God Did Not Mistake In Choosing Buhari For Nigeria – Northern Christian Leader

November 3, 2016

The Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in the 19 Northern States and Abuja, Reverend Yakubu Pam has said that it was not a mistake that God chose President Buhari to lead the country at these challenging times.
The CAN Chairman was in the Aso Rock Presidential Villa today, Thursday, along with top executive members from 19 Northern States and Abuja for a courtesy visit of the President.
The CAN leader commended the Buhari administration for the blow it dealt on Boko Haram insurgents, which had led to comparative peace in the North-east, the return of 21 abducted schoolgirls from Chibok and the anti-corruption war which must be fought to the logical conclusion.
“We are ready to support your administration to deliver good governance. You have good intentions for Nigeria, judging from the programmes that have been outlined.”
Rev. Pam highlighted ethno-religious challenges in the country, freedom of worship, and herdsmen/farmers’ clashes in their discussion with the President.
Responding, President Buhari assured Nigerians that he would keep faith with the oath of office he swore, and treat all Nigerians equitably.
He pledged to restore peace to all parts of the country saying: “restoring peace is top priority. We will enable the law enforcement agencies to combat all forms of violent crimes, and ensure that our people live in peace.”
President Buhari asked the clerics to promote religious harmony by enhancing understanding among different faiths.
He said that the government would maintain the priority it has placed on agriculture and mines and steel development, “to kick-start the economy.” [myad]

Transport Minister, Amaechi, Announces Move To Privatise Nigeria Ports

Greenbarge Reporters

November 3, 2016

The Minister of Transportation, Chief Rotimi Amaechi has announced move being made buy the federal government to privatise the nation’s port as one of the measures to re-position the maritime sector for greater efficiency and competitiveness.
The Minister who spoke during the celebration of the 2016 World Maritime Day with the theme “Shipping, Indispensable to the World” held in Lagos said that the sector is facing myriad of challenges bothering on non-competitiveness, low level of investment, absence of requisite funding, low implementation and enforcement of existing laws amongst others.
He said that the government is bringing up a robust strategy that will address the challenges that may hinder the growth of the sector.
“As part of a comprehensive action to address these challenges and ensure efficiency and cost effectiveness of the shipping industry, a number of measures are being put in place, including the privatization of the nation’s ports, while various regulatory Agencies are being repositioned for effective service delivery.”
Amaechi said that the Transport Sector Reform Bills currently before the National Assembly are receiving legislative consideration and it is hoped that the expeditious passage of the bills would give effect to the proposed reform aimed at strengthening the relevant maritime Agencies for effective performance.
The Minister said that thew reform being put in place would bring to an end, all forms of illegalities on the nation’s waterways.
While discussing the paper presented by Captain Adamu Biu on “Growth and Development of Shipping Industry in Nigeria: Creating Enabling Environment,” the Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr. Dakuku Peterside said that the management has already began the process of repositioning the Agency through its Medium Term Strategic Growth Plan built around the Management’s vision of Reforming, Restructuring and Repositioning the Agency towards the growth and development of the maritime sector.
“There must be a long term strategy on our policy framework and its implementation. NIMASA as an Agency has already drawn up its own Medium Term Policy to engender higher efficiency and productivity.”
Dr. Peterside who noted that the dearth of human resources in the maritime industry is a global phenomenon, assured stakeholders that NIMASA is committed to building the requisite manpower through adequate training and thanked the Shipowners Association of Nigeria (SOAN) for accepting to provide 100 sea time berths for cadets of the Maritime Academy of Nigeria in a phased programme.
The Director General said that in achieving a competitive maritime sector, security is a very key factor and as such the Agency has revisited its Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Nigerian Navy and other relevant Agencies to ensure safety and security in the maritime domain.
Present at the event were Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Transportation (FMOT), Mr. Sabiu Zakari, Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Ms Hadiza Usman, Executive Secretary, Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) Barrister Hassan Bello, Chief Adebayo Sarumi amongst several other Industry Stakeholders. [myad]

Jonathan’s Wrong Parroting In Wrong Climes, By Okanga Agila

Greenbarge Reporters

November 3, 2016

Former President Goodluck Jonathan seems to have broken his long silence since eviction from Aso Rock Villa last year. He has been quiet, watching in utter surprise the demystification and unveiling of the plague of his six-year reign of Nigeria’s ruination in all sectors by the All Progressives Congress-led government of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Had the former President been silent to his grave, after supervising the castration of Nigeria, his beloved country, for which he now claims unfounded love, he would have easily passed as a nice gentleman cum African leader whose silence is really golden.
But Jonathan is not contented that his wife and Nigeria’s former imperial first Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, has not only assaulted and insulted the sensibilities of Nigerians enough, so he must add to it.
His wife shocked Nigerians by admitting the millions of idle US Dollars found in bank accounts linked to her in 2016 were meant for her foreign medical treatment in 2013. Only a fool would think Jonathan is prodded by his wife to suddenly become chatty.
That former President Jonathan, as a sitting President meekly conceded defeat to his opposition winner of the 2015 presidential polls, President Buhari without protestations was not a preconceived decision. It was a circumstantial act ennobled by world leaders and leaders of Foreign Election Observer Missions who pressured him to accept defeat.
His original intention was to scuttle full announcement of the presidential election results as his principal agent and former Minister for Niger Delta Affairs, Godsday Orubebe, hinted by his actions in full glare of blistering media cameras.
But today and out of office, Jonathan speaks to the world or the international community, which is privy to this information haughtily as a mark of his political maturity and rare gesture to deepen democracy.
In January 2016 when Jonathan received the Martin Luther King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference Award in Atlanta,USA, he proudly alluded to this act as his demonstration “….through action that nobody’s political ambition is worth the blood of any Nigerian.”
Months later, in June 6, 2016, in a speech at the Bloomberg Studios in London,Jonathan re-echoed the same feeling more pungently: “Some may think it is ironic that perhaps my proudest achievement was not winning the 2015 Presidential Election.”
From this standpoint of self-glorification, Jonathan is unashamedly attempting to recast a fresh narrative of the success of his administration, which Nigerians did not feel or experienced.
Again in October 2016 Ex-President Jonathan delivered a speech on the promotion of youth entrepreneurship in Africa at Oxford Union. He dubiously seized the audience to trumpet his initiation of youth empowerment schemes, which in reality existed only in shadows and at best, served as conduit pipes for siphoning public funds by his trusted acolytes.
Away from the confines of office,Jonathan believes a nation’s citizenry,particularly,the youth can only create wealth if properly educated, “… because the richest people today are those who develop ideas and commercialize them. Viable ideas can only come from educated minds, and money pursues ideas.”
But Jonathan was one Nigerian leader who hated funding and promotion of education as President.United Nations has stipulated a devotion of 26 percent of annual budgets of developing countries to education.But under the ignominious Jonathan administration, education ministry would always peg the least in budgetary allocation.
Indeed, it is under his presidency that ASUU embarked on one of the longest strikes in the country’s history, lasting for six months, over the implementation of the FGN/ASUU agreement of 2009.His late boss, President Umaru Yar’Adua initiated it and he inherited.
So, what was the wisdom in establishing the politically distributed 12 fresh conventional universities when it was clear from the grumbling of ASUU that existing ones could not be properly funded and lacked qualified teaching staff?
Former President Jonathan spoke about schemes he initiated to get youth busy and gainfully employed. Citing examples, he mentioned Youth Enterprise with Innovation in Nigeria “YouWIN; ”the Youth Employment in Agriculture Program nder his Agricultural Transformation Agenda, but conveniently refused to make any reference to the employees of SURE-P, which he refused pay or had their salary fund mortgaged to party bigwigs for his re-election campaigns. There were scores of protests from SURE-P labourers for months of unpaid stipends on assumption of office by President Buhari.
In any case, the National Bureau of Statistics and the National Planning Commission’s official figures posted astronomical rise in unemployment figures under the infamous Jonathan Presidency.
In a 2011 Performance Monitoring Report on Government’s Ministries, Departments and Agencies, (MDAs) both the NBS and NPC alerted Nigerians to a frightening unemployment rate thus: “In 2011, Nigeria’s unemployment rose to 23.9 percent compared with 21.1 percent in 2010.” This was further corroborated in June by the World Bank’s Nigeria Economic Report, which disclosed a worsening unemployment rate from “12% of the working population in 2006 to 24% in 2011.”
And until he was forced out of office,he left the burden for the incoming government. So, unless Jonathan tackled the unemployment crisis in the moon, Nigerians never felt any respite under him and sounding sanctimonious as he did at the Oxford Union only reminds Nigerians of the Immigration recruitment tragedy which caused the death of 19 applicants in stampedes at various centers as 120,000 unemployed youths scrambled for 4,500 vacancies.
In a plain and undisguised falsehood, Jonathan claimed that his administration witnessed “… unprecedented economic growth for Nigeria.”
“Under my watch,Nigeria was projected by CNN Money to be the third fastest growing economy in the world for the year 2015 and rated as the largest economy in Africa and the 23rd in the world by the World Bank and the IMF, with a GDP above half a Trillion US dollars,” he intoned.
But in practical terms what beneficial memories has the hoopla about Nigeria being the largest economy in Africa brought to Nigerians? Nothing positive! The Jonathan government left months of unpaid salaries even to federal workers and government could not pay local contractors debts which piled over a trillion naira despite the “unprecedented economic growth?”
With no intention to malign, but to say the least,Jonathan wasted his breathe and energy speaking to the wrong audience, as they heard, but never believed him. So, he was unnecessarily mouthy and in the wrong place.Sometimes, silence is more golden, as nothing in his speech strikes like a philosophical statement from a leader.
. Okanga writes from Agila, Benue State. [myad]

Nigeria Requires $25 Billion Annually For 10 Years To Attain Full Infrastructure – Osinbajo

Greenbarge Reporters

November 3, 2016

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo has said that that Nigeria requires about $25 billion annually for the next 10 years to grow its infrastructure to sustainable levels.
He stressed that the N1.84 trillion which the federal government proposed to spend on capital projects in the 2016 budget, representing about 30 percent of the entire budget was grossly inadequate.
Osinbajo, who spoke at the African Development Bank Knowledge Sharing Forum in Abuja today, Thursday, explained that the federal government has decided to invest heavily in infrastructure because it is convinced that the effort would translate into economic growth for the country.
The Vice-President, who was represented by the Special Adviser to the President on the Economy, Dr. Yemi Dipeolu said that there is a positive relationship between infrastructure and growth in the economy, adding that Nigeria stands to experience growth given the commitment of the present administration to invest hugely in infrastructure.
”There are also various estimates about the impact of infrastructure on growth but the broad consensus is that the relationship is a positive one if the example of countries like China is anything to go by. Accordingly, given its significant infrastructure deficit, Nigeria is most likely to experience growth if significant investment is made in the building of roads, bridges, railways, ports, airports, housing, dams, telecommunications facilities and electric power.”
The Vice President said that the government of President Muhammadu Buhari has made investment in infrastructure a major priority and policy focus.
“In the 2016 budget, government has proposed to spend N1.84 trillion on capital projects, amounting to about 30% of the entire budget. Even though this is unprecedented in recent times, there is a realization that this figure is still way below what the country should ideally be investing in infrastructure.”
The Vice President said that said that the infrastructure cannot be funded entirely by the public sector “which brings the Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) model to the forefront of our considerations.”
Meanwhile, the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun on the occasion restated the commitment of the administration to improve the operation of the Public, Private Partnership arrangement.
According to the Minister, the Federal Government believes that Public Private Partnership is extremely important to the drive to restore and resolve the infrastructure of this country, saying that solving the nation’s infrastructure problem would unlock the potential of the economy and get Nigeria out of the current challenges.
“As far as our financial strategy is concerned, we are very committed to PPP and for us, the way to accelerate it is for the Federal Government to de-risk the involvement of the private sector and gradually, introduce the private sector to the PPP. This is because if we wait for every law to be changed and regulations to be amended, we will really not get any single project done.”
She disclosed that the Federal Government plans to start with a number of transactions in 2017, and that it will use the federal guarantee to simply take the risk away from the risky avarices of the projects of, for example, road projects which is risky. “So we will de-risk; we will guarantee and will allow private money to crowd in to these transactions. It is something we must crack because clearly, our infrastructure deficit is so large that even if we spend our entire budget on infrastructure for the next five years, we cannot bridge the gap, so we must be able to get private money,” she stated. [myad]

Women Will Never Be Catholic Priests, Pope Francis Vows

Greenbarge Reporters

November 3, 2016

Leader of the Catholic Church Worldwide, Pope Francis, has insisted that women will never be Catholic priests.

He said that the restriction on women becoming priests will not be lifted.

The Pope made this known while speaking during a press conference on-board his papal plane to the Argentine.

He said: “on the ordination of women in the Catholic Church, the Pope referred to an apostolic letter written by Pope John Paul II in 1994, which holds that ordaining women was not possible because Jesus chose only men as his apostles. It was given by St. John Paul II, and this stands.

“Forever, forever, never!

“If we read carefully the declaration by St John Paul II, it is going in that direction,” Pope Francis added. [myad]

Osinbajo To Sultan Sa’ad: You Are True Son Of Your Fore-Fathers

Greenbarge Reporters

November 3, 2016

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has described the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar III as a worthy son of his fore-fathers.

Osinbajo who spoke in Sokoto today, Thursday, when he declared open an International Symposium on the Sokoto Caliphate said: “the Sokoto Caliphate was founded over 200 years ago on the sterling principles of honesty, piety, good governance and truthfulness, among others.

“The intellectual endeavours of the founding fathers of the caliphate on theology and jurisprudence, among others, were relevant now as they were then.

“They had left legacies of wealth of resources in their books premised on the principles of good governance and social justice.”

The vice president stressed the need for social justice, saying that its absence always lead to chaos.

Osinbajo therefore urged leaders to always protect public treasuries and not to loot them.

The vice president noted that the Sultan has continued in the path of his fore-fathers, urging him not to relent.

He also noted that the reign of the Sultan, who is also the President-General, Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, came at a challenging time for Nigeria.

“But the Sultan has handled them with pragmatism and graciousness.

“Leadership is a privilege and the leaders must set moral and ethical tones for the society,” he added.

Gov. Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State also described the Sultan as an intellectually-endowed leader.

Tambuwal commended the Sultan for his sustained moral and royal support to his administration.

“You are not only a bridge builder, but the bridge itself,” Tambuwal said.

The Chairman of the occasion, Prof. Shehu Galadanchi, pioneer vice chancellor, Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, commended the Sultan for consistently working for peace, unity and development.

The Chairman, Main Organising Committee and Emir of Kano, Alhaji Muhammadu Sanusi II, said: “The symposium was organised to reflect on the past, ponder on present and transform the future’’.

The keynote Speaker, Prof. Murray Last, Professor Emeritus, University College, London, said that the celebration of the Caliphate was to recognise its crucial importance.

He said: “The Caliphate has been an institution in Northern Nigeria that possesses an extraordinary phenomenon.

“The caliphate has strengths which we need to understand, not as political scientists but as Nigerians.

“For without the Caliphate, Nigeria might never have existed. It would have been more like Northern Ghana, a Burkina or a Mali.

“Celebrating the Caliphate and recognising its importance is truly a great pleasure.”

The celebrant, the Sultan advocated a national security summit of all stakeholders to brainstorm on most of the contemporary challenges affecting Nigeria.

These, he said, include insurgency, militancy, kidnapping, armed robbery, cattle rustling and farmers-herdsmen clashes.

However, Abubakar III, who is also the President, Jamaatul Nasril Islam (JNI), said that these burning challenges should be discussed at the proposed summit, as they were threatening the corporate existence of Nigeria.

Besides, the Sultan underscored the need for Nigerians to continue to live peacefully with one another irrespective of their various religious, political and ethnic leanings.

(NAN). [myad]

Budget Deficit: African Dev. Bank Rescues Nigeria With $600 Million Loan

Greenbarge Reporters

November 3, 2016

The African Development Bank has approved a $600 million loan in a bid to plug Nigeria’s gaping $7 billion budget deficit.

The loan is the first tranche of a $1 billion budget support plan between the bank and Africa’s largest economy, which has fallen into its first recession in 20 years as a result of the collapse in oil prices.

Militant attacks on oil pipelines have also carved a substantial hole in the oil profits that the government relies on for 70% of its revenue.

The AfDB hopes the loan will help to counter myriad issues in Nigeria, despite it filling barely 15% of the government’s shortfall. Nigeria has only raised cash to cover $3bn worth of the deficit.

“We must think through innovative solutions to support our member countries in crisis situations like this,” AfDB president Akinwumi Adesina said. “We must also provide them with the knowledge products to get them back on track.”

The AfDB said the first tranche is aimed at creating fiscal space for the government to implement reforms, combat corruption and diversify the economy away from oil, as well as ensure social spending is targeted at the most vulnerable.

The bank also hopes it will aid the government’s efforts to build a buffer of foreign exchange reserves, which the country has depleted, and ease pressure on the exchange market and stabilise the Naira.

In addition, it continued, the resources will contribute to opening up fiscal space for Nigeria to scale up its infrastructure investments, which made up 30% of this year’s record budget, worth $30bn at the time (before a substantial devaluation of the naira).

Signed before the recession was confirmed, the budget tripled capital expenditure in hopes of stimulating the economy and avoiding a contraction. However, with negative growth now firmly established – output is expected to contract by 1.6% in 2016 – the country is struggling to foot the bill.

The government hopes to raise as much as $15bn through asset sales and is also planning heavy borrowing, especially from abroad. Nigeria has one of the lowest debt to GDP ratios on the continent, at 13.2% of GDP.

That plan suffered a setback earlier in the week when reformist President Muhammadu Buhari, recently had his $30bn borrowing plan blocked by the country’s senate, reportedly due to lack of information.

He can expect more from the AfDB, however, which plans to lend Nigeria $4.1bn in total over the next two years, and $10bn by 2019.

It said yesterday that a prolonged recession in Nigeria has the potential to severely affect the economies of neighbouring countries in West and Central Africa.

The AfDB also praised Nigeria’s economic programme for its planned expenditure controls, which it said should result in a further reduction in wage bill growth and debt service costs. It should also boost efficiency, transparency, accountability and revenues.

The programme will also strengthen PFM by, for example, creating a bigger tax base and increasing the efficiency of revenue collection and public expenditure, improving energy market competitiveness and fostering social inclusion.

Also this week, the AfDB approved a $995m loan to support industry and energy in Algeria, another oil-based African economy struggling with declining revenues. [myad]

Man Allegedly Rapes 6 Year Old Inside Church, Gets N1 Million Bail

Greenbarge Reporters

November 3, 2016

A 33 year old church worker, Roland Olise, who allegedly raped a six-year-old girl in church, has been granted one million naira bail by the Surulere Chief Magistrates’ Court.

Roland Olise pleaded not guilty to a one-count charge of defilement.

The Chief Magistrate, Ipaye Nwachukwu, in the ruling, ordered the accused bail of one million naira and to provide two sureties in like sum.

“One of the sureties must be a property owner in Lagos State, while the other must be a civil servant on grade level 14.

“The sureties must provide evidence of tax payments to the government.” Nwachukwu said.

The Prosecutor, Sgt. Anthonia Osayande, told the court that the accused committed the offence at a church in Ajah-Lekki Area of Lagos at about 6.00 p.m on October 21.

“The accused, who was a church worker, was in church when he saw the six-year-old girl passing and called her into the church where no one was around and defiled her.

“The girl knew the man as the church was their family church and that was why she comfortably entered the church with him.‎”

The offence contravened Sections 137 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State 2011. [myad]

Wole Soyinka Vows To Tear Off His US Green Card If Trump Wins

Greenbarge Reporters

November 3, 2016

Nigeria’s Nobel Prize laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka has vowed to tear off his green card if Donald Trump emerges as winner of the US presidential election. The green card is a permanent residence permit for the US – prized by many African immigrants to the US.

His comments emerged in the video of a conversation with students at Oxford University in the UK.

The famous author appears to be taking a swipe at Trump over his radical stance on immigration.

American voters go to the polls next Tuesday and latest polls show the two candidates are neck and neck.

Trump is famous for his promise to build a wall to keep Mexican immigrants out of the US if he makes it to the White House.

Image copyright AFP Image caption Donald Trump: Not a fan of illegal immigrants

Under his hard-line proposals, every illegal immigrant currently in the US would be subject to deportation if he wins the election.

He says there will be no pathway to citizenship or even legal status for them unless they leave the country and get in line with everyone else who wants to enter the US, subject to the normal immigration procedures.

Soyinka said he feared the Republic candidate would ask all green-card holders to reapply to come back into the US.

“Well, I’m not waiting for that,” the Nigerian author told his student audience.

“The moment they announce his (Trump’s) victory, I will cut my green card myself and start packing up,” he added. [myad]

Poverty Reduction, Inclusive Development Are Very Close To My Heart – Buhari

Greenbarge Reporters

November 3, 2016

President Muhammadu Buhari has said that poverty reduction and inclusive development are the pillars of his government and “very close to my heart.”
The President today, Thursday, spoke at a Presidential parley with the senior executive No. 38 (2016) Of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru, at the Presidential.
Buhari said that in the last one and half years of his government, the economy has experienced some tough times, particularly with the decline in oil revenues, which has some harsh impacts on Nigerians at the grassroots.
He argued that the economic recession is not the making of his government, “but rather a consequence of bad management of the economy in the past couple of decades. Nor is recession limited to Nigeria – there are far, far worse cases than Nigeria.
“Whatever the scale of the problem. the important thing is how one tackles it. Accordingly, this administration is committed to finding lasting solutions to our economic structural imbalance. Let us have faith in our great nation that we will come out of this recession vibrant and strong. I am glad that the report presented today has given us reason to keep faith in our ability to overcome our challenges.
“There is no doubt that poverty for decades has been a major challenge to us as a nation despite the country’s enormous wealth. Several policies and programmes that have been implemented over the years, as rightly observed by the Report, have not broken the cycle of poverty in Nigeria. From the findings of the research by the Participants, it is evident that strengthening our institutions is key to reducing poverty and engendering inclusive development.”
President Buhari said that it is impossible for the government to ignore the poor who made great sacrifice to bring us to government, saying that more than any other government in the history of Nigeria, he government is a people’s government.
“We therefore must and we will keep faith with the people.
“It is in this light that I wish to declare the commitment of this administration to the “Sustainable Development Goals, most especially to ending extreme poverty in Nigeria. It is not going to be easy, but we are committed to dealing with the challenges in a decisive manner. Fortunately, the Report of the Participants has prescribed some concrete measures on how to reduce poverty in the country.”
The President commended the efforts of the National Institute for keeping faith and moving the nation towards a better society.
Buhari recalled that a year ago, during the Presidential Parley with the Participants of the Senior Executive Course 37 of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, he saddled the Management of the National Institute with the responsibility of looking at Strengthening Institutional Mechanisms for Poverty Reduction and Inclusive Development in the 2016 Course.
“I am glad that the Participants of the Senior Course 38 took up the challenge and today presented the Report of the Study.
“I have carefully noted the report, most especially its findings and policy recommendations. I recall with pleasure that when I was giving this task, six months after this administration came into office, the selection of the theme was not only apt but also timely.
I am very pleased that the Participants, through the able leadership of the National Institute of Management and the faculty members, have taken the task seriously, as is evident in the report presented. I congratulate you for painstakingly committing your time and energy to produce such a valuable policy-oriented report that will guide this administration.
I have looked forward to receiving this report because it touches on one of the fundamental problems confronting our nation. The Report comes at a time when our economy is experiencing a downturn and all efforts are being made by this administration to get our country moving again.
On behalf of the Government and people of Nigeria, let me congratulate you on your patriotic efforts.”
The President said that even with the limited resources, the Institute was able to come up with such a policy-oriented research findings, assuring it that the Federal Executive Council will carefully study the Report and implement all the practical recommendations. [myad]

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