‘Why Northern monarchs won’t back Jonathan’s re-election bid in 2015′

Sambo and Jonathan

BY SONI DANIEL

AS the nation prepares for the next general election, a strong indication emerged yesterday that some key northern traditional rulers, who spearheaded the emergence of President Goodluck Jonathan in 2011, are not ready to back his re-election in 2015.

The anger of the monarchs, Vanguard gathered, stems from what they see as a spirited attempt by the Presidency to deny an agreement President Jonathan allegedly reached with them before they gave their nod to his election in 2011.

File: President Goodluck Jonathan closely followed by Vice President Namadi Sambo at the weekly meeting of the Federal Executive Council at the State House.

A northern governor, who spoke to Vanguard on condition of anonymity, pointed out that there was an unwritten understanding between the President and  northern monarchs that he would not stay in office beyond 2015, if given the support to complete late former President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s tenure and run for a term of four years.

The governor said it was wrong for those, who did not know what took place between the president and North to begin to whip up political sentiments, insisting that what transpired was a gentleman’s agreement that must be respected.

The governor said it was the unwritten undertaking reached between the North and Jonathan in 2011 that the Sultan of Sokoto made a veiled reference to at a meeting of Islamic scholars in Abuja last week.

The Sultan had said the North gave Jonathan a blueprint to work on and that they would evaluate implementation of same to decide on the way forward.

Kano politician, Dr. Junaid Muhammed, said Jonathan’s attempt to deny the deal he reached with the North was the basis for the renewed anger in the region.

Muhammed said: “That agreement is the basis of the anger against the President and they can no longer trust him. If an agreement with northern governors is not respected, what of the one the President had with the emirs and other leaders of the area that he would do a single term and return power to the North?

“It is left to Jonathan to show statesmanship and respect the deal before during and after his election because it is dangerous to disagree with emirs in the North.”

Niger State governor, Dr. Aliyu Babangida, was the first to accuse President Jonathan of trying to breach the agreement he reached with northern governors in 2011 to do a single term of four years, thereby setting the stage for a bitter confrontation with the President and his hordes of supporters, particularly his kinsmen from Ijaw ethnic nationality.

Some Niger Delta militants and youth leaders had threatened to cause mayhem should Jonathan be prevented from doing a second term.

Although they were cautioned by the National Assembly, an attempt to open investigation into the statement, which many saw as treasonable, met with serious resistance from the youth leaders who threatened further actions against the lawmakers.

There has been no word again on the matter from the legislature.

Britain bans Boko Haram in new anti-terror law

 

David Camron

LONDON (AFP) – The Nigerian-based Islamist extremist group Boko Haram is to be banned in Britain under anti-terror laws, the British interior ministry announced on Monday.

The Home Office said British-based extremists Minbar Ansar Deen, also known as Ansar al-Sharia UK, would also be proscribed from Friday, subject to parliamentary approval.

“This will make membership of, and support for, these organisations a criminal offence,” the ministry said in a statement.

“The government is determined to work with the international community to tackle terrorism and take the steps necessary to keep the UK public safe.

“Proscription of these groups sends a clear message that we condemn their activities.”

Some 3,600 people have been killed during Boko Haram’s four-year insurgency in north and central Nigeria, according to Human Rights Watch.

The latest attack on Saturday saw gunmen kill 42 people, almost all of them students, as they stormed a boarding school in the northeastern state of Yobe.

The group has claimed to be seeking an Islamic state in Nigeria, but is believed to include various factions with different aims.

The British government said its ban on Boko Haram would give police the power to target British support for the group.

The British-based Minbar Ansar Deen allegedly promotes terror through its website and encourages people to travel abroad to engage in extremist activity, the Home Office added.

Under the 2000 Terrorism Act, the home secretary, or interior minister, can ban an organisation if it is believed to have terror links.

If the ban on Boko Haram and Minbar Ansar Deen is approved by parliament, it will be a criminal offence in Britain to belong to or support the groups, as well as to arrange meetings or wear clothing supporting them.

Al-Qaeda and Somalia’s Shebab insurgents are also proscribed under British law.

I know Tinubu, I know Buhari, they cannot mix – Bode George

Bode George

By Dapo Akinrefon & Bashir Adefaka

Chief Olabode George, former military governor of Ondo State and former Deputy National Chairman, People’s Democratic Party, PDP, in this interview, responds to topical issues in the polity and his party. Excerpts:

President Goodluck Jonathan, the leader of your party is in the eye of the storm over 2015. How do you feel?

Nigeria has come this far because the concept of the PDP constitution has sustained democracy up till now.  Never in the history of our nation have we been able to sustain democracy from 1999 and we are now in 2013: that is talking about 14 years.  Never!

So, there is no need to pull anybody down because the man you pull down will also pull you down and so, where have you gone?  And it is there in Romans Chapter 14 that whosoever that God has given an authority, he did not get there by his own effort.  Let us support him.  He is our leader and it is our nation.

Some of these people who have been given opportunities to govern smaller states are now coming to say that they know more than we know they know.  When they were in government, they saw governance as a source of unimaginable income. The amount of acquisitions; the maddening amount of acquisition of the prime property, the assets of the state they were given, is mind boggling.

Conversion of land for personal use

Every day people wake up, what you see is unbelievable. Ikoyi has now become another high rise prime area.  Who owns these properties?  All the land in Ajah, lands dedicated for hospitals have been converted to their personal use.  Hotels have been springing up, Local Government secretariats that had been in existence before they were born have been acquired.

Hostel of the only Nursing School in Lagos State, located on Awolowo Road, Ikoyi, has already been acquired.  And these are the same people who are asking Nigerians that, “Yes, we can perform! We would govern Nigeria well.”

Is there a semblance of democratic practice in that party of theirs?  So, I chuckle when I see these first class jokers, who have been tested and have been found to be complete failure, saying that they want to go and rule Nigeria.

They want to join up with General Buhari.  But the General Buhari that I know; his standing, his personality, his commitment, his belief is exact opposite to these characters here.  So, sometimes I get confused that General Buhari is sincerely talking to these men. It is like a movie to me.  It is like a theatre house.  How can water and oil mix?  What he has stood for in his life and what they stand for; they cannot meet.  They are like day and night.

And they have the temerity to say that they are the leader of Yoruba, they are carrying Yoruba people.  I wish tehy would go back and read the history of the Yoruba people.  Because, they are fake.  No semblance of the real, true genuine Yoruba.

They do not have anything that look like the depth, the norm, the belief of the Yoruba people. What a huge joke therefore! I wish one day that somebody would bring him on the television for public debate.  I am challenging him to come on the television for a public debate; let us talk to Nigerians.  Let us debate before the people what they have done for this country.

You sound angry.  Why?

You know people would say yes, Bode George is angry.  No! Very soon I will be 70 years old.  What else am I looking for?  Am I going to start all over again?  Can I live another 70 years before I pack up and go back to my God? No. Mine may be the only voice in the wilderness but I will continue to shout at the top of the mountain that this is a path of perfidy they are going through.

Righteous way

It is not a righteous way. Now they are shouting that Jonathan has not performed and that they would push him out of government.  Tinubu that was governor of Lagos State for eight years, what did he do?

Even the young man that is still running Lagos now, Babatunde Raji Fashola has done much better than him.  Does he allow him to work?  They say he is de facto leader, that is what he calls his name.  All the things about these jokers in ACN are laughable.

The other one in Osun, who no longer calls himself an engineer but ‘Ogbeni’, what is his performance there?  Lai Mohammed is always talking on top of his voice, talking garbage!  I knew him when he came to Lagos as a Level 6 or Level 8 officer at FAAN.  Today he can talk, tell stories and lies.

He said the Federal Government has done something injurious to the judiciary and to the psyche of Nigeria by proscribing Boko Haram. Are these guys genuine?  How can anybody wake up and say the government has done something injurious by proscribing Boko Haram?  Are they alright?  Oh!

Why are you creating unnecessary revolts to chase him out of government?

And I keep repeating the letter of Paul to the Roman Chapter 14 and it is very clear that he that God has appointed on His authority, he is there on the authority of God.  No human being should attempt to pull him down because the curse will be on whoever does that.

Bode George

The polity is increasingly charged under President Jonathan. Don’t you fear a people’s revolution?

I am appealing to Nigerians to be patient. The challenge is the same all over the globe but we can surmount it with patience and steadiness. When I see this woman from World Bank, Oby Ezekwesili, who comes here and be ranting about and doing all that, at the end of it I get very aggrieved because she now ends up and says, “I am not a politician.”  Very insulting! I do not know what her background is but let her come and face some of us here who are politicians.  I am not afraid to say I am a politician.

Let her leave her high office and go down to the people and appreciate that the very micro unit of her contribution is nothing.  These are the jokers being promoted in the media. Elections are coming, let her come and follow us to go and canvass and face the people.  Then, she will stop talking the way she is talking.

Do you know what I hate to hear? “I am not a politician!” As if politicians are evil minded people.  It is our country; let them also come and join and make it well. Let her come and try and go through election to become senate president, vice president or whatever and convince Nigerians that she is better.  Not gassing on the television or grandstanding, looking for cheap popularity.

We have gone on since 1999. This is 2013; 14 years of uninterrupted democracy.  It has never happened in the history of this country.  Whatever anybody can say, it is a record.  Thanks to our party, the PDP.  Thanks to the founding fathers of PDP who conceptualized this zonal set up, Turn-by-Turn Nigeria Limited because Nigeria is a country and not yet a nation.  We are grapping, we are grouping, we are struggling to make it a nation.

What problem does your party have with some opposition parties coming together in APC?

APC is already an obsolete drug.  Before they start they are finished. They say, “Hand over power to us.”  But you are not yet tested.  The little one we tested you on, you are an abysmal failure; an absolute failure. We saw what you were but you are now richer than the bank.  More properties than the state.  That is all they can show.

Let them come to television and debate it.  How many children of the poor have they benefited?  Jakande established his education for the poor people with scholar scheme for children of poor people to go to university.  He founded the Lagos State University, LASU, also so that children of the poor could access university education at ease.  You now pay a minimum of N250,000 per annum to access education in that same Lagos State University.  That is a quarter of a million!  The palm oil seller, roasted plantain seller, akara seller, can they afford that?  So, you are saying that their children should never have the opportunity?

What these jokers are doing now is for the privileged so that only the privileged can get there. Fashola also knew how he started.  Was his father a rich man? Today, he is governor.  If they had made it impossible for him to go to school, would he have ended up being a governor?  Let them just think because, if we do not, one day and I repeat one day, the electorate will decide.  We do not want what happened in Egypt or in Tunisia here.  We do not want any Arab spring here. No.  Let there be peace.

More money seems to be going to all tiers of government, but sir, is there no way that the presidency can monitor the outflow?

What is the president’s business with the activities of the governor?  It is the members of the state House of Assembly who can challenge the governor about his revenue, expenditure and what he is doing with the money. But we know that when the man sits down in one room and selects his surrogates who go to the House of Assembly, he does not allow people who are being sponsored, supported by their constituencies to go there. What do you expect?

Like what is happening in Lagos State where Bola Tinubu just hand picks people who go to the Lagos State House of Assembly and who therefore cannot challenge him when necessary? They do not even have congresses like we do in PDP.  Tell me any day you have seen them doing a national convention.  The emperor decides and that is the man who says he is a democrat.

The company which collects revenues on behalf of Lagos State Government, who owns it?

People who are in charge of highway managers, who are they? Even the agency that has the places where dead people are buried, who owns them? Now they are sand-filling the Bar Beach.  Generations before them had Bar Beach.  Go to what the Alpha Beach has become and see the environmental impact on those villages there.  What madness! What greed!

Narrowing of channel

Look at Isale Eko here! That is the only channel that takes water from the whole of Lagos Island into the Lagoon blushed with that nonsense they are doing there. Go to Parkview, they are sand-filling so that they would narrow the channel until it would meet Lekki.  That Lagoon is the natural gift that God gave Lagosians.  They have narrowed it now out of senseless greed.  Someday I pray that when the flood or earthquake will come, he must be held responsible.

Let Tinubu deny it. It is this man that now has the temerity to speak out of his mouth and say Jonathan is not doing well and so he wants to rule Nigeria.  He? I would cease to be a Nigerian.  I am not joking.  I would go to Ghana or Togo and beg for citizenship because they would destroy this country.  The good thing is that this nation is so massive for him to comprehend.

The dynamics of this nation; he says he is carrying Yoruba people to go and join Buhari and form a national government.  They are joking because where we were in 1999 is where they just want to start from now.  What a joke! What a joke!!

To what extent will the crisis in the NGF affect your party?

I have been away for sometime but my opinion is that, we need to lock ourselves behind a door and tell ourselves some serious bitter truth. I am now begging them to admit that all sides are wrong: the party and the governors.  And it is not a blame game now.  It is a game for the future of our nation.  So, it is time to calm all nerves.  Let us all come back so that we can have a family meeting. Of course you can see the oppositions are happy.  They think they can use the situation to destroy our party.  Which of them; any of those under ACN of Bola can talk to him?

I am innocent, says Kabiru Sokoto

Kabiru Abubakar Dikko, alias Kabiru Sokoto

Abuja – Kabiru Umar, a terrorist suspect, accused of masterminding the bombing of St. Theresa Catholic Church in Madalla, Niger State, on Dec. 25, 2011, opened his defence at the Federal High Court on Monday in Abuja.

Giving evidence, Umar, alias “Kabiru Sokoto’’, who assumed the status of a witness, said the police and the State Security Service (SSS) extracted statement from him.

 “I am aware of the charges brought against me; but, My Lord, I was tortured and mistreated several times to confess.

“All through the period of the investigation, I could not confess to the offence because I did not commit any offence.

“One of the operatives of the SSS asked me whether I knew one Habib Bama and I said no.

“He said to me that Bama was the actual mastermind of the bombings in Madalla.

“I was afraid of being killed, that was why I ran away from the custody the first time; I am innocent,’’ he said.

However, the prosecution counsel, Mrs Chioma Nwiegbu, prayed the court to adjourn the matter to July 9 for cross examination of the witness.

Umar was arraigned on April 19 in connection with the Christmas Day bombing.

He is alleged to have had information about the bombing but failed to inform law enforcement agents.

The suspect is also charged with being a member of a terrorist group, known as Boko Haram,between 2007 and 2012 at Mabira in Sokoto, Sokoto State.

He was also allegedly found to have facilitated the execution of a terrorist act within the period.

According to the charge, the suspect committed an offence contrary to Section 15(2) of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission Act 2004.

The two-count charge attracts life sentence, but the accused has pleaded not guilty. (NAN)

Cooking Gas Marketers Seek FG Intervention on NLNG/NIMASA Row

 

Dizeani Allison Madueke, Petroleum Minister

By: Ejiofor Alike

The marketers of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), popularly called Cooking Gas, have called on the federal government to settle the dispute between the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Limited, to prevent LPG from disappearing from the Nigerian market.

The call stemmed from the marketers’ concern that the blockade by NIMASA against the operation of the NLNG Limited, which solely accounts for domestic supply of LPG in the country, has effectively stalled supply of the product to the domestic market.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo had in 2007 directed the NLNG to set aside a portion of its LPG output for local consumption; following the failure of the Warri and Port Harcourt Refineries to produce LPG to meet the demand of the local market.

Based on this directive, the NLNG load out 150,000 Metric Tonnes of LPG in vessels yearly from its Bonny Island plant in Rivers State to Lagos, where about 10 companies appointed as off-takers lift the product in vessels and sell to the local market.

But the newly-elected President of the Nigerian LP Gas Association (NLPGA), Mr. Basil Ogbuanu, told THISDAY during the weekend, that NLNG vessels no longer come to Lagos to discharge LPG as a result of the blockade by NIMASA.

He disclosed that the companies, popularly referred to as the Club of Offtakers, involved in lifting LPG from NLNG vessels in Lagos were fast running out-of-stock of the product and called on the federal government to ensure quick resolution of the dispute to save the Nigerian masses from hardship.

“None of the off-takers has gas and 90 per cent of gas plant owners in this country have no gas because NLNG vessels are no longer bringing the product to Lagos. LPG is supposed to be for everybody in this country because Nigeria has abundant gas resources. The Nigerian masses should not be made to suffer because two government agencies refused to agree. We are calling on the federal government to settle the matter for the sake of the Nigerian masses,” he said.

Ogbuanu, who is the Managing Director of Second Coming Nigeria Limited, further disclosed the NIPCO Plc was the only offtaker that had stock of the product due to the recent strike embarked upon by the NUPENG, which prevented the company from loading out LPG to marketers.

He however, stated that NIPCO had since exhausted its stock of LPG, following the suspension of the strike action by the tanker drivers. “NIPCO had little stock which they could not load out because of the strike action but since the strike ended, they have exhausted their stock. They are no longer collecting money from the marketers because they don’t have product,” he added.

He said the alternative supply of LPG would have come from Port Harcourt and Warri Refineries but lamented that the two refineries were not producing LPG.

Ogbuanu said the current development had resulted in the scarcity of LPG as 12.5kg cylinder of gas, which was sold at N2,800 is now being sold between N3,500 and N4,500.

Immediate past National President of the Liquefied Petroleum Gas Reps Association of Nigeria, Mr. Odo Gbolahan, told THISDAY that the marketers did not anticipate the sudden disruption of LPG supply from the NLNG.

“It was too sudden and we did not plan for it. It is the little stock we have that is currently in circulation. Even the product we are getting now is from third party. The situation will get worse if the federal government does not intervene. The federal government should come in and settle this matter,” he said.

Fayemi: National Insecurity Designed to Stall 2015 Elections

Ekiti State Governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi

• Exonerates Jonathan from NGF crisis

By Olawale Olaleye

The Ekiti State Governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, at the weekend, suggested that some interests in the country may have deliberately instigated and sustained the level of national insecurity in order to stall the 2015 elections in some parts of the North.

Fayemi, however, warned that if the security challenges were not adequately and scientifically addressed, the general election of 2015 may not hold after all.

Also speaking on the crisis rocking the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), Fayemi urged all those involved in the controversy that trailed the forum’s  election to keep President Goodluck Jonathan’s name out of the mess as such would further diminish the presidency.

Fayemi, in an interaction with the media, queried why the leadership of the country could not come up with a lasting solution to the lingering security challenges in the country, wondering whether “we are the first country in the world afflicted with such crisis or why it appears as if we don’t have a reprieve from it.”

According to him, the crisis lingered “because we have not paid attention to intelligence as much as we should,” regretting that, “up till now, police intelligence unit is still virtually zero while the military intelligence is not as impressive as it should be.

“We are just left with the State Security Service (SSS) that seems to have a semblance of it. This has given us enormous challenges that we are almost coming to the prediction of the National Intelligence Agency (of America) as we go near 2015.”

The governor suspected that, “There might be things the Americans see that we don’t see or that we have resigned to fate? We need to make a clarion call to the leadership and to all of us to begin to respond to the situation. It is marshal plan that we need even if it will mean that we should put half of our resources that we have in the country at the disposal of the afflicted states. We cannot have 10.5 million children out of school and not see the correlation between violence and poverty. Poverty and violence are related.  And we must do certain things to break them.

“But right now, the bulk of what is happening is that, the state of emergency is being paid for by those affected states. And you cannot have development without security just as we cannot have security without development. I think we need human security response to the situation rather than the law and order response. We have to do or work a little bit more in dealing with irrational human beings,” he said.

He lamented that despite the avalanche of terrorist attacks nobody had been convicted for Boko Haram-related offence, adding: “You begin to have the impression that some people are encouraging them by subterfuge.”

He advocated a multi-level police system which he said is always community-driven. “The only way to be your brother’s keeper is to know him because you have to know him before you can keep him. If I am removed from Ekiti State and dumped in Talata Mafara in Zamfara State, and give me a gun, who am I going to protect in an environment where I don’t hear their language and where there is no connection between us?” he said.

According to him, that was almost consistent in all federal states across the world, saying there was multi level policing in the universities, local governments, states and others, adding that there would then be a unit that would connect all of them in terms of training and sanctions.

On the NGF crisis, Fayemi maintained that “occupiers of that office should not be diminished or their names drag in the mud. No good Nigerian should do anything that can tarnish or diminish the image of the occupier that office.”

According to him, the embarrassing nature of the crisis “has made some of us to be vociferous in our own meeting with the Mr. President,” adding: “Mr. President is not a candidate of the NGF and as such has no special interest in its matter.”

Fayemi further expressed displeasure at the outcome of the group’s election, noting  that it was a very dangerous omen for 2015.

“It is worrisome. And what is more worrisome is their impression that they are the president’s men. We are all president’s men. We are president’s governors. He was once a governor and he would not do anything that would tarnish the image of the forum.

“The President must find a way to exercise his moral authority on this issue. We must also find a way to meet the President in supporting him to exercise his moral authority on the matter because it doesn’t augur well for some people to hide somewhere to create an impression that they are the president’s men,” Fayemi added.

Wike Did Not Make Amaechi Governor, Says Okocha

Minister of State for Education, Chief Nyesom Wike

* House leader tells minister to stop playing demi-god

By Ernest Chinwo

The Chief of Staff, Government House, Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Chief Tony Okocha, has stated that the Minister of State for Education, Chief Nyesom Wike, did not make Chibuike Amaechi governor of the state.

Leader of the state House of Assembly, Mr. Chidi Lloyd, also called on the minister not to arrogate to himself the role of a demigod in the emergence of Amaechi as governor.

They spoke Monday in reaction to reports published over the weekend, that the minister claimed that he made Amaechi governor in 2007, after smuggling him into the country from Ghana where he (Amaechi) had taken refuge, while his matter was being heard in court.

Okocha stated that the minister was still chairman of Obio/Akpor local government area at the time former Governor Peter Odili, endorsed Amaechi as his successor.

He said: “I am not aware that Wike was the God that decided Amaechi’s fate. I am not aware that Dr. Peter Odili, then governor of Rivers State, consulted with Wike, when he endorsed Amaechi as his successor.

“I am equally not aware that Wike was a member of the Rivers State House of Assembly which refused and resisted entreaties and overtures to impeach the then Speaker Amaechi, when he was away in Ghana, an exercise which could have scuttled his chances of becoming governor.

Or was Wike playing God, who has power to make all things possible?

“Could he be implying that the learned justices of the Supreme Court who interpreted the law and delivered judgment were tied to his apron string? This is blackmail.

“I am not aware that Wike was a Customs, Police, Military, or Immigration officer, to be able to smuggle in Amaechi, except by any uncanny route into Abuja in the night and make him governor the following morning.

“I am aware that before Amaechi left for Ghana, he had briefed his lawyers to challenge the denial of his mandate in court. I am equally aware that the lawyers filed all the papers and presented the arguments before the Court.”

He noted that while Wike was involved in the process, there were several other supporters who played different roles in the bid to realise the governor’s mandate.

His words: “I am aware that there was a preponderance of supporters who ran different errands for the success of Amaechi’s emergence. I am aware that some supporters embarked on prayers and fasting. Each of them suffered one discomfort or had one gory experience or the other.

“I must observe here that Chief Nyesom Wike, then local government chairman, played out his role religiously during the period of the struggle. He could not have been alone in that herculean task that would earn him the alpha and omega status that he arrogates himself.”

In his own reaction, Lloyd, said: “It is important that people should remind Wike that that it takes God to make somebody a governor.

“Given that Wike had played one role or the other, as at the last time I checked, he was not in the Rivers State House of Assembly as at then and Amaechi needed to conclude his tenure as Speaker of the House to be eligible to contest for any other office and when I look round, at that period, I didn’t see Wike.

“So, Amaechi became governor first by the grace of God and secondly, by everybody, who contributed through one movement or the other.

“The governorship of Rotimi is beyond all understanding because every effort by man had failed. It is important that Wike should not arrogate this new role of demigod to himself, which he is trying to play in Rivers State.

“He may have done one thing or the other to assist in the emergence of Rotimi as governor of Rivers State and I see that as a pay-back for Rotimi because when the whole of Obio/Akpor, in his (Wike’s) second tenure said, he will not go, this man (Amaechi) pleaded with all the stakeholders in Obio/Akpor to allow him run for a second term. Senator

John Mbata is alive, Dr. Peter Odili, who they have carried to Aso Rock, is also alive.”