Arewa To Commence Oil Exploration
August 18, 2008 by 
Felix Ashimole · 2 Comments
As a sequel to the position of the 19 Northern States governors that the region can survive without Niger Delta, the Group Managing Director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Engr. Abubakar Yar’Adua has revealed that NNPC will soon commence exploration in the North to ascertain if there is oil deposit in commercial quantity in the region. According to the GMD, the NNPC will use 3D seismic technology as against the 3D that was used in the Niger Delta. The GMD said that the 2D technology was prone to error and can only be used where the base rock is accessible.
The GMD made this disclosure while briefing newsmen on the activities of the NNPC over the past one year. It will be recalled that the GMD drew the ire of MEND when while testifying at a Senate Committee that the NNPC paid about 12 billion naira to the militants in the creeks of Niger Delta to secure oil pipelines.
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Nigerian University Commission Fails Nigerians
August 16, 2008 by Che Oyimnatumba · Leave a Comment
According to the world ranking of universities released by Centre for World Class Universities Jiao Tong University China, no Nigerian University made it to the top 500. The report is alarming in view of the reason given for the proliferation of private universities in Nigeria. The federal government unable to sustain university education and guarantee quality education opened the flood gate to private sector participation. Despite these mushrooming universities that has become a thing of pride and competition among the religious sector of Nigeria, nothing has improved. Graduates from these universities, cannot hold a candle close to the old school graduates of government ran universities.
In a reaction to the ranking, Professor Isaac Adeyemi, the Vice Chancellor of Bell University Ota (believed to be owned by Obasanjo), said the absence of Nigerian University on the medal table was due to the absence of reliable Nigerian university website. He said that the assessors based their assessment largely on data collected from university websites worldwide.
In this era of info-tech highway, the VC’s admission is an indictment that Nigerian University Commission is yet to appreciate that the world has gone paperless. Even JAMB that has gone online for registration still cannot put her acts together. Students on exam date discover to their horror that they have conflicting exam numbers.
The professor failed to address his mind to the fact that the quantum of Nigerian undergraduates jetting out to Asian Campus of European Universities could also be a vital data used by the assessors at arriving at the rating. European Universities, especially British through British Council now come to Nigeria to organise admission and visa procedure for Nigerian Undergraduates. In the days of yore, Nigerians only went outside the shores to acquire Masters Degree or a discipline not on any Nigerian University’s curriculum. An active accomplice in this brain drain and underdevelopment of Nigeria is United Bank for Africa (UBA). Aside from the top 10 staff of UBA not obtaining any degree in Nigeria, UBA as official policy is assisting the influx of these Universities into Nigeria. Our investigation reveals that some of these Community Universities are not among the top notch in their country.
How can Nigerian Universities have a reliable website or be among the top 500 when Nigerian University Administrators connive with GSM service operators to host campus parties and lewd competitions instead of establishing a department of Information/Communication Technology/Law?
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Abuja Carnival Runs Into EFCC Troubled Waters
August 15, 2008 by Che Oyimnatumba · Leave a Comment
The office of the Abuja Carnival located at Aminu Kano Crescent was last Friday raided by operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). At the end of the raid, cases of documents were carted away with no arrest made.
But at the turn of the week, the Chairman of Nigeria Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC) Otunba Olusegun Runsewe was arrested and queried for two days by the EFCC before he was granted administrative bail and told to report again to the EFCC office off Adetokunbo Ademola crescent Wuse II Abuja. Also invited to the EFCC include the administrative staff of the Carnival secretariat. A good number of them had their houses raided at about 8 PM, in front of their children. At press time, these administrators are answering questions from EFCC operatives.
A reliable source at the EFCC said that the investigation is in connection with the 2006 Abuja Carnival held while Chief Femi Fani-Kayode was the minister of culture and tourism.
Chief Fani-Kayode had been picked up by the EFCC in connection with his role over the aviation intervention fund. At a Senate public hearing Chief Fani-Kayode accused his predecessor in the aviation ministry of unaccountable 9 Billion Naira. This led to the arrest of Chief Babalola Borishade at the premises of the National Assembly.
Our source at EFCC reports that it was during the interrogation of Borishade that he squealed that certain money was misappropriated by Fani-Kayode as minister of Culture and tourism.
It was further learnt that the misappropriated carnival fund was used to finance the failed third term bid by the PDP under Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration.
There is no doubt that the Abuja Carnival put Nigeria on the international tourism map. This EFCC probe as commendable as it is, should not kill the hard earned clean image of Nigeria gotten with money invested in the Heart of Africa project.
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Nigeria Hands Over Bakassi
August 14, 2008 by Felix Ashimole · Leave a Comment
Amidst mixed reactions and crocodile tears from those who have been “ripping” apart the Niger Delta because of crude oil, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice of Nigeria officially handed over to Cameroon, the Bakassi Peninsula. Today’s ceremony was carried out in honour of the Green Tree Treaty entered into by Nigeria and Cameroon, as an Alternative Dispute Resolution mechanism (ADR) on the dispute over Bakassi.
According to President Yar’Adua, the handing over is painful but needful as it will restore the image of Nigeria in the international community as a big African Brother, worthy of honouring agreements. It will be recalled that the PDP government under President Olusegun Obasanjo conceded to peaceful resolution instead of the full legal gauntlet at the International Court of Justice. Cameroon had taken Nigeria to the ICJ over Bakassi.
This it is painful tears of Yar’Adua, is not over the displaced people of Bakassi who still desire to be part of Nigeria but the lost revenue that would have accrued to the federation account had the oil deposit found in the peninsula exploited by Nigeria.
We wish Bakassi well in Cameroon, for going by the inhumane treatment given to the peoples of Niger Delta; one cannot help but wish Bakassi well.
We also hope that the people of Bakassi will learn from the ill treatment meted out to Niger Delta and start early to agitate for a better social corporate responsibility from those French companies lining up to start exploration. Above all, they should politically engage Paul Biya to relax some of his draconian policy and open up the political space he has dominated since 1982.
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EFCC Arrests Former EFCC Director of Operations.
August 13, 2008 by Che Oyimnatumba · 1 Comment
Mr. Ibrahim Lamode, former Director of Operations of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission(EFCC) was yesterday arrested by operatives of the EFCC. According to a reliable source, he is being held in Abuja Police Command cell opposite old CBN office off Samuel Akintola Boulevard Garki II.
It was further gathered that it took several attempts before Lamode’s house was broken into to effect his arrest. Our source said that Lamode had been queried by the EFCC about a file which he denied knowledge of but at the raid, the file was found in his possession.
Informed sources in the Police Force claims that the file found on Lamode though ought to be in EFCC office, is not the file that is giving the new leadership of EFCC sleepless night. The most sort after file we were told is the George Akume file, believed to contain the bail bond signed by Mrs. Waziri before her appointment as EFCC boss.
Mr. Ibrahim Magu an ace investigator have been cooling off in EFCC cell while his houses have been ransacked with valuables including his personal computer, laptop and documents carted away by the EFCC.
Meanwhile the where about of former EFCC boss Nuhu Ribadu, is unknown, adding credence to the speculations that he might have fled abroad to avoid arrest by the commission he once headed. Last week, Ribadu was demoted two steps from the rank of AIG to DCP.
With this latest development, it is obvious that the war against corruption has finished the last stanza of her swan song. I repeat there is no need to kill the EFCC because Ribadu was consumed by passion without understanding the political land mines.
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Reagents and Water Drought Hits National Hospital Abuja: Patients treated without proper diagnoses.
August 13, 2008 by Felix Ashimole · Leave a Comment
On Monday, we reported that there was drug drought in National Hospital Abuja. As at Tuesday August 12th 2008, most patients were not given their test result. The lab technician claimed that there was no water and reagents to conduct the required test(s). It follows that National Hospital Abuja have been treating patients blindly without a proper test to know what the patients are suffering from and diagnose properly in order to prescribe the right drug or other therapy.
As a follow up, I visited the hospital to check on the boy. To my greatest shock the specimens taken for test two days ago has not been glorified with a test result to ascertain what the boy is suffering from. Another shocker was the attitude of the nurse and doctor on duty. The morning ward round was done by 43 minutes to 12 noon. While the team of doctors were conducting inspection, a particular doctor’s GSM kept crying and this doctor constantly abandoned the patient to answer her call. I was beside myself with anger but the mother of the infirm child’s plea held me back.
She claims that any attempt at getting the nurses to be more humane, brings out the worst in them. In the children’s ward, there is no provision for the relation that is taking care of the sick. I learnt that that is an international practice. But what those conversing this failed to tell me is that in the international community, Parents don’t need to attend to their children once they have been checked in.
At National Hospital Abuja, parents not only dab their children with cold water to arrest rising temperature, they mix their own ORS with bottled water. The National Hospital Abuja has no measuring instrument to gauge the water level for a sachet of ORS, which the National Hospital does not have. The nurses rely on the last ring on the bottled water to get 50 litres.
Attempts to engage the matron in a civilised conversation to ram home my observations met the wall of Jericho.
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No Drugs In National Hospital Abuja.
August 11, 2008 by Felix Ashimole · 1 Comment
It was a sad reminder of the rot in the Ministry of Health, when our roving reporter visited National Hospital Abuja (NHA) on Sunday August 10th 2008. A child in the emergency paediatrician ward was given a prescription the NHA does not have in her pharmacy. It took the combined effort of fatherly love and perseverance for the drug to be gotten in a chemist shop about 15 Kilometres from the NH. The drugs that were elusive in the NHA Pharmacy were Vitamin A Capsule, Camoquine and Oral Dehydration Solution.
Apart from wondering why a ministry will return unspent money from annual budget when the required infrastructure and services have not been provided, our roving reporter pointed out that nothing has been heard of the Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello’s involvement in the 300 Million Naira Ministry of Health budget scam.
National Hospital Abuja is a shame of a nation, if routine drugs cannot be readily available. As a referential Hospital, one would have expected that drug drought will be the last thing to heat NHA. A curious aside to this draught of drugs is the sunrise punctuality with which the NHA kitchen provides meal and charge whether the patient eats it or not. It is the firm belief of our roving reporter that there is a racket going on in NHA and the bills coming from the kitchen is a quiet vehicle to midwife the fraud. A hospital should be more concerned with the stabilisation of a patient and not meals (the NHA kitchen provides swallow for patients that are so unconscious to swallow)
Another black leg in this national edifice, is their filing system. At the children’s ward, it took a careless nurse over 1hr 30 mins to locate an out patient’s card
As the poor father of the child in pain and high fever went about knocking at closed pharmaceutical doors (most have gone to church), our roving reporters concern was that the father should not finally find a chemist only to buy a fake drug. When hospitals have no drugs, one is left at the mercy of drug merchants who often sell adulterated drugs despite the war by NAFDAC.
Meanwhile the Nigerian Association of Hospital And Administrative Pharmacists (NAHAP) are demanding for an upward review of their members salary. Rising from the association’s 10th annual conference in Minna Niger State, the President of NAHAP Anthony Akhimien told newsmen that the association besides demanding for upward salary review, they also want a better career plan. According to him, the present career structure where a pharmacist’s highest attainment is level 15 as against level 17 of their counterpart in other professions is not palatable to the association. He appealed to the appropriate department of civil service commission to address the issue before it degenerates to industrial dispute.
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