The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Nigerian Newspapers

  • ‘Northern governor planning to subvert govt’

    A FRONTLINE northern organisation, the Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG), has alleged that a sitting governor from the Northwest is masterminding a North’s version of the #RevolutionNow, led by detained Sahara Reporter publisher Omoyele Sowore.

    The coalition explained that unlike the botched #RevolutionNow, the proposed northern version is only aimed at promoting a mischievous 2023 political agenda of certain northern politicians. In a statement yesterday in Kaduna, the Coalition of Northern Groups advised the governor to shelve his planned protest or be exposed.

    Read Also: Four killed in deputy governor’s convoy

    The statement by the coalition’s spokesman Abdul-Azeez Suleiman said the planned agitations and disturbances are part of a wider agenda to destabilise the polity. It added that this would cause a change of structure in the Presidency to suit the plan of the governor, by whatever means and tactics.

    CNG said: “Our attention was called to trending reports that a certain fake, fringe and obscure Joint Northern Action Front is mobilising the North to revive the violent and counterproductive #RevolutionNow in northern parts of the country.

    “The #RevolutionNow was politely rejected by the North in view of its pronounced sinister intention of forcefully overthrowing the current democratic government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

     

  • Kumuyi, others to address participants on success principles

    The Deeper Christian Life Ministry has announced its annual National Youth Success Camp (NYSC) for this year with the theme: Preparing for a Secure Future.

    In a statement by the programme’s National Coordinator, Dr. Peter Elias, the church said the Success Camp would feature “complete transformation, developing excellence, digital awareness, success insight, empowerment discovery, heart talk, future skills and lots more”.

    Explaining the genesis of the programme, Elias said: “The Convener, Pastor William Folorunsho Kumuyi, the General Superintendent of the Deeper Christian Life Ministry, more than 30 years ago, started Free Vacation School to assist students of secondary schools and colleges in Mathematics as a renowned expert in the field and to make the most of the holiday period through Godly transformation.

    “Over the years, this event has evolved into an annual summer camping programme, called ‘Success Camp’. As the name suggests, the overall goal is to unravel secrets of success to young people, based on godly, scriptural values.”

    Elias explained that the aim was to prepare youths for the jobs of the future.

    Read Also: Buhari greets Pastor Kumuyi at 78

    The national coordinator said this year’s programme would hold simultaneously in major cities across Nigeria and other African countries from August 27 to 31.

    He added that it would be residential.

    Elias urged the youth to “join Pastor Kumuyi as he leads other anointed men of God, seasoned technocrats, reputable professionals and erudite teachers to unravel the key to the unbeatable life, success principles, life skills and leadership nuggets”.

     

  • NDIC signs MoU with Korea to deepen deposit insurance system

    THE Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Korea Deposit Insurance Corporation (KDIC) on several areas to facilitate the robust implementation of the deposit insurance system in their jurisdictions.

    Both institutions are key members of the International Association of Deposit Insurers (IADI).

    A statement by NDIC’s Director of Communications and Public Affairs Department, Mohammed Kudu Ibrahim, said the MoU was signed at an elaborate ceremony on the premises of KDIC in Seoul, South Korea, on August 7.

    KDIC’s Chairman and President W. I. Seongbak, signed on behalf of the Korean corporation while Umaru Ibrahim, the Managing Director/Chief Executive (MD/CE) of the NDIC, signed on behalf of the Nigerian counterpart.

    The ceremony was witnessed by the Chairman of NDIC’s Board, Mrs. Josephine Ibironke Sokefun, and some of her colleagues on a study tour of KDIC.

    Under the terms of the MoU, both parties noted the increasing globalisation and complexity of large financial institutions and the unique challenges they portend for regulatory authorities.

    They committed themselves to the promotion of communication, enhancement of existing levels of cooperation; provision of support, mutual understanding and collaboration on areas related to the development of the deposit insurance systems in the two jurisdictions.

    Read Also: NDIC: Crypto-currency traders may lose money

    The MoU also provides for effective international working relationship between both agencies along with the enhancement of their roles in financial regulatory initiatives and policy deliberations.

    There will also be periodic exchange of workers between both institutions and bilateral meetings on regular basis towards enhancing mutual understanding that promotes the development of the deposit insurance system (DIS) in Nigeria and South Korea.

    Reflecting on the visit, Mrs Sokefun described the study tour and MoU signing as a deeply rewarding experiencing, given the insight gained by both deposit insurers from the various technical sessions held during the visit.

    After the signing of the MoU, the NDIC delegation, led by the board chairman and MD/CEO, was hosted to knowledge and experience sharing sessions by their KDIC counterparts. The delegation interacted with faculty members of the KDIC Global Academy.

    The NDIC team also visited the Financial Services Commission (FSC), where it was hosted by the First Deputy Governor, and the Financial Supervisory Services (FSS), where a technical knowledge sharing session was also held with their management team.

    The sessions covered topics such as supervisory early warning system, risk based premium assessment system, public awareness strategies and consumer protection.

    Other areas covered included deposit pay-out processes, failure resolution, Korean Financial Industry Oversight Framework, among others.

    The delegation was later hosted by the Nigerian Ambassador to the Republic of Korea, H. E. Amin Muhammad Dalhatu, at the Nigerian Embassy building in Seoul.

     

  • EFCC moves to prevent Internet fraud

    THE Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Wednesday said it had put in place preventive mechanisms to end internet/cybercrimes in the country.

    The Ilorin Zonal Head of the anti-graft agency for Kwara, Kogi and Ekiti states, Mr Isyaku Sharu, stated this when members of the state council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), led by the chairman, Malam Umar Abdulwahab, visited him in his office. The zonal head said the cyber space must be safe to attract foreign investment. He noted that activities of the commission had gone beyond conviction to prevention of the act.

    Read Also: EFCC: ex-governor being investigated

    Sharu said apart from the routine raiding of the hideouts of those involved in cybercrimes, the commission had also embarked on sensitisation programmes to educate youths on the need to stay away from internet fraud.

    The zonal head urged parents to show interest in the activities of their children to prevent them from joining bad company.

    Abdulwahab assured the EFCC of the union’s determination to support its activities.

     

  • Oyo-Ita makes surprise appearance at Aso Villa

    THE embattled Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Mrs. Winifred Oyo-Ita, made surprise appearance on Wednesday at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.

    The Presidency inaugurated new Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Wednesday.

    Mrs Oyo-Ita arrived the forecourt of the State House in her official sport utility vehicle (SUV) around 9.45 a.m. She had walked straight to the office of the Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari.

    The Head of Civil Service had been absent at the two-day presidential retreat for ministers-designate, Federal permanent secretaries and top government functionaries at the old Banquet Hall on Monday and Tuesday.  She did not show up on Tuesday when she was scheduled to speak on the topic: Consolidating Ongoing Reforms in the Public Service.

    Read Also: Oyo-Ita absent at presidential retreat

    The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), last week, grilled her for alleged N3 billion contract scam.

    Some reports on Monday claimed that Mrs Oyo-Ita had submitted her letter of retirement from the service.

    But the Presidency countered the reports, saying it had not received such a letter.

     

  • Court stops Indians from taking over three ‘Nigerian firms’

    A FEDERAL High Court in Lagos on Wednesday restrained three Indians from taking over three firms – Bolawole Enterprises Nigeria Limited, Lesag Nigeria Limited and Intermanagement Nigeria Limited – allegedly owned by Oluwole Oginni and his wife, Mobolatan.

    Vacation judge Justice Nicholas Oweibo made the interim order following an ex parte application filed by Mr Oginni, 87.

    The Indian nationals, who are also the first to third respondents in the suit, are: Mr. Jai Bhagwan Gupta, and his two sons, Vineet Gupta and Rachit Gupta.

    Justice Oweibo also restrained the respondents from convening any meeting at Mushin, Sheraton Hotel, Ikeja, or at Victoria Island, all in Lagos, for the removal of the couple as the firm’s directors, pending the hearing and determination of the originating summons.

    Read Also: Court adjourns for judgment on Atiku’s petition

    The judge made the interim orders after hearing the octogenarian, through his counsel, Mr. Yakubu Galadima.

    Oginni had claimed that without his consent or a board resolution to that effect, the Indians, sometime in November, 2017, illegally removed and changed the signatory to the corporate accounts of the firms.

    He also averred that the Indians had, by a Notice of Extra Ordinary General Meeting scheduled to take place on August 21, 22 and 23, respectively, proposed to remove him and his wife as a director and to strip them of their membership of the firms.

    The judge fixed September 5 to hear the substantive suit.

     

  • Loose lawmakers

    Very often, analysts of the presidential system have cavilled at the cost of running it. But others have noted that it is not the system that offends but the practitioners who undermine it.

    The economics of transition from the eighth National Assembly to the ninth has exposed some of the footloose morality not only of the country, but also those who govern it; or shall we say, who legislate it.

    The reports have it that the authorities of the legislative bodies decided to sell off their official items at ridiculously low prices. How does a sports utility vehicle, a Land cruiser, that was purchased on tax payers’ money for N26 million go away to an unknown buyer for a mere N1 million? How again do we explain how television set that sold for N2 million each go away for much less? In fact, the reports say that a legislator’s two television sets, one in the office and the other in the home, as well as photo copiers, desktop computers and a big refrigerator all went for a paltry N360,000.

    The normal breakdown of the television sets would amount to N4 million for the two. If each of the television sets cost N2 million in 2015, how did the authorities calculate the depreciation value? How come a functional television of that calibre cost so excruciatingly low? But the story of the office and household items may be less invidious than that of the sports utility vehicle. It meant that the value in three years fell by over 200 percent. It is a scandal.

    The painful thing about this is that some of the buyers are legislators. These legislators will also get new items, or money for new items as members of the ninth assembly. Again, some of the members of the ninth assembly were members of the eighth.

    There was another scandal pertaining to the repainting of the offices. It was a new definition of double jeopardy. The authorities secured contracts for the repainting of offices while lawmakers who were impatient with the process had their own repainting contracts. This did not delete the contracts from the National Assembly from the accounts. So, while lawmakers painted their offices from their personal money, the law makers still paid off contractors for the same work.

    This is a common practice, according to those familiar with the system. Even at that, this year’s episodes were unparalleled in their decadent liberality. It implies that if the items are regarded as below the taste of a succeeding lawmaker, there should be a standard for determining the depreciation value of the items. That way, a controversy or scandal such as this may be averted.

    Again, this story explains why the so-called charge of the expensiveness of the presidential system fails to take cognisance of the lack of financial discipline of the lawmakers. Our legislators, by all accounts, are some of the best paid in the world. Most of them are idle all year. In spite of the new cars and television sets, they are entitled to allowances that boggle the mind. A member of the eighth National Assembly, Senator Shehu Sani, testified to it in a well-publicised confessional indictment of the body. The lawmakers did not deny it. Neither did they even repent.

    Law-making in Nigeria is an exercise in receiving pock. It has not shied away from scandals because it always survives them. They are the Teflon institution of our democracy. Few ever get prosecuted because it is consumption by committee, and all their sins are covered.

    This democracy and its protagonists have developed no checks on the excesses of the National Assembly. And it seems we have surrendered to their iniquity.

  • Diezani fights for gold

    What is it about luxury goods that make some women lose their heads. No matter how much of these items they have, they crave for more and are even ready to lose their lives than to forfeit these goods. Those in power among them like to flaunt these items because they have them in super abundance. Whether as First Lady or a cabinet member, it does not take long to identify a woman with a penchant for jewellery, costly shoes and related items which they believe confer them with status.

    It is not the status that matters to some, but the kick they derive from showing off to the world their collections. It is easy to know a woman who is crazy about shoes, jewellery, exotic wrist watches and the like. By their appearance, you will know their taste. As the First Lady of Philippines between 1965 and 1986, Imelda Marcos was known for her acquisition of shoes. As the Filipinos wallowed in poverty, the mother of the nation displayed her collection of shoes with reckless abandon.

    Her home was more of a boutique than an abode as everywhere was filled with shoes. Before she and her husband Ferdinand were forced out of power by the people, she had 3,000 pairs of shoes. What did she need all that for? At 90 today, she will be hard pressed to answer this question. Where are those shoes now? Or better still, what is left of them. Because she and her husband fled the Malacanang Palace to escape the people’s wrath, many of the shoes were carted away by the invaders.

    What is left of them are now in the Marikina Shoe Museum. Imelda did not fight for her shoes but for her life when it came to a crunch. In the face of imminent danger from a rampaging crowd, she fled her fortified home, forgetting about the shoes she went round the world to collect. Another woman like her is Diezani Alison-Madueke. Diezani was not a first lady; she was just a minister. She was however much more than that. She was a super minister who had the ears of her boss, former President Goodluck Jonathan. Anything she did had the seal of authority of the number one citizen under who she served.

    Her colleagues who knew where power lies came to her in order to reach the president. She loved and still loves the good world. She spent our money not on any consequential official work but on mundane things like gold, wrist watches and what not. By the time the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) took stock of these items, they were valued at N14.4 billion only. Isn’t that chicken feed for someone of the status of Diezani? What is the big deal about N14.4 billion worth of jewellery that the people are shouting ‘’crucify her’’ all over the place?

    EFCC has drawn Diezani’s ire for seizing her collections of 2,149 pieces of jewellery and a customised golden iPhone. She has joined issues with EFCC in court, stating that these items cannot be permanently forfeited to the government. EFCC is praying for their forfeiture because ‘’it is reasonably suspected they were acquired with proceeds of unlawful activities’’.  She said to make her forfeit the items would amount to denying her of the right to own property as enshrined in the Constitution.

    Can somebody please ask her if she acquired them with her hard earned money. If she did, what is the source of that fund? She has a right to own property, but it should be property legitimately acquired.

  • Fraudulent perks

    The diversity as well as sheer immensity of the problem of corruption in the Nigerian public service have, once again, been brought to the forefront of our national consciousness by the Chairman of the National Salaries, Income and Wages Commission (NSIWC), Chief Richard Egbule. The NSIWC boss told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), that his commission had prevented the Federal Government from being defrauded to the tune of over N400 billion by detecting and blocking illegal Duty Tour Allowances (DTA) payments.

    We can best imagine what immense harm this kind of horrendous fiscal haemorrhage would have further inflicted on an already prostrate economy starved of resources for development had it not been checked. But the big question is: what guarantees do we have that this discovery is not only a tip of the iceberg and that the criminal practice may still not remain rampant in the public service?

    Chief Egbule chronicled the many ways through which civil servants at all levels rob the country of humongous amounts of money by claiming inflated or unauthorised allowances.  According to him, “some board chairmen are in the habit of pushing the chief executives to pay what is not appropriate or authorised by government. In some of these agencies, you will find people taking salaries as well as allowances that they are not supposed to take, or taking the rate of allowances that they are not supposed to take. We have seen cases where they abuse the periodicity of payments. For instance, if somebody is supposed to get furniture allowance once every four years, they will instead pay the same amount every year”.

    Elaborating on how the Duty Tour Allowance, in particular, is grossly abused, Chief Egbule said “In fact, the most abused payments relates to DTA. The highest per night, which is meant for a night, is N35, 000 but in some agencies, that is not even what they pay a Level 8 officer. On their own, they will extend it even as high as N150,000 per night”.

    The NSIWC chairman revealed that the fraud extends even to the level of tertiary institutions across the country. In his words, “Also, you won’t believe that staff schools, which are the concern of universities and tertiary institutions, have also been abused. These universities establish primary and secondary schools, collect school fees from pupils, but place their teachers as staff of the universities that government pays. In fact, in many of them, teachers collect salaries as much as a professor. So all these things we discovered and we put a stop to it”.

    Even though commendable, is unveiling and stopping these illegal practices sufficient action on the part of the NSIWC? We do not think so. Further steps should have been taken to bring those indicted for such acts to justice to serve as a deterrent to others. Egbule’s explanation that his commission does not have the power to prosecute and is thus only able to report infractions to supervising ministries sounds like a lame excuse. It can surely formally draw the attention of the anti-graft agencies to such incidents to enable the latter exercise their powers of investigation and prosecution. There is no guarantee that supervising ministries of infringing agencies and officials will take any meaningful action to bring culprits to book sine they may also be complicit.

    What we have on our hand is clearly a case of widespread indiscipline and lack of respect for extant financial rules and regulations across the public service. It is also a reflection of the weaknesses and ineffectiveness of our auditing systems that these abuses are not routinely discovered and punished in the process of statutory auditing of the accounts of the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).

  • Sahara Group’s Adesida is MIPAD

    Sahara Foundation’s Private Sector Engagement Specialist, Babatomiwa Adesida has been selected as one of the 2019 Most Influential People of African Descent (MIPAD) in recognition of his contribution to humanitarian work and promotion of the Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs).

    Sahara Foundation is the social responsibility vehicle of Sahara Group, a leading energy and infrastructure conglomerate with operations in over 38 countries across Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

    According Sahara Group’s spokesman, Bethel, Adesida’s recognition was announced by The Most Influential People of African Descent (MIPAD) 100, a global civil society initiative in support of the implementation for the International Decade for People of African Descent as proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly resolution 68/237.

    “I am very flattered by this award and humbled by the opportunity Sahara Foundation has given me to serve humanity.  I am extremely passionate about Social Reconstruction, particularly in developing nations and nothing gives me more joy than the success Sahara Foundation has achieved in terms of transforming the lives of over 2,000,000 beneficiaries across our locations. I dedicate this recognition to Sahara Foundation as well as all our partners and stakeholders across the globe,” Adesida stated.

    MIPAD publishes a unique global 100 list that identifies outstanding individuals of African descent worldwide, pairing those based in the Diaspora with their counterparts inside Africa across four categories: Politics & Governance, Business & Entrepreneurship, Media & Culture, and Humanitarian & Religious.

    Adesida will be celebrated alongside other honorees during MIPAD Class of 2019 recognition week in New York from September 27th – October 3rd 2019 on the sidelines of the 74th United Nations Annual General Assembly, according to Kamil Olufowobi, MIPAD’s Founder and CEO.

    Babatomiwa Adesida drives partnerships between Sahara Group and international organisations such as the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in New York and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris.  Sahara Group and the UNDP recently signed an MoU on promoting sustainable energy in Africa. Adesida will play a critical role in the implementation of the project which seeks to enhance access to clean and affordable energy through collaborative interventions in selected countries for effective realisation of the SDGs.

    Adesida has over 12 years of Private Sector experience and has been involved in the development, implementation and monitoring of projects and policies through the private sector in partnership with numerous governments in different countries including Nigeria, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Tanzania, Zambia, Switzerland, Singapore and U.A.E.

    Adesida received a B.Sc with honours in Sociology from the University of Ibadan in Nigeria and MSc. in Public Policy from the University of Bristol, U.K where he won a partial scholarship for international students. He has been nominated for and also received several CSR awards some of which include the Future Awards Nigeria, the Nigeria CSR awards and the 100 most impactful CSR leaders (Global listing) in India.