of Oxfam and
partners in Abuja yesterday, Ms. Atuluku said “I have been in the field
looking at Oxfam work in the past year and by field, I mean the states
of Oyo, Ekiti, Nassarawa, Plateau, Benue, Katsina and FCT, and the
focus has been interacting with small scale farmers that Oxfam has been
working with as well as the partner organisations in those states and
all across it is so clear that small scale farmers find agricultural
policies very unfriendly.”

Ms. Atuluku said
that the complaints of the farmers remain that they are “invisible
within agricultural policy and that it is not possible for them to
benefit from those policies. The story across the country surrounds
issues of input, fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides, tractors, credit
facilities. They do not have access to all these and so the challenge
becomes ‘why is this the case even as the federal and state government
are placing a lot of emphasis on agricultural issues?’”

Marginalisation of small scale farmers

Ms. Atuluku cited
the example of how the federal government came up with a scheme that
provides N200 billion for farmers. N40bilion out of this had been set
aside for small scale farmers, but the conditions are that the farmers
must provide collateral. Unfortunately, this excludes farms with low
value.

“All these are conditions that the small scale farmers have no clue or access to,” she said.

This therefore
means that even if that money is set aside for small scale farmers, it
will remain un-accessed or eventually be gotten by people who are not
small scale farmers.

Ajayeoba Ayodeji,
campaign manager of Oxfam, said the meeting was an avenue to validate
the report of the consultant and plan ahead for effective delivery of
their mandate.

“We have
commissioned a consultant to go into field to go and meet with partners
and Nigerian NGOs that we work with communities where we are working
basically to access the impact of the work we are doing, the challenges
and the opportunities and lessons we have learnt. We sit here and
verify it,” said Mr. Ayodeji.

He said all the
efforts are geared towards improving the productivity of small scale
farmers and engaging the government for improved agricultural
governance while providing opportunities for women that will help
reduce inequality and poverty and support Nigeria attain food
sufficiency.

Voices for food security

One of the farmers, Amina Bala Jibrin from Bauchi State, said Oxfam programmes have been very impactful.

“Oxfam constituted the voices for food security and they want the
small scale farmers to be heard,” Ms. Jibrin said. “It is a very good
idea because farmers in the rural areas are not given proper attention.
What is due to them is not given to them. They do not benefit from
inputs because it has to go through other channels before it comes to
the small scale farmer it is gone.”

Seven cities are to benefit from the
integrated solid waste management facilities to be established by the
Federal Ministry of Environment, Garba Ahmad, Deputy Director, Federal
Ministry of Environment, said on Monday in Abuja.

According to Mr. Ahmad the facilities
were material recovery facility centre, composing plant, incinerator,
plastic recycling plant and land-filling plant and will be installed in
Kano, Uyo, Onitsha, Lagos, Kaduna, Maiduguri and Otta in Ogun.

He said under the first phase of
programme, the federal government undertook feasibility studies of 15
cities faced with acute environmental challenges.

He said the second phase of the
programme would involve a Public-Private Partnership arrangement
between the seven selected state governments, federal government and
the private sector.

The challenges of
development and national unity has been described as some of the major
obstacles to the effective delivery of Nigeria’s foreign policy, the
Permanent Secretary in the Foreign Affairs Ministry, Martins Uhomoibhi
said in Abuja on Monday.

“Nigeria, being a
developing country, faces challenges of development and national unity,
which often tend to undermine the effective delivery of the country’s
foreign policy.

“That is why there
has been a lack of coherence in the way our foreign policy has been
carried out over the years,” Mr. Uhomoibhi said. He however urged
Foreign Service officers and diplomats to always represent the country
in the best way possible, exhibiting a great deal of coherence and
logic in their policy presentations.

The Edo State
government has called on the police to ensure more proactive action and
save the state from threats of explosion attacks and criminal vices,
Anslem Ojezua, the state commissioner of information and orientation,
said in a statement yesterday.

According to Mr.
Ojezua, “The police must simply be more proactive and call a dog by its
name and treat it as such. The Inspector General of Police must fulfil
his statutory obligations to the people of Edo State by initiating,
without further delay, full criminal investigations into all these acts
of criminality that have become so notorious.”

He however also
alleged that some members of the Edo State House of Assembly from the
People’s Democratic Party (PDP) – Blessing Agbebaku and Frank Okiye
specifically – previously brought in dangerous and offensive weapons,
including battle axes and tear gas, which they freely used against
their colleagues.