PDP Crisis: Sheriff, Makarfi at war again despite signing peace pact

By Olaotan Falade

 The National Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Sen. Ali Modu Sheriff, and the National Caretaker Committee Chairman of the party, led by Senator Ahmed Makarfi, are engaged in a war of words again, just few days after they reached an understanding to bury their differences.

What has triggered the latest public spat began with Sheriff’s threat to sue anyone, including media houses, who referred to Sen. Ahmed Makarfi-led National Caretaker Committee, as a faction of the party. Allied to this was Sheriff’s declaration of job vacancies in the party secretariat.

Sheriff, left, and Makarfi.

In a statement by his deputy, Dr Cairo Ojoughoh, Sheriff  said  the job vacancies declared  were preparatory to  filling positions in the party’s National Secretariat as the old staff decided to abandon their work even when he appealed to them.

But the Makarfi group smelled a rat and asked the old staff to ignore Sheriff’s threat and his seven-day ultimatum to return party properties.

“His threat against our hard working staff should therefore be ignored and treated with utmost contempt coming from a lawless impostor”, said Dayo Adeyeye, the publicity secretary, who responded on behalf of the Makarfi group..

Both Sheriff and Makarfi had on Thursday signed an undertaking with the PDP National Reconciliation Committee,led by Gov. Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa to cease fire.

They both pledged​ to work together with the reconciliation committee for the restoration of genuine peace to the party.

Sheriff, who described the Makarfi-led committee as illegal group, said that by the pronouncement of the Court of Appeal in Port Harcourt, on Feb. 17,  such “a group” was not supposed to be in existence.

He cautioned media houses not to refer to the Makarfi group as faction, saying an appeal is not a stay of execution, insisting that the group was illegal.

Sheriff also warned Makarfi and his group to stop interfering in the affairs of the party.

“Makarfi should behave himself. He should not interfere in our business, because we are not interested in his private business.

“Any further careless statement from him will force us to reconsider our earlier peace agreement.

“We have already employed staff who are running the bureaucracy efficiently. If Makarfi so desires, he should keep the old staff, just as he is doing now.

“We have had enough and enough is enough of this,” Sheriff said.

He added that his leadership was preparing to complete state congresses where necessary and working hard on planned national convention.

“We will not be distracted by inconsequential issues  from our set objective to return the party to the grassroots.

“We must prevent anybody with the agenda of killing the party, especially those, who were brought to the party by those, who have already decamped to other parties.”

Sheriff, warned the old PDP staff, who still have the party’s  property in their possession to return them immediately.

“They should return them within the seven days grace or we will be left with no other option than to hand them over to the police,” Sheriff said.

The Makarfi group fired back and urged the staff and party stakeholders to ignore Sheriff, saying that his threats were those of  “a lawless impostor.

“We went out of our way few days ago to reach accommodation with them even when some of our top leaders had serious misgivings about any type of talk with them given their unreliability,” Makarfi said.

He said that his committee showed its goodwill, while Sheriff-led National Working Committee (NWC) demonstrated their bad faith.

“We have always known that Sheriff and his co-travellers especially, Cairo Ojuogbo, were never men of honour with whom one can reach any agreement.

“But we tagged along to avoid being accused of unnecessary intransigence.

“Since the leopard cannot change its spot, it is now very clear that no agreement or political solution can be reached with these bunch of people with huge integrity deficit.”

He described Ojougboh as an impostor and a rabble rouser in a non existent NWC, saying Sheriff has no men to constitute an NWC with the required constitutional quorum.

“His threat against our hard working staff should therefore be ignored and treated with utmost contempt coming from a lawless impostor.

“For the education of Sheriff and his cohorts, our Appeal at the Supreme Court is already on.

“To that extent, the position and status of the National Caretaker Committee remains completely unaltered.

“Since they cannot comprehend even very simple matters, we will use a simple analogy.

“If a Governor loses at the election petitions tribunal and at the Court of Appeal, does he cease to be a Governor even when his appeal is pending before the Supreme Court?

“Would the civil servants then refuse to serve him?” Makarfi asked.

He explained that the position of the law was that he would remain the governor.

He added that all government employees would continue to service his government until otherwise determined by the Supreme Court.

Makarfi added that his committee members have tried strenuously to reach Gov. Dickson to report this deliberate violation of the truce by the Sheriff Group but they were not able to get through to him.

·        Source: The News Guru

I worked with El-Rufai on memo to Buhari, admits Tunde Bakare

Pastor Tunde Bakare, a top supporter of President Muhammadu Buhari, has admitted that he played a role in the memo written by Kaduna state governor Nasir El-Rufai to the Nigerian leader.

Pastor Bakare is a very close of President Buhari's and was once his running mate on the platform of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in 2011.

The Punch reports that Bakare admitted to his congregation at the Latter Rain Assembly in Ogba area of Lagos during a sermon on Sunday, March 26 that he and El-Rufai dropped off the memo at the presidential villa together.

He however denied that the report was meant to indict President Buhari or insult him. He accused enemies of the president who surround him of releasing the documents to the media and making things look bad.

 Bakare said: “I can never deny that I knew about the memo; I knew about it. I flew from Lagos to meet El-Rufai in Abuja to discuss the contents with President Buhari. There were just three of us at the meeting. “The memo was an assessment of what was going on; where mistakes had been made and things were not going on well; and what could be done to move the country forward. “It was not an attack on anybody or on the President but some sons of disobedience around President Buhari leaked the memo to Sahara Reporters to make it look as if it was meant to attack the President for their own selfish interests.

“Can you imagine that the memo was written in September last year and some people think that they could gain from that? Woe betides anyone who thinks he can further his interest by manipulating anything in this era.” NAIJ.com recalls that just some days after his memo written to President Buhari leaked to the media, Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna state finally revealed why he authored the controversial memo.

In an interview conducted by Daily Trust, Mallam El-Rufai said that the memo was sent to the president to right some wrongs in his administration. 

Soyinka throws support behind IPOB, says Buhari is sick

By Adeola Opeyemi

Professor Wole Soyinka has joined the train of people demanding to know the health status of President Muhammadu Buhari.

Soyinka who also professed his support for the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) said there is no doubt that President Buhari is ill, but he needs to reveal what is wrong with him. NAIJ.com gathered that Professor Wole Soyinka made this statement at Paris Book Fair over the weekend, according to Vanguard. The Nobel Laureate said the pro-Biafra agitators had a right to assert themselves as a distinct people, even within a political and geographical zone anywhere in the world.

Soyinka said there is no doubt that Buhari is sick and there is no need for the President to be shy about revealing his health status. Soyinka said: “He’s ill, there’s no question there, and I wish for heaven’s sake that people in public positions would just be honest. “Illness is part of our existence. Buhari owes it to the nation and I don’t know why he and his advisors are being so coy about it."

Soyinka who burnt his American green card after Donald Trump became America's president said Trump exploited “latent xenophobia” to reach the White House, said a people (IPOB) had a right to agitate for self-autonomy within a geographical expression. He said: “It’s not the real estate for me that defines a nation or a people, no, it’s a history, a culture. What is a crime within an artificial entity like Nigeria? You have states being created which are not viable.” Soyinka also criticised the alleged extra-judicial killings of IPOB members by the Nigerian army. Recently, the Nigerian military denied an allegation by Amnesty International in November that security agents killed some 150 Biafra protesters in the past year. But Soyinka said: “I cannot accept the notion that people have a right to kill other people because they want to assert their identity… It doesn’t cost anything to recognise it.” He recalled that President Buhari travelled out of Nigeria on January 19 for a medical vacation that was extended indefinitely and he spent 51 days on his trip before returning to the country on March 10. The President is however, yet to reveal what was wrong with his health. Read more

                                         EDITORIAL

Delta State Govt and the NUT strike

It is a soothing relief that the 12-day strike called by the Delta State Chapter of the Nigeria Union of Teachers has finally been called off.

The story is that Governor Ifeabyi Okowa finally took the teachers’ representatives to Government House Annex, Warri where negotiations were made and armistice struck to bring the teachers and government fight to an end.

While we commend the two sides to the feud for finally coming to the negotiating table and striking an agreement, it is important to look into certain events that played out during the strike that were very unnecessary. They were the factors that caused passions to be inflamed, and without justification prolonged the feud.

We at Banner Media Network , while we praise the initial disposition of the Governor in meeting with NUT leaders to hear them out, we are also at a loss as to why he failed to take advantage of that opportunity to and fruitfully engage the unionists to secure an early truce. Rather what a befuddled observer saw was the resort to playing politics by Governor Okowa with the NUT officials, and wielding the big stick and commanding the teachers to return to the classrooms or risk non-payment of their salaries for staying out of work. The Government also used its state media outfits to bare its fangs at the harmless teachers, unleashing propaganda in a cruel, myopic and naked show of power.

Besides, we saw activities of the hordes of social media aides, informed and uninformed supporters and sycophants taking on spaces in the social media to rain abuses on the striking teachers without advancing cogent reasons to show why the NUT strike should not hold. There was also the case of the group that called itself Academic Staff Union of Secondary Schools (ASUSS) which came out to “appreciate the efforts of the State Government in resolving the issues concerning the welfare of secondary school teachers, particularly in the areas of prompt payment of salaries, promotions and inter-cadre transfers.”

Of course, the teachers who ASUSS claimed to represent did not dignify the body with a listening ear. Also, that one of the deals struck by NUT in the meeting with Governor Okowa in Warri is the agreement to implement the inter-cadre transfers, underscores the lie of ASUSS and exposes it as a meddlesome interloper in the matter , one that really does not have the interest of the teachers at heart. That teachers preferred to honour NUT’s directive to stay away from the classrooms until their demands were met as against the call to return to classrooms made by ASUSS is proof positive that NUT is the authentic, recognized and acceptable Trade Union umbrella group for teachers in the State.  

Perhaps, the greatest disappointment of the episode is the resort to intimidation of teachers introduced by the Hon. Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education, Barrister Chiedu Ebie. Media reports showed that Mr. Ebie went to the police authorities to call for policemen to be sent to schools. It was indeed, shocking to see him moving around with security details, with artisans who had saw with which they cut open gates locked by the Unionists as a means of enforcing their rights to call their members out on strike, and as indication that there is labour dispute with the State Government.  

We think that the Commissioner’s action was ill-advised; it was unnecessary and quite unbecoming, especially in a democratic setting. Since when has peaceful strikes and lock-outs become illegitimate as means of expressing grievance by workers? Aside the big surprise that the shameful action was carried out with glee by a cabinet member of the administration, the action indeed, represented a minus for the democratic credentials of the administration.  IF anything, it is a precise design to muzzle dissent in our society. By that action, the administration took Delta State and Nigeria back to the forgotten years of our indecent military experiences and Gestapo actions. It is offensive seeing teachers who are grieving, and asking for better working conditions being terrorized into signing attendant registers by the orders of a government official who is supposed to look into their grievances and help to resolve such grievances and make the people happy. It is unfortunate. We therefore, condemn in strong terms the move by the Delta State Government to deny teachers, and any segment of the society in the state the right to engage in peaceful expression and enforcement of their fundamental human rights as enshrined in the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended.

We also decry the high-handedness of the State Government in denying NUT the use of its state organs of mass communication to state its own side of the story and reach out to its members. The implication of this is that the information organs only feed Deltans with one-sided stories, and denied them the benefit of hearing the other side. That such a thing is happening in 21 century Nigeria with so-called claims to learning and education is a sad commentary. It speaks volume of the tolerance index of those at the helms.

While the strike lasted, we observed the return to wisdom by the government. We commend the initiative of Governor Okowa in obeying the biblical truth that “Wisdom is profitable to direct.” This was clearly on display when the Governor decided to ride against the tide of sycophancy by calling the NUT leaders to further dialogue in Warri where amicable resolution of some of the issues in dispute were achieved, leading the NUT to call off the strike and directing its members to return to the classrooms.

We commend this effort and initiative, and recommend strongly that dialogue should be the natural template with which to handle future situations of this sort.

Delta teachers’ strike: Truce at last; NUT calls of strike, teachers resume work Monday

Truce has finally returned, easing the face-off between teachers under the aegis of the Nigeria Union of Teacher (NUT) as the NUT this morning, Friday, 24/3/2017 called-off its strike with a directive to all secondary and primary school teachers in the State to resume work in the classrooms on Monday.

The decision to end the strike is the outcome of an emergency meeting of the State Wing Executive Council (SWEC) of the Nut that held Friday morning made in a communiqué signed by the NUT Chairman, Comrade Jemirieyigbe, Publicity secretary Comrade A.L. Okogba d State secretary Comrade Joe Iyalekhue.

Governor Ifeanyi Okowa

The Communique stated that the SWEC meeting was convened to appraise the on-going strike action of primary and secondary school teachers in the state. It declared:

“SWEC –in- session expressed satisfaction with the resolutions reached at the Unio/Government meeting reached in Warri the previous day.

“Consequently, SWEC-in-session resolved to suspend the strike action  with immediate effect, and hereby directs all teachers in public primary and secondary schools to resume work with effect from Monday, 27^th March, 2017”.

The NUT commended the friendly disposition of Governor Okowa in the amicable resolution of the issues, and also appreciated all its members for the solidarity demonstrated while the strike lasted.

The communiqué listed the following as the resolutions reached at the end of the meeting between Government, that included Governor Okowa, NLC and representatives of the NUT:

·         That the December 2016 salaries of primary school teachers be paid in full by next week.

·         That the Office of the S.A. Labour and the Nigeria Union of Teachers should liaise with the Accountant General and PPEB to ensure that the issue of Inter-cadre Transfer of secondary school teachers is treated with dispatch.

·         That a committee of PPEB and the NUT be set up by S.A. Labour to correct the anomalies in the conversion of secondary school teachers that led to their down-grading and other issues affecting the implementation of promotions.

·         That SUBEB through INFOSEC should immediately commence refund to the erroneously down-graded primary school teachers that have been cleared. That INFOSEC should double its efforts to complete the entire exercise within the shortest possible time.

·         That all released promotions of 2016 primary school teachers be implemented in January 2017 salary, while that of PPEB be completed immediately. Similarly, all previously released promotions of 2014 and 2015 be fully implemented for the affected primary and secondary school teachers.

·         That the State Government has released and will continue to release funds to the state Pension Bureau and the Local Government Pension Bureau to settle arrears of pension and retired secondary and primary school teachers respectively.

·         That no member of the Union will be victimized or punished for the role he/she played during the strike action.

The communiqué of the resolution of the meeting with Governor Ifeanyi Okowa held at the Government House Annex, Warri was signed by Comrade Mike Okeme for His Excellency, Comrade Ofuonyeadi Innocent for NLC, Comrade J.O. Jemirieigbe and Comrade Joe Iyalekhue.

Tobacco taxes: Group gets nod to sue FG – The Tide, February 22, 2017

By Ike Wigodo

A Federal High Court in Lagos,  presided by Justice Mc Idris  has affirmed that the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) has the right to demand and get a response from the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) on its request for information on tax benefits granted to tobacco companies under the Export Expansion Grant (EEG) scheme.

The group had, on 28 November 2016, through its counsel-Yinka Kotoye made the request in line with the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, with the letter addressed to the Comptroller-General of NCS and the other respondent being the Minister of Finance, Dr Kemi Adeosun.  The Attorney-General of the federation was copied.

ERA/FoEN is asking among other things that the NCS  make public the volume and brand names of cigarettes exported from Nigeria from 2002 till date, those imported within that period, by which company and to which country, how much British American Tobacco Company Nigeria (BATN) benefited from the EEG from 2004 to 2014 and the waivers or tax exemptions the company got from 2004 till date.

The group also is to know how much tax waiver, or grants benefited by any other tobacco company operating in Nigeria from 2004 till date, volume of raw tobacco leaf imported into Nigeria by BATN and from which country and volume of shredded tobacco imported into Nigeria by the company and from which country as well, volume of raw tobacco leaf imported into Nigeria by any other tobacco company, into Nigeria and from which country, volume of shredded tobacco by any other tobacco company, into Nigeria and from which country, location of cigarette factories in Nigeria, and volume and brands produced from each factory.

The motion exparte by the ERA/FoEN also demanded among others that the, Attorney General and the Minister of Justice and the Finance minister should mandate the NCS to comply with the mandatory provisions of the FOIA to make the document available to it.

Reacting to the court ruling, ERA/FoEN Deputy Executive Director, Akinbode Oluwafemi said “This is a good development as we have reiterated that our demand aligns with the Federal Government attempts to track and trace every revenue that was illegally diverted into private hands or undue grants that was used to bleed our economy.  We are very much interested in the economics of tobacco business in Nigeria”.

It would be recalled that ERA/FoEN went to court after the mandatory seven day period of response from the NCS under Section 5 of the FOI Act to respond elapsed with no response from the agency.  The case was adjourned to 24 February 2017.

* Source: Media Rights Agenda

How Farouk Abdulmutallab became suicide bomber

By Nicholas Ibekwe

The New York Times, through a Freedom of Information Act request, has obtained documents containing detailed accounts of how slain Al Qaeda leader, Anwar al-Awlaki, mentored a Nigerian, Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to explode a bomb hidden in his underpants, on a flight from Amsterdam in the Netherlands to Detroit, United States, on Christmas Day in 2009.

Jailed Farouk Abdulmutallab, (inset) his bomber pants

Mr. Abdulmutallab, commonly referred to as the "underwear bomber" by United States media, is the son of former chairman of First Bank Plc, Umaru Abdulmutallab. In 2012, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after a defiant guilty plea.

The 200-page redacted documents, which contained information obtained from Mr Abdulmutallab through extensive interviews, was released to the newspaper after two years of legal struggle.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI, had kept the account a secret and rejected a request made by an author of a 2015 book on the life of Mr. al-Awlaki, an American-born islamic cleric, forcing the New York Times to sue to obtain the documents.

Last December a federal judge, Ronnie Abrams, ordered the FBI to release the document to the newspaper.

Mr. al-Awlaki was killed by a drone strike ordered by former President Barack Obama in 2011. He was the first American to be killed by the deliberate order of a U.S. president since the Civil War. 

In a series of interviews with the FBI, Mr. Abdulmutallab, a wealthy 23-year-old studying engineering at the University College, London, revealed his journey towards radicalisation and how he sought out Mr al-Awlaki, who mentored him into becoming a suicide bomber. 

Mr. Abdulmutallab told FBI agent about how he first encountered the Al-Qaeda leader through a recorded lecture he bought from an Islamic store in the United Kingdom in 2005. He became enamored by his teachings.

After a trip to the United Arab Emirates in 2009, he said he felt "God was guiding him to jihad." He travelled to Yemen to meet the Mr. al-Awkali, who then had fully embraced violence and was a rising Al Qaeda leader.

From then Mr. al-Awkali transcended from being his religious hero into his tutor on how to become a jihadist. Mr. Abdulmutallab told agents that the cleric did not only oversee his training in Yemen, but also conceived the plot leading to the failed bomb attack.

According to the report, Mr. Abdulmutallab in series of interviews described every person he remembered meeting from Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsul, as the Yemen branch of the terrorist group is known. He also provided agents with vivid description of the layout of training camps, Mr. al-Awlaki's house and many other Qaeda buildings. According to the New York Times, his descriptions were so precise that they may have aided the U.S.in its drone campaign in Yemen.

He said Mr. al-Awlaki, who was called "sheikh" out of respect, introduced him to other Al Qaeda trainers and bomb makers. The American, Mr. Abdulmutallab told the FBI, taught him how to prepare a martydom video, advising him to "keep it short and reference the Quran."

Mr. al-Awkali told Mr. Abdulmutallab to hide his trail by first traveling from Yemen to an African country before booking a flight on which he planned to detonate the bomb.

Mr. Abdulmutallab flew from Ghana to Amsterdam before joining Northwest Airlines Flight 253 to Detroit.

He said the choice of the date for the attack had no special significance and was mainly dictated by ticket prices and flight schedules.

Before he departed, Mr. al-Awlaki sent him a final reminder: "Wait until you are in the U.S., then bring the plane down."

He said he followed the progress of the flight on the seat-back screen. He waited until he approached the US border and went to the plane's bathroom to make final preparations for the attack.

He thought of detonating the bomb in the bathroom but wanted to be certain that he was doing so over US soil, so he returned to his seat to check the map for a final time before igniting the explosives.

Maybe due to excess moisture, the bomb did not explode but let out a flame. As he tried to get his burning pants off, passengers pounced on him. One passenger punched him and a crew member threatened to throw him out of the plane.

He began confessing to the terror act even before leaving the plane. He said he was a member of Al Qaeda and that he had tried to set off a bomb. He later stopped talking and needed the presence of his relatives who were flown by U.S. authorities from Nigeria to persuade him to become cooperative again.

·         Source: Premium Times