•Assures of govt's determination to provide basic needs, other amenities•Says corruption would be rooted out through appropriate, legal measures•Warns Avengers not to mistake his readiness to dialogue for weakness•As group blows up more oil facilities in Warri•Lay down your arms, ACF tells them

NIGERIA’S MOST INFORMATIVE NEWSPAPER

NO 16,539 WEDNESDAY, 6 JULY, 2016 Nigerian TribuneNigerian Tribune @nigeriantribune TribuneOnline N150www.tribuneonlineng.com

I know what Nigerians are going through —Buhari

Skye Bank's new GMD explains CBN's action, assures customers of safety of fund

President Muhammadu Buhari

—P4, 9

—P12

US issues terror warning on Lagos hotels

FG extends public holiday till tomorrow

Kogi uncovers 9,000 ghost workers

—P8

•As gov says state is sick

Continues pg4

PRESIDENT Muham-madu Buhari has said that he is not unaware of what the people are

going through and promised that better days are ahead.

In his Eid-el-Fitr message to Nigerians, released in Abuja, on Tuesday, the presi-dent stressed the need for Nigerians to demonstrate the virtue of tolerance towards one another, irrespective of religion, language and politi-cal leanings.

“Let us learn to show grati-tude, respect and tolerance to one other, irrespective of our religion, tribe, language and political leanings, as we forge ahead to build on our strengths and opportunities

to make Nigeria great again,” he said.

The president added: “I am not unaware of what Nigeri-ans are going through and I want to use this medium to commend the amazing sacri-fices of Nigerians in the face of the temporary economic and social challenges and also reassure Nigerians that my administration is work-ing assiduously towards pro-viding basic needs and other amenities.

“Let me also use this oppor-tunity to reaffirm that we will not relent in the fight against corruption and we will en-sure that all appropriate and legal measures are deplored to root out this malaise.

Leon Usigbe -AbUjA

—P9 —P11

Wednesday, 6 July, 20162

Wednesday, 6 July, 20163

FIRST CITY MONUMENT BANKA MEMBER OF FCMB GROUP PLC RC:46713

01 279 8800, 0700 3262692265 | www.fcmb.commy bank and I

Wishing all Muslim faithfuls a fulfilling and rewarding celebration, as you consolidate on the blessings of Ramadan

HappyEid-el-FitrFrom all of us at FCMB

Wednesday, 6 July, 2016news4

“I commend the armed forces and security agen-cies for the gains recorded in the fight against terror-ists and the rescue of hos-tages in the North-East part of the country.”

Recalling that he hosted Iftar reception with Ni-gerians of different back-grounds, including inter-nally displaced persons (IDPs), artisans and phys-ically-challenged persons, the president appealed to the wealthy to remember the millions of Nigerians “who are suffering depri-

vation because of violence perpetrated by terrorists.”

Buhari also appealed for the support, understand-ing and patience of all Nigerians and the inter-national partners as his government explored “the fastest means to end the economic sabotage in the

Niger Delta and amicably resolve the conflicts with-in the region,” saying: “I promise you all better days ahead, even as we remain grateful for your unflinch-ing support to our admin-istration.”

While praying for Allah’s blessing on the nation, he

felicitated with all Nigeri-ans, especially the Muslim Ummah, on the occasion of this year’s Eid-el-Fitr, which marks the comple-tion of the Ramadan fast.

He congratulated Mus-lims in Nigeria and around the world on the successful completion of the month-

I am not unaware of what Nigerians are going through —Buharilong spiritual journey of fasting, prayer and alms-giving in obedience to the divine command.

He prayed that the Al-mighty Allah will reward the sacrifices with in-creased blessing and a more prosperous future.

According to him, “on

remain vigilant, “so that we can collectively beat the forces of darkness on the prowl round the globe.”

He stressed that terror-

THE Federal Government, on Tuesday, warned the militant groups in the Niger Delta behind the spate of bombing oil pipelines not to interpret the disposition of President Muhammadu Bu-hari to dialogue as a sign of weakness.

Senior Special Assistant to President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, who issued the warning, said the president was only taking his time to respond to the restiveness in the region, because he was determined to find a lasting solution to the recurring cri-

ism no longer respected international boundaries, charging humanity to rise as one body “to excise this vermin from our body pol-

sis in the Niger Delta.The clarification made by

Shehu, in an essay entitled: “President Buhari sharp-ens focus on Niger Delta” and made available to the Nigerian Tribune, came against the backdrop of the renewed attacks on oil in-stallations by members of the Niger Delta Avengers.

No fewer than six oil pipe-lines were vandalised on Tuesday, bringing the num-ber of such burst pipelines to 11 within three days in Delta State alone, with seri-ous implications for the na-tion’s foreign earnings.

According to president’s spokesman, Buhari’s re-

ity and assert our liberty from those who pander to base and vicious instincts.”

Furthermore, he stated that: “With our collective

fusal to tackle the new on-slaught on the economy with the same hawkishness that characterised his ten-ure as military head of state in the 80s was not a sign that he was afraid of the Avengers.

Shehu said 14 different groups, claiming leadership of the new militant group launching a renewed on-slaught on the nation’s eco-nomic jugular, had already held meetings with the National Security Adviser (NSA), Major-General Ba-bagana Munguno (retd).

Each of the groups, he said, were brought by a former or serving governor and had insisted that it was the authentic and the right group to dialogue with.

He added that the presi-dent had already outlined his plans to develop the Niger Delta region dur-ing a meeting he held with the Niger Delta Dialogue and Contact group led by the Amanyanabo of Twon Brass, His Royal Majesty, King Alfred Diete-Spiff, at the State House, last Thurs-day.

Buhari, he said, told Die-

Buhari condemns ‘reprehensible’ Saudi bombing

Don’t mistake Buhari’s disposition to dialogue for weakness, Presidency warns Avengers

Leon Usigbe -AbUjA

by AbiodUn AwoLAjA

resolve, we shall beat ter-rorism. Around the world and around the clock, let us be alert. And we would remain free and safe.”

te-Spiff, a former military governor of the old Rivers State and his (Buhari’s) senior in the army, that peace and stability in the Niger Delta region and the country was the priority of his government and there would be no compromise on this.

According to Shehu: “The president is mindful of the fact that the Delta region is an important part of the whole, but as he charts his course for a permanent peace in the Niger Delta, it is important, however, that militants don’t mistake his efforts as a sign of weak-ness.

Quoting the famous state-ment of former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, shortly before her government defeated the Irish Republican Army (IRA) that publicity for the terrorists is the oxygen needed for survival, the presidential aide accused the media of deliberately aiding NDA’s onslaught out of an appetite for sensation-al stories.

Read full script on page 34.

PRESIDENT Muhamma-du Buhari has condemned the suicide bombing in Madinah, which occurred on Monday, in Islam’s sec-ond holiest city.

According to a statement issued by the Special Ad-viser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina, in Abuja, on Tuesday, the president, while consoling with Saudi authorities over the “rep-rehensible attack,” said the development was a desecration of all that was sacred and holy, as it took place near the prophet’s mosque and on one of the holy days of Ramadan.

He added: “The mer-chants of evil have once again shown that there is nothing religious in their mindless acts, by striking near the prophet’s mosque. It validates the claim that terrorism really has noth-ing to do with Islam. Pur-veyors of terror are simply agents of the devil.

“The fact that the Ma-dinah bombing came the same day a suicide bomb-er struck near the United States (US) Consulate in Jeddah, also in Saudi Ara-bia, shows that it was an orchestrated plan to foul up the Eid-el-Fitr celebra-tion,” President Buhari said.

Buhari urged nations to

Adeboye in Ibadan on SundayGENERAL Overseer, The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor E. A. Adeboye, will be in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, on Sunday, July 10, 2016 to dedicate the stadium-like RCCG Cov-enant Sanctuary, opposite Zartech, Oluyole Estate, Ibadan.

Time is 8.00 a.m. Chief Host is Pastor Dele Balo-

gun, the pastor-in-charge of Region 21.

Pastor E. A. Adeboye

this happy occasion, it is my strong belief that all true followers of Islam have been rejuvenated on the true meaning and es-sence of life and through the teachings of Prophet Muhammad (SAW), we have learnt to imbibe the virtues of piety, sacrifice, love, self-denial and good conduct in our daily rela-tionship with one another.

“As we celebrate another Eid-el-Fitr, I admonish all patriotic Nigerians to up-hold these lessons and also appreciate the numerous material and human bless-ings God has endowed us with.”

Meanwhile, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, has felicitated with Muslims in Nigeria on the occasion of this year’s Eid-El-Fitr.

In a telephone conversa-tion with President Buhari on Tuesday, Erdogan re-joiced with Nigerians on the successful completion of this year’s Ramadan fast, despite whatever dis-tractions.Some parts of Bayan Kara village which was flooded after heavy rain, in Birnin Kebbi, on Tuesday. PHOTO: NAN

Continued from front page

HAkeem gbAdAmosi-AkUre

AAUAlecturers begin strike

FOLLOWING the non-pay-ment of their seven months’ salaries, members of the Ac-ademic Staff Union of Uni-versities (ASUU), Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba Akoko (AAUA), Ondo State chapter, on Monday, em-barked on an indefinite strike.

This was contained in a statement issued and signed by the chairman of ASUU in the institution, Dr Sola Fayose, shortly after a con-gress, directed all its mem-bers to downtools.

The statement read: “Fol-lowing past engagements on the issues of salary and deduction payments, par-ticularly the resolutions of the Congress meeting on June 15, 2016, convey-ing the displeasure of our members on the issues of salary and deductions, the Congress of ASUU-AAUA met July 4, to get feedback on the consultations the branch initiated with the national on its request to allow members withdraw their services following three months’ outstand-ing salaries and non-re-mittance of deductions for seven months.

“Congress was informed of the approval of national body of the union to allow members of ASUU-AAUA withdraw their services un-til all outstanding salaries of three months and deduc-tions of seven months are fully paid.

“All members are, there-fore, directed to withdraw their services with immedi-ate effect. This withdrawal affects all formal engage-ments/activities.

“Having waited in vain these past months to see a positive turn around, we are left with no other choice than this last resort, as our members have been system-atically, financially, psycho-logically and morally disem-powered.”

Wednesday, 6 July, 20165

Lagosmetro6 Nigerian TribuneWednesday, 6 July, 2016

Olalekan OlabulO

Olalekan OlabulO

OPERATIVES of the Lagos State Police Command have recovered a

Lexus Sports Utility Ve-hicle, which was snatched

two weeks ago, at gun point around Fadeyi area of the state from renowned Nol-lywood director, Fred Am-ata.

The imagemaker in charge of the state police command, Dolapo Badmos,

while confirming the recov-ery of the vehicle urged the entertainer to visit the po-lice station and claim his vehicle.

Badmos stated that the vehicle was recovered in the Ejigbo area of the state,

Police recover Fred Amata’s SUV snatched at gunpoint

while the occupants as of the time of the recovery es-caped.

She also stated that the police in the state were on the trail of the robbers, as-suring that they would be arrested.

THERE was panic in the ancient town of Epe in Lagos State, on Monday evening, as an expatriate, Ayman El Dens, with a construction company was kidnapped by gunmen, suspected to be militants. The suspected kidnappers,

have reportedly, contacted somes colleagues of El Dens and demanded for N155 million ransom.

The victim, a Lebanese, was until the incident work-ing for Granebury, the con-tractor handling the expan-sion of the Epe township road.

A senior police officer, who pleaded anonymity, while speaking with Lagos Metro, confirmed the inci-

Opeyemi OwOaseye

Opeyemi OwOaseye

THE spectacles on Lagos roads on Tuesday, were quite different from those of Monday, as street traders and hawkers, used the oc-casion of the Ramadan hol-iday to make brisk business on almost all the roads.

In almost all the places visited by Lagos Metro on Tuesday, street hawk-ers were seen meandering through the usually busy traffic, persuading road us-ers to patronize their wares, with no law enforcement agents enforcing the ban.

Hawkers were seen doing it discreetly, when Lagos Metro visited Yaba, de-spite the implications of their action.

ayOmide OwOnibi Odekanyin

A computer instructor, Cos-mos Ugbaja, who allegedly raped a 14-year-old girl said to be a Junior Second-ary School 3 (JSS 3) stu-dent of a public school in Ishawo, Ikorodu, has been remanded in Kirikiri prison.

Ugbaja was arraigned be-

Computer instructor who raped student remanded in Kirikiri

fore an Ikeja Magistrates’ Court on a one-count of rape.

According to police pros-ecutor, Inspector Samuel Imohsonwa, the suspect serially raped his victim be-tween January and May this year.

The suspect pleaded not guilty to the charge of hav-

ing unlawful sexual inter-course with his victim.

Magistrate Bola Osun-sanmi granted the ac-cused bail in the sum of N500,000.00 and two sure-ties in like sum.

She, thereafter, adjourned the matter for hearing till August 1.By Our Correspon-dents.

dent and added that efforts were on to rescue the expa-triate. It was gathered that the kidnappers threatened to kill El Dens, if the ransom was not paid before the next forty eight hours beginning from Tuesday afternoon.

Efforts to speak with the imagemaker in charge of the state police command, Dolapo Badmos failed, as calls to her mobile phones were not answered.

Gunmen kidnap Lebanese handling Epe road, demand N155m ransom

Said the hawkers “We still operate here, albeit discreetly. We take to our heels whenever any KAI official is in sight,” they stated.

The same scenario played

Sallah holiday: Street traders return to Lagos highwaysitself out in Ijaye, Kolling-ton Bus Stop, Mosalasi and Abucon areas in Alimosho Local Government Council Area of the state. Traders were seen in these places moving freely around, with

their wares, while beseech-ing customers to patronise.

Though many engaged in the usual trading, it was obvious that they were not relaxed in carrying out their business.

Recovered Fred Amata’s SUV

Street hawkers back on Lagos roads.

IT has become a menacing experience for the residents of Somorin Okeowo, Ifako area of Lagos State, as some boys have made the front of Sunjem Schools a den of weed smoking.

These boys were said to be jobless and had made the front of the school their usual meeting point. They were also said to have been on this act of weed smoking for a long time.

It was learnt that a gos-

pel church, which uses part of the building of the school for its services, is also finding it difficult to cope, as these guys consti-tute nuisances in front of the school.

Residents of the commu-nity told Lagos Metro that the boys were always there till late at night, causing fear in residents that ply the route.

They appealed to the gov-ernment to help them get the hoodlums away from the environment.

Hoodlums turn Ifako school, church to hemp joint during teaching, worship

A 27-year-old man, Ifeanyi Nwadishi, has been arrested for allegedly stealing a prop-erty of one Azubuike Okwu-guri.

The suspect was said to have stolen one Nokia phone valued at N6000 and cash sum N26,600 of Okwuguni.

The defendant was said to have committed the offence on Saturday, around Coker

Bus Stop, Orile Iganmu area of Lagos.

The defendant reportedly assaulted the complainant after stealing his valuables and also inflicted injuries on him.

The suspect was also said to have allegedly hit the com-plainant multiple times with planks and with fist blows all over his body, which caused him serious injuries.

Phone thief beats owner, removes tooth

Edited By Lanre Adewole08037863902 | olanreade@yahoo.com

7 Nigerian TribuneWednesday, 6 July, 2016

Olalekan OlabulO

SUSPECTED Niger Delta militants continued their onslaught on residents of Lagos State, as an immigra-tion officer, Peter Ofolue,

Militants storm Lagos jetty, abduct immigration officer

was kidnapped in the early hours of Tuesday, at the Ikorodu area of the state.

He was said to be on his way to his duty post at the Ikoyi Passport office, when the militants abducted him.

OYO State governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, in a state-ment by his Special Adviser on Communication and Strategy, Mr Yomi Layinka, urged Muslims to be modest in their celebrations and to be on their guard against terror-ists who might want to wreak havoc during the celebration.

Ajimobi said: ”Let me on this occasion congratulate my Muslim brothers and sisters on the successful com-pletion of the Ramadan. It is my hope that the mandatory annual religious obligation will renew our strength and faith in Allah.”

Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State, also called on Muslims nationwide to pray for peace as the country is go-ing through tough economic and security challenges.

Aregbesola, in a statement by his Director, Bureau of Communication and Strat-egy, Mr Semiu Okanlawon, admonished Muslims to imbibe the salient lessons of Ramadan and emulation of the humility, good neigh-bourliness, understanding and love exemplified by the life of Prophet Muhammad.

Also, Bayelsa State gover-nor, Henry Seriake Dickson, has called on Muslims across the country to preach love, peace and uphold the tenets of Islam as well as the teach-ings of Holy Prophet Mo-hammed.

According to him, it is only by doing such that Nigeria could remain a peaceful na-tion and achieve its targeted development goals, especially under the prevailing harsh economic hardship.

The governor’s advice was contained in a statement is-sued on Tuesday by his Chief Press Secretary, Daniel Iwor-iso-Markson.

Rivers State governor, Nye-som Wike, called on all Nige-rians to draw the lessons of piety, love, justice, fairness, equity, peaceful co-existence, tolerance, honesty and dedi-cation derived from the teach-ings of the Holy Prophet all through the Ramadan period.

A statement signed by Sim-eon Nwakaudu, Special As-sistant to the Governor on Electronic Media, noted that the governor assured that his administration would con-tinue to promote religious tolerance and the right envi-ronment for the freedom of worship.

Governor Aminu Tam-buwal urged Nigerians to close ranks and work for the unity, political stability and progress of the nation.

This is contained in a mes-sage by his spokesman, Malam Imam Imam, in Sokoto.

Tambuwal also enjoined Muslims to use the end of Ramadan to offer prayers to God for peaceful co-existence among different ethno-reli-gious groups in the country.

Governor Adams Oshiom-hole of Edo State urged Ni-gerian Muslims to be guided by the lessons learnt dur-ing Ramadan as this would greatly mould their lives in the right path prescribed by Almighty Allah.

In his Eid-el-Fitri message signed by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr Peter Okhiria, Governor Oshiomhole said the messages of love, perse-verance, self-denial, almsgiv-ing and others learnt during the holy month of Ramadan should not be discarded but applied daily by the Muslim in total obedience to the in-junctions of Allah.

Governor Abubakar Sani Bello of Niger State enjoined Muslim Umah and the peo-ple of the state to continue to live the life of sacrifice in line with the tenets of the just concluded Ramadan.

He gave this charge in his Eid-el-Fitri message signed by his Chief Press Secretary, Malam Jibrin Baba Ndace, yesterday.

Governor of Plateau State, Honourable Simon Lalong, urged the Muslim Ummah to reflect on the significance of the religious obligation by putting to use the spiritual lessons learnt during the pe-riod of Ramadan.

He stressed that the vir-tues of sacrificial love for hu-manity in giving arms to the poor and needy, will reflect the gratitude of the Moslem faithful to Allah for their ful-filment of one of the pillars of Islam.

The senator representing Lagos West Senatorial Dis-trict, Solomon Adeola, has prayed that the Almighty Al-lah will answer the supplica-tions of the adherents of the Islamic faith as presented in the month of Ramadan.

The senator called on Mus-lims to continue to pray for and renew their support for the administration of Presi-dent Mohammed Buhari to succeed.

First lady and wife of the president, Hajiya Aisha Bu-hari, yesterday visited and released five inmates in the Garu prison in Dutse, capital city of Jigawa State.

Speaking to the prisoners, Aisha Buhari said she em-barked on visiting prisons na-tionwide and releasing some inmates under her founda-tion “Future Assured” in the spirit of Ramadan.

The first lady, who was rep-resented by Alhaji Mustapha Habibu Fari, a member of

the All Progressives Congress (APC) board of trustees, ex-plained that the foundation was aimed at gaining free-dom for some inmates with option of fine and offer ma-terial assistance to prisoners.

Wife of the Senate Presi-dent, Mrs Toyin Saraki and members of the Senators’ Wives Forum (8th Session) have called on the Muslim faithful to continue to pray for the unity and growth of Nigeria beyond the Ramadan period.

In a statement released by the Forum’s Secretariat, Fo-rum President, Mrs Saraki, enjoined Muslims to remem-ber to be charitable towards one another, especially the needy.

Honourable Saheed Aki-nade Fijabi who is repre-senting Ibadan North West/South West Federal Constit-uency at the House of Repre-sentative has charged Nige-rians especially the Muslims to use this period to pray for peace.

Fijabi urged Muslims to use the festive period to pray for the country now that the country is witnessing series of attacks from Niger Delta and in the northern part.

Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Honour-able Mudashiru Obasa, urged Nigerians to imbibe the spirit of forgiveness and be ambas-sadors of peace.

Obasa, in his Ed-el-Fitri message, signed by his Chief Press Secretary, Musbau Razak, also praised the sac-rifice and spiritual commit-ment of all Nigerians, with particular reference to Mus-lims throughout the fasting period.

Also, Speaker, Kwara State House of Assembly, Hon-ourable Ali Ahmad, in his Eid-el-Fitri message issued by his Media Aide, Shuaib Abdulkadir, advised Muslims to reflect on the lessons learnt in the holy month for the bet-terment of the society.

Ahmad added that the cel-ebration provides the best opportunity for Nigerians ir-respective of religion, ethnic-ity, political or social status to come together as one in-divisible family with a view to making the nation great.

The Chief Whip, Lagos State House of Assembly, Honourable Rotimi Abiru, called on Nigerians to con-tinue to pray for the unity and greatness of the nation.

Abiru, representing Sho-molu Constituency II, made this call on Monday, while speaking in a telephone chat from Saudi Arabia where he is currently per-forming Lesser Hajj.

Govs, lawmakers, monarchs, NACOMYO, others urge Nigerians on tolerance, gains of Ramadan

Continues pg28

Scenes of a fire outbreak in a warehouse loaded with Sodium Hydrosulphate chemical on Fatai Atere road, Mushin, on Tuesday. PHOTO: SYLVESTER OKORUWA.

The suspect was equally ac-cused of unlawfully inflicting wound on the complainant by first giving him blows on his mouth and pulling off one of his front teeth while the complainant was trying to escape from the defen-dant.

The defendant was said to have committed an offence punishable under the crimi-nal law of Lagos State.

He was charged before an Ebute Meta Magistrates’ Court on four-count charge levelled against him.

However, the defendant pleaded not guilty.

He was granted a bail of N50,000, with one surety, who must be a blood rela-tion.

The case was adjourned till August 21 by the Magistrate A O. Ajibade.

Phone thief beats owner, removes tooth

Lagos Metro gathered that the militants, who came in a speed boat, were yet to contact his family.

A source at the Ikorodu jetty, who spoke with La-gos Metro, said the early Tuesday attack by the gun-men really shocked workers and passengers at the jetty.

The source said “I was not there when the inci-dent happened, but my col-leagues told me that they were frightened by the gun-shots from heavily-armed kidnappers.

Efforts to get the reac-tion of the imagemaker in charge of the state police command, Dolapo Bad-mos, failed, as calls to her mobile phone lines were not answered.

8 Wednesday, 6 July, 2016 Nigerian Tribunenews

THE Federal Government has extended the holiday to mark Eid-El-Fitri Sallah celebration till Thursday, July 7.

This followed the di-rective by the President General of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Is-lamic Affairs, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar III, the Sultan of Sokoto, to the effect that the Ramadan had to con-tinue yesterday as a result of the non-sighting of the moon.

Government had ear-lier declared Tuesday and Wednesday as public holi-day to mark the Sallah cel-ebration.

Minister of Interior, Lieutenant General Ab-dulrahman Bello Damba-

FG extends Sallah holiday till tomorrow

A Lagos lawmaker, Mr Tunde Braimoh, urged Ni-gerians across ethnic divide to forgive and bear one an-other for the progress and prosperity of the country.

Braimoh, (APC- Kosofe II) and a member of the Lagos State House of Assembly, made the plea in his Eld-el-Fitri message.

Osun State House of As-sembly under the leader-ship of Honourable Najeem Salaam has urged Muslim faithful not to allow the les-sons of Ramadan, which are patience, perseverance, benevolence towards others and love among others to erode them.

In a statement by the Chairman, House Com-mittee on Information and Strategy, Olatunbosun Oy-intiloye, the Assembly said the current economic chal-lenges facing the state and the nation at large required more patience, optimism and unshakable faith in God and loyalty to leadership.

Minister of Solid Miner-als Development, Dr Kayode Fayemi, in a statement by his Special Assistant on Media, Mr Olayinka Oyebode, said that witnessing another Eid-el-Fitri was a special privilege from the Almighty Allah.

The minister urged Mus-lim faithful to keep on prac-tising the lessons learnt from the holy month in their relationship with their Mak-er and fellow human beings.

The immediate past gov-ernor of Ogun State, Chief Gbenga Daniel, urged Mus-lims to take the blessings of the period beyond the month of Ramadan.

The lessons of the month, he stated, are essential vir-tues required for peaceful co-existence within the soci-ety which included building self-control, self-restraint, self-evaluation and sacri-fice.

Former governor of Oyo State, Chief Adebayo Alao-Akala, urged Muslim faith-ful in the country to use the period to reflect on the teachings of Prophet Mo-hammed and imbibe the spirit of love, peace, faithful-ness and forgiveness.

The former governor called on them to continue to pray for the unity, one-ness as well as continued survival of the country.

The Olubadan of Ibadan-land, Oba Saliu Akanmu Adetunji, Aje Ogungun-niso 1, has implored Muslim faithful to consolidate the gains of Ramadan by fleeing from all appearances of evil.

The monarch said “Despite the socio-economic chal-lenges confronting our peo-ple, such as liquidity crisis, corruption in high and low places, kidnapping etc, noth-ing is too difficult for God.”

Soun of Ogbomosoland, Oba Oladunni Oyewumi, has emphasised the need

Govs, lawmakers, monarchs, NACOMYO, others urge Nigerians on tolerance, gains of Ramadanfor traditional rulers and religious leaders to sensitise the people on the benefits of peaceful co-existence ir-respective of tribal, political and religious differences.

In a statement signed by his Private Secretary, Toyin Ajamu, Oba Oyewumi said, “I wish to congratulate the Muslim community on the celebration of Eid-el-Fitri, which marks the successful completion of the Ramadan.

Social Democratic Party chieftain in Oyo State, Mr Seyi Makinde, has advised Muslim faithful in Nigeria and Oyo State in particular to sustain the selflessness disposition, dedication to the words of God and dem-onstration of fear of God.

Makinde commended Muslims in Nigeria who despite the economic situa-tion still demonstrated self-lessness during the fasting period.

“It is heart-warming to note that our Muslim broth-ers and sisters demonstrat-ed unusual love to one an-

other when everyone breaks their fast together and one finds it difficult to know who actually the financier of such laudable act.”

The Aare Musulumi of Yorubaland, Alhaji Dawud Akinola, in a statement by his secretary, Alhaji Ka-moru Aderibigbe, said the holy month of fasting might have come to an end, but the entire citizenry must allow the essence of the period, “which is God-conscious-ness,” to resonate in their daily living for the sake of the country and humanity in general.

He particularly urged Muslims to remain exem-plars of the soul-cleansing month by exhibiting self-reform and abstaining from base desires for the rest of the lunar year and beyond.

Ogun State PDP governor-ship candidate in the last election, Prince Gboyega Isiaka, has urged all Mos-lems to pray for the peace and economic revival of Ni-geria.

Isiaka said the lessons and teachings learnt during the holy month should not be lost during the celebration.

He said, “Our country needs our prayers at this critical period when the economy has nosedived beyond our imagination. Besides, we must continue to pray for our dear Ogun State to survive the current economic hardship and for our leaders to have compas-sion on the citizens.”

An Ede based Muslim Cleric and business tycoon, Alhaji Ajani Bello Monyas-au, has put smiles on the faces of less privileged by donating to them in cash and kind.

Monyasau called on all well-meaning Nigerians to cultivate the habit of assist-ing the needy so as to eradi-cate poverty and crime in the society.

The All Progressives Con-gress (APC) in Oyo State also called on Muslims in the country to intensify their prayers for sustainable

peace and improved econo-my for better living for the citizenry.

In its Eid message con-tained in a statement by its Director of Publicity and Strategy, Olawale Sadare, the APC said that the holy month of Ramadan is usu-ally treasured as it offers mankind divine visitation, forgiveness of sins and re-newal of relationship with God (Allah).

Oyo State chapter of Ac-cord, in a message by its Publicity Secretary, Dr Nureni Adeniran, urged Muslims to continue their piety which peaked during the fast.

The party admonished Muslims in the country to continue to imbibe the good deeds and the teachings of Ramadan.

The League of Veteran Journalists in Oyo State has urged Muslim faithful to continue to live in tandem with the teachings of the Holy Qu’ran, even beyond Ramadan.

zau (retd), made the an-nouncement on behalf of the Federal Government on Tuesday in a statement signed by the Permanent Secretary, Mr Bassey Akpa-

nyung, in Abuja. He urged Nigerians to use

the period of sober reflec-tions to ensure harmony, unity and peaceful co-exis-tence, while giving full sup-

port to the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari in his sustained ef-fort to pursue socio-eco-nomic and political growth of the nation.

This was contained in a message signed by the Publicity secretary of the League, Mr Wale Adelowo.

The message also enjoined all Nigerians to follow the te-net of the Holy month in their relationship with others.

The National Council of Muslim Youth Organisa-tions (NACOMYO) has en-joined Nigerians to embrace peace and good neighbour-liness towards societal de-velopment.

This was contained in the Eid el-Fitri message signed by the National Presi-dent of NACOMYO, Alhaji Kamal’ddin Akintunde, urg-ing adherents of Islam and Christianity to tolerate and love one another as they are partners in the Nigeria’s march to progress.

NACOMYO called for more understanding, matu-rity and wisdom on the part of the leadership and fol-lowership of the two faiths in dealing with matters that tend to bring rancour and disharmony.

Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Mr Boboye Oyey-emi, has said that the spirit of the Ramadan should be sustained beyond the month, for peaceful co-ex-istence, safety and security among the people.

Head, Media Relations and Strategy, FRSC, Mr Bisi Kazeem, in a statement on Tuesday in Abuja, quoted Oyeyemi as saying that the month of Ramadan provided opportunity for Muslims to show devotion to God, seek His blessings and show com-passion to the less privileged members of the society.

The Muslim Ummah of South West Nigeria (MUS-WEN) urged the faithful to remember the social and spiritual gains of the sacred month and fulfil their cov-enant with Allah in such a way that those gains would not be taken away from them by Satan.

A statement by the organ-isation’s media consultant, Dr Femi Abbas, read in part: “We should remem-ber to pay our mandatory Zakatul-Fitr and be kind to the underprivileged ones in our celebrations. Such cel-ebrations should exemplify the remorse and humility we imbibed in the sacred month of Ramadan.”

Former chairman, Na-tional Sports Commission (NSC) and Ondo State PDP governorship aspirant, Honourable Gbenga Eleg-beleye and the Rivers State PDP Chairman, Honourable Felix Obuah, urged Muslims to use the Ramadan for in-ner reflections and make a u-turn from human imper-fections to do that which is right and pleasing to Allah.

Muslim Media Practitio-ners of Nigeria (MMPN), Oyo State chapter, also urged Muslims to embrace love and unity.

Cross section of indigenes and non-indigenes of Osun State boarding free train provided by the state government from Lagos to Osogbo, in celebra-tion of the end of Ramadan, at Ido Railway Terminus, Lagos State, on Tuesday.

Police, Borno gov task worshippers on security

KANO State Police Com-mand has called on wor-shippers attending Eid grounds to avoid taking un-necessary objects other than praying mats, so as to avert unnecessary break down of law as well as to checkmate whoever may want to fo-ment trouble.

This is just as the com-mand advised people at-tending recreational centres and places of gatherings during the celebration to

be extra vigilant by taking good cognizance of people and objects around, with a view to report any suspi-cious movement to security officials.

This was contained in a statement signed by the Po-lice Public Relations Officer, DSP Magaji Musa Majia, on behalf of the Commissioner of Police, CP Muhammed A. Dikko, and made available on Tuesday.

Borno State government has advised Muslims to be vigilant as they troop to

By Our repOrters various Eid grounds to offer prayers at the end of Rama-dan.

Governor Kashim Shet-tima gave the advice when he spoke with newsmen on Tuesday.

Shettima also advised the residents to see security as a collective responsibility rather than the duty of secu-rity agents alone.

He said that government would introduce stringent security checks to ensure safety at the various Eid grounds in the state.

By Our repOrters

Continued from pg7

Wednesday, 6 July, 2016news9

THE United States (US) Mission in Nigeria, on Tues-day, advised that

groups associated with terrorist activity might be planning attacks against

hotels in Lagos fre-quented by international visitors, including those located on waterfronts, during the Eid-el-Fitr holidays.

In a warning posted on “US Citizen Services” and sighted by the Nigerian

Tribune, the Mission re-minded US citizens to re-view their personal secu-rity plans, remain aware of their surroundings, includ-ing local events, and moni-tor local news stations for updates.

The warning did not con-

tain details, but urged the US citizens to be vigilant.

A similar security warn-ing was given in Decem-ber, last year, while in May 2014, diplomats were warned of a possible attack at two Sheraton hotels in Lagos, after a car

Christian Okeke -abuja

THE Lagos State police command, on Tuesday, declared that it was not handling the threat by the Niger Delta Avengers to bomb some parts of Lagos with levity.

This is just as the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC), Dr Fredrick Fasheun’s fac-tion has waved the threat aside, saying bombing La-gos by any group of militants would be tartanmount to an ill wind that would blow no one any good.

Speaking with the Nige-rian Tribune, on Tues-day, the image maker in charge of the state police command, Dolapo Badmos, stated that the police, as part of the efforts to forestall any attack by the avengers, were beefing up security on not just the targeted places, but all over the state.

Badmos said: “We are beefing up security. The command is not treat-ing the threat with kid’s gloves. The command has put strategies in place to ensure the continuos safety of the entire Lagos State.”

While reminding the militants that they also had brothers and sisters who resided and did busi-nesses in Lagos, the OPC maintained that ‘’a good freedom fighter does not destroy the means of liveli-hood of his people.’

“Of what use will that be to their cause or grouse with the Federal Govern-ment? If they are able to cause such havoc or dam-age to the third mainland bridge, they forget that they have several thou-sands of their kith and kins in Lagos making use of the bridge daily and us-ing it as an access to the source of their daily bread. Aside from that, many in-digenes of the Niger Delta have houses on the Lagos Island and businesses on the mainland. A good and sensible freedom fighter does not destroy the means of livelihood of his people, hence what is the essence of his or her agitations.

While insisting that there was no basis for any Ijaw man or woman to want to create confusion in Lagos or other parts of the Southwest, the OPC cited the Conference of Ethnic Nationalities of

which Ijaws, the Urhobos, Yoruba and many oth-ers from the South-South and North are adequately represented where the president, Dr Frederick Fasehun, is a prominent member representing not

only the Yoruba, but also, the Oodua People’s Con-gress.

According to Lawal, if for whatever reason, the Ijaws have complaints against Yoruba or Lagos, such would have been tabled

We are not handling militants’ threat with levity —Police Bombing Lagos will do no one any good —OPCshOla adekOla, akin adewakun, lekan OlabulO -lagOs

and discussed at the meet-ing of Conference of Ethnic Nationalities.

Reacting to the insinua-tion that the silence of the OPC and that of the Yoruba in the face of the Niger Del-ta threat was cowardly, the

bombing in the capital, Abuja, killed 19 just days before a major economic summit.

Similar warnings were given in April 2012 and November 2011 about ho-tels popular with Western-ers in Abuja.

The US Embassy’s latest warning did not mention a specific group, but urged its citizens to “review your personal security plans, remain aware of your sur-roundings, including local events, and monitor local news stations for updates.”

tant group on Tuesday, be-fore tweeting on their new Twitter handle, @Real_Ndavengers.

Agbinibo said: “At 10.00p.m, Niger Delta Avengers blew up Chevron Well 10 close to Otunana flow-station.

“Other attacks were car-ried out at At 11:15p.m. Niger Delta Avengers blew up NPDC Manifold close to Banta and two PPMC/NNPC crude oil trunk Lines.”

Earlier before tweets, sources had relayed to the Nigerian Tribune that among the attacked facili-ties were two manifolds, operated by the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), at Batan and Makarava com-munities in Warri South-West Local Government Area of the state.

Nigerian Tribune also gathered that the group at-tacked and destroyed two

other crude oil trunklines belonging to the Nigerian National Petroleum Cor-poration (NNPC) in the area.

The group also separately attacked an oil well oper-ated by Chevron Nigeria Limited (CNL) close to Makarava village in Gbara-matu Kingdom, late Mon-day.

The Chevron’s oil well was identified as Well 10.

The coordinated inci-dents took place, as gath-ered, at about 10:35p.m and 11:20 late Monday.

Military and local sources confirmed the destruction.

No official of the com-panies could be reached as of the time of filing the report.

Meanwhile, condemna-tions have continued to trail the weekend bomb-ings of five oil and gas in-stallations by the rampag-ing Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) after a lull.

A non-governmental or-ganisation, the Centre for Peace and Environmen-tal Justice (CEPEJ), in a statement signed by its co-ordinator, Comrade Sher-iff Mulade, stated that the continued bombings of oil and gas facilities was an ill-wind that would do no good, but adversely affect the environment and slow down the country’s econo-my.

CEPEJ reiterated its ap-peal to the Avengers to sheathe their swords and give peace a chance to en-gender development in the region.

Also, the Arewa Consul-tative Forum (ACF) has called on the Niger Delta Avengers(NDA) and other militants groups engaged in the destruction of oil and gas pipelines and oth-er economic facilities to lay down their arms and em-brace dialogue.

This was contained in a

Avengers attack more oil facilities in Warri •Lay down your arms, ACF tells themFrOm ebenezer adurOkiya and muhammad sabiu

statement issued to news-men in Kaduna, on Tues-day, and signed by the na-tional publicity secretary of the forum, Alhaji Muham-mad Ibrahim.

The statement warned that destroying oil pipe-lines and polluting the en-vironment were not a solu-tion to whatever perceived grievances the militants might have against the government or oil compa-nies.

“Development and pros-perity can only take place in an atmosphere of peace and understanding and not violence and destruction,’’ it noted.

While wishing the Mus-lim community a peaceful Eid -el -Fitr celebration, it urged them to contin-ue to devote themselves to prayers for unity and peaceful co-existence in view of the security, social and economic challenges facing the country.

FOUR days after attacks on five oil and gas facili-ties in Warri, members of the dreaded Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) , on Mon-day, blew up more oil facil-ities at separate locations in Warri, Delta State.

This was just as the group stated that it had no pecu-niary interest in the pro-posed wobbling dialogue of the Federal Government, saying to achieve a lasting peace, a referendum must be conducted to decide the fate of Nigeria.

“We don’t need money from anybody for dialogue. The only way peace will reign in Nigeria is by ref-erendum to determine the fate of Nigeria,’’ the group tweeted.

Spokesperson, Brigadier General Mudoch Agbin-ibo, confirmed the attacks on the website of the mili-

OPC leadership retorted: “From my earlier narra-tives, will any sensible per-son say we are cowardly or we are weak. Definitely not. Government secu-rity operatives that have had cause to engage us in an encounter years back will tell you the stuff we are made of. Because we have adopted a “Siddon Look” approach should and must not be taken as being lily-livered. Yoruba people don’t easily go into battle without convincing reasons and when we do, our antagonists are always convinced that we cannot be rubbished easily.”

However, despite the threat of the insurgents to bomb key places in Lagos, especially this bridge, secu-rity presence on the bridge has remained non-existent.

As at Monday, while the bridge from the Iyana Iworo, was unusually free, none of the policemen that normally stood at strate-gic points on the bridge in the last few weeks was not there.

Lagos at 50 team performing Ramadan Cultural Dance at Maryland Junction, to create awareness of the forthcoming Lagos at 50 celebration, on Tues-day. PHOTO: SYLVESTER OKORUWA.

Eid-el-Fitri: US issues terror warning on Lagos hotels

10 Wednesday, 6 July, 2016south-westnews

Seyi Makinde pledges to boost human capital development

Japan hands over 231 classrooms to Oyo

Ogun LG boosts maize exportation to conform to int’l standards

2 killed, many injured as cult groups clash in OndoHakeem Gbadamosi-akure

Worried by the chal-lenges militating against exportation of agricul-tural products in Nigeria, the Abeokuta North Local Government area of ogun State has taken steps to-wards ensuring that maize produced from the state meet up with the standards required for exportation.

Towards this end, the Tran-sitional Committee in the council area has provided free “afflasave” maize specie to over 300 farmers in the area for cul-tivation in this planting season.

Chairman of the Transi-tion Committee, Honourable ibikunle Bayowa, who dis-closed this while rendering the monthly progress reports of his council, also stated that the council has trained the farm-ers on the planting methods that would make their maize produce meet up with the in-ternational requirements for planting maize.

Bayowa, who explained that the free distribution of the maize specie was to as-sist farmers in meeting up with the WHo’s interna-tional standards, which al-lows for exportation of only toxin-free maize, also stated that the benefiting farmers were tutored towards apply-ing afflasave specie on their maize plantation before they are matured for harvest.

AT least two per-sons lost their lives while sev-eral others sus-

tained various degrees of injuries in ondo, head-quarters of ondo West Local Government Area of ondo State, on Monday evening, during a street

carnival in the town.According to an eyewit-

ness, the conflicts between two rival groups suspected to be cultists led to the fra-cas which claimed the lives of the two.

He said the two groups had earlier engaged in free for all in the evening, where some members of the cult groups were

injured, adding that the group renewed the feud between them during the carnival.

He said a member of the cult group was killed and the rival group mobilised in a reprisal to avenge the death of their member, shooting sporadically and thereby, killed a young lady.

He said members of the cult groups wielded weap-ons including cutlasses, daggers, guns, bottles and knives during the fracas.

He said “they shot spo-radically into the air and two people were hit by bullets and died on the spot. Many of the youth hurriedly left the carnival ground while heavy shoot-

ing continued between the two rival groups.”

The source identified one of the victims as Ayodeji Afusat, who was shot and found in her pool of blood, saying the young girl died before help could reach her.

it was gathered that it took the intervention of the men of the state po-lice command in ondo, to restore peace in the area while some security agents were positioned in the area, apparently to guide against breakdown of law and order.

Speaking on the develop-ment, the divisional Police Officer (DPO) in charge of enuowa police station, Mr Kunle omisakin, dis-closed that two people had been arrested in connec-tion with the matter while his men were combing the town for other members of the cult groups.

He stated that the case had been transferred to the state police headquarters in Akure and said investi-gation had commenced to unravel those behind the killings.

A chieftain of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), in oyo State, Mr Seyi Ma-kinde, at the weekend, pledged to assist in boost-ing human capital develop-ment in the state through Man o’ War Nigeria.

Seyi Makinde said this as the special guest of honour during the patron and pa-troness’ forum and official reception/award of cer-tificates to course SS748; AL444 and SH983 partici-pants, at Army Barracks Primary School, iwo road, ibadan, under the chair-manship of Major General

Bashir Jinadu (retd), on Saturday.

While commending the participants of the training programme and the Man o’ War Nigeria leadership in oyo State, he urged the participants to take the knowledge and skills ac-quired to all the nooks and crannies of the state while also commending them for their support during the 2015 general election.

earlier, the state com-mander of the organisa-tion, Mr Adeoye Ayoade, said that the training was based on “Modern day community policing and

intelligence gathering,” adding that the officials of the state command have been better informed and positioned to combat crime, maintain law and order, im-part the ethics of citizenship and leadership in view of the current economic situation in the country.

He commended Seyi Makinde for his critical role of human capital de-velopment in Man o’ War Nigeria, adding that about 1,050 Man O’ War officials have been sponsored on training programme since his investiture as the chief war marshal in 2012.

JAPAN international Co-operation Agency (JICA) has handed over 231 new-ly completed classrooms spread across 30 public pri-mary schools in oyo State.

Also handed over at Monday’s ceremony, held at St Luke’s demonstration School, Molete, ibadan, were two staff rooms, 218 toilet booths, 231 chalk-boards, 3,900 pupils’ desks and benches, 209 teachers’ tables and chairs, costing about N2 billion.

Speaking at the ceremo-ny, Ambassador of Japan, Mr Sadanobu Kusaoke,

said the project, was aimed at reducing the number of pupils in classrooms and improving educational fa-cilities in oyo State.

That, Kusaoke said was in line with JiCA’s project priority areas like the pro-vision of infrastructure, so-cial development, empow-erment of people, creation of jobs and diversification of the economy.

Kusaoke acknowledged the enthusiasm and sup-port of the oyo State gov-ernment for the agency in ensuring the successful completion of the project, in just over a year.

Chief representative,

Japan international Coop-eration Agency (JICA), Ni-geria Office, Mr Hirotaka Nakamura, added that the agency’s support for oyo State also transcended in-vestments in education to rural water supply and training programmes.

Performing the ceremo-nial cutting of the tape, oyo State governor, Sena-tor Abiola Ajimobi, said the project completion epitomised the state gov-ernment’s principle of public-private partnership in education.

Saluting JiCA for the choice of the state for the project, Ajimobi noted that

by Wale akinselureYorubas in America demand better performance, accountability from Buhari

NiGeriANS living in the United States and Canada were called upon during a weekend national con-ference in dallas to help reform Nigeria’s political system, eliminate corrup-tion, and rebuild the coun-try’s education and health-care systems.

The two-day national con-ference of Egbe Omo Yor-uba, which represents more than 400,000 native Nige-rians or people of Nigerian descent living in the United States and Canada, featured several erudite Yoruba schol-ars, including renowned Ni-gerian economist dr. Benja-min ola Akande, President of Westminster College, in Fulton, Missouri; Dr Toyin Falola, Professor of African Studies and History at the University of Texas Austin, among many others.

The conference was de-signed to bolster national efforts to attract American investment in Nigeria, ac-celerate economic growth and prosperity for the Yo-ruba people, and unite and promote the cultural and professional spirit of the Yo-ruba community in North America.

the development met the need to address deteriora-tion in school infrastruc-ture and poor standard of education in the state.

He reiterated that gov-ernment alone could not handle the vast needs of the education sector of the state, calling for the in-volvement of well-meaning individuals and organisa-tions.

Ajimobi said the state government was undaunt-ed in repositioning educa-tion in the state regardless opposition.

Minister of education, Mr Adamu Adamu repre-sented by deputy director, basic education, Federal Ministry of education, Mrs opeyemi Ariba, noted that JiCA’s commitment to im-proving educational infra-structure was in line with Federal Government’s commitment to enhancing teaching and learning.

He harped on the need for the benefitting pupils to make good of the facili-ties provided, and also be good ambassadors of the country.

A Japanese based in-digene of oyo State, who facilitated the siting of the project in his home state, Mr Bobby ologun, harped on the need for main-tenance culture so that the Japanese investment would not be in vain.

Oyo State governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi (second right), presenting a card of appreciation to the Ambassador of Japan, Mr Sadanobu Kusaoke (sec-ond left), at the handing-over of the completed classroom for selected public primary schools in Oyo State, at St Luke’s Demonstration School, Molete, Ibadan South East Local Government, on Monday. With them are the Olubadan of Ibadanland, Oba Saliu Adetunji and the representative of Minister of Education, Mrs Opeyemi Ariba. PHOTO: ALOLADE GANIYU

THe Trade Union Con-gress (TUC), Oyo State Council, would observe a one -day warning strike from Monday, July 11, to press home its demands.

This was contained in a statement signed by the TUC Secretary, oyo State Council, Mr John Alli, and made available to newsmen on Tuesday, in Lagos.

The union, in a state-ment, decried the non-payment of salaries of civil servants in the state and all outstanding arrears of fed-eral civil servants.

According to the state-ment, the TUC has given Governor Abiola Ajimobi of oyo State, a 15-day ul-timatum to pay the six months salary arrears due to the state civil servants or resign from office.

The statement called on philanthropists, clerics and well-meaning Nigeri-ans and the international community to save the soul of oyo civil servants through the distribution of foods and other relief ma-terials.

The statement said that it was worrisome that about 26 other state govern-ments owed salary arrears of close to five months; subjecting their workers to poverty and penury.

Unpaid salaries: Oyo TUC declares one-day warning strike

11 Wednesday, 6 July, 2016news

Past District Governor, Rotary Club, Oluyole, Mr Gbadebo Falayi (left), exchanging pleasantries with the newly installed president of the club, Mr Oladele Awoyomi, during the installation ceremony at the Rotary House, Iyaganku, Ibadan, on Monday. With them is the past District Governor, Babs Conde, at the event.

Yinka OladOYinbO - lOkOja

Kogi uncovers 9,000 ghost workers

Ugwuanyi prays for Nigeria over economic challenges

Grazing Reserve: Jang threatens to sue Lalong over link with protest

OBJ, Tinubu, Ooni, Alaafin, others for Lere Paimo’s book launch

NIMASA not recruiting, beware of fraudsters —Peterside

Parliament member makes case for Nigerian youths’ empowerment

THE Director-General, Ni-gerian Maritime Adminis-tration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr Dakuku Pe-terside, has said the agency is not recruiting, and so ad-vised members of the public not to be deceived by fraud-sters.

This was contained in a statement by the Head, Cor-porate Communication of NI-MASA, Hajia Lami Tumaka, on Saturday in Lagos, a copy of which was made available

to the News Agency of Ni-geria (NAN).

The Director-General, Dr Dakuku Peterside, said NIMASA was not recruit-ing at the moment, adding that members of the public should not be deceived that the agency had engaged a re-cruitment firm to employ on its behalf.

“We urge members of the public to disregard the ac-tivities of unscrupulous elements who are bent in

defrauding them of their hard-earned resources un-der the guise of engaging on a recruitment exercise for NIMASA,” Peterside said.

He also described as fraud-ulent an online platform purporting that the agency had floated a scholarship programme tagged “NIMA-SA Scholarship 2016/2017”.

Peterside said the adver-tisement was the handiwork of some “unscrupulous” ele-ments with an intention to rip off unsuspecting mem-bers of the public.

The director-general ad-vised people not to patronise fraudsters.

He said “As a public insti-tution committed to the rule of law and best practices, NIMASA has standard pro-cedures for communicating its activities and will not re-quest money from would-be candidates as the fraudsters

MEMBER representing Oyo Central Constituency at the Nigerian Youth Parliament, Honourable Prince Adetayo Adekunle (MNYP), has called on governments at all levels to initiate and implement solid empowerment scheme and programmes that will enhance youth development and job creation in the coun-try.

Adekunle stated this while presenting the Oyo State youth empowerment and de-velopment trust fund bill to the Oyo State governor, Sena-tor Abiola Ajimobi, at the Ra-madan iftar organised by the Governor for youths/student

AS the brickbat between the Plateau State governor, Si-mon Lalong and his prede-cessor, Senator Jonah Jang lingers, Jang has threatened to institute a legal action against Governor Lalong for linking him with the protests over grazing reserve in the state.

The former governor in a statement issued by his media aide, Comrade Clin-ton Garuba, challenged the Lalong administration to publish any document where he endorsed the cre-ation of grazing reserve in Plateau State throughout the eight-year tenure of his government.

He warned that if the gov-ernment published any doc-ument that was fake it would leave him with no option than to institute a legal ac-tion against the government.

“If the APC government ac-cuses Jang of being behind the protest that stopped its

plan to implement a grazing reserve policy in the state, then it is an indictment on itself for failing to unite and galvanise the people toward working for the growth and development of the state.

“ If the stand of Jang has awakened the people to re-jecting the mortgaging of their state, then the Barr. Lalong is right to have said Jang is responsible.

“It must, however, be stated in unequivocal terms that Senator Jang does not support and will not sup-port acquisition of land for herdsmen under any guise or by whatever nomencla-ture it is known,” he said.

He, therefore, urged the governor and the people around him to go ahead with their pursuit for personal gain but warned that they should also remember that the clock is ticking and have limited time to either deliver on the dividends of democ-racy or be shown the way out

in 2019.“As for Senator Jang and

all lovers of Plateau, we have only one heritage, a truly united and indivisible state where we would live in the serenity provided for us by God and nature,” he said.

EMINENT personalities from all walks of life, in-cluding former President Olusegun Obasanjo, na-tional leader of the All Progressives Party (APC), Senator Bola Tinubu, His Imperial Majesty, Oba Enitan Adeyeye Ogun-wusi, Ojaja 11, the Ooni of Ife, Oba Lamidi Olayiwola Adeyemi 111, the Alaafin of Oyo and South West gov-ernors, are among the dig-nitaries expected to grace the official presentation of a veteran actor and theatre practitioner, Chief Lere Paimo’s biography

Other traditional rulers from the South, promi-nent theatre and movie practitioners, academi-cians, captains of indus-try, among others, are also expected to grace the ocas-sion

Chief Lere Paimo’s biog-raphy titled: “Lere Paimo: A Quintessential Thes-pian” will be officially pre-sented to members of the public, at Apex Event Cen-tre, Agodi, Gate, lbadan, at 12 noon, on Friday, July 8.

GOVERNOR Ifeanyi Ug-wuanyi of Enugu State has offered special prayers for God’s intervention over the present economic and so-cial challenges the country is passing through, asking for the wisdom, power and courage to continue to dis-charge his responsibilities effectively.

Governor Ugwuanyi spoke while receiving the Founder and General Superinten-dent of the Deeper Christian Life Ministry, Worldwide, Pastor William F. Kumuyi and his entourage, who were at the Government House, Enugu, on a courtesy visit to inform him of the minis-try’s Leadership Conference holding in the state.

The governor stated that the conference was an op-portunity to re-present to God, the challenges facing the country under the leader-ship of President Muhamma-du Buhari and Enugu State under his humble leadership.

While urging members of the Ministry to continue to re-member Enugu State and the nation in prayers, Ugwuanyi, who reaffirmed his belief in the miracle of five loaves and two fishes, expressed optimism that “miracles will begin to happen at the end of your stay here.”

The governor emphasised that God is the source of the position he holds, add-ing that with the prayers of the ministry and that of the people of the state, his ad-ministration would surely succeed.

THE Kogi State gov-ernor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, on Tuesday, said the state is

critically sick and cancer-ous, noting that it uncovered over 9,000 ghost workers on its payroll.

The governor, who spoke at a stakeholders meeting where the committee set up for the screening of govern-ment workers, presented its preliminary report, said ef-forts would be made to heal the state.

Bello stated that his ad-ministration would ensure that no civil servant is un-justly removed from the payrolls, saying “workers reserve the right to return to banks of their choice when everything normalises.”

Presenting the report, the chairman of the committee, Mr Henry Agbaji, said over 9,000 ghost workers failed to appear before the com-mittee for verification.

According to him, apart from pensioners, a total of 9,720 persons across the state, did not show up for the screening exercise, not-ing that this had reduced the workforce even before the commencement of the screening.

He explained that over 81,000 staff and pensioners in the state and the 21 lo-cal government areas, were screened by the committee following the resolve of the state government to clean up the system, in order to have a clean payroll.

The committee chairman said 25,208 forms were is-sued across the 21 local gov-ernment areas of the state

but noted that only 22,272 persons presented them-selves for the screening.

He added that 2,936 as-sumed workers failed to ap-pear, saying “they were con-sidered as immediate ghost workers in the state.

Agbaji said the committee

discovered that some per-sons were screened but their names were omitted from the successful screening list, saying it was the reason the governor set up a back up committee to address the issues.

He also said 25,662 screen-ing forms were issued to pri-

mary school teachers but only 22,608 submitted themselves for the exercise, meaning the 3,054 teachers who did not show up were ghost workers.

The chairman of the com-mittee lamented that some workers had issues bordering on forged certificates, lack of

Bank Verification Number (BVN), while some had no statement of bank accounts.

He added that some work-ers were in the employ of an-other state, but drew salaries either in the state or at the local government council of Kogi State.

are doing.’’“For the avoidance of

doubt, the agency will al-ways communicate its programmes and projects through well-known chan-nels of the media, its website and the social media,’’ the director-general said.

Peterside, who regretted the negative impact of the activities of the fraudsters, warned that the NIMASA in collaboration with security agencies had launched an investigation into the mat-ter, adding that those be-hind the fraud must face the full wrath of the law.

NAN reported that the agency urged the public to contact it for clarification of issues on twitter at @nimasaofficial, facebook at facebook.com/nimasaof-ficial and email at public.relations@nimasa.gov.ng or nimasapress@yahoo.com.

stakeholders in the state.According to him, it is im-

portant for those at the helm of affairs, particularly gover-nors, to ensure continuous empowerment scheme for the youth, in order to make them productive and to reduce the crime rate.

The bill, among other things, seeks to manage and disburse funds for youth em-powerment by upgrading and promoting the skills and expertise of youths, poverty alleviation, as well as employ-ment generation

It also includes provision of financial assistance by grants, loans or otherwise; ensuring

disbursement to the relevant agencies and/or programmes saddled with the responsibil-ity for skills acquisition and development, poverty allevia-tion, as well as employment generation for youths.

Governor Ajimobi while re-sponding, promised to act on the bill, by sending it to the state Assembly for further ac-tion.

He also lauded Honourable Prince Adekunle for his fore-sight, and encouraged other youth leaders to emulate him. “With Youth leaders like him, Oyo State has a bright future in the realm of leadership,” he added.

isaac shObaYO - jOs

•As gov says ‘state is sick’

Wednesday, 6 July, 201612 Nigerian Tribunebusinessnews

THE new Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Skye Bank Plc, Mr. Tokunbo Abiru, has affirmed the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) state-ment that Skye remains healthy and strong.

Abiru who spoke after taking over from his prede-cessor, Mr. Timothy Ogun-tayo, said, in a statement, that the bank’s fundamen-tals remained strong and virile, assuring customers and other stakeholders of the safety of their funds and investments.

The new Skye Bank boss said his team would lever-age on the bank’s repu-

Skye Bank’s new GMD explains CBN’s action, assures customers of safety of funds

table information technol-ogy platform to make it not just a frontline retail and commercial bank, but an industry leader.

Abiru who outlined his vision for the bank, said his team would harness the expertise and skill sets of the bank’s employ-ees and the reconstituted board to take the bank to new and higher heights. He noted that being a Systematically Important Bank (SIB), Skye Bank oc-cupies a sensitive role in the financial life of Nigeri-ans and West Africa.

The CBN had on Monday

approved the reconstitu-tion of the board of Skye Bank Plc., with the apex bank appointing Mr M.K. Ahmad and Mr. Tokunbo Abiru as the new Chairman and Managing Director of the bank respectively. Other members of the re-constituted board are Bayo Sanni, Idris Yakubu, Mar-kie Idowu and Abimbola Izu, all of whom were serv-ing in the Executive Direc-tor capacity of the bank prior to now.

The reconstitution of the board followed the voluntary resignation of the former Chairman, Dr. Tunde Ayeni and other

Non - Executive Directors of the Bank, namely, Mr. Victor Odozi, Mr. Baba-jide Agbabiaka, Dr. Jason Fadeyi, Mr. Kunle Aluko, Mr. Victor Adenigbagbe, Mr. Abdul Bello and Hajiya Amunna Lawan Ali.

In the same vein, Mr. Timothy Oguntayo re-signed his position as Group Managing Direc-tor / CEO, alongside Mrs. Amaka Onwughalu, Mr. Dotun Adeniyi and Mrs. Ibiye Ekong who resigned their positions as DMD, and Executive Directors. All the resignations take immediate effect.

groups, who do not mean well for the economy of our great country and in-deed the economic agenda of our dear President, to negatively target Heritage Bank, a bank that the Cen-tral Bank of Nigeria and several local and interna-tional rating agencies have ranked among the healthi-est banks in Nigeria, as a struggling bank.

“This is most mischie-vous and totally out of or-der. It is a glaring case of de-marketing and we have since drawn the attention of the CBN to this very danger-ous trend,” a leading share-holder of the bank, Alhaji Musa Ibrahim Misau said at the briefing in Abuja.

“For your information, Tunde Ayeni has less than one per cent share in Heritage Bank and Bukola Saraki has no shares or any form of ownership stakes in Heritage Bank. “It is not a secret that the own-ers and key shareholders in Heritage Bank bought off the defunct Societe Generale Bank (SGBN),

Heritage Bank declares N1.5bn profit for 2015•Shareholders certify bank healthy

mation and Communica-tions Technology (ICT).

Meanwhile, recent take-over of management of Skye Bank and specula-tions that others may soon follow, key shareholders of the bank have certified it very healthy and one of the fastest growing banks in the country, condemn-ing deliberate attempts by certain individuals to de-liberately de-market it.

At a briefing with jour-nalists on Tuesday in Abuja, the shareholders described claims by an on-line media platform that the bank is owed jointly former Chairman of Skye Bank, Dr Tunde Ayeni and President of the Senate, Dr. Bukola Saraki as false.

“It is a lie that can only emanate from persons who do not wish the econ-omy of Nigeria well”, said a leading shareholder of the bank, Alhaji Musa Ibra-him Misau, who spoke on behalf of the shareholders.

“We are thoroughly miffed by the attempt by certain persons or

From Sanya adejokun and Chima nwokoji

which was owned by the Saraki Family.

“Saraki Family was out-rightly bought out. The family, including Dr. Bu-kola Saraki does not have a dime in Heritage Bank. We have in just a few years built this bank to a colos-sus that has become the envy of the sector and we are not going to sit by and allow ill-intentioned per-sons to de-market Heri-tage bank. No, it will not happen,” he insisted.

Decrying insinuations that CBN may be planning to sack the management and board of the bank, the shareholders said “it is so far from the truth. But you are all Journal-ists and have access to the CBN; please go and get the correct facts, figures and data from the CBN. I can-not imagine how normal persons can conceive and concoct such evil.

“The fact that Tunde Aye-ni is a very marginal share-holder in the bank does not at all mean that what hap-pened at Skye Bank would

necessarily happen at Heri-tage Bank. The two banks are not in any way related, the two banks do not have similar ownership struc-ture or management model. Tunde Ayeni obviously has marginal shares in other healthy banks in Nigeria.

“Does that now mean that the CBN would sack the management and board of these banks as well? What is the basis of the claim by this online news medium that Heritage Bank is being targeted by CBN?” queried Alhaji Ibrahim.

The CBN sources said that like most banks in Nigeria, Heritage Bank is learning to cope with the sudden decision of the Federal Government to domicile all public sector funds with the CBN under the Treasury Single Ac-count (TSA) regime.

“Other than this sudden movement of all public sector funds to the CBN, Heritage Bank remains one of the healthiest and well managed banks in Ni-geria,” the source said.

NOT less than six con-tenders are jostling for the position of Director General of National Auto-motive Council (NAC), as the tenure of the incum-bent; Engineer Aminu Ja-lal expires early next year (2017).

According to findings, 4 of the contenders for the juicy post are from the North, one from the East and another from the South West.

An impeccable source inside the NAC told our Correspondent that a “new DG may emerge before December or ear-ly next year.”

According to him, “The process is on. I’m not in a position to elaborate. Let’s keep our fingers crossed. The picture will be clearer in the next few weeks or months. Those interested in the position are using their contacts in the Presidency”.

He however stated that if the process is fair and transparent, a Director in the agency is likely to suc-ceed Jalal.

Lobbying for NAC DG position intensifies at presidency

Tola adenubi-lagoS

From left: Former Anambra State governor, Peter Obi; facilitator and renowned Nigerian award winning writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; Managing Director, Nigerian Breweries Plc, Nicholaas Vervelde and the company’s Corporate Affair Adviser, Kufre Ekanem, during the NB Plc 2016 Literacy Evening held at Oriental Hotel, in Lagos. PHOTO: SYLVESTER OKORUWA.

by bode adewumi

Trisat unveils online platform to drive schools management

AFTER its acquisi-tion of former En-terprise Bank Plc in October 2014, Heri-

tage Bank Plc has announced a profit before tax of N1.5 bil-lion for the first full operating year ended 2015.

This was contained in the audited financial state-ment announced by the bank for 2015.

The financial statement showed that the bank re-corded Gross Earnings of N24 billion, Net Interest Income of N12.2 billion and Profit after Tax of N1.1 billion.

During the year, Heri-tage Bank attracted N312 billion as deposit from cus-tomers in 2015 indicating confidence in the bank. On the other hand, the bank supported businesses and individuals with N175 bil-lion as Loans and Advanc-es. Consequently, the bank achieved a Total Asset of N473.4 billion for the 2015 operating year.

Commenting on the re-sult, Managing Director/Chief Executive, Heritage Bank, Ifie Sekibo said: “This result is a testimony to the increased accept-ability of Heritage Bank’s innovative products and services by the banking publics. It is also a reward for the diligent commit-ment of the staff and man-agement of the bank to our mission to create, preserve and transfer wealth across generations.

“In the 2016 operating year, our desire to recip-rocate the patronage of our customers and good-will from stakeholders has prompted us to introduce new and bespoke services driven by cutting edge technology, designed to empower businesses and individuals with opportu-nities to achieve economic prosperity.

“The positive response to these efforts gives us assur-ance of improved financial performance in 2016 lead-ing to enhanced returns to our investors.”

It will be recalled that the bank was recently se-lected by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as its pilot partner to unveil, administer and manage the N3 billion Youth In-novative Entrepreneurship Development Programme (YIEDP). The Programme is aimed at creating sus-tainable wealth and em-ployment in the country with focus on dependable job creating sectors such as Agricultural Value Chain (fish farming, poultry, snail farming), Cottage Industry, Mining and Solid Minerals, Creative Industry (Tourism, Arts and Crafts), and Infor-

TRISAT Communications Limited, a software de-velopment company, has launched an online plat-form, Nortify.com.ng, to provide digital tools to simplify school manage-ment through a compre-hensive school manage-ment solution.

The platform offers a complete suite of online based school management system, which comprises of smart payment system, smart testing system (CBT for Admission & Internal Exam), smart messaging system, students’ and data management systems as well as a digital tool to anal-yse students’ performances. The platform which tar-gets primary and second-ary school owners, already boasts more than 10,000 student users in over 50 schools across Nigeria, driv-ing efficiency in their man-agement through Nortify’s several digital tools.

Nortify features smart admission system that facilitates admission pro-cess, making it easy, seam-less and convenient as par-ents can register and enrol their kids from the comfort of their homes.

13 Nigerian TribuneeditorialHappy Eid-ul-Fitr!

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AFRICAN NEWSPAPERS OF NIGERIA PLCFounders:Chief Obafemi Awolowo GCFR, SAN (1909 - 1987)

Chief (Dr) H.I.D AwolowoCON (1915 - 2015)

TODAY, across the globe, Muslim faithful celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr, in diverse circumstances and situations but with deep gratitude to Almighty Allah for a glorious season. They are fully conscious that

it is a day of thanksgiving following the worship and supplications in the month of Ramadan, a most blessed month that hosts night of power (Layla-tul-Qadr). For the past 30 days, avoiding all fleshly pleasures and looking steadfastly towards Allah and seeking the good of all humanity, Muslim faithful have observed one of the five pillars of Islam, devoting themselves to prayer, fasting and charity, even while carrying out essential daily duties. Of course, today, there are family gatherings and feasting, but the emphasis remains the giving of alms (zakat). In Nigeria in particular, this year’s Eid-ul-Fitr is indeed a remarkable one coming in a period of serious socio-economic challenges, over which abiding faith in the Almighty still must triumph. The last 30 days have been a period of self-denial within a general climate of ready-made denial and want occasioned by collapsing social infrastructure, reduced spending power, and anguish. The ongoing celebrations are therefore fully deserved and significant.

For the past 30 days and despite the adverse national circumstances, Nigeria’s Islamic faithful have embraced charity driven by the belief that everything belongs to Allah and therefore nothing should be hoarded, and have reached out to the needy and the downtrodden, building for themselves and for all humanity a better society and a glorious hereafter. Yet, and here is the heart of the matter, the lessons of sacrificial giving, brotherliness and solidarity with neighbours need not end with the season. They are necessary to the blessedness of everyday living and must be embraced as regular features of life. That is why Eid-ul-Fitr is, and ought to be for every Muslim, more than a symbolism.

Having abstained from fleshly pleasures for a whole month, many easily fall prey to a horrible tendency to surpass the pleasures they pursued prior to the fasting period, proving themselves to be excluded from the congregation of the faithful who aspire, always, to abide by the commandments of God. Islam, after all, is submission to Allah’s will. Indeed, of what value is fasting devoid of sober

reflections post-Ramadan? Surely, this is one question that ought to engage the attention of all right-thinking Muslim faithful in Nigeria, and ought to form the basis for greater introspection and delicacy in running the business of everyday living. Anyone who is a cheerful giver during Ramadan ought also to be a cheerful giver afterwards, and being protective and kind to one’s neighbours certainly ought to be a year-long preoccupation, if society must advance beyond the present rancour, acrimony and violence that seem to characterise human existence.

We urge Nigeria’s Muslim faithful, as they have done in the past 30 days, to continue to offer prayers to Allah to guide the nation’s leadership at all levels, because the leadership question remains evidently poignant and abundantly pertinent. They must also offer advice and let their voices be heard whenever the political leadership appears to be tilting the nation towards the precipice. While Boko Haram, one of the world’s deadliest terrorist organisations, appears to be succumbing to the superior firepower of the nation’s Armed Forces, there are mutant groups such as the nomadic herdsmen that threaten to surpass the bestiality for which the latter has justly acquired opprobrium from all right-thinking citizens.

Worse still, the nation’s economic condition, already worsened by the woes of the naira in the international market following the persistent global oil crisis, appears headed for the rocks courtesy of the attacks on oil installations by a new militant group, the Niger Delta Avengers. And neither has corruption birthed by loopholes in national institutions such as the civil service and even the justice administration system been significantly tamed, even though the current administration has set itself the goal of waging a decisive war on graft. The socio-economic and socio-political circumstances that birth terrorism, corruption and other vices must therefore continue to be meaningfully engaged so that a better Nigeria can emerge in the foreseeable future. Muslim faithful, as indeed people of all faiths, also owe the nation a duty to lead aright whenever they find themselves in positions of authority, and to demonstrate the virtues of nobility, kindness and moral uprightness that true religion requires of all faithful.

Meanwhile, let the celebrations go on. We wish our Muslim faithful happy Eid-ul-Fitr!

GOT NEWS?Contact: editornigeriantribune@yahoo.com or call:08055069471, 08116954630

Wednesday, 6 July, 2016

14

LETTERS TO THE editor

Letters to the editor should be sent to letterstribune@yahoo.com or by sms to 08054005323. It MUST be accompanied by the full name and address of the writer.

I want to use this op-portunity to reach out to Senator Ali Modu Sheriff over the lead-

ership crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). I want to say that if Senator Sheriff truly loves

PDP imbroglio: Need for new leadershipcandidate can take over.

What the PDP needs at this period in time is unity, and not internal fighting. Already, the majority of its leaders have been de-stabilised as a result of the anti-corruption war being embarked upon by this current government. While I am not saying that it is wrong to be prosecut-ing those who have stolen from this country, it is un-fair that the culprits are only members of the PDP when others who have also stolen but are in the ruling party are enjoying their largesse.

against the opinions of the vast majority of members.

Already, some people are of the view that Sheriff is being used by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to destabilise the PDP.

To me, and the way it should be, leadership should have the support of the majority of people, but the situation we find our-selves in the PDP today is just so unfortunate.

I know that other candi-dates who are also laying claim to the chairmanship are flexible, that is, they can sacrifice themselves for the unity of the party, the body language of Sena-tor Sheriff suggests other-wise.

I want Senator Sheriff to know that the party is bigger than any single in-dividual, and it is not by force to serve. If the major-ity of the people say they want another leader, then there is no reason using force to stay in power.

Although the PDP lost the Federal Government in the last general election, it can return to power in 2019 if the party is united.

I am, therefore, using this opportunity to urge Senator Sheriff, and others who are laying claim to the leadership of the party, to step aside so that a neutral

Wednesday, 6 July, 2016

Still on the OAU crisis

the party, then he will ac-cept all the peace moves being taken by the elders of the party to revive it.

As it is now, the former Borno State governor is just laying claim to the leadership of the party

PERMIT me to express my view on the ongoing log-jam at the Obafemi Awolo-wo University, where I am a 300-level student of Law.

I have carefully studied the crisis at the institution and I have come to two conclusions.

One, the entire disagree-ment between NASU and SSANU, and the school

management under the leadership of Prof. Ayo-bami Salami, is a storm in a teacup. That is, it is a mole-hill from which a mountain is needlessly being made out of. Any matter that cannot be solved through dialogue and decent en-gagement is not worthy of the attention of civilised people. NASU and SSANU displeasure is much more about unpaid allowances, and not the dislike for the new Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Salami. If the unions will not sit at a table to iron out issues with the man-agement, then they should go back to work and stop wasting students’ and lec-turers’ time!

Two, the intervention of the Federal Government by dissolving the Univer-sity Governing Council is defective and shows an inadequate crisis manage-ment capacity of the gov-ernment. For the peace of the school, the dissolution cannot stand. The mem-bers of ASUU and other well-meaning stakeholders must rise up to prevent the FG from getting away with this infraction and breach of laws. If they do not, in the nearest future, the FG will find another reason to sack a Governing Coun-cil and install anybody as Vice-Chancellor, contrary to the provision of the University Autonomy Law 2003 (as amended). Impu-nity must not be allowed to win.

•Kadiri Jamiu,Faculty of Law,Obafemi Awolowo

University, Ile-Ife.

How to make Nigeria workCUBAN revolutionary leader, Che Guevara, once stated that “a large propor-tion of the so-called devel-oping nations are in total stagnation, and in some of them, the rate of economic growth is lower than that of population increase.”

However, catering for the welfare of citizens is the purpose of governance. This agrees with the thoughts of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who once said that man, the initiator, is also the beneficiary of his benevolent actions.

Governance, ab initio, must be about catering to the physical, social, and spiritual welfare of the individual Nigerian, re-gardless of ethnic, social, educational, and religious backgrounds.

The individual must be the focus of the current plan from the poverty that raggae musician, Majek Fashek, says is Nigeria’s main problem.

Now, the Niger Delta Avengers, who want a ref-erendum that will give those who want to leave the Nigerian state the op-portunity, miss it.

The militant group should both be talking about the good of Nigerian citizens.

Unfortunately, the fail-ure of the Nigerian state to guarantee opportunities for optimal exploitation of its material and social resources has compelled many to seek greener pas-tures elsewhere.

The resultant brain and brawn drains have led many to adopt citizenship of other nations. The name of Onitsha-born sprinter, Francis Obikwelu, who be-came a citizen of Portugal in 2001 readily comes to mind.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau suggests that “Each of us places in common his person and all his power

under the supreme direc-tion of the general will.” The aggregate will of the people, transformed into sovereignty, is transferred to the state, the supreme, final, absolute, coercive power, by whose leave governments exercise power.

When the purpose of governance is agreed and settled in the interest of the individual, and the people have a common understanding of the pur-pose of government, then one can determine the po-litical and economic route – democratic, republican, communist, socialist, free-market, or mixed econo-my, or whatever else – to

be travelled to run the pol-ity.

When this is also settled, the ability of the state to rationally allocate scarce economic resources is fur-ther enhanced. In other words, the economic for-tune of all citizens is in the politics that binds all. The Yoruba put it in a more roundabout manner by saying that the aliment of Aboyade afflicts all wor-shipers of “oya” deity.

The Nigerian state must define in clear and certain terms the national interest and the road that will be travelled to actualise it.

•Lekan Sote,Lagos.

With this, Senator Sher-iff should step aside for the party to move forward.

I hope a candidate from the South West can emerge to unite the party; this is also the best time for the South West to run the af-fairs of the party because the region had never held the post for once.

I am now appealing to Senator Sheriff and Alhaji Ahmed Makarfi, to allow peace to reign in the PDP.

•Tuope Henry,Port Harcourt,Rivers State.

Ibadan: Tackling the Micra challenge

IBADAN is a geographical boundary located at the heart of Oyo State, which is also referred to as the Pacesetter State. It is the third largest metropolitan area by popula-tion in Nigeria, after Lagos and Kano, with a population of over three million. Unfortunately, the city suffers from a syndrome I will refer to as Micranosomiasis. Ibadan is a city where the challenges caused partly, or wholly by Micra cabs, which are used for commercial transporta-tion, are unquantifiable.This syndrome comprises of issues such as the non-chal-lant attitude of the drivers, the question of comfortability of the cabs, delayed ticketing, road congestion, and kid-napping.

First, is the attitude of Micra cab drivers, who definitely need psychological examinations; their attitude towards driving is out-of-this world, as they drive with reckless abandon.

These drivers do go scot-free when they do not fulfill the necessary requirements of being drivers, and if caught, they know how to bribe their way out in such cases, and on some occasions, they just flee. They even have ways of calling the attention of their members when law enforce-ment agencies are operating on various routes.

Fleeing is an expensive option chosen by these driv-ers, as third parties suffer the consequences. I witnessed a scenario whereby an official of the Vehicle Inspection Office (VIO) stopped a Micra cab along Iwo Road Ex-pressway to examine its papers. Since the driver knew it would be such an expensive stop since he didn’t have the required papers, he opted to flee; unfortunately, a com-

mercial motorcyclist was obscuring his escape route, but he decided to knock him down so he could have his way. The motorcyclist died on the spot, while the VIO officials immediately left the scene. This is just one of the several accidents Micra cab drivers have caused in the city.

Also, considering the size of these cabs, they are less comfortable. A commentator, in her article, rightly de-scribed them as matchboxes. In the ‘three-at-the-back’ and ‘two-in-front’ cabs, passengers are like fishes in sandwiches.

Ibadan is also full of several cab ticketing agents. Most times, drivers have to pay for different tickets at different bus-stops all through the day, and when cab drivers sight these agents, who work for the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), they try all the tricks available to them not to pay, and the agents, as a result, also delay them. The meaning of this is that passengers can stay for several minutes at

the same spot while the drivers and ticketing agents ‘slug’ it out.

Of utmost concern, Micra cabs are the major cause of congestion in Ibadan. As a matter of fact, places such as Challenge, Dugbe, Mokola, Sango, UI, Ojoo, Molete, Iwo Road, among others, are known to be the major areas that link several roads. Regrettably, the congestions being ex-perienced by these road networks are majorly caused by Micra cabs. The reason is that Micra cabs stop at each bus stop illegally, in search of passengers. Since they pay for tickets at almost all bus-stops, most drivers make sure that they wait to have full load of passengers, not minding the obstruction they cause.

Now, the most alarming is that several kidnapping/rit-ual dens have been discovered in the city, and there have been stories by survivors who claimed they were hypno-tised while aboard Micra cabs.

Having said all these, it is not in doubt that Micra cabs constitute a nuisance to the city of Ibadan, but since it is being used for transportation, all effort must be made by the government and the NURTW to curb the activities of the drivers.

The police also have a lot to do in this area, particularly in arresting cab drivers who drive recklessly on the road, or park indiscriminately. There is also the need for prop-er sensitisation of the drivers by officials of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), as these drivers just squeeze their cabs in the smallest available spaces whenever there are traffic hold-ups, and this, most times, result in crash-es with other vehicles.

•Adewusi, a socio-political researcher, lives in Ibadan.

15 Wednesday, 6 July, 2016opinion

AT no time is having an efficient Nigerian Police more critical than under a government which, like that of President Muhammadu Buhari, has chosen security as one of its top priorities. At no

time may seeking ways of making the force more efficient be more pertinent than after the appointment of a new Acting Inspector General of Police, such as Ibrahim Idris, who awaits confirmation as the number one police officer in the country. For such a new helmsman would likely be open to new ideas for improving the performance of the force.

And though the Buhari government may have priori-tised security in response to the terrorist threat posed by Boko Haram, it is clear that keeping a nation secure involves far more than dispensing with such threats. Ter-rorism is only one of the causes of insecurity known to man. At a more fundamental level, ensuring security en-tails fighting crime – including such that may be perpe-trated by terrorist groups, like murder and kidnapping – which directly violates the security of its victims.

Also, fighting crime – related as it is to maintaining law and order, which the police are basically charged with – is a multi-faceted activity. It can take the pre-emptive form of crime prevention. It can take the form of combating vi-olent criminals while actively engaged in armed robbery, for instance. It can take the form of investigating crime and prosecuting the culprits. Each of these situations may involve a security threat to individuals and groups in society, but more so the activities of violent criminals of all sorts. It cannot be gainsaid that the Nigerian police can play a critical role in all such situations in relation to the country. There is also a general consensus that they need to be far better equipped and motivated than they currently are in order to play that role effectively.

A very important component of motivating them bet-ter is improving the welfare of police personnel so as to eliminate or reduce the temptation of those unethical practices, such as extorting money from commuters at checkpoints, which compound their inefficiency and give them a bad image.

A friend once told me a story that illustrates this. He said two policemen were posted to guard a fenced yard belonging to the company where he worked. The yard served as a storage facility for sundry scrap items and spare parts. Not long after the guards assumed duty it was noticed that some of the items in the yard were missing. A report of the missing items was lodged with

paid and inadequately motivated police personnel in the world and expect them to perform as satisfactorily as their counterparts in other countries who are well catered for by their governments.

To underpay and underequip the police while charg-ing them with maintaining law and order is to show con-tempt for law and order. It is to identify indirectly with the enterprise of crime because such frustrating condi-tions would necessarily impair their capacity to fight crime which they can only do effectively under working conditions that inspire efficiency and patriotism.

My recent observations while cooperating with the po-lice in investigating a criminal case as the complainant show that their condition of service leaves much to be de-sired and needs to be improved exponentially.

And while not making an excuse for corruption, I would insist that most of the corruption attributed to Nigerian police personnel is a reaction to financial insecurity and would not exist under a regime of adequate welfare. So we ought to view the moral inadequacies of our police per-sonnel with humanity, as something forced on some of them by desperate circumstances.

Incidentally, the slogan of the Nigerian police – namely, “Police is your friend” – seems to have a bearing to their bad reputation, especially the type that arises from the collusion of some of their personnel with criminals, like the case of George Iyamu, a Deputy Superintendent of Police, and Lawrence Anini, the notorious armed robber, which shocked the nation in the 1980s. It means “Police is your friend” even if you’re a lawbreaker. It should be modified to change this negative impression and discour-age those in the force who may see it as a justification for accepting to be collusively befriended by criminals. The police should not be your friend regardless of who you are or what you do.

In all, it is apparent that the Nigerian police are con-fined to trying to achieve so much with so little. Their situation can be compared to being given a cutlass to cut down an iroko tree by a country that can afford a chain-saw. This situation requires that we empathise with them rather than judge them harshly for their failings. It also imposes on us the moral responsibility to campaign for the improvement of their condition of service in our col-lective interest. A happier police force makes a safer na-tion.

•Oke, a public affairs commentator, lives in Abuja.

the company’s head of security who conferred with the head of human resources on the best way to deal with the issue. They resolved that the head of human resources should handle it, a rather unconventional decision since it was essentially a security issue. Afterwards the head of human resources invited the two guards to her office.

But rather than interrogate them about the missing items as anyone would have expected, she asked them how much they were paid as salary. Following their reply, she asked them how much they were paid as allowance by the company. She asked them to leave after they re-sponded to the second question. At the next management meeting, she recommended a monthly allowance for both guards, which doubled what they had been receiving as salary from the police and allowance from the company, but was still a fraction of what their counterparts were paid monthly as staff of the company. Her recommenda-tion was approved. A few days after the guards received the new allowance, all the missing items resurfaced in the yard. Afterwards, no further case of missing items was reported while they kept guard at the facility.

What the head of human resources did through her cre-ative and humane intervention was link improving the guards’ welfare to improving the security of the items un-der their protection, as we must link the welfare of men and officers of the Nigerian police to improving national security.

Even before I heard the story, I disagreed with the no-tion that the Nigerian police are inherently or irremedi-ably corrupt. But the story helped to justify that disagree-ment.

Rather, I believe that a country gets the type of police force it cultivates. A country cannot have the most poorly

By Ikeogu oke

By AdedejI AdewusI

Police welfare and national security

• Tony Ony-emaechi Elu-meluwasbornin Jos,Ni-geria, in1963. Heis an Igboman, a na-tive of Ani-oma in DeltaState,Nigeria.

• Heisaneconomist,a visionary entrepre-neur and a phi-lanthropist.

• Heisanalum-nus of Har-vard BusinessSchool of Ad-vanced Man-agement.

• Following hisr e t i r emen tfrom UnitedBankforAfricain July 2010,Elumelu foundedThe Tony ElumeluFoundation. Hisstated objective wasto“provethattheAf-rican private sectorcan itself be the pri-marygeneratorofeco-nomicdevelopment.”

• In 2011, New Africanmagazine listed him asone of the 100most influ-ential people in Africa anda year later, he was recog-nisedasoneof“Africa’s20Most Powerful People in2012”byForbesMagazine.SE

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GY16 Wednesday, 6 July, 2016

tribune Adeeko olusegun

adeeko.olusegun@yahoo.com0811 695 4638cartoons

BA

GIANT IN THE TROPIC OF AFRICA

Tony O. Elumelu MFR, CON

nigerdelta17 Wednesday, 6 July, 2016

inside Femi OlukunleCoordinating Editor08158610216

Villagers flee as Navy uncovers vandalised well head in Warri

THE activities of communities located around oil installations and facilities in oil-rich Delta State took a new dimension last weekend

when operatives of the Nigerian Navy Ship (NNS DELTA) uncovered a vandalised well head through which crude oil was being siphoned into a large underground pit built and barricaded with sticks and tarpaulin.

The vandals, including children, old men, youths and women, simply took to their heels into the woods on sighting armed operatives of the Navy.

The community, Usele village in Beneth Island of Warri South Local Government Area, is host to the vandalised well head and an illegal refinery camp where the villagers “cook” crude oil not minding the health hazards.

InsideNigerDelta gathered that the

FULANI herdsmen have been ordered to vacate Olomu community in Ughelli South Local Government Area of Delta State.

The vacation subsists for two weeks starting from June 26 to July 9 after which the herdsmen are to return for renegotiation with the traditional council of the community before continuing with their grazing.

The order was given at the palace of Ovie R. L. Ogbon, Ogoni-Oghoro I, the Ohworode of Olomu Kingdom in conjunction with the leadership of the Fulani herdsmen led by the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of Fulani Cattle Owners, Delta State chapter, Alhaji Jibrin.

The Fulani herdsmen have been accused, in recent times, of criminal activities such as destruction of farm crops, rape

major preoccupation of the indigenes could be said to be crude oil theft. They have also fashioned out a simple scientific way to locally refine it for sale.

The discovery, amid the hunt for members of the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA), reinforces the hypothesis that communities, which are hosts to oil facilities in the region, should largely be held responsible for environment pollution and degradation.

The caveat reeled out by the state government and security agencies that leaders of such communities whose domains have been turned into haven for economic sabotage of such nature would be reprimanded has never seen the light of the day.

The Usele vandals, in attempting to conserve the crude oil gushing from the well head into the underground pit waterproofed with tarpaulin, had left the environment terribly polluted and its ecosystem destroyed, making it pretty difficult to get potable water from the area not to talk of engaging in farming.

But operatives of the Nigerian Navy Ship (NNS DELTA), Warri Naval Base, Warri, Delta State, who got a tip-off on the illegal activity, would not allow it as operatives of the base swooped on the area on Saturday.

The naval operatives, led by Commander Shehu Tasir, who is the Base Operations Officer (BOO), said the vandalized well head was connected to a large hose through which crude oil was being siphoned into the large reservoir for onward refining.

In line with the rules of operations handed from the office of the Chief of Naval Staff, the reservoir of crude oil of over 2, 000MTs was set ablaze by the naval operatives after it was cordoned off to avoid a backlash on the villagers who had all taken to their heels into the woods.

Commander Tasir, who expressed great shock over the site of illegal refinery and the ingenuity of the perpetrators, concluded that there existed a nexus between pipeline vandalism and crude oil theft as demonstrated in the incident.

WORRIED by the disappearance of ICT, Agriculture and Entrepreneurial skills, the paramount ruler of Ekpetiama Kingdom, King Bubaraye Dakolo, Agada IV, the Ibenanaowei, has said pragmatic strategies would be formulated to empower committees to educate the youths, women and children on the importance of ICT, agricultural revolution and entrepreneurial skills to overcome the present economic challenges in the country.

Ekpetiama Kingdom in Yenagoa Local Government Area of Bayelsa State comprises seven communities on the bank of the River Nun which include: Gbarantoru, Tombia, Agudama, Bomoundi, Akaibiri, Bomoundi Gbene and Ikibiri.

Dakolo, who spoke shortly after his grand coronation as the Ibenanaowei of Ekpetiama, said he would uphold the tradition of the stool and be fair to all in a bid to maintain law and order, as well as work assiduously towards the accelerated growth and development of his people and the state.

The monarch, who was an activist, prior to his emergence as the paramount ruler of the Ekpetiama Kingdom, had contributed immensely to socio-political and economic advancement of the kingdom by influencing rural electrification of some communities in his domain, providing employment opportunities for over 100 youths, constructing internal roads, giving scholarships and paying senior secondary school students’ fees within the seven communities in Ekpetiama Kingdom.

Dakolo assured that as the number one citizen of Ekpetiama Kingdom, he would sustain his philanthropic gesture in the kingdom, even as he noted that talent hunting and harvesting had begun to expose innate talents of the youths to the world. He reiterated that the broken walls of the kingdom would be rebuilt to encourage tranquility that would usher in rapid growth and prosperity of the Ekpetiama people.

He said the navy was not asleep, but would continue with the battle against crude oil theft and pipeline vandalism as well as other criminal activities in their area of responsibilities at all costs.

The naval boss warned that his patrol men would continue to hunt down vandals of all shades who had continued to perpetrate illegalities and criminalities in the creeks.

“Today (Saturday) our patrol team was informed of illegal refinery site somewhere around Usele village close to Bennett Island and we moved in and what we saw was astonishing!

“It was an underground storage tank loaded with crude oil with the size of six standard rooms and there was a pipe connected direct through a well head and it was pumping continuously into the pit.

“The quantity of crude oil in the pit at the time our men got there was about 2,000MTs and a pipe was connected from the storage point which was hidden,” he noted.

Commander Tasir admonished people of the area to shun illegal activities, saying the Federal Government’s initiative for peace in the Niger Delta region was not a reason for vandals to continue to vandalise pipelines or engage in crude oil theft.

Ebenezer Adurokiya - Warri

of women from the community as well as intimidation of farm owners from performing their duties in their farms.

Traditional ruler of Olomu, Ovie Ogbon-Ogoni Oghoro I JP, was flanked by the Otota of the kingdom, Chief M.O.P. Ovbagbedia, Chief J.A. Ewenede JP, Secretary Olomu Traditional Council, President Generals of the various Olomu Communities, Etotas, Iwhuvwhies and Women Council at the meeting.

They urged the Fulani herdsmen to vacate the kingdom for failing to properly negotiate with the Olomu Traditional Council before embarking on their grazing businesses in the kingdom.

The Fulani herdsmen were, therefore, handed two weeks to vacate the land after which they could return for a renegotiation with leaders of the kingdom if they so wished.

Delta community orders Fulani herdsmen to vacate domainEbenezer Adurokiya -Warri

Monarch to promote ICT, agriculture in BayelsaAustin Ebipade -Yenagoa

CREWDapo Falade -Rivers 08078891924lasep09@gmail.com

Ebenezer Adurokiya -Delta 08060113609ebenezeradurokiya@gmail.com

Banji Aluko - Edo08067030572adebanjialuko@yahoo.com

Austin Ebipade - Bayelsa 08065400743austinebipade@gmail.com

Alphonsus Agborh08035838703

Ajayi Joseph 08107754190syntacticjoe@yahoo.com

The vandalised well head: Inset: Naval officials heading to Usele village.

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30 Wednesday, 6 July, 2016news

DESPITE the con-firmation of his ouster by the court, the former

national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, has vowed to sub-mit the name of Matthew Idurioyekemwen to the In-dependent National Electoral Commission (INEC), as the governorship candidate of the party in Edo State.

Sheriff had organised a parallel congress which produced Idurioyekemwen as the standard bearer of the party after the prima-ries conducted by the na-tional caretaker commit-tee of the party in which Idurioyekemwen was de-feated by Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu.

Sheriff, who spoke on Tuesday, when he present-ed certificate of return to Idurioyekemwen in Abuja, said he will be relying on the last week’s judgement by Justice Okon Abang of the Federal High Court, Abuja, which ordered the electoral body to accept nomination for the Sep-tember 10 election from

From Leon Usigbe and Jacob segUn oLatUnJi - abUJa

Edo guber poll: Modu Sheriff vows to send Idurioyekemwen’s name to INEC

From left, a civil servant from the Lagos State Government House, Ikeja, Alhaja Afusat Adeshina; Brand Ambassador of Peak Milk, Prisca Nkwo and another civil servant, Alhaja Nimota Akinpelu, during Peak Milk’s Ramadan direct sales promo, at Alausa Central Mosque, Ikeja, Lagos, recently.

From right, chairman, Bible Society, Oke-Aanu Auxiliary, Evangelist Salako Emmanuel; Primate Prophetess E. M. Gbadegun, presenting a certificate to Special Apostle Raphael Ajiboye; Deaconess Beatrice Ajiboye; Prophetess Bose Balogun and Deaconess Akinremi Caroline, dur-ing the Founder’s Day anniversary of the Anointed Int’l C & S Gospel Church, Oke-Igbala Irapada Okan, Oke Itunu, Ibadan, recently. PHOTO: YEMI FUNSO-OKE

From left, Pastor-in-charge, Oyo I, Pastor Moses Amure; Pastor-in-charge, Oyo 10, Pastor Abiodun Oyeyemi; outgoing Oyo I Pastor, Pastor Dele Balogun; his wife, Temitope; Pastor (Mrs) Funmilayo Amure and Pastor (Mrs) Esther Oyeyemi, during the send off ceremony for Pastor Dele Balogun, at the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Mount Zion Cathedral, Bolumole, Ring Road, Ibadan, recently. PHOTO: ALOLADE

Oyo State Commandant of Peace Corps of Nigeria (PCN), Patriot Adesina Oludare Adigun (seventh right), with members of the state execu-tive and awardees, during PCN’s pre-18th and first anniversary of the State Executive Council (SEC), held at the command’s headquarters, opposite Machine and Mercantile, Oluyole Estate, Ibadan, on Monday.

his faction of PDP. He said: “It is clear that

from the Abuja High Court that INEC is obliged to ac-cept the candidate we are to present.

“You know ideally, most of our officials have trav-elled for Sallah. We need to do this because, the first working day we are going to submit our candidate’s form to INEC.

“I have to stay behind to do some of the things so as to ensure that the forms are submitted after Sallah break,” he said.

Also speaking, the sec-retary of the committee that conducted Sheriff’s fac-tional Edo primaries, Alhaji

Oyo State command of the Peace Corps of Nigeria (PCN) has marked its Pre-18th and 1st anniversary of the State Executive Council (SEC), of the organisation at its corporate headquar-ters, opposite Machine and Mercantile, Oluyole Estate, Ibadan, on Monday.

The state commandant of the organisation, Patriot Adesina Oludare Adigun, thanked God for assisting the peace corps.

Adigun said that the core

mandate of the corps was not to compete with the existing security agencies but to take preventive measures in reduc-ing crimes among youths.

The event also featured presentation of cash and gift items to outstanding officers.

Sigma Pension, First Guarantee Pension, Future Unity Glanvills Pensions Limited, United Bank for Africa as well as Stan-bic IBTC Bank, presented goodwill messages on the occasion.

Oyo Peace Corps holds anniversary

Ahmed Gulak, said a total of 677 delegates were accred-ited for the primaries, while 502 delegates voted.

According to him, out of this, Idurioyekemwen got 481 votes, while his challeng-er stepped down for him.

Idurioyekemwen has now chosen former PDP na-tional woman leader, Mrs Herberta Okonofua-Ayo, as his running mate.

The factional governor-ship candidate denied that he was being sponsored by the All Progressives Con-gress (APC)-led Edo State government, promising to embark on grassroots cam-paign to restore PDP to power in the state.

Britain just announced its exit from the EU and people are wondering why and how did it get to the point of taking such decision. How would you assess the situ-

ation?Britain has always had a sort of insularity within it. Go

back to the period even before Europe was called Europe. I think because of the existence of the channel, the geog-raphy of Britain itself, is cut off from the continent. So, I say that geographic insularity has tended to breed cul-tural and political insularity. Britain does not really regard integration with Europe as a first choice policy option. If you like, relate that to the time of Henry the 8th. Henry the 8th was the one who broke up, if you like, the old Roman Empire because up till that point in time, even though Europe had their kings, queens, whatever at that time, but there was this kind of unified allegiance to the Pope as not only the head of the Church but also for his political influence. Henry the 8th broke that up where then the British Christianity was involved. A British Church evolved, breaking away from the universal church. Henry the 8th of England then became head of the church in opposition to the Pope, the head of the universal church; you could go that far back.

But still, I believe that even Britain joining the European Union was because, finally, she ran out of options. She was reluctant to be a member and even when she became a mem-ber, the role she played in Europe was not really a positive one. It was like ‘okay, since I cannot ignore Europe, I will join but with the intention to slow down the rate at which Europe was moving towards the evolution of the United States of Europe.’ So, one should not then be surprised that each time Europe faced a crisis—and any human venture would face crisis, even a marriage does—she always wants to quit the relationship. A marriage is forever and ever. However, the priest would tell you on your wedding day that this does not mean that there would not be problems but that your com-mitment is to always see those problems as opportunities to strengthen the bond of love between you and your wife.

Whereas with Britain, every crisis that the European Union faced, the option of ‘I want to get out, I don’t want to be part of this” was always there. You know this is not the first referendum that would be made. In fact, there was a previous one under the Labour Party. Of course, about 60 per cent at that time voted to remain. But this one now, even while Britain was a member, she refused to join the common currency which would have allowed the Euro to be used in Britain. She insisted on holding on to the Pound Sterling; she refused to sign and become a member of Zengen, which is where people can move around. Once you enter one European country, you don’t need a passport to move around all the other countries. Britain refused to join.

Brexit: My worries for Nigeria —Akinyemi

So, really, the outcome of the referendum, don’t let me mislead you, it surprised me. I was expecting people to vote, ‘I will remain,’ because the benefits to Britain are enormous. But it came at this time of Xenophobia. A wave of Xenophobia is spreading throughout the whole world, fear of foreigners, fear of people from outside. It mani-fests itself even in the United States.

That actually was what was responsible for the success

of Donald Trump, the emergence of Trump as the Repub-lican candidate. This xenophobia is a negative phenom-enon, you fear foreigners, you hate foreigners, you fear people who don’t look like you, you want to shut your door against them and politicians would play on that, just as Trump has been playing upon it in the United States against Mexicans. But Mexicans to Trump means any-body brown coming from Latin America.

You hinted that Britain has a lot to lose with this exit, what are those things?

They are going to lose the certainty of the big market they had in Europe because being a member of EU, they could import and export without the need to pay duties, no economic obstacle. So, factories in Britain will not just have to look at 60 million people in Britain itself as their market, we have 500 million in Europe. With what Eu-ropeans are saying now, Britain leaving the EU, cannot

A wave of xenophobia is spread-ing throughout the whole world, fear of foreigners, fear of people from outside. It manifests itself

even in the United States.

Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Chairman, 2014 National Conference, speaks on the exit of Great Britain from the European Union (EU) and its implication for both Britain and Nige-ria, and the report of the 2014 confab, Nation, in this interview with BOLA BADMUS. Excerpts:

31 Wednesday, 6 July, 2016

Taiwo adisa - 08072000046Group poliTics EdiTor

Taiadis@yahoo.com

Akinyemi

Continues on pg 32

32 Wednesday, 6 July, 2016politics&policy

‘FG, Avengers should avoid Aburi saga’

Continued from pg 31

expect automatic entry of its goods into Europe. It would have to negotiate before they can come in and that immediately debars them and provides for other Euro-pean countries to set up factories and in-dustries targeting these markets.

If you are a Chinese industrialist and you are thinking of, maybe where to locate your industry in Europe and you have a market of 60 million on the one hand and a market of 500 million on the other hand, of course, you would know where you would locate that factory because if you lo-cate where there is 60 million, when those goods are going to come into European markets, you come across tariffs, import duties that you are going to pay. Whereas if you locate it in Europe, there is no ques-tion of tariffs, excise duties yes, like VAT which everybody pays. So, Britain would lose that.

Two, there is a transfer of European fund meant for industrialisation which all Eu-ropean members benefit from. Now, Brit-ain is going to lose that. It cannot access this fund. Of course, the totality of what I am saying is that nobody, not even Chan-cellor of Exchequer in Britain, can today tell you, whether at the end of the day, the balance would be negative or positive. There are too many imponderables. They never thought it out well.

The issue of whether to stay in the EU or not was too complex to ask the

market woman to take a decision through a refer-endum, and Britain has market women, by the

way.

Akinyemi

Continued on pg 33

Does it mean they never consid-ered all these issues before voting at the referendum?

It was not a rational decision, it was more of a protest vote. One, it was a pro-test vote against fear of immigrants and a protest vote against unemployment. You know, an economy transforms from what people have called industrial stage to digi-talised IT stage. Workers would lose jobs, as the factories would have to be reor-ganised and production line reorganised. Production is becoming more and more mechanised, so workers could get laid off. Therefore, the fear of losing jobs or anger

of having lost jobs was part of the vote.Again, we must grant this. Yes, there is

a measure of meddlesomeness from Brus-sels. Brussels has got itself into regulat-ing things. It has no business regulating things that are better left to maybe local governments. You know, there is a lot of pettiness, like dictating how round an or-ange should be and what kind of colour a mango should have if you are producing mango and so on; too many regulations and those regulations could be very, very irritating.

Also, there are judgements of the Euro-pean Court of Human Rights that I my-self found extremely strange and which, definitely, the British courts differ from, given their cultural background, especially on cases involving terrorism. Europe has tended to be more liberal in its attitude than Britain, and I can understand the liberality of Europe. You know Europe has suffered from dictators, from the Second World War. They had Adolf Hitler, Beni-to Mussolini and then you have modern dictators, modern in the sense that since the Second World War, they have had the Greek Generals, the military regime in Greece, ruling with very draconian laws.

You could see the judicial and legal sys-tem in Europe reacting to the horror of fascism and dictatorship and, therefore, it has tended to be more robust in protection of human rights than in Britain, where they have had one revolution, Cromwell Vs Charles, where he ended up beheading Charles. But basically, the judicial system in Britain has tended to be more protective of the Executive in giving a lot of leverage to the Executive in managing the affairs of Britain, whereas the European courts see the Executive as more of an institution that they should control in the protection of the right of the people. This rubbed Britain the wrong way. They are used to their Parliament taking decisions from the Queen. So, Europe also must take some of the blame. We are even in agreement with the British on this, that Brussels has taken on too much powers and had often ren-dered local institutions impotent.

Perhaps as an illustration to make it something that Nigerians can understand what I am talking about, we have been talking about restructuring in Nigeria— that Abuja is too powerful, Abuja has be-come involved in things it has no business getting involved in. Some of the issues that are determined in Abuja whether by our National Assembly or the Presidency are better left alone to the state and even some of them to the local governments. That was part of what we even talked about concerning devolution of powers.

Let’s talk about the British Prime Minister, David Cameron. What could you say led to his resignation, was it on account of frustration or what?

No, I mean, let’s put things in perspec-tive. Whatever way one must feel about the British culture, it has this thing about individual responsibility. If you stand for something and people reject that, then honour dictates that you step aside and let somebody else pilots the ship of the state. It is not pride, it is honour, not like us here where you get defeated and instead of leaving the field gracefully, you hold on to the chair.

I mean they voted a no-confidence vot-

ing in a speaker, oh no, he is not going anywhere. So, the old speaker and the new speaker start dragging themselves and their supporters start exchanging blows until finally somebody steps in. Whereas in Britain, it is not like that. I made your voice heard, you rejected my advice, fine, this is a fundamental issue. Once you have rejected my advice, you have rejected me, let me step aside and let somebody have a go at leading the government. It is some-thing to be applauded, but in a more fun-damental way, he took the responsibility and which he has shown because this was an unnecessary referendum.

The issue of whether to stay in the EU or not was too complex to ask the market woman to take a decision through a refer-endum, and Britain has market women, by the way. Whoever must have been in Britain would have seen the open market, the cart pushers, who load boxes and oth-er kind of things; it was too complex and that is why we have representative govern-ment. Populism, one man one vote on an issue, was a Greek concept where all men can gather in a market place and for all in favour of an issue to raise up their hands. That is by the way. But gradually, people came to the conclusion through the pro-cess of evolution that society was getting too complex, we need to entrust decision taking to a smaller group who would have more time for debate, and who, therefore, would be able to take informed decisions on an issue, on our behalf.

I still maintain my point that Cameron should have left this matter to the Parlia-ment, if he thinks Britain needs to take a decision on whether it would continue its membership of EU, instead of allow-ing the populace to decide it. Because we are now seeing, in fact, that many didn’t know what they voted for. They knew they voted to get out, but what would they gain by getting out? People then talked in a fluid manner about ‘we’ve got our sovereignty back and we would get control of our government.’

To me, that is like saying, yes, I am against sin and then you ask me to de-fine what sin is? ‘My definition could be different from yours. Another person may or may not quote the 10 Command-ments or as I have a Catholic bishop who is a good friend of mine who says there are no 10 Commandments in the Bible and that there are over 600 commandments in the Bible. So yes, they got their sover-eignty back, what does this mean in terms of the need for your factory to export to Europe? When you get your sovereignty back, you should know that you can’t lord things over on Europeans. You can’t lord things over them, you’ve got to negotiate with them. So, what you got back is nego-tiating from the outside, is that better than negotiating from the inside as a partner.

What is the implication for Nige-ria?

The implication for Nigeria is enormous. I am not going into the economic implica-tion, I would leave that to an economist. I am more concerned with the ongoing debate, its impact, the impact of Brexit on the ongoing debate about the Nigerian project.

Now, I want Nigerians to be very, very clear about this. The British or the Eu-ropeans didn’t start the Nigerian debate

33 Wednesday, 6 July, 2016politics& policy

‘Why FG should implement 2014 confab report’

I hope the dialogue between the

government and Avengers would not

break up and that government would not go into it, having at the back of their mind that

they are buying time and therefore appear

insincere.

Continued from pg 32

about the Nigerian project. We started it although you could claim it was Britain that set up Nigeria and as it is, the Brit-ish must have some vicarious responsibil-ity. But it is a position that I have always brushed aside in the sense that, all over the world, forces are responsible for a state of affairs and not necessarily forces under your own control.

I mean the shape and structure of Eu-rope, as we know it today is a function of the Second World War. It has not been like that for 1,000 years, it has only been like that for 50, or 60 years or whenever they finished the Second World War and people have been tinkering with that structure. Yes, Nigeria was set up in 1914 but since we became independent, we the Nigerians ourselves have been dialoguing with ourselves about what we called the Nigerian project, in the structure of Nige-ria. At times, it has not been a dialogue, it has been a shouting match when, you know, each person is trying to shout down the others. And there is nothing wrong in it, it is natural in human relationship or human affairs for differences of view to arise about the nature of structure will want in place. So, to me, its a natural phe-nomenon.

So, what about the likely impact on Nigeria?

The first issue that I would like to ad-dress is the impact on Nigeria. One, for Britain, even having a referendum on structure issues, like should we remain in a European Union, you could see there are copycats everywhere. In fact, people are saying something of this nature should happen here, by saying let (President Muhammadu) Buhari have a referendum about who wants to remain in Nigeria. I don’t buy into that. Yes, people are prob-ably taking an extremely position.

I can understand that position, prob-ably in reaction to some of the remarks coming from other parts of the country, which they feel are either insulting them, or not showing a sensitivity towards their point of view. To me, you can disagree with a person without being disagree-able. Your choice of words can show that you disagreed without using crude words, demeaning words, as if you are brushing them aside or as if they don’t even exist all because you know, you are in control of temporary power. Your power is not static, power is not static at all.

And in this day and age, as I say there are copycats. If you have your money, weapons are available all over the world. From the modern age of industrialisation, if you have the money, you can buy a pile of weapons from the so-called black market. But now , there is such an influx of weapons into the world-all over the place, that the prices have even been cheap, you don’t need too much money to do that.

You will recall that two, three years ago, even in Nigeria, they were talking about an ex-militant leader buying a frigate with missiles. So that is the first impact that I am worrying about. The copycat issue. Number two is where you think a compromise is possible, people may now take a hardline position and make a compromise impossible and unworkable. Maybe before, we are just talking of more

powers, devolution of more powers from Abuja to the states, but now people are talking of Independence and if Scotland were to break from the United Kingdom as a consequence of this referendum, then in fact, it would energise the secession-ist tendency not only in Nigeria but also in many parts of the developing world. I mean, that bothers me, that worries me more than anything else. Having said that, let me also say that our people have a say-

ing that somebody who is warned about an on-coming war, if he is wise, the war would not catch him (Aro to ba gbon, ki i duro dogun).

With what I have seen, the unforsee-able and unpredictable consequences of a recalcitrant attitude on the part of the British Prime Minister, he probably had thought he would use threat of referen-dum to extract more concessions from Eu-rope, he didn’t believe it would go this far. Now he has seen how far he can go, and we haven’t seen the end of it.

Those who have to manage our prob-lems in Nigeria should not say, ‘okay, they would leave this alone, it is not going to go anywhere and that in two years or three years, another administration would ad-dress these. ‘I am not going to waste my time addressing them.’ Then if you decide to ignore the problems, would the prob-lems ignore you? And this is what kind of happen when you are reckless about something, or you are insensitive in ad-dressing issues that you should address. Let us survive as a nation, let us survive as a peaceful nation, let us survive as a coop-erative nation, not in an antagonistic rela-tionship with each other, then we can start to talk about prosperity.

The Niger Delta Avengers, who were resolved to ground the econo-my, are now asking the government

to dialogue with them, giving condi-tions, what is your take on this?

I am happier today than I was a year ago simply because I think we have got to a place where both are prepared to dialogue. I don’t see dialoguing as a kind of weak-ness as long as we don’t misunderstand each other. Parameters must be clearly de-fined to avoid the Aburi syndrome. Aburi was where Nigerian leaders met and had an agreement, only for them to return to Nigeria and think differently, saying ‘that was not what we agreed to.’

Let’s be clear if we say we hold this to be self evident that all men are created equal. One, when we say all men, we mean all men and women. Two, when we say all men, we mean all men, white and black, yellow and you know, all that kind of thing. But you said all men are equal, no, we didn’t mean white and black men and before you know it, America was at civil war and they had to confront the issue of slavery head on. That war was fought over the issue of what does it mean? All men are created equal.

I am happy both have said they need to dialogue, I am happy that, at least, the militants are making an effort at spelling out their demands. I am not saying I agreed with their demands but in negotiation, it is always good for both parties to spell out in concise and clear terms what they are aiming for, saying ‘we are for peace, we are for unity.’

Let them not go back to Abuja and continue business as usual and then the militants say ‘ah, but we agreed we are all for peace and unity but we didn’t mean business as usual.’ Are we going to take devolution? If there should be resource control, what does resource control mean? What does it mean? You cannot have 100 per cent of what is dug up from you backyard, whether it is petroleum or whether it is solid mineral. So what does re-source control mean? What percent-age are we talking about? Now, these are issues we sought to thrash out at the National Conference.

We succeeded in some areas, we pushed the rest back to the govern-ment. And there is nothing wrong pushing it back to government because it is far better and more productive to defer a decision on the matter than to allow the conference break up on item 601 and whereas you have reached agreement on 600 different items. This is because if the conference broke up on item 601, all the agreements on those 600 others would go into coma-tose. item 601. That is what we did on the issue of revenue allocation.

So, I am not too despondent. I hope the dialogue between the government and Avengers would not break up and that government would not go into it, having at the back of their mind that they are buying time and therefore appear in-sincere. I hope the militants would not go into the dialogue with the mindset that we’ve got to defeat the government.

Government cannot be defeated, by the time you think so, the price you pay in terms of destruction, in terms of blood shed won’t be worth it. So let’s hope both sides will go into it with sincerity.

Akinyemi

34 Wednesday, 6 July, 2016commentary

But as he charts his course for a per-manent peace in the Niger Delta, it is important however that militants don’t mistake his efforts as a sign of weakness.

By GarBa Shehu

OUT of the blue, a group calling itself the Ni-ger Delta Avengers, NDA spouts. They

kill soldiers and policemen. They kidnap and kill oil com-pany workers. Piracy on the high seas. They asked oil companies to stop operations and pack out of the Niger Delta region.

They blow up oil pipelines, power and other infrastructure. They attack and kill prominent individuals, ransacking homes up and down the coastal ar-eas, including lately, Lagos and Ogun states. All these for what?

It is still unclear what they want. From the diverse, if vague and inchoate voices of the militants, some say they want to take con-trol of the oil resources in the re-gion. Sometimes when the rheto-ric gets uglier, they call for the breakup of Nigeria as a country!

The scariest part of what is happening is that the media, in their appetite for sensational stories are egging them on to make a great display of sedi-tious, anti-national sentiment. In the last stages before her government’s defeat of the Irish Republican Army, IRA Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher lik-ened publicity for the terrorist to oxygen needed for survival. “We must deny terrorists the oxygen of publicity,” and the in-dependent English press gave the Prime Minister a free pass.

In the midst of these unfold-ing events, President Muham-madu Buhari had maintained an uncharacteristic aloofness. Many had thought for instance that he would tackle the new onslaught on the economy with the same hawkishness that characterised his tenure as mili-tary Head of State in the 80’s. But he did not panic, either.

In fact, several of the political leaders of the Delta, themselves severely under pressure for their inability to keep up with salary payments have been in the fore-front of the calls for the “strongest possible military action” against the terrorists. The country’s third richest state, Delta State gave notice a week ago that workers salaries can no longer be guar-anteed. So far, the President has resisted the urge to pull the trig-ger. Yes, the army has mobilised to the region but military action has been stayed as the country absorbs the incredible shock that has come with the fall of oil rev-enues. Records of oil exports are at their lowest levels in 30 years.

The Punch newspaper, in an editorial on Friday July 1, warned the government about inherent “landmines” in any ne-gotiations: “It is like dealing with a blackmailer: he keeps mak-ing all sorts of demands, rea-sonable and otherwise. Worse, there is a high probability that

other splinter militant groups will emerge based on the nego-tiations with the NDA. They will threaten the state expecting to be negotiated with. At the end of the day, the government would have numerous groups to con-tend with than it can handle.”

In my conversation on this is-sue with General Babagana Mun-guno, the National Security Ad-viser precisely two weeks back, he informed this reporter that he met 14 groups claiming lead-ership to the renewed onslaught on the nation’s economic jugu-lar vein. Each of the groups had been brought to him by a serv-ing governor or a former one; a serving minister or one that had left office with assurances that “this group is the one to talk to.”

The amazing discovery he made from his meetings is the lack of unity among them as each group that came attacked the one that came before it as inconse-quential. Leaning on an editorial by the influential British newspa-per, the Economist, the Punch recommended strong military action. Quoting the Econo-mist, the newspaper said: “Bu-hari should not try to buy them off. Rather, he should arrest those those who have commit-ted acts of violence or extortion.”

At a meeting with the Niger Delta Dialogue and Contact group led by His Royal Maj-esty King Alfred Diete-Spiff at the State House, last Thurs-day, President Buhari spoke most extensively on his own ap-proach to the crisis in the region.

He told Diete-Spiff, himself a former military governor of the old Rivers State that peace and stability in the the Delta region and the country is the priority of his government and there will be no compromise on this. To show respect for the visiting ruler, President Buhari recalled that he was “a bloody army Lieutenant” when the Amanyanabo of Twon Brass was a military governor.

He disclosed that his decision on what to do dealing with the problem of the region will be based on the reports he is expect-ing from the Minister of State, Petroleum Resources, Ibe Ka-chikwu who is interfacing with all stakeholders; the Special Ad-viser to the President on the Ni-ger Delta overseeing the amnesty programme and the new man-agement of the Niger Delta De-velopment Commission, NDDC.

Allaying fears that he would jettison the Niger Delta Peace Plan he inherited from the pre-vious administration, President Buhari told his visitors that he had read the agreements and the gazette outlining the am-nesty programme. He said he had asked his officials on as-signment on the Niger Delta to look around and see how many of the signatories to the amnes-ty agreement are still around.

“Let them find out what has been achieved and what is left and then write a report. I have asked the Minister of State Pe-troleum to work with the oil companies. We need to get as much intelligence as is possible before we start talking. I sym-pathize with the investors who borrow money, half way through, their investment is blown away.

“I have encouraged law-en-forcement agencies to contact leaders like you (Amanyanabo). When I move in, I will have plenty of information so as to deal with the issue once and

for all. We will talk to as many groups as possible. We won’t give up. Whatever remains of the Yar’Adua agreement will be met.”

He then talked about the im-pact of the collapse of the oil prices, which averaged about 100 US Dollars from 1999 to 2015, saying that its fall to about 30 Dollars a barrel some weeks ago was shocking. “I would have been in coma if not for the fact that I was in Oil (sector as a past minis-ter) for three years.” He then sent an important message at this meeting: “We intend to rebuild this country so that our children and grandchildren will have a good place. But a lot of damage has been done. Tell the people to be patient. When you get to-gether, pacify the people. Let them be patient. We will utilise (their) resources with integrity.”

The President’s conciliatory note came a day after he hosted the National Council of Traditional Rulers to a Ramadan Iftar, at which event he asked the rulers to “beg the militants in the name of God to stop their sabotage of the economy.” He appreciated the efforts they and the oil com-panies were making and said he did not wish to undermine them. This equally signaled a highly conciliatory direction for the resolution of the crisis.

It is clear from the foregoing that the President is taking a bit of time but it is also because he is determined to find a lasting solution to the recurring crisis in

President Buhari sharpens focus on Niger Delta

the Delta. It is important for the country that a lesson be learned from the many past meetings and agreements between government groups and the militants that have yielded only short-term po-litical dividends. What is wrong with those agreements that they don’t last? How many of those agreements, joint statements, ceasefires and peace declarations do we have on record so far? Why haven’t they given us peace?

The second issue the Presi-dent is obviously weighing is the integrity of the country’s internal capacity for the resolu-tion of crises. Over the years, this country has evolved ways of dealing with problems, real or imagined that threatened its ex-istence from time to time. The amazing thing about it is that solutions emerge from within, that is without the involvement of external influences. This why we have come this far. In his de-sire to build a country in which every part is carried along, he is mindful of the fact that if any part of the body is paralysed, the whole body cannot be said to be alright. The President is mindful of the fact that the Delta region is an important part of the whole.

But as he charts his course for a permanent peace in the Niger Delta, it is important however that militants don’t mistake his efforts as a sign of weakness.

Shehu is Senior Special Assistant to the President (Media and Publicity).

Buhari

35 Wednesday, 6 July, 2016 Nigerian TribunenewsEdo guber: PPA, PDC, NNPP get candidates

An ace broad-caster in Benin, Mr Thomsa Sado and two others,

Mr Bishop Akhalamhe and Mr Frank Ukonga, have emerged the governorship candidates of their respec-tive political parties in Edo.

The political parties are the Progressives Peoples Al-liance (PPA), People Demo-cratic Change (PDC) and new nigeria Peoples Party (nnPP), respectively.

They all emerged candi-dates in the primaries con-ducted in the presence of the Independent national Elec-toral Commission (InEC) in Benin, on Tuesday.

Speaking after the prima-ries, Sado anchored his pro-gramme on a-seven-point-agenda for the state.

He said that the pro-gramme would ensure a positively and totally trans-formed state.

“In line with the PPA manifesto, the programme cuts across health, education, agriculture, employment, in-dustrialisation, infrastructure development, security and housing,” he said.

Wednesday, 6 July, 2016

CONFIRMATION OF NAMEI, Abioye Adebayo Emmanuel am the same person as Abioye Adebayo. Henceforth, I wish to be known and addressed as ABIOYE ADEBAYO EMMANUEL. All documents bearing these names remain valid. General public take note.

Wednesday, 6 July, 2016

CONFIRMATION OF NAMEI, Abioye Adebayo Emmanuel am the same person as Abioye Adebayo. Henceforth, I wish to be known and addressed as ABIOYE ADEBAYO EMMANUEL. All documents bearing these names remain valid. General public take note.

Wednesday, 6 July, 2016

CONFIRMATION OF NAMEI, Abioye Adebayo Emmanuel am the same person as Abioye Adebayo. Henceforth, I wish to be known and addressed as ABIOYE ADEBAYO EMMANUEL. All documents bearing these names remain valid. General public take note.

Wednesday, 6 July, 2016

CONFIRMATION OF NAMEI, Abioye Adebayo Emmanuel am the same person as Abioye Adebayo. Henceforth, I wish to be known and addressed as ABIOYE ADEBAYO EMMANUEL. All documents bearing these names remain valid. General public take note.

36 Wednesday, 6 July, 2016

CHANGE OF NAMEI formerly Mrs Osanyingbemi Titilayo Abimbola now MISS OLADOSU TITILAYO ABIMBOLA. All former documents remain valid. General public take note.

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CONFIRMATION OF NAMEI, Omotosho Iyanuoluwa Samuel am the same person as Ayomide Samuel. Henceforth, I wish to be known and addressed as OMOTOSHO IYANUOLUWA SAMUEL. All documents bearing these names remain valid. General public take note.

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CORRECTION OF NAMEI, Sunday Ajao but was wrongly written as Sunday Agbao on my BVN. Henceforth, I wish to be known and addressed as SUNDAY AJAO and my correct date of birth is 25th December 1990. All documents bearing these names remain valid. General public take note.

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CHANGE OF NAMEI formerly Lateef Adijat now AKOJEDE ADIJAT AYOKA. All former documents remain valid. General public take note.

CONFIRMATION OF NAMEI, Mr Kareem Moruf Olalekan am the same person as Oladeji Moroof Akanmu. My correct date of birth is 2nd April 1972 and not 31st December, 1976. Now, I wish to be known and addressed as KAREEM MORUF OLALEKAN. All documents bearing these names remain valid. EcoBank Plc and general public take note.

CONFIRMATION OF NAMEI, Benizuwei Wilson am the same person as Ebimo Wilson. Now, I wish to be known and addressed as EBIMO WILSON. All documents bearing these names remain valid. EcoBank Plc, GTBank Plc and general public take note.

CHANGE OF NAMEI formerly Grace Ohwojivwie Gordon now GRACE OHWOJIVWIE JASPER. All former documents remain valid. Banks and general public take note.

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CONFIRMATION OF NAMEI, Fabunmi Johnson Olufemi am the same person as Tiamiyu Temitope. Henceforth, I wish to be known and addressed as FABUNMI JOHNSON OLUFEMI. All documents bearing these names remain valid. Stanbic Bank Plc and general public take note.

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CORRECTION OF NAMEI, hereby declare that my full name is Muhammod Tijani Ose-Olohun not Tijani M. Ose-Olohun. Now, I wish to be known as MUHAMMOD TIJANI OSE-OLOHUN. All documents bearing these names remain valid. First Bank Plc and general public take note.

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CONFIRMATION OF NAMEI, Komolafe David Olugbenga am the same person bearing Komolafe Jeremiah Adeniyi. Henceforth, I want to be known and addressed as KOMOLAFE JEREMIAH ADENIYI. All documents bearing these names remain valid. General public take note.

CONFIRMATION OF NAMEI, Abiola Omolara Idowu am the same person as Abiola Rashidat Omolara. Henceforth, I want to be known and addressed as ABIOLA OMOLARA IDOWU. My correct date of birth 19/11/1993 and not 19/11/1996. All documents bearing these names remain valid. General public take note.

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CHANGE OF NAMEI, formerly Faniran Titilola now ALAMU A Y O D A M O L A COMFORT. All former documents remain valid. General public take note.

37 Wednesday, 6 July, 2016

Saudi Arabia: World leaders condemn deadly Medina mosque attack

affairsforei n g08116954632foreignnewseditor@gmail.comwith seyi gesinde

Tanzania bans shisha smoking over health concerns Istanbul airport attack: 30 charged including foreigners

otherNEWSThe personal details of more than 150,000 mem-bers of dating website Mus-lim Match have been posted online.

More than 700,000 pri-vate messages between members have also been leaked.

A message on the site’s

homepage said: “We have been made aware of an al-leged security breach and we are reviewing our sys-tems as we work to remedy the situation and tighten our security.”

The leaked details includ-ed sensitive information such as whether a member would consider polygamy, BBC said.

The breach was discov-ered by security researcher Troy hunt who runs a cy-bersecurity alert website.

The Muslim world has united to con-demn a deadly attack at one of

Islam’s holiest sites - the Prophet’s Mosque in the Saudi city of Medina.

Setting aside differences, world leaders, politicians, groups and activists ex-pressed their outrage on Tuesday, a day after a sui-cide bomber killed at least four guards within strik-ing distance of the Prophet Muhammad’s tomb.

The operation took a year for completion. PHOTO: S NIAZ

Turkey’s President Erdogan (left of front row, no tie) joined in prayers for the victims at the airport. PHOTO: EPA

TAnzAnIA has banned the smoking of shishas or water pipes over concerns of links with drug or alco-hol abuse.

The government said busi-nesses in the country’s big-gest city, Dar es Salaam, were expected to stop shisha sales within seven days.

Shisha smoking has be-come increasingly popular with young people in Tan-zania.

But there has been grow-ing concern that smoking the fruit-scented tobacco through a bowl and tube could be used to cover up alcohol or drug abuse.

The BBC’s Tulanana Bo-

hela in Dar es Salaam said there have been cases of some users replacing the water with alcohol or mar-ijuana infused water.

Prime Minister Kas-sim Majaliwa is reported to have said that shisha smoking was killing future generations.

Shisha smoking is com-mon in many Arab coun-tries and in Tanzania was traditionally an activity associated with Arab or Asian groups.

The blast followed two more attacks, in Jeddah and Qatif, also on Monday.

A spokesman for Saudi Arabia’s interior ministry described the triple bomb-ings as “despicable acts that did not respect the sanctity of place, time and innocent people”.

here are some of the re-actions from around the world following the suicide attacks.

Javad zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, condemned the

bombing in Medina and called for Muslim unity.

Pakistan’s foreign min-istry condemned the at-tacks, while its army chief telephoned Saudi Defence Minister Prince Muham-mad bin Salman to express

his support. “We stand shoulder-to-

shoulder with our Saudi brothers in fighting the menace of terrorism,” Gen-eral Raheel said.

Melvut Cavusoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, sent his condolences.

Cairo-based Al-Azhar, the highest authority in Sunni Islam, condemned the attacks and stressed “the sanctity of the hous-es of God, especially the Prophet’s Mosque”.

Mohammed bin Jassim Al Thani, the foreign min-ister of Qatar, condemned the triple attacks and ex-pressed Doha’s support to neighbouring Saudi Arabia following the explosions.

Saudi Arabia’s supreme council of clerics said the blasts “prove that those renegades ... have violated everything that is sacred.”

FBI Director James Comey said Tuesday that he would not recommend charges against hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server while she was secre-tary of state but he added Clinton and her aides were “extremely careless” in handling classified infor-mation.

“Our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case,” Comey announced after a lengthy recap of the in-vestigation the FBI con-

Indian doctors grow new nose on boy’s foreheadDOCTORS in India have replaced a 12-year-old boy’s damaged nose with a new one which was grown on his forehead.

Dr Ashwini Dash, who led the surgical team, told BBC hindi’s S niazi that he was “confident that the new nose would work properly like his other organs”.

he added that the entire operation took about a year to finish.

In the first phase, a silicon “tissue expander” was put on his forehead to make space to grow a new nose. Then a special chemical was injected to make the tissues expand.

ducted.Comey’s decision not to

recommend charges like-ly removes the threat of prosecution in the middle of Clinton’s campaign for the presidency, but the po-litical fallout will continue.

Comey delivered a stun-ning tongue-lashing of Clinton and her State De-partment colleagues. his stinging critique came just hours before Clinton is scheduled to campaign with President Barack Obama for the first time this elec-tion season.

“Although we did not find clear evidence that Sec-retary Clinton or her col-leagues intended to violate laws governing the han-dling of classified infor-mation,” he said, “there is evidence that they were ex-tremely careless in their han-dling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”

Clinton’s presumptive Re-publican opponent Donald Trump blasted Comey’s decision an example of a rigged system.

“The system is rigged. General (David) Petraeus got in trouble for far less. Very very unfair! As usual, bad judgment,” Trump tweeted.

Comey made clear at the outset that he had not fore-warned the Department of Justice or the administra-tion what he was about to do.

“They do not know what I’m about to say,” he said at the opening of his re-marks.

Comey said that the FBI “painstakingly” combed through every bit of Clin-ton’s multiple servers and mobile devices that they could from her four-year tenure as secretary of state.

Arun Patel’s nose was bad-ly damaged and disfigured when he suffered from pneu-monia as a baby.

The infection damaged the cartilage of his nose, making it difficult for doctors to fix it.

A similar operation was carried out in China in 2013 where a man who had dam-aged his nose in a traffic acci-dent was given a new one.

Arun’s parents took him to a doctor in their village in the central state of Madhya Pradesh when he suffered from pneumonia soon after his birth.

But the treatment made his condition worse and he lost his nose due to extensive tis-sue damage.

More than a decade later, a team of doctors in Indore city decided to conduct a rare four-phased plastic surgery to give Arun a new nose.

The Mandela family has reacted angrily after the for-mer South African leader’s voice was used in an elec-tion advert for the country’s main opposition.

In the ad, posted on You-

Mandela’s family angered by South African election adTube, a young woman is in a polling booth considering voting for the governing AnC.

As nelson Mandela’s voice is heard calling for justice, peace, work and bread, she then decides to vote for the Democratic Alliance (DA) instead.

Chief Mandla Mandela ac-cused the DA of abusing his grandfather’s name.

“The DA is doing it to ben-efit a party which Mandela was not a member of,” he told the Ann7 news net-work.

In other com-ments, Mandla

Mandela, who is himself a member of parliament for the African national Congress (AnC), said the DA was seeking to “pre-serve white privilege” and demanded the ad be with-drawn.

The DA has defended us-ing the voice of the former president, who was a long-standing AnC member, say-ing “this great man stood for a non-racial South Africa”.

“The DA is the only party able to take South Africa to the non-racial future it needs.

Tanzania PM Kassim Majaliwa

Nelson Mandela’s voice is heard as the woman in the polling booth decides which party to vote for. PHOTO: DA

FBI director: Hillary Clinton ‘extremely careless’ but no charges recommended

Hilary Clinton

Monday’s blast struck before sunset prayers when people were breaking their fast inside the mosque. PHOTO:EPA

38 Wednesday, 6 July, 2016communitynews

MeMbers of Ag-onla sumoge C o m m u n i t y Fishing Ground

in Warri south-West Local Government Area of Delta state have called on the au-thorities of the Nigerian Navy ship (NNs DeLTA) to release one Piroro Tomola Omope, who is allegedly in their cus-tody in Warri.

Forty-seven-year-old Omope, a local fisherman, was allegedly arrested on June 17 along with two teen-agers, Orimisan Igbaya and Meshack Ifiriyele, while on a fishing expedition at Escra-vos waters where members of the community had been carrying fishing activities for ages to earn their living.

Community News gath-ered that the two teenagers were later released on June 19, leaving behind Omope in the custody of the Navy in Warri with the promise to let him off the hook at a later date due to the absence of the commander of the base, Commodore raimi Moham-med.

Members of the fishing community, including elder

Sumoge community wants Navy to release arrested son, dead or alive •He is not with us —NNS DELTA

has consistently denied that Omope is in their custody.

Chief Okolo, who spoke on behalf of the community, said the people were not sure whether something untow-ard had happened to Omope, whose aged mother, wife and four children had been

thrown into mourning since his arrest.

Okolo said the family mem-bers were worried because Omope had been incom-municado since his arrest on June 17, not knowing what had befallen him.

He said an officer from the

GOverNOr of rotary District 9140, Mr. Akabom enobong , has said that the rotary Foundation would build a polio rehabilitation centre in the country.

He made the pledge in his acceptance speech while being sworn in as the new governor, on satur-day, in Calabar.

enobong said the promise was made out of the founda-tion’s commitment to eradi-cate polio in the country and the world at large.

According to him, the re-habilitation centre would be located in any part of the country willing to do-nate land free of charge to the foundation.

He said the donated land, would determine the ca-pacity of the rehabilitation centre.

brothers of Omope, Chief eko Okolo and Mr Omope Adewale, who spoke with Community News, on Monday in Warri, however, said since the release of the two teenagers, the Navy, which promised to effect the release of Omope soon after,

anthony ubong-calabar

by gbenga olumide

ebenezer adurokiya-warri

nity and Ode-remo, Oba Kalejaiye disclosed that there was no rift between him and the Alaye Ode of Ode-remo, Oba Jo-seph Adesanya.

He described the relation-ship between himself and Oba Adesanya as cordial, adding that Nloku of Iraye-remo was one of the sons of Oduduwa, who first came to remo land and settled where they are staying pres-ently.

He recalled that on sep-tember 29, 1937, during Martindale Inquiry, Oba Adesanya made a declara-tion that Nloku was his ma-ternal great grandfather.

Oba Kalejaiye, however, appealed to the people of the two communities to do away with acts capable of fanning the embers of dis-

Rotary to establish polio rehabilitation centre in Nigeria

naval base, on Monday, even-tually directed them to visit the Warri Area Command, that Omope had been probably handed over to the police.

but when they visited the Area Command in Warri, Okolo said they were allowed to identify inmates in the

cells but did not find Omope among them.

According to him, three of the inmates, who were in the same cell with Omope at the naval base, confirmed that Omope is still being held at the cell at the naval base as of the time they were handed over to the police.

Okolo said the family and community were now at a di-lemma being unsure of what might have befallen him in the custody.

He called on the Chief of Naval staff to prevail on the NNs DeLTA authorities to produce Omope dead or alive, adding that he is in-nocent of the accusation of pipeline vandalism.

Meanwhile, the naval au-thorities at NNs DeLTA, have denied having custody of any fisherman suspect.

Although the outgoing commander, Commodore raimi Mohammed, could not be reached on phone, the Base Information Officer, Lt. N.b. Lamu, said nobody bearing Omope was in the cell of the Navy.

“I’ve checked round the cell, there is no one bearing Piroro Tomola Omope. No-body like that, maybe not in Warri Naval base,” he in-sisted.

It will be recalled that a petition, signed by Taiwo Orisabinone of Taiwo Pius Orisabinone Chambers at Udu road, effurun-Warri had been sent to the Chief of Naval staff as well as au-thorities of NNs DeLTA, on the continued detention of Omope.

cord and embrace peace.He further expressed

gratitude to the Akarig-bo and Paramount ruler of remo land, Oba Mi-chael Adeniyi sonariwo, for attending the cer-

emony. He also used the occa-

sion to appeal to the local government chairman to address the needs of the people of the community, especially infrastructural

facilities. Also speaking, the Boba-

suwa of remo land, Chief Oladele Omoda, said Irawe is an important town in Yor-uba land, especially the remo extraction, as a custodian of ancient Yoruba deities.

hakeem gbadamosi-akure

Ifira-Akoko decries lack of amenities

THe people and residents of Ifira in Akoko South-East Local Government Area of Ondo state have bemoaned lack of infratructural facili-ties, especially roads in the town and sorrounding com-munities.

speaking on behalf of Ifira-Akoko community, a community leader, bar-rister Fola Amure, said the state of roads and infra-

THe Nloku of Iraye-remo, Oba samuel Ola-tunji Kalejaiye sugbodo sugbada II, has called on the government to accord traditional rulers constitu-tional roles to enable them contribute meaningfully to the development of their re-spective communities and the nation at large.

Oba Kalejaiye made the call recently during his seventh coronation anni-versary and 70th birth-day at Iraye-remo, Ogun state.

He said the 1999 Con-stitution had made them redundant in terms of contributing their quota as expected.

reacting to the dispute over supremacy between the people of his commu-

bola badmus-lagos

YOUTHs in bariga Local Council Development Area (LCDA) have been urged to embrace youth empow-erment, leadership and en-trepreneurship training. sole Administrator of the LCDA, Honour-able sanya Osinjo, who is also the Chairman, Conference 57, made the call at the council sec-

retariat in bariga, when he received in audience, Mr. seyi bamigbade, the Programme Coordinator of National Image, say-ing it was one of the ways the youths could acquire skills that would guaran-tee them stable income.

The council boss dis-closed that one of the major tasks assigned to them as sole administra-tors when they were inau-gurated a few weeks ago

by Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, was job cre-ation and youth empow-erment.

He said sole admin-istrators in council areas were ready to support youths who make them-selves available for em-powerment and leadership training to start up in life.

Also speaking, the co-ordinator said the train-ing and empowerment programme would come

up between July 18 and July 20 within the prem-ises of bariga LCDA.

According to him, in line with Governor Am-bode’s directive on zero tolerance for street trad-ing and hawking, the training comes as a big opportunity for youths to acquire skills in agro-business to make them self-sufficient rather than risking their lives, hawking on highways.

The lawmaker representing Epe constituency in the Lagos State House of Assembly, Honourable Abiodun Tobun (middle), when he distributed drugs to residents of Epe, recently. PHOTO: CHUKWUMA OKPARAOCHA

Nloku wants constitutional roles for traditional rulers

Bariga youths urged to embrace empowerment training

structure in the agrarian community had hindered economic and social activi-ties.

According to him, the de-plorable state of the major road linking the communi-ty to other parts of the state has been affecting farming activities in the area, not-ing that the bad road hin-ders the movement of farm produce from the area to neighbouring towns.

Amure said subsequent governments have neglect-ed the area and that they have not enjoyed the divi-dends of democracy since the advent of the present dispensation.

“This is the only major road linking this communi-ty and we have approached the council on many occa-sions on the need to either grade or rehabilitate it to facilitate transportation.

“The most painful aspect of the issue is that electric-ity has become a thing of the past here. There’s no water, no road, no power supply.

“We are appealing to the state government to come to our aid and get the ma-jor road and others reha-bilitated to help farmers and aid development

Also speaking, a farmer and resident of the com-munity, Idowu balogun, said the deplorable state of the road linking the community is compelling them to sell thier agricul-tural produce at giveaway prices.

39 Wednesday, 6 July, 2016news

corporatesportWith Niyi Alebiosu

adeniyi70@yahoo.com08116954642

2016 Copa Coca-Cola: Asegun Comprehensive High School emerges champion

WHILE Friday started like any other day, it proved to

be unforgettable for Oyo state’s Asegun Comprehen-sive High School boys who won the 2016 edition of the intensely competitive Copa

Coca-Cola tournament after defeating rival team, Nation-al Grammar School, Nike, Enugu State, at the national final match played at the On-ikan Stadium, Lagos Island.

Determined and focused all through the 60 minutes of play that ended in a goal

less draw, both teams put up a strong spirited fight for the trophy and the prize money of a million naira, but in the end, the Ase-gun boys were able to pull through with a 5-3 in a pen-alty shootout.

The match, which had

in attendance top officials from the Lagos State gov-ernment, the Nigeria School Sports Federation (NSSF), and Senior Staff of Coca-Co-la witnessed super engaging musical performance from rave of the moments and 2016 BET Best New Inter-

From left, Lagos State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode exchanging pleasantries with Fatai Abdullahi, Captain of Ikorodu United, with him is Deji Tinubu, Chairman Lagos State Sport Council at Agege Stadium recently.

Olabisi Joseph, National Secretary, Nigerian School Sports Federation; Dr. Ademola Are, Director, Grassroots, Youth and Sports, representing the Minister for Sports; Adeola Adetunji, Managing Director, Coca-Cola Nigeria; and Barrister Seyi Akinwunmi, Vice-President 1, Nigeria Football Federation (NFF); presenting the 2016 Copa Coca-Cola U-15 winners, Asegun Comprehensive High School, Oyo State with a cheque of one million naira.

BARRING any unforseen circumstances, Eko Fu-ture Stars, the Lagos State Football Association, (LSFA) developmental team are set to be part of the 2016 Youdan trophy tournament holding this summer in Sheffied, Unit-ed Kingdom.

The invitational tourna-ment will also see the likes of Seattle Sounders FC, FC Basel, Glasgow Celtic FC, Queens Park Rangers Sheffield Wednesday and their city rivals, Sheffied United, alos taking part in the over hundred years old tournament.

At the draws held early May, Eko Future Stars will be playing in Group 3 in the under-16 category of the tourney along side, Glasgow Celtic of Scotland, Royal Antwerp of Belgium and Sheffied Wednesday of England.

Group A will see Derby County, Sheffied United, FC Basel and JHR Rotter-

dam. Newcastle United, Charlton Athletic, Seattle Sounders and the other Africa team in the tourna-ment, Friendly Academy will compete in group 2.

While group 4, has Wolverhampton Wander-ers, Queens Park Rangers, Rosenborg BK and Maiden City.

Dotun Coker, chairman, technical committee of the Lagos FA disclosed to CorporateSport that the team has commence prep-arations for the tourney with weekend trainings.

He stated that, the team will move to camp some-times in July after schools long vacation, adding that the team’s involvement is to further develop the boys.

Football legend, Welsh internationa, John Hart-son joined forces with for-mer Manchester United player and now Oxford United manager Michael Appleton at the draw held at the National Football

Museum in Manchester on Thursday, May 19th, both expressed the be-lieve that the tournament will unfold future world soccer stars.

At the draws which was streamed live around the

globe are some of the big-gest clubs on the planet presenting teams for the international football tour-nament being scheduled for August 1-5 to be played in Sheffield, the birthplace of the game of football.

THIS year’s Naval Dock-yard Boat race holds today at the Navy sailing club, Navy town, Ojo.

The Naval Dockyard Boat Race was organised by the Navy Sailing Club in con-junction with Naval Dock-yard Limited to mark this year’s Eid El Fitri celebra-tions.

According to a release by the Club’s Commodore, Tunde Giwa-Daramola, Rear Admiral A.L Akintola (Admiral Superintendent of Naval Dock yard) is ex-pected to be the special guest of honour with many Captains of Industries, senior military officers, Sports administrators and

other water sports enthu-siasts in attendance.

The annual race will ter-minate at the Navy Sailing Club Ojo.

The Navy Sailing Club which is the hub of water sports aims to promote and advance the game in the country.

The first indigenous yachting Club in Nigeria, established in 1987, has grown over the years as the biggest Yachting Club in the country. It has also continued to produce up to 70% of athletes for the Nigeria Sailing, Canoe and Rowing Federation for international compe-titions.

Navy Sailing club celebrate Salah day in grand style

•As Okocha makes unusual appearancenational Act Award winner, ‘Falz the bad guy’ as well as a surprise entry by Nigeria’s football legend, Austin ‘Jay-Jay’ Okocha.

The former Super Eagles captain came disguised as an elderly janitor [GO1], tricking both players and the spectators into believ-ing he was just a regular cleaner who was going about his job and simply wanted to join in the game.

Pulling a surprise with his quick moves and impeccable juggling and dribbling skills, Okocha had the young play-ers in awe, before finally re-vealing himself.

Speaking of his appear-ance at the match, the foot-ball legend remarked that coming to the event, pro-vided him an opportunity to give wings to the passion

and aspiration of the young players, by motivating them to reach for their dreams.

“Just like many football stars today, my football ca-reer began at the grassroots level. Today I am what I am because I had people who believed in me and gave me the opportunity to thrive. Copa Coca-Cola is do-ing just that, inspiring the next generations of football players. And I am happy to be a part of a platform that is transforming grassroots football in Nigeria,” he said.

Basking in the excitement of the moment, 14-year-old Olanrewaju Fadipe, Cap-tain of the winning team, enthused, “He is my all-time favourite, and I am still in shock that I just played with him. I will cher-ish the moment forever!”

Ekofootball stars set for Youdan tourney

no 16,539

SIDELINESThe new Lagos State law banning street trading is an initiative meant to save lives of hawkers and free the roads of traffic congestion. The government has even threatened to arrest and imprison those who run afoul of the law. But with hundreds of thousand engaged in street trading, will getting a facility large enough to keep likely offenders not constitute another problem for the state?n150

Printed and Published by the African Newspapers of Nigeria PLC, Imalefalafia Street, Oke-Ado, Ibadan. E mail: editornigeriantribune@yahoo.com Website: www.tribuneonlineng.com MANAGING DIRECTOR / EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: EDWARD DICKSON. EDITOR: DEBO ABDULAI. All Correspondence to P.O. Box 78, Ibadan. ISSN 2712. Member of the Audit Bureau of Circulation. 6/7/2016. ABC

Wednesday, 6 july, 2016

euro 2016 semi final:

Rio Olympics: Siasia rues Iwobi, father’s failed promises

I want to equal Ferguson’s record at Old Trafford —Mourinho

NFF adopts FIFA TMS domestic transfer matching system

no contention between Ronaldo and I —Bale

Five-time champion venus Wil-liams reached the Wimbledon semi-finals for the first time since 2009 with victory over Kazakhstan’s Yaro-slava Shvedova.

eighth seed Williams - at 36 the oldest Grand Slam semi-finalist for 22 years - beat unseeded Shvedova 7-6 (7-5) 6-3.

An all-Williams final remains pos-sible after top seed Serena beat Rus-sian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-4 6-4.

in thursday’s semis, Serena will play Russia’s Elena Vesnina and venus will take on Germany’s An-gelique Kerber.

“We don’t really talk too much about it but we are playing doubles later, so we are just happy to be in the semi-

finals,” Serena told BBC Sport.Asked about a potential final meet-

ing, she added: “it will be great. ve-nus is such a tough opponent i want her to win so bad - not in the final if I am there, but if I’m not, I do.”

Kerber, the fourth seed, beat Ro-manian fifth seed Simona Halep 7-5 7-6 (7-2) in the opening match on Centre Court.

Unseeded Russian Vesnina thrashed Slovakian 19th seed Cib-ulkova 6-2 6-2 in the remaining quarter-final on court one.

‘i love playing the game’venus Williams showed she re-

mains a real threat on the All eng-land Club grass with an impressive win over world number 96 Shve-dova.

JOSe mourinho has admitted he wants to match the records set by Sir Alex Ferguson as the Por-tuguese was officially unveiled by manchester United on tuesday.

the 53-year-old has replaced Louis van Gaal in charge of the Red Devils as the club look to re-gain their spot as a perennial title challenger in the english Premier League, a status which has es-caped them following the end of Ferguson’s 27-year reign in 2013.

the Scotsman won 13 league crowns, five FA Cups, four League Cups, two Champions League titles and a Club World Cup dur-ing his time in charge of United and, while mourinho has a his-tory of spending only short spells with clubs, he says his intention is to build a Ferguson-style legacy at Old Trafford.

“i can’t hide that i want to chase Sir Alex’s record,” the Portuguese told the assembled press. “this is not a dream job, it is a reality. But it is a job that everyone wants and not everyone has a chance to have. But i have it.

NIGERIA U23 coach Samson Sia-sia has revealed he has been left disappointed after Alex Iwobi and his father failed to keep the prom-ises they made to him over the Ar-senal forward’s participation at the Rio Olympics.

Arsenal have stopped Iwobi from the Olympics after initially agreeing to release him late for the summer games.

“Alex iwobi is not coming. i tried to call his father, but he wasn’t pick-ing my calls. He used to call me fre-quently when he wanted his son to

play for the country, but now that we need his son for the Olympics football tournament, he is not pick-ing my calls,” lamented Siasia.

“But there is no problem, Alex re-mains my boy, i love him like my own son, but i am just disappointed that he and his father couldn’t keep the promises they made to me.”

Incidentally, the 20-year-old Iwo-bi first trained with Siasia’s U23 before he changed his international allegiance from England to make his debut for the Super Eagles last year.

FiFA tmS announced on tuesday that the Nigeria Football Federa-tion (NFF) is the first member asso-ciation (MA) in Africa to implement the FIFA TMS Domestic Transfer Matching System (DTMS).

The DTMS online platform, which includes league access, will allow the NFF and the Nigerian Profes-sional Football League (NPFL) to manage its international and do-mestic transfers via one system. It is modelled on the international Transfer Matching System (ITMS), which is provided to 211 MAs and 6,500 clubs around the world for the cross-border transfer of play-ers.

the system will provide the NFF and its clubs throughout Nige-ria the ability to manage national and international transfers on one platform, generate transfer activity reports and have greater monitor-ing levels to enhance transparency

and governance. Additional mAs from the Confederation of African Football (CAF) are expected to im-plement the DTMS later this year.

the NFF’s adhesion to the sys-tem was facilitated by the custodi-ans of the NPFL, the League Man-agement Company (LmC).

FIFA TMS developed the DTMS system in response to demand from MAs and clubs for a do-mestic transfer system based on itmS.GARETH Bale has played

down the significance of his duel with Real Ma-drid team-mate Cristiano

Ronaldo ahead of Wales’ Euro 2016 semi-final against Portugal.

their relationship has been the subject of intense media scrutiny, with both insisting there is no rift.

they meet in Lyon today, Wales’ first semi-final at a major tourna-ment.

“it’s not about two players, it is about two nations in a semi-final, 11 men against 11 men,” said Wales’ Bale.

“Everybody knows that really.”Bale became the world’s most ex-

pensive footballer when he joined Real from Tottenham for £85m

in 2013, surpassing the £80m the Spanish club paid manchester Unit-ed for Ronaldo in 2009.

The two players have formed a potent attacking three with French striker Karim Benzema, helping Real to win two Champions League titles in the past three seasons.

However, the relationship be-tween Bale and Ronaldo has not al-ways been harmonious.

the Portugal captain was pictured gesticulating angrily when Bale did not pass to him during a game in 2015, prompting speculation of dis-cord between the pair.

Both have dismissed such talk, while former Real manager Carlo Ancelotti said in a recent BBC Wales documentary about Bale

that the two players are “really close”.

“Of course we get on very well at madrid, we enjoy playing with each other,” said Bale.

“He’s a fantastic player, every-body knows what he can do. But we have always spoken about what we do, what we do ourselves as a team. We don’t worry about the opposition.”

today’s match in Lyon will be Ronaldo’s third European Cham-pionship semi-final, and he was part of the Portugal side which lost the 2004 final to Greece.

Bale Ronaldo

Venus Serena

Wimbledon 2016: Venus, Serena through to semi-finals