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How do you intend to win election in a state practically controlled by a dynasty?

We intend to win
the election simply by connecting with the people of the state. The
people are yearning for positive change. They want an improvement in
their lives; they want restoration of their dignity as Kwara people.
They want economic, social and political liberation from a hegemonic
few; so these are the things people are yearning for and these are the
areas we are connecting with people and these are the basis upon which
we will win the election.

You work and reside in Lagos, how connected are you with the common man in Patigi or Shonga?

Well, most of my
life has been in Kwara State. I went to secondary school in IIorin and
even after secondary school, I spent my holidays in Ilorin. A lot of my
childhood and personal friends and family all live in Kwara State.
Don’t forget that my father worked as the Solicitor-General and
Commissioner for Justice, so I am very in touch with people.

What strategies do you have to counter the massive followership of the Saraki dynasty?

Election is about
the true test of the popularity of people and in a free and fair
election, we (the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN) will clearly dispute
that assertion of the Saraki’s supposed multitude supporters. What we
have is a situation whereby we are offering the people what they should
be getting all these years. We are offering them free qualitative
education, free medical services to a certain class. We are giving
people the opportunity to earn a living and giving them the power to
believe in themselves to uplift themselves economically because this is
the key. If you take out electoral malpractices (a lot of which we have
discovered in past elections) and then take out the use of state
instrumentalities of suppression and bribery, the Saraki factor is
nothing in Kwara politics.

How will you assess the eight years of Bukola Saraki’s administration?

I will say it’s not
good enough. The last eight years of Bukola Saraki has not done enough
to give the people of Kwara what they need, what they deserve and what
is their right. He is one of the better PDP governors but he is only
better amongst a very, very bad lot. In terms of overall achievement I
won’t score him high at all.

Do you think the split between brother and sister will be in your favour?

Split or no split
between them has absolutely no concern for me. I am concerned with
delivering to the generality of the people of Kwara. It is what the
Kwara people need at this time that we are concerned with, not what
happens between a brother and a sister or a father and a son.

What are your economic plans for the state popularly referred to as a civil service state?

There are certain
disadvantaged areas in the state. The first thing that we will do is
bring in some activities by establishing some government presence
because at the moment the government is still the largest benefactor in
any society. So we’ll bring government presence to generate some
micro-effect and to create jobs and a few more bread winners and that
will begin to give a boost. We already have a proposal in contemplation
where we will set-up some high employment generating activity in each
of the three senatorial zones and we will do this within the first six
months. That creates employment; which is the key to boost morale. As
more people have jobs then we’ll have the trickle-down effect which
then enables the government to plan its activities because in the short
term, people are seeing things and earning income.

One of the touted projects of the outgoing administration is the Shonga farms. What will your policy be on the project?

The jury is still
out on Shonga farms. Any agricultural policy must have three things for
it to be successful in my view. One, it must boost food production for
the people of the state. Two, it’s got to create employment and three,
generate revenue for the state. Those are the three criteria on which
any agricultural policy must be judged and the Shonga farms fails
woefully on all three. It is a total waste of money. Foreign investment
as I understand it, is that the foreigner brings in the investment and
that is not the case with Shonga farms.

What they’ve done
is that they pay them (the Zimbabwean white farmers) to come and then
we are paying them to repatriate proceeds of the investment. That is
not foreign investments and it defeats the essence of the agricultural
policy. The produce of Shonga farms are not available for the benefit
of the local community. Till date the government has not given a proper
account of how much revenue has been earned from the Shonga farms since
its inception.

So what will you do with Shonga farm when you become governor of Kwara State?

We will certainly
have a good look at it. It will be foolish of me to say we will abolish
it or discontinue all together. We will not throw away the baby with
the bath water. In other words if the project can be salvaged to make
it genuinely meaningful and beneficial to the state and its people, we
will look for ways of salvaging it and that must be the first priority
because a lot of money has gone into it and we won’t want to waste
that. But if it turns that it is just a total drain on the state’s
resources and it is something that is bad for the morale of the people
then we may just have to cut our losses. But then again, it will be
subject to a thorough review.

What is the crux of your Kwara content policy?

Kwara content
policy is our initiative to ensure that government patronage would
first be given to Kwara people to enhance employment generation. In
other words when there are big projects to be executed by the state
government we will look for capacity from Kwara people.

When there is no
capacity the contractor that gets the project will be conditioned to
employ local people and must set about a credible programme where our
local people must be trained to transfer technology which will
ultimately generate such capacity in the state. All contracts will be
made public, so local labour, skilled and unskilled, can show interest.
There is nothing new to this scheme; it’s akin to the local content
policy in the oil and gas industry. That is one of major ways we
believe we can develop local capacity because as long as certain
calibre of jobs necessarily go to certain people because there is no
local capacity, we will never develop our local capacity.

Given the ethnic politics between Offa and Ilorin, aren’t you at a disadvantage as an Ilorin indigene?

At this point in
time, what Kwara needs is not where anybody is from, it is who will
salvage the state and take it to the next level, giving it a giant leap
in its development. It’s a fair and sensible argument and I respect
people who make it because there is a sense of fairness and equity in
it, but we have got to look at the circumstance of the state. What
Kwara needs is proper economic development at this time. Though being a
state since 1967, Kwara State has not truly developed to its potential.

Kwara need not be a
civil-servant state. So what people are looking at is who can propel
its growth and I think it is secondary nature where anybody comes from
at this time.

What’s your
take on the controversy over your emergence as ACN’s candidate with
support from Lagos and the party’s lack of internal democracy?

There is nothing
that says I as an individual cannot aspire to an office and secondly
there is nothing that says anybody that wants to support me, should
not. The questions we should ask is, did I go through the right
process? Yes I came into the party on the back of strong support from
almost everybody in the ACN simply because the party has certain
attributes they want in their candidates and immediately I expressed
that interest they saw that this could be a good guy. But unlike you
have in other parties there was never any time we said there will be no
primaries in Kwara, or which the rules were changed for me, nor were
any candidates forced to step down. What happened was that immediately
we got into the race, we attracted massive support from the general
public and that was the ground swell that we took to the primaries. A
few people who clearly will leave the party if they didn’t get their
way, left at the end of the primaries but the party remains very
strong. My message to those few who have left is always that, we still
want them back and that we will welcome them with open arms.

Why do you want to sacrifice a successful career for the murky waters of Nigerian politics?

Because the
country needs it. We all have to get out of our comfort zones. It is
not enough for us to be comfortable. For example, look at what is
happening now in Lagos where kidnapping is growing to be a norm. This
thing started four, five years ago in the Niger Delta and nobody spoke
up because it wasn’t a major concern for us here. We can’t just sit in
our comfort zone and not be concerned with what is going on. We have to
see what is going on in the states and country has a challenge and we
have all got to come out and salvage it. For me, leadership is about
sacrifice, it’s not about personal gain or aggrandisement. It’s not
about seeking attention; it is about trying to make things better than
the way you have found it and that’s why am in this race.

How are you financing your campaigns?

I have realised
it’s a very expensive business and it is particularly expensive in
Kwara State given the fact that money has been the determining factor
all these years, but this is where one draws on the goodwill that has
been built over the years and this has increased the number of people
who supported our course, who believe that Kwara cannot go on
continuing in the current condition that it is. There must be change
and from these people we get support financially, logistically and so
on but I do agree that it’s a big money venture and we are giving it
all we’ve got.

The former
chairman of the Nigerian Ports Authority, Olabode George, who was
sentenced to prison two years ago for fraud was released yesterday to
rapturous welcome by his family and political associates.

Mr. George, a
chieftain in the Peoples Democratic Party, exited the gates of the
Kirikiri Maximum Prison, Lagos at exactly 10;10 am on Saturday morning
amidst fanfare and jubilations.

He traded the
Prison fatigues for a native attire and as he stepped out he was
embraced by his wife, close family members and few party chieftains. He
later moved to a church where a thanksgiving service was held for him.
Leaders of the PDP, including former president, Olusegun Obasanjo and
some senior government officials were present at the occasion.

Read full story in tomorrow’s NEXT On Sunday.

The past two weeks must have been the most trying times in the six-year-old marriage of Folorunsho Odegbaike and her husband.

On February 13,
their 10-month-old baby, Enioluwa Odegbaike went missing from their
Magodo home while in the custody of a nanny they hired just two weeks
before.

Enioluwa, born
five years after his parents got married, was believed to have been
abducted by the nanny, who was known only as Victoria.

After two weeks of frantic search, Baby Enioluwa was finally reunited with her parents on Saturday morning.

According to a member of the Odegbaike family, he was found in the border town of Badagry in Lagos.

“Yes he has been found. He is fine and he is in good health,” he said.

One of Enioluwa’s aunty, who identified herself as Ibukun in a broadcast message, confirmed that he was found in good health,

“Yes! Indeed, the
baby has been found! “Yes! Thank you so much for your concern, yes
Enioluwa is back home,” said the aunty, who added that she was
currently at the Odegbaike residence. “Our dearest baby and now yours,
Enioluwanimi just came back home safely at 8.20am this morning,” she
said.

The search for Enioluwa

The family
reportedly never allowed the nanny to take Enioluwa outside the house;
but she took the boy while his mother, a former Airtel employee, was in
the shower.

The Odegbaike
family immediately circulated a text message, as well as Blackberry
Broadcast messages with the baby’s picture that went viral immediately
after the kidnapping was discovered.

“Please let us
join voices tonight to pray & lift our voices to God about the
disappearance of Enioluwa Odegbaike who has been missing since last
Sunday…” the message read.

Since then, the
message, along with photos of Enioluwa and the nanny, have been
circulated on the Internet. It appeared on hundreds and perhaps
thousands of Facebook pages, Twitter updates, and has continued to
spread among BlackBerry users.

When the story of the boy’s disappearance was published on www.234next.co m on February 23, it got about 70
comments offering prayers and asking for more information about the boy
and the nanny. Many commenters volunteered to help search for the boy.

It is safe to say
that about 100,000 people are now aware of Enioluwa’s kidnapping, and
probably about half of that number are prayed at some point that the
boy be returned safely to his parents.

There were also
reports that the Odegbaikes received telephone calls from about 20
different phone numbers within six days from some unknown location in
Cameroun following their son’s kidnap, although no ransom was demanded.

It is still uncertain if the family paid any ransom to ensure the safe return of their baby.

The Public
Relations Officer of the Lagos State Police Command, Samuel Jinadu
could also not be reached to comment on the matter.

The mobile phone
of Mr Jinadu, who is the only authorised police spokesperson in Lagos
State, was called several times but it was switched off.

Last week, Mr Jinadu announced the arrest of the man who acted as the nanny’s referee and who introduced her to the Odegbaikes.

“The person who introduced the nanny to the family has been arrested and is being quizzed by the police,” he said.

“The case has been
transferred to the State CID. All efforts are being made to find the
missing boy. The case is still under investigation.”

Found by the media

Over the years,
the Internet and news media have played a vital role in helping to find
missing children. Five-year-old Sharon Omolayo was kidnapped from her
school, Avicenna International School, GRA, Ikeja, Lagos by a trusted
employee of her family on December 13, 2010. Her family sent photos of
Sharon and her abductor across the Web and television stations
broadcast them also.

The media also
helped with the release of two adults, Ify Eneli and Michael Neri, who
were kidnapped on Friday, January 28 after leaving a night club in
Victoria Island, Lagos.

Their photos were
all over the Internet after they were abducted. A few other successes
have been recorded, and with the safe return of Enioluwa to her family,
many believe that the effort of the media, and concerned people across
the country, has paid off once more.

“We cannot begin
to express how much we appreciate you for your prayers, visits, phone
calls and support which eased the traumatic experience of the last 15
days. I am truly overwhelmed and I only ask the Lord to bless and
reward you indeed… Our hearts are full of rejoicing! Thank you
Jesus!” One of Enioluwa’s aunts said.

At press time, details of how Enioluwa was found were unclear and there was no word about the whereabouts of the nanny.

The Federal Government has ordered the police to enforce the law
prohibiting use of tinted vehicles on Nigerian roads. The Minister of Police
Affairs, Humphrey Abah revealed this at a press conference in Abuja, “with
effect from February 28, 2011, owners of tinted vehicles would be made to
remove them by policemen on the spot, CAP M21, Motor vehicle prohibiting tinted
glass Act, forbids use of heavily filmed cars.” he said.

Mr. Abah said, the Federal Road Safety Corps and Road Traffic
Services personnel are to assist the police in enforcing the law, and cars with
factory-fitted tinted glasses are exempted from the directive. With this new
directive ,only the President, his vice, governors, the Senate President, his
deputy and majority leader as well as the Speaker, House of Representatives are
permitted to use tinted glasses in the country.

The ministry boss warned that “unauthorised use of siren will
attract severe sanction as such vehicles will be confiscated, adding that
owners of vehicles with foreign numbers have two weeks to register them or
remove them from the road.”

As part of the enforcement of the new law, Mr. John Haruna, the FCT Police
Commissioner, revealed that “his men had arrested and arraigned drivers of
tinted cars, most of which belonged to highly placed people.” Mr. Haruna
maintained that “the existing taskforce would be enlarged with personnel of the
State Security Service, Civil Defence Corps, police and the military to enforce
the ministerial directive.”

President Goodluck
Jonathan yesterday said his appointment of the Chief of Army Staff,
Azubuike Ihejirika, a Lieutenant General, was hinged on merit and his
resolve not to discriminate against any ethnic group in the country but
to ensure equal opportunities for all.

He stated this
during a courtesy call on members of the Abia State traditional rulers
council led by its chairman, His Majesty, Eze John Akaniru, in Aba,
where the PDP campaign train touched yesterday.

Mr. Jonathan said
he chose Mr. Ihejirika after much submissions and analysis and
conviction of his brilliance and competence amongst his contemporaries,
to buttress his administration’s policy of equal opportunities for all
Nigerians.

“He is a brilliant
and competent officer and when people thank me for his appointment I
say no, because we are re-creating a Nigeria where no one or ethnic
group suffers discrimination of any kind. I did not know him, I did not
know he was from Abia State, but I did my analysis and I was told he
was the best and I decided that being the best he has to take the job,”
the president said.

Mr. Jonathan also
reassured the people of his government’s commitment to eradicate
kidnapping and to also tackle security issues in the South East region
and the entire nation.

“We are working day
and night and we are going to employ all modern technological methods
to halt the trend of insecurity across the country, particularly in the
South East,” he said.

Mr. Jonathan, who
at the ceremony was conferred with the title of ‘Omezuri Abia’ (meaning
the one that has built Abia) by the Abia traditional rulers, thanked
the traditional rulers and their counterparts across the South East for
the honour bestowed on him and his wife, Patience, and also for their
overwhelming support for him and his running mate during the PDP
primaries.

He called for their
continued support in the forthcoming elections where he is standing as
the presidential aspirant of the Peoples Democratic Party.

Earlier, Eze
Akaniru commended President Jonathan for appointing prominent Igbo sons
and daughters into key positions in the country, and for restoring
security of lives and property in the South East particularly Abia, “at
a time when we almost lost hope security-wise.”

“Your campaign is a campaign of hope for all Nigerians and we are
praying for your success. Rest assured that no single vote from Abia
State will go to any other political party or aspirant apart from you
and the PDP,” the traditional ruler said.

The KOWA party on Thursday, said that it
had formally confirmed the nomination of Mr. Fola Adeola as the running
mate of Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN)
presidential candidate for the April poll. The new running mate is a
party member of KOWA, the party in a statement in Lagos said the
approval was sequel to the National Executive Committee and Board of
Trustees (BOT) meeting held on Monday, February 21, 2011, in Abuja.

The statement was signed by Mrs Oluremi
Sonaiya, the Public Relations Officer of the KOWA Party. It was
reported that Mr. Ribadu had earlier submitted to the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC), the name of a US-based Nigerian,
Dr Stanley Ugochukwu as his running mate for the April poll. This
changed after much deliberations within the leadership of the ACN and
finally on February 21, Mr Fola Adeola, former Managing Director and
Chief Executive Officer of Guaranty Trust Bank PLC, was picked for the
post .

KOWA’s statement declared that the
party’s release of Adeola and his acceptance to serve was without
prejudice to their commitment to the ideals and vision of KOWA party.
‘‘At the NEC meeting in Abuja, the party leadership declared Mr Adeola’s
selection as a critical move necessitated by the enormity of the task
of rescuing Nigeria from its current desperate state,” it said. ‘‘KOWA
will promote the Ribadu/Adeola ticket on ACN platform to institute the
good governance and present a viable alternative for Nigerians come
April 2011,” it stressed.

NAN

The Presidency
yesterday reiterated its claim that Goodluck Jonathan inherited most of
his aides from his predecessor, late Umaru Yar’adua who also took over
some of them from the administration of Olusegun Obasanjo.

The spokesperson
to the president, Ima Niboro said there was need to condemn “the
willful distortion of the list of appointees.” He said, “If you go
through the list you will know that some of them were already there and
only relocated to fill vacancies at the president’s wing,” he said.

A NEXT report had stated that the Presidency has an army of 133 aides who get paid about N780 million every year.

The report also
said Mr. Jonathan, after being sworn in as president last May,
following the death of Mr Yar’Adua, not only retained almost all the
special aides appointed by his late boss, but also appointed 57 new
ones.

Mr Niboro, in his
second response on the issue, said most of the new appointments were
made to fill in vacant positions at the office of the President and
Vice President, when the president vacated his office as vice president
to the office of the President.

“You don’t come
into office and fire everyone. Here we are complaining about
institutional memory and someone somewhere believes the president
should fire everybody,” he said. “Having said that, I think it is quite
silly to claim that I told a lie, when the evidence that I am correct
stares you in the face. I maintain that apart from the normal positions
the president filled in the presidency, a large number were inherited.
The president has created only a handful of key positions, like the
special advisers on power, policy monitoring, SSA on Diaspora Affairs,
the Coordinator of Anti Terrorism, and a couple of others that were
found to be needed for the times.

“Indeed I can tell
you that the president has not even exhausted the Special Adviser
positions approved for him by the National Assembly,” he said.

The Federal Government on Wednesday in Benin
flagged off the first phase of the Benin-Abraka road reconstruction
project with a call on host communities in the area to cooperate with
the contracting firm, Reynolds Construction Company (RCC).

The 30km road project was part of the contracts
approved for the 2010 budget, with the sum of N9.75 billion allocated
for the project which will be supervised by the Ministry of Niger Delta
Affairs.

Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godsday Orubebe
who performed the flagging off ceremony un-behalf of President Goodluck
Jonathan, said the road construction will be completed within three
years. He assured the people that the construction company handling the
project will do an excellent job.

On his part, the Minister of State
for Works, Chris Ogiemwonyi, disclosed that the federal government road
project will cut across Edo and Delta States, adding that the first
phase cuts across three local government areas of Orhiomwon,
Ikpoba-Okha and Oredo in Edo State.

Prisoners across
the country will soon begin to benefit from better training and
infrastructure, the comptroller-general of prisons, Ogunsola Ogundipe,
has said. Mr. Ogundipe who was represented by the deputy comptroller of
prisons (finance), Salawu Momodu, said the prison service has started a
restoration programme which will ensure that inmates are no longer
housed in substandard buildings. He made the statement in Abuja on
Tuesday at the fifth International World Conference on Human Rights,
Criminal Justice and Prison Reform, hosted by the Citizens United for
the Rehabilitation of Errants. Mr. Ogundipe said that the training of
inmates to prepare them to adapt to the real world after their jail
terms would form part of the restoration programme.

“We are building
new prisons and upgrading old ones in a bid to develop prison
infrastructure, to ensure that inmates are kept in humane places. We
are also carrying out manpower development,” he said.

Mr. Ogundipe also said that the problem of prison congestion was
because of the large number of people awaiting trial. He said that the
prisons were designed for convicts and not those awaiting trial. Mr.
Ogundipe promised that the reforms taking place in the prison service
would ensure that the problem was tackled soon. He said that with
increased funding, the prisons would do better, arguing that the
colonial structures in the country should be updated. The former chief
justice of the federation, Muhammed Uwais, who also spoke at the event,
said the process of reforming the judicial prison system in Nigeria was
ongoing. He said that although Nigeria was still lagging behind
compared to other countries in the world, “we will catch up with them”.

The Nigerian
Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) on Wednesday said that it has
commenced the migration from the current terrestrial operations to
satellite-based navigation to enhance safety across the nation’s
airspace.

According to the
agency, arrangements have been concluded for the takeoff of the project
in March, and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has
been contracted to carry out the job which is to cost the organisation
₦360 million. “There are ample opportunities for airlines to fly in and
out of the airport with flexibility. It is going to be economical for
them as they will burn less fuel, make quicker turn and talk less with
the Air Traffic Controllers,” said Supo Atobatele, General Manager,
Public Affairs, NAMA at the agency’s headquarters in Lagos.

The satellite
navigation system configures a country’s airspace with the Global
Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), which is carried out through the
World Geodetic System 84 (WGS84) survey. Its completion will augment
flight operations, making it easier and safer for pilots to navigate
through the airspace. Funds spent in the acquisition of aviation fuel
will be reduced to a “large extent” when the satellite navigation
system is in place, and the difficulty experienced by airlines and air
traffic controllers in the positioning of aircraft in motion and on the
runway will be adequately corrected, according to the airspace agency.

Mr. Atobatele said
that the federal government will bear the cost of the project, adding
that the International Air Transport Association has carried out survey
of the 22 airports controlled by the Federal Airports Authority of
Nigeria (FAAN) including two others owned by the Akwa Ibom and Gombe
State governments. The NAMA spokesperson noted that at the moment the
project commenced at four major international airports in the country,
Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos; Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport, Abuja; Port
Harcourt Airport, Rivers; and Aminu Kano Airport, Kano.

“With this
movement, we’ve gone digital and the issue of obsolete equipment is no
longer there. The GNSS is a modern trend in air navigation spatial
coordinate of terrestrial points, which was established by the ICAO
(International Civil Aviation Organization) and it’s the acceptable
international terrestrial reference framework known as WGS84,” he said.

Mr. Atobatele
disclosed that some foreign carriers have been picked for the test
flights of the new system and that the ICAO had set a deadline of 2016
for all member countries to migrate to the new regime, adding that the
agency looks forward to completing the project by 2012. “When fully put
into use, pilots in flight will depend more on the satellite to
navigate to the airport covered by the survey and depend less on land
aids.

NAMA had trained its personnel, airline technical staff, naval
officers and air force personnel for efficient handling of the
equipment.”