In his controversial style of using social media, Reno Omokri- the Special Assistant to the President on new media on Thursday, the 3^rd of January 2013 took to the platform to further explain the President’s much belated New Year gift to Nigerians as revealed by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture.

Basking in the euphoria of a similar gift to Nigerians on the 1st of January 2012 through the removal of fuel subsidy that lead to a week of national protest, President Jonathan this time around unleashed his 2013 gift on the Nigerians with a policy for the purchase of 10million cell phones valued at about N60billion to 10 million rural farmers.

In his message on twitter, Reno Omokri said “One of the aim of this administration is for Nigeria to be self sufficient in food production”, adding that “The FIRST priority of a people is FOOD SECURITY. One way to ensure food security is by ensuring that farmers are informed of best practices”. Continuing, he said “…to ensure that they plant, irrigate and harvest at the right time, SMSs are being sent to our farmers by agric experts at the ministry”.

He further added that “For those who have an objective mind, 60billion divided by 10million farmers gives you a unit cost of 6000 Naira per phone.”

Now let’s begin by asking where Mr. Jonathan got the 10million Nigerian Farmers? This is a joke intended for April 1st.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria’s population as at 2011 stood at 164,385,656. The same Bureau in 2010 released the report of a research it carried out with the title “The Labour Force Report” with an highlight of the population of employed and unemployed Nigerians as well as the age grade they belonged to. The report shows that persons Aged 0–‐14 years constituted 39.6% of the total population of Nigeria, those aged, between 15–‐64 (the economically active population), constituted 56.3%, while those aged 65 years and above constituted 2%. The report went on to state that of the 92,384,738 who are economically active, 67,256,090 of them are in the labour force out of which 51,181,884 are employed, and 16,074,205 are unemployed.

The question Mr. Reno and his principal needs to answer is where exactly are the 10million farmers? Are they from the army of the unemployed 16,074,295 or from the already employed 51,181,884. If their answer is the former, what exactly are they producing that Nigeria has not become a hub of everything food?

Now, understand that a large portion of food production in Nigeria is done through mechanized farming which makes use of less manual labour. The ‘farmers’ Mr. president wants to provide handset for are subsistent farmers who produce what they mostly consume in their homes. I have a garden at the back of my house, does that qualify me as a recipient of the ‘Jona-phone’?

I see no reason why the president in conjunction with his minister of Agriculture would insult the collective intelligence of Nigerians by playing to the gallery with a noble idea that has revolutionised countries like Uganda, Kenya and India. Giving telephones out as part of a 2015 campaign strategy is just plain unintelligent.

Now, let’s say we accept the president’s assertion to be true, then, the cost of purchasing each handset is simply bogus and outrageous. First of all, no one would dare deal with a supplier in this type of contract. Speaking at Ijebu North East on Wednesday, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture declared that the Ministry will deal directly with the manufacturers of the handset in China and the United States. What she failed to tell us was if there was a bidding process involved in selecting the manufacturer to the extent that it has determined what country to buy them from?

Having seen the mounting opposition to the proposed illegal purchase of the mobile telephone handset, the Minister of Agriculture hurriedly released a press statement, stating among other lies that Agriculture employs 70% of the population, but if we go through the figures of the report earlier analysed, we would see that the Agriculture sector only employs 14million Nigerians representing 30% of the total 50M employed for that year.

By the way, there are more noble ideas we can channel resources too. The road needed by the farmers to transport their goods to the market is non-existent. The much needed power required to preserve their produce is non-existent. Questions are how is the purchase of handset going to impact the government’s aim of food security? Can the subsistent farmers, majority of whom are illiterates, read and understand the text message that would be sent to them?

If I understand the Minister of Agriculture correctly, the aim of buying the phones is to make use of it as a means of communication with the farmers, but the rural farmers already have phones if the tweet by Reno is anything to go by. Reno had tweeted that “to cut fraud in the fertilizer distribution system a voucher system was introduced whereby farmers get their voucher to access frtiliser via SMS”. What this means is that the ministry has already started communicating with the farmers through SMS. Now let’s ask, who bought the phones the farmers has been using to receive sms vouchers for fertilizers? If the farmers already have phones, why does the government want to provide 10million more phones for them?

As a professional in the field, one would expect that the Minister should understand that there are alternatives i.e. Agricultural Extension Programmes…’train the trainers’, where people who understand the various languages of the farmers would deal directly with them in the dissemination of information. That on its own is a noble way of creating employment and still achieving the aim of educating the farmers.

The idea of importing phones from other countries is nothing short of exporting thousands of jobs and income to those economies, whereas, we could create those jobs here to add to our national GDP growth.

Though the minister has denied any knowledge of N60 billion budgeted for such spurious project. It should interest you to note that the telephone handset jamboree was not included in the 2013 budget which we woud consider in a moment.

A variant of the phone used in Kenya is a low-end phone, which would cost N2,000 at the computer village in Ikeja, Lagos. Dealing directly with the manufacturer will cut the unit cost to at least N1,500 totaling a wholesome of N15 billion (i.e. N1500 x 10 million pieces).

Sundry cost which includes Freight, Insurance, Duty, TLC Charges, CISS, VAT, Clearing Agents, Local Transport, Demurrage, Storage and Rents would cost close to another N2 billion (bear in mind that most of this cost would not be paid by the government) but I won’t bore you with the calculation.

Adding another N1 billion as profit for sub-contractors and other unforeseen expense, the purchase is thus estimated at around N18 billion.

If a total of N18 billion is more than enough for a project, you can be rest assured that the N60 billion tag is a fraud and another way by the Jonathan administration to ‘create food’ for the boys. The extra N42 billion excess will be looted and misappropriated.

It is insincerity of the highest order for the government to use a noble idea as a means of fleecing the people.

The last questions I want the honourable Minister to answer are how are we going pay back the loans proposed for the execution of this project? Is this how best we can make use of the fund? Who are the sponsors? The press statement he released has done nothing but raise more suspicion. According to the Ministry of Agriculture’s budget, nothing of such is budgeted for in 2013 or are we looking at another withdrawal from the Excess Crude Account (ECA) to fund repayment or will it be budgeted as debt for future generation?

We the people need to know how a Ministry with a total budget of N81 billion for year 2013 plans to execute this project. Ministry of Agriculture Recurrent expenditure for this year is N32.9 billion with N29.8 billion going into personnel cost and another N3.09 billion going into overhead cost. The capital allocation for 2013 for the Ministry of Agriculture is N48.7 billion. I think expending a fund that equals 80% of the total budget of a ministry on a single project sounds scrupulous.

We must understand that N60 billion is no small money, it’s almost the total of Capital Allocation for Ministry of Education, just N5 billion greater than the Capital Allocation for Health, 10% lower than the Capital Allocation for Power and half of the Capital Allocation for Ministry of Works which is a very critical sector of the economy.

N60 billion is greater than N52.3 billion which is the total budget for Ministry of Transport. N60 billion is no small money as it can do a lot.

Two Chinese miners were allegedly shot and killed when suspected armed robbers stormed their camp at Nkoranza, near Subin in the Upper Denkyira West District of the Central Region on Monday- New Year’s eve.

Li Jian Sheng, believed to be in his late 40s, and Li Chao Hua, 35, worked with Hansol Small Scale Mining Company as senior consultants and according to sources, they were through with their work and getting ready to leave the shores of the country for their native China when they met their untimely deaths.

Another Chinese national, who was also shot, is receiving treatment, while the bodies of the two have been deposited at the Upper Denkyira Municipal Hospital in Dunkwa on Offin.

The incident happened on 31st December 2012, just a month after they were robbed at gunpoint at the same site.

Even before the police could conclude investigations into the first robbery incident, the robbers it allegedly struck again. Sources said the guns the alleged robbers used to kill the Chinese were snatched from the miners.

According to the driver of the deceased, the robbers, numbering about six, came around 2am and asked him to give them the key to the Toyota Tundra Pick up he was driving; but he told them that he had given the keys to his bosses and so they left for the site where the Chinese were lodging and undertook the operation.

The Upper Denkyira Municipal Police Command said no arrest had been made but the police had launched full scale investigations into the case with the driver assisting them.

Cases of alleged killing of Chinese illegal miners have been on the rise in recent times. The Chinese government in Beijing recently called for a probe into the death of a 16-year-old Chinese national who was allegedly killed, while around 100 others were arrested during a police raid on an alleged illegal gold mine.

“I can confirm that a 16-year-old Chinese citizen was killed during a police crackdown at an illegal mining site near Kumasi”, said Yu Jie, the political director at the Chinese Embassy in Ghana.

He said around 100 Chinese nationals were arrested on suspicion of illegal mining activities during the October 11 crackdown and called for an investigation.

“We have asked the Ghanaian government to investigate the issue so that innocent Chinese are not shot dead by the police,” he said.

The Ghana-China Friendship Union (GCFU) put the figures of Chinese nationals killed by armed robbers at the mining sites at 87, adding that this justified Chinese mining terms policy to arm their nationals with licensed rifles.

“Last year, the GCFU attended all the business sessions held in China by the GCBCC to promote Chinese business interests in Ghana and advocated for the immediate amelioration of visa and other challenges confronting Ghanaian traders and businessmen to China. Whilst this advocacy is ongoing in the best interest of the Ghanaian businessmen, the reverse is true for Chinese businessmen doing legal transactions in Ghana’s mining sector,” the statement said.

Source: Daily Guide

A 22-year old young lady was gang-raped to coma by 4 armed men at the Cemetery Road in Warri, Delta. The rapists recorded the whole incident with a BlackBerry phone.

The victim boarded a taxi with 4 male passengers from Odion Road to Aguowe Street (her residence). After she boarded, the taxi driver suddenly took a turn towards Cemetery Road. After that, the 4 rapists hit her.

The victim tried hard to resist the rapists, but she did not succeed. Her rapists were armed with dangerous weapons including a dagger and guns. They threatened her and said that they will kill her once she raised an alarm.

They drove to an unfinished building along Cemetery Road where they took turns in raping the victim and left her in a state of coma.

The Quick Response Squad of the Delta State Police Command in Warri got a tip regarding the incident and they pounced on the suspects. They arrested one Tejiri Akpofure , Ogbor Seih, and Great Obrakpo (Nos. 24, 64, and 66) at Cemetery Road.

Famous Ajieh, the new Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) and Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) confirmed the arrests in Asaba on January 4. According to him the police command has gone out to arrest Stephen Ebeme, a member of the gang who has escaped.

According to Ajieh, the suspects confessed to them and surrendered the BlackBerry phone that they have used to record the gang-rape scene. He assured that the rapists will be charged to court. He also mentioned that they already have the custody to 3 alleged kidnappers/murderers which include David Evjouke, Ola Ikwueke, and Ikechukwi Uwaguna.

It was found out that the suspects killed Emmanuel Chukwunolu – the man who refused to be kidnapped two weeks ago at Ebeneku, Ndokwa.

The rape victim, whose name was unrevealed, is still recovering in an undisclosed clinic in Warri.

Source: CKN

Nigerians celebrated the New Year with curious optimism inspite of repeated assurances that subsidy will not be withdrawn by the federal government in the New Year but For an administration renowned for its double standard, January 1, 2013, brought memories of President Goodluck Jonathan’s new year gift to Nigerians in 2012 – the partial removal of fuel subsidy.

The occupy Nigeria protest, took centre stage at about this time last year as Nigerians took to the streets to protest the hike in pump price of fuel from N65 to over N141 before it was reduced after negotiation between the organised labour and the federal government to N97. The Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) was set up by President Goodluck Jonathan, as an interventionist committee to manage the proceeds from fuel subsidy removal. It is now officially the latest addition to the ever increasing conduit pipes employed to fritter away public funds and a perpetration of the legacy of failed promises that Nigerians have become accustomed to.

Lamentably, the Jonathan administration has demonstrated with the SURE-P that proceeds from total withdrawal of subsidy at any point in time will translate to nothingness to Nigerians. The Christopher Kolade-led committee has been very busy duplicating projects and defrauding the nation by making double payments for projects already embarked upon and financed by the various ministries and agencies amid other frivolous reasons the committee chairman outlined for expending billions of its budget.

During the Obasanjo tenure, billions were paid to the Paris Club as debt relief facilitated by the present Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. She and her economic team told Nigerians at that time that settling its huge debt will mean freeing up much needed fund in subsequent years which will translate to prosperity for Nigerians in the long run, but it turned out to be just another utopian ambition of the Nigerian government past and present.

Echoes of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) of the General Ibrahim Babangida military junta resonates the SURE-P of the Jonathan government. SAP’s high hope of an improved social service, infrastructure and human resource development were dashed. Till this day, those promises never came to fruition.. .

The Refineries are part of the grand fraud perpetrated and perpetuated by the Jonathan government. The proposed $1.6billion as announced by Minister of Petroleum Denziani Alison-Madueke to be spent on Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) on the moribund refineries is just another indication of the perfidy and insincerity in the oil industry. This is in addition to the colossal funds injected since 1997 that have left the refineries in worse state.  The Idika Kalu National Refineries Special Task Force recommendation that the government dispense with refineries in 18months should immediately be implemented

General Sani Abacha, awarded a major contract valued at $215 million in 1997 for Kaduna refinery. In 1998, the Abdulsalami Abubakar administration set aside $92million for the refineries without achieving any result. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo frittered about $350million on rehabilitation of refineries and pipelines. The absurd injection of billions continued in 2007 when $54million was doled out for TAM of the Kaduna refinery. The rot in the oil sector can’t get any messier as it is not rocket science for the Jonathan government to comprehend that these refineries are a waste of tax payer’s money.

The world over, refineries are constantly changing hands with private sector partnership. The Nigeria government with its awful antecedents of managing its establishments should not have any business with the day-to-day management of refineries. They should inject funds into it and make it viable for private investor’s takeover.

It is a ruse the theory the government peddles around that the price of petroleum products will remain high except the sector is deregulated by removal of subsidy. The likes of Singapore, India and some other countries without oil deposit import about 70% of their crude oil, they refine sufficiently, petroleum products for use locally and even more for export to other countries like Nigeria.

For the foreseeable future, government must forget about total removal of fuel subsidy after all most OPEC countries still subsidise fuel prices. It should rather channel its effort to prosecute those indicted by the House of Representatives Ad Hoc committee on fuel subsidy and whoever found guilty, must return his share of the stolen billions in subsidy loot. Rather than spend N251billion on the repair of three refineries in the country as the Minister of Petroleum, Mrs Alison-Madueke, recently intimated the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream), brand new refineries running at full capacity, working alongside some proposed modular refineries is the way forward to ensure sufficiency in local refining of petrol. It is only when these are on ground that the government can revisit the TAM for the near obsolete refineries on ground.

In 2013 and beyond Nigerians must resist every attempt to remove the partial fuel subsidy, a policy that the President and his aides have long ago, made up their minds to withdraw, he only seem to be buying time before he completes the last lap of his systematic removal of the other half of what remains today as subsidy. Sadly, the Jonathan government is perturbed by the subsidy rather than the corruption in the scheme and other sectors of the economy and his only solution to the sleaze is to completely remove subsidy.

• IGP Charges the beneficiaries to justify the confidencereposed in them

The Inspector-General of Police, IGP MD Abubakar, CFR, NPM, mni, in the pursuit of his agenda for a better welfare regime for personnel of the Nigeria Police Force, graciously approved the promotion of One Thousand, Nine Hundred and Forty-four (1,944) junior Police Officers within the rank bracket of Constable and Sergeant, to their next ranks.

The promotion exercise dubbed “New Year Gift” for members of the Police rank and file, takes effect from 1^st January, 2013. In line with on-going reforms of the Nigeria Police Force, all the beneficiaries of the promotion exercise had earlier attended and passed a special promotion course organized for them at the four premier Police Colleges located at Lagos, Orji-River, Kaduna and Maiduguri. The trainings were designed to prepare the personnel for the challenges and responsibilities of their new ranks.

While congratulating the newly promoted Inspectors, rank and file, the IGP charged them to see their elevation as a call to greater tasks and challenges, as they will be saddled with higher responsibilities. He reminded them of the need to be more dutiful, disciplined, courageous and patriotic in the discharge of the responsibilities of their new ranks.

The 1,944 beneficiaries of the new promotion are spread across all Police Commands and Formations within the country including Force Headquarters, Abuja.  A breakdown of this figure is shown in the table below:

Meanwhile, the IGP has reiterated his commitment to the welfare and wellbeing of officers and men of the Force, particularly, those within the Inspectorate, rank and file cadre whom he described as the “foot soldiers” of the Force. He promised to continue to do his best in conjunction with other relevant organization of government to promote their overall working conditions, particularly, as we commence the sojourn into 2013.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has arrested two undergraduate Internet scammers and six other fraudsters at the upscale 1004 Housing Estate, Victoria Island,   Lagos. One of the undergraduate, Hope Olusegun, a 25 year-old indigene of Okene, Kogi State, claims to be a student of Computer Science at the Kuala Lumpur Metropolitan University, Malaysia. He was arrested by operatives of EFCC over allegations of fraud and internet scam.

A petition by a concerned group alerted the Commission about the activities of Olusegun and his co-travelers at the elite 1004 Housing Estate where the fraudsters engaged in fraudulent activities of obtaining money by false pretences and forgery.

A search conducted by EFCC operatives at Olusegun’ s apartment led to the recovery of several items such as laptops, iPad phones, travelling documents, cheque books, flash drives, internet modem, and three exotic cars – a Mercedes Benz Jeep, One 4Matic Mercedes Benz Car and a Range Rover Sport SUV.  When asked how he came about the cars, Olusegun said the cars belonged to his sister who he claimed lives in the United Kingdom.

Operatives of the EFCC also downloaded over 80 implicating documents from the laptops recovered from Olusegun. However, the Commission is making effort to track down other members of Olusegun’s syndicate who are currently at large.

Tunde Wasiu Sodiq, another undergraduate and member of another syndicate with close affinity to Olusegun’s gang was also nabbed by operatives of the EFCC at the Housing Estate.  Besides Sodiq, six other members of the syndicate were equally arrested. They are:  Badmus Akeem O, Ajijola Oluwatosin Emmanuel, Adebesin Olalekan, Raji Resaq O,  Ajibola Adeniyi and Adeboye Lamidi.

Their arrest was sequel to a petition on their notorious activities at the Housing Estate. Sodiq (23) hails from Lagos and claimed to be an undergraduate of Brandry University, Malaysia. The leader of the syndicate, Badmus Akeem, hails from Ayetoro, Ogun State and attended Oniwaya High School, Agege. He claimed to be a traveler who does odd jobs wherever he travels. “I decided to move to Malaysia to further my education while I do “Hot jobs” as well. I just got back a week ago before the festive period and also produce music and manage artistes,” he claimed.  On why he chose to live at the expensive 1004 estate where he and his friends pay N30, 000 daily, he said it was to avoid the stress that friends and relations could bring to him. “I didn’t stay on the Mainland in Lagos because of stress of friends when you just get back from abroad.”

Sodiq said that the Range Rover Sport car which was recovered from them belonged to his mother despite the fact that the car bears his alias, “T.Wizzle” .He stated in his statement that the mother decided to customize the car plate number after the name of his first son.

Other items recovered by the Commission include laptops, flash drives, internet modem, cheque books and a host of others.

They are to be arraigned in court soon.

For his continued romance with former chairman of Oyo state National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), Mr. Lateef  Akinsola, former Senate Leader, Senator Teslim Folarin has been quizzed by the Oyo State Police Command.

According to a petition to the Police, Mr. Folarin and former chairman of the state National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), Mr. Lateef Akinsola (a.k.a. Tokyo) were planning to disrupt the peace of the state.

Speaking with Journalists after spending three hours with the Police, Mr. Folarin said the invitation by the police was  politically motivated.

He explained that his relationship with Tokyo was purely not political but based on the fact that they are from Ibadan.

“Let us take it cool as politicians after all, 2015 is still far away. Power comes from God. I know this has political undertone. It could have come from anywhere not only from the ruling Action Congress of Nigeria but also my party; the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as well, he said.

“Let us take it cool as politicians after all, 2015 is still far away. Power comes from God. I know this has political undertone. It could have come from anywhere not only from the ruling Action Congress of Nigeria but also my party; the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as well”

“I am still bereaved because I am mourning my only elder blood brother. How would I have thought or caused breach of the peace in my darling state? Everybody knows I am non-violent person. I am an easy going and my type of politics is always issues-based. And coincidentally, the ACP who quizzed me is my neighbour and I asked him have you ever seen me harbouring thugs or fomenting trouble with anybody in our area?

He insisted that it was all part of the build up to the 2015 election.

Earlier, the residences at Iyaganku and Oluyole areas of the city  had been searched by armed  policemen.

Upon his release, Mr. Folarin had intimated newsmen that he is on his way to Abeokuta to commiserate with ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo over the fire that gutted his Hilltop residence when he got a call from the police boss asking him to report at the station over a petition bordering on security.

The former Senate leader added he was in company of Mr. Lekan Balogun,  Deputy Senate whip, Mr. Hosea Ayoola Agboola, former Deputy-Governor of the state, Mr. Azeem Gbolarumi and Chairman, House of Representatives committee on Petroleum, Mrs. Muraina Ajibola, PDP Chairman in the state, Mr. Yinka Taiwo when he got the call.

Source: Frontiersnews