Tag: slams

A pan-Yoruba organisation, the Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG), has advised the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Lamido Sanusi, to concentrate on improving the value of the naira and not meddle in politics.

It was reacting to Sanusi’s “statement” that ethnic and religious associations should be banned because he considers them the root of Nigeria’s problems.

In a statement by its Publicity Secretary, Mr. Kunle Famoriyo, at the weekend, ARG said: “The governorship of the CBN is a highly responsible role. The control and administration of the monetary and financial sector and policies of the Federal Government rests with the CBN under his watch.

“It is in the light of this that the ARG tells Sanusi to focus on the effective management of the country’s irreverent and depreciating naira, the inflation rate that currently stands at 12.3 per cent and a lending rate at 12 per cent MPR (in comparison to Kenya’s 7 per cent; Burkina Faso’s 4.2 per cent; South Africa’s 5 per cent; Rwanda’s 7 per cent; Egypt’s 9.5 per cent; Central African Republic’s, Chad’s and Equatorial Guinea’s 5.8 per cent; the Democratic Republic of Congo’s 6 per cent and Mali’s, Cote d’Ivoire’s, Niger’s, Togo’s, Senegal’s and Libya’s 4.25 per cent), among many issues besetting the country’s monetary and fiscal environment.

“ARG has a mandate to promote, protect and accelerate Yoruba development in all spheres of human civilisation. We subscribe to the ethos of our development patriarch, the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo (1909-1987) and to the effervescent Yoruba Omoluabi world view.

“We believe strong people with strong institutions will build strong nations. We are therefore committed to the cause of mobilising and harnessing the best of us and in us, in Yoruba land, to tackle the most critical issues confronting our people.

“We consider it important to restate the above in light of a recent statement credited to Sanusi that ethnic and religious associations in Nigeria should be banned, because he considers them the root of Nigeria’s problems.

“We challenge Sanusi to tell the world what he considers wrong or offensive in an organisation such as ours, with a clear mission and mandate, acting on behalf of its people and which for all intents and purposes, goes about its activities in the full glare of the public, without any equivocation.

“We hasten to say that before Nigeria came to be, Yoruba was and will continue to be and we have no apologies for being what we are, nationally and globally. ARG will continue to work for and protect the interest of Yoruba people world-wide.

“The constitution of Nigeria, albeit flawed, has already taken care of the issue Sanusi is labouring on. He needs to be reminded that democracy allows for freedom of association, speech and religion. Real and meaningful democracy is community-oriented and bottom-up. Any framework outside our democratic setting would be an effort in futility and, by extension, fishing in troubled waters.

“The problem with Nigeria is the way the country is being led and governed, as the present configuration is embedded with instability. Until the country is totally restructured, the populace will continue to wallow in poverty, anarchy and insecurity.

“Buck-passing by the like of Sanusi is not the answer. The leadership of this country should do the proper thing, including restitution for the evil they have brought upon this land, the most recent, being the fuel subsidy regime, rather than engaging in unnecessary sabre-ratting, seeking to divert attention from the key issue of our nationhood.”

The President of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), Dr. Frederick Fasehun, yesterday blamed the Federal Government for pipeline vandalism in the Southwest.

Fasehun, who was addressing reporters in Lagos, decried the Federal Government’s inability to provide security for shorelines and pipelines in the Southwest states.

He said OPC has never been hired by any government agency to secure pipelines despite its effort to ensure that the government should sign a deal with it to be in charge of the security of pipelines.

He said the congress has proposed to the Federal Government through the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to give it an approval to secure pipelines in the Southwest.

The OPC President alleged that investigation by his men has shown that the Nigerian Army, Nigerian Navy, State Security Service (SSS), Nigeria Police, Nigeria Civil Defence Corps (NCDC), NNPC, Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), among others are responsible for pipeline vandalism in the country.

He said: “The accusation against the OPC by the NCDC is unfounded, contradictory, diversionary and mischievous. For the avoidance of doubt, OPC has never been hired to provide security for pipelines or any other petroleum installations. Our investigation has shown that a cartel is behind pipeline vandalism and petroleum product pilfering in the country. This cartel includes unscrupulous officers and officials of the Nigerian Army, Nigerian Navy, SSS, Nigeria Police, Nigeria Civil Defence Corps, NNPC, DPR, among others.

“OPC hereby states categorically that our members are not involved in any pipeline vandalism in parts of Lagos and Ogun states or any area in the Southwest.

“OPC has in the last two years presented to the Federal Government, through the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC), an arm of the NNPC, a proposal to provide security for pipelines in the Southwest.”

The Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) has blamed former President Olusegun Obasanjo for his comment on the Boko Haram sect.

The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Rotimi Fashakin, said: “As Nigerians, we need to ask ourselves the leadership content of Chief Obasanjo’s persona that keeps defying the law of succession as a fundamental imperative in leadership. A good leader is rated by the quality of his successor.

“In 1979, General Obasanjo handed over power, under disputable circumstances, to a civilian administration that proved to be a case study in administrative ineptitude. Little wonder, in about four years of its life, the corrective military regime that toppled it, listed a litany of woes besetting the nation under the perfunctory watch of the administration. In like manner, General Obasanjo handed over power in 2007 to a president that brought the socio-political milieu of the nation to a sorry state! The administration so born has now given birth to an irredeemably comatose situation. It is the Nigerian state that is worse off because its political and economic health is in a shambolic state.

“This brings us to some pertinent questions:

•Is it a deliberate personal policy by General Obasanjo not to ensure a credible successor to himself?

•Would this suggest that there is a desire in him for the people to always make his administration a reference point vis-à-vis the succeeding administration?

•Would this not suggest a selfish desire not to care if Nigeria’s dream is imperilled so long there is a noxious messianic imagery of himself?

•Is General Obasanjo not the architect of the travail of the Nigerian state since 1979?

•Is it not a fact that the elections – in 1979 and 2007–at the times of his handing over, were so bitterly disputed that they left the country mortally bruised?

•How can General Obasanjo, being the grand patron of the ruling behemoth, continue to excoriate the conundrum the works of his hands have put the nation?

•Is it not true that General Obasanjo has not said anything fundamentally different from what the average Nigerian knows, that this Jonathan administration lacks leadership capacity?”

The Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) and All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) yesterday said Obasanjo should be blamed for the Boko Haram insurgency.

CNPP and ANPP, reacting to the comments made by the ex-President on the Cable Network News (CNN), said he imposed President Goodluck Jonathan on Nigerians and should not complain.

The CNPP National Publicity Secretary, Osita Okechukwu, said: “Obasanjo is less than transparent in his assessment of the Boko Haram insurgency. In the first instance, he is culpable for laying the foundation, which gave birth to the insurgency. All security reports, ranging from Ambassador Galtimari to the internal report, have pointed fingers at poverty, mis-governance and corruption of the past decade.

“Obasanjo cannot absolve himself from corruption, which alienated the people, created poverty, despair and despondency in the land. He subverted the 1999 Constitution and allowed sham elections, which were the bedrock of the ECOMOG, where Boko Haram emanated from.”

ANPP National Publicity Secretary Emma Eneukwu said: “It is not surprising to hear such comment from Obasanjo. After all, the former security adviser to the president had once told the nation that the Boko Haram sect is the handiwork of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

“Now Obasanjo has, for the umpteenth time, told the nation that the man he installed without consideration does not have the credential to fight Boko Haram. All these point to the fact that PDP has failed Nigerians. They are bereft of ideas on how to solve the country’s problems.”

The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in Osun State yesterday justified Governor Rauf Aregbesola’s participation in the party’s governorship election rallies in Ondo State.

It was reacting to criticisms by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that Aregbesola abandoned his primary function in Osogbo to champion what the PDP called “Operation capture Ondo State at all cost”.

In a statement by its Publicity Director, Mr. Kunle Oyatomi, ACN said it was in the PDP’s character to twist facts to score cheap political goals.

It wondered why the party looked the other way when President Goodluck Jonathan led PDP leaders to Ondo State to campaign for their standard bearer in Saturday’s governorship election, Mr. Olusola Oke.

The statement reads: “We are not bothered by what the PDP is saying because everything they have said now and in the past are fabrications intended only to smear Aregbesola’s person and administration.

“What the PDP is not conscious of is that it is developing for itself notoriety for lying and trying to confuse issues.

“If Mr. President, the Senate President and other PDP leaders created time to campaign for their candidate in Ondo, regardless of the flooding across the country, it suggests to any reasonable person that there is an awful lot at stake in the Ondo election. Only stupid people would not know why Aregbesola is campaigning for the ACN candidate in Ondo.”

In a statement by its spokesman, Prince Diran Odeyemi, the PDP had cautioned Aregbesola against abandoning his duty post, a development it claimed was taking a toll on governance in the state.

Also yesterday a group within ACN, the Asiwaju Leadership Forum (ALF), criticised the “claim” by a former Secretary to the Osun State Government, Alhaji Fatai Akinbade, that the ACN administrations in the Southwest are not performing.

Akinbade was quoted as criticising the ACN during an interview with a national newspaper.

In a statement, ALF Publicity Director Sikiru Akinola described Akinbade as “a frustrated politician, whose ambition to govern Osun State was permanently laid to rest by the Court of Appeal, Ibadan, on November 26, 2011, when Aregbesola was declared winner of the 2007 governorship election”.

The group said: “Only the likes of Akinbade can say the ACN is not performing. Unfortunately, he was part of the locust administration, which milked the treasury into a state of coma. His yet to be completed hotel located at Oyediji in Ibadan is evident of the colossal fraud.

“As SSG, he was part of the failed administration of Brig. Olagunsoye Oyinlola. There was no record of employing, at least, 5000 people during their 90-month lack-luster regime in Osun. Instead of praising the Aregbesola administration for employing 20,000 youths in three months, he resorted to propaganda.

“If he says the amount paid beneficiaries of the Osun State Youth Employment Scheme (O-YES) is meagre, what did they do with the N18 billion they got in their 90 months in office?

“What did Akinbade do for his people when he was in office? As SSG, he could not even influence Oyinlola to repair the road that leads to his house in Ogbagba.

“If the ACN was not performing, it would not have swept the polls in the Southwest in the last general election. We advise Akinbade to shut his mouth, if he has nothing reasonable to say.”

The group urged the people of the zone to remain steadfast and continue to pray for the leadership of their respective states.