The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Dangers

  • Ndoma-Egba lists dangers of high turnover in parliament

    Ndoma-Egba lists dangers of high turnover in parliament

    Ahead of next year’s elections, Senate Leader Victor Ndoma-Egba has said the country should be mindful of the massive disservice inherent in high turnover of members of the legislature.

    The senator, who addressed reporters yesterday in Abuja, denied complicity in the alleged attack on a House of Representatives member John Eno.

    The Cross River Central senator said it was regrettable that only two senators survived from 1999 till date while the Senate lost 107 senators without anybody thinking of the implications to parliamentary institution.

    The country, he said, should be wary of the massive haemorrhage and erosion of institutionalisation caused by continuous high turnover in parliament.

    Ndoma-Egba noted that unlike the legislature, elaborate bureaucracy services the Executive and the Judiciary.

    The senator said what constitutes the institutional memory of a parliament is the aggregate memory of its members.

    According to him, in the United States, if about four or seven senators lose their positions during an election year, it is considered an upheaval.

    He said in Nigeria, 30 senators hardly return to their positions in an election year.

    Asked why he wanted to return to the Senate in 2015, Ndoma-Egba said: “First of all, the Nigerian constitution provides for tenure and age limit for the Executive to qualify for certain offices. In the Judiciary, you must practise for a certain number of years before you can be eligible for appointment. And there is a retirement age there.

    “In the legislature, the provision is for an entry age; it has no tenure limit. It has no retirement age too.

  • Shell warns on dangers of building on gas pipelines

    Shell Nigeria Gas (SNG) has drawn the attention of members of the public to the dangers of building on gas pipelines.

    A statement by Shell’s Corporate Media Relations Manager, Precious Okolobo, said SNG stressed the dangers of encroaching on the pathway (right-of-way) of gas pipelines during a campaign on the issue in its business areas in Ogun, Rivers and Abia states.

    The company said the exercise has already been held in Ogun State, with SNG and its Right-of-Way campaign partner, the African Foundation for Environment and Development, sensitising communities in Ijoko, Itokin and Ota in Ado Odo-Ota Local Government Area, on the dangers of vandalising pipelines, bush-burning, and construction of structures on and around gas pipelines.

    “The campaign goes beyond our business interests,” pointed out SNG Managing Director, Toyin Adenuga. “It is rather more about safety of lives and property. People who build on gas pipelines risk losing everything including their lives and things they’ve worked hard for. The campaign is to make them to realise that the risk is not worth it.”

    He said SNG would continue to engage the communities as partners to promote the company’s safety culture and respect for the environment. The campaign will be taken to Port Harcourt and Aba where gas pipeline Right-of-Way surveillance contractors will dedicate one day to walk through SNG pipeline routes distributing flyers and other enlightenment materials.

    SNG is a wholly Shell-owned gas distribution company which began operations in 1998. The company distributes gas to industrial consumers in Ogun, Rivers and Abia states.

     

  • The dangers of another intifada

    The dangers of another intifada

    –Israelis and Palestinians need to show restraint

    Over the past three weeks tensions between Israel and the Palestinians have erupted into violence in the West Bank and Gaza. It is too soon to say whether the clashes will spiral into the intifadas that erupted in the occupied territories after 1987 and 2000. But these tensions should prompt reflection on how to restore calm and, if possible, return both sides to talks on a two-state solution.

    The violence has been triggered by the murder last month of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank. Although Israel has accused the militant group Hamas of the killings, it has not claimed responsibility. One week ago, a Palestinian teenager was found dead in a forest in East Jerusalem in what was widely judged a revenge attack. Six Jewish suspects have been arrested by Israeli police. The focus of the tension has since shifted to Gaza where Palestinian militants have launched rocket attacks into southern Israel. The Israeli military has responded by launching an air and sea offensive against rocket sites.

    The hope must be that Israeli and Palestinian leaders – and their communities – show restraint. The great risk in this crisis is that a single incident brings mass casualties, making it impossible for both sides to hold back any longer. But Israeli and Palestinian leaders must also begin talking to one another again after the collapse in April of talks on a two-state solution. The absence of dialogue makes it all the more likely that the current clashes will erupt into something more serious.

    Last year John Kerry, US secretary of state, began a fresh attempt to forge a two-state solution, setting a nine-month deadline to achieve a deal that had eluded negotiators for decades. At first Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Authority president, looked like they might try to forge an agreement.

    But disillusionment soon spread. The Palestinians were angered by the relentless pace of Israeli settlement building in the occupied territories and by Mr Netanyahu’s insistence that a final agreement must see Israel retaining a long-term military presence in the Jordan valley. Mr Netanyahu, for his part, pulled the plug on the talks after Mr Abbas formed a unity government, joining his Fatah movement with Hamas, which Israel regards as a terrorist organisation.

    The breakdown of the negotiations has much to do with the total lack of trust between the two sides. Part of the blame lies with Mr Abbas. Israel and the US have objected to the way the Palestinians have attempted to gain recognition of statehood outside of the negotiations by going to the UN and applying to join international conventions.

    But Mr Netanyahu also needs to face up to his responsibilities. Israel’s determination to expand settlements in the West Bank was a humiliation for Mr Abbas and condemned as a land grab even as talks were continuing. Mr Netanyahu’s rejection of the Fatah-Hamas unity government was also a missed opportunity. Mr Abbas had pledged that the new government, despite the inclusion of Hamas, would follow his own commitment to non-violence and peaceful negotiation. The unity government was accepted by the US and EU, which recognised its enhanced legitimacy.

    Mr Netanyahu appears to believe that Israel’s powerful security grip on the West Bank can allow him to stall negotiations endlessly on a two-state solution. But this is not in Israel’s long-term interest. Israel declares itself to be a Jewish state and a democracy. But its founding principles will be imperilled the longer it remains in control of 2.5m Palestinian Arabs on the West Bank who have few civil rights and live under a system of military justice. Israel needs to recognise that the status quo is unsustainable.

    – Financial Times

     

  • Dangers of ASUU strike, by ex-NUC boss

    Dangers of ASUU strike, by ex-NUC boss

    Former Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC) Prof. Peter Okebukola yesterday listed the dangers of the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to the university system.

    Okebukola, in a telephone interview with our correspondent, said the strike could affect the quality of graduates from the universities, because the time lost due to strike cannot be gained after the strike.

    He said strikes usually force lecturers to condense curriculla and rush students to examinations thereafter.

    This situation, Okebukola warned, is a recipe for half-baked products.

    The former NUC boss said strike erodes public image of universities.

    His words: “Locally, the public is unimpressed with the universities on account of the frequency of strikes.

    “Globally, there is the usual sneer when Nigerian universities are mentioned and a quick link with unstable academic calendar due to frequent strikes.

    “This image robs graduates of our tertiary institutions of international esteem even when their worth has not been proven through employment.

    “Additionally, top-rate universities that are desirous of staff and student exchange will elect to partner with universities with stable academic calendar in other parts of Africa.”

    Many potential students, Okebukola said, prefer universities in neighbouring African countries, including Ghana, Benin and Togo, not because of superiority of academic programmes but stability of their academic calendar.

    The ex-NUC boss said these countries earn huge revenue from Nigerian students attending their universities.

    He said when the university shuts down due to strikes, “staff are paid, even if it is several months after, but they end up being paid”.

    He said: “The university runs and pays for services, such as power and water as well as running and maintenance of vehicles.

    “An estimate of this internal and external loss to the Nigerian public university system for one month of total strike involving all the unions is in the neighbourhood of N38.2 billion.”

    He also listed the psychological effect of strike on students who have to stay idle at home, lamenting their woes and causing irritation to parents.

    The ex-NUC boss said idle students engage in social vices, including joining bad gangs and take part in internet fraud, adding “not a few cases of pregnancy of young undergraduates during the period of strike have been reported”.

    He added: “It would appear that the major gains of the Nigerian university system in terms of improved conditions of service for staff and improvement in the physical conditions for teaching, learning and research have been attained as “dividends of strikes”.

    “In my case, for example, the exponential jump of my salary as a professor from N13,500 in 1996 to N520,000 in 2013 is attributable to nothing else but pressure on government brought about by series of ASUU strikes.

    “There is no university system in the world that has no strike history. However, ours in Nigeria is in the extreme with strikes lingering for months.

    “In North America, Europe and Asia where the top-ranked universities reside, strikes last for a few hours or maximum one day.

    “The unions in Nigerian universities should be entreated to explore dialogue to the fullest before calling out their members on strike. Government, also, should not enter into agreements it knows it cannot honour

    Okebukola appealed to ASUU to call off the strike and give the Governor Gabriel Suswam-led National Economic Empowerment Development Strategy Assessment Implementation Committee time to ensure a speedy resolution of the funding element of the dispute.

    On the insistence of ASUU on full implementation of its agreement with government he said: “An agreement is an agreement. The union is doing the right thing to insist on its full implementation since it was duly signed by both parties.

    “However, the missing element is in government not being proactive enough keep the union in the communication loop when certain provisions in the agreement cannot be met within the timeline specified.

    “Perhaps, government did and the public is unaware. This is why it is expedient for all parties to lay their cards face up for Nigerians to see so that when strikes are called, we can take informed positions.”

    “The ASUU mass communication machinery is clearly more oiled than that of government.

    “We should realise that the 2009 agreement will not be the last that ASUU will propose.

    “It is typically a 3-5 year cycle and we must learn at least three lessons from the past as we prepare for a possible 2013 or 2014 agreement.”