AS the restructuring summit organised by the Yoruba Leaders and South-West governors continues to generate ripples, various stakeholders and groups in the Middle Belt have backed calls for a return to regional government.

However, they are demanding the creation of additional regions from the North to cater for the interest of ethnic minorities.

The President, Association of Middle Belt Ethnic Nationalities (ASOBEN) Mr Sule Kwasau, said, in as much as the geopolitical zone supported the idea of the return to regional government, there should be slight modifications for the creation of two regions for the Middle Belt.

“We support our South-West brothers on this position, but we have our reservations. There should be amendments. Instead of going back to the four regions, as practised under the 1960 Constitution, the scope should be widened to accommodate two more regions within the North to cater for the Minority,” he said.

The lawyer said the people of the Middle Belt were seeking the two regions from the area: Middle Belt West region and Middle Belt East region, adding that such arrangement would cater for southern Kaduna, southern Borno, and many others in the North.

He said: “We have maps of the proposed regions; they are natural boundaries within the North, and we know our boundaries. We also support the position of the South-West that referendum should be conducted for ethnic nationalities that want to join others. If regional government is allowed, it will encourage development and allow every part to develop at its pace and those who want to remain at the same spot can choose to remain like that.”

In his contribution, convener of the Middle Belt Patriotic Front (MBPF), Ibrahim Bunu, said in line with the recommendation of the 2014 National Conference, more states should be created as this would form the basis of creating additional regions in the North in accordance with the people’s peculiarities and interests.

According to him, restructuring is inevitable if Nigeria is willing to overcome its myriad of challenges.

Convener, Centrum Initiative for Development and Fundamental Right Advocacy (CEDRA), Dr John Danfulani, also supported regional arrangement but with the creation of more regions to cater for the interest of the Middle Belt, adding that it would be wrong to lump the Middle Belt with the North.

In a related development, elder statesman, Alhaji Tanko Yakassai, has declared that there is no place called Middle Belt, cautioning those campaigners for minority ethnic nationalities in the North.

Alhaji Yakassai, who has been at the forefront of the campaign for a united North, was reacting to the claim of the Association of Middle Belt Ethnic Nationalities and other groups which claimed to be protecting the interest of people in the North-Central in an interview with Sunday Tribune.

According to Yakassai, “there is nowhere in Nigeria called Middle Belt and it would be wrong for anyone to claim or call any place by such name.”

He insisted that the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria does not recognise such a place and, as such, a place does not exist.

“Before the arrival of  Europeans in Nigeria, we have been existing  on our own but the colonial without proper history just merge us with the caliphate, we have nothing in common at all. I can tell you, if Nigeria breaks today, we are not going with them, we can’t be one and we will never be one” he said

According to him, the idea of regional government has been persistent demand of the South West, and that is the only thing that would address the idea of structural imbalance in the country and ensure fairness.

Source: www.tribuneonlineng.com

By Auwal Mohammad

Gombe (Nigeria) – All Progressives Congress (APC) Gombe State Chapter in northeast Nigeria, has accused Governor Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo of political persecution and infringement on freedom of expression by opposition parties in the state.  

Secretary of the party in the State, Bello Kasimu Maigari made the accusation while reacting over recent removal of political billboards and posters across Gombe metropolis by agent of the state government.

The APC accused Governor Dankwambo of directing the State Traffic and Environmental Marshalls, a para military state organization, in company of personnel of Nigeria Civil Defence Corps, and Police to remove all billboards and posters belonging to members of the party, including that of President Muhammadu Buhari.

The party said it considers the action of the Marshals on the directed of the governor as clear manifestation of  political persecution and infringement of constitutional rights of members of the APC to political association, which the party said goes contrary to Section 39 and 40 of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

“We are apprehensive as to the atmosphere of political bias and violence being foisted upon our party by the state marshals which may likely cause the breach of public peace in the state

“There is strong likelihood that the Governor may be tempted to continue to use the state marshals to intimidate, gag, obstruct, manipulate and harass our party members, supporters, political office seekers, and sympathizers of president Buhari in the build up to the 2019 general election”, the party said.

While expressing disappointment over Dankwambo’s alleged abdication of his responsibility during his second term to aspire for the seat of the President, the APC further accused the governor of allegedly co-sponsoring the “Resume or Resign” Abuja protest staged against President Buhari .

The party therefore urged the Commissioner of Police in the State to call the State Marshal and others to order with view to the tenets of democracy and tolerance.

Responding on behalf the State Government, State Commissioner of Information, Umar Ahmed Suleiman denied political persecution, stressing that the ban on political billboards and posters was covered by the Billboards Act which requires clearance and payment of a specified amount.

The Commissioner denied that Dankwambo ordered for the removal of billboards and posters belonging to President Buhari, accused the APC of desperately trying to cause political rift between the Governor and President Buhari.

“Governor Dankwambo does not only respect the status of His Excellency Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, as President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, but also holds him with the highest esteem of a revered elderly statesman”, he said.

Suleiman described Dankwambo’s administration as an all embracing government cutting across, political, ethnic and religious divide, calling on all opposition parties to desist from unnecessarily heating polity.

“The ban as it should be understood did not single out any political party but even that those billboards and posters belonging to the PDP candidates were not spared”, he said.

Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered the tomb of a royal goldsmith containing the mummies of a woman and her two children, authorities said.

The tomb, dating back to the New Kingdom (16th to 11th Centuries BC), was found near the Nile city of Luxor, 400 miles (700km) south of Cairo.

Among the items discovered inside was a statue of the goldsmith Amenemhat, sitting beside his wife.

It is unclear whether the three mummies discovered are connected to Amenemhat.

The mummies were found down a burial shaft leading off the main chamber, Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities said.

According to the archaeologists, the mother died aged about 50, with tests revealing she had a bacterial bone disease. Her two sons were in their 20s and 30s and their bodies said to have been preserved in good condition.

Authorities believe the tomb of Amenemhat, who was goldsmith for the god Amun, the period’s most powerful deity, could lead them to further discoveries in the Draa Abul Naga necropolis, an area famed for its temples and burial grounds.

Minister of Antiquities Khaled al-Anani said: “We found many objects of the funerary equipment inside and outside the tomb. We found mummies, coffins, funerary combs, funerary masks, some jewellery, and statue.

“The work did not finish yet.”

Mr Anani said archaeologists had read four new names.

“What about those four new names? How about their tombs? Their tombs are not discovered yet. But I believe they are owners of the tomb,” he said.

“I believe, inshallah, for the coming season, we are going to do our excavations. We are going to do our excavations in this area. So I believe we can find one, or two or maybe four if we are going to be very lucky, four of them in this area.”

This story is auto-generated from ‘BBC News’ syndicated feed and has not been edited by Africa Prime News staff.

Maikanti Baru, group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), says the oil firm does not “see a penny” from the sale of crude oil.

Baru said this in response to some critical reports, especially from the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI).

In its March 2017 policy brief, NEITI said by its own calculations, the total unremitted revenues to government’s treasury by NNPC and Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) stood at about N7.2 trillion.

But speaking in an interview with the quarterly magazine of the oil firm, Baru accused NEITI of being naïve.

“Unfortunately, some of our sister agencies like NEITI go to the press quite easily to talk about massive unremitted funds and that NNPC owes government but if you look at the issues related to crude sales, NNPC does not see a penny from crude sales,” he said.

“What it sells on behalf of the federation goes into an account controlled by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and of course into the federation account. We don’t have a cheque book to sign off on that, we only have a viewing right, whereby whenever payments are done, we are informed so that as the entity in charge of sale of crude on behalf of government, for us to know that payment has been done before we implement necessary release of the cargo.

“So, NEITI is a bit naïve on those things.”

Baru also accused the oil industry revenue watchdog of mixing up accounts, citing an instance to buttress his point.

“They (NEITI) also mix up accounts. For instance, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) is a 100% owned entity of NNPC and as such the proceeds of its crude oil is for NPDC and NNPC not for the federation account but NEITI mixes up that to say that we are supposed to pay those crude and gas sales from the NPDC into the federation account,” he said.

“So, they come up with mind boggling figures, claiming that NNPC is taking monies supposedly meant for the federation account.”

Baru also spoke on the targets of the NNPC and the steps being made to realise them.

“We want to consolidate the gains we have made and in fact improve on what we have already done and the aggressive targets we set for ourselves,” he said.

“We are looking at growing our reserves to 40 billion barrels. And also increasing our production from the current two million barrels per day to three million barrels per day by 2020. We also want to increase direct production from NPDC to ramp up to at least 500,000 bpd production by that time.”