The Senate and the House of Representatives have asked ministers and heads of agencies to heed President Muhammadu Buhari’s sack warning by appearing for the defence of the 2018 budget this week.

The PUNCH’s investigations showed that after Thursday’s late-night meeting with Buhari at the Presidential Villa, the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Yakubu Dogara, relayed the outcome to key committee chairmen working on the budget.

It was gathered on Sunday that chairmen of the committees of both chambers had started sending reminders to ministers to come for budget defence this week.

A senior parliamentary source in the House said, “The chairmen were told to issue fresh reminders to heads of ministries, departments and agencies, who had been uncooperative in their attitude to the budget defence.

“They are expected to improve on their appearances, this week, before the committees to defend their estimates.

“The President seemed not to know the cause of the delay of the budget prior to the meeting.

“However, from the meeting he had with the leadership of the National Assembly, where the Senate President and Dogara were in attendance, Buhari realised that he had to caution his cabinet members.”

He stated that the committees had started sending reminders through their respective clerks.

He said, “They (the committees) are writing to the MDAs and stating clearly the information they are required to submit to the committees.”

The N8.612tn budget has been held up at the National Assembly since November 7, 2017, when the President presented it to the lawmakers.

It was learnt that Buhari, who was worried over the delay, had invited the leaders of the National Assembly to the meeting to discuss it, among other issues.

At the meeting, Saraki and Dogara reportedly blamed ministers and heads of agencies for the delay.

The government officials were said to have always given one excuse or another as the reason they were unable to appear before the committees.

The committees also complained that a few officials, who bothered to appear, were unprepared, as they did not come with the breakdown of their budget proposals.

The PUNCH gathered that of particular concern to the committees was the performance of the 2017 budget.

The President, after the Thursday meeting, had threatened to sack about 50 heads of the MDAs, who had yet to defend their budgets, should they ignore further invitations from the legislature.

Findings indicated on Sunday that many committee chairmen had started sending reminders to the ministers and heads of agencies to appear this week.

“The expectation is that they (ministers and agency heads) will take Mr. President’s warning seriously,” a lawmaker told The PUNCH.

When contacted for his comments, the Leader of the House, Mr. Femi Gbajabiamila, said it was a good development that the heads of MDAs had been cautioned by Buhari.

Gbajabiamila asked them to comply with the President’s directive by coming to the National Assembly.

He said, “My advice to the (heads of) MDAs is that they should report to their various committees to defend their budgets so that it can be passed and the government can continue to function for the benefit of all  Nigerians.

“In the first place, they did not need the prompting of Mr. President to do the right thing; but now that he has, I expect them to obey.”

The Chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Mr. Abdulrazak Namdas, also told The PUNCH that the outcome of the meeting had “cleared the air on who is delaying the budget.”

“This issue of the heads of MDAs not cooperating; we have been shouting it; but nobody has been listening to us.

“It is always convenient to blame the National Assembly. Now that Mr. President has intervened, we expect maximum cooperation from the MDAs so that collectively, we can pass the budget quickly,” he added.

In the Senate, it was gathered that the committees had been told to take the MDAs as more officials were expected for budget defence this week.

The Vice-Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Senator Sunny Ogbuoji, told one of our correspondents that the MDAs would be welcome for the defence of their budgets.

He said, “They are supposed to obey the President. This is purely about the executive arm of the government and it is their responsibility. If the head of the executive gives an order, I expect that it will be complied with.”

The Senate had, on February 14, 2018, asked 63 agencies and parastatals under the Federal Government to submit details of their proposed 2018 budgets within one week.

The upper chamber of the National Assembly had lamented that while Buhari complied with the law by laying the 2018 Appropriation Bill along with details of estimates before the lawmakers, agencies of the government disregarded the law.

The lawmakers alleged that ministers and heads of the Federal Government departments and agencies were frustrating legislative work on the budget proposal.

But the Director-General, Budget Office of the Federation, Mr. Ben Akabueze, had denied the allegation, stating that the National Assembly had enough details to work with and pass the appropriation bill.

Senator Shehu Sani, has said that despite the ongoing reconciliation by President Muhammadu Buhari through a leader in the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, there is still a “civil and cold war.”

Sani, who represents Kaduna Central District, said this at the weekend during an interview on Fresh FM, in Ibadan, Oyo State capital.

“He (Tinubu) was given the task of bringing peace between Arab and Israeli”, Shehu added, wondering if the task could be achieved before the 2019 elections.

On election re-ordering, he explained that the National Assembly took the decision to prevent what he called a “mass trial and mass conviction” of its members.

On his revelation of Senator’s salaries, Sani said: “The National Assembly is made up of distinguished personalities: doctors, lawyers, engineers, academics and all who made it in life.

“But because of this culture of secrecy and silence, people who found themselves in the National Assembly are criminalised and stigmatised.

“The dome of the National Assembly is being seen to house people of questionable character and integrity.

“So, what I did was to rescue the honour and credibility of the National Assembly by removing the veil secrecy to bring it once and for all to an end”.

 

DailyPost 

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Saturday said Nigeria has become too solid as a country for any force, calamity or misgovernance to destroy it.

Mr. Obasanjo, who spoke exclusively to PREMIUM TIMES from Azerbaijan where he is chairing a meeting of the InterAction Council of Former Heads of State and Government, was responding to reports quoting him as saying Nigeria would collapse if President Muhammadu Buhari is reelected to office in 2019.

The reports claimed that the former president made the comment in a speech at the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University, on Friday.

But Mr. Obasanjo vehemently denied making the comment, saying he had not even been to London since early January when he spoke on transformational leadership in Africa at Oxford University.

“I won’t and can’t say that (that Nigeria will collapse if Buhari is reelected),” the former president said. “There will be nothing that will make Nigeria collapse. When Nigeria did not collapse under a civil war, it won’t collapse now.

“My faith and conviction about Nigeria is so strong that I don’t see the country either being dismembered or collapsing.

“The worst has passed on Nigeria. Once we were able to survive the civil war, once we are able to survive (Sani) Abacha, nothing can be worst than those two. And our democracy is waxing strong. Although there are a few things we need to get right.

“As far I am concerned, the worst is over. What remains is for all of us and for our leadership to show good faith and commitment to do what is right. Then Nigeria will grow from strength to strength.”

When reminded of his recent criticism of the Buhari administration for misgovernance, corruption and ineptitude, Mr. Obasanjo said even those administrative weaknesses were not enough to wreck Nigeria.

“I regard those as aberrations and they will pass away,” the former President said. “Such aberrations will pass away with the regime that bring them.

“Don’t forget that Abacha did more than that. Of course Abacha’s regime was not a democracy, it was a military dictatorship. If we survived that, then we will survive any shenanigan against democracy. That’s the greatest advantage of democracy.”

Mr. Obasanjo, who ruled Nigeria as a democratically elected president between 1999 and 2007, supported Mr. Buhari to become president in 2015.

But on January 23, the former president released a 13-page statement calling on Mr. Buhari not to seek re-election in 2019.

In a special press statement entitled, “The Way Out: A Clarion Call for Coalition for Nigeria Movement” Mr. Obasanjo said Mr Buhari had performed far below expectation and should honourably “dismount from the horse” to join the league of the country’s former leaders whose “experience, influence, wisdom and outreach can be deployed on the side line for the good of the country.”

 

PT

Some parents of the 110 Dapchi missing schoolgirls have expressed their lack of faith in President Muhammadu Buhari’s promise during his visit that the girls would be rescued.

DAILY POST reported that President Muhammadu Buhari last week Wednesday visited families of the 110 schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram insurgents at Government Girls Science and Technical School, Dapchi, on February 19.

But the parents have now said that they were not convinced by the president’s words and promise to use military operation to rescue their daughters.

Kachalla Bukar, secretary of the forum of parents of abducted Dapchi girls, said only the rescue of the girls could convince them of government’s efforts.

He told Sun, “We are not convinced about efforts to rescue our girls because we haven’t seen anything. We haven’t seen much of the military work.

“The Buhari that we know is a gentleman. I don’t think he will stand before us and promise to rescue our girls without fulfilling it. Of course, we are not convinced about the efforts to bring them back since we’ve not seen anything.”

Similarly, Zara Adamu, one of the parents, said only the safe return of her daughter could convince her.

“Baba Buhari has spoken. I don’t know what they are doing to bring our daughters back, but he said they are doing something. I will be convinced when I see my daughter back alive,” she said.

Mother of one of the girls, Harira Damagun also said, “Only Allah cannot fail, not human being,we have taken the incident as an act of God.

“We see it as an act of God. Oh Allah, help us from this predicament and save our children!

“All we plead is for the government to help us secure the release of our daughters,” she said.

 

DailyPost 

Despite Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) effort to promote financial inclusion,Nigerian banks lost over 2 million customers between 2016 and 2017.

According to statistics from the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS), the number of active bank accounts also reduced by 1.5 million, dropping from 65 million to 63.5 million.

The statistics obtained by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) from the NIBSS website on Sunday, showed that the total number of bank customers dropped from 61 million in 2016 to 59 million in 2017.

According to NIBSS, the banking sector, however, made great strides in linking customers’ account using the Bank Verification Number (BVN).

The report showed that linked BVN accounts grew from 26 million in 2016, to 41.3 million in 2017.

According to a banking industry source, the reduction in banking customers is not unconnected to the Federal Government’s declaration to fight against corruption.

“When Buhari assumed office, many people abandoned their accounts, especially civil servants because of fear of investigation.

“While some out rightly closed down their accounts, others opted for gradual withdrawal so as not to raise alarm,’’ the source said.

The source, who works at one of the top five banks in the country, blamed the BVN for the low patronage of banking products, especially in the rural areas, where awareness was already very low.

A bank customer, Mr Olaitan Alagbe told NAN that she closed some of her accounts due to unnecessary and illegal charges by banks.

“First of all, the interest rate is next to nothing, so there is little reason to keep your money at the bank when you can turn it over doing other businesses,” she said.

Another customer, who preferred to remain anonymous said he opened several accounts during the Ponzi scheme boom in the country, but was forced to abandon them after the schemes crashed in late 2016 and early 2017.

However, a source at the CBN told NAN that the reduction in the number of banking customers was caused mainly by the introduction of BVN.

“The reduction may not necessarily be a bad thing. For example, many people opened accounts using different variations of their names.

“A person bearing Musa Salisu Mohammed, may have other accounts as Salisu Mohammed or Musa Salisu.

“So with the introduction of BVN, such customers were forced to regularise their names, however, some opted to close down their accounts, which resulted in the reduction of active bank accounts and customers,’’ the source said.

The CBN source was, however, optimistic that the financial inclusion strategy of the bank would succeed in bringing in more people into the formal banking system.

The Financial Inclusion strategy aims to ensure that major bulk of the money in the economy remains within the banking sector.

A major challenge in the financial inclusion process is how to ensure that the poor rural dwellers are carried along considering the lack of financial sophistication among this segment.

The CBN, Money Deposit Banks, Micro Finance Banks and other stakeholders are curre implementing different policies designed to enhance financial inclusion in the country.

 

NAN

The Interior Ministry of Yemen ordered the freeing of at least 800 undocumented African migrants held in southern Aden on Saturday, according to a Yemeni official.

Al-Ulvani said the minister requested the evacuation of the refugee center and suspended the activities of it.

However, al-Ulvani warned that there are AIDS patients among the African migrants and some of them are also suspected to be members of Daesh and Al-Qaeda terror groups.

He added that therefore freeing them could cause a threat to the social peace and security in the city.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir will visit Egypt on Monday to discuss issues of common interest between the two countries during a bilateral summit with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

In a statement to Al-Masry Al-Youm on Saturday, Sudan’s ambassador to Egypt Abdel Mohamoud Abdel al-Halim said that Bashir’s one-day-visit to Cairo comes within the framework of continuous communication between the two leaderships to follow up on the discussions held during a recent meeting between the presidents in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

He added that the meeting will discuss efforts to resolve the outstanding issues between the two sides and to consolidate bilateral relations.

For his part, Tariq Radwan, Chairman of the Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, said that the visit gives a strong signal that the two countries have a desire to overcome their differences, and thanks to their brotherly relations, those differences have started to fade.

Radwan also said that President Sisi has more than once stressed that Egypt has strong relations with Sudan and that the two presidents have been able to quell the diplomatic crisis that emerged in the wake of the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).

Egypt relations with Sudan soured in January after negotiations on the impact of the GERD stalled.

Sudan recalled its ambassador to Cairo on January 5 following news reports in Ethiopia claiming that Egypt was seeking to exclude Sudan from the tripartite negotiations over the impacts of the GERD.

Another source of tensions between Egypt and Sudan is the dispute over the Halayeb and Shalateen region. Sudan accuses Egypt of occupying the territory, while Egypt says it is rightfully under its sovereignty.

Sudan’s Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Ghandour has said that Egypt and Sudan agreed not to escalate the dispute regarding the Halayeb and Shalateen area, instead leaving the matter to the presidents of the two countries.

Sisi and Bashir met on January 27 in the Ethiopian capital on the sidelines of an African Union summit held there at the time.

Halim said that the meeting served as “the basis for a new page that we hope will be based on transparency […] and based on mutual respect and common interests, because what connects the two countries is greater than my words.”

Egypt Independent

At a Senate meeting some two weeks back, Senator Ahmed Ogembe, representing Kogi central alleged that his state governor, Yahaya Bello, sponsored thugs to disrupt an empowerment programme he organised for his constituents. In response, Ike Ekweremadu, the Deputy Senate President taking an overview of a number of undemocratic practices in the country reportedly opined that with the rapid way the country’s democracy was receding, it was not impossible for the military to consider taking over.

The furore which greeted Ekweremadu’s comment probably forced him to recant; more so, as it was given different colourations.  In reality however, the statement is a true reflection of the current political situation in Nigeria. Many issues confirm this.

In the first place, with the unwholesome behaviour of the country’s political class, some people are beginning to miss the military era. Indeed, the often stated axiom that the worst civilian government is better than the best military regime is now questionable. In fact, people who used to think that civilian governments and democracy were coterminous now know they have been exceedingly simplistic.

Perhaps the old argument is valid for real democracies but in Nigeria, civilian and military governments have a lot in common with the main difference being dress. It is true that Nigerian soldiers often shot their way to power in the past; in like manner their civilian counterparts have been getting to power against the wish of the people through fake elections. The number of people in political offices who got there through free and fair elections is so few that it is not irrational to conclude that the electoral process is not the real basis for forming governments in Nigeria because all our elections have always followed the same poor pattern.

As once aptly described by the Election Observation Delegation of the International Republican Institute (IRI) the conduct of election in Nigeria can hardly “measure up to those observed by members of the delegation in other countries whether in Africa, Asia, Europe or the Western Hemisphere.” Painfully, those who get into office spend our scarce resources to enthrone their cronies as may happen soon in states like Imo and Ekiti. 

It is one of our landmark ironies that soon after a governorship election, governors who claim to be democrats, dissolve “democratically” elected local councils and install unelected caretaker committees. Thereafter, they organize sham local elections in which every seat is won by the ruling class. In certain cases, some candidates garner more votes than are available just as others secure overwhelming votes in election booths where voting did not take place.

Since the present dispensation began in 2015, there have been local elections in 23 states. Of this figure, the ruling APC has “won” 100% of the votes in 14 states that it controls. Its immediate rival, the PDP has also done so in 8 states that it controls. APGA which controls only one state; did what others do. Unfortunately, each charade wherever it occurs gulps huge sums of money, yet majority of our states are unable to pay workers’ salaries- the only thing the latter look up to as of right.

The point to be made is that there is nothing to be happy about with our politicians. Although they promised to build strong institutions, they have only succeeded in weakening all public organizations. In the public service what is in vogue is supersession in which inexperienced persons are being made to head several offices.

Whereas the public is left to believe that there is an embargo on employment, unqualified people are being recruited daily through the back door. Within our poor economy, political office holders are daily acquiring expensive official cars. In the states, the legislature is an extension of the government house and for material consideration does whatever the governor wants.

At the federal level where legislators appear independent, Senators as revealed by one of them last week, have N13.5million each to play with every month in addition to several other bogus allowances.

With these ills quite visible wherever one goes, what seems to matter to people who are virtually becoming hopeless is solution, irrespective of who can bring it. Instructively, the same political class has shown clearly that the best way to solve any problem in the country is to give the task to the military. Hence, our super military are now deployed to all trouble spots like Benue.

It does not seem to matter what they make of the assignment. In other parts of the world, internal security is the function of the police. It is not so in our clime. Even a civilian task like election is being secured by the military. Toll gates otherwise called check points now have military personnel. The police is now reduced to guard duties with every VIP having a sizeable number of them despite the organization’s unending cry of under staffing. If the military must intervene in everything, who says they cannot consider directing their searchlight to our politics.

Those who have stuck to the argument that military rule is an aberration, have a strong point but that is not the only aberration we should abhor. We also need to deprecate others like the pauperization of the masses and the high level of insecurity across the country. Except something drastic is done to our politics, we cannot recover from our imminent downfall.

The panacea which is to search for visionary leaders who can formulate and execute viable policies to transform the nation can hardly materialize because only wrong people get “elected”. Bearing in mind that they are usually coerced by large rented crowds who incessantly appeal to them to contest, they never had cause to tell us what they would do if elected, making it hard for them to be accountable.

So, whatever Ekweremadu said or denied, the earlier it is realized that our military is made up of Nigerians and that they see the nation’s ample political rascality, the better for us all. Growing-up, one of the sayings of our people that made much sense to me was that which said, anyone who is hanging around to stop a fight, ought to have begun appropriately by first stopping violent disagreements that could end-up in a fight.

If we are all silent over the things that are making our state fail, it would be hard to stop the fall. We don’t want military rule; we also don’t want a political class that behaves like a child born drunk.