₦airaland Forum

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has said the police investigation and subsequent report linking the ownership of the lorry that crashed into the convoy of the Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole, on April 28, 2012, killing three journalists to an Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) stalwart in the state, was a clear vindication of the position of the party that desperation is driving the ACN for electoral victory.

The party further said, “We recall that Governor Oshiomhole has blamed the PDP for this tragic incident. We also recall that we stated unambiguously that the PDP does not need the blood of innocent Nigerians to win elections anywhere in Nigeria much less in Edo State.

“We categorically urged the security agencies to look beyond the crocodile tears and the loud alarm of lion –in- the -neighbourhood raised by the ACN. We are today vindicated”, PDP said.

In a statement by the National Publicity Secretary of the party, Olisa Metuh, the PDP said the incident connects directly to the orgy of violence which the machinery of the ACN-controlled Edo State government has been unleashing on the members of the PDP.
PDP explained, “Violence does not win elections. Superior ideas and track record of performance do. We therefore urge our members to remain peaceful and convince the Edo electorates with superior ideas in their campaign.”

The statement noted that the strength of the PDP in the state has continued grow with the approach of the governorship election as thousands of ACN members decamp to the party.

“We are sure of victory in the election. All that the PDP is asking for is free and fair election. We are asking for the cessation of intimidation and regime of violence by the ACN, so that the people will vote their choice without inhibition.”

The PDP further commended its members and supporters in Edo State for a successful grand finale of its gubernatorial campaign which was attended by President Goodluck Jonathan.

“The unprecedented turnout at the campaign rally is a firm comment on the strength of our great party in the state. We are not in doubt that this is a compelling sign of a sure electoral victory in the coming election,” the party explained.

cashmentor: and from that very day, that man was Cursed, Mike Oyeribulem died a Shameful death, leaving no trace of his existence behind! Kings are not Made, they're Born......

shymmex: The Oba can't be messed with...

And traditional rulers are the custodians of our culture - they deserve more respect..

ifihearam: Ohhhhh. Whosoever does not see reasons from your point of view is whining abi?

Mtchewww

Nigeria’s armed services have expanded beyond prosecuting the Civil War and keeping peace across Africa.

Presently, it is dealing with homegrown insurgency and terrorism—and now runs Special Operations unit to deal with the problem.

Special Ops might be the stuff of blockbuster movies, but across hills and forests in the country, hundreds of men and women of military and paramilitary background train in the programme in hopes of keeping the country safe.

Fagite Valentine completed four weeks of basic counter-terrorism and counterinsurgency training the Nigerian Army Base camp in Kachia, and says the rigours could prove the “final stopping point against crime.”

“With this I can assure that Nigerians can sleep with their two eyes closed, because we have been given everything within the itinerary of the Nigerian Army as regards fighting crime and terror,” he boasts.

Lock & Load: The task is to dismantle and couple in 11 seconds flat combined

“Unforgettable hijack”

The birth of a wing designated Special Ops came more from terror—a recognition that the terrain of modern-day are not as clear-cut as the jungles secessionist and federal troops forayed in the 60s war.

The wing initially had five divisions:
Jungle warfare and combat survival
Mountain warfare, merged with jungle in 1987 to become Special Warfare.
Airborne
Amphibious, upgraded to a wing in 1986 and moved to Calabar, where it is semi autonomous as a training school
Desert warfare.

The early 90s wasn’t a period seriously associated with terrorism. Even September 11 attacks wouldn’t come until a decade later. But the “unforgettable hijack” of a Nigerian Airways Airbus A300 in 1994 was a wakeup call, according to military literature.

Hijack of the flight from Lagos to Niamey in Niger Republic was blamed on the Movement for Advancement of Democracy.

The army’s response was to upgrade Special Ops to a centre, the Nigerian Army Counter Terrorism and Counter Insurgency Centre, on June 10, 2009. It has since become more popular as CTCOIN.


Winging it

CTCOIN still runs the army’s special warfare wing and counter terrorism wing.

Both are becoming increasingly important in how the military deals with battles in terrains where jungle are more concrete than vegetation.

Also increasingly important is Nigeria’s need to throw its paramilitary services into the programme, including the police and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps.

The fourth batch of trainees to graduate from CTCOIN included 60 civil defenders and 154 soldiers.

The absence of the police, to which both army and paramilitary hand over terror suspects after capture, came under questioning.

But officials insist it is “a policy issue way beyond” them that Abuja has to decide.


Command and control

Those in training must master new scapes in urban patrol, hostage rescue and clearing multiple houses. The army is careful about its activities flying all over the place so much journalists using mobile phones are not allowed to take any images.

The demos, which Daily Trust was allowed to capture, are meant to inspire confidence in a nation edgy about routine terrorist attacks and whether its security forces can stay the course of countering attacks without going overboard.

In one image sequence, a detachment of soldiers and civil defenders leap off a roaring jeep and storm an urban building—similar to the sort of areas beset by clashes and bombings in Kaduna, Kano and Maiduguri. The urban patrol lasts anywhere from minutes to hours but the goal is to stay effective and minimise casualties.


Hostage rescue is a trickier business—and “losing hostages is normal accident,” says Maj-Gen Amnon Kwaskebe, commander, Nigerian Army Corps of Artillery.

“It is not one hundred percent that when you go for rescue ops, you rescue all the people taken hostage.”

This year, alone prominent cases of abductions and resulting rescue operations which ended in the death of the hostages.

But there is hope that training could push up standards and “their performance in the field will be better than before,” he says.

One area their performance is improving is in weapons handling, beginning with attempts to dismantle a rifle in a record 4 seconds, and couple the same weapon in 7 seconds flat—even in blindfold.

The hope is that “there will be limited problems or misfire of misuse of weapons,” Kwaskebe remarks.

Minutes later, security teams storm a replica of a multiple-room house, creating a scenario in which terrorists are holed in a large house or a hotel.

The gunshots as soldiers and civil defenders open fire on “terrorists” over a stretch of green bush are deafening. The teams manage to shoot down some terrorists, but not before some go down in the shooting.

In pairs, the troops maintain a “buddy system”—two soldiers or a soldier and a civil defender—when in advance or in retreat.

The pairing helps them watch out for each other, and ensure each mate in a pair has someone to evacuate them if they are shot in crossfire.

Commandant General Bartholomew Ezeigbo of NSCDC zone B says training targets “capability and impetus.”

“You should expect improved services to the society. And as they give us more, we will give more in return,” he adds.

Civil defenders, since they were legally allowed to bear arms in duty, have recently taken thousands of rifles in fresh delivery from the army.

The commandant says arming civil defenders is ongoing and “as time goes on, the government will see whether we have need to receive more.”

Women like Akinwale Abimbola are among defenders handling the rifles. She has being taught to handle weapons “in such ways as to protect my fellow women and young ladies coming up,” she says.

But CTCOIN isn’t all about counterterrorism. The soldiers it trained this year are balance troops scheduled for deployment to Guinea Bissau, said CTCOIN director, Brig-Gen Tijani Golau.

Their job will be to enforce peace when they deploy, but the civil defenders fanning out across the country will “enforce peace or rescue people who are distressed by terrorists and insurgents.”

And, for your peace of mind, their training “included recognising improvised explosive devices and how to handle them anywhere discovered,” said Kwaskebe.

That should ease your mind, especially with a motto that reads: “No Impossibility.”

By Mohammed Bello

It took a long while coming and at some point its status and whereabouts became a subject of controversy. But it appears the long wait for the Petroleum Industry Bill may soon be over as Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs Deziani Allison-Madueke yesterday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, submitted a review of the draft bill to President Goodluck Jonathan.

The report was a product of a committee set up six months ago to review the document which had generated much discourse in the oil and gas industry.

This was as the new Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mr. Andrew Yakubu, pledged that service, transparency and professionalism will drive his regime at the corporation and that he would work with all stakeholders to achieve the collective dream.

Although she said the submission to the National Assembly for passage into law was at Jonathan’s discretion, she expressed confidence that the team that worked on the document did a good job which will address local supply as well as strengthen the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to stand as a viable and globally competitive outfit.

She said it took the committee over six months to come out with what she considers a perfect document in the interest of the country given the enormity of the revision they undertook which spanned fiscal regime, reconfiguring of NNPC to be able to play assigned roles as well as administrative roles of entities in the sector.

Asked about the likely date of submission, she said: “We will go forward now as directed and prepare for the presentation to the Federal Executive Council, my assumption therefore is that within the next 10 to 14 days, it will be in their hands. But, again, that will be at the pleasure of Mr. President. Ours is to present it and review it with government stakeholders as it is done for every bill that is done for the government to present.

“It has taken a long time. It went through the entire gamut of the sixth session of the National Assembly and it did not get promulgated into law. In agreement with the seventh assembly, we took it back and completely reviewed it again. This is not a small bill, it is a critical bill for this country and for our oil and gas sector, therefore at this point, government will do the final review and put it in front of the FEC for approval; part of that process is that it will go through the Attorney-General’s office.

“Nigerians should understand that we have been in a hurry for a long time to put this bill out but we will try to ensure that by the time it enters the National Assembly, we are very comfortable with it and we are putting forward a bill that we believe the oil and gas sector can stand on and can grow on for many years to come in this country.”

On why it took them that long to get the bill ready, Allison-Madueke replied: “Because of the extensive revision of the bill that has been done. A lot of details have gone into it; we have looked at the fiscal regime, we have looked at the reconfiguration of the NNPC to ensure that going forward, it becomes the commercial entity it should have been all along. We have also looked at other administrative roles within the gamut of the sector as well. I think that the teams have done a very good job; we are very pleased.”

Continuing, she explained that the President has directed them to interface with other stakeholders before deliberations prior to presentation to the National Assembly to address possible areas of concern and create a common front for the needed synergy for its easy passage.

Areas which she said received extensive review include templates for calculations, fiscal gas regime, domestic gas supply and making departments in the sector function according best global standards and practices so that the Ministry would be professionally run.

“The fiscal regimes used are so much different. The manner and templates for various calculations have been looked at differently and other fiscal areas. The issue of domestic gas and fiscal regime for domestic gas has been looked at robustly. The issue of the reconfiguration of the NNPC to ensure that going forward, it becomes the commercial entity that it is supposed to be and we can actually grow a first rate national oil company that over the years will grow to compete with other national oil companies of the likes of Petronas, Petrobras etc.,” she said.

Also speaking with State House correspondents, newly appointed Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Mr. Andrew Yakubu, said he will bring service, transparency and responsible leadership to the office which will change the perception of Nigerians of the Corporation.

According to him, achieving that would be easy since the NNPC was populated with professionals with appropriate expertise, adding that once passed into law the PIB will touch on all aspects of the oil and gas and make Nigerians get the best out of it.

“We must reposition NNPC for better service; we must reposition it to support the economy. We will work very hard to work with the Nigerian public, all the stakeholders. We shall be transparent and responsible. We will work towards changing the perception. NNPC staff is dedicated to service, they are professional, and there are areas of improvement that we can bring to bear.

“You will agree with me that in the recent past, we have had quite a number of challenges; a lot of eyes are on us on the way we do our business. Those criticisms have been taken on board, my new management will plough them back into the system, we will review our processes and we will reposition NNPC for growth,” Yakubu said

Billyonaire: Are you stupid ? Please I need an answer.

bayooooooo: Are you kidding me!

If it's for peaceful purpose and not a secret weapons programme, the whole world will know the location, the safety perimeter around the region well explained to everyone.

bayooooooo: In a sentence, Nigeria is not ripe for Nuclear Power.

We should concentrate on gas utilization to generate power.

Nigeria and Russian have commenced implementation of a nuclear power generation agreement signed three years ago, the Chairman, Nigeria Atomic Energy Commission, Dr Franklin E. Osaiosai, said yesterday.

The agreement, signed in June 2009, is to facilitate cooperation on the development of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

Dr Osaiosai said that currently, modalities are being developed to ratify the agreements and proceed with their implementation.

This is coming just as President Goodluck Jonathan said generating power through nuclear remains a mainstream goal of his administration.

Commissioning the N650 million worth Nuclear Researchers’ Hostel at Sheda near Abuja, Jonathan, represented by Vice President Namadi Sambo said Nigeria is committed to generating power using nuclear but called for caution in the implementation of the programme.

He said the agency has gone far in partnering with other countries that developed capabilities and competencies in nuclear power industry and operations.

Osaiosai said the major challenge facing the project is funding, and called on the federal government to come to their aid in order to meet the targeted time.

Nigeria has been consistently enjoying support from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and other developing partners.

Jonathan commend the commission for the progress made in the implementation of the roadmap for nuclear generation. “I am pleased that our national nuclear power programme continues to enjoy the confidence of development partners and IAEA,” he said.

He urged the agency to develop and implement mechanism for national, regional and international nuclear emergency preparedness capabilities to avoid any unforeseen circumstances.

Nigerian targets 10,000 megawatts of electricity by the year 2020 and plans to increase it to 40,000 by 2030.

In a move to boost power generation in the country, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) yesterday concluded the plans to build a $3.5 billion gas plant in Assa-North, Ohaji- South in Imo State.

The Managing Director, Mr Mutiu Summonu, of SPDC who disclosed this during a visit to Imo State Governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, said the Assa-North, Ohaji- South Gas supply project is in line with the local gas content policy of the Federal Government to boost power generation in the country.

Summonu said the gas plant would supply domestic gas to power energy plants across the country as well as generates massive job opportunities for Nigerians, adding that the project would be executed in two phases and would be executed in two phases and would be completed in 2018.

While soliciting for the collaboration of the state government in handling of the project, Mr Summonu also urged the government to play its part by providing 200 hectares of land for the project, enabling and secured environment for the expatriates and workers and ensure a healthy collaboration between SPDC and the host communities.

He promised that his company would always live up to expectation in the area of its Corporate Social responsibility (CSR) in the course of executing the project. But Okorocha in his speech assured the SPDC team that the state government would definitely play its part to ensure immediate commencement of the project.

The governor enumerated how SPDC began its operations in Nigeria when gas was first discovered at Iho, Ikeduru LGA in Imo State and urged the company to show enough presence by building a befitting corporate office in the state.

Okorocha further assured all adequate security, good working relationship with host communities as well as general hospitality to SPDC.
He urged the company to improve on its Corporate Social Responsibility by embarking on meaningful projects especially on the power sector to ensure appreciable improvement on power generation and distribution in
the state.

Andre Uweh: @Wesley80, it is interesting to note that you say Alishi instead or Arushi. In some other places in Igboland, it is called Alusi or alushi.
I think it will be nice for some of you guys paritcipate in those threads about various Igbo dialects or various Igbo greetings. It really helps one another.

drnoel: thanx for ur input. Do u have any information about the part they played during the slave trade? Someone we met in Delta then made some side comments about their ancestors worshiping Arusi. Can u shed more light there (the man actually said they were devil worshippers)? More information pls.

tjskii: Wich female in her right sense wud marry bobbybrown,sheeesh,d guy is just yuckk