President Buhari Speaking at the NEC meetting of APC in Abuja
President Muhammadu Buhari has narrated how the coming of the leadership of Adams Oshiomhole had saved the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) from being run down by planned massive defection.
“Let me congratulate the current leadership of our party led by Comrade Adams Oshiomhole. The team emerged at a most turbulent time when there were rumours and speculations of massive defections in a way that will possible rock the very foundation of the party.”
President Buhari, who addressed
Executive Committee (NEC) meeting of the APC today, Thursday in Abuja, recalled that despite the reconciliatory attempts to keep the house together, some members were held bent on pulling down the roofs.
“They left plotting to go along with scores of people thus upsetting the party. But due to yeoman’s work by the able party leadership, the exit barely made attempt in our super structure as they could not muster the figures they had envisaged to cause an upset, particularly in the two chambers of the National Assembly.
“APC remains in control and increases by the day with quality people joining our fold. I say congratulations to the new members.
“Hope is rekindled in our hearts but we will give our country purposeful leadership that will improve the quality of life of the people.”
President Buhari assured that his administration will continue to secure the country, fight corruption and position the economy in a way that jobs can be provided for the youths and give them a future and hope.
He further assured that his administration will fulfill all promises made to Nigerians adding: “we are fulfilling them and will continue to serve with heart and might to build a nation where peace, justice and prosperity shall reign.”
On the forthcoming primaries, he said that the party must continue to come out with free and credible primaries.
“Today, we are meeting to look at some major decisions that will lead to excellent performance at the polls next year starting with party primaries at various levels.
“I urge you all to ensure that the decision taken here today are those that will be for the good of the party and that will meet the yearnings and aspirations of our teaming members and supporters nationwide. They look up to us for guidance and we must not disappoint or fail them.
“As we stand on the threshold of party primaries, I urge all and sundry to ensure that we play the game according to the rules. Let us come out with free, fair and credible primaries which will be precursor to free, fair and credible general elections next year.
“Let us shine the light through our primaries and the rest of the country will find the way. Our primaries must be in complete compliance with the provision of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as amended, the Electoral Act and above all the constitution of our party, the APC.
“The times in which we call for unity, harmony and togetherness, let us all join hands to move our party forward, we must take our party to the next level and I urged all and sundry to give support to our national working committee.”
In his opening remarks before the meeting went into closed doors, the National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, gave the scorecard of the party’s achievement since the new leadership stepped in over two months ago.
He said that the leaders consider it a huge privilege to be elected and are indebted to the president and members, adding that they owe it as duty to ensure fairness and justice to all.
He recalled that the party won all the elections held under the new leadership in some states, including that of the Governorship, senatorial and House of Representatives.
According to him, in Bauchi, Katsina and Kogi Stayed, people reaffirmed confidence in the leadership of the party.
Oshiomhole said that the party lost the House of Representatives elections held in Cross Rivers, Yobe and Taraba, adding that it confirms that democracy was working.
He insisted that those who left the party did so for personal agains, adding, “The decampees felt it will be a huge blow to our party but I repeat those that left for personal ambition, those with no political address, migrant politicians and Rolling Stones politicians, I won’t loss my sleep. Many felt my comments were arrogant but we needed to be blunt.
“Those who have grievances arising from genuine misunderstanding our responsibilities is to help our party to have common ground and genuinely resolved those issues and we have been trying are best to do so as can be arrested to by those that have remained.”
Oshiomhole described the decampees as conservatives that needed to move away for the party to move forward.
“We have purged ourselves of excess fat that will clog our veins and we are much more certain of our future.”
He encouraged President Buhari to continue to provide the leadership and change the nation needs, even as he commended the President for continuing to speak truth to power and for demanding that looted funds stashed in foreign countries be returned.
“If you had money in foreign countries you won’t have the courage to tell the leaders to return stolen funds.”
The United Kingdom (UK) minister of State for Africa, and Harriett Baldwin has announced his country’s Government to invest £70 million in a technology programme that will create 100,000 jobs in Nigeria. Baldwin, who led a business delegation to a business event as part of the activities of the visit of the British Prime Minister, to the Theresa May to Nigeria today, Wednesday, and said that the programme would raise the income of three million people from the poorest parts of Nigeria. “We are here today to talk about technology links between the UK Fintech sector and the Nigerian Fintech sector and will bring inward investment in terms of this important sector of technology. “Today, it is all about celebrating those links through technology and I am very excited that the Prime Minister is announcing today a new £70 million programme that will create some 100,000 jobs in Nigeria and will also raise the income of three million people from the poorest parts of Nigeria.” The minister said that the event was celebrating the role of growing businesses and entrepreneurs and also highlighted the partnerships of both countries in the area of technological development. She added that the delegation consisted of various UK businesses that were willing to invest “the kind of capital that creates jobs”. The Nigeria’s Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, and the Ministers of Finance and Power, Works and Housing, Kemi Adeosun and Babatunde Fashola respectively, attended the event. Osinbajo said that the Federal Government is keen on driving technology development in the country in support of the government’s economic growth plan. The vice president said that there is the need to create the right environment for technology companies to thrive and further gave an assurance of the government’s commitment to support innovation in the country. “I think just looking at some of the start-ups that we see today, many of them started while the recession was on and they proved, by just a number of jobs, value and wealth created, that this is the future starting today. “This is why we have started up first with the creativity and technology advisory group; many of these start-ups are members of this group where they help to formulate policies with Federal Government policy makers especially in fintech, which are some of the new areas we need to formulate policies.” The event, held at Ventures Park, an innovation hub and co-working space for entrepreneurs, showcased a number products from start-up entrepreneurs. The founder of Ventures Park, Mr Kola Aina, said that the government’s `ease of doing business’ policy had been “relatively helpful” to the growth of small and medium-scale business in the country. “There is also a lot of talk about incentives like the pioneer start-ups programmes that we are looking to see how start-ups can begin to benefit from. “More than ever before, we are starting to see a lot of support from the government.” The event simultaneously held a panel discussion highlighting opportunities for doing business among businessmen of both countries. The panel included Fashola, Adeosun and other key government representatives. The Lord Mayor of the City of London, Charles Bowman, was also part of the discussions alongside several other UK businessmen. Theresa May’s visit to Nigeria is part of her tour of some African countries. The Prime Minister is expected in Nairobi on Thursday, where she will meet President Uhuru Kenyatta and see British soldiers from Kenya and other African countries in the techniques needed to identify and destroy improvised explosive devices before they go to fight Al-Shabaab in Somalia. The prime minister is on a trade mission in an attempt to bolster Britain’s post-Brexit fortunes. This is her first visit to Africa since she became prime minister in 2016. She is accompanied by a 30-man business delegation as part of her efforts to “deepen and strengthen” partnerships around the world as the UK prepares to leave the European Union next year. Source: NAN.
President Muhammadu Buhari and Theresa May at the state house Abuja.
The British Prime Minister, Theresa May has assured President Muhammadu Buhari that her government will not withhold the assets belonging to Nigeria that have been stashed in Britain by corrupt Nigerians.
“We do not want to hold anything that belongs to Nigeria people, but we will follow the judicial process, which can be slow.”
Theresa May, who arrived in Nigeria today, Wednesday and visited President Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja for bilateral talks, expressed happiness on the assurance by Buhari that the 2019 general elections will be credible.
She is pleased to be in Abuja to continue the ‘‘excellent discussions’’ she started with President Buhari in London in April, this year, particularly on security, trade, asset recovery and the fight against corruption.
“Security and defence cooperation are very important steps to address Boko Haram and Islamic State in West Africa.”
She appealed to Buhari to use his position as ECOWAS Chair to keep the issue of human trafficking on the front burner in the sub-region.
President Buhari had assured the Prime Minister of his commitment to conduct free, fair and credible elections in 2019, even as he welcomed UK’s support at strengthening democratic institutions in the country.
“I assure you that I’m all out for free, fair and credible elections. I’m very pleased that my party is doing very well. The High Commissioner will brief you more. The recent successes in polls in Katsina, Bauchi, and Kogi have boosted our morale greatly.
“Nigeria has accepted multiparty democracy and that is putting politicians on their toes, forcing them to work harder.”
On the anti-corruption campaign, the President applauded the British support to the country, noting that the success of the fight was very important to ordinary people in the country.
“We had great opportunities and resources between 1999 and 2014, due to high oil prices. But when we came in 2015, oil prices plunged to as low as 37 dollars per barrel.
“What we have been doing since 2015 is to focus on infrastructure development, despite low earnings. Work is ongoing in roads, rail, power, and many others.”
On Brexit, President Buhari noted that it provides an opportunity to strengthen the historic ties between Nigeria and the United Kingdom.
“We are nervously watching the development about Brexit because we know that the relationship had been on for a long time. I assure you that I am prepared to strengthen the relationship between our two countries.”
The President also thanked the UK government for the support on security and the fight against insurgency in the North Eastern part of Nigeria, as well as the improved trade relations between both countries.
“I am very grateful to the British government under you leadership for the help in security, particularly your training team that is in our institution in Kaduna,’’ he said.
Earlier, in remarks before the bilateral meeting, the Nigerian leader underscored the need for UK support on reviving of Lake Chad, which is a means of livelihood for millions of people.
The President told the visiting Prime Minister that Europe and China were already conducting an in-depth study on recharging the Lake through inter-basin transfer from the Central African Republic.
The two leaders witnessed the signing of two agreements: Security and Defence Partnership and Economic Development Forum Agreement.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has imposed heavy sanctions totaling N5.87 billion on four banks under its regulatory purview and asked them to refund the sum of $8,134,312,397.63 for what it described as ‘flagrant violation of extant laws and regulations of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
They were also found to have violated regulations on Foreign Exchange (Monitoring and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1995 of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Foreign Exchange Manual, 2006.
The four banks that have come under the sledge hammer of the CBN for the violations are Standard Chartered Bank, Stanbic-IBTC, Citibank, and Diamond Bank.
Announcing the decision in Abuja today, Wednesday, CBN’s Director of Corporate Communications, Isaac Okorafor, said that the actions on the banks became necessary following allegations of remittance of foreign exchange with irregular Certificates of Capital Importation (CCIs) issued on behalf of some offshore investors of MTN Nigeria Communications Limited and subsequent investigations carried out by the apex bank in March 2018. The CBN has therefore asked the Managements of the banks and MTN Nigeria Communications Limited to immediately refund the sum of $8,134,312,397.63, illegally repatriated by the company to the coffers of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
According to the figures from the apex bank, the highest fine of N2,470,604,767.13 was slammed on Standard Chartered Bank, while Stanbic IBTC Nigeria was fined the sum of N1,885,852,847.45. For its punishment, Citibank Nigeria was penalized in the sum of N1,265,541,562.31, just as Diamond Bank was directed to pay the sum of N250 million for violating extant rules.
The CBN Spokesman said that the decision of the Bank followed thorough investigations by it into the allegations of remittances by the four banks of forex with irregular certificates of Capital Importation (CCIs) issued on behalf of some offshore investors of MTN Nigeria Communications Limited.
He said that the investigations revealed that the sum of $3,448,119,321.72 was repatriated by Standard Chartered Bank on the basis of the illegally issued CCIs. Similarly, he said the sums of $2,632,005,623.78, $1,766,263,212.75 and $348,914,501.30 were repatriated by Stanbic IBTC Nigeria, Citibank Nigeria and Diamond Bank Plc, respectively during the period 2007 and 2015. Accordingly, he said the CBN had directed the affected banks to immediately refund the respective sums to the CBN.
The CBN investigation further revealed that on account of illegal conversion of MTN shareholders’ loan to preference shares (interest free loan) of $399,594,146.00, the sum of $8,134,312,397.63 was illegally repatriated by the company.
Okorafor said that investigations by the CBN took a while in order to carry out thorough inquiry and give fair hearing to all parties involved, advising all banks and multinational companies in Nigeria to adhere strictly to the provisions of all extant laws and regulations of Nigeria in their foreign exchange transactions.
He warned that failure by the management of banks and companies to abide by the existing guidelines would be appropriately sanctioned, which sanctions may include denial of access to the Nigerian foreign exchange market.
Details of the Investigations
CBN’s letter to MTN says:
Our investigation also revealed the following, among others:
i. The shareholders of your company invested the sum of $402,590,261.03 in the company from 2001 to 2006;
ii. The investment was carried out through the inflow of foreign currency cash transfers and equipment importation, which was evidenced by the CCIs issued by Standard Chartered Bank (SCB), Citi Bank (CB) and Diamond Bank (DB);
iii. The CCIs issued at the time of the investment by the above banks to your organization in respect of the $402,590,261.03 showed that $59,436,923.44 was invested as shareholders’ loan and $343,153,339.56 as equity;
iv. However, a review of your organization’s financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2007 revealed that $399,594,146.00 was recorded/invested as shareholders’ loan and $2,996,117.00 as equity investment, in accordance with the shareholder’s agreement but contrary to the CCIs issued by the banks in (iii) above;
v. Following a request by your organization through Standard Chartered Bank for CBN’s approval to convert the shareholder’s loan to preference shares, an approval-in-principle was granted vide our letter dated November 13, 2007; with the grant of final approval made subject to the fulfillment of the following conditions by your organization.
a. Implementation of the decision in item 5B of your board resolution dated November 08, 2007 and submission of documentary evidence to that effect to the Director, Trade and Exchange Department of the Central Bank of Nigeria; and
b. Provision of an undertaking that no remittance for either interest or principal repayment would be made to the shareholders from the date of the loan to the date they were converted to preference shares.
vi. In spite of the non-fulfillment of the conditions in (v) above and consequently, the non-issuance of a final approval by the CBN, your organization converted the shareholders’ loan to preference shares with Standard Charted Bank issuing new CCIs in respect of the illegal conversion;
vii. The action of your banker in aiding your organisation in the illegal conversion of the shareholders’ loan was later described by SCB in a letter to the CBN dated December 10, 2009 as an “unintended omission”; and
viii. On account of the illegal conversion of your shareholders’ loan to preference shares (interest free loan) of $399,594,146.00, the sum of $8,134,312,397.63 was illegally repatriated on behalf of your company by the aforementioned banks between 2007 and 2015.
CBN’s Letter to Standard Chartered bank says:
Our investigation also revealed the following, among others:
i. The shareholders of MTN Nigeria Communications Limited invested the sum of $402,590,261.03 in the company from 2001 to 2006;
ii. The investment was carried out through the inflow of foreign currency cash transfers and equipment importation, which was evidenced by the CCIs issued by your bank, Citi Bank (CB) and Diamond Bank (DB) at the initial stage of the investment.
iii. The CCIs issued at the time of investment by your bank along with the other banks in respect of the $402,590,261.03 showed that $59,436,923.44 was recorded/invested as shareholders’ loan and $343,153,339.56 as equity. This position was, however, contrary to the position in the financial statements of MTN Nigeria Communications Limited for the year ended December 31, 2007, which revealed that $399,594,146.00 was invested as shareholders’ loan and $2,996,117.00 as equity investment, in accordance with the shareholder’s agreement but contrary to the CCIs issued by your bank, Citi Bank (CB) and Diamond Bank (DB). Your action in this regard constituted a rendition of false returns to the Central Bank of Nigeria.
iv. Your bank subsequently applied to the CBN on behalf of MTN Nigeria Communications Limited for the conversion of the shareholder’s loan to preference shares, for which an approval-in-principle was granted vide our letter dated November 13, 2007 with the grant of final approval made subject to the fulfillment of the following conditions by MTNN:
a. Implementation of the decision in item 5B of MTN Nigeria Communications Limited board resolution dated November 8, 2007 and submission of documentary evidence to that effect to the Director, Trade and Exchange Department of the Central Bank of Nigeria; and
b. Provision of an undertaking that no remittance for either interest or principal repayment would be made to the shareholders from the date of the loan to the date they were converted to preference shares.
v. In spite of the non-fulfillment of the above conditions in (iv) above and consequently, the non-issuance of a final approval by the CBN, your bank issued new CCIs in support of the illegal conversion of the shareholders’ loan to preference shares; an action that was later described by your bank in a letter to the CBN dated December 10, 2009, as an “unintended omission”; and
vi. On account of the illegal conversion of the shareholders loan to preference shares (interest free loan) of $399,594,146.00, the sum of $8,134,312,397.63 was illegally repatriated by your bank and the other banks on behalf of MTN Nigeria Communications Limited between 2007 and 2015.
Other findings from our investigation included the following:
1. Your bank issued three (3) CCIs outside the regulatory 24 hours without the approval of the CBN;
2. In contravention of Memorandum 24 (ii) of the Foreign Exchange Manual, which requires that CCIs should be transferred based on customer’s instructions to a bank of the customer’s choice along with the transaction history of the CCI, you provided confirmation to two other banks, Citibank and Diamond Bank, instead of transferring the CCIs to them as required by the Foreign Exchange Manual.
The two banks on the strength of your confirmation subsequently remitted various sums as dividend for MTN Nigeria Communications Limited at different times; and
3. Your bank failed to issue a letter of indemnity to the CBN against double remittance in respect of ten CCIs transferred by Diamond Bank and Citibank to your bank as required under subsection 5(iii) of Memorandum 24 of the Foreign Exchange Manual.
Upon the conclusion of the investigation, the Committee of Governors of the Central Bank of Nigeria met with the management of your bank and the other banks as well as representatives of MTN Nigeria Communications Limited in Lagos on May 25, 2018. This was to give all the parties fair hearing, towards taking an informed decision on the matter.
CBN’s letter to Stanbic-IBTC says:
Our investigation also revealed the following, among others:
i. The shareholders of MTN Nigeria Communications Limited invested the sum of $402,590,261.03 in the company from 2001 to 2006;
ii. The investment was carried out through the inflow of foreign currency cash transfers and equipment importation, which was evidenced by the CCIs issued by Standard Chartered Bank, Diamond Bank and Citibank, out of which eight of the CCIs totaling $377,216,508.30 were transferred to your bank by Standard Chartered Bank. Consequently, your bank repatriated the sum of $929,051,331.83 as proceeds of divestment from the CCIs valued at $42,704,408.61.
iii. On account of the illegal conversion of the shareholders loan to preference shares (interest free loan) of $399,594,146.00, the sum of $8,134,312,397.63 was illegally repatriated by your bank and the other banks on behalf of MTN Nigeria Communications Limited between 2007 and 2015.
Other findings from our investigation included the following:
a). Your bank falsely reported thirty five CCIs valued $313,683,925.84 inappropriately as “other purchases” in your MTR 203 returns for February 2008 instead of “capital importation”;
b) Your bank issued eight CCIs of $58,359,616.67 in respect of foreign exchange sourced locally as shareholders’ loan. This constituted a contravention of the requirement of Section 15 of the Foreign Exchange (Monitoring and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1995 and Memorandum 20 (1.3) (iii) of the Foreign Exchange Manual, which stipulate that CCIs should only be issued on capital imported;
c). Your bank issued eight CCIs for capital inflows in form of machinery outside the 24 hours regulatory requirement of receipt of shipping documents in contravention of paragraph 4.1.1 (IV) of the Monetary, Credit, Foreign Trade, and Exchange Policy Guidelines for Fiscal Years 2012 to 2013;
d) Your bank failed to issue a letter of indemnity to the CBN against double remittance in respect of twenty CCIs transferred by Standard Chartered Bank to your bank as required under subsection 5(iii) of Memorandum 24 of the Foreign Exchange Manual; and
e) Your bank repatriated dividends totaling $905,260.20 in respect of CCIs illegally issued on the strength of locally sourced capital.
Upon the conclusion of the investigation, the Committee of Governors of the Central Bank of Nigeria met with the management of your bank and the other banks as well as representatives of MTN Nigeria Communications Limited in Lagos on May 25, 2018. This was to give all the parties fair hearing, towards taking an informed decision on the matter.
CBN’s letter to CitiBank says:
Our investigation also revealed the following, among others:
i. The shareholders of MTN Nigeria Communications Limited invested the sum of $402,590,261.03 in the company from 2001 to 2006;
ii. The investment was carried out through the inflow of foreign currency cash transfer and equipment importation evidenced by the CCIs issued by your bank, Standard Chartered Bank and Diamond Bank;
iii. The CCIs issued by your bank along with the other banks in respect of the $402,590,261.03 showed that $59,436,923.44 was recorded/invested as shareholders’ loan and $343,153,339.56 as equity at the time of the investment. This position was, however, contrary to the position in the financial statements of MTN Nigeria Communications Limited for the year ended December 31, 2007, which showed that $399,594,146.00 was invested as shareholders’ loan and $2,996,117.00 as equity investment, in accordance with the shareholder’s agreement but contrary to the CCIs issued by your bank, Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) and Diamond Bank (DB). Your action in this regard constituted a rendition of false returns to the Central Bank of Nigeria;
iv. Your bank issued seven (7) CCIs to MTN Nigeria (MTNN) totaling $42,126,803.04 that were subsequently transferred to Standard Chartered Bank Limited at the request of your customer (MTNN) on February 6, 2006, which constituted part of the CCIs that were consequently irregularly re-issued;
v. Four of the CCIs issued by your bank evidencing the inflow of capital imported as cash were issued outside the period of 24 hours allowed by regulation upon the receipt of inflow, in flagrant contravention of Memorandum 22 of the Foreign Exchange Manual;
vi. Your bank failed to comply with extant regulations on the issuance of letter of indemnity to the CBN in addition to forwarding the transaction history of the CCIs to the CBN, as provided in Memorandum 24(5)(ii)(b) of the Foreign Exchange Manual in respect of the CCIs received by your bank from Standard Chartered Bank; and
vii. Your bank purchased $535,000,000 on the basis of photocopies of Form “A” bearing the name of Standard Chartered Bank as the applicant bank and the referenced CCIs in contravention of Memorandum 24 (4) (a) of the Foreign Exchange Manual 2006.
Upon the conclusion of the investigation, the Committee of Governors of the Central Bank of Nigeria met with the management of your bank and the other banks as well as representatives of MTN Nigeria Communications Limited in Lagos on May 25, 2018. This was to give all the parties fair hearing, towards taking an informed decision on the matters.
CBN’s letter to Diamond Bank says:
Our investigation also revealed the following, among others:
I. The shareholders of MTN Nigeria Communications Limited invested the sum of $402,590,261.03 in the company from 2011 to 2006;
II. The investment was carried out through the inflow of foreign currency cash transfer and equipment importation, which was evidenced by the CCIs issued by your bank, Citi Bank and Standard Chartered Bank;
III. The CCIs issued illegally by your bank along with the other banks in respect of the $402,590,261.03 showed that $59,436,923.44 was recorded/invested as shareholders’ loan and $343,153,339.56 as equity. This position was, however, contrary to the position in the financial statements of MTN Nigeria Communications Limited for the year ended December 31, 2007, which showed that $399,594,146.00 was invested as shareholders’ loan and $2,996,117.00 as equity investment, in accordance with the shareholder’s agreement but contrary to the CCIs issued by your bank, Citi Bank (CB) and Standard Chartered Bank (SCB). Your action in this regard constituted a rendition of false returns to the Central Bank of Nigeria; and
IV. On account of the illegal conversion of the shareholders loan to preference shares (interest free loan) of $399,594,146.00, the sum of $8,134,312,397.63 was illegally repatriated by your bank and the other banks on behalf of MTN Nigeria Communications Limited, within a period of six years.
Other findings from our investigation included the following:
a) Your bank issued three CCIs in favour of Dantata Investment for the sum of $5million without converting the foreign exchange received into Naira as required by our regulations. On the basis of these illegally issued CCIs, your bank repatriated the sum of $102,545,336.77 in respect of these CCIs;
b) A further review of the CCIs also showed that no Form “M” was opened as evidence of the utilization of the FX for the importation of goods (as “Not valid for FX”) into the country;
c) Your bank remitted the sum of $348,914,501.38 as dividend to MTN Nigeria Communications Limited offshore corporate shareholders without any documentary evidence of the audited account of the company to justify the basis of the payment of the dividend declared and paid by MTNN. This action was a violation of the provision of Memorandum 24(4)(b) of the Foreign Exchange Manual;
d) Your bank failed to indemnify SCB for losses and/or liabilities that may arise from the use of the CCIs you transferred to SCB in violation of the provisions of the Foreign Exchange Manual 2006;
e) Your bank issued three CCIs outside the regulatory 24 hours without the approval of the CBN contrary to provisions of Memorandum 22 of the Foreign Exchange Manual 2006; and
f) Your bank illegally remitted the sum of $352,222,358.39 on behalf of Standard Chartered Bank and Stanbic IBTC Bank in respect of the various CCIs issued to MTN Nigeria Communications Limited.
Upon the conclusion of the investigation, the Committee of Governors of the Central Bank of Nigeria met with the management of your bank and the other banks as well as representatives of MTN Nigeria Communications Limited in Lagos on May 25, 2018. This was to give all the parties fair hearing, towards taking an informed decision on the matter.
Aisha Buhari, and wife of President Muhammadu Buhari has advised women in the country to go for more elective positions, promising to give such women support. She stressed that with women in many elective offices, they would have more influence in the nation’s socio political space. Speaking while receiving a delegation of women from the South East zone of Nigeria under the auspices of South East women for Buhari, in her office, and Aisha Buhari said that Women of the South East have developed more political awareness than any other part of the country, hoping that they will use such advantage to assert the strength of women in many positive ways. She emphasized that Women need to be in charge for them to make the difference in the lives of their families even as she called on them to entrench unity and dialogue among their members. Aisha Buhari said as elections are around the corner, they should campaign for the All Progressives Congress (APC) so that it will return to power to continue the good work that it is doing for Nigeria. Earlier, the wife of the Imo state Governor, Mrs. Nkechi Okorocha, who led the delegation said that they have come to present south East women for Buhari to her, and adding that they had studied the ideology of President Buhari and wanted to campaign for him to continue in office from 2019. She described as a selfless man who thinks of what he can do for his country rather than what his country can do for him. The National Coordinator for South East women for Buhari, Barrister Juliet Ibekaku-Nwagwu said that over five million card carrying members had already been mobilized for 2019 by the group to ensure the success of the APC in the elections.
Former governor of Kano State and current Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso was full of grammar today, Wednesday when he formally declared his intention to vie for the Presidency under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the next year’s election. Kwankwaso, at his campaign launch in Abuja before a large crowd of supporters, said: “I stand on my honour to offer a paradigm shift in leadership. There is no gainsaying that all is not well with the polity. It is also clear that the same mindset that created and escalated the problems cannot be used in resolving the ongoing crises in our nationhood and national development. ” On infrastructure, Kwankwaso said, “I intend to offer positive change. Change has again become inevitable. To live is to witness changes because change is an inseparable part of living. Come May 2019, the narrative of helplessness, buck- passing, division, poverty, insecurity, and hopelessness must change to turn to a new dawn of confidence in building a one well restructured Nigeria. “I assure you that while I do not have the prophetic power to predict the future, we certainly have in us the ability to create the future that we want. “On this day, as I stand before you, I offer you a value-based leadership anchored on our national ethics as outlined in Chapter 2 of Section 23 of our Constitution. “We will provide a leadership where everybody is free and equal; where Nigerians see themselves as Nigerians first and as Ibo, Yoruba, Hausa, Ijaw, Ibibio, Fulani, etc second; where citizens are self-assured and self-assertive; where they are confident and competent; where they want to do what is right no matter whose ox is gored. I want to lead a Nigeria where people are educated and exposed beyond the confines of their tribe, religion, linguistic group or place of birth. “I want to lead a Nigeria where citizens respect their leaders, and leaders lead and forge a team to promote and protect the interest of all Nigerians. “I want to lead a Nigeria where all are comfortable anywhere and on any positive issue can compete fairly with their peers without favour or discrimination. That is the kind of Nigeria we envision. We will abandon the failed relics of the past. We have all it takes to make Nigeria good and relevant for all,” noted the former Kano State governor.”
The United Nations human rights chief, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein has given an order to Facebook to more proactively address hate speech, warning against excessive regulation, after US President Donald Trump accused tech giants’ platforms of bias against him.
Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein’s appeal followed a decision by Facebook this week to ban Myanmar’s army chief and other top military brass named in a UN probe, linking them to a possible “genocide” against Rohingya Muslims.
The social media network is the prime source of news and information for many in the country but has also been a platform for the army and Buddhist hardliners to spread hate speech against the Rohingya and other minorities.
The site aired support for the military’s bloody “clearance operations” last year that forced some 700,000 Rohingya over the border into Bangladesh.
“We felt early on very uncomfortable with what we were seeing in Myanmar, (but) in the early meetings that we had with Facebook, I didn’t think they were taking it seriously,” said Zeid, who is due to step down from his post as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights at the end of the week.
“Hopefully they’ve now awoken,” he told reporters in Geneva, warning that there could easily be other cases “where Facebook is the dominant medium in a country where you see a deterioration of human rights conditions and then their role would be brought into question.”
He cautioned that the company should be “careful”, since it risked being subpoenaed in possible future trials “of those accused of the worst crimes.”
‘Accessory’
“We’ve seen from the jurisprudence of the past that if you’ve enabled, you’ve abetted, you’ve been an accessory,” Zeid said, stressing that while he was not accusing Facebook of that, “they have to be sure that they know where they are and what side of the law they are on.”
The Jordanian national, who is set to be succeeded by former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet, urged Facebook to not wait until a full-blown crisis erupts to act against hate speech.
“They should be thinking proactively about what steps they will take to mitigate that,” he said.
Zeid meanwhile warned of going too far in the opposite direction, cautioning that “there is also another danger (of being) overregulated.”
He pointed to recent comments by the US president, who has accused big tech firms like Facebook, Google and Twitter of bias against him, slamming what he called “rigged” internet search results.
Trump offered no details on what if any actions he might take, but a top White House aide suggested the administration may look at some type of regulation in response to the president’s complaints.
Zeid insisted that instead of more government regulations, the platforms’ actions must “be regulated by (international) human rights law.”
‘Dangerous’
The comments did not mark the first time the UN rights chief has criticised Trump.
He has repeatedly warned that the US president’s relentless attacks on the media are “dangerous”.
On Wednesday, Zeid said Trump’s recent statements “have been very worrisome to me,” reiterating his warning that the president’s words could trigger violence against journalists.
“All of us would be horrified, but perhaps not shocked if we heard of a journalist that was attacked and severely beaten for example at one of the rallies,” he said, stressing that if that happens “the president would bear some responsibility.”
“As the campaigning seasons heat up, whether it be for the midterm elections or the presidential elections to come, the conduct of the president should be under very careful scrutiny by the international community and by this office,” Zeid said.
On Saturday, August 18, 2018, I set out on a drive to Grand Square in the Central Business District of Abuja for shopping. I drove past the front of Sky Memorial Plaza that shares a fence with the national headquarters of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Wuse Zone 5, which is a stone’s throw from Ibro Hotel; and, no sooner had I made a detour into Accra Street, immediately after Ibro Hotel, than a Federal Road Safety Corps, FRSC, Toyota Hilux van, overtook and blocked my vehicle.
One of the officers jumped out of the vehicle, came to me and asked if I knew why they blocked my vehicle. I replied I had no idea. To my uttermost shock, he said they saw me use my phone while driving. According to him, the five-man team was in its vehicle close to Sky Memorial when one of the members alerted it to the fact that I was using my phone while driving. Interestingly, the team relied on the judgment of one of its members to give me a hot chase.
While still talking, one of the officers moved to the passenger’s side, opened the door and sat down. The leader of the team, an equivalent of an unconfirmed ASP in the Police, demanded my vehicle particulars which I handed over to him. He jumped into the waiting vehicle and drove off with the other members of his team. The officer sitting in my car said I should drive to the FRSC office in Wuse Zone 7. It was at that point I insisted that I was neither making nor answering a call on the steering wheel.
In fact, at the point I was blocked, my two phones were on the passenger’s seat. The officer clarified that it was true that I was not making a call on the phone but that I was holding a phone in my hand. I was pleasantly surprised by that claim too as I could not even remember holding my phone in my hand. I could not have conveniently held the steering wheel with a phone in my hand. If I was not making a call as confirmed by him, why should I hold a phone in my hand that would make it somewhat difficult for me to steer the wheel of the car?
Assuming without conceding that I held a phone in my hand, without using it for a call or a chat or anything whatsoever, the FRSC officials insisted that the action would still have constituted an offence of “use of phone.” The FRSC could be correct in their wider interpretation of use of phone, that is going beyond making calls on the steering wheel, but I got into a heated argument with the officer who sat in my car, demanding evidence to prove my culpability- that I actually held the phone at the point one of the officers claimed to have seen me.
Alas, there was no evidence! It was just his or the team’s words against mine. The officer admitted there were no CCTV cameras that could have been called upon to show I committed the offence. While the argument was on, the other members of the FRSC reversed the vehicle to where my vehicle was parked and the team leader came out to reinforce the position of his subordinate. Funnily enough, as he was explaining to me the “use of phone”, I noticed that one of them was using his android phone to record the conversation I was having with the team leader.
I said funnily enough because he was trying to get post-hoc evidence from statements made by me in the course of the conversation that could be used to prove my admission of the team’s claim of use of phone by me. It was unimaginable that a refined and intellectually-primed corps could resort to that kind of antics to prove an offence was committed by a citizen. I actually wondered how it had wanted to use my words that, “as a matter of fact I never knew merely holding a phone while driving is an offence” as an admission that I actually held a phone.
The onus was on the FRSC to prove my culpability and I could understand the team’s desperation to achieve that. The team insisted I should drive to the Corps’ Wuse Zone 7 office with a threat to tow my vehicle if I refused. The subordinate officer that was left to lead me to the office began to blab about my action that could tantamount to resisting arrest. We got to the office and while the officer was waiting for the team and its leader to come to do their booking or whatever, I worked my phone to secure my release through the intervention of some higher authorities.
This aspect of the entire saga was particularly very touching. It continues to speak volumes about the fantastic Corps’ public relations architecture and the responsive officers that man it. Successive spokespersons of the Corps have always robustly applied themselves to public relational exertions and the incumbent, Mr. Bisi Kazeem, is not an exception.
I have decided to write on the incident to reinforce the fact that the Corps has the responsibility to regulate the use of phones by motorists; and, in carrying out this responsibility and all other functions, members of the Corps have the power to arrest and prosecute persons reasonably suspected to have committed any traffic offence. But that function must be efficiently discharged. Therefore, I use this medium to draw the attention of the government to the imperativeness of capacitating the FRSC to enable it effectively discharge its road safety functions.
Government should provide the necessary administrative and operational infrastructure to bolster the operational and regulatory capacities of the Corps. For instance, the provision of CCTV camera or any other fixtures that could help to apprehend motorists who flout road safety regulations with irrefutable evidence of their culpability would be in apple-pie order. Such foolproof evidence of wrongdoing by motorists would reinforce the integrity of the Corps’ operations and eliminate errors of judgment in surveillance.
Once the necessary gadgets are deployed, the facts of the incident as they are would be precisely captured and presented. There would be no room for arguments. It would not be difficult for motorists that have been apprehended to accept culpability and comply with the concomitant sanctions and/or penalties. Indeed, the Corps’ operations would become much more elevated and respected. The relevant stakeholders would not be at pains to commend the Corps and its officials for doing a great job.
After all, the reason for setting up the FRSC is for it to add value to society by saving lives on the roads. There is no doubt that this single-minded objective has remained the essential motivation of successive leaderships of the Corps who have always brought the magnitude of their intellectual prowess to bear on their respective dispensations. The current Corps Marshal of the FRSC, Mr. Boboye Oyeyemi, is doing well but he must continue to put his nose to the grindstone to ensure that he delivers the best.
With his training in policy and strategy at the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies, NIPSS, Kuru, Oyeyemi looks primed to innovate and provide revolutionary leadership for the Corps. But then, innovative ideas would require adequate funding to materialise. The Federal Government is hereby called upon to commit itself to making available funds needed by the Corps to emplace necessary administrative and operational infrastructure that will conduce to safety of lives on the nation’s highways.
When on July 17 this year, a good friend of mine working in the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Abuja called me on my mobile, asking me to prepare to be part of this year’s (2018) Saudi Government’s media team to cover the entire activities of the hajj, I was elated. I was elated for two reasons: that Allah was again inviting me to go and serve him about six years since the last time, in 2012, that I went there, and that because this time, it was Saudi government itself that was inviting me. It looked bumper, if you know what I mean!
From that point, I underwent some processes, including forwarding scanned pictures of my international passport, copy of my Curriculum Vitae and other relevant papers to the Embassy and to a mail address in Saudi Arabia that was forwarded to me.
But before then, I had already been slated to be on the Presidential media team to Lome, Togo, for the joint meeting of the Economic Community of West African States and Economic Community of Central African States known as ECOWAS/ECCAS, as well as ECOWAS Summit separately. I made the point known to the Saudi authorities that I would have to join the Presidential team to Togo before considering their offer for the working journey to that country. They accepted my term.
On my return on August 2nd, the process of my going to Saudi Arabia began, dovetailing into a pleasant meeting with the country’s Ambassador to Nigeria, Adnan bin Mahmoud Bostaji. Ambassador Adnan did not however tell me in his discussion with me, the nitty-gritty of the journey, only that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabian wanted to be heard loud and clear too on the numerous efforts it had been making every year to comfortably accommodate the millions of Muslims going for the pilgrimage. I did not ask him what were involved in strict term, believing that worldwide, foreign trip has one thing in common, especially if it is on the bases of going to work.
And on August 15, in accordance with the airlift schedule, I took off, en-route Cairo, Egypt, arriving at the King Abdul Aziz International airport in Jeddah the following day, August 16. After undergoing more than five hours customs and immigration entry processes, I was finally ushered into the airport, where I was picked by a waiting driver. The driver was so friendly and helpful, thanking me for finding time to come.
I was excited when I was taken to the Holiday Inn, Jeddah (a four-star hotel) for lodging. The hotel, to say the least, was exquisite, clean and comfortable. Meals were served free, so also was laundry service as well as other things, such as gym, swimming pool and so on.
After checking in, I stayed indoors for the whole of the day, until the following day, Friday, when I went to a nearby Mosque to observe the Friday (Jum’at) prayer. In the evening of Friday, I and more than 50 other journalists: three of us from Nigeria, some from Indonesia, Pakistan, Egypt, Djibouti, America, Britain and other countries, were driven in a luxury bus to the main prison in Jeddah where Islamic hardliners, suspected terrorist and bigots are kept, trained and reformed. The prison and its environs, including the condition of the prisoners give a perfect impression of respect for human rights of even the prisoners. They have all the facilities including fantastic mini general hospital, equipped with state-of-the-art medical facilities, surgical equipment and even dialysis centre.
We were later in the process of the work which we were invited to do, hosted by the deputy minister of Media, the governor of Makkah and above all, the Custodian of the two Holy Mosques in Makkah and Madinah, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, King Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud. We carried out several other duties. We filed reports of the activities and got them published by our various news media platforms back in our countries.
Indeed, those who arrived before me had earlier visited various Holy sites and security apparatus, men and officers, as well as riding in a helicopter to oversee the Kaaba itself.
And when it was time to go for the performance of the hajj rituals, the vehicles, fitted with air-conditions, internet connection (Wi-Fi) and other gadgets to ease our job, were provided us, with police escorts blaring siren to clear the ways. It was such an easy movement, so much that it didn’t look as if it was the hajj I had performed in the past, with all the hassles and thrills.
As a matter of fact, I had never enjoyed such accommodation and other services in the previous seven times I had been to that country for pilgrimage, beginning from 1984.
Faheem Al-Hamid
That was all about the ease that was provided by the International Communication Centre (ICC) under the auspices of the Ministry of Media. The ICC was coordinated by a very exciting and pleasant personality, Mr. Faheem H. Alhamid. He is actually the President of the Centre, doubling as Adviser. Faheem interacted with us freely more on personal level, and at every stage, was on hand to provide help to whoever needed it. He is a good listener, though sometimes, because of the pressure of work, one would wrongly conclude that he was rude. He speaks good English.
Through Faheem, we were made to look so important that people back home, who were privileged to follow our activities either on television or social media, had started calculating that we were going to be loaded with money. What about having a firsthand experience of visiting King Salman in his palatial mansion in Minah, situated down what looks a valley, overlooking major parts of Minah and Makkah? What about visiting and dinning with the governor of Makkah, a wealthy Saudi Prince, who interacted with us for nearly two hours to the extent that he laughed with us? What about being driven in a convoy of long, comfortable and air-conditioned buses with police escorts blaring siren everywhere we went, including Arafat, Muzdalifah and Jamra in Minah?
All these were later to constitute tragic irony: a situation where we were inadvertently being set against friends and well wishers back home, thinking we had made it in the oil rich Saudi land.
Unfortunately, the last day before we all departed from Jeddah back to our various countries, the only thing that was offered to us at the closing media briefing by the Minister of Media, Dr. Awwad Al-Awwad was fresh flower. There was also a verbal thank you to all of us, and we left the Hall, all of us speechless.
There was no estacode and no money paid for the work we were clearly told we were being invited to carry out which of course, we carried out. While some of us managed to escape the financial embarrassment caused by such abandonment by our hosts, using our personal money (thank God, on my part, for the estacode I enjoyed from my Togo trip), some others did not prepare enough to enjoy such escape. A few of us returned to our countries without buying even a razor blade, because we were not given an inkling that we were the ones that would fund ourselves, especially on small shopping for family members and friends back home.
Just as I was trying to overcome the shock that followed our being used and dumped in the Holy land, as the Boeing 737 aircraft that finally brought me landed at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja on Sunday afternoon (August 26), ugly news came to me via my cell phone.
Idris Momoh Ondeku
I had barely driven out of the airport when a friend phoned to tell me that my cousin, Idris Momoh Ondeku (known in his work place as Idris Mohammed Ondekus), who went for the same hajj in the group of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) was dead in the Holy land.
This was the man I met at Jamra (Minah) where devils were stoned and with whom I had some lively discussion before I left for Nigeria.
Idris, born in December like me in 1960 (58 years in December this year), was the Principal of the Government Science Technical College in Garki, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja. He had been Principal since 2012. He was another Chike Obi, the Mathematician. His mastery of mathematics and related subjects was legendary.
Information reaching me said that my cousin, who had finished all the rituals, including spending a night in Minah, standing a whole day in Arafat, sleeping in Muzdalifah, stoning devils for three consecutive days, visit to the Prophet Mosque in Madinah, circublating Kaaba seven times, performing Umra by walking between Safa and Marwa as Prophet Ibrahim’s wife, Sayyidatuna Hajar did while searching for water; and other hajj rituals, was struck by what clearly was cardiac arrest. He was said to have suddenly complained of severe chest pain, followed immediately by vomiting blood. Before medical help could reach him in the wee hours of Saturday, August 25, he had already given up the ghost.
I and Idris grew up in Okene, Kogi State, struggling on our own to make it in life. Like me, Idris once served as house help to a rich man so that he could make enough money to go to school as our parents were very poor. He started small, as a classroom teacher in Kuje Government Secondary School in 1988 on grade level 7 shortly after completing his Teachers’ Grade II at Ogori/Magongo Teachers College in Kogi State. He gradually climbed the ladder through a dint of hard work to become one of the longest serving Principals of the Government Science Technical College, Garki as Deputy Director on Grade level 16. He was Vice President of the All Nigerian Confederation of Principals of Secondary Schools (ANCOPSS), FCT chapter.
It was only by the grace of Allah and providence that Idris and I were able to push our heads in the world that is very harsh to the poor and which venerates the rich and the mighty. How would Idris had been able to visit many countries, including Singapore, India and others if it were not his dexterity to make it in life all on his own, with God in control?
Knowing his situation in life, Idris lived a quiet life, always burying himself in his official work and helping people from his community with ideas on how to move the society forward and chipping in some money wherever it was needed. Here was a man who would not want to hurt fellow human being to the extent that if he knew you were not happy with him for one reason or the other, he would trace you wherever you are to seek for your forgiveness, even if he knew you were wrong.
Just few days before he travelled for hajj, he sent a text message to inform me. I responded to the text by saying that as close as he and I were, was it through the text message he should inform me of his plan to go for hajj. Not quite thirty minutes, he drove to my house to apologize, and to properly inform me of his intention. Such was Idris.
He left a wife, who herself performed hajj last year; five children (three females and two males). The first, Radifat, is working as medical officer in a Lagos hospital.
And to arrive at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, after over ten hours of traveling from Jeddah-Cairo-Nigeria to be greeted by the death of such a wonderful, gentle, friendly and generous cousin could not have been uglier.
And since Sunday that I arrived, I have been mourning, even as the thought of the experience of the moneyless Holy journey I made with all the trappings of enjoyment, coupled with family members and friends that keep on asking what I brought for them from hajj, keeps nudging at my heart. I am still wondering, amidst the myriads of thoughts crossing my mind, where in the world a person would be taken away from his family for a distant journey without an estacode.
It is a combination of feeling of satisfaction and thankfulness to Allah for a successful hajj, mourning the death of my dear cousin and regretting that for lack of proper communication and understanding of the thinking of my hosts, I couldn’t bring welcome gifts (tsaraba, baba oyoyo) to my children, grand children, friends, colleagues and well wishers.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has called on institutions like the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) to ensure the effective administration of justice for building a society with strong moral values. Professor Osinbajo spoke today, Tuesday at an interactive session with lawyers during the 58th Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), with the theme: Transition, Transformation & Sustainable Institutions; held at the International Conference Centre, Abuja. According to the Vice President, beyond government actions, every Nigerian has a responsibility to ensure that there is consequence for wrongdoing. “If you look at the whole question of how to develop a moral society, a society that is driven by values and principles, I think one of the major issues with that is to understand where we are coming from and how to resolve that problem. There is a great deal of moral and institutional decay. I don’t think there is any question at all about that. “Just taking an example of corruption. It is systemic, this is a sort of thing that had eaten so deep into societal fabric, and it’s difficult to simply say that you can do that by just being exemplars of moral conduct. There is a lot more that needs to be done. One, there is a need to establish a system of consequence for misdeeds, for wrongdoing. “Now that is a very important issue, and it is one I believe applies to the Bar, as well as to the rest of society, maybe more to the Bar. I think the most important part is that everyone has a responsibility to ensure that there is consequence. I think we are at a point where there is a moral dilemma as to how it is that we should visit that consequence. “One of the major problems we have had is with the legal process, ensuring that the legal process is able to deliver justice within a reasonable time, especially where the matters concern issues of public corruption and all of that. There are several cases that have been in courts. The government is frequently criticized for not being able to secure convictions, there are arguments back and forth… but all of this has to do with our administration of justice system, and we are very much a part of it. “So, I think that there is a sense in which, to an extent, we must accept some responsibility. The law society, for example, in England, accepts responsibility for the discipline of lawyers, even when lawyers engage in dilatory tactics in courts. So, if a lawyer wants to delay a case as a strategy for either winning the case or hoping that, years after, the matter would be forgotten, that kind of lawyer would lose his shirt in any other jurisdiction. But here, it’s become an accepted tactic; dilatory tactics is part of our system of doing business. “I think that, beyond government, strong institutions such as the NBA (Nigerian Bar Association), must really rise to the occasion; and it really calls for self-regulation. Government is not going make the laws to change that, and this is an ecosystem we are in control of; we should be able to say, “we are going to put our foot down here, we are not going to allow a situation where the administration of justice is ineffective.” Because once it is effective, building a moral society is undermined almost entirely. So, this is an aspect where we, at least, can do something.”
On the Buhari administration’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) in transforming the lives of the poor in the country, Professor Osinbajo said the impact has been significant. “This informs the approach of this government to the whole question of wealth creation and poverty alleviation. We started off in 2016 looking at the budget that was crafted differently; we look at economic policy from a top-down approach, we look at how to improve industries, manufacturing, how to give loans to usually medium-scale to big business. But the bottom of the pyramid has always been largely ignored. So, the approach that we adopted from 2016 is a two-pronged approach. One is in first creating a safety net as much as that is possible. So, for the first time, we put in the budget N500 billion for the Social Investment Programme, the largest programme of its type in the history of this country. “It includes schemes such as the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) to cover one million of the poorest; the N-Power, which is a scheme for providing jobs, which now has 500,000 graduates employed under the programme. We also have the TraderMoni scheme, a micro-credit scheme for the bottom of the pyramid, which will cover two million petty traders. “One way of at least containing poverty and improving the capacity of the people to create wealth is to put money in their hands, which is really what the Social Investment Programme is about. It is working because we can see a substantial improvement in the capacity of people to earn money and to do better for themselves.” The Vice President that almost 400,000 households are benefitting from the CCT, adding that there is a clear improvement in their lives and in what they are doing.
“Compared to the whole, it still is small, but this is where we are going, we know that the only way to deal with poverty is to incrementally increase the capacity of people to earn and put more money into their hands. For us, the key is ensuring that the people at the bottom of the pyramid earn more.”
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HURIWA/NBC: Facts Of Fictitious Agenda, By Hamid Hendrix
On Saturday, August 18, 2018, I set out on a drive to Grand Square in the Central Business District of Abuja for shopping. I drove past the front of Sky Memorial Plaza that shares a fence with the national headquarters of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Wuse Zone 5, which is a stone’s throw from Ibro Hotel; and, no sooner had I made a detour into Accra Street, immediately after Ibro Hotel, than a Federal Road Safety Corps, FRSC, Toyota Hilux van, overtook and blocked my vehicle.
One of the officers jumped out of the vehicle, came to me and asked if I knew why they blocked my vehicle. I replied I had no idea. To my uttermost shock, he said they saw me use my phone while driving. According to him, the five-man team was in its vehicle close to Sky Memorial when one of the members alerted it to the fact that I was using my phone while driving. Interestingly, the team relied on the judgment of one of its members to give me a hot chase.
While still talking, one of the officers moved to the passenger’s side, opened the door and sat down. The leader of the team, an equivalent of an unconfirmed ASP in the Police, demanded my vehicle particulars which I handed over to him. He jumped into the waiting vehicle and drove off with the other members of his team. The officer sitting in my car said I should drive to the FRSC office in Wuse Zone 7. It was at that point I insisted that I was neither making nor answering a call on the steering wheel.
In fact, at the point I was blocked, my two phones were on the passenger’s seat. The officer clarified that it was true that I was not making a call on the phone but that I was holding a phone in my hand. I was pleasantly surprised by that claim too as I could not even remember holding my phone in my hand. I could not have conveniently held the steering wheel with a phone in my hand. If I was not making a call as confirmed by him, why should I hold a phone in my hand that would make it somewhat difficult for me to steer the wheel of the car?
Assuming without conceding that I held a phone in my hand, without using it for a call or a chat or anything whatsoever, the FRSC officials insisted that the action would still have constituted an offence of “use of phone.” The FRSC could be correct in their wider interpretation of use of phone, that is going beyond making calls on the steering wheel, but I got into a heated argument with the officer who sat in my car, demanding evidence to prove my culpability- that I actually held the phone at the point one of the officers claimed to have seen me.
Alas, there was no evidence! It was just his or the team’s words against mine. The officer admitted there were no CCTV cameras that could have been called upon to show I committed the offence. While the argument was on, the other members of the FRSC reversed the vehicle to where my vehicle was parked and the team leader came out to reinforce the position of his subordinate. Funnily enough, as he was explaining to me the “use of phone”, I noticed that one of them was using his android phone to record the conversation I was having with the team leader.
I said funnily enough because he was trying to get post-hoc evidence from statements made by me in the course of the conversation that could be used to prove my admission of the team’s claim of use of phone by me. It was unimaginable that a refined and intellectually-primed corps could resort to that kind of antics to prove an offence was committed by a citizen. I actually wondered how it had wanted to use my words that, “as a matter of fact I never knew merely holding a phone while driving is an offence” as an admission that I actually held a phone.
The onus was on the FRSC to prove my culpability and I could understand the team’s desperation to achieve that. The team insisted I should drive to the Corps’ Wuse Zone 7 office with a threat to tow my vehicle if I refused. The subordinate officer that was left to lead me to the office began to blab about my action that could tantamount to resisting arrest. We got to the office and while the officer was waiting for the team and its leader to come to do their booking or whatever, I worked my phone to secure my release through the intervention of some higher authorities.
This aspect of the entire saga was particularly very touching. It continues to speak volumes about the fantastic Corps’ public relations architecture and the responsive officers that man it. Successive spokespersons of the Corps have always robustly applied themselves to public relational exertions and the incumbent, Mr. Bisi Kazeem, is not an exception.
I have decided to write on the incident to reinforce the fact that the Corps has the responsibility to regulate the use of phones by motorists; and, in carrying out this responsibility and all other functions, members of the Corps have the power to arrest and prosecute persons reasonably suspected to have committed any traffic offence. But that function must be efficiently discharged. Therefore, I use this medium to draw the attention of the government to the imperativeness of capacitating the FRSC to enable it effectively discharge its road safety functions.
Government should provide the necessary administrative and operational infrastructure to bolster the operational and regulatory capacities of the Corps. For instance, the provision of CCTV camera or any other fixtures that could help to apprehend motorists who flout road safety regulations with irrefutable evidence of their culpability would be in apple-pie order. Such foolproof evidence of wrongdoing by motorists would reinforce the integrity of the Corps’ operations and eliminate errors of judgment in surveillance.
Once the necessary gadgets are deployed, the facts of the incident as they are would be precisely captured and presented. There would be no room for arguments. It would not be difficult for motorists that have been apprehended to accept culpability and comply with the concomitant sanctions and/or penalties. Indeed, the Corps’ operations would become much more elevated and respected. The relevant stakeholders would not be at pains to commend the Corps and its officials for doing a great job.
After all, the reason for setting up the FRSC is for it to add value to society by saving lives on the roads. There is no doubt that this single-minded objective has remained the essential motivation of successive leaderships of the Corps who have always brought the magnitude of their intellectual prowess to bear on their respective dispensations. The current Corps Marshal of the FRSC, Mr. Boboye Oyeyemi, is doing well but he must continue to put his nose to the grindstone to ensure that he delivers the best.
With his training in policy and strategy at the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies, NIPSS, Kuru, Oyeyemi looks primed to innovate and provide revolutionary leadership for the Corps. But then, innovative ideas would require adequate funding to materialise. The Federal Government is hereby called upon to commit itself to making available funds needed by the Corps to emplace necessary administrative and operational infrastructure that will conduce to safety of lives on the nation’s highways.