Biafra: Anyaoku rejects IPOB’s appointment

A former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, has rejected his nomination as one of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra’s representatives to negotiate or discuss on behalf of the group.

IPOB had on Wednesday listed Anyaoku as one of the “credible Igbo elders” that would represent it in “negotiations” and “discussions”.

Also on the list are former Vice-President Alex Ekwueme; Prof. Ben Nwabueze; the   Archbishop of Owerri Catholic Diocese, Archbishop Anthony Obinna; a Biafran civil war army commander, Alex Madiebo; and an activist, Dr. Arthur Nwankwo.

But in an email exchange with one of our correspondents, Anyaoku, who said he had yet to be contacted by the Pro-Biafra group, stated that he would not accept the appointment.

He said, “I have not been approached nor would I be willing to undertake such an assignment in the present circumstances.’’

In a statement signed by its spokesmen, Emma Mmezu and Clifford Iroanya, IPOB said the selection of Ekwueme, Anyaoku and the others came on the heels of its rejection of the alleged meeting between the leadership of Ohanaeze Ndigbo and a United States of America delegation in Enugu.

In the statement entitled, ‘Beware of impostors’, the group dissociated itself from any discussions or negotiations entered into on its behalf by Ohanaeze Ndigbo.

IPOB alleged that the Ohanaeze leaders claimed they were speaking on its behalf at the alleged meeting with the US officials, who were said to be on a fact-finding mission.

The statement read in part, “We do not deal with nor condone the idea of washed- out political contractors and compromised merchants of misery speaking for Biafrans.

“We value our reputation as IPOB and would like to warn that anybody dealing with any group that is not IPOB under the supreme command of Nnamdi Kanu (our detained leader) is engaging in an exercise in futility.

“Our focus now is to ensure the release of our leader first before we negotiate with anyone.

“We would view anyone discussing or attempting to cut a deal without the knowledge of the leadership of IPOB as an enemy of the people.

“IPOB has chosen Dr Arthur Nwankwo, Dr Alex Ekwueme, Archbishop Anthony Obinna, Gen. Alex Maduebo, Prof. Ben Nwabueze and Chief Emeka Anyaoku as credible elders, who will speak the truth without being easily compromised.”

Fed Govt probes 11,000 ghost workers

Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun

THE Federal Government is investigating additional 11,000 workers to know if they are ghost workers, Minister of Finance Kemi Adeosun said yesterday.

About 23,000 such workers were uncovered recently, saving the government N2.29 billion monthly.

Briefing State House correspondents, Mrs. Adeosun said the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved continuous audit process, particularly on the payroll.

According to her, the audit would be extended to other areas of government’s expenditure to block fraud.

She said: “The approval of a presidential initiative on continuous audit. In the budget speech, the President said we would introduce a continuous audit process, particularly of the payroll and that work has resulted in the elimination of about 23,000 fraudulent recipients of federal salary and more work is still on.

“We felt that the continuous audit should not be limited to payroll, there is actually need to strengthen internal audit across government and to that extent, the World Bank in 2010 started an initiative to try and introduce real-space internal audit in Nigeria, but it wasn’t successful.”

Stressing that the World Bank indicated its readiness to support Nigeria in the initiative, she added that it would take six months to get the required legislation through.

As a way forward, she said: “So, in the interim, we have agreed to do the presidential initiative on continuous audit, which will give backing to the work we are doing and will allow us to extend this work beyond payroll to other areas of expenditure.”

The minister explained that FEC deliberated about the need for this and agreed that the control framework over finance and spending of government’s money needed to be strengthened, “especially in anticipation of the approval of the budget, which is an extended budget”.

She added: “There was a discussion on the role of existing internal audit offices, the problem they have is that they report to the people they are supposed to be checking on and so they are not able to be as effective as we would like.

“Also, most of what we do now is computerised and we need special audit techniques, computer assistants to do the techniques and special techniques, which some of these auditors do not have,” Mrs. Adeosun said.

She said the government would not recruit any additional people to do the auditing work.

“We are going to use existing staff, qualified accountants within the Office of the Accountant General within the Federal Civil Service and redeploy them to create this function, which we believe will strengthen the control of our public money,” she added.

On the earlier 23,000 ghost workers and the new investigation, she said: “Our payroll has reduced by N2.29 billion per month. The update on that is that we are now investigating another potential 11,000.

“Again we are using computer techniques to identify those who we need to investigate. So, we are now looking at the second batch and as we resolve those cases, we would inform you of the amount saved and the number of people removed.

Court dissolves 10 months marriage over sex starvation

A Lugbe Grade 1 Area Court, Abuja, on Thursday dissolved 10 months marriage between Usman Aisha and her husband, Ibrahim for starving the wife of sex.

In his judgment, the judge, Mr Garba Ogbede, said that the marriage had broken down irretrievably and efforts to reconcile them proved abortive.

“Since both parties consented to the dissolution of their marriage, this court has no choice than to dissolve the marriage.

“The couple can no longer stay together because the marriage has broken down totally; both parties are no longer husband and wife, they are free to go their separate ways.

“Both parties are to keep the peace all the time; any violation of the order should be reported to the police for redress,” Ogbede held.

Aisha of Aco Estate, Airport Road, Abuja, had approached the court for dissolution of the marriage because Ibrahim refused to satisfy her during love making.

She said that she spend one month with Ibrahim after their marriage and he always arose her but refused to satisfy her when making love to her.

“ I pleaded so bitterly to him to satisfy me but he refused to change,’’ She said.

Aisha said that whenever she called him so that they could sit and discuss the issue, he would threaten to beat her.

She said that she had reported the matter to both parents but nothing changed.

“I intentionally left our house for months after he refused to change but he never care to look for me.

“Though when I was with him for one month, he feeds me well, but when it comes to sex matters it will turn to fight. I am a woman and I have feelings for him.

“He has failed in his matrimonial obligations, I am totally fed up, please sir, separate us. I am no more interested in the marriage,’’ Aisha added.

She begged the court to dissolve the marriage because she did not want to offend God and to enable her move on with her life.

Ibrahim denied all the allegations but conceded to the dissolution of the marriage because he was also fed up with the union.

“I take good care of her and provide all she wants. Please my Lord, do as she wishes, I have tried my best to settle with her but all my effort prove abortive. I am also fed up,’’ he said.

Minister’s driver may face prosecution

•The Lexus Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV)...yesterday

The driver of the Lexus SUV in which Minister of State (Labour and Employment) James Ocholi died may face prosecution, Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Babachir David Lawal, said yesterday.

Ocholi, his wife and son died in an accident on Sunday on the Kaduna-Abuja road.

An interim report of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) claims that the driver, James Elegbede, was over speeding and had no license.

Speaking with State House correspondents at the end of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, the SGF said the final report on the accident will determine if Elegbede will be prosecuted.

He said: “As to the issue of whether we would prosecute the driver, yes, Nigeria is not short of laws; the problem is that Nigerians find it very difficult to obey the laws.

“There is a speed limit in place and so if anybody chooses not to obey the traffic laws, of course, it is subject to prosecution by the agencies concerned. But as to this

particular incident, I think we will leave it until the final report of the investigation comes out.

“But, of course, as we say, accident is accident and nobody goes out deliberately to summersault and die, but as to allegations you claimed from the family, we are not aware and anybody who has anything to the contrary –  that they didn’t die in an accident – is free to report to the law enforcement agencies who will appropriately take it up.”

Lawal said the Federal Government did not extend automatic employment and scholarship benefits to the driver’s relatives and other surviving victims because they are alive and still on the government’s payroll.

He said: “The government decided to give employment to the children of the late minister because he was the breadwinner and the children are now orphans. On the other hand, the driver survived and the government is taking care of their medical bills at the National Hospital and they are also government workers as some of them are policemen, SSS operatives and others.

“So they are on salary and are treated free, but God forbids that had any of them suffered the same fate as those who died, the President would have willingly included them on the list of beneficiaries.”