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  • How to end insurgency, by Uranta

    How to end insurgency, by Uranta

    Member of the defunct Presidential Advisory Committee on the National Conference Tony Uranta spoke with MUSA ODOSHIMOKHE in Lagos on national security and how Nigeria can end insurgency.

    HoW can Nigeria tackle insurgency?

    An insurgency or an insurgent is a man who takes up arms to prove a point within a state, staying within a state, through his being discontent. You could now say that the Niger Delta situation could aptly be termed an insurgency. The Boko Haram are not insurgents. They are terrorists, terrorists who are part of a global terrorism circle that is being controlled as well by ISIL, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. You will notice that Boko Haram, just as Al-Shabab, Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, all fly the same flag. They all talk about the Islamic caliphate. An insurgency is not foreign controlled. But far beyond that, an insurgency does not try to obtain land. Boko Haram, ISIL, Al-Shabab’s intention right now, is to take over space, territories, and declare those territories, non-border Islamic Caliphate.

    The only border that keeps them all in their contiguous state is there ideology. Their ideology that says for example that, slavery is proper, the enslavement of women. ISIL has come out to make a very categorical statement about that. Our Shekaus (we’ve had Shekau one, two three, maybe there is the fourth now).  Shekaus have at different times asked why we (Nigerians) are asking for our girls back (Chibok Girls)? They said they have sold them to slavery because Allah allows them to sell them into slavery. This is to emphasize the fact that there is a totally new global phenomenon at play. And nowhere else in the world is that phenomenon called insurgency. Nigerians are very good at repeating like parrots.

    So, the moment a new word comes up, everybody says it, they say we have ‘insurgency.’ What we have is not insurgency. It is simply a mass murderous invasion of our space, by local and foreign terrorists, with intent on capturing territories, intent on massacring and depleting population that they believe is not in any way related to their belief.

    You see, The Sultan of Sokoto, very correctly said in his last statement, that the war must now be intensified. I wish he had said that a year or two years ago, when more Christians were been killed. In that statement, he said it’s because more Muslims are been killed now. This is not a war between Islam and the rest of the world or the rest of Nigeria. It is a war between certain radical fundamentalist that have Islam as their basis, and other parts of Nigeria. Therefore, like you see in Iran, Sunnis are killing Shiites in Iran; Shiites are killing Sunnis in Syria.

    The common derivative is that they are all fundamentalist who are committed to killing. Having established that, there is no insurgency ongoing in Nigeria. I will like that fact to be drummed into people’s ears, hearts and brains. It is your mindset that prepares you for what you are facing. You have to know your enemy. If you think your enemy is an insurgent, then your military is already incapacitated. That will make you believe that what President Goodluck Jonathan said in the beginning when he too was been misled  into thinking that what we have was an insurgency and that we cannot go and start killing our brothers. For me, no member of Boko Haram is my brother. Some Christian people came to my birthday reception a few days ago; they said love your brother. That is Okay but I repeat that no Boko Haram person is my brother. Nobody that will put a baby down and stamp on the baby’s head can be my brother. Nobody that will slaughter babies and children can be my brother.

    So, I will; not love that person or people as I love myself. I will resist the person because the person is a devil and is from the devil. That is the way each of us must see Boko Haram. There is no insurgency in Nigeria rather there is mass murderous terrorism.

    But how come the terrorists are still making inroads despite government’s commitment to stop the mess?

    That is a very good question and that means how come they haven’t been stopped by the military? First of all, let’s go into the issue of bombings. There is nowhere in the world where borders are porous especially as ours are, that you can control the influx of strangers. Some may be law abiding, but most will have criminal intents, because you need to have an attitude of law breaking before you start going into another country illegally. How are you going to control these people? Secondly, how are you going to discriminate or perceive that this woman in Hijab is not carrying a bomb? You cannot approach a woman in Hijab. You can’t stop her. And people should not make the mistake to think that these women are voluntarily suicide bombers.

    Most of the bombings that have taken place, I can tell you, may have been carried out by drugged women. They don’t hold the detonators. The detonators are held by God-knows whoever their controllers are, who have threatened, coerced and brainwashed them into having it strapped on them, then forced to go to the designated place, and the moment they get there they now detonate remotely. This explains why the young girl who got to the door of the school and hesitated standing there weeping, did not move into the Assembly, but her controller, most probably, had estimated that by that time, she is already in the middle of the crowd, so he detonated the bomb. So it was only that young man who went to ask her “mai ne ne” (what is wrong), that was killed with her. Bombings, especially suicide bombing is not a Nigerian characteristic. But, whether Nigerian or foreign, even in the most advanced clime, it is so difficult for you to control asymmetric war, war of unconventional means.

    It was easy to target the Niger Delta militants because they have camps. You know where they are, and you can get your satellite to monitor them.  But for our satellite could you say it’s very efficient? Naturally could we say they are even our satellite in the real sense?

    Our military has been badly armed in the last few years.  Under the last presidents, even going back into the military regime, they very much under equipped our military. Soldiers don’t have modern weapons, don’t have latest training, and don’t understand a lot of things. It was on this basis that Nigeria was tongue lashed in Congress, tongue lashed in the British House of Commons.  British has come in, how many months now, America has come in, why have they not found the girls? Why have all the countries that trooped to Nigeria for assistance suddenly become silent?

    Can we say there is a conspiracy?

    I don’t know. I am beginning to think, as friendly as I am to the Americans; I am beginning to suspect America. America has a very notorious record of arming two sides of a conflict. Nicaragua is very fresh in our mind. In fact, America armed Vietnam to some extent against its own self.  I have record about this, and I will love the American Ambassador or anybody to sit down with me on TV, and I will bring out the record and let them dispute it. I will not be surprised if it is not part of a grand conspiracy to help destabilize or make sure Nigeria fails. Don’t forget that their prediction is around the corner – 2015, they said we will fail. America loves to be seen as intelligent. They hate for you to show them as not having facts. They do not have the facts about our break up.

    We won’t break up. But they will do all they can to see us break up, including saying to us, we will not arm you. If I am the Nigerian President, I will send the American Ambassador out of Nigeria. For them to have the temerity to say to us that for human rights abuses, they will not arm the Nigerian military which is facing a horde of not just human rights abusers, a horde of killers, a horde of beasts that are massacring hundreds of thousands of people in the villages, and they have been doing it consistently and America is turning blind eye.

    America does not consider it there right or duty to help us because, just wait when that horde will start picking up American citizens and beheading them the way they are beheading Nigerians you will see the same America mounting global condemnation. At that time you will hear America carrying out airstrikes! That level of hypocrisy must not be tolerated and cannot be tolerated by Nigerians. I don’t care if the Nigerian government reacts or doesn’t react.

  • The end of an era

    The end of an era

    The truth of the matter according to a very good senior friend of mine in person of Mr.TadeAzeez   is that no one can give what he does not have we have come to the conclusion of an Era in the administration of the Senior National Team of Nigeria and I must say that there is lot to talk about during the just concluded era. Let me quickly remind my readers that the era of Coach Stephen OkechukwuKeshi was full of lots of memories.

    It was this coach that returned the lost glory of the Super Eagles after 19 years as African champions and he also qualified the team to the World Cup without much trouble. He also made sure that the Nigeria League players are introduced to the National Team and thus boosting the morale of our league players and creating competition among the teams.

    The journey of the Senior National team was further called to question when we began the AFCON qualification campaign in a very scary way as we struggled to defeat teams that ordinarily we are supposed to overrun if we are to go by the available paper analysis.

    I must not fail to also point out some fundamental issues that from the point of an observer may seem to be unethical and this is basically the relationship between Coach Stephen Keshi and his employers. It was not healthy to find an employee and his employers exchanging words on the pages of newspapers there cumulating into national discuss. A more civil approach would have addressed such miss-representation in the nearest future.

    We hope that things will be done differently with the Amaju led team made up of men with great ideas on how to transform the football sector into a very viable and workable sector. Let me also remind all concern that we need to protect the brand of football if we are to project the brand to attract sponsorship.

     

    CHANGING THE PERCEPTION OF CORPERATE NIGERIA

     

    In Nigeria we have a lot of blue chip companies and oil companies but very few out of these companies are interested in supporting sport. I believe that the reason why we have seen this type of reaction is simply because the managers of our sport have not been fair to sport management. It is only in sport that you find people of all works of life coming in to grab a stake in the administration of its affairs.

    Someone once said to me that it is only in sport that you see a situation whereby people without pre-requisite administration of sport qualification tend to claim to know better than those who actually studied sport management.  It is a shame that professionals are been pushed to the background at the expense of opportunist who claim to be stakeholders in sports.

    I have said it severally before now that the problem we have in our sport is created by those people that have nothing doing but who over the years have constituted themselves into a group of stakeholders in sport without having any viabe stake in sport. They crate the problem in sport because of their pecuniary gains and interest and after destroying the property of sport they are also invited to come and solve the problem they created which they never succeed in doing.

    We need to run sport like a professional business concern that it is and as such we don’t need to have mediocre that claim to be well experienced in handling port matters without any form of training. Let me also say that the fact that one is not a professional sport manager does not mean that the person cannot do something in sport. There are severally short term courses on sports that will assist such persons into appreciating the language of sport.

    Talking about language every profession has got its own language and if you engage a person that does not understand the language of sport to come and manage sport you are only preparing the recipe for mass destruction.

    To change the perception of Corporate Nigeria means that certain things must be done differently but change in itself has various stages and in administering the process of change we should consider the following zones:

     

    The diagram above illustrates three zones that are represented in the Change theory succinctly put; people are always in their comfort zone but when the process of change is activated people can tolerate moving from the comfort zone to the stretch zone. But any drastic change that will take people from their comfort zone to the panic zone will meet a corresponding resistance by the very people the change is meant for.

    We must therefore approach changing the perception of Corporate Nigeria gradually. Let our structures and systems speak the change as well as the processes that we put in place to showcase transparency and build integrity to our various sport brands.

  • Sharks end Pillars’ 3-year jinx

    Sharks end Pillars’ 3-year jinx

     • Beat Sai Masu Gida 1-0 in Port Harcourt

    Sharks FC of Port Harcourt recorded its first win over Kano Pillars in three years after defeating the visitors 1-0 in the Week 32 Glo Premier League clash in Port-Harcourt on Sunday.

    Fortune Omoniwari scored the only goal that separated the two sides on the half hour mark, poking in a loose ball in the Pillars’ area after the visitors had failed to properly clear a corner kick.

    The visitors will have themselves to be blamed for the defeat and for leaving Port Harcourt empty handed despite the amount of chances they created.

    Omoniwari was used in place of the injured Ifeanyi Inyam and was one of the four changes Sharks made to the team that lost in midweek to Enyimba FC of Aba. Michael Ezekiel, Gabriel Olalekan and Thompson Stowe were the other three.

    The three years hoodoo hanging around Sharks was obvious in the opening stages as waves and waves of attack from the Champions locked them in their own half. Hassan Adamu had a chance on the fourth minute after being set up by Moses Ekpa but he fired wide.  Adamu then beat the Sharks goalkeeper Danladi Isah from a nicely weighted ball from the right but Gabriel Olalekan cleared from off the line. Eneji fired at Isah moments later but the goalkeeper parried then caught the ball at a second attempt.

    Having somehow weathered the pressure, Sharks began to create their own chances. Madu volleyed from outside the area after being set up by Stowe but Theophilus Afelokhai dived to the right, making a good save.

    The Blue Angels could have gotten their second goal when Odinga’s strike fired from 30 yards was handled by Zango Umar. The referee and his assistant saw it and a spot kick was awarded. Christian Pyagbara stepped up but his effort hit the crossbar with Afelokhai beaten.

    Pillars attempted to respond but an alert Jamiu Alimi blocked Hassan Adamu’s strike inside the area. Sharks went close at the other end Obomate firing wide from a Sharks counter.

    Both teams began the second half from where they ended the first. Omoniwari squared for Pyagbara but the striker blasted wide. Abdul Haruna, a second half substitute sent a free kick narrowly wide.

    Afelokhai pushed away Madu Chiamaka’s volley while Tammy Tams fired wide after being set up by Obomate. There were more chances created by both sides but the strikers were having an off day, none being able to convert.

  • ‘Blame Jonathan for failing to end Boko Haram’

    ‘Blame Jonathan for failing to end Boko Haram’

    he poor command by President Goodluck Jonathan and the politicisation of the military have been identified as reasons for the Army’s inability to end the Boko Haram insurgency.

    A Kaduna-based retired army officer, Capt. Abdulhakeem Adegoke Alawuje, spoke while fielding questions from reporters in Kaduna at the weekend.

    Capt. Alawuje, who served in the 29 Motorised Infantry Battalion said he participated in peacekeeping and the Army never failed to crush insurgents.

    Said he: “If there is anything worse than poor command, I will use such word. There is no effective command and no sincerity from the commanders. These are the two things I see. There is no sincerity in the command and it is very poor.

    “When you look at the Army of yesteryear compared to that of today, it is still the same Army. But in the past there was no serious politics. When you look it at it now, it is different. When there is politics in the Army, definitely it will be very difficult for it to deliver. This is the problem we are facing.

    “The chief security officer of the country is Mr. President. He is the one everyone will cry to in a time as this. But in a situation whereby the President is politicising security matters, there will be a serious problem. I am speaking from experience.

    “This Boko Haram insurgency in the Northeast has been ravaging the country for almost five years. With my own experience, I don’t believe this thing is just happening. I don’t want to believe that. I want to believe that some people, even in the government, are involved in this thing. If not, the Nigerian Army, which has been in every part of the world to keep the peace, would have crushed the insurgency.

    “I thank God, I was part of the operation in Sierra Leone. I was involved in that operation. We know the order with which we left Nigeria. We know how we penetrated Sierra-Leone and we know how we dealt with the rebels there.    “But, to my greatest surprise, we are facing the same problem in our country. It is still the same here. I know the competence of the Army. I know what they can do. But in this situation, they find it difficult to solve the problem. Nigerians should unite. They should forget about their religious and ethnic differences. We should ask President Jonathan what he has been doing.

    “I discussed with a friend recently and he said the President has been doing his best. But, I said, if he has actually done his best, then it means his best has not yielded any positive result, he should re-strategise. The President said he knows those behind Boko Haram. Nigerians have failed to ask him to bring those behind the insurgency to book.

    “Let us ask them what they want. What are they up to? Nigerians have refused to do that and Mr. President has refused to bring them to book. They keep killing innocent people. If we keep quiet, the situation will worsen.”

     

  • ‘By God’s grace, Ebola Virus’ll end’

    ‘By God’s grace, Ebola Virus’ll end’

    International aid workers say the official Ebola figures — an estimated 2,615 cases and 1,427 deaths in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone — are almost certainly much lower than the real number of infections and deaths, but there is a growing optimism that its end is near, reports The New York Times

    The other nurses call her Mummy, and she resembles a field marshal in light brown medical scrubs, charging forward, exhorting nurses to return to duty, inspecting food for patients, doing a dance for once-infected co-workers who live — “nurse survivors,” she called them enthusiastically and barking orders from the head-to-toe suit that protects her from her patients.

    In the campaign against the Ebola virus, which is sweeping across parts of West Africa in an epidemic worse than all previous outbreaks of the disease combined, the front line is stitched together by people like Ms. Sellu: doctors and nurses who give their lives to treat patients who will probably die; janitors who clean up lethal pools of vomit and waste so that beleaguered health centers can stay open; drivers who venture into villages overcome by illness to retrieve patients; body handlers charged with the dangerous task of keeping highly infectious corpses from sickening others.

    Their sacrifices are evident from the statistics alone. At least 129 health workers have died fighting the disease, according to the World Health Organization. But while many workers have fled, leaving already shaky health systems in shambles, many new recruits have signed up willingly — often for little or no pay, and sometimes giving up their homes, communities and even families in the process.

    “If I don’t volunteer, who can do this work?” asked Kandeh Kamara, one of about 20 young men doing one of the dirtiest jobs in the campaign: finding and burying corpses across eastern Sierra Leone.

    When the outbreak started months ago, Mr. Kamara, 21, went to the health center in Kailahun and offered to help. When officials there said they could not pay him, he accepted anyway.

    “There are no other people to do it, so we decided to do it just to help save our country,” he said of himself and the other young men. They call themselves “the burial boys.”

    Doctors without Borders trained them to wear protective equipment and to safely clear out dead bodies potentially infected with Ebola. They travel across backbreaking dirt roads for up to nine hours a day.

    Ms. Sellu, who is one of the only Ebola workers at the Kenema hospital who have neither contracted the virus nor fled.

    In doing their jobs the burial boys have become pariahs. Many have been cast out of their communities because of fear that they will bring the virus home with them. Some families refuse to let them return.

    After Mr. Kamara started working, his family said, he was no longer welcome in his village. His uncle, the family patriarch, told him never to come back. At first, he stayed with a friend, but the man’s wife was afraid and kicked him out, too. With no pay for months, he sometimes begged on the street after work to get enough money for food. Recently, he talked the owner of a small shop into clearing out enough space in a back room for him to sleep there.

    He is finally getting paid, about $6 a day, and he hopes to find a room to rent, probably at an inflated price. Some of the other burial boys have tried to rent apartments but have been refused.

    “If I have a long life, I can go back to my people,” Mr. Kamara said. “I can talk to them: ‘I’m doing this job for you.’ Maybe they can understand me.”

    At the government hospital a few hours away in Kenema, photographs of the dead nurses are still plastered on the crumbling walls. Notes to young women suddenly cut down, like Elizabeth Lengie Koroma — “Lengie We All Love U But God Loves U” — offer visual reminders of the pain that remains.

    “Today three, tomorrow four — it was just like that, rapid,” Ms. Sellu recalled, her cheery demeanor quickly dropping. “We said, ‘What is happening?’”

    She added, “You are asking, ‘Who is next?’ “ In all, some 22 workers at the hospital died.

    The nurses and doctors here had banked on their experience treating Lassa fever, another deadly disease that causes bleeding. But Ebola is of a different order, and they had never seen it before.

    With the first cases, the nurses simply used their Lassa goggles. Ebola demands a far more protective face shield. They also used “light gloves,” Ms. Sellu said. Now, she puts on two layers of heavy-duty rubber gloves. The inadequate initial precautions had fatal consequences, even for the revered young doctor who headed the Lassa unit, Dr. Sheik Umar Khan.

    “Such a careful man, always saying, ‘Don’t do this, don’t do that,’ “ Ms. Sellu said. “That is the mystery.” Dr. Khan died on July 29, a huge blow to the nation.

    Ms. Sellu also spoke about the nurses she had lost to Ebola. Usually so keen on projecting strength to her subordinates, she began to cry.

    “It has been a nightmare for me,” she said, her features contorting. “Since the whole thing started, I have cried a lot.” She added: “It came to a time when I was thinking of quitting this job. It was too much for me.”

    But the lesson she drew appeared inevitable to her. “You have no options. You have to go and save others,” Ms. Sellu said. “You are seeing your colleagues dying, and you still go and work.”

    At the height of the deaths last month, her two teenage children and her family in the capital, Freetown, urged her to stop. The remaining nurses at the hospital staged a revolt. One morning, 40 of them appeared outside the door of her home in Kenema, yelling, “If one of us dies again, prepare yourself to die!”

    Frightened, her children warned her. “They have come for you! Mummy, don’t go there again!’ “She recalled. “And my relations in Freetown were saying, ‘Don’t go there again!’ “

    Ms. Sellu disobeyed all of them. “I was sneaking in at the end of the day,” she said.

    With precision, she recalled the day the nightmare at the hospital began: May 25. In neighboring Guinea, where the epidemic started, the crisis had appeared, falsely, to be abating. In Kenema, a patient was bleeding profusely.

    “The nurses were curious; they called me,” she said. “Dr. Khan said, ‘Do the test.’ “ It was positive for Ebola.

    “The whole hospital went haywire,” Ms. Sellu said. “All the nurses were put into quarantine.”

    But it was the second case, in the hospital’s private annex for V.I.P.s, “that put the calamity on us,” she said. The patient was a local chief suffering from severe diarrhea and vomiting. He infected three nurses and a porter. The porter and one nurse died. The dying nurse was pregnant and miscarried, infecting all four nurses who aided in the delivery. All four died.

    “There are times when I say, ‘Oh my God, I should have chosen secretarial,’ “ Ms. Sellu said. But her job as a healer, she said, “is the calling of God.”

    The Kenema hospital is a different place now. In the last several weeks, with international help, a more rigorous system for screening, filtering and holding Ebola patients has been instituted. Confidence among the nurses has been restored.

    Outside the hospital, they continue to face stigma. Some of Ms. Sellu’s staff spoke of husbands abandoning them and neighbours shunning them. One nurse told of returning home to find her belongings in suitcases on the sidewalk, and her spouse warning her to stay away. Another nurse, seeking lodgings, lied to the landlord, telling him she was a student.

    “If you meet with them, they will balance this way and that not to touch you,” said Veronica Tucker, a nurse who survived an Ebola infection, doing a little jig to demonstrate her experience on the streets of Kenema.

    The epidemic goes on. International aid workers say the official figures — an estimated 2,615 cases and 1,427 deaths in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone — are almost certainly much lower than the real number of infections and deaths.

    Ms. Sellu finds some reason for optimism, though. She has seen the flood of Ebola patients diminish. And she and her nurses are no longer alone in the fight.

    “Some went, but we stayed,” said a nurse, Nancy Yoko. “We have kept coming. We never left.”

    Ms. Sellu then shooed away her visitors, put on her suit and prepared for work.

    “By the grace of God, it will end,” she said.

  • Husband seeks end to 23-year-old marriage

    AN Ado-Ekiti resident, Mr. Sola Olanipekun (41), has urged a customary court in the Ekiti State capital to end the marriage of 23 years with his wife, Anike.

    Olanipekun, a carpenter living at Adeun in the state capital, said he had been separated from his wife for about two years and was not ready to resettle with her. He noted that they were not properly married, but came together on what he called “free association.”

    The husband said: “The association has produced one male and two female children, with the eldest child being 23 and the last being 10.”

    Olanipekun accused his wife of “unruly attitude, desertion, deceit, adultery and incessant fighting.”

    He added that he caught his wife having amorous discussions on phone with one of his men friends.

    His wife, he said, cared little for the children, but “preferred to send money to her concubines.”

    Olanipekun told the court that his wife had once ordered her siblings to beat him up.

    The husband explained that he had endured the marriage for so long based on the advice of some elderly relations.

    He pleaded for the custody of their three children, namely Oladele (Male, 23), Olanrewaju (female, 16) and Olamide (female, 10).

    He said he had the means to care for the children sufficiently and would not remarry to any other woman.

    Anike, in her written response to the petitioners’ claims, said her husband lied regarding his claims about their marriage.

    She said the husband was seeking the dissolution “to solely own the house” currently being occupied by him, “but which they both contributed money to build.”

    She explained that her husband had locked her outside their house on minor disagreements on several occasions.

    Anike added that the husband had not been caring for the children or paying their school fees, urging the court to dismiss her husband’s petition.

    She urged the court to dissolve the marriage since it “had already broken down irretrievably.”

    She said the house being occupied by the petitioner should be sold by the court’s Sheriff and proceeds be shared equally between the two.

    The wife asked the court to grant her custody of the last child.

    The court’s president, Ogunseemi J.A., a lawyer, adjourned further hearing till September 9, ordering both the petitioner and the respondent to bring their witnesses.

  • Ashafa seeks end to vices

    Ashafa seeks end to vices

    The senator representing Lagos East, ‘Gbenga Bareehu Ashafa, yesterday urged Muslims pray for Nigeria to overcome its sundry socio-economic vices.

    “As the celebration continues, we should all reflect on the ideals of good living, which all religions preach; avoid any form of violence and promote peace, harmony and religious tolerance among all men, regardless of ethnic, colour and religious affinity,” he said.

    The lawmaker noted that “having undergone the rigours of the holy month of Ramadan with its concomitant diverse ibadah (acts of worship), we should thank Almighty God and live according to His dictates among family members, friends and associates as well as the larger society to enable us have a country that is free from the shackles of social vices as a result of injustice, inequality and hate”.

     

  • Can Pension Reform Bill end pensioners’ agony?

    Can Pension Reform Bill end pensioners’ agony?

    With the submission of the much awaited report of the Pension Reform Bill (PRB) 2013 by the Senate Committee on Establishment and Public Service, the stage is now set for an epic debate of the controversial Bill aimed at ending the pitiable plight of elderly citizens, writes Assistant Editor Onyedi Ojiabor.

    For many years, informed analysts have been insisting on a comprehensive overhaul of the country’s pension system.

    The pitiable plight of elderly citizens who suffer untold hardship after many years of meritorious service to their fatherland has only accentuated public interest for broad reform of the sector.

    With the submission of the much awaited report of the Pension Reform Bill (PRB) 2013 by the Senate Committee on Establishment and Public Service, the stage is now set for an epic debate of the controversial Bill.

    Chairman of the Committee, Senator Aloysius Etok, presented the voluminous report on October 29, after months of waiting by the upper chamber.

    The document, among other issues, covered submissions by stakeholders at a two-day public hearing and conclusions of the committee.

    It also included recommendations of the committee meant to guide the lawmakers in their deliberations.

    The actions and inactions of some pension administrators laid the unfortunate foundation for the scandalous deeds trailing the country pension sector.

    Bare-faced lies and confounding falsehood, ever blossoming thievery of pension funds and activities of rapacious pension administrators more than anything made the repeal and re-enactment of the Pension Act 2004 more urgent than ever.

    That pensioners in the country are frustrated, disillusioned and abandoned while pension managers steal funds meant for them unashamedly is no longer news.

    Perhaps what will be news is the way out of the flagrant and brazen looting of pension funds being orchestrated by mindless civil servants.

    Concerns are growing that unless steps are urgently taken to address the serial stealing of pension funds the country may never know peace.

    Senate President David Mark, who had been critical about the need to reform the country’s pension system, described those prowling pension funds as stealing blood money.

    The Senators are expected in their classic debate of the all-important Bill to rise to the occasion, eschew primordial sentiments and seize the momentum by doing the needful so as to wipe out the mental agony inflicted on Nigerian pensioners.

    Watchers of the National Assembly say the potency and effectiveness of the Bill must not be lost on the lawmakers just as the poignant portions of the Bill must also not be glossed over.

    Although stakeholders at the public hearing insisted that the National Assembly must get the PRB right in the interest of pensioners, strangely enough, some lawmakers were already behaving as though they have interest in some of the clauses.

    It may be necessary to state the high points of the Pension Reform Amendment Bill 2013.

    The thrusts of the PRA 2013 Bill include to enhance the powers of the Pension Commission in its regulatory and enforcement activities as well as to enhance the protection of pension fund assets.

    The Bill also seeks to unlock the opportunities for the deployment of pension assets for national development, to review the sanctions regime to reflect current realities, to provide for the participation of the Informal Sector.

    It seeks to provide the framework for the adoption of the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) by States and Local Governments.

    The Pension Transition Arrangement Departments (PTADs) is duly highlighted in the Bill.

    The PTAD is specifically designed to take over the payment of pensions to pre-2004 Pension Reform (retirees under the old pension scheme) from the Police Pension Office, Customs, Immigration Pension Office, and the Civil Service Pension Department.

    What is more, PTAD is planned to ensure that monies of this set of pensioners are transmitted directly into their bank accounts rather than through a third-party (the pension departments) as it is now the case.

    Observers noted unfortunately, that PTAD was not activated in line with Section 30, Sub Section 2 (a) of the Pension Reform Act 2004 until the present Acting Director General of Pension Commission took over.

    President Goodluck Jonathan was said to have only recently appointed a DG for the PTAD.

    Analysts said: “In order to put a permanent end to the era of impunity and, in some instances, widespread corruption in the various Pension Departments, the PRA 2013 Bill seeks to enhance the regulatory authority and efficiency of the Commission to provide greater oversight on, and reposition PTADs.

    Review of the penalties and sanctions in Sections 91 – 104 of the Bill is also worth of note.

    Stakeholders strongly believed that the sanctions currently provided under the PRA 2004 are no longer sufficient deterrents against infractions of the PRA 2004.

    For them, “there are currently more sophisticated mode of diversion of pension assets, such as diversion and/or non-disclosure of interests and commissions accruable to pension fund assets, which were not addressed by the PRA 2004.”

    As a result the 2013 PRB seeks to create new offences and provide for stiffer penalties that will serve as deterrence against mismanagement or diversion of pension funds assets under any guise, as well as other infractions of the provisions of the Act.

    Another pertinent Section of the Bill deals with upward review of minimum rate of pension contribution (S. 4(1) of the Bill).

    The Committee recommended that the minimum pension contribution of 15 per cent of employee’s monthly emolument is not adequate enough to generate the required retirement benefits for the worker.

    Some also argued that the equality of 7.5 per cent rate of contribution payable by both the employer and the employee is not equitable especially because the employer has a stronger financial muscle.

    It, therefore, proposed an upward review of the rate of contribution and the proportion of the rate payable by the employer and the employee.

    The proposed minimum rate is 20 per cent of the monthly emolument payable as12 per cent by the employer and 8 per cent by the employee.

    On adoption of the Contributory Pension Scheme by States and Local Governments, Sections 2-3 of the Bill, stakeholders believe that the measure would go a long way to address pension problems in state and local governments.

    It was argued that given “the clear benefits recorded from the implementation of the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) at the Federal level and the private sector, there is a consensus among stakeholders on the need to provide the framework that would facilitate the adoption of the CPS by States and Local Governments subject to local variations.”

    That may have informed a provision for the adoption of CPS by States and Local Governments to be inserted into the PRA 2013 Bill.

    Analysts say that States and Local Government CPS would assist to address the pension crises in the 36 States of the Federation.

    The years of qualifying experience for the Director-General and Commissioners on Section 26(2)(d) and Section 26(5) of the Bill was equally crucial to stakeholders.

    The PRA 2013 Bill scrutinised the provision of the 2004 Act with respect to qualifying years of experience for the Director-General such that the requirement is graduated in descending order from that of the Chairman at 20 years to that of the Director-General at 15 years.

    The Committee recommended the removal of 20 years of experience and replaced it with competency just as is the case with other financial regulatory agencies such as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Act, Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) Act 2006, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) and Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).

    Analysts believed that deemphasising years of experience is “consistent with global best practice, which emphasizes competency rather than years of post-qualification experience, which does not necessarily translate into capacity and capability.”

    The recommendation on years of experience for the appointment of the DG is in line with the views and position of critical stakeholders at the two day public hearing.

    National President of Federal Universities Pensioners Association, Dr. Ayuba Kura, noted that “the issue of experience in Nigeria is sometimes a very dangerous issue.

    Kura added: “It is not how long you have stayed in the office that makes you an experienced person but what have you contributed, what have you done that will make you to occupy a position.”

    For him the country should appoint people who are growing because “they have the exuberance, the feeling and they will do better”.

    Vice-President, External Affairs, National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), Adamu Kabiru Matazu, said: “We, the Nigerian students and vibrant youths of this nation, believe that age and experience though important do not translate to competence.

    “We, the Nigerian students and youth, represent about 60 per cent of Nigeria’s population.

    “We believe that the future belongs to us. We consider this campaign against competence-based leadership as not only mischievous and devilish, but runs contrary to the beliefs and ideals of this great administration and the efforts to move it forward.

    “We refer to them as enemies of the pension reform who prefer the return to status quo ante rather than embrace change and move on.

    “Recycling of old leaders is not in tandem with recent development strides achieved by the youths all over the world.

    “Moreover, if our constitution sets the age qualification to be president at 40 years, what stops a Director General at 40 years or below from occupying the position if found competent, especially when the DG would be reporting to the President?

    “We find this antithetical to Mr. President’s transformation agenda of enhancing efficiency, resourcefulness and competence of human resource personnel for nation building.

    “NANS is interested in this reform because we are the future of this nation, tomorrow’s workforce and future would-be pensioners and retirees. We have a stake here and will fight for and secure our future now. For us, our future starts today.”

     

    Customs, Immigration and Prisons Pension Office

     

    “On the issue of appointment of PENCOM DG, 15 years is enough for anybody to be so appointed, more especially, if the person has worked within the system. In addition to cognate experience, there is something that you cannot take away from a person who has worked within a system and knows the nitty-gritty of it.”

    Vice-President, Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Isa Aremu, in an interview on the pension reform, said: “As good as the old provisions were, there are lots of gaps. For instance, you put the experience of the DG at 20, you are silent on that of the commissioners.

    “In fact, for commissioners, no provisions for any years of experience and as a matter of fact, commissioners constitute the reserve pool for future DG.

    “If the DG is away, any of the commissioners could have come on board. So, with the way the existing provision is, a youth corper or an intern could be made a commissioner and automatically could become a DG because the provision was very silent on that.

    “You can have people with experience, 20 years, 30 years who could be honest and reliable and manage this scheme well. But you could also have people with 30 years of experience and mismanaged the scheme.

    “In fact, some people have argued that after 20 years of experience in any field, such person may not be able to add more value to whatever the person is being given, because of law of diminishing returns.

    “We also run organisations. I am a chief executive officer of an organisation. If they have asked some of us about such long years of experience, we probably would not have been able to occupy the positions we occupy today.

    “I couldn’t have been NLC’s Vice President and could not have even be the General Secretary of the Textile Workers’ union, which is also a Chief Executive’s position.

    “But beyond the experience, people also want to know your commitment and integrity. So, as experience and years also matter, I think we should also add the issue of competence.”

    Though no date has been slated for the consideration of the report, Nigerians, especially pensioners, are waiting to see what the National Assembly would do with the Bill.

    Will the lawmakers plug the loopholes that has made it practically impossible for pensioners to receive their pay as at when due?

    Will the parliamentarians shirk their responsibility and continue to look the other way while their compatriot to continue to wallow in man-made poverty? Time will tell.

  • Is the end near?

    These are bizarre days. On Tuesday a woman heard a gunshot from her kitchen.

    Stepping out to the porch, she saw her two-year-old daughter lying in a pool of blood. She was shot by her brother just three years older. She did not make it. The boy’s gun was a rifle made for children and given to him by his father.

    I fancy that strange. But that may be because I’m African and Nigerian. In our culture no man buys such a lethal weapon and presents it to his five-year-old, say, on his birthday. In some parts of the United States where that “accident” happened, guns are presented to kids even before they start primary school, though, it must be said, the weapons are not intended for crime, only shooting animals and such sport. Even then, some Americans are aghast, asking what maturity can be expected of a pre-school boy armed with a real gun. It is a rhetorical question. Strange.

    On Wednesday an African-American man did not seem to understand why jurors convicted him for capital murder after he shot and killed a 79-year-old woman. He said the bullet was not meant for the septuagenarian, but his own daughter who testified against him in a sexual assault case in which the daughter was the alleged victim. I find that strange and I figure you might consider it strange too.

    In Nigeria questions are still being asked as to what happened last month in Baga, an otherwise quiet fishing community in Borno State. A joint military team had engaged the notorious Boko Haram sect members in a gun battle after it was reported that the insurgents attacked a patrol team killing a soldier in the community. The next thing we heard was that much of the town was burnt down, well over 2000 buildings up in smoke, while no fewer than 187 persons were killed, according to a report. The question is, who burnt Baga, Boko Haram or the military? The military said the fire was the handiwork of a rocket-propelled grenade; Human Rights Watch, a rights advocacy group, said the fire was too extensive to be caused by a rocket grenade.

    I find that strange, even more so considering that ours is a country whose soil is soaked with the blood of people cut down so violently, especially in the North.    There is no greater danger to security and Nigeria’s nationhood now than the fundamentalist group running riot in the North. Its members have been consistent in their mission to cause maximum damage, leaving the Presidency and security community’s approach to tackling them with flip-flop strategies and inconsistent spirits. Neither tough talk today nor appeals tomorrow has tempered the militant sect. Nor too has the latest strategy: amnesty overtures. It appears the thirst for blood is even getting stronger and insatiable. The hometown of a former inspector-general of police has been attacked, as have several other locales.

    It is a strange world. What will quench the thirst for blood in the land? When or how will the killings stop? Is the end of the country near or that of the world, for that matter? The Bible paints a bleak picture of the end-time. It builds up, like a taxiing airplane, before it takes off, but unlike the plane, the end of the world is not a pleasure flight. There will be so much discomfort, even agony, so much violence, and not a little disagreement in high and low places. I picture the falcon not hearing the falconer, things falling apart in families, parents being unloving, children being unruly. Love waxing cold, or when it picks up, it is strange love indeed. Men will go after their kind, women after women.

    In fact, you do not have to picture it. It is already here with us.

    Earlier in the week, the international media was awash with the public admission of a top US basketball player that he was gay. He was applauded by celebrities for coming out of the closet. One of those who applauded him was another basketball great, John Amaechi, an ex-National Basketball Association (NBA) star, of Nigerian-British parentage. A public speaker, role model and sport analyst, Amaechi was the first former NBA player to reveal publicly that he was gay.

    It is becoming increasingly politically correct to endorse homosexuality and lesbianism. Many countries across the world have given men and women the all-clear to enter into sexual relationships with, and marry their kind. It doesn’t matter who you love, was how Obama put it during his campaign for second term. Several states in the US have legalised same-sex marriage. It seems to be of little or no consequence that two biblical cities were wiped out for such indulgences.

    In South Africa a boy unsettled the authorities of his school when he told them he had two mothers, his parents being legally married lesbians.

    In Nigeria the campaign for same-sex unions has been mounting, the only stumbling block being the David Mark-led Senate, which has continued to shoot it down.

    In Syria and Iraq, blood is flowing, as it is in Afghanistan and India. Israelis and Palestinians have no love lost between them. Between North and South Korea, there is tension, as there is between the former and the United States. The Chadian government smelt a coup recently, accusing neighbouring Libya of helping ‘rebels’.

    Is the end not near?

     

  • Let’s put an end to these senseless killings

    SIR: Life no get duplicate’ is a popular saying here. Yet our land is literally soaked with blood, mostly of innocent citizens. Since independence we have staggered from one bloodletting to another. Our history is one litany of butchery. Countless lives have been violently extinguished through mob attack, extrajudicial killing, assassination, ethno-religious violence and now terrorism. How do we react to these deaths?

    After every terror attack, the police and other agencies swing into action but never come up with the accurate number of casualties let alone their identities. One can now almost quote in advance, government’s press release after an attack. It usually condemns the dastardly act while vowing to bring the perpetrators to book– I’m still waiting for anyone to be tried let alone convicted. After government’s condemnation come those of prominent citizens. Then ordinary folks wish that the souls of the departed rest in peace and again pray God to intervene. Thereafter life goes on as usual until the next incident.

    As expected the recent attack on a motor park in Sabon Gari, Kano, elicited a barrage of condemnation. But that is where it ended. Till date no one is sure of the number of casualty or their identity. Besides those personally affected, I doubt how many of us still spare a thought for that very tragic incident.

    How many still remember the gruesome murder of the ‘Uniport Four’ at Aluu, how many are interested in, or wonder what has become of their murderers? How many have been tried for the atrocities perpetrated in Plateau State, or for the riots in other parts of the North? Besides the condemnations what practical measures have been taken to forestall a recurrence of these tragedies?

    I can’t help but decry our, to a large extent, indifference towards the murder or suffering of our compatriots. Is it that by nature we accept tragedies with philosophical calm or that we have become rather insensitive from repeated experience of violence? I think the latter is the case. We are becoming used to violent deaths that news of it only catches our attention briefly after which we shrug and move on. This is dangerous, in fact a sign of a failing society.

    It’s time we reclaimed our humanity. The senseless sacrifice of humans on the altar of religion or tribalism must be utterly rejected; it must never be tolerated as is presently the case. There should be an immediate stop to mob ‘justice’, extrajudicial killings and unresolved assassinations. No death must be left unexplained and on no account must anyone get away with murder. This is the only way to demonstrate that really we consider life precious.

    •Nnoli Chidiebere

    Aba, Abia State.