Monthly Archives: October 2013
Researchers raise concerns about BPA and breast cancer
Terrorism: Between Shekau and Kelvin, any link?
The Federal Government’s coordinated war against terrorism and other acts of criminality witnessed a
major boost recently with the arrest and detention of a kidnap kingpin, Mr Kelvin Oniarah, who is believed to be the mastermind behind all kidnap cases in the South East and South South regions.
Without any doubt, Mr Oniarah’s eventual capture by operatives of the Department of State Services, DSS, in the oil city of Port Hacourt brings to an end the dark days of increasing kidnap cases in the Niger Delta region. I am a Niger Deltan and we should all have reasons to celebrate over this huge achievement. It is gratifying to affirm that even members of the international community are indeed pleased with the successes Nigeria has so far recorded against terrorism.
Nigerians equally woke up within the same period to be greeted with wild claims by the Boko Haram group that its former leader who was believed to have been felled by JTF’s bullets sometime in July is still alive!
Discerning Nigerians, especially those who have come to understand the game plan of the Boko Haram sect and its apologists and local collaborators, have since discovered that the video clip released by the group was to divert attention from celebrating the capture of kidnap kingpin, Oniarah by the DSS. Nigerians are too advanced and knowledgeable a people to fall for dummies as presently bandied around by the terror group.
Forget about what President Goodluck Jonathan said about him not knowing whether the man was alive or dead. I believe he was only playing the usual security trick of diverting attention from key events so as not to compromise other efforts of the security agencies.
Nigerians have since realised the obvious fact that the Boko Haram group and other terror groups are their common enemies. These groups have indeed visited mindless terror on Nigerians of different faiths, tribes and ethnicity.
We cannot afford to fall so cheap for this grand plan to divert attention from rejoicing over the capture of Mr Oniarah. Believe you me, the capture of Oniarah and Shekau’s concocted video clip should be seen for what they are: a planned coincidence by the terror group to divert attention. This incident further revealed the extent to which these bloodthirsty elements could go in their resolve to make the country ungovernable.
Unfortunately for them, the orchestrated plan has fallen flat on its face. Nigerians have discovered that these terror groups and kidnappers are birds of same feather whose past-time is to instill fear in people. There appears to be between them a coordinated network system through which they communicate and share ideas on ways to perpetrate evil.
Long before now, while suicide bombers visited terror on innocent Nigerians living in the North Eastern part of the country, kidnap groups made life meaningless and miserable for Nigerians in the South-South and South East regions. These twin issues gave government at various levels, especially the Federal Government, cause for concern.
Government, obviously was not pleased with the wanton destruction of lives by suicide bombers in the North and rising kidnap cases in the South. A government insider recently said that as a responsible and responsive government, the Federal Government never considered the inglorious option of abandoning Nigerians in the aforementioned regions to their fate.
It stood beside them all through these perilous times. It vowed never to allow criminal elements lay claim to any part of the country. To achieve this feat, it deployed troops to the troubled states as well as going ahead to declare partial state of emergencies in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states. These wise moves, no doubt, produced immense results.
The arrest of Kelvin also known as Ibruvwe calls for celebration and commendation for the DSS .It was gathered that Oniarah was apprehended by a combined team of SSS officials from Abuja and Delta State Command in collaboration with the troops of the Joint Task Force, JTF, in the Niger Delta, Operation Pulo Shields.
This kidnap kingpin is said to be the mastermind of several high profile kidnap cases in different parts of the country. Report says he was responsible for the recent kidnap of a senior lawyer, Chief Mike Ozekhome, in EdoState, during which four policemen were killed. We are also told of how he was said to have maintained operational bases and detention camps in Warri and Kokori communities in Delta State and Ugbokolo community in Benue State.
A highly elated Delta State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Ikechukwu Adaba, who confirmed the arrest to newsmen, described the development as a great achievement in the war against kidnapping and other vices.
Government had earlier declared the kingpin wanted over his involvement in deadly escapades, especially armed banditry and kidnapping in which over 100 persons had been killed in different parts of the Niger Delta. Also on his list of atrocities were the attacks on some high profile personalities in that region. He is also linked to a bloody operation in Warri Federal Prisons, where he allegedly freed some members of his gang, after killing prison wardens.
With the terror acts perpetrated by Mr Orainah and his gang, especially in the Niger Delta region and the lives and material possessions lost to their attacks, Nigerians, indeed have every reason to celebrate his eventual capture. While it will be rather too premature to roll out the drums for celebration, it is not out of place to congratulate security agencies on this great feat.
With the wide jubilation that greeted the news of the arrest of Kelvin across Nigeria, I am further convinced that Nigerians are more than ever before united against terrorism. Terrorists and kidnappers don’t carry out their nefarious acts based on ethnic, religious or political considerations. In fact, these elements tend to be more united in visiting terror on Nigerians.
The million dollar question is, why did Kelvin Oniarah’s capture by the DSS coincide with Shekau’s claims of being alive? I smell conspiracy in this act. How come Shekau and his collaborators have remained silent for months only to resurface that day?
Answers to these questions are not far-fetched, infact, we can find the answers in the questions. It should be seen simply as an orchestrated attempt to divert attention from the arrest of Kelvin.
Mr EmmanUel Goodhead, a commentator on national issues, wrote from Asaba, Delta State
Why Nigeria FG Wants ASUU Strike to Continue
Nigerian universities have been buffeted with agonising months of strikes for over a decade and until now, the story is pretty much the same. Government is still unwilling to give the education sector a shot in the arm.
Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, have been on strike since June 30 and has dialogued with FG over 11 times, albeit, inconclusively. This underscores the lukewarm posture of government towards the striking lecturers and fromASUU’s body language and utterances, they have made it abundantly clear to anyone who cares to listen that they are ready to continue the strike even if it takes years, insisting that their decision was adequately taken in a bid to revitalise Nigerian universities.
The bone of contention is lucid in itself. An agreement was reached in 2009 that all federal universities would require a total sum of N1.5 trillion spread over three years (2009-2011) to address the rot and decay in the universities. But, in the Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, signed between the union and the government in 2012, FG decided to extend the gesture to include both federal and state universities. After the 2012 review, it was agreed that instead of N1.5 trillion, FG would infuse a total of N1.3 trillion into the universities over four years. Almost four years down the line, FG has refused to fulfill its end of the bargain. Rather than respond to the issues raised by the union that would ensure quick resolution to the imbroglio, government boycotted ASUU to summon a meeting with Pro-Chancellors and Vice-Chancellors of universities, offering them N130billion with a matching order to lecturers to resume work immediately. But the union is insisting that by throwing money at universities in that manner, government has repudiated the 2009 agreement it entered freely with the union and the 2012 MoU. ASUU is not making any fresh demand but has maintained that the 2009 agreement must be honoured.
It is ridiculous that government officials were quoted as saying ASUU’s N1.3 trillion demand is capable of shutting down the country. No. Their insatiable and rapacious greed will. The private jets in the presidential fleet can fly, centenary celebrations is a priority to government, there’s enough money to pay humongous salaries and allowances to federal legislators and other political office holders, enough to forfeit to oil subsidy thieves, enough to pay militants bogus amnesty cheques and phantom contracts while they continue to bunker our crude oil like never before, there’s enough money to beg Boko Haram to accept amnesty but there is no money for law abiding Nigerian students who want to eke out a living using university education as a stepping stone. It is this kind of attitude from the government that provokes the use of brute force by some regional groups to attract government’s attention to their problems.
Government cannot claim it has no money to fulfill this agreement. A country with 109 senators earning about N19.6 billion a year, while N51.8 billion is spent on members of House of Representatives for the same period, totaling N71.4 billion. This sum, N71.4 billion, represents 17.8 per cent of the N400bn yearly intervention fund recommended by the Committee on Needs Assessment of Nigerian Universities. Surely, our lecturers and universities where they were trained deserve more.
When we talk of heath care, government official and the ruling elite go abroad for medical attention; we talk bad roads, they fly private jets; we talk power, they run their homes on 24-7 alternative electricity source; now we’re talking Education, their wards are in some of the best universities abroad. There is no way the myriad of problems bedeviling the country can be tackled if the political elite don’t feel the pangs.
That Mr President has taken out time from his ‘busy’ schedule to constantly parley with the warring factions of his party, PDP, but has never sat down with ASUU members to chart a course for Nigeria’s leaders of tomorrow clearly shows his priorities. Party affairs and chasing perceived enemies of his 2015 ambition around with apparatus of state are far more important things than bending over backwards to pander to the demands of the striking lecturers.
But then, government must take into cognisance the fact that, the longer the students remain at home, chances are that they will be lured into social vices. The aftermath can be disastrous for the state.
There are misplaced calls in the some quarters for ASUU to be ‘reasonable’, accept FG’s offer and return to classrooms. Others lambast them for being self-centered and unpatriotic. It is unfortunate that Nigerians are always looking for quick fix solutions to monumental problems. Less endowed countries like Ghana, Botswana and Angola are making giant strides on all fronts because the citizenry have at one point or the other insisted that the needful be done. Here, anything thrown at us is accepted with glee.
We must get our priorities right as a country. Government must curb its own excesses. Education must be given the attention it deserves. Education of the citizenry should not be subjected to any form of Negotiation. Negotiating the education of our leaders of tomorrow is more or less negotiating the future of the country.
Government deliberately wants the strike to linger, first, to blackmail the opposition. There have been several unsavoury comments from the government’s divide of the negotiation table that ASUU has been infiltrated by moles from the opposition, alleging that the strike has lingered to gain political capital. That is how low this government can stoop. We have seen it before. It is an irresponsible and shameless government, one that lacks integrity and honesty that will blame the opposition for all its woes. It is unbecoming for the government of the day to continue to heap its failure on the doorstep of the opposition and ASUU strike is just another avenue to paint the opposition black before the public.
Second, is to send a strong signal to other unions who might be contemplating similar action to have a rethink. Perhaps, government thinks by acceding to ASUU’s demands, other Labour unions might toe the same path at the slightest excuse.
Third, the ultimate aim of government is to paint a bad image of the association to Nigerians, at least, for as long as the strike persists. The Governor Suswan-led NEEDS Report Implementation Committee mediating on behalf of the government has unfortunately taken a position that is false, dishonest, and calculated to misinform the public and cause disaffection towards the union. Rather than seek cheap popularity, Governor Suswan and the rest of the FG team should tow the part of honour by asking President Goodluck Jonathan to honour the 2009 agreement. There’s no basis for turning the heat on ASUU and the campaign of calumny.
It calls for worry, that same government that has always maintained that ‘our graduates are unemployable’ and our universities churn out ‘half-baked graduates’ find it difficult to commit the much needed funds to revamp the universities.
Can The National Conference Provide A Legal Basis For A Brand New Constitution?
At last, the Sovereign authorities have accepted the need for a National Conference. Civil society in Nigeria has always insisted that only the People of Nigeria can authenticate, legitimize and endorse a Constitution to govern their affairs. Unfortunately, this simple wish was always denied by the colonial, military and even elected government. So President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s Independence Declaration is a major milestone.
The Late Aka-Bashorun, my most illustrious predecessor, as President of Nigerian Bar Association, the first to clearly articulate the need for a Sovereign National Conference, as long ago as the 1980’s, must be rejoicing in his grave. Civil society has always stated that a National Conference is a vital requirement for a People’s Constitution for Nigeria.
Civil society’s demands have always been straight forward and simple– that Nigeria will benefit from a robust discussion on two vital questions posed by Late Bola Ige, when he said “…there are two basic questions that must be answered by all of us Nigerians. One, do we want to remain as one country? Two, if the answer is yes, under what conditions?” I respectfully suggest that Bola Ige’s questions are well framed as the relevant National Questions we need to address, if we are to build a new Spirit of commitment to Nation and service to motherland.
President Jonathan has charged a committee to frame the issues and nature of participation, and most important the legal basis upon which the outcomes of a National Conference can be enacted into law by the National Assembly.
Civil Society on the other hand has expressed the view that the nature of the conference will necessarily have to be sovereign. I will return to the basis of this request by civil society.
What is important at this stage is the utilizing of the limited platform offered by President Jonathan to engage Nigerians in very robust discussions on the Constitution and without “No-Go” issues.
Even though there are challenges about participation, my suggestion is that participants may be drawn from ethnic nationalities and at least the six basic estates of the realm, namely the Executive, Legislature, Judiciary, Media, Civil society and Organized Business. I have defined civil society in a very broad sense to include NGO’s, religious and traditional institutions and of course labour, youth and women.
I agree with Dr. Tunji Abayomi when he said “Every Constitution is preceded by a debate of terms and consensus on principles”. This simply means that we have to agree. I think the most important key to a successful National Conference is the structure of government and devolution of powers. It is obvious that Nigeria is a very diverse country. Scholars suggest that federalism is the political system best suited to diverse peoples. If this is agreed at the conference, the corresponding question should be about the structure of the federal system and the scope of powers of the autonomous governments, that is the federal government on the one hand and the state government and even the local government, on the other.
I would readily adopt Dr. Alex Ekueme’s recommendation that the new structure of Nigeria should be based on our six geo-political zones. I would further recommend massive devolution of powers from the Central government to the state governments. This is called the principle of subsidiarity. If we accept this basic conceptual framework, it will then be easy to constitutionalise the political arrangements into a Peoples constitution.
Now to compensate for the non sovereign nature of the conference, I would like to identify four vital elements that we must keep in mind. They are inclusion, authority, validity and legitimacy.
By inclusion I mean every Nigerian must be allowed to freely speak his mind. By authority I mean that we have to accept that the President and National Assembly are the convening authority. By validity the government has to accept that we the People shall validate the Constitution by Referendum. By legitimacy I mean that our discussions shall not be altered by the government, but shall be final and binding and validated by Nigerians
I now turn to perhaps the most difficult subject of all in this matter of the National Conference. Here is the question- after we agree, how do we bring the discussions into legal force? I think Prof. Ben Nwabueze, SAN, has, as usual, provided a simple and lucid answer.
Prof. Nwabueze reminds us that the National Assembly has two types of legislative powers. First, the National Assembly has legislative power similar to that of any House of Assembly of a State. In this context the National Assembly is just one of three of the branches of the Federal Government. The National Assembly makes law in this field pursuant to its powers contained at Section 4(2) of the Constitution. These are the exclusive and concurrent lists. But the National Assembly has a second legislative power. This is covered by Section 4(1) of the 1999 Constitution. Prof. Nwabueze having noted that “Section 4(1) provides that legislative powers of the Federal Republic of Nigerian shall be vested in the National Assembly”, goes on to say that what is so vested in the National Assembly therein, is the legislative power, not of the Federal Government, but that of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The legislative power in this second field is a term wider than the legislative power of the National Assembly as a branch of the Federal Government. In short the National Assembly has dual power to make laws on the one hand as a branch of the Federal Government and on the other hand for the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
The National Assembly is authorized to make laws for the Federal Republic of Nigeria for its peace, order and good government. In this sense, according to Prof. Nwabueze, and I respectfully agree, the entire legislative sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is vested in the National Assembly. It is important to state that the legislative power of the National Assembly to make law for the Federal Republic of Nigeria is not limited to matters specified in the exclusive and concurrent list. It includes, Prof Nwabueze says, and pursuant to Section 4(4)(b) “any other matter with respect to which it is enpowered to make laws in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution”. It is in this context that the National Assembly can exercise powers pursuant to section 4(1) to repeal Decree 24 of 1999 which is the legal basis of the 1999 Constitution and replace it with a brand new Constitution. The legal position will be different if the National Assembly is merely altering the Constitution. This is covered by Sections 8 and 9.
Prof. Nwabueze cites the example of what Parliament did in 1963 when it replaced the whole of 1960 Independence Constitution with the Republican Constitution of 1963. All Parliament did in 1963 was to repeal the Order-in-council, made by the Queen of England providing for the Independence Constitution and replaced it with a brand new Republican Constitution.
Decree 24 is an existing law under Section 315(4) of the 1999 Constitution. So Decree 24, being a law with respect to which the National Assembly has power under Section 4(1) to make law, is deemed to be an Act of the National Assembly and can therefore be repealed.
Prof. Nwabueze says it would be inconceivable and manifestly absurd that there should be an existing law as defined in Section 315(4) which is beyond the power of the legislative authority of the sovereign state of Nigeria to repeal.
So the way I see it is that, assuming we can agree on the content of the Constitution that can work for us, it should be very easy to constitutionalise the agreements reached at the National Conference by invoking the special legislative powers of the National Assembly and enacting those agreements reached into a supreme Constitutional document. If this process is followed, the Constitution as an outcome of the Sovereign will of the People will have the stamp and authority of Nigerians, validated by a referendum before enactment by the National Assembly. Then as Kingsley Moghalu says in his tremendously important book “Emerging Africa” we can all aspire to a Fundamental Transformational Agenda for Nigeria.
Dr. Olisa Agbakoba, SAN
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Pipeline explosion kills four brothers in Plateau
JOS—Four members of the same family in Tariya village of Bassa Local Government Area of Plateau State were, yesterday, killed while attempting to scoop petroleum from a ruptured pipeline in the locality.
Assistant Public Relations Officer of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, Chrisantus Longbit, said two of the victims were burnt beyond recognition, while the other two, who were rushed to Our Lady of Apostle Hospital, Jos, died shortly.
Longbit said when the five people went to siphon the petroleum, a misunderstanding ensued amongst them. One of them, who is presently at large, allegedly lit a match that led to the explosion.
He said: “The person who lit the match fled the area, but we have spoken to his family and they gave his name as Idi.
“We have warned the communities and the NSCDC Commandant, Vincent Bature, has on several occasion visited the village head on this issue of pipeline vandalism, but they have refused to listen.”
…another dies stealing fuel
Meantime, the decomposed body of a 25-old-man, Zayyanu Abubakar, has been evacuated from inside a petrol tanker compartment where he suffocated and died since Friday, October 4, while stealing petrol.
According to reports the deceased fell inside the tank of the vehicle with plate number, XA 640 TBW, parked along Sokoto Western bye-pass and loaded with 33,000 litres of petrol.
The deceased was alleged to have stolen 20 litres from the fuel compartment and had returned for more when he ended up inside the tank.
It took the combined efforts of the officers of the state fire service, the police from Kwanni Division, Sokoto, and some good Samaritans, four hours to bring out the decomposed body.
Yahaya Mohammed, a relative of the deceased, said: “He told his siblings about his earlier successful exploits and they warned him against going back into the vehicle.
“He had told them that he nearly suffocated in the first attempt, but unknown to them, he went back, got trapped and died.”
A fire serviceman, Zayyanu Jelani said: “We were here since around 8a.m., when we were alerted about the ugly development.
“This is the first time we are recording this type of unfortunate incident in Sokoto apart from fire incidents on fuel tankers.”
Spokesman of the state police command, DSP Al-Mustapha Sani, confirmed the story and added that the police would thoroughly investigate the incident.
The remains of the deceased had been deposited at the morgue of Uthmanu Danfodio University Teaching Hospital, Sokoto.