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  • Way out of Osun economic crisis, by finance expert

    Way out of Osun economic crisis, by finance expert

    Deji Akinsola, a finance expert, reviews the economic situation in Osun State and suggests how it can get out of the economic crisis. He spoke with Basirat Buraimah. 

    How did Osun State find itself in this financial mess?

    I don’t think it is fair and it is not right to single Osun State out in the financial predicament enveloping the whole world.

    It is a worldwide crisis. The financial meltdown is global. It cannot be felt equally though. In Nigeria, it will be unfair to single out Osun state to be in crisis and I know it is nationwide.

    I know many states to be 23 months behind in salary payment. Almost every state is owing but then, when it comes to Osun, I think it is a peculiar case because of the giant strides that Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola came with in the first two years of his administration and it is that standard that people are using to measure him and that is why it appears that the impact is felt more in Osun.

    But the state benefitted from the bail out and financial packages backed by the federal government.

    When it comes to public finances, one needs to be very careful; form me what the states got is not a bail out but a loan. I want to crudely define a bail out. A bail out is meant to be a dash but when you are talking about a package the federal government made to the distressed states, it was more of a loan. People have said at different fora that the bail out from our financial crisis is death accumulation. The figures that are being bandit by the opposition are so ridiculous. They are larger than life figures.

    The payment terms were such that they will be deducted from the federal allocations. One of the criticisms against the Osun administration is in terms of the quantum of the debt that the administration is alleged to have taken. At different quarters they are saying it is too large. Speaking as a chartered accountant, the definition of too much is determined by the returns you are getting from such a loan.

    If you take a loan and you invest it in as much as you can make N1 as return after meeting all obligations, it won’t be too much. If you take a loan for financing and at the end you have negative returns; that is the definition of too much. People have been saying that Osun state is grossly indebted and then the bail out of almost N35billion is going to further compound that alleged indebtedness.

    When you talk about public or private financing, it is made up of two critical aspects. We have equity and debt. Equity means the contributions of stakeholders while debt is borrowing. Those are the two principal sources of funding. There are certain things you cannot do with the loan. The loan shouldn’t be used to pay salaries. If you must borrow, it must go into investments that will yield returns to repay the cost of the capital and leave you with something. If you use loan to pay salaries then you are going into a deep hole. I want to agree with the last administration in terms of bail out. It is better to look for equity to meet the expenditure. That is a way forward.

    Well, if you are talking of way forward we should look at where we are coming from. The administration started on a brilliant footing. No matter how brilliant your ideas are, you need funds to execute such ideas. This administration started with a beautiful vision where Osun will surpass Lagos.

    Aregbesola’s vision is to remove poverty. He invested them into the future and education. Any investment in security can never be wrong because it promotes the code of the economy. When you invest in security, it will attract both internal and external investors. It will generate income to create a better income.

    What can be done to revive the state’s economy and take it back to those glorious days?

    We need to look into good governance and education. We need to move away from oil. The 2016 budget was based on $38 price of oil per barrel with N2.2trillion deficit. The fall in the price of oil has widened the gap. We need to shift focus and obviously agriculture is it.

    We need to go back to the basics. Government should invest in agriculture. Government should support initiatives that will make Agriculture strive. Government should not involve itself in granting Agric loans. Government should not bother itself with the provision of fertilizer. If agriculture is lucrative, people should source the fund to meet the investment. When they now grow cash and food crops, then they can sell them. Government should negotiate with banks. In terms of sourcing agriculture and fertilizers, they should go to the banks. The government should make it a national policy. It should give guarantee to existing farmers and new ones. No matter how many tones of grains produced. The beauty of this is that it will spur people to go into Agriculture on a commercial basis not on a sentimental basis.

    In the United States, the government will mop up all the excess products. Even at a loss to it. In most cases, the government sells agricultural products abroad so that they will not discourage farmers and potential ones.

    Apart from encouraging agriculture, which other ways can government go in raising fund?

    If you want to make any progress, there is no other way than go into taxation.

    We have to educate the people about the beauty of taxation. We have to create the awareness. As far as I am concerned, taxation and the application of taxation should be introduced into primary school curriculum, secondary and tertiary so that people will have a very sound understanding and its beauty both to themselves and the government. The government should follow it up with an aggressive collection plan.

    One beauty of taxation is this; when people are taxed normally, it makes lion out of them. They want to be involved, they want to know. It is something that is affecting them directly. There is no direct impact on the people. If you want to embezzle N 2.5b you will need to increase the income tax of people with certain per cent. We have to invigorate our tax drive and initiate aggressive collection.

    As a last resort, we need to look at borrowing and we must know how much we want to borrow and what we want to do with it. We must never borrow for consumption. Salary must be based squarely on Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).

    Any government that wants o succeed should use 25 per cent of Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) for salaries.

    Other things will be internal and one of it is what we have already embarked upon and that is how to empower the people. Governance shouldn’t be about business. It should be about the provision of environment where people can do business to generate income and pay a portion of that to the government.

    The governor has introduced an O Cof O (Osun Certificate of Occupancy) that gives you a security backing. Government will do due diligence. A all over the world, any bank you go to will want to know if you want to go into secured borrowing. The best form of collateral is the certificate of occupancy. It will give them a peace of mind and fast track the loan application.

    It will reduce the cost of borrowing. You can use the certificate to borrow money from bank to generate wealth and then the state can come to take a portion. We have our younger ones middle age that are willing to leave the country for several reasons because the world is now a global village. One of the key requirements of an embassy is that you won’t be relying on them. If you attach your C of O to the application, it will make processing faster. These are the things Aregbesola has put together so that people can borrow money go into trade, make money and pay back loan and pay their taxes.

    We are looking inward and the nation in general. The government should not be directly involved in agriculture. Regardless of the quantity of their produce. Any government that wants to make progress must have short term, medium term and longer term plan. Included in the longer term plan should be education. It is kind of empowering the people to make them become responsible citizens. The level of government expenditure will come down in health. If you have a good job you will be able to get qualitative health insurance. We must invest in security. A secured environment is an attraction. We must invest in health. The people are recognising the quality in this administration. Anything that this government wishes to do must have the input of the people and going for aggressive collection of taxes. We collectively got into this mess and we must collectively get out of the mess. The government must lead people into the Promised Land.

    How do you see the streamlining of the ministries by the governor?

    Streamlining the ministry to a manageable 12 is a step in the right direction. We must cut our material according to the cloth that is available. It is a right step. It has now come to a manageable, realistic and focus-oriented team.

    I trust the judgment of the governor to be able to bring in people who have robust understanding. There must be a rigorous understanding. Finance is as sensitive as it can be. The role of the governor in a state is to spend money.

    I want to secure the state; I want to provide social amenities etc will lead to are spending. The role of a good finance commissioner is to look for money, to source funds particularly internally through the IGR to be able to meet the government’s expenditure.

    He is also to be able to report to the governor and the people the amount generated and expended in terms of recurrent expenditure and in terms of capital investments. I’ve spoken specifically about the finance ministry because that is my forte.

    The government must look for able-minded men that will be able to drive its vision and to be able o take our people out of where we are; from the sorry state that we are in to the Promised Land. This is the kind of men that we need in this coming administration.

    The Aregbesola government is the government of Osun people.  We voted this administration in the first time and we did a second time and it is our government and administration. Yes, things are tough now. When the going gets tough, the tough gets going. With the support of the people, we will get to where we deserve to be. People should give their support so that we will reap the glorious benefit at the end of the day.

  • Ogonis set committee to resolve MOSOP crisis

    Ogonis set committee to resolve MOSOP crisis

    Ogonis have set up a committee to resolve the leadership crisis that has engulfed the umbrella body of the people, the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) of recent.

    It would be recalled that the crisis reared its ugly head on December 30, 2015 when MOSOP conducted its election at Peace and Freedom Square, Bori in Khana Local Government Area (LGA) of Rivers State.

    At the end, two persons: Legborsi Pyagbara who has just completed his first tenure as President of MOSOP and Mike Lube-Nwidobie came up to claim that they had emerged President.

    The next day, Lube-Nwidobie ran for another rescheduled election at the same venue and later claimed to have been elected MOSOP President.

    Consequently, he was sworn in by the traditional ruler of Tai, Godwin Giniwa, thus throwing the MOSOP into leadership crisis.

    To resolve this crisis, some Ogonis made up of mainly some past leaders and activists of the Movement, Leaders of Thought and Elders from Ogoni met on Wednesday, January, 20, 2016 to seek means of resolving the crisis and properly repositon the MOSOP.

    In a statement issued on behalf of the Conveners, Mr Ledum Mitee in Port Harcourt Thursday, he said that at the end of the meeting, a Resolution Committee was set up.

    Members of the committee comprise of Mitee himself, Professor Don Baridam, Dr. Meshach Karanwi, Rev. Dr. Abraham Olungwe, Lenusikpugi  Kpagih, Chief Monday Abueh and Ms Rose Nwigani.

    The committee, he said is “directed to meet with all sides, including traditional rulers and other leaders from the area, with a view to resolving the crisis and reposition the Movement appropriately in order to meet its avowed objectives.”

    Mitee who handed over to Pyagbara also stated that “the meeting appealed to all sides to the present crisis to cooperate with the Resolution Committee and to refrain from actions or public statements capable of undermining the current peace process.”

  • Crisis for Arise TV deepens

    Crisis for Arise TV deepens

    UK-based African TV channel, Arise has vanished from the airwaves.

    Observers say this happened just before 5pm on January 14, with a message beneath the logo of the station reading; ‘Normal service will resume as soon as possible.’

    UK followers of the channel describe the situation as strange, especially as transmission is yet to resume ever since.

    Arise TV is a small African television network operating out of London, and broadcasting on Sky channel 519 from prime studios overlooking Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace and Big Ben. It is owned by Nigerian entrepreneur, Nduka Obaigbena, publisher of Thisday newspaper.

    Insiders say the matter with the channel is more than transmission problems.

    Obaigbena is alleged to be pursued over a trail of debts, estimated at £3m, including nearly £1m owed to the station’s own workers, comprising many senior British journalists.

    The network faces a High Court winding up petition brought by a British television company, having only settled a similar action brought by a British publisher last summer. It also owes money to global news agencies which supply its pictures, including Reuters and Associated Press.

    Ofcom, the broadcast regulator, found Arise in breach of its licence for failing to pay its annual licence fee by the required date. The watchdog is facing calls for Arise, which broadcasts on Sky (but was removed from Freeview late last year) to be stripped of its licence. The station previously went off air late last year as 62 Arise workers, supported by the NUJ and Bectu media unions, began collective legal action for £825,000 unpaid wages.

    A skeleton team returned to work at New Zealand House on 11 January after receiving cash advances of around £250 a day. “Their view is that if they let the channel die there is little or no chance of retrieving the fees they are owed,” one of the team told The Independent.

    David Lee, who resigned as a production editor and claims he is owed £20,000, said: “It’s disgusting, now I’m faced with a tax bill that I can’t pay. Two staff in the New York office have lost their houses because they were unable to make their monthly mortgage repayments.”

    Obaigbena, who is understood to be extremely wealthy and owns Nigeria’s biggest newspaper This Day, has explained his financial problems in terms of “the collapse of oil prices” and the subsequent restrictions in Nigeria on foreign exchange.

    He noted that almost all Arise workers were freelance and claimed to have uncovered a wages scam. “We are in dispute…with some who made invalid claims which we discovered during a routine audit,” he told The Independent. “The courts may have to determine this. Some saw Arise as a gravy train to take advantage of. They are wrong.”

    In an email to staff on 8 January, Obaigbena said: “We will continue to engage with monetary authorities to hasten the necessary remittances required to pay you.”

    Among the queue of debtors is Palestine-based company 4D Media, whose journalists provided Arise with coverage of last year’s deadly Gaza conflict, as well as reporting from Syria, Lebanon and Egypt, but has told Obaigbena in writing of its distress, at only receiving $24,000 of $145,000 owed. “Why are Arise refusing to pay us for services provided by us, even ignoring our correspondence and phone calls?” asked operation manager Kamal Alazraq. “Is it because we are a local Palestinian company with less connection than other service providers around the world?” Obaigbena said Arise had a “payment plan” with 4D Media and “have paid 30 per cent of their invoices”.

    In his email promise to pay staff, Obaigbena, expressed continued determination to create a “world class global news channel that gives the people of Africa and other under-served communities their own voice”.

    He told The Independent that Arise was still in the soft launch phase of a five-year launch plan. “As a new business still in investment stage the revenue generation stage takes time and stability,” he said. “We are in a marathon and not a sprint.”

     

  • APC to Kogi Assembly: we’ve no hand in your crisis

    The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kogi State said yesterday that it had nothing to do with the leadership crisis in the House of Assembly.

    It said its preoccupation was to put in place a dynamic administration after the inauguration of Governor-elect Yahaya Bello.

    The Chairman, Alhaji Haddy Ametuo, said in a statement in Abuja that those linking the party with the leadership crisis were detractors.

    Said he: “As far as we are concerned, we have no interest or hand in the crisis in the House of Assembly. After all, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) even has the majority. Our detractors should not link us with their actions or inactions.

    “Instead of linking Governor-elect Bello to their inability to manage the House, we urge them to look inwards and search their ‘cupboards’.”

    Ametuo cautioned the Central Senatorial District people against ‘over-celebration’, saying the task ahead was enormous.

    He said on the inauguration day, thuggery and unnecessary celebration by masqueraders would not be allowed.

    “I enjoin the people to be law-abiding. Security operatives will be on the alert to arrest troublemakers. We must comport ourselves.”

  • US moves to end crisis in Burundi

    The U.S. Special Envoy for the Great Lakes of Africa, Mr. Thomas Perriello, would be visiting Burundi as part of his government’s efforts at ending crisis in the country.

    The African Media Hub of the U.S. Department of State said in a statement that the Envoy would be visiting crisis-ridden Burundi, as well as Brussels, Belgium, Rome and Italy.

    Perriello will also be visiting Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; Kigali, Rwanda; Bukavu, Goma, and Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC); Bujumbura, Burundi; and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

    According to the statement, the trip is focused on supporting regional efforts to resolve crisis in Burundi, as well as support upcoming elections in the DRC.

    “The U.S. Government strongly supports the regionally-mediated Burundian dialogue relaunched on Dec. 28, 2015, and is urging all stakeholders to remain committed to the process without preconditions.

    “An inclusive dialogue remains the best route for peacefully resolving the crisis in Burundi and restoring the stability achieved by the Arusha Agreement.

    “The Special Envoy will engage with Burundian stakeholders and the East African Community (EAC) leadership about next steps for advancing the dialogue, including moving the dialogue to Arusha, Tanzania,’’ it said.

    The statement also reiterated the U.S. government’s commitment to supporting the DRC in holding her “elections as per the constitution.”

    It said that the Envoy would meet with Congolese stakeholders to discuss next steps in the electoral process and the importance of respecting human rights during and after the elections.

    The statement also said that Perriello’s visit would culminate in Addis-Ababa, where he would join the U.S. delegation to the African Union Summit.

     

     

  • Midlife peace or midlife crisis

    Everyone who is not yet 40 should pray that they spend their midlife (above forty till early sixties) as healthy and contributing members of society.  In any society, the young (below forty years of age) are typically takers.  They need to be provided for, fed, accommodated, taught, trained, supported, inspired, motivated, directed, sponsored, etc.  On the contrary, mid-lifers are expected to be givers.  They have already got.  They are supposedly settled.  They have landed somewhere good for them and they are poised to be their best and give their best, or so society expects.  The elders are the people who spend more time relaxing and the rest of us pet them.  Thus one expects the good life to progress as: you take, you give, you relax.  Unfortunately, this kind of peace evades many individuals and many societies and mid-lifers too commonly pass through the well talked about mid-life crisis.

    A husband comes home one evening and says he is not returning to that job even if they quadruple his income;Mummy abandons the kids at home and disappears for days or forever;  a  guy buys a posh car with all the money he had been saving for the kids’ education;Daddy decides to sleep with his teenage daughter; a wife turns the family’s sitting room into a chapel;  a woman collects numerous phone numbers of doctors and lawyers; a couple has regular physical fights; an administrator embezzles an outrageous amount of money; a boss fires somebody over trifles; a careerist kills a rival – these are common examples indicating midlife mishaps within human beings.   The midlife crisis is a syndrome of physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual personal experiences.  There are underlying mechanisms of the midlife crisis: physical, mental, spiritual, environmental, and social mechanisms.  To know them helps the mid-lifer to undergo mid-life transition rather than midlife-crisis.

    Generally for both men and women, a crisis may center within one or more groups of life issues:

    • Looks, appearance, image, status, possessions…..
    • Job, livelihood, career, achievements, contributions…..
    • Health, capabilities, freedoms, powers……
    • Marriage, relationships, friendships, culture….
    • Beliefs, religion, hopes, fears, experiences…….

    The major driving force of a crisis may come from the ego or the emotions, and men may be more prone to forces of ego and women more prone to forces of emotions but none is immune to either.  The major remedy for any crisis may similarly be guided by the ego or the emotions.  A new and better life emerges when the head and the heart become the two polished sides of the precious coin of life.  Then there is a peaceful balance.

    A midlife crisis may be an individual experience or it may be a social experience.  A couple, a marriage, or an entire family including a mid-lifer may enter into a crisis.  If a mother walks away from her marriage or a father walks away from his job, a resultant crisis evolved in their children may become worse than their own personal crises.

    In order to arrive at a balance and peace, one has to deal with or peel off certain layers of a midlife crisis (peel off the P’s).  Chief of them are:

    • Perceptions: shock, confusion, doubt, anger, denial, remorse……obsessions, compulsions, risky behavior, rebellion……
      • Paralysis: boredom, indecision, unhappiness, cynicism, hopelessness, depression…..

      Change towards improvement is not always easy, quick, or strait forward.  Generally, people go through periods of ups and downs before arriving at a balance.

      Always, from a midlife crisis, a better or a worse person emerges, a richer or a poorer person emerges, a healthier or a sicker person emerges, a weaker or a stronger person emerges, a sane or a manic person emerges, a normal citizen or a criminal emerges, and a sinner or a saint emerges.

      Midlife is a necessary and normal stage in life.  Crisis is not necessary but it may be normal in today’s world and, if it comes, we can choose to aim for victory rather than succumb to defeat.

  • Averting crisis in health sector in 2016

    In his all-time classic, ‘The Art of war’, Sun Tzu narrated how a lord of ancient China once asked his physician, a member of a family healers, which of them was the most skilled in the art.

    The physician, whose reputation was such that his name became synonymous with medical science in China, replied, ‘My eldest brother sees the spirit of sickness and removes it before it takes shape. He cures sickness when it is still extremely minute. As for me, I puncture veins, prescribe potions, and massage skin when sickness has already settled in, and so, from time my name gets out and is heard among the lords. And so, by this, my eldest brother is the best.

    This ancient story is the premiere classic of the science of strategy in conflict as it teaches that the peak efficiency of knowledge and strategy is to make conflict altogether unnecessary. It shows that understanding a conflict as well as taking a rational, rather than an emotional approach to the problem of conflict can lead not only to its resolution, but even to its avoidance altogether. Pride, anger and greed are the fundamental causes of disharmony. Weapons of war are inauspicious instruments, not the tools of the enlightened. Winning without having to fight is the noblest.

    Everyone believes that there is an ‘incurable’ disease afflicting our health sector. It was earlier thought of as a teething problem. After it persisted for a while, we altered our perception of it as a perennial problem and right now, it has assumed the status of a terminal, and incurable disease. But we made it so!

    The pundits have said that in a year, an average Nigerian doctor in the public health sector spends six months working and the other six on strike, defying the Hippocratic oath (that some have re-christened Hypocrites’ oath) to which they swore an unconditional allegiance.

    Their colleagues and partner in the same art (pharmacists, nurses and other health workers) are not any better, following the same vicious pattern. At some point, they turned industrial action into a relay race, passing the baton of strike over to each other as they play games with human lives, which they all swore at induction into their various professions to protect first, no matter what (except at the cost of their personal safety). Hence, they forget their humanitarian calling!

    Some years ago, I was practicing as a pharmacist in University Teaching Hospital, Ado Ekiti when something gory happened. Health professionals were on strike as usual, in a bid to press home demands from the state government when a sick woman, (probably pregnant too) was rushed to the hospital. On getting to the gate, they were first told that a strike action was on-going. Even though we claimed to continue to render emergency care services, the news of the strike killed the little life left in that woman, so she died at the gate! How many more such cases have happened, how many more of our fellow country men and women we have condemned to untimely death all in a bid to gratify our lusts and massage our ego or just to ‘make a statement’ to the government?

    Cataloguing the unfortunate incidents of the past or sorrowing in it will be like an east wind that blows no man any good. It is time to sit up and fix it. I belief this is very possible. How do I know? Yes, some pessimists or stoics had once thought Nigeria’s case (the polity) is beyond redemption; that the politics of ‘anywhere belle face’ will continue to have it, till kingdom come, until the 2015 general elections that proved them all wrong.

    Successive governments have tried without success to heal the public health sector. They failed because they were only using Dane gun to hunt mother elephant or attempting to cure metastatic cancer with Chinese balm! They came up with cosmetic solutions which only lasted as long as cosmetics do. They tried to change the fruits without first working on the roots. Little wonder those quick fix solutions never worked, or seemed to work for a while before another bigger problem erupted.

    To overcome a challenge, we must first of all understand it. We must go back in time to the era of no challenge, see where the challenge came in and how. Why other nations don’t have the same challenges as we do and see how to apply (domesticate) their methods to our situation. Some may criticize this as a neo-colonialism, but we shouldn’t give a dog a bad name because we want to hang it. Such should recall that the books we used in both secondary and tertiary schools were also written by them and we use the principles set forth in those books in practice and get good results. These are not matters of morality, which we can derive from Holy Scriptures. They are evidence-based, scientifically proved principles and we must apply them to our own situation in management to achieve any success.

    Now, they say a fool is he that does the same thing and expects a different result. You cannot clean a plate with dirty hand. Unfortunately in Nigeria, we appoint people to positions as policy makers, permanent secretaries, ministers, etc without an in depth drilling and grilling. Appointments are usually based on good political standing and networks of influence and individual has; and we think we’re going somewhere? Never. It will take some miracle of sort for that to happen.

    In all policy making positions, and more so in multi-disciplinary positions like in health industry, a thorough evaluation of individual’s antecedents is needed before giving them sensitive and decisive responsibilities. Their history from primary school, secondary level and tertiary institution; their professional history, relationship with other colleagues in allied disciplines over their career span, antecedents in leadership at all levels interdisciplinary conviviality personal and professional philosophies must be looked at very closely.

    As long as we continue to appoint individuals with adversarial philosophies as policy makers in health ministry, and not those with ‘esprit de corps’, we can only brace up for more crises in the sector; as they will only fan the embers of discord and compound the sectoral woes. They will continue to hold secret meetings with a particular group of health professionals and instigate them against others and even the government! And we said we are going forward? Never! It does not work out that way.

    I partially agree with the philosophy that you don’t appoint a Nigerian referee as umpire in a game that involves Nigeria and another country because, as long as blood runs in his veins, he will be prejudiced towards his fatherland. So, in this wisdom, a neutral umpire is usually appointed. But while the administration of health ministry is not a game, so to say, as that will give it an adversarial outlook, individuals to serve in policy making positions MUST be able to act rationally rather than emotionally on issues. They must detach themselves emotionally from their primary constituencies (their own personal professional fields), and act for the general good of all and in the best interest of the nation. It is only an irrational mind that will oppose a rational stance (not decisions or actions motivated by personal and emotional prejudice) and such a one need not be taken seriously.

    This kind of mind-set and approach will help avert crises in health sector altogether.

    In his address to Americans at the height of great economic depression of 1983, Ronald Reagan came out bold as he declared that the government could not address the economic problem on ground because the government itself was the problem! Did you get it?

    So, when lay people comment ignorantly, like Senator Godswill Akpabio recently did on shortage of residency positions for doctors, I just laughed at the height of his ignorance on such issues. He did not ask the policy makers whether they follow the terms on length of Residency Training first. The six-year term spelt out in the rule of engagement for the programme is flagrantly flouted as some people have been residents for over 10 years and still counting! Tell me then where and how new doctors will come in when the old students refuse to graduate and the institutions do nothing?

    When we begin to do things right, then we begin to get it right and the earlier we begin, the better, for harmony and prosperity for all.

    • Pharm. Olalekan writes from Airport Road, Abuja
  • Kogi assembly crisis: Suspected thugs attack lawmakers

    Kogi assembly crisis: Suspected thugs attack lawmakers

    Four factional principal officers of the Kogi State house of assembly Wednesday escaped death by the whiskers as suspected thugs launched an attacked on them at the Reverton on Hotel, Lokoja, where they have been holed up since last week when they attempted to impeach the Speaker, Rt. Hon. Momoj Jimoh-Lawal.

    The suspected political thugs allegedly loyal to the embattled speaker stormed the hotel around 1pm with armed cutlasses and other dangerous weapons in search of the lawmakers suspected to have spearheaded the move to unseat Jimoh-Lawal as speaker.

    Addressing newsmen in Lokoja the factional speaker, Hon. Godwin Osiyi expressed shock at the attack on the members at Reverton Hotel.

    He explained that following the intervention of the state governor, Capt. Idris Wada who advised that they should take the part of peace, they decided to shift sitting to a later date.

    He pointed out that he and other members remain resolute and that they have been sleeping from one hotel to another for fear of attack.

    Osiyi stated that it was a shock when the younger brother of the embattled speaker led thugs numbering over 50 in a convoy of official vechicles to where they were, smashing three Prado Toyota jeeps and KIA Sportive SUV cars and carted away over N3 million.

    According to him, the cars belong to him, as the new speaker, the deputy speaker, Hon. John Abbah, the majority leader, Hon. Mathew Kolawole, and the minority leader, Hon. Idachaba Salifu Isah.

    The factional speaker said that their lives have been under threat since the speaker was impeached last Thursday, adding that no amount of intimidation can stop the group for carrying out their functions as members of the house.

    Reacting to the insinuations that his younger brother led thugs to attack other members of the house, Jimoh-Lawal stated that he was not aware of any such attack.

    He described the allegation as an attempt to give a dog a bad name, adding that mentioning his name was to tarnish his image and that he is from humble background.

    He noted that his brother is equally from a humble family and could not have led thugs to attack members of the house of assembly, stressing that after all they all met with the state governor, with view to find lasting solution to the crisis.

  • NARTO calls for to end fuel crisis

    The Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO) has called on the Federal Government and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to find lasting solutions to fuel scarcity.

    In a communiqué issued at the end of its 16th Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Abuja, on Monday, NARTO noted that fuel scarcity has continued to inflict increasing hardship on Nigerians.

    In the communiqué signed by its National President, Alhaji (Dr) Kassim Ibrahim Bataiya, NARTO also said the masses had been forced to spend so much on commercial transport due to the sudden hike in transport fares due to the scarcity.

    As a way out of the problem, NARTO called on the NNPC and one of its subsidiaries, the Pipeline and Products Marketing Company (PPMC), to ensure the speedy repair of pipelines across the country for easy lifting of petroleum products to the nook and crannies of the nation.

    NARTO also urged the Federal Government to put in motion necessary machineries that will ensure that refineries resumed production to enhance local refining to solve the problem associated with importation of refined products, including the subsidy issue.

     

  • Crisis looms in Lagos NURTW over election

    As fresh crisis seemingly looms in Lagos chapter of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), the Treasurer and Oshodi branch chairman of the union, Alhaji Musiliu Akinsanya (aka MC Oluomo), has called on members not to foment trouble. He said anything contrary to peace would affect the unity of the union.

    In the circumstances, he has appealed to the Lagos State Governor, Mr. Akinwumi Ambode and other stakeholders to quickly call Alhaji Agbede to order to avert unnecessary.

    The crisis results from the re- election of Alhaji Tajudeen Agbede as its chairman, a situation which supporters of MC Oluomo insisted did not follow due process.

    According to them, the election, which was officially scheduled to hold on October 19, this year at Excellence Hotel in Ogba area of Lagos State at 10:00 a.m., was allegedly manipulated by Agbede. They alleged the election held at 6:00 a.m., instead of 10:00 a.m. as earlier scheduled.

    Comrade Saula Yusuf, a branch Chairman of Motorcycle Operators’ Association of Lagos State (MOALS) in Igando, who confirmed the incident, also complained that loyalists to MC Oluomo, including himself, were illegally removed as branch chairmen, warning that state might witness severe crisis if the illegal activities of Alhaji Agbede and his loyalists were not checked.

    While appealing to members of the union to keep the peace in the face of alleged provocation, Alhaji Akinsanya assured that everything would be done to ensure that due process was followed to elect a legitimate state executive in a peaceful process devoid of imposition.