So it took the budget sabotage for President Muhammadu Buhari to know he ought to have purged his government of every iota of Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s irresponsible leadership. Ehn baba please no try me o. Thank God it wasn’t impeachment, wetin I for dey talk!!! That was how he was too honest and straight forward to allow drug peddler and his cohort to strike in 1985. We are yet to recover from the moral decadence the “Maradona” plunged us. Baba listen to me and listen well well sir. This change is not your property: you did not get it from some khaki boys. This is our hard earn change and you cannot afford to toy with it. Anywhere you see them, change them. Be it on the mountain top, change them. Be it in the valley, change them. Be it in the sea or the desert, Baba change them all. Onyeka Owenu nko, is she still there? Change her. CBN governor, change him. All the people that partook in running Nigeria to the ground under Jonathan, Baba change them like expired car engine oil. You have so many people in your APC, bring them on so that if we aren’t satisfy, we shall know who exactly to hold “PVCically” responsible. Ehn hnnn, lest I forget, those Supreme court judges that want to take us back to Iwu days of political ewu (danger), baba change every single one of them. Ask your Attorney General for a clause in the constitution to help you do that. After all, Jonathan removed Sanusi Lamido Sanusi and wetin happen? Change all of them. Forget about wailers jare. They have been wailing since you took office, and they will continue untill you leave. It is their cross, don’t deny them the burden. I supported change, change ’em all. You are either for us or against us. [myad]
Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State has described the former Senate President, Senator David Mark who alleged that the All Progressives Congress (APC) had hired thugs to assassinate him ahead of the February 20 Benue South Senatorial District rerun as a big lie. Ortom who spoke to news men in Makurdi, Benue state capital described the reports as “completely untrue, malicious and unfounded.” According to him, nobody is interested in such a thing. “If you will recall, since my assumption of office as governor, I banned all forms of thuggery and recovered arms in the hands of unauthorized persons.” Governor Ortom said that the APC had an upper hand in Benue South Senatorial District since all the top members of Mark’s party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), from the area had decamped to the APC. The governor assured the electorate in the senatorial district of adequate security to guarantee their safety during and after the polls. He urged the people of the state to disregard such false alarm and go about their legitimate affairs without fear of molestation. Ortom said that security personnel had been deployed to curtail further outbreak of hostilities between herdsmen and farmers in Agatu. He appealed to both parties to shield their swords and work together to promote their wellbeing. He blamed the persistent skirmishes on non demarcation of grazing lands due to population expansion and growth of modern cities. [myad]
National chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief John Odigie Oyegun has said that those who were sacked yesterday from various government media outfits and other organizations were saboteurs.
Speaking to news men today shortly after an audience with President Muhammadu Buhari in Aso Villa, Abuja, Oyegun said that the party was not concerned much about the positions, but that “we are concerned about the internal sabotage that is going on in a lot of the PDP filled positions which are critical to our national growth and development.
“It is happening in INEC, it is happening in a lot of other institutions and that is what the concern of the party is, not necessarily taking over. We should take over and they should be people who believe in the change agenda. We have no apologies for that at all.”
The APC Boss insisted that there is no confusion in the 2016 federal government budget, saying that budget is a serious issue.
“I want you to please understand the complications that come from adjusting a structure from over 40 ministries to just over 20 ministries and the necessary adjustments of figures and movements of institutions. It was very complicated and so it is natural that adjustments have to be made to the process and that is just what is happening.” [myad]
President Muhammadu Buhari welcoming General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor E.A. Adeboye to his office in Aso Presidential Villa, Abuja, today, February 16.
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), obviously dissatisfied with five members of the party that have forwarded their names to contest the national chairmanship, has hand-picked three prominent members from the North East to go for the position.
The three prominent members are the former governor of Borno state, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Malam Nuhu Ribadu and Senator Muhammed Wakil.
The dark horses who have originally indicated their interest for the position are Ambassador Wilberforce Juta, Senator Kumo, Senator Girgir, Shehu Gabam and who the party described as “one other person.”
Speaking to news men today shortly after the party’s National Caucus meeting at the Ondo State Governor’s Lodge in Abuja, which ended in the early hours of today, the National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, said that as at now there are nine candidates from the North East zone that are being screened for the position of the party’s national chairman. Metuh said that five out of the nine names were submitted to the caucus meeting by PDP leaders from the North East.
“Basically, the two governors of the North East today briefed us on what they have done and they brought five people for consideration. These include Ambassador Wilberforce Juta, Senator Kumo, Senator Girgir, Shehu Gabam and one other person. “We looked at the list and decided to enlarge the list. So, we have invited some other leaders from that zone.”
Metuh listed the invited leaders as former Governor Ali Modu Sheriff, Senator Muhammed Wakil and Malam Nuhu Ribadu. [myad]
The General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor E.A. Adeboye, today, stormed the Presidential Villa, Abuja. He arrived shortly before noon and went straight to have a private meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari.
Pastor Adeboye, on arrival with his team, was led to the President’s office by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. He spent about 15 minutes with the President before leaving the Villa.
When news men approached him to speak on his mission to the Presidency, Adeboye simply kept sealed leaps, as he raised up his hand.
He managed to utter a prayer: “God bless you” to which the journalists responded with a resounding “Amen.” [myad]
Ahead of the Benue South Senatorial rerun election scheduled for Saturday, February 20, former Senate President, David Mark has written a petition to the Inspector General of Police alleging move by his political opponents to send the deadly Black Axe Cult to eliminate him.
Senator David Mark alleged that the opponents, mostly in the All Progressive Congress (APC), have concluded plans to also involve another notorious cult group named ‘supreme Vikings squad’ from Jos, Plateau state as well as other terror groups to assassinate him.
A statement by Mark’s Media aide, Paul Mumeh, said that in a petition to the Inspector General of Police signed by Mark’s counsel, Mr. Ken Ikonne , the Senator said that one Okpokwu Ogenyi is the mastermind of the plot.
In the petition, Ikonne told the IGP: “It is obvious that Ogenyi knows more about the assassination plot than he has revealed. Our client has, therefore, instructed us to petition you( IGP) to as a matter of urgency apprehend and interrogate Ogenyi to throw more light on the details of this grave assassination plot before he and his associates carry out the dastardly plot.”
According to the statement, no reason was given for the unprovoked attack and no arrest has been made so far.’
Mumeh said: ”a couple of weeks ago, Benue State chairman of the APC, Mr. Abbah Yaro was quoted as saying, “if Senator Mark wants, let him win the election in seven out of the nine local government areas, but no returning officer born of a woman will dare declare him.”
”His PDP counterpart, Dr. Emmanuel Agbo had petitioned the Nigeria Police Command over the unhealthy political activities of APC in Benue state ahead of the election and asked the authorities to prevail on them to allow peace reign.” [myad]
Late last month, President MuhammaduBuhari sent two executive bills to the National Assembly that border on the government’s commitment to strengthen the fight against corruption. The two bills are the Money Laundering Prevention and Prohibition Bill (2016) and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Bill (2016).
Coming this early in the life of the administration, and in the heat of the government’s momentous anti-corruption campaign, the submission of the two bills was not an ordinary government business. It was symbolic; it signposted, to some extent, the future of the war against corruption and the much needed political will to deal with this canker which hitherto had been lacking.
For many years, the bane of the war against corruption was the lack of commitment and political will at the highest political level to fight the menace. It is no wonder therefore that many enabling laws enacted to solidify the war against corruption, money laundering and other financial crimes, or to increase transparency in the system, remained almostcomatose.
Ideally, the two new anti-corruption bills should not only excite interest but accepted with garlands and fanfare as another commitment by the executive and also another weaponin the arsenal to take down one of Nigeria’s greatest maladies. Unfortunately, the new money laundering bill leaves a lot to be desired.
The new bill seeks to repeal an existing Money Laundering Act, “make comprehensive provisions to prohibit the laundering of criminal activities and expand the scope of money laundering offences”, according to the letter from President Buhari read by Senate President, BukolaSaraki.
Daily Trust of February 3, 2016, reported that with the bill now before the Senate, President Buhari “has set machinery for the establishment of Bureau for Money Laundering Control (BMLC) to tackle money laundering related cases in the country”.
First, there is a Money Laundering Act (first enacted in 1995 and amended in 2011) of which the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is the co-coordinating enforcement agency. The current Money Laundering Act is also not known to have any fundamental flaws. Why then do we need a NEW Act and a NEW Agency? It is quite disturbing that the new bill seeks to establish a NEW anti-corruption agency to implement its provisions, if passed into law.
One wonders why a law that has been implemented for several years will now warrant formation of an independent agency to enforce it, more so when there are anti-corruption agencies empowered by the law to bring the Money Laundering Act into force.
Both the ICPC and EFCC laws have extensively covered financial crimes bordering on money laundering. In specific terms, the EFCC Establishment Act has listed the Money Laundering Act as one of the laws that the EFCC can enforce, under its powers. In fact, so central is this Act to the activities of the EFCC that it is the first to be listed in Section 7 (2) (a) of the EFCC (Establishment) Act 2004, before others such as the Advance Fee Fraud and other Related Offences Act, the Failed Banks (Recovery of Debts) and Financial Malpractices in Banks Act, as amended, and the Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act 1991, as amended, among others.
According to Daily Trust, “The Bureau, when established, would ensure that all designated businesses and professions comply with the provisions of the Money Laundering Act and exercise supervision.” This task is something that was and is still being done by government agencies such as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the EFCC. There is therefore nothing new that the BMLC will do in this regard.
Perhaps the framers of this new bill do not know, or have chosen to ignore, the existence of the inter-agency Special Control Unit against Money Laundering (SCUML) which has the statutory mandate of registering all designated non-financial business. TheSCUML “works in collaboration with the EFCC (the coordinating agency for Nigeria’s AML/CFT regime) and the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) – the national repository of financial disclosures of cash-based transaction reports, currency transaction reports and suspicious transaction reports.” It can’t get any better!Since its establishment in 2005, SCUML has taken the campaign and indeed enforced the registration of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), hotels and real estate business, car dealership, and other real sectors of the economy.
Clearly, a provision in the proposed money laundering bill has given some clue as to those pushing this agenda and the purpose. Daily Trust reported that, “The Bureau would be run through an advisory board to be headed by a chairman who will be appointed by the president on the advice of theAttorney-General of the Federation andMinister of Justice.” One can sense a level of self-aggrandizement to the detriment of the public good.
This new bill, obviously needless as it is, highlights the long standing rivalry that exists between the EFCC and the office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice. And this rivalry is most probably being fueled by top civil servants who endlessly keep looking for more power and perquisitesoutside their legal means.
Similar machinations took place during the tenure of President Umaru MusaYar’Adua when the then Attorney General, Michael Aondoakaa, went all out to pocket the EFCC. In the last dispensation, spurred by vested interest, the 7th National Assembly, predictably acting the same script, worked so hard to make the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) into a standalone agency. There is no difference between that distractive move and the current one on money laundering.
This move appears to be a clear affront to the work of the EFCC and other anti-corruption agencies; perhaps, an attempt to weaken existing anti-corruption agencies to satisfy certain powerful personal interests.
The last thing the Buhari administration needs now that the anti-corruption war is gaining some traction is to get bogged down by this rivalry. This is one distraction it can ill afford. What benefit is it for the country to keep creating agencies at a time of acute financial stress, particularly for a government mouthing cuts in cost of governance?
All the relevant laws to fight corruption and economic malfeasance are there. The government only needs to empower the agencies mandated to enforce these laws and where necessary amend such laws if there are any deficiencies.
Former governor of Borno state and current senator of the Federal Republic, Ali Modu Sheriff has made it clear that he is comfortable in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and has no intention of returning to the All Progressives Congress (APC).
In a statement in Abuja, the Senator stressed that the information making the round that he planning to return to APC must be a figment of the imagination of the authors who are bent on denting his image.
Senator Modu Sheriff recalled that he was a founding member of APC, a founding member of the defunct ANPP, a former National Chairman of ANPP, a former Chairman of the Board of Trustees of ANPP who played different important roles in the efforts that culminated into the merger of ANPP with other political parties to form APC.
“It should be noted that Senator Modu Sheriff had remained a member of ANPP through thick and thin, good times and bad times, and never had to jump ship to another party despite pressure from political associates to do so. Senator Modu Sheriff is a believer in building up party structures from the scratch and is an avid grassroots politician not fazed by the short term gains or advantages prevalent in party politics.
“Senator Modu Sheriff’s decision to join Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was well thought out and a personal decision which was taken without external influences nor considerations of pecuniary interests but rather by the emergence of a strange kind of gang-up and sycophancy that presented itself in APC at that time.
“Let it be known that His Excellency Senator Modu Sheriff is a PDP stalwart and has no intention to leave PDP. In fact he is at peace in PDP and will do his utmost, along with other PDP chieftains, within limits acceptable by law and PDP’s constitution and regulations, to reposition PDP for greater service to Nigerians.
“It is pertinent to note that Senator Modu Sheriff garnered enviable record of achievements and accomplishments as the Executive Governor of Borno State which bears testimony to his sound leadership qualities and administrative competence.
“Notwithstanding the profound physical and social development and transformation of Borno State during his tenure as Executive Governor, Senator Modu Sheriff left a credit balance of more than N65 Billion in the coffers of Borno State at the time he handed over to his successor.
“For the records, Senator Modu Sheriff is not a sponsor of Boko Haram, and has never been cited or investigated for any such allegation as suggested by those unstable political hatchet men and their brown-envelop collaborators pretending to be journalists. It is not lost on Nigerians and indeed the good people of Borno State who the sponsors and kingpins of Boko Haram are, nobody is fooled by their antics of sponsoring false and wicked publications against innocent citizens.
“The authors of the mischievous article are merely recycling false and wicked information based on propaganda materials bandied around by infantile political jobbers and mercenaries with the intention of tainting the person of Senator Modu Sheriff and bring him to their despicable and ignoble level of engagement. They are afraid of their shadows and will continue to run even when nothing and nobody are chasing them but their own evil deeds.
“Modu Sheriff is a strong believer in “politics without bitterness”, and has always counseled that even in the interplay of politics and political contests there should be decorum and sense of dignity amongst gladiators. Politicians must know and should always remember that the ultimate goal is to develop Nigeria and improve the welfare of the citizenry.
“For those that have conscience, we leave them to their conscience but for the unfortunate jackals of Nigerian politics, whose souls have been sold to the devil for pots of pottage, be assured that your treachery and wickedness will find you out and your evil deeds exposed.
“Senator Modu Sheriff will not bother to respond to any such other false, wicked and desperate hatchet jobs.” [myad]
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So it took the budget sabotage for President Muhammadu Buhari to know he ought to have purged his government of every iota of Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s irresponsible leadership. Ehn baba please no try me o.
The Money Laundering Act And Its Discontents, By Chido Onumah
Coming this early in the life of the administration, and in the heat of the government’s momentous anti-corruption campaign, the submission of the two bills was not an ordinary government business. It was symbolic; it signposted, to some extent, the future of the war against corruption and the much needed political will to deal with this canker which hitherto had been lacking.
For many years, the bane of the war against corruption was the lack of commitment and political will at the highest political level to fight the menace. It is no wonder therefore that many enabling laws enacted to solidify the war against corruption, money laundering and other financial crimes, or to increase transparency in the system, remained almostcomatose.
Ideally, the two new anti-corruption bills should not only excite interest but accepted with garlands and fanfare as another commitment by the executive and also another weaponin the arsenal to take down one of Nigeria’s greatest maladies. Unfortunately, the new money laundering bill leaves a lot to be desired.
The new bill seeks to repeal an existing Money Laundering Act, “make comprehensive provisions to prohibit the laundering of criminal activities and expand the scope of money laundering offences”, according to the letter from President Buhari read by Senate President, BukolaSaraki.
Daily Trust of February 3, 2016, reported that with the bill now before the Senate, President Buhari “has set machinery for the establishment of Bureau for Money Laundering Control (BMLC) to tackle money laundering related cases in the country”.
First, there is a Money Laundering Act (first enacted in 1995 and amended in 2011) of which the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is the co-coordinating enforcement agency. The current Money Laundering Act is also not known to have any fundamental flaws. Why then do we need a NEW Act and a NEW Agency? It is quite disturbing that the new bill seeks to establish a NEW anti-corruption agency to implement its provisions, if passed into law.
One wonders why a law that has been implemented for several years will now warrant formation of an independent agency to enforce it, more so when there are anti-corruption agencies empowered by the law to bring the Money Laundering Act into force.
Both the ICPC and EFCC laws have extensively covered financial crimes bordering on money laundering. In specific terms, the EFCC Establishment Act has listed the Money Laundering Act as one of the laws that the EFCC can enforce, under its powers. In fact, so central is this Act to the activities of the EFCC that it is the first to be listed in Section 7 (2) (a) of the EFCC (Establishment) Act 2004, before others such as the Advance Fee Fraud and other Related Offences Act, the Failed Banks (Recovery of Debts) and Financial Malpractices in Banks Act, as amended, and the Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act 1991, as amended, among others.
According to Daily Trust, “The Bureau, when established, would ensure that all designated businesses and professions comply with the provisions of the Money Laundering Act and exercise supervision.” This task is something that was and is still being done by government agencies such as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the EFCC. There is therefore nothing new that the BMLC will do in this regard.
Perhaps the framers of this new bill do not know, or have chosen to ignore, the existence of the inter-agency Special Control Unit against Money Laundering (SCUML) which has the statutory mandate of registering all designated non-financial business. TheSCUML “works in collaboration with the EFCC (the coordinating agency for Nigeria’s AML/CFT regime) and the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) – the national repository of financial disclosures of cash-based transaction reports, currency transaction reports and suspicious transaction reports.” It can’t get any better!Since its establishment in 2005, SCUML has taken the campaign and indeed enforced the registration of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), hotels and real estate business, car dealership, and other real sectors of the economy.
Clearly, a provision in the proposed money laundering bill has given some clue as to those pushing this agenda and the purpose. Daily Trust reported that, “The Bureau would be run through an advisory board to be headed by a chairman who will be appointed by the president on the advice of theAttorney-General of the Federation andMinister of Justice.” One can sense a level of self-aggrandizement to the detriment of the public good.
This new bill, obviously needless as it is, highlights the long standing rivalry that exists between the EFCC and the office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice. And this rivalry is most probably being fueled by top civil servants who endlessly keep looking for more power and perquisitesoutside their legal means.
Similar machinations took place during the tenure of President Umaru MusaYar’Adua when the then Attorney General, Michael Aondoakaa, went all out to pocket the EFCC. In the last dispensation, spurred by vested interest, the 7th National Assembly, predictably acting the same script, worked so hard to make the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) into a standalone agency. There is no difference between that distractive move and the current one on money laundering.
This move appears to be a clear affront to the work of the EFCC and other anti-corruption agencies; perhaps, an attempt to weaken existing anti-corruption agencies to satisfy certain powerful personal interests.
The last thing the Buhari administration needs now that the anti-corruption war is gaining some traction is to get bogged down by this rivalry. This is one distraction it can ill afford. What benefit is it for the country to keep creating agencies at a time of acute financial stress, particularly for a government mouthing cuts in cost of governance?
All the relevant laws to fight corruption and economic malfeasance are there. The government only needs to empower the agencies mandated to enforce these laws and where necessary amend such laws if there are any deficiencies.
conumah@hotmail.com; Follow me on Twitter: @conumah. [myad]