₦airaland Forum

■ Senate president in a fix

BY ADETUTU FOLASADE-KOYI

The lingering crisis of confidence between the upper legislative chamber and the Presidency is taking a toll on the Senate Presi­dent, Dr Bukola Saraki as he sits precariously at the helm.

Having failed to thaw the ice through a combination of peaceful overtures and blackmail, the Senate president is at his wits’ end, struggling to grapple firmly with the is­sues and reach amicable resolution of the more-than-three-months-old debacle.

Long before Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) slammed a 13-count perjury charge on him, the Presidency appears to have shut Saraki out of its official activities.

Senator Saraki is not scheduled to see President Muhammadu Buhari “anytime soon and certainly not this year,” said a source yesterday.

“Although there were silent peace moves to get him to see the president, that will not happen. He’s not even on the Presidential Villa’s protocol list to see the president,” the source added.

Although Saraki and President Buhari belong to the same ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), the embattled Senate president is not in the good books of the Presidency and the party, as he had been ac­cused of “anti-party activities” and refusal to uphold party supremacy.

Last month, Senate Leader Ali Ndume led some senators to meet with the president in what was termed a “peace shuttle” which extended from Abuja to Lagos. At the meet­ing the president reportedly told the law­makers to go and obey party’s position on the composition of Senate leadership.

Sunday Sun learnt that some comments made against top shots in the Presidency, which eventually got to their ears, might have worsened an already frosty relation­ship.

A ranking Senator recounted to Sunday Sun how the peace moves initiated by the Saraki leadership fell flat on its face, com­pounding his fragile hold on the Senate power levers.

“Can you imagine that some members of the leadership told us that ‘we don’t need the Presidency? They are the ones who need us after all, they need us to pass bills and ap­prove the national budget,” the Senator said.”

The alleged statement reportedly got to Aso Rock and straight to the ears of some top members of the party there.

Sunday Sun learnt that the Presidency is still angry at Ekweremadu’s return to his post as deputy Senate president after the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lost its majority hold on the chamber in the March 28 senatorial poll.

Sources close to the Villa disclosed that Ekweremadu’s emergence and the unyield­ing disposition of Saraki on it, is a major clog in the wheel of progress, which percep­tibly would eventually erode APC’s gains in the Senate.

As Saraki’s deputy, Ekweremadu is also a presiding officer. This means that in the absence of the Senate President, Ekwer­emadu would preside at plenary.

In the event that President Muhammadu Buhari transmits a bill that the PDP resents, there is no way that bill would survive.

Sunday Sun further gathered that there is a tradition where the President meets with the leadership of the National Assembly at least every other week and with Ekwerema­du as deputy Senate president, it would be difficult for Buhari to sit down with a PDP member to articulate and fashion out poli­cies for the country.

Moreover, the Presidency was reportedly miffed with the illegal probe of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) last month.

“It was clearly established that the decision of the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions to go ahead with the probe did not get the nod of the entire House because the matter should have been presented in plenary, before being referred to the committee for consideration. “It was established that the first major step of presentation of a petition against the EFCC was not done before the committee went to work.

Mark my words, that probe is going nowhere, because it was procedurally flawed,” a source told Sunday Sun.

Added to storm gathering from the presidency in the direction of the Senate president, the Senate Unity Forum (SUF), a group of senators loyal to Senator Ahmad Lawan, the preferred candidate of the party for the Senate Presidency is not letting up on its avowed goal to get its pound of flesh from Saraki.

The SUF had instituted a case in court against the Senate and the leadership of the National Assembly for using forged Standing Rules to conduct elections into the office of Senate president and deputy

Senate president on Tuesday, July 9, following the inauguration of the National Assembly.

Sunday Sun learnt last Friday, that the SUF’s civil suit, with an originating summons, FHC/ABJ/ CS/651/2015, filed by Senators Suleiman Hunkuyi, Kabir Garba Marafa, Abu Ibrahim, Robert Ajayi Boroffice and Gbenga Ashafa is being pursued vigorously.

One of the members of the group disclosed that, “The matter is still in court. We have the backing of our party and we will pursue the matter to a logical conclusion. This case is now a case of ‘no retreat, no surrender’ because there was no amendment of the Senate Standing Rules. The one we know was that of 2011 and it was never amended in the life of the Seventh Senate. He added that although the case was filed when the courts were on recess, “as at last week, the case file has been taken to the President of the Federal High Court. We expect the case to be assigned to a judge soon.”

Meanwhile, the trouble shooting efforts made by Saraki’s loyalists on the protracted Senate leadership crisis have failed to achieve the desired result.

A member of the Senate leadership met recently with the former Lagos State governor and leader of the party, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu on the crisis, but the peace effort failed to thaw the ice.

A source privy to the meeting, which held in a highbrow area of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, said, “The summation of Asiwaju’s comments was that they should go and comply with the party’s position on who and which zone should constitute the leadership.

Asiwaju told them that his position has not changed, that he aligns fully with President Buhari on the Senate leadership respecting the party, and there must be party supremacy because you cannot disrespect the president.”

The Senate leadership position are: Senate leader, deputy Senate leader, chief whip and deputy whip.

In July, APC National Chairman, Chief John Odigie Oyegun wrote Saraki, listing four senators nominated by the the party to fill the four poitions. Instead, three caucuses, namely North­east, North west, and South­south nominated other senators to fill the positions. The exemption was the South-­west, which is still vacant. The party’s candidate, Senator Olusola Adeyeye was tipped as the chiefwhip. The Saraki camp did not contest the position, but it has remained vacant due to the imbroglio.

Reports at the weekend indicate that the National Assembly may not resume plenary on September 29. No reason was given for the proposed resumption shift.

■Villagers desert homes in fear for their lives
■Monarch accused of desperate attempt to take their land
■They are the ones after my life but they won’t succeed –Monarch

FROM ALOYSIUS ATTAH, ONITSHA

Peace has literarily taken flight in Umun­ya community, Oyi Local Government Area, Anambra State. Unless Governor Willie Obiano, takes immediate executive steps, the loss of lives is imminent as blood has already been flowing in the area going by the number of people already injured.

The cause of the crisis is the power tussle over land between the traditional ruler of the com­munity, Igwe Kris Onyekwuluje and the executive members of Odumodu Ebonabo led by their Chairman, Mr. Ekene Okonkwo Ejeh. Another village quarter, Umu-Ebo is also up in arms with the traditional ruler over land matters with accusations and counter-accusations flying every­where, like a rain of bullets.

Umunya shares a common boundary with Awkuzu and Nteje as one heads towards Awka, the Anambra State capital. It is made up of 10 villages namely, Okpu, Isioye, Ezi-Umunya, Ojobi , Ajakpani, Umu-Ebo, Amaezike, Odumodu-Enu, Odumodu-Ana and Ukunu.

For administrative convenience and to make it easy to administer their natural endowments, mainly land, the people of Odumodu-Enu and Odumodu-Ana came together and formed Odumodu Ebonabo Improvement Union registered with the Corporate Affairs Com­mission.

The traditional ruler of the community, Igwe Onyekwulu­je hails from Ajakpani village while Ekene Ejeh the Chairman of Odumodu Ebonabo is from Odumodu-Enu.

There have been tension and apprehension in the community over sale of lands and the pro­ceeds for some time, but things took a dangerous dimension in the last two months leading to arson, mayhem, brutality and unrest.

The traditional ruler, Igwe Onyekwuluje recently raised the alarm over an assassination attempt on his life, stating that he had evidence that Ekene Okonk­wo Ejeh and his group planned to eliminate him. In fact, the traditional ruler has a recorded

video where the plan on how to eliminate him was hatched and he carries the video in his laptop anywhere he goes and would not hesitate to play it for any doubtvideo where the plan on how to ing Thomas to watch and draw his own conclusion. ­

Alarmed by the discovery, the Igwe wrote a petition to the police alleging threat to his life, which led to the arrest of Ekene and his group, who were clamped into detention at the dreaded Awkuzu Special Anti Robbery Squad until a court granted them bail.

But Ekene reacting to the mon­arch’s allegations, has debunked the tale that he planned to assassi­nate the traditional ruler as a car­erfully constructed hoax intended to hoodwink people, stating that the Igwe concocted it in order to silence their group so that he, the monarch, could continue in what he described as “wicked and self­ish plot to emasculate everybody in the community while selling their lands and feeding fat on the proceeds.”

The executive members of Odumodu Ebonabo are also crying foul that instead of the government and other stakehold­ers to give them succour from the weight of oppression they have been suffering in the hands of the traditional ruler and his agents, they are being accused of trying to kill the traditional ruler when there was no such intent on their part.

The people who are presently on self-imposed exile from their community owing to the massive brutality meted out to them allegedly by the parallel youth organization said to have been formed by the traditional ruler using one Okwudili Nwankwo alias Oforkansi regaled Sunday Sun reporter with tales of their predicament. Coincidentally, when the reporter met with the youth body who were accused of the brutality, they denied all the allegations.

With various degrees of injuries on their body, the victims shared their ugly stories in a hideout somewhere in Awka and lamented that they have been made refugees in their own land.

Some other victims including octogenarians who spoke with the reporter from their hideout outside the state cried out to Gov­ernor Willie Obiano to save them from their daily nightmare.

Origin of the crisis

Going down memory lane, the Secretary of Odumodu Ebonabo Improvement Union, Comrade Sunday Esedo, gave Sunday Sun an insight into how the dis­agreement with their traditional ruler snowballed into the present crisis that has torn the community apart. He gave three instances that were also corroborated by the Chairman, Ekene Okonkwo-Ejeh in a separate interview.

As he told the story, the Federal government acquired about 210.8 hectares of land from Odumodu (200 hectares in 1984 and 10.8 in 1997) for its proposed housing estate under the site-and-services scheme, but failed to put it to use till date.

“Ironically, we discovered that the land is now being fraudulently sold off in bits by officials of the Federal Ministry of Lands, con­trary to the terms of agreement of the acquisition. We wrote to the FML invoking a clause in the agreement which provided that 20 per cent of the acquired land be returned to us as the need arises – citing precedence and such exam­ples in other parts of the country including that of Ugwuaji in Enu­gu State. The ministry officials consequently visited and during their courtesy call on the Igwe told him their mission in Umun­ya. The traditional ruler allegedly told them that he is the Chief Security Officer and custodian of all lands in the community and that he would reach out to us, the Odumodu people to hand over all the allocation papers. That he would ensure a proper, peaceful and equitable distribution. The visitors then handed him all the papers. Incidentally, instead of doing just that, he was later found to have allegedly handed the allocation papers to his family members and cronies.

“Whereas the traditional ruler hails from Ajakpani, no person from Odumodu, the actual own­ers of the land, got any. We didn’t even know or hear anything about it until the restiveness of our people took us back to the FML officials who then narrated what transpired between them and the monarch. When we got back to the Igwe, he told us that we should have patience that he has not tidied things up with the FML officials and that he would let us know as soon as he was through.

“But because of doubts we already had, because of the Igwe’s body language, we quickly went back to FML to hint them on our discussion with the Igwe. It was at this point that the officials brought out the file on Odumodu-Umunya and showed our delegation the long list of beneficiaries that Igwe Onye­kwuluje had submitted since. We nearly fainted because not even a single name from our village was submitted by Igwe. Consequently we went to court, insisting that any land acquired for overriding public interest shall never be sold out instead it should have been used to build public facilities. After this our action, Igwe On­yekwuluje met with Ekene and was very angry that we went to court because he knew that by our action, he would eventually lose the 100 plots he acquired through crooked means.

“The second issue we have with Igwe was that sometime last year, we got reliable information that the traditional ruler led a pri­vate company and their team in­cluding some foreigners to Gov­ernor Obiano. They presented a well rehearsed story and ‘sports academy’ gimmick to Gover­nor Obiano, stating that they proposed to build 30,000 housing units, 8 sports stadia, shopping malls, schools, hospitals, parking lots, etc. So when the governor demanded to know how they in­tended to finance the whole multi-pronged project, which he saw as very ambitious, noting that even a state government cannot mobilize enough funds to undertake such a programme, they couldn’t give a satisfactory answer.

“The governor was so dis­mayed that he allegedly stood up and told the Igwe to his face that he was very disappointed that he could bring such bogus proposal to him with the intent for him to sign the Certificate of Occupancy of the land belonging to Igwe’s subjects to them. Thereafter he walked out on them. The group, dejected and thoroughly embar­rassed left in shame. Because his intention to corner large parcel of Odumodu land with this outland­ish project failed, Igwe was angry again and told our chairman, Ekene to his face that he would deal with him.

“The third issue that finally led to our present fate, where we are now refugees as we are talking to you, has to do with our deal with the Anglican Church. We gave the Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion land on lease in 1960s, where they built Umunya Girls Secondary School. The school premises incidentally accommodated the NYSC for Anambra State Corps members Orientation Camp. After using it for so long, the Church now wanted to convert it to a free­hold property for them to build what they call Camp of Faith, a multipurpose centre. So they approached our leadership for renegotiation and after series of meetings, we agreed on N50mil­lion-to be paid in installments, for guided mass-oriented develop­mental projects in the community.

“When Igwe got wind of this development again, he called our chairman and told him point blank that if we fail to give him 10 per cent of the sum, he would spoil the business for us. When our chairman threw the matter open to us during our meeting, we rejected Igwe’s proposal abso­lutely and made it clear that he is not from Odumodu and therefore could not partake in what does not belong to him.

“Igwe then swore to teach us a lesson and quickly went to the Bishop, Owen Nwokolo, along­side one Ben Erikefe from Amak­pu Nteje, who he presented as representative of Nteje commu­nity. He told the Bishop that we had lost ownership rights of the land in the court to Nteje and that the church should actually pay the N50m to Erikefe, not to Ejeh or anyone else from Umunya. But the Bishop after consultation with Barrister Ibegbu, who is in charge of legal matters for the church told Igwe that the 1960 docu­ments and agreement was signed by the six (6) kindreds of Odumo­du. That it was therefore bizarre how Nteje came in now, more so, it was the same Erikefe that the Igwe took to the Bishop, was the person who said under cross-ex­amination that Nteje people were not disputing that portion of land with our village.

“Feeling disappointed, the traditional ruler at this point now summoned some boys from our village, one Okwudili Nwankwo and told him to go with some oth­ers and prepare a petition against Ekene. Because these boys were not educated, Igwe was the one who prepared the petition against our chairman through his palace secretary, Ernest Nwoye alleg­ing all sorts of things against us. They drafted the petition and those boys now appended their signature.

“Unrelenting and based on the petition he instigated, Igwe then visited Odumodu on June 16, 2015 and inaugurated a parallel youth association to upstage our own. He was said to have told the youths that he would give them the balance of funds from the church so that Ekene will not disappear with it. The poor fel­lows fell for it and he gave them the mandate to fortify their group with some runaway suspected criminals.

“The traditional ruler gave them the mandate to be unleash­ing mayhem in the community because he assured them that he is connected in high places including the Inspector General of Police, the State Police Com­missioner, while assuring them that he would get them released anytime they ran into problem with the police. The mandate given to them is the result of all the mayhem unleashed on our community.

Monarch denies alle­gations

After several failed efforts to meet with the traditional ruler of Umunya, Igwe Kris Onyekwu­luje and give him opportunity to respond to all the lingering issues, the reporter finally succeeded. During the interaction with the reporter, Igwe Onyekwuluje not only denied all the allegations raised by the Odumodu Ebonabo people but presented documen­tary evidence and video where Ekene and his group purportedly planned to kill him. He also gave out the phone number of the youth leader, Okwudili Nwank­wo who the Ekene Ejeh group alleged is the squad leader behind those attacking them and urged the reporter to make out time to see him for verification.

“The document I have speaks for itself. Ekene Okonkwo Ejeh and co are the people who know how to deal with native doctors. Mine is to ask, what is the job of Ekene Okonkwo Ejeh that he owns up to 6 or 7 SUVs? What is his source of livelihood that he bought properties in Abuja and so on? It was his people in Odumodu that came to complain to me and I only told them to put it in writing and they had to raise a petition against him and Odumodu Ebonabo. Based on the petitions raised by his people against him, I called him, Obed Nweke, Chukwudozie Udemeand co are the people who know zue, and others, but Ekene didn’t come. The others came and I gave them the minutes of the meeting. They call themselves youths but among them are some grandpar­ents. It was a case of the same people raising objection that few people had been embezzling their money,” the monarch said. ­

They are running for their sins –Parallel Odumodu Youths

Armed with the phone number of the parallel youth organization of Odumodu village, the report­er called their leader, Okwudili Nwankwo, aka, Oforkansi, to get his own side of the story on whether he and his group actu­ally committed all the atrocities alleged by the fleeing Ekene Ejeh and group.

Oforkansi on ascertaining the identity of the reporter said that he couldn’t talk alone on the phone and asked the reporter to come down to the village and see the youths for a proper briefing.

On the agreed date, Oforkansi mobilized the town crier who went round to summon the youths who converged on Amaugo square, Odumodu. With some clutching cigarettes and bottles of beer they regaled the reporter with tales of their predicament in the hands of the Odumodu Ebonabo group led by Ekene Ejeh. The youths owned up that many of them are unemployed with majority ekeing out a living by doing menial jobs like digging foundations for builders. They blamed their predicament on the mismanagement of their com­mon heritage (land proceeds) by Ekene Ejeh and co. Some of the youths who spoke to the reporter like Maduka Nwoye, Chidiebere Okwuonu, Okechukwu Asionye. Chukwunonso Obita alias Mazi Egwu, Ifeanyichukwu Peter and Fidelis Obinze, a physical­ly challenged civil servant, all acknowledged that the cause of quarrel was a case of few people benefitinmg from the collective patrimony of the entire commu­nity. Their position was corrobo­rated by two elders in their midst, Emmanuel Nweke and Emman­uel Ozue.

But when contacted to react to the allegation of the youth leader, Ekene Ejeh said it was the same youths, who refused to allow him step down as Chairman all the years pending when they will win all their cases with some commu­nities trespassing on their land. He said proceeds from the few plots of land he sold were used in funding the cost of litigations for their case with land speculators.

Peace on the hori­zon?

When the reporter also met the Anambra State Commissioner of Police, Hosea Karma, he said any aggrieved party in the Umunya crisis should come and see him in the office for complaints apart from writing petitions. He main­tained that he operates an open door policy and often interviews both parties to a dispute before referring the case to the appro­priate desk to ensure that justice prevailed.

The President General, Umunya Improvement Union, a clergyman, Ven. Emma Odunze when contacted said that a peace committee has been set up with the mandate of talking to all par­ties in the dispute. He expressed confidence that when the com­mittee completes its assignment, peace would eventually return to the troubled community.

nwanna89:
If they cannot take care of all three babies, they can put one or two up for adoption.

PassingShot:
This coming from Ajimobi is very shameful. It's so unfortunate that Nigerian politicians can be successful managing their personal business but almost always fail to manage the affairs of their state they govern.

I cry for my state. I cry not only because of the current situation of things especially with this directionless and visionless governor BUT because I don't see any hope of a good administrator coming on board after this man.

...
According to him: “We will not sack anybody but we will restructure them to productive areas, though we know we have an over-bloated workforce.”

On the ways out for Oyo State, he said: “We want to set a template like Lagos on our IGR and I promise that by September 2016, we should be able to increase our revenue from N1.2 billion to N2.3 billion. We will also block leakages .

“The bail-out is like a long term bond which will be serviced with 9 per cent. It is illegal to do otherwise and not pay workers’ salaries with the bail-out.”

On the introduction of development levy in public secondary schools, he reiterated: “I would not call that fees. We pay N54, 000 on each student.

“Before we arrived at this, we have convened a stakeholders’ meeting where it was recommended that each student should be made to pay N10, 000 annually but I said no; that it should not be more than N1000 per term, making N3000 per session.

“However, we will consider the poor but indigent students as the scholarship board will be strengthened to cater for them.”

He said the stoppage of sponsorship of pilgrimage was temporary, adding, as the last pillar of Islam, hajj is for those who could afford it.

“Oyo was the highest sponsor of pilgrimage in the last four years. Though we would have loved to continue but the dwindling economy would not allow us. So, they should bear with us pending the time the economy will improve.”

He said he has not appointed political office holders because he was taking his time to get the best to man the 13 ministries.

http://thenationonlineng.net/why-were-in-economic-mess-by-ajimobi/

Clitoris777:
He is so scared. Obama has heard all the allegations and he wants to do some damage control before his meeting with Obama. Too late. The whole world knows now

Author Josephine Okojie

The latest telecommunication report released by National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has shown that Nigeria’s telecommunication sector contributed N1.34 billion to the economy in the opening quarter of the year.

The NBS report states that the sector records a monthly growth rate average of 0.95 percent, while the annual growth rate in the sector averaged 46.29 percent between 2002 and 2014, with the highest rate recorded in 2004 at 153.65 percent and lowest rate of 8. 53 percent was recorded in 2011.

“The opening quarter of 2015 recorded a real growth rate of 5.36 percent, a rise of 0.61 percent points from the 2014 average growth rate, which was 4.75 percent,” the report said.

Nigeria, Africa largest economy and biggest oil producer, gross domestic product (GDP) declined to 3.86 percent in the first quarter of 2015.
The ICT sector is experiencing a 10.3 percent compound annual growth rates (CAGR) in 2014, way ahead of South Africa on 6.5 percent and Kenya on 9.5 percent.

The bureau affirmed that the sector recorded a significant growth in the subscriber’s base from 2.27 million subscribers in 2002 when Nigeria issued its first mobile license to 143.05 million at the end of Q1 2015.

Out of the four telecoms providers, MTN dominated the number of subscriptions with 61.21 million subscribers, which is 42.84 percent of the total subscription.

Globacom followed with 30.03 million subscribers, representing 21 per cent, while Airtel, with a subscriber base of 28.6 million, which is 20.4 percent, followed. Etisalat recorded 22.3 million subscribers, representing 15.69 per cent.

Mobile phone/voice penetration has increased to over 96 percent of the population, compared to 0.73 percent in 2001.

There is also a remarkable surge in Nigeria’s internet subscriptions, rising over the last 12 months from 48.2 million in June 2013 to just under 70 million today 2014 according to reports by the National Communication Commission (NCC).

http://businessdayonline.com/2015/06/telecoms-contributes-n1-34bn-to-economy-in-q1-2015/#.VZQd4vSjqhY

Sunnybobo3:
This is what you get when contraceptives fail.

Sunnybobo3:
Which country are you talking about cos we are definitely not in the same country as we speak as you can see from my middle finger to you in the attached picture. I can't be ruled by an illiterate.

Sunnybobo3:
Deal with the point raised. The illiterate won in largely illiterate states. How do you expect an illiterate to be capable of rational reasoning?

Only if it were possible to have a minimum educational qualification to be able to vote as us the case I being voted for.

Sunnybobo3:
The truth of the matter is that illiterates chose one from their constituency of illiterates to preside over the affairs of the ccountry. Compare this summary of WAEC result by states to the voting pattern by states and you'd understand what I mean.

PPAngel:
Tinubu wants another set of puppets.
Expect Remi Tinubu to get a slot

barcanista:
Our President-elect Muhammadu Buhari is nothing but a puppet to the powerbrokers in APC

babyBB:
Baba onechance. People wei vote tam never see anytin yet. GEJ my hero Wike my role model

Sunnybobo3:
You twerp doesn't even know whether I carry a Nigerian passport. Smh!

Boko is indeed haram to some people.

Sunnybobo3:
When was he sworn in

Illiteracy na disease o.

But against this backdrop, a south west source who has sympathy for his people warned that if APC wants to end its rule at just one term of 4 years, it should shove the zone out of the speakership.
“If APC wants to end in 2019, let them give the north east the Speakership after giving the Senate President to North East or North central and see”, he said.