Minister Seeks Special Funding For Public Media for Anti-Terror Campaign

Minister of Information and Culture At #Budget2016 Defence

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has advocated a special funding arrangement for public media organizations to enable them to scale up their sensitization campaign against insurgency in the North-East.

The Minister made the call on Wednesday at the National Assembly, during an interactive session with members of the Senate Committee on Information and National Orientation, preparatory to the 2016 budget defence.

While responding to the sentiment expressed by a member of the Committee, Senator Ben Murray Bruce, on the effective utilisation of the public media in the fight against insurgency in the North- East, Alhaji Mohammed said his ministry had already mounted a robust public sensitization campaign on the insurgency, with the active participation of the Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria, but noted that the public media needed to be retooled to enhance its ability to drive the campaign.

“I must say that FRCN, NTA and VON, they have given me their schedules, at times we get as many as 16 slots within an hour to propagate these things. But I must admit that we have constraints. The FRCN in particular does not have the reach it used to have before and this is not surprising because for years, we have neglected the maintenance of the FRCN.

“VON is even worse because when the new station was built about two years ago, we were told that we need about N600 million annually to maintain it but what did we get? N120 million when they give us anything at all. So we have been cannibalizing and trying to make the best out of a bad situation,” he said.

Alhaji Mohammed disclosed that the public media organs were directed to itemize the necessary requirements needed to prosecute the public sensitization campaign against the insurgency in order for the people to take ownership of the war and be security conscious.

“Let NTA, FRCN, VON, if only for the sake of the war in the North-East, tell us what they need to be able to prosecute this war. It’s going to be huge no doubt, but there is no way NTA, FRCN or VON will be able to meet this obligation when we have broken down transmitters and antennas,” he said.

Alhaji Mohammed also stressed the crucial role of the National Orientation Agency (NOA) in the campaign against insurgency and value re-reorientation.

“We see the NOA as a veritable vehicle not just in the war against insurgency but on all the wars against every ill including the war against corruption. We are working on this renewed campaign, which is going to be a much improved campaign on war against indiscipline, which we have tagged “Change Begins With Me”.

”This campaign will address all ills but this time around, we are not just targeting those at the top, they would have to lead by example but it’s going to be a bottom-up kind of campaign,” he said.

In his contribution, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Information and National Orientation, Eyinnaya Abaribe, suggested to the Executive Arm of Government to prepare and present an amended budget to capture all the necessary requirements of the public media organs to ensure success in the sensitization campaign against insurgency.

OAU students protest, ask EFCC to probe VC

Nigerian students under the aegis of Alliance of Nigerian Students Against Neo-Liberal Attacks on Thursday staged a public protest in Osogbo, the Osun State capital, and called on anti- graft agencies to arrest and prosecute the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Bamitale Omole, for allegedly mismanaging the university’s resources. 

The Coordinator of the ANSA, Wole Olubanji, who led scores of students to stage the protest also asked the university to reinstate the students union leaders suspended for seeking better welfare for the students. 

The protesting students said many petitions had been written against the vice chancellor, saying they had enough evidence to back their allegations against him.

Olubanji said, “We are calling on President Muhammadu Buhari, the National Assembly, EFCC, ICPC and the Code of Conduct Bureau to probe Prof. Bamitale Omole’s administration. 

“Prof. Omole administration has earned over N30bn from subventions, more than N1.5bn from school fees, billions of naira from ore-degree program besides funds received from special agencies such as World Bank, TETFUND etc and money from internal sources including  donations from corporate bodies. ”

Despite the fund, the students said their hostels were in very poor condition; the lecture rooms were over crowded  and epileptic power supply was the order of the day. 

With The PUNCH

INEC to Prosecute Under-Age Voters

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said on Wednesday that it would prosecute under-age voters in Plateau.

Dr Godwin Kwanga, the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) of INEC in the state made this known in a Stakeholders’ Forum in Jos ahead of re-run elections in the state fixed for Feb. 20.

Kwanga said that the state was replete with underage voters in possession of Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs).

The stakeholders at the forum included representatives of security agencies, politicians, media and election monitoring and observer groups.

He announced that the polls would hold in Langtang South, Pankshin North and Pankshin South state constituencies.

The REC said that the menace of underage voters almost marred the last general elections in the state.

According to him, the menace produced a lot of mutilated and voided votes during the April 11, 2015 polls in Quan’Pan Local Government Area.

“Our experience in Quan’Pan showed that a lot of underage voters were having the PVCs and this led to a lot of cancellations.

“One of the underage voters, who had PVC bearing his image and the age of 36 years, confessed to INEC officials that he was only 16 years old.

“We looked the other way even when in the same elections, our tags were photocopied and massively reproduced by agents of political parties,’’ he said.

He, however, said that unlike what happened in the April 11 polls, INEC was set to prosecute any case of underage voters in the coming rerun and supplementary polls.

Kwanga said that card reader machines would be solely used for the Feb. 20 polls and that newly registered voters were excluded from participation.

He assured that INEC would provide all political parties a level playing ground and appealed to party agents not to compromise ad hoc staff into tampering with materials to stall the polls.

“I beg agents of political parties not to lure ad hoc staff to tamper with materials as it will disrupt the process.

“Once you remove the battery from the machine, it malfunctions when you replace it, and ad hoc personnel are not trained on such duties,’’ he said.

He explained that accreditations and voting would hold simultaneously between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. as against past practices.

Akwanga announced that election in Langtang North would hold in 68 polling units and would be contested by only All Progressives Congress (APC) and Mega Progressive Peoples Party (MPPP).

He gave the names of their candidates as Jackson Ninmwang and Rinsmicit Emmanuel, respectively.

He said that Vincent Bulus of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was excluded.

“Pankshin South state constituency election will hold only in Nyelleng polling unit in Fier Area while that of Pankshin North will hold in Pyabor polling unit.

“The four political parties and candidates to contest in Pankshin North state constituency are Alice Dimlong, APC; Yakubu Zetgang, LP; Tamnakat David, MPPP and Diket Plang, PDP.

“Supplementary election in Pankshin South will feature Gideon Dashe, APC; Dagak Michael, APGA; Theresa Bartuk, MPPP and Mwamsat Istifanus, PDP,“ he said.

Trump, Sanders Victorious In New Hampshire Primary

Bernie Sander (Democrat) and Donald Trump (Republican) both winners of the New Hampshire Primaries.

Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Bernie Sanders coasted to victory on a wave of voter anger in the New Hampshire presidential nominating contest, thrashing traditional U.S. politicians in a display of anti-establishment power.

Sweeping wins by Trump, a New York billionaire, and Sanders, a democratic socialist, on Tuesday testified to the sizable share of American voters upset at U.S. economic conditions and willing to send a shockwave to Washington in the Nov. 8 presidential election.

New Hampshire’s verdict sets up a tough fight for Republicans in South Carolina on Feb. 20 and for Democrats there on Feb. 27. Some of the most monumental campaign battles in elections past have been fought in the state that holds the first primary election of the American South.

For Trump, New Hampshire showed he has staying power and can take a punch after losing on Feb. 1 to Texas Senator Ted Cruz in the first contest, the Iowa caucuses. His win showed pundits were wrong to think he would ultimately self-destruct based on his penchant for insults and imprecise plans for the presidency.

Democrat Hillary Clinton, the former U.S. secretary of state and former U.S. senator, now looks wounded, trailing Sanders by 60 to 39 percent based on 86 percent of the returns.The wife of former President Bill Clinton, Clinton barely won Iowa and now has been trounced in New Hampshire, where young voters liked Sanders’ populist proposals to break up big banks and have the government pay for free college tuition.

“People have every right to be angry but they’re also hungry, they’re hungry for solutions,” Clinton, 68, said after congratulating the 74-year-old Sanders. “I will work harder than anyone to actually make the changes that make your lives better.”

Clinton was headed to New York, home to her campaign headquarters, to regroup with top aides and prepare for Thursday’s Democratic debate. Her campaign has denied reports it is considering a shakeup but acknowledged it would be natural to add members to their team as the campaign progresses.

Sanders said his victory showed “we have sent the message that will echo from Wall Street to Washington, from Maine to California, and that is that the government of our great country belongs to all of the people and not just a handful of wealthy campaign contributors.”

Some 73 percent of voters say they think the United States is on the wrong track, and these disaffected people make up a majority of the support bases for Trump and Sanders, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.

They are worried about the economy and distrust establishment politicians they perceive as being part of the problem.

Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump New Hampshire Primaries (Photo: AP)

Trump, 69, who has campaigned to deport illegal immigrants and temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States, was in first place with 35 percent of the vote on the Republican side based on 88 percent of returns.

At his victory rally, Trump dispensed with niceties. He congratulated other candidates in the race but promised to soon return to his pugnacious approach.

“Tomorrow: boom, boom,” he said, shadow boxing while his supporters cheered.

The New Hampshire Republican race did little to clear up confusion about who would emerge as the establishment contender to Trump on the Republican side.

Ohio’s Republican governor, John Kasich, won a spirited fight for second place in New Hampshire, with Cruz, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida fighting for third place. All four were headed to South Carolina.

Bush, the son and brother of former presidents, lived to fight another day, making something of a comeback after a strong debate performance and solid weekend of campaigning.

“While the reality TV star is doing well, it looks like you all have reset the race,” Bush told supporters. “This campaign is not dead. We’re going on to South Carolina.”

Rubio failed to dispatch Bush, seeing a drop in his support after a debate on Saturday in which he drew criticism for repeating rehearsed lines from his stump speech.

“I did not do well on Saturday night – listen to this: that will never happen again,” Rubio told supporters.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who called out Rubio for his robotic debate, fell behind the others in the voting and canceled plans to go to South Carolina, a sign he could drop out soon.

Independent voters wield special clout in New Hampshire, second in the series of state-by-state contests that lead to the parties’ formal presidential nominating conventions in July, because they can vote in either party’s primary.

At a polling station in Manchester, Joan and Roland Martineau said they voted for the two candidates they believed they could trust to shake things up.

Joan, 68, went for Sanders. “I like this views, I like the way he speaks, I think I can trust him,” she said.

Roland, 73, a registered Republican, went for Trump, a man he said was “more honest” than other candidates. But he said he would back Sanders over Trump in the general election in November.

Clinton had for months been the front-runner nationally. But a Reuters/Ipsos poll done Feb 2-5 showed Clinton and Sanders now in a dead heat.

Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said in a memo that the Democratic nomination would “very likely” be decided in March, with the support of black and Hispanic voters key to victory. The next primary races are in Nevada and South Carolina later this month.

“It will be very difficult, if not impossible, for a Democrat to win the nomination without strong levels of support among African-American and Hispanic voters,” Mook wrote.

With Reuters

Soyinka, Gbadamosi to pilot Lagos 50 years anniversary

                                                                                         Prof. Wole Soyinka

Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, and businessman, Mr. Rasheed Gbadamosi, have been appointed as co-chairmen of the Lagos at 50 Planning Committee, according to The PUNCH.

The Lagos State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, during the inauguration of the committee on Wednesday said the celebration of the creation of the state would showcase Lagos in its full splendour.

The committee also has 10 others as members — Habeeb Fasinro, Chief Olawale Cole, Mrs. Sarah Boulos, Mr. Abimbola Obafunwa, Prof. Senapon Bakare, Mrs. Chika Balogun, Mr. Folarin Coker, Prof. Ademola Abass, Bolanle Peter and Mrs. Olufunmilayo Balogun (Secretary).

Ambode said he was sure that the committee would deliver a world class celebration, adding that the opportunity of Lagos at 50, would afford the state to celebrate its achievements, as well as showcase its immense potential.

He said, “Lagos State will be 50 years next year. Fifty years is a significant landmark in the life of any individual, institution or state. For Lagos State, it has been an eventful 50 years which deserves to be celebrated.

“Lagos, despite being the oldest state in Nigeria, remains the only state that has not been divided to create more states since its inception on May 27, 1967.

“The state has maintained its status as the commercial capital of Nigeria and the most cosmopolitan state in the country where people of every tribe, race and creed reside peacefully with an excellent record of religious tolerance.

“Indeed, Lagos has justified its creation. Apart from being the pacesetter, the state also occupies a noticeable position in global affairs, especially as the fastest growing mega city in the world.

“With all these in mind, it is imperative that we celebrate Lagos at 50. In celebrating Lagos, we must showcase our cultural heritage, the language, arts, sights and sounds.”

Ambode said a celebration of such great significance required proper planning; hence the inauguration of the committee comprising respected men and women.

The terms of reference of the committee, according to the governor, are to develop a comprehensive programme for the celebration; identify series of events that will take place as part of the celebration; and make appropriate recommendations that will ensure a successful celebration, among others.

Soyinka said the celebration of Lagos at 50 would afford the state the opportunity to identify with the triumph, losses and experience of the black race at home and in the diaspora.

He pledged that members of the committee would work to ensure that Lagos got a befitting celebration.

He said, “It will be used to project the black race, not just for its colonial experience and slave trade, but also as a cultural people.”