NAIJAFEED

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Wall Street wants Nigeria's Sovereign Wealth Fund

In a bid to ensure that they grab the portfolio of the Federal Government’s Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF), Wall Street titans - Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan Chase - are already courting top government officials for the management of the Fund.
The New York Times disclosed this Tuesday, saying that the Fund was expected to buffer the Nigerian economy from volatile commodity prices and impose fiscal

Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, had said that the Federal Government was considering the recruitment of the management team for the Fund through a transparent process.

She had said the government, which was targeting the best qualified Nigerians within and outside the country, had commenced with the engagement of KPMG to drive the process. Okonjo-Iweala had revealed that advertisements calling for applications from interested Nigerians would soon be published in The Economist and Financial Times of London.

In fact, Okonjo-Iweala had stated that KPMG was expected to conclude a shortlist of the candidates by mid- November.
New York Times quoted the Minister of Trade and Investment, Dr. Olusegun Aganga, who helped to create the proposal, to have said: “The country is at a point of inflection, and what we do in the next few years will set the pace. It’s a land of opportunities, which unfortunately has not been tapped well.”

According to the American-based newspaper, by saving and investing the petro dollars, Nigeria hoped to break the resource curse.

“The nation, which derives 80 per cent of its revenue from oil, created the sovereign wealth fund to buffer its economy from volatile commodity prices and impose fiscal discipline. The government so far has set aside $1 billion for the fund, and it could funnel as much as $2.5 billion a year, if oil prices remain high,” it added.

On his part, a research associate at the University of Oxford, who studies sovereign wealth funds, Ashby H.B. Monk, noted: “One of our biggest problems in civil society is the time horizon that we’re operating on — whether election cycles or quarterly reports. The idea of a sovereign fund is to give government bureaucrats an opportunity to make long-term policy knowing that the buffeting winds of capitalism won’t blow them off course.”

Aganga added: “It’s important that we have some savings for the future generations. It just makes sense for your economy. You’re completely exposed otherwise.”

Meanwhile, Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) and Governor of Rivers State, Mr. ChibuikeRotimi Amaechi, has said state governments are willing to partner the Federal Government in the implementation of Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) if they are given the latitude to access their funds and make individual contributions to the common purse.

Amaechi said this Tuesday while speaking at a colloquium titled: “Jurisprudence, Democracy and Rule of Law” held at the state House of Assembly, Port Harcourt, to commemorate the Supreme Court judgment that ushered him into office in October 2007.

Speaking against the backdrop of the suit instituted on Monday by the NGF against the Federal Government at the Supreme Court seeking to block the latter from the operating the SWF, he said: “The rule of law eliminates completely the rule of man. Governors agree that the Federal Government should save but the law has to be respected. What the Federal Government has done is merely kidnapping of our money.”

He explained that the SWF, “like all things in the country”, must fall within the ambit of the law.

“Section 80 of the constitution was talking about Consolidated Revenue, and it also says that the executive authority of a region shall extend to the execution and maintenance of the constitution of the region and to all matters with respect to which the legislature of the region has for the time being power to make laws but shall be so exercised as not to impede or prejudice the exercise of the executive authority of the federation or to endanger the continuance of Federal Government in Nigeria,” he said.

He said the Federal Government was being economical with the truth in its bid to liberalise the downstream sector, arguing that it had spent N1.264 trillion, which is more than the N264 billion that was appropriated to it by the lawmakers for this year’s budget.

He said this is the question the lawmakers should be asking the executive arm of government at the national level, pointing out that beyond the argument of oil, subsidy is also the argument about corruption which takes place at the top and trickles down to permeate the entire society.

In his presentation, constitutional lawyer, Prof. Itse Sagay, applauded the Supreme Court judgment that ushered in Amaechi as signalling the supremacy of the rule of law as unassailable.

He enumerated the guiding principles of the judgment as ushering in of a new operational philosophy of law, nourishing of the democratic culture and making courts to shy away from the constraints of technicality.

Similarly, Prof. Adele Jinadu, who also spoke at the occasion, observed that some had argued that the Supreme Court judgment on Amaechi versus INEC and two others usurped the rights of the voters, adding that “we must resort to government bylaws instead of government of rule of men.”

This Day

Related stories: CNBC covers investment Nigeria

Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala affirms Nigeria will overcome its economic challenges

Nigerian challenges Irish Immigration and wins

An Irish woman, her Nigerian husband and Irish-born daughter have won their High Court challenge to an order for his deportation made while the woman was pregnant with the child.

The man had already been deported.

Mr Justice Gerard Hogan found the Minister for Justice’s decision to deport the man, an architectural student, effectively amounted to a permanent forcible separation of the family and the Minister had not fairly weighed their family rights.

It was “sobering” to reflect the couple’s daughter, born months after her father was deported last February, might never see her father during her childhood, he said. The “essential point” in the case was the constitutional protection of the fundamentals of marriage and insistence the State respects the essence of that relationship, the judge said. The judiciary was required to ensure those rights “are taken seriously”.

The Minister’s decision to deport turned on the conclusion the wife could choose to travel to Nigeria to join him but that conclusion was neither realistic nor proportionate and amounted to “a pure fiction”, the judge found.

With the possible exceptions of those employed in “the gilded world of international finance or the oil industry” who probably lived in “gated” communities specially designed for expatriates with lifestyles remote from the average Nigerian, it was difficult to see how any average Irish family would ever contemplate moving to Nigeria, he said.

It was clear from country of origin information on Nigeria that the risk posed to immigrants from western countries, including of kidnappings, are considerable, the judge outlined.

The man had arrived here in March 2009 but his applications for asylum and subsidiary protection were rejected. In October 2010 an order was made for his deportation; he was arrested in January 2011 and deported about a month later.

His wife is an Irish citizen and mother of two girls, one from a previous relationship and the second, fathered by the Nigerian man, born some months ago. Mr Justice Hogan said while the Minister was made aware the woman was pregnant with the man’s child, it was unsatisfactory certain other vital information was not supplied to the Minister or court or was supplied late, including about the couple’s marriage and the wife’s circumstances. Despite that, it seemed the wife has limited financial resources and has been left to manage the children on her own.

The judge also noted that when the man was deported, his wife was two months pregnant with their child, who was entitled to Irish citizenship. Addressing whether the order infringed the constitutional protection of family rights, the test was whether the Minister considered all the circumstances in a fair and proper manner and reached a reasonable and proportionate decision.

The reality was the Minister’s proposal would probably lead to this family being permanently forcibly separated, he found. In all the circumstances, the Minister had not fairly weighed their rights.

Irish Times

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

19 year old girl arrested for attempted kidnapping

A 19-year-old girl, Miss Tina Enebere, is now cooling her heels in police custody for allegedly kidnapping five-year-old Gift Agbasoga and his three-year-old younger brother, Emmanuel Agbasoga.

Vanguard investigation revealed that Miss Enebere stole the two brothers from Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church, Orsu Obodo, Oguta local council area of Imo State.

Luck, however, ran out for the teenage kidnapper when she tried ferrying her victims across Oguta Lake in a speed boat without Gift, who started crying profusely to be taken along.

“The young boy’s pathetic cry attracted the attention of commercial motorcycle operators at the scene. They innocently stopped the girl from crossing the lake without getting to know the true story,” a villager told Vanguard.

The villager said the girl claimed that she was taking the boy to his father but when the motorcyclists contacted the parent, Mr. Chinonso Agbasoga, he denied knowledge of any such arrangement.

Agbasoga thanked God for miraculously intervening in the near mishap, stressing that it would have been double tragedy, having lost his wife earlier.

Reacting to the incident, the Parish Priest, Rev. Fr. Ernest Muforo, wondered why such a young girl would conceive such a dastardly act, adding that only a forthnight ago, some hoodlums attempted to kidnap a six-year-old boy, Onyedika Ekegha, also from Orsu Obodo.

The Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, Mr. Linus Nwaiwu, a deputy superintendent of police, DSP, decried the rising cases of child theft in the state, pointing out that the law would take its course, if and when the perpetrators were arrested.

Vanguard

Kidnapping culture in Nigeria on the rise

American doctor kidnapped in Nigeria sympathizes with his abductors

Boko Haram murders journalist

A Nigerian Islamist sect said it killed a state television cameraman because it had evidence that he was an informant for the security services, and the group warned it would kill anyone else who "steps on our toes".

Alhaji Zakariya Isa, a journalist working for the government-owned Nigerian Television Authority, was killed on Saturday by gunmen who attacked him at his home in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, in the far northeast where Africa's most populous nation borders Cameroon, Niger and Chad.

Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is forbidden", has been behind dozens of shootings in Nigeria's northeast this year, usually targeting authority and religious figures.

This is the first journalist to have been slain by the sect, although it has warned reporters not to misquote Boko Haram.

"Zakariya was killed because he was an informant of security agencies ... He gave information to security agents that led to the arrest of many of our members. We killed him not because he was a journalist but because of his personal misconduct, which was against the ethics of his profession," said a statement from Abu Qaqa, a spokesman for Boko Haram.

"We have no grudge against journalists that are working in line with the professional provisions of their work. Whenever they misquote or misrepresent our position we normally call them and tell them to correct the error.

"(We) will not hesitate to kill anybody who steps on our toes."

The State Security Service declined to comment on whether Isa was an informant.

Boko Haram is growing in ambition and sophistication. Both international and Nigerian security agencies believe it has been strengthening ties with al Qaeda's north African wing.

It took responsibility for a car bomb outside Abuja police headquarters in June before carrying out Nigeria's first known suicide bomb in August, when a car full of explosives was smashed into the side of the U.N. headquarters in the capital, tearing off part of the building and killing 24 people.

Boko Haram has previously said it wants sharia law more widely applied across Nigeria, its jailed members freed and the local government sacked.

Reuters

Britain to help Nigeria fight Boko Haram

Medical practitioner advises Nigerians to take their mind off National football

A medical practitioner has advised Nigerians to take their minds off the recent poor showings of the country's national football teams so as to avoid suffering heart-related illnesses.

The medical practitioner, Dr Isabella Awoke, gave the advice on Sunday in Abakaliki while reacting to the Super Falcons' failure to qualify for the 2012 Olympic Games football event.

The Nigerian team had lost 3-4 on penalty kicks to the Indomitable Lionesses of Cameroon in Yaounde on Saturday.

The African Qualifiers final round second leg match had ended 2-1 against the Nigerian side for a 3-3 aggregate scoreline.

The loss came on the heels of Nigeria's failure to qualify for the 2012 African Nations Cup finals, and the failure of its clubs in the year's continental competitions.

Awoke who is also an Abakaliki-based women football promoter remarked that it was unnecessary for Nigerians to continue endangering their lives with their passion for football.

"It is somehow fatal, when the politicians who manage football do not care about their feelings.

"Nigerians are very passionate about their football, but in times like these, when the results are steadily unfavourable, they should search for alternative sources of happiness," she said.

Awoke disclosed that she had attended to several people with high blood pressure in the wake of the Super Eagles' failure to beat Guinea's Syli Nationale in Abuja on Oct. 8.

"After the Super Eagles' elimination by Guinea from next year's Nations Cup for instance, I treated several people for high blood pressure, and this was a situation that was not palatable," she said.

The medical practitioner said Nigerian football fans should be aware that they were suffering from excessive freedom, which she described as one of the negative sides of democracy.

"Democracy tends to grant excessive freedom to individuals and constituted authorities, and that is why politicians in the country have abused the tenets of merit in making appointments.

"This is why, in a situation where individuals who do not have the faintest knowledge of football oversee its affairs, we should realise that football is not worth the lives of many Nigerians," she said.

Awoke pointed out that Nigeria achieved much of its football glory during the military era, when merit and commitment were the guiding principles in making appointments.

"The glory days, anchored by the late Emeka Omeruah and Sani Toro, among others, were witnessed during the military era, while the democratic days had seen the dwindling of our football with the pot-bellied politicians in charge," she said.

In his own reaction, Chief Angus Chima, an Ebonyi-based businessman and sports enthusiast, called on football fans in the country to take to the streets to protest the sport's steady decline.

"Due to the fact that the present Nigerian Football Association (NFA) board members are apologists of the government, it has been difficult to remove them to chart a new course for our football.

"The Falcons' failure to qualify for the Olympic Games should serve as a catalyst for football fans to revolt, to make government understand that the situation is no longer tolerable," he said.

Vanguard