daily times of nigeria newspaper - monday, 2nd of february 2015

• I won’t probe military, Buhari pledges

NIGERIA MONDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2015 VOL. 1. NO.36 N150

Polls: Nigeria on global watch

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Anenih urges North to back Jonathan

-Mercy Aigbe

Monday, February 2, 2015

Life TIMES&

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Fierce battle in Borno as Army repels insurgents’ attackSuspected stowaway arrested at Lagos airport g 6

INSIDEINSIDE

People take to the streets against increased violence in Gombe ahead of a planned visit by President Goodluck Jonathan after two suicide bombs rocked the town ... on Sunday PHOTO: REUTERS

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– Obasanjo

Daily Times NigeriaMonday, February 2, 20152

Daily Times NigeriaMonday, February 2, 2015 5 News

I’ll fight corruption with my last blood – Ribadu

Ajimobi compensates 200 victims of Ibadan attack

Buhari’s presidency unstoppable – Bamidele

Group vows to get 40m votes for Jonathan

Tom GarbaYola

•••Former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and guber-natorial candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Malam Nuhu Ribadu has vowed to fight corruption in Adamawa State, if voted into power.

While answering questions during an interactive meeting with the electorate at his Jimeta

residence, Ribadu said it was cor-ruption that caused insurgency in the country.

He said the government failed to provide employment for the teeming youths, consequently, they became idle and had to think of ways to get rid of their frustra-tion.

“My duty is to make sure jobs are created in all parts of the state, Adamawa money is meant for you people, nobody ,I repeat, nobody will steal the money that

belongs to you, I will utilise it well and ensure massive development in the state”, Ribadu said.

In answering a question from a blind man, Malam Isa Adamu, the candidate promised that “the physically challenged will be gainfully employed during my ad-ministration of the state”.

He said the Internally displaced persons (IDPs) would get immedi-ate response from his administra-tion in rebuilding their homes and loans to them to start new

business.“It’s very touching to realise

that thousands of my people don’t have a place to call their own, they don’t have a home to lay their heads and this is very dishearten-ing.

“It is corruption that led to all this, but, I promise you that my experience as a security man will never go in vain, I will use all available ways of curtailing the situation within the shortest pos-sible time” Ribadu added.

•••Governor Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State has distributed cheques to over 200 victims of the public dis-turbance that occurred some weeks ago at Isale Osi and Apampa Com-pound in Ibadan South West Local Government Area of the state.

Besides, 99 victims of the inferno that occurred at Ogunpa Market late last year were also compensat-ed by the governor.

The distribution of the cheques came during the campaign tour of the local government area by the governor at the weekend.

He said that his administration would continue to implement poli-cies that would promote economic and social development with a view to taking the state to greater heights.

Gbenga SodeindeAdo Ekiti

•••A member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Opeyemi Bamidele, has said that many members of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party would vote for the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Gen-eral Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) during the February general election.

Also, in a bid to garner more support for Buhari, Ekiti Bibire Coalition, a political platform coordinated by Bamidele, had ordered its teeming supporters to embark on a house-to-house campaign in the 132 towns in the state.

Describing Buhari’s presiden-cy as unstoppable, Bamidele said the strategy was adopted in a bid to take the gospel of the wind of change blowing across the coun-try to the grassroots due to his ardent belief in the capacity of Buhari to deliver, if elected in the February 14 presidential elec-tion.

A statement released on Sun-day by his media aide, Ahmed Salami, said the group was pur-suing the agenda in collaboration with like-minded politicians in the major political parties.

Wale AkintudeYola

•••The National Coordinator of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Ward-to-ward Initiative for Jonathan and Sambo 2015, Mr. Kamal Karka, has said that his group would mobilise 40 million votes for the re-election of Presi-dent Goodluck Jonathan.

Karka, who disclosed this on Saturday during the North-East Presidential Monitoring Team tour of Yola, said that the initia-tive’s mission was to take the presidential campaign to the wards.

He said that each of its four million members was duty-bound to influence 10 votes for Jonathan adding that the tour

was to sensitise the grassroots with the achievements of the President, which would qualify him for re-election.

``This group is out to reach the grassroots, especially, at the wards and enlighten voters on the achievements of Mr. Presi-dent and why he stands to be re-elected. ``Our conviction is based on the fact that Jonathan is the only Nigerian leader who advo-cates for youths and women em-powerment.

Karka attributed the socio-political challenges facing the North to the elite who did not mean well for the masses.

He urged the youth to rise against any form of ethno-reli-gious politics, adding that the “old brigade had used us enough

and this is the time to say enough is enough. ``Let us tell ourselves the truth, we are a problem to ourselves because the elite in the North had never helped the re-gion and, today, they are pointing accusing fingers at other people.

Cleric cautions against campaign of calumnyOkay Osuji

•••The General Overseer of Bible Life Church, Bishop Leonard Umun-na, has called on Nigerian politi-cians to desist from the use of foul language during campaigns.He also urged them to dwell more on issues affecting the ordinary Nigeri-ans. Bishop Umunna made the call re-cently at an interactive session with journalists.

He decried the present campaign of calumny and character assassina-tion by politicians, which, he said, was responsible for heating up of the polity.

Speaking on the raging issue of Permanent Voter’s Card (PVC), many of which were yet to be dis-tributed to eligible voters, Umunna called on the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) to al-low for the use of temporary voters cards.

Jonathan

President Goodluck Jonathan

acknowledging cheers at Ahmadu

Bello Stadium in Kaduna during the

PDP Presidential Campaign on

Saturday

5 News


Buhari does not believe in Nigeria, says Afenifere

Buhari

Kwara PDP candidate challenges Ahmed to media debate

Friends rise for Buhari in A’Ibom

Umeh has nothing to offer Anambra, says Ekwunife

Ola YekeenIlorin

•••The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Governorship Flag bearer in Kwara State, Senator Simeon Ajibola, has challenged his opponent, Governor Abdul-fatah Ahmed, to a live radio and television debate over their per-formance claims.

Ajibola threw the challenge on Sunday in Ilorin while address-ing groups of women, youths and different associations from across the 16 LGAs in the state.

The PDP Candidate declared that he was ready to confront the APC sitting governor, Ahmed, with proofs of his contributions to capital projects and develop-ment of communities and the people of Kwara generally.

Sen. Ajibola maintained that the truth of his N1.5billion con-tribution to the construction of Ilorin Cargo Terminal, Interna-tional Vocational Centre, Ajase-po and Baruteen roads was best thrashed at the public domain.

He said evidence of payments like cheques, to whom and at what time and what project would be made available to mem-bers of the public to judge them.

The PDP Candidate insisted that he had done more for Kwara people than Governor Ahmed led APC government given that as lawmaker, he did not control state fund like the governor.

Ajibola said he was instru-mental to the creation of two ad-ditional LGAs out of the defunct Irepodun and Ekiti LGAs as a member of the 1995 Constitu-tional Conference.

L-R : Oyo State Governor and All Progressives Congress (APC) gubernatorial candidate, Senator Abiola Ajimobi; his counterparts in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Teslim Folarin; Social Democratic Party (SDP), Engi-neer Seyi Makinde; Action Alliance (AA), Pastor Taiwo Otegbeye; All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), Deacon Olalere Samson and KOWA Party, Alhaji Olaide Olayiwola, during the gubernatorial debate organised by the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), Ibadan Network Centre… on Sunday. PHOTO OYO GOVERMENT HOUSE

Gbenga Sodeinde Ado Ekiti

•••The Yoruba Socio-Political group, Afenifere (Ekiti State Chapter), has said that the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), does not believe in the uni-ty and oneness of Nigeria.

The Ekiti State chapter of Af-enifere also lauded the endorse-ment of President Goodluck Jonathan’s reelection by the Af-enifere, saying, “Those interest-ed in the restructuring of Nige-ria must support the President’s reelection because he had the courage to convoke the national conference and he has promised to implement the report”.

In a release issued in Ado Ekiti on Sunday, and signed by Chief A. Alonge and Chief Femi Balogun, the State Chairman and Secretary of Afenifere re-spectively, the group said it was wrong for someone like Buhari, who had refused to attend the Council of State meetings since 2007 to rule Nigeria.

“The last Council of State meeting attended by Buhari was during the ratification of the disputed census figures, which shows that Kano State was still more populous than Lagos de-spite the fact that Jigawa was carved out of it.

“That’s the same way he boy-cotted the Oputa Panel and he is also going to boycott the Presidential election debate or-

ganised by the Broadcasting Or-ganisation of Nigeria (BON), a statutory organisation compris-ing of all television and radio

stations in Nigeria.“If Buhari does not believe in

the Council of State, he never believed in the Oputa Panel that was set up by the Obasanjo gov-ernment and now Buhari is say-ing he does not believe in BON, it simply indicates that he does not believe in Nigeria as a country.

“How then can Buhari govern a country that he does not be-lieve in?” he asked.

Speaking further, the group said, “Buhari demonstrated his ethnic bigotry on 13th October, 2000, when he led the Arewa team to the then governor of Oyo State, late Chief Lam Ad-esina, to confront the state over alleged killings of Fulani cattle rearers in Saki, Oke Ogun area of the state.

Ojieva EhiosunAwka

•••Chairman, House Commit-tee on Environment at the House of Representatives, Hon. Uche Ekwunife, has said that the em-battled National Chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Victor Umeh, has virtu-ally nothing to offer the people of Anambra State.

The Anambra Central Senato-rial candidate, disclosed this while addressing thousands of support-ers during a political rally at the Assumption Catholic Church,

Nimo, in Njikoka Local Govern-ment Council.

The woman politician represent-ing Anaocha/Njikoka/Dunukofia Federal Constituency, who also has the blessing of the people to repre-sent them at the Senate, noted that the avalanche of criticisms and campaign of calumny employed by her opposition to run down the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP)’s candidates, will not help the people of Anambra.

She said that political campaigns world over should be issue based, adding that her track record, ante-cedents and impacts on the lives of

the people is a formidable platform for her to win their mandate at the February 14 poll.

She urged the people of the state to come out in their millions to vote PDP candidates at the Febru-ary election for continuity. “I’m not here to run down anybody, but to thank you people for your supports and mandate you gave to me in the last National Assembly election. But for you, it wouldn’t have been possible.

“I have come here today again to ask for your support and votes at the next election. As member of the Lower House in Abuja, repre-

senting this constituency, I did not disappoint in all my electioneering promises. Great minds do not talk about people or carry out cam-paign of calumny against their opponents as Victor Umeh is cur-rently doing.

“Politicians that mean well for their people discuss ideas, because the people want to know what you can do for them, using your influ-ence at the Upper House. If I can do this much as a Lower House mem-ber, which you all have seen, I bet you, I will do much better if given the mandate to represent you at the senatorial level”, she said.

Eno-Obong Okon

•••Friends of former military Head of State, Gen. Mohammadu Buhari (rtd) , said they have mapped out strategy to get winning votes for the presidential flag-bearer of the All Progressives Congress (APC), come February 14, 2015.

Friends and associates of the Bu-hari who met in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State capital, stated this last week-end.

Under the aegis of Friends of Bu-hari Organisation Network (FBON) in Nigeria and Europe , they said their strategies included a peaceful and violent free polls.

The National Coordinator of FBON, Saint Athanasius Okon, while addressing the forum tagged: ‘Peace

Rally for Buhari’, underscored the importance of peace during and af-ter the polls and enjoined supporters to eschew violence at all time.

“Buhari is completely against any form of violence. Let us be ambas-sadors of peace if we really love Bu-hari”, he said.

Okon assured that the former Head of State, at 72, remained very fit to rule Nigeria, adding that, winning the contest required utmost tact and dedication to the project.

He explained that Buhari had what it takes to run the country and deliver the dividends of democracy to the people, and appealed to the electorates to be armed with their Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVCs) if they must secure victory for Buhari on February 14.

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BAUCHI BENIN CITY BIDA ENUGUABUJA

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2015 VOL. 1. NO.36 Price: N150

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A journey through the last days of Nigeria?

Yinka Odumakin

•••Brian Hall spent the spring and summer of 1991 traveling through Yugoslavia, even as the nation was crumbling in his footsteps. Hav-ing arrived a week after the catalytic May 2 mas-sacre at Borovo Selo, he watched as political so-lutions were abandoned with dizzying speed, and as Yugoslavia’s vari-ous ethnicities, which had managed to reach a point of tolerant coex-istence, tipped into the violence of civil war.

Hall, one of the last foreigners to travel un-hindered through the region, has captured the voices of both the prominent and the un-known, from Serbian demagogue Slobodan Milosevic and Bosnian leader Alija Izetbegovic to a wide variety of ev-eryday Serbs, Croats, and Muslims: “real peo-ple, likeable people,” as he says, who have been pushed by rumour and propaganda into carry-ing out one of the most intense and brutal eth-nic conflicts in world history. At the same time, he provides the indispensable historical background, showing how the country called Yugoslavia was cobbled together after World War I, tracing the “eth-nic cleansing” practices that have marked the area for centuries, and explaining why every attempt at political com-promise has met with such suspicion and re-

of denial we all continue to pretend we are going for elections when all ap-pearances indicate that we are heading for war. This would have been needless if we he had lis-tened to Prophet Obafemi Awolowo.

The sage on June 12, 1967 from CELL DUP2, CAlABAR PRISON signed off his book “Thoughts On The Nige-rian Constitution” where he warned on us about the juncture where our vehicle of nationhood has broken down. Awo wrote on page 56 of the book:

“Besides, it is not dif-ficult to forecast that the work of government in Nigeria under a unitary constitution is bound to become unduly complex, inextricably tangled, ex-tremely unwieldy and wasteful, and productive of disunity and discon-tent amongst the people. Unless we have veritable supermen at the helm of affairs, the administra-

tive machinery would eventually disintegrate and break down under the crushing weight of ‘bureaucratic centralism ‘”.

That is where we have worked ourselves to as result of structural de-fects. All that is about to set the country on confla-gration is the internecine battle for political power to have economic control. What the power mongers would not openly admit is that there are 92 oil blocks whose licences are due for renewal this year and that is the call of whoever wins on Febru-ary 14. It is D or D!

Oil has been made to assume this dimension in our lives because we have failed to apply ourselves as a people due to cen-tralization. I remember Fuji act, General Kolling-ton Ayinla singing at the Onikan Stadium in Lagos during the presentation of Yoruba Agenda thus: “eepo o, epo o ma ni pa wa, eepo o epo o ma ni pa

wa o (Let oil not kill us).Ten years down the

line, oil is about to kill Nigeria. Yet we had a way out of this at the 2014 Na-tional Conference. The geological map of Ni-geria showed that there is no state in Nigeria that does not have rich mineral deposits that have remained largely untapped. The confer-ence recommended a new constitutional spirit that allows everybody to go under their soil to bring stuff out and get busy with developmental strides. Such a country-wide prosperous people would be concerned more with positive competition in the fields of progress rather than having time for “rig and roast” she-nanigans of political en-trepreneurs who would not mind burying mil-lions of people to satisfy their greed.

Returning Nigeria to a proper federalism is our route away from Yugosla-via!

sistance.The output of his jour-

ney was: “The Impos-sible Country: A Journey Through The Last Days Of Yugoslavia”. A year after Hall’s publication of his book, the country that never should have been ceased to be.

As we inch closer to the most divisive election in the history of Nigeria, one can only pray that any Hall who is doing our own version of “The Im-possible Country” would find the manuscript of being no use when we are done with this season. But the signs are trou-bling as the war drums are sounding disturb-ingly.

From Ango Abdullahi and his northern elders to Tompolo and fellow ex-militants of the Niger Delta, we may just be in the last days of this ac-rimonious empire if the results of the 2015 presi-dential elections did not go their ways.

Yet in our usual state

What the power mongers would not openly admit is that there are 92 oil blocks whose licences are due for renewal this year and that is the call of whoever wins on February 14.

WEATHER FORECAST FOR MONDAY 2- 02 - 2015

Published by FOLIO COMMUNICATIONS LTD, Lateef Jakande Road, Agidingbi, Ikeja. website: www.dailytimes.com.ng; email: [email protected]. Tel: 018447948. EDITOR: YINKA OLUJIMI

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Feb polls: Forget about PDP – Tijani Ramalan

Day Ikare Akoko invoked curses on armed robbers

Chile’s President seeks end to total abortion ban

Nigeria records impressive growth ine-payment system

Politics

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CONTINUED ON PAGE 18

2015: Who occupies

Adamawa Govt.

House?

Tom Garba Yola

Barely few days to the general election, governorship candi-dates of all political parties have intensified campaigns to sway voters’ opinion to their advan-tage. Towards this end, Adama-wa State is not different as the numerous candidates are explor-ing all available means to get to Government House, Yola, other-wise known as Dougerei House. The race to Government House

will be an interesting game with keen struggles and the political dribbling that each contestant has brought into it to scheme out his opponents.

What is going to play out is the conflicting interests between Adamawa bigwig politicians and those in Abuja. However, many will depend on a lot of political propaganda to take advantage of other contestants’ weaknesses. Besides, the current way of play-ing politics where money is a sharp axe in hewing down other

political contestants, or the use of political God-fatherism are other styles wise politicians de-ploy to dislodge their opponents

Adamawa politics has geo-graphical antecedents of which the zones the winner might like-ly emerge. However, because of the level of abject poverty Nige-rians populace have found them-selves, voters are ready to sell their voting right for a meagre amount of money.

Thus, as the campaigns gath-

Ribadu


Alhaji Tijjani Ramalan, Chairman and Chief Executive, Liberty Radio, Kaduna, was the Kaduna State chairman of the defunct National Republican Convention (NRC) and a founding member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) but now a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC). In this interview with VICTOR JIBRIN, Ramalan predicts the fall of PDP in this month’s elections, at the presidential and in the Kaduna State race, saying that the ruling party has failed to show appreciation for its 2011 electoral victory. Excerpts:


Æ s17

Politics

Ramalan CONTINUED ON PAGE 18

With the emergence of Jonathan as PDP candidate, how will the race go?

This is a very serious contest. For us in APC, we are going all out to ensure victory for APC. I have no doubt about it. The APC, the way it is structured, and from my own analysis as a politician, we are on the move. I think the greatest mistake of PDP, which appears to be a blessing for us, was to allow their governors to decamp to APC. For God sake, in 2011, PDP as at that time, I mean Presi-dent Jonathan, was able to win election virtually in all the PDP controlled states. For example

in Rivers, he got 99 point some-thing per cent and today, he does not have an Amaechi who is a sitting governor to ensure that he gets that kind of votes. Go to Kano, one of the most popu-lous states in Nigeria today, is no more in the PDP. I can tell you, Kwankwaso will deliver Kano to APC. Then go to Lagos, in 2011, Lagosians voted for the PDP and President Jonathan, if I am right. But today, with this merger of ACN/CPC, I think the political calculation is very clear as to which party will win the election. If you look at the votes that are coming from the North plus the votes that will come out from the South West and from the votes that we are going to pick from the South-South states like Rivers, there is no way anybody will tell me that the presidential candidate of APC will not muster 25 per cent of the votes in Rivers and Edo states. So if you put one and two together, I think it is very clear that the incumbency factor of PDP will crash in this year.

2015 general election is here and everybody is ap-prehensive of what will

happen especially with the way politicians are going about it, particularly the leading presi-dential candidates. You have sympathy for APC, what is your take in all these?

Yes, general election is com-ing up sometime this month. In APC we have General Buhari as the candidate of the party. For the PDP, Dr. Jonathan is the candidate. I believe it is go-ing to be a very important elec-tion. As you have said rightly, I have my sympathy for APC. I am a card carrying member of APC. I believe that after the hitch- free primaries election, APC will go into the general election as a united party. The way they campaigned before the primaries was just like the general election and they all made a pledge that at the end of the day, whoever emerges, they are going to come together and fight the general election. So, I can assure you, there is no cause for alarm as far as APC is concerned.

I think the greatest mistake of PDP, which appears to be a blessing for us, was to allow their governors to decamp to APC

Emefiele, CBN Governor

Okezie, IPSAN boss

Ugochukwu Onyeocha

Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. God-

win Emefiele, has stated that Nigeria has recorded an impres-sive growth in the electronic payments system in the last eight years, which has now set the stage for its expanded scope across the country.

The governor of the apex bank said this at the inauguration of the payments system strategy board, payment scheme boards and initiative working groups on Friday in Lagos.

He said that the CBN’s efforts at ensuring that Nigerians em-brace the benefits of the cash-less scheme of the bank had been progressive.

Emefiele said that it was im-portant to deepen the use of e-payments in the country as a major economic force within Af-rica and because it had become an active player in the global economy.

The CBN governor said that the country would to continue to participate actively in pay-ment system in accordance with global best practices.

Daily Times recalls that in March 2007, the CBN launched the Payment System Vision 2020 (PSV2020), to transform the na-tion’s payment system.

‘’This programme started in

Nigeria records impressive growth in e-payment system

2007 and some progress have been made through the cash-less initiative by making sure that Nigerians move away from cash economy into a cashless economy.

‘’I think we have made some progress in that direction and what we are trying to do is to further deepen this initiative and try to see how we could fur-ther eliminate the use of cash in our system.

‘’Here, what we are saying is if you want to make a bill pay-ment ,you want to do anything, we should begin to see ourselves as an economy that will do with-out cash.

‘’We also need to reduce the use of cash, cheques but em-brace electronic payments sys-tem and get as many people as possible who are currently ex-cluded to begin to be included.

‘’That is why you will find that the membership of the board and technical committee set up cut across not only the banking system but government and pri-vate institutions.

‘’We have made some signifi-cant achievements so far in this journey but lot still remains to be done,” the governor said.

He said that the CBN had been able to record some achievement which include the implementa-tion of Nigeria Uniform Bank Account Number (NUBAN).

Emefiele said that the initia-tive had led to the deployment of new RTGS that was built on the Society for worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) messaging standard.

The apex bank governor said the initiative also included the introduction of Cash-Less poli-cy and deployment of the Scrip less Securities Settlement Sys-tem (SSSS), among others.

Ugochukwu Onyeocha

President, Progressive Share-holders Association ((PSAN), Mr. Boniface Okezie, on Friday, stated that the financial sector is yet to recover from the global meltdown of 2008.

Okezie urged the federal gov-ernment to strengthen opera-tions of the financial sector in order to engender growth.

The IPSAN boss noted that until the financial sector recov-ered from the 2008 financial cri-sis, the sector might not record significant growth.

He said that the government could re-capitalise the banks to accommodate the laid-offs, add-ing that the recovery of banks would pump more money into the economy and ensure busi-ness growth.

“Until the government streamlines the activities of the financial sector fully, the Nige-rian economy may not record remarkable growth in the finan-cial sector,” Okezie said.

He noted that the financial market plays an integral role in the growth and development of any economy and should be given maximum attention.

Financial sector yet to rebound from global meltdown – Expert

Adesola Akindele

NSE market indices for Jan-uary ends on weak note

The NSE All-Share Index and Market Capitalisation depreciat-ed by 0.27 per cent to close on Fri-day at 29,562.07 and N9.847 trillion respectively. Similarly, all indices finished lower during the week with exception of the NSE Lotus Islamic Index and NSE Industrial Goods Index that rose by 0.88 per cent and 1.14 per cent respectively, while NSE ASeM Index closed flat.

The Financial Services Indus-try (measured by volume) led the activity chart with 1.361 billion shares valued at N10.215 billion traded in 11,030 deals; thus con-tributing 61.58 per cent and 35.27 per cent to the total equity turn-over volume and value respec-tively. The Oil & Gas Industry fol-lowed with a turnover of 439.582 million shares worth N8.402 bil-lion in 1,723 deals. The third place was occupied by the Consumer Goods Industry with 236.003 mil-lion shares worth N7.880 billion in 3,464 deals.

A turnover of 2.210 billion shares worth N28.960 billion in 19,495 deals were traded this week by investors on the floor of The Exchange in contrast to a total of 2.119 billion shares valued at N25.941 billion that exchanged hands last week in 21,044 deals.

A total of 28 equities appreciat-ed in price during the week lower than 35 equities of the preceding week. 41 equities depreciated in price higher than 31 equities of the preceding week, while 127 eq-uities remained unchanged lower than 130 equities recorded in the preceding week.

Trading in the Top Three Equi-ties namely- Oando Plc, Fidelity Bank Plc, and Access Bank Plc (measured by volume) accounted for 889.737 million shares worth N9.095 billion in 2,344 deals, con-tributing 40.27 per cent and 31.40 per cent to the total equity turn-over volume and value respec-tively.

ETPs also traded during the week were a total of 42,109 units of Exchange Traded Products (ETPs) valued at N1.197 million executed in 31 deals compared with a total of 256 units valued at N317, 430.39 transacted last week in 21 deals.

Similarly, a total of 43,350 units of FGN bonds valued at N39.950 million were executed in 6 deals compared with a total of 300 30,650 units of FGN bonds valued at N22.872 million transacted in five deals in the previous week.

There was no activity recorded in the debt board last week.

On New Listings, a total of 43,024 units at N34, 541.45 per unit of Allan Gray Africa Fund were listed as Memorandum Listing at the Exchange on January 30th, 2014.

CAPITAL MARKET

Æ s27Daily Times Nigeria


Business Times

Dozens killed in Ukraine fresh clash

13 die in Bangladeshi plastics factory fire

Thousands protest Pakistani mosque bombing

Ukraine president, Poroshenko

•••At least 40 people have been reported killed as fighting between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian rebels rages on in the east of the country. Ukrainian officials say 15 soldiers and 12 civilians died in the past 24 hours. The rebels report 13 casual-ties.

The separatists also claim to have seized the town of Vuhlehirsk and surrounded the key hub of Debaltseve, but the Ukrainian mili-tary denies this. Meanwhile, ur-gent truce talks ended in Belarus, but no deal was signed.

Representatives of Ukraine and Russia, as well as rebel envoys and members the Organization for Se-curity and Co-operation (OSCE),

took part in the meeting in the Be-larusian capital Minsk.

Former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, Kiev’s representa-tive at the talks, was quoted as say-ing that the talks had been “thwart-ed” by the rebels.

The recent heavy fighting has left a September ceasefire - also agreed in Minsk - in tatters. ‘Displacement and suffering’

The latest report on the situa-tion in the conflict zone stood in stark contrast to the concept of a ceasefire. On Saturday, Ukrainian Defence Minister Stepan Poltorak told reporters that “15 soldiers were killed and another 30 injured” dur-ing the fighting on the “whole line of contact” in the past 24 hours.

He also admitted that Debaltseve was now “partially controlled” by the rebels. Meanwhile, Vyacheslav Abroskin, head of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry in the Donetsk region, said 12 people were killed by rebel shelling in the town.

In the rebel stronghold of Do-netsk, Eduard Basurin, deputy commander of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, said 13 people - including civilians - were killed in the past 24 hours in the ar-eas held by the separatists.

He also claimed that some 8,000 Ukrainian troops were now sur-rounded in and around Debaltseve. Ukrainian officials earlier denied the claim.

In a statement, Ertugrul Apakan,

the chief monitor of the OSCE mis-sion in Ukraine, condemned the shelling of densely populated civil-ian areas in eastern Ukraine.

“Yet again, innocent civilians have been impacted by the crisis, and yet again we are seeing more bloodshed,” Mr Apakan said, urg-ing all sides “to prevent further dis-placement and suffering”.

•••At least 13 people were killed when a fire swept through a plas-tics factory in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka on Saturday, police said.

Scores were injured and more people may have died at Nasim Plastic House in a crowded market in the suburb of Mirpur, a police official said.

“We are searching under a col-lapsed wall ... There might be more bodies under the debris,” fire service and civil defence director AKM Shakil Newaz told reporters.

About 70 workers were inside the factory when the blaze broke out, said police.

The issue of safety in Bangla-deshi factories was thrust into the spotlight by the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in April 2013, which killed more than 1 300 gar-ment workers.

•••Thousands of Shi’ite Mus-lims took to the streets across Pakistan on Saturday to pro-test a powerful bomb blast at a mosque in Sindh province during Friday prayers, which killed at least 58 people and wounded over 50 others. In the city of Shikarpur, the site of the blast, thousands of minority Shi’ite mourners held a mass funeral for the dead. Many non-Shi’ites also took part.

The bombing occurred in the Lakidar area of Shikarpur, around 470 kilometers north of the port city of Karachi.

The Sunni Muslim group Jundallah, a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack, the latest in a rising tide of sec-tarian violence in Pakistan.

Sunni Muslim extremists have often targeted religious institutions of Shi’ites who make up a fifth of Pakistan’s population.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Friday he is ap-palled by “such vicious target-ing of people on account of their religious affiliation.” He called on Pakistan’s govern-ment to redouble its efforts to protect religious and ethnic mi-norities.

13 WorldDaily Times NigeriaModay, February 2, 2015


President Bachelet signs bill proposing the end of a total ban on abortions at a ceremony in the Moneda Presidential Palace

German ex-President, von Weizsaecker dies at 94

•••Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has announced plans to end a total ban on abortions in the predominantly Roman Catholic country.

Ms Bachelet has tabled a bill in Congress to legalise abortion in cases of rape or when there is a threat to the mother’s or the baby’s

life. Abortion is punishable in Chile by up to five years in jail.

The absolute ban of abortion puts the lives of thousands of Chil-ean women at risk every year, said Ms Bachelet.

She went on national television to announce the plans.

“Facts have shown that the ab-

solute criminalization of abortion has not stopped the practice,” she said.“This is a difficult situation and we must face it as a mature country.”

The BBC’s Gideon Long says the draft law faces opposition from Chile’s powerful Catholic Church, from conservatives in Congress

and from some inside Ms Bach-elet’s own coalition, led by the So-cialist Party.

Ms Bachelet’s proposal would al-low abortion to be carried out up to the 12th week of pregnancy if the mother’s life is at risk, when the foetus is so badly deformed that the baby wouldn’t survive or in cases of rape.

For girls up to the age of 14, ter-mination would be legal until the 18th week.

Ms Bachelet said younger girls might take longer to realise they are pregnant.

The absolute prohibition on abortion was introduced in 1989, in one of the last acts of Gen Au-gusto Pinochet’s 17-year-long mili-tary rule.

“Chile had an important legal and public health tradition, inter-rupted arbitrarily in the last days of the dictatorship,” said Ms Bach-elet.

“Twelve bills [to decriminalise abortion] have been tabled in the Chamber of Deputies and the Sen-ate since 1991,” she added.

•••Germany’s former President Richard von Weizsaecker, has died at the age of 94, the president’s of-fice has announced.

Mr Weizsaecker’s 10 years in of-fice, from 1984 to 1994, spanned the period of German reunification.

A soldier in the German army in World War Two, Weizsaecker won widespread praise for his ef-forts to persuade Germans to con-front their Nazi past.

A member of the Christian Democratic Union, he also served as the governing mayor of West Berlin in the 1980s.

Announcing Mr Weizsaecker’s death, current President Joachim Gauck said: “Richard von Weiz-saecker stood worldwide for a Germany that had found its way to centre of the democratic family of peoples. “He stood for a federal republic that faces up to its past.”

Mr Weizsaecker was first elect-ed president in 1984 and his speech a year later on the 40th anniversa-ry of the defeat of Nazi Germany won him widespread respect.

He told the West German parlia-ment: “All of us, whether guilty or not, whether young or old, must accept the past. We are all affected by its consequences and liable for it. Anyone who closes his eyes to the past is blind to the present.


Human beasts

of burden...

The popular Lagos Mile12 market in Kosofe

Local Government Area located along Ikorodu end of Lagos State is a market as old as Lagos. It is the last stop for wholesale and retail shopping for foodstuff rang-ing from pepper, tomatoes, yams to onions, plantain and so on. The edge the market has over others in Lagos is the rock- bottom price advantage. The message is: if you really want the stuff cheap, head for Mile 12 market, and you would

be glad you did.The human ‘conveyor belts’

responsible for the movement of food items from trailers to the fi-nal consumers and spot-carriers are four-fold, called under the ge-neric name of ‘Alabaru’ or ‘Alabo’. They are always available in the market premises with different shapes of bowls or wheelbarrows, shadowing and competing to give the best of their services. Whatev-er you buy, they are there to cart

JOY EKEKE spent

one day at the popu-

lar Mile 12 Market in

Lagos and observed

how cart pushers or

Alabaru’s eke out

a living from abso-

lutely nothing. Her

report.Wheelbarrow man loading to capacity

The protesters on Jubilee road


that their procession and early morning action was to tell the whole world that Ikare Akoko residents would no longer con-done nor succumb to armed robbers attacks in whatever guise.

The crowd had earlier lis-tened to words of advice at a

designated assembly in the community before marching through Iyame Quarters, Oke-la, Okorun and Jubilee roads where the attacked banks were located.

Like a moving train, the pro-testers stopped at the Palace of the Owa Ale of Ikare, Oba Ade-

doyin, where they were advised to unite in the fight against the nefarious activities of the crim-inals.

The monarch who commend-ed their peaceful procession, assured them he was solidly be-hind the protesting residents. “All religious and traditional

institutions in the community must unite and cry to God to ex-pose those behind the incessant robberies and killings of inno-cent souls.”

After leaving the palace, it


Hundreds of aggrieved residents of Ikare Akoko, in Akoko North Local Government Area of Ondo State trooped to the streets to protest against incessant armed robbery attacks and recent killings of over 20 people in a bloody bank raid in the community. TOSI AJUWON was there and filed in this report.

Like a movement of ‘revolution’, residents of

Ikare Akoko trooped out in their hundreds last week Wednesday as early as 6:30 a.m. to protest the inaction of their leaders in the community over incessant attacks and killings of innocent souls in the com-munity by men of the under-world.

The massive protest which saw the young and middle- aged business men and women who ply their businesses along the major roads marching through the main streets chanting pro-test songs.

United in their voices, the protesters declared the un-wholesome activities of the dare-devil robbers in Akoko land worrisome and unaccept-able, and demanded an end to it.

Daily Times noted the unity of purpose that brought togeth-er people from all walks of life, the high and low to forget their individual differences, politi-cal affiliations, ethnicity, race, belief, wealth, titles to joined forces to achieve this all impor-tant purpose.

The protesters walked through the jubilee road in Ik-are, chanting solidarity songs and raining abuses and curses on whoever has been giving signals to the robbers to attack banks in the town.

The protesters disclosed


Æ Features21

Daily Times NigeriaMonday, February 2, 2015 31 Global market

Merkel, German Chancellor

German Chancellor Angela Merkel ruled out a debt write down for Greece on Saturday, and a European Central Bank policymaker threatened to cut off funding to Greek banks if Athens does not agree to renew its bailout package.

The euro zone’s pay-master and the ECB are both taking a tough line with Greece’s new leftist government, whose leader swept to victory last Sun-day promising that five years of austerity, “hu-miliation and suffering” were over.

Alexis Tsipras has also promised to renegoti-ate agreements with the

European Commission, ECB and International Monetary Fund “troika” and write off much of Greece’s 320 billion euro ($360 billion) debt, which at more than 175 percent of gross domestic product is the world’s second-high-est after Japan.

Merkel flatly rejected such a possibility.

“There was already a voluntary waiver by pri-vate creditors; Greece has already been exempt from billions by the banks. I don’t see a further debt haircut,” she told German daily Die Welt in an inter-view published in its Sat-urday edition.

“Europe will continue

to show solidarity for Greece, as for other coun-tries hit particularly hard by the crisis, if these countries undertake their own reforms and savings efforts,” Merkel added in a thinly veiled threat to Athens.

Without the support of international lenders, Greece would soon find itself back in an acute fi-nancial crisis.

Unable to tap the mar-kets because of sky-high borrowing costs, Athens has enough cash to meet its funding needs for the next couple of months. But it faces around 10 bil-lion euros of debt repay-ments over the summer.

Germany, ECB issues fresh condition to Greece

Daily Times NigeriaMonday, February 2, 2015Companies & Assets 30

Financial statements

Gwarzo, DG, SEC

PZ Cussons Nigeria Plc: Unaudited financial state-

ments for the period ended 30 November, 2014 - Revenue 2014 N 31,659,965 2013 N 32,460,952 Prof-it After Tax 2014 N1, 441,187 2013 N 2,317,797.

Nairametrics AnalysisPZ Cussons Nigeria Plc (PZ)

reported 2.5 per cent YoY con-traction in revenues to N31.7 billion for six months ended No-vember 2014 while PBT and PAT declined 37per cent and 38 per cent YoY to N1.9 billion and N1.4 billion respectively.

On the heels of flat top-line growth in FQ1, sales declined 4.6 per cent YoY in FQ2 15 to N16.6billion– seven per cent be-hind our forecasts. Amid cau-tious trading environment in Northern Nigeria due to inse-curity issues, PZ management notes tight competition in soap and detergent segment–with hints of price discounting–weighed on its key Home and Personal Care (HPC) division (~70 per cent of sales). The slack pattern in HPC continues to

over-ride double digit growth in its electrical business where PZ reports higher patronage of its low-end Haier Thermocool gen-erators.

John Holt Plc Unaudited ac-count: first quarter (Oct-Dec, 2014) financial statements for the period ended 31 December, 2014- Revenue 2014 N536, 000 2013 N622, 000 Loss after Tax 2014 (N246, 000) 2013 (N96, 000)

Seven-Up Bottling Company Plc: Unaudited financial state-ments for the period ended 31 December, 2014 - Revenue 2014 N59,829,956 2013 N54,954,328 Profit After Tax 2014 N4,541,820 2013 N3,917,647.

Guinness Nigeria Plc: Un-audited financial statements for the period ended 31 December, 2014 - Revenue 2014 N 55,267,240 2013 N 52,757,566 Profit After Tax 2014 N 3,398,591 2013 N 4,996,890

Vono Products Plc Audited account: Audited financial statements for the period ended 31 December, 2014 - Revenue 2014 N215, 149 2013 N192, 161 Loss af-ter Tax 2014 (N400) 2013 (N5, 600)

Stories by Adesola [email protected]

As a result of challenges as-sociated with its ongoing migra-tion from Sage Line 500 account-ing software to the newly acquired Sage ERP X3 Package, Vitafoam Nigeria Plc has given a notification to the Nigerian Stock Exchange that there will be a delay in the release of the Company’s Audited Financial Statements for the year ended 30 September 2014 and the Unau-dited Accounts for the first quarter ended 31 December 2014.

Vitafoam explained that the implementation of the new soft-ware has impacted the timelines previously set for the prepara-tion and audit of the year end accounts.

The Company is hopeful that the issues will be satisfactorily resolved as soon as possible.

Sage software transition stalls Vitafoam’s 2014 audited accounts

Following the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ap-proval of Oando Plc change in the terms of its Rights Issue, the Rights Issue size, price and ratio has been revised from 2,217,265,184 ordinary shares of 50 kobo each at N22.00 per share (on the basis of one new share for every four ordinary shares held; 1 for 4) to 2,956,353,579 ordinary shares of 50 kobo each at N16.50 per share (on the basis of one new ordinary

share for every three ordinary shares held; 1 for 3).

Oando Plc states that the Rights Circular and the initial terms of the Rights Issue remain valid during the acceptance/renuncia-tion period and are only amended to the extent provided for in this notice. Shareholders who have al-ready submitted their acceptance forms will not be required to sub-mit new forms.

In accordance with the pro-visions of Section 10 of the Amended Listing Rules of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, Se-plat Petroleum Development Company Plc (“Seplat” or the “Company”) notified the Ex-change of the announcement by Afren Plc (“Afren”) dated 30 Jan-uary 2015 relating to a Rule 2.6 extension. Seplat acknowledges that in accordance with Rule 2.6(a) of the UK City Code on Takeovers and Mergers (the “Code”), by no later than 5.00 pm on 30 January 2015, the Compa-ny was required to either an-nounce a firm intention to make an offer under Rule 2.7 of the Code or announce that it does not intend to make an offer.

The board of Afren has re-ceived the consent of the UK Takeover Panel (the “Panel”) for an extension to the deadline un-til 5.00 p.m. on 13 February 2015 to enable the parties to continue their ongoing discussions. By this time Seplat must either an-nounce a firm intention to make an offer for Afren or announce that it does not intend to make an offer for Afren, in which case the announcement will be treat-ed as a statement to which Rule 2.8 of the Code applies.

Seplat notes that this new deadline can be extended with the consent of the Panel in ac-cordance with Rule 2.6(c) of the Code.

Seplat extends announcement for merger with Afren

Access Bank Plc notified The Nigerian Stock Exchange that the Securities and Ex-change Commission (SEC) has approved the Bank’s Rights Is-sue of 7,627,639,636 ordinary shares of 50 kobo each at N6.90 per share. Acceptance List in re-spect of the Rights Issue opened from Monday 26 January 2015 and closes on Wednesday 4 March 2015. Access Bank states

Access Bank announces commencement of rights issue

that Rights Circulars will be mailed to all shareholders whose names appeared on the Bank’s Register of Members.

The Securities and Ex-change Commission (SEC) has approved an extension of the Acceptance period of the above Rights issue exercise by two

weeks. Accordingly, the Offer which was earlier scheduled to close on Friday, January 30, 2015, would now close on Friday, February 13, 2015.

Pharma Deko extends closing date for rights trading

Kanellis, PZ Cussons CEO

SEC approves Oando’s change of terms of rights issue

Avuru, Seplat CEO

Ajiga, MD, Vitafoam

Emmanuel [email protected]

Originally the term layoff referred exclusively to a tem-

porary interruption in work, as when factory work cyclically falls off. The term however nowadays usually means the permanent elimination of a position, requir-ing the addition of “temporary” to specify the original meaning.

It is not usually an easy task for management to carry out, be-cause of the negative sentiments of losing a source of livelihood and the reality of searching for another one especially in a coun-try where the rate unemployment is high, like Nigeria.

However if it becomes a task that must be done, like it hap-pened at Radisson Blu Hotel, Lagos, last week, where around 400 workers were affected, due to renovation work to be carried out by the management on the facil-ity, certain factors should be well considered in advance, for the benefits of both parties.

Managing layoffs: Between creativity and transparency

There is a common consensus among human resource consul-tants, which suggests taking the extra step to make it clear why people are selected for the layoff. Transparency was voted ahead of creativity when determining how to lay off workers.

Back to the Radisson Blu sce-nario, the laid off workers, are still engaging in a bitter confron-tation with the management, ob-viously they are not taking the layoff in good faith and seem not to be on the same page with the management.

Obviously, most business own-ers–especially entrepreneurs–never want to let anyone go, es-pecially in a mass layoff. But the reality is that your job is to keep your company going, to survive, and a layoff might be your last stand in that mission. However, taking a transparent and, by most accounts, compassionate ap-proach to the layoff, actually gen-erates more good will than bad.

According to the laid off staff of the hotel, who alleged they were sacked on the grounds of

planning to join trade unions, the management actually gave them severance package (one month leave allowance and one month salary advance). But why are they still bitter towards the manage-ment?

Anyone who is losing his or her job will be confused and over-whelmed. Since the exiting per-son doesn’t hear much after you say, “Your position has been elim-inated in this downsizing,” it’s important to prepare a letter for each exiting employee in advance that clarifies what will happen next, not a letter that takes im-mediate effect after getting credit alerts of their severance pay on a weekend!

A great way to help soften the blow of a layoff is to do your best to find those leaving your com-pany a new job. That could mean calling around within your net-work to see if anyone is hiring, providing great job recommen-dations or even, calling up your competitors to see if they have any openings. You could also foot the bill for some on-site career

counseling, resume-writing and interview-training workshop.

And even if you aren’t the most touchy-feely person around, consider that it also makes good business sense to treat your exit-ing employees well. What a lot of business owners don’t realise is that their laid off employees, since they are going to primarily be looking for jobs in their own in-dustry, will be visiting the compe-

tition. A bitter employee reveals information that they would not do under normal circumstances. It’s not criminal or unethical– it’s just human. A non-bitter employ-ee may be just as angry at having lost their job, but when they meet with the competitor there will be no bitterness, and they’ll speak well of the employer (or at least not critically).

Tariat Tijani Thomas-A.-Etuh

Daily Times NigeriaMonday, February 2, 2015 29 Management suite

Executive appointments

Chairman and Vice Chair-man

Unity Bank Plc, has appointed Mr. Thomas A. Etuh and Alhaji Aminu Babangida as Chairman and Vice Chairman respectively effective 23 January 2015.

Mr Thomas Etuh who was ap-pointed Pioneer Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors, Unity Bank Plc on April 22, 2014 has varied experience, gained from over two decades of contribution

to the public and private sectors of the economy, especially the Agric sector. Etuh has served as a Director in several companies in Nigeria and has chaired a num-ber of board committees in Unity Bank including Finance and Gen-eral Purpose Committee, Board Governance and Nominations Committee amongst others.

Alhaji Aminu Babangida, Vice Chairman, is an Entrepreneur and is a co-founder/Chief Execu-

tive Officer of Phoenix Energy, Abuja and Team Member of the El-Amin International School, Minna. He has also worked on the trading floor of Trafigura BV, London, UK. Babangida was appointed to the Board of Unity Bank Plc in 2011 where he has held Chairmanship and mem-bership positions in a number of board committees including Credit Committee, Audit Com-mittee, Information Technology & Strategy Committee.

Non-Executive Directors Sterling Bank Plc. notified

The Nigerian Stock Exchange of the appointment of Mr Olaitan Kajero and Mrs Tairat Tijani as Non-Executive Directors on the Board of the Bank. Olaitan Ka-jero (Non-Executive Director), started his career as Finance and Admin Manager at Communica-tion Associates of Nigeria Lim-ited in 1997. He went on to serve as General Manager and Group Chief Operating Officer in Air-com Nigeria Limited between 2001 and 2006, he is presently the Managing Director of STB Build-ing Society Limited, a position he

has held since 2006. Mrs. Tairat Tijani (Non-Execu-

tive Director), is a member of the Association of Chartered Certi-fied Accountants (ACCA) and the Institute of Chartered Secretar-ies & Administrators of Nigeria. Mrs Tijani has garnered signifi-cant experience as an operator in the Capital Market. She was formerly the Head, Capital Mar-kets Division of FBN Capital (a subsidiary of FBN Holdings Plc.)

DirectorsThe Nigerian Stock Exchange

has been notified of the appoint-ments of Mr Lawrence Fubara Anga and Prince Adegboyega Ad-eyinka Ademiluyi as Directors of Evans Medical Plc with effect from 24 November 2014.

The company also gave notifi-cation to the resignation of Mr Bolaji Odunsi from its Board with effect from 15 August 2014. Law-rence Fubara Anga obtained a law degree (LLB) from Churchill College, Cambridge University, England in 1983 before obtain-ing his MA also in Law from Cambridge University, England in 1988. A lawyer and political

economist, Fubara is also a char-tered tax practitioner (FCTI) and a chartered arbitrator (MCIArb).

Anga is a founding partner in the law firm of AELEX, Legal Practitioners & Arbitrators; and Heads the firm’s Transportation, Banking and Financial Services Practice.

He is the Chairman, Aviation Committee Section on Business Law, Nigerian Bar Association and the founder of the Aviation Law Society. He is currently the Vice Chairman, Board of the Trustees of the Investors’ Protec-tion Fund of The Nigerian Stock Exchange.

Prince Adegboyega A. Ademi-luyi is CEO and Managing Di-rector of a shipping and trading group with offices in Nigeria and the United Kingdom. The group includes, Ship and Shore Servic-es, International Cargo Surveys Limited and Ghazi Shipping. He is a core, founding Director of the National Truck Manufacturing Limited, a Kano-based plant that assembles commercial vehicles. He has served as an Advisor and Chairman to several internation-al business enterprises.

Daily Times NigeriaMonday, February 2, 2015Energy 28

Stories by Tony Nwakaegho

Total E&P Nigeria Ltd has said that a section of

its Northern Option Pipeline, (NOPL), from Kilometre 38 at Obigbo to Kilometre 50 at Imo River has been completed and is now ready for gas flow to the Na-tional Integrated Power Plant, (NIPP), at Alaoji along the Imo River in Abia State.

Managing Director of Total E&P Nigeria Ltd, Elisabeth Proust, said that “This mile-stone will help bring to reality, the Federal Government’s aspi-ration of improved electric pow-er supply in Nigeria and demon-strates Total’s commitment to meeting its promises to deliver Better Energy.”

The NOPL is a 24 inch wide, 50km long pipeline under con-struction by Total E&P Nigeria Ltd on behalf of the NNPC/TEPNG Joint Venture. When completed later this year, the project will deliver 100 million cubic feet of gas per day to this strategic power plant.

The statement further ex-plained that in an effort to en-sure early gas supply to newly built power plants, the Federal Government requested Total E&P Nigeria Ltd (TEPNG) to complete a section of the NOPL from kilometre 38 at Obigbo to Kilometre 50 at Imo-River where the line connects to Nigeria Gas Company (NGC) facilities.

Total E&P boosts gas flow to Alaoji power plant

“This is the point that allows gas inflow to the Alaoji Power Plant. This intervention for ear-ly gas required that Total E&P mobilized additional resources to fast track the works in order to meet the deadline despite nu-merous changes associated with the difficult terrain.

“The Gas now being supplied to the Alaoji Power Plant during this interim period will come from Seven Energy, while NGC will transport the gas through their pipeline and the section of our NOPL,” the statement stated.

Nigerian Liquefied Natu-ral Gas (NLNG) Ltd has mone-tised Four Trillion Cubic Feet of Nigerian Gas since first pro-duction in September 1999 and also delivered $20 Billion in div-idend to its shareholders, the largest of which is the NNPC.

NLNG Ltd reeled out these figures at the 9th award of the Nigerian Prize for Literature (worth $100,000), which it spon-sors annually.

The NLNG Plant in Bonny, in eastern Nigeria, consists of six gas liquefaction trains which, at peak operation, require 3.5Bil-lion standard cubic feet per day (Bscf/d) and can deliver 22Mil-lion Tonnes Per Annum (MTPA) to customers worldwide.

Gas flows into the Bonny LNG Plant through transmission lines from processing facilities operated by NLNG’s three Eu-ropean shareholders: the Ang-loDutch Major Shell, the French explorer TOTAL and Italy’s largest company ENI, as well as the Nigerian independent Niger Delta Petroleum.

Shell provides gas from on-shore Gbaran Ubie , Soku and Bonny fields, as well as deep-water Bonga and shallow water EA fields. ENI contributes from

NLNG monetises four trillion cubic feet of gas

the Obiafu Obrikom (OB-OB) Integrated Gas Centre, a gather-ing point for gas molecules from Idu, Akri, Kwale, Irri, Tebidaba and Ebocha fields, all onshore.

TOTAL, the French major, transfers gas to the NLNG Plant from its onshore Obite, Ibewa and Obagi fields as well as deep-water Akpo field and shallow water Amenam-Kpono field. Niger Delta Petroleum supplies gas from the Ogbele marginal field, onshore.

The company’s Chief Execu-tive, Babs Omotowa, said the company operates at full opti-mal capacity.

In order to promote the market dynamics that requires significant cost investment in the oil sector, the Executive Di-rector Corporate Planning and Strategy Nigerian National Pe-troleum Corporation, (NNPC), Dr Timothy Okon has called for price reform in the oil sector in order to secure more investment in the downstream sector.

Okon made this assertion while speaking on the Radio programme monitored in La-gos, stressing that people are only willing to invest in the up-stream, whereas Nigeria will be better off as an exporter of fin-ished product than continue to import because we lack invest-ment in the downstream sector.

According to him the market dynamics will work best when an investor see the possibility of a return on his investment, so there is a need for the price reform in the oil sector.

He explained that the inves-

tors will only get loans after the banks have considered their ability to repay the loan and the economics of the refinery de-pend on whether they can maxi-mize the production of Premi-um Motor Spirit (PMS) where the biggest demand is.

“The investor will require a return on investment. That is the usual threshold and if the threshold is not met on the refinery or any other project, it will not move forward. It is important as prescribed in the proposed PIB that there will be deregulation of the sector. We only focus on regulating activi-ties and not regulating prices for which nobody controls.

“To finance any investment you need to have clarity of rev-enues, and if those revenues are not there or you don’t have effective control of those rev-enues, the price would increase elsewhere and the investors will decide not to invest,” he said.

Oil sector needs price reform for investment to flourish

Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has disagreed with the warn-ings of top energy companies at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland that the organisation’s policy could lead to a huge supply shortage as investments dry up, while defending its decision not to mediate to stop the oil price collapse.

Oil prices have fallen to be-low $50 a barrel as a result of a large supply glut, due mostly to a sharp rise in U.S. shale produc-

tion as well as weaker global de-mand. The rapid turn down has left several smaller oil produc-ing countries reeling and has forced oil companies to slash budgets.

The heads of two of the world’s largest oil firms, Eni Spa and Total, while speaking at the recent World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, warned that the decline in in-vestments in future production could lead to a supply shortage and a dramatic price increase.

OPEC, oil firms disagree over oil price drop

Madueke, OPEC president

Proust, MD Total E&P

Omotowa, NLNG boss

Emefiele, CBN Governor

Okezie, IPSAN boss

Ugochukwu Onyeocha

Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. God-

win Emefiele, has stated that Nigeria has recorded an impres-sive growth in the electronic payments system in the last eight years, which has now set the stage for its expanded scope across the country.

The governor of the apex bank said this at the inauguration of the payments system strategy board, payment scheme boards and initiative working groups on Friday in Lagos.

He said that the CBN’s efforts at ensuring that Nigerians em-brace the benefits of the cash-less scheme of the bank had been progressive.

Emefiele said that it was im-portant to deepen the use of e-payments in the country as a major economic force within Af-rica and because it had become an active player in the global economy.

The CBN governor said that the country would to continue to participate actively in pay-ment system in accordance with global best practices.

Daily Times recalls that in March 2007, the CBN launched the Payment System Vision 2020 (PSV2020), to transform the na-tion’s payment system.

‘’This programme started in

Nigeria records impressive growth in e-payment system

2007 and some progress have been made through the cash-less initiative by making sure that Nigerians move away from cash economy into a cashless economy.

‘’I think we have made some progress in that direction and what we are trying to do is to further deepen this initiative and try to see how we could fur-ther eliminate the use of cash in our system.

‘’Here, what we are saying is if you want to make a bill pay-ment ,you want to do anything, we should begin to see ourselves as an economy that will do with-out cash.

‘’We also need to reduce the use of cash, cheques but em-brace electronic payments sys-tem and get as many people as possible who are currently ex-cluded to begin to be included.

‘’That is why you will find that the membership of the board and technical committee set up cut across not only the banking system but government and pri-vate institutions.

‘’We have made some signifi-cant achievements so far in this journey but lot still remains to be done,” the governor said.

He said that the CBN had been able to record some achievement which include the implementa-tion of Nigeria Uniform Bank Account Number (NUBAN).

Emefiele said that the initia-tive had led to the deployment of new RTGS that was built on the Society for worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) messaging standard.

The apex bank governor said the initiative also included the introduction of Cash-Less poli-cy and deployment of the Scrip less Securities Settlement Sys-tem (SSSS), among others.

Ugochukwu Onyeocha

President, Progressive Share-holders Association ((PSAN), Mr. Boniface Okezie, on Friday, stated that the financial sector is yet to recover from the global meltdown of 2008.

Okezie urged the federal gov-ernment to strengthen opera-tions of the financial sector in order to engender growth.

The IPSAN boss noted that until the financial sector recov-ered from the 2008 financial cri-sis, the sector might not record significant growth.

He said that the government could re-capitalise the banks to accommodate the laid-offs, add-ing that the recovery of banks would pump more money into the economy and ensure busi-ness growth.

“Until the government streamlines the activities of the financial sector fully, the Nige-rian economy may not record remarkable growth in the finan-cial sector,” Okezie said.

He noted that the financial market plays an integral role in the growth and development of any economy and should be given maximum attention.

Financial sector yet to rebound from global meltdown – Expert

Adesola Akindele

NSE market indices for Jan-uary ends on weak note

The NSE All-Share Index and Market Capitalisation depreciat-ed by 0.27 per cent to close on Fri-day at 29,562.07 and N9.847 trillion respectively. Similarly, all indices finished lower during the week with exception of the NSE Lotus Islamic Index and NSE Industrial Goods Index that rose by 0.88 per cent and 1.14 per cent respectively, while NSE ASeM Index closed flat.

The Financial Services Indus-try (measured by volume) led the activity chart with 1.361 billion shares valued at N10.215 billion traded in 11,030 deals; thus con-tributing 61.58 per cent and 35.27 per cent to the total equity turn-over volume and value respec-tively. The Oil & Gas Industry fol-lowed with a turnover of 439.582 million shares worth N8.402 bil-lion in 1,723 deals. The third place was occupied by the Consumer Goods Industry with 236.003 mil-lion shares worth N7.880 billion in 3,464 deals.

A turnover of 2.210 billion shares worth N28.960 billion in 19,495 deals were traded this week by investors on the floor of The Exchange in contrast to a total of 2.119 billion shares valued at N25.941 billion that exchanged hands last week in 21,044 deals.

A total of 28 equities appreciat-ed in price during the week lower than 35 equities of the preceding week. 41 equities depreciated in price higher than 31 equities of the preceding week, while 127 eq-uities remained unchanged lower than 130 equities recorded in the preceding week.

Trading in the Top Three Equi-ties namely- Oando Plc, Fidelity Bank Plc, and Access Bank Plc (measured by volume) accounted for 889.737 million shares worth N9.095 billion in 2,344 deals, con-tributing 40.27 per cent and 31.40 per cent to the total equity turn-over volume and value respec-tively.

ETPs also traded during the week were a total of 42,109 units of Exchange Traded Products (ETPs) valued at N1.197 million executed in 31 deals compared with a total of 256 units valued at N317, 430.39 transacted last week in 21 deals.

Similarly, a total of 43,350 units of FGN bonds valued at N39.950 million were executed in 6 deals compared with a total of 300 30,650 units of FGN bonds valued at N22.872 million transacted in five deals in the previous week.

There was no activity recorded in the debt board last week.

On New Listings, a total of 43,024 units at N34, 541.45 per unit of Allan Gray Africa Fund were listed as Memorandum Listing at the Exchange on January 30th, 2014.

CAPITAL MARKET

Æ s27Daily Times Nigeria


Business Times

Daily Times NigeriaMonday, February 2, 2015Our heritage 26

Parents, students dancing during the school cultural festival

Chandra

Mrs. Patrick

Stories by Moses Kadiri

The Nigerian Schools Cul-tural Festival (NISCUFEST) has held its sixth edition of touring schools when it

berthed at the Life Gate School, Ibafo, Ogun State. The festival, meant for primary school pupils and secondary school students to display their cultural skills, was organised by the Global Royal Arts Centre with the aim of giv-ing the young ones an avenue of becoming the like of theatre icon, Hubert Ogunde in the fu-ture. With different costumes, the young enthusiasts filed out to represent their schools through different presentations. Princess Kofoworade Group of Schools, Mowe, Ogun State impressed the audience with their beautiful per-formance when the young lads presented a drama piece which left no one in doubt of their act-ing prowess. The host school’s performance left no one in doubt that there were still promising artistes around. The pupils were not intimidated by the presence of other schools, what with their presentation entitled Efficacy of Praise, which points to the fact that praises have a special place in God’s heart. Other perfor-mances were from Dasfat lslamic International School, lbafo and Global Royal Art Centre. There was also a quiz competition on general knowledge with Tijani Eniola emerging the overall win-ner. Babatunde Zinuab came sec-ond and Talabi David came third.

The founder of the Nigerian Schools Cultural Festival, Mr. Tosin Ogunse said the idea of the programme was to instill cultur-

Centre revives culture through school festival

“When you do a critical analy-sis of happenings in the coun-try, especially, as they affect the youth, you will agree that it’s time to make them have a sincere awareness about the dangers in drug addiction, so youth empow-erment is encompassing and should not just be relegated. I en-courage learning and inculcate reading culture into the minds of the youth by organising a free youth essay competition that involves both oral and written forms in each local government.

So far, we have held essay compe-titions in nine local government areas in Lagos and more than 300 secondary school students have benefited from it; this is because I know that education is indispens-able in building tomorrow’s lead-ers”, Patrick added.

An Ambassador for Youth Em-powerment, Patrick emphasised that the society owes the youth truth and direction, “some of the reasons why a young person gets addicted to these harmful drugs

are mainly through curiosity and spiritual search, desire for plea-sure, social excommunication, mental gap, lack of self- reliance and inferiority complex, and they need someone to always remind them of a better future for them. The gain and importance of the conference is that it brings oppor-tunity for these youths from the dynamic and transformational speakers we selected. Ordinarily, they have no one to direct them to face the truth.”

al values in the youngsters. “We started this project in 2008; this is the sixth edition of promoting our cultural heritage from the grassroots. It is a way of catching them young from primary and secondary schools in the coun-try.”

Ogunse, who is also the Artistic Director of the centre said: “It is by the grace of God that we are still doing the project, but, l be-lieve that we will get there some-day.” He, however, disclosed that the idea was to take the cultural festival to schools in the federa-tion. “We are taking the project round schools in the country. The previous editions were in Lagos, but we took a step further to or-

ganise it in Ogun State while the next one will hold in another state and by God’s grace we will achieve that mandate. I hope to see the programme go interna-tional very soon”.

Director of Life Gate School, Mrs. ldowu Funke Afolabi com-mended Tosin’s resilience. She described the young man as a go-getter. “I knew him before he came to talk about the pro-gramme,” she recalled. “He ap-plied as a teacher. Later he spoke to me about the cultural project that he had been doing, and he requested for partnership, space, and because it is a good project, we embraced it.” She added “We really need to support him for

his zeal, he is instilling theatre, drama skills in the young ones, and he deserves commendation. The drama presentation today brought out the hidden talent of each participant; the Nigerian Schools Cultural Festival has re-ally helped them to mould their minds towards their talents so that they will be leaders that will benefit mankind.

She, however, urged other schools to buy into the idea that Global Royal Arts Centre is tak-ing to schools. “From what l saw today, this should be encouraged in schools and with constant training, in no distant time, you will see theatre gurus rising again in Nigeria”.

E-mailPlease do not hesitate to send us your feed back: [email protected]

Continued from page 25 Turning youths to nation builders

India-based content giant, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL), will soon launch its own channel, Zee World on GOtv Plus, channel 24 and DStv, channel 166 on Tues-day, February 3, 2015. The chan-nel offers a range of scintillat-ing shows, which will grow in variety by the end of the year. The entertainment outfit says viewers would be treated to ex-citing reality TV shows through bittersweet Bollywood dramas.

Kicking off the Zee World launch will be four award-winning series: Saloni, Laali, Married Again, The Promise as well as a myriad of blockbuster Bollywood movies. ZEEL chair-man, Dr Subhash Chandra’s message is: “We want you to be-come a part of our growing fam-ily; our aim is to bring authentic and entertaining content to the world stage. And that is not an exaggeration, ZEEL’s 33 chan-nels reach more than 730 million viewers across 169 countries.”

Managing Director, Multi-Choice Nigeria, Mr. John Ugbe, said the idea was to keep enter-taining numerous customers. “We want to keep giving our customers more entertainment choices. Zee World is a great general entertainment channel filled with shows from India, which will appeal, not only to our Indian customers, but our broader DStv customer base.”

Zee World launches channel on DStv, GOtv

Stories by Moses Kadiri

The youth plays an integral part in any society; they con-stitute a sizeable number of

a country’s population, so it is important to see that such young people, should not fall victim to drug addiction, hence, the confer-ence, Danger of Drug Addiction: Saving Youths for National Devel-opment.

Held at the Eldorado Hall, FES-TAC Link Road, Amuwo Odofin, Lagos, the free youth empower-ment conference, a brain child of Meljenstin Youth Empowerment Initiative, sought to transform

youths in the community to be more productive to themselves and the country in general; the conference drew participants and guests from the academia, arts and culture, entertainment and the media, to forge ways for a bet-ter life for the youths and position them for nation building.

In their various presentations, speakers, including Mr Hakeem Bello, Special Adviser to Lagos State Governor on Media; Dr. Harbhajan Batth, Group lnfor-mation Director of Chellarms Plc; Mr Sabir Khan, Group CEO Philly and Mools; Barrister Jide Ologun, Chairman, Nigeria ln-

stitute of Public Relations were unanimous in advising the youth to abstain from drugs and other dangerous vices.

Batth admonished the youth to stay away from drugs, alcohol, cannabis, amphetamines, adding that addiction can fuel all kinds of abnormal activities such as sex addiction, gambling, drugs, smart phone addiction etc. “Par-ents, guardians are advised to, carefully, watch possible signs and symptoms of drug addiction, which are changes in appetite or sleep patterns; deterioration of physical appearance, withdrawal from social or important activi-

ties, unexplained need for money or being secretive about spending habits, sudden change of friends or locations, among others.”

The conference, which is the 10th in the series, turned out to be an epoch-making event with com-edy, drama and music included to entertain the audience. CEO of the initiative, Mrs. Chibuzo Patrick disclosed that the con-ference was organised to create awareness on the danger of drug addiction and encourage parents to reawaken moral values at the home front.

Faze

Banky W

Turning youths to nation builders

Mrs. Patrick (Front row fourth left), Barrister Ologun, and other participants at the conference

R&B singer and CEO of Empire Mates Entertainment, Olubankole Wellington (a.k.a Banky W) has released the video of the track, Unborn Child, fea-turing Lynxxx. Shot in New York City, United States of America, the video is co-direct-ed by Banky W and Jonathan Whittaker. With the video, the award-winning artiste presents inspiring lyrics with quality video concept that takes the form of a movie. Indeed, Banky W had raised the bar in the Ni-gerian music industry with the latest video. Apart from music, Banky W, the philanthropist, launched the I Am Capable Scholarship Fund which pro-vides tuition, room and board at private universities for indigent youths. He is also on the board of trustees of the Light Up Nige-ria Project, which is focused on achieving constant electrical power supply in Nigeria, as well as various other charitable proj-ects.

From Banky W, comes Unborn Child video

25Daily Times NigeriaMonday, February 2, 2015

Our heritage

Continued on page 26

Chibuzor Oji, better known by his stage name’ Faze, has re-leased a socially-conscious afro-beat tune titled, Common Sense.

The song, produced by Kuk Beat, is taking account of the current political climate in Nige-ria. Faze urged the people in his immediate environment to face challenges that come their way

and not shy away from them. He cited examples of people

blaming the government for their predicaments. He said whatever yuor profession , what is expected is hard-work rather than lamen-tation.

Common Sense is not a po-litical song but reality as said by Faze.

“If you don’t work, you can’t

be rich, you have to stand up to something before you rise to star-dom,” said by Faze.

Faze is a best-selling Nigeri-an artiste. His first album Faze Alone sold over three million cop-ies, while his second album Inde-pendent sold over 7 million cop-ies. His third album Originality went platinum in its first month of release.

Faze releases ‘Common Sense’

‘Customers harass us a lot’

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 23

a whole week to make that money, yet the woman had no pity for me. It was a terrible day for me.

“Sometimes customers will even push me and tell me to get out of the way for no reason at all, and this worries me because it doesn’t happen to the other people. And when they call me Alabaru, it hurts me to my soul and I will always cry my eyes out even when my friends try to con-sole me.”

But Tolani Oluwapelumi is less emotional. “When I started this job, people called me Alabaru and I would always feel pains in my heart because in Yoruba land, Alabaru is a very shameful job.

“Sometimes I even prefer to be called Alabo and I tell my custom-ers so.”

Chairman of the Yoruba sec-tion of the association, Mr. Are-mu Olusola made a case for his people: “Wheelbarrow pushers and Alabarus help to discharge large amount of goods from trail-ers and trucks on daily basis, even on Sundays.

“Without the help of the cart pushers, it will be very difficult for the customers to carry their goods, so everyone is useful here.”

That is the story of Mile 12 Mar-ket, the hub of domestic consum-ables in the City of Excellence.

in Ibadan. In Lagos here, I don’t have any accommodation, so I sleep with my colleagues in a shop where we pay N500 per month per person. The single room costs us N30,000.”

Bukola Adesanya told Daily Times about the challenges she faces in the Alabaru business.

“I don’t really like this business because they harass and insult us a lot. There was a day a customer’s item fell from my hand. Not only did I pay over N5,000 for it, the woman abused me as if I was a piece of rubbish. It could take me

Without the help of the cart pushers, it will be very difficult for the customers to carry their goods, so everyone is useful here

Wheelbarrow man at work

A group pf protesters at Okore market

We’ll get the criminals –PoliceCONTINUED FROM PAGE 23

ment areas in the Ondo State House of Assembly, Hon. Fatai Olotu, has called for the estab-lishment of military check points in all the border areas of the town to forestall future attacks.

Olotu told Daily Times the robbery incident would be the third in the town recently, add-ing that the people of the town now live in fear. He revealed that economic and commercial activities in the town have been paralyzed as a result of the rob-bery incidents and called on the state government to facilitate the heavy presence of the mili-tary in the town.

He noted that the town shares borders with Ekiti, Kogi, Edo and Kwara states, a situation

The Speaker of the Assem-bly, Princess Jumoke Akindele, also decried the robbery in-cident and called on security operatives to brace up in the area, just as she urged the rel-evant authorities to provide improved security gadgets and weapons for all the security op-eratives.

The monarch of the commu-nity, the Olukare of Ikare, Oba Akadiri Momoh, has urged the security agencies to help cur-tail the incessant activities and take drastic measures to pre-vent future occurrence.

The Ondo State Police Com-mand spokesman, Wole Ogodo, told Daily Times that investi-gation was ongoing, and added that the command would defi-nitely bring the perpetrators to book.

He noted that the town shares borders with Ekiti, Kogi, Edo and Kwara states, a situation which he said makes it easy for armed robbers to escape

which he said made it easy for armed robbers to escape after their operations.

Daily Times NigeriaMonday, February 2, 2015Features 24

Daily Times NigeriaMonday, February 2, 2015 23 Features



‘Vigilance must be the watchword’to offer condolences to families who lost their loved ones to the incidents, stressing that the protest was also a sign of hon-our to the dead.

The Iyalaje of Ikareland, Alhaja Risikatu Muhammed pleaded with market women to remain steadfast and be vigi-lant while doing their business-es every day.

A lawyer in the town, Olan-rewaju Kazeem, who had ear-lier led series of supplications called on the residents not to be jolted by the incident but rather report any strange movements or behaviour to authorities and

elders in the state.Other speakers advised the

people to be united in fight-ing the menace that threatens to cripple the economy of the community.

It would be recalled that the peace the residents of Ikare Akoko had largely enjoyed was shattered last week Tuesday when Armed Robbers invaded the hilly community, robbing and killing people for several hours without being chal-lenged.

The robbers, numbering about 25, struck in broad day-light, killing several people, in-cluding policemen and holding

many traders hostage along the popular Jubilee Road, the com-mercial hub of the town.

The criminals attacked ma-jor financial institutions in the community, including First Bank Plc, Skye Bank Plc, and Eco Bank Plc. They used dyna-mites to blow up the security gates and gained entrance into the premises of the banks in the well-coordinated attack.

Police officers on duty at the Oke Igbede Police headquar-ters in the town also fell victim to the superior firepower of the rampaging armed robbers while the Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) stationed at the



one costs N15,000 and we replace it at no cost to them.”

Muhamed Sani, who hails from Sokoto State has been a cart car-rier for 30 years. He gave Daily Times some insight into the chal-lenges in his job.

“I carry mostly yam tubers and tomatoes in baskets from the wholesalers’ shop to the custom-er’s destination, and each wheel-barrow-full of yams costs N200. On a good day, I make N2, 500 after paying my association dues.

“This is not the easiest of jobs; we jostle up and down and some-times customers shout at us any-how, especially if any of their goods falls off,” he lamented.

When Daily Times got to the muddy path that leads to the tomatoes section, many of the young men and women cart push-ers or Alabarus were just too busy chasing after customers and offloading goods from the trucks to notice our correspondent. What that environment would be like during the rainy seasons is best left to the imagination.

No place for lazy peopleSurely, Lagos is not a place for

lazy folks; it is a city where the gutsy ones derive pleasure in dif-ferent kinds of hard jobs. But in comparison with the hard labour, the earning is pathetically little

Mrs. Rashida Ifayele, from the State of Osun has been on the job for three years. Her story is heart-moving:

‘I couldn’t remain jobless back home, so I came to Lagos and ended up carrying loads here.

Sometimes, I go home penniless –RashidaMy husband is out of job, and the little money I make here fends for the entire family.”

Rashida is paid N100 for four trips, sometimes N150 for five. Sometimes, she said, she goes home without any money.

“I hope to leave this place one day if I can get a better work to do.”

Mrs. Olatodun Mukaila is an-other carrier; she was selling building materials in Ibadan be-

fore, but her husband’s health condition compounded by the cost of the family’s upkeep, forced her into this work.

“I had to join this work after my husband was involved in an acci-dent, and I have been doing this for eight years.

A lot of the money I make goes to my five children and husband

When I started this job, people called me Alabaru and I would always feel pains in my heart because in Yoruba land, Alabaru is a very shameful job

town to control criminal and unlawful activities was demobi-lized and damaged.

Some mobile policemen were sprayed with bullets, and many civilians waiting at the ATM stand to withdraw money were also caught in the shoot-ing spree. A former chairman of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), Mr. Ileola Ezekiel Gold, was among those shot dead by the rampaging hoodlums while trying to flee the scene.

The lawmaker representing Akoko North East local Govern-

Some mobile policemen were sprayed with bullets, and many civilians waiting at the ATM stand to withdraw money were also caught in the fire

Women porters

The crowd of protesters marching on

Potesting youths carrying placards

Daily Times NigeriaMonday, February 2, 2015Features 22


Our protest is also to honour the dead –Olokungboye

was continuous rain of curses on the notorious robbers as the human train moved through Iku, Okola, Oyinmo areas of the community through the Okore market, expressing bit-terness and fury.

They also marched through Igede and Osele markets, where the Osele deity was repeatedly invoked on the bandits while those who believe in the tradi-tional religion took turns to of-fer sacrifices.

The over three hours pro-cession later terminated at the front of the Olukare’s pal-ace, where Aworo traditional-ists further invoked all major deities of the land to rise up against the armed robbers and force them to come back and confess.


On a good day, I make N1,500 – Suni

or carry wherever you want for a small fee.

And speed is their trade-mark: whether with their bowl on their head or pushing their cart, if you are not familiar with their ways you would think they are running off with your load, but no: fast-pace walking, that is, half-walking and half-running is the culture and tradition in Mile 12 mar-ket; and if you know this pat-tern, you make haste and run after them when you employ their services!

Abdulahi Ahmed resides in Kano but comes to Lagos every three months to offload yam tu-bers from trucks at Mile 12. He told our correspondent why: “I need to get money for my farm and take care of my wives and children.

“For seven years, I’ve been working here. I make N1,500 per day, depending on the way customers come in and out of the market,” he said.

Daily Times discovered a hi-erarchy of close-knit adminis-tration which working system will amaze you.

Emmanuel Ose is the chair-man of ‘Igbo Yam Association (Offloading Section). He told our correspondent that the association is established to assist the market at large in offloading the goods.

“As an association, wheelbar-row pushers get money from offloading of goods. If they lose their wheelbarrow, the asso-ciation helps to replace it. Each

to be afraid of continuing their businesses, adding that the pro-test was to show the people’s displeasure over the attacks.

Olokungboye disclosed that the community was protesting

Religious leaders from Chris-tianity and Islam were not left out as they offered intense sup-plications to God stop the men-ace and expose the bandits.

After the necessary rites and supplications, elders and

leaders in the community took turns to address the protesters, advising everyone to be vigi-lant.

The President of Ikare Devel-opment Group, Leke Olokung-boye encouraged the people not CONTINUED ON PAGE 23


They also marched through Igede and Osele markets, where the Osele deity was repeatedly invoked on the bandits while those who believe in the traditional religion took turns to offer sacrifices

A pool of wheelbarrow boys


Human beasts

of burden...

The popular Lagos Mile12 market in Kosofe

Local Government Area located along Ikorodu end of Lagos State is a market as old as Lagos. It is the last stop for wholesale and retail shopping for foodstuff rang-ing from pepper, tomatoes, yams to onions, plantain and so on. The edge the market has over others in Lagos is the rock- bottom price advantage. The message is: if you really want the stuff cheap, head for Mile 12 market, and you would

be glad you did.The human ‘conveyor belts’

responsible for the movement of food items from trailers to the fi-nal consumers and spot-carriers are four-fold, called under the ge-neric name of ‘Alabaru’ or ‘Alabo’. They are always available in the market premises with different shapes of bowls or wheelbarrows, shadowing and competing to give the best of their services. Whatev-er you buy, they are there to cart

JOY EKEKE spent

one day at the popu-

lar Mile 12 Market in

Lagos and observed

how cart pushers or

Alabaru’s eke out

a living from abso-

lutely nothing. Her

report.Wheelbarrow man loading to capacity

The protesters on Jubilee road


that their procession and early morning action was to tell the whole world that Ikare Akoko residents would no longer con-done nor succumb to armed robbers attacks in whatever guise.

The crowd had earlier lis-tened to words of advice at a

designated assembly in the community before marching through Iyame Quarters, Oke-la, Okorun and Jubilee roads where the attacked banks were located.

Like a moving train, the pro-testers stopped at the Palace of the Owa Ale of Ikare, Oba Ade-

doyin, where they were advised to unite in the fight against the nefarious activities of the crim-inals.

The monarch who commend-ed their peaceful procession, assured them he was solidly be-hind the protesting residents. “All religious and traditional

institutions in the community must unite and cry to God to ex-pose those behind the incessant robberies and killings of inno-cent souls.”

After leaving the palace, it


Hundreds of aggrieved residents of Ikare Akoko, in Akoko North Local Government Area of Ondo State trooped to the streets to protest against incessant armed robbery attacks and recent killings of over 20 people in a bloody bank raid in the community. TOSI AJUWON was there and filed in this report.

Like a movement of ‘revolution’, residents of

Ikare Akoko trooped out in their hundreds last week Wednesday as early as 6:30 a.m. to protest the inaction of their leaders in the community over incessant attacks and killings of innocent souls in the com-munity by men of the under-world.

The massive protest which saw the young and middle- aged business men and women who ply their businesses along the major roads marching through the main streets chanting pro-test songs.

United in their voices, the protesters declared the un-wholesome activities of the dare-devil robbers in Akoko land worrisome and unaccept-able, and demanded an end to it.

Daily Times noted the unity of purpose that brought togeth-er people from all walks of life, the high and low to forget their individual differences, politi-cal affiliations, ethnicity, race, belief, wealth, titles to joined forces to achieve this all impor-tant purpose.

The protesters walked through the jubilee road in Ik-are, chanting solidarity songs and raining abuses and curses on whoever has been giving signals to the robbers to attack banks in the town.

The protesters disclosed


Æ Features21

Politics 20 Daily Times NigeriaMonday, February 2, 2015

and Professor Andrawus Sawa opposing his candidature.

Ribadu who hails from the Central Zone picked the for-mer Ganye Local Government Chairman, Rev Istifanus Habila from Southern Adamawa as his running mate to checkmate the opposition APC.

Dr. Ahmad Modibbo Mu-hammad (PDM)

The former Director General, National Teachers Institute and Executive Secretary, Universal Basic Education Commission, defected to People’s Democratic Movement (PDM) and became its governorship standard bearer in Adamawa State after he lost to Ribadu in the contro-versial PDP primaries held in Abuja.

The choice of his running

(ACN) in 2011. Ostensibly, as a re-sult of his good leadership quali-ties and the way handled the anti-corruption war, he became a dreaded man in his home state as many feared him with the belief that he was witch-hunting gov-ernors or civil servants that loot state treasury. As a result of this, he is now facing internal opposi-tion from strong members of his party in Adamawa State.

Many believe that the coming of Ribadu into PDP after few months of his defection from APC is as a result of the Abu-ja politicians who want a fast change in the Adamawa State, by picking a man that won’t dance to the tunes of the powers that be in the state. His coming caused ran-cor as many aggrieved party loy-

alists who felt marginalised and cheated having served the party for a long without compensation only to have Ribadu imposed on them left the party.

With the local chapter of the party and several aspirants in serious disagreement with the national body over the conduct of the primaries, PDP has been largely divided with some of the aggrieved already challenging the party in court.

Determined efforts by PDP aspirants and relevant stake-holders to scuttle his chances at the polls is threatening his gov-ernorship ambition in the elec-tion with political heavy weights including the suspended state chairman of the party, Chief Joel Madaki, former member House of Representatives, Awwal Tu-kur, Senator Abubakar Girei,

PDP, APC, others test strength in AdamawaCONTINUED FROM PAGE 19

Many believe that the coming of Ribadu into PDP after few months of his defection from APC is as a result of the Abuja politicians who want a fast change in the Adamawa State, by picking a man that won’t dance to the tunes of the powers that be in the state

mate, a former member House of Representatives from Numan/Demsa/Lamurde Constituency, Anthony Lazarus Madwatte, is seen by many as strategic be-cause it can win the hearts of electorate in Numan, Lamurde axis in Southern part of the state.

With the era of falling bud-get deficits coming to an end, President Barrack Obama

and Congress are hurtling to-ward a clash over spending as the White House and Democrats press for an easing of fiscal aus-terity just as Republicans redou-ble efforts to balance the budget.

While both sides say they are trying to help the squeezed mid-dle class, the divide between the two parties on actual fiscal policy may be as stark as at any time since Bill Clinton’s first term and the government shutdowns of 1995 and 1996. Since then, Wash-ington policy makers have been focused on issues like national defence, financial crises and re-cession, or at least on professing a common goal of balanced bud-gets and fiscal rectitude.

But solid economic numbers and new leadership on key con-gressional committees have driven the parties apart. As one senior Democratic budget aide said, “We’re on different plan-ets.”

On Monday, Obama’s budget for the fiscal year that begins in October will propose blowing through statutory spending caps for defence and domestic pro-grammes, kicking off a debate that must somehow navigate a series of deadlines this year, any of which could lead to significant economic disruptions.

“Congress is under new man-agement, and so is this commit-tee,” Senator Michael B. Enzi, Republican of Wyoming and the new chairman of the Senate Bud-get Committee, said Wednesday at the panel’s first hearing of the

chairman of the House Budget Committee, said at a hearing on Tuesday.

Division in Washington is nothing new, but gridlock and inaction seems not to be an op-tion this year. A series of fiscal showdowns will be coming, start-ing with an end to Department of Homeland Security funding on Feb. 28, a sharp cut in physi-cian payments under Medicare on March 31, the depletion of the highway trust fund on May 31, a debt-ceiling showdown this summer or fall and the return of across-the-board mandatory cuts known as sequestration on Oct. 1.If those cuts happen, “we will

not be able to defeat an adversary, deny another adversary and de-fend the homeland,” Gen. Mark A. Welsh III, the Air Force chief of staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednes-day. “I do not believe that is good for America.”

On Monday, Obama will un-veil a proposed budget for the 2016 fiscal year that presumes sequestration will end. Under the president’s plan, spending for programs at the discretion of Congress could exceed caps set by the Budget Control Act of 2011 by as much as $70 billion: half for defence, half for domestic pro-grammes.

I intend to run a Budget Committee dedicated to the proposition that we must confront spending, bring the deficit to an end and, ultimately, balance the budget

new Congress. “I intend to run a Budget Committee dedicated to the proposition that we must con-front spending, bring the deficit to an end and, ultimately, balance the budget.”

Senator Bernard Sanders, a liberal independent from Ver-mont and the panel’s new rank-ing member, retorted: “There are other deficits in our society that have been causing horrendous pain for the vast majority of the American people. These are defi-cits in decent-paying jobs, deficits in infrastructure, deficits in in-come, and deficits in equality.”

It is not just Sanders. Obama and Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the ranking Democrats on the House Budget Committee, are pushing mea-sures to raise taxes on the rich

to bolster the incomes of middle-class families. Democrats on the Budget Committee were once led by moderate fiscal hawks; now, the ranking members are far more liberal.

And while Republicans are also speaking more about wage stag-nation and income inequality, the party remains united around a traditional platform of spend-ing constraint and deficit reduc-tion, which leaders still say is the answer to sluggish growth and bridging the divide in incomes.

“Wage stagnation is a byprod-uct of slow economic growth,” Representative Tom Price, Re-publican of Georgia and the new

Obama

Modibbo

Fiscal battles resurface in Washington

house got burnt. He has two wives with over 12 children. I can assure you that with this kind of attitude of PDP of mar-ginalising people that assisted them in getting to power, your guess is as good as mine. To-day, those who are calling the shots in PDP, where were they in 2011 in Kaduna State? They were nowhere to be found. But over night, they just took over the governance of the state and also the party in the state. I think they are going to pay direly for it.

Whether we like it or not, religion has infiltrated into Nigerian politics. It is out of this fear that Dr. Muhammodu Gumi, an Islamic cleric, called on Gen. Buhari and President Jonathan to drop their ambitions just to avoid crisis in 2015. Do you agree with him?

He is a Nigerian and entitled to his own opinion. But I believe every Nigerian has the consti-tutional right to contest, unless if there are reasons that may disqualify him. General Buhari, from all the things that I know about him, he is a competent Nigerian and there is nothing to disqualify him from contesting election under the 1999 constitu-tion. For Jonathan, some people have challenged his eligibility in court. Until the court makes a pronouncement, to me, I think as a Nigerian, he is free to con-test though, many Nigerians too are saying he is not a gentleman because there was this promise that he made to the north that he was going to ensure that PDP ticket for 2015 election will go back to the north. That, which he has breached, will affect him as a person. Back to Dr. Gumi, I think Nigerians should be al-lowed to decide who should be their leader. Of course, there is this tension in the country. This issue of religion is part of our problems. I believe, from what I

have seen in the country today, the issue of religion in APC will not be a big issue like what hap-pened to CPC in 2011 election. If you look at the APC merger it-self, it cuts across and the same thing with PDP. There is no way any Nigerian can win a general election with just the vote of Muslims or Christians alone. We

need ourselves. But we need a president that can galvanise the whole country and win election cutting across the two religions.

Your analysis of February election seems to be prediction. What if it is the other way round?

No. How can it happen?

Supposing it happened that PDP emerge victorious, how will you feel?

Well, that is politics. In politics, anything can happen. But as far as I am concerned, based on the analysis on ground today, I am telling you that the victory is tilt-ing towards APC. Because the people of the north are yearning, there is no way you can overlook the massive votes that is coming out from the north. Jonathan was able to win his election defi-nitely not with the votes of Bay-elsa State. Bayelsa State is about 400,000 registered voters, which are not up to Kaduna north local government and yet he won an election. He is from the minority of minorities but because of de-mocracy and the system, the con-stitution given to us, Jonathan was able to become president and won election in 2011 with the votes from other parts of the country.

I am telling you that the victory is tilting towards APC. Because the people of the north are yearning, there is no way you can overlook the massive votes that is coming out from the north

19 Politics




2015: Using military will have grave consequences General Buhari, from all the things that I know about him, he is a competent Nigerian and there is nothing to disqualify him from contesting election under the 1999 Constitution

Federal Government over the Boko Haram insurgency, a de-velopment that could affect the chances of the party’s candidate.

Muhammad Umaru Jibrilla Bindo (APC)

A serving senator represent-ing Adamawa Northern Senato-rial District who is believed to be the political son of impeached Governor Murtala Nyako, still enjoys his political structure in the state chapter of the then PDP.

He defected to the APC from the PDP alongside the former gov-ernor, with the same APC struc-ture owned by Nyako and won the party ticket for the aborted October 2014 governorship bye election.

Many residents are seeing APC as a strong opposition party to checkmate the ruling party for its failure to curb insecurity in the state. Indeed, his ability to beat the candidate of former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, on two occasions to emerge as

party’s standard bearer testified to his popularity and effective strategy in winning elections.

Bindo picked his running mate, Martin Babale, a former member House of Representa-tives from Toungo in Southern part of the state.

Nuhu Ribadu (PDP)No doubt about it, Nuhu Riba-

du is a household name in Nige-ria and abroad. A lawyer who lat-er turned to be a prosecutor with the Nigerian Police served the

country at home and abroad. He earned a reputation as a fearless officer of integrity, honest and intelligent person, reasons why he was chosen by former Presi-dent, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, to head the Economic and Finan-cial Crimes Commission (EFCC) after being promoted higher in rank than his colleagues in the force. He contested the presiden-cy under the platform of the de-funct Action Congress of Nigeria


2015: Forces at play in Adamawa guber race

Bindo

Ramalan

What will you say about the use of military for the polls?

Well, you see, the issue of se-curity agencies including the military is a problem in our polity. We saw what the Federal Government did in Ekiti and that opened our eyes and so, in Osun, APC was able to win the election. You see that kind of thing can be used where you are strong. Of course, the rul-ing party is very strong in the South-South, they can use the military to intimidate voters and do what they want to do. But I can tell you, this time, they cannot do it in Rivers and Edo states. Here in the north, I can assure anybody that cares to listen; I don’t think the mili-tary as an institution, know-ing the feelings that the people of the north have, could allow themselves to be used against the people. I don’t think that will happen and if it happens, surely it will have its own con-sequences. I will leave it at that.

What can you say about the race in Kaduna?

I am the caucus state chair-man of APC, the state elders committee of APC which com-prises of all the national, state assembly members, local gov-ernment chairmen and elders of the party. Our task is to

deliver Kaduna State to APC and I don’t think there is go-ing to be problem about that. Kaduna State is going to be an APC state. You are a resident of Kaduna and you have been hearing about the yearning for change that is coming from all the nooks and cranny of the state. The southern Kaduna used to be the stronghold of PDP but today, the PDP cannot boast of getting that kind of number that they usually get from Southern Kaduna. Before, they used to get block votes from there but today, I can as-sure you, it is going to be 50-50. If it comes to Zone Two (Kadu-na Central), this is our strong-hold. There is no way that PDP can even get 25 per cent in Ka-

er momentum, the chances of the candidates can be weighed against their political parties with reference to their support base, popularity of candidates and internal cohesion among party members.

At the initial stage of the campaigns, all eyes were on the candidates of two major politi-cal parties, the All Progressives Party (APC)’s Senator Moham-med Umaru Jibrilla Bindow and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s Mallam Nuhu Ribadu. But candidates of other political parties like Dr. Modibbo Ahmed of People’s Democratic Move-ment (PDM) and Engr. Marcus Gundiri of Social Democratic Party (SDP) cannot be easily writ-ten off as a result of intrigues

and permutations currently tak-ing place in the political arena.

The candidates of the PDP and the APC picked their running mates from southern senato-rial district of the state in Ganye chiefdom who are predominant-ly Chambas occupying Jada, Ganye,Toungo and part of Mayo Belwa. They are the most deter-mining factor for anyone hoping to win any election in the state because of the number of wards and polling units they have.

One interesting thing is that some of the opposition candi-dates are recent decampees from the ruling PDP which is still struggling to resolve the inter-nal crisis that stemmed from the primaries it conducted in Abuja where candidates for all elective posts emerged.

For instance, the candidate of

PDM, Ahmad Modibbo defected from the PDP after he contested the primaries against Ribadu and lost in a controversial man-ner. Similarly, Marcus Gundiri whose name is said to have been submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) by the SDP as replace-ment for its candidate who died a month ago.

But candidates of smaller par-ties are itching to gain from the crisis in PDP and the alleged bad feelings between Atiku and Bin-do in the APC.

Political observers are agreed that the insecurity problem in the state and government’s re-sponse to it will be the central issue at the polls as many people are unhappy with the PDP-led





Allowing PDP governors decamp to APC, greatest error

Adamawa:Ribadu,

Bindo, Modibbo battle for

governor’s seat

I don’t think the military as an institution, knowing the feelings that the people of the north have, could allow themselves to be used against the people

Nyako

duna Central, not to talk of Zone One which is Zaria zone. So surely, Kaduna State as far as the gubernatorial election is concerned, I am advising the people (PDP) to start preparing their handing over notes.

Southern Kaduna is the deciding factor of who becomes governor of the state. From what you are saying, the people are divided. Why is this so?

The division in Southern Kaduna, of course, has to do with the attitude of PDP in Kaduna State. We are all wit-nesses to the kind of massive support which the southern Ka-duna people gave the PDP at the presidential and gubernatorial levels but what have they got to show for that support? Nothing. That is why they are having this problem in Southern Ka-duna. Looking at the PDP at the federal and state level, in terms of developmental projects, how many projects are they doing there? As I speak, I have so many friends in Southern Ka-duna who are politicians that have laboured hard for PDP but today, nobody is doing anything for them. I have friends whose houses were burnt in Kaduna and they are from southern Kaduna. How many years ago now, no compensation. I have a friend very close to me whose

Politics 18 Daily Times NigeriaMonday, February 2, 2015

Gov. Kwankwaso


2015: Who occupies

Adamawa Govt.

House?

Tom Garba Yola

Barely few days to the general election, governorship candi-dates of all political parties have intensified campaigns to sway voters’ opinion to their advan-tage. Towards this end, Adama-wa State is not different as the numerous candidates are explor-ing all available means to get to Government House, Yola, other-wise known as Dougerei House. The race to Government House

will be an interesting game with keen struggles and the political dribbling that each contestant has brought into it to scheme out his opponents.

What is going to play out is the conflicting interests between Adamawa bigwig politicians and those in Abuja. However, many will depend on a lot of political propaganda to take advantage of other contestants’ weaknesses. Besides, the current way of play-ing politics where money is a sharp axe in hewing down other

political contestants, or the use of political God-fatherism are other styles wise politicians de-ploy to dislodge their opponents

Adamawa politics has geo-graphical antecedents of which the zones the winner might like-ly emerge. However, because of the level of abject poverty Nige-rians populace have found them-selves, voters are ready to sell their voting right for a meagre amount of money.

Thus, as the campaigns gath-

Ribadu


Alhaji Tijjani Ramalan, Chairman and Chief Executive, Liberty Radio, Kaduna, was the Kaduna State chairman of the defunct National Republican Convention (NRC) and a founding member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) but now a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC). In this interview with VICTOR JIBRIN, Ramalan predicts the fall of PDP in this month’s elections, at the presidential and in the Kaduna State race, saying that the ruling party has failed to show appreciation for its 2011 electoral victory. Excerpts:


Æ s17

Politics

Ramalan CONTINUED ON PAGE 18

With the emergence of Jonathan as PDP candidate, how will the race go?

This is a very serious contest. For us in APC, we are going all out to ensure victory for APC. I have no doubt about it. The APC, the way it is structured, and from my own analysis as a politician, we are on the move. I think the greatest mistake of PDP, which appears to be a blessing for us, was to allow their governors to decamp to APC. For God sake, in 2011, PDP as at that time, I mean Presi-dent Jonathan, was able to win election virtually in all the PDP controlled states. For example

in Rivers, he got 99 point some-thing per cent and today, he does not have an Amaechi who is a sitting governor to ensure that he gets that kind of votes. Go to Kano, one of the most popu-lous states in Nigeria today, is no more in the PDP. I can tell you, Kwankwaso will deliver Kano to APC. Then go to Lagos, in 2011, Lagosians voted for the PDP and President Jonathan, if I am right. But today, with this merger of ACN/CPC, I think the political calculation is very clear as to which party will win the election. If you look at the votes that are coming from the North plus the votes that will come out from the South West and from the votes that we are going to pick from the South-South states like Rivers, there is no way anybody will tell me that the presidential candidate of APC will not muster 25 per cent of the votes in Rivers and Edo states. So if you put one and two together, I think it is very clear that the incumbency factor of PDP will crash in this year.

2015 general election is here and everybody is ap-prehensive of what will

happen especially with the way politicians are going about it, particularly the leading presi-dential candidates. You have sympathy for APC, what is your take in all these?

Yes, general election is com-ing up sometime this month. In APC we have General Buhari as the candidate of the party. For the PDP, Dr. Jonathan is the candidate. I believe it is go-ing to be a very important elec-tion. As you have said rightly, I have my sympathy for APC. I am a card carrying member of APC. I believe that after the hitch- free primaries election, APC will go into the general election as a united party. The way they campaigned before the primaries was just like the general election and they all made a pledge that at the end of the day, whoever emerges, they are going to come together and fight the general election. So, I can assure you, there is no cause for alarm as far as APC is concerned.

I think the greatest mistake of PDP, which appears to be a blessing for us, was to allow their governors to decamp to APC

Æ sToday in History16 Daily Times Nigeria


1967 Olawoyin defends the states call

1949 United States rejects proposal for conference with Stalin

1943 Battle of Stalingrad ends

1971 Idi Amin takes power in Uganda

•••Mr. Josiah Olawoyin, former North general secretary of the banned Action Group said in Ibadan that Northern leaders of thought were sincere and serious and would not bulge on the issue of creation of more states in the country.

He declared: “We Northern leaders hon-estly believe that the cre-ation of more states will bring a quick and ever-lasting peace to Nigeria”

Mr. Olawoyin was reply-ing to what he described as “the widespread suspi-cion and unfair aspersion being cast on the integri-ty of the Northern lead-ers of thought in various parts of the country with regard to our recent de-mand for the creation of 11 to 13 states in Nigeria”.

•••On this day, the last German troops in the So-viet city of Stalingrad sur-rendered to the Red Army, ending one of the pivotal battles of World War II.

On June 22, 1941, despite the terms of the Nazi-Sovi-et Pact of 1939, Nazi Ger-many launched a massive invasion against the USSR. Aided by its greatly supe-rior air force, the German army raced across the Rus-sian plains, inflicting ter-rible casualties on the Red Army and the Soviet popu-lation. With the assistance of troops from their Axis allies, the Germans con-quered vast territory, and by mid-October the great Russian cities of Leningrad and Moscow were under siege. However, the Soviets held on, and the coming of winter forced a pause to the German offensive.

For the 1942 summer of-

fensive, Adolf Hitler or-dered the Sixth Army, un-der General Friedrich von Paulus, to take Stalingrad in the south, an industrial centre and obstacle to Nazi control of the precious Cau-casian oil wells. In August, the German Sixth Army made advances across the Volga River while the Ger-man Fourth Air Fleet re-duced Stalingrad to a burn-ing rubble, killing over 40,000 civilians. In early September, General Paulus ordered the first offensives into Stalingrad, estimating that it would take his army about 10 days to capture the city. Thus began one of the most horrific battles of World War II and arguably the most important because it was the turning point in the war between Germany and the USSR.

In their attempt to take Stalingrad, the German

Sixth Army faced a bitter Red Army under General Vasily Zhukov employing the ruined city to their ad-vantage, transforming de-stroyed buildings and rub-ble into natural defensive fortifications. In a method of fighting the Germans began to call the Ratten-krieg, or “Rat’s War,” the opposing forces broke into squads eight or 10 strong and fought each other for every house and yard of ter-ritory. The battle saw rapid advances in street-fighting technology, such as a Ger-man machine gun that shot around corners and a light Russian plane that glided silently over German po-sitions at night, dropping lethal bombs without warn-ing. However, both sides lacked necessary food, wa-ter, or medical supplies, and tens of thousands perished every week.

•••One week after top-pling the regime of Ugan-dan leader Milton Obote, Major General Idi Amin declared himself president of Uganda and chief of the armed forces. Amin, head of the Ugandan army and air force since 1966, seized power while Obote was out of the country.

Ruling directly, Amin soon revealed himself as an extreme nationalist and tyrant. In 1972, he launched a genocidal program to purge Uganda of its Lango and Acholi ethnic groups. Later that year, he ordered all Asians to leave the coun-try, and some 60,000 Indians and Pakistanis fled, thrust-ing Uganda into economic collapse. A Muslim, he re-versed Uganda’s friendly relations with Israel and sought closer ties with Lib-ya and the Palestinians. In 1976, he made himself presi-

dent for life and stepped up his suppression of various ethnic groups and political opponents in the military and elsewhere.

In 1978, Amin invaded Tanzania in an attempt to annex the Kagera region and divert attention from Uganda’s internal problems. In 1979, Tanzania launched a successful counteroffen-sive with the assistance of the Uganda National Lib-eration Front, a coalition of various armed Ugandan exiles. Amin and his govern-ment fled the country, and Obote returned from exile to reassume the Ugandan presidency. Amin received asylum from Saudi Arabia. He is believed to have been responsible for the murder of as many as 300,000 Ugan-dans, though he never stood trial for his crimes.

Amin died on August 16, 2003, in Saudi Arabia.

Compiled by ‘Tunji Okegbola

•••In response to So-viet leader Joseph Stalin’s proposal that President Harry S. Truman travel to Russia for a conference, Secretary of State Dean Acheson brusquely reject-ed the idea as a “political manoeuvre.” This rather curious exchange was fur-ther evidence of the diplo-matic sparring between the United States and the Soviet Union that was so charac-teristic of the early years of the Cold War.

Stalin broached the idea of Truman travelling to the Soviet Union, or perhaps to Poland or Czechoslova-kia, during a statement in which he indicated that his health prohibited him from coming to the United States

to meet his American coun-terpart. Stalin’s agenda for such a meeting was sketchy, beyond a general call for a declaration by each nation that it would not resort to war in dealing with the oth-er. Secretary Acheson stated that he found this idea “puz-zling,” arguing that treaty commitments and adher-ence to the United Nations Charter already excluded war between the two pow-ers. Furthermore, without a more concrete agenda, Acheson was reluctant to commit the United States to any one-on-one negotiations with the Soviet Union. In any case, the secretary con-cluded, President Truman was not willing to go “half-way around the world” to meet with the Soviet leader.

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Daily Times NigeriaMonday, February 2, 2015Opinion 14

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and the Missing Trillions (1)

1 read some of the re-sponses to my article, “Buhari vs Jonathan: Beyond the Elec-tion”, and I want to thank everyone who has contributed to

the debate. I am glad that the debate has finally taken off. I have decided, for the record, to re-enter the debate if only to set some records straight and hope-fully elevate the debate further. Whom do I respond to? First, let me thank Gov Kayode Fayemi for his very mature and professional response on behalf of the APC. It forms a great basis for deepening the conversation. Pat Utomi, Oby Ezekwesili, Iyabo Obasanjo, and thousands of other patriotic Ni-gerians have raised the content of the debate. Femi Fani-Kayode made me laugh, as usual. The Gov. Jang faction of the Gover-nors’ Forum played the usual politics, although I know what most of them think privately. Who else? Oh, Peter Obi. Well, since he can’t write and desig-nated Valentine as usual to write for him (who never disputed the NBS statistics that Obi broke world record in the pauperiza-tion of Anambra people but instead focused on lies and abuses) I won’t dignify him with a response here. His third class performance in Anambra will be the subject of a comprehensive article later.

Here, I will focus on Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s response (as Minister of Finance and Co-ordinating Minister of the Economy—CME and hence on behalf of the Federal Govern-ment). Since I have known her, out of deep respect, I have never called her by her name: I call her Madam. I must state that I have great pains seeing my-self on the opposite side of the table with Madam, in this way. I respect you, Madam, and will always do. If you read my article of September 2010 (before you became Minister), the tone and elucidation were as strong as the current one. It is my honest effort to ensure that our choice of lead-ers is based on rigorous scrutiny of what is on offer. Part of my frustration is that five years after, everything I warned about has come to happen and we are con-ducting our campaigns as if we are not in crisis. As a concerned Nigerian, I have a duty to speak

out again. Regrettably, you have taken it very personal.

I am not bothered about the personal abuses: I actually ex-pected worse. What name has the government not called President Obasanjo or any person who has dared to disagree with it of late? Anyone who disagrees with the government must either be ‘insane’ or have a ‘character’ deficiency or must be ‘looking for a job’ or ‘without honour’, or a ‘charlatan’. Yesterday, Sa-nusi alleged that $20 billion was missing and he was accused of gross financial mismanagement, recklessness and poor gover-nance to the point of being the first governor of central bank to be suspended from office. Today, he is the good one; and for daring to award an “F” grade for our economic performance, Soludo has become the ‘worst’ and ‘with-out character’ or perhaps ‘looking for position’ (Lol!). Some days ago, a former president was called ‘a motor park tout’ and ‘un-statesmanly’ just for disagreeing. This “how dare you criticise us” mind-set of the government is dangerous for our democracy.

In this Part One of my planned three part series, I will restrict it to the main issues you raised. I will not bother about the malicious attacks on my person. For me, it is noth-ing personal. In early 2011, I had a similar heated exchange with then Finance Minister Segun Aganga. But when the Nigerian economy was at stake and he invited me to a stakeholders meeting in his office (as Minister of Trade and Investment) to discuss Nigeria’s response to the ruinous EU- Economic Partnership for Africa (EPA), I flew into Nigeria for that (at my expense)— the first and only time I have been to any government office to discuss policy since I left office. It is about Nigeria. I will, as expected, remind people like you of the salient aspects of my record of public service in response to your charge; challenge your claim to debt relief, and your rea-son for not saving; highlight your forgery of economic statistics and the lies in your response; but most importantly re-focus our attention to the historic misman-agement of our economy which you carefully avoided. I will show that while you are introducing

austerity measures and soon to immiserate the citizens, our pub-lic finance is haemorrhaging to the point that estimated over N30 trillion is missing or stolen or unaccounted for, or simply mis-managed— under your watch! We can’t go on like this, and I am convinced that an alternative future is possible. Can we have a public debate on this alterna-tive future? The issues at stake are too grave to be trivialized through name calling. As I write, the naira exchange rate to the dollar is at N215 (from N158 a few months ago) and unless oil price recovers, this is just the begin-ning. For the sake of Nigeria, I won’t keep quiet anymore!

Let me start with Madam’s rather comical, wild judgment on my tenure of office which I

believe to be totally

false

and baseless. I apologise upfront that in the process of making a ‘personal defence’, it is difficult to avoid a rather uncomfort-able emphasis on “I”. I did not want that but since Madam has dragged us this low, I have little choice but to do so in the next few paragraphs—just to keep the record straight!

Your privatization of power sector, several PPP projects on infrastructure, etc, are now possible because of the mega banks. Today, Nigerian banks syndicate multi-billion dollar loans— unthinkable before. Madam, if the consolidation was ‘mismanaged’, there would not have been any bank to start with

in the aftermath of the global crisis— as President Yar’adua correctly pointed out. Even you, during a recent presentation at the Banquet Hall in Abuja adver-tised consolidation as a historic achievement. How can you rec-ognize a ‘mis-managed’ project as an outstanding achievement? As we say in Igbo, you can’t cover the moon with your palms.

Let me be clear: the quantum size of the new banks following consolidation presented chal-lenges of risk management and supervision. We deployed all we had and overworked the CBN staff. The carry-over of bad loans from the consolidated banks was quickly cleaned up. To the best of my knowledge, we insti-tuted stringent regulatory and supervisory regime (consistent with best practices at the time). We even had resident examiners in the banks and required bank MDs to personally sign their reports to CBN. I recall that the former MD of GTB complained of “regulatory intrusiveness”. To our credit, non-performing loans (NPL) came down from 22% in 2003 and 2004 to 6% as at 2008. Anywhere in the world, a central bank that brought NPL from 22% to 6% over a four year period does not look like one with a loose supervisory regime. Name other developing

countries that performed bet-ter, Madam. So, on point

of fact, Madam lied. Yours was a reckless assertion without basis by a

Finance Minister.The banks in Ni-

geria were supervised by the CBN and NDIC,

but other institutions— international firms which

audited them, international rating agencies which also exam-ined their books, capital market operators since most were listed companies — all had oversight. I put on record that there was never any information/report of infractions by any bank which was brought to my attention and which we did not act upon deci-sively during my tenure. I heard the comment that some of the bank MDs were my friends. Well, my response is that perhaps as CME you should kill all your friends operating in the economy or become their enemies. For the record, my successor audited all the banks and none of my so-called friends was indicted. It speaks volumes. Indeed, it is also a fact that the alleged personal criminal infractions (including lapses in corporate governance

Madam alluded to) by some bank CEOs were found out, only AFTER they had been removed from office. My successor told me that the comprehensive audit of the banks did not reveal such in-fractions. Of course, you must be God or have a special tip-off from inside to get to such informa-tion while the MDs are in office. Unfortunately, all over the world, no financial system has suc-ceeded in routing out all criminal behaviours by the operators. So, Madam, I challenge you to pro-vide one shred of evidence that ‘there was no separation between regulators and regulated’ or be honourable enough to retract your reckless statement.

What happened? The unan-ticipated and unprecedented crisis of 2008/09 hit the world. More than 40 US and European banks either collapsed or were shaken badly (remember the Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Wachovia, HSBC, Lloyds TSB, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, even UBS, etc) and hundreds of billions of dol-lars were spent to bail them out. The contagion effects spread like a wild fire, destroying national stock markets and banks. The nascent (big) banks in Nigeria faced sudden multiple shocks— liquidity, exchange rate, oil price, capital market, etc. As oil prices collapsed, loans to oil and gas became non-performing over-night; loans to the capital market became non-performing over-night; etc. Our first priority was to save the entire banking system and the economy from systemic collapse. I assured Nigerians that no bank would be allowed to fail, and not many people know what it took to achieve it. Once we had navigated through the unexpect-ed /unprecedented turbulence, we laid out a comprehensive plan to clean up the debris which we presented to stakeholders in Lagos (March 2009). I had pleaded with the Senate to pass the AMCON bill which we sent to them in 2004. But I had a compre-hensive plan to finish the clean-up with or without AMCON by the end of 2009, including second round consolidation and a N500 billion fund (my book will detail all these). I left behind an 11-vol-ume document of the Financial System Strategy 2020 (FSS2020) which has remained the policy roadmap for the CBN/financial sector since I left office.

Excerpted from a letter to Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala by Prof. Chukuma Soludo on Sunday.

ChukwumaSoludo

Dozens killed in Ukraine fresh clash

13 die in Bangladeshi plastics factory fire

Thousands protest Pakistani mosque bombing

Ukraine president, Poroshenko

•••At least 40 people have been reported killed as fighting between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian rebels rages on in the east of the country. Ukrainian officials say 15 soldiers and 12 civilians died in the past 24 hours. The rebels report 13 casual-ties.

The separatists also claim to have seized the town of Vuhlehirsk and surrounded the key hub of Debaltseve, but the Ukrainian mili-tary denies this. Meanwhile, ur-gent truce talks ended in Belarus, but no deal was signed.

Representatives of Ukraine and Russia, as well as rebel envoys and members the Organization for Se-curity and Co-operation (OSCE),

took part in the meeting in the Be-larusian capital Minsk.

Former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, Kiev’s representa-tive at the talks, was quoted as say-ing that the talks had been “thwart-ed” by the rebels.

The recent heavy fighting has left a September ceasefire - also agreed in Minsk - in tatters. ‘Displacement and suffering’

The latest report on the situa-tion in the conflict zone stood in stark contrast to the concept of a ceasefire. On Saturday, Ukrainian Defence Minister Stepan Poltorak told reporters that “15 soldiers were killed and another 30 injured” dur-ing the fighting on the “whole line of contact” in the past 24 hours.

He also admitted that Debaltseve was now “partially controlled” by the rebels. Meanwhile, Vyacheslav Abroskin, head of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry in the Donetsk region, said 12 people were killed by rebel shelling in the town.

In the rebel stronghold of Do-netsk, Eduard Basurin, deputy commander of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, said 13 people - including civilians - were killed in the past 24 hours in the ar-eas held by the separatists.

He also claimed that some 8,000 Ukrainian troops were now sur-rounded in and around Debaltseve. Ukrainian officials earlier denied the claim.

In a statement, Ertugrul Apakan,

the chief monitor of the OSCE mis-sion in Ukraine, condemned the shelling of densely populated civil-ian areas in eastern Ukraine.

“Yet again, innocent civilians have been impacted by the crisis, and yet again we are seeing more bloodshed,” Mr Apakan said, urg-ing all sides “to prevent further dis-placement and suffering”.

•••At least 13 people were killed when a fire swept through a plas-tics factory in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka on Saturday, police said.

Scores were injured and more people may have died at Nasim Plastic House in a crowded market in the suburb of Mirpur, a police official said.

“We are searching under a col-lapsed wall ... There might be more bodies under the debris,” fire service and civil defence director AKM Shakil Newaz told reporters.

About 70 workers were inside the factory when the blaze broke out, said police.

The issue of safety in Bangla-deshi factories was thrust into the spotlight by the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in April 2013, which killed more than 1 300 gar-ment workers.

•••Thousands of Shi’ite Mus-lims took to the streets across Pakistan on Saturday to pro-test a powerful bomb blast at a mosque in Sindh province during Friday prayers, which killed at least 58 people and wounded over 50 others. In the city of Shikarpur, the site of the blast, thousands of minority Shi’ite mourners held a mass funeral for the dead. Many non-Shi’ites also took part.

The bombing occurred in the Lakidar area of Shikarpur, around 470 kilometers north of the port city of Karachi.

The Sunni Muslim group Jundallah, a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack, the latest in a rising tide of sec-tarian violence in Pakistan.

Sunni Muslim extremists have often targeted religious institutions of Shi’ites who make up a fifth of Pakistan’s population.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Friday he is ap-palled by “such vicious target-ing of people on account of their religious affiliation.” He called on Pakistan’s govern-ment to redouble its efforts to protect religious and ethnic mi-norities.

13 WorldDaily Times NigeriaModay, February 2, 2015


President Bachelet signs bill proposing the end of a total ban on abortions at a ceremony in the Moneda Presidential Palace

German ex-President, von Weizsaecker dies at 94

•••Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has announced plans to end a total ban on abortions in the predominantly Roman Catholic country.

Ms Bachelet has tabled a bill in Congress to legalise abortion in cases of rape or when there is a threat to the mother’s or the baby’s

life. Abortion is punishable in Chile by up to five years in jail.

The absolute ban of abortion puts the lives of thousands of Chil-ean women at risk every year, said Ms Bachelet.

She went on national television to announce the plans.

“Facts have shown that the ab-

solute criminalization of abortion has not stopped the practice,” she said.“This is a difficult situation and we must face it as a mature country.”

The BBC’s Gideon Long says the draft law faces opposition from Chile’s powerful Catholic Church, from conservatives in Congress

and from some inside Ms Bach-elet’s own coalition, led by the So-cialist Party.

Ms Bachelet’s proposal would al-low abortion to be carried out up to the 12th week of pregnancy if the mother’s life is at risk, when the foetus is so badly deformed that the baby wouldn’t survive or in cases of rape.

For girls up to the age of 14, ter-mination would be legal until the 18th week.

Ms Bachelet said younger girls might take longer to realise they are pregnant.

The absolute prohibition on abortion was introduced in 1989, in one of the last acts of Gen Au-gusto Pinochet’s 17-year-long mili-tary rule.

“Chile had an important legal and public health tradition, inter-rupted arbitrarily in the last days of the dictatorship,” said Ms Bach-elet.

“Twelve bills [to decriminalise abortion] have been tabled in the Chamber of Deputies and the Sen-ate since 1991,” she added.

•••Germany’s former President Richard von Weizsaecker, has died at the age of 94, the president’s of-fice has announced.

Mr Weizsaecker’s 10 years in of-fice, from 1984 to 1994, spanned the period of German reunification.

A soldier in the German army in World War Two, Weizsaecker won widespread praise for his ef-forts to persuade Germans to con-front their Nazi past.

A member of the Christian Democratic Union, he also served as the governing mayor of West Berlin in the 1980s.

Announcing Mr Weizsaecker’s death, current President Joachim Gauck said: “Richard von Weiz-saecker stood worldwide for a Germany that had found its way to centre of the democratic family of peoples. “He stood for a federal republic that faces up to its past.”

Mr Weizsaecker was first elect-ed president in 1984 and his speech a year later on the 40th anniversa-ry of the defeat of Nazi Germany won him widespread respect.

He told the West German parlia-ment: “All of us, whether guilty or not, whether young or old, must accept the past. We are all affected by its consequences and liable for it. Anyone who closes his eyes to the past is blind to the present.

AU wants charges against al-Bashir, Ruto dropped

Fattah al-Sisi

Omar Bashir

Mugabe described sanctions against Zimbabwe as ‘wrong’ in his closing speech of the AU summit [EPA]

•••Zimbabwean President, Rob-ert Mugabe has shrugged off con-cerns that his appointment as new African Union chair would harm relations between the pan-African bloc and the West.

“What the West will say or do is not my business,” Mugabe told a news conference at the close of a two-day African Union summit held in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on Saturday.

“My business is to ensure the decisions we take here are imple-mented. My concern is on uplift-ing the life of our people, giving them something that will raise their standard of living,” he said.

“For more that 10 years I have been under sanctions, my country has been sanctioned. If they want to continue it’s up to them but these sanctions are wrong,” the president said.

“If Europe comes in the spirit to cooperate and not the spirit to con-trol us and control our ways, they will be very welcome,” he added.

Mugabe, Africa’s oldest presi-dent at 90, took over the rotating post of African Union chair on Fri-day, replacing Mauritania’s Presi-dent Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz.

Mugabe, a former liberation war hero who is Africa’s third-

longest serving leader, is viewed with deep respect by many on the continent.

But he is also subject to travel bans from both the United States and European Union in protest over political violence and intimi-dation.

Last year Mugabe boycotted an

EU-Africa Summit in Brussels af-ter he was given a rare invitation - but his wife was still denied a visa.

Mugabe also spoke on his atti-tude towards the empowerment of women.

“We are different,” he told re-porters. “There are certain things men can do and that women can’t

do. And there are things women can do that men cannot do. You can’t bear babies in your tummy, can you? Even the gay ones can-not.” “But what we have done in Zimbabwe is that our women can become ministers, judges, farm-ers, pilots. We have three pilots,” he added.

•••The International Criminal Court should drop or suspend charges against Sudanese Presi-dent and Kenyan Deputy Presi-dent William Ruto until African concerns about the court and pro-posals to change its founding trea-ty are considered, African leaders have said.

The demand came in a report on Saturday on previous decisions made by African Union leaders.

The African Union has accused the ICC of disproportionately tar-geting Africans. The court has indicted only Africans so far, al-though half of the eight cases it is prosecuting were referred to it by African governments themselves.

Ruto and radio journalist Josh-ua Sang have been charged with crimes against humanity for their alleged role in orchestrating Ke-nya’s 2007-08 post-election violence. Their trial is under way at the ICC.

More than 1 000 people died and 600 000 others were forced to flee their homes amid violence sparked by a flawed presidential election.

Similar charges against Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta were dropped in December after the prosecution said it did not have enough evidence against him.

Kenyatta and Ruto were on op-posing sides of the post-election vi-olence but joined forces to win the presidency in the March 2013 polls.

The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Bashir for failing to respond to summons to answer to charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for the violence in Darfur.

Bashir remains at large and re-fuses to recognise the court’s au-thority.

He has travelled freely to some African countries that are parties to the statute that created the ICC but they have refused to arrest him as required.

The AU has been heavily criti-cised by rights groups for calling for a halt to ICC cases against Af-rican leaders, with rights groups saying the African Union encour-ages impunity.

Daily Times NigeriaMonday, February 2, 2015Africa 12

Sisi fears for Egypt’s battle against jihadists

Mugabe shrugs off concerns over AU-West relations

Dozens killed in Somalia air strike•••Egyptian President Abdel

Fattah al-Sisi has said that the battle against jihadist insurgents in the Sinai Peninsula would be a long and hard one, as violence there continues unabated.

His comments came as a Cairo court banned the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, declaring it a “terrorist” organisation after accusations it backs militant attacks in Sinai.

Sisi spoke on saturday follow-ing a meeting with his top brass two days after militants killed 30 people and wounded dozens in at-tacks, including a car bombing, in North Sinai.

Thursday’s attacks were claimed by militants from Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, which has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State ji-hadist group.

And on Saturday an interior ministry employee was shot in the head in North Sinai’s regional cap-ital of El-Arish. “The battle will be difficult, hard and hellish, and it will be long,” Sisi said in remarks on state television.

Flanked by his top generals and occasionally raising his voice in anger, Sisi said “we will not aban-don the Sinai to anyone.”

He also announced the creation of a unified anti-terrorist military command, which military sources said would expand operations in Sinai and be allocated more weap-ons and troops.

Sisi also repeated accusations that the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood of deposed president Mohamed Morsi is behind the vio-lence, a claim the group denies.

Late Saturday, security sources said the army fired on “a car driv-en by a suicide bomber and blew

it up as it approached a military checkpoint” in Sheikh Zuweid, east of El-Arish.

The sources also reported clash-es between soldiers and gunmen south of Rafah, on the border with the Palestinian Gaza Strip.

The report came hours after an Egyptian court ruled on a com-plaint from a lawyer that Hamas’s Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades was directly involved in “terrorist op-erations” in the Sinai.

A court official said the lawyer also accused the movement of us-ing tunnels under the common border to smuggle arms used in at-tacks against the police and army.

Since Egypt’s military ousted Morsi in 2013, the authorities have accused Hamas of aiding the ji-hadists.Egypt’s military says it has destroyed more than 1 600 tun-nels since Morsi’s ouster.

In the ruling, the judge said “the documents submitted by the plain-tiff to the court showed that the or-ganisation has conducted attacks... that targeted the military and the Egyptian police and facilities.”

•••Several people are believed to have been killed in an airstrike in southern Somalia apparently tar-geting a house used by members of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Shabaab militia, officials and witnesses said on Sunday.

A Shabaab source confirmed a missile hit the Islamist-held stronghold of Dinsoor, 270km west of the capital Mogadishu, late on Saturday, but declined to give de-tails on who was targeted and how many casualties there were from the attack.

Abdukadir Mohamed Nur, a Somali government official in the lower Shabele region, said several Shabaab militants died.

“Many al-Shebab militants were killed in the airstrike,” he said, without giving details on who was targeted and which country car-ried out the attack.

A resident in Dinsoor, Ali Yare, told AFP by telephone that four ci-vilians may have been wounded or killed in the attack.


Jonathan

Akpabio

Debate: Buhari’s non-participation bad for democracy, says group

Jonathan’ll transform Nigeria beyond imagination, says Olejeme

Don’t vote for ‘runaway politicians,‘ Okowa tells Delta electorate

Only change can save Kaduna – Rep

FG to review Oron maritime academy

Henry OmunuAbuja

•••The Nigeria Posterity Proj-ect (NPP) says the non-partici-pation of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, in the debate organised by the Nigeria Election Debate Group (NEDG) is unhealthy for the nation’s democracy.

It said, in Abuja, that Buhari, as an individual aspiring to lead the country, ought not to have shied away from the planned presidential debate.

National Co-ordinator of

the group, Louis Ebodaghe, de-scribed as unacceptable that someone seeking the mandate of the electorate is blatantly refus-ing to talk to the Nigerian people on topical national issues that would have been raised during the debate.

“We condemn this attitude of Buhari’s and point out that this has been his stock in trade over the years. We advise him to come down from his high horse and engage the Nigerian people whom he is aspiring to lead as president.

“Obviously, Gen. Buhari is not someone who believes his ac-

tions or inactions should be sub-jected to public scrutiny and Ni-gerians don’t deserve answers to pertinent questions that might be thrown at him,” he added.

The group observed that Bu-hari is scared and afraid of his past, which could be opened up during the presidential debate, and has demonstrated that he’s nothing tangible to Nigerians, except seeking vengeance, pro-moting hate, division and vio-lence.

While Buhari to attend the debate, the group added that the excuses adduced by his party for boycotting the debate were un-

tenable, just as it advised him to open himself to public scrutiny.

“Based on his antecedents, we dare say Buhari is haunted by his records in office as head of state where he was accused dra-conian laws and highhanded-ness in office.

“His refusal to feature in the debate, once again, brings to the fore the same behaviour he dis-played over his certificate saga, in which he is yet to convince Nigerians that he actually pos-sessed the requisite academic qualification to contest the elec-tion as required by law”, the group added.

•••The Deputy Chairman, Fi-nance Committee of the Presi-dential Campaign Organisation, Dr. Ngozi Olejeme, on Sunday de-scribed the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Candi-date, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, as an epitome of sincerity.

She also said that the only way the future of Nigerian youths could be guaranteed was for them to support President Jonathan and the ruling party.

Olejeme, who spoke at a gather-ing of Yoruba and Hausa youths and students from across the country, in Abuja, expressed sat-isfaction with the Jonathan ad-ministration and said Nigerians wanted him to continue his good works.

“President Jonathan’s strate-gic development moves in office show that if given another term, he would transform the country beyond imagination”.

Emphasizing that Jonathan is going to the February 14 Presi-dential Election with enough confidence that his achievements will pave way for his return to Aso Rock for a second term of four years, Olejeme said Nigerians would show appreciation for the way he administered the country in the last four years by voting massively for him.

She praised the president for his leadership style.

“President Jonathan has been tested. He has rich antecedents. He has political pedigree. He has shown admirable doggedness and commitment against all odds. He has introduced new vista in the history of governance in Nigeria” she said.

Joe OgboduWarri

•••The Peoples Democratic Par-ty (PDP) governorship candidate in Delta State, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa, has urged the people of Udu Local Government and War-ri South-West Council Area of the state not to vote for people whom he described as “runaway politi-cians.”

Okowa said that the PDP is the only consistent party in the state, saying that opposition par-ties have become strangers in their homeland as they only come home every four years to run elec-tion.

Speaking at Ogbe-Ijoh, head-quarters of Warri South-West Council, Okowa said: “We will win again, because we are consis-tent party, we are the only party that they know. Our people in Del-ta state know only the PDP; they don’t know of any other party. Because we know our God we will win. Those other people contest-ing don’t know God and because they don’t know God they will fail.”

Sunday Isuwa

•••Chairman, House Commit-tee on Drugs, Narcotics & Fi-nancial Crimes, Jagaba Adams Jagaba, said on Monday that only change of the people in power would help to assuage the suf-ferings of the people of Kaduna State.

Jagaba, who represents Kagar-ko/ Kachia Federal Constituency in the National Assembly, stated this while sharing empowerment equipment, such as grinding ma-chines and generators to widows, youth and party leaders in Ka-chia.

He said cabals had taken over the wealth of the state and must be voted out. “If you go to some LGAs in Kaduna, you will find out that the few contracts are awarded to just five people. In or-der to salvage ourselves and Ka-duna state, we must vote for APC in every position. From the Presi-dent, Governor, Senator, House of Representative and the State House of Assembly election, we should vote for APC, which stands for change,” Jagaba said.

Eno-Obong OkonUyo

•••President Goodluck Jona-than has said his government would review the status of Mari-time Academy of Nigeria, Oron, in Akwa Ibom State.

Jonathan, who made the prom-ise during his campaign rally in Uyo, at the weekend also assured indigenes of Akwa Ibom state that the Ibaka deep seaport would be a reality in his next term in of-fice.

He explained that so far, the Federal Government had rehabil-itated 20,000 kilometres of roads out of the 30,000 kilometres of roads that were not motorable in the country.

In his word: “Your governor has tabled four things, the Mari-time Academy in Oron, he feels that we should review the status of that institution. I promise you that we will review the status of the institution. The governor has also mentioned that Ibaka deep sea port. The Ibaka deep sea port must be a reality.”

L-R: Lamido of Adamawa, Alhaji Muhammadu Barkindo; Deputy Governor of Adamawa, Alhaji Muhammadu Tahir, and former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, during the inauguration of Adamawa Beverage Plant in Yola, recently


I’ll fight corruption with my last blood – Ribadu

Ajimobi compensates 200 victims of Ibadan attack

Buhari’s presidency unstoppable – Bamidele

Group vows to get 40m votes for Jonathan

Tom GarbaYola

•••Former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and guber-natorial candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Malam Nuhu Ribadu has vowed to fight corruption in Adamawa State, if voted into power.

While answering questions during an interactive meeting with the electorate at his Jimeta

residence, Ribadu said it was cor-ruption that caused insurgency in the country.

He said the government failed to provide employment for the teeming youths, consequently, they became idle and had to think of ways to get rid of their frustra-tion.

“My duty is to make sure jobs are created in all parts of the state, Adamawa money is meant for you people, nobody ,I repeat, nobody will steal the money that

belongs to you, I will utilise it well and ensure massive development in the state”, Ribadu said.

In answering a question from a blind man, Malam Isa Adamu, the candidate promised that “the physically challenged will be gainfully employed during my ad-ministration of the state”.

He said the Internally displaced persons (IDPs) would get immedi-ate response from his administra-tion in rebuilding their homes and loans to them to start new

business.“It’s very touching to realise

that thousands of my people don’t have a place to call their own, they don’t have a home to lay their heads and this is very dishearten-ing.

“It is corruption that led to all this, but, I promise you that my experience as a security man will never go in vain, I will use all available ways of curtailing the situation within the shortest pos-sible time” Ribadu added.

•••Governor Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State has distributed cheques to over 200 victims of the public dis-turbance that occurred some weeks ago at Isale Osi and Apampa Com-pound in Ibadan South West Local Government Area of the state.

Besides, 99 victims of the inferno that occurred at Ogunpa Market late last year were also compensat-ed by the governor.

The distribution of the cheques came during the campaign tour of the local government area by the governor at the weekend.

He said that his administration would continue to implement poli-cies that would promote economic and social development with a view to taking the state to greater heights.

Gbenga SodeindeAdo Ekiti

•••A member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Opeyemi Bamidele, has said that many members of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party would vote for the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Gen-eral Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) during the February general election.

Also, in a bid to garner more support for Buhari, Ekiti Bibire Coalition, a political platform coordinated by Bamidele, had ordered its teeming supporters to embark on a house-to-house campaign in the 132 towns in the state.

Describing Buhari’s presiden-cy as unstoppable, Bamidele said the strategy was adopted in a bid to take the gospel of the wind of change blowing across the coun-try to the grassroots due to his ardent belief in the capacity of Buhari to deliver, if elected in the February 14 presidential elec-tion.

A statement released on Sun-day by his media aide, Ahmed Salami, said the group was pur-suing the agenda in collaboration with like-minded politicians in the major political parties.

Wale AkintudeYola

•••The National Coordinator of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Ward-to-ward Initiative for Jonathan and Sambo 2015, Mr. Kamal Karka, has said that his group would mobilise 40 million votes for the re-election of Presi-dent Goodluck Jonathan.

Karka, who disclosed this on Saturday during the North-East Presidential Monitoring Team tour of Yola, said that the initia-tive’s mission was to take the presidential campaign to the wards.

He said that each of its four million members was duty-bound to influence 10 votes for Jonathan adding that the tour

was to sensitise the grassroots with the achievements of the President, which would qualify him for re-election.

``This group is out to reach the grassroots, especially, at the wards and enlighten voters on the achievements of Mr. Presi-dent and why he stands to be re-elected. ``Our conviction is based on the fact that Jonathan is the only Nigerian leader who advo-cates for youths and women em-powerment.

Karka attributed the socio-political challenges facing the North to the elite who did not mean well for the masses.

He urged the youth to rise against any form of ethno-reli-gious politics, adding that the “old brigade had used us enough

and this is the time to say enough is enough. ``Let us tell ourselves the truth, we are a problem to ourselves because the elite in the North had never helped the re-gion and, today, they are pointing accusing fingers at other people.

Cleric cautions against campaign of calumnyOkay Osuji

•••The General Overseer of Bible Life Church, Bishop Leonard Umun-na, has called on Nigerian politi-cians to desist from the use of foul language during campaigns.He also urged them to dwell more on issues affecting the ordinary Nigeri-ans. Bishop Umunna made the call re-cently at an interactive session with journalists.

He decried the present campaign of calumny and character assassina-tion by politicians, which, he said, was responsible for heating up of the polity.

Speaking on the raging issue of Permanent Voter’s Card (PVC), many of which were yet to be dis-tributed to eligible voters, Umunna called on the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) to al-low for the use of temporary voters cards.

Jonathan

President Goodluck Jonathan

acknowledging cheers at Ahmadu

Bello Stadium in Kaduna during the

PDP Presidential Campaign on

Saturday

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Editorial

Sam Nzeh

Drumbeats of war over elections

More info: www.dailytimes.com.ng

The recent threats by some Niger Delta militants in re-spect of the February 2015 elections should be con-demned by all right think-

ing Nigerians. A few days ago, three of the prominent ex-warlords in the zone, Asari Dokubo, Tompolo and Boyloaf were reported to have threatened war on the country should Dr. Goodluck Jonathan lose the presidential election.

The former militants who spoke when they met with the Bayelsa State Governor, Seriake Dickson, said Jona-than’s re-election was not negotiable. They flayed the attack on the Presi-dent’s convoy in some northern states, saying nobody or group of persons had the monopoly of violence, even as they lamented the alleged intimidation being meted out to the people of Ijaw stock in Nigeria.

While such outburst is capable of derailing the present democratic dispensation, it also gives the impres-sion that the President is an ethnic champion. That should not be. But, we also do not support the call by the former Chief of Army Staff, General Theophilus Danjuma for the arrest of the ex-militants. This is because any adversarial action at this time of politi-cal campaigns is capable of not only heating up the polity, but also inflame ethnic passions that the country can least afford. We stoutly oppose any action that could derail the democratic dispensation that the country is cur-rently enjoying, even when it could be said to be imperfect.

This is why we are calling for cau-tion on both sides, in the belief that the country is going through a very trying period brought about by the destabilis-ing activities of the Boko Haram in the North east. The threat to unleash another war on the country in the event of President Jonathan losing the election is uncalled for, even as we will defend the freedom of speech of any citizen. Nigeria is a democracy that protects the rights of every individual to air their views, even when they go against the grain of public opinion.

The era of military regimentation is gone for good, and we expect that anyone who disagrees with opinions expressed in the public domain should take recourse to legal process for redress, rather than calling for the ar-rest of those who made any dissenting views. The country cannot afford to be at war with itself at this period when all hands should be on deck to find a common ground for national consen-sus. That is why we are gladdened that both the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the opposition All Progres-sives Party (APC) have condemned not only the hateful speech by the mili-tants but also the demand that they be arrested.

This time calls for public and pri-vate sobriety. We can only get that when those who employ inflammatory language realise the damage they are causing to the polity. The country de-serves peace and amity at this time for the February elections to be conducted in an atmosphere devoid of rancour.

The opinions expressed in the articles published in this newspaper are solely those of the authors. Articles may be reproduced, provided that the original source is indicated.

Nasir el-Rufai Tunde BakareI do not see any patriotism in going to wreck our nation with the February 14 elections.

Susan Rice

•••Not a few Nigerians are happy at the way lead-ers of the North look the other way when their youths go on the rampage. And this, many say, is clearly not in the interest of the geo-political zone.

Just last Thursday, some youths in Jalingo, the Taraba State capital, chose to show how uncouth they are when they hurled stones on the convoy of President Goodluck Jona-than.

This was the third time the President’s convoy

will be attacked by youths in northern Nigeria since campaigns for the Febru-ary 14, 2014 presidential election began. The first was in Katsina State while the second took place in Bauchi State.

And this, in the eyes of so many leaders of the North, is okay. To date, the Arewa Consultative Fo-rum and other leaders of the region have chosen to gloss over the actions of their youths.

This, to say the least, is unfortunate. Aside the dangers these actions of northern youths portend to the wider Nigerian so-ciety, the inability of lead-ers of the region to rein in their youths, portrays

them as overtly or covertly instigating such actions.

If this were not so, then northern leaders must speak up. There can’t be leaders in the North when youths choose to treat the occupier of the highest of-fice in Nigeria and his of-fice with disdain as they have done these three oc-casions.

Northern leaders must come out to condemn ac-tions of their youths when they fall short of accepted behaviour and insist that they don’t spoil the chanc-es of the region by their untoward actions. An el-der, as an Igbo adage goes, cannot be in the house while a goat delivers in tether.

Where are leaders of the North?

The All Progressives Congress (APC) will forma new and progressive government . . . We will not take state resources to anybody in Abuja.

Nigeria has played a constructive role in peacekeeping in various parts of West Africa. But unless Nigeria itself is democratic... it too may well be a source of much greater instability.

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Words On Marble : STATEMENTS BY THOSE WHO MATTER

Lawyer sues Jonathan over unpaid N70m legal fees

Ondo police arrest ‘most wanted’ cult leader

Flooding at Agege Motor Road, Mushin, Lagos… on Friday Photo: OLAWALE ROTIMI


Ex-militants back Jonathan for second term

Workers insist NECO registrar must go

INEC extends PVCs collection deadline

Lateef IbrahimAbuja

•••AN Abuja based legal prac-titioner, Barr. Joni Icheka, has dragged the President, Dr. Good-luck Jonathan, to court, demand-ing N70 million for legal services he rendered for the President.

The amount, according to Icheka, was for services he ren-dered, which led to the mass res-ignation of the members of the immediate past National Working Committee (NWC) of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP).

The lawyer, in the suit marked CV/845/14 and filed by Barr. Faus-tinus Andi at the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on December 4, 2014, claimed that Jonathan, along with Alhaji Aliyu Habu Fari, former chief of

staff to Alhaji Bamanga Tukur; Abba Kale, former chairman of PDP in Wukari Local Govern-ment Area, Taraba State; Aruwa Sule, his counterpart in Maidu-guri LGA; Barr. Bashir Maidugu, listed as Fari’s special adviser and current deputy, national legal ad-viser of PDP, and that the party itself gave him the brief which led to the disbanding of then PDP-NWC, but has since refused to pay his professional fees.

Already, a motion ex-parte with no M/3039/15 has been filed by Barr. Fuastinus Andi, under Or-der 11, Rules 5 (b) and (d) of the FCT High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules 2004, seeking for an order for substituted service on the de-fendants.

In a 36-paragraph statement of claims to which was attached a

40-paragraph affidavit in support of the application to be heard on the undefended list, Icheka al-leged that Jonathan and other defendants had used and dumped him and his professional col-leagues, inspite of several re-minders of their indebtedness.

According to him, sometime in 2013, Habu Fari invited him to his (Fari’s) office and informed him that he had Jonathan’s in-struction to get 17 members of the PDP-NWC disbanded, since they came on board without following the laid down PDP constitution, to which he (Icheka) raised a legal team, formulated the legal pro-cesses and filed same, and that it was the filed processes that even-tually led to the 17 losing their of-fices.

According to him: “The 2nd

defendant (Fari), sometime ago, met me in my office and asked me whether there was any way the national officers of the PDP, especially those listed as the 2nd to the 17th defendants in suite No. FCT/HC/CV/24/8/13, could be re-moved, since they came to office through procedures that were not sanctioned by the constitution of the 6th defendant (PDP).

“The 2nd defendant (Fari) also told me and I verily believed him that the former Attorney-General of the Federation, Mr. Mike Aon-doakaa, was of the opinion that they do not have locus standi to institute legal action, let alone a cause of action, and that it is to Mr. Aondoakaa that the 1st de-fendant (Jonathan) entrusted the legal aspect of the operation,” he asserted.

Tosin AjuwonAkure

•••The Ondo State Command of the Nigeria Police Force has arrested and paraded a suspected notorious cult leader of the Eiye Confraternity group, Mr. Kola Adigun, popularly known as ‘Kola Asoga’, with other 33 members of different confraternity groups and six armed robbers.

The state’s Police Commis-sioner, Mr. Isaac Eke, who briefed journalists at the command’s headquarters at the weekend, in Akure, said that the alleged want-

ed leader of the Eiye secret cult had been terrorizing the people of Akure, the state capital, for long.

Eke also hinted that the sus-pect (Kola Asoga) had been on the ‘wanted lists’ of the command for some years, for initiating many youths on the streets into the group. “We shall prosecute him. He would also be out of circula-tion for some time, till we go after others who are found culpable and part of his members,” he said.

In his confessional statement, the 37-year-old Kola revealed that one Akeem initiated him into

cultism in year 2010 in the city of Akure. He added that until two other of his friends were arrested before the city could witnessed peace.

“If they want Ondo State to be rescued from cult activities, the Police must also arrest ‘Ade Bas-ket’ and ‘Ekun’, who are leaders of AVE and Aye secret cults in the state, respectively. Let them bring the three of us together to sign an agreement that there would be nothing like killings and trouble in the state again. If not, the po-lice are just wasting their time,” he said.

Lateef IbrahimAbuja

•••The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has extended the deadline for collection of Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVC) till next Sunday.

The latest extension, according to INEC, supersedes the earlier dead-line of Saturday, January 31, 2015, and is intended to give registered voters yet to collect their PVCs the opportunity to do so, in readiness for the February 2015 general elec-tion.

The commission, in a statement by the Chief Press Secretary to INEC chairman, Mr Kayode Idowu, called on duly registered persons not to delay in going to collect their cards before the expiration of the new deadline.

The commission reaffirmed its determination to make the 2015 elec-tions free, fair, credible and peaceful.

Saka BolajiMinna

•••The Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU), National Ex-aminations Council (NECO) chapter, has insisted that the embattled Registrar of the examinations body, Professor Promise Nwachukwu Okpala, must proceed on terminal leave.

This, they said, is line with the status guiding the tenure and operations of NECO.

Addressing the Press at the headquarters of NECO in Minna on Friday, the NASU chapter Chairman of NECO, Comrade Abdulrasheed Ra-bana, described the tenure of the registrar as the most turbu-lent, noting that “going by his performance in eight years, it is a tragedy that someone like him was made to run an orga-nization like NECO, because he failed in all aspects.”

Lamenting the despotic ten-ure of the registrar, Rabana decried the blatant refusal of Professor Okpala to comply with the directive of the Minis-ter of Education, Mallam Ibra-him Shekarau, that the regis-trar should proceed on three months terminal leave before the expiration of his tenure.

Tosin AjuwonAkure

•••Hundreds of ex-militants have declared their support for the presidential candidate of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, in his second term ambition.

The former militants from the western flank of the Niger Delta, which comprises Ondo, Edo and parts of Delta states, declared their support at the weekend, after a meeting held at Ese-Odo Local Government Area of Ondo State.

The meeting, convened by one of their leaders, Chief Bibopiri Ajube, aka ‘Shoot at Sight’ was well attended by Chief Mafi-misebi Otelo, Chief Omo Ton-werigha, General Nso Siemens and a member of the Ondo State House of Assembly represent-ing Ese-Odo Constituency, Lubi Akpoebi.

Speaking at the meeting on behalf of the ex-militants, Chief Ajube said they would support President Goodluck Jonathan to the fullest as a result of his youthful age against the candi-dature of General Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Continued from page 6

Continued from page 6

Anenih seeks North’s backing for Jonathan

L-R: Trustee, Lagos Country Club Ikeja, Chief Idowu Sofola (SAN); Olu of Ilaro, Oba Kehinde Gbadewole Olugbenle 1; President, Lagos Country Club Ikeja, Mr. Kayode Moradeyo during the presentation of honorary membership and plaque to Olugbenle at the New Year party of Lagos Country Club Ikeja… on Friday. Photo: OLAWLE ROTIMI

Daily Times NigeriaMonday, February 2, 2015News 8

Stowaway at Lagos airport

Jonathan

With a few days to commence-ment of the 2015 Presidential election, I find it expedient to send this appeal specifically to our brothers and sisters in the Northern States.

“The election is the most important as it is the pre-cursor to the elections at the state level, which come up on February 28.

“For me, however, the criti-cal issue in the February 14 Presidential election is jus-tice.

“While I do not intend to wish away your legitimate right to be President, I urge you to consider the decades of cooperation given by the people of the South-South to candidates of the North.

“In all the democratic elec-tions in Nigerian history in which a Northerner had con-tested, statistics show that the South-South often voted overwhelmingly for such a candidate.

“In the First Republic, po-litical parties in the South-South were in alliance with the Northern Peoples Con-gress while in 1979, the South-South people voted massively for Alhaji Shehu Shagari of the National Party of Nige-ria (NPN). Most recently, the Zone also voted massively

for Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’ Adua who got over 80% of the votes in all the States of the South-South.

“What I ask of you is to reciprocate this show of soli-darity and vote massively for our son, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, on February 14, 2015. This will only be a fair reward for the consisten-cy of our friendship.

“I need to emphasize that this is the first time that the South-South has had the op-portunity to produce the President of Nigeria. It is an opportunity for which we have been grateful since 2011.

“However, the people of the Zone would feel short-changed, if they were to be denied the opportunity to have a full complement of tenure.

“A second term for Presi-dent Jonathan, who remains the best candidate for the presidency, will be the only just arrangement that the people of the Zone would cherish.

“May I say that the choice of voting for President Jona-than has been made easy for us all by his commendable performance in all the sectors of our national life during his first tenure. In agriculture, the economy, infrastructure, education, women and youth

empowerment, the Jonathan administration has touched the lives of all Nigerians.

“I seek your massive sup-port for President Goodluck Jonathan at the Presiden-tial election on February 14, 2015. We need to continue to strengthen the bridge of uni-ty and understanding among all the peoples of this great nation. It is only by making concessions and compromis-es that we can transform our diversity into great strength.

“There is no greater time for concessions and compro-mises than now.

“May I take this opportu-nity to call for moderation in our electioneering and poli-ticking.

“The threat of violence right from the time the presi-dential candidate of the APC, General Muhammadu Bu-hari, changed his mind that he would contest is unfortu-nate.

“We would reasonably refuse to accept a situation where a Nigerian, whether from the North or the South, would start his political jour-ney with a threat that the baboon and the dog would be soaked in their own blood if what happened in 2011 hap-pens in 2015; whereas 2011 election was adjudged by international and domestic

observers as the best election that we ever had in the na-tion’s poll history.

“I know the antecedents of each of the presidential can-didates on parade for the 2015 election. I also know that the threat of violence or rejec-tion of anticipated election victory will not change the will of God.

“And on the part of the In-dependent National Electoral Commission, I expect the election body to up its ante. In any human endeavour, there is always room for im-provement.

“There is no doubt in my mind that in the 2015 presi-dential election, INEC will improve on its preparations and the conduct of the elec-tion.

“I appeal to all of us to come together to help in the effort to move Nigeria for-ward in unity and harmony. God bless President Jona-than; God bless the PDP; God bless Nigeria”, he said.

General Buhari on Sunday said that although he is com-mitted to punishing corrup-tion at all levels of govern-ment, he would not subject the military or any other arm of government to probe as er-roneously reported by a lead-ing newspaper.

While clarifying the head-

line, which erroneously quot-ed him as vowing to probe the military if elected into office, General Buhari said while his government would not pursue a witchhunt of any-body or institutions, he would decisively deal with all cases of impunity and corruption under his administration no matter who is involved.

In a press statement in Abuja, APC Presidential Campaign Organization (AP-CPCO) reiterated Buhari’s stance that “when elected into office in February, the era of impunity will be over for the rogues. But there is no time for engaging in probes or witch hunts.”

The statement, signed by Mallam Garba Shehu, Di-rector of Media and Public-ity of the Campaign quoted General Buhari as saying he is passionately concerned about the sorry conditions of our armed forces today who, despite huge budgetary allocations, have failed to ef-fectively deal with manifest security threats including the Boko Haram terrorism.

“What he said at every giv-en opportunity is that he is keenly interested in knowing what has gone wrong, if any with the army that he knew. When he has access to them as Commander-in-Chief, he

In his confessional state-ment, the suspect claimed he had entered the hangar through the facility of the Headquarters, Air Defence Corp of Nigerian Air Force located next to the Presiden-tial/ VIP Lounge in the air-port, on Saturday night with the help of a person he iden-tified only

as ‘a brother’.The boy who spoke in

Yoruba and Pidgin English Languages, said he was able to cross the runway L18 run-way over to ExecuJet facil-ity located in the interna-tional wing of the

airport, a distance of about one kilometre, at night when he noticed there was no flight landing or taking off on the runway.

The aircraft operated by Tag Aviation was said to have flown in a former Min-

ister of Petroleum, Chief Dan Etete into Lagos air-port on Saturday night and parked at the

private hangar, where it was expected to take off yes-terday afternoon before the incident happened.

The general manager Cor-porate Communications Mr Yakubu Dati Federal Air-ports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) told Daily Times at press time that he was gath-ering details on the incident. However, a military source who sought identity protec-tion described the allegation of the stowaway entering the airside of the airport through airforce facility as an attempt by the terminal operator to cover up security lapses on its side.

The source suggested that search light be beamed on the security network of the terminal to get to the root of the matter.

will like to hear from his com-manders what are the prob-lems they are dealing with so that they can be solved,” Shehu said.

“In a democracy such as ours, all institutions of government, including the armed forces, are account-able. No country can achieve results in its counter-terror-ism efforts when there is no transparency in the man-agement of huge resources for the purpose. He (General Buhari) will reinvigorate the armed forces and restore their rapidly evaporating mo-rale,” he said.

News 10 Daily Times NigeriaMonday, Feburary 2, 2015

How to have violence-free elections in Nigeria - NBA

Injustice against me ‘ll be redressed soon, Kawonise tells supporters

2015 polls: Nigeria on global watch – Obasanjo

Secondus dares Buhari to debate with Jonathan

Uchenna Secondus

L-R: Lagos State, Peoples Democratic Party Chairman, Capt. Tunji Shelle; deputy governor-ship candidate, Alhaja Safurat Ab-dul Kareem; guber-natorial candidate, Mr. Jimi Agbaje and Akran of Badagry Kingdom, His Royal Majesty, De Wheno Aholu Menu-Toyi 1, during a visit to the Oba at the week-end. Photo: BOLAJI OLASUNKANMI

Abiodun TaiwoAbeokuta

•••Former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo has said that Nigeria is being watched by the in-ternational community as the gen-eral election kicks off on February 14. Obasanjo disclosed this at a public enlightenment programme on electoral process, entitled En-suring Free, Fair and Credible Elections: Collective Responsibility organised by the Organisation of Tadhamunul Muslimeen (OTM) and The Muslim Congress (TMC), Ogun State chapter at the Oluse-gun Obasanjo Presidential Li-brary (OOPL), Abeokuta on Sun-

day.He said the general election

must succeed if Nigeria must not be ridiculed in the comity of na-tions adding that all eyes were on the Independent National Elec-toral Commission (INEC) and the Nigeria Police to ensure prompt arrival of materials and adequate security respectively.

Obasanjo, who was represented by Chief Idowu Abraham Akanle said, “The election is crucial and the international community is watching us. We should not disap-point them, by ensuring that it is free and fair.

“This election is for progress and development of this great

country and should be devoid of sentiments like religion, ethnicity and nepotism. It should be a unit-ing election for all of us. Nigerians must protect the integrity of the country with their votes, so that we can be like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Dubai where there is order in governance.

“We must not make any mis-take of allowing the international community to make a jest of us, as such, we beg INEC, whose repre-sentative had just told us how the process would go, to assure us that it shall be well.

“You must be fully prepared. You must be up and doing. No ex-cuses. You know the terrain very

well, there should be no delay and late arrival of voting materials.

“A situation where somebody at Eggua will be phoning at eleven o’clock that they were still expect-ing materials will be unacceptable. A situation where the Police will be telling us that there is no fuel to move will be unacceptable”, Obasanjo added. To the security agents, he said, “you must do your job, accordingly and professional-ly. You must not allow to be used by any individual or group to disrupt the elections. As I said, the interna-tional community is looking at us, we must be careful and thorough throughout the general election. We must get it right”.

Eno-Obong Okon Uyo

•••National Vice-Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Uchenna Secondus has challenged the presidential candidate of All Progressives Congress, (APC), General Mu-hammadu Buhari to a debate against President Goodluck Jon-athan.

According to him, “Buhari has corruption and insecurity as his priority and it is only perti-nent for him to use the debate to

tell Nigerians how he intends to fight corruption and insecurity better than the president”.

Speaking at the presidential rally for Jonathan’s second term in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, he said for Buhari to make Rivers State governor, Rotimi Amaechi the Director-General of his cam-paign organisation, made him a corrupt man since the governor was corrupt.

He alleged that Amaechi col-lected Three trillion Naira from the Federal Government and the Internally Generated Revenue

from the state, with no tangible evidence.

He added that the private jet he bought for the state govern-ment was converted to his use and later handed over to Buhari for his campaigns.

“He took 50 million dollars to build hospitals in Port Harcourt, that money disappeared. He bought aircraft at 45 million dol-lars and converted it to personal use.

“It is the one he handed over to Buhari for his campaigns. He took money from Rivers State

to sponsor Buhari’s campaigns, which means you are corrupt,” he said.

Secondus stated that Jona-than was an expert on security, adding that, although, the APC candidate was a retired Army General, he was more of an ex-pert than the president.

Omon Esene Warri

•••Warri branch of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has called on Nigerian politicians to play by the rules, following fears that the general election scheduled for this month may be violent.

The NBA argued that most elec-tions in Nigeria ended in violence because the electoral process was manipulated to serve certain inter-ests.

Its chairman, Mr Martins Aik-pokpo, who spoke during a road show to sensitise Warri residents on the need to get their Permanent Voter’s Cards on Sunday, noted that if elections were free and fair, the bloodshed usually experienced af-ter every poll would be minimised.

He advised politicians to shun all manners of inciting comments which could heat up the polity and induce carnage during and after this month’s elections.

‘’Elections must hold on Febru-ary 14, in accordance with the law. I will advise that politicians should maintain decorum in their lan-guage and not create unnecessary tension by using issues of religion and state of origin’’, he added.

•••The controversially dropped governorship candi-date of the Labour Party in Ogun State, Mr Sina Kawonise has asked his supporters not to lose sleep over the matter.He expressed confidence that the matter would be judicially resolved in his favour soon. Kawonise stated this in a press release signed by Ademola Osi-nusi, Media Assistant, SK Cam-paign Organisation and released in Abeokuta .

He also urged Nigerians, as stakeholders in the democratic process, to discharge their re-sponsibilities and contribute their quota to ensure a free and fair election.

Kawonise said that the injus-tice would be redressed shortly as the matter was in court.

“The first victory was re-corded with the rejection of one Abolaji Sunmola by INEC as the purported candidate of Ogun Labour Party”, the release added.

-Mercy Aigbe


Life TIMES&

gives back to society

makes cameo appearance

PL6

PL2

PL3

North West

Good/bad effect of earpiece

Daily Times NigeriaMonday February 2, 2015Movie L2

Kunle Afolayan

Yvonne Nelson

Van Vicker

P r o l i f i c Nol lywood p r o d u c e r /director, Kunle Afolayan has taken the lead in the third edition of the Africa Magic Viewers Choice Award (AMVA) billed for March 7, 2015 with 13 nominations, courtesy of his latest work, October 1.

Afolayan’s latest work got nominated in categories including Best Movie of the Year; Best Movie in Drama, Best Actress in Drama, Best Art Director and Best Cinematographer.

Other notable nominees include A place in the Star movie with seven nominations while Rita Dominic’s The Meeting got two nominations.

Meanwhile, despite the huge success recorded by his latest work, Kunle is on the search for suitable resort centres and places for his new work entitled The CEO.

Single, Married and Complicated Ghanaian star actress, Yvonne Nelson has engaged the services of a formidable and interesting cast for her upcoming movie entitled If Tomorrow Never Comes. The flick parades stars like David Dontoh, Khareema Aguiar, Bismark Odoi, John Dumelo, Ayittey Power and musician-turned-actress, Becca.

The epic movie from the Yvonne Nelson Productions tells the story of a village girl and her effort to be successful in life. The movie is in its production stage and expected to be one of the best in 2015.

Nollywood screen diva, Mercy Aigbe-Gentry has announced the commencement of her school of drama to cater for aspiring actors who want to take up a career in film making through the Mercy Aigbe Production (MAG).

The actress disclosed to Life &Times that the establishment of her own school of drama was to give back to the society that made her who she is today by helping the dreams of many aspiring youths to be fulfilled.

When asked what she had been up to lately, Mercy announced that she had been busy shooting the television commercial for her new boutique MAG DIVAS, where she featured colleagues like ‘Mide Martins, Iyabo Ojo, Liz da Silva amongst others and the commercial is expected to be aired soon on TV stations.

Award-winning Ghanaian actor, Van Vicker has indicated the music industry as his next port of call, after years of acting and promoting the Ghana movie industry.

Speaking recently in an interview with Modern Ghana, the One Night in Vegas actor said: ‎‘I have chosen music now, because I think I have done much for the movie industry, with my Van Vicker training facility ; being a producer and a director as well”. When asked what genre of music he would be promoting, the actor added: “Any genre that can catch the international attention. I am looking at discovering a talent for the international market, it doesn’t matter if it’s hip-life, gospel, reggae, etc., what matters is real talent.’

Cross-over actress, Doris Simeon, who is on vacation, seems to be very excited about her recent re-union with her son, David after a long while. Doris and Daniel Ademinokan parted ways a few years after their re-marriage hit the rocks.

Daniel took custody of their only child and left for the US with Stella Damasus.

Doris shared a picture of herself and son while on vacation in the US and captioned it, “My Orobo…s m i l e a w a y u r s o r r o w # a l o t b e h i n d t h e s m i l e #Godslove #Godsgrace.”

There had been calls from concerned people that Daniel should return the boy to his mother, even if he wanted to go with another woman.

Stories by: Mutiat Alli

veers into music

... shoots of a new movie gets 13 AMVCA nominations

shoots epic movie

MAG school of drama opens

unites with son

DorisVicker

Kunle and a cast studying the CEO movie script

Yvonne in scene of If tomorrow never comes

Mercy on set of TV CommercialDoris and son, David

Daily Times NigeriaMonday February 2, 2015Eyola L4

ToughloveEyola

Tough-love can sometimes be the best kind of love, especially when it comes to giving invaluable advice. With the fashion industry attracting so many newcomers, it has seen a significant rise in fashion de-signers over the last few years. I have com-piled a list of 8 tough-love tips on starting your own clothing line. Remember that although the fashion industry is booming, the number of participants has drastically increased. As a result the industry faces a high level of competition. The fashion mar-ket is a very tough one to break. Whether you decide to enter the fast-fashion or the luxury segment of the industry, the com-petition and barriers to entry - preventing a newcomer into market - is at an all-time high. It may look easy to set up a fashion label and make profits, but be warned that the business of fashion is a costly one. One that requires a sufficient amount of fund-ing and often one of the toughest to break even, let alone make a profit. If you are still reading, it means that you are not deterred by a challenging environment and you will do whatever it takes to set up a fruitful and thriving fashion brand. Creativity takes courage, so if you have your sights set on taking on the fashion industry, be coura-geous and committed. While everyone wants to be a fashion designer these days, there are several other fashion career op-portunities that come with less risk. Your love for fashion can manifest through oth-er avenues while still keeping your finger on the pulse of fashion and design. Careers such as fashion merchandising, fashion journalism, public relations and fashion styling can sometimes be just as creative as fashion design itself. Without further ado, here are my 8 pearls of wisdom for getting your foot into the world of fashion.

Think carefully. Get an education. Get a job. While it is encouraged to chal-lenge yourself, do the best you can and aim for the sky, it is important to accept and ac-knowledge the harsh truths about setting up your own business. Going straight from school – be it fashion or a different field of study – and diving straight into setting up your business is not always a proven road to success. Don’t be dismayed. There are multiple entrepreneurs who achieved ample success without a high school, col-

lege or higher education diploma. Looking at a few of these success stories, it is interesting to see that despite either being school-drop outs or not pursuing higher edu-cation, there is one thing most of them have in common. They all had a trail of work experience in complimentary or completely for-eign fields. Follow suit and make sure that you gain some professional experi-ence whether it is in the fashion field or not. Get a thorough understanding of how successful businesses are run and use this time to build relationships, contacts, mentors and earn money to invest in your to-be fashion line. Use your spare time to work on ideas for your brand concept and start building your portfolio of fashion sketches and samples.

Do some research. Read biographies of past and present success stories. Dis-cover how the mastermind behind your fa-vourite international fashion brand turned their ideas into a profit-making enterprise. Look into the challenges they faced on the road to success and those faced once they reached the top of the mountain – as it were. Learning from other people’s mis-takes won’t make your journey a straight road without any hurdles. Nevertheless you will learn the common pitfalls that start-up, growing and established design-ers face, taking advantage of this money-can’t-buy knowledge while you navigate through your own individual journey. Do remember that it is impossible to repli-cate another person’s success. So bear in mind that your road to success will be an entirely new journey and a new story to inspire others in years to come. Next up is carrying out research on the market you intend to capture with your business. Are you interested in the luxury market or mass-market? Who is your target audi-ence and what are their characteristics? Once you are clear on what direction you are going to take, research the key players in the industry and your potential compet-itors. Research their strategies, market-ing message, aesthetics and their target market. Don’t stop there. Look into their point of sale, which generally means how they make their products available to cus-tomers. Luxury brands, such as British/Nigerian fashion label Eyola, might opt for

Series of Eight by Eyola

an ex-clusive By Appointment Only private showroom, reflecting the high quality products on offer and satisfying the elite clientele the brand caters to. Whereas a high street chain selling affordable fast-fashion will most likely choose either a brick-and-mortar shop on a busy high street or solely maintain an online pres-ence.

Plan your business. It is essential to have a road map of where you currently are and where you would like to go with your fashion venture. A business plan is a traditional written document putting all your ideas and a detailed plan of your new business venture on paper. It is a for-mal statement of your objectives, unique selling point (USP - what makes your brand and products stand out from your competitors), how you will fund your busi-ness and how your business will achieve its goals and profits from a marketing, financial and operational viewpoint. The ultimate goal is implementing the most effective strategy for financing your fash-ion label to facilitate the growth of your business.

Stand out from the crowd. It is of-ten very difficult to develop a USP for a brand. Nowadays, we live in a world that is so advanced. So much so it is some-times very difficult to create a product or service that is pioneering. There is no need to create an entirely new fashion product (e.g. Gabrielle Chanel’s Little Black Dress or Mary Phelps Jacob’s invention of the modern bra). Although creating something entirely new might prove to be a big chal-lenge, it is not an impossible task to have an edge over your competitors. In recent times we have seen designers go back to the basics offering tops, trousers, dresses (etc.) in very simple classic styles. This seemingly simple idea became a formula for success especially at a time when de-signers were more focused on creating

outlandish designs. So do not despair if your idea appears too simple. Nonethe-less a strong identifiable concept behind your fashion brand and products is vital. The most valuable knowledge that far outweighs all other advice is keeping your target market at the heart of ev-erything you do. Whatever direction you take, make sure you are honouring and satisfying the needs and wants of your target market.

Build a functional network. A net-work of skilled people is requisite when building a brand. Setting up your com-pany alone or pairing up with a fam-ily member or friend, you cannot be a master of all trades. Whether a sample machinist, a manufacturer or an accoun-tant, you will need experts in different fields to make sure your business starts off - and continues - on the right foot. Be careful when hiring staff regardless of whether they are full time, part time or outsourced. Let prospect employees know the standard of work that is ex-pected of them and what you are look-ing for. A job description is a useful docu-ment to give to prospective candidates. While Curriculum Vitae (CVs) are a great insight into a person’s educational, occu-pational and personal experiences, make sure to carry out tests to confirm wheth-er the contents of the CV are factual and not fabricated. For instance put a com-puter in front of a candidate who, ac-cording to their resume, has over 8 years experience with Adobe Photoshop. Look beyond qualities outside their vocational skills such as time-keeping, integrity and reliability. Verify qualifications and con-firm their personality traits by perform-ing a background check, contacting their previous employers.

Don’t be a cry baby, embrace fail-ure. OK, you have tripped up at every juncture of your business venture – met-aphorically speaking. Or you lost a lot of money. Or you are just having a bad day, month, year where things are not picking up or moving in the direction you envi-sioned. Pull yourself together. The most successful entrepreneurs never quivered at the sight of challenges or shortcom-ings. They took the bull by its horns and got the job done, regardless of the obsta-cles. The most successful entrepreneurs are notorious for bouncing back and hit-ting gold after facing failure. The mind-set of an entrepreneur is seeing failure as feedback, a learning experience and turning mistakes into success. Failure can be healthy and conducive, as long as you do not let it discourage you or hold you back. Fight harder, work harder, try

hard-er, plan better

and be a calculated risk taker. Remember that you are only a fail-ure if you give up.

Partner up for business sake. Cre-ative people often overlook that fact that creativity can only triumph with a good understanding of business and account-ing. Your creative abilities only play a part of a bigger puzzle. The ability to manage your finances is important for a business to succeed. It is rare for creative thinkers to have a thorough understanding of facts, figures and business. In the same way most left-brain dominant, logical, analyti-cal and methodical thinkers tend to solve problems using effective strategies, with no knowledge of creativity. Such thinkers opt for careers that require strategizing and disciplined skills such as costing, keep-ing and recording a budget. Working as a duo also has the added value of being able to bounce ideas off each other and share the workload, particularly during the birth-ing and growing stages of the business. Be mindful of who you choose as a business partner. First and foremost you are looking for a multi-disciplined individual who is at the very least a social networking genius, has a strong sense of business acumen, great with numbers and possesses strong analytical and observational skills.

Good luck. Believe in yourself, follow your dreams, persevere, be sincere, and be prepared to struggle. Do not let people intimidate or deter you from your goal and don’t let life’s little knockbacks discourage you. In the wise words of successful entre-preneurs Oprah and Senator Musa Adede: “The formula of luck equals preparation and opportunity…never give up, tackle challenges head-on.”

Contact me: Twitter @WorldEyola us-ing the hashtag #AskEyola

Facebook.com/Eyola

Daily Times NigeriaMonday February 2, 2015 L5

Daily Times NigeriaMonday February 2, 2015Wellness L6

Lara [email protected]

It could be fitting, handy and fashionable but for people who prefer to use the earpiece or headphones to make or receive calls and listen to music, experts warn that an over-exposure to excessive sound levels can damage your ears resulting in permanent

noise-induced hearing loss.Noises louder than 110

decibels are known to cause hearing problems such as temporary deafness and tinnitus (ringing in the ears).

A report from the European Union’s Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR) estimates

dangerousHow to clean your ears

Earpiece:Pleasantbut

that 5-10 per cent of personal music player users risk permanent hearing loss if they listen for more than an hour a day at high volume settings for at least five years.

In addition, one thing seems to be more noticeable with headphones is a decreasing sensitivity to sound levels over time, as the ears adapt to loud

sounds. The listener perceives a gradual drop in loudness even though the volume control setting hasn’t changed.

The audio isolation of headphones tends to highlight this dulling effect. It is all too easy for headphone listeners to turn up the volume to the point where hearing is at risk.

However, hearing loss is preventable. You just have to realise that loud sounds do cause damage to your ears. Also, ear buds make it so that loud noises can be brought directly into ear canals.

The best way to avoid Noise-Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL) is to keep your audio low.

You can also determine the number of times you use the

earpiece or headphones. It’s a personal decision you have to make. For instance, if you listen to audio while running for hours, try as much as possible to keep the volume low and when the music gets really exciting and you don’t want to miss out on the rhythm and lyrics, you may increase it, but, make sure that it is not for a long time.

Be sure you don’t have an ear infection or a perforated ear drum. Cleaning your ears under these circumstances can be extremely dangerous, so do not use this method if you even suspect a problem, instead, schedule a medical appointment immediately. Symptoms of an ear infection include:

•Fever.•Vomitingordiarrhoea.•Green or yellow drainage from

the ears.•Persistentandsevereearpain.Make your own wax-softening

solution. You can purchase a carbamide peroxide cleaning solution at your local pharmacy, or you can make your own. Combine warm water with one of the following:

•A teaspoon or two of 3-4%hydrogen peroxide solution

•Ateaspoonortwoofmineraloil•AteaspoonortwoofglycerinPrepare an applicator

(optional). You can, simply, pour the solution into your ear from the

bowl if you don’t have an applicator on-hand. However, if you do have one around, it can make the process a little tidier and easier.

•Usealargeplasticsyringewithaplastic tip, a rubber bulb syringe, or even an eyedropper.

•Fill the applicator with thesolution. Draw up enough so that the applicator is more than halfway full.

Tilt your head to the side. The cleaning process will work better if your ear canal is as close to vertical as possible. Allow the ear you’re cleaning to face upward.

•Liedownonyourside,ifyoucan.Just be sure to put some towels under your head to catch any excess solution.

Slowly put the solution into your ear. Pour the solution fromthe bowl into your ear, or position the end of the applicator a few inches above (not in) the ear canal and squeeze.

•If you used hydrogen peroxide,you may hear a fizzing or popping sound. Don’t worry, this is totally

normal!•Ifyoucan,youmightwanttoask

another person to do this step for you. It’ll be easier for him or her to make sure the solution is, actually, getting into your ear.

Allow the solution to work for a few minutes. Keep your head tilted to the side and give the solution some time to break up the ear wax. Five to 10 minutes should be sufficient.

•If you used hydrogen peroxide,allow the solution to work until you no longer hear fizzing or popping.

Drain the fluid. Hold an empty bowl under your ear, or put a cotton ball up to the outside of your ear. Tilt your head slowly, and allow the liquid to drain out.

•Be careful that you don’t pushthe cotton swab into your ear — simply hold it lightly against the outside of the ear, so it’s positioned to catch the fluid

Flush your ears. After the wax has softened, use a rubber bulb syringe to flush out loosened earwax. Gently squirt lukewarm

water (at body temperature - 98.6°F(37°C) intoyourearcanal.For very stubborn wax or for people with very small ear canals, an enema bottle filled with clean, warm water may work better than a bulb syringe.

•Pullontheearlobeoutanduptoopen up the ear canal.

•Dothisoverthesink,tub,orothercontainer: it’s a messy operation, and you may flush chunks of earwax out.

Irrigate your ears again. With excessive build-up, it may be necessary to repeat the process twice a day for no more than four to five days.

•Don’tdrainyourears toooften.Doing so could damage your eardrum and the sensitive skin in your ear canal.

Dry your ears. When you’re done flushing, place a towel over your ear, and tilt your head to the other side to drain the water. Gently pat theoutside of your ear with a towel, then repeat the process on the other ear.

Daily Times NigeriaMonday February 2, 2015 L7 Nutrition

Ear infections, also known as otitis media, are extremely common among adults, especially, children. The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders states that about 75 percent of children develop, at least, one ear infection by the age of three. Some foods may be beneficial in treating ear infection, although, you should always speak with your doctor before using this natural healing approach.An effective dietary approach in treating otitis media involves certain dietary inclusions and exclusions.

Healing FoodsStrawberries may be one of the most helpful healing foods in treating ear infections. Strawberries contain a significant amount of vitamin C and have long been used to provide powerful antioxidant protection and promote optimal health, notes nutritionist and biologist George Mateljan, author of The World’s Healthiest Foods. Raspberries are also rich in manganese, dietary fiber, iodine, potassium and folate. Strawberries that are ready for consumption possess a pleasing aroma and deep red colour and are moderately soft.

Onion: This is also a very good homemade oil for healing ear infections. Simply cut some slices into a plate, put it in the microwave for two minutes, then apply the oil into the hurting ear.

Tips for eating right• Eatbeforegroceryshopping• Make a grocery list (94 KB) before youshop• Chooseacheckoutlinewithoutacandydisplay• Buy and try serving a new fruit orvegetable (ever had jicama, fava beans,plantain,bokchoy,starfruit,orpapaya?)Watch Your Portion Size• Shareanentreewithsomeone• Ifentreesarelarge,chooseanappetiseror side dish• Don’tserveseconds• Sharedessert,orchoosefruitinstead• Eat sweet foods in small amounts. Toreduce temptation, don’t keep sweets at home• Cut or share high-calorie foods, likecheese and chocolate, into small pieces and only eat a few pieces

Ear infection and dietary cure

• Eatoffsmallerplates• Skipbuffets

Change the Way You Prepare Food• Cut back on added fats and/or oils incooking or spreads• Grill, steam, or bake instead offrying• Make foods flavorful withherbs, spices, and low-fatseasonings• Use fat-free or low-fat sourcream, mayo, sauces, dressings, and condiments• Serve several whole-grain foods everyday• Topoffcerealwithslicedapplesor bananas

Change Your Eating Habits• Keeptoaregulareatingschedule• Eat together as a family mostdays of the week• Eatbeforeyougettoohungry• Makesureeveryfamilymembereats breakfast every day• Drinkwaterbeforeameal• Stopeatingwhenyou’refull• Don’teatlateatnight• Tryagreensaladinsteadoffries• Ask for salad dressing “onthe side”• Chew slowly everytime you eat and remind others to enjoy every bite• Serve wateror low-fat milkat meals, instead of soda or other sugary drinks• Pay attention toflavors and textures• Instead of eatingout,bringahealthy,low-calorie lunch to work and packahealthy“brownbag”foryour kids• Providefruitsandvegetablesforsnacks• Ask your sweetie to bring you fruit orflowers instead of chocolate

Daily Times NigeriaMonday February 2, 2015 L8 Television

Showing on Showing on105 Movies Family 130 MTV

This inspiring family film about second chances sees a desperate jobless man enter a dance competition to win prize money in order to help his sickly sister.

‘S2/E47- 2/47’. The Tonight Show returns to New York with award winning Comedian, Jimmy Fallon. Tune in to catch the fun and games with A-list celebrities and house band The Roots.

02:15 09:30Mon, 2 Feb | PG Mon, 2 Feb |PG 13

252 Silverbird

101 M-Net West

128 SONY MAX

118 Telemundo 124 E! 120 BBC Entertainment

00:00 Gotham00:05 The Grand Budapest Hotel01:45 A Case Of You03:15 Paradise04:40 Paper Dream05:30 Life's A Breeze07:00 Masterchef Junior USA08:00 Modern Family08:30 Wipeout (USA)09:30 The Ellen DeGeneres Show10:30 Tio Papi12:30 2 Broke Girls13:00 Masterchef Junior USA14:00 The Ellen DeGeneres Show15:00 Perception16:00 Nashville17:00 The Last Ship18:00 The Ellen DeGeneres Show19:00 Mom19:30 Masterchef Junior USA20:30 The Last Ship21:30 Elementary22:30 CSI21:10 The Queen Of The South22:00 Broken Angel22:50 Where Is Elisa?

00:00 The Convict Killer

00:40 Ninja Cheerleaders

02:00 Video Zonkers

02:30 Video Zonkers

03:00 The Smoking Gun Presents: World's...


05:00 Ninja Warrior

00:00 Secret Societies Of Hollywood01:00 Secret Societies Of Hollywood02:00 Escape Club03:00 Escape Club04:00 Dr. 9021005:00 The E! True Hollywood Story06:00 The E! True Hollywood Story07:00 E! News07:30 Celebrity Style Story08:00 The Drama Queen09:00 Keeping Up With The Kardashians10:00 Kourtney And Khloe Take The Hamptons11:00 E! News11:30 Celebrity Style Story12:00 House Of DVF13:00 E! News13:30 Celebrity Style Story14:00 Keeping Up With The Kardashians

00:00 Boom Town

01:00 Music Africa

02:00 Boom Town

02:30 STV Sports Café

03:00 Local Movie

05:00 Gospel Rhythms

06:30 Insights For Living

07:00 STV AM News

07:30 Today On Stv

09:30 Patitos Gang

10:30 STV Sports Café

11:00 101 Business

11:30 Play Ground

12:00 Nigeria Decides

13:00 Music Africa

14:05 Reel Entertainment

14:30 This Life

15:00 Dynamix On TV

15:30 Brights

16:05 Nickelodeon

17:00 Young Scholars

17:30 NNPC

18:02 MTV Base

19:00 STV News @ 7

19:30 Taste of Love

20:00 Dream Movie

21:30 Politicscope

22:00 STV News @ 10

18:30 Foot Prints

19:00 Kings Of Segou

00:00 Aurora00:30 The Queen Of The South01:20 The Queen Of The South02:10 The Queen Of The South03:00 The Queen Of The South03:50 The Queen Of The South05:20 Where Is Elisa?06:10 Aurora07:00 Fearless Heart07:50 My Heart Beats For Lola08:40 Broken Angel09:30 Where Is Elisa?10:20 Aurora11:10 Fearless Heart12:00 My Heart Beats For Lola12:50 Broken Angel13:40 Where Is Elisa?14:30 Aurora15:20 Fearless Heart16:10 My Heart Beats For Lola17:00 Broken Angel17:50 Where Is Elisa?18:40 Aurora19:30 Fearless Heart20:20 My Heart Beats For Lola21:10 The Queen Of The South22:00 Broken Angel22:50 Where Is Elisa?

05:25 Ninja Warrior

05:50 Cheaters


07:45 World's Wildest Police Videos

08:45 I Bet You Will

09:15 Killer Karaoke



12:15 Cheaters



15:15 Video Zonkers

15:40 1000 Ways To Die


17:05 World's Most Amazing Videos


19:00 Most Shocking

19:30 Tinsel

20:00 The 5 Brides

20:30 Katemba Mu Kkooti

21:00 Jara

21:30 Tinsel

22:00 The Dzigbordi Show

00:01 My Family00:32 New Tricks01:26 Come Dine With Me02:17 The Musketeers03:12 The Cube03:59 EastEnders04:30 EastEnders05:00 Fool Britannia05:25 QI05:57 Spy06:24 EastEnders06:54 Antiques Roadshow07:50 The Weakest Link08:41 The Chase

09:30 Total Wipeout UK10:27 The Cube11:17 New Tricks12:16 Top Gear13:11 Come Dine With Me14:10 Total Wipeout UK15:08 The Weakest Link15:59 EastEnders16:34 Deal Or No Deal17:13 The Cube18:06 Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?19:00 MasterChef19:33 Hell's Kitchen USA

XT Exclusive

makes case for Keshi gX8 g X4,5

Poster!RASHIDI YEKINI


FASHANU

Gunnersstun Villa5 – 0 in EPL

cracker

g X2

tips CUADRADO for greatness

HENRYAFN rues DEARTH of athletes

g X7

g X3

EXTRATIMEMonday, February 2, 2015

X2

ENGLISH PREMIERSHIP

Arsenal moved above Tottenham and up to fifth in the Premier League table courtesy of an em-

phatic 5-0 victory over struggling Aston Villa.

Olivier Giroud grabbed the first and the other was scored from the penalty spot by the fabulous Santi Cazorla, as they domi-nated from beginning to end at the Emirates Stadium, like a team determined to prove they would not miss top-scorer Alexis San-chez, who was taking a rare breather to rest a tight hamstring.

Giroud was on target after only eight minutes, although Villa had already survived a couple of scares. Ramsey lashed one wide and Jores Okore recovered to deny Walcott before the opening goal, created by an effec-tive flick by Ozil.

Mertesacker launched it forward and Ozil threw a heel at the ball to lift it over Okore and into the path of Giroud, who clipped a neat finish over the dive of Brad Guzan.

Cazorla thumped a low curler into a post before half-time after winning possession, exchanging passes with Giroud and eas-

ily holding off the challenge of Okore, the Ivory Coast born Danish international who seemed a little dazed by the blur of red-and-white shirts around him.

Ozil found the net only to find he was a fraction offside and the flag was up and Guzan reacted quickly to parry a powerful effort to his left, struck by Ramsey from 12 yards.

Villa showed a little more adventure when they came out after the break, but this only made it easier for Arsenal to extend their lead. It probably explained why Lam-bert likes to operate with such caution.

Giroud unzipped Villa with a pass to set up Ozil, who took it on at pace and applied a precision finish, across goal, inside the far post.

And Walcott soon made it three, burst-ing inside from the left, trading passes with Cazorla, who was at the heart of everything, and curling his right-foot shot beyond Gu-zan.

Giroud headed against the bar from Ca-zorla’s free-kick before a flurry of substitu-tions, among them, young Arsenal striker

Chuba Akpom, who replaced Giroud and won a penalty, beating Guzan in a race and tumbling over the American.

Cazorla smashed the penalty straight down the centre and into Guzan’s left hand as the keeper read his intentions and stood

firm, but such is Villa’s luck that he only suc-ceeded in deflecting it into his net.

Akpom and Tomas Rosicky went close but right-back Bellerin scored the fifth slid-ing in a side-footer from outside the penalty area to end the game 5-0 in Arsenal’s favour.

I’m no angel, Costa confesses after Can stamp

Januzaj glad to get game time

Van Gaal in dark over Fletcher’s move

Suspended Chelsea striker Diego Costa admits he is “no angel”, but insists his stamp on Liverpool’s

Emre Can was an accident.The Spain international was handed a

three-match ban, the first game of which was served in his team’s 1-1 draw against Manchester City, for violent conduct.

Costa appeared to stamp on Can’s an-kle – one of several confrontations he had during Chelsea’s League Cup semi-final second-leg win over Liverpool.

Speaking to reporters, the 26-year-old insisted the Can incident was accidental.

“As far as what happened on Tuesday,

the main thing is when I get home I can go to sleep knowing that I’ve not done anything wrong, because I never meant to do that and it was not on purpose,” Costa said.

“And you can clearly see that on the video. But it is a suspension. I have to ac-cept that, I have to take it.

“Obviously I feel sad because I’m not going to be able to help the team, to play. But I have accept it and respect it.”

Costa’s confrontational and physical style has been questioned, but he has scored 17 goals – a league-high – for his table-topping team.

down Villa in5-goal thriller!

Gunners

Costa

Van Gaal

Olivier Giroud (right) chips the ball over the on-rushing Brad Guzan to score the opening goal of the game for Arsenal.

Starts have been hard to come by for Ad-nan Januzaj this season, so the 19-year-old was pleased to get 90 minutes under his belt in Saturday’s 3-1 win over Leicester City. The Manchester United midfielder was handed just a fifth Premier League start of the campaign and will hope to retain his place for Tuesday’s FA Cup fourth round re-play against Cambridge United.

Van Gaal has admitted that he is in the dark regarding Darren Fletcher’s proposed move to West Ham, with Hammers boss Sam Allardyce revealing after his side’s defeat to Liverpool that a switch had bro-ken down.


X3

Manuel Pellegrini remains confi-dent Manchester City can haul back Chelsea’s lead at the top of the Pre-mier League after Saturday’s 1-1 draw at Stamford Bridge.

Having fallen behind to a Loic Remy goal after 41 minutes at Stamford Bridge, City were quickly at level as David Silva fired home on the brink of half-time.

Both sides pushed for a winner,

ENGLISH PREMIERSHIP

RODGERS hails ‘lethal’ STURRIDGE

but had to settle for a share of the spoils, which left City five points adrift of Chelsea with 15 games re-maining.

Jose Mourinho’s side may hold the upper hand at the moment, but Pel-legrini saw enough in the top-of-the-table clash to believe his charges can retain their Premier League crown.

“Of course it was important to try to close the gap,” he said. “We tried but we couldn’t. We still have 45 points more to play for. I said before the game that this was a very impor-tant game but it is not a final.

“We have time to try to recover those five points and if we continue playing in the way we did it will be easier.”

City will battle Hull City next week-end and have matches against Stoke City and Newcastle United before the end of February.

Man City can close Chelsea’s gap –PELLEGRINI

Brendan Rodgers lauded the impact of Daniel Sturridge as the England international made a goal-scoring

return from his lengthy injury layoff as Liverpool cruised to a 2-0 victory over West Ham.

The lively Raheem Sterling had already put the Reds ahead before the introduc-tion of Sturridge and the 25-year old made sure of the three points with a thunderous shot from an acute angle.

Despite being out of action for five months, Sturridge didn’t look at all rusty and Rodgers was clearly delighted with his contribution.

“When he’s in that area of the field he’s shown for us over a couple of years here that he’s lethal. It was nice for him. He’s obviously been out a long time.

“He’s a top class player. I think he’s shown that in his career so far. He’ll get goals, today he was only on the field for 25 minutes and got one and went close to another. He’s worked hard and the first opportunity was a great first touch and finished it off with his second.”

Despite the goals of Sturridge and Sterling, Rodgers refused to put too much pressure on the pair and instead praised the overall team performance.

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger is set to meet Jose Luis Gaya’s £13.5m release clause as he looks to beat Real Madrid and Barcelona to the 19-year-old Valencia left-back’s signature.

Fenerbahce are keen to sign Edin Dzeko from Manchester City in a £12m deal. City are likely to wait until the summer before considering a sale, following the January arrival of Wilfried Bony from Swansea City.

Roma’s interest in Aleksandar Dragovic could force Manchester United to wrap up an £11.2m deal for the defender ahead of the transfer deadline. The Dynamo Kiev centre-back is also wanted by Inter Milan.

Arsenal to meet Gaya’s £13.5m release clause

Tottenham’s form excites VertonghenFenerbahce

eyes £12m Dzeko move

Man United forced into £11.2m Dragovic deal

BACKS CUADRADO TO SUCCEED AT CHELSEA

BRIEFS

HENRY

he’s a proper winger also – that’s some-thing you don’t see often now, guys that want to go down the line and beat people and cross.

“That’s what you want if you’re a striker, so I think he will be – if he comes to Chelsea – a special player.

“He won’t surprise people because ev-erybody saw him at the World Cup, but he’s a special talent.”

Viola on Instagram.And Henry is sure Cuadrado will show-

case his qualities in England once his move is finalised, with Andre Schurrle set to join Wolfsburg to make way for the incoming Colombian.

“Everybody saw the World Cup, the way he performed – he’s a special player,” Henry enthused.

“He can beat anyone at any time and

Thierry Henry believes Juan Cuadra-do will be a hit at Chelsea, with the Fiorentina winger poised to com-

plete a £24.8 million move to Stamford Bridge before the transfer deadline.

Fiorentina head coach Vincenzo Mon-tella confirmed on Friday that Cuadrado’s move to the Premier League leaders is all but completed, with the player himself posting an emotional goodbye to the

Sturridge

Cuadrado

Pellegrini

With Tottenham challenging on all fronts, Belgium international de-fender, Jan Vertonghen, is loving life at White Hart Lane.

Tottenham continued their im-pressive Premier League form on Saturday with a 3-0 win at West Brom.

The London outfit have only lost one of their past nine league fixtures. Tottenham also booked a showdown with Chelsea in the League Cup final at Wembley during the week, while Mauricio Pochetti-no’s men are preparing for their Eu-ropa League round of 32 tie against Fiorentina.

“It is very exciting times,” said Vertonghen on Saturday.

“It’s a shame we are out of the FA Cup as we wanted to keep active in four competitions but we’re still in the Europa League.”


X4

INFORMATIONPERSONAL

Full name: Rashidi YekiniDate of birth: October 23, 1963Place of birth: Kaduna, NigeriaDate of death: May 4, 2012 (aged 48)Place of death: Ibadan, NigeriaHeight: 1.90 m (6 ft 3 in)

Playing position: StrikerSenior career1981–1982: UNTL Kaduna 1982–1984: Shooting Stars1984–1987: Abiola Babes 1987–1990: Africa Sports 1990–1994: Vitória Setúbal 1994–1995: Olympiacos 1995–1996: Sporting Gijón 1997: Vitória Setúbal 1997–1998: Zürich 1998–1999: Bizerte 1999: Al-Shabab 1999–2002: Africa Sports 2002–2003: Julius Berger 2005: Gateway

National team1984–1998: Nigeria (He made 58 appearances and scored

37 goals)

YEKINIRASHIDI


X5

Num

ber

RASHIDI “For Rashidi Yekini, football was everything and the only thing in

his life. It offered him the opportunity to escape from the pangs of poverty and he decided that the safest and best way to secure his future was not to fall victim to any smart Alecs, or scammers, or fraudsters, or business persons with sweet tongues that could talk him into parting with his hard-earned money. He did not want to be used or confused. So he built an impregnable wall around his exis-tence, trusting only very few. His worst fear was to lose his money. That’s why his celebrated one and only marriage crumbled after 3 months. He did not trust the motive of his wife for marrying him. So, he left the marriage before it even started. The same attitude underlined his relationship even with his family members. He took care of them, and provided for them, but from a safe dis-tance.”

Segun Odegbami

Achievements of Rashidi Yekini 1.Perhaps one of the greatest ever achievements of Rashidi Yekini’s career was when he won the Africa

Cup of Nations title with Nigeria in 1994. Playing in Tunisia under Clemens Westerhof at his fifth AFCON

tournament, Yekini scored five goals to win the top scorer’s award and also help propel the team to

victory. It must be noted that Yekini won the AFCON title as a reigning African Footballer of the Year. No

reigning player of the year has won the AFCON trophy since he did in 1994.2. One of the most enduring goal celebrations ever seen at the World Cup happened on the night of June

21, 1994, when Yekini scored what was Nigeria’s first ever goal at the World Cup finals against Bul-

garia. The Super Eagles had qualified for the Mundial, their first appearance on the big stage, courtesy

of goals from Yekini. He scored eight goals in the qualification series to ensure Nigeria’s flag was finally

flown at USA ’94. As it dawned on him that he had scored the first ever goal for Nigeria at the World Cup,

Yekini grabbed the net, and shook it endlessly while screaming to the high heavens. 3. Yekini set a precedent for Nigerian football when he won the CAF African Footballer of the Year award

in 1993. He became the first Nigerian to win the title. It was a feat achieved while playing in Portugal,

away from the French league that had dominated the awards for most of the preceding years. Ye-

kini’s win opened a floodgate of best player titles for other Nigerian players, when Emmanuel Amuneke

claimed it in 1994, Victor Ikpeba in 1997 and Nwankwo Kanu took the title in 1996 and 1999.4. Yekini played with such great focus that he scored 37 international goals for the Super Eagles in

only 58 appearances. He earned an average of 0.64 goals per game. Since his last game for the Eagles

in 1998, that record is yet to be breached. The record-holder until Yekini put his name on the records

book was Segun Odegbami, who scored 24 goals in 48 matches. Yekini struck off Odegbami’s record by

the time he won his 37th international cap with a hat-trick against Ethiopia in a 6-0 thumping at the

National Stadium, Lagos on July 27, 1993. 5. Being among the early batch of Nigerian players to make the transition to Europe, Yekini found a

home at Vitoria Setubal, a mid-level Portuguese Primeira Liga side, where he played for four years,

from 1990-1994. In his third season, Yekini became the fourth African since Eusebio, Angolan Vata

and compatriot Richard Owubokiri to win the award for the most goals scored in a Portuguese top flight

season. With 21 goals scored in the 1993-94 season for lowly Setubal, Yekini took home the presti-

gious Bola de Prata trophy given out by O Bola newspaper. It was the first top scorer title for Setubal

since Francisco Rodrigues did the double between 1943 and 1945. No Vitoria Setubal player has since

won the top scorer title.


X6

As a known player in the Nigerian topflight, how would you describe your experience with Enyimba Football Club?

I am very happy to be a player in the co-lours of Enyimba FC because it has been my dream club, even when I was a little boy. To-day, I am happy wearing

the colours of the club.

You are happy with the club, but there is this negative news about money or allowances being owed the players by the management of the club. Are you comfortable with such scenario?

Yes, the club owes me, but I am not the only player being owed by the club. I cannot tell you how much we are being owed by the club because my captain is in a better position to do that, since this is not an individual thing.

Before coming here, I didn’t ne-gotiate with anybody, I negotiated by myself. I know what they owe

me and I don’t like disclosing what they owe me to anyone.

No, we are not asking you how much, we are asking whether what they owe you, is it salary, bonus, allowances or

sign-on fees?That’s what I’m trying to say.

They owe us and frankly it is not only me that is in this situation, but the whole old players. They do not owe us any salary, but what they owe us is our old money they suppose to pay us when they were paying us our sign-on fees. That’s exactly what we are asking for.

We are not talking about new payment or anything like salary or bonuses or allow-ances, it is just about a carry over debt.

Do you think the Super 6 Tournament is enough to put your team in good shape for the CAF Cham-pions League which Enyimba will soon be

is not any easy feat!Enyimba is my favourite club and I will con-

tinue to appreciate them. That is not to say, if I am opportuned to go to any other club that I would not go, but if you ask me, I will tell you that if I am getting what I want here, I will still stay in Enyimba, forge ahead and work harder to play in Europe.

What is your desire in Enyimba as a player?

My aim of playing in Enyimba is to lift trophies with club, like the CAF Champions League and the Glo Premier League. We are the Federation Cup holders and hopefully, we will defend the Charity Cup. I want us to be the number1 club in Nigeria in terms of winning trophies.

Sincerely, tell us about the true position of the money owed you and your older colleagues in Enyimba. When are you getting it from your management?

The government has assured us that the money will be paid. They told us that as soon as we left for Abuja to play in this tournament the money will be ready. So, we do not have any reason to doubt them because they know we need this money to take care of our fami-lies.

In football there is no pension for the play-ers, and there is no gratuity, so what we get now is what we lean on and cater for our fam-ilies. I believe they will fulfill their promise to us!

Are you not afraid that it might be another political promise, which may not be fulfilled at the end of day?

I don’t believe so, but if it is, then they are making a big mistake because every player needs to be both physically and mentally fit before going in for any championship.

We need serious motivation to make us bring out our best. I still believe the club will give us all that are necessary as we com-mence action both at the continental and na-tional levels.

battling for honours?Well, as you can see during our match

against the Flying Eagles, they really stretched us; they really gave us a good fight and I believe that helped us a lot to improve on our physical fitness.

Also, as you can see, our last two games were not like our first game. We are doing our best and working hard everyday ahead of the CAF Champions League action.

Now that the club owes the old players, what is the relationship between the management and the players like?

We are very close and we don’t want that to weigh us down. We are working as one big family!

Even as they owe us, we are working very closely for the good of the club. Both the players and the management we are working as one team and cordially too. To be frank, there is cordial relationship in the team.Kano Pillars FC is another big club in the country and the news is that the players are well treated in terms of their welfare. Do you envy Kano Pillars players?

I am not there. I don’t have to envy them because I don’t have to. I admire where I am and I have to appreciate where I am. I don’t have to think of other places. I have to think of where I am and that is Enyimba Interna-tional because it is my dream club.

If given the opportunity which other club in the country would you want to play for?

I love Enyimba as a team. I so much love and respect for Enyimba and my former club, Rangers. They are great clubs.

It is true we have so many good clubs in Nigeria, but Enyimba ranks the best and my favourite. No club in the history of Nigerian football has achieved what Enyimba has achieved. For example, winning the CAF Champions League twice and back-to-back

Interview

F o r m e r Rangers International Football

Club of Enugu player, Ugwu

Uwadiegwu, is a known name

in the country’s football league.

He was instrumental to the

remarkable performance of

the club five seasons ago

before switching allegiance

to his present club, Enyimba

International Football Club of

Aba. In this exclusive interview

with our correspondent, BEN

NWACHUKWU in Abuja, venue

of the just concluded Super 6

tourney, he speaks on his love,

commitment and desire for the

Peoples’ Elephant. Excerpts:

Enyimba International Football Club of Aba line up before a match.

I’M IN ENYIMBA TO WIN TROPHIES

“My aim of playing in Enyimba is to lift trophies with the club, like the CAF Champions League and the Glo Premier League. We are the Federation Cup holders and hopefully, we will defend the Charity Cup. I want us to be the number1 club in Nigeria in terms of winning trophies.”

–UWADIEGWU

Uwadiegwu


X7

The President of Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) Tijani Umar has hailed the appointment Olumide

Oyedeji into the world body of basketball, Federation of International Basketball As-sociations (FIBA).

Umar said it is a thing of joy to see his former player being appointed into the board of FIBA.

Speaking with Extra Time the NBBF boss said the appointment of Oyedeji into the FIBA Players Commission is a sign of good things to come in future.

“I am proud that the appointment came during my tenure as President of NBBF. It showed we are doing something great to the development of basketball in Africa and the world,” he enthused.”With Oyedeji’s appointment, Nigeria now have two members in the world body. It is great that we have two members in FIBA when some other countries don’t even have any.

Federation Watch With Osaretin Emuze

Assistant Technical Director of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN), Yusuf Ali, has lamented the

lack of quality athletes in Nigeria.Speaking with Extra Time, the former

African record holder in the long jump event said it is sad to see that Nigeria does not have athletes again in all the departments of athletics.

“Apart from Commonwealth sprint queen Blessing Okagbare and Ese Brume the Fed-eration cannot boast of quality athletes in track and field events,” he lamented.

The Edo State sports administrator how-ever, said there is hope as the AFN has em-barked on ‘Operation catch them young’.

“The Federation is bothered that we don’t have athletes again like in the past, and that is why we are carrying out some corrective measures to raise very good athletes like the ones we had in the past.

“Very soon AFN will have a pool of ath-letes to fall back on during major interna-tional competitions like he had in the 1980s and 1990s when Nigerian athletes took the world by storm. I am talking of the era of the Onyealis, Adenekans, Ezinwa brothers, Chidi Imos, Egbunikes, Ogunkoyas, Fatimas and Idehens.

“Any athlete discovered during the Na-tional Sports Festival in Calabar will be given adequate attention,” he assured.

The President of AFN, Solomon Ogba, cor-roborated Yusuf Ali’s statement, but stressed that something is being urgently done to dis-cover athletes and train them adequately.

“We have talented athletes in this coun-try and we are set to unearth them from the grassroots. Very soon we shall go back to the good old days when we had pool of athletes in different track and field events,” he said.

UMAR DELIGHTED WITH OLUMIDE’S FIBA APPOINTMENT

It is a thing of pride and honour.”Umar thanked the world body for con-

sidering Oyedeji worthy for the appoint-ment.

Oyedeji’s appointment came following his nomination by the NBBF in line with the criteria provided by the world gov-erning body of basketball due to his un-quantifiable achievement on the court, as well as his tireless work at developing the game not only in his home country and Africa, but across the globe.

Oyedeji will serve on the newly inau-gurated FIBA Player’s Commission under the chairmanship of former Serbian inter-national and NBA great, Vlade Divac.

The former Nigerian NBA star now joins Nigerian Dr. Abdullahi Mu’azu, a Di-rector of Sports Medicine, in the National Sports Commission (NSC) who is a mem-ber of the FIBA Medical commission, on the FIBA Board.

France-based volleyball coach, Edosa Aye, has appealed to the Nigeria Vol-leyball Federation (NVBF) to allow

him coach the male volleyball team to the next All Africa Games holding in Congo in September.

The former national team spiker said he has acquired coaching license in France and has been coaching big clubs in the French league for the past five years.

“I have what it takes to return Nige-rian volleyball to its lost glory. I am a cer-tified coach and I have been doing well in France as a coach. I think I will bring my best to lead Nigeria to win laurels at Africa’s biggest best tournament,” he began.

Edosa who won silver in the 2003 All Africa Games held in Abuja as a player, said he is the most decorated Nigerian volleyball player in terms of laurels he won in Nigeria

and France. “After 18 Years in the national team

and now I’m a qualified volleyball educator, coach and Sports Co-coordinator in France, I have what it takes to turn the fortunes of our volleyball for good.

“My aim of wanting to take up the job is to start a viable volleyball league in the country for players and coaches. I also have the list of Nigerian volleyball players plying their trades abroad who can be invited to play for our country.

“An effective follow -up of their perfor-mances in their different clubs and my direct contact with their clubs president would be perfect in getting players who will help raise our game. I intend bringing them to fortify our national team if given the job,” he added.

The Nigeria Rugby Football Federa-tion (NRFF) has set all machinery in motion to consolidate on its

achievements recorded in 2014. With the issue of funding being the

primary challenge facing most federations in Nigeria, President of the Federation, Sir Edward Pam Fom is hopeful that they can hit the ground running in 2015 with the exploration of new terrain through spon-sorship from corporate sponsors which will reduce their over-dependence on the National Sports Commission (NSC).

Despite his displeasure on the low bud-get used in executing their programmes last year, he hailed the NSC for their unflinching support in 2014 during preparations of the Black Stallions international competitions held in Botswana and Zimbabwe.

“The Federal Government on their part have tried, I appreciate the efforts of the Director General of the National Sports Commission Honorable Gbenga Elegbeleye, for approving training facilities and putting things in place for the Black Stallions.

“We had two international outings last year and they were both sponsored by CMB Building Maintenance & Investment Company Limited, but the funds used for preparing the 15s and 7s national teams for these tournaments is yet to be released by NSC,” Fom Pam said.

Pam hinted that NRFF have concluded all arrangements to consolidate its different 7s tournaments in 2015, one of which is the Independence Sevens which was held at the Onikan Stadium last year and was sponsored by CMB Building.

Nigeria’s sprint queen, Blessing Okagbare

Lagos Sevens rugby action

AFN LAMENTS DEARTH OF ATHLETES

Edosa seeks NVBF coaching job

NRFF to consolidate on 2014 achievements

Olumide


X8

EXTRATIME

Mike Otanwa

Emos Korblah, Tournament Di-rector of the Professional Golf-ers’ Association (PGA) of Ghana

has said that the body is taking a lot of notes from her Nigerian counterpart and looking seriously for possible areas of collaboration.

“In Ghana, we cannot compare the level of development of the profes-sional golf, to that of Nigeria. They are ways ahead in terms of organization, quality leadership and tournament,” Korblah said.

He added that professional golf in Ghana will develop at the heels of their Nigerian counterpart and that is why they have started to understudy Nigeria’s PGA.

“We are re-working our PGA con-stitution framework and the Nigerian PGA’s document is serving a good model for what we hope to develop. Some members of our executives are also hoping to host or perhaps visit the Nigerian body to understudy it with a mind of proposing some other areas of collaboration,” he added.

Korblah apart from winning the Ni-gerian Open at Ikoyi Club in 1993 has spent the last nine years as a member of the Nigerian PGA and by that gained a lot of insight into the workings of the Nigeria professional golf body, which he says is enviable.

“Today, apart from South Africa, Nigeria is a natural destination of any African professional golfer that is worth his mettle. They have a tour that is international in structure. I have won here many times and led the order of merit in the last three years and I am still welcomed.

“What is most attractive about the PGA in Nigeria is the dynamism in their leadership in the last ten years or so. I foresee a strong future for them. And that is why in Ghana, we have decided to learn a lot from them now,” he stressed.

Korblah said that the quality of qualifying school process is also com-mendable and the PGA Ghana is hoping to also adopt the model for the next admission into the PGA.

Korblah: We are understudying Nigeria’s PGA

Mike Otanwa

A former England international and one-time member of the Ni-geria Football Association, John

Fashanu, says out-of-contract Head Coach of the Super Eagles Stephen Keshi deserves nothing less than a new deal of five years to fully realise his potential.

Keshi’s original contract with the Ni-geria Football Federation (NFF) expired in June 2014 during the World Cup in Brazil and attempts at getting a new one have lingered.

The leadership of the NFF, which had earlier said it would be engaging an ex-

that’s the way of a serious football as-sociation anywhere.

“And I’m canvassing nothing less than a five-year contract for Keshi this time around to really know what he can do. Giving him that kind of contract means the NFF would be saying we believe in you. Five years may seem too long, but in the real sense it’s less than that; football season is even not up to a year, it’s 10 months.”

Not qualifying the Super Eagles for the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), says Fashanu, does not mean Keshi was a failure.

“He won the Nations Cup for us more

NFF President Amaju Melvin Pinn-ick has put a disclaimer on a Face-book account carrying his name

and photograph.“My attention has been drawn to an

account on the popular, interactive social media channel Facebook, which carries my name and photograph.

“I wish to state categorically that I am not the owner of that account. One impos-tor somewhere is using my name and pho-tograph.

“I am not against the use of social media but I want to make it clear that I do not have any account on Facebook, Twitter or Instal-gram. I want to alert my friends and associ-ates, as well as the football community in Nigeria and around the world, that the said Facebook account is not mine and not being run by anyone authorized by me,” he said.

NFF boss disclaims Facebook account

patriate coach to take over from Keshi, has since jettisoned the plan as the Fed-eration’s President, Amaju Pinnick, had at different ocassions confirmed that Keshi would be allowed to continue on the job.

Speaking in an interview in Lagos, Fashanu condemned NFF for “playing hide and seek” with Keshi, saying they should be resolute in their decisions.

“Let’s stop playing around,” he said. “Football is loved by everybody. The NFF cannot run football like this; you find out it’s either the door is half closed or half open.

“They should either formalise a new contract for Keshi now or tell him to go;

than 20 years after the last one and quali-fied us for the World Cup. If they give Keshi a decent five-year contract, that means they mean business. Let’s take a step for-ward because football is very vital to this country, it unifies Nigeria,” he said.

On the impact of Nigeria’s absence at the ongoing AFCON in Equatorial Guinea, Fashanu, who expressed disappointment at the level of performance of participating teams, says Nigeria’s absence is massively felt.

“For people across the world, AFCON is AFCON when Nigeria is there,” he said. “I’ve been disappointed with the quality of play. It’s time we rearrange ourselves. We could have won if we got our acts together.”

BRIEF

GLO COMMENDS SUPER 6 TOURNEY

Balotelli

WANTS FIVE-YEAR CONTRACT FOR

FASHANU

KESHI

outstanding.The company urged the players to

replicate the standard in the regular Ni-geria Premier League season in order to take Nigerian football to greater heights.

Globacom also commended the refer-ees for the high standard of officiating.

The telecoms giant also gave a pat on the back to the organisers of the tour-nament for job well done, while also

Andrew Ekejiuba

Title sponsor of Glo Premier League and national telecom-munication company, Globacom,

has commended the just-concluded Su-per 6 football tournament.

In a press statement in Lagos on Fri-day, Globacom hailed the impeccable display of the players, describing it as

praising the six teams that took part in the competition for their profes-sionalism and healthy competition witnessed so far.

“So far, the tournament was very successful, with both the club of-ficials and players exhibiting good sportsmanship,” the statement added.

Emos Korblah

Keshi

daily times of nigeria newspaper - monday, 2nd of february 2015

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