The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Faulty

  • Stakeholders seek change of ‘faulty’ shipping policy

    UNLESS the shipping policy    is reviewed, foreign companies will continue to benefit from it at the expense of their local counterparts, stakeholders have said.

    The policy, they said, could hinder the Cabotage law implementation. They  urged the Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi, to change the policy to boost revenue generation.

    Speaking at a forum organised by importers and clearing agents in Lagos, Sea Logistics Managing Director, Mr. Rufus Olanipekun, expressed concern that foreign shipping lines would continue to exploit the country because of the selfish interest of a few and lack of shipping policy that identifies the strategic challenges of the sector.

    Olanipekun said there had been lapses in enforcing the Cabotage Law and domesticating all international treaties and conventions that relate to the sector.

    He regretted that the Cabotage regime was yet to be implemented to meet stakeholders’ expectations.

    Olanipekun also said there was a  gap between the Act and the system, which is yet to empower indigenous operators to take advantage of the law.

    Federal Government’s performance on trade facilitation, high port charges, infrastructure, safety at sea, protection of the marine environment and enhancement of maritime law and security, Olanipekun said, fell below expectation, adding that the ports were performing below expectation.

    The Federal Government, he said, should do more to reduce piracy and armed robbery on the waterways, adding that foreign shipping companies were dominating the industry.

    Another stakeholder and JM Investment Chairman, Mr James Joseph, said conspiracy had hindered the Cabotage Law implementation.

    Its implementation, he said,  would have been easier, but for conspiracy between some officials of the Ministry of Transport and foreign ship owners.

    Joseph said the law can be easily implemented, if the Minister of Transport musters enough political will to do so.

    “The Minister of Transport needs to see to the full implementation of the Cabotage law before he leaves office. We are aware that some individuals within and outside the government are trying to frustrate the implementation.

    “My suggestion to the minister is that he should make sure every ship that calls at the ports first declare arrival to the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and the Navy. By doing so, it would become easier to implement the law,” he said, adding that poor policy implementation  is the bane of the sector.

    “No government agency needs to go to the jetty to arrest a ship. NIMASA, for instance, can ask any ship to tell her its point of loading. So, if it is offshore Lagos or offshore Cotonou, the agency can then verify if it is on the list of Cabotage registered vessels. Therefore, if the Minister is determined, implementation should not be a problem,”he said.

    According to Joseph, Nigerian ship owners must be supported with good policies by the government and banks to enable them buy vessels to carry out coastal trade.

    The Coastal and Inland Shipping Act, 2003, he said, is a protectionist law enacted to create exclusive areas of operation in the coastal trade for indigenous operators.

    “Much as it is estimated that marine transportation offshore alone has a potential annual revenue/profit of millions of naira as against coastal trade in commodity and products, it is believed that harnessing the opportunities of effective implementation of Cabotage will provide a springboard for indigenous operators to acquire requisite capacity and expertise in launching them into global shipping,” he added.

     

  • ‘Obiano’s claim on PHCN transmission line project faulty’

    ‘Obiano’s claim on PHCN transmission line project faulty’

    The Anambra State government under Willie Obiano did not facilitate the 33 KVA Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) transmission line between Awada and Ihiala, a former House of Representatives member, Chuma Nzeribe, has said.

    In a statement at the weekend, Nzeribe, who represented Ihiala Federal Constituency, said he (Nzeribe) facilitated the project as a Federal lawmaker.

    He said: “I read with shock Governor Obiano’s claim that he facilitated the 33KVA PHCN transmission line from Awada-Ihiala. The governor’s claim is totally erroneous. I attracted this project while in the House of Representatives to feed the N3.6 billion Ihiala 2x50MVA substation and N750 million Nnewi 1x15MVA injection substation.

    “The 33KV transmission is meant to link up Ihiala from Awada Bay with high voltage electric power from Ughelli gas turbine project built by Siemens as part of Federal Government’s gas reinjection and gathering scheme in the Niger Delta area.

    “I’ve continued to ensure yearly budget funding and supervision of this project since I left the National Assembly.

    “This is a Federal Government of Nigeria project, and not Anambra State government project. It’s designed to help the 23 communities on its route.

    “Governor Obiano’s claim is false and a clear attempt at subterfuge!

    “I would have kept quiet but for the fact that I know what it cost me, in terms of legislative goodwill and even financially. It is painful that someone wants to ride on the labour of others to score political points.”

  • Etisalat’s faulty mast in Ile-Oluji

    SIR: It is expeditiously important at this material time to request Etisalat, the Global System of Mobile Telecommunication (GSM) provider, to embark on immediate repair of the telecommunication network mast situated in Ile-Oluji, Ondo-State which had been malfunctioning since March.

    Further, serial phone calls put across to the Etisalat office through the Customer-care line, 200 were picked  up but, the replies are just empty promises that perpetually kept the waiting customers in the dark. Unfortunately, it is the only serving Etisalat mast that connects the community with other places. And, the lukewarm attitude of the management, cast aspersion  on the capability of the company to sustain the customer. Therefore, they have switched to another service provider to connect and continuously promote their  socio-economic cultural activities.

    We make a living by what we get but, make a life by what we give. And, it is established that the customer-care division , built many walls and no bridge. The management must spring into action by ensuring that the constraint is permanently solved, within a reasonable period of time.

     

    • Comrade Akingbola Temidayo (ANIJ).

    Ile-Oluji, Ondo-State.

  • Lagos APC to The Economist – your opinion on Ambode jaundiced, faulty

    Lagos APC to The Economist – your opinion on Ambode jaundiced, faulty

    MORE knocks yesterday came from the Lagos State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for The Economist over its scathing opinion on the performance of Governor Akinwumi Ambode.

    The party said the newspaper erred by going to press with a jaundiced and faulty assumptions that has no linkage with the reality.

    In a statement by its spokesman, Joe Igbokwe, the party faulted the The Economist for its haste in passing a judgment on a governor that has a four year renewable mandate just after kick-off.

    He said it was wrong of the newspaper to give a damning verdict on flashes of incidents that are not only correctable but already being corrected by the governor.

    The conclusions drawn by the magazine about the capacity of Governor Ambode was pedestrian and clearly in sync with the street lingo of the opposition in Lagos, the APC alleged.

    According to it, the governor has been displaying a deep commitment to governance that will rank Lagos among the best states in the country.

    The statement reads: “We wonder how a reputable institution like The Economist could rush into quick judgment on the capacity of a governor elected for four years on traffic and security hitches that have traceable origins and are therefore solvable.

    “The traffic and security glitches have endured for few weeks and the governor has openly identified the causes and had gone cracking while, as at today, results have come in as the traffic hitches have gone down while security has greatly improved.

    “We did state last week that the traffic snarls were as a result of the governor’s directive to traffic managers to be more humane and considerate in dealing with motorists.

    “The abuse of this directive and the sabotage of the traffic officers led to increased traffic snarl which has made the governor to wield the big stick and effect changes at the echelon of the traffic management agency.

    We can report today that the traffic situation has significantly improved and promises to get better in the coming days. We did also report that the momentary upsurge in crimes was an attempt to dare the good natured face of Ambode’s regime. The governor has not only beefed up the security manpower in the state, but has procured numerous security gadgets, including helicopters and raided numerous black spots in the state to deal with the issue. It is noteworthy that the security glitches have given way to better security of lives and properties in Lagos.

    “Because The Economist did not go further in its analysis beyond these two issues, we believe that other critical sectors of governance do not matter to it. But we can tell The Economist and other naysayers that Governor Ambode is fully meeting the huge challenges of governance in Lagos.

    “Such areas that are witnessing huge activity such as road construction, employment, education, infrastructure maintenance, health and judiciary among others are receiving the energetic attention of the governor in line with the tradition of good governance in Lagos.

     

    “We want to assure The Economist that Governor Ambode is fully wedded to his demanding job and is making great impact on governance in Lagos.

     

    “We recognise The Economist as a strong and dynamic institution, a reputation built over the years through dint of hard work and commitment. We therefore expect that it should do everything humanly possible to defend this hard-earned respect and recognition. It amounts to great a disservice to this well-respected institution when it goes into sensational publications to score cheap political points.”

     

  • Ife chiefs appease gods over faulty broadcast of Ooni’s death

    •Sijuwade’s family members move out of palace

    Members of the Iledi, a group of traditionalists, have begun rituals to appease the gods over the way the death of Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuwade, the Olubuse II, was announced.

    Sources within the Ogboni Ibile (Iledi Ooni) said that the announcement on social and traditional media broke traditional protocol.

    They noted that the development could attract the wrath of the gods, hence the need to appease them to prevent calamities.

    Sources revealed that the remains of Oba Sijuwade  were committed to mother earth on Friday night, hours after an inter-religious service for the late monarch.

    Christians, Muslims and the traditionalists participated in the inter-religious service held at Enuwa Square, opposite the palace otherwise known as Ile Oodua.

    According to the palace sources, the body was buried after several traditional rites had been concluded.

    The sources also revealed that people expecting a public burial for Oba Sijuwade were disappointed because “Ooni is not an ordinary individual, whose burial is done without rituals and ceremonies.

    The members of the Iledi added that the burial rites on Oba Sijuwade’s body was done in 201 shrines before it was buried.

    It was learnt that Oba Sijuwade’s successor would also pass through the 201 rites before being crowned the next Ooni.

    Iledi Ooni is the group of traditional Ogboni, that works with the Ooni, offering wise counsels from the traditional point of view.

    The group used to serve as the Supreme Court in the old days before modernity brought democracy and its institutions.

    Members of the Sijuwade’s family have moved out of the palace with their property, leaving the palace free.

  • I didn’t hire faulty aircraft for Eagles – Adelakun

    I didn’t hire faulty aircraft for Eagles – Adelakun

    Tunde Adelakun may mean so many things to some Nigerians, especially those that have followed the five years’ corruption charges levelled against former chieftains of the NFF led by Sani Lulu Abdullahi.

    Adelakun was said to have chartered the aircraft that was to lift the Super Eagles from their training camp in London to South Africa for the 2010 World Cup. The aircraft developed a fault before take off at London’s Heathrow Airport.

    SportingLife caught up with the Oyo State-born Chartered Surveyor in London recently and he took time to explain the incident that led to the cancelation of the flight, accusing the powers that be of overblowing the issue.

    “My name is Tunde Adelakun, I hail from Ibadan in Oyo State. I stand for the development and progress of football in Africa. I started for African football in 1996, and this is contrary to what many Nigerians have been made to believe. I have no journalistic experience. I have not worked in any newspaper house in Nigeria. I only send some personal opinion stories to newspapers in the country, which, out of every ten, one is published.

    “I am a Chartered Surveyor. It was after the exploits of Nigeria in Atlanta that I approached the BBC for internship to enable me practice a little journalism, while I do my regular job as evaluation officer at the inland revenue office. They were so excited because Nigeria just won the Olympic gold medal in football, and it got bigger than I expected. That was my interaction with sports.

    “My passion to give back to sports that made me what I am. That is what I stand for, and that is what I have been doing over the years. I do my work with CAF, where I am in charge of African Football Museum and African Football Hall of Fame via a letter signed by CAF Secretary-General Hicham El Amrani dated May 29th, 2012. I also do some jobs for FIFA and the English FA”.

    Continuing, the official biographer of CAF President, Issa Hayatou, said: “I can say little about the aircraft issue because it is still a subject of litigation in court in Nigeria. But what I can say is that everything about hiring of the aircraft was done totally above board. The documents are with the British Home Office, British High Commission in Nigeria and every legal person that has something to do with that case.

    “There was nothing wrong with the aircraft issue, rather what I would call decision-making by the powers that be. As you know, everything is machine-operated, and things can go wrong at any point in time. That is exactly what happened in this case. The aircraft developed a fault, they put it in order, and were ready to go, but the people refused to go. So, if they refused to go and the pilot gave them the assurance that the aircraft is in order, what is my own fault there? I have to thank SportingLife for giving me the opportunity for the first time to talk on it. Even the investigative body that was constituted wanted facts, and I told them the facts were ready. They said they wanted to come to London to meet me, so I could take them to the airline company. I accepted, and even facilitated their visa to Britain but at the end of the day, they did not come. I have all the facts, and nobody is asking for them,” he said.

  • Synagogue foundation was faulty, says Lagos govt

    The foundation of the last September 12 Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) collapsed building was faulty, the Lagos State government told a Coroner yesterday.

    Saheed Ariyori, a consultant to Lagos State Material Testing Agency, told the Coroner, Chief Magistrate Oyetade Komolafe, that the “building failed because the base that was supposed to take the load was grossly inadequate”.

    He was testifying at the resumed hearing of the coroner inquest into the incident in which 115 persons mostly South Africans died.

    His evidence varies to that of his fellow engineer, Oladele Ogundeji, who said last Friday that the foundation met approved standard.

    Ogundeji, who supervised the construction for the contractor, Hardrock Construction and Engineering Limited, ruled out foundational defect as a possible cause of the collapse.

    Yesterday, Ariyori, led in evidence by counsel to the government, Akingbolahan Adeniran, said he was part of the team of structural and geo-technical engineers that carried out Structural Integrity Test on the building after its collapse.

    He said the team took samples of the materials for testing and also took measurements of the foundation bases.

    The team, he said, simulated the building to arrive at its conclusions because the church did not provide the designs.

    Ariyori demonstrated the defects of foundation before the court with calculations on a board using a marker after being provided with a copy of the structural design.

    He said based on all the tests and the calculations, “we discovered that from inception, the building failed because the base that was supposed to take the load was grossly inadequate

    “The minimum base that will be required should have been 4.5 metres by 4.5 metres but what we had there was 2.2 metres by 2.2 metres.

    “It was a wrong choice of foundation base. The foundation should have been continuous base and not a pad as was used in the construction.”

    He said the load on the foundation was far more than it could bear, hence the collapse.

    SCOAN’s counsel Olalekan Ojo urged the court to adjourn his cross-examination of the witness to enable him consult with his client’s engineers.

    According to him, there are some discrepancies in the building design which must be examined before the witness is cross-examined.

    He recalled that Ogundeji last Friday testified that a raft foundation was not ideal for the structure.

    Chief Magistrate Komolafe will visit the site tomorrow. Ariyori’s cross-examination will also come up tomorrow.

  • Faulty book policy

    Every year, I attend the Nigerian International Book Fair (NIBF) to buy good quality books and instructional materials for a bargain.  It holds in May at the Multipurpose Halls of the University of Lagos (UNILAG).  I look forward to this yearly ritual because I know reputable local and foreign publishers, booksellers and others would sell their books for lower than the market price.  I buy both local and foreign books and usually leave there wishing that I had more money to buy more books.

    With the plans to increase tariff on book imports by 50 per cent, I fear the consequences on my purchasing power.  It would mean that fewer participants would exhibit and many of the books would be unaffordable.  I hope the policy does not go through.  Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has promised to consider all issues before reaching a resolution of the tariff.  As a book lover, I pray the resolution benefits both the country and the countrymen.

    I am all for enhancing local production of books and so many other products so that we can reverse our import dependency.  However, increasing tariff of books by 50 per cent to achieve that is not practicable.  Entrepreneurs in practically all sectors of Nigeria’s economy complain that the operating environment is harsh.  How can the Federal Government introduce such high tariff on books when stable electric power supply is like wishful thinking?  If we get power supply of up to five hours a day – at least to sleep at night – we count ourselves fortunate, not to talk of enjoying 10-12 hours.  That is simply paradise.

    Businesses cannot depend on public power supply because it destroys their equipment.  In media houses, printing machines are run on generator because interrupting supply while printing is in progress adversely affects the machines.  It means that when it is time to print, they switch to generators.  With power supply so unreliable, it is sad that our local capacity to produce is greatly inhibited.

    Publishers in countries like Dubai, China and the United States do not face such problems before printing.  They save time and money.  They do not have high overhead cost as a result of having to buy tons of diesel every day.   They also do not have to import paper.  Their countries have paper mills – unlike Nigeria where all the paper mills have become extinct.  Despite having a lot of wood, we cannot convert them to paper – just as despite having crude oil, we cannot refine our own petrol.  That is the reason why it is far cheaper to print abroad than in Nigeria.

    If the Federal Government is really serious about building local capacity to publish books to meet the needs of 170 million Nigerians, then it must address the power issue, fix our paper mills, provide good roads and other means of transportation to move raw materials to factories and finished products to the market.  We must simply reduce cost and make the business environment friendlier.  That is the only way our local publishing industry can compete.

    Again, we need to increase the capacity of local players to meet demand.  Our publishers cannot supply millions of copies at once because they do not have the funding, equipment and skilled labour to do the work.  This issue should also be addressed.  The government should provide loans and other incentives for publishers to expand their capacity.  The other alternative is to make the business environment friendly in order to woo investors.

    Another point to be addressed is local content.  While this is not lacking at the basic and senior secondary education levels, there is a lacuna at the tertiary level.  We do not have many good textbooks authored by Nigerians at the tertiary level.  Most of them are foreign and they are very expensive.  That is why the handout culture thrives in our tertiary institutions.  Lecturers copy sections of these textbooks and sell to students as reading materials.  Students on their part do not bother to read outside these lecture notes, further limiting their knowledge.  Foreign texts are very expensive.  How many students can afford to spend N3,000-N5,000 on a textbook? Multiplied by seven courses that would cost between N21,000 and N35,000 for books alone.  How many people can afford that?  Presently, lecturers just publish inferior textbooks that cannot sell outside their institutions.  We need to encourage our academics to do more intellectual work.  Nigeria needs to contribute to global knowledge because no other country can have our own perspective.