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Tag: Osinbajo

  • Osinbajo seeks Reps approval for additional $1.2bn external loan

    Osinbajo seeks Reps approval for additional $1.2bn external loan

    Acting President Yemi Osinbajo is seeking the approval of the House of Representatives for $1.280 billion loan for the Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN).

    He said the DBN is ready to commence operation while the four foreign banks involved will commence the disbursement of the loan.

    The acting President is also seeking the approval of €9m for agricultural financing to consolidate the gains of the first tranche of €10.5m.

    He sent the requests as an addendum to the 2016-2018 external borrowing plans.

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    Osinbajo, whose letter dated May 16, 2017 was conveyed to Speaker Yakubu Dogara in the Vice President’s seal and letterhead but signed with the designation of the Acting President, said the DBN was approved by the last administration but the loan facility was strangely omitted in the 2014/2016 borrowing plan by the National Assembly.

    The letter reads “The Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) is a multi-donor supported bank approved under the previous administration with the Financing Agreement executed on February 25, 2015.

    “However, the facility in the sum of $1.28b appeared to be inadvertently omitted in the 2014/2016 external borrowing plan approved by the National Assembly.

    “The bank is being supported by the World Bank, African Development Bank, KfW Development Germany and French Development Agency in the sum of $500m, $450m, $200m and $130m respectively.

    RELATED: ‘Osinbajo has power to sign 2017 Budget’

    “The bank is ready to commence operation and the donors are also ready to commence disbursement consequent upon National Assembly approval of the borrowing.

    “Furthermore, Fund for Agricultural Finance in Nigeria (FAFIN-11) is being supported by KfW Development Bank of Germany in the sum of €9m.

    “The first phase of (FAFIN-1) was €10.5m and the Financing Agreement was executed on October 3, 2013.

    “It is an investment facility in agricultural financing.

    “The first tranche of FAFIN-1 has been fully disbursed and the donor is ready to provide another tranche of €9m for FAFIN-11.

    “The second tranche is for the consolidation of the gains in the investment of the first tranche.’

  • Obasanjo, Osinbajo to speak on 50 years after Biafra

    Obasanjo, Osinbajo to speak on 50 years after Biafra

    Former President Olusegun Obasanjo,  Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo and seven other leaders  will on Thursday speak at a conference on the Memory and Nation Building – Biafra: 50 Years After.
    At the one-day conference, which  will hold at the Yar’Adua Centre in Abuja by 9am, Osinbajo is expected to deliver a keynote address.
    A statementby the Yar’Adua Foundationlisted other speakers as a former Permanent Secretary Information, Education & Industry, Alhaji Ahmed Joda, President General, OhanaezeNdigbo Chief John NniaNwodo and Professor John Stremlau of the University of Witwatersrand will serve as lead speakers. ChudiOffodile and Nkoyo Toyo will chair panel discussions and Professor Pat Utomi will serve as the conference moderator.
    The statementsaid: “The 50th anniversary of the declaration of the Republic of Biafra in 1967 offers an opportunity for sober reflection on a number of issues including lessons learned that may be useful in dealing with contemporary challenges confronting Nigeria.
    A Cultural Night will feature performance poetry and a screening of Afia Attack – the untold “survival stories of women during the civil war.”

    The foundation was established inhonourof the legacy of one of Nigeria’s foremost leaders.

  • Opadokun, Falana to Osinbajo: don’t assent 2017 budget

    Opadokun, Falana to Osinbajo: don’t assent 2017 budget

    •Activists seek arrest of those behind rumoured coup

    Former scribe of Yoruba socio-cultural organisation, Afenifere, Ayo Opadokun and fiery Lagos lawyer Femi Falana at the weekend questioned the legality of the National Assembly on the inflation of the 2017 budget.

    They, therefore, urged the Acting President Yemi Osinbajo not to sign the budget into law as presented to him by the National Assembly.

    They spoke in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, at a colloquium on Kwara at 50 organised by the Movement for Genuine Change.

    Falana spoke on “Politics, Leadership and accountability: The role of the people”.

    Opadokun’s paper was entitled: “Dynastic politics and challenges of a modern state”.

    Falana said:”It is illegal for NASS to increase the budget as transmitted to it by the executive. I, therefore, urge Prof. Osinbajo not to pass the illegal appropriation bill into law.

    On the controversy surrounding who will sign the 2017Appropriation Bill into law, the rights activist insisted that only the Acting President is constitutionally empowered to sign the document.

    Falana called for the arrest and prosecution of the civilian collaborators of the “coup plotters”.

    He, however, warned the political class to stop playing into the hands of potential coup plotters.

    He added: “The enemies of democracy are desperately trying to exploit President Buhari’s health to truncate the democratic dispensation. But in view of the ruinations of our economy, the bastardisation of our politics and the devaluation of our national morality by previous military dictators, the Nigerian people must be prepared to reject the coming into power of another fake salvation army.

    “Notwithstanding the glaring shortcomings of the fragile democratic process, the people should be allowed to take advantage of the democratic structures to take their political destiny in their own hands.”

    On his part, Opadokun said: “When there is a bill of appropriation before the National Assembly, what they can do is to work with the executive to establish that the correct figures are there. But to add something that was not there before is ultra vires powers and I concur with Femi Falana as he is talking law and law in this circumstance is to be respected.  They don’t have that right they are arrogating to themselves.”

     

  • FG names varsity after Adebayo

    FG names varsity after Adebayo

    The Federal University, Oye Ekiti, has been re-named Adeyinka Adebayo University, after the late military governor of the defunct  Western Region.

    Acting President Yemi Osinbajo stated this  at the funeral service held for the late elder statesman at All Saints Anglican Church, Iyin-Ekiti on Saturday.

    According to Osinbajo, the decision to honour the late Adebayo was as a result of his exemplary leadership qualities and his astute belief  in the peaceful existence of the country.

    The acting President recalled how the deceased technical advice to the then military government helped to put the federal  troops  ahead of the  rebels  during the 1967 civil war.

    He said were it  not for the bravery and exceptional military professionalism exhibited by Adebayo, Nigeria would probably not be a united nation today.

    In his sermon preceding the burial, the Primate of the Anglican Church of Nigeria, Nicholas Okoh, said though the exit of Adebayo at 89 may be sad and unpleasant to many, death was  a necessity that no mortal could  avoid.

    Okoh, who was represented by the Dean, Church of  Nigeria and Archbishop of  Ondo Province, George Lasebikan,  said it was saddening that many Nigerians were desperate to acquire wealth at all cost.

    He urged Nigerians to  change their attitude to life and  embrace humility and contentment for the nation to move forward.

    NAN

  • Osinbajo receives 2017 Budget

    Osinbajo receives 2017 Budget

    Acting President Yemi Osinbajo yesterday received the 2017 Appropriation Bill.

    The budget was passed by the National Assembly last week.

    First presented before the two chambers of the National Assembly by the President in December 2016, the budget had an estimate of N7.28 trillion before the federal lawmakers raised it to N7.44 trillion.

    The document was submitted to Osinbajo by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Ita Enang.

    According to him, it would be assented to by the Acting President after the laid down procedure.

    He said: “The budget, as passed by the National Assembly, has just been transmitted to the Acting President.

    “I just delivered it.

    “Let me use this opportunity to clarify an issue: the Acting President has the power to assent to the budget and he will assent to it when the processes are completed.

    “The Acting President has the power to assent to the budget.

    “In February, he assented to seven or eight bills. Those that he didn’t agree with, he wrote the Senate and House of Representatives that he had withheld his assent from them.

    “He has the power of the President to assent to it. But the assent to the Appropriation Bill will be after the completion of the standard operation process.

    “The bill has 30 days within which it will be assented to, but the process can be completed within two or three days.

    “So, it is not possible to say it will be assented to in so, so and so day or in two or three days.

    “It is upon the completion of the process that it will be assented to by the President, and the President here now is the Acting President.”

    In a tweet, the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Laolu Akande, said that the Appropriation Bill was undergoing diligent consideration.

    “2017 Budget-Appropraitions Bill now officially received in the Acting President’s office and undergoing very prompt and diligent considerations,” he tweeted.

  • Osinbajo has power to sign 2017 Budget – Enang

    Osinbajo has power to sign 2017 Budget – Enang

    The Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly matters (Senate), Mr. Ita Enang, said on Friday that Acting President Yemi Osinbajo has power to sign the 2017 Budget.

    This was 24 hours after he said President Muhammadu Buhari will sign the budget and then transmit it to the acting President for other formalities to take place.

    “The President will assent to the budget, the acting President is in office and when the budget is transmitted, it will go through the processes and all those other questions will answer itself,” he said on Thursday.

    However, Enang submitted the document to Osinbajo on Friday and clarified his earlier position, saying: “The budget as passed by the National Assembly has just been transmitted to the Acting President. I just delivered it.”

    “The Acting President has the power to assent to the budget and he will assent to it when the processes are completed.

    “The Acting President has the power to assent to the budget. In February, he assented to seven or eight bills.

    “Those that he didn’t agree with, he wrote the Senate and House of Representatives that he had withheld his assent from them.

    “He has the power of the President to assent to it. But the assent to the Appropriation Bill will be after the completion of the standard operation process. The bill has 30 days within which it will be assented to but the process can be completed within two or three days.

    “So, it is not possible to say it will be assented to in so, so and so day or in two or three days. It’s upon the completion of the process that it will be assented to by the President and the President here now is the acting President.”

    In a tweet, the Senior Special Assistant to the Vice President on Media and Publicity, Laolu Akande, said the Appropriation Bill is undergoing diligent consideration.

    “2017 Budget-Appropriations Bill now officially received in the Acting President’s office and undergoing very prompt and diligent considerations,” he tweeted.

    The budget was passed by the National Assembly last week.

     

  • Osinbajo signs three executive orders to boost economy

    Osinbajo signs three executive orders to boost economy

    Acting President Yemi Osinbajo yesterday signed three executive orders that will significantly change some of the ways government business and operations are conducted.

    The executive orders were issued “in exercise of the presidential authorities vested in the Executive arm of government”.

    Specifically, Prof. Osinbajo signed three executive orders giving specific instructions on a number of policy issues affecting:

    • the promotion of transparency and efficiency in the business environment designed to facilitate the ease of doing business,
    • timely submission of annual budgetary estimates by all statutory and non-statutory agencies, including companies owned by the Federal Government, and
    • support for local contents in public procurement by the Federal Government.

    A statement signed by Laolu Akande, his spokesman, lists the highlights of the three orders as follows: every Ministry, Department and Agency (MDA) of the Federal Government shall publish a complete list of all requirements or conditions for obtaining products and services within the MDA’s scope of responsibility, including permits, licences, waivers, tax related processes, filings and approvals.

    The list shall include all fees and timelines required for the processing of applications for the products and services; and: be conspicuously pasted on the premises of the relevant MDA and published on its website within 21 days from the date of issuance of this Order.

    It will henceforth “be the responsibility of the head of the relevant MDA to ensure that the list is verified and kept up-to-date at all times. If there is any conflict between a published and an unpublished list of requirements, the published list shall prevail.”

    Where the relevant agency or official fails to communicate approval or rejection of an application within the time stipulated in the published list, all applications for business registration, certification, waivers, licences or permits not concluded within the stipulated timeline shall be deemed approved and granted and the mode of communication of official decisions to applicants shall be stated in the published requirements.

    Where applications are rejected within the stipulated timeline, all rejections shall be given with reasons. Rejections of applications shall be tracked and accurate records kept at all times for each MDA and shall be submitted to the head of the MDA on a weekly basis.

    There shall be at least two (2) modes of communication of acceptance or rejection of applications to the applicants by the relevant MDAs before the expiration of the stipulated time, including letters, emails and publications on MDA websites.

    The applicant’s acknowledgement copy of the application, including electronic submission acknowledgements, shall serve as proof of the date of submission of the application for purposes of determination of the commencement of the application timeline.

    An Applicant whose application is deemed granted under this Directive may apply to the Minister for the time being in charge of the application for the issuance of any document or certificate in evidence of the grant within 14 days of lapse of the MDA’s stipulated timeline for the application.

    Failure of the appropriate officer to act on any application within the timeline stipulated, without lawful excuse, shall amount to misconduct and be subject to appropriate disciplinary proceedings in accordance with the law and regulations applicable to the civil or public service.

    An MDA that requires input documentation, requirements or conditions from another MDA in order to deliver products and services on applications within the originating MDA’s remit or mandate, including permits, licenses, waivers, tax documentation, filings and approvals shall only request a photocopy or other prima facie proof from the applicant. It shall be the responsibility of the originating MDA to seek verification or certification directly from the issuing MDA.

    Service Level Agreements shall be binding on MDAs and shall be relied upon by MDAs in the issuance of published stipulated timelines for processing of applications for the products and service.It shall be the responsibility of the head of the relevant MDA to ensure that the agreed terms of the Service Level Agreements are adhered to.

    Failure of the appropriate officer to act within the timeline stipulated in the Service Level Agreement, without lawful excuse, shall amount to misconduct and be subject to appropriate disciplinary proceedings in accordance with the law and regulations applicable to the civil or public service.

    Ordinary tourist and business entry visas to Nigeria shall henceforth be issued or rejected with reason by the Consular Office of Nigerian Embassies and High Commissions within 48 hours of receipt of valid application. The timeline shall be notified to the public by pasting a notice conspicuously at every Consular Office and by publication on every website of Nigerian Embassies and High Commissions.

    A comprehensive and up to date list of requirements, conditions and procedures for obtaining visa on arrival, including estimated timeframe, shall be published on all immigration-related websites in Nigeria and abroad, including Embassies and High Commissions, and all ports of entry into Nigeria.

  • Osinbajo signs three executive orders

    Osinbajo signs three executive orders

    Acting President Yemi Osinbajo, on Thursday signed three executive orders that will significantly change some of the ways government business and operations are conducted in the country.
    A statement from Laolu Akande, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity Office of the Vice President said the executive orders were issued “in exercise of the presidential authorities vested in the Executive arm of government.”
    Specifically, Prof. Osinbajo signed three executive orders giving specific instructions on a number of policy issues affecting:
    *the promotion of transparency and efficiency in the business environment designed to facilitate the ease of doing business in the country,
    *timely submission of annual budgetary estimates by all statutory and non-statutory agencies, including companies owned by the Federal Government and
    *support for local contents in public procurement by the Federal Government.
    Akande noted that “ahead of the signing, the Acting President held an interactive session at the old Banquet Hall of Presidential Villa with all relevant government officials, including ministers, permanent secretaries and heads of departments and agencies among others. The session was meant to directly engage government officials who would be implementing the orders and the new instructions.”

  • Osinbajo’s interpretation of Section 171 of the Constitution

    SECTION 2 (3) of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (Establishment) Act, 2004 unequivocally provides that the EFCC shall have a chairman who “shall be appointed by the President and the appointment shall be subject to confirmation of the Senate.” The Muhammadu Buhari administration complied with this provision by sending Ibrahim Magu’s nomination to the Senate for confirmation. That was way back on November 9, 2015, when President Buhari appointed Magu as chairman of the EFCC in an acting capacity.  The Senate found it difficult to confirm him as it allegedly found putrefying skeletons in his cupboard. Nevertheless, the President re-presented Magu’s nomination twice to the Senate, to no avail. As no flicker of light could be seen at the end of the tunnel in spite of the fervid efforts by the Buhari administration to retain Ibrahim Magu at all costs, the Presidency decided to devise a legal stratagem.

    The brilliant and piquant-witted Professor of Law, endowed with sharp, appetizing intelligence, who is also a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Yemi Osinbajo, Nigeria’s Vice-President (and now acting President), came in handy as he threw his big hat into the Senate-Magu ring and suggested that, in view of the provisions of section 171 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), the President should not have sent Magu to the Senate for confirmation, in the first place, relying, in all probability, on paragraph (d), subsection (2) of that section, according to which the President is empowered to appoint and remove certain officials specified in subsection (2) of the said section 171 without reference to the Senate. In view of the esteemed source whence this argument emanates, there is a compelling need to quote that section in extenso.

    “Section 171 (1): Power to appoint persons to hold or act in the offices to which this section applies and to remove persons so appointed from any such office shall vest in the President” (underscoring mine).

    “The offices to which this section applies are, namely,

    (a) Secretary to the Government of the Federation;

    (b)Head of the Civil Service of the Federation;

    (c)Ambassador, High Commissioner or other Principal Representative of Nigeria abroad;

    (d)        Permanent Secretary in any Ministry or Head of any Extra-Ministerial Department of the Federation howsoever designated; and

    (e) any office on the personal staff of the President.”

    The underscored paragraph (d) of this section, on which Osinbajo most probably relied, does specifically mention the EFCC, and it is anathema to smuggle any extraneous matter into the Constitution, the grundnorm of the Nigerian legal system.

    It would be pertinent here to distinguish an “extra-ministerial department” from a “Commission”, which the EFCC is. No one can apply any of the various canons of statutory construction to equate “an extra-ministerial department”, usually tied to the apron strings of a particular Ministry, such as the National Institute for Freshwater Fisheries Research (NIFFRI), with a “Commission”, such as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), established with in-built autonomy, to perform an assignment of national, in contradistinction to a particularistic, interest. The EFCC cannot, and should not, be to the Ministry of Justice what Radio Nigeria is to the Ministry of Information and Culture, or what a General Hospital is to the Ministry of Health, for instance!

    While “an extra-ministerial department” (mentioned in section 171 of the Constitution) is a miserable appendage of a Civil Service ministry and is usually susceptible to the whims and caprices of its political head, the minister, a “Commission” is a well-neigh autonomous or fully autonomous institution, headed by a puissant functionary (chairman), vested with substantial powers to carry out certain functions of national interest. Such a chairman (like the chairman of INEC, for example) is NOT a lickspittle or toady in his relations to the President by virtue of the latter’s powers to appoint and remove the former. This explains why all the five commissions and councils created by section 153 (1) of the Constitution are headed by chairmen appointed by the President, subject to confirmation of the Senate, under section 154 thereof.  If the Constitution, in section 154, provides that all the chairmen of corporations must be appointed by the President, subject to confirmation by the Senate, one wonders why the chairman of INEC should be the odd man out.

    Section 154 (1) of the Constitution shows, irrefragably, that the chairmen of all commissions, including, those five mentioned in section 153 (1) of the Constitution and, ipso facto, those created by statutes (such as the EFCC Act), must enjoy the confirmation of the Senate to sustain the principle of separation of powers enshrined in sections 4, 5 and 6 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), and to bolster the courage of such chairmen.

    Imagine if the President was empowered to appoint and remove the chairman and other members of INEC, a commission charged with the responsibility of acting as an umpire in the electoral process of which the President and his political party are beneficiaries, without reference to the Senate, a chairman owing absolute allegiance to his sole appointor, the President! The relationship between the EFCC and the Ministry of Justice is no more intimate than the relationship between the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), a national institution, and the Federal Ministry of Finance. Section 8 of the CBN Act, 1958 (as amended by the CBN Act 2007, are in pari materia with section 2 (3) of the EFCC Act. That tenuous relationship between the Ministry of Finance and the CBN does not make the latter an extra-ministerial department of the former!

    To suggest that section 2 (3) of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission Act, 2004, which insists that, while the President appoints the chairman of the EFCC, the Senate must confirm the chairman’s appointment, is inconsistent with the provisions of section 171 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), is to fly in the face of the in-built checks and balances provided in the constitution to preclude the exercise of arbitrary power and, a fortiori, to affront the principle of separation of powers.

    Such an eerie suggestion, with the profoundest respect to the respectable and learned acting President, who, incidentally, was also my former lecturer, is contra publico (against public interest) and a recipe for authoritarianism and tyranny, characteristics of which are already being wantonly exhibited with nonchalant abandon! Besides, such a suggestion will exacerbate an existing situation whereby the EFCC’s acting chairman, Ibrahim Magu, torments the real and perceived enemies of his appointor, the President, by arresting, and keeping arrested, people (such as Col. Sambo Dasuki) in Nigeria’s equivalent of the Gulag archipelago for days, months and even years on end, without trial, contrary to the entrenched provisions of the constitution. Additionally, and finally, such a suggestion could never have been in the contemplation of the draftsmen of the constitution!

     

    • Verbum sat sapienti est.

    Akiri is a Lagos based attorney.

  • Nigeria condemns Cote d’Ivoire mutiny

    Nigeria condemns Cote d’Ivoire mutiny

    The Federal Government of Nigeria on Wednesday condemned the recent developments in Cote d’Ivoire where a small fraction of the country’s armed forces tried to cause unrest in the cocoa rich West African nation.

    A statement issued by the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to the Acting President, Laolu Akande, said Nigeria expressed strong and unflinching support for the Government of President Alhassan Ouattara and welcomed ongoing efforts at resolving the crisis.

    The federal government also urged the parties in the crisis to exercise maximum restraint, remain calm and continue with dialogue and negotiations with the Government of President Ouattara.

    It urged the mutineers to return to their barracks and refrain from any action capable of undermining the peace, security and democracy in the country.

    The federal government further urged the people of Cote d’Ivoire to remain steadfast in their support for the government and refrain from giving support to the mutineers in the overall interest of peace, tranquillity, good order and prosperity of the country.

    The statement also disclosed that Acting President Yemi Osinbajo is currently discussing with the Ivorien President and the President of Liberia, Mrs. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who is also the current ECOWAS Chairperson, to seek ways towards a peaceful resolution of the crisis.

    “In a series of conversations with both Presidents since Monday, May 15, Prof. Osinbajo expressed Nigeria’s support for the government and people of Cote d’Ivoire, and also for the sustenance of peace, security and democracy in the country.

    “The acting President also noted the readiness of the federal government to work with ECOWAS and West African leaders to pursue a quick resolution of the situation,” the statement added.