The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Council

  • NCRIB chief seeks autonomy for council

    NCRIB chief seeks autonomy for council

    The Nigerian Council of Registered Insurance Brokers (NCRIB) should be allowed to function without interference, the President, Sola Tinubu, has said.

    Tinubu, who stated this at his maiden Press briefing at Insurance Brokers House in Lagos, said neither he, nor his deputy, or the  Vice President  will interfer with the body’s operation, saying they will  ensure that the position of the President remains  ceremonial, just like a Chairman of Board of corporate institutions, in consonance with the provisions of corporate governance.

    He said changes in non-executive position take place  from year to year, leaving the secretariat intact to ensure  institutional building. He said the secretariat must be adequately empowered to drive the process at all times. He said his team shall empower the secretariat to discharge its responsibilities as expected.

    Tinubu listed some of his programmes as institution building, seamless succession plan; streamlining office of president to ceremonial roles; value addition to members; prudence and cost reduction as well as acceleration of revenue sources for the Council. Others are effective collaboration with other industry operators; enforcement of ethical standards; and effective collaboration with the regulator-National Insurance Commission (NAICOM).

    He said: “We will look holistically into the structure of the Council within the purview of law with the aim to building an enduring frame work. I am looking towards a Council that will be able to relate with other regulatory bodies on behalf of the brokers without interference. For instance, it should be the responsibility of the Council to relate with NAICOM on behalf of the brokers, bearing in mind that the President is primarily a broker with interest.

    “We have drawn a 10-year agenda for our Council. This was done in agreement with my next two successors, that is, the Deputy President and the Vice President. This is to ensure that we bequeath a well-entrenched institution to upcoming generation. I am looking at an institution where the President has a ceremonial overview of the Council, giving the Executive Secretary/Chief Executive Officer and his team a level of empowerment as it is obtainable in other professions and other climes. The Secretariat is the regulatory body for the brokers and the President is a broker and a competitor with other brokers in the industry.”

  • Council Coordinator abducted, tortured by unknown gunmen

    Council Coordinator abducted, tortured by unknown gunmen

    Armed youths have abducted and tortured the Coordinator of Ikwo South Development Centre, Marvin Anari in Ebonyi State.
    The incident it was gathered happened at Ukwuachi playground, Amagu in Ikwo local government area, venue of the stakeholders meeting of the town.
    “A band of armed men invaded the venue, dragged the Coordinator out of the crowd, rendered him stark naked, and defied pleas of the elders to spare him from assaults.
    “They took him out of the venue of the meeting to Eke Amagu market, brought a coffin, pushed him inside it in his pool of blood and closed it”, a source told our reporter.
    Villagers later discovered where he was dumped by his assailants and took him to the Federal Teaching Hospital Abakaliki where he is receiving treatment.
    At the time of filling this report, the council Chief’s condition has been stabilised by doctors although he still remains in coma.
    The state state governor, David Umahi on a visit to the hospital on Sunday described the incident as barbaric.
    He called for full investigation into the circumstances surrounding the abduction of the council boss and urged all security agencies to arrest and prosecute those behind the act.

    Governor Umahi further warned that his administration will no longer tolerate anybody taking laws into his or hands in the name of politics.
     He vowed that those found culpable in the act would be dealt with to serve as deterrent to others.
    “This type of barbaric action is highly condemnable and unacceptable by us as a people, we must fish out those who lost every sense of humanity in them to do this type of wicked things against a fellow man. I have directed the Commissioner of Police and other security Chiefs in the state to move into the area and fish out those responsible for this evil act,” he said.

    Meanwhile, there was wild jubilation at the Federal Teaching Hospital, FETHA when Governor Umahi paid an unscheduled visit to the hospital and cleared medical bills of all patients who have been unable to pay their bills and return to their homes.

    Governor Umahi who visited the hospital after church service at Christ Embassy Church, Abakaliki went round the wards within the hospitals and identified such indigent victims and settled their medical bills.
    He also made a cash donation of N500, 000 for feeding of all the patients in the hospital.
  • Council builds 10 boreholes, roads, drainages

    Council builds 10 boreholes, roads, drainages

    •250 pupils get free GCE form 

    Less than 100 days in office of the AbdulHamed Salawu administration in Somolu Local Government Area of Lagos State, the residents have started getting dividends of democracy.

    The local government has sunk and inaugurated 10 boreholes in eight wards.

    It has also built seven gutters and four roads.

    Also, the aged are being empowered under the monthly Elderly Citizens Empowerment programme.

    Salawu said the gestures are “clear manifestations of our commitment to repay the trust the people repose in the leadership of the council”.

    He said other projects are lined up to put the council among the first to match the developmental programmes of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode’s administration.

    On the monthly Elderly Citizens Empowerment programme, the council chairman assured that those left out during the maiden edition would be  accommodated in subsequent editions.

    Salawu added: “Let me assure you that this gesture is a monthly programme and those who could not benefit from this edition will have their turn soon.”

    The chairman said 250 pupils were given free General Certificate in Education  (GCE) forms. This, he said, was meant to upgrade the standard of education in the council and relieve parents of the burden of procuring the forms.

    “The youths are our future; hence, they must be nurtured for the future challenges. We will soon commence vocational skill acquisition to make the youths self-reliant,” he said.

    The council chief advised the pupils to shun all forms of examination malpractice and violent act.

    He said: “See yourselves as ambassadors of this council by studying hard to achieving successes in your chosen careers. It is pertinent for all parents to inculcate good character in their children. As leaders of tomorrow, they should shun all social vices, including cultism, drug abuse and gangsterism.”

    On health, Salawu said some health centres  will be given adequate attention to meet the yearnings of the residents.

    “It is worth mentioning that Somolu Local government swiftly embrace the state Cleaner Lagos Initiative (CLI) by employing the services of street sweepers to help keep our environment clean,” he said.

    He appealed to the residents to pay their taxes and levies to aid the council in executing other projects.

     

  • Advocates of council autonomy are enemies of federalism, says Aregbesola

    Advocates of council autonomy are enemies of federalism, says Aregbesola

    Osun State Governor Rauf Aregbesola has objected to the clamour for local government autonomy, saying that it is antithetical to true federalism.

    He said local councils are administrative units of the state, adding that their autonomy may be the end of the states.

    Aregbesola spoke at the one-day conference on the second anniversary of the Southwest in national governance held in Osogbo, the state capital. Its theme was: Southwest to Abuja: A mid-term appraisal.

    He recalled that, while settling for federalism, Nigeria’s founding fathers copied the Indian example, where the federating units are coordinate with the central government.

    The governor said: “In India, we have a state that is more than Nigeria in size and population. We also have Goa, which is not more than Lagos as a state. The large states cannot dominate smaller states. California cannot dictate to Arkansas.  The Federal Government in the United States cannot interfere in what happens in other states, unless it is invited.

    “Also, under the federal system, the Federal Government cannot interfere in the activities of the local government. Those calling for local government autonomy are agents of confusion. I know there are anomalies with the local government administration.. But, it does not mean that it should be autonomous under the state. It is against the spirit of federalism. Whenever the states cease to control the council, that will be the end of the state.”

    Aregbesola emphasized that Nigeria is not just a republic, but it is a Federal Republic of Nigeria. Also, he said the name of the central government is Federal Republic of Nigeria.

    He lent his voice to the sustenance of party supremacy, saying party supremacy, which is difficult under the presidential system, is possible under the parliamentary system.

    Aregbesola said: “Presidential system is too expensive. It may lead to doom.”

    Noting that “economy is government,” the governor said the over-dependence on the petro-dollar economy is counter-productive.

    He added: “766.5 million dolars is realised per year. It is 4.85 barrels per head o five. This means 250 dollars per head; N100,000 per years, N8.00 per month. That is the source of national poverty. But, because less than one million people share the money, that’s why it appears that the country is rich.

    “What’s the way out? If one million people works and earns N25,000 per month in Osun, the state will be able to to get taxes and it will be rich.”

    According to the communique at th conference, the decision of the Southwest progressives to participate at governance in the centre was a turning point in history. The communique reads: “Conferees deliberated on the main theme of the Conference, that is, an appraisal of the place of the Southwest in national political equation, the issues of economic development and the place of Osun State in the anchoring of development initiatives in the last six years and, the idea of federalising political parties in Nigeria.

    “The Southwest’s relative importance in the federation of Nigeria is such that it stands in a better stead in the continuance and stability of the federation and not in its disintegration. That the Southwest has nonetheless in the about the last thirty years judging by the physical development and the distribution of infrastructure from the Federal centre to the states regressed significantly from being a leading region in the country to a position less than what she occupied before the 1970s.

    “The constitutional amendment to reflect significant transfer of power from the centre especially as contained in the Second Schedule to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (As Amended) to the States, would be an antidote to the regression of the Western part of Nigeria.

    “The most significant way by which development can be more meaningful to the people of Nigeria is to transfer resources from the few and the privileged to the majority of the pole through a system of welfare and social safety nets.

    “The Government of the State of Osun has in the last six years significantly transferred public resources to the ordinary man and the majority of its citizens through its social welfare programmes such as O’Yes, O’Meal, O’Rehab, Agba Osun and Women Empowerment. An additional and effective way of transferring resources to the ordinary man would and should be through the capital budget in which resources are not spent on recurrent expenditure by paying salaries, overhead and wages alone but also on the simultaneous creation of physical infrastructure by which the majority of the people can be reached.

    “Political parties in Nigeria and the leadership thereof should reflect our federal character and that leadership should be progressive from the grassroots to the state and federal levels.

    “The political orientation is not new to the western part of Nigeria but that there is the need to avoid falling into conservative and reactionary politics into which the southwest fell during 2003-2011.

    “The solution to the current political debate on restructuring can only be resolved in favour of the continuance and growth of Nigeria and not in its dissolution but more important also, in the adjustment of both constitutional and tax powers to reflect the urgent need to devolve power to the federating units and cut the 9xcesses of federal intervention in those matters that are purely regional or local.”

  • Council solicits residents’ cooperation

    Residents of Amuwo Odofin Local Government Area have been urged to support the new administration towards the timely completion of the ongoing road rehabilitation in the area.

    The council chair, Valentine Braimoh called for residents’understanding due to hardship the exercise will come with.

    He said the road repair and clearing of refuse were part of the mandate given to them shortly after their swearing in by the Governor Akinwunmi Ambode.

    According to him, the governor had given a marching order to Conference 57 to ensure timely removal of refuse across the metropolis and key into the Cleaner Lagos Initiative of the state government.

  • Palm Avenue: open sore of a council

    In one of his countless interventions, Prof. Wole Soyinka, our on WS, spoke of The Open Sore of a Continent, as his personal narrative on the Nigerian conundrum.

    Back in the University of Ibadan, in those years — maybe, still now? — you’d hear excited freshers, just introduced to the less-than-fair international order, prattle about the “centre of the periphery” and “periphery of the centre”; with only a few piping the “centre of the centre”, the golden core of the metropole, where, as they say, the real action is.

    Is Hardball essaying Political Science 101 garnished with literary putdowns, ala WS, on contemporary seedy politics?  Hardly.  Well, maybe — if a road that hosts a council headquarters (in that metropolitan lingo, the “centre of the centre”, is so neglected it can easily pass for the very “centre of the periphery”.)

    In all of Mushin, it is doubtful if any road boasts the panache of Palm Avenue. These days there are not many palm trees, nestling this major artery, in their magical foliage.  Were there ever any, from the very beginning?

    Still you feel some calm, some rare order.  You could never have believed the raucous Mushin Oloosa, and allied neighbourhoods, that gifted Mushin its tough reputation, were just a stone throw away!  Little wonder the Mushin Council, even in its original pristine form, claimed a spot on that road as its fitting headquarters.

    Today, however, Palm Avenue is so debased and degraded it indeed passes for the open sore of a council.

    At the Owhin Street T-junction with Palm Avenue is a huge crater.  Those who well and truly love their cars can’t just trundle inside and out.  They therefore wait for the opposing traffic, before stealing past those craters. That often results in needless jams.  That once-upon-a-road is almost bang in front of the Mushin council headquarters.

    Then, just barely 30 metres away, past the Mobil service station, is another; at the Oremeji Street T-junction with Palm Avenue.

    Pray, how can two huge craters, within a 30-meter distance, hem in a council headquarters, and the council’s public work gang appears to have no presence of mind, not to talk of institutional shame, to do some repair works to ameliorate the situation?

    Where, in the name of God, is this council’s sense of community service, nay duty, to so neglect its immediate environment so gravely, yet still has the audacity to answer the name local government council?  What government — that of the unfeeling? And what council — council of the insensate, with zero community value?

    Congrats to the newly elected Mushin Local Government chairman.  But he must know that his council is a big joke, if it can’t at least fix the road which hosts its headquarters.

    If it fails in that, how does it cater for other numerous roads, the real “periphery of the periphery”, always screaming for attention?   Indeed, on open sore.

     

     

  • Palm Avenue: healing sore of a council

    Palm Avenue: open sore of a council” (July 26) was Hardball’s take on the scandalous haven of craters that was Palm Avenue.  Yet, that high street  is the “metropolis” of Mushin Local Government, which ought to be a model to other streets.

    Well, it was no model; as some of the worst craters were on the virtual nose of the local government headquarters, hemming it in, as it were, in two provocative locations.

    The crater at the Owhin Street junction, almost in front of the council, seemed to shout: welcome to seedy street, of a rotten council, where everything seemed to have decayed.  It was an eternal shame, indeed, for a council chair to traverse that road to his office everyday and not feel some deep pain.

    The crater — or set of craters — at the Oremeji Street junction, just after the Mobil fuel station, also seemed to wave the driver bye-bye, poste-haste, from a council where, from the parlous state of its best high street, nothing seems to work.

    After that, you seem to flee, with the shock of a tolerable section, past the Methodist church, until Palm Avenue’s meeting with Isolo Road, that connects Mushin via Daleko, to Isolo.  But at the mouth of that T-junction, with its rash of Marwa commercial tricycles, Okada and minibuses sprouting an illicit park, lay another set of craters!

    But not any more!  This morning, Hardball is proud to announce that all those craters and potholes that pork-marked this road have been fixed; and driving is much more comfortable.

    For that, it is kudos to the newly elected Mushin Local Government executive.  When Hardball made his first take on the road, the local government elections had just been lost and won.

    Hardball was hard on the new executive, as if they were responsible for the decay.  In a sense, that was right, for government is always a continuum.  But in another sense, it was not so right, since the blame rested squarely with the departed caretaker administration, and perhaps the last elected council.

    Observing the situation days after the initial report, you could come to the conclusion that the new council was, the usual Nigerian way, playing deaf and dumb to public opinion, with the apologia that it just assumed work, and would therefore take “forever” to settle down.

    Well, Hardball was joyfully “disappointed” as he drove past one day to find work in progress on the bad portions of the road.  That is how it should be.  A government of the grassroots, should put its ears to the ground, so that it can listen to the grassroots!

    Even at that, the council should do something fast about the illicit park at the Palm Avenue-Isolo road junction.  That park causes needless traffic jams, with the Okadas and Marwas and mini-buses holding other road users to ransom.  Surely, a park should not be at a busy T-junction?

    Still, this is a good beginning.  But the Mushin council should build on this initial good show to address the intolerably high number of bad roads in its territory.  Let the council work gang hit the streets working.  The people would be glad they did!

  • Council, residents, others unveil plan to unlock Apapa traffic

    The Apapa Local Government and other stakeholders yesterday took a bold step towards easing the chaotic Apapa traffic.

    They agreed that henceforth, owners of articulated vehicles parked indiscriminately in the area should be prosecuted.

    There will be 24-hour monitoring and enforcement of the One-Lane policy as part of the measures to reduce the hardship of residents and owners of businesses due to traffic gridlock.

    These were some of the measures, adopted during an all-embracing stakeholders meeting held at the council secretariat.

    The event was attended by representatives of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria (RTEAN)ý, residents, banks and law enforcement agencies.

    Explaining the rationale behind the 24-hour monitoring initiative, the council chairman, Mr. Owolabi Adele, said it would involve the deployment of enforcement teams in strategic areas to ease Apapa traffic.

    Adele said: “Our presence here today marks a turning point in our collective attempt to resolve permanently and move forward in our onerous task. As it has been repeatedly re-echoed, the damages done to our economy and suffering of our people as a result of the traffic menace cannot be over- emphasised.”

    The council chief pledged prompt repair of bad roads and called for intensive training for tanker drivers to ensure sanity on the road.

    Speaking on behalf of the Association of Apapa Government Reserved Area, Brig-Gen Ayo Vaughan (rtd) suggested the erection of barriers on Liverpool Road to regulate the use of the road by articulated vehicles.

    He called for action to end the menace of Okada riders and commercial bus drivers in the area.

  • Council chief backs Cleaner Lagos Initiative

    Chairman of Ikosi-Isheri Local Council Development Area, Abdul Fatai Oyesanya, has urged residents of the council to embrace the Cleaner Lagos Initiative (CLI).

    Oyesanya said this during a sensitisation campaign of the initiative at Jakande and Mile 12 markets.

    He informed the traders that Governor Akinwunmi Ambode has directed all the 57 councils in the state to ensure that people at the grassroot key into the new agenda.

    The council chief reminded the traders that government will not hesitate to close down any market that is dirty, urging them to work together as stakeholders to ensure that the surroundings of the markets are in clean state regularly.

    He told them that cleanliness of their markets should be a priority because that is where people buy the food they consume.

    Oyesanya appealed to residents of the council to desist from dumping refuse inside the drainage to prevent flooding.

    He assured them that his administration has provided adequate human and material resources to clean drainage and cart away refuse across the seven wards of the council.

    “We want our council to be the cleanness the state,” he said.

  • Council election tribunals begin sitting today

    The Lagos State Local Government Election Petitions Tribunal will begin sitting today on petitions filed against conduct of the July 22 elections.

    A statement by the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of High Court of Lagos State, Mrs Grace Alo, said the tribunals were set up to enable aggrieved parties or individuals seek redress through a seamless legal process and in accordance with relevant laws and legislations.

    The statement said the election petitions tribunal (Lagos Division Panel), under the chairmanship of Justice A. Olateru–Olagbegi (retd.), will sit at High Court No. 1 on Igbosere Road in Lagos.

    It said the registry of the tribunal is located directly at the tribunal venue.

    Also, the Election Petitions Tribunal (Ikeja Division), under the chairmanship of Mrs Folasade Adetiba, will sit at the Roseline Omotosho Courthouse in Ikeja, while its registry is situated at the same venue.   The statement  added that the registry of both tribunals will be open to the public from today at 8 am (Monday to Friday).