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Senate confirms 2 nominees as INEC national commissioners

Senate President David Mark on Tuesday advised INEC national electoral commissioners to ensure that they conducted free, fair and credible elections in line with the yearnings of the Nigerian people during the 2011 elections.

Mark gave the advice in his remarks after the Senate confirmed the nomination of Abdulkadri Oniyangi (Kwara-North Central) and Amina Zakari (Jigawa North West) as national electoral commissioners of INEC. President Goodluck Jonathan had sent their nominations to the Senate for confirmation as national electoral commissioners of INEC in accordance with Section 154(1) of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

The confirmed commissioners said they were adequately fit and proper persons to perform the task ahead of them in spite of the obvious challenges.

Senate confirms 2 nominees as INEC national commissioners

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...as FG introduces performance-based budgeting  Olusegun Aganga, minister of finance, Tuesday assured that the 2011 executive budget proposal will be ready by September for the National Assembly's scrutiny and passage before the end of the 2010 fiscal year. Also, he added, the Federal Government is planning to set aside a small portion of the total capital vote beyond the expenditure ceilings as incentives for high performing Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to bid for additional resources for their projects. Aganga disclosed this at the 2011-2013 Medium Term Sector Strategies (MTSS) organised by the Budget Office of the Federation to discuss, decide on and prioritise planned projects and programmes of key MDAs over the medium-term horizon on a three-year rolling basis.

MTSS affords the MDAs the opportunity to prioritise their capital expenditure needs in line with available budgetary resources and the priorities of government, as indicated in the seven-point agenda, Vision 2020 and the MDGs.

2011 budget will be ready September, says Aganga

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Four journalists, Wahab Oba, chairman, Lagos State council of the NUJ; Adolphus Okonkwo, secretary, zone G; Sylva Okereke, assistant secretary, Lagos council; Sola Oyeyipo and the council's driver were on Sunday afternoon kidnapped at Ukwakiri in Obingwa local government area of Abia State while returning from an official engagement in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State. The abductors are demanding N250 million ransom.

National president of the NUJ, Muhammed Garba, represented by the deputy national president, Ritimi Obamuwagun while addressing members and families of the abducted journalists, said negotiation for their release were in top gear.

NUJ hopeful over release of kidnapped members as negotiation peaks

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Senate President David Mark on Tuesday said the reformation of the Nigerian prison system was rife to make it a centre for reformation rather than "a mere punitive centre".  He said this at the opening ceremony of a one-day public hearing on the Prison Act (repeal and re-enactment) Bill 2002 and Prison Act 1972 (amendment 2010) being sponsored by Uche Chukwumerije (APGA-Abia) and Victor Udoma-Egba (PDP-Cross River). Represented by the Senate deputy chief whip, Mohammed Maina, Mark said the prison should be a place to build and not a place to destroy an individual.  "Our concern for the prisons manifests the will of the legislature to pay attention to all sectors of the national governance.  "The nation is developed by its manpower and its indication of a growing economy is human capacity which it mobilises and harnesses for optimal development,'' he said. Mark added that "it is therefore paramount for every nation to undertake reform of its prison system from time to time to make its prison system brace up to the challenge of rehabilitating and reforming inmates instead of being mere punitive centres."

Mark advocates prison reform

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Farida Waziri, chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), on Wednesday said Nigeria has nothing but crippling effect of corruption and other related stories of looting after its fifty years of existence. Farida, who at the first Anti-Corruption Revolution (ANCOR) national convention in Abuja, lamented that after fifty years of independence, Nigeria has gone from bad to worse under the crippling effect of these vices. She noted that countries that Nigeria was better than in the 50's and 60's such as Malaysia and Singapore have become economies to reckon with in the global arena. ANCOR was established by EFCC in 2008 to engage Nigerians as whistle blowers against corrupt practices. She said: "Alas, 50 years down independence lane like most African countries, we have nothing to show for self rule but stories of woe, corruption, wastages, primitive accumulation and looting by a privileged few, diverse and modernising forms of economic and financial crimes". The chairman noted that corruption has led to a wide gap between the rich and the poor giving rise to new crimes like cyber crimes and kidnapping. The EFCC chief said: "ANCOR provides a platform for very purposeful engagement of the citizenry and a necessary nexus between the state and the non-state actors in the fight against graft."

Nigeria worse at 50, says EFCC boss

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Four journalists kidnapped on Sunday in Abia State and still being held by their captors have cried out to Nigerians to intensify prayers for their early freedom. Their call is coming as condemnation continues to trail the increasing cases of kidnapping in the country, with the Lagos State government on Wednesday urging the Federal Government to urgently put in place measures to curb the development. "This kidnap of Oba and others is one too many. We believe that there is no justification for anyone to resort to kidnapping as a means of livelihood," Opeyemi Bamidele, the Lagos State commissioner for information and strategy, who led a Lagos delegation on solidarity visit to the secretariat of the Lagos State council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists ( NUJ), Ikeja, said on Wednesday. One of the kidnapped journalists, Wahab Oba, who is also the chairman of the Lagos State council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), was said to have spoken with the national president of the union, Mohammed Garba, via the captors' telephone, saying they were not being ill-treated, but stressed the need for intensified prayers for their freedom.

Vice chairman of the state council, Deji Elumoye, who briefed the Lagos delegation, quoted Oba in the conversation as calling on Nigerians to pray for them.

Babatunde Fashola, Lagos State governor on Wednesday joined other Nigerians to condemn the kidnap and urged relevant government agencies to handle the matter with care, praying that the whole saga will end happily. He said the development is already painting Nigeria in bad light, adding that nobody deserved to be held in captivity. Speaking with reporters at the presidential wing of Murtala Muhammed Airport, he said: "The kidnap is a very bad development and my family as well as members of our government extend our condolence to the victims of this very heinous crime, and their families." 

Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi State on Wednesday condemned the kidnapping of the four journalists and their driver and called on the Federal Government to overhaul the nation's security network.  Yuguda made the call in Bauchi through his senior special assistant on media, Sanusi Muhammad. Yuguda told newsmen that kidnapping has assumed an ugly trend and required urgent surgical operation of the nation's security network. He said: "As a matter of urgency, it is apt to quickly overhaul the security system in order to nip the ugly development in the bud before it goes out of control."

Similarly, Senate President David Mark on Wednesday asked the Federal Government to declare state of emergency in states prone to kidnapping, just as he tasked the 36 state governments to criminalise kidnapping by formulating the legal framework.

Kidnapped journalists cry out, urge Nigerians to intensify prayers

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Nigerians in Diaspora have said President Goodluck Jonathan's constructive engagement with Nigerians abroad was the right encouragement needed to make them begin to look homeward. In a communiqué by the group on Wednesday, in Paris, France, signed by Henry Ukrakpo, president; Miracle Okumagba, vice president, and Kingsley Iweh, secretary and made available to our correspondent, the group said "commendably underlying Jonathan's approach is a respectful realisation of a new world order that allows people of Nigerian origin to have a sense of belonging and contribution without the need for unnecessary shifts". According to the group, "Nigerians abroad now have a sense of pride in having the closest representation of a statesman as their president. Given the recent visits by the Nigerian President, Goodluck Jonathan to France, South Africa and Canada, there has become a remarkable shift in approach by a visiting Nigerian president abroad against the norm of the past decades. "The president has given a new definition to foreign presidential visits by robustly featuring in his itinerary comprehensive and highly engaging interactive meetings and sessions with Nigerians in the Diaspora on developmental efforts back in Nigeria", the group said. "In the new world order where distance has been collapsed by information technology and enhanced occupational mobility", the group said, "Jonathan's renewed importance of engaging Nigerians in discourses, the way he has been doing especially during his recent last visit to France show a president with foresight, humility, courage and broad mindedness". The group pointed out that "President Jonathan realises that Nigerians abroad are not necessarily fleeing a struggling country but have merely sought other environments for greater expression of their highly invaluable wealth of talents and other natural endowments that are needed for national development".

Jonathan's constructive engagement makes us look homeward, say Nigerians abroad

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Senate President David Mark says the present National Assembly is ready to make history by being the first legislature to create states outside the military regime. "We are hoping to make history as the first democratic government to create states outside the military government," he said. Speaking when he received a delegation agitating for the creation of Gurara out of the present Kaduna State on Wednesday in Abuja, Mark said the Assembly would break the jinx that states could only be created by the military. He assured Nigerians that the committee on the review of the 1999 constitution would be fair to all in the consideration of states to be created. Mark, who described their demand as genuine, said it was a clear demonstration of their desire to bring the people closer to the government.  He urged them to unite and eschew religious or ethnic sentiments. Earlier, the leader of the delegation, Bawa Magaji, said the creation of the proposed Gurara State was approved by the Kaduna State House of Assembly in its resolution on November 18, 2009. "The proposed Gurara State, with headquarters in Kachia, has a population of 3,383,207 and a land mass area of about 28,393 square kilometres,'' he said. (NAN)

National Assembly ready to create new states – Mark

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A group of lawyers has dragged the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) before a Federal High Court, Abuja, for allegedly protecting former President Olusegun Obasanjo over his alleged involvement in the Halliburton bribery case. The group led by Yahaya Mohammed, suing for himself and on behalf of other lawyers, as well as anti-corruption crusaders expressed displeasure that the EFCC is treating the Halliburton bribery scam with levity.  The lawyers are seeking the leave of the court to apply for an order of mandamus to compel EFCC to investigate Obasanjo and others for their alleged involvement in the scam.  The motion ex parte is brought pursuant to Order 34 Rule 3(2) of the Federal High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules 2009, Section 5 and 6 of EFCC Act 2004 and the inherent jurisdiction of the court. In the application filed on Thursday, the applicant recalled that Obasanjo doggedly refused to honour the invitation of an administrative panel raised by the late former President Umaru Yar'Adua, which submitted an interim report sometime in May 2009. "From the interim report some prominent Nigerian officials including Olusegun Obasanjo are suspected to have been deeply involved in the Halliburton bribery scandal. "Despite the submission of the interim report to the late president and a follow-up report submitted to President Goodluck Jonathan, the EFCC has not taken any step to ensure that Chief Obasanjo is properly investigated and if found culpable prosecuted. "As a Nigerian citizen, I am worried on how things of this magnitude are ignored".

Halliburton: Group drags EFCC to court for shielding Obasanjo

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FirstBank Plc, the nation's largest and longest-standing financial services institution, has announced the voluntary resignation of three of its executive directors, in what observers said last night is the first major executive transition in the bank since Bisi Onasanya assumed office over a year ago.

Onasanya consolidates at First Bank as 3 EDs quit