Outbreak of fire whose source is yet to be identified, today sent the nation’s minister of Education, Ibrahim Shekarau packing out of his office in the sixth floor of the federal secretariat, phase three. Eye witnesses said that the fire started at about 1.45 Pm at the time the Minister of Education, was holding meeting with Principals of Unity Schools from across the country but that the meeting ended abruptly as the minister and other officials were immediately evacuated from the building. The fire affected mainly the 5th and 6th floors of phase three of the secretariat. A combined team of Federal Fire Service and FCT Fire Service battled the fire and was put off after two hours, even as the Public Relations Officer of the Federal Fire Service, Collins Elechi confirmed that there were no casualties in the incident. “We cannot ascertain the cause of the fire now until later. It started from the 5th floor and remained between it and the 6th floor. “As you can see, the fire has been put off, we curtailed it from spreading to adjourning property,’’ Elechi said. He stressed the need for a functional hydrant in the building, adding: “we could not see one; we are not of course indicting the occupants of this building, but that is one of the challenges we met,’’ he said. The Research and Rescue Officer of the National Emergency Management Agency, Also, Mr Labaran Haman, said that investigation to determine the cause of the fire was ongoing. Hamman said that rescue teams including NEMA and fire servicemen responded swiftly but had problem controlling the crowd. Files, furniture and other office equipment were destroyed by the fire.
The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, (NAFDAC) has raised alarm over the level of micro-nutrient deficiency in Nigerian children, between the ages of one and five. Benue State Coordinator of NAFDAC, Anikoh Ibrahim, raised the alarm when he led officials of the agency to markets in the state, for an on the spot random testing for micro-nutrient fortification compliance in sugar, flour, salt and vegetable oil products, being sold in the market. He said that the agency embarked on the nationwide exercise following discovery that one out of four children under the age of five is deficient in Vitamin A just as 31 percent of mothers in the country suffer from Iodine deficiency. “We had to embark on this random testing because it has been discovered that one in four children under the age of five in Nigeria suffers from Vitamin A deficiency while about 31 percent of mothers in Nigeria are iodine deficient.” Ibrahim said that the agency would soon commence the closure of factories of edible food producers in the country whose products failed the micronutrient fortification compliance test even as he listed malnutrition among children, death of young mothers during childbirth due to anemia and poor learning ability of children as consequences of micronutrient deficiencies. “This is the more reason why it is the right of every Nigerian to consume fortified foods to guard against diseases and untimely deaths. It is therefore important that consumers begin to demand for fortified staples. “I must therefore hasten to say that in the event of non-compliance to mandatory food fortification by manufacturers of vegetable oil, wheat/maize flour and sugar, necessary sanctions will be applied which includes immediate closure of the concerned factories.” The NAFDAC State Coordinator warned that any manufacturer who refuses to adhere to the fortification standards would be punished, adding that such punitive measures would include the payment of administrative fines, withdrawal of products from markets and destruction of same by the agency. Ibrahim said that most of the products that were subjected to the random testing met the minimum fortification standards stressing that manufacturers of products that failed the test would be notified accordingly.
The 2015 GTBank-Lagos Principals Cup final has been scheduled to hold at the Teslim Balogun Stadium on May 20. Apart from the government team, the sponsors, GTBank will also be represented by top hierarchy of the bank at the ground, which is already wearing a new look. In the male category, Birrel Avenue Senior High School, Sabo will clash with Keke High School, Ijaye, while Oriwu Senior Model College, Ikorodu will square up against Ikotun Senior High School in the female category. Ikotun Senior High School female football team qualified for the final after beating Government Senior College, Agege 3-1 at the Onikan Waterfront.
The African Union (AU) has condemned the coup attempt in Burundi that brought the former military intelligence officer, Major General Godefroid Niyombare to power, even as the United States of America made it clear that it would not support any form of military intervention in any country. While AU in a statement by its Peace and Security Council today, called for dialogue to resolve the country’s political crisis, the US insisted that it still recognized Pierre Nkurunziza as the president of Burundi, AU said that the council was meeting in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, to discuss attempts to oust Burundian President, Pierre Nkurunziza, whose quest for a third term has thrown the central African country into disarray. There had been intensive fighting between forces loyal to President Pierre Nkurunziza and forces in support of the coup plot. Although there had been an easy calm in Bujumbura, the capital city, reports said that majority of the Burundians celebrated at the announcement of the military takeover, a sign that Nkurunziza who has insisted on running for the third term is no longer wanted by his own people. General Godefroid Niyombare, had on Wednesday, May 13, 2015, announced the overthrow of President Pierre Nkurunziza. The general cited weeks of violent protests against the president’s bid to stand for a third term as reason for the overthrow. However, President Nkurunziza who was attending a summit in Tanzania to discuss his decision to run for a third term, said that the attempted coup had “failed, in a message posted on Twitter. Gen. Niyombareh had earlier told reporters that senior officers were “dismissing” President Nkurunziza, amid unrest over his re-election bid and that a national salvation committee had been set up to run the country. General Niyombare, a powerful former intelligence chief, announced the coup attempt hours after the president left for neighbouring Tanzania for talks with regional leaders on ending the crisis. A State Department spokesman of the United States of America, Jeff Rathke said today: “There are competing claims to authority, but we recognize President Nkurunziza as the legitimate president,”
Former Burundian military intelligence officer, Major General Godefroid Niyombare has taken over the government after a military coup that overthrew President Nkurunziza even as the President adviser dismissed the coup as ‘a joke.’ The new military leader was quoted as saying tha he is working to form transitional government.
General Godefroid was said to have been removed as intelligence officer by the ousted President in February this year.
The coup came after weeks of widespread protests in Burundi as a result of the moved by the ousted President to go for a third term in office against the laws of the country.
The coup was announced in a radio broadcast by Godefroid at the time President. Nkurunziza is reportedly out of the country to neighboring Tanzania for a regional meeting of East African Community, EAC. The EAC meeting was called to discuss the protests in Burundi which was becoming violent.
“Forces Vives de the Nation have decided to take charge of the nation,” General Godefroid said.
President Pierre Nkurunziza’s bid for a third term in office has sparked violent unrest that has left at least 20 people dead and forced more than 50,000 to flee the country. Major General Godefroid Niyombare, who was fired by Nkurunziza as intelligence chief three months ago, told reporters at a military barracks in the capital, Bujumbura, that he was working with civil society groups, religious leaders and politicians to form a transitional government. “Regarding President Nkurunziza’s arrogance and defiance of the international community, which advised him to respect the constitution and Arusha peace agreement, the committee for the establishment of the national concord decide President Nkurunziza is dismissed. His government is dismissed too,” he told Reuters. Niyombare’s remarks were later broadcast on local radio stations. As news of his claim spread, thousands came on to the streets of Bujumbura to celebrate the coup attempt and police were reported to have left their posts – but it remained unclear if Niyombare had the backing of the army, which has acted as a buffer between police and protesters. Nkurunziza’s official Twitter feed denied there had been a coup. The claim of a coup was earlier dismissed as “a joke” by one of the president’s advisers. Nkurunziza was scheduled to join other east African leaders from Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda at a special meeting in Tanzania’s capital, Dar es Salaam, on Wednesday to discuss the unrest. Hundreds of civilians marched towards state radio and television stations on Wednesday, and the influential African Public Radio – which has been shut down at the start of the protests – was back on air. Troops surrounded the national radio station, but it was not immediately clear to whom they were loyal. “Don’t shoot at civilians. Shoot in the air. Shoot at military targets, not civilians. We have to protect the state TV and radio,” an army colonel was heard ordering soldiers protecting the facility. Earlier, police fired tear gas and water cannon to repulse protesters trying to enter the central business district in Bujumbura. One police officer fired on demonstrators. The number of casualties, if any, is unknown. The South African government said it was monitoring the situation in Burundi closely and added that it was too soon to say whether a coup had taken place. The protests began on 25 April after the ruling party nominated Nkurunziza to run for re-election in a vote due next month. His opponents argue the move is a clear violation of the constitution, which limits a president to two terms in office. The violence has plunged Burundi into its worst crisis since the end of its 12-year civil war in 2006. That conflict, between ethnic Tutsis and Hutus, left around 300,000 people dead. Nkurunziza, a former rebel leader from the Hutu majority, has so far defied international pressure to withdraw from the election. A constitutional court has ruled that the president can run because his first term – for which he was picked by parliament rather than elected by popular vote – does not count. Critics say the court is biased. The crackdown on protests has drawn rebukes from many of the western nations that provide the aid on which Burundi relies for half its budget. European states are the biggest contributors, while the US provides support to the army. Dawn Liberi, the US ambassador to Burundi, told a meeting of the government and diplomats on Monday: “We call for an immediate end to the use of violent force by police against peaceful protests and the political intimidation, threats and violence by all armed militia.” The US has said it is worried about reports that the Imbonerakure, the youth wing of Nkurunziza’s CNDD-FDD party, had been armed, an allegation the government denies. The EU is withholding €2m (£1.4m) of aid to Burundi amid increasing concern over the government’s violent crackdown. The EU envoy to Africa’s Great Lakes region, Koen Vervaeke, said the union had disbursed €6m of the €8m designated for elections, but had decided to withhold the rest until Nkurunziza heeded calls for a transparent poll. “Today it is out of the question to release the €2m unless conditions for a free, peaceful and credible election are secured,” he told a news conference in Bujumbura on Monday. Belgium, Burundi’s former colonial power, has announced a suspension of electoral aid, opting to withhold half of the €4m it had set aside for the polls, and said it would pull out of a €5m police cooperation deal funded jointly with the Netherlands. Police in Burundi have been accused of using live rounds on protesters, as well as teargas and water cannon – a charge they deny. On Monday the Burundian foreign minister, Laurent Kavakure, said the government was already taking steps to improve the situation, adding: “We are determined to create the conditions for free, transparent and peaceful elections.” More than 50,000 people have fled Burundi since early April, at least half of whom have gone to Rwanda, according to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR. Almost 18,000 have fled to Tanzania and 8,000 to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Some of the refugees now arriving in Rwanda say they are running from the Imbonerakure. “The Imbonerakure came to our neighbourhood to say that those who were against the third term of President Nkurunziza were going to die. That’s why I left,” Eric Ahishakiye, a 23-year-old mechanic said. [myad]
All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State has called for the arrest and prosecution of the National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Olisa Metuh, for alleged inciting statement by calling on members and supporters of PDP to violence.
In a statement today, the state Chairman of the party, Dr. Davies Ibiamu Ikanya, drew the attention of security agents to what he called Metuh’s violence-inciting utterances while expressing his party’s frustration over APC’s decision to approach the election petition tribunals to retrieve its governorship mandate in Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Delta states. “Olisa Metuh clearly crossed the line while addressing journalists in Abuja on Tuesday. His threat that PDP members across the country are willing and ready to take the laws into their hands if necessary to defend the party’s fictional mandate in Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Delta states is obviously a call to violence. Metuh should be invited for questioning by relevant security agencies and prosecuted for his vitriolic utterances.
“Metuh must be called to order. There is no basis for his inciting statement. APC, as a law-abiding party, is challenging the outcome of the so-called elections in the states mentioned through the only channel provided by law. So where is the basis for his call to violence? The time for PDP impunity is over. Metuh must be made to face the consequences of his reckless utterances.”
Rivers APC boss said that they would neither bow to blackmail nor be intimidated in their quest to use legal means to oust the impostor governor-elect, Chief Nyesome Wike. He said that the declaration by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is nothing but daylight robbery.
“We are with the good people of Rivers State and we shall stop at nothing to ensure that the mandate which they freely gave to the APC and our gubernatorial candidate, Dr. Dakuku Peterside, is recovered through the due process of the election petition tribunal. he advised Metuh and other PDP leaders “who have ingloriously turned PDP from a national ruling party to a wobbling opposition regional party to concentrate their energies on how to rescue the fast-disintegrating party or watch it further nose-dive into a two-state party by 2019.” [myad]
Just over a year ago President Goodluck Jonathan suspended me from my position as governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria after I questioned an estimated $20bn shortfall in oil revenues due to the treasury from the state oil company. As I said then, you can suspend a man, but you cannot suspend the truth. The publication last month of a PwC audit into the “missing billions” brings us a step closer to it.
When I was central bank governor I raised three broad questions. First, did the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation remit to the government the entire proceeds of its crude oil sales? Second, if it did not, is there proof of the purpose to which the unremitted amounts were applied? And third, did NNPC have the legal authority to withhold these funds?
Contrary to the claims of petroleum minister Diezani Alison-Madueke, the audit report doea not exonerate the NNPC. It establishes that the gap between the company’s oil revenues between January 2012 and July 2013 and cash remitted to the government for the same period was $18.5bn. And it goes into detail about the NNPC’s account of how it used that money, which raises serious questions about the legality of the state oil company’s conduct.
The auditors say a significant part of the unremitted funds is supposed to have gone towards a kerosene subsidy that had been stopped two and a half years earlier by the late President Umaru Yar’Adua. His decree never appeared in the official gazette, leading some to question whether it ever had legal force.
Evidence disclosed in the report suggests this is a sideshow. The executive secretary of the agency charged with administering subsidies confirmed that, acting on Yar’Adua’s orders, it had ceased granting subsidies on kerosene. There was no appropriation for such a subsidy in the 2012 or 2013 budgets.
Throughout all this, Nigerians paid 120-140 naira a litre of kerosene, far more than the supposed subsidised price of 50 naira. Yet the state oil company withheld $3.4bn to pay for a subsidy that in effect did not exist. I have consistently held that this was a scam that violated the constitution and siphoned off money from the treasury.
The second major item raised in the report relates to the transfer of oil assets belonging to the federation to the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, a subsidiary of the NNPC.
NPDC has paid $100m for these assets, from which it extracted crude valued at $6.8bn but paid tax and royalties worth $1.7bn in the period scrutinised by the auditors. PwC was unable to establish how much of the remaining $5.1bn should have been remitted to the government. But the report showed that, along with the private companies NPDC partnered with, it was extracting crude worth billions of dollars but yielding very little revenue for the treasury. I was investigating related transactions when I was suspended.
The third major item is a claim of $2.8bn by NNPC for expenses not directly attributable to crude oil operations; PwC said “clarity is required” on whether such upfront deductions from remittances to the federation accounts are allowed, or whether the money should have been remitted to the government. Finally, there are duplicated expenses, “unsubstantiated” costs, computation “errors” and tax shortfalls; a total of $1.48bn has to be refunded.
Of the $18.5bn in revenues that the state oil company did not send to the government, about $12.5bn appears by my calculations to have been diverted. And this relates only to a random 19-month period, not the five-year term of Mr Jonathan, the outgoing president.
Nigerians did not vote for an amnesty for anyone. The lines of investigation suggested by this audit need to be pursued. Any officials found responsible for involvement in this apparent breach of trust must be charged. The writer is the emir of Kano and a former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria. [myad]
About two weeks to the exit of President Goodluck Jonathan’s government, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) which he heads, is still persisting in the awards of contracts. The FEC, which is made up of mainly all the ministers and other operatives of the Presidency, today, approved three road construction contracts in the South South zone of the country and one in Ondo state, South West, to the tune of about N30 Billion. Briefing newsmen shortly after the meeting today, the minister of Niger Delta, Dr. Steve Oru said that the roads would be constructed in various locations in Bayelsa state, including Yenagoa, the state capital, at the cost of over N8.8 Billion. The ones awarded in parts of Ondo state would gulped N15.628 Billion and the ones in parts of Delta state would cost N6.675 Billion. Also briefing the newsmen, the Interior minister, Abba Moro said that contract for the production 10 million e-passport, including 32-page, 64-page and Diplomatic passports has been re-awarded to Irish Technology Limited The new briefing was coordinated by the minister of information, Senator Patricia Akwashiki.
The president-elect, General Muhammadu Buhari, has made it clear that he has no particular Senator in mind to become the Senate President and that he is willing to work with any them that eventually clinch the post, irrespective of what part of the country he or she originates from. In a statement in Abuja today, General Buhari described as false, insinuations in the media that he was in support of any particular Senator emerging as Leader or that he belonged to any camp pushing for the emergence of a leader from a particular part of the country. “I am prepared to work with any leaders that the House or Senate selects. It doesn’t matter who the person is or where he or she is from.” Buhari noted that the insinuations were probably born out of people’s expectations based on the way things had happened in the past, but reminded Nigerians that CHANGE had truly come. “There is due process for the selection of leaders of the National Assembly and I will not interfere in that process.” General Buhari said that the media and the public should begin to get used to no more “business as usual. “Nigeria has indeed entered a new dispensation. My administration does not intend to repeat the same mistakes made by previous governments.”
The National Coordinator of the Oodua People’s Congress, Otunba Gani Adams, has said made it clear that General Muhammadu Buhari owes it an obligation to Nigerians to implement the report of the National Conference held last year. Adams, who is also the Convener of the Oodua Progressive Union (OPU), an association of the Yoruba and people who believe in the Yoruba cause in the Diaspora, said in Dubai, United Arab Emirate that the next phase of his struggle is the implementation of the report. Adams, who was a member of the Confab, said the report of the conference, convened by outgoing President Goodluck Jonathan, contained far reaching decisions that are capable of turning around the fortunes of the country if genuinely and sincerely implemented. He said that despite the fact that Jonathan who convened the Confab was leaving power, it would be uncharitable for the report to be thrown away by the incoming Buhari administration. “Throwing the report away will amount to throwing away the baby with the bath water. “We have a report put together by men and women from diverse backgrounds but with sincerity of purpose to move the country forward. “My observation throughout the conference was that once we entered into the venue, we put our differences, nuances and biases behind us and discuss as people who truly have the interest of Nigeria and Nigerians at heart.” Adams said that the most critical aspect of the conference report should be the implementation of true federalism in the country. One of the critical recommendations of the report of the conference, which gulped over N7 billion, was the institutionalisation of federalism in the country. “Even if that happens to be the only aspect we implement, others are going to fall in place naturally. “We as Yoruba race will push vigorously for the implementation of the report of that conference. “It is, perhaps, going to be the next phase of the struggle in Nigeria as the incoming government of General Muhammadu Buhari will be encouraged to implement the report, which is capable of putting Nigeria back on track fully.”
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