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Monday

Police Enhances Security Vigilance In Lagos Against Insurgents Attack

POLICE BEEF UP SECURITY IN LAGOS
The police have beefed up security in Lagos, following recent claim by Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau that he ordered a bombing – Apapa, an industrial hub of the former capital city.
Lagos State Police Commissioner Umar Manko told leaders of the Victoria Island community at a meeting at the weekend that the value of investment in the area cannot be take for granted hence the need for the community to be alert at all time.
“We have been on top of security situation in Lagos. Victoria Island had recorded low crime rate in recent time.
After the explosion in Apapa area of Lagos that Boko Haram claimed responsibility, the need for more enlightenment on security became necessary. I don’t want us to take the issue of Boko Haram’s claim for granted. The police and other security agents cannot do it alone.
“We must be at alert. We have all the headquarters of banks and other big companies in this area. We need to secure our residents and offices; watch the people around your homes; report to security people any strange object, vehicles and persons.
“This meeting is not to create panic but awareness of the time we area in. Terrorism is a global problem. Many countries have been facing the problem before it came to Nigeria, we must stand against it. If you see any strange bag, vehicles, can, cable connected material, don’t go close. Monitor the entering into the home and offices, control access to your building, car parks. Introduce screening devices, although, they are expensive, but not to the security of our lives and property. We should also take special note of our domestic workers. Hotels, eateries and cenemal centres must employ all security measures. No body is too big to be screen into your building,’’ Manko said.
The Chairman of Iru/Victoria Island Local Community Development Area, Mr Abayomi Daramola, urged all landlords with private guards to register them with effect from today as part of security measures in the area.
Daramola said 60 per cent of Victoria Island houses had been turned to commercial centres, warning that any private guard who is not registered would be arrested by the council’s task force.
He said the council was working with the Ministry of Physical Planning to ensure that all vacant plots of land were taking care of by their owners to avoid them being used as hideout for criminals.
Source: The Nation
The police have beefed up security in Lagos, following recent claim by Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau that he ordered a bombing – Apapa, an industrial hub of the former capital city.
Lagos State Police Commissioner Umar Manko told leaders of the Victoria Island community at a meeting at the weekend that the value of investment in the area cannot be take for granted hence the need for the community to be alert at all time.

Presidency Threatens APC Leaders With Arrest Over Nyako's Impeachment

ADAMAWA BRIBERY ALLEGATION: PRESIDENCY THREATENS APC LEADERS WITH ARREST
THE State Security Service (SSS) is set to arrest top All Progressives Congress (APC) leaders, for allegedly offering N240 million bribe to Adamawa lawmakers to stop ex-Governor Murtala Nyako’s impeachment.
The APC leaders, it was learnt, also threatened the lawmakers with death if they refuse to collect the money and stop the impeachment process.
But the APC, on Sunday, dared the presidency to probe the alleged bribery saga, asking that the presidency should also be opened to inquiry into who provided the funds for the alleged bribery of Nasarawa State lawmakers to impeach Governor Tanko Al-Makura.
Nigerian Tribune learnt from a presidency source that security agents were in possession of recordings of attempts by some APC governors to induce Adamawa lawmakers, in order to stop the impeachment.
The governors, one from the North and another from the South, were said to have approached two members of the House of Assembly with the money, to convince them to withdraw support and make it impossible for the impeachment of Nyako to scale through.
The source added that the APC leaders were only able to buy over one lawmaker, adding that when the inducement failed, they resorted to threat to the lives of the lawmakers.
It was learnt that the presidency was convinced that crimes had been perpetrated by the opposition leaders and was contemplating taking action if the APC leaders continued to falsely accuse President Goodluck Jonathan.
According to the source, “it was the assurance that they got from the lawmaker that more members would be bought over that originated the reports that Nyako might resign.
“What they don’t know is that all these are recorded. If they continue with their unfounded allegations against the president, the security agencies would be directed to arrest them and confront them with overwhelming evidence.”
Reacting to the allegation from the presidency that it offered bribe to Adamawa lawmakers to stop Nyako’s impeachment, APC said it was the presidency that provided the money for the impeachment as well as the ongoing process in Nasarawa to sack Al-Makura.
Its spokesperson, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, told the Nigerian Tribune that the allegation from the presidency was meant to shift the attention of Nigerians from the alleged $20 billion missing oil money and the over 300,000 barrels of crude oil being stolen daily.
“The allegation is not true. They should go ahead with whatever probe they want to conduct, at least, they are in government and control the security agencies. They are blatant liars. They think everybody is like them. Nigerians know that it is their government that is swimming in corruption.
“They should first explain to Nigerians what happens to the $20 billion missing oil money and the 300,000 barrels of crude oil that are daily stolen before they would make wild allegations.
“All they are trying to do is shift attention of Nigerians from their corrupt acts. We know all the money for impeachment in Adamawa and Nasarawa states came from the presidency and they know their governors providing it,” Mohammed said.
Nyako’s impeachment, demonstration of people’s power —PDP
The ruling party has rejected the attempt by APC to blame the impeachment of Nyako on the ruling party and President Jonathan.
The party argued that what happened in the state was a demonstration of the power of the people under a democracy.
PDP, in a statement issued by its national publicity secretary, Olisa Metuh, in Abuja, on Sunday, said in linking the party and the president to Nyako’s ouster, the APC was only being escapist, adding that such attitude could only come from pretenders to democracy.
According to PDP, “the impeachment of the former governor of Adamawa State was an act of democracy. It is a constitutional right, exclusively granted to the people of Adamawa. 
“This, they exercised through the votes of the overwhelming majority of the elected members of the state House of Assembly, who also accorded the rule of law and due process rightful place in removing Nyako.”
The PDP said “if a sitting governor, who has spent over seven years in office, could be removed by more than two-third of the members of his state assembly, reasons should be located to fundamental factors within, rather than the trite excuses of external influence.”
Source: Tribune
THE State Security Service (SSS) is set to arrest top All Progressives Congress (APC) leaders, for allegedly offering N240 million bribe to Adamawa lawmakers to stop ex-Governor Murtala Nyako’s impeachment.

HOW REBELS SHOT DOWN MALAYSIAN JET’

‘HOW REBELS SHOT DOWN MALAYSIAN JET’
Indications emerged yesterday how Pro-Russia rebels in Eastern Ukraine might have shot down the Malaysian airline MH17 last Thursday, killing 298 people on board.
The plane was travelling to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam, Holland before it was shot in Eastern Ukraine airspace.
A motorist captures military truck carrying BUK M1 in border town.
He filmed a military truck on main road for two kilometres in ‘border area’ of Russia at 8.45pm on Saturday
Ukrainian sources have seized the footage and branded it ‘film of the BUK, the one that shot the Boeing’
A BUK launcher was pictured rumbling into pro-Russian rebel-held Torez just two hours before crash
Ukraine’s security agency, the SBU, has released recordings of intercepted phone calls, claiming they prove Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down by a group of Russian-backed Cossack militants
Neither recording – which allegedly includes a Russian military intelligence officer – could be independently verified
Laughing rebels filmed the plane as it crashed, gleefully bragging ‘that was a blast – look at the smoke!’
Is this the BUK missile system back home in Russia after shooting down flight MH17?
A driver followed the military truck on a main road for two kilometres in a ‘border area’ of Russia before uploading the footage, filmed with a dashboard camera, on the internet.
The cargo had no escort and Ukrainian sources have seized on it, captioning the footage: ‘A Russian blogger filmed the BUK M1 in Russia, the one that shot the Boeing.’
‘For two kilometres, a blogger from Russia has been driving behind covered BUK 1M which, according to his words, had been driving from the Ukrainian border. His opinion is that it is exactly that BUK that made the shot,’ said one version spreading on the web.
The driver is heard saying: ‘No kidding.’
While the footage is visibly in Russia rather than Ukraine, the exact location is not given.
A second truck is also evident in some frames.
It was filmed at around 8.45pm on Saturday.
Reports from Ukraine suggested the BUK had been smuggled in the dead of night into Russia soon after the plane was blasted out of the sky last Thursday.
It came after images were released of a launcher rumbling through Torez, held by pro-Russian separatists, just two hours before the Malaysia Airlines flight was shot down.
In a tense phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, British Prime Minister David Cameron, said Russia would have to ‘present compelling and credible evidence’ that the Kremlin-backed separatists were not to blame for 298 people – including 10 Britons – being killed, despite the images and footage.
He told Mr Putin that blocking international investigators and rescue teams from accessing the site was ‘indefensible’, a Downing Street spokesman said.
Mr Cameron is furious that Mr Putin has kept him waiting despite the British death toll. A Downing Street source said Mr Cameron was expressing his anger that ‘ten of my citizens have just been killed with a plane that was brought down by a missile that was shot by Russian separatists’.
A Downing Street source admitted there was ‘a sense of frustration that we have not been able to speak to him sooner’. Following the call, Mr Cameron wrote on Twitter: ‘I’ve just spoken to President Putin. I made clear he must ensure access to the crash site so the victims can have proper funerals.’
Pro-Russian rebels yesterday said they had recovered the black boxes from MH17 and taken them to Donetsk where they will be handed over to international investigators.
Rebel leader Aleksander Borodai told a news conference in Donetsk: ‘Some items, presumably the black boxes, were found, and they have been delivered to Donetsk and they are under our control. There are no specialists among us who could pinpoint the look of the black boxes, but we brought to Donetsk some technical items which could be the black boxes of the airliner.’
However, Ukrainian security officials claimed yesterday that Russia has reinforced rebels with three multiple rocket launchers and four heavy tanks, while massing troops on the border.
Pro-Kiev authorities released details of what they claimed to be a recording of a phone calls from Friday afternoon between a senior rebel commander and a number of his men at the crash site discussing MH17’s black boxes.
Source: The Nation
Indications emerged yesterday how Pro-Russia rebels in Eastern Ukraine might have shot down the Malaysian airline MH17 last Thursday, killing 298 people on board.
The plane was travelling to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam, Holland before it was shot in Eastern Ukraine airspace.

Sunday

IT’S ABSURD ASKING SOUTHERNERS TO LEAVE THE NORTH – AKA IKENGA

IT’S ABSURD ASKING SOUTHERNERS TO LEAVE THE NORTH – AKA IKENGA
Igbo think-tank organisation, Aka Ikenga, on Thursday, described as a ‘preposterous order’ the call by a northern group directing all southerners, especially the Igbos to leave then northern Nigeria within two weeks.
The group’s President, Goddy Uwazurike, in a chat with Daily Independent, said Nigeria belongs to all and no ethnic group has  a greater claim to the country  than others.
It will be recalled that the Arewa Youth Development Foundation, on Tuesday, called on southerners in the north to relocate to their respective states to make room for northerner who would be returning home.
This ultimatum was contained in a statement jointly signed by the group’s National President, Aliyu Usman, and secretary, Alfred Solomon, when the group visited the Emir of Kano, Alhaji Muhammadu Sunusi II, in his palace.
But Uwazurike, who described the group as hardliners out to cause trouble and confusion in the country, saying the call is strange for a northern group to ask the southerners who are major owners of the nation’s wealth to leave.
He however noted that the AYDF “is a tiny neglectable, nonsense group bent on causing problem for everybody. They now hide their head when the problem erupts. They are people one can refer to as the hardliners whose sole aim is to make Nigeria look like Afghanistan or Iraq.
“Why should the Igbos leave? What right do they have to ask the southerners to leave? Do they have any greater claim to this country than any of us?  All the major resources sustaining this country is coming from the South and you are asking the Southerners or Igbos to leave. It is a preposterous order” he said.
Source: Daily Independent
Igbo think-tank organisation, Aka Ikenga, on Thursday, described as a ‘preposterous order’ the call by a northern group directing all southerners, especially the Igbos to leave then northern Nigeria within two weeks.
The group’s President, Goddy Uwazurike, in a chat with Daily Independent, said Nigeria belongs to all and no ethnic group has a greater claim to the country than others.

IMPEACHMENT: NASARAWA ASSEMBLY MEMBERS FACE RECALL

IMPEACHMENT: NASARAWA ASSEMBLY MEMBERS FACE RECALL
Constituents of some members of the Nasarawa state House of Assembly, have begun collation of signatures of willing petitioners, for submission to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), towards recalling their representatives in the legislature who signed for the impeachment of Governor Umaru Tanko Al-makura.
Those who face immediate recall threats are the state Assembly members representing Doma Central, Doma South, Wamba, Akwanga West, Akwanga North, Keana and Kokona East.
Their constituents said in separate statements issued yesterday, that they have begun the process of recalling their members over on-going moves to sack Al-makura.
The people, in separate statements aired on the state radio, Nasarawa Broadcasting Service (NBS), said they had commenced collation of signatures from various members of their constituencies to be forwarded to INEC for verification, towards recalling their representatives.
In Wamba local government area of the state, for instance, the youths have vowed that their representative at the Assembly, Mr Abdulkarim Usman, must go.
The threat was contained in a statement signed by Malam Usman Jade, Chairman, Wamba Youths Association, and issued yesterday in Lafia.
According to the statement, the people of Wamba were dissatisfied with the conduct of the lawmaker in the plot to impeach Al-makura.
It added that the people were also dissatisfied with Usman’s performance in the legislature.
The statement said the people have concluded plans to follow legal process to recall the legislator.
It urged the people to get ready to sign a petition, which would be forwarded to INEC for action.
Meanwhile, two youths are said to have been killed in Lafia, the Nasarawa state capital, yesterday, following protests that erupted for a second day across the state against moves by the state Assembly to impeach Governor Al-makura.
A third person, also a youth, was said to have lost his life in an accident which occurred in Nasarawa town, wherein a protest march was also held for the second day.
Our reporters learnt that some angry youths from the Lafia city centre, yesterday stormed the Tudun Gwandara area, in the vicinity of the Old Alhamis Market, attacking youths in the area, leading to the death of the two youths.
Police authorities who confirmed that there was tension as a result of the outpouring of Lafia youths onto the streets of the capital city to protest against the impeachment moves against the governor, however said no life was lost.
Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) in the state, Ismai’la Numan told one of our reporters that 27 youths have been arrested and are currently undergoing investigations over the violence that followed the demonstrations. “We have restored peace in the city and everywhere is calm”, Numan said.
Our correspondent in Lafia reported that early yesterday, hundreds of women staged a peaceful demonstration and walked down the streets to the palace of the Emir, Dr. Isa Mustapha Agwai I, seeking his intervention to stop the impeachment proceedings.
Similarly, the protests, which started on Wednesday, continued across several other towns in the state yesterday in support of Governor Al-makura, and against moves by the state House of Assembly to impeach him.
Among the women groups that took part in the protest is the Ta’al Network for Youth Organization for Change, which barricaded the popular Jos road in protest against the impeachment notice served on the governor, even as another group of women in Garaku in Kokona area of the state reportedly went haywire.
Al-makura, an opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) governor, is facing a 16-count charge of alleged gross misconduct and financial impropriety, said to have violated the Constitution signed by 20 of the 24 members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) controlled Nasarawa state House of Assembly.
Other women groups that took to the streets yesterday include, the Federation of Muslim Women Association of Nigeria (FOMWAN), women wing of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in Nasarawa state, Mothers of Nasarawa State and Women for Change, Nasarawa state, led by the Coordinator, Hajiya Hajara Danyaro, who condemned move by the lawmakers to sack Al-makura.
According to Hajara, the Nasarawa state women voted massively for the lawmakers under the PDP, and voted Al-makura under APC, stating that the action of the lawmakers was uncalled for.
She accused the PDP of masterminding the impeachment process, as according to her, it was no coincidence that after the President Goodluck Jonathan visited the state on Monday, the impeachment notice was moved against the governor.
The women, who took their protest from Lafia City Hall to the Government House, stated that the allegation of gross misconduct could be found in the Presidential Villa in Aso Rock, Abuja, and not Nasarawa, urging the presidency to stay clear of the affairs of the young state, unless it was bent on causing an uprising in the state.
In his reaction to the protests, the emir of Lafia has made another appeal for calm, and assured that he would broker a peace meeting between members of the Nasarawa Assembly and Governor Al-Maura, as a way of resolving the current political impasse. The emir had on Wednesday appealed for calm, urging citizens to exercise restraint in their demonstrations.
In a related development a former member in the state Assembly, Mary Nwogulu, has condemned the action of her colleagues, describing it as “embarrassing”.
According to her, Governor Al-makura has done a lot for the people of the state and wondered why the lawmakers could plot an ill-timed evil against him.
Source: People’s Daily
Constituents of some members of the Nasarawa state House of Assembly, have begun collation of signatures of willing petitioners, for submission to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), towards recalling their representatives in the legislature who signed for the impeachment of Governor Umaru Tanko Al-makura.

APC Warns Jonathan Over Governors Impeachment Threats

APC WARNS JONATHAN OVER GOVS 
•‘Decapitate Us And Destroy Nigeria’ 
•More Govs May Be Sacked
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has warned President Goodluck Jonathan and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) against further plots to remove any of its remaining governors.
The warning came against the background of the removal of Ádmiral Murtala Nyako as Adamawa State governor by the PDP-dominated House of Assembly and a similar process going on in Nasarawa State amid fears that there could be a repeat of these in some other APC states.
APC’s spokesperson, Alhaji Lai Mohammed confirmed the fears to Saturday Tribune on Friday but that the party was not folding its arms on the threats and would do everything to thwart such plots. 
While he was not specific on steps being taken to tackle the presidency and the PDP, the APC spokesperson, however, warned rather ominously that  “the current moves to decapitate the APC will end in the decapitation of Nigeria.”
Mohammed also stated that his party was monitoring the development  and circumstances in which Jonathan’s former boss and one of the main backers for his re-election, D.S.P  Alameyesiegha and Imo state governor, Rochas Okorocha,met days back, a meeting that has caused suppressed rumpus in the APC to which Okorocha belongs.
 APC governor in Nasarawa State, Tanko Al-Makura is facing impeachment process being handled by PDP-dominated House of Assembly, which is poised to run its full course.
While Nyako’s deputy, Bala Ngilari who did not decamp to APC from the PDP with the sacked governor, was not spared, Al-Makura’s deputy, Damishi Barau who dumped the APC for the PDP, was not served with impeachment notice.
Saturday Tribune learnt that the arrangement among political gladiators of the PDP in Nasarawa state was to allow Barau serve as substantive governor after Al-Makura’s impeachment but with an understanding that he would not stand for election for governor in 2015.
A PDP leader, also being projected into the race, told Saturday Tribune that the modalities were still being worked out as regards who would be the candidate in 2015 as well as putting institutional checks in place to make sure that Barau would not renege on the gentleman’s agreement after his ascension to office.
For Al-Makura, the party chieftain said his was a concluded case, despite the reported rumour of a last-minute presidential backing and assurance he allegedly got from President  Jonathan, who the embattled governor has been consulting since his travails began.
APC has also alleged that the PDP-led presidency is also targeting its governors in Edo and Rivers states for impeachment and Osun for electoral tsunami in the August 9 governorship election.
Edo and Rivers Houses of Assembly have been in crises as PDP lawmakers in minority in the two states now conduct their separate plenary sittings, with suspicions that they could move against Governors Adams Oshiomhole and Rotimi Amaechi anytime soon, despite being in the minority.
Their minority status could be changed by the suspension of some of their colleagues, if they succeed in leadership change in the assembly.
It was, however, learnt that APC may have more to fear as its governors in Ogun, Borno and Imo states, are said to have become major targets for the think-tank of the PDP for possible constitutional sack.
Despite the said states not having PDP-dominated legislature, the crisis of confidence among the leaders of the party in the three states, which has polarised the legislature with the members belonging to different power blocs in the party, is to be reportedly exploited by the PDP strategists and the presidency to further decimate the opposition party.
It was learnt that the moves to get the disgruntled APC gladiators with loyal assembly members, have begun, which a source said yielded almost immediate benefit in Borno, with the defection of the state’s ultimate godfather and former governor, Ali Modu Sheriff from APC to PDP.
He is expected to move with more than two-thirds of the state lawmakers and similar percentage of National Assembly members, who are his political protégés.
A PDP source said the princely treatment being given him by the presidency since his defection is in recognition of his political influence in the state, which PDP is reportedly desperate to take to stem the tide of international embarrassment which the incumbent administration of Governor Kashim Shettima is allegedly giving the PDP-led federal government over the fight against terrorism in the state.
The unending international embarrassment over the kidnap of over 200 Chibok school girls by insurgent Boko Haram, for which the federal government has suffered serious dip in local and international ratings, is said to have been a major reason for courting a big fish like Modu Sheriff at all cost, to allegedly enforce a regime change.
A PDP chieftain told the Saturday Tribune that the battle against Boko Haram would not be won if the opposition governors are not removed, due to the suspicion that the governors are allegedly collaborating with the insurgents to blackmail and further weaken the federal government.
According to the source, “There is no way any progress would be made with those guys (governors) there. We initially thought it was a mistake for the president not to declare a total emergency that would have removed them from office during the emergency rule, but we feel this is better and tidier now and they won’t even return.”
When asked if Yobe which is also under emergency rule like Adamawa and Borno may go the impeachment way, the source said “it depends on the what the governor is ready to offer”.
It was also learnt that even the Borno State governor is no longer maintaining a rigid antagonism to the presidency again in the battle against the Boko Haram, but a party man noted that it was doubtful if Modu Sherif’s defection had not sealed his fate.
APC in Ogun State has been torn in the middle between the loyalists of Governor Ibikunle Amosun and former governor Segun Osoba.
Osoba is the beautiful bride of the opposition parties in the state, with PDP said to be making serious overtures, considering that he reportedly almost single-handedly picked the current APC members of the State House of Assembly as the party’s candidates.
All senators from the state and members of the House of Representatives are also on his side, with his ouster from the party expected to make the governor very vulnerable for impeachment.
An APC source however doubted the possibility of the presidency moving against Amosun, explaining that the governor does not play rigid politics and could even work for Jonathan in 2015 if properly approached instead of creating a crisis of impeachment in the state. 
Source: Tribune
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has warned President Goodluck Jonathan and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) against further plots to remove any of its remaining governors.
The warning came against the background of the removal of Ádmiral Murtala Nyako as Adamawa State governor by the PDP-dominated House of Assembly and a similar process going on in Nasarawa State amid fears that there could be a repeat of these in some other APC states.

UNIVERSITY DEGREE IS OVERATED –BISHOP KUKAH

UNIVERSITY DEGREE IS OVERATED –BISHOP KUKAH
Too much emphasis on a university degree in a developing country like Nigeria signifies post-colonial mentality and a misplaced priority that the country must do away with if we are to get out of our current worrisome unemployment status, Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah has observed.
The clergyman cum social commentator also stated that a good number of the universities in the West have hit gold in Nigeria because of the rising desperation for a university degree in the country.
Bishop Kukah, who lamented that a consumer country like Nigeria does not have to accord too much priority to university degrees, further observed that Nigerians should take a cue from their fellow countrymen, the Igbo, who have achieved a considerable degree of self-sufficiency as well as comfort arising from their entrepreneurial prowess and not necessarily university degrees.
While stressing that everybody does not necessarily have to go to the university before he or she is considered functional, Bishop Kukah submitted that there was disarray in the educational policy being operated in the country, hence, the polytechnics offering courses such as mass communication and a host of others, straying from their original intent.
Speaking exclusively with LEADERSHIP Weekend, Bishop Kukah said, “We lost the script somewhere along the line, and the idea of a university degree smacks of post-colonial mentality and it is only in Nigeria that you find a man with seven children who believes that all the seven children must become graduates.”
Source: Leadership
Too much emphasis on a university degree in a developing country like Nigeria signifies post-colonial mentality and a misplaced priority that the country must do away with if we are to get out of our current worrisome unemployment status, Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah has observed.

LAGOS 2015: AGBAJE DEFECTS TO PDP

LAGOS 2015: AGBAJE DEFECTS TO PDP
Daily Trust report
Lagos State governorship candidate of the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA) in the 2007 electins, Jimi Agbaje has defected to the People Democratic Party (PDP).
Agbaje who came third in the 2007 race has several times been reported to be romancing with the PDP and that arrangement have been concluded by the party to field him as its governorship candidate come 2015.
It was learnt that Agbaje formally registered as PDP member at his ward in Anthony and that his arrival to the party will be made formal next week.
Publicity secretary of PDP in Lagos, Taofic Gani however said he is not aware of the defection as he said there is no concrete evidence to show that Agbaje has finally defected to the party.
He however said the party is keeping its fingers crossed and that it will update the public on any development within the party in the state.
Agbaje came into limelight in 2007 when during a television debate, he floored major aspirants contesting against him in the election.
Lagos State governorship candidate of the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA) in the 2007 electins, Jimi Agbaje has defected to the People Democratic Party (PDP).
Agbaje who came third in the 2007 race has several times been reported to be romancing with the PDP and that arrangement have been concluded by the party to field him as its governorship candidate come 2015.

Randy Abia Commissioner, Eze-Chikamnayo Impregnates Nine Women

a must read***

EZE CHIKAMNAYO: THE RANDY ABIA COMMISSIONER THAT IMPREGNATES 9 WOMEN OUT OF WEDLOCK

THE darkest page in Nigerian journalism was opened on July 14, 2014, with the publication by some never-do-well ignoramuses on the perpetually wobbly stable of a rag-sheet called Insider Weekly who indulged Abia State Commissioner for Information, Eze Chikamnayo, a notorious drunken womanizer and the worst information commissioner in Nigeria, with premium space for acerbic descent on his master’s benefactor.  Bizarrely, the brainless hacks behind it lionize themselves as populist “activists and fighters” in preposterous grandeur of self-delusion having gone underground in commercialization of falsehood that pitted them against the erstwhile ruling junta in the country.

There would be no point amplifying the contents of the interview by responding to the swipes in detail, except to make a terse summative statement on the journalistic impropriety unsurprisingly activated by inside miscreants who came outside! If Kalu is an “animal in human skin’’, Chikamnayo is a monstrous beast living with HIV-AIDS going by his scandalous and classless sexuality in Abia State—anything in skirt, including hawkers—is game for the empty-head! 

Personally, I ignore sniping by editors of Insider Weekly and their cancerous ilk because they congenitally lack substance and celebrate tissues of lies amid a poverty of wretched writing from a sub-literate aquaculture of recklessness and iniquitous bohemianism. But, if you allow such insanity to go on for too long, gullibility may nurture calumny to endure hence the need for this rebuttal in conjunctive clarification—even if it means dignifying feckless blokes who should ordinarily be disregarded. Periodically, the magazine exhumes a tirade and rehashes it with a new face to it in the name of interview exclusivity!

I have never read Insider Weekly or other caustic and impolitic publications like it because of the preciousness of my time which cannot be wasted. Last week, on the way to my daughter’s secondary school’s speech and prize-giving day to share in her glory as the Best Mathematics Student in her stream for the second consecutive year, a call came in from Umuahia to wit: a vicious cover story by Insider Weekly on His Excellency Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu (MON), former two-term governor of Abia State, a prime employer of labour and respected entrepreneur in global context. After the award ceremony, I went in search of the Lagos-based epileptic magazine. I combed all the major newsstands in Aba and none of them had a copy! In fact, an editor of a national newspaper I asked about the human capital in the organisation was doubtful if the trash still existed! I called the friend of mine in Umuahia to scan the pages concerning Kalu and send to me.

It is easy to understand why it was marginally circulated in the Abia State capital because of its poor print-run. In Umuahia there is a receding pool of Kalu-haters who in their bestiality will savour such salacious materials much more than the enlightened class of patrons in Lagos and Abuja who decipher between slanderous outputs packaged as products of investigative journalism and factual offerings. It is interesting that even the insignificant and negligible microcosm of Insider Weekly subscribers in Umuahia and its environs know malicious propaganda when they are assaulted with one that is writ large in its vacuity!

Until this descent to asininity, I never knew that professional charlatanism had been elevated to brazen illogicality enveloped in dysfunctional public communication as evidenced by the Insider clownishness surfeited in intemperate language culminating in rabid character mudslinging. Gorilla brand of journalism or its semblance is no longer in vogue. The era of Tempo journalism has been consigned to the archives as a distractive footnote in the revalidation of democracy in Nigeria. Even if you are famished and a politician or government operative approaches you to do a tendentious job of pouring invectives on his opponent, there should be some decorum, civility and responsibility amid the inevitability of bias. The target should be interrogated and given a fair chance to explicate his own side of the usually wild allegations and largely unsubstantiated, bogus claims. That is the essential condiment of balanced, dispassionate and objective journalism, especially in an environment still in developmental throes. Circumstantial hunger should not make a man to behave senselessly and boyishly!

My painstaking investigation into the evolution of Insider Weekly showed that it was jaundiced right from its accidental and greedy conception, as a splinter megaphone, to its impaired birth and stunted growth characterized by chronic debility. With this kind of fractured background, it is understandable why the magazine has stagnated since inception. For its blemished promoters who are susceptible to pricing, there is nothing like professional ethics or associational code of conduct. The mantra is freedom of speech as enshrined in the 1999 Constitution (as amended) which must be flagrantly abused in the exercise of the provision! Otherwise, how do you assail a man based on some fictitious documents and guttural fabrications without any interface with him or third-party intervention to confirm, deny or elucidate the cock-and-bull yarns and repetitive fables? No sane person is misled by headline screamers and cover pictures on trite publications that willfully trifle with people’s integrity, reputation and public perception without any qualms.

Nobody should be scandalized that the ill-mannered promoters of Insider Weekly and their commissioner-accomplice practise yellow journalism. Gutter philosophy is an integral aspect of their existential paradigm. They have nothing whatsoever to lose and are always ready to fight dirty. For me, the best way to handle these scrotal elements is to ignore them or clinically excise the buffoons—the summit probability inherence of self-affliction notwithstanding.

Why should quackery and indecorous presentation of opinions as facts by a myopic and infinitesimal section of the media be allowed to thrive in this country that is globally known as continental leaders in robust and fair journalism? It is unfortunate that regulatory, supervisory and professional bodies for the media have, inexplicably, been toothless in the face of unprofessionalism by media establishments like Insider Weekly which cannot meet basic salary obligations among other statutory and contractual requirements.

Insider Weekly had from inception been gasping for breath and its last straw for life has been oxygenated with the Kalu gist. A newsmaker any day, his picture alone adorning any magazine without any purported foibles hatched somewhere in Umuahia is an unbeatable commercial strategy, most especially for an endemic weekly battling with the certainty of extinction as a result of ectopic birth! Insider Weekly is so stunted and underdeveloped that only a few Nigerians and a handful of newspaper vendors nationwide know about its miserable existence, copious years after its deleterious concoction.

Publications that are flourishing distance themselves from crass irresponsibility, ludicrousness and insensitivity to people’s privacies and feelings. Such juvenility is confirmatory of the stuff the publication is made of and determines its abysmal trajectory, the quality and scope of patronage. Once the vision and mission are foundationally blurred, invocation of invectives and spluttering the same on distinguished members of the society become an occupational engagement and survivalist depravity.

Who does not know that the lifeblood of Insider Weekly is blackmail? If the kindergartners managing the magazine ask for perceptive advertisements from corporate bodies, public relational supplements from intimidated state governments and foreclosure money from moneybags and if there is ‘non-cooperation’, their prospective victim is left between the devil and the deep blue sea. Appeasement is the only solution! I remember my managerial days in corporate citizenship when one of the dwarfish directors of Insider Weekly came with snippets of alleged negative stories about infractions by the bank. One of our female deputy general managers panicked and requested for ‘settlement’! I professionally advised against it to no avail. The dunderhead was given N50,000 and he vamoosed and vanished pronto after shamelessly counting the money in the open office! Of course, that filthy, paltry gift marked the fatality of the story and saved the bank from unwarranted public embarrassment, odium and ridicule that could possibly have resulted in a run on the bank.

What is the difficulty practising mainstream or ethical journalism? For the celebrity (junk) genre, it is understandable because of tabloid traditions. But for a newsmagazine to indulge in brainless, antagonistic and adversarial information dissemination hallmarks improper upbringing which is demonstrative of unparalleled uncouthness and signposts duplicitous characterization. In the industry there is what is known as ‘junkalism’ (junk journalism), which is where Insider Weekly appropriately belongs. 

The imbecilic Insider Weekly tale on Kalu borders on sheer idiocy. There is no other way I can rationalize such a brainwave. The society should exterminate such kwashiorkor-infested and myopic publications to save our countrymen from their odiousness. Parochialism and rascality can never take any magazine beyond its limiting confines because truth is constant and sacred. This is not the first or last time that the magazine will attempt to futilely diminish Kalu whose ever-rising profile is becoming worrisome ahead of 2015!

I cannot fathom this trivial publication that smacks of stupidity because there is no justificatory basis for it. Any standard news medium in the public domain must have core principles and values encapsulated in all its official statements shorn of sensationalism and farcical tendencies associated with the worst governor in the world. Venomous pages on personalities often indicate irrefutable mercantilism. Mercenaries in Insider Weekly and elsewhere are known for inveterate hatchet jobs. They make no implausible pretensions about their strong avowals on cash-and-carry journalism driven by irredeemable abject poverty.     

As for the so-called commissioner who granted the noisome interview thoughtlessly and irreverently published by the fledgling weekly without any professionalism compunction, the nine ladies he impregnated in Abia State, where prostitution is now rife because of bad governance, are waiting for him!

Ndubuisi, a former editor, is an Aba-based businessman.

THE darkest page in Nigerian journalism was opened on July 14, 2014, with the publication by some never-do-well ignoramuses on the perpetually wobbly stable of a rag-sheet called Insider Weekly who indulged Abia State Commissioner for Information, Eze Chikamnayo, a notorious drunken womanizer and the worst information commissioner in Nigeria, with premium space for acerbic

YOU’VE NOT HEARD THE LAST ABOUT EKITI ELECTION …FAYEMI

FAYEMI YELLS 
■ YOU’VE NOT HEARD THE LAST ABOUT EKITI ELECTION
…’Read my speech again. I did not accept defeat.’
Ekiti State Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi has countered the widespread belief that he conceded defeat to his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) challenger, Mr. Ayodele Fayose who was declared winner of the June 21 governorship poll in the state.In his first interview after the election granted to Dapo Thomas, a journalist and university teacher who also writes for Sunday Sun, Fay­emi asked anyone who thought he accepted the outcome to read the transcript of his post-election broadcast again.

“Anyone who understands the English lan­guage well would know that that speech was not the concession speech that many people are talking about. Yes, I have said I won’t chal­lenge the election in court and congratulated Mr Fayose, but that’s not tantamount to accept­ing the result. That’s about saving Ekiti.”

The governor fielded questions on what went wrong in Ekiti; whether he had regrets for his policies and actions; his relationship with the All Progressives Congress (APC) National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and other compelling is­sues.

The full interview is here presented:
The outcome of the June 21 elec­tion in Ekiti shocked the entire na­tion and even the international com­munity. To what extent were you disturbed by the result?

Very disturbed indeed and worried for the future of elections in our country. Nobody goes into an election to lose especially when you have put a lot into it. When you have worked hard and earned the trust of the people, you should have every rea­son to feel confident you are going to be rewarded for the hard work and performance. I said in the course of the campaigns that this election, in my own view, would be decided on the basis of char­acter and performance. On those two grounds, majority agree that we were heads and shoulders above every other candidate in the race. Leaving that aside, no candidate campaigned the way we did – touching every nook and corner of the state, towns and farmsteads alike. Most of the time we were on the field campaigning, PDP was nowhere to be found. We actually didn’t campaign like an incumbent.  We campaigned as if we were the challenger, the underdog.

But I must also say we were not unaware of the desperation of the PDP hierarchy to ‘win’ Ekiti by every means possible. We saw the federal forces at play in the election and they were undisguised in their desperation. Election is a process. An elec­tion is not just rigged when you snatch ballot box or when you change result at the collation centre. Election could be rigged by the processes leading to that election itself. When security agents that are supposed to be neutral for example go round pick­ing party leaders the night before an election and party anchors on the day of election in a coordi­nated and choreographed manner with no charge levelled against them, clearly you had a pre-deter­mined end that you are seeking. It is not time to go into any great detail about what we found to be unacceptable about the process which is why I was reluctant to give this interview in the first place. But we have also promised that the infrac­tions will be documented and exposed because we owe Nigerians that.

You don’t want to accept the fact that something went wrong with the APC in the Ekiti election?

The election was not about Ekiti, it was turned to federal forces against APC in the state. If it was performance, head and shoulders we won the election and in terms of mobilization, in terms of campaign, in terms of issues. As a matter of fact, the PDP candidate had no issues. He was reactive throughout. No issues, no agenda, no manifesto. The only manifesto was I am opposed to any policy issue Governor Fayemi has raised or is implementing. I even give some credit to the La­bour Party candidate who, even though at the last minute, still came out with a manifesto of what he would like to do in office. That clearly did not happen in the case of the PDP so we were really the only ones with a tested programme that had been implemented across the state. I have heard and read all sorts of “pepper soup joint” analysis about stomach infrastructure and people voting for rice and all that.  Attractive as the analysis may be to some people, I don’t think it fully does credit to the Ekiti people. Really, yes there are tendencies of instant gratification that crept into Ekiti politics – particularly in the early days of PDP government in the state-but those tendencies are not so deeply ingrained as to imagine that our people depend on what they can eat here and now in order to deter­mine what happens to their future. It just offers these elements a convenient explanation for the abracadabra that they inflicted on Ekiti State. But again, as I said, time will tell. We may find the op­portunity now that the party has gone to court, we would find out from their own side.  But I think it is important, as I said in my broadcast, to docu­ment all these extraneous elements; the siege on Ekiti by the military and other security agencies, the role they played in instilling fear in the state. There are of course a lot of arm-chair pundits who have argued that the security siege was insufficient to explain the loss of APC. Many of these pundits were not even in Ekiti during the election and had no idea what actually transpired. Two days to elec­tion, my colleagues who were coming for my final rally were stopped from taking off in some cases, mid-air in other cases and actually at the boundar­ies coming into Ekiti state. Ten days before then, my party people were attacked on account of the traditional sweep after the PDP rally. I was tear-gassed and ordered to be attacked on the instruc­tion of the Vice President who was in Ekiti on the fateful day, the same Vice President who had boasted that Ekiti and Osun elections will be war front. Even after I lodged a complaint with the Na­tional Security Adviser and the Inspector-General, it was my own people who were charged with ter­rorism. So, this was a very carefully orchestrated agenda driven by the forces, federal forces who have been saying to everybody’s hearing that they must take Ekiti because Ekiti, for them, was the gateway to taking the South-west. So there is noth­ing that happened that cannot be explained.

But you conceded defeat

Did I really? We were left with two obvious choices following the announcement by INEC on the morning of the 22nd of June. One was to reject outright what we considered was clearly a blatant manipulation or to accept it. There were a lot of grey areas in between those outright choices. It is convenient to many who want to re-write history to say Fayemi accepted the result. But all you need do is read the transcript of my broadcast and you would come to a very different conclusion. With over 30,000 security agents in the state with clear instructions from the Presidency to do everything to place Ekiti in the president’s corner, it was a critical moment for the state and I believe it was more important to rescue Ekiti from bloodbath than to plunge it into one. I believe it was impor­tant to turn a new leaf and fight our cause with­out resorting to violence. That’s what the Federal government and the PDP had planned for.  That’s the verifiable intelligence I received. And as the Chief Security Officer of the state, I had to decide whether to allow Ekiti to be turned into a killing field by trigger-happy security agents already on instruction to mow them down for protesting the abracadabra inflicted on them. Under the circum­stance, my decision was clear: peace now, justice later. And really, do we want bloodbath in Ekiti? Do we want our people to be slaughtered? Do we want Ekiti to become the trigger for truncating Nigeria’s fledgling democracy? We felt we have a role to play in protecting this democracy no matter how flawed it is and that’s why I did what I did. Anyone who understands the English language well would know that that speech was not the con­cession speech that many people are talking about. Yes, I have said I won’t challenge the election in court and congratulated Mr Fayose, but that’s not tantamount to accepting the result. That’s about saving Ekiti. Anyone who heard me throughout the campaign would recall my consistent remarks that I won’t go to court for any reason, genuine or otherwise over the election. I was only ensuring that my word remains my bond. When Chief Oba­femi Awolowo decided he was not going to court over the ‘moonslide’ victory of the NPN in 1983, was that acceptance of the election? In any case, now that my party has gone to court to challenge the election, the various infractions in the election would be subjected to scrutiny.

Even at that, was the decision not too hasty and are you saying you did not regret doing this?

I don’t know what you mean by “too hasty”. I have always argued that for me, my politics is without bitterness. It is politics of principles and politics of service. No sacrifice is too much to make for Ekiti people and I have always said it, from 2006 that I became active in Ekiti politics, I have always said that I would not govern over dead people and I would not allow the blood of Ekiti people to be spilled on the altar of politics. The choice was simple, I could have done other­wise and my supporters were ready. I could simply say to them, you can see the manipulation because everybody was shocked that this was not our vote.  Don’t forget, we have 226,000 registered APC members in Ekiti State. We completed our party registration barely two months before the collection of INEC permanent voters’ cards and the continuous voters’ registration exercise was done. We used the same INEC polling units for our party registration. The simple argument that is being made which defies logic is that at least 100,000 of APC members did not vote for their own candidate. If as INEC says, we have 120,000 votes in the election and we have 226,000 mem­bers in APC, I am not talking of sympathizers, I am not talking of outsiders who love Fayemi, who are not card carrying members of the party, I am talking of party members who registered in Ekiti State, 226,000. So, you are either saying that out of those 226,000 members, 100,000 among them did not collect permanent voters cards or they col­lected but they did not vote for their candidate. That is simplistic analysis of what you are saying and these people when they got to the field, when they got accredited, they knew one another, they knew who was APC, who was PDP, we were get­ting feedback on how many of our members were in each polling unit and yet the results in most cases were at complete variance with the evidence before us. So, it’s not enough to take the result de­clared at face value. We need to dig deeper into what happened and those alleging ballot fraud and so called Zimbabwean option are probably talking about that. However, on the basis of the declared result, it would simply have amounted to sour grapes and being seen as a bad-loser if we didn’t take the initial step we took to calm frayed nerves but with sufficient caveat that the last has not been heard on the election. Here is the simple answer to your question. If I had triggered a crisis by reject­ing the result, if I had made a different broadcast, a broadcast that simply says Ifaki people, they said you voted against Segun Oni and me; Oye local government, they said you did not vote for your son, are you going to let this daylight robbery go? It might have been the beginning of the end of Ni­geria’s fledgling democracy and a lot of Ekiti peo­ple on both sides PDP, APC, non-partisan people, innocent souls would have been lost, what would be my gain in that? I am not hungry. I didn’t come into politics as someone who doesn’t have alter­native. I did what I did by making that speech to save my people. So there was nothing hasty about it. I knew the plan that the military had, I knew the plan that the police had, don’t forget I am the chief security officer of the state and I get to hear from all these people. I knew the instructions they had given the soldiers because some of them were relating with me and they were not happy that they were being given instructions like the ones they got in Ekiti. As one of them told me, if they keep bringing us into these matters that are not our business, then they cannot complain if something totally negative happens. One of the soldiers told me that and it is an elementary principle of civil-military relations that the more you drag the mili­tary into civilian matters, you never know how it’s going to end. So it wasn’t hasty and I don’t want you to see it as if it was an acceptance speech…it wasn’t an acceptance speech. Please read it, if you read it, you would know that it was very condi­tional in very many ways.

…..But in all this why didn’t you carry the party along?

Who told you I did not carry the party along? You know there is a lot of myth and a lot of sup­positions that people make.  I did not just make the broadcast, I sat with party leaders. Who is who in our party in Ekiti were all with me when I went to make the broadcast. We all sat down and agreed on even the format it would take. This was not a broadcast I decided to make out of the blues. We knew we had not lost an election freely or fairly and we knew the agenda was to annihilate and maul down our people. We love our people more, and our interest is to secure them, to protect them than to just protect our office. It was a carefully calibrated speech.

You mentioned something about “a new sociology of the Ekiti people evolving” in your historic broadcast. Can you elucidate more on this?

It was just an honest reaction that if indeed this was your will, then it runs counter to what we know politics is about. In politics, performance is rewarded more often than not. Yes we have had instances, of Winston Churchill losing an election after he came back as a hero in the Second World War or Pierre Trudeau of Canada. It happens but the fact that it happens does not confer correctness on it. If you say oh, this is the view we have of this governor, he has performed, he has demonstrated competence, his acceptance profile is very high, everybody loves him, yes there are things we may not like about him, he is detached. He is not a social animal. But it still will fly in the face of logic unless there is a new sociology. Because once you say performance is not rewarded then all you are say­ing, the message you are sending to politicians is, you know what, you better don’t behave like Fay­emi. You better get there and take care of yourself and your family and when it is election time, go out there and start sharing rice and boli and mouth organs and jump up on okada and say you are the peoples politician and I think it is a very dangerous message that we are sending about what politics should mean to our people. And that is why I said before that I didn’t even accept that that is what has happened because it is those who are hard put to explain their own success, this moonslide success, they are the ones saying you know it is because he is an elite governor, it is because we are on the street with the people. It is a very simplistic, a his­torical explanation. You will need to dig deeper and that information would come in due course.

Your defeat in your ward and your local government was disturbing. One writer said this was because people were angry that you built an “imposing structure” in your home town Isan Ekiti in the midst of poor people that you never took care of? What is your reaction?

I think whoever wrote that was ill-informed. One, I don’t believe anyone would say that I was defeated in my unit and my ward. The result is there they should go to INEC and check. As far as I am aware, in my unit, I think PDP had one vote, Labour had 0 and I believe of the 168 people that voted there, I had 167 that voted for me in my unit. In my ward, I had 2022 votes to PDP’s 261 much less for Labour. How anyone would describe this as a defeat is a way of calling a dog a bad name in order to hang it. And to now talk about impos­ing structure, it is so disingenuous, I don’t even want to comment on it. The building that I have in my community, I mean my house, was built long before I became governor. It was declared in the assets that I declared on October 16, 2010. This can be googled, I am one governor who is proud to say I have led an accountable, transparent life as governor. Anyone who can come out and say I have added one block to any part of my house around the world since I became governor, I chal­lenge the person to come out with evidence. I live a very modest life and there is no need for me not to. I have a small family and I have only one child.  My politics is not politics of materialism but in Ni­gerian politics everybody opens their mouth and say whatever they like about you because that is the way Nigerian politics is. You must malign oth­ers in order to try and get some kind of foothold. I wonder what is massive about my house. So when I hear about this imposing mansion, I ask myself is he writing about me or writing about someone else and here was a journalist who said he had never been to Ekiti, because I read the piece. So, you then ask yourself, you write this and you have never been to Ekiti, where is your credibility? So this is where hatred blinds credibility. How would anyone take such a journalist who regards himself as a serious columnist serious when you write that. The same person you are talking about wrote that I have a university in Ghana and said that I have not denied that my wife has a univer­sity in Ghana. This is part of the misinformation that people spread even when they know it is a lie. A university is not what you put in your pocket. I have denied this at every opportunity I get and challenged the peddlers of the rumour to provide evidence, the university authorities in Ghana have denied this. They have come out to say that give us the evidence of this university. We know the universities that are in Ghana, we know those they belong to, yet you keep this Goebbelsian lie hoping that if you keep repeating it, it would stick. With time, somebody would now say oh, I read it somewhere and when somebody read it some­where, what is the name of the university, who is the Vice Chancellor or president of this university, how many students are there, who exactly gave you this information, where is it written. But you know why they would go for a university, it is Fayemi now, he is an intellectual, an academic, you can’t say he has an oil rig or an oil refinery. That may not be believable, you can’t say he has a power plant. But if you say he has a university, they would say you know he is one of these elitist academics so that is the kind of thing that he would like. Quite frankly, for me there is nothing wrong in having a university, but I do not have a univer­sity anywhere in the world. But you then ask your­self, why do people lie? What does it advance? It diminishes them more.  Like that columnist, he is greatly diminished now, at least in my eyes, and in the eyes of many others. Those who used to take him seriously before would think twice about any­thing he writes from now on because they know that his writing is not based on any objectivity. It is personal, hate-mongering, disingenuous lies that define him and it is unfortunate because we don’t need that for the growth of this democracy. There are some people that you take serious. This is not something you are reading in a junk publication, if you are reading it in one of those funny rags that they call soft sell, it is understandable but not in a mainstream newspaper in which this person is a respected columnist, it is not just done.

Was there any connection be­tween your defeat and the fact that you were never in control of the par­ty structure in the state?

What do you mean by not being in control of the party? What is wrong in having collective lead­ership in which other party leaders have a say in the party structure? Don’t forget we are in a party where there are former governors, senators, House of Representatives honourable members etc. Why should a single individual aim to control a party of several thousand members? My position as the leader of the party is not challenged by anybody. The party chairman and the executives are not necessarily new people to me. In fact, I played a critical role in the installation of the party chairman way back in 2006 when I was not even a governor, I was not even the candidate of the party because we had just formed the AC from the amalgama­tion of AD and ACD. When Jide Awe became the party chairman, and he had been party chairman for 8 years since then, he is somebody I have a great deal of respect for; he is committed; he was a student union activist like me before getting into politics and he has done reasonably well in the position of chairman of the party and I don’t in­dulge in self- aggrandizement. The party machin­ery works for the state. I don’t know what anyone means if they say that we were not in control of the party machinery. Who is then? Who is in control?

Do you regret any of your actions, policies, utterances, behavior and programmes considering the out­come of the election?

There is nothing we have done that we don’t think it’s the right thing to do. I have always said that governance is different from politics. When election ends, governance starts and you must be able to, yes, mix both, but at the same time you have a duty as a leader to take firm decisions when necessary in the best interest of the people. Gover­nance is not a popularity contest, election may be a popularity contest but governance is about deliv­ering the greatest good for the greatest number of the people and to that extent there is nothing that we did that we cannot defend in terms of their im­pact on the people. Whether it is our free education programme, we know what has changed now, we know what our hospitals used to look like, people can go there and see what they look like now. We also know what the infrastructure in the state used to be like and we know the quality of infrastruc­ture we have since put in place. In Education, in healthcare, in agriculture, in rural development and community empowerment, in social security and women empowerment as well as provision of jobs, there are indelible marks of our administra­tion.

However, there were a number of policies that many deemed controversial and as I said, you hear so many pepper soup analysts who go around say­ing, ‘Oh, it’s because Fayemi was doing test for teachers and was looking for ghost workers in lo­cal governments and putting biometrics integrated pay roll system for the civil servants and all that.’ You know vision is always 20/20 after the fact. In all the steps I took, my primary interest was to bet­ter the lot of my people. Though there are aspects of some of our reforms that might have been han­dled differently, there is none we would have jet­tisoned. There are also aspects of our reforms that might have been communicated differently to the people particularly those affected because change is always difficult to swallow. People don’t like change. Sometimes, the price to pay for leadership is to be firm in your approach to change particu­larly when you know that that change would be in the ultimate best interest of the majority of the population. So, sequencing you can argue about and say timing, sequencing of the reform, players, path, processes are issues that we deal with when we are talking about effective and efficient gover­nance. But the reality is that some of what we had to do we did and there is no need to regret anything we did because it was in the best interest of our people and I believe that posterity would judge us right on those policies.

The Governor-elect, Ayodele Fay­ose has described himself as a grass­roots politician and you as an elitist politician. Did this make any differ­ence in the outcome of the election? Was there really a disconnect be­tween you and the grassroots?

Well you know, I don’t want to comment on anything that Mr Ayodele Fayose says. He is, as I have said to Ekiti people, my brother. I have a duty to weld together everybody who had been fortu­nate and privileged to occupy this very important position and they are not many. In a substantive manner, we are only talking about four: Niyi Ade­bayo, Ayo Fayose, Segun Oni and me. So, I would love a situation in which the office would not be desecrated no matter who occupies it and the peo­ple who have occupied it would have to display sufficient maturity to always come together in the interest of the Ekiti people. But some of the things that people say must be analyzed, again in the in­terest of those who are gullible enough to believe these simplistic soundings; grassroots, elitist and other nonsensical terms.  These are terminologies, which have been bastardized by those who do so for reasons best known to them. No government can be more grassroots than the government we run in Ekiti. For the first time in Nigeria’s history, a governor does not do budget until he has visited communities and I have done this thrice now, for 2011-2013 budgets. So, it is not by accident that over 1200 projects dot various communities in Ekiti, which were specific requests made in those town halls and village meetings held in those com­munities. What could be more grassroots than that? I don’t make budget by sitting in Ado Ekiti. I go to various communities, in spite of the fact that I have a plan, I have an agenda, everybody knows the agenda, it’s something the people can recite and they recite it all the time. The eight-point agenda, the road map to Ekiti recovery. It was like a man­tra. I don’t just stand on my agenda, I also go into communities and discuss objectively with them; what are your priorities for next year? What would you like me to do? There is hardly a single com­munity that you can get to today that you would not find five, six or more projects determined by the people not imposed on them from Ado Ekiti.  When people talk to you about grassroots and elite they are talking about somebody eating roast corn on the roadside or hi-fiving an okada rider. Excuse me, that is bastardization of governance, that is not grassroots politics. Grassroots politics in my view means affecting the lives of people at the grass­roots in a fundamental way and improving their lot. The 25,000 elderly people that are collecting #5,000 every month in an institutionalized manner live in the grassroots, they don’t live in the air. The youth in the volunteer corps, the ones in the peace corps and youth in commercial agriculture, they are not urban-based, they are mostly in the grass­roots. I ask people, how many times did people see Chief Obafemi Awolowo eating boli on the road just to demonstrate that he was a grassroots man. The person who used to do that then, of course, quite popular in his own sense, Adegoke Adelabu, the penkelemesi man. Yes, very popular, a rabble-rouser. He knew how to rouse the people but he also genuinely loved the Ibadan people. For him, it was a two-love engagement because he was an in­tellectual. S.L.A Akintola too. Awolowo was seen as standoffish, an intellectual not a social animal. I am proud to follow in that footstep. I have actu­ally no regret if that is what it means to be elitist because the policies that we implemented affected people in the rural areas more than people in the urban areas positively. But honestly, I don’t want to engage in any political brickbat over the defini­tions of elitism and grassroots.

Some have suggested that some of the agenda you set for your first term should have formed part of your second term agenda – the assess­ment test for teachers, the search for ghost workers in local governments and the civil service and demolition of some houses etc. Do you have any regrets for your actions?

For me, objectively in politics of theory and practice of governance, one standard feature that crops up all the time is what we call sequencing. Yes, there are things that you may choose to do at a particular time but you also have to ask yourself, are we God? How can you plan for a second term when you have not even demonstrated to people what you can do with the first term. That’s an as­pect people leave out when they are talking about sequencing and timing in governance. What if I leave all these legacies out and not do anything throughout the first term, simply because I don’t want to hurt a fly, I don’t want to rock the boat, I don’t want to demonstrate leadership. Leadership is not about not taking decisions particularly hard decisions. I believe people know where I stand on governance now, if you were to ask people. I was very touched when I read The Economist and the first line in the report read thus “one of Nigeria’s most reformed minded governors has been ousted from office”. We are all writing our own history, I do not accept the logic that oh, you know don’t rock the boat. What I have done is a measure by which others would be judged now and they would have their own time to demonstrate what they can do in the interest of the people. Are people saying that ghost workers must be entertained, are they suggesting that people must have loopholes to steal government money? Are they saying that the future of our children is not important to us and the quality of teachers should be ignored? Is that what we are saying? I am sorry, I don’t come from that school of thought. The school of thought that I come from stipulates very clearly, this is what I would do when I get to office, it was an agenda. I shared the agenda with people all over Ekiti state. It would be disingenuous on my part, to now get into office and not revive Ikogosi that I promised to bring back and not revive Ire Bricks Factory, one of key pegs of our industrialization agenda in the state and not revive the quarries in Igbemo or not fix the roads that I promised to fix. Or not get the health centers and the schools reconstructed. Ditto, I couldn’t have left the teachers the way they were. Now, Ekiti teachers are the best paid teachers in the country. Because I promised that I was going to put them on a pedestal that would im­prove the quality of the pupils produced by them. So when they get core subjects allowance and they get teachers pecuniary allowance and they get ru­ral teaching allowance, is it just for nothing? They must also fulfill their own part by demonstrating dedication and commitment to the children. My interest is in those children and when I do the same in the university, it is not accidental that Ekiti has moved to number 17 out of universities in Nigeria from almost number 200 on the Webometric index in the space of three and a half years. The record is there for all to see. So if they like, because Fay­emi is no longer there, let them return to the era of miracle centres and let them start selling handouts again in the universities. Let the lecturers abandon peer review in the appointment process. All the in­novations that we brought even whoever occupies the seat would find out that these are things that should not be reversed in the larger interest of the people of the state. So, I have actually no apology, I’m sorry.

Is this why people say your ap­proach to governance is too theoreti­cal or you think it’s not true?

Of course, it is not true. Everything that we did was informed by analysis, deep-thinking of the Ekiti condition and what will take us speedily to sustainable development. If we do road infrastruc­ture in a landlocked state, rural place, it is because we are very clear in our mind that those who want to bring the proceeds of their farms to the urban centres would be able to do it in a relatively seam­less and painless manner. So if we connect our state with a network of multiple roads, it is not an accident when people care and set up facili­ties there. When I became governor, you can only refer to one standard hotel in Ekiti, maybe two: Fountain and Pathfinder. Since I became governor in Ekiti, not fewer than 10 standard hotels have sprung up. That’s a measure for you because they are providing jobs, facilities, leisure for people. There is nothing elitist about that or theoretical because for me, I am clearly convinced that hand­out is not what would make development real in Ekiti. Instant gratification does not bring develop­ment to any society, it is the enabling environment that you create for jobs to grow, for investment to come that would create opportunities to develop a sense of self-worth, and to begin to focus on how to earn a living, not to depend on crumbs from the table of politicians. So we have a fundamen­tal approach to our politics and it is a very clearly defined social democratic agenda and we believe that the strong must provide for the weak and they must be in a position to pull up the vulnerable in the society. So we have a very clear social welfare programme that everybody commends. But at the same time we have what you might call a fiscally conservative program, which some people don’t like because we go after those who want to reap where they did not sow. We fished them out of the system, we blocked all the corruption loopholes in the system particularly in the civil service. Some are not happy about that. We demand accountabil­ity and transparency of ourselves and of others and that was why I declared my assets as the governor publicly and not privately. So, in our government what you see is what you get but if people are now saying that is theoretical then what is theoretical about opening yourself to scrutiny and expecting that to happen of every other public officer.  What is theoretical demanding of people to pay appro­priate tax whether they are lecturers in universities or commercial okada riders because the resources gathered from this would be used in the overall interest of everybody. Of course we have to pay for the free education, we have to pay for the free health care, we have to pay for social security and we cannot depend completely on what is coming from Abuja. You know I am not fazed by some of the resentment to this. Anybody who knows Western Nigeria’s history would remember what happened to Chief Obafemi Awolowo in 1954. Because of one pound tax imposed for free edu­cation, he lost a regional election. The same free education, 50 years later, is what everybody is praising him for. So, those who say it is theoretical, fine. Others have also said Fayemi is years ahead of his time. I don’t know whether that is true or not because there is nothing we are doing in Ekiti that is extraordinary. These are policies and pro­grammes that have been tested elsewhere and they have worked in the overall interest of the people. For me, it is about our people, it is not about self.

The Governor-elect referred to you as an honourable man, yet he said your achievements and performance were media hype because you built on his previous projects. He also said the Pavilion and the government house were of no economic value to the people. Are these comments befitting of a person described as an honourable man or was this used as a sarcasm?

You have tried as much as possible to make me talk about Mr Ayo Fayose and I have tried as much as possible to avoid desecrating the office because there is no way I am going to talk about him or some of the remarks he makes that I would not have course to question the extent of his readi­ness for the office he wants to occupy. Honestly, I find it strange that anyone could say that a pa­vilion that has a sitting facility for 12,000 people, in a state where people come to do crusades, concerts and so on, and occupy secondary school pitches, would not find use. This is something that is bound to generate funds for the state if well managed. And I would be surprised if my brother said he could not see the economic impact of that. There is nothing that we have put in place that is not regenerative whether you talk of Ikogosi, the Pavillion, the Civic Centre or Oba Adejugbe Hos­pital. I don’t expect him to come now and see what we have put in Ikogosi and say he wants it to go back to the Ikogosi of his earlier period in office. I would hope not. Ditto, the Government House, the Civic Centre, Oba Adejugbe Hospital, Ire Clay Factory, the 700kms of road. So if he says I have built on what he did, well that’s what government is all about. It is a continuum. He should come and build on what I have also done now.

The Governor-elect Ayo Fayose thanked the Labour Party candi­date, Barrister Opeyemi Bamidele for helping him to win the election. Do you regret not having Opeyemi Bamidele on your side?

Opeyemi Bamidele took his own decision, he is an adult and I think we should respect his de­cision. But likewise he would have to deal with the consequences of his decision, that’s all I can say about him. I would like to have everybody on my side. There is no politician who wants to have enemies. I will continue to say this, my politics is not politics of opportunism, it is politics of prin­ciple and I am not afraid to stand alone as much as I would want to have people on my side. I am one politician who is not afraid to stand alone for my beliefs. So if there were people who chose not to be on my side for whatever reasons, I can only wish them well.

How do you explain the allega­tions of perfidy and nonchalant at­titude leveled against most of your appointees?

In politics, people always level allegations, in every political struggle, you would never find a 100 percent commitment, you would never find people acting in almost the same fashion. We ran a campaign, a hugely successful campaign. We would have people who will have their issues. There is no government in office that would have the groundswell of support that I had before it got to office. No government can maintain that be­cause politicians being who they are, somebody who wanted to be a commissioner and ended up being a senior special assistant, he would continue to eye that position of a commissioner and would continue to feel under-utilized and unhappy for whatever reason. Somebody who feels he wants to be chairman of a board or a local government who ends up being given a supervisory councillor position will also have his bones to pick with the governor and of course all complaints stop at the desk of the governor. I am not going to say that all my appointees and political leaders performed ex­cellently but I don’t think perfidy is an appropriate word to use to describe non-performance.

Some people said your govern­ment was being run from Bourdilon. Others said you alienated Asiwaju Bola Tinubu from your government. Can you tell us the true version or what kind of relationship you had with Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu?

One version says I am being micro-managed from Bourdilon, the other says he is his own man; he thinks he is an intellectual, he is independent, he has distanced himself from Bourdilon, from Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.  Asiwaju is my leader, I have never denied that, he has done a lot for me personally and politically and I owe him a great deal of gratitude for that. But our relationship is also based on mutual respect because it is not a relationship that started in politics. I was never a member of the Lagos crowd as you know. I was never a commissioner in Lagos, I was never a senator or even a resident in Lagos. I knew him way back, I knew him in exile and we forged a common bond that was dedicated to the removal of military rule in Nigeria and that relationship continued. He played a critical role when I was asked to run for the governorship position in Ekiti. He supported it with everything he could muster and when we went to the election and I won, we ran into road blocks that eventually led to the tri­bunal.  He was also very central and supportive of all that we achieved. But what many people didn’t give him credit for, for those who don’t know him well, is that they expect him as our party leader to send them my way all the time and for many people he refused to do that. He said look, let these people run their government, if you have any ad­vice to give them, you go to them directly but if you pass it through me, I would endeavor to de­liver your message to them. But no matter what steps he takes, he would be analyzed, analyzed and analyzed. Whatever steps I take, I would be analyzed and over-analyzed.  Therefore, it’s a no-win situation. They will say he is running Ekiti.  The truth of the matter is that when it comes to specifics, I have enjoyed a great deal of advice from him because he was a governor before. There were things that I have done that if I asked him for advice, he would give it. That, this is how I did it during my time but you know your area is different, it is not as cosmopolitan as Lagos. You may need to manage some tendencies much more carefully. He was always willing to give us advice. You would always have this and all my colleagues also faced the same issues. But the same people would say that oh, he has abandoned Tinubu, he has embraced Adebayo. I don’t run my life on a zero-sum game basis.  I have several leaders, and I have a lot of respect for them and they have a role to play both in my emergence and in the suc­cess of our administration. I just consider it “Beer parlour” talk when they say all these things and I know that Asiwaju himself knows that that is what it is.  When these people sit down and concoct stories, and peddle rumors you can’t stop them. You can’t legislate against rumors unfortunately, particularly against political leaders. There would always be all manner of things being peddled. Am I my own man? Of course I am my own man. Do I have leaders I respect? Absolutely, I have a lot of leaders I respect and they need not be mutually exclusive. I can be my own man and still have leaders I can take wise counsel from.

People, I mean, public analysts and politicians, have singled out your Chief of Staff as the major cul­prit for your defeat. Why did you al­low him to have such massive influ­ence on you?

It is very funny but I find it interesting. Chiefs of staff by their very nature, they are seen as the attack dogs of their principals. Go into history, chiefs of staff are almost always hated. Chief of staff is traditionally an American-created office. In British politics, you probably would have cabinet secretary, principal private secretary and all that. The chief of staff is the person who coordinates the governor’s office. That automatically makes you an object of hate. The way you now manage it will define how you are seen. Most chiefs of staff are not liked at all.  When Tunde Fashola was chief of staff in Lagos, I know what some of his colleagues in the cabinet used to say about him… so that’s the first thing to say. So if you are the chief of staff who is seen to be close to the governor…but the truth of the matter is that the chief of staff in any government is only as powerful as the gover­nor wants him to be. So when people build myths around any government official, you are just providing an excuse and cover for the governor because the chief of staff is a shield.  How many people want to see the governor? The governor’s office is a very busy office, part of the duties of the chief of staff is to manage expectations of people. On a normal day, if you get to Yemi Adaramodu’s office, he has more crowd there than you can ever find in my office because he has to manage a lot of people who are desirous of seeing the governor. Those who are unhappy that they are unable to see the governor don’t blame the governor even though it was the governor who would have been the one to give the instruction that “Mr chief of staff. I’m busy, I don’t want to see any one’. They put the blame on the chief of staff and in a situation like this, the blame game continues. I think it is unfortunate and I don’t think people should indulge in that, I think all of us have put in our best. There may have been lapses here and there but a lot of what they say about the chief of staff is unfounded and untrue. My chief of staff is not the most diplomatic person I can tell you that, that is his major problem, and it is also because he knows everybody very well and people don’t like to be exposed for their perfidy or their untoward act. There are things I would really not say about any politician, Yemi would say it and they would hate him for­ever for saying it. The governor rarely says anything that is negative or bad about anybody. But the chief of staff feels that it is his duty to protect the governor and to expose you if you are not working in the larger interest of the party. I recall when I came into politics, I knew what they used to say about a gentleman called Biodun Oyebanji who was chief of staff to governor Niyi Adebayo, I knew what they used to say about Alhaji Lai Mohammed when he was chief of staff to my leader, Asiwaju. It is the same story, so nothing new.

You were accused of importing contractors from Lagos to do what local contractors can do. Why did you do this?

This is rubbish. It is not even worth responding to because every­one knows the local content policy of our administration. I would rather my roads are constructed by contractors that I can hold their feet to fire and I can get sound warranty from them. We have had governors in this state who constructed roads that barely lasted six months because they just poured…so I believe that every naira that belongs to Ekiti should be utilized well for the Ekiti people. People can go and see the roads I have constructed and compare them to roads that have been constructed in the past. They should look at the drainages and yet some of the roads were constructed by Ekiti indi­genes, the street lights were done by Ekiti indigenes, the evidence is there for all to see. So I am not going to apologize for using those who would make our money last. We dont have limitless resources in Ekiti, so whatever we are spending money on, must be worth our while and it must be quality products that would be used rather than just the typical “shagbe loju yoyo” work. It’s something you would hear from those who are not really serious. What I would not accept is to give a job to a politician or local person who would not deliver and then he feels like what is wrong with that, that’s my own share of the cake. I am sorry there is no share of any cake in my government. This is the commonwealth of the Ekiti people, if you don’t do it, go and face maximum consequence. Yes, I have offended a lot of local contractors for that but again I do not have apologies for that

Why did you create LCDAs when you have only few more days in office?

Again, that is a distortion. The process leading to the creation of the LCDAs has been on for one year. I set up a committee that took memoranda from various communities and I also invited them to come and defend their memoranda. This is a process and we are just getting to the end of the process. And what do you mean by few more days in office? I still have three months left in government. So there is nothing that says we should not do something that our people are very desirous of and that is why I am creating the LCDAs.

INEC, the Police and the Federal Government are all contemplating adopting the ‘Ekiti Arrange­ment’ as a template for elections in other states. Do you share this sentiment?

Well, I do not know what they mean by ‘Ekiti arrangement’. What is the ‘Ekiti arrangement’? Is it the harassment? Is it the siege? Or the intimidation? Oh yes, they don’t even have to contemplate, that is what they want to do.  Their arrangement is in top gear for Osun too. That ‘arrangement’ allows them to impose their will on the people. I think the country is in for a long and tortuous journey because once the will of the people is discounted and you do it in a seemingly ap­propriate manner, then it becomes a fait accompli that would halt this democracy and I think that is what we all must be careful about. The abracadabra in Ekiti is not a template that can endure. It is a template that they would love to use but it is a template that would drive the country into perdition because people would wake up to the reality sooner rather than later that a government that has not demonstrated any capacity to make a difference in the lives of the people, a govern­ment that has desecrated everything that is decent about Nigeria yet wants to keep itself in office by hook or by crook can only be asking people to resort to other means to rescue the country.

What lessons can be learnt from the Ekiti elec­tion by you as a victim, APC as a party, Ekiti peo­ple, governors of other states and politicians gen­erally?

The jury is still out on that

Source: Sun
Ekiti State Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi has countered the widespread belief that he conceded defeat to his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) challenger, Mr. Ayodele Fayose who was declared winner of the June 21 governorship poll in the state.In his first interview after the election granted to Dapo Thomas, a journalist and university teacher who also writes for Sunday Sun, Fay­emi asked anyone who thought he accepted the outcome to read the transcript of his post-election broadcast again.

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