The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Nigeria

  • Shareholders of FCMB, FinBank approve merger scheme

    Shareholders of FCMB, FinBank approve merger scheme

    Shareholders of First City Monument Bank (FCMB) and FinBank have unanimously approved the proposed merger of the two banks.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the shareholders gave their approval on Friday at both banks’ Court Ordered Meeting held in Lagos.

    The shareholders also authorised the banks’ directors to consent to any modification on the merger scheme by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

    Speaking at the meeting, Mr Ladi Balogun, the Group Managing Director of FCMB, said that the merger would provide considerable benefits and opportunities to the shareholders.

    He said that customers, staff and other stakeholders of the banks would be better off after the merger.

    Balogun said that the merger would enhance the market reach and customer convenience through an expanded 270 branch networks for shareholders.

    According to him, the merger would strengthen the commercial banking business they would engage in.

    “This merger will deepen our capabilities.

    “ It will merge FCMB’s strength in investment banking and FinBank’s competitive advantage in commercial, retail and mobile banking,“ he said.

    Balogun also assured the shareholders of increased returns on their investment in the years ahead.

    “The merger of the two banks will ensure a more robust platform for retail growth,“ he said.

    NAN recalls that FCMB, in February, completed the acquisition of the entire paid-up capital of FinBank and had proposed the merger in line with the Transaction Implementation Agreement of July 14, 2011.

    FCMB was selected as the preferred investor by the board of directors of FinBank after a special examination of commercial banks in 2009. (NAN)

  • Rosenfeld: We won’t underestimate Nigeria

    As they prepare to kick off their FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup against Nigeria, Canada coach Bryan Rosenfeld believes the African side are not to be underestimated as the Canucks take start against a nation with a burgeoning reputation in women’s football.

    Despite an encouraging runners-up finish at the CONCACAF U-17 Championships, Rosenfeld is approaching the game with understandable caution as Nigeria similarly qualified comfortably. However, the Flamingoes’ improving performances across the board in women’s youth tournaments has meant he expects to face a well drilled outfit at Baku’s Tofig Bahramov Stadium.

    “You look at a little bit of their history right now with how they’ve done in U-17 and U-20 there seems to be consistency of their play,” Rosenfeld told FIFA.com. “[They] are becoming more and more organised in their women’s football, the talent keeps growing.

    “They are definitely a squad to be reckoned with, not to underestimate, and their strengths are definitely something that we are going to have to deal with.”

    Having reached the final four in the last two FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cups, including a final in Germany 2010, and the quarter-finals at the last U-17 global finals, Rosenfeld’s reserve is justified. However the Ontario-born coach was sure not to undersell his confidence in his own side.

    Coming off the back of a fine display at the regional championships in Guatemala, conceding only once – to USA in the final – and beating fellow Azerbaijan 2012 qualifiers Mexico in the semis, Rosenfeld believes the wind is in their sails.

    “I think it was a really positive experience for us in Guatemala, considering in the second half of the final game we had the better of the play, really putting the Americans on their heels. We didn’t get the win but towards Azerbaijan it’s something we can build on and take that momentum into our game on 22 September.”

    Also drawn alongside the hosts and Colombia in Group A, Rosenfeld was positive they would be able to play their own game. “We have a team that is very much a hard-working unit,” he said. “But at the same time I believe we do have some special players who can make a difference in a game and with the right supporting cast around those players I think we can do quite well.”

  • What makes Nigeria tick, by Jonathan

    What makes Nigeria tick, by Jonathan

    Those seeking Nigeria’s disintegration are “lazy politicians angling to be kings in tiny islands’’, President Goodluck Jonathan said yesterday in Abuja.

    It was at the opening of a National Summit and Rally for peace, unity and development, oganised by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).

    Besides former Head of State Gen. Yakubu Gowon and Dr. Jonathan, dignataries at the event, included Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, Labour Minister Emeka Wogu, Trade Union Congress (TUC) Presedent-General, Peter Esele.

    The President noted that the strength of the nation is in its size, population and diversity and his administration remained committed to its unity.

    He said: “I agree with other speakers that we cannot talk about cannibalising and balkanising Nigeria.

    “I think those who are thinking that way want to be kings in tiny islands because I believe from the little I know that Nigeria is still rated as a country to look at globally. It’s not because we produce oil, and some people think it’s because of our oil.

    “One small country with less than 10 million population produces more oil than Nigeria. So, it is not the oil, its not the vast land. What is the land space of Nigeria compared to Sudan?

    “The population, yes, we have the population, but I think the key thing is actually the size in terms of the human beings; it’s not the oil that we think we have.

    “So, any person who feels that they just want to stay as one nation, just want to be king without hard work. They will not get it, because Nigeria will not divide.’’

    President Jonathan underscored the need for Nigerians to embrace peace as a pre-requisite for development.

    He decried the destruction of communication towers and equipment by ‘’some disgruntled elements’’.

    Jonathan noted that such negative trends by saboteurs impacted negatively on the economy and made it difficult to develop society.

    The President praised the NLC for organising the summit, adding that it was in line with the government’s position of seeking consensus in nation building and sustainable development.

    He urged the organiser to discuss home-grown strategies in confronting the challenges of security, peace and development.

    Jonathan requested the NLC to take serious interest in the nation’s constitutional development by making valuable contributions in writing to the National Assembly Committees on constitutional review.

    He noted that the modest efforts of the government were yielding results, particularly in the areas of foreign direct investments, power, agriculture, aviation and manufacturing.

    Earlier, Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole, identified disconnect between the political class and the masses, unemployment, corruption, anti-masses policies, among others, as causes of disunity and crises in the country.

    The former NLC president noted that there could not be peace, unity and development without justice.

    He said economic growth could only be measured when it trickles down to the masses.

    Oshiomhole called for a review of the revenue allocation formula to allow for a reduction in the resources accruing to the Federal Government in favour of states and local governments.

    He noted that by so doing, states would be allowed to develop at their own pace and attention would be shifted from the federal to the states.

    Gen. Gowon, Chairman of the occasion, noted that the situation in the country made it mandatory for all true lovers of Nigeria to come together to proffer a solution to the daunting security challenge confronting the nation.

    “I am happy that NLC has chosen to be that agent of change. It shows that NLC is not all about calling out workers on strike and shouting. All Nigerians should help so that in the end we would be able to bring peace that will make Nigeria rank among the best in the world”, he said.

    The former head of state warned that Nigerians should stop playing the ethnicity card, insisting that we are all Nigerians first irrespective of where we may have come from.

    “I do not subscribe to minority, majority slogan. We are all Nigerians and should have equal access to the national cake and should be seen as adding value to Nigeria,”Gen. Gowon said.

    Labour President Abdulwaheed Omar, said the union, being a pan-Nigerian organisation with a history of nationalism and intervention dating to the Independence struggle, cannot fold its hands and watch the country break up, hence its decision to hold the summit.

    “Nigeria’s existence as one indivisible entity is inviolable, irrevocable and inalienable”, he said.

  • Crude oil and progress of Nigeria

    Crude oil and progress of Nigeria

    The importance of natural resources to the growth of a country’s economy cannot be underestimated. A country endowed with natural resources can be considered to be blessed. When these resources are effectively utilised, they can uplift the quality of life of the people of that nation.

    Over the years, crude oil exploration in Nigeria has caused many problems for the people with many saying oil is becoming a curse to Nigeria people. Since 1958 when the nation discovered the black gold in Oloibiri in Bayelsa State, it would be incorrect for anyone to deny its adverse impact on environment, politics and security in Nigeria.

    The revenue we garner from oil approximately accounts for 92 per cent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). But 70 per cent of Nigerians still live below the poverty line despite the nearly $1 trillion the nation has made from oil exports alone since 1970s.

    Nigeria’s crude oil has divided opinion leaders, who expressed that the black gold is blessing and curse, depending on which side of the divide one belongs.

    The people who believed oil is a blessing to the country are obviously the people benefiting from its exploration. They cart away the proceeds from oil to acquire material assets for themselves at the expense of our collective development. This is a pain inflicted by the minority group of people referred to as “political class” on the masses.

    The second category of people who believed oil revenue only enriches the elite and not the crumb of it goes to ordinary people.

    Perhaps, this was the reason why the people trooped to the streets in their thousands to protest the government decision to remove oil subsidy last January. It was trailed by several activities that made Nigerians to become wild and resentful against the government they believed has not done enough to better their lots.

    Nigeria may not recover from various environmental problems that have been caused by oil production. About 1.5 million metric tonnes of oil have been spilled for over 50 years of exploration, making the Niger Delta to be one of the most polluted places on earth.

    Though land degradation, pollution and gas flaring is usually a major phenomenon in many oil producing areas around the world, but the one experienced in the Niger Delta region is pathetic because government has not been forthcoming on when the factors that contributed to environmental calamities will stop.

    Many people have lost their lives in agitation to librate the region from environmental problems. Instead of the multinational companies to parley the communities where they get the oil, they are always at loggerhead with them. Many Nigerians will still remeber the circumstances that led to the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa with eight other Ogoni activists by the government of General Sanni Abacha.

    More so, oil exploration in Nigeria has largely contributed to civil conflicts, crime and political instability. This can be traced to misappropriation of the proceeds from oil sale. If there is a sole reason for calling for a Sovereign National Conference (SNC), resource control would be it. It is posing a serious threat to the nation’s unity and if not properly managed, it might open another Pandora’s Box for the nation that is still struggling to fight Boko Haram insurgency. It is a paradox that oil wealth that should have been a blessing to us is the source of disunity in the country.

    Economy wise, it is saddening that the overbearing nature of the oil and gas sector has brought redundancy to other sectors of the economy where we used to earn our revenue during the colonial era. Agricultural sector which gave the country fortunes in colonial Nigeria is presently at it lowest ebb. A country that was once a large exporter of food crops and various agricultural produces now imports a large quantity of foods.

    I still remembered how I read it in books and what my father told me about the pyramids of groundnut in the North, cocoa in the West, palm oil in the East and timber and other resources in Sapele. All of these have disappeared in post-colonial Nigeria in the wake of oil exploration. Also, mineral resource like tin, columbite and coal among others that used to generate income for the nation have been forgotten because of the oil boom.

    The future looks dicey for Nigeria, especially for the youth if our leaders fail to positively utilise the proceeds from oil sale. Perhaps, two foremost Nigerian literary icons could have foreseen a strife coming when Prof Chinua Achebe in Things fall apart, foretold Nigeria’s post-independence problems. Similarly, Prof Wole Soyinka authored Climate of fear in 2004, a book that chronicled sundry circumstances that resulted into a quest for dignity in a dehumanised world. It is evident that a climate of fear has enveloped Nigeria as earlier foretold by Soyinka.

    Hopefully, the development of a new generation of leaders will proffer solutions to our problems and change the future of Nigeria. This will happen only if the present generation of youths can uproot the seeds of greed, corruption, tribalism and religious fanatism that are being instilled in them by the actions and inactions of certain leaders in the present.

     

    Akindotun, HND II Welding and Fabrication Engineering Technology, PTI Effurun

     

  • How Nigeria lost $2 b to gas flaring last year, by Gowon

    How Nigeria lost $2 b to gas flaring last year, by Gowon

    •Ex-Head of State laments loss of LNG market to Qatar, others

    Nigeria flared over $2 billion worth of gas last year, former Head of State Gen. Yakubu Gowon has said.

    Gowon spoke yesterday in Finima, Bonny Island, Rivers State.

    The former Head of State, who visited the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Plant on the island, said the country would have more money for development projects by ending gas flaring.

    Gowon said the country has to ensure that steps were fast-tracked to complete the NLNG Train Seven and other LNG projects to end gas flaring.

    He said countries such as Qatar have taken over the leadership of the LNG market from NLNG, which used to be the fastest growing in the world.

    He said: “Think of how much gas we burnt between when we found oil in 1957 and when Nigeria LNG was able to start monetising our gas resources in 1999. Last year, this country flared over 460 billion standard cubic feet of gas that, if processed and exported, would have fetched the country over $2 billion and minimised the health and environmental impact of gas flares.

    “Think of how oil palm industry left Nigeria for Malaysia. Think of how athletics – we won Gold at the Sydney Olympics 12 years ago – left Nigeria to Jamaica. And the worst of all, countries we started out with in the LNG business have all left us behind.”

    Gowon lamented the country’s loss of the leadership of the LNG market.

    According to him, Nigeria LNG Limited used to be the fastest growing LNG plant in the world. But for the past five years, a country like Qatar has moved from 20 to 80 million tonnes range, whilst a country like Australia has made final investment decision to build LNG projects up to 80 million tonnes. I now understand that Mozambique and Tanzania will soon be joining the gas producers with the export of LNG.”

    He urged the Federal Government to ensure all the LNG projects were completed.

    The former Head of State said: “All the LNG projects on the drawing board in Nigeria (NLNG Train Seven, Brass LNG, OKLNG) will add about 30million tonnes of LNG to our national output, which is not that much when we compare with Australia, which has only 60 per cent of our reserves but effectively generates much higher domestic electricity and will soon be exporting much more LNG than all the LNG companies in Nigeria combined.”

    He warned of the consequence of not acting on time.

    “So, I am still not completely fulfilled that we haven’t reached our destination in that journey we started so long ago. I am worried that history is about to repeat itself as other players (including the USA, a previous importer now a net exporter) will get to the global market ahead of us and it may be another 30 to 50 years lost. I will not like to see another great opportunity lost due to our lethargy.

    “We can’t afford to sit on the fence any longer.”

     

  • 140 Nigeria policemen in Mogadishu for peace keeping

    140 Nigeria policemen in Mogadishu for peace keeping

    ONE hundred and forty officers and men of the Nigerian Police Force have arrived in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia to participate in the ongoing AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) peacekeeping operations..

    A statement made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Addis Ababa by the Peace and Security Department of the AU Commission yesterday, said that the Formed Police Unit (FPU) from Nigeria would join other unit from Uganda who were already in Mogadishu.

    Mr Boubacar Diarra, the Special Representative of the AU Chairperson for Somalia , said in a statement that the arrival of the second AMISOM Formed Police Unit was a clear demonstration of the AU’s commitment to support Somalia in its endeavour to improve the security situation in the country especially in the liberated areas.

     

  • How Nigeria lost $2b to gas flaring last year – Gowon

    How Nigeria lost $2b to gas flaring last year – Gowon

    Nigeria flayed over $2 billion worth of gas last year, former head of state, Gen. Yakubu Gowon, has said.
    Gen. Gowon spoke on Wednesday in Finima, Bonny Island, Rivers State.
    The former Head of State, who was on a visit to the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Plant on the Island, said the country would have more money for development projects by ending gas flaring.
    He said the country has to ensure that steps were fast-tracked to complete the NLNG Train Seven and other LNG projects to end gas flaring.
    He said countries such as Qatar have taken over the leadership of the LNG market from NLNG, which used to be the fastest growing in the world.
    He said: “Think of how much cash, sorry gas, we burnt between when we found oil in 1957 and when Nigeria LNG was able to start monetising our gas resources in 1999. Last year, this country flared over 460 billion standard cubic feet of gas that, if processed and exported, would have fetched the country over $2 billion and minimised the health and environmental impact of gas flares.
    “Think of how oil palm industry left Nigeria for Malaysia. Think of how athletics – we won Gold at the Sydney Olympics 12 years ago – left Nigeria to Jamaica. And the worst of all, countries we started out with in the LNG business have all left us behind.”
    Gen. Gowon lamented the country’s loss of the leadership of the LNG market.
    “Nigeria LNG Limited used to be the fastest growing LNG plant in the world. But for the past five years, a country like Qatar has moved from 20 to 80 million tonnes range, whilst a country like Australia has made final investment decision to build LNG projects up to 80 million tonnes. I now understand that Mozambique and Tanzania will soon be joining the gas producers with the export of LNG,” he stated.
    He urged the Federal Government to ensure all the LNG projects were completed.
    The former Head of State said: “All the LNG projects on the drawing board in Nigeria (NLNG Train Seven, Brass LNG, OKLNG) will add about 30million tonnes of LNG to our national output, which is not that much when we compare with Australia, which has only 60 per cent of our reserves but effectively generates much higher domestic electricity and will soon be exporting much more LNG than all the LNG companies in Nigeria combined.”
    He warned of the consequence of not acting on time.
    “So, I am still not completely fulfilled that we haven’t reached our destination in that journey we started so long ago. I am worried that history is about to repeat itself as other players (including the United States, a previous importer now a net exporter) will get to the global market ahead of us and it may be another 30-50 years lost. I will not like to see another great opportunity lost due to our lethargy.
    We can’t afford to sit on the fence any longer,” Gen. Gowon noted.

  • Penny dreadful national honours

    Penny dreadful national honours

    Hardball is today loth to spoon-feed younger readers. He will leave them to find out what penny dreadful means. For older readers, from whose ranks many of the recipients of Nigerian National Honours come from, penny dreadful is certainly not a strange term.

    The old are familiar with it, and more, they can feel an eerie sense of its applicability in the 2012 Honours investiture that took place two days ago for 155 people described fulsomely as eminent personalities. Most Nigerians, if President Goodluck Jonathan, GCFR, would be kind enough to lend us his idiosyncratic hyperbole, think the honours have been bastardised.

    Since 1963 when it began, the awards have gone to over four thousand people, very many of them truly undeserving. Responding to questions over the apparent debasement of the awards and the fact that some awardees have in retrospect proved unworthy of the honours, Jonathan declared: “I have directed that the National Honours Committee compile a list of persons conferred with National Honours but that their current credibility is questionable. If they are found wanting, our prestigious honours will be withdrawn.”

    We leave it to you to determine whether the honours are really prestigious, or whether it would not have been far better to tighten the criteria beforehand and ensure that awardees are people duly and rigorously tested in achievement and character. It is an indication of the vulgarisation of the awards, for instance, that they have become predictable for certain classes of people.

    It is routine to give it to heads of state and presidents, usually after service or, in the case of Jonathan, during service, whether they deserved it or not. It is now also routine to give it to serving vice presidents, some governors, serving top military and police brass, and as it has become obvious, a few outright charlatans. It has in fact become a tool for dispensing favours, and with each passing year, it becomes increasingly devalued.
    No awardee illustrates the bastardisation of the honours as much as the late Gen Sani Abacha, GCON, whose larcenous and libidinous propensity turned Nigeria into an object of international ridicule far worse than the sensuous Mr Silvio Berlusconi occasioned for Italy. Many more recipients have proved unworthy of the awards.

    The task for Jonathan, if indeed he is capable of discharging it, is not to simply compile a list of those who have debased the awards or to pussyfoot over it. He has a responsibility to rework the National Honours paradigm away from its present predictability and its deployment as a reward system for those still in government, including himself.

    It should worry every Nigerian that, like the honours awards so spectacularly devalued, Nigeria now has governors and presidents who site government institutions and giant projects in their hometowns and villages. In the light of the generally selfless leadership of the First Republic and the decade before, it is a scandal the appalling quality of leaders Nigeria has produced since the middle 1970s, leaders who have no sense of history, no sense of fairness, and no sense of the obligation nobility imposes.

  • Atiku seeks law to prune President’s powers

    Atiku seeks law to prune President’s powers

    •Tinubu: INEC must be truly independent

     

    Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar stirred a fresh debate on the powers of the President yesterday.

    The National Assembly should prune the President’s powers as part of the review of the constitution, he said, because  with such excessive powers, the President can easily undermine any institution of the state.

    Former Lagos State Governor Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu said the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) must be made truly independent to guarantee free and fair polls.

    He advocated a unicameral legislature at the federal level, saying the Senate should be scrapped.

    It was all at the Annual Conference and Award Ceremony of the Leadership Newspaper Group in Abuja.

    Former Defence Minister Gen. Theophilus Danjuma was presented with the award of “Leadership man of the Year”.

    Ekiti State Governor Kayode Fayemi was decorated as “Governor of the Year”, among other honours at the occasion.

    Atiku  said the President is constitutionally the most powerful president in the world. He recalled that he (Atiku) was a victim of the power when his former boss, ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, exercised it. He insisted that “it must be changed”.

    The theme of the conference was: “Is the opposition a serious alternative in Nigeria?”

    Atiku recalled that former Vice President Alex Ekwueme canvassed the creation of geo-political zones. He should have supported Ekwueme had he known that the Nigerian federal structure would be as it is today, with  concentration of excessive power at the centre, Atiku said.

    The Nigerian judiciary, said Atiku, “is bloated and pro-establishment. He would like to see a judiciary that is the hope of the common man.

    The ex-Vice President also advised the National Assembly to pass laws for the adoption of a two-party political  system since the ruling party abhors strong opposition.

    He added that states that are ready for state police should be allowed to establish them.

    Atiku also lamented that there was unnecessary debates and pandemonium over states having their anthems and flags, which is commonplace in the United States.

    He urged Nigeria to desist from relying on sharing oil revenue, but to encourage revenue generation.

    The former Vice President urged the country to sustain the achievements of the forefathers that didn’t have oil revenue by adopting “a system of distribution rather than sharing.”

    On sharing of oil revenue, Atiku said: “I  don’t know of any country that developed from sharing.”

    He said he followed a debate whether the Niger Delta can survive, like Singapore, without oil, but he is of the opinion that all that is necessary is human capital and good governance for the oil-rich region to be as wealthy as Singapore.

    He insisted that he was not a product of oil boom as the scholarship did not come from oil revenue.

    National Leader of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) Asiwaju Tinubu said to cut cost of governance, Nigeria should adopt a uni-camera legislature by scrapping the Senate.

    Tinubu said unless INEC is truly independent, it will always do the bidding of Mr. president, who appoints the Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs).

    He said: “We gave INEC power and authority to act on our behalf, to be independent from government; why won’t we allow the buck to stop on the desk of the INEC chair? Why will INEC not be able to appoint those in the branches? why will they be appointed by the President who said they will rule for 60 years? How will we have a reliable system? We have struggled for power as opposition and we are ready to wrest power from them.”

    But Gen. Danjuma vehemently disagreed with those who complained of a concentration of power at the centre. He said the challenges in the country are not posed solely by the Federal Government but mostly by governors, “who pocket the State Assembly and dissolve local government councils.”

    According to Gen. Danjuma, governors of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) have retained the right of nominating ministerial candidates.

    Pointing to Atiku, Gen. Danjuma said: “You cannot become the President of this country, unless the governors want you. So, the governors are too powerful and until we find solution to it, we are in trouble.”

    While condemning opposition parties for not posing a formidable challenge to the ruling party, Borno State Governor Kashim Shettima. He  was represented by the Secretary to the State Government,  Ambassador Ahmed Baba Jida.

    Former Minister of Power Paul Onongo warned the country of the impending danger of a break-up which he predicted would come in two years, unless the necessary steps are taken to rescue the country.

    “I can even see two years before the war signals. Talk to the bigmen who are enjoying life that they should start sleeping with one eye open.”

    Guest Speaker Prof. Pat Utomi argued that there are no political parties in Nigeria but “vehicles for getting own shares”.

    He said: “I try not to argue that there is no opposition parties in Nigeria, but all we have is for sharing of the national cake.”

    House of Representatives Speaker Aminu Tambuwal said with good leadership, there is hope for the country.

    At the ceremony were Fayemi, Alhaji Maitama Sule, former Minister of Information, Prof. Jerry Gana, ACN chairman Chief Bisi Akande, Gen. Jeremiah Useni, Minister of State for Power Darius Ishaku, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), Senator Lawal Shaibu, Hon. Farouk Lawan, Ndudi Elumelu and others.

     

  • Political conflict is Nigeria’s greatest challenge, says Jonathan

    Political conflict is Nigeria’s greatest challenge, says Jonathan

    52nd Independence Anniversary lecture holds in Abuja

     

    The greatest challenge facing the country is political conflict, which distracts a government from pursuing its promises to the people, President Goodluck Jonathan declared yesterday.

    He pleaded with Nigerians to allow the government to concentrate in order to deliver.

    It was at the nation’s 52nd Independence Anniversary Lecture in Abuja.

    According to him, it would be impossible for development to take place without peace and security, stressing that it is the ordinary citizen that suffer during crisis.

    Jonathan also spoke on the   January Occupy Nigeria fuel subsidy protest, saying it was manipulated by a particular class of Nigerians.

    He said: “There are challenges but I believe the greatest aspect of this thing is political conflict. As a typical politician, we believe that the day you win general election is the day you start another election and that is our greatest problem. The day you miss one election is the day you start preparing for another one.”

    “I would plead with us as Nigerians that whenever we make government come to power, whether at the local government, at the state and at the federal level, at least for the sake of the country allow the government to work.”

    Stressing that the government is committed to transformation, Jonathan noted that his administration has made it possible for Nigerians to vote freely and for their votes to count.

    His words: “For this election for example, we advocated for one man-one vote and we are sincere with our commitment and I said it, nobody should rig election for me, no local government chairman or anybody should rig election for me, not to talk about contesting presidential election across the country. Nigerians believe that we are sincere and because we are sincere, it took life of its own. I don’t need to go and preach again, we have monitored election in Edo and other parts and the president said, one man, one vote, one woman, one vote, one youth, one vote and nobody wants to compromise with the ballot paper.”

    On the protests against fuel subsidy removal, Jonathan said: “Look at the areas these demonstrations are coming from and you will begin to ask questions, is this coming from the ordinary citizens, are they the ones that are actually demonstrating or are people pushing them to demonstrate.”

    “Take the classical case of Lagos, Lagos is the heart of Nigeria because it is where all Nigerians are, it constitutes about 23 per cent of the economy and all tribes are there. There was a demonstration in Lagos where I believe Dr. Ibrahim participated and in that demonstration, somebody was giving pure water that people in my village don’t have access to, well packaged bottled water, expensive food that ordinary people in Lagos cannot eat, they hired the best musicians to come and play and the best comedian to come and entertain, is that demonstration?”

    “Are you telling me that the demonstration is coming from the ordinary masses of Nigeria who wants to communicate something to their government and in my own life, if I see that somebody is manipulating something, I don’t listen to you but when I see people genuinely talking about issues, I listen. I believe what happened in Lagos was manipulated by a class of Nigeria not the ordinary citizens,” he said.

    Comparing the media in Nigeria with the Boko Haram insurgents, the president said that just like Boko Haram could be categorised as “political” and “religious”, the media could be categorised to “professional” and “political.”

    “We have Political Boko Haram and Religoius Boko Haram. Even in the media, we have the professional media practitioners, we have the political media.

    The Guest Speaker and former Ghanaian President, John Kuffur, who spoke on the theme: ‘Nigeria, Security, Development and National Transformation.’ maintained that Nigeria was a victim of history.

    He said: “I don’t think the nation has fully recovered from the effects of the civil war and the crises of the 1960’s. You are maturing, you are not fully matured.

    According to him, the rest of Africa is looking up to Nigeria to overcome its challenges, fulfil its full leadership potentials and lead the continent.