Ibrahim Dankwambo, Governor of Gombe State, has thrown his weight behind the agitation for restructuring, saying it will create a better federation.
Dankwambo, a former Accountant General of the Federation, said restructuring does not mean disintegration of the country but rather expression of unhappiness with the governance structure.
He urged the Federal Government to look into the grievances of the agitators for solution.
“When there are agitations, it means people are not happy, people are not satisfied,” Dankwambo said in an interview with the Guardian.
“So, this is a good time for leaders to look at the mirror, see themselves, look at the country and see why there are agitations. And from there, whatever they feel is the cause of agitation should be corrected.
“If restructuring is the solution, restructuring doesn’t mean A go, B go and C go; no. Maybe to restructure is some other ways of being a better federating country.
“I mean units in the country, meaning a better way of balancing things, meaning renegotiating certain terms of living together, meaning creating more confidence and being more comfortable with the units that are together.”
Meanwhile, the governor said the state had faced financial challenges since 2014 because of the dwindling oil revenue, lamenting that all the revenues in the country are connected to oil.
“I must tell you, nobody should deceive himself. If earnings fall from oil, any other revenue in Nigeria, from whichever state, would go down.
“All the revenues are linked to oil revenue: VAT, royalty, taxes, custom duties; all revolve around oil revenue.”
Garus Gololo, Benue State Coordinator of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, says members of the association cannot accept the state’s anti-grazing law because they were never consulted before it was drawn up.
He also called on President Muhammadu Buhari to appoint an adviser on herdsmen matters, as the implementation of anti-grazing law begins in Benue State.
“At the moment, over 10 thousand Fulani herdsmen, including me, are currently moving away from Benue State, Gololo told the Punch.
“We want the Federal Government to intervene in this matter. President Muhammadu Buhari should appoint an adviser on herdsmen matters because during former President Goodluck Jonathan, he did that and it greatly helped.”
He said Benue people did not want Fulani herdsmen in their land and they were being driving away from where they were born and brought up.
“The Fulani have decided to leave Benue State because no provision is made for them to take care of their cattle before the implementation of the anti-open grazing law.
“There are no ranches and there is nowhere that the Fulani are shown to make their ranches. No provision for water for the cows to drink. So, where will the herdsmen stay in the state in a situation like this?”
He described the Fulani in Benue State as peace-loving people and denied that the herdsmen never threatened to attack the state following the anti-grazing law.
Gololo lamented that the Fulani were never consulted when the law was being made, adding that they would not accept the law that did not consider the situation of the herdsmen in the state.
“The first time that the state government conducted a public hearing, the herdsmen were not informed. As the leader of MACBAN in the state, l was not called to any public hearing.
“It was after the law had been passed that we got a copy of the document. How can we accept the provisions of a law that does not take our plights into consideration? Let us be realistic. If we claim to be one Nigeria, no tribe should claim superiority to the other.”
He accused the governor’s aides of harbouring an agenda to send the Fulani out of the state.
“It is not Governor Samuel Ortom who doesn’t want the Fulani; it is his advisers. We have lost confidence in some of them.”
President Muhammadu Buhari has appointed more persons into top government offices, from Ogun State, where Vice President Yemi Osinbajo hails from, than from his own state, Katsina.
This was revealed by Femi Adesina, Special Assistant to Buhari on Media and Publicity, who released a list containing the names of all presidential appointees since Buhari assumed office in 2015.
Adesina released the list in response to a report by BusinessDay, which claimed that 81 out of the 100 persons appointed by Buhari are from the northern region of the country.
The list showed that the total number of appointees by Buhari is 159 and not 100 as claimed in the report.
However, when ICIR scrutinised the list, it was discovered that it actually contains 157 names as there was no column for numbers 118 and 151.
“To claim, suggest or attempt to insinuate that the President’s appointments are tilted in favour of a section of the country is simply untrue and certainly uncharitable,” Adesina said.
“From all records, majority of the President’s appointees across different portfolios are not from the North, as the publication erroneously alleged.”
The list released by Adesina showed that Ogun state has 21 appointees, the highest. Imo and Kano States have 15 each, while Edo and Katsina have 14 each.
Akwa-Ibom, Ekiti, Enugu, Oyo, Sokoto and Zamfara States have four appointees each, Kebbi has three, while Abia and Ebonyi has two each.
There is no appointee from the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
Further breakdown of the list shows that a total of 40 appointees are from the South West, 30 from the North West, 24 from the North East, 22 from the South East, 21 from the North Central and 20 from the South South.
Adesina identified the appointees that were not mentioned in the report by BusinessDay in red letters.
Dino Melaye, the controversial Kogi State senator, says some people have passion for cocaine or blood or diamond, but his is collecting automobiles.
Melaye, a self-acclaimed anti-corruption campaigner, said this during an interview with The Punch, adding that he has no regrets about his love for cars.
He also said that his presence in the Senate had brought lots of relief for ordinary Nigerians, as he has sponsored over 30 motions and bills, most of which have created numerous opportunities for the common man and led to the recovery of billions of naira to government coffers.
“The truth of the matter is that my coming to the National Assembly is for service. I am here with a vision and a purpose, which is to make sure that we right the wrongs in the society,” Melaye said.
“I want to be the voice of the voiceless and speak for those who cannot speak for themselves. These are the principles behind my coming to the National Assembly.”
On the number of bills and motions he has sponsored, Melaye said: “To the glory of God, I have over 30 motions, which is unprecedented in the history of the National Assembly.
“Some of them are landmark motions that have created a lot of opportunities, while billions of naira have been recovered and returned to the government coffers.
“I moved the motion on the Treasury Single Account, which has led to the recovery of huge sums from unauthorised sources and taken to the government coffers. Even the percentage that the agency, Remita, was taking was reduced from five per cent to one per cent; and this is a considerable reduction.
“I moved the motion on MTN and how trillions of naira, through capital flight, left this country.
“I moved a lot of motions, including that of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (Babachir Lawal) that led to his eventual suspension and sacking.
“Two of the bills have been passed into law while 13 have passed through second reading, which are either waiting for public hearing or third reading. I have another 10 that have crossed first reading and are now at second reading.
“They include that of facial mutilation (tribal marks) and the one seeking a stateless Nigeria; that instead of having states, which promotes disunity or having state of origin, we should have state of residence. The bill is awaiting second reading.
“I brought a motion that led to the revolution in the Ministry of Works, which has led to the massive construction of roads in this country.
“I brought a motion on Nigerian roads and specifically elucidated the road from Kabba (Kogi State) to Ilorin (Kwara State) and that of Kabba to Obajana. The Dangote (Cement) has agreed to start the construction of one of the first concrete roads in Nigeria with the Obajana-Kabba road and the work has started.
“Also, by the grace of God, my motion got the Kabba-Ilorin road into the budget last year and this year. It is one of the priority roads that the Federal Government is attending to.
“In fact, the contract for the construction of that road has been ratified by the Federal Executive Council and N21.6bn has been approved for the Kabba-Ilorin road.”
Melaye is popular for flaunting his fleet of exotic cars on social media and he says he has no regret about it.
“I don’t see it as a weakness. Every human has a passion for something. My passion is collection of automobiles.
“Some other people’s passion is cocaine. Some other people’s passion is blood; they are so diabolical that they can buy blood for any amount of money. Some other people’s passion is diamond; you can ask Diezani (Alison-Madueke).
“I love automobiles and I have no regrets about it.”
Asked how his new book – Antidotes for corruption – has fared since its launch in May, Melaye said he has been smiling to the bank as a result of the book’s reception around the world.
“As I speak to you, I have sold over 100,000 copies. I travelled recently to Germany and I took 500 copies along with me. I have been called that the copies have been exhausted.
“I went to Russia with 100 copies. As I speak to you, they’ve all been sold. I sent 1,000 copies to the United Kingdom; they’ve been completely sold. I sent 2,500 copies to five states in America and they are still demanding more.
“I want to believe that it has been properly received. Within the country here, I have also made huge sales. I am laughing all the way to the bank.”
Sani Yerima, former Governor of Zamfara State, has stated his support for President Muhammadu Buhari if he decides to contest the 2019 presidential election.
Yerima, senator representing Zamfara West, who seconded the motion by the National Executive Committee (NEC) of All Progressives Congress (APC) for the President to run for the 2019 election, said he would not contest against him.
“Yes I seconded the motion: I will support the President if he decides to run in 2019,” he said on Saturday.
“I will not contest against him, but if he does not contest and I decide to come out, nobody will condemn me. That’s my personal decision.”
His declaration of support for the President to run for second term followed massive support by 186 groups under the aegis of Buhari Support Group for the President.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo had on October 27 commissioned the secretariat of the Buhari Support Organization (BSO)
Besides the commissioning, the Vice President also relaunched the Buhari Support Group at Utako, Abuja.
Geoffrey Enyinnaya Okorafor, the Anglican Bishop of Diocese of Egbu in Owerri North Local Government Area of Imo State, says President Muhammadu Buhari should ignore political sycophants and not run for a second term come 2019.
Okorafor said this in his address at the first session of the eighth synod of the Anglican church, which held at the Cathedral Church of all Saints Egbu.
He said that the people mounting pressure on Buhari to seek re-election do not mean well for him.
“My dear President, if you have ears hear this, these are your worst enemies and sycophants of the highest order. Do not listen to them,” The Guardian quoted Okorafor as saying.
“If I were you, Mr. President, I would pack all my bags and baggage from Aso Rock, if by God’s grace I pull through the hazards of governing this difficult and complex entity called Nigeria.
“To my mind, you have achieved your life ambition as military Head of State and a civilian President.”
Okorafor said Buhari’s administration has no regard for the opinion of ordinary Nigerians.
“Last year, we urged the President to do a house cleansing, beginning with his own house and office before engaging in the fight against corruption, but it fell on deaf ears,” he continued.
“That was expected because we have a government that has no regard for the opinion of the ordinary citizens.
“May we ask, what has happened to the looted funds that have been purportedly recovered? When will Nigerians be given the account? Are we sure they are not passing from one corrupt hand to another? We need an answer.”
Okorafor wondered why herdsmen still go about freely, some of them armed with rifles, but the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), whose members bore no arms, were declared a terrorist group and proscribed.
Dignitaries that attended the event include Benjamin Njemanze, immediate past Chief Judge of Imo State; Oliver Enwerem, a former representative of Ezinihitte Mbaise constituency in the Imo House of Assembly; and some government and top religious officials.
Samuel Ortom, Governor of Benue State, says the state has lost over N95 billion worth of goods and property, including his rice farm, to attacks by herdsmen attacks.
“If you go to the rural areas, you see schools, churches, hospitals, houses, farmlands, all that destroyed,” Ortom told the Daily Sun in an interview.
“In 2013, I lost my rice farm and farm implements. My ancestral home was razed; my entire village was razed; more than 50 people were killed in one day. So, this is a very big challenge.”
He said the state has suffered untold hardship from herdsmen since 2012 and can no longer tolerate open grazing of cattle.
The governor said the anti-grazing law recently enacted by the state is the solution to the incessant clashes between the farmers and herdsmen.
He said a cattle ranching is the best way to rear cows and anybody who cannot establish ranch should quit the state for other states that do not have anti-grazing law.
Ortom pointed out that the argument of having grazing routes is not realistic, as there is no single hectare of land in the state that can be used for such purpose.
“In the 1950s, when people argue that they had cattle routes and grazing areas, the question is: “What was the total population of Nigeria? [It was] less than 40 million people.
“Today, in 2017, I can approximate it to be over 200 million, because the projection in 2012 was 170 million. So, by today, we should be over 200 million. But what is the land mass now? What was it in 1950? It’s still 923, 000 square kilometres, even less with the ceding of Bakassi to the Cameroon.
“So, we have a lesser land mass than what used to obtain when we were less in population than now. So, it’s unfortunate that we have kept sealed lips and, honestly, I feel so sad; but I will continue to do what is right, as far as I know, as a person.”
Ortom expressed sadness that instead of the herdsmen to abide by the law, they have been threatening to invade the state.
He warned that despite the threat of violence by the herdsmen, anybody that violates the law must go jail because the constitution empowers the state to make such laws.
“I have said that the security agencies should arrest them for threatening me and my state that they would make the law not to function.
“I am waiting to see who will trespass. I am waiting to see who will not respect that law in Benue State. I have said it; I am not forcing anyone to live in Benue State. If you want to do open grazing, you can go to any other state that land is available.
“For me, here we are farmers and we cannot pay salaries as at when due today, so we want to have food on the table for everyone, and we have massively encouraged our people to go into agriculture, and they have done that.”
He urged Nigerians to support the state in this effort to end wanton killings and destruction of property by herdsmen.
Abdulrasheed Maina, former Chairman of the Pension Reform Task Team (PRTT), has leaked a letter he wrote in 2015 to Bukola Saraki, Senate President, wherein he accused the seventh senate of aiding and abetting pension thieves in the country.
The authenticity of the leaked letter was confirmed by Messrs Mamman Nadir & Co., the law firm representing Maina, whose office is located at 36 Ali Akilu Road, Kaduna.
Maina claimed that the PRTT, which he chaired between 2010 and 2013, discovered that over N3 trillion pension fund was stolen in 97 pension offices, adding that the team recovered N1.6 trillion in cash and assets from pension thieves.
The letter was titled: Pension Reform Task Team: Appeal for Review of Investigation by Senate Joint Committee on Establishment and Public Service and States and Local Government Administration 2011 – 2013.
In the letter, dated June 19, 2015, Maina asked Saraki to review his case and investigate the various actions taken against him by “people bent on intimidating me to submission”.
“We, members of Pension Reform Task Team (PRTT) wish to use this medium to apologise for our late response to reaching back to you,” Maina’s letter read in part.
“We had to put the issues together and source appurtenant materials. We appreciate your understanding.
“As a refresher, the PRTT was inaugurated on June 10, 2010 by the immediate past administration of former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, with a clear mandate to restructure the Head of Service Pension Office, Police Pension Office, among others.
“We did our utmost with precision and national interests as our guiding principles. The PRTT took off effectively by January 2011. We used financial intelligence skills to achieve our assignment.
“We recovered and saved cash and properties worth over N1.6 trillion. Our efforts led to the arrest and prosecution of 46 persons/firms involved in looting of pension funds, which we handed to the EFCC. The trials are still ongoing.
“As it is, there is a leakage of N256 billion monthly from the current IPPIS which needs to be blocked urgently.
“Some pensioners got a backlog of about 30 years paid into their accounts. All payments were ordered under the signature of the Head of Service monthly.
“We are also aware of some government’s hidden accounts, which needed to be mopped up. We can be used to engage any department of government in sanitising the financial workflow to avoid loose ends that remain susceptible to leakages.” the letter stated.
“Based on the revelations of monumental fraud and outright stealing of pension funds, which was brought to public attention by the PRTT, the 7th National Assembly by a resolution of November 2, 2011 mandated its Committee on Establishment and Public Service, State and Local Government Administration, to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the management and administration of Pension funds in Nigeria.
“There was general expectation that the various dimensions of irregularities associated with the management of Pension funds in Nigeria would come to an end as a consequence of the investigations being conducted by the Senate Joint Committee.”
However, the letter noted that the Senate Joint Committee ended up creating more problems than solutions to the endemic corruption and fraud prevailing in the system.
It accused the Senate of haunting members of the task team, while favouring pension thieves.
“The PRTT regrets to observe that rather than achieving the objectives of the spirit and its mandate, which in our view includes but not limited to identifying those responsible for the culture of fraud that characterised the system and bringing them to book, the Senate Joint Committee ended up creating more problems than solutions to the endemic corruption and fraud prevailing in the system,” the letter read.
“We became objects of corruption fighting us back. From our first appearance before the Senate committee, it was obvious that the entire exercise conducted by the Committee was geared towards discrediting the PRTT.
“In this context, the PRTT, wishes to state without any fear of contradiction that the Senate Joint Committee’s Report submitted, which was subsequently adopted by the 7th Senate but now quashed by the Federal High Court judgement of 13th March 2013 in favour of the PRTT’s Chairman, not only failed to address the issues at stake but succeeded in misleading the Senate and the generality of Nigerians about the true picture, nature and scope of problems militating against the efficient management and administration of Pension Funds in Nigeria. Copy of said judgement attached and marked “ANNEXURE1”.
“Today, it (pension fraud) is worse with the Police Pension Office, where millions are taken out of pension funds daily. We have pieces of evidence to substantiate this.”
Maina said he had to flee the country following numerous threats to his life.
He also said that the ICPC conducted an investigation into the matter but “till date, they have yet to commence the prosecution.”
“As we write to you, Abdulrasheed A. Maina has been dismissed from the Civil Service for being absent for three days, while his life was under threat following a gunshot attack on his person in front of the Head of Civil Service Office, where his office was located in February, 2013. Attached are copies of letters from the Nigeria Police Force. ANNEXURE 3 (a) and (b),” the letter concluded.
Very few girls have been able to continue their education following the Boko Haram crisis in the north-east, and many have taken to what seems to be the next available option – getting married.
Nigeria comes 16th in the number of teenage pregnancies, with about 111.89 births per 1000 women aged 15-19. It also has the highest maternal mortality rate in Africa.
Stories of the young mothers were captured by Dolce Pedroso, a consultant sociologist who is providing Medicaid and counseling to young girls in six states in Northern Nigeria under a United Kingdom-sponsored charity programme called ‘Maternal Newborn and Child Health (MNCH2)’.
While the programme addresses long-term issues in the health system, it has introduced community interventions such as ‘safe spaces’ (SSI) for women and girls and outreaches to provide antenatal care, family planning and immunisation services.
The report, titled “How to be a girl after Boko Haram”, chronicles the challenges of young girls between 15 and early 20s, who became mothers after their hopes for good education were dashed by the Boko Haram crises.
Narrating the story of one of the girls, Pedroso wrote: “I was divorced at 12,” Afra tells me, making a face when she talks about the man she had been forced to marry a few months earlier. “I didn’t love him.”
As is customary in the Hausa culture when a woman wants a divorce, her family paid the dowry – some 20,000 naira (£40) – back to the husband. Next time Afra was allowed to pick her fiancé. A year later she married a 35-year-old butcher.
“She was out of town with her husband when they heard the news about Boko Haram rampaging in the village. They ran away to Kano and didn’t return until a year later.”
Of another teenage mother, Pedroso wrote: “Halimat lived with her father in Hadejia, near the basin of the Chad Lake, an area that has been severely affected by reduced rain fall of recent years.
“When her father passed away, Halimat moved to Katarko. Her extended family started making marriage arrangements. Halimat ran away from home and stayed with her uncle, in whom she found an ally, until she was promised not be forced to marry.
“Like Afra, a year later she married a man she was in love with. “The other one, I didn’t love. But I loved Mohammed. He’s a teacher.”
The teacher would encourage his young bride to get an education, but Halimat – who had never been to school – thought that at 14 she was too old to start studying. Soon she was pregnant with her daughter.
When Boko Haram came, holding her toddler, she and her husband ran three kilometres into the night. Her neighbours got killed.
Hauwa, 18, was born in Maidiguri, the capital of Borno State. She was four when the family of twelve moved to Dikumari. They had struggled to pay rent. Her father knew people in the village, and there were no restrictions as to where to build a house. He died when Hauwa was six. Her mother moved to Damaturu, where Hauwa started attending Islamic School, until her mother remarried and they moved back,” Pedroso wrote of yet another teenage mother.
Hauwa was very close to her older sister. When her sister moved out to get married, Hauwa even left home to live with her and her brother-in-law. She loved them both, so it came as a huge shock to her when one day he left the family to join Boko Haram. When he got killed in an explosion, Boko Haram came for her sister.
The Nigerian Army has been operating rescue missions and Hauwa’s sister was one of the lucky ones. But when she came back she acted withdrawn. The two sisters no longer had long talks like they used to. Hauwa was let down for the second time, when her sister voluntarily returned for a life with the militants.
“The family no longer let themselves worry for their lost daughter. They just gave up on her. But the little sister is still praying that she would come back. “Although, I will never trust her again for what she did.”
She doubts the community will be as forgiving.
Hauwa had no other option but to get married. She had only finished primary school. Now she learns about food groups and how to take care of a baby at the Safe Space intervention.
“I would choose school over marriage. What I’d really like is to be a barrister,” she says.
She pauses to attach her baby back to her breast. Her husband is supportive, but not a rich man. “I want the truth and I want to fight corruption.”
Pedroso reports that contrary to the intention of the Boko Haram terrorists – to eliminate western education from Northern Nigeria – many young girls are willing to return to school, and has expressed willingness to allow their children get proper education.
Rebecca, a 20-year-old who is pregnant with her first child, says she would like to become a health worker in the future.
“I want to help my community,” she says. Fortunately, her husband supports the idea, but there is no money.
Rebecca believes what the community needs is a 24-hour health service and a hospital. She also wants to see schools, water and food and jobs.
Binta Adamu is a Community Health Extension Worker (CHEW)
Binta Adamu, who has worked as a Community Health Extension Worker (CHEW), attending to pregnant girls and women, said there are positive changes though it has been slow.
Adamu said the people only started returning to their communities last year.
“There were no schools left. Many girls had spent over six months with Boko Haram and were sometimes rejected by their husbands when they came back,” she said.
But she also observed a resilient spirit growing in the community. “Before the norm was to marry the girls before they turned 14. Now I’m starting to see more and more delaying until they are 17 or 18,” she said.
Binta says that many were introduced to family planning in the IDP camps. “No one wants to be pregnant away from home, especially in conditions like those on the camps,” she said.
There is no counselling, so it is left to health workers like Binta, to tell people that “the past is past, now you have to focus on the future.”
“I am one of the internally displaced people,” she explains. “I’ve seen with my own eyes what has happened. I lost my house and everything I owned, but I didn’t lose my children.”
Others were not as lucky. When she hears about girls and boys taken from their homes, she cries with the parents. “It will not happen again,” she tells them again and again.
Sambo Dasuki, former National Security Adviser, says all his transactions with Olisa Metuh, former National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), followed due process.
Metuh is facing corruption charges at the Federal High Court, Abuja, having been accused of receiving and misappropriating N400 million from the office of the NSA in 2015.
When Dasuki first appeared in court to testify on Wednesday, he told the court that he could not remember the transaction and needed more time to go through his documents.
But the request was turned down by Okon Abang, the presiding judge, who insisted that Dasuki must enter the witness box and testify.
Following the ruling, Dasuki was questioned by both defence and prosecution counsel.
He maintained that all his dealings with Metu followed due process, adding that he had never been charged no convicted over such transactions.
When presented with an electronic payment voucher indicating the transfer of N400 million in foreign denomination to Mr. Metuh’s company, Dextra Investment Limited, Dasuki said he could not authenticate the document without first going through his own records.
“What services did the company, Destra Investments Limited, the second defendant render to entitle the company, the payment of N400m,” Dasuki was asked by the prosecution counsel.
“If you want an answer, I still have to refer to my records,” he replied.
“These are simply documents from a prosecution desperate to get a conviction, that is why I insist on referring to my own records.”
After the cross-examination, Justice Abang permitted Dasuki to go.
The trial was adjourned to December 4, 5 and 6 to enable court officials discuss with the defence counsel on the service of a subpoena on former President Goodluck Jonathan.
The court had granted Metuh’s request to issue a subpoena on Jonathan t come and testify in the trial.
Metuh says that the N400 million he was accused of misappropriating, was disbursed to him on Jonathan orders.
However, court officials have not been able to serve the subpoena on Jonathan as he is said to be out of the country.
