Jega praises media over 2011 election role

 
The chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Attahiru Jega, has commended the media for adding value to nation’s electoral process but warned of grey areas that need to be addressed.
The election umpire made this known while speaking at an international conference “New Media and Governance: Tools and Trends” in Abuja on Monday, where he also disclosed that about 870,000 persons were apprehended for committing electoral offences in the 2011 general elections.
Jega said out of that number, INEC had successfully prosecuted about 250 persons who had been sentenced based on the nature of their offenses by various courts.
He also called on the government to implement the Justice Lawal Uwais report which recommended the establishment of the Electoral Offences Tribunal saying it will help INEC to offload that aspect of electioneering so as to focus on its main job of providing free, fair and credible elections.
Jega said the, “use of new media provided a vehicle for the unprecedented mobilisation of the emergent generation of youths in the political process. This was crucial because youths between the ages of 18 and 35 constituted 62.4 per cent of the 73.5 million people registered by INEC during the voter registration exercise conducted early 2011.
He noted that the new media tools had profoundly added value to the electoral process and they also, have the potential to entrench and deepen Nigeria’s democracy.
Specific benefits of the usage of new media tools according to him are that it enhanced the transparency of the political process and made INEC more accountable to the public in its conduct of elections.
It also helps to strengthen INEC’s power of oversight on the electoral process by empowering the public to alert the Commission of incidents requiring swift security intervention.
‘They have helped to mobilise the citizenry, particularly the younger generation who in the past stayed aloof to the political process and have helped to integrate our world into a community network in real time with inter-communication that Marshal McLuhan could never have foreseen when he projected that the world would become a ‘global village’ through the media of mass communication” he said.

19 Ekiti pupils arrested for cult activities in Ekiti

The Ekiti State Police Command has arrested 19 pupils of All Souls’ Anglican Grammar School, Ado-Ekiti, for their alleged involvement in cult activities.

PUNCH Metro learnt on Monday that six pupils among those arrested were females while the remaining 13 were males. Some of the suspected teenage cult members were said to have confessed their memberships to the police.

The pupils whose ages range from 14 to 16 years were said to be members of various cult groups including Eiye Confraternity.

They were detained at the police station along New Iyin Road which is about 200 metres away from the school.

The Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Victor Babayemi, who confirmed the incident to journalists, said the pupils were arrested following complaints from some parents in the school.

Babayemi said the suspected cult members had since been released to their parents, saying they were quizzed to extract useful information from them.

He however said no weapon was found on them.

The school’s principal, Mrs. Grace Ibikunle, told journalists on Monday that the secret was blown open last week when a male pupil beat up a female pupil for refusing to be his lover.

She said the situation became chaotic when some female pupils interrogated opened up and mentioned names of pupils who were cult members.

She said investigation showed that some of the accused pupils had insignia such as tattoos with inscriptions such ‘Lady G,’ ‘Lady Elizabeth,’ ‘Lady D’ among other signs.

She said, “When we were still busy investigating the matter in the school to ascertain the involvement of the pupils accused to be members of the secret cult, some parents went to report the case at the police station, so that the case will not be covered up.

“The pupils were later arrested and detained but I learnt that they have been released. They did it for the future of their children and it was a way of deterring other pupils from involving themselves in acts that can ruin their future.”

UNIABUJA’s problems deeper than programme suspension – Former VC

In this interview with JOHN ALECHENU, a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Abuja, Prof. Nuhu Yakub, says the problems of the institution are deeper than the recent suspension of programmes in three faculties.

The Federal Ministry of Education recently suspended the faculties of Medical Sciences, Veterinary Medicine and Engineering in UNIABUJA for lack of accreditation, what do you think happened?

I have actually prepared a 12 -paged memorandum which I sent to the Minister of Education and she also invited me and we sat down with the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, the Director of Tertiary Education and the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission. We looked at the issues, I gave a detailed account of what transpired. For anybody to say I just came and started the programmes by fiat is an insult.

It also betrays a lack of intellectual honesty for people (not) to admit that procedures were followed. For instance, when I came for the interview for the position of vice-chancellor, they asked me what vision I had for the university –before I came, I did a study of what the environment was and discovered that there was only one faculty of science and that faculty of science was only conducting a few range of science courses: Mathematics, Chemistry, Physics, Biological Sciences, Computer Science and Statistics, these were the courses and the science ratio situation of the university then was 18 per cent science and 82 per cent arts.

By the Federal Government’s standing order to universities as it were – conventional universities which the University of Abuja is; should have a ratio of 60-40 in favour of the sciences.

Luckily, I got appointed as a political scientist of repute, this is what I teach my students- especially those of them who nurse political ambitions- when you have a manifesto which you used in appealing for votes; when you get into office, you have a moral obligation to implement that manifesto upon which the people have given you their votes.

You were reputed to have started all these faculties including Agriculture on the same day. Is this true?

By the law setting up the University of Abuja, the function of the Senate is the establishment, control of faculties, colleges, departments, schools, institute and other teaching and research units in the university and the allocation of responsibilities and branches of learning. Section 6 of that law, which was enacted in 1992 by the Federal Government, setting up  programmes is the function of the university Senate not Nuhu Yakub contrary to the views some of the misinformed and clearly academically dishonest lecturers or so-called professors of the University of Abuja, will want the public to accept.

But you were the VC and should take responsibility for any action taken by the university.

Agreed. As the VC, I came with the ideas but the moment these programmes were taken to the Senate and Council and both approved of their existence, they are no more my programmes, they became  the programmes of the university.

When I came to the university, over 70 per cent of the programmes had interim accreditation status but I made sure that we got all the programmes except education where we had a problem. Law had no accreditation even from Law School, I got accreditation from Law School and in addition to that, the school authorities increased our quota from 80 to 120, this was an achievement. This is what people should ascribe to me. The things that were not possible in the University of Abuja, I made them possible.

What specifically did you do to get these programmes running in the beginning?

I recruited lecturers who had made their mark. For instance, when we started the medical programme, Prof. Otubu, who is a renowned gynaecologist was the pioneer provost, nobody will doubt his academic achievements, I also had Professor Salako who started engineering and then I brought  in a Professor of Veterinary Medicine from Usman dan fodiyo University Sokoto- Ajabuna, who has also proved his mettle because he was appointed Professor before coming here. Most of the people who came to the university to start these programmes were professors of many years standing. In fact, the Professor for Engineering was retired from FUT Minna as DVC. These are people who made their marks and when they came, we put heads together. I am a social scientist, they were advising me on what to do and we were doing them.

For instance, before I left, the medical students had started using cadavers; they were more or less going to the clinic because we had a unit in the teaching hospital in Gwagwalada where they had their practical.

The Faculty of Agriculture, as young as it was- because they barely existed for three years before I left office. They bided for the World Bank Step B grant and they got hundreds of thousands of dollars and we proposed that we were going to start the production of honey bee. We started selling. We also made proposals for ICT, but after I left all these things were left to die.

With the benefit of hindsight, what will you say is the problem of the university?

It’s a question of leadership. The issue of the suspension of the programmes in UNIABUJA is simply the issue of the competence of leadership and the morality of leadership, what even baffles me is that this was the same person  we planned these things together. As a matter of fact, because we competed for the same office at the same time, he came with a proposal to set up the same programmes. Everything that happens in a university setting is collegial. It is team work; nobody can take absolute credit for it. In fact, what I expected him to do was to build on the foundation already laid.

Sadly, the university at the moment is not only a question of the suspended programmes. Let the National Universities Commission carry out the accreditation of all the programmes in the university even those ones for which I got accreditation you will discover that they cannot meet accreditation status now.

The bottom is so heavy with graduate assistants, Lecturers 1 and Assistant Lecturers such that when the NUC comes to accredit programmes, they are going to look at the quality of staff, this situation will lower the marks these programmes will score in the end, they will also be denied accreditation.

You also talk about partnerships …

In modern university system, there is no university, not even Harvard that can go it alone. Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, MIT cannot go it alone. That is why top universities in the world go for partnerships because they also know that in the third world countries, there could be outstanding professors who might not even be interested in going out, they could afford them by saying come on sabbatical leave. Come and have a short adjunct appointment to boost their image. I established such partnerships across the various disciplines. For engineering, I had partnerships with FUTO Minna, for them to have their practical training, all these were stopped when this man came on board. I went to Florida Agricultural University to establish linkages with the  faculty of medicine, when I left office I left the university with not less than 20 such partnerships both internally and externally but none is working now.

There was also an issue about UNIABUJA owning radio stations, can you please clarify this?

I approached the Open Society Initiative for Africa, they gave us radio equipment to enable us to start a radio station since we were the only institution by law until the setting up of the Open University of Nigeria, we were the first university by law that was asked to provide distance learning programmes for people who did not have an opportunity to go to school to embark on their working career. OSIWA approved the sum of $75,000 dollars, but I told them since they had approved this sum for us, I did not want to be involved in the bidding process.

They brought the equipment; we installed everything, the only thing that was left before we went on air was the issue of tiling the floor where this equipment was installed. That was what I left, we went to Senate, Senate approved that the station be called Excellence Radio Station, I went to the NBC and got a licence for this station. Let me tell you as I am talking to you now, the radio is not on air despite the installation of the equipment, for three years, the equipment is just lying fallow. Even the licence I obtained from NBC has been revoked because NBC said it could not give licence that cannot be utilised.

I also spent a lot of money installing Internet facilities on campus. Will you believe that the staff of the Computer Centre have nothing to do, they just sit down in the office and when it’s time they go home. ASUU in its own memo to the Minister of Education used this as one of the sore points in asking that this man be removed from office because of ineptitude.

There is no Internet facility that is working in the university, it is there in the visitation panel report. The university is completely cut off from the rest of the world as far as Internet and computer facilities are concerned,  the university is completely in the back waters. That is just the plain fact. Why it is that three years after I left office, the university has not been able to hold convocations? The students have been graduating, how can they have convocation when the Senate does not meet? For a period of time- eight months, ASUU also mentioned it, there was no Senate meeting, what  type of university is that? When I was there,  the Senate was not only meeting every month, but because of the robustness of the discussion in Senate, we set aside two days every month to hold Senate meetings. Attendance was always full, people would  have things to come and say.

I went to the Senate one time, a Senator asked, ‘I understand in your school it is now money for admission’ I said well, distinguished Senator, I am no longer there. I don’t know what is happening and you are not the only person who has mentioned this issue of money for admission.

These are the issues that a person who is bothered about the academic activities at the University of Abuja should consider and not just stopping at oh, they have suspended four faculties.

Four drunken policemen kill fun seekers

Two people were reportedly killed at a nightclub known as Monalido in Apapa, Lagos, on Friday after four allegedly drunk and armed policemen in the club opened fire for unknown reasons.

According to club’s workers, the police team made up of two corporals and two inspectors had escorted an unidentified rich man to the nightclub and were reportedly shooting sporadically in the air on the premises.

Some of the fun seekers ran for cover but unfortunately, bullets hit two of them who died instantly

It was learnt that two members of the police team, who were attached to the State Special Anti-Robbery Squad, had been arrested by the officer in charge of SARS, Mr. Abba Kyari, and handed over to the Apapa Police Division under whose jurisdiction the crime occurred.

When contacted on telephone, the spokesperson for the state police command, Mr. Joseph Jaiyeoba, said the two policemen were being interrogated and if found culpable, they would be charged to court for homicide.

Bakare urges FG to prosecute subsidy profiteers

Pastor Tunde Bakare 

Vice-Presidential candidate for the Congress for Progressive Change in 2011 elections, Pastor Tunde Bakare, has called on the government to prosecute those who illegally benefitted from fuel subsidy.

The Serving Overseer, Latter Rain Assembly, spoke at the church’s auditorium on Sunday while delivering the Part Four of a sermon titled, ‘Intervention in Governance: Wisdom for Public Service’.

The cleric, who used the biblical story of King Solomon and the two women who brought a case over the maternity of a child to him as a metaphor, stated that President Goodluck Jonathan must do justice to Nigerians by ensuring that the subsidy fraud was thoroughly investigated.

He said, “God will give the President the wisdom on how to do it. A leader needs wisdom to administer justice. Wisdom is the tree of life. The subsidy issue must not be swept under the carpet. There should be justice because there can never be peace without justice.

“This is not a matter of politics. We should fix the problem before the problem fixes us. There should be no attempt to sweep the matter under the carpet, else every other thing will not work. We need to know who collected certain amount of money and what it was used for.”

Bakare added, “Sometimes, we think that integrity was enough to serve in government but in the Nigerian context, it had shown that it is not. Integrity is not enough, experience counts.”

He lamented that a majority of the Nigerian political leaders are only concerned about themselves while those who elected them wallow in abject poverty.

According to Bakare, no good leader will look down on the people he is supposed to serve and call them “ordinary”, “miscreants” and “masses”.

He added, “No leader that is worth his salt will look down on the people he is supposed to serve and call them ordinary, masses and miscreants. They only become ‘great’ when he was seeking their votes.”

On whether the Save Nigeria Group, which played a major role in mobilising Nigerians during the fuel subsidy removal protests in January had abandoned the fight against unpopular government’s policies, Bakare declined comments.

Why did Osaze snub Keshi?

On the blast of the final whistle Richard Gahonzire, an Executive member of Rwanda Football Federation, approached this reporter and said “why did Osaze snub Stephen Keshi?
When it was clear that Osaze Odewengie was not getting it right in the Nations Cup qualifier last Wednesday he was substituted and Victor Moses came in and showed that he was a star in the making for Nigeria. He controlled the ball well and had precision in his attack.

Osaze Odemwingie in a with the press

When Keshi stood and stretched his hand  to pat Osaze on the back as he was leaving the pitch Osaze ignored Keshi and quickly reached for a bottle of water.
He appeared unhappy that he was being substituted. But Keshi did not look at his face. His eyes were focused on the field and he probably did not see Osaze’s action. But those who watched closely saw what happened.
Osaze wasn’t happy that he was substituted and walked straight to the bench, reaching out for a bottle of water instead of shaking his coach Stephen Keshi. He could have taken the water and still responded to Keshi’s pleasantry. He did not. His countenance pictured his mind.
“I did not even take notice of what he did as I had my eyes on the pitch at the same time,” Keshi said when this reporter asked him about it.
Richard who saw it all was  outraged.
“Was Osaze sad that he was changed,” Richard, rhetorically, asked again?
“I told you that the match would be a David and Goliath affair and your stars from Europe almost made it so. Our fans expected a lot from them but they were no where in this match. These big names have been failing your country and today wasn’t different.”
Richard, like their coach Militi, has been monitoring Nigeria’s football and knew why Nigeria did not qualify for the last Nations Cup.
Keshi, Daniel Amokachi, Sylvanus Okpala, Valere and Shorunmu all agreed that Nigeria could have won the match if they fielded the team that beat Liberia two weeks ago. They have concluded to field more of the local players in subsequent matches especially during the qualifiers for Nations Cup and World Cup.
They have been building a new national team and want to build confidence into the local Eagles. Four played in Kigali and excelled more than the Europe-based players.

Jonathan to reshuffle cabinet

There  were  indications on Sunday that President Goodluck Jonathan might carry out a cabinet reshuffle later this month.

A senior government official who spoke to our correspondent on the condition of anonymity said those affected were to be asked to go because of poor performance.

THE PUNCH’s investigations in Abuja showed that three ministers would be dropped this month. Another batch, according to a Presidency source, would be shown the way out in June.

The  source said the three ministers that have been pencilled in for removal this month had been in government since 2007. He, however did not give their names.

The source explained that those in the second batch were appointed by Jonathan, when he assumed office as acting President in 2010.

He said, “The cabinet reshuffle  is going to be a prelude to the sacking of  many ministers later this year, possibly June. Three ministers are going this month and some will be moved to other ministries. But in June, many of those who have been in government since 2010 will be sacked, if they failed to perform.”

The Minister of National Planning,   Dr. Shamsudeen Usman and his Petroleum Resources counterpart, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, were initially appointed in 2007 by Yar’Adua and had survived previous cabinet shake-ups.

Ministers, who have been in the cabinet since 2010 include Mr. Segun Aganga (Trade and Investment), Bala Muhammed (Federal Capital  Territory), Ruqayyat Rufai (Education),  Emeka Wogu (Labour), and Caleb Olubolade (Police Affairs)

Investigations showed that among the criteria that would be used in assessing the ministers was what a source in the Presidency described as “public opinion.”

According to the source, Jonathan is sensitive to criticisms against his government.

The source said, “ The President is not impervious to the negative publicity some of the ministers are attracting to his administration. 

“Besides, those who have not made much impact but may be lucky to escape this month’s cabinet shake-up, will not escape the next one. Some of them will be given a second chance and transferred to other ministries.”

It was also gathered that the performance of the 2012 budget would form part of the yardsticks for measuring the ministers’ performances.

“The performance of the budget will be monitored and ministers will be given another chance to improve the budget performance of their ministries as they will be held responsible for any failure. Those who excel will have nothing to fear,” the source said.

It will be recalled that Jonathan had at the Federal Executive Council meeting on Wednesday decried the poor service delivery of ministries, departments and agencies, and asked the ministers to sit up.

The council, had at the meeting, discussed the report on Service Compact (SERVICOM) with Nigeria, which is used in measuring the performance of the MDAs.

The Minister of Information and Orientation, Mr. Labaran Maku, who briefed journalists after the meeting, had said, “The report (SERVICOM report) says we need to improve on our services to the satisfaction of citizens. There is need to re-energise the SERVICOM in government.

“The President emphasised the need for all of us to sit up. He stated that all ministers and all those holding executive positions in government must do their work because the work we do would be measured by the results the citizens get. The President emphasised that all of us must take service delivery seriously.”

Investigations also showed that the cabinet shake-up would be used to address complaints of marginalisation by some zones and states.

It was learnt that the South-West, which lost the speakership of the House of Representatives to the North-West might be considered for more ministerial and board appointments.

Our correspondent also gathered that some members of the outgoing Peoples Democratic Party’s National Working Committee would be among nominees that would replace  the ministers that might be sacked.

The party on Saturday began its ward congresses. Its local government congresses will take place on March 10, while state executives will be elected on March 17.

The national convention, where new officers of the party will be elected, will take place on March 24 and new NWC members will assume office on March 26.

Investigations revealed that the outgoing Acting National Chairman of the party, Alhaji Kawu Baraje, had been penciled in for a ministerial appointment.

It was learnt that names of  three nominees would be forwarded to the Senate before the March 24 national convention of the PDP.

Besides ministerial posts, it was gathered that  the NWC members would be part of boards of agencies and parastatals, which would soon be constituted.

The Presidency source, who said the President would soon announce the cabinet shake-up, added, “The NWC members who cannot make the ministerial list will be given board appointments.

“You are aware that many of those who worked for the President in the 2011 poll have not been catered for. Mr. President is aware of this and it will be addressed when the boards are be reconstituted.”