Atiku warns against blocking change

Former vice president and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential aspirant, Atiku Abubakar has warned that a violent change in the leadership of Nigeria might occur if the current political leaders fail to encourage peaceful change.

He also warned the PDP leadership to embrace reforms in the party or risk becoming irrelevant in the nation's polity.

Mr Abubakar spoke in Abuja at a national stakeholders conference convened by the Northern Political Leaders Forum, Igbo Political Forum, South South Unity Forum and Yoruba Redemption Group. The theme of the conference was ‘Building Consensus for National Unity." The former vice president, during his brief remarks, said the conference was not about him, but about the unity and stability of the country, adding that the conveners were determined to bring the country back to the path of honour and integrity.

"If the PDP does not bring reform, it stands the risk of making itself irrelevant. Let me again send another message to the leadership of our country, especially our political leadership - those who make peaceful change impossible, make violent change inevitable. But that is not what we want for our country," Mr Abubakar said.

Zoning and Nigeria's future

The chairman of the occasion and former military president, Ibrahim Babangida, in his opening remarks, lamented that some political actors are not only trying to put the question of national unity in the back burner, but are actively trying to undermine it by jettisoning measures that are deliberately designed to promote and guarantee it.

He said the insistence of some presidential aspirants and their supporters to maintain zoning and rotation of power between the component parts of Nigeria is in the long term interest of the country and its people.

Mr Babangida recalled that when the PDP was formed, it was conceived as a big tent that would house the diverse sections, groupings and interest of the country in an amicable and orderly power sharing arrangement, stressing that dumping the arrangement will affect the electoral fortune of the party.

"The critical balancing fulcrum sustaining that arrangement is the principle of zoning and rotation of public and party offices," he said. "This is, without any doubt, what is responsible for the remarkable successes that the party was able to register in successive elections in the country. Any attempt to disrupt this arrangement therefore portends ominous prospect to the electoral fortunes of the party, but seriously endangers orderly political transition in the nation." A former Senate President, Ken Nnamani, who was the guest speaker at the occasion, said zoning and rotation of public offices are not limited to Nigeria, noting that it is practiced in other countries, like Switzerland as well as organisations like the European Union and United Nations.

According to him, those condemning the principle of rotation and zoning are merely endangering the unity of the country.

Noting that the concept of zoning was a concession to the south by the northern part of Nigeria, Mr Nnamani said the latter holds the aces because 61 per cent of the delegates to the national convention of the PDP are from that part of the country, while the south constitutes only 39 per cent.

PDP politics

He insisted that the PDP has a clause that recognises zoning in its constitution, adding that rather than implementing that clause, some people are overheating the polity.

Criticizing the position of Ohana eze Ndigbo, the socio-cultural organisation for endorsing the ambition of President Goodluck Jonathan to succeed himself, Mr. Nnamani said, "What if that individual endorsed fails to win the primaries? So, if you read such things, disregard it. To make matters worse, these people endorsing are not delegates."

Mutiny: 27 soldiers formally regain freedom

The 27 soldiers jailed for mutiny were on Wednesday formally breezed into freedom following their pardon by the Nigerian Army.

The Nigerian Tribune gathered in Ibadan, on Wednesday, that the released soldiers, who were put in different prisons across the country, arrived at the Kuje prison, Abuja, by 1:00 a.m. on Wednesday morning.

One of the counsel for the soldiers, Mr Peter Adonu, told newsmen in Ibadan that they (soldiers) left Kuje Prison around 12 noon to the Army headquarters, Abacha Barracks.

He said that it was at the garrison that they were addressed by the Garrison Commander on the decision reached by the Army Council to pardon them.

The soldiers were, however, given three weeks leave after which they were expected to report at their various units to claim their benefits.

Force admits losing eight officers in face-off with militants

The Joint Military Task Force, code-named "Operation Restore Hope", on Wednesday admitted losing eight of its officers in the recent face-off with militants in the Niger Delta. The JTF, however, denied embarking on indiscriminate shooting in the Ayakoromor community in the area. The commander of the task force, Charles Omoregie, a major general made the clarification in Yenagoa during a solidarity visit by some Ijaw elders led by a former minister of police affairs, Alaowei Broderick Bozimo.

Mr. Omoregie, however, said the loss of the military personnel would not deter the task force from achieving its goal of apprehending and bringing self-styled "Gen" John Togo, a militant leader, to justice. The commander, who listed the fatalities in the gunfight in the waterways of the Niger Delta with Togo's men as seven soldiers and a mobile policeman, said the decision to downplay the casualties was to douse any tension in the region. The victims were part of the JTF personnel that were injured during an ambush by men of the camp belonging to Togo and amongst whom some died as a result of the lack of immediate medical attention.

False alarm

Mr. Omoregie described as mischievous the purported destruction of Ayakoromor community as peddled by some individuals in the Delta and also denied that the JTF had embarked on indiscriminate killings.

According to him, "We did not carry out a massacre in Ayakoromor as widely and mischievously reported. I tell you my elders without any fear of contradiction that the entire Ayakoromor incident has been politicised. The latest figure is that we killed 50. People are just mentioning numbers for selfish reasons. Let those with the facts on the massacre prove it. We are still focused on apprehending and bringing John Togo to justice. The immediate goal of the JTF is to assist the indigenes of Ayakoromor to return to their community."

Mr. Omoregie also informed the Ijaw leaders of the receipt of relief assistance from the Defence Headquarters in Abuja for the rehabilitation and restoration efforts needed for peace in Ayakoromor.

Earlier, Mr. Bozimo had said that though they had heard various accounts of the incident at Ayakoromor, they decided to get the version of the JTF in order to take a position on the issue.

"We don't think all we have heard is true and we have decided to get your own side of the story," he said.

He said the Ijaw leaders had refrained from talking on the Ayakoromor incident because of the uncertainties surrounding it. The residents of Ayakoromor had, at a news briefing in Yenagoa last Monday, alleged that men of the JTF killed 51 natives during the December 1 attack on the community, a claim the military had denied.

Police arrest Oyo lawmaker, 40 others at PDP rally

IT was a bad day for a member of the Oyo State House of Assembly, Honourable Jimoh Fadipe, on Wednesday, as he was molested and arrested along with about 40 other persons by the police for allegedly attending a political rally, fully armed with dangerous weapons.

Fadipe is a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) legislator, representing the Ibadan South-East constituency in the state legislature and he is already campaigning to return to the Assembly for a second term.

The PDP chapters in the 11 local government areas in Ibadan had organised the rally, which was held at Mapo Hall, Ibadan, as part of the preparations of the party for the forthcoming general election.

However, before the arrival of the state governor, Chief Adebayo Alao-Akala, at the venue of the rally, the police, apparently acting on a tip-off, embarked on a stop and search exercise and, in the process, found several guns, including four pump action double barrel guns, pistols and charms in four vehicles.

Promptly, the cars - a Mercedez Benz salon (BC 254 EPE); Nissan Xterra Jeep (OYHA 09 A); Hyundai Accent salon (FP 682 KJA) and a Nissan bus (AW 69 BDG) - were impounded by the Police, while about 40 people, said to be loyalists of Fadipe, were also arrested and taken to the Mapo Police Station, Ibadan.

The lawmaker, from whom two English pistols were said to have been confiscated, was arrested while seeking to effect the release of his ‘boys’, an attempt which infuriated the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) of the police station, Mr. Francis Ojomo, who immediately ordered that he should be arrested and detained at the station.

Meanwhile, addressing the mammoth crowd and PDP members at the rally, Governor Alao-Akala, said that his administration had fulfilled all its electoral promises, maintaining that the PDP would retain its position as the ruling party in the state after the 2011 elections.

Promising not to let the people of the state down, he carpeted those who were opposed to him as he declared that nobody could frustrate his administration in its quest to improve the living condition of the people.

Dora Akunyili quits cabinet, joins APGA – Daily Trust

Professor Dora Akunyili has resigned her position as information minister with effect from yesterday to seek the Anambra Senatorial District ticket under the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).
President Goodluck Jonathan has since accepted her resignation and appointed Minister of State for Information and Communications Labaran Maku to replace her as the substantive minister.
Akunyili, who turned-in her resignation letter yesterday at the weekly Federal Executive Council, told the council that she has decided to cross-over to the APGA, which is the ruling party in the state, to seek for APGA’s ticket.
She also told council that having reflected over the years about events in Nigeria and in particular her state, Anambra State, “I have, therefore, decided to join my Governor, Peter Obi, who is doing a great job in continuing to build Anambra State as an APGA senator. In this regard, I intend to pick the nomination form today to run for the office of Senator representing Anambra Central Senatorial District in the National Assembly.”
Shortly after briefing State House correspondents at the end of her last FEC meeting, Akunyili, drove in convoy of about 50 vehicles to the APGA national secretariat in Abuja where she paid N3.5 million for the nomination forms to run against Barrister Chike Maduekwe for the APGA senatorial ticket.

Recurrent expenditure gulps 59% of 2011 budget

The trend of disproportionately high rate of recurrent expenditure that has characterised Nigeria's annual budget estimates has persisted, as it will gulp 59 percent of the 2011 budget.

Figure from the N4.226 trillion budget that was presented to the National Assembly by President Goodluck Jonathan on Wednesday proposes N2.481 trillion for recurrent expenditures. This is contrary to government's earlier plan to cut recurrent expenses.

The Finance Minister,Olusegun Aganga, had the penultimate week, in a public hearing organised by the House of Representatives Joint Committee on Finance and Aids, Loans and Debt management in Abuja said that he was working on changing the trend in the country's supplementary expenditure which was suffocating capital expenditure.

Mr. Aganga's view was corroborated by the Senate President, David Mark who told Mr Jonathan on Wednesday, during the budget presentation ceremony in the National Assembly, that disproportionate ratio of recurrent and overhead expenditure to capital expenditure is unacceptable and unsustainable.

"No nation desirous of meaningful development can afford such a disproportionate allocation of its financial resources between consumption and investment towards its own future development," the Senate President told the President. "This means that the cost of running government has been increasing at an unsustainable rate. We must all rise together and address it."

Cutting it

He added that the National Assembly will henceforth re-evaluate budget aggregates and other major macroeconomic variables across the board for all Government(Ministries Departments and Agencies) MDAs and other arms of government to lower the personnel and overhead expenditures, and improve the level of appropriations for capital expenditures." we must drastically cut down the cost of running government vertically and horizontally in the three arms of government as well as the three tiers of our federating unit," the Senate President said. "In this regard, the National Assembly will lead the crusade. We will make the required sacrifice and review our recurrent expenditure. We expect others to make similar sacrifice."

Mr Jonathan, however, said the government is mindful of the unsustainable trend in recurrent expenditures and is implementing a wide range public financial management reforms which will boost fiscal prudence and increase quality and efficiency of spending.

"To ensure that this trend does not result in the crowding out of the critical capital investments required to achieve our development goals, a high powered Expenditure Review Committee was established to suggest practical measures to rationalise recurrent expenditure without compromising the quality of service delivery," the president said.

He added that the government has already saved N12 billion in personnel cost by introducing an integrated payroll and personnel information system in 16 MDAs.

Auditing NNPC

The president also added that the government intends to block all revenue leakages in the system by conducting audits for all revenue generating agencies including the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.

He also said the government will strengthen the pre-shipment inspection for crude oil and gases, fast track the implementation of key reforms by the Federal Inland Revenue Service and the Nigerian Custom Service.

The 2011 budget estimates is 18% less than what was budgeted last year. It comprises N196.12 billion for statutory transfers, N542.38 billion for debt service, N2.481 trillion for recurrent (non-debt) expenditure, and N1.005 trillion for capital expenditure.

The 2011 budget is predicated on assumptions that reflect the outlook for 2011 and "our expectations for improvements in domestic oil production, stability in the international oil markets and sustained economic growth," the president said.

The assumptions include: oil production of 2.3 million barrels per day, benchmark oil price of $65 per barrel, exchange rate of N150 per US dollar, joint venture cash calls of $4.5 billion, and projected growth rate of 7%.