The National Pensions Commission, PenCom, has revealed that pension assets as at July 2016, stood at N5.8 trillion, adding that by 2019, at least 40 percent of PenCom assets would be invested in critical infrastructures across the country.
Director-General of PenCom, Chinelo Anohu-Amazu, made this known during a programme organised by the Finance Correspondents Association of Nigeria, FICAN, in Abuja on Friday.
Represented by Ehimeme Ohioma, PenCom’s head of investment supervision, the DG said that the investment of pension fund into infrastructure development was a reasonable venture.
She added that infrastructure projects were long term investments, which fits into the long term duration of pension liabilities.
Anohu-Amazu pointed out that globally, productive investments in infrastructures were made possible by long term private fund and savings, saying that most successful countries had utilized pension assets in order to develop infrastructures.
She said: “Nigeria has huge “infrastructure deficit in all sectors, largely due to population growth, demographic change and urbanisation which have driven increased demand for infrastructures in the country.”
The DG however noted that regulatory requirements for pensions fund investment in infrastructures must first be met.
Such requirements include: registration of the infrastructure fund with Nigeria Stock Exchange, NSE, and managed by fund manager registered with the SEC; well defined and communicated investment risk strategies as well as life cycle and exit clause.
Patience Jonathan wants the EFCC to release ‘her’ trapped $31m
By Samuel Malik
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has said it will not vacate the no debit order it placed on the bank accounts of four companies, which former first lady, Patience Jonathan, allegedly used to launder money.
Jonathan claims the money belongs to her.
EFCC spokesman, Wilson Uwujaren, said the order, which is a block placed on a bank account to prevent any transaction that requires money leaving the account, is aimed at protecting the money pending the conclusion of investigations into the circumstances that led to the money being paid into the account.
Uwujaren spoke this morning on a radio programme, Political Platform, on Ray Power. He said the anti-graft agency was alerted to the presence of the funds in the accounts while investigating some transactions carried out by the former aide to former president, Goodluck Jonathan, on domestic matters, Waripamo-Owei Dudafa.
“In the course of investigating that matter, it came to light that he registered some companies, four companies, and in the process of looking at those companies, it emerged that documents that were used to register them were forged and the names of people on the boards of the companies, we also tracked them and those people whose names appeared denied knowledge that their names were used to even float the companies and open accounts for the companies,” Uwujaren said.
Dudafa is accused of registering four companies with dodgy papers
Dudafa allegedly connived with some officials from Skye Bank to circumvent banking regulations by opening accounts for the companies without biometric registration identification numbers, while it also emerged that the names of people used to open the accounts were different from those operating them.
“So, this raised suspicion and the Commission took that precautionary step to place a no debit order on those accounts to protect the money in the accounts while we are still carrying out our investigation because if we leave the accounts open and somebody gets wind of the investigation (the money may disappear before you conclude your investigation),” the EFCC spokesman said.
He expressed shock that the former first lady rushed to court claiming ownership of the money, even though none of the documents used in opening the accounts or registering the companies had her identity, saying, “If she claims to be the owner of the money, the logical question Nigerians should ask is, ‘why would you now use forged names and forged documents to open accounts for companies and then lodge your own personal funds into those accounts?’”
Asked why the EFCC is yet to invite the former president’s wife, Uwujaren said the Commission is focused on doing a thorough investigation. He, however, dismissed her claims that the EFCC is using mercenaries to discredit her in court, saying it was a matter of time before she is called to explain her connection with the money.
“why would you now use forged names and forged documents to open accounts for companies and then lodge your own personal funds into those accounts?
According to Uwujaren: “People do say the EFCC is doing hasty investigation (but) now that we are taking our time to do thorough investigations before confronting the prime suspect, she has not allowed us to do that, rather she went to court to claim money that belongs to companies that there is no evidence in the documentation of these companies that she is the face of those companies. So, these are some of the issues and to say that EFCC went to court to use mercenaries, I think that is laughable.
“That will come (inviting the former first lady to defend herself) as the investigations progress but she has filed an action in court and that has diverted our attention to look at the issue she has raised in court and the Commission has filed an affidavit in respect of that matter. But the truth of the matter is that she jumped the gun by claiming the money when we have not even approached her with the evidence that we have.”
EFCC chairman, Ibrahim Magu, has ruffled some feathers in the fight against corruption
While the companies and their accounts’ documents do not identify Patience Jonathan, the EFCC said it has evidence that she is the one running the accounts.
There is possibility, however, that the money will be released to the former first lady, the EFCC said, but that will be at the end of the investigation and provided no case is established against her.
“Nobody has taken any money away from Patience Jonathan. We are simply doing our investigation (and) if Jonathan is not happy with proceedings of court, her lawyers can approach the court to get relief,” Uwujaren said.
Former governor of Katsina State, Ibrahim Shema, who was declared wanted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Wednesday, has turned himself him in.
His spokesperson, Oluwabusola Olawale told newsmen that the ex-governor “arrived at the EFCC headquarters around 9:30 a.m.” on Friday.
Olawale said his principal took the step because “he’s a law abiding citizen who has absolutely nothing to fear.”
He also criticized the EFCC, saying that the commission “has not been fair to him (Shema) in handling his case.”
The EFCC had released a statement on Wednesday, saying that Shema had ignored all invitations extended to him by the anti-corruption agency to answer to allegations of “criminal conspiracy, inflation of contract, abuse of office, diversion of funds and embezzlement running into billions of naira”.
However, Shema’s media aide released a statement on Thursday, calling out the EFCC for trying to dent the image of the former governor.
According to the statement, Shema had on June 28, cancelled a religious trip to Saudi Arabia in order to honour the invitation of the EFCC, but was told to go back and report on a later date as the officer handling his case was out of town.
“He was told to come back later because the officials in charge were on other assignment,” Olawale said.
“After that, he also wrote them through his lawyers for a new date but they didn’t respond.
“We also took letters to their office which they declined to collect.”
The spokesman insisted that the whole Saga linking Shema to corruption during his time as Katsina State governor “are politically-motivated attacks aimed at rubbishing a man who served the people of Katsina well throughout his tenure.”
“He didn’t only clear all the state’s debts, he also left a robust treasury for the incoming government,” Olawale said.
A source at the EFCC who spoke to the media on condition of anonymity, said Shema allegedly diverted about N18 billion from government coffers into his private accounts for undisclosed reasons.
The officials said the ex-governor further raided local governments’ monthly allocation accounts which were being jointly run with the state government, leaving little for developmental projects and clearance of local government employees’ wages and salaries.
President Muhammadu Buhari and US President Barrack Obama
President Muhammadu Buhari’s ‘Change Begins with Me’ campaign suffered a setback Friday following a newspaper report that the president allegedly plagiarised President Barack Obama in the speech he delivered while launching the project.
The government says the campaign will help curb “widespread act of immorality” by Nigerians.
The report, which detailed how Mr. Buhari allegedly lifted quotes from a 2008 speech by Mr. Obama, came on the heels of another damaging allegation that the ‘Change Begins With Me’ campaign contained elements belonging to another anti-corruption effort, ‘Not in My Country’.
Mr. Buhari on August 8 launched the ‘reorientation’ campaign in Abuja as part of his government’s strategy to make Nigerians eschew “dishonesty, indolence, unbridled corruption and widespread impunity” and embrace daily introspection over their “immoral” conducts.
He also used the occasion to sue for national consensus amongst Nigerians on issues ranging from spirit of service to patriotism.
“We must resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship, pettiness and immaturity that have poisoned our country for so long.
“Let us summon a new spirit of responsibility, spirit of service, of patriotism and sacrifice, Let us all resolve to pitch in and work hard and look after, not only ourselves but one another.
“What the current problem has taught us is that we cannot have a thriving army of rent seekers and vested interests, while the majority suffers,” Mr. Buhari said.
But facts have emerged indicating Mr. Buhari did not author those quotes.
Adeola Akinremi, a columnist with Lagos-based THISDAY Newspaper, was the first to spot possible instances of plagiarism between Mr. Buhari’s speech and a speech delivered by Mr. Obama when he was first elected in 2008.
In a speech deliveredafter his victory on November 4, 2008, Mr. Obama said to a crowd of enthusiastic supporters:
“Let’s resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.
“So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other.
“Let us remember that, if this financial crisis taught us anything, it’s that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers.”
After highlighting the seeming plagiarism, Mr. Akinremi said the act was “unethical” and lampooned Mr. Buhari for allegedly indulging in it.
“It is immoral to plagiarize other people’s work, but even worse to use dishonesty to launch a campaign about honesty.
“When you use another person’s work without acknowledgement, you have plagiarized. You simply pretend as if it is your own. It is unethical. It makes a mess of the campaign from the start. That is what Buhari has done, nobody will believe in the ‘change begins with me’ campaign, because it was built on lies,” Mr. Akinremi said.
When contacted Friday morning, presidential spokesperson, Garba Shehu, said he was just becoming aware of the allegation and that the presidency would investigate.
Mr. Akinremi’s column was published a week after associates of Akin Fadeyi, creator of ‘Not In My Country’ accused the Buhari administrationof stealing his concept to launch ‘Change Begins with Me.’
The associates said Mr. Fadeyi, a creative artist and former head of communications at Airtel Nigeria, met with the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, in December 2015 to intimate him of ‘Not In My Country,’ an episodic narrative that deploys humour to underscore societal ills and appeal to Nigerians to shun sharp practices.
They said Mr. Mohammed declined interest in the concept, only to turn around to adapt it for ‘Change Begins with Me’ campaign.
But Mr. Mohammed denied the allegations, saying he started ‘Change Begins with Me’ before he was appointed minister.
“We started working on ‘Change Begins with Me’ before the honourable minister was nominated and we’ve been working with the agency that produced the campaign,” Mr. Mohammed’s associate said.
The ‘Change Begins with Me’ campaign had earned Mr. Buhari widespread criticism, with many Nigerians accusing him of shifting blames to them and wondering why they gave him their mandate if he would ultimately saddle them with the duty of effecting the change he promised.
But the government said the campaign became necessary to rally all Nigerians in the effort to cleanse the country of corruption and other malaise plaguing it.
Former First Lady, Patience Jonathan has accused the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, of hiring mercenaries to plead guilty in court to money laundering in what she described as a desperate attempt to pull her down and confiscate her hard-earned money.
Representatives of four companies namely: Pluto Property and Investment Company Limited; Seagate Property Development & Investment Co. Limited; Trans Ocean Property and Investment Company Limited and Development Company Limited pleaded guilty to the 15 count amended charge brought against them by the EFCC.
The companies admitted that they helped the former First Lady launder money as contained in the charges brought against them by the EFCC.
She reacted to the guilty plea through her media aide, Chima Osuji, who released a statement late on Thursday, picking holes in the authenticity of the representatives of the four companies who pleaded guilty to charges of money laundering at a Federal High Court in Lagos, presided over by Justice Babs Kuewumi.
She alleged that the EFCC presented four unknown persons as representatives of the companies, all of who did not show letters authorising them by their respective boards to represent them in the case.
The guilty plea was entered on behalf of the companies by one Friday Davies, Agbo Baro, Bioghowri Frederick and Taiwo Ebenezer, respectively.
Former Governor of Katsina State, Ibrahim Shema was declared wanted by the EFCC on Wednesday
Former Governor of Katsina State, Ibrahim Shema, has accused the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, of being used by his successor to carry out false and malicious propaganda against him.
The EFCC had on Wednesday declared the ex-governor wanted over an alleged N76bn fraud, and for refusing to honour several invitations extended to him.
Shema in a letter addressed to EFCC’s acting chairman, Ibrahim Magu, on Thursday, stated that he had honoured the EFCC’s invitation and wondered why the agency would go ahead to declare him wanted.
However, the ex-governor said he had to cancel his trip to Saudi Arabia in June this year in order to honour the invitation only for him to be told that the officer in charge of the case was out of town.
Shema explained that the EFCC had written a letter, signed by Hyacinth A. Edozie and sent to a wrong address of Wole Olanipekun & Co. asking the law firm to make him available for an interview June 28, 2016.
“Despite the incongruity in the way and manner the invitation was extended to me through a counsel – and also through a wrong address of the same counsel, and notwithstanding the fact that I was already billed to travel to Saudi Arabia for the lesser hajj (Umrah) on the appointment day, I cancelled all the engagements to honour the invitation with my counsel on the said June 28, 2016, only to be informed, around 10am on that day that the interview would no longer hold, as Mr. Hyecinth A. Edozie was out of Abuja, and that a new date, after Sallah, would be communicated,” he said.
The former Governor said his lawyer wrote a letter to the EFCC on June 28, 2016 addressed to Edozie and copied the acting chairman.
According to him, “the letter was delivered, received, stamped and duly acknowledged at the EFCC office on the same day June 28, 2016.
“To date, the EFCC has not responded to the said letter, suggesting any date.”
The Son-in-law to former president Umaru Yar’adua said he was shocked to read in the papers that he had been declared wanted by the EFCC.
He accused the anti-graft agency of being used by his successor, Governor Bello Masari, who is a member of the All Progressives Congress, APC.
Shema said: “As a senior citizen of this country, a legal practitioner of 32 years post-call experience, and a two-time Governor of Katsina State, I not only feel seriously embarrassed, disturbed, surprised and confounded by the report sponsored by EFCC, but also feel sorry for our dear country.
“I feel sorry for the pitiable situation we have found ourselves as Nigerians where and when a sacred institution like the EFCC is pressurised and used to sponsor fake, false, malicious, misleading and unfounded allegations against someone like me, who the EFCC has not at any time accused of fraud, embezzlement, inflation of contract, or any misdemeanour at all.
“The EFCC deliberately embarked on false propaganda against me and my person by positing that I have ignored several invitations which it extended to me,” he concluded.
File: Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State and Governor Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State congratulating Eyitayo Jegede, SAN, after he won the governorship primary organised by the Ahmed Makarfi-led faction of the PDP
The leadership crisis in the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, continues to fester with the submission of the names of two different candidates by the two factions of the party for the forthcoming Ondo State Governorship election.
The Party had broken into two camps, one headed by the Chairman of the National Caretaker Committee, Ahmed Makarfi, and the other led by Ali Modu-Sheriff.
It was gathered that Makarfi’s camp had submitted the name of Eyitayo Jegede, SAN, to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, as candidate of the PDP in the election while the Sheriff’s faction presented the name of Jimoh Ibrahim as its own candidate.
The Modu-Sheriff faction said its actions were being guided by two court rulings asking INEC to recognize Modu-Sheriff as the authentic National Chairman of the PDP.
Bernard Mikko, spokesman for the faction, confirmed the development, saying that his faction was confident that its candidate would emerge victorious in the polls.
He added that Sheriff, who he described as a “man who has the love of the party at heart,” would eventually be declared by the courts as the authentic national chairman of the party.
“We have a formidable candidate in Jimoh Ibrahim and we have forwarded his name to INEC as the party’s candidate,” Mikko said.
“We believe he will defeat any other candidate based on the clean process that threw him up and his antecedents in the state.
“He had contested before and was and still, well received by the electorate. He’s our candidate for the election.”
However, a member of the Makarfi-led Caretaker Committee, Dayo Adeyeye, criticized the Modu-Sheriff faction for submitting another candidate’s name to INEC on the same PDP platform.
He said the action of the group would eventually amount to nothing the way it did in the case of the Edo governorship election.
Adeyeye noted that the purported primary held by the Modu-Sheriff faction which produced Ibrahim, was held in Ibadan, Oyo State and was not monitored by INEC as required by the electoral act.
He said, “If they do that (submit Ibrahim’s name), it will amount to nothing.
“This is because, we have court judgments in our favour and moreover, INEC did not monitor their own primary.
“Let them continue with the entertainment. Nigerians are enjoying their drama.”
Meanwhile, Nick Dazang, INEC’s Deputy Director on Voter Education and Publicity, confirmed that the commission had received the name of the candidate of the Makarfi group.
He said, “Yes, one of them, the Makarfi group had submitted the name of its candidate. I’m not sure if the Sheriff faction has done the same thing either today (Thursday) or yesterday (Wednesday).
“At the end of the day, the commission will sit down to look at the law and take a position on who is the right candidate and who is not.”
The Ondo State Governorship election has been scheduled to hold in November this year.
The Ekiti State Government has budgeted N1.9bn for the construction of a new governor’s office and a high court complex in Ado-Ekiti.
This was revealed by Funmi Ogun, the state’s Commissioner for Works and Transportation, during an open bidding for the two projects in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital.
She said the projects were part of plans to give the state a face-lift in terms of infrastructure development.
Ogun added that when completed, the projects would add to the existing legacy projects of the present administration in the state.
She disclosed that the amount proposed by consultants for the construction of the new governor’s office is N687m, while that of the High Court Complex is N1.299bn.
The commissioner stated that the open bidding process confirmed the transparency of Fayose’s government and its commitment to prudent management of the state’s lean resources.
“It shows that Gov. Fayose is incurably committed to giving Ekiti a face-lift and make Ado Ekiti capital city a real modern city,” she said.
“Ekiti will clock 20 years on October 1, 2016 and we have to embark on projects that will make Ekiti a developing state that can compete with other capital cities in terms of infrastructure.
“The High Court we are presently using was inherited from the old
Ondo state and constructing a new one of our own will afford us the opportunity to
put state-of-the-art equipment,” she stated.
Journalists in Nigeria should be taken into confidence by those in authority if they are to work as partners in progress.
This is the view of Kashim Shettima, Governor of Borno State.
He stressed that the image problem suffered by successive leadership of the country was because media practitioners are not taken into confidence by those in authority due to the erroneous believe that journalists lack capacity to unearth government secrets.
He spoke in a remark after presentation of a paper by former Military Spokesman, Chris Olukolade, a major general, in Maiduguri. Olukolade’s paper was entitled: “An Appraisal of Press Coverage of Military Counter Insurgency Operations in Borno State.”
Shettima said instances where journalists break stories that work against efforts of security agencies in Nigeria are largely because those in control of sensitive information do not take the journalists into confidence.
Shettima also pointed out that state officials prefer to give out less information believing that the journalists lack the capacity to get the facts.
The governor, speaking at the workshop jointly organized by the 7 Division of the Nigerian Army and the Borno State council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, in Maiduguri, said in developed countries the media is often taken into confidence and told the truth about security situations with the understanding that the media is patriotic and would not undermine security of the state.
He said: “I had asked myself many times that why was it that in developed countries, Presidents and other leaders would go to places like Afghanistan and Iraq to meet with their soldiers at the battle fronts but such visits would not be instantly reported by leading media houses of the world like the CNN, BBC, New York Times, Aljazeera, Reuters, AFP and other media establishments.
“Reports about these visits would mostly be made public only days after the visit of the President or when the media is sure that the safety of the Presidents at the front lines in Afghanistan would not be compromised.
“A lot of us have heard how the CNN reported meetings between President Obama and troops in battle fields only days after such visits. The International media completely shielded Prince Harry when he was fighting as a soldier and member of the British troops in Afghanistan between 2007 and 2008. He was only reported 10 weeks into his deployment after leaving dangerous point in Afghanistan.
“Let us now compare this with a classical situation in Nigeria. When President Goodluck Jonathan was said to be planning to visit Chibok in 2014, the trip was instantly revealed by virtually all Nigerian media houses even when at that time, the visit was supposed to be a secret one in order not to compromise the safety of the President given the strength of the Boko Haram at that time.”
Shettima said his findings have shown that the International media do not give instant or live reports concerning the visits of Presidents and world leaders to any dangerous places because the international media houses are taken into confidence by their media ,managers.
He said however, that in the case of Nigeria, “we try to beat the media by keeping our plans away from them, with a wrong notion that our journalists do not have the capacity to know that which we hide from them.”
Shettima said: “The worst assumption any newsmaker can ever have is to assume that any journalist lacks the capacity to find out what is being kept away from the journalist.”
In his paper, Olukolade said: “Terrorism remains an attractive boon for media coverage. It is this terrorists need for publicity and the media need for greater audience and profits that sustains the dangerous symbiosis between the two. The evil symbiosis is however not inevitable.”
He added that: “This could only be achieved if the media could deliberately opt to constitute a force for good by consciously tilting the equation on the side of the people by starving the terrorist of the oxygen of publicity on which it depends.”
During his paper presentation, “The Role of the Media in Promoting Peace in a Conflict Environment,” at the workshop, the President of the NUJ, AbdulWaheed Odusile said: “Journalist must be respected, recognized, protected and adequately remunerated if we are serious about sustenance of this democracy.”
He added that: “Journalist should also be guaranteed access to information in the course of performing their duties, however, they should also use such information responsibly to ensure peace, promote growth, development and national unity.”
The Kaduna State Government has asked parents to allow their children below the ages of five to be immunised against Polio or face prosecution.
The News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, reports that the state government in a statement by the Special Assistant to Governor Nasir El-Rufai on Media and Publicity, Samuel Aruwan, said on Thursday in Kaduna that the immunisation was compulsory.
The statement read in part, “The government wishes to clarify that any parent found obstructing health workers from carrying out their statutory functions will be prosecuted according to the law.’’
It also urged parents to support the programme, saying a “polio-free state is a mission that all parents must support for the sake of all children in the state”.
“The campaign reflects the government’s determination to ensure that no child is exposed to the hazards of a disease that can be prevented, and which has been eradicated in most parts of the world,” it added.
The statement quoted the state’s Task force on Polio Eradication Initiative and Routine Immunisation, which is headed by the governor, as saying, “Children must be protected from the severe consequences of non-immunisation.
“The polio task force believes that most parents would easily appreciate the need to vaccinate their children.
“However, the public interest to protect children against avoidable health threats has led to a decision to make polio vaccination compulsory.
“The state cannot tolerate a situation where the laxity or levity of some parents may expose children to a bleak future.
“Parents and government must cooperate in guaranteeing good health for children in Kaduna state.’’
The government also directed that all eligible children in transit within Kaduna State should be made available for immunisation at all transit sites during the period of the campaign to eradicate polio.
It said that teams of vaccinators had been deployed to work with FRSC and NDLEA officials at partial roadblocks to vaccinate children in transit through highways in the State.
