Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Malam Muhammad Musa Bello has made it clear that his government would design a method to ease the process of acquiring land by people who want to do businesses.
Responding to the request by the Nigerian Navy to perfect documentation on its landed properties in Abuja, the Minister said that the Administration is working on modalities to ease the processes by which people can easily develop their plots.
Muhammad Bello said that the Administration would make the entire process easier to forestall challenges that hinder smooth development for private, public and commercial plots.
The Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Ibok-Ette Ekwe Ibas had requested the FCTA to assist the Navy perfect some documentations particularly, title documents on its landed properties in the Territory in order to attract private developers. [myad]
Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has been scheduled to present a paper at Segun Adeleye Foundation For Good Leadership In Africa (SAFFGLIA) at an African Leadership to be held at the University of Lagos on March 10.
Lai Mohammed, a lawyer and former National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) will be speaking on a topic: ‘Setting Agenda For Good Leadership In Africa’ at the event where a book, ‘So Long Too Long Nigeria.’ authored by Segun Adeleye, President/CEO World Stage Limited, will also be launched.
Adeleye, a journalist, author, media entrepreneur and founder of SAFFGLIA said the lecture, to address leadership failure in Africa is conceived to be presented at an intellectual setting in the presence of top business executives, government officials including ministers, governors, scholars, future leaders, and the media.
He said SAFFGLIA was founded to leverage on his experience over the years to help in whichever way possible in the development of leadership culture in Africa, as his way of giving back to the society henceforth.
“From my exposure over the years through interactions with business organisations and top government officials both at home and abroad, I’m concerned about how the issues of leadership failure and lack of corporate governance robbed our country and the continent the opportunity to be great,” he said
He listed the objectives of SAFFGLIA to include; To carry out activities and projects that will encourage governments across Africa to embrace good governance in order to uplift the standard of living of the people. We will employ all possible means including legal actions to achieve this; To draw attentions to activities of governments from local to national levels and encourage/compel them to do things in best interest of the people; To engage in leadership training programmes that will raise new generation of positive leaders who will champion the spirit of development of their societies in Nigeria and Africa; To provide scholarships in higher institution level to youths with leadership quality in Nigeria and other African countries.
Others include, To promote research into good leadership in Africa; To engage in research into alternative policies to existing government policies that are not working; To provide counselling, support and care for people that are unjustifiably victimised by bad governments in Africa; To organise Annual SAFFGLIA African Leadership Lecture, seminars, briefings, workshops and interventional programmes on issues of good leadership; To engage in opinion moulding, empowerment, and building confidence of people on how to make their governments accountable; To develop SAFFGLIA Good Leadership Africa Index (SGLAI) as a barometer for measuring performances of leaders across Africa; To encourage/recognise leaders that are doing well through The African Man Award and To establish the African Hall of Fame for distinguished leaders both in the public and private sectors. [myad]
The Catholic Archbishop of Abuja, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, has advised President Muhammadu Buhari’s Administration to be prepared to go beyond the legal processes to attain a serious national moral spiritual rebirth.
He then asked the government to remain steadfast in restoring Nigeria to the path of sanity, probity and accountability. Onaiyekan, who spoke today at the opening ceremony of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria, held at Our Lady Queen of Nigeria said: “this is not a smooth and easy process we all are going through, but we need to go beyond the legal processes, to a serious national moral spiritual rebirth. “We need to explore alternative and parallel strategies, based on the moral principles of repentance, reparation and reconciliation.” Onaiyekan assured the government that the Catholic Church and some other religious groups of like minds are prepared to play a positive role in the on-going war against corruption. the Bishop recalled the efforts of the Church towards eliminating corruption, with the help of prayers, warnings and exhortations, saying: “we have to put concrete structures of collaboration in place in the ongoing war against corruption. “The religious institutions of the nation cannot remain aloof while a moral spiritual battle is raging in the country.” Onaiyekan also commended the government for the success recorded so far in the fight against the Boko Haram insurgents and hoped that the alleged criminal diversion of funds meant for arms into private pockets has now stopped. “Our gallant troops must never again be left with inadequate resources to carry out the dangerous task imposed on them on our behalf.” Onaiyekan called on the government to encourage dialogue across and within religious communities in order to bring about a lasting reconciliation among diverse groups in the country. The Bishop said that the insurgency in the North East had revealed the significant presence of Christian population in the zone. “We still have on our hands a lot of healing and reconciliation to do before our displaced people can safely return to their homes, farms and grazing land. They deserve special attention in the programmes of reconstruction and rehabilitation.” [myad]
Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State has described the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state as darkness, saying that light must always triumph over darkness.
At his swearing in today for his second term in office, Governor Dickson promised to move the state forward even as he dedicated his victory at the poll to the people of the state, assuring them that he would not play politics with the security of the state. “My victory as governor is victory for the people; this administration will continue to sustain the existing security in the state. “We must stand for good governance and light must always triumph over darkness in Bayelsa.” The governor promised to complete the ongoing airport project and empower youths in the state, adding that the airport project was 80 per cent completed and that diversification of the state’s economy will also be his priority. “In the past four years, the state has witnessed transformation and we are ready to do more. “We will consolidate and expand security in the next four years; this victory is ours and I want us to build a strong synergy to accelerate development of Bayelsa. “I must say that my government is ready to work with the Federal Government in ensuring that the issue of kidnap and oil pipeline vandalism is properly checkmated. “My advice to our people is to steer clear of encouraging or covering-up criminal acts in the state and Niger-Delta region.” [myad]
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, has said that he was doing better as Vice President of Exxon Mobil West Africa than his current position as minister, but that God directed him to accept the position for the sake of the nation’s advancement.
Kachikwu said in Abuja today that Nigeria needed help to be able to secure its future and improve on the standard of living of Nigerians. “I believe that this country needs help. I believe that it is about time we began to perform for the young and upcoming. I believe that the sheer capacity of this country is unimaginable. “I do not know of any country in the world with our population, our resources, our intellect, our flamboyance, our family nexus, everything is together. The call to public service for me was unique. “I was Vice President of Exxon Mobil West Africa and I was suddenly called to serve. “In serving, I lose a lot of money, if not at least $1 million every year by virtue of being a minister. But the thing is: I am directed by the voice of God.” According to Kachikwu, the current economic crunch in Nigeria can be surmounted with the right leadership, adding that Nigerians would not feel the impact of the challenges posed by the drop in the price of oil if government properly harnessed other natural resources. “Everything in this country is together. The only thing that is not together is leadership and in God’s name, we are bound to change that. “In every little space that you have, and in my own case petroleum, you have to make an absolute change and so I am not worried about price of oil. It can be $5 for all I care. I am worried about the direction of the industry. I am worried about changing things the way they have never done before. I am worried about creating opportunities that exist. I am worried about improving the standards of living. I am worried about encouraging opportunities in the sector. “I am worried about opening up those opportunities that have existed for years.” Kachikwu, who is also the Group Managing Director of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), called on Nigerians to embrace the new philosophy of the present administration geared towards charting a new course for the country. [myad]
The Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria has asked priests not to be led into believing in the God of now now, and to avoid “market place prophecies and visions, charismatic display of talents and material salvation” The President of the Conference, Most Rev. Ignatius Kaigama, who spoke today in Abuja during the Catholic Bishops Conference at Our Lady Queen of Nigeria Pro-Cathedral asked the priests to shun worldliness and materialism. He charged them not to succumb to the temptation of importing unwanted doctrines that would promote personality and curry favour, saying: “We must not be frightened into believing in God of ‘now, now.’
“We should emphasize the need for sober Christianity without tricks, rhetoric, fanfare and the craze for social media publicity. All priests must not compete with trendy pastors to see visions and utter prophecies because they sometimes cause psychological disposition. “We should help people to interior conversion and attitudinal change.” Kaigama called on the Christian religious leaders to admonish Christians to pray ceaselessly and evangelize through genuine witnessing and not wooing people with material things or any form of moral coercion. “We must avoid melo-dramatic displays that look like modern broad-way shows. Catholic priests should avoid flamboyant spirituality and noisy liturgy and teach the people values of internalized prayers from the heart. “The gifts of speaking in tongues, miracle and prophecies are good as long as they are genuine.” Kaigama further urged Christians to help humanity in love to conquer poverty and narrow the yawning gap between the rich and the poor. “It is only when we engage in works of mercy in favour of the needy that we can hope for a stable, peaceful and safe world.” [myad]
The Federal Government, the World Bank, European Union, and the United Nations have concluded a two-week recovery and assessment mission in the Northeastern States that is ravaged by insurgency as part of its on-going Recovery and Peace Building Assessment (RPBA) programme.
Led by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), Dr. Mariam Masha, the recovery and assessment team visited Adamawa, Taraba, Gombe, Bauchi, Borno and Yobe States during which the team actively engaged with State Governors, decision-makers as well as top government functionaries, Civil Society Organizations, Private Sector players, Traditional Rulers, the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), Emergency Management, Humanitarian and Relief agencies and other active partners in the recovery efforts in the affected States.
A press release by the spokesman of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Laolu Akande, said that in the course of the tour of affected areas, the team visited several camps and resettlement centres for the IDPs in the different states as well as insurgency –ravaged public institutions like hospitals, markets and military formations.
The team, according to the statement, gained firsthand knowledge of human and physical conditions in the camps and resettlement centres affording them the opportunity to empathize with the people and also reassured them of the commitment of the Buhari administration towards addressing their challenges.
In furtherance of the importance of the recovery and assessment mission, the team’s top level engagements with relevant stakeholders centred on sector recovery and needs assessment strategy in the three major components of Infrastructure and social services, peace building, stability and social cohesion as well as the economic recovery of the affected people in the six States.
The field visit by the technical and humanitarian experts from these critical global institutions primarily focused on validating the processes through which data are to be collected and how to develop internationally acceptable mechanisms to maintain contact with focal points in all the States.
It would be recalled that the Federal Government had last month unveiled this assessment programme which is a joint, high-level collaboration between the Government of Nigeria and development partners – the World Bank, EU and the UN – aimed at supporting Government in its short, medium and long term efforts towards peace building and sustainable recovery in the North East region of the country.
It is a follow up to the agreements reached with the North-East states in respect of the sector and component work plans, data collection modalities and timelines and provision of quantitative and qualitative information by the States.
This assessment will also form the pivot for planning a broad-based public sector recovery programme for the NE, as well as leverage, synchronize and inform the financing initiatives and projects of Nigeria’s development partners, civil society organizations and private sector groups and organizations. [myad]
It was not only the governor of Kaduna State, Nasiru Ahmed El-Rufai who ever had the cause to predict that corruption would fight back as President Muhammadu Buhari declared war on corruption, but also the acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu as well as many others. Indeed, if there is anything which has two devastating and sharp edges, it is corruption. Experience shows that not only the corruption is widespread, across to those people we think are clean, but is also multi dimensional when it wants to fight back. Many analysts sometimes innocently appear simplistic in their postulations about corruption fight back. What they mostly concentrate on is that corrupt people would use the huge funds they corruptly accumulated to buy gullible youths and willing media practitioners to fight back the government. But, the recent happenings have added a fresh dimension to the huge capacity of corruption not only to fight back but to confuse and embarrass the government and to throw it into disarray. First, strange and unbelievable as it sounded, was the missing from the Senate, of the budget proposal which President Buhari presented to the joint session of the National Assembly late last year. Just as the dust raised by such strange occurrence was settling down, another situation arose which portrays the budget as a fraudulent document, having been injected and poisoned with “errors, ambiguities and rampant cases of padding” by yet-to-be-identified smart Nigerians who are adept in such things in the past.
For the first time in the history of this country, ministers who came to defend their budgets were disowning figures read out by the lawmakers from the document submitted by the President. The first shock came from the Minister of Health, Professor Isaac Adewole, who declared to the Senate Committee on Health that the ministry’s budget read by the committee was not the one drafted by him. According to Professor Adewole, the provision of the budget before the National Assembly was in contrast with the priorities of the health sector as contained in the original budget it prepared, adding that some of the votes earmarked by the ministry for some activities had been re-distributed while some important fields had been excluded. He declared: “In the revised budget as re-submitted, N15.7 billion for capital allocation had been moved to other areas. Some allocations made are not in keeping with our priorities. There is nothing allocated to public health and family health. Over the last two years, nothing has been done on HIV. We have to look into the details of the budget and re-submit it to the committee. “This was not what we submitted. We’ll submit another one. We don’t want anything foreign to creep into that budget. What we submitted is not there. We have not reached that stage and we find the money there.” Even the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed openly disowned the N398 million voted for the purchase of computers for the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) and the Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB). He told the Senate Committee on Information that the N398 million was strange to him, saying: “No, that is not possible. That was definitely not what was proposed. This cannot be.” This was even as an official of the ministry said that only N5 million was proposed for the item in the original budget of the NFVCB. Beyond the ministries which had denied knowledge of the new figures inserted or deleted from their original budgetary allocations, the N6.08 trillion indicated as the total figure in the entire budget did not tally with the actual figure after auditing. The figures just didn’t add up. This led the lawmakers to insist that they would require more time to clear the budget proposal of all its ambiguities, errors and false figures smuggled into it. Yes, under normal disciplinary circumstance, those who were involved in the preparation of the 2016 budget would have resigned by now or get sacked, but the circumstances are clouded in mystery so much that no one can accurately point out who is or are responsible for the embarrassing situation. We in Greenbarge Reporters believe that some saboteurs from within the system are seriously at work to embarrass the government, but we hasten to caution against looking in the wrong direction for the culprits. As a matter of fact, people in the National Assembly, either as civil servants or lawmakers, cannot be ruled out of this national shame to which Buhari government is being associated. We suggest that the government should not treat this matter with kid’s glove and, whoever is, or are found to be behind it should be summarily dealt with, as a way of sounding a huge warning that Buhari’s government is fully prepared to fight corruption from all angles and with all the powers at its disposal. The searchlight should be beamed at elites who Vice President Yemi Osinbajo complained the other day, of asking the government to go slowly with the fight against corruption. Buhari and his team should be proactive to show that the war against corruption is not the usual rhetoric that had defined similar efforts in the long past. The government should show clearly that this war in the Change environment we now operating, is deadlier than the conventional one. That is what it really required to fight corruption to the ground. [myad]
Former Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), retired Air Chief Marshall Alex Badeh, has told the Economic and Financial crimes Commission (EFCC), that his hands are clean as far as the alleged offences committed, while he was in charge as Chief of Air Staff and later Chief of Defence Staff, are concerned. Badeh who honoured an invitation by the EFCC, to clarify certain grey areas in the ongoing investigations into alleged irregular procurements in the Armed Forces under his watch, told the Commission that as much as he is willing to assist in all facets of the investigation, he personally has nothing to hide. Dependable sources at the EFCC revealed that Chief Badeh has been under pressure from his interviewers to own up to some properties and to surrender part of his personal wealth even when nothing incriminating was found against him, all of which he declined. Chief Badeh denied having any personal interest in any of the contracts, nor deriving any personal benefits from any, as he was not offered, neither did he demand for it. The source said that the EFCC operatives were angry with the former pilot and decided to deny him bail, even as they are going ahead to charge him to court on Monday, in defiance of legal advises that there were no proofs that he had ever been compromised, throughout his tenure, either as Chief of Air Staff or the Chief of Defence Staff. The former CDS who denied ownership of the properties being linked to him, maintained that he never deliberately acted with corrupt intents in any particular purchase undertaken by the Air Force nor the Defence Headquarters, as all such activities under him showed that all purchases made did not only follow due processes, but they were duly delivered and acknowledged to have been received. According to the source, EFCC has been under pressure to embarrass Badeh even if nothing incriminating is found against, which explains why he was detained and denied bail, and may be eventually charged to court on Monday. The source hinted last week that, he is being deliberately framed up by people whose toes he may have stepped upon while in office. [myad]
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Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Malam Muhammad Musa Bello has made it clear that his government would design a method to ease the process of acquiring land by people who want to do businesses.
