President Muhammadu Buhari has pledged his determination to implement the United Nations Environmental Programme’s recommendations for the clean-up of Ogoniland and other parts of the Niger Delta which have been damaged by crude oil spillage. Speaking during a visit to the United Nations Office in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, President Buhari appealed the United Nations for more support for his administration’s efforts to clean up the region. “When I came into office on 29th May 2015, one of the first tasks I carried out was to authorise the implementation of the recommendations of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) for the clean-up of Ogoni land. “The devastation caused by oil spillage has destroyed many lives and livelihoods and is clearly one of the reasons why many people in that region lost faith in Government and resorted to the many criminal activities we are seeing in the region today. “The action our government took to implement UNEP’s recommendations has given the indigenes of the region hope that there are better days ahead. “Let me, therefore, express appreciation on behalf of the Government of Nigeria to UNEP and other development partners for their cooperation and support on this very delicate matter and also request for their continued support as we implement the recommendations and transform the fortunes of the region,” President Buhari said. The President applauded the outcome of the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that held in Paris in December last year. “The commitments agreed in Paris will clearly benefit Nigeria and many African nations adversely impacted by climate change. We therefore look forward to their fulfilment and implementation. “As the UN Office in Nairobi gears up to host the 2nd session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-2) this year under the auspices of UNEP, I would like to take this opportunity to further pledge Nigeria’s commitment to this very worthy cause of having a safe, secure and clean planet,” he said. President Buhari said that with half of the world’s population now living in cities, world leaders must give greater attention to the challenges of rapid urbanisation. “In our effort to promote the sustainable urbanization in Africa, the Federal Government of Nigeria funded and anchored the Africa Urban Agenda (AUA) programme in partnership with the UN-Habitat. “The Programme aims to enhance engagements between state and non-state actors to build consensus around identified urban development priorities and amplify Africa’s voice at the global level towards HABITAT III. “The Africa Urban Agenda will culminate in a major conference of African Ministers of Housing where numerous issues will be discussed. “I am pleased to announce that this conference will be hosted by Nigeria in Abuja next month and I look forward to meeting and deliberating with you, and other stakeholders on this very important topic,” the President said. The Resident Coordinator of United Nations Office, Ms Sahle-Work Zewde said that the election of President Muhammadu Buhari in a free and fair election last year demonstrated the commitment of Nigerians to democracy as a system of government. She described Nigeria as a “crucial member of the UN, a vital partner and a major contributor to UN peace-keeping operations.” Before leaving the United Nations Office, President Buhari undertook the symbolic planting of a tree, a tradition reserved for all visiting Heads of State and Government. He also addressed the ongoing session of the “Mini-United Nations,” an annual event that brings children from all of the world’s regions together to draft, debate and pass resolutions on issues of current global interest. [myad]
A man of God, identified as the General Overseer of Divine Light Prophetic Mission International, located in the Oworonshoki area of Lagos State, has been accused of raping an 11-year-old girl. The incident was said to have occurred on January 23 at Skido Hotel in Oworonshoki. The pastor’s name was simply given as Pastor Daniel. It was learnt that the victim’s cry of pains attracted prostitutes in the brothel, who rushed to the room that was firmly locked. The matter was reported to the Police at Alonge Police Division. The Police quickly moved to the scene, forced the door open and the girl was found in a pool of blood. Pastor Daniel was subsequently arrested. [myad]
Publisher of Thisday newspapers, Nduka Obaigbena is believed to have made an undertaking to refund the sum N670 Million which he received from the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA). Sources at the Economic and Financial Crime Commission confided in newsmen that the publisher, who reported to it on January 26 said that he has already written an undertaking, to refund the money within two weeks, perhaps as precondition to be released on administrative bail. It was learnt that Obaigbena disbursed N568,360,000 from the ONSA heist to establish Arise Global Media Limited, promoters of troubled international pay TV, Arise TV. The amount was said to have been transferred from the account of General Hydrocarbon, which received the initial payment from the ONSA purportedly for a contract that was not stated. The mandate for the first tranche of N150 million paid to General Hydrocarbon by the ONSA indicate that it was for Environmental Security Project, while the remaining tranches were tagged energy consulting. Investigation is said to have failed to establish a nexus between the funds paid to General Hydrocarbon and the alleged monies paid to NPAN members by Obaigbena. “There is so far no established trail of funds moving from General Hydrocarbon’s account and the NPAN account which should have confirmed the claim by Nduka that he received money from ONSA for onward delivery to NPAN members.” In the absence of this link, it is becoming clear that funds were moved from ONSA’a account to fund Arise TV. [myad]
The National Working Committee (NWC) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has insisted that Uche Secondus remains the acting national chairman of the party, saying that there is no change in the leadership composition for now.
In a statement today the national legal adviser of the party, Victor Kwon, the party said: “for the avoidance of doubt, the statutory organs of the party, the NWC, National Caucus, Board of Trustees (BoT) and the National Executive Council (NEC) will be meeting next week. “They will meet to deliberate on some developments, including the replacement, from the North-East of Alhaji Adamu Muazu, who resigned as the National Chairman of the party.” Kwon said the replacement would be in strict adherence to the provisions of the constitution of PDP as specified in Section 47(6). He said: “Until then, the status quo remains, which means the Deputy National Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus, remains as the Acting National Chairman. “It must be reiterated that all relevant stakeholders of our party, including the PDP Governors’ Forum, National Caucus and the Board of Trustees (BoT) as well as our leadership structures at all levels are united behind the current NWC. “They are all united behind the current NWC in the efforts to rebuild, reposition and strengthen our party for the challenges ahead.”
The PDP governors have earlier resolved that the national secretary of the party, Professor Wale Oladipo should take over the leadership of the party from Secondus. [myad]
Governors elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have made the party’s national secretary, Professor Wale Oladipo to take over the mantle of leadership from the acting National Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus.
The governors said that this position is in line with provisions of the party’s constitution.
In a communiqué issued at the end of a meeting in Abuja yesterday, the governors chided a former presidential adviser, Ahmed Gulak for what they described as his unacceptable conduct.
Ahmed Gulak had, yesterday, forcefully seized power at the party’s national secretariat conferring on himself the rights of the national chairman of the party.
He cited the court judgment of December 15, 2015, which sacked the acting chairman of PDP, Uche Secondus and gave him 14-days to vacate office.
Gulak said that more than 40 days after the court ruling, Mr. Secondus is yet to step down in line with the court decision.
An Abuja High Court has, on December 15, dismissed Chief Secondus from office following a suit filed by Mr. Gulak.
In his judgement, the presiding judge, Justice Hussein Baba-Yusuf held that the position of the Acting National Chairman of the party was zoned to the north-east, hence could not be occupied by Mr Secondus, who is from the south-south.
Justice Baba-Yusuf upheld the prayer of Mr Gulak that Mr Secondus was occupying the position of the Acting National Chairman of the party illegally.
He, therefore, ordered the Acting Chairman to vacate the office within 14 days.
Justice Baba-Yusuf noted that Secondus was from Rivers State, and not North-east geopolitical zone to which the PDP zoned the position.
He gave Secondus 14 days within which to vacate the office and directed that the plaintiff or any other party member worthy of that position should take Secondus’ place. [myad]
Serena Williams, the world table tennis King has cruised to the 7th Australian Open Final by handing out a 6-0 6-4 to a fourth seed Agnieszka Radwanska today. The game was played at Melbourne Park where she won the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup. Victory in Saturday’s final against either seventh seed Angelique Kerber or unseeded Briton Johanna Konta would give her a 22nd grand slam title. The win will move her to a tie with Steffi Graf for the most in the Open era. Williams romped through the first set in just 20 minutes before Radwanska showed some fight in the second. Radwanska was unable to stop the momentum of the American, who clinched her place in the final in 64 minutes. “I’m really excited to be in another final. It blows my mind right now,” Williams said in a courtside interview. “I just feel like I’m being the best I can and I can’t believe I’m in another final. “She started really well in the second set and making some great shots and hitting it deep and I just thought that I had to be aggressive.” Williams began in ominous fashion breaking the Pole’s serve in the first game with Radwanska’s lack of power highlighted by the blistering nature of the American’s returns. Radwanska’s fastest serve in the first game reached just 140 kph. Williams was returning the ball at over 130. The fourth seed appeared resigned to defeat in the first set by the fourth game. She barely got a backhand return to a Williams serve then stood, with slumping shoulders, and watched as the 34-year-old put the overhead smash away. Williams cleaned up the first set in just 20 minutes before Radwanska elicited the largest cheer of the match at that time when she held serve in the first game of the second set. She avoided an embarrassing potential “double bagel” 6-0 6-0 score. The crowd on Rod Laver Arena, which had its roof closed due to heavy rain in Melbourne, however, managed to almost open it in the sixth game. They shouted with a decibel-rising roar of support for Radwanska when she broke Williams to level it at 3-3. Williams, however, broke again in the ninth game and then served out with three aces to seal a match in which she belted 42 winners to Radwanska’s four. Radwanska also heavily lost her only other semi-final appearance at Melbourne Park when she was beaten 6-1 6-2 by Dominika Cibulkova in 2014. She, then, had been bidding to reach her second grand slam final after Wimbledon in 2012. [myad]
The hunger by Nigerians for higher education, especially, the University seems growing despite the dwindling employment opportunities for graduates, as over one million candidates were said to have bought the form to sit for the 2016 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination.
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) said today that it had so far sold
more than one million application forms for the candidates across the country. The board’s Director of Media and Information, Dr. Fabian Benjamin, who spoke to News Agency of Nigeria in Lagos, said that the figure is likely to rise by the time the sale of the forms closes on January 29. About 1.5 million forms were sold in 2015. Benjamin said that more than 400 centres within and outside the country were accredited for the examination this year, saying: “I want to state that over one million application documents have already been sold for this year’s all Computer Based Test UTME examination. “So far, we have concluded arrangement for the smooth conduct of the examination. “All our technical staff and engineers have been given the necessary training and they have carried out proper familiarisation tour of these centres. “This is in a bid to ensure an improved outing during the entire duration of the examination.” According to Benjamin, the board is committed to ensuring that the future of the Nigerian child is secured. “We will also continue to sustain the board’s integrity as one of the best examination bodies in Africa,” the director said. [myad]
Former President Goodluck Jonathan has opened up on why Boko Haram insurgency thrives more in the North Eastern part of the country than in other parts.
“It is no coincidence that the Northeast epicenter of terrorism in Nigeria is also the region with the highest rate of illiteracy and the least developed part of Nigeria.”
Jonathan, in a world press conference he held today at the Geneva Press Club, with audience made up of diplomats, policy makers and journalists, said that 52.4 percent of males in the Northeastern region of Nigeria have no formal Western education, adding that the figure is even worse when you take into account the states most affected by the insurgency.
“83.3% of male population in Yobe state have no formal Western education. In Borno state it is 63.6%. Bearing this in mind is it a coincidence that the Boko Haram insurgency is strongest in these two states?”
Read the text of the press conference hereunder:
Press conference on Security, Education and Development in Africa Geneva Press Club – Wednesday the 27th of January, 2016
Protocols
Ladies and Gentlemen of the press, I thank you for coming to hear me speak on the twin issues of education and security.
Though this event is billed as a press conference on a Better Security and Education for West Africa, for the sake of time, I will focus on my experience in government which gave me a practical demonstration of how education impacts on security.
I will thereafter touch on my post presidential focus which is on advancing democracy and good governance in Africa and increasing access to opportunity for wealth generation in Africa.
If you peruse the official UNESCO literacy rates by country, what you will find is that all of the top ten most literate nations in the world are at peace, while almost all of the top 10 least literate nations in the world are in a state of either outright war or general insecurity.
Lower education levels are linked to poverty and poverty is one of the chief causative factors of crime whether it is terrorism or militancy or felonies.
With this at the back of my mind, I began the practice of giving education the highest sectoral allocation beginning with my very first budget as President in 2011.
My policy was to fight insecurity in the immediate term using counter insurgency strategies and the military and for the long term I fought it using education as a tool.
As I have always believed, if we do not spend billions educating our youths today, we will spend it fighting insecurity tomorrow. And you do not have to spend on education just because of insecurity. It is also the prudent thing to do.
Nigeria, or any African nation for that matter, can never become wealthy by selling more minerals or raw materials such as oil. Our wealth as a nation is between the ears of our people.
It is no coincidence that the Northeast epicenter of terrorism in Nigeria is also the region with the highest rate of illiteracy and the least developed part of Nigeria.
In Nigeria, the Federal Government actually does not have a responsibility for primary and secondary education, but I could not in good conscience stomach a situation where 52.4% of males in the Northeastern region of Nigeria have no formal Western education.
The figure is even worse when you take into account the states most affected by the insurgency.
83.3% of male population in Yobe state have no formal Western education. In Borno state it is 63.6%.
Bearing this in mind is it a coincidence that the Boko Haram insurgency is strongest in these two states?
So even though we did not have a responsibility for primary and secondary education going by the way the Nigerian federation works, I felt that where I had ability, I also had responsibility even if the constitution said it was not my responsibility.
Knowing that terrorism thrives under such conditions my immediate goal was to increase the penetration of Western education in the region while at the same time making sure that the people of the region did not see it as a threat to their age old practices of itinerant Islamic education known as Almajiri.
For the first time in Nigeria’s history, the Federal Government which I led set out to build 400 Almajiri schools with specialized curricula that combined Western and Islamic education. 160 of them had been completed before I left office.
I am also glad to state that when I emerged as President of Nigeria on May 6th 2010, there were nine states in the Northern part of the country that did not have universities. By the time I left office on the 29th of May 2015, there was no Nigerian state without at least one Federal University.
Now the dearth of access to formal education over years created the ideal breeding ground for terror to thrive in parts of Nigeria but there are obviously other dimensions to the issue of insecurity in Nigeria and particularly terrorism.
You may recall that the fall of the Gaddafi regime in August 2011 led to a situation where sophisticated weapons fell into the hands of a number of non state actors with attendant increase in terrorism and instability in North and West Africa.
The administration I headed initiated partnership across West Africa to contain such instability in nations such as Mali, which I personally visited in furtherance of peace.
And with those countries contiguous to Nigeria, especially nations around the Lake Chad Basin, we formed a coalition for the purpose of having a common front against terrorists through the revived Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF).
Those efforts continue till today and have in large part helped decimate the capacity of Boko Haram.
Another aspect of the anti terror war we waged in Nigeria that has not received enough attention is our effort to improve on our intelligence gathering capacity.
Prior to my administration, Nigeria’s intelligence architecture was designed largely around regime protection, but through much sustained effort we were able to build capacity such that our intelligence agencies were able to trace and apprehend the masterminds behind such notorious terror incidences as the Christmas Day bombing of the St. Theresa Catholic Church in Madalla, Niger State.
Other suspects were also traced and arrested including those behind the Nyanya and Kuje bombings.
Not only did we apprehend suspects, but we tried and convicted some of them including the ring leader of the Madalla bombing cell, Kabir Sokoto, who is right now serving a prison sentence.
But leadership is about the future. I am sure you have not come here to hear me talk about the way backward. You, like everyone else, want to hear about the way forward.
I am no longer in office, and I no longer have executive powers on a national level. However, I am more convinced now than ever about the nexus between education and security.
My foundation, The Goodluck Jonathan Foundation, was formed to further democracy, good governance and wealth generation in Africa.
Of course, Charity begins at home and for the future, what Nigeria needs is to focus on making education a priority.
Thankfully, the administration that succeeded mine in its first budget, appears to have seen wisdom in continuing the practice of giving education the highest sectoral allocation. This is commendable.
I feel that what people in my position, statesmen and former leaders, ought to be doing is to help build consensus all over Africa, to ensure that certain issues should not be politicized.
Education is one of those issues. If former African leaders can form themselves into an advisory group to gently impress on incumbent leaders the necessity of meeting the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recommended allocation of 26% of a nations annual budget on education, I am certain that Africa will make geometric progress in meeting her Millennium Development Goals and improving on every index of the Human Development Index.
Data has shown that as spending on education increases, health and well being increases and incidences of maternal and infant mortality reduce.
In Nigeria for instance, Average Life Expectancy had plateaued in the mid 40s for decades, but after 2011, when we began giving education the highest sectoral allocation, according to the United Nations, Nigeria enjoyed her highest increase in Average Life Expectancy since records were kept. We moved from an Average Life Expectancy of 47 years before 2011 to 54 years by 2015.
I had earlier told you about the connection between education and insecurity.
I believe that it is the job of former leaders and elder statesmen to convince Executive and Legislative branches across Africa to work together to achieve the UNESCO recommended percentage as a barest minimum.
I intend to offer my services, through The Goodluck Jonathan Foundation, for this purpose and I invite interested organizations to help us make this happen.
Ladies and gentlemen of the press, this, in a nutshell are some of my thoughts for a Better Security and Education for Africa and I will now entertain your questions. [myad]
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has asked its supporters in Kogi state to remain calm and not to despair over the swearing-in of Alhaji Yahaya Bello of All Progressives Congress (APC) today as the substantive governor of the state.
A statement by the national secretary of the PDP, Professor Adewale Oladipo said that as a law abiding party, “we hereby urge our members and the people of Kogi state to remain calm and not despair over this slap on democracy as the courts would soon deliver justice with regard to the authentic governor with the mandate of the majority at the election.” Oladipo described the swearing-in ceremony today, of Governor Yahaya Bello as “a comical event organized by the APC as the swearing in ceremony of one Yahaya Bello, a man who did not participate in the overall election, as Kogi state governor.
“The said Yahaya Bello, who cannot claim the overall winning votes in the election, is therefore a shadow-chasing passerby on an excursion in Kogi state government house, as the so-called swearing-in ceremony, having no bearing from the votes at election is at best an APC function.
“The people of Kogi are aware that the man being paraded by the APC is not the person they exercised confidence in at the election as he scored a paltry 6885 vote in the so-called supplementary election as against the 204,877 votes polled by the PDP candidate, Alhaji Idris Wada in the overall election.” [myad]
Former political adviser to former President Goodluck Jonathan, Ahmed Gulak, has declared himself the substantive Chairman of PDP.
Gulak, in the company of former presidential spokesperson, Doyin Okupe and other PDP members, stormed the party’s national secretariat in Abuja today where he declared himself the Chairman of the party.
Gulak said that he decided to assume the position of the party’s Chairman following the December 16th ruling by Justice Husseini Baba-Yusuf of the High Court Abuja which ordered the acting chairman of the party, Uche Secondus, to vacate office and allow Gulak or anyone from the north east region of the country take over as the party’s chairman.
The national chairman during the last general election, Adamu Mu’azu resigned in May last year shortly after the elections. Mu’azu is from the North East. [myad]
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President Muhammadu Buhari has pledged his determination to implement the United Nations Environmental Programme’s recommendations for the clean-up of Ogoniland and other parts of the Niger Delta which have been damaged by crude oil spillage.
