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Tag: ACN

  • ACN condoles with families of security agents killed in Nasarawa

    ACN condoles with families of security agents killed in Nasarawa

    The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has condoled with the families of the security agents killed by a militia group in Nasarawa State.

    It described the killing as brutal and calamitous.

    In a statement issued in Abuja yesterday by its National Publicity

    Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party prayed that God should grant the families the fortitude to bear the losses and also grant eternal rest to the victims.

    It urged the Federal Government to ensure that the wives, children and other dependants of the slain security personnel are catered for to minimise the impact of their bereavement.

    ACN decried the rate at which insurgents and militia groups are targetting and killing security agents.

    It said the development was unacceptable and barbaric.

    The party enjoined the authorities to declare a zero tolerance for the killing of security agents by ensuring that those who perpetrate such killings are fished out and brought to justice.

    It also called for continuous training and provision of equipment for the security agents so that they could protect themselves while carrying out their constitutional responsibilities of protecting lives and property.

    “A poorly-trained, poorly-motivated and inadequately- kitted security agent is a soft target for the kind of stone-age marauders now rampaging our country,” ACN said.

    The party hailed the police authorities for assuring

    that there would be no reprisal against the community where the dastardly killings occurred in Nasarawa State and for opting for negotiation rather than violence to secure the release of the policemen still said to be in the custody of the militia.

    “By that singular act, the authorities have portrayed the Nigeria Police as a civilised force, which has respect for its rules of engagement, unlike the medieval groups that have been so quick to take the lives of those saddled

    by the State with protecting lives and property.

    “We have always warned the security agencies against descending to the level of the barbarians, who have been unleashing violence against them, and we are glad our gallant men and women in uniform have heeded this warning. That does notmean the perpetrators must be allowed to get away with their heinous crime. It only means that innocent people will not bear the brunt of their actions,” ACN said.

     

  • PDP’s claim of defection is deceitful, says Ogun ACN

    PDP’s claim of defection is deceitful, says Ogun ACN

    The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in Ogun State has described the report of mass defection from the party to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as “deceitful”.

    In a statement yesterday by its Publicity Secretary, Mr. Sola Lawal, ACN said the report was a “desperate engagement in wishful thinking by the PDP”.

    At the weekend, the PDP alleged that 2,000 ACN members, led by a former chairmanship aspirant, Mr. Yemi Duduyemi, dumped the party in Ijebu Mushin.

    ACN said Duduyemi went back to his original party, the PDP, with eight of his supporters, with whom he earlier defected to the ACN.

    It said: “The truth is that Duduyemi embraced ACN with eight of his supporters on the eve of the nomination for the council election with the hope of getting the party’s ticket.

    “Having failed to realise an inordinate ambition, he retraced his steps to the PDP with the eight members of his family that he came with. The eight others include Femi Duduyemi, Kole Duduyemi and Olaitan Duduyemi.

    “In the recently concluded revalidation of the ACN membership register, 523 members were registered in Mushin, which is one of the 10 wards in Ijebu East Local Government.

    “It is therefore a confounding illogicality that a party would allegedly lose defectors whose number triples the total number of registered members in the locality.”

    ACN wondered why many buses were deployed to ferry purported defectors to the venue, if genuinely they were from Ijebu Mushin, a small rural community.

  • What next after ACN, ANPP, CPC conventions?

    What next after ACN, ANPP, CPC conventions?

    Assistant Editor Augustine Avwode highlights the registration process that the proposed All Progressives Congress (APC) will pass through to secure the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)’s nod.

     

    Those behind the proposed All Progressives Congress (APC) are inching closer to their dream. Last weekend, the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) and the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) held their national conventions. The two parties, primarily, considered and adopted the APC constitution, manifesto, flag, logo and slogan. The third party in the merger arrangement, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), had held its national convention last month and adopted the name, APC. On February 6, the parties involved in the merger announced the formation of the APC. With the completion of the national convention of the three parties, the question on the lips of many Nigerians is: what next?

    An obviously elated National Publicity Secretary of the ANPP, Emma Eneukwu declared that the merger is now fully on course as the most challenging aspect of the reqiurements is behind. He said what the next thing would be for the merging parties to file their papers before the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The merger is fully on course now. What is next is for the members of the merging parties to go into paper filing with INEC and, by the time we put in the necessary papers, from there, the electoral body will do its own duty. All I want to say is that the most important aspect of the whole thing is behind us. We are marching forward; there is no stopping us.”, he said.

    Asked about his hope for the party, Eneukwu said he has very high hope because the necessary things have been done by the parties that want to merge.

    “I have very high hope. All the three parties have done the necessary things they ought to do. We have no single problems at all. Soon, the announcement would be made by the INEC and after that, we go into the process of mobilising the people at the grassroots and we will then prepare for the general elections,” he said.

    From all indications, the coming weeks and months would be devoted to meeting the remaining requirements of the Electoral Act 2010 as amended.

    From now till when the party would be formally registered by the INEC, the three parties have to work together.

    National Publicity Secretary of the ACN Alhaji Lai Mohammed, after the ACN convention in Lagos, declared that the primary concern of the parties was to meet the requirements in the ElectoralAct. “We shall ensure that we meet all the requirement as contained in the Electoral Act. After the conventions of the parties, we shall take the appropriate steps to ensure that we are registered,” Mohammed added.

     

    Time factor

     

    All that is reqiured for the merger to see the light of day is contained in Section 84 of the ElectoralAct. According to the section, any two or more parties may merge on the approval by the commission, following a formal request presented by the political parties for that purpose. Political parties intending to merge shall give the electioral umpire a 90-day notice of their intention to do so before the next general elections. From all indications, time factor won’t be a problem because the required time is three months to a general election. The next general election in the country will be sometime in April 2015. That leaves the promoters of the APC with ample room of up to 20 months to comply with all the necessary requirements of the law. It would be recalled that time was a major constraint in the run up to the 2011 generalelection when the first attempt was made by the ACN and the CPC to merge.

     

    Formal request

     

    The Electoral Act also requires that a written formal request for merger and signed jointly by the national chairmen, secretaries and treasurers of the different political parties proposing the merger and shall be accompanied by a special resolution passed by the national convention of each of the parties proposing to

  • ACN, Lagos Assembly condemn PDP’s call to probe Fashola

    BARELY 24 hours after it urged the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to look into the books of the administration of Governor Babatunde Fashola, the Peoples Democratic Party has drawn the ire of the state chapter of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and the House of Assembly.

    The PDP state chairman Tunji Shelle on Sunday called on the anti-graft agency to look into the books of the state government for alleged massive corruption.

    Shelle reportedly made the call after a church service to mark his birthday.

    But the ACN and the House berated the PDP chair over his comment, describing the call as uncalled for and ridiculous.

    In a statement by its spokesman Joe Igbokwe, the ACN accused the rival party of approaching the commission in frustration. He said the PDP was green with envy at the feat attained by the ACN in the Centre of Excellence.

    Igbokwe wondered why a party with notoriety for corruption and incompetence would rush to report a performing government to a crime-fighting agency.

    The statement reads: “When a party notorious makes a life business of forging and marketing lies so as to further its political interests, it can only detain itself to wolf crying and raising the kind of wild hoaxes Lagos PDP has made its primary business since it found out that it has no electoral value in Lagos.

    “The Lagos PDP is advised to wake up to the fact that it has no base in the state and therefore should perish the thought of ever ruling Lagos.

    “For us at Lagos ACN, the Lagos State chapter of the PDP has become a regular nuisance with one petty gossip or the other to spread with each passing day.

    “We know that Lagos PDP does not exist beyond this trade in fickleness and we respond to them in that regard. Their wild concoctions and insensate forgeries have become the most remarkable features of their wild fantasy that, by whatever means, they will get a chance of adding Lagos to their looting empire.

    We assure them that the PDP will continue to meet worse electoral fates in the state in future elections.

    Is it not ironical that a party that is notorious for corruption is the one raising corruption allegation or the other against a government noted for compliance with due process and best practice in Nigeria?

    The Chairman, House Committee on Information, Strategy, Security and Publicity, Segun Olulade berated Shelle’s call and urged Lagosians to shun the PDP.

    Olulade told reporters in a chat: “Massive corruption alleged by the PDP against Fashola is the only way the Lagos PDP could express its frustration and desperation to rule the state, having failed to win the hearts of Lagosians against the highly performing governor and his party, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).”

    The lawmaker maintained that there was no occasion when the Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Adeyemi Ikuforiji addressed the media or instructed standing gommittees of the House to begin the probe of ministries in the state.

    He said: “The Lagos PDP knows too well that the rat-race to capture Lagos is a lost battle from inception. This is the more reason the PDP is trying to fabricate lies to create disaffection between Governor Fashola, Lagos State House of Assembly and ACN leaders.

    “It is part of the constitutional responsibilities of the House to perform oversight functions on government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and we have been carrying out this function on a regular basis since our assumption of office in June 2011.

    “But we take exception to an unfounded, baseless, vindictive and malicious call for probe against Governor Fashola who has been widely acknowledged as a model of good governance in Nigeria given his transparent honesty and brilliant performance in transforming Lagos State to its present megacity status.”

    Olulade described the ‘’massive corruption’’ theory against Fashola by the Shelle-led Lagos PDP as a figment of the imagination of those he tagged “failed politicians, witch-hunters and enemies of Lagos State”, who are hell- bent on destabilising the state and distract the government from its primary responsibility of raising the living standards of Lagosians.

    He, however, challenged the PDP to come up with its poof of evidence against Governor Fashola to justify its call for the probe.

    According to him, Lagosians are very sophisticated, highly enlightened and vibrant people, who cannot be cajoled by anyone or any party to score cheap political points.

     

  • Kwara ACN, PDP quarrel over alleged defection

    •Opposion: stop your dance of shame
    •ACN downplaying our achievement, says govt

     

    The Kwara State Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday disagreed over the report by the ruling party that 2,500 members of the opposition had defected to the state PDP.

    ACN chieftain, Mohammed Dele Belgore (SAN), described as a show of shame and admission of failure the PDP’s and its government’s claims that the ACN members defected because “Belgore failed to give them employment”.

    Belgore, who has denied the defection story, asked whether it was the duty of the opposition to provide jobs for the people, or the government which controls the machinery of the state and is charged with welfare of the citizens. The government and the ruling PDP have repeatedly taunted the opposition on the defection, which the ACN insisted was another lie from the PDP and its government.

    Belgore, in a statement by his media aide, Rafiu Ajakaye, said: “Our initial reaction is that nothing, however shameful and debasing, is beyond a government now notorious for its lies and chicanery and whose every claim now faces integrity test even from little kids.”

    But Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed urged the state ACN to come up with viable alternatives to its policies instead of downplaying his administration’s achievements.

    In a statement in Ilorin, the state capital, the Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Media and Communications Dr Muideen Akorede said: “For once, Belgore should suspend politicking and acknowledge the Ahmed administration’s triumphs, which are obvious to all but the embattled opposition.

    “These achievements include rural/urban road construction and rehabilitation, supply of laboratory equipment to schools, rehabilitation of basic and senior secondary school classrooms, rural and urban electrification, the remodelling of five general hospitals, provision of 220 boreholes and rehabilitation work on 13 waterworks, the on-going construction of a first-class International Vocational Centre and Engineering Complex at KWASU among others.

    “These strides are obvious to all but the ACN is daily haemorrhaging disillusioned members, who are then trooping en masse to the high-performing PDP.”

    Belgore said the celebrations of the alleged defection raised questions about the seriousness, competence and the thought of the initiators of such self-defeating claims.

    The statement reads: “We have been watching with amusement how the Kwara State Government, which claims to be performing and is popular, is wasting public funds in celebrating in the newspapers and on television the sponsored and contrived defection of some fictitious members of the opposition party.

    “They even went to the ridiculous extent of sponsoring a statement that Belgore (SAN) promised the defectors employment but has reneged on that promise and that was the reason for their defection…

    “Indeed, the celebration of the so-called defection is a pitiable show by the PDP-led government and it raises a number of questions. If the so-called defectors’ grouse is that they remain unemployed, contrary to a promise that had been made to them, how and from where do such unemployed people get funds to sponsor the so-called defection ceremony and the various television and newspaper coverage it has received?

    “Does this not suggest that they were sponsored? Certainly, the sponsorship would not have come from the party that they were defecting from. Whose responsibility is it – government or the opposition – to create jobs? Is it not only a shameless government that would be celebrating its own failure by saying someone else should have done what it is constitutionally charged to do?

    “If the opposition does not exist in Kwara, as the government has repeatedly stated over the years, where did the so-called defectors, numbering 2,500 from one single local council, come from?

    “Assuming even that there was in fact a real decampment, now that unemployment has been cited as the reason for it, what is the government doing to address that?

    “Is the government going to create or offer jobs to the alleged 2,500 unemployed defectors or improve their lot in any meaningful and sustainable way beyond the hand-outs it has given to them to create the false media show of the decampment?

    “The truth of the matter is that the PDP-led government in Kwara State has failed miserably and it continues to exhibit its failure and incompetence in embarrassing ways and this is one of such ways. Beyond the usual window-dressings and Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signings with bogus entities like the so-called Vasolar Consortium about which nothing verifiable exists other than media publications from the MOU signing ceremony with KWSG, it has no meaningful achievement on record to date.

    “Rather, it is fond of making false claims on its performance, from blatantly lying that it has constructed over 600 kilometres of road in the state, the embarrassing falsehood/contradictory statements on the so-called Shonga award, to claims that it has employed thousands of youths and is sharing prosperity even when youth restiveness, armed robbery, rampant killings have hit a record high in the state while poverty now walks on all four in the state so much that people are queuing in front of the Government House to beg for foods and shelter!

    “Meanwhile, there are numerous allegations of financial scandals by the past and current PDP-led government being (or are yet to be) investigated; the list continues to grow by the day. The government should keep itself busy in improving the lives of the people and in running an open and clean government. It should stop chasing shadows and wasting public funds by bringing itself into further ridicule and odium by self-defeating and embarrassing media displays.”

  • Jonathan under fire over Amaechi, Baga massacre

    Jonathan under fire over Amaechi, Baga massacre

    The Presidency and the opposition Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) came to blows again yesterday on the state of the nation.

    The ACN said Nigeria is “descending into despotism” with the manner the President is running its affairs.

    Besides, the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) lashed out at Dr. Jonathan for not visiting Baga, the Borno State border town where many were killed when troops clashed with Boko Haram fighters.

    In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the ACN said Dr. Jonathan was turning “from a democratically-elected President to an empror – a despot.”

    The party alleged that national institutions had been “bastardised and compromised just to get at a political enemy in an open quarrel with Rivers State Governor Chibuike Amaechi”.

    But presidential spokesman, Dr. Reuben Abati, in a statement last night, denied it all.

    He said President Jonathan “is a democratically-elected leader who is running a people-oriented, inclusive and progressive government”.

    He added that rather than despotism, under the President’s watch, “Nigeria’s democracy has been consolidated; the scope for human freedoms has been further expanded and there is respect for due process and the rule of law”.

    Besides the “personal battle”; the President is fighting against the Rivers State government, the ACN recalled that the government attacked former Minister of Education Dr. Oby Ezekwezili and the spokesman of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Mr. Yushau Shuaib, for raising issues on the state of the polity.

    In the statement, Mohammed said: ‘’The Jonathan Administration is anchored on a Transformation Agenda. But the only transformation that we can see is the one from a democratically-elected President to an Emperor, a despot.

    ‘’If the President is not prevailed upon to change course, Nigeria may be in for another season of anomie, reminiscent of the days of the maximum ruler who took the country to the brink before his sudden demise,’’ it said, adding: “The way President Jonathan is handling his political disagreement with a member of his party, Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State, has portrayed him as a leader who is willing to jettison democratic ideals and principles on the altar of personal ambition.”

    The party wondered why national institutions have to be “bastardized” and “compromised” just to get at a political enemy, specifically citing the role being played by the Ministry of Aviation, its parastatals, such as the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), the Nigeria Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) and the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), as well as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the police, among others, in the Presidency’s clash with Amaechi.

    ‘’Like we said before, we are not perturbed by what is happening in the PDP. Our main concern is the fact that the party’s internal crisis is overheating the polity and threatening the country’s hard-won democracy. After the theatrics of the aviation agencies and their parent ministry, the EFCC has suddenly realised that the cost of the Rivers State’s plane was inflated by US$10 million while the police have sacked the secretariat of Obio-Akpo Local Government in Rivers. The question is: Who gave the orders for the police to sack the secretariat, and in the process take sides with the President in the political disagreement with the governor?

    ‘’Which are the other national institutions that will be drafted into this scorched-earth campaign against a perceived non-conformist party member? If the President can go to this length against his own party man, what will he do against the opposition? Why is it that a democratically-elected President cannot be challenged by anyone, whether or not he is a member of his party?’’ it queried.

    ‘’Also, the ferocity with which the Jonathan Administration went after a former Minister of Education, Mrs Oby Ezekwesili, for claiming that President Jonathan frittered away the 67 billion dollars in foreign reserves which she said President Olusegun Obasanjo left behind in 2007; and the fate that befell NEMA spokesman Yushau Shuaib for daring to criticise the lopsided appointments in parastatals under the Ministry of Finance, are glaring actions of an administration that is bent on stifling Freedom of Expression.

    ‘’These anti-democratic measures will worsen as the 2015 elections approach. Therefore, all lovers of democracy must join us in speaking out against the Jonathan Administration’s descent into despotism. This is the only way to prevent a President’s desperation for power from torpedoing our country’s democracy. After all, a critical benchmark of a democratic society is the existence of a vibrant, free and independent media that will give the citizenry a platform to freely and vigorously debate current issues,’’ the party said.

    The ACN also expressed concerns at the growing propensity of the administration to stifle the freedom of expression and freedom of the press, citing the report by the media rights group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), on the occasion of this year’s World Press Freedom Day on May 3, as a global testimony to the worsening press freedom record of the administration.

    ‘’According to the CPJ, Nigeria has become one of the worst countries in the world for deadly, unpunished violence against the press. Nigeria and Somalia are also the only African nations listed on the CPJ’s 2013 impunity ranking. Yet, the government has not relented in its attacks against the media: Gestapo-style arrest of Leadership journalists; Fines slammed on Liberty Radio in Kaduna over a listener’s opinion on the so-called Good Governance Tour; Arrest of two journalists of the Kaduna-based Al Mizan newspaper and the ban on a documentary on poverty in Nigeria, just to mention but a few.

  • ‘Why Omisore can’t be governor’

    ‘Why Omisore can’t be governor’

    Senator Adebayo Salami is a chieftain of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in Osun State. He spoke with SOJI ADENIYI on the Aregbesola Administration, preparation for next year’s governorship poll and other partisan issues.

    After you left the National Assembly in 2003, you have been silent on political issues. Why are you silent?

    I don’t want to believe that I have been so silent. I have been associating with political parties and I have always been playing my part in whatever association that I find myself. I am in a position to thank God that my vision for the State of Osun has materialised at the end of the day. When we went into the National Assembly in 1999, we went with so much hope that it was a new beginning after the Abacha regime. Nigerians had so much hope that we were having a new start and that things will change, but at the end of the day, we discovered that not much had been achieved.

    How was the hope of Nigerians dashed?

    Everybody thought we were going to practice true federalism, and when you talk about true federalism, you are talking about optimising individualism in each Nigerians in their respective places. You are talking about moving away from the unitary system of government. The problem with us today is that we are neither practicing federalism nor unitary system of government. What does the centre represent? The centre represents the aggregation of the states. Once a President emerges, he is the President of Nigeria and he is not the President of any political party. If you want to construct a road in Osun, for example, all the federal government needs to do is to agree on the design and other structures and channel down the money to the state concerned, instead of giving it to a consultant from another state. My own belief is that, if anybody is going to make it in this country, you have to work outside the box. If Nigeria continues with the way we are going, we may be far away from achieving what we desire. Few years ago, the federal government denied Lagos State the power to distribute electricity. If you care as government and you want to give everybody electricity, you will not mind who you give it to, provided he gives it to the people optimally. But political consideration is what we always think about. That is some of the reasons why I refocused and pray that Osun will get out of the doldrums and I am now happy for the leader that God has given to this state. If you want to actualise any serious vision, you have to do it outside the box. I call it working outside the box; you call it an unusual government. I believe with the trend that I am seeing in Osun now, we will soon get there.

    Why did you single out Osun from all other ACN states?

    I was in Lagos yesterday and I saw something unusual, not even talking about all other ACN states. As I was going, I saw ‘A yes. ’ It took me aback and when I looked at the ‘A yes’, it was Abia Youth Empowerment Scheme. I have seen ‘Yes O’ and I am now seeing ‘A yes’…

    But the Federal Government too has SURE-P and others…

    The Federal Government is not a serious government. There is no need for SURE-P. If you want to create a youth empowerment scheme and you want to create for all the states of the Federation, is it 20,000 that you want to engage in SURE-P programme across the federation? All you need to do is Osun, if you are able to do 20,000 youth empowerment, we will merge it with another 20,000 for you. So, this money for 20,000, the same thing you for Abia and other states in the country. There is the possibility that we wouldn’t have all these insurgence that we have around. Where does this problem rear its head most? In areas where poverty was prevalent, that is where you have the problem. It is no coincidence. When you look at the indices of poverty in Borno and you look at the insurgence, you will know that it is not a coincidence. You cannot solve the problem of poverty, unless you give people education, gainfully employ them. It is not all about beating around the bush. There is a correlation between what is happening in Nigeria and poverty. Solve the problem of poverty and all other things will fall in place.

    Has Governor Aregbesola fulfilled his promises to the people?

    What this government has given to the people of Osun is hope. The greatest gift of this administration is hope in all ramification. Our youth now feel that they cannot wake up in the morning and start thinking of what to do. I was amazed by the ‘O-YES ‘ programme. I am sure when they were drawing that scheme, even those drawing that scheme did not know what 20,000 entails. It was when they wanted to implement it that they knew that it was daunting because I know that, by the time they came up with 20,000, they would have thought they would train them before they were deployed. There is no facility in Nigeria that can train 20,000 in a single place. May be, they later toyed with training them in the three senatorial districts and that there is also no facility to train 8,000 in a district. I want to believe it was why they came down to the local government level. They now say let everybody train in their respective local governments. They call what they are given stipend; 20, 000 multiplied by N10,000, that is N200 Million injected directly into the economy of the state. They will still spend the money in the state. The idea of O-Reap(Rural Agricultural Empowerment Programme). I have seen that the poultry programmes has kicked off and millionaires had been made. The school system has changed for good, in terms of provision of grant to schools, increasing from what it used to be. An average Osun indigene now knows that to walk is an exercise to healthy living. These are things that has been inculcated into the lives of people and it has become a way of life. I have attended some functions with big wigs of previous administration and someone told me that he didn’t know that when you dredge rivers, there wouldn’t be flooding and that he was amazed. He said he has a poultry farm during the last administration and there was flood and water took away all his birds. But when this government came, it dredged almost all rivers, but he couldn’t ask them to come and dredge his place, but he hired an excavator and that thought him he would no longer experience flood. Osun has been given a new hope in all ramifications by the present administration in the state.

    Looking at the insecurity in this country, especially the Boko Haram threat and kidnapping, how would you score the Federal Government?

    I have said it initially that one of the things the government should be concerned about is the security of lives and property. That should be the responsibility of a functional government. All other things come after. But these Boko Haram and militancy you are talking about emanated from poverty. If you have wrong leader at the helms of affairs for eight years in a state, who is not doing anything, the effect will not be during the period of eight years. It will be after. That was what happened in Borno State and the spiral effect is all over the country today. I want you to go and look at Borno State just for 20 years. A government came to Borno for eight years doing nothing and what you have has affected the whole country. It first started in Borno and now Yobe. Yobe was created from Borno. Later it was in Gombe. So long as you have one central police, Nigerians cannot be protected. This is where federalism comes in. In an advance country like the USA, New York Police is different from Maryland Police. There are some areas where they can’t afford police, but they still have Sheriffs. Everybody should police his own community, so long as you are going to have an instruction from the Inspector General of the police in Abuja. People will tell you that when they have local or divisional police in the past, they were misused. The question I asked is, because states are going to misuse the police, should we jeopadise the security of 150 millions of Nigerians? If you have one man at the helms of affairs of one state that is going to misuse the police, the maximum tenure he can have is eight years. We should not personalise government. No matter how Jonathan tries, so long as we continue to do it this way, you cannot achieve. Despite that, you have all these. Aregbesola’s government still procures equipments for the use of police in the state because he can manage the security of the state because they will say security is a federal issue. Unless we do thing the way it should be done, I don’t see a solution to what you are talking about on security.

    Recently, Senator Iyiola Omisore said all your party is doing in Osun is propaganda and that the present government is frivolous. What is your reaction?

    Let me just talk about the system and not about personality. We are talking about visionary people coming to Osun. Iyiola Omisore is my friend, but the wherewithal to run this state, quote me, he doesn’t have it. I will not even try to comment on Omisore saying that all the government is doing is propaganda. The O-yes, O-Reap, Oyes-Tech, O-school, O-Meal are propaganda? Not only that, the Walk-To-Live itself is propaganda? This government did something and people never commented about it, which is creating an identity for the state. This is the foremost programme. That’s one legacy he will be living behind than any other thing. He has been able to register it in the minds of people that good virtue matters a lot. “Ipinle Omoluabi”, that is what we are in Osun now. It is possible for another administration to come after 30 years and say this programme I am not doing again, but can he say we should not be “Ipinle Omoluabi´ again? What does he want to call us?. Honestly, and you can quote me, I am not one of the people that will sing the praise of Rauf Aregbesola if he is not doing well. If he is not doing well, I will not only criticise him; I will walk up to him and tell him he has not done well.

    I met this gentle man in 2005. He came into this compound; that was the first time I thought I was meeting him. He went to Imesi-Ile from Lagos. I sat in the same bus with them, and when we are on the road along Ada, he was now commenting on not seeing business activity along the road. I kept my cool as he was analysing so many things. Few days later, he made me realize that he wanted the mandate of the party for the governor of the state and I ,if all what you are saying in the car is what you can achieve, I will give you my support. That was the first time that thought I met him, but it was later when were discussing that I got to know that he was a corps member in the company that I was working as an accountant in Kaduna. Osun is no more for grabs for anybody who doesn’t have what it takes anymore because the strides we have recorded in this state, no Osun person will want to reverse our trend. Honestly, Rauf is doing well in all ramifications.

  • Kogi ex-commissioner joins ACN

    A former Kogi State Commissioner for Information in the Ibrahim Idris administration, Dr. Tom Ohikere, has defected from the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).

    Ohikere was also the Chairman, Sub-Committee on Logistics of Capt Idris Wada’s campaign organisation during the last governorship election in the state.

    Addressing reporters at the home of former Governor Abukakar Audu in Lokoja, the state capital, the former commissioner said the level of decadence in Kogi Central Senatorial District, where he hails from, spurred him into defecting to the ACN.

    According to him, the Wada administration is parading those who have nothing to offer Ebira people except trouble. He said: “You are all aware that the central zone of the state, where I come from, has been painted with all sorts of negative names. But behold, the governor is still parading these people, who have caused the bad names, in his government.

    “That is why I decided to make this choice to join the progressive party which I believe will turn the fortune of the state around very soon.”

    On the insinuation in some quarters that he was defecting because the Wada administration had abandoned him Ohikere stressed that since the government was working with those he called less intelligent individuals, he had to join the party that appreciates him.

    The politician, however, affirmed that though the PDP contributed to his political career, he too had done so much for the party and its government.

    Ohikere urged other PDP members who share the same ideology with him to join the ACN. Audu hailed the former commissioner for joining the progressive party.

    He said the party would work with him to develop the state. The former governor said politics has been in the blood of the Ohikere’s family, adding that he was not surprised at the political progress of the former commissioner.

  • ACN condemns grounding of Amaechi’s plane

    ACN condemns grounding of Amaechi’s plane

    For  the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the grounding of the Rivers State Government’s private aircraft by the regulatory Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) was a glaring case of political witch-hunt.

    In a statement issued in Lagos yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the action also amounted to gross abuse of national institutions and a pointer to what lay ahead for all perceived enemies of the President Jonathan Jonathan-led administration.

    The said it was inexplicable that the NCAA, the body saddled with the responsibility to carry out its all-important duties without political interference but in accordance with stipulated global standards, has become a tool in the hands of vindictive politicians.

    The statement reads: “The inconsistent reasons given for grounding the plane have exposed the shenanigans of those who feel they could easily pull the wool over the eyes of Nigerians.

    “First, the plane was ostensibly grounded in Akure because the pilot did not declare the flight’s manifest to the appropriate authorities.

    “Then it was said that the plane’s clearance certificate has expired, hence it was banned from flying in the Nigerian airspace. How low can a government sink just to get at a perceived enemy?

    “The questions that arise, therefore, are: Has the clearance certificate for the plane really expired? When did it expire?

    “Was this communicated to the Rivers State Government before the plane was grounded? If so when? And if not why? In any case, would the NCAA have acted with so much alacrity if the plane had belonged to a state whose governor has no political differences with President Jonathan?

    “While the NCAA must be free to carry out its regulatory duties without hindrance, it must be careful not to be seen to be acting on the orders of politicians. If this is the new modus operandi of the NCAA, then the nation is in trouble, and must be ready to see the reversal of the positive strides recorded in the aviation sector in the past few years,’’ the party warned.

    It said while the political crisis that has torn apart the PDP and turned the President against his fellow party men is not the business of anyone outside the party, it (ACN) is compelled to speak out when national institutions are now being dragged into what is essentially an ugly ego-fight.

    ACN warned those who are in position of authority to realise that any abuse of national institutions in their quest to settle political scores could bring the house crashing down on all, including those behind such abuses.

  • ACN, UPN, pipeline contracts and OPC

    ACN, UPN, pipeline contracts and OPC

    Shortly before the inauguration of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic, I travelled by public transport to Ilorin. Somewhere in Ibadan, we came upon a band of Odua Peoples Congress (OPC) toughs wielding various weapons including automatic guns, short machetes and axes. Their leaders/commanders wore various specially embroidered clothes that harked back to the era of the Yoruba wars. Apart from small gourds strapped to their jumpers, they also wore red wrist or head bands with cowries stitched to them. They stopped traffic majestically and defiantly, and strolled across the road with not a care in the world. A few kilometres down the main road to Ilorin, we again encountered another band, this time in a convoy of beat-up cars and perhaps a pick-up van, if my memory serves me well. They drove fiercely and menacingly, some sitting on top of their cars, and others popping their heads out of the windows as their vehicles bobbed and weaved through the choked traffic.

    This was in the late 1990s, barely a few years after the 1994 Rwandan genocide raged in all its atavistic and sanguinary fury. Using the autocratic regime of Gen Sani Abacha as pretext, Yorubaland began to regress into anomie and idolatry. While still in traffic, and as OPC militants were strutting their stuff, I became both troubled and humiliated. Was this what the Southwest had become? Was the region’s civilisation so tenuous that it took just one destabilising incidence to demolish its accomplishments and send the region lumbering abjectly into the embrace of undemocratic and impulsive bands of area toughies? The OPC may no longer be brazen and daring as it was, but it has kept its structure fairly intact, and continues to attract mainly those who, like cultists, want a sense of adventure and meaning to life.

    The Southwest was somewhat lucky to have understood very early the pitfalls of putting its hopes and trust in an ethnic militia. Given the cold shoulder in polite circles, the OPC quietly morphed into a militia of local enforcers and security consultants. These jobs were needed to keep them busy in place of the revolution they, and many people, believed loomed in the 1990s and early 2000s. After reading about the Rwandan genocide and watching a documentary on it, not to talk of the post-Tito Yugoslavia that dissolved into civil war, it was easy to make up my mind about the dangers of indulging ethnic militias, whether among the Yoruba or in Boko Haram territory. The Yoruba were lucky the OPC experienced considerable attenuation over the years; the North is not so lucky in the hands of Boko Haram, which they at first indulged, then lamely opposed, and finally watched with quiet dismay and resignation from afar.

    For those who naively put their trust in the OPC as the saviour, backbone and standby militia of the Yoruba, the ongoing struggle for pipeline security contracts and leadership supremacy between Frederick Fasehun and Gani Adams can be very disillusioning. Sometime in April, Dr Fasehun had delivered a broadside on Mr Adams for attempting to match him wit for wit and brawn for brawn. But he also acknowledged that he had bidden for a pipeline security contract because the six million youths in his militia deserved the federal government’s economic patronage, just as Niger Delta youths are beneficiaries of very lucrative federal government contracts. No one knows where he got the outlandish figures of OPC membership. But responding to the ACN spokesman’s criticisms that he bade for the contract in order to fund a political party and turn it into a destabilising counterpoise to the region’s dominant party, Fasehun offered a most peremptory and non-ideological argument indicating that in his political world everything boiled down to money. That this materialism subverts the lofty principles of the Southwest, especially the lodestar of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) he is presumptuously trying to revive, is immaterial to him.

    I have read many opinions on the contract bid by the OPC leaders, and find them humbling. In defending Fasehun, most of the views quite illogically ignore the contradictions between propping up oneself as a saviour or defender of the Yoruba and being a federal government contractor. The Tompolos, Boyloaf and Dokubos of the Niger Delta have never tried to sound principled or ideological. From their antecedents and their current standing, they give the firm impression they need financial empowerment more for its own sake than for any esoteric reasons. They are not driven by any principle of democracy, federalism, human rights, or any other lofty values that ennoble humanity. If the right contracts are dispensed to them, it becomes an incentive to work with and give support to the government of the day. In this they are at least honest, for they do not attempt the disingenuousness their OPC counterparts have now become famous for. How Mr Adams and Fasehun, for instance, hope to get pipeline protection contracts from the Jonathan presidency and in the same breath defend the values that have characterised the Yoruba for centuries is a puzzle. More puzzling is the fact that they do not see the tragedy of outsourcing security to ethnic militants and repentant bigots.

    But the dishonesty of the OPC leaders and their self-serving philosophy do not end there. They are not squabbling over ideology, or over political orientation, or even over societal reengineering. These self-appointed defenders of the Yoruba race are squabbling over two things only: contract from the government, and leadership position in the OPC. It is a surprise that it has taken so long for many Yoruba elites to see through the gimmickry of the militia. While the contracts have not yet been awarded, Fasehun has spoken condescendingly of subletting less than one-third of the contract’s value to Mr Adams’ faction of the OPC. The latter, inured to the paradox of Yoruba defenders fighting for crumbs from a potential enemy, is asking for nothing less than half of the total value of the contract. This, he says, is because he leads about 90 percent of the membership of the OPC.

    The dissembling duo already has projects in the pipeline. While Dr Fasehun is attempting to revive the defunct UPN, Mr Adams, less pretentious, less ambitious, but perhaps more practical and self-important, simply wants to keep his boys engaged and happy. Both suggest that the Southwest deserves it, for the ACN, according to them has proved incapable of taking care of the welfare of the region. On April 18, Fasehun published a rambling and innuendo-ridden advertorial in which he attempted to rationalise the revival of the UPN. The best in the advert is his exaggerated affectations on democracy. But it would have been better if he had not published anything, for it is clear that in spite of his activist years, he lacks both the depth and character to preach democracy to anyone or offer leadership to any group.

    Fasehun assumes that merely invoking the name of UPN is enough to bring back the glory of the Chief Obafemi Awolowo era. He forgets that it was not the party that ennobled Awo; on the contrary it was Awo through his brilliance, depth, passion and discipline, not to say contempt for federal handouts, that ennobled the party. What virtue will Fasehun bring to the party he seeks so cavalierly and comically to resuscitate? I can see none. And what on earth has come over opinion writers and analysts that they give Fasehun a hearing, he that recently asked for Major Hamza Al-Mustapha to be pardoned, he of doubtful ideology and of hidden motives? Had the ferment in the country graduated into a revolution and any of the two OPC leaders assumed prominence, imagine what terrors, poor judgement and mediocrity would have been unleashed on the region.

    As Mr Adams said in his provocative response to Fasehun’s angry and disrespecting characterisation of his rival, the two OPCs are perfectly irreconcilable. But much more than the struggle for leadership of the ethnic militia, the pipeline contract controversy has exposed the superciliousness of the older man and the superficiality of the younger claimant. The elites and opinion moulders in the Southwest must surely have taken the measure of the two pretenders to the Yoruba throne. They are first and foremost contractors, a duo of self-serving and ambitious leaders without the farsightedness, discipline, sacrifice and competence to interpret the past and decipher the tangled skein of Nigeria’s future, let alone embody the values and virtues that have stood the Southwest out for centuries.