Pray for Nigeria!

Enugu State Governor Sullivan Iheanacho Chime urges Nigerians to spend more time in prayer for the progress, growth and unity of the nation.

Governor Chime pointed out that Jesus Christ whose birth we celebrate, extolled the power of prayer and relied heavily on its efficacy in very difficult times during his life on earth.

In a Christmas message in Enugu, signed by his Special Adviser on Media, VinMartin Obiora Ilo, Chime who recalled our journey as a nation since independence, said that Nigeria needs God’s guidance more than ever in confronting many of the challenges facing our country today.

While assuring indigenes and visitors coming home for Christmas that they were returning to an Enugu State , where security of life and property was guaranteed and most of the infrastructure are working, he restated his preparedness to sustain the development efforts of the present administration and thanked them for their continued support and cooperation.

Enugu Governor, also, solicited for more prayers by all Nigerians for the quick recovery of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, who he described as a God fearing leader, who has worked assiduously in his determination to move Nigeria forward and has also created the enabling environment for state Governments to function optimally.

While wishing all Nigerians a merry Christmas and God’s divine blessings in the New Year, Chime congratulated Nigeria on the golden celebrations of 50 years of her Independence as a nation state in 2010.

Seasonal Greetings To Nigerians!

Let me start by wishing Nigerians who are Moslems a belated Barkar De Salah. To those Nigerians who are pagans, may the almighty God bless you people this Christmas Season. To Nigerians of other faith(s) and religion, may God bless you people as well. To the Nigerian Christians, of which am one of them, I wish you all a happy Christmas and prosperous New Year (2010).  Please permit me to also pray for all Nigerians using Psalm 91 verse 11, “For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways”. May the good God continue to give his angels charge over our great country. (Pic shows our 'sickest' President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua) 
 
A lot of activities take place every Christmas period, especially the fact that people at home and abroad visit loved ones. This involves a lot of traveling either by road, sea or air. For those people that will be driving this period, please kindly drive with care and more importantly, avoid drink driving. The state of our road network should be a recipe for careful driving. I expect the Federal Road Safety Commission to do more work in enforcing road safety measures this Christmas period. There is need for the enforcement of road safety measures; this is in order to ensure compliance with the rules or deterrence from committing traffic offences.
 
For those traveling by the water ways, I urge total compliance with all safety measures. For our airline pilots, please be kind enough to observe all safety rules including observing the alcohol limit. Many airline pilots have violated the alcohol limits. In October 2008, a pilot working for United Airlines was arrested on a flight heading from Heathrow airport ( United Kingdom ) to San Francisco ( America ) for having over the limit alcohol level in his system. In May 2009, an American Airlines pilot bound from Heathrow to Chicago was arrested for failing a breathalyzer test. Alcohol can impair pilots’ abilities to operate an aircraft effectively. In the United Kingdom , the alcohol limit for pilots is the equivalent of a glass of beer. It is stricter in the United States of America .
 
Many airline operators in the developed countries maintain strict alcohol policies. United Airlines claims its alcohol policy is among the strictest in the airline industry. These and many more other safety measures should be replicated by the Nigerian airline operators and pilots. Safety should be the watch word especially now that a lot of people are traveling. Pilots should avoid being under pressure.
 
This season (Christmas) usually call for reflections on the year (2009) that is almost ended and resolution(s) for New Year (2010). For the New Year (2010) resolution(s), I will urge Nigerians to love one another. Let us love each other and above all, let us love our neighbor like our self. There is so much animosity and hatred in the land. We need to love one another, because love begets love, and love brings peace. Lets preach peace wherever there is misunderstanding. The nation and the people can only prosper in an atmosphere of peace and harmony. Same should apply to various communities/villages that are at war with each other.
 
I will also advocate togetherness among Nigerians. There are more to gain by being one big country. Nigeria is in no way near the population or the complexity of China and India , yet these countries have not broken up. United States of America is also a multi cultural country but still remains one country. I also know the case of former Yugoslavia and the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Ironically, most former countries of Eastern Europe/USSR ( Poland , Czechs, Hungary , Romania , etc) and Yugoslavia have joined the European Union. The European Union is a typical example of what togetherness can bring. European Union is made up of twenty seven (27) countries, with headquarters in Brussels . Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is also an example of togetherness in the making. Late Kwame Nkrumah (former President of Ghana) propagated one Africa, whereas late Nnamdi Azikiwe (first Nigerian President) preached one Nigeria .
 
There are free movement of goods, services and personnel within the European Union. There is a common monetary union and the use of common currency (the euro). Many more countries like Turkey , Ukraine , Georgia , etc have applied to join the European Union, but politics and other strategic considerations are hindering the admissions of these aspiring nations. The European Union remains the main trading partner of all African countries including Nigeria . While advocating togetherness, I will not fail to point out that our togetherness should not be at the detriment of one group/tribe/region or the other. I will want to see justice, fair play, and equity in our togetherness. I had earlier called for the abolition of quota system and federal character. We cannot make a head way as a nation with those systems in place.
 
I want to see more synergy among Nigerians in business, researches, community services, etc. I believe two heads are better than one, and three should be better than two. I want to see more Nigerians cooperating to build massive business conglomerates so as to create employment opportunities for our brothers and sisters who are unemployed. It will be a good idea to have business mergers that will survive, than having a sole proprietor that will close business. Let us work together to offer community services to our people. There are a lot we can do for our people without the government. Synergy should also apply to our political parties. Let like minded and “true” political groups merge together to form a formidable opposition party. As it is, the opposition parties have not truly taken its position in Nigeria .
 
I will also propose the United Kingdom form of shadow cabinet for all third tier system of government in Nigeria , that is the local, state, and federal government. I will suggest that all opposition parties should form shadow cabinets in all the 774 local governments, 36 states and also at federal level. The idea will be to provide constructive criticism and provide alternative and better policy framework. Opposition parties/groups are an essential part of every democracy. Lets challenge and change those things that are hindering our development and progress as a people. Let us stop complaining and put efforts together to change our society. Every little effort counts. Let us also remember that its better for us to try and fail than fail to try.
 
Finally, I wish to appeal to Nigerians to participate and join the fight against global warming. Turn off your electrical appliances/lights when not in use. Plant a tree or sponsor one to plant on your behalf. Government and companies should send less paper work and do more email, telephone, and sms. Happy Christmas and Prosperous New Year (2010) to all Nigerians. May God bless Nigeria .
 
Chinedu Vincent Akuta.
An activist and leader of “Support Option A4 Group” Leicester-UK
akutachinedu@yahoo.com
http://briefsfromakuta.blogspot.com/
 
 

Nnamani' s Legacy of Fraud

Architect Nnaemeka Nnamani, outgoing Chairman of Nkanu West Local Government Area of Enugu State, is accused of corrupt practices.

Less than a month to the expiration of his tenure, Architect Nnaermeka Nnamani, Chairman of Nkanu West Local Government Area of Enugu state, is enmeshed in financial scandals. Nnamani is one of the five council chairmen who lost their second term bids in the forthcoming council polls in the state on the platform of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP). (Picture shows Architect Nnaemeka Nnamani, outgoing Chairman of Nkanu West Council)

Nkanu West is the council area of origin of Senator Chimaroke Nnamani, former governor of the state, Chief Ken Nnamani, former Senate President, Chief Jim Nwobodo, former governor of old Anambra state, and Chief Onyemauche Nnamani, former Secretary to State Government (SSG) among others.

Architect Nnamani’s troubles began when he recently embarked on a controversial reallocation of stalls at the famous Agbani market (Eke Agbani), located in the headquarters of the council.

Apart from alleged ejection of the original traders in the market, and re-allocating same to, mostly, his favorites, Nnamani stands accused of embezzling the council’s funds to the tune of N77 million. The Architect-turned politician, it was alleged, collected the sum of N133, 000.00 per stall from each of the allottees, but issued a receipt of only N3, 300.00 to them.

Incidentally, the alleged fraud is a subject of a suit pending before an Agbani High Court. The suit, numbered: AGB/HAGB/13m/2009, has as plaintiffs, Chika Chukwu, Chukwuma Ani, Okpogu Nnaji, Emmanuel Mebuge, Nwanosike Okenwa, Comfort Onu, Oko Ogbodo, Roseline
Nkanu West Council and Chief Ude Okoh, Chairman, Agbani Power of Attorneys

The suit, brought in form of Motion on Notice, listed conditions which the council authority outlined for the stalls reallocation to include: N130, 000.00 for decked stores in respect of which only N3,000.00 receipt would be issued; N80,000.00 for undecked ones with similar conditions. The council, the suit pointed out, insisted on cash payment for the re-allocated stores.
While the decked stores are said to be 260 in number, the undecked ones are 140.

It is, therefore, the contention of the suit that the decked stores would, at the rate of N130, 000.00 per stall, fetch Architect Nnamani’s administration N33.8million. It is, also, estimated that the council would wreck in N11.2million from the undecked stores of N140 at the rate of N80, 000.00. The suit sums up receipts from both the decked and the undecked stores to be N45million, adding that, out this amount, Nnamani’s regime would declare only N1.2million for the local government treasury.

This is not all! The suit maintained that the 700 open stores in the market would attract for reallocation the sum of N50, 000.00 per store, and that N35million is the expected yield from the open stores. Nnamani’s administration, the suit adds, would, out of this sum, declare only N2.1million for the council.

Thus the traders’ suit summarizes: “The full financial implication is that the first defendant would have extracted from the community on full allocation, the sum of N80million out of which N3.3million would be declared for the government, thus leaving for the incumbent politicians of the first defendant N76,700,000.00”.

The suit, filed on behalf of the traders by their counsel, J.O. Emodi (Esq) of Dr. Z. Chukwuemeka Anyogu & Associates, Enugu, sought an interlocutory injunction restraining Nnamani’s council and others involved from re-allocating stores at the market pending its determination.
The suit, also, prays the court for a declaration that consistent with their stalls allocation letters and payments of their stallage fees, the defendants lack the capacity/vires, unilaterally or in concert with one another to void or reallocate their stores at the market. The reliefs include a declaration that consistent with the allocation letters, the plaintiffs are the bonafide allottees to their respective stores in the market.

It would be recalled that the suit was preceded by a pre-action notice which, the traders alleged, was snubbed by the council chairman who, alongside his political thugs, soldiers and policemen, invaded the market and broke into their shops. The traders lament that even when the incumbent Chairman, Architect Nnamani, did not, within his two years in office, improve the market in anyway, he still wanted to eject the traders and reallocate their stores to himself and his cronies.

Chukwu Chika, Coordinator, Eke Agbani Traders Association (alias Integrity Group), told THEWEEK that it was the administration of Barrister Jerry Ene in the council that started the transformation of Eke Agbani into a modern market. Ene’s tenure spanned from 1999 to 2001. Chukwu maintained that development in the market had stopped where Ene left it in 2001 when he left office.

“The market’s development was left where Hon. Barrister Jerry Ene left it over eight years ago. Till now, no succeeding council chairman, including Architect Nnaemeka Nnamani, was able to even put a block on top of another in the market”, Chukwu quipped.

Speaking in the same vein, a prominent indigene of the area, Chief David Onyeabo, said the sudden reallocation of stalls in the market seems politically motivated, warning that the exercise, if allowed to go on, would have plunged the traders into untold hardship.

Also speaking, Hon. Augustine Nnaji, a community leader, condemned Nnamani’s meddlesomeness in the market. Hon. Nnaji lamented that the market does not even have conveniences while most traders do their business under the scorching sun and rain, yet Architect Nnamani cared a hoot.

Said Nnaji, “Our position in Agbani is that stalls should not be reallocated until development of the the market is completed. For now, the market has not even reached 50 percent completion”.
It has to be noted that the allegations against Nnamani did not stop at stalls allocation fraud only. A petition earlier addressed to the local government’s councilors by Eke Agbani Market Women Association, accused the Nnamani’s administration of complicity in unduly levying the traders. These alleged illegal levies range from N1, 000.00 development levy, N600.00 annual rate for 2008, N500.00 burial levy, as well as N1, 200.00 and N600.00 for 2009 rent among others.
The petition, signed by Mrs. Okochi Sussan and Amushi Rose, Coordinator and Secretary respectively, urged the legislators to investigate the stalls allocation and the rampant cases of illegal levies in the market by Architect Nnamani’s leadership.

In response to the appeal by the women group, the council’s legislative council, on July 2 this year, passed a resolution urging the executive to suspend every action as regards the sale of stalls at the market pending outcome of investigation by the committee set up by the council’s legislature. The legislative council’s resolution was signed by Hon. Godwin Nwatu (Leader) and Mrs. Ani M.N, Clerk of the House.

THEWEEK was told that Nnamani’s administration snubbed both the traders’ appeals/litigation, as well as the resolution passed by his councilors, and went ahead with the ejection of the traders and reallocation of their stalls.

Thus on November 18, Nnamani, reportedly accompanied by Mike Onuh, Agbani Divisional Police Officer (DPO) and Sunday Nnamani, the council’s Supervisor for Finance, stormed the market with a retinue of political thugs, soldiers and police to break into the traders’ stalls. The traders claimed that the invaders, who welded all sorts of cutting instruments, went into the market, cut keys to the stalls, and destroyed and, in some cases, carted away goods belonging in the traders. Over 1000 stalls were reported to have been so looted!
As a result of the foregoing, the traders went on strike, and shut down the market. After their three days strike which ended on November 21, the restive traders poured out into the streets in protests against the reallocation of their stores by Nnamani’s council.
It was the intervention of Governor Sullivan Chime that, eventually, brought the situation to normalcy.

Following a petition sent to the Governor on behalf of the traders by Dr. Z. Chukwuemeka Anyogu, their counsel, dated November 19, 2009, the Governor sent a delegation, led by Chief Onyemuche Nnamani, former SSG, to intervene and quell the crisis. Chime’s government, also, announced the cancellation of all the allocations already made by Architect Nnamani’s administration. It was learnt that part of the instruction was that all the allottees should be reimbursed their monies.

Efforts to get Nnamani to react to the allegations were fruitless.

For now, it is peace of the grave yard until the exit of Architect Nnamani from the council.
END.

Professor of Controversies

Is Edwin Onyeneje, Rector of Institute of Management and Technology (IMT), an academic professor or is he an impostor assuming what he is not?

Is Edwin Onyeneje, Rector of Institute of Management and Technology (IMT), Enugu, an academic Professor? Does Rector Onyeneje, also, hold a Doctoral degree from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka?

These posers have continued to punctuate the administration of Onyeneje since he got appointed Rector of the Institute by the government of Barrister Sullivan Chime last year, November. (Picture left shows Onyeneje)

Onyeneje has, particularly, since his assumption of office, taken up the designation of ‘Professor’. He claims to have secured his Professorship from Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUT). His claimed core area of study is Social Psychology. Onyeneje, equally, claimed to have earned his Doctoral degree from the famous University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN). In fact, he said he was the best Ph.D student of the university in the 2001/2002 academic year.
But Onyeneje’s traducers tag him a fake professor, saying he just assumed the designation, and began to prefix it to his name without duly earning it from any institution.

Onyeneje’s accusers, also, insist that he never taught in Enugu State University of Science and Technology, arguing that it is, therefore, incongruous for an academic to earn the title of a Professor in an institution he never taught.

Another point of controversy is Onyeneje’s suitability for the rectory of IMT. His critics keep on remonstrating that he is ill-qualified to have been appointed Rector of IMT. Apart from his being a mere administrative staff of the Institute of Ecumenical Studies, Emene near Enugu, the Rector is said not to be an academic lecturer in the first instance. What this means is that Onyeneje was not, in the main, a lecturer even in the Ecumenical Studies Institute from where he was appointed Rector.

Part of Onyeneje’s accusers’ contention regarding his lack of qualification for the position is that his academic discipline, Psychology, is not offered as a separate course of study in IMT. That is, there is no ‘Department of Psychology’ in the school. This situation, it is argued, runs foul of the rules guiding appointment of rectors and heads of similar institutions. Not a few of Onyeneje’s critics maintain that this situation disqualified him from holding the rectory position.

But the embattled Rector insists on his qualification for the rectory of IMT.

“You can go to Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUT). You can go to Institute of Ecumenical Education, Thinkers Corner, Emene, and make your inquiries. Meet the authority; they can give you their assessment report. That’s how those things are done. It is a document. They can give you their assessment report. In the university, you have to give your papers to external people. That’s just it.”

Interestingly, Onyeneje admitted that he really never lectured at ESUT, as to qualify him for a professorial appointment by the citadel-of-learning. He explained that he, as a matter of fact, was planning to transfer his service from UNN where, he hitherto lectured, to ESUT. He, therefore, sent his papers to the institution for assessment. It was at the end of the assessment that, according to him, ESUT made him a professor.

But Onyeneje quips that he is still qualified to head IMT whether he is a professor or not, contending that not all the past Rectors of the institution were Professors.

Onyeneje, also, battled to carpet the argument that his appointment is faulty because there is no Department for his course of study, Psychology, in the school, maintaining that some elements of Psychology is involved in every activity in the school, including management.

Onyeneje, equally, debunked the notion that he was a mere administrative worker in his former place of work, saying that, all his life, he had been teaching.

Retorted the Rector: “All my life, it has been teaching. From auxiliary in the secondary school, I went through the university, came out, taught at Institute of Ecumenical Studies, taught at Federal Polytechnic, Okoh, Anambra state when they were having their study center here in Enugu.” He added that he did not only teach at UNN, but headed its Psychology Department.

However, findings by THEWEEK showed that Onyeneje, prior to his appointment as Rector, did submit his papers to ESUT for assessment, but the university’s senate, then under the headship of .., threw out the papers on the grounds of non-qualification. The senate unanimously resolved that he would not be a candidate for assessment in the first place since he was never a lecturer in the institution.

While the controversy trailing Onyeneje’s professorship rages, the onus is on appropriate authorities launch an inquiry into the issue, with a view to deciphering the veracity of his academic claims or otherwise.

Culled from: THEWEEK