₦airaland Forum

Written by Sam Nwaoko, Ado-Ekiti
Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Workers in Ekiti State have demanded immediate negotiation with the state government over the payment of the new minimum wage.



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This is coming following what the leadership of their unions in the state described as "the restiveness being displayed by workers in Ekiti State."

The Joint Nego-tiating Committee (JNC) of the civil servants has told Governor Kayode Fayemi to set up machinery for immediate negotiation on the matter, saying the workers in the state had "become nervous" over what seemed to be a stalemate between the labour unions and the state government on the matter.

Secretary of JNC in the state, Comrade Olugbenga Sobande, in a statement made available to newsmen in Ado-Ekiti on Monday, said it would be difficult for leaders of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) "to control their members when they lose faith in the government over the implementation of the minimum wage in the state."

Sobande, however, said Governor Fayemi had done well by the earlier commencement of negotiation with the workers over the new wage, and urged him to reopen negotiation soonest to sustain the present industrial peace and harmony in the state.

The Ekiti State government had commenced negotiation with workers on July on 28 but suspended the parley indefinitely before any agreement could be reached.

The unions said in the statement: "The organ-ised labour under the aegis of NLC, TUC, JNC wishes to appreciate Governor Kayode Fayemi for the commencement of negotiation for the implementation of the National Minimum Wage Act of N18,000 on Thursday, July 28, 2011.

"The negotiating meeting was adjourned and to be continued the following day, but unfortunately, the Office of Establishment and Training told us that it has been postponed indefinitely on a flimsy excuse."

"In view of this, the entire workers in the Ekiti State public service are restive and if negotiation is delayed, the NLC, TUC

and JNC may find it difficult to control their followers.

"Therefore, to sustain the present industrial peace in the State, we demand immediate resumption of suspended negotia­ tion."http://odili.net/news/source/2011/aug/9/608.html

Agency reporter

Workers in Anambra State on Monday declared a one-week warning strike to press home their demand for the full implementation of the N18,000 new minimum wage.



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But the Anambra State Governor, Mr. Peter Obi, who said he was committed to paying the new wage, described the workers' decision as politically-motivated.

The declaration of strike happened a few minutes after Obi addressed a rally where he reiterated commitment to pay the wage.

The rally was called by the Nigeria Labour Congress to brief the workers on the status of its negotiations with the government on the issue.

But just as the labour leaders were trying to calm the agitated workers, the governor and other top government and party officials drove into the venue of the rally.

After overcoming protests from the workers, who did not want to hear him speak, Obi eventually mounted the platform, and told them (workers) how committed he was to paying the wage.

As the governor left, the crowd was divided between a group that was singing his praises and another that was raining abuses on him.

The motion for the warning strike was moved by Mr. Onyi Okafor of the Association of Senior Civil Servants.

The motion said Anambra workers had rejected the proposal offered by the government and that they wanted the minimum wage applied across board. http://odili.net/news/source/2011/aug/9/833.html

By Okechukwu Anarado

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

While giving deserved credit to Lagos State Governor, Raji Fashola, for infrastructural projects in the state, I urge the governor to endeavour to pay attention to the quality of work being done by contractors handling road constructions in the state.



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The quality of work being done on Surulere roads casts doubts on the competence of contractors chosen for jobs as well as justifies claims by opposition parties that such contracts are over-inflated in comparison to the work done.

One case that calls for the governor’s urgent attention is Ogunlana Road reconstruction which was completed early this year. It is astonishing that less than five months after, small potholes now dot the entire length of the road built by Plycon! Before the end of this rainy season, the potholes would have developed into craters.

Governor Fashola owes the people of Lagos who voted massively for him a duty to ensure judicious use of funds and that only qualified contractors are given jobs in the state. The job is not over once contracts are awarded. He also has to monitor the quality of work being executed.

I urge the amiable governor to order Plycon which handled the Ogunlana Road project back to do a proper reconstruction of the road. He should reassess current reconstruction of the other side of Masha (Adelabu Street)being done by the same Plycon and terminate the contract if the company cannot do a standard job.

Marcellinus Arinze,

Rafiu Williams Street,

Surulere, Lagos





http://odili.net/news/source/2011/aug/9/503.html

The Punch

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

I didn't order Kudirat's killing - al-Mustapha

Ade Adesomoju

Major Hamza al-Mustapha, on Monday, told a Lagos High Court that he did not order the killing of the late Chief Moshood Abiola's wife, Kudirat, in 1996.



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Al-Mustapha, the Chief Security Officer to the late General Sani Abacha, said his previous confession was made "under duress and intense torture."

"I am not aware of any order, or gave any order, to anybody to kill Kudirat Abiola or any other person in my life," he told the court.

Kudirat was gunned down in Lagos on June 4, 1996 by suspected members of the late dictator's killer squad allegedly under the command of al-Mustapha.

A member of Abacha's personal security outfit, The Strike Force, Sgt. Barnabas Jabila (aka Sgt. Rogers), had confessed in the past that he shot Kudirat on the order of al-Mustapha.

The ex-CSO, however, told Justice Mojisola Dada that Jabila was induced by his prosecutors to indict him (al-Mustapha).

Al-Mustapha and a former aide to the late Kudirat, Lateef Shofolahan, are standing trial for the murder of the woman who fought to restore the result of the June 12, 1993 presidential election won by her husband.

He told the court under cross-examination, "The Strike Force had its commander. Its commander reports to my second- in-command; and my second- in- command reports to me. The Strike Force is to attack, repel and manage all attacks on the seat of power. It is small but it's a strong mobile defence for the seat of power (sic).

"The Strike Force was conceived by the Joint Intelligence Bureau. It was established on February 1, 1995 and they resumed duty in March 1995. It is a small body made up of 75 trained soldiers and created to confront any attack by a large force against a sitting government."

Though he admitted that the National Democratic Organisation formed in 1994 was a formidable opposition to his late boss, al-Mustapha revealed that the military constituted the strongest opposition to the Abacha regime.

According to the ex-CSO, Abacha's government survived four different coups before the goggled dictator died on June 8, 1998.

Al-Mustapha had told the court in his testimony last week that Abacha was killed by those he refused to name.

He also denied unleashing the Strike Force against the members of NADECO in Lagos.

"My primary assignment as the CSO in the presidency was to protect the president, his family, his personal property and the seat of power. Gen. Abacha directed me to ask Rabo Lawal to go to Lagos to 'confirm the security' of his (Abacha's) house on Victoria Island, Lagos, after NADECO members threatened to burn down the house," he said.

The former Chief Security Officer refuted the claim that he established the SF or that he was its head though admitted that he was aware of its activities. The former CSO was questioned by the prosecutor, Lawal Pedro.

Asked if he knew about the murder of Pa Alfred Rewane, Alhaja Suliat Adedayo, Isaac Porbeni, all killed under the Abacha dictatorship, and the attempts on the life of Publisher of The Guardian, Alex Ibru, al-Mustapha said he only became aware of them in the news.

While al-Mustapha's counsel, Olalekan Ojo, told the court that he had filed an appeal against a ruling of the court on the no case submission delivered on July 14, Justice Mojisola Dada adjourned the matter to Tuesday (today).

Only last week, the former CSO alleged that Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar regime bribed some political leaders of the South-West in order to douse the tension that followed Abiola's death in 1998.

He also said the former boss of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Nuhu Ribadu, received an order to kill him while he (al-Mustapha) was being moved from Abuja to Lagos. http://odili.net/news/source/2011/aug/9/805.html

By Charles Onunaiju

SPEAKING at her Senate screening for ministerial post, former World Bank managing director, Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala put the unemployment rate at between 14 and 16 per cent and defined the basic challenge of Nigeria's economy as job creation, ostensibly targeting her estimated percentage of unemployment rate.



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According to her, the task of job creation is even now simpler, since she would only need to design fiscal policies that would "be supportive of sectors that will create jobs, because we now have growth, but we need to translate that growth into jobs".

Mrs Okonjo-Iweala, minister of finance and head of the regime's economic team has shown a total unfamiliarity to Nigeria's real economic condition, or at best has  ideological views of the economy from the classical prism of extant neo-liberalism. This kind of neo-liberal classical world view was extensively deployed in her first engagement with the Nigerian economy under former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the result was further distortion and disarticulation of the economy.

She escaped with an unprecedented capital flight, never known in the history of any developing economy, by negotiating curious debt repayment that gulped a whopping 12.4 billion U.S dollars, promising that the accruable benefit of the cancelled debt would usher in, a certain eldorado. Of course, she stumbled into personal fortune for her effort, returning to her former work place not as medium cadre officer, which she was, before the forage into Nigeria's government, but as a top level management staff.

High unemployment is one consequence of the structural distortion of Nigeria's economy and therefore not necessarily its foremost challenge.  However, her estimate of unemployment rate is totally misleading. The most crucible of Nigeria's economic challenge is to build an integrated economy in which primary, secondary and tertiary sectors are integrated. This would not be possible without developing the agricultural sector and linking it up with a secondary sector that processes the inputs of the essentially agricultural sector. A critical policy implication of the above is the deliberate capital allocation through credits and grants.

The history of the colonial economy was essentially the stimulation of extensive primary produce given impetus by deliberate capital allocation and enabling infrastructure like railways and other rural road network, linking to the sea-port for onward transfer to the metropolitan markets of the colonial masters. This worked well, sucking in excess local labour, which also created domestic market for surplus, which could not readily be absorbed by the metropolitan market.

While this pattern of economic activities did not optimally benefit the local economy, since it did not create the secondary sectors of industrial processing, it could however, in the context of current condition provide a virtuous circle of a performing economy. While Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala talks about job creation, it is difficult to imagine the category of the employed that she had in mind. If she means the army of young graduates freshly churned out from school, or the laid back middle cadre skilled manpower, that was flushed out in her previous economic management team inspired 'down sizing'  or the army of lumpen proletariat, that do not posses any skill and therefore would not fit into any formal employment description. Any economic management strategy that leaves out the huge population of this non-skilled manpower would be attending to a very negligible proportion of the nation's job sector and therefore would leave combustible social vacuum whose consequence would be seized by crimes, militancy and even terrorism. Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala economic perspective is too formal and narrow to accommodate the full range of the nation's economic crises. She parades an orthodox; classical neo-liberal economics that has long failed in every corner of the developing world. Her economic baggage is a poor resuscitation of the Washington neo-liberal exports that so tormented the countries of South America in the 1980s. The invasion of Chile under General Augusto Pinochet, by the 'Chicago boys', the neo-liberal economic clones of Milton Friedman, triggered unprecedented shrink of the economy, with a consequence of high-handed repression by the regime. From Chile to Brazil, Argentina to Venezuela, the bankruptcy of neo-liberal economic management bore fruits in massive social exclusion; heighten armed insurgency and almost near political extinction of right wing regimes that collaborated with the World Bank and IMF to foist the policies.

Since the early 1990s, up to date, the region of South America had in backlash to the Washington inspired neo-liberal economic reforms, elected left wing regimes that have addressed itself to alternative economic management methods and have produced outstanding economic results, with a consequence of social inclusion, integrated economic and political development. Brazil and Argentina, the giants of the region have produced outstanding economic results. Under the former President Lula's workers party, Brazil has reduced poverty by over 50 per cent in the last eight years, with a social programmed 'Bolsa Familia'. Mr. Lula's successor, Mrs. Dilma Rouseff has vowed to expand the social policy that sucks in those caught on the margins of the formal economy. Brazil with extensive social policy integrated in her economic management has targeted the huge populations that are never previously accommodated in economic management and has made huge progress in all fronts of economic performance.

Brazil is a founding member of the BRICS, the emerging global economic power house, comprising Russia, India, China and South-Africa, for whom the century is said to belong both in economic category and other indices of global influence.

Throughout, the Senate hearing, Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala, made denials of any ideological complicity a cardinal watchword of her presentation. In  as much as the Senate chamber, she confronts have very little truck with ideology; her implacable denials were quite curious. Knowing where, she was coming from; the denials were the standard affirmation of the ideological faithful.

Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala first coming with her team of Malam el-Rufai, Charles Soludo, Oby Ezekwesili, inflicted massive hemorrhage on the economy, created a mafia economy seized by the regime's henchmen, leaving out the majority of Nigerians in the cold, in a manner reminiscence of Boris Yeltsin's Russia, where the Washington/Brussels axies nurtured a few tribe of oligarchs, who accumulated public assets at give away prices. It took the heavy hand of former president and now Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to reset the economy and recover it from the stranglehold of the powerful oligarchs. Mr. Yegor Gaider, Boris Nemstov and the several of their likes are struggling on the margins of Russian politics with very little prospects, but egged on by western media. Both Russia and Brazil did not attain their current world outstanding economic status, by the neo-liberal economic therapy that evidently emasculated them in the past.

Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala, besides her formalistic economics that has no practical application in our clime is plainly over-rated. Her insight is quite unimaginative even in the context economic liberalism. Her concern for traditional economic tools of fiscal and monetary measures leaves her in a strait jacket. The core issues in Nigeria's contemporary economy is the trend of de-industrialization, collapse of agriculture and the rural economy and the excessive and non-applicable labour in the informal sector, which in reality is the dominant sector. Except for influence peddling and other such activity largely unhelpful to the Nigeria's economy, it is difficult to understand the second coming of Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

A dull, drab and blank regime with no original and home-grown idea on how to tackle the country's myriads of  economic and social problems needed alibi to sub-let economic management to a third party and this has just happened and the result would drive us further in the woods.http://odili.net/news/source/2011/aug/9/12.html

OneONYX:
@bliss4lyfe, my comment was for "chambers" but in response to your comment, all I have to say is that we also have "business presence" in the Niger Delta, what has that done for us? Besides making money for the oil companies and our corrupt government, and employing a few of us in middle-management, how has that solved any of our problems.

This is the problem when you don't put your house in order before inviting foreigners to "come and chop": they will exploit you! Imagine how different the Niger Delta and/or Nigeria will be if we refined all the oil we used and even sold to neighboring countries.  Have you ever asked yourself who's benefiting from the lack of refineries in Nigeria? The oil companies are having a field day exploiting us, and the same thing will happen everywhere else if we don't put our house in order.

Look at every other so called "investments" in Nigeria and tell me if they're really adding value or just exploiting us!!!

The truth is the western powers invented Nigeria and choose the ethnic group to rule Nigeria based on their Energy interest in the Niger Delta. The big idea here was that using the North primarily as cover, the oil wealth of the south could be looted easily with nobody claiming landed rights. Today, we no longer have a Northerner or Southwestern President but a Niger-Deltan President and dat goes a long way to correct many of the injustice meted out to the people of that region. Dis has nothing to do with inward investment in Nigeria.

^^ So we should fold our hands and wait until Nigerians decide to shelf tribalism before getting some sort of business presence and infrastructure development. Okonjo is on the moving side, Sir.

Okonjo-iweala has done really well to get such investments into Nigeria to mop up alot of our unemployed graduate and experienced work force. Think of the infrastructure development dis companies will bring to the areas dey locate. The Ngozi economics is something Nigerians are yet to comprehend. Great Job.

Good intentions but difficult to see how irresponsible men can be made to change via legislation. Responsibility is for both men and women equally. Abstain from unwanted Pregnancy or sex. Legislation can not remedy the risk.

Good intentions but difficult to see how irresponsible men can be made to change via legislation. Responsibility is for both men and women equally. Abstain from unwanted Pregnancy or sex. Legislation can not remedy the risk.

Wat Arewa or watever any other so called youth want is not the dictates of our land and country Nigeria. The law shall run its full course.

The sooner we run out of oil the better. It will be interestin to see the North demand or secede from Nigeria. lollz It surely will be a deadly war, becos no way southerners will let dem go. 

Mods, Can we have dis thread on the front page to get a wider debate on issue of women leadership. We will like dis request considered by the authorities dat decide front page news update. Thankz. https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-724924.0.html

^^ 'Born to rule' Ideology the Northerners hold over Nigeria. The North needs to take a break from the presidency so other regions and ethnic group can have a chance to institute development for the country.

Northern leadership so far has been marred by corruption, violence and tribalism. We need leadership dat can unite Nigerians. The North needs to take the back sit for 20 years or more. 

kofoshi:
Finally, Yorubas are waking up and our youths are saying "enough is enough".

I see an uprising; a revolution!

Lagos would be cleansed and restored to its rightful owners.

You can only boast for so long; you can only call us cowards for so long. I like that our youths are awakening to the wickedness of the neighbour within.

They wish Lagos no good, they want to dominate and we must not allow it!

In simple terms kofoshi, U ARE A FOOL.

So, is it desperation to get married or just a rush to make up for lost time becos dis marriage thing seems to be in vogue and the women are wanting it even younger.

Wat good reason could the north possibly have for wanting to produce the 2015 President of Nigeria after all the trouble following the 2011 president election.

They need to wait 16 years or more before we consider dem for dat position.This is important to help dem understand der is nothing like born to rule in Nigeria of multi-regions with diverse ethnicity.

Lets get some answers. I don't know if it is a rush or just desperation over time wasted, not sure wat it is. lollz

I have noticed, that today people seem to be in a rush for marriage and not really interested in romance and courtship aspect or prefer that kept to a minimum. Are we returning to the good old days of our parents, were people see each other for the first time and marriage. What's ur opinion on this matter?

Mods, we are missing quite a bit of characters from the forum of late and wish for all those banned to be given amnesty. It is getting ever so boring without dem and the lively debates.lollz ;Please unban the characters banned.

[quote author=alj_harem link=topic=226222.msg8877813#msg8877813 date=1312785521]are plan stu.pid or just dumb

when did Okoye become a yoruba name

Okoye's are igbo names in anambra igbos

go figure

keep insulting your people ode 

or p square not called peter and paul okoye[/quote]Fool, Okoye is the name of their victim, the lady that was violated. Perhaps u need reading lessons.

Nationalisation seems to be back on the agenda as soon as Jonathan condemns Privatization as a failure. Perhaps the operations of the oil industry could aslo be nationalized from chevron and shell. lollz

Nigeria to inject $4.5bn into three nationalised banks
Spring Bank's website The three banks have had new directors put in place

Nigerian authorities are planning to inject 679bn naira ($4.5bn; £2.8bn) into three banks that were nationalised last week.

Nigeria's central bank took control of Afribank, Bank PHB and Spring Bank after it ruled they were unable to raise the fresh capital they required.

Ownership of the three banks has now passed to the state-run Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria.

It is seeking to raise the funds through bond issues.

Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) has also appointed new directors to run the three troubled banks.

"The newly appointed boards are entrusted with the mandate to manage these banks along best commercial practice, to compete effectively in the Nigerian banking sector and provide quality service to customers," AMCON said.

"Depositors are again assured that their deposits are safe and employees are also assured of seamless continuity of business operations and job functions."

AMCON was set up last year by the Central Bank of Nigeria to hold all the bad debts in the country's banking sector.

Trading in the shares of Afribank, Spring Bank and Bank PHB has also been suspended.

The Nigerian central bank injected $4bn into nine lenders - including Afribank, Spring Bank and Bank PHB - in 2009.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14448694

lollz, Northern 'born to rule'. The Presidency has to go North central or South east before we even consider the North again.

Already making moves to strengthen party ahead of 2015 election. Can't see any party producing the President come 2015 but PDP. 

The Punch

Sunday, August 7, 2011



Olusola Fabiyi

The Peoples Democratic Party is facing a fresh hurdle of putting 'professional' defectors in their appropriate position, writes OLUSOLA FABIYI.


Alhaji Kawu Baraje and President Goodluck Jonathan

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If the wishes of the former chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo, had come to pass, the party would have, by now, been in the dustbin of history. Nwodo, as an aggrieved member of the ruling party, had lowered the PDP umbrella to lift the broom of the then Action Congress, vowing to sweep the PDP out of relevance in the country's political reckoning. To prove that he meant business, he was part of the campaign trips of a fellow defector and the presidential candidate of the AC in the 2007 presidential election, former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, travelling round the country and asking the people to reject his once-loving political party at the poll. Nigerians conversely rejected his advice by voting for the late President Umaru Yar'Adua. When the party (AC) and Abubakar failed to convince the courts to invalidate Yar'Adua's victory at the poll, he sneeked back into the PDP on June 14, 2009.

This was why there several criticisms about his desire to lead his once detested party in 2010, when the office of the party's national chairman became vacant following the forced resignation of Prince Vincent Ogbulafor in June 2010. Going by the party's constitution, Nwodo was not qualified to hold an elective position or vie for any elective office under the umbrella of the PDP until two years after his re-admission, except there is a waiver from his ward. However, the governor of his home state, Enugu, Chief Sullivan Chime, came to his rescue. To make him eligible to become the national chairman, the governor got the PDP ward in Ukehe, where Nwodo comes from, to grant him a waiver. This was ratified by the state chapter of the party before it was forwarded to the national secretariat.

His then master in the defection game, Abubakar, also wangled himself back into the PDP, where he struggled to pick the party's presidential ticket in 2010. His return was, however, not as effortless as that of Nwodo. This was because the governor of his home state, Adamawa, Murtala Nyako, did everything to scuttle his comeback. Nyako insisted that as the leader of the party in the state, he ought to be the one to introduce Abubakar back to the party, of which the former VP was a kingmaker. The party's constitution was, however, in consonance with Nyako's position. According to the PDP constitution, the governor is expected to return to the party through his ward. This matter became contentious for the reason that the party had been polarised in the state. Notwithstanding, Abubakar, who has been described as a master strategist, was able to wriggle out of the matter and contest the party's presidential primaries, which he lost woefully to President Goodluck Jonathan.

Like Nwodo and Abubakar, Senator Patrick Osakwe also tried in vain to rubbish the PDP in his home state of Delta. Before the present dispensation, Osakwe was a member of the Senate, where he served for 12 years. During his last term in the Senate, he was elected under the umbrella of the Accord Party, having being rejected by the PDP, a party he claimed to have co-founded. With the help of the likes of the former governor of his state, Chief James Ibori, Osakwe was able to defeat Dr. Marian Ali, the wife of the then chairman of the party, Dr. Ahmadu Ali. On February 6, 2010, the party also put forward the name of the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Prof. Charles Soludo, as its candidate for the governorship election in Anambra State. His major challenger for the party's ticket, Senator Andy Uba, defected to the Labour Party, where he squared it up with Soludo and the eventual winner of the election, Mr. Peter Obi.

Osakwe and others have since realised that there is no way their fish could survive outside the PDP water, which is known as the mainstream political party in the country. While leaving the Accord Party, Osakwe caused a stir on the floor of the Senate when he described the PDP as "a party of milk and honey." The senator explained that he was compelled to seek his political fortunes in the PDP because his former party was factionalised. He claimed that the leadership of the AP at the national level had differences which he tried unsuccessfully to mediate. He said, "I want to say thank you very much to the opposition and want to urge them to also come over because in the next session, there will be no more persons left. They should come because this is the party where you have milk and honey."

As a serving senator with a deep pocket, he was received back to the PDP, where he has since been licking from its honey.

But all this might soon be over. This is because the leadership of the party has said any member of the party, who defected to other political parties during elections, will henceforth be treated as a new member. At the party's National Executive Committee meeting, which was held in Abuja recently, the acting National Chairman of the party, Alhaji Kawu Baraje, said the action of the party was aimed at instilling discipline in its members. He, therefore, said members of the party that "desert our party during the electioneering period and seek to return after the elections will henceforth queue up in their constituencies regardless of their previously held positions."

In all the defections that had taken place either in the Senate or the House of Representatives, or even among the governors, the PDP has always been the beneficiary. Even when there is a constitutional provision barring members of the National Assembly from abandoning the party that brought them to power, the PDP-led leadership of the legislative chambers usually ignored this. When the former Deputy Minority Leader of the Senate, Olorunimbe Mamora, raised a constitutional point of order seeking to halt Osakwe's defection, he was ignored. Relying on the provisions of section 68 (g) of the constitution, Mamora had said Osakwe ought to vacate his seat since he had defected to another party.

He had said, "It is not within the understanding of my humble self and not of this Senate that there is a division in the Accord Party. Mr. Senate President, to the best of my knowledge, I think that when and where there is a division in a party, it will be so stated by INEC; that is the body that controls political parties. And so long as INEC has not made such a statement, I think it will be wrong for us to say that there is a division in that party."

A member of the National Working Committee of the party wondered why Baraje was silent on whether the party would still be opening its doors to the like of Osakwe, the Governor of Bauchi State, Alhaji Isa Yuguda, and the former Governor of Imo State, Chief Ikedi Ohakim, who won their elections under the umbrellas of other political parties but brought the glory to the headquarters of the PDP at Wadata House. "We should stop receiving elected public office holders, who defected from other political parties. What is sauce for the goose is also sauce for the ganger," the member added.

Behind the party's open declaration, our correspondent gathered that the leadership of the party could be playing out a script, aiming at stopping some influential members of the party from contesting the forthcoming governorship elections in six states, where elections are going to be held in 2012. These set of people include the likes of Nicolas Ukachukwu, Chuma Nzeribe of Anambra State; the former military administrator of Lagos State, Buba Marwa, who, it was gathered, was under pressure to return to the PDP and contest the forthcoming governorship election in Adamawa State.

Also, some influential members of the party are said to be mounting pressure on the leadership of the party to prevent the like of the former Deputy Governor of Plateau State, Mrs. Pallen Tallen and a former Minister of Sports, Mr. Damishi Sango, who were former members of the PDP before moving out to contest elections in other political parties, from playing prominent roles in determining the leadership of the party in their states. With the party planning to hold elections into the ward, local government, state, zonal and national offices, only members of the party's 'inner caucus' can know the mischief behind the party's move. Was it aimed at truly enforcing the party's constitution or there is a concealed motive behind the move? Only time will tell. http://odili.net/news/source/2011/aug/7/823.html

Written by Kola Oyelere, Kano
Sunday, August 7, 2011

In order to prepare well for the 2015 presidential election, Northern Muslims within the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) appear to have resolved to groom three notable governors from the North to emerge the presidential candidate of the party.



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Sunday Tribune gathered that the serving governors are Dr. Musa Kwankwaso of Kano State, Isa Yuguda of Bauchi State, Sule Lamido of Jigawa State and Babaginda Aliyu of Niger State. This is coming even as some powerful politicians in the country are hatching plans to sponsor the Senate president , David Mark for the same ticket.

Disclosing this on Saturday , a source who preferred anonymity said in line with this, a meeting of Northern PDP office holders will be called very soon in Kaduna to work on modalities for the plan.

The source however hinted that the original motives of the meeting was to counter a recent statement made by former President Olusegun Obasanjo that the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal and his deputy should resign their positions before 2013 , or else the PDP should forget zoning of the president to the North.

Though the Northern politicians in PDP were disturbed by the statement, they don't want to be caught unaware because they felt the statement was pregnant with meanings, especially as it came from an influential person like Obasanjo.

Their trouble was that they believe that OBJ, being a powerful politician within the party, may not only use his connection to work against the North who he believed worked against his choice candidate from emerging speaker of the House of Representatives.

Piqued by this, Northern politicians felt that the earlier they start to source for an acceptable and powerful presidential candidate the better.

In view of this , they believe that the four serving governor stands high among politicians from the north to vie for the post of presidency .

Though they have not conclude the final list of who to be sponsor for the post in 2015 , but to them it would be good to have some candidate on ground. Which eventually fell on the four notable governors who they also believe their tenure would expire in 2015.

However , unknown to them that their Christians counterpart , has read the handwriting on the wall, that they waned to use the unity and oneness of the north to cajole them have also mapped out their strategy .

The thinking of the Christians from the North, was that they were ready to buy the idea of working for the unity and oneness of the North, on the basis their fellow brother would allow them feel a Christian for the post come 2015 presidential election.

They were of the opinion that the chance of Christians ha come to produce candidate for the presidency , saying their brother from the zone have a lot of chance in producing person for the post.

Except , Gen. Yakubu Gowon, who they said were Christian, the rest head of state who were about five in numbers were all Muslims, a situation they believe was not augur well for polity , if the north should be speaking with one voice and fight a common goal, they said.http://odili.net/news/source/2011/aug/7/628.html

Tiv, Hausa, fulani, idoma and ritual. na wa

Beaf:
^
What GEJ is saying is that there have been corrupt practices in the past that led to govt parastatals being sold to unsuitable people. That is what led companies built with Nigeria's money to simply crumble away with nothing to show and no improved value for the populace. There must be accountability to the Nigerian people and thats the line GEJ is pushing.
In addition to GEJ's words, there is a Senate probe into what went on in the recent past, and I believe it will lead to several criminal convictions.

Government MUST be accountable to the people, we cannot continue to have shady deals that cost the Nigerian people dearly; that is GEJ's line.

Word! GEJ just keeps shooting in the right direction. Very Wise Leadership.

I am very much in support of an Hausa or Yoruba or Efik etc holding Offices in Igboland for as long as they reside their as a permanent residence. God knows, that i will vote for dem to be Gov if they are the best and will improve all our life's.