The Nation Newspaper

Tag: intervention

  • ‘Early intervention can cure for autism’

    Experts in child development management have said early intervention could effectively cure the neurological condition of autism and reduce its incidences at childhood level.

    This was stated at a collaborative campaign by The Learning Place Centre (TLPC), Patrick Speech and Language Centre, Children Development Centre (CDC) and Autism Parents Association International (APAI) to mark the World Autism Day.

    The fundraising and awareness programme tagged ‘A Dance for Autism’ witnessed a cheerful celebration of autistic people and a call for their acceptability in the society.

    TLPC Executive Director Bolanle Adewole said some individuals living with autism are endowed with special skill and are capable of excelling like unaffected persons. She said other than making general provisions for disabled persons, government must specifically focus on autism as the condition is a faceless disorder.

    Government, she noted, must build a platform for increased awareness on a wider spectrum.

    She said:  “Every April, we come out and celebrate people with autism. The objectives are to promote awareness, to make sure that they have a voice because we recognise that autism is a faceless disorder. You don’t see it on the feature. It is in the behaviour and we don’t want them to be misconstrued as being children that are not well raised or spoilt children. So we come out and let people know that they look the same but are actually suffering from a condition. The condition is neurological as it affects their brain and makes them behave in different way from the ordinary person. They have social impairment and do not display appropriate social behaviour and some have non-communication.

    “As early as signs such as lack of eye contact, inability to talk, tip toeing instead of walking or non-engagement in play are noticed in a child, take the child to a pediatrician who then recommends a diagnosis assessment which is normally done by a team of psychiatrist, a speech and language pathologist and a behaviour analyst. Together they all assess the child and then they come out with an evaluation report which tells you the child is on the spectrum or not.”

    Speaking on taming the stigma culture, she said parents must avoid isolating their wards as it could deteriorate the condition.

    “People with autism can actually be very useful within the community. We have seen people with autism develop and come out with wonderful skills. There are people abroad that are recognised for autism but in Nigeria, we still have not keyed in enough to be able to use them.”

  • Emefiele hands over 2011 intervention project to MOUAU

    Emefiele hands over 2011 intervention project to MOUAU

    Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Godwin Emefiele has handed over the bank’s 2011 intervention project, Centre for Entrepreneurship Development building, to Michael Okpara University of Agriculture at Umudike (MOUAU), Abia State.

    The project was designed for the Southeast zone.

    Emefiele urged Abia residents and other people in the Southeast to use the centre well to enable them develop their skills.

    The CBN governor, who was represented by a Deputy Director, Mr. Oluwole Owoeye, described the project as part of the bank’s corporate and social responsibility (CSR) to the zone’s residents.

    He said the Entrepreneur Development Centre (EDC) was designed to develop skills – small and medium scale enterprise (SMEs).

    Emefiele said: “In Nigeria, we realised that for now, there is a dearth of skills and people don’t have relevant skills.

    “So, the essence of this thing is for people to develop skills in various areas so that they can be independent as well as help to develop the skills of others after they must have sharpened their own skills.”

    The CBN chief added: “This one is the project the bank has developed for the Southeast. I want to appeal is Abians and other parts of Southeast to leverage and take advantage of this centre to develop their skills.

    “We know that Aba is well known for a lot of SMEs. So, I want to use this medium to appeal to the people in Aba, its environs and other parts of Abia State to patronise this centre so that we will build up their skills…”

  • Nigeria: A case for intervention

    Frederick Lugard, the British official who mostly created the British protectorate called Nigeria, took steps later to explain to his British people his reason for authoring such a manifestly unreasonable country for the Black people. He did it in a book which he published in 1922. His words: ”In character and temperament, the typical African of this race-type (that is Black) is a happy, thriftless, excitable person, lacking in self-control, discipline, and foresight, naturally courageous, and naturally courteous and polite, full of personal vanity, with little sense of veracity, fond of music and loving weapons as an oriental loves jewellery. His thoughts are concentrated on the events and feelings of the moment, and he suffers little from the apprehension for the future or grief for the past. His mind is far nearer to the animal world than that of the European or Asiatic, and exhibits something of the animals’ placidity and want of desire to rise beyond the state he has reached… He lacks the power of organisation, and is conspicuously deficient in the management and control alike of men or business. He loves the display of power, but fails to realise its responsibility…he will work hard with a less incentive than most races. He has the courage of the fighting animal, an instinct rather than a moral virtue… In brief, the virtues and defects of this race-type are those of attractive children, whose confidence when it is won is given ungrudgingly as to an older and wiser superior and without envy… Perhaps the two traits which have impressed me as those most characteristic of the African native are his lack of apprehension and his lack of ability to visualise the future”

    Lugard, and other British colonial rulers of Nigeria, said a lot of other crudely false and insulting things about Nigerians. They said even worse things about particular nationalities of Nigeria – the Igbo, the Yoruba, the Hausa, the Fulani, and just any nationality that suited their arrogant myth- making. A better informed world knows today that these mostly poorly educated British officials were merely repeating the falsehood generated by the European world during the centuries of the Atlantic slave trade and slavery.

    Even so, generations of Africans will forever ask certain questions concerning European colonial conquest and rule over virtually all of Black Africa. There was resistance everywhere. But why was such resistance seldom successful? European rule was relatively brief everywhere, lasting only a few decades. So, why has it succeeded in leaving such profound impacts everywhere? Why has it left so much deeper impacts on Black Africa than on Asia? Most importantly, after the end of European colonialism, why have Black Africans failed so signally to review what European colonialism had bequeathed to them?

    As African countries were becoming independent in the 1960s, conflicts immediately surfaced all over. Through all these disasters, one country, namely Nigeria, continued to inspire some hope worldwide. Nigeria was not better managed than other Black African countries. In less than two years after independence, Nigeria’s federal rulers, hungry for unrestrained power over the whole of Nigeria, launched an assault on the richest and strongest Region of the Nigerian federation (the Western Region), and thereby set in motion a chain of troubles that produced rigged elections, massive revolts, military coups, pogroms that took thousands of lives, and a civil war that took millions of lives. In the 1990s, Nigeria produced its most murderous military dictatorship, sending thousands of the Nigerian elite into exile abroad. In spite of all these, the world mostly continued to believe that Nigeria was the country that would lead Africa out of darkness to some bright day. The hopes were inspired by the enormous resources of Nigeria – Nigeria’s massive population (about one-fourth of Africa’s population), the dynamism of many of Nigeria’s peoples, and the variety and enormity of Nigeria’s natural resources, made greater by Nigeria’s possession of some of the world’s richest reserves of mineral oil.

    But the hopes about Nigeria have not been fulfilled. In fact, they look today farthest away from fulfilment. Nigeria is no longer a country buffeted merely by political instability and poverty. Nigeria has been essentially removed from the world comity of nations by nearly sixty years of a primitive ambition by a minority among Nigerian peoples (the Hausa-Fulani of the Nigerian Northwest) who demand to hold exclusively to power in Nigeria, and who have been using federal power to weaken and even subdue the other peoples of Nigeria – all on the claim that Nigeria is a fief bequeathed to the Hausa-Fulani by the British at independence in 1960. An ever-growing culture of impunity, authoritarianism, election rigging, public corruption, resistance to modern development, and multiple kinds of violence, has increasingly barred the way to any serious and consistent progress and modernisation in Nigeria. This is the root of the fact that Nigerians are annually classified among peoples having the least access to electricity, pipe-borne water, good communication and transportation, and reliable public administrative services, in the world. This is why investments are fleeing from Nigeria – and why Nigeria has been experiencing de-industrialisation. This is why about 70% of Nigerians are classified as living in “absolute poverty.” This is why Nigeria’s unemployment is one of the highest in the world. This is why probably most of Nigeria’s educated youths are finding ways to flee to other countries. This is why Nigerian youths desperately fleeing from their country are always about a majority among Black African youths dying in the desert tracts of the Sahara Desert or in perilous boat flights across the Mediterranean Sea.

    But, in recent months, the Nigerian situation has grown even more primitive and become virtually impossible to understand. Since 2014, while the world has focused on Boko Haram terrorism in the Nigerian Northeast, elements from among Fulani cattle herders (nomadic herdsmen who have resisted all attempts to get them to settle and educate their children), have turned themselves into a much bigger terrorist army than Boko Haram, spread all over Nigeria, destroying farms and villages, and killing farmers and farmers’ families. Some people have obviously been supplying this new brand of terrorists with the sophisticated weaponry which they carry. What the purpose of it all can be remains a mystery.

    Citizens complain from all over Nigeria that the official response is not only too small but also tends to support the terrorists against their victims. Inevitably, local folks are increasingly mounting self-defence programmes, the rate of violence and murders is escalating, and some of the conflicts are showing up in urban centres even far in the southern provinces of Nigeria.

    The international community has intervened to limit violence, loss of lives, and human suffering in many Black African countries. In Nigeria, in the opinion of many informed citizens, doesn’t a good case now exist for intervention by the international community?

  • PDP crisis: How far can Jonathan’s intervention go?

    PDP crisis: How far can Jonathan’s intervention go?

    Former President Goodluck Jonathan’s decision to help resolve the leadership crisis in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has raised fresh hopes, but recent reactions of some stakeholders suggest the new moves may not go far, reports Assistant Editor, Dare Odufowokan 

    Following his defeat at the last presidential election, former President Goodluck Jonathan has not been very visible within his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Instead, he had kept a dignified silence over the affairs of the opposition party. Even as the party meandered from one leadership crisis to another, the former President, rather than interfere publicly, reportedly chose to watch as things unfold.

    It would be recalled that Jonathan, shortly after leaving Aso Rock in May 2015, had announced to members of the PDP in particular and Nigerians in general, that he was taking a sabbatical from party politics. And for nearly two years, it appeared that the former President, with his silence and inaction over the crisis within his party, was still enjoying his sabbatical.

    While his silence lasted, many members of the party opined that the party was suffering from Jonathan’s decision to watch while things go wrong. According to this school of thought, as the last President elected on the platform of the troubled party, the Bayelsa State-born politician is still the leader of the opposition PDP.

    Consequently, much was expected from him by many people within and outside the party in the resolution of the crisis that is threatening to force the PDP into extinction barely two years after it left government at the centre. Many people called out to the former President to end his self-imposed political leave and do something about the crisis in his party.

    Engineer Deji Doherty, a former Acting National Vice Chairman of the PDP in the South-West, while speaking on how best the PDP crisis can be resolved, urged Jonathan to break his silence and intervene as the leader of the party. The former governorship aspirant in Lagos State said those struggling to resolve the problems in the party today cannot do as much as the former President will do to bring peace to the PDP.

    “I have said this before and I want to say it again, the major problem with PDP today is that the leader is quiet. I have been talking to a lot of people. I believe the problem is not only about Ali Modu Sheriff and Ahmed Makarfi. It is a rooted problem in the PDP, whereby you have leaders, who think about themselves and nobody else.

    It is because we don’t have leaders, who are selfless in creating a democratic system within the party. You have leaders who want boys who will always do their bids. Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, the last president we had is the leader of the party no matter what anyone thinks. Governors are aspirants, who evolved through the party. They are members of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party, so their voice must be heard, but they do not have to say that they are leaders of the party at the national level,” he said.

    And the man spoke

    But a couple of weeks back, Jonathan broke his silence and offered to help resolve the problem within the troubled PDP, provided the warring factions are ready to give peace a chance in the interest of the party. Not only did he host the various factional leaders of the party, the former President offered to midwife a political solution to the lingering crisis.

    Jonathan, who reiterated his readiness to remain active politically on the platform of the opposition PDP, said it is time for the party to put behind it the many problems bedeviling it and prepare to return to its winning ways. The former President said he is now ready to intervene in the crisis and help find a political solution to it.

    True to his words, he quickly met separately with the Senator Ahmed Makarfi-led Caretaker Committee and Senator Modu Sheriff leadership of the troubled party, as well as members of the Board of Trustees (BoT), led by Senator Walid Jibrin. At all the meetings, the former President canvassed for a political solution to the crisis.

    The ex-President also met with State governors elected on the platform of the PDP at his office in Maitama, Abuja, as part of efforts to resolve the issues holding the party back. Governors of Ekiti, Akwa Ibom, Delta, Taraba, Cross Rivers, Abia, Ebonyi, Gombe and Bayelsa states were in attendance while Rivers State was represented by the deputy governor.

    At the end of the meeting between the former President and the PDP governors,,  which lasted for about five hours, the Chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum and Governor of Ekiti State, Ayo Fayose, announced that as a result of Jonathan’s intervention in the crisis, they have resolved to pursue a political solution to end the crisis.

    Fayose said: “It is my pleasure to tell you that we are here at the instance of the former president. He is genuinely concerned by what is going on in the party. And he thought that an interactive session with the governors will go a long way to dousing tension. “We want to assure all our supporters that we believe in this party, we believe in the success of this party.”

    A source also told The Nation, that “It was gathered that Jonathan, while discussing with the various stakeholders, had stressed that the easiest way out of the melee is for the party to organize a national convention where a new leadership will be elected for the party as soon as possible. And in line with this, he has been urging the two factions to be ready to willingly leave office soon.

    “He made it clear that rather than for the party to continue in unending litigations, it is better that the two factional leaderships give way for a new executive committee that will emerge at a unity convention to be held as soon as possible. He made it clear that the two factional leaderships will have to give way for peace to reign in PDP.”

    Not a few persons have praised the former President’s intervention in the crisis, with many believing that an end is in sight to the unending rancor that has held PDP by its jugular since 2015. To many, chieftains in the two factions should be too willing to cooperate with Jonathan and the governors in their bid to resolve the lingering crisis.

    A member of the Lagos State House of Assembly, representing Ojo Constituency, Hon. Victor Akande, who is a chieftain of the PDP, submitted that Jonathan’s timely intervention is exactly what the party needs as it prepares to give the ruling APC a run for its money at the 2019 general elections across the country.

    ”We thank ex-President Jonathan for this political solution. I am happy he heeded our call. Any PDP leader that claims to love the party will toe the line of peace. We should go for truce and no longer court. If our leaders have the interest of the party at heart, they should look forward to resolving crisis. Everyone should sit down and discuss. Jonathan should find the lasting solution to the party’s problems, he can do it,” he said.

    Fresh uncertainties

    But few days after the President’s swift moves appeared to be yielding positive results, questions about how far he can go to restore PDP to peaceful ways are popping up. This is due to some indications that the two factions may still find it difficult to work together to achieve the unity convention proposed by ex-President Jonathan.

    Signs that Jonathan may have to do more than he has done if he intends to pull through his peace mission emerged after the Governor Seriake Dickson-led Reconciliation Committee of the party, submitted its report to the leaderships of the two warring factions, with the preposition that a national unity convention should hold on the 30th of June, 2017.

    “The Convention Committee shall be responsible for the conduct of the elections to all national offices for the party, including the zoning of such offices. That as part of the sacrifice to be made in order to reposition the party, the Committee is of the view that all national officers who may claim that their tenure still subsists beyond the proposed convention are hereby requested to relinquish their claim in the interest of the party.

    “For the purpose of the convention, all officers, elected at the ward, local, state and zonal levels before the first Port-Harcourt convention of 21st May of 2016, are deemed validly elected except for the election held in some states that were declared by NEC as inconclusive,” Dickson had stated while explaining the contents of the report.

    Sadly for the embattled party, Sheriff and Makarfi have disagreed over the report. While Sheriff accepted the recommendations of the committee, though he said his faction will study it and make amendments where necessary, Makarfi rejected it, describing the report as a breach of the February 17 Appeal Court judgement, which reinstated Sheriff as the party’s National Chairman.

    And while the Sherif faction mandated its National Organising Secretary, Okey Nnadozie, to begin preparation towards the proposed convention, indications emerged that the Makarfi faction may be toying with the idea of boycotting the convention. And public comments by the chieftains of the two factions have only widened the gap in the past few days.

    Makarfi in a statement, during the week, stated that his faction’s National Caretaker Committee disagreed with the recommendations. He said: “I am shocked and disappointed that the Governor of Bayelsa made public presentation of a purported report approved or endorsed by us and other stakeholders as reported.

    “The committee did not see any draft report, although Dickson promised to come with it. In any case, as personal advice I referred him to the organs of the party and the Goodluck Committee. Neither Senator Makarfi nor the Caretaker Committee has given or accepted any terms to or from anybody,” the statement added.

    With these developments, not a few persons, within and outside the troubled party, are once again worried about what will become of the ongoing effort to save the opposition party from its self-inflicted crisis. And the question on most lips is whether the efforts of former President Jonathan will prove efficient enough to end the lingering leadership crisis.

  • Urgent intervention

    •This is what the outbreak of Lassa fever in Ogun calls for

    At a time that residents of Ogun State, like those of many states in the country, were close to having a sense of relief about the end of Lassa fever, Abeokuta, the state capital, suddenly woke up to losing an Assistant Chief Nursing Officer at the Federal Medical Centre to the disease. Sequel to the death of the nurse manager, the Ogun State Ministry of Health had placed 396 persons with known contact with the deceased on intensive monitoring, as required by the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) standards in respect of this deadly virus.

    We commend the state health commissioner and the Federal Minister of Health for quick response on this serious matter.”All the 396 contacts have not shown any abnormal symptoms or signs of Lassa fever; their temperature is under control and we have stationed our monitoring officer with each of the contacts to continue monitoring throughout a specific period in line with the World Health Organisation standard,” the state government said.

    Also reassuring is the quick intervention of the Federal Minister of Health: “Medical personnel are hereby directed to report cases of suspected Lassa fever immediately to the state epidemiologist, who has been provided with the commodities, by the National Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, to respond to cases.” These interventions need to be intensified in view of the danger that Lassa fever poses, especially in areas of population density.

    Lassa fever virus is transmitted to humans through contamination of food or household items from urine or faeces of rodents. Though generally a deadly disease, the fever is treatable with prompt medical intervention. It is a disease that can also be prevented if proper conditions of private and public hygiene are met. Although it is premature to confirm what went wrong in Abeokuta a few months after Ogun State was declared a Lassa fever-free zone,it is crucial that the sudden outbreak of this disease be stopped in its tract in the same manner that Lagos State provided immediate leadership for stopping the Ebola virus a few years back. The decision of the Minister of Education to establish a Lassa Fever Eradication Committee to address the return of this virus to zones hitherto declared as safe from it deserves to be supported fully.

    In view of the new incidence of Lassa fever in Ogun State, three issues demand steadfastness on the part of the state and central governments. First is saving the lives of those with contact with the only victim of the disease; the second is stopping the spread of the virus within the state and to neighbouring states; and the third is strategy for proper private and public hygiene, the most assured way to prevent outbreak of Lassa fever.The recommendations by NCDC and Ogun State Ministry of Health that doctors conduct thorough tests on persons with malaria symptoms to ensure that they are not infected by Lassa virus need to be followed religiously. Medical staff in adjoining states also need to do the same, particularly in a season of increase in travel between states. It is salutary that related health agencies have taken the right steps in this direction.

    Equally important is the long-term problem of sustaining hygienic communities that discourage breeding of rodents, vectors of Lassa virus. Programmes of enforcing and enhancing hygiene through public enlightenment must include priming governments at all levels to fulfill their responsibility of providing water for the citizens. World-wide, water remains the most important ingredient in maintenance of hygiene. Governments’ obsession over boreholes all over the country is not the most cost-effective way to encourage over 170 million people, most of them on the poverty line, to sustain by themselves the high level of hygiene required to stop breeding of rodents in increasingly crowded and poorly planned urban sprawls across the country.

  • IICC seeks media intervention

    The Insurance Industry Consultative Council (IICC) is seeking the help of the media to gauge public opinion and boost insurance penetration.

    IICC President/Chairman, Lady Isioma Chukwuma, who made this known at a media retreat in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, said media aids national development.

    She said that insurers believed that the media is a veritable purveyor of public education on insurance and financial issues.

    According to her, the industry recognises the role of the media in projecting its ideals and has continually engaged the media in propagating same. I must appreciate the important role the press is playing in making sure that insurance forms part and parcel of our national consciousness.

    She said the media provides a platform for better insurance awareness and penetration.

    “The media has always been perceived as invaluable stakeholders in governance in all its ramifications. Therefore, your contributions to nation building cannot be over-emphasised. In particular, your roles as arbiters and the epitome of the nation’s conscience will continue to place you in the forefront of constructive criticism of all national discourse. Every media organisation should continuously brace up with the onerous challenges of achieving national development.

    “Nigeria’s transformation process as you are aware is evidenced by a flurry of activities across both public and private sector operations in the national economy. These include agriculture, transportation, power, petroleum and the financial services sector. All of these, to say the least, engender greater risk factors beyond what is presently conjectured by insurance practitioners,’’ she added.

  • Reps seek N500b intervention programme framework

    Reps seek N500b intervention programme framework

    • NDDC’s N260b budget bill scales second reading

    The House of Representatives has directed the Presidency to make available to it the administrative framework and details of the programmes to be implemented under the N500billion  social intervention fund.

    This followed the adoption of  a motion of urgent public importance  by Chika Adamu (Niger APC), who said the success of the programme remained doubtful because it has neither administrative nor legal framework for its implementation.

    According to him, intervention programmes introduced by previous administrations failed due to mismanagement and lack of strong institutional structure, adding that  the office of the Vice President does not possess the capacity to handle such social intervention fund.

    He said the N500billion programme should be stopped until the framework has been provided by the Senior Special Assistant to the Vice President on  Poverty Alleviation.

    Meanwhile, the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC’s) N260b budget bill for this year equally scaled second reading on the floor of the House yesterday too.

    Reacting to the request for the implementation framework of the intervention programme, House Majority Leader, Femi Gbajabiamila argued that the request was unnecessary because the framework was already in place.

  • Ikpeazu seeks spiritual intervention to tackle violence

    Ikpeazu seeks spiritual intervention to tackle violence

    •Babcock University graduates 1,616

    Abia06 State Governor Okezie Ikpeazu has urged Nigerians to ponder on the crises plaguing the nation and look heavenward for solutions.

    He spoke while delivering the keynote address at Babcock University’s 14th undergraduate and fifth postgraduate convocation yesterday.

    Ikpeazu said: “Nigeria is looking for solutions to various problems: insurgency, Fulani herdsmen, among others. We must ponder on what time we are in history and look heavenward for solution.”

    He urged the graduands to be apostles of the ministry, who will provide those solutions, while the rest of the world follows their lead.

    “The apostles of these solutions are graduands of Babcock University. Therefore, the world is looking upon you to show us the way so that the rest of us will follow… Depend totally on God and be yourselves. Be the change agents of the world, rather than allow the world change you. Every effort you make without looking first upon God will come to naught.”

    Delivering the commencement address, President of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) Mr. Aigboje Imoukhuede told the graduands to exploit every opportunity and shun phobia of starting up their own business.

    He noted that the Africa Initiative of Governors (AIG), an NGO he founded, has signed a bill, over the weekend, to grant scholarships to Nigerian and Ghanaian students to have their masters in public policy at Oxford University, United Kingdom (UK).

    The former Access bank boss said: “The AIG was founded to teach governors how to improve governance and transform the public sector. The initiative was just signed by Kofi Annan last Friday. But all the recipients must commit to come back to Nigeria to practice for at least five years.”

    The university graduated 1,616 undergraduates and 220 postgraduate students.

    Among them, 66 made first class honours, of which Comfort Inyang of the Department of Computer Science emerged overall best with cumulative grade point average of 4.96.

    The university’s vice chancellor, Prof Ademola Tayo, in his advice to the graduands, said: “You have been trained to solve real world problems… That makes you entrepreneurial job-ready graduates. You must continue to function to lead and influence the thinking on best strategy to align infrastructure, education and skills to growth and productivity. As you move into the world, the new challenges and opportunities that come your way would demand fresh thinking and a different way of working to make positive impact.”

  • Traders seek govt’s intervention on planned demolition of Aregbesola market

    Traders at the Rauf Aregbesola Market in Iyana-Ipaja, Lagos, have appealed to the government to intervene in their dispute with Alimosho Local Government Area.

    The council on Friday threatened to eject the traders to pave the way for market’s demolition in order to upgrade it.

    NAN reports that the Rauf Aregbesola Market is a bungalow structure market, created in 2004 with 110 shops.

    The traders told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) yesterday that it was the council’s second attempt to eject them from the market.

    According to the traders, in 2012, they were asked to submit their allocation papers for the market’s upgrade.

    They said the upgrade was suspended when their lawyer challenged the council after an advice from the Lagos State Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development.

    According to them, the Ministry of Physical Planning advised that the structures in the market be maintained as any attempt to raise the shops to high rise would affect the structural integrity of the entire market.

    Mr Isaac Ilesanmi, a trader in the market said: “We forwarded the Town Planning report, through our lawyer, to the Governor’s Office and copied the council and the upgrade was suspended.

    “But now, they have come back to take over the shops.”

    The traders queried the rationale of the local government for planning to take over the shops that were sold to them on owner-occupier terms at the first instance.

    “We bought these shops in 2004 at the price range of N300,000 for those located inside and N400, 000 for those facing the road.

    “We pay our yearly permit of N4, 100 as responsible citizens, abide by every rule governing the state and expect due consideration from government.

    “However, it is unfortunate that a government that we chose to represent us and oversee our welfare is working secretly to destroy our source of livelihood,” he said.

    Mrs Ayoola Aromolaran, another trader in the market, said: “We are not against the plan to upgrade the market, but what we are saying is that no trader was consulted about the project.

    “I feel this is wrong, we own the shops because we bought them from the state government in 2004, therefore, we should be engaged in issues that affect the market.

    “The purported committee that has been dealing with the council is not representing us; we did not elect nor nominate them to speak on our behalf.

    “They have no stake in Rauf Aregbesola Market; they do not own any shop nor sell in the market, so, they can never understand our plight or be our representatives in this issue.”

    Mr Moses Njoku, said the desperation with which the council was going about the market upgrade showed ulterior motives than the purported improvement of the market.

    “The council is trying to deceive us. We heard that current tenants will have to pay one million naira, while new tenants will pay two million naira to acquire the shops after the upgrade.

    “This is not fair considering the economic situation of the country and the fact that we are paying again for what we had previously bought.

    “Moreso, politics will be played during allocation of the shops; it will be man know man game.”

    Mr Lateef Abiodun, the Market Master for Alimosho Local Government, told NAN that the planned upgrade of the market was in line with the megacity plan of the State Government.

    Abiodun also serves as the Chairman, Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), Alimosho Branch.

    He said: “There’s going to be an upgrade, but we will not displace them, all the previous tenants will be put back in their rightful places.

    “We have had meetings with the committee members set up by the market on this issue. We do not intend to create untold hardship on them, but rather to protect them.

    “If they are resisting, what happened in Oshodi market may happen there, we are not saying we are the ones to do it.

    “Because, those people (Oshodi) have been on it for quite a long time and the state government just took action, we do not want that to happen here.”

  • Capital market stakeholders seek N200b intervention funding

    •Want govt to buy shares

    Capital market operators yesterday called on the Federal Government to stem the gruelling decline that has seen the market losing about N4 trillion in  25 months. The Nigerian equities market has lost nearly one-fifth of its  capitalisation so far this year.

    At a media briefing on the state of the capital market in Lagos, stakeholders under the auspices of the Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers (CIS), Association of Stockbroking Houses of Nigeria (ASHON) and Association of Issuing Houses of Nigeria (AIHN) said the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) should create a N200 billion intervention fund for market makers as a short-term measure to stave off the downward trend orchestrated  by divesting foreign portfolio investors.

    They also called on the government to step in to support the market at any time of steep decline by buying and warehousing shares as this is a common practice in advanced markets where government takes active interest in the performance of the capital market.

    Market operators said government should use the platform of the Nigerian capital market for funding of its 2016 budget as well as continuing privatization of government agencies and corporations.

    Stakeholders also called on Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to structure unclaimed dividends in a way that they could be reinvested in the capital market.

    Market operators said government should take a bold long-term move of instituting a zero interest policy for banks in order to discourage recourse to short-term money market instruments and to encourage long-term savings and investments.

    Acting president, Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers (CIS), Mr. Oluwaseyi Abe, noted that the Nigerian capital market has been going through challenges that are not uncommon with other markets especially the automated markets which operate in a crest and trough pattern in response to variables in the macro economy and within the market itself.

    He pointed out that the current steep decline at the stock market is due to three main factors including adverse macro-economic environment largely due to the drastic drop in the price of crude oil, negative public sentiment which is related to the state of the macro-economy and the retreat of foreign portfolio investors which is related to CBN’s policy on foreign exchange.

    President, Association of Stockbroking Houses of Nigeria (ASHON), Mr Emeka Madubuike, explained that the N200 billion intervention fund would provide liquidity to the market makers such that each market maker should be able to access between N1 billion and N10 billion in concessionary funding.