BOKO HARAM KILL TWO APC LEADERS IN BORNO

Suspected gunmen of Boko Haram sect shot dead the Kala/Balge council chairman of All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Modu Janga; and its Youths Leader, Alhaji Abba near Mafa town on the Maiduguri-Dikwa road by 11am Monday.

The APC duo officials were returning to Gudumbali from Maiduguri, the Borno state capital, when their vehicle was ambushed near Mafa town.

According to an eyewitness and resident of Mafa, Babagana Usman mafa, said “the insurgents blocked the road with wood and tree branches, before identify occupants of the vehicle and shot dead two persons at the spot, and fled towards Dikwa, a border town with Cameroon.

“The party chairman along with other passengers in the ambushed vehicle, were first stopped by flagging down the driver for identification, before three gunmen on motorcycles shot dead two people at close range; and fled towards Dikwa,” Usmani said in a telephone chat Tuesday in Maiduguri.

He said the gunmen did not rob the party officials, as their vehicle was abandoned at the scene of the incident, adding that the road was also closed for two hours by soldiers and policemen prevent further attacks.

On whether other vehicles were ambushed during the attack, he said: “these gunmen could have targeted the APC officials returning to the council area of Kala/Balge, before they were ambushed on that road leading to Gudumbali, the council headquarters.”

Our correspondent also learnt that Mafa town was attacked three times this year, destroying several public buildings, vehicles and houses along with people’s lives, including three policemen and a soldier.

Council chairman of Kala/Balge, Alhaji Alifa Bukar Rann also yesterday in Maiduguri at the Government House confirmed the incident. He said “two officials of APC were shot dead near Mafa town while returning to Gudumbali for party official engagements”.

When contacted for confirmation over the incident yesterday in Maiduguri, the Borno state Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), DSP Gideon Jibrin’s phone number could not be reached, but a security source who is not authorized to speak on the matter said “armed hoodlums ambushed a vehicle on Dikwa road on Monday; and two people were feared dead, before the security agents closed the road for two hours to prevent further attacks  -VANGUARD

HOW PLOT TO BLOCK $530M ABA POWER PLANT WAS HATCHED - BUSINESSDAY

 The power brokers behind the delay in the take-off of the $530 million Aba power plant have demonstrated what industry sources describe as greed and short-shortsightedness capable of jeopardising ongoing reforms in the power sector.

They include Emeka Offor, major promoter of Interstate Electrics Limited, new owners of Enugu Electricity Distribution Company (Enugu Disco); Namadi Sambo, Nigeria’s vice president; Sam Amadi, executive chairman, Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), and Benjamin Dikki, director-general, Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE).

Informed sources say these individuals, through deliberate or inadvertent ‘administrative errors’, complicated the issue of the Aba ring-fenced areas.

Geometric has been licensed to deliver power supply to Aba and Ariaria business units, just two out of 18 business units in the Enugu Disco licence areas. Emeka Offor is a government contractor and leading donor to the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Offor’s Interstate Electrics controls the remaining 16 units, which include bigger units like Onitsha, Nnewi, Awka, Owerri and Umuahia.

“Legally, Interstate has no standing in wanting to lay claim to Aba and Ariaria. Economically, it has a bigger cake, as it manages 16 business units. It is just a show of greed and short-sightedness on the part of Interstate,” said a source who stated that Offor’s connection to the vice president was beclouding him.

It would be recalled that following the resignation of Bart Nnaji as minister of power, BusinessDay had in its August 29, 2012 edition reported that the vice president’s deputy chief of staff, Mohammed Kachalla, had been mounting pressure on senior staff of the BPE with a view to influencing the privatisation process of the power sector. It was believed that the scheming was meant to weaken the solid controls put in place by the BPE and the Technical Committee on Privatisation, to ensure that bids were evaluated fairly and transparently.

BusinessDay had last year reported attempts by the Vice President Sambo-led National Council on Privatisation (NCP) to bend the rules of the privatisation of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) successor companies, when Interstate Electrics failed to meet the August 21 deadline for the payment of the remaining 75 percent of the bid value.

The company was said to have lobbied the NCP and BPE to get them to grant it an extension to pay for the asset, for which industry analysts said there was no moral justification, when similarly some investors were shut out at the preliminary stages in the same circumstances.

According to knowledgeable sources, the vice president has vested interests in Interstate Electrics, and “that is why they have always wanted Interstate Electrics to end up buying Enugu Disco. Until it got to Interstate Electric’s inability to make any payment at the August 21, 2013 deadline, the NCP and the BPE did not allow any exception. Even when Dangote was few minutes late in submitting its bid for Geregu and Shiroro, it was disqualified.”

In November 2012, the vice president had, through a memo, directed the BPE headed by Bola Onagoruwa to disregard the 2014 Memorandum of Understanding with Geometric Power, and the 2005 and 2006 lease agreements which ring-fenced Aba and Ariaria business units in favour of Geometric, but because she insisted that the contract should be honoured, she was asked to quit ‘with immediate effect’ on November 27, 2013, a development analysts described as curious in terms of the timing and very disturbing from an investor perspective.

Stakeholders had expected the NCP and the BPE to call in immediately the reserve bidder to make its pitch on the Enugu Disco. The BPE, in a statement, had noted that the deadline for payment remained Wednesday, August 21, 2013 as stipulated in the Request for Proposal (RFP), adding that in compliance with the tenets of transparency and accountability, the bureau would continue to strictly abide by the terms and conditions in the RFP. 

The eventual extension given to Interstate was said to have pitched the chairman, Technical Committee, NCP, Atedo Peterside, against the director-general of the BPE, as the extension would not only undermine the integrity of the transaction and the NCP, but would also translate into a financial discount to the preferred bidder.

According to the peace committee of the NCP, the BPE indicated that Aba ring-fenced was encumbered, yet it included Aba in its bid for the privatisation of the PHCN successor companies. The BPE did not remove the bid value of the Aba ring-fenced area. The committee also noted that NERC did not deduct the value of Aba ring-fenced from the valuation of Enugu Disco even though NERC was aware that Aba was ring-fenced and licensed to Aba Power Limited.

The Amadi-led NERC has said, though belatedly, that the right thing should be done, after a site visit to Aba Power Electric Limited and Geometric Power Aba Limited.

In a report submitted by NERC, seen by BusinessDay, the commission concluded that from the infrastructure already on ground at the generation plant, the distribution substations and lines, the GPAL and APL had gone a long way to meet their own end of the tripartite agreement. “It will be a disservice to the country in general and the company (GPAL and APL) in particular, after investing such huge amount of money on power infrastructure of such magnitude, to be denied the terms of the tripartite agreement.

A disregard of the agreement will cast bad light on the Federal Government’s privatisation process and send a wrong signal to other prospective investors in the power sector,” NERC said in its recommendation, adding that the tripartite agreement between Geometric, FG and PHCN should be upheld and made effective by excising the former Aba business unit from Enugu Disco licence areas. Sources close to the presidency tell us that the actions of the vice president in this Geometric power affair are unbecoming of his office.

“The vice president is acting like a common contractor,” said the source. “Instead of leveraging his considerable powers to win the hearts of the people of the South East for the president, by allowing Geometric Power to proceed with lighting up Aba, he chooses to be in cahoots with Emeka Offor to deprive the Igbo of electricity for their greatest industrial city.”

DELTA COMMISSIONS TASKFORCE TO MONITOR FULANI HERDSMEN

The Delta State Government On Thursday said that it had taken pre-emptive measures aimed at curtailing the menace of cattle rearers ravaging parts of the country, by constituting a high-powered security committee to control the movement of cattle in the state.

Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan disclosed this to journalists after an expanded Security Council meeting, comprising principal officers of the State House of Assembly, heads of security agencies in the state, traditional rulers, council chairmen and religious leaders and northern leaders, which held at the Government House Annex in Warri.

Dr. Uduaghan, who raised alarm about the influx of strange persons into the state, stated that while the State Government welcomed genuine strangers, it would not fold its arms and allow the state to be overrun by people with criminal intentions.

According to the Governor, the State Commissioner of Police would head the task-force with two members of the State Assembly, two commissioners, representatives of security agencies, traditional rulers, council chairmen and the northern community as members, while the Office of the Secretary to the State Government would serve as secretariat.

The task-force would, among other things, control the movement of cattle into and within the state with a view to nipping in the bud any attempt by herdsmen to cause a breach of the relationship.

It was observed that the state has a peculiar security challenge between cattle rearers and farmers, and the situation in recent times had taken a new dimension with the influx of herdsmen carrying arms which they have been using in terrorizing farmers, snowballing into killing and raping of women. - Channels

“THE BIGGEST MISTAKE THAT MY PARTY, THE APC, CAN MAKE IS TO FIELD A MUSLIM/MUSLIM TICKET IN THE 2015 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION” – FANI KAYODE

I have said it privately in countless political meetings and I will say it publicly today. Please mark it- the biggest mistake that my party, the APC, can make is to field a Muslim/Muslim ticket in the 2015 Presidential election. If we do that we will not only offend the Christian community but we will also lose the election woefully. This is not 1993 and whether we like it or not we must accept the fact that religion plays a major role in our politics today. This is not the ideal but it is the reality that we have to accept and live with.

Our party must have both a Christian and a Muslim on the ticket if we want to be taken seriously in the Presidential election. I implore those that think otherwise to sit down and think this through properly. We must not present a Christian/Christian ticket as this would be insensitive to the feelings of Muslims and we must not present a Muslim/Muslim ticket as this would be insensitive to the feelings of Christians. I for one would NEVER support a ticket that presents two members of the same faith no matter what the consequences would be.

This country belongs to both Muslims and Christians- we are all one and we must ensure that we do not hurt the feelings or the sensitivities of one another either advertantly or inadvertently. As they say “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”. Let us be mindful of our actions, deeds and words, no matter how well-intentioned they may be, and let us ensure that we do not confirm the terrible stereotyping that those that are against us are trying to label us with.

Unlike some who only joined the political fray a few years ago, I have been in politics in this country for a total of 24 long years and during that period of time I have learnt a thing or two. The first lesson that I have learnt and which must be appreciated is the ability to distinguish between an ideal and reality. It is laudable to pursue an ideal and we must do all that we possibly can to enthrone it but it is disasterous to ignore the realities on the ground no matter how unsavoury or distasteful that reality may be.

The ideal, which we all desire and which we all seek to enthrone, is to play the type of politics in our country which has no recourse to religion and where a man or woman’s faith is entirely their own affair. Yet the reality is that to ignore the religious sensitivities and differences of the Nigerian electorate is a manifestation of, at the very best, political naivety of the highest order and, at the very worst, dangerous, self-depreciating and self-destructive ignorance. Simply put, religion SHOULD NOT be a factor in our politics but in reality it IS a factor.

To those who say that the APC will produce a Presidential and Vice Presidential candidate that have “integrity, capacity and competence” and that the religious faith of those two candidates does not matter, I have only the following to say. The “integrity, capacity, competence” and all those other laudable qualities are virtues that can surely be found in adherents of both the Muslim and the Christian faith. They are not the exclusive preserve of the adherents of one faith alone. You can find Muslims that have these qualities and you can find Christians that have them as well. It therefore makes perfect sense to present one of such people from each of the two major faiths as a Presidential and Vice Presidential candidate respectively.

This is especially so given the fact that Nigeria is a multi-religious, multi-cultural and multi-ethnic country which suffers from severe religious tensions and periodic sectarian violence and which has at least 80 million Christians and Muslims on both sides of the divide living side by side. We are already sitting on a keg of gunpowder and to ignore one side of the religious divide and treat them with contempt and disdain may be the trigger that causes that keg to explode.

Presenting a Muslim/Muslim ticket for the 2015 Presidential election ticket, no matter how cleverly rationalized, defended or justified in the pursuit of an ideal or in the name of “political correctness”, will be a terrible insult to the 80 million Christians that are part and parcel of this country and it would result in their voting, en masse, for another party. My candid advice to those that are thinking that way and that are moving in that direction is that they should perish the thought and that they should do so very quickly.

As far as I am aware the APC is not an affiliate of Al Qaeda and neither is it a Boko Haram party, a Janjaweed party or a Muslim Brotherhood Party. I have had cause to say so and to defend the intellectual integrity and what I consider to be the multi-religious and secular ethos and composition of the party on numerous occasions. And of course it is a pleasure, a duty and a privilege for me to do so simply because that is what I honestly believe and because I happen to be a secularist myself. Like millions of others from all over the world I believe that religion ought to have no place in the running of the affairs of any country. However that does not mean that we ought to ignore the very delicate religious balance that we have in Nigeria or that we should play havoc with it. To do so would be disastrous for the fortunes of the party and for the future of our nation.

As a matter of fact we would be opening the gates of hell and we would be courting catastrophy. Anyone that doubts that should consider the ugly events that are unfolding in the Central African Republic today or that took place in the Sudan before the country broke into two. We must never allow such things to happen in Nigeria by any act of commission or omission.

As far as I am aware the APC is a party for both Muslims and Christians. It is a vehicle for change and not one that seeks to give the impression that Christians don’t matter or that they are second class citizens. If I am wrong then those that claim to know better or that believe that they own the party should please tell me. If it is a party where faith and religion has no place, as some would have us believe, then they should please let us know. We have an image problem which we need to deal with.

Permit me to share just one example of the factors that have sustained that image problem. We have a leading member of the party from Borno state that has been consistently accused of being the sole founder and originator of Boko Haram. In fairness to the individual concerned the allegations about his personal involvement in these ugly events remain unproven yet all the same they remain serious and grave and they cannot be ignored for much longer. He must provide direct answers to these serious allegations so that, if they are all false, we can make it our business and duty to defend him. Until then, being in a political party that harbours and attracts the sympathy and support of such a person puts some of us in a very awkward position.

If such things do not make some people uncomfortable they certainly make me very uncomfortable. This is especially so given the atrocities that Boko Haram has perpetuated against both Christians and Muslims in our country in the last three years. Whether we like it or not we must go out of our way to try to let the world know that we are not a party of Muslim fundamentalists and closet Islamists and if we choose not to bother to do so it simply means that we are arrogant and that we have lost touch with reality.