₦airaland Forum

The National Orientation Agency on Friday in Abuja said it would honour the seven police officers who investigated the murder of Cynthia Osokogu by her Facebook friends.

The Director-General of NOA, Mr. Mike Omeri, said the decision was part of its drive to promote positive value reorientation among public office holders.

The officers would be invested with the Citizens’ Responsibility Recognition in a ceremony to be presided over by the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Mohammed Abubakar at the Force Headquarters in Abuja.

In a statement made available to SATURDAY PUNCH, the Chief Press Secretary to the DG, Mr. Paul Odenyi said, “NOA will soon confer the award on seven policemen for their dedication and professional competence displayed in their speedy investigation of the circumstances surrounding the death of Cynthia Osokogu.”

Omeri described the efficient manner in which the policemen investigated the murder as a testimony the efficacy of the reforms being carried out by the leadership of the police.

He said, “The police personnel who are drawn from the Area ‘E’ Command of the police in Lagos include a Deputy Superintendent of police, an Assistant Commissioner of Police, two Assistant Superintendents of Police, and three other junior personnel.

“We at NOA have insisted on a re-evaluation and restructuring of the system of awards in this country. Those who truly distinguish themselves in their chosen fields of endeavour should be given recognition as against the former practice of giving honour to individuals of questionable character. We will recognise these officers as good examples of excellence in service, diligence in duty and commitment to our collective war against crimes as a people”.

The NOA DG recalled that about two months ago, the agency had organised a value re-orientation roundtable tagged “Do the right thing: Ethics first,” for uniformed men in the country.

Omeri said the handling of the Cynthia Osokogu murder case was a welcome departure from the norm, adding that it showed that the agency’s efforts at value re-orientation in the society had begun to yield positive results.

http://www.punchng.com/news/cynthia-osokogu-noa-to-honour-7-policemen/

Good riddance to bad rubbish......

I wish this comes to reality

Not only sealing the farm alone but seein to it prosecution to serve as detterence

Senate President David Mark has challenged media editors in the country under the auspices of the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) to ensure they play down on issues that would jeopardise the country’s peace and national stability in reportage of events and issues.
Mark said while declaring open the 8th All Nigerian Editors Conference in Uyo Akwa Ibom Uyo, Akwa Ibom State that as gate keepers who decide what the public reads editors should always use their imaginations to report issues that would not become a threat to the nation.

“I believe that once you are able to dialogue on sensitive issues your reportage will not become a national threat to national security in any form, and for those of us who are political office holders we have to be careful not be insensitive to  issues that constitute national security issues”, he said.

The senate president told editors that there is no list of classified national security issues, and “if there is a comprehensive list, then we will also be able to criticise this, look at it and all of us would agree and said this is a comprehensive list of national security issues”.

Mark then called on editors to cross check the Freedom of Information Act when in doubt in order to know what constitutes national security threat.

Also speaking, Speaker of the House Representatives Alhaji Aminu Waziri Tambuwal said the theme of this year’s conference, ‘The Nigerian Editors and National Security’, showed that Nigerian editors were aware of urgent problems facing the country.

He said if editors consider the profit of the proprietor above national security issues, the wellbeing of the nation would be imperilled, saying should come out with recommendations that would enable the country to solve some of the problems facing the nation.

In his remarks, Information Minister Mr. Labaran Maku lauded the Nigerian press for its contributions to the development of the country, recalling the role the media played in the restoration of the nation’s democracy and in the struggle for independence from the British colonial masters.

http://dailytrust.com.ng/index.php/news/176793-mark-to-editors-downplay-issues-threatening-national-security

Incessant insecurity in the North was the cause of a 54% drop in profit says PZ Managing Director, Christos Giannopoulos. He disclosed this at the company’s 64th Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Abuja yesterday.

According to him profits declined 54% to N2.4 billion from N5.22 billion in 2011 due to the terrorism activities that led to the loss of lives and property in the region. The terrorism also impacted on sales for companies like PZ.

However, the MD says the situation is starting to improve and the company may return to profitability sooner than expected.

He said, “We are happy now that the situation in the North has improved tremendously since six months ago, and we are beginning to see that our sales are increasing.

“Therefore, I am very confident that in the next financial year, it will improve. Our sales in the North during the peak (of the crisis) were down by over 40 per cent, and this translates into 54 per cent drop in profit.”

http://businessnews.com.ng/2012/09/14/pz-suffers-profit-slump-blames-northern-insecurity/

Despite the lull in profitability, headline revenue increased 10% to N75 billion from N66 billion in 2011.

Egbema and Gbaramatu graduates in Warri North and Warri South-West Local Government Areas of Delta State on Wednesday threatened to sack Chevron Nigeria Limited from Ijaw land if they are not able to meet up with an ultimatum of seven days given to them to get them, (Ijaw youth) employed.

The two kingdoms had warned that Chevron’s activities in the state would be frustrated if they do not devise better ways of getting the unemployed youth from the area empowered in the next seven days, stating that the two kingdoms had been treated unfairly by Chevron.

In a petition signed by the chairman, Mr. Ojusin Innoncent , the former students under the backings of KOMBOT Employment Front  drew the attention of  the Group Managing Director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNP to their problems, stating  that  Chevron had utterly sidelined Ijaw graduates from Egbema and Gbaramatu kingdoms , and have pushed them aside in terms of employment opportunity.

They affirmed that while their brothers from the South-West and Southeast are constantly recruited after every interview, they have been left to suffer even after they had gone for different interviews as organized by Chevron

They had asked Chevron to recruit the 39 Egbema-Gbaramatu applicants, who, they claimed, did very well in the Ogere training programme and interview.

KOMBOT had also advocated for the return of Ijaw indigenes who were relieved of their jobs by Chevron in February 2011. It further affirmed that it will carry out its threat if the company takes the warnings for granted.

http://dailypost.com.ng/2012/09/14/employ-us-next-7-days-leave-ijaw-youth-tell-chevron/

Mtchewwwww!!! Political tussles

Which reports do we belief......well I think the one by NNPC spokesman is fair

Residents of Bayelsa State, particularly the top government officials have organised prayer warriors to pray for the President’s wife, Mrs. Patience Jonathan who had been flown to a German hospital for the past three weeks for medical treatment.

Besides, President Goodluck Jonathan’s residence in Otuoke, Bayelsa State had been receiving visitors who go there to sympathise with the President’s family on the health status of the First Lady.

The State Commissioner for Information, Mr. Mackson Fafegba, who spoke with reporters in Yenagoa, said the prayer was important not because Mrs. Jonathan married their son and she is the first Lady, but because she doubles as a Permanent Secretary in the State.

“We are praying for her quick recovery,  and we know very soon, we are going to a hear good news about her health. She is also a mother to us and to all Nigerians. I am not expecting only Bayelsa people to be praying on her behalf, but all Nigerians, because she is serving the nation”.

http://dailypost.com.ng/2012/09/14/bayelsa-indigenes-organise-prayer-warriors-first-ladys-ailment/

The Acting Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC Mr. Fidel Pepple has described as untrue reports that the convoy of the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke was involved in a deadly car crash which killed Mr. James Momoh, a staff of the Nigerian Pilot Newspaper in Abuja.

Mr. Pepple however confirmed that a shuttle vehicle belonging to the Corporation was involved in an accident which eventually led to the death of the Pilot Newspaper staff.

“I want to state categorically that the unfortunate event of last night has nothing to do with the convoy of the Honourable Minister as speculated.

The accident involved one of our shuttle buses which regrettably knocked down a pedestrian in the Mabushi area of Abuja and was immediately rushed to the NNPC Medical Centre for attention. But sadly the young man gave up the ghost,’’ he said.

The NNPC spokesman stated that the Minister’s convoy was not involved in the crash in any way noting that the vehicle in question is not part of the minister’s pilot vehicles.

He said the Management of the NNPC has taken steps to meet with the family of the deceased as well as the Management of Pilot Newspapers

http://saharareporters.com/news-page/nnpc-diezani’s-convoy-did-not-kill-newspaperman-pm-news-lagos

SaharaReporters has learned that security measures have been strengthened in volatile Northern Nigerian cities in order to guard against the kind of violence in Libya last night which claimed the life of the United States ambassador to that country.  

Reports said that Ambassador J Christopher Stevens and four other Americans were killed when militants, incensed about a US-produced film seen as having insulted Prophet Muhammad, attacked the Consulate with bombs and guns.

A top security chief in Northern Nigeria said that the heads of military and police commands in Kaduna, Kano, Sokoto, Borno, Bauchi, Plateau, Yobe, Adamawa, Gombe, Kebbi, Niger and Katsina States have been put on red alert against any protests that could generate into violence.

It was also gathered that they were instructed to bar any open demonstrations by religious groups, or political activities that could provide an opportunity for hostilities.

The source added that the latest development coincides with warnings of attempts by an unknown terrorist group to wage terrorist attacks in Sokoto.  Speculations to that effect have been rife in the area.
SaharaReporters has also exclusively gathered that all United States citizens on official assignments in troubled parts of Northern Nigeria have been alerted to be security conscious, and to take precaution.  A source in Abuja said the measure was taken as a means of making sure all US citizens are safe.

A diplomatic source who did not want to be identified said that other embassies in Nigeria, particularly those of the Western countries, have also taken similar measures.

http://saharareporters.com/news-page/security-beefed-northern-nigeria-over-movie-prophet-mohammed

In the quest to resolve the superannuation pension fund crisis that raised its ugly head in Power Holding Company of Nigeria, an investigative panel that was set up by the Federal Government to audit the controversy discovered that parts of the company’s pension are stashed away in a bank in the United Kingdom (UK).

The whopping sum of £2,204,814.18 was discovered and has been in Barclays Bank for about 21 years. It was also confirmed that this money was an accumulation of pension deposits for expatriate workers of the power utility and was believed to have been transferred by its officials long before the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) metamorphosed into PHCN.

Investigations also indicates that PHCN has in the past 21 years failed to fund its in-house pension scheme, thus putting the future of its retiring workers in jeopardy. It disclosed that the company has no money to fund the pension scheme.

It was, however, not clear if PHCN was allowed under the laws governing such government entities to keep such accounts.

Mr. Joseph Ajiboye, the chairman of the eight-man audit panel on PHCN pension who is also a former Auditor-General of the Federation (AGF), averred  that the panel could not ascertain if officials of PHCN had continued to remit pension and gratuity deductions to the foreign account, considering that the last expatriate pensioner of the utility is reported to have died.

Mr. Ajiboye. in the summary of the panel’s findings, which he presented to the Minister of State for Power, Mr. Darius Ishaku, Monday in Abuja, explained that its consideration of various financial audits of the in-house pension scheme of the company, showed that the failure to fund the scheme was based on the excuse that PHCN (or NEPA) has perpetually operated at a commercial loss, especially within the period under review.

He noted that financial audits of the scheme from 1990 to 2010, which it studied in a bid to ascertain transactions in the account, showed that from 1990 to 1999, a total of N1, 787,919 was paid out as pensions and gratuities to workers, while N51,279,940,138 was paid out from 2000 to 2010.

http://dailypost.com.ng/2012/09/11/shocker-fg-panel-discovers-2-million-phcn-pension-fund-uk-bank/

Power supply has improved in my area...only that GEJ should just stick to his steady power supply promise to fulfill it then, Nigerians will hold him high

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has warned on the dire consequences of the huge debts into which the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) is plunging southwestern states under its control.

It also implored the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other financial clearing houses to do all in their powers to check the “alarming” rate at which the states are obtaining loans.

PDP’s National Vice Chairman (South West), Chief Segun Oni, who spoke on behalf of the party, warned that the ACN-controlled states would go bankrupt should they continue with the “regime of taking loans and bonds and giving promissory notes on multi billion naira contracts to execute questionable projects like building new government houses.

“It is worrisome that less than two years after ACN took over Osun and Ekiti states, the two are now indebted to the tune of over N150bn, with Ogun State on the verge of taking N100bn bond,” Oni lamented in n a release signed by his media aide, Mr Lere Olayinka.

“Osun State alone is owing over N120bn, Ekiti is owing over N30bn and is rumoured to be planning to take another N30bn, while Lagos State government was said to have, as at 3oth June 2012, accumulated an external debt profile of $517,677,672 (more than half a billion dollars), despite having a monthly revenue of about N23 billion.

“We wish to alert all well-meaning Yoruba sons and daughters on the dangerous trend of obtaining frivolous loans by the ACN governors in the South West, and call on the CBN and other financial regulatory agencies to put a stop it.

Continuing, Oni said, “As at today, Osun State has taken N60bn bond, N25bn loan from First Bank, N17.8bn from Infrastructure Bank (to construct Oshogbo-Kwara Boundary Road), N17.5bn road project (six inter-township roads) to RATCON on contractor financing and another N7.6bn Ilesha and Oshogbo township roads to RATCON on contractor financing. Contractor financing means you are borrowing from your contractor at a cost higher than even bank term loans.

“In Oyo State, a 4km road project around Challenge area in Ibadan was awarded for N5.7bn to Hitech Construction Company, owned by ACN leader, Bola Tinubu, on contractor-financing basis while the same practice is going on in Ogun State. One begins to wonder where the states’ incomes (federal allocation and internally generated revenue) are spent on.

“All these projects being financed by the contractors are bank-guaranteed by the ACN State governments with promissory notes with a tenor beyond their legal tenures, and the implication is that the states are owing. It beats one’s imagination that a government will embark on projects it has no capacity to fund.”

Oni, therefore, called on “well-meaning Yoruba people to intervene in the affairs of the region by preventing these ACN governors from mortgaging the future of our children through frivolous loans, because most of the loans being obtained now cannot be paid back in the next
50 years.”

http://pointblanknews.com/pbn/exclusive/acn-govs-killing-the-southwest-with-reckless-debts-osun-n150b-ogun-n100b-ekiti-n30b-lagos-500-million/

MISPLACED PRIORITIES
The summaries of various communiqués of meetings and fora involving northern political leaders (mainly the Northern Governors Forum) and most northern elders (mostly former public office holders) of recent, on the North’s numerous problems are baffling and frustrating as it is apparent the agenda of these meetings typically have little to do with the region’s gargantuan economic, socio-political and security challenges. Neither do the final recommendations.

The themes of these meetings usually revolve around increased revenue allocation to northern states from the Federal Government, lamentations over existing conspiracies to “marginalize” and “destroy” the North; emphasis on the North’s “turn” to produce the next President in 2015; hollow, rhetorical lamentations on the decline of the northern economy and the need to revive agriculture, countering the Boko Haram insurgency and occasionally, a passing reference is made on the need for good governance, and in the end, these ills are ascribed to bad leadership and that’s  about it. These meetings typically produce virtually no solid, detailed, implementable blue prints on how to methodically, systematically and effectively address the North’s well-documented problems.

For our leaders, they ought to realize that the situation in the North today is completely unsustainable and it doesn’t require the clairvoyance of a seer to foresee the imminent disaster of chaotic proportions that awaits the North as a whole. Thus it is in their own self-interest that the North is brought back from this dangerous precipice, by providing good governance we tirelessly complain about and being true representatives of the people and their aspirations at best to ensure the region does not tear itself apart and at worst maintaining the grossly unequal, predatory and destructive status quo.

For some of our “elders”, who have had rewarding careers in public service, they could use their good names and influence in proposing concrete steps towards containing the Boko Haram insurgency and plans for reviving a post-Boko Haram North. They could also take their campaign abroad to counter and disprove some destructive narratives emerging in some Western publications (at the prodding of some Diaspora based Nigerian lobby groups) that Boko Haram is a religious war against a certain religious group in northern Nigeria.

With their influence, some of our elders could also play instrumental roles in enlightening the masses on their civic rights and duties, what to expect from the government, being more proactive to demand accountability from their representatives at the grassroots level, resisting electoral fraud and selling their votes for peanuts and so on. Importantly for other “elders”, it is just time to BOW OUT, as the standing ovation has long died down, RETIRE for good and allow others to take the stage. Overall, more links between the citizens and the state need to be established with more communication channels between the leaders and the led.

Really it is time we woke up from our deep complacent slumber and started playing our roles in rescuing not just our future but our present from this steady free-fall into the dark pit of misery and underdevelopment. For in the end, what will probably kill the North faster than any insurgency's bullets and bombs is our own silence, complacency and lack of pro-activeness in demanding accountability from our leaders and representation of our interests in their actions.

http://saharareporters.com/article/northern-nigeria-disconnect-between-our-leaders-and-rest-us

“You can take 2liters of acid and shut up” – Dino Melaye attacks follower on Twitter

Former House of Representative member,  Dino Melaye, seems to know how to attracts attention to himself.

This time, he pounced on a twitter user who initiated a twitter hashtag  #WhoIsDinoMelaye.

In one of his responses, the former member of the Federal House of Representatives   tweet, “@topeatiba you can take 2liters of acid and shut up”

In another response by Melaye, he said “@topeatiba I have always done (serve). (It) is either you were in comma or in jail when I was serving”

The twitter hashtag #WhoIsDinoMelaye, according to the initiator, was meant to create a forum where the former representative member’s recent activities and motive can be discussed and his idea better understood

Dino Melaye who has more than 13000 followers as at the time of this report is yet to remove the tweets from his account.

http://dailypost.com.ng/2012/09/09/you-can-take-2liters-acid-shut-up-dino-melaye-attacks-follower-twitter/