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Tag: Dickson Akoh

  • Peace Corps appeals to Buhari to reconsider assent to bill

    Peace Corps appeals to Buhari to reconsider assent to bill

    The Peace Corps of Nigeria ( PCN ) on Friday appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to reconsider his decision of not assenting to the Peace Corps Bill passed by the National Assembly.

    The National Commandant, PCN, Mr Dickson Akoh, made the call at the Board of Trustees and National Executive Committee meeting in Abuja.

    “We want the President to assent to the bill, if not for any reason, but for the social and productive engagement of our teeming youths in line with his campaign promises.

    “The President’s withholding his assent to our bill notwithstanding, we will continue to have esteem confidence in Mr President’s leadership,’’ he said.

    Akoh said the bill was meant to give statutory backing to the organisation, with the core mandate of empowering the youths, facilitating peace, volunteerism and community service.

    He noted that the Nigerian Peace Corps Establishment Bill 2017 was not rejected by the president for its weakness but for the conceived pretexts.

    “In every ideal democracy and advance society, government should seek to explore all avenues to empower and socially engage the youth in order to reduce the social consequences of their idleness.

    “It is therefore, towards this aim that I wish to restate for the umpteenth time that similar organisations like the Peace Corps exist in several other countries of the world including the America, Canada, Bangladesh and so on,” Akoh said.

    The commandant said the function of the Nigerian Peace Corps as captured in the bill do not in any way conflict with the function of any existing security agency.

    “There was never a time in the history of our country that the need for peace has become fiercely urgent like now.

    “The role of the Peace Corps is clearly distinct from the conventional security and para-military organisations hence its placement under the Ministry of Sports and Youth Development.

    “The powers conferred on the Nigerian Peace Corps in the bill do not also involve arms bearing, investigation, detention and persecution,’’ he said.

    Akoh explained that one of the principal objectives of the corps was the deployment to schools and colleges to promote peace sniff and sieve intelligence, saying this could had prevented the abduction of the Dapchi school girls in Yobe.

    NAN

  • Dalung inaugurates 33-man NYCN committee

    Dalung inaugurates 33-man NYCN committee

    The Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Mr Solomon Dalung, has inaugurated a 33-man National Transition Committee of the National Youth Council of Nigeria ( NYCN ).

    Dalung, who inauguratwd the committee in Abuja, said the committee should come up with modalities and action plan that would target the realisation of a successful elective congress within six months.

    Dalung charged the committee to find lasting solutions to the crisis bedevilling the council, urging them to use the opportunity to harvest new executives with wealth of experience.

    “You will agree with me that the NYCN leadership crisis was an ill wind that blows nobody any good. We are all losers and victims of the Council’s power tussle.

    “The Nigerian youths has lost so much as crisis deprived them of quality representation nationally and internationally.”

    Read also: How Sports Minister Dalung spurred Eagles to victory

    The Minister noted that committee members would be culminated in an elective congress which would usher in a new leadership for the Youth Council, adding that the committee was a true reflection of interest groups , zones and was gender sensitive.

    The Minister, however, warned all the members of the council against cresting the NYCN logo on their vehicles,  stressing that anyone found guilty of this would be sanctioned.

    He also directed youths above 35 years should only serve at the National Advisory Council level of the NYCN, stressing that henceforth, the council’s leadership will be within the age range of 33 to 35 years.

    He  called on youths to work hard with the interest of the nation at heart, while advising them to not let themselves be deceived by over ambitious politicians who do not mean well for the country.

    Earlier, the Chairman, Board of Trustees of the NYCN Mr Dickson Akoh, appealed to members seeking elective positions, who have been barred constitutionally from contesting due to the age limit enshrined in the constitution, to comply so as to enable the council move forward.

    He also charged the newly inaugurated committee members to be committed in delivering on the mandate given to them, and hoped to  inaugurate a substantive executive members of the council in the shortest period.

    NAN

  • Peace Corps asks court to hold IGP for contempt

    Peace Corps asks court to hold IGP for contempt

    The Peace Corps of Nigeria wants the Federal High Court, Abuja, to commit the Inspector-General of Police, Mr Ibrahim Idris to prison for alleged disregard of court orders.

    The corps in Form 48 on Contempt of Court filed on Wednesday prayed the court to jail Idris to serve as deterrent to others in position of authority.

    The contempt charge against the IGP was premised on the alleged refusal of the police to vacate the headquarters of the organisation which it sealed on Feb. 28, during its official commissioning.

    The suit was predicated on a judgment in a fundamental human rights suit delivered by Justice Gabriel Kolawole on Nov. 9.

    Kolawale in the judgment, ordered the police to unseal the corporate head office of the corps in Abuja.

    He also ordered the police to pay the corps N12 million as damages for infringing on its rights to own property and for freedom of movement.

    Read also: Peace Corps: Why AGF should compel police to obey court order

    The suit was instituted by the National Commandant of the Corps, Mr Dickson Akoh and 49 others.

    Speaking to newsmen, Akoh said that his organisation had been pushed to the wall to institute the contempt charge against the police boss.

    “The organisation has secured seven different judgments from different courts, all barring the police from arresting detaining, harassing or intimidating our officers in the course of their lawful duties,’’ he said.

    Akoh said that his officers would not take laws into their hands but would continue to approach the court for intervention.

    NAN

  • Police has no right to seal any organization, says PCN boss

    Police has no right to seal any organization, says PCN boss

    The National Commandant, Peace Corps of Nigeria ( PCN ), Amb. Dickson Akoh has said only the court of law has the power to seal any organization and not the police force.

    Akoh described the sealing of the national headquarters of the PCN by the police as injustice.

    He spoke in Abuja while delivering a lecture on creating the new Nigeria through strategic empowerment, at the first anniversary of Shagmus Nigeria Integrated Service limited.

    Akoh lamented that the police sealed the PCN office out of mere allegations adding that the organization is waiting for the court to give judgment soon.

    He said since Nigeria got independence in 1960, the quality of leadership appears to be deteriorating in virtually all spheres of our national life.

    The PCN boss said corruption remains the major problem of Nigeria.

    His words: “As law abiding citizens you know we do not have weapon to fight and we cannot act like thugs and go to the street for protest. We will always seek justice from the judiciary. We have approached the court argument has been made and I do know that adoption has also been made.

    “We are waiting the court to give us a date for judgment to be delivered. We believe that justice will be done and it is our own office we never stole that property. We rented it with our hard earn resources. And I never imagine that on a mere allegation an organization office could be sealed up. The same people that sealed our office are today are making efforts to defend themselves over allegations.

    “It amount to injustice to just seal an office of an organization, it is the court that has the power to seal an office and not an individual initiative. We believe that one day sooner than later justice will be done and we will have the power to return to our office.

    “In creating a New Nigeria through strategic empowerment, we must spare a thought for leadership challenge. If Nigeria of our collective dream is to be realized, then leadership has crucial role to play. Leadership, it must be stressed, is the capacity of someone to lead a group, organization etc. It also means responsibility- having passion for the purpose and the mission of the organization or society one leads.

    Since Nigerian got independence in 1960, the quality of leadership appears to be deteriorating in virtually all spheres of our national life. Several reform programs had been undertaken before the introduction of NEEDS, but the sad aspect of the saga is that society lacks political leadership committed to implementing them.

    It has been established beyond all reasonable doubt that before the advent of the incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari administration, virtually all other Nigerian leaders have been long on preachments, but miserably short in implementation. They are all good in prescribing solutions to the nation’s numerous economic problems, but deficient in providing institutional framework to make it grow.

    “The point must be stressed and even orchestrated that no matter the potency of our desire to achieve this common goal, without the concerted efforts by all stakeholders, especially the Government in the provision of basic infrastructure, including water, electricity, education, transportation and health facilities, our collective dreams cannot be achieved. You will all agree with me that, in spite of the increased economic fortune as a result of crude oil prices in the international market before the sudden drop in oil price, Nigeria is still grouped among the poorest countries in Sub-Sahara Africa, with a very high poverty level with collapsed infrastructures (UNDP, 2009).

    “Though, the neo-liberal oriented reforms represent the government’s robust and bold attempt to reposition the Nigerian economy. The reforms can only be functional when the State fulfills its stakeholder role within the premise of a free market economy. The major obstacles to improving opportunities and capabilities of the poor and reducing their vulnerabilities contained in the reforms remain at the level of Nigeria’s leadership where the political will and ethical considerations seem to be lacking. Going by the reform critique, the reforms substantially benefited only the political class, big business enterprises, rent seekers and a few local small and medium scale entrepreneurs.

    “Nigeria must have focused leadership and stronger State institutions for reforms to significantly reduce poverty and stimulate economic progress. Corruption, poor state of basic infrastructure and weak institutions remains the major deterrents to investment, sustainable growth and improved social welfare.”

  • Martial mania

    How many regimental formations does a country need to kit up for peace and security? This question rankles, as Nigeria seems hooked with the jackboot syndrome.

    The Senate, last week, gave its definitive nod to a bill formulated to brew the Nigerian Peace Corps into a government para-military agency. The corps had operated as a voluntary civil outfit since 1998 and was registered as a non-governmental organisation in 2005, according to its promoters. But now it is being provided statutory muscle to function as a quasi-military squad.

    Last week’s affirmation by the Senate wasn’t its first tryst with the enabling bill. The red chamber had in November, last year, passed the Peace Corps bill sponsored by former Senate Leader Ali Ndume (APC, Borno), but eased up last May on account of members’ beef with a version harmonised with the House of Representatives’, which had passed the bill in June, last year.

    Going by the enabling bill, the agency aims to facilitate peace volunteerism, community service, neighbourhood watch and nation building among others. It also seeks to train youths to promote peace, conflict mediation and resolution among warring groups. A report by the Senate Committee on Interior last year indicated the head of the corps would be known by the martial title of Commandant-General, to be supported by six Deputy Commandants appointed from the six geopolitical zones of the country. And even ahead of its impending statutory mutation, the corps’ personnel have adopted beige khaki gear and beret to show up its jackboot disposition.

    In giving legislative stamp to the Peace Corps bill last week, the Senate touted its potential to empower the youth and provide them with gainful employment. And that ordinarily recommends the desired statutory backing for the corps – just like any other agency with the same potential. The catch is that the legislative exertion dating back to the Representatives’ vote was loudly mute on how the bills of the corps’ operations would be picked. Also, the ‘distinguished’ and ‘honourable’ members of NASS omitted to explain why the agency’s employment potential could be maximised only by its paramilitary orientation.

    Besides, if there was one outfit with enormous dose of controversy in its background, this particular corps was it. Ignore the legislative tack whereby the Senate plenary waved aside apparent wise counsel by one of its committees – namely that the major objective of the Peace Corps bill to provide youths with employment could as well be achieved by strengthening existing agencies – to deliver last week’s endorsement; to say the modus operandi of the corps over the years was highly contentious could severely understate existing records.

    Recall for instance that the Police on repeated occasions faced off with the corps over its operations. In February, this year, it slammed the lid on a training camp run by the corps in Offa council area (Kwara State) that it dubbed illegal. The camp was conducting paramilitary training for some 5,000 persons, which the Police claimed it had no notification of. And though the corps disputed that claim, you could ask what the paramilitary rigour was all about when the law yet deems it a civil outfit. And in March, the Police – quite crudely – sequestered the Peace Corps National Commandant, Dickson Akoh, along with 48 members of his group on charges of fleecing youths seeking enlistment with the squad.

    The Police also had issues with the corps’ procedure for recruiting members to its ranks. Speaking at a training event for senior police personnel in March, Police Inspector-General Ibrahim Idris red flagged this procedure, saying: “Nigeria is not a lawless country. You can’t just wake up overnight and establish a security organisation, there are processes…We have so many challenges in this country and we don’t want people of questionable character to enter our security services and constitute a threat to the security of this country. And that is what the peace corps is doing. You don’t just go on the streets and be picking people by the virtue of the fact that they gave you money.”

    Following the arrest and detention of Akoh and company in March, the Federal Attorney-General and the Department of State Security (DSS) pitched in with the Police to argue in court that the corps was legally registered but was engaged in illicit operations. Akoh, for his part, filed a counter-suit seeking compensation from the Police and some other government organs for alleged illegal detention.

    It is uncertain whether those litigations have run their full courses in the courts. But if you wanted some morally soothing narrative for the Senate’s approval of the Peace Corps bill, what you would get was a report by its committee articulating Akoh’s thesis that his squad ran into storm with security agencies because the Presidency extended it a formal invitation to attend the last Armed Forces Remembrance Day. As for the N40,000 apiece said to have been appropriated from applicants, Akoh reportedly explained the money was for provision of uniforms, medical care and one-month accommodation for the duration of training, training manual, honorarium for guest speakers, certificate of training as well as Identity card for enlisters.

    While it is a toss the President would give assent to the Peace Corps bill, considering reservations expressed by security and judicial lynchpins of the Executive arm, legislative support for the agency’s paramilitary mutation is so strong that House of Representatives Speaker Yakubu Dogara once hinted the Legislature could override a presidential veto. He also argued the Police and other security agencies were acting as they did with the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) before its adoption by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration. “That was the same argument when the Civil Defence Bill was before the House – that it could not be funded, that they were divulging some of the powers of the Police to the Civil Defence, that it would never work. At the end of the day, all these were surmounted and now we have the Civil Defence that, in some cases, citizens have said they are more dependable than the conventional police,” he was reported saying.

    There is no clear indication, as far as I see, that NASS did thorough due diligence on stated concerns over personnel integrity of the peace corps and its funding modality – even with its leader having acknowledged that money was raised from applicants for whatever compelling reasons. Worse is: there is no convincing explanation why this corps must be paramilitary, with the martial implications for the polity. Other than the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) that is tenured for one year and is constantly replenished, there is no paramilitary agency in Nigeria today that is not bearing arms or seeking to do so, even though they started out as non-arms bearing formations. The Civil Defence that Dogara cited and the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) are ready cases in point.

    With its brazen martial zeal even ahead of the law enabling its mutation, the peace corps is an enforcer squad waiting to be unleashed.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Why Police arrested Peace Corps leader, 49 others

    Why Police arrested Peace Corps leader, 49 others

    The Police have explained why the leader of Peace Corp Nigeria, Dickson Akoh and 49 others were arrested.

    Members of the Corps were arrested in Abuja on Tuesday at their head office by personnel of the Police, Military and Department of State Service (DSS).

    The police alleged that those arrested are operating an illegal security outfit.

    The Police also said the arrest was an attempt to halt and rid the country of illegal and unlawful security outfits constituting national security threat and threat to the protection of life and property of Nigerians across the country.

    The police also disclosed that the flag of the Corp is in semblance with the flag of Gambia adding that its beret was for officers on United Nation’s mission.

    Recorded from the operation were recruitment forms,

    Briefing reporters in Abuja on Wednesday during a joint press briefing and parade of arrested PCN members, the Force Spokesperson, CSP Jimoh Moshood said intelligence report revealed that the Corp has started acquiring weapons and conducting convert military training in different locations across the country.

    Explaining why the arrest was made, Moshood said: “the operation was done to halt and rid the country of illegal security outfits constituting national security threats to the protection of life and property of Nigerians across the country.

    “It is evident that in 2013, Federal Republic of Nigeria official Gazette dissolved and prescribed illegal security outfits such as Nigerian Maritime Security Agency (NMSA), Nigerian Merchant Navy Corps and the Nigerian Merchant Navy Petroleum Security and Safety, Peace Corps of Nigeria and other quasi-illegal security outfits.

    The police said it observed that some of the outfits are still operating outside their mandates and purposes which they were registered by the CAC.

    According to Moshood: “The PCN under the leadership of Akoh was registered as an NGO but with brazen impunity, total disregard to the laws of Nigeria, opened illegal training camps in some States of the country, where thousands of youths and other persons without a proper background check and screening are receiving converts military training.

    “It is consequent upon a veracity of intelligence reports from reliable sources, indicating that subversive groups and terrorists affiliates have infiltrated the Peace Corp secretly to ruin and destroy the existing peace currently being enjoyed in the country that the PCN secret training camps were closed down in Abuja, Kwara and Niger States.”

    He also said that investigation revealed that personnel of the Corp are extorting money from unwary youths throughout the country.

    “Under the guise of recruitment, amounts ranging from N50,000 to hundreds of thousands are being paid by innocent Nigerians to the Corp. Once you pay the money, you are automatically recruited.

    The police have asked those who paid money under any pretence to the Corp to report their case at the nearest Police Station across the country.

    He further said: “The Corp has unlawfully turned itself into a security outfit without authorization and establishment by the Federal Government of Nigeria, as such deviated from the purposes for which they were registered as NGO by the CAC.

    “The Corp has no legal right to wear a uniform, parade itself as Security outfit, post their personnel on guard duties, and use ranking, insignia, badges of rank which are semblance of that of the Police, Military and other paramilitary organisations without the approval of Federal Government of Nigeria”, he added.

    The police also revealed that halting of illegal Security outfits will be done across the country.

    The Force, however, urged parents to prevail on their wards to return home from illegal military camps opened in some State.

    On the flag of the Corp and the beret used, he said: “the flag is a semblance of the Gambian flag and the beret is a semblance of the United Nation’s mission across the world.

    “Before using this, the federal government must approve it which is not the case here and that constitutes a National embarrassment to the nation. What is available to us that the Corp has not been registered as a security outfit.

    On whether the police was not questioning the authority of the National Assembly, he said: “We are not in contrast with any authority. What we know is that security outfits are established and approved by the federal government of Nigeria and in this case, that has not being done.

    On his part, the leader of the Corp, Akoh explained that the money collected was for the kits for members of the Corp.

    According to him: “It is shameful that we have teething security challenges and you are showing our uniform as an exhibit. The constitution of the Corp approved by CAC properly vetted by the security before we were registered in 1998.

    “There is national youth development policy that spells out youth organisation to operate and we have over 47 uniform youth organisation.

    “We have been operating within our scope and we are out to reorientate the youth. No matter the character of youths, when they are taught national ethics and discipline, they change. The youths need a platform to change and that is what we do.

    “The money paid is for their uniform, kits, accommodation because we pay for the venue. It is voluntary and not compulsory. We have ICPC’s clearance for that money. EFCC is investigating this matter and they discovered that we never forced anybody”.

    He accused the police of instigating the youths against the Corp.