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Osun State
governor, Rauf Aregbesola, has formally inaugurated the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission that would investigate all human right abuses
in the state in the last eight years.

He says that the commission is not targeted at any particular person or group of persons, neither is it a witch-hunt exercise.

Speaking at the
inaguration in Osogbo yesterday, Mr. Aregbesola charged the
seven-member committee not to be distracted in the discharge of its
duties but to be open minded and humane during the period of its
exercise.

The governor, who
noted that it was difficult to forget quickly how his administration
came into being through a court of appeal judgment in Ibadan which
nullified the election of the former governor, Olagunsoye Oyinlola,
stressed that all cases of injustices allegedly perpetrated by the
former administration should be properly investigated.

“We should not for
this reason forget how we got here. We did not arrive at this junction
ex nihilo – there was an antecedent of tears, sorrow, and blood. The
wounds inflicted are deep; the scars are vivid and permanently
disfiguring. Some are still painful.

“The painful
reality we must reconcile with, therefore, is that our today was
determined by our past and if we do not do anything about it, it is
going to gobble the future as well. This is the challenge we have on
our hand,” Mr. Aregbesola said.

“Election, a
necessary condition for democratic participation, became harbinger of
death, misery, and permanent incapacitation for many as choices were
cancelled and wrong persons imposed arbitrarily. Protests were visited
with repression as the security agencies were unleashed on peaceful
protesters on the streets, killing, maiming, and hounding them.

“Subsequently,
people were being rounded up in the comfort of their homes and put in
illegal detention on spurious charges. Serial abuse of human rights
became routine,” the governor further said.

He disclosed that
reconciliation must be preceded by truth, and encouraged members of the
commission to be bold, courageous, and firm, saying the cynics,
naysayers, and the guilty are going to criticise them.

The commission has
one month to complete its assignment with Samson Uwaifo, a retired
Supreme Court justice as chairman. Other members are Yunus Ustaz-Usman,
Ayo Atsenuwa, Funmi Falana, Hakeem Yusuff, Bamidele Aturu, and Waheed
Lawal. Nurudeen Ogbara will serve as the secretary of the commission.

Meanwhile, two
months after the Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of its 30 local
governments, Mr. Aregbesola, yesterday performed the swearing-in
ceremony of caretaker committees for the councils, with a charge to
them to shun corruption and conduct their affairs with integrity,
truth, and service to the people.

Speaking at the
swearing-in ceremony of the caretaker committee chairmen at the state
secretariat, Osogbo, the state deputy governor, Grace Laoye-Tomori,
called on the caretaker chairmen to give impetus to the rebranding
campaign designed to give Osun State her true identity in the comity of
Nigerian states.

Call for probe

However, the
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Osun State has called on the federal
government and security agencies in the country to investigate the
launch of a flag and coat of arms for Osun State by the state governor,
Rauf Aregbesola. The party also rejected the composition of members of
the Truth and Reconcilliation Committee by the governor.

The acting state
chairman of PDP, Sunday Ojo Williams, said yesterday in Osogbo that the
action is tantamount to teasonable felony, asking whether Osun State is
a separate entity from the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

“What is the
purpose of a crest and a coat of arms? From the look of it, the emblem
belongs to a secret cult. The federal government and the security
agencies in the country should investigate into the activities of Mr.
Aregbesola in Osun State,” Mr. Ojo-Williams said.

A lawyer, Bola Alake, however, explained that there was nothing illegal in the action of the state government.

“There is nothing unconstitutional with a state having its own coat
of arms. Nigeria is a federation and states have the power to shape
their own identity, independent of the federal government,” Mr. Alake
said.

The disaster-prone banquet hall of the Nasarawa
State government house in Lafia, suffered another setback when its roof
crumbled, marking the second major delay to the construction project in
less than one month.

Some new pillars on the N850 million project had
collapsed on January 19, although the state commissioner for
information, Mamman Alakayi denied that such an incident happened.

However, at the weekend, the rods mounted to
carry roofing sheets at the middle of the building broke down,
compelling Shelter Development Limited, the construction company
handling the project, to start all over again. Witnesses at the project
site told our reporter that work was going on smoothly until last
Sunday when disaster struck.

The project coordinator, John Mlanga Anyom,
insisted he was not aware of the recent incident. “It is not to my
knowledge,” he said.

Contract for the project was awarded last year, and the contractor
started the job in August after the foundation laying ceremony was
performed by the state governor, Aliyu Akwe Doma. He promised that the
work will be delivered in three months.

The Cross River
State commissioner of Police, Samson Wudah, has attributed the low
crime rate in the state to effective policing. Mr Wudah made this
statement when he visited the Cross State governor, Liyel Imoke. The
police boss said the challenges before the command include: inadequate
patrol vehicles, communication gadgets and office and residential
accommodation. He solicited the state’s assistance in the provision of
these facilities.

The Commissioner
said his command has a road map to peace and security in the state and
presented a manual on the challenges facing the command in the state to
the governor.

Mr Imoke in his
response said, the establishment of an emergency response centre by the
state government is an indication that the state is determined to
partner with the police in order to fight crime.

Keep the peace

The governor
described the partnership between the police and the state as extremely
important and promised to look into the request made by the police
commissioner, which he said will go a long way to put a check on
smuggling and piracy.

He also emphasised
on the need for a strong partnership between the two to tackle some of
the social vices in the state such as gangsterism and thuggery as
elections draw near. “The short stay of the commissioner since assuming
office was remarkable as it has brought about reduction in armed
robbery, burglary, hand bag and hand set snatching,” the governor
acknowledged. He advised the police to ensure that Cross River remains
the state with the lowest crime rate in Nigeria.

An Islamic
organisation, Association of Model Islamic Schools (AMIS), has faulted
the decision of the Oyo State government to ban food vendors in all
public primary and secondary schools in the state. AMIS, is the
umbrella body of all Islamic schools in the country. In an interaction
with journalists in Ibadan on Wednesday, AMIS said the government
should have devised a means of inspecting the food before they are sold
to the students instead of banning the food vendors from selling. The
government slammed the ban on Friday, after a rumour of food poisoning
created panick in the town, forcing parents to pick their wards from
schools for fear of being poisoned. The rumour had it that the state
governor, Adebayo Alao-Akala, was sponsoring food distribution in
schools to kill some pupils for rituals to guarantee his return to
office in April this year. The rumour was since denied by the
government claiming it was entirely false.

Tajudeen Salaudeen,
the national vice chairman of AMIS, who spoke on behalf of the group,
noted that the decision could force the pupils to eat whatever comes
their way since they have no choice. The press conference was called to
flag-off the association’s 12th annual conference of the organisation.
“Beheading is not the solution to headache, if government is banning
food vendors from selling from schools, can it ban them from selling
elsewhere and of course the students would find their way to wherever
they are and also be exposed to eating unhygienic food and in
unhygienic places.

“That will be
dangerous for the students unless the government is ready to provide
food for them. And if the government will do that, it must also be
extended to private schools because we believe the policy also affects
us. Let the food vendors be registered with teachers tasting the food
first. This is better than throwing all of them out into the
unemployment market,” he said.

Mr Salaudeen said
the rumour was the handiwork of desperate politicians, “politicians to
leave schools alone. They should not toy with the future of our
students because we know that politicians are behind it,” he said.

While calling for
more determined effort at advancing the course of education in Nigeria,
the cleric said, rather than imposing impracticable foreign ideas on
the local education, the government needs to involve everyone in
drawing educational policies that will suit the country.

“There was the need
to invite stakeholders, people who are managers in educational sector
before designing our educational policy. Most of the people who
designed our policies are people who sit down in their offices. People
who do not have anything to do with the system and the policy are often
alien to us and that is one of the reasons it has failed to achieve the
desired result.

There was the need to also look at what would sooth the environment.
It is not as if most of the policies are bad but there was no
consideration for our environment in designing such policies,” he
concluded.

Osun State Governor
Rauf Aregbesola has told the Osun State House of Assembly that he plans
to access a N25 billion credit line. The governor, in a letter dated
February 14, said he is seeking the approval of the parliament to
access the credit line to refinance the N18.3 billion loan that was
borrowed by the immediate past administration. The letter was read on
behalf of the speaker by the deputy speaker, Ropo Oyewole. Mr.
Aregbesola explained that after the loan was refinanced, “the amount
that will be available to government for spending will be N16.79
billion which will be utilized to execute the capital projects
highlighted in annex I to this letter”.

Debt legacy

Capital projects to
be funded from the facility, according to the governor’s letter,
include: provision of educational infrastructure, renewal of the urban
centers, construction/rehabilitation of rural roads, mass food
production, development of health facilities and provision of other
social infrastructure. Mr. Aregbesola also explained in the
correspondence to the House that with a monthly repayment of
N615,994,629.28, his administration could hardly execute any of its own
developmental programmes if the existing loan was not restructured. The
letter stated that out of the N18.3 billion, the former administration
was only able to pay N2.473 billion while the present administration
had paid two months’ instalments of N615million, thus leaving a debit
of N15.711 billion at January 31, 2011.

Economic and social
activities were paralysed for several hours on Wednesday in Ilorin, the
Kwara State capital, following a violent demonstration by youth who
were protesting the abandoned construction work on the
Olulande-Ita-Alamu-Offa Garage road. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)
reports that several people including one policeman were seriously
injured during the protest. The violent protest started as early as
6.30am by youth in the area, who barricaded major roads and link roads
to the Offa Garage-Ajasse Ipo road with bricks and blocks. The angry
youth also set up several bonfire along the road from Michael Imodu
Labour Studies Institute junction up to Ola-Olu-Stella Obasanjo
junction. The youth in their thousands were chanting anti government
slogans like: “Kwara must be free”, “No to slavery by Saraki, Bukola
and Gbemi”, “Leave our state now Saraki”, among others.

It took the
anti-riot policemen several hours before they could restore order and
normalcy to the road as several canister of tear gas were fired to
disperse the protesters. Kwara state Fire Service were also brought in
by the government to put out the bonfire and tyres set ablaze by the
angry mob. Speaking with NAN, one of the protesters, who spoke under
condition of anonymity, explained that life had become unbearable for
people living along the 2.5 kilometre road. Reacting to the incident,
Bode Olayemi, the state commissioner for works and transport, told
journalists that the road was a federal road being constructed by the
state because of its concern for the people. He pointed out that the
road was still ongoing and not an abandoned project as claimed by the
protesting youth. The commissioner said that the government was not
unaware of the difficulties being faced by the people. Mr. Olayemi
noted that the sum of N363 million had been paid as mobilisation fee to
the contractor handling the project, which is due for completion before
the expiration of the tenure of the present administration. Mr.
Olayemi, who addressed the news briefing together with the state
commissioner for information and communication, Ben Duntoye, appealed
to members of the public and protesting youth to exercise patience. He
said that incidentally the contractor was expected to move back to site
on Wednesday but could not due to the disturbance. Mr. Olayemi said
that the contractor had been instructed to put speed breaker on the
road in order to reduce the dust in the area. Ezekiel Dabo, the police
public relations officer for the Kwara Command, in his reaction urged
the people of Kwara not to take laws into their hands as government was
doing everything within its reach to fix the road. Mr. Dabo told NAN
that normalcy had since returned to the area following the early hours
disturbances by the youth, which disrupted vehicular movement for
several hours.

The regional
flagoff of Goodluck Jonathan’s presidential campaign is taking a toll
on the nation’s governance as multiple ministers were absent from the
2011 budget defence at the National Assembly. Budget defence is a
significant annual ritual in the process of preparing the budget and
traditionally, lawmakers do not discuss any ministry or government
agency’s budget without the head of the ministry or agency.

On Monday, a joint
committee of the Senate and House of Representatives on Gas called off
the hearing for the Ministry of Petroleum’s 2011 budget defence due to
the absence of the Minister of Petroleum Diezani Alison Madueke.
According to the ministry’s permanent secretary, Goni Musa Sheikh, who
led the delegation, the petroleum minister had returned from a journey
the previous day and was “not feeling too well” to attend the budget
defence session. Mrs. Madueke had been on the campaign trail of the
president, which commenced in Nasarawa state last week, and has since
been on a tour of the nation’s sub-region. Even though the deadline for
the various committees to submit their input for the 2011 budget to the
Senate and House committees on Appropriation was to elapse on Tuesday,
members of the Gas committee postponed the budget defence to Wednesday.

Similarly, the
Senate Committee on Works had on Thursday last week postponed the
budget defence of the Ministry of Works because the minister, Sanusi
Dagash, was attending the president’s campaign in Bauchi state.

“You cannot shave a
man’s hair in his absence,” Igo Aguma, chairman, House Committee on Gas
said on Monday while dismissing the “low level” delegation from the
petroleum ministry.

With the budget defence sessions of the petroleum ministry, the works ministry and a couple of others stalled,

the committees will
miss the submission deadline. The delay will cascade and impede the
passage of the bill at both chambers of the national assembly and
finally, the implementation of the budget.

Stay off Campaigns

At the villa,
official and informal activities had gone into a lull as all attention
shifted outside to the campaign tours. Meanwhile, last week, the
Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting which usually lasts at least
two hours when there are just a few memos, lasted for only 20 minutes,
with one memo discussed.

At the FEC meeting, the president warned ministers not to allow the
campaign to get in the way of their jobs. He had advised that they
attend the campaign rallies in their states and two or three other
states rather than scurrying to join the campaign trail to every state.

The governorship
candidate for People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Ogun State, Tunji
Olurin yesterday started his campaign for the race from Ilaro, Mr
Olurin, accompanied by his running mate, Tunde Oladunjoye, said his
coming into the race is to rescue the state from the hands of those he
alleged to be maltreating the citizens.

“I have been a
governor before, I know where I am coming from and I know where I am
going. I have a name to protect. I have no intention to steal
government money, we shall use government money judiciously,” he said.
“I am not going to be a sectional governor. All the zones of the state
have equally agreed to support us. So, let us all be united and cast
your votes for us. We must be brave in this struggle. For me, I am as
constant as the Northern star. There is no shaking, no going back, we
are going to stand firm.”

Protest rally

While the rally was
going on in Ilaro, the Gbenga Daniel faction of the party took to the
streets of Abeokuta, the state capital to protest the exclusion of the
names of their candidates from the list published by the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC). The protesters, who carried
various placards rebuking former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, also
threatened to embark on spiritual exercise until their ‘stolen mandate’
was reclaimed and vowed to upstage Mr Olurin and Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello,
daughter of former president Olusegun Obasanjo, at the polls.

Leading the
protesters, factional chairman of the party, Joju Fadairo, dispelled
the rumour that the faction was planning to defect to another party.

“The rally is to
show that we are still in PDP and that our exco is still the authentic
leaders of the party. We are not going anywhere as they had wanted us
to do. We will not succumb to any clandestine move to frustrate us out
of the party,” Mr Fadairo said.

Similarly, Gboyega
Isiaka, the party’s governorship candidate from the Gbenga Daniel group
said, “We will use every legal means to fight to redeem our mandate. I
want to assure you that justice, equity and even God are on our side.
Justice may be delayed, it will surely not be denied,” he said. “The
rally is to show that we are still in PDP and that our executives are
still the authentic leaders of the party.”

It could be recalled that two parallel primaries were conducted in
Ogun State during the PDP primaries in the state. An Abuja High court
had ordered INEC to recognise the list of candidates sent to it by the
Jibrin Martins-Kuye faction of the PDP. Effort by Mr Daniel’s faction
of the party to upturn the ruling was denied by a Federal High court
sitting in Abeokuta. This ruling made INEC to reject the list sent to
it by Mr Daniel’s faction.

The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN)
begins its national electioneering campaign today with a colloquium at
the ThisDay Dome, Abuja. The party’s standard bearer, Nuhu Ribadu,
yesterday said that he is still in consultation over who becomes his
running mate for the April 2011 general elections. He said that since
the party still has up to February 21 to submit names, the nomination
of a presidential running mate is a non-issue for now.

Mr. Ribadu, who spoke yesterday through
Ibrahim Modibbo, his director, media and communications, in a telephone
interview with NEXT, also confirmed that the colloquium was an
indication that the campaign had started in earnest.

“The issue of deputy does not come up
now because that is not a problem. We still have up to 21st of February
to submit the name, so, we are still consulting,” he responded.

Former governor of Anambra State, Chris
Ngige, and former minister of finance under president Olusegun
Obasanjo, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, are two possible candidates that Mr.
Ribadu is rumoured to be looking at.

Party manifesto

Mr. Ribadu explained that today’s
colloquium is to bring out the party’s manifesto to Nigerians. “It is
symbolic because we are starting in an academic manner unlike the PDP,”
he said.

The ACN’s national secretary, Lawal
Shuaib, did not answer his phone and did not respond to a text message
sent to him on the issue. Meanwhile, the ACN in a release over the
weekend, by its national publicity secretary, Lai Mohammed, said the
party chose to start its electioneering campaign for April’s poll with
a colloquium to unveil the party’s manifesto and agenda for Nigeria.
The topics to be discussed, according to the statement, include issues
of governance, human rights, youth development, energy, managing a
democratic government, regulatory functions of INEC, the Electoral Act
2010 as well as water and sanitation.

“These manifesto and agenda encompass our contract with Nigerians.
Therefore, we intend to use the colloquium not only to present our
programme but also to ensure that Nigerians own the programme,” it read.

The Transition
Monitoring Group (TMG) says only Nigerians and not the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC) can make the forthcoming general
elections credible. It said that the only way Nigerians could make the
elections credible is by defending their votes after voting in the
elections, adding that INEC can only provide polling centres and
materials for voting.

The election
monitoring group stated this in a statement jointly signed by its
national coordinator, Mashood Erubami and publicity secretary, Musa
Rasfanjani in Abuja on Tuesday.

“The present INEC
chairperson has used every opportunity to inform Nigerians not to
expect perfect election from its organization, but to see the
achievement of credible election as a collective task of the citizens
and all stakeholders in the electoral process,” the statement said.
“This is not to say that the body is not prepared to conduct credible
election, but it is a call on the electorate to be vigilant, to
register, vote and be ready to defend their votes.” The group notes
that “credible election is beyond mere filling up of the electorate,
but includes the ability to be able to express their trust in the
preferred candidates at the poll.”

Explaining the
constitutional role of the electoral agency, the statement read that
“the function of INEC as stipulated in the electoral act is to conduct
voter and civic education, promote knowledge of sound election
democratic election processes and conduct any referendum required to be
conducted pursuant to the provision of the 1999 constitution or any
other law or Act of the National Assembly. In this regard, INEC is
expected to provide polling centres and materials for voting to be
managed by assigned presiding officers.”

There, TMG opined
that “voting and ensuring that voters exercise their voting rights, to
chose from available alternative candidates and defending the voting
process are beyond what the INEC can do during elections” therefore the
group warned Nigerians that “it is the people and not INEC that would
make election credible.”

It called on the
electorate who have taken the pain to register in the just concluded
registration exercise to troop out en masse to cast their vote during
the coming 2011 election and standby to defend the votes and remain
vigilant throughout the whole process.”

The group argued
that “where election have consistently been conducted to the
satisfaction of the majority, where results have been disagrees or
disputed, where INEC has been distrusted, where politicians have not
played by the rules or where security agencies have been known to be
partisan, citizens vigilance and assumption of their historical duties
to defend their votes, have been the most potent mechanism by which
their genuine electoral aspiration can be voiced.”

TMG noted that in
order for Nigerians to vote and ensure that their votes count and
resist being victims of the consequences of bad and unfair elections,
they must wake up from their slumber, to exhibit better understanding
of their roles in the polls and become a good part of the solution to
unfair election without integrity in the country.

“Only a well conducted election under the watchful eyes of the
voters can guarantee peace and ensure leadership legitimacy that can
remove for all times, the incidence of underdevelopment with its
accompanying vices like unemployment, poverty, insecurity, violence and
political assassination,” it stated.