Monday, September 30, 2013

TEXT OF ADDRESS BY PRINCESS STELLA ADAEZE ODUAH, NIGERIA's MINISTER OF AVIATION, AT THE ON-GOING 38TH ASSEMBLY OF THE INTERNATIONAL CIVIL AVIATION ORGANISATION (ICAO) IN MONTREAL, CANADA

​It is indeed, my honour and privilege on behalf of the Nigerian delegation, first and foremost extend to you all, very warm greetings and felicitations from our President, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, GCFR and the good people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Also let me join other delegations to congratulate the President of the 38th Assembly, Mr. Michel Wachenheim.

 
We are gathered here to reflect on the developments that have taken place in our industry and to seek new ways of improving civil aviation beyond the next triennial. These new Strategies should make air transportation more safe, secure, efficient, and environmentally friendly as well as ensure the growth and sustainability of the aviation industry globally.
 
​​In this regard, the recent ICAO high level conferences on air navigation, air transport and aviation security have made far reaching recommendations. Nigeria supports the endorsement by this Assembly of the Global Air Navigation Plan (GANP) and the Global Aviation Safety Plan (GASP) as well as recommended Civil Aviation Security Strategies. Nigeria also believes that there is need to streamline ICAO policies regarding the protection of consumer interests. I also wish to seize this opportunity to commend the ICAO Council for the adoption of the new Annex 19 on Safety Management.
 
Distinguished delegates, it gladdens my heart to inform you all that Nigeria has remained totally committed to ICAO initiatives and collaborative efforts in achieving safety, security and environmentally friendly air transportation. This, we have demonstrated through the hosting and continuous support of our Regional Safety Oversight Organization, the Banjul Accord Group Aviation Safety Oversight Organization (BAGASOO) located in Abuja, Nigeria’s   Federal Capital City.
 
​​Similarly, Nigeria hosted in 2012 the African Ministerial Conference on Aviation Safety that adopted the landmark Abuja Declaration on Aviation Safety and also adopted far reaching Safety Targets. I wish to reassure you that Nigeria is determined to continue to champion the advancement of civil aviation in the African region through collaborative efforts amongst member States. Furthermore, Nigeria also wishes to express her commitment and continuous support for the comprehensive Regional Implementation Plan for Aviation Safety in Africa (AFI Plan).
 
At this point, I wish to commend African States and the African Civil Aviation Commission for their renewed and vigorous dedication towards the attainment of safety of the African skies and the development of Air Transportation in our Continent.
 
7. ​​Mr President, Nigeria under the regime of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, GCFR embarked on the transformation of its aviation industry focusing on the rehabilitation, upgrade and development of aviation infrastructure; improving aviation Safety and Security; creating enabling environment for growth of airlines and other service providers as well as protecting the interest of aviation end-users. Towards this end, the Civil Aviation Policy was reviewed and a comprehensive Master Plan was developed to reform institutions; transform key airports into a network of domestic and international hubs; develop airport cities, (Aerotropolis); among others.
 
8.​​I am very delighted to inform you that the Transformation Agenda is yielding positive results. This coupled with the liberalisation policy of the Government, has led to significant increase in the operations of foreign and domestic airlines and utilisation of our airports, resulting in an annual traffic growth of over ten percent (10%) in the last three (3) years. In order to accommodate this and future growth, the Nigerian Government embarked simultaneously on the construction of five (5) new international passenger and fourteen (14) perishable cargo airport terminals. The effort of Government is to make air travel the preferred mode of transportation especially with a population of over 150Million and a large land mass.
 
9.​In the area of Safety, Nigeria has continued to work towards sustaining the success achieved in the ICAO Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme (USOAP) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)’s International Aviation Safety Assessment Category 1 Rating, through re-engineered Civil Aviation Authority conferred with the requisite powers and autonomy to properly regulate the sector.
 
10.​​With regard to aviation security; I am happy to inform this august Assembly that the on-going remodelling of our airports has provided us an opportunity to improve our security infrastructure through the installation of State of the art security equipment. I want to reassure you that Nigeria will continue to implement its National Aviation Security Programme and provide continuous up-to-date training to its Aviation Security Personnel. We will also continue to participate in the ICAO Public Key Directory (ICAO PKD), and support ICAO’s efforts to provide assistance to other West African States in their programmes to introduce e-passport.
 
11.​​I wish to use this opportunity to commend ICAO and Member States for the adoption of Resolution A37-19 at the last Assembly in 2010. This achievement demonstrates to the world the uniqueness of our industry and our ability to put aside our differences for the common good and sustainable development of air transportation. I therefore wish to appeal that this same spirit should be demonstrated in our deliberations during this Assembly in order to achieve a “Win-Win” situation.
12.​​Nigeria will continue to cooperate and collaborate with member States to come up with Resolutions that will support the implementation of measures that will reduce aircraft engine emissions without negatively impacting on the growth of air transportation industry, particularly in the developing and emerging economies.  We have continued to pursue a policy of fleet renewal and use of newer and more efficient aircraft by Nigerian operators. Additionally, we have implemented measures to enhance the efficiency of air traffic management including Performance Based Navigation (PBN).
 
13.​​Distinguished colleagues, Nigeria is indeed privileged to have been a member of the ICAO Council since 1962, and we truly  cherish the opportunity to collaborate with other member States to advance the work of the Organization for greater efficiency and effectiveness in line with ICAO’s strategic objectives.  In the same vein, Nigeria wishes to use this opportunity to solicit the support of ICAO member States for her re-election into Part 2 of the ICAO Council. In addition, Nigeria also humbly requests your support for the election and re-election of those African States that have been endorsed by AFCAC to the ICAO Council.
 
14.  ​​Nigeria is also delighted to refer to the Candidature of Dr. Olumuyiwa Bernard Aliu for the post of the President of the ICAO Council in the next Council election. I wish to thank the African States for the endorsement of his candidature by the African Union (AU) We solicit and thank ICAO member States for their support of his candidature.
 
15.​​Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen, on behalf of the Nigerian delegation, I want to specially congratulate and thank the President of the ICAO Council, Mr. Roberto Kobeh González, for his invaluable services to the organisation. I wish to also thank the Secretary General and the ICAO Secretariat for a well organized 38th Session of the ICAO Assembly. I also wish to express our profound gratitude and thanks to the government and people of Canada for the kind hospitality accorded us since our arrival in this beautiful city of Montreal.
 
16.​​I wish us all a most successful deliberation. I thank you for your kind attention and God bless.
 

FG tasks investors on non-oil export commodities



















>As Oyo Govt. hosts ICAIS-3 Oct. 22 to 23 


The  Federal Government has advocated the active collaboration of all stakeholders in the promotion and development of Nigeria’s non-oil export commodities.

Minister of State for Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr. Samuel Ortom, spoke recently in Abuja at a press conference on the forthcoming 3rd International Conference on Africa’s Indigenous Stimulants (ICAS-3) to be hosted by Oyo State from October 22 to 23, 2013.

According to the Minister, Government alone could not bear the responsibility of developing non-oil export commodities, particularly the production of stimulant crops such as kolanuts, bitter kola, alligator pepper, moringa including aloe Vera, noting that, besides their medicinal values, stimulant crops are valuable raw materials for the pharmaceutical industry.

Dr. Ortom explained that the conference aims at sensitizing the public on the investment opportunities in the stimulant sub-sector, which he said could reposition the economy for job creation, foreign exchange generation and poverty alleviation.

Also speaking, the President of the African Business Roundtable (ABR) and National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr. Bamanga Tukur, said the ICAS series was one of the organizers’ joint-flagship events going round the country. Tukur, who was represented by Mr. Samuel Ayodele, the ABR Director of Operations, added that the conference also targets at exploring Africa’s underground wealth for economic development through expanding knowledge, awareness and stimulating greater consciousness of the country’s wealth and natural endowment.

On his part, the Executive Chairman of ICAS-3, Chief Audu Ogbeh, said the stimulant subsector was an area that needed renewed national interest and attention, as “other countries have exploited this area of natural endowment to great advantage, boosting export, creating jobs for women, youth and the rural populace.

“With the inevitable decline of the oil sector and the increasing realization that agriculture and agro-enterprise must become the anchor of our economy; this area needs renewed attention”, Ogbeh emphasized.

ICAIS is an initiative of Vertical Inspirations Organization and the African Business Roundtable (ABR) with support from the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment.



Boko Haram suspected in mass murder of students



Boko Haram suspected in mass murder of students
© Photo: AFP

Suspected members of Islamist militant group Boko Haram shot dead dozens of students, some of them while they slept, at a college in northeastern Nigeria in the early hours of Sunday morning.

 
Suspected Islamist militants stormed a college in northeastern Nigeria and shot dead around 40 male students, some of them while they slept early on Sunday, witnesses said.
The gunmen, thought to be members of rebel sect Boko Haram, attacked one hostel, took some students outside before killing them and shot others trying to flee, people at the scene told Reuters.
“They started gathering students into groups outside, then they opened fire and killed one group and then moved onto the next group and killed them. It was so terrible,” said one surviving student Idris, who would only give his first name.
“They came with guns around 1 a.m. (2400 GMT) and went directly to the male hostel and opened fire on them ... The college is in the bush so the other students were running around helplessly as guns went off and some of them were shot down,” said Ahmed Gujunba, a taxi driver who lives by the college.
Boko Haram, which wants to establish an Islamic state in northern Nigeria, has intensified attacks on civilians in recent weeks in revenge for a military offensive against its insurgency.
Several schools, seen as the focus of Western-style education and culture, have been targeted.
Boko Haram and spin-off Islamist groups like the al Qaeda-linked Ansaru have become the biggest security threat in Africa’s second largest economy and top oil exporter.
Western governments are increasingly worried about the threat posed by Islamist groups across Africa, from Mali and Algeria in the Sahara, to Kenya in the east, where Somalia’s al-Shabaab fighters killed at least 67 people in an attack on a Nairobi shopping mall a week ago.
Bodies were recovered from dormitories, classrooms and outside in the undergrowth on Sunday, a member of staff at the college told Reuters, asking not to be named.
A Reuters witness counted 40 bloody corpses piled on the floor at the main hospital in Yobe state capital Damaturu on Sunday, mostly of young men believed to be students.
The bodies were brought from the college, which is in Gujba, a rural area 30 miles (50km) south of Damaturu and around 130 miles from Nigerian borders with Cameroon and Niger.
State police commissioner Sanusi Rufai said he suspected Boko Haram was behind the attack but gave no details.
Revenge attacks
Thousands have been killed since Boko Haram launched its uprising in 2009, turning itself from a clerical movement opposed to Western culture into an armed militia with growing links to al Qaeda’s West African wing.
President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in three northeastern state in May, including Yobe, and ordered a military offensive to crush Boko Haram’s insurgency.
There was an initial lull in the violence as Islamists fled bases in cities, forests and mountains. Then the militants began revenge attacks on schools, security forces and civilians believed to be helping them.
In July, suspected Boko Haram militants killed 27 students and a teacher at a school in Potiskum, a town about 30 miles from the site of Sunday’s attack.
Several hundred people have died in assaults over the past few weeks. Some observers say the army offensive has only succeeded in pushing attacks away from well-guarded large towns and cities into vulnerable rural areas.
Boko Haram’s insurgency is also putting pressure on the economy of Africa’s most populous nation. Nigeria’s security spending has risen to more than 1 trillion naira ($6.26 billion) per year, or around 20 percent of the federal budget.
(REUTERS)


And so, the man is dead!

By Oba Olufemi Adewunmi Ogunleye, fnipr


I did not cry when I heard the sudden death of my friend, bother and colleague, Friday August 26th 2013. Not that I was hard hearted nor was I obedient to the tradition that Oba must not cry. No. The shock was beyond comprehension.
My friend and brother my mother never gave birth to, the quintessential nobleman and fine gentleman, Soniran Oluwole Sowemimo, a.k.a. S.O.S. shocked his friends and family most with this sudden departure without warning of a sort. Having spoken with him at about half-one in the noon on a proposal that just surfaced at the day’s Egba Traditional Council meeting, we both struck appointment to meet at our common rendezvous – Abeokuta Sports Club – in the evening to ventilate on the project.
For reasons I cannot now fathom I failed to honour the 6pm meeting at the Abeokuta Sports Club, even though I was busy preparing to host him and otherfriends the following day at a planned one year’s birthday anniversary of my twin son and daughter in my palace at Akinale. I was expecting a rebuke from another close friend and colleague who was privy to the scheduled meeting with SOS when he called me at about 11pm of the night but instead broke the unpleasant news that our own man, SOS was no more.
I waited for more calls to debunk the story but none came. I called other common friends, none responded. It finally dawn on me that I have lost a valued comrade and true friend.
Soniran , a high Egba Chief and Baba Ijo of Anglican Church, Oba Eerin, the township my friend so cherished and honoured that he commandeered all his loved ones to share in his desire to build a monumental church which has been completed to his credit and I, were colleagues in the Media since the early seventies. He,being in the electronic media and I being in the Print – FRCN and the defunct Daily Times respectively, our friendship and comradeship were solid.
I became closer to SOS when he was at the OGBC and I was at Nigeria Airways asthe Public Relations Manager. The death of my father and Baale Akinale in 1981 went further to solidify our union. I was out of town when Baale Johnson AkanniOgunleye died on Sunday December 21, 1981 but my absence notwithstanding, a great friend and mentor, Dr. Ore Falomo of Maryland Specialists Hospital, Maryland, Anthony, Lagos who was my father’s physician, had given my late wife, Adewunmi Abike an ambulance to convey my father’s corpse to Abeokuta General Hospital and so it was done, all in my absence. When I returned from Josin the evening, I proceeded to Abeokuta where I was shocked to find that my father was still being kept in the ambulance because the hospital authority said there was no room in their morgue.
My first port of call was the Abeokuta Sports Club where I found my friend, S.O.S. playing snooker. As I told him my father is dead, his reaction was “call the bar man”. I told him the bar should wait as my father was being denied place in the morgue at the General Hospital. My friend suddenly dropped his cue stick and led me straight to Dr. Majekodunmi, the then Club Chairman and Chief Surgeon of the General Hospital in his quarters opposite the club house.
To my surprise, Dr. Majekodunmi did not show any anger that his peaceful night was being disturbed, rather, he jumped into our car and led me to the hospital where several neat and well kept apartments in the morgue were opened for me to choose one for Baale AkinaleSowemimo’s assignment had not finished, he wired the story of my father’s death on his walkie-talkie to Ogun Radio that night, andthe news opened the flood of kindness from everywhere for the burial of my beloved father.
Ever since I had a country home in AkinaleSoniran had remained faithful with me to mark my traditional new year party with friends and colleagues. The climax ofSowemimo’s loyalty to his friends and me particularly was when I was crowned an Oba in 2006. When the core Egba people, (and of course, s.o.s. is a conk Egbaman) - Ade wa l’AkeAse wa l’ogbe almost seemingly isolated the Owu obas,s.o.s my friend would at any given opportunity pay me the traditional obeisance asKabiyesi. Throughout the period of our travail until finally the government approved our obaship and lately when I was promoted, s.o.s never left me bare ofthe traditional rite.
In 1992 when Oba Oyebade Lipede offered me a chieftancy title of Ekerin ApagunEgbahe euphoria was so great that the planning committee did not remember to demand from me what title had I hold from my home base of Owu. Impromptu, however, Apagun Pote Apomu Owu, the home of my paternal grandmother was arranged for me a night before I was to appear before Oba Lipede. Only S.O.S. my dear friend accompanied me to Jilafin compound, ApomuOwu to receive the title.
I was among his friends he showed his letter of appointment as member of the Regent for Alake’s stool when Kabiyesi Alake was on leave and behold, I greeted my friend, Kaabiyesi, Alake Egba, to our delight!
Our joy eachtime we met was when we reminisced on our old days in the field of journalism. Times without number, I had mounted positive pressures on the catholic public affairs specialist, a cultural exponent, sociable personae and traditional chief of cosmopolitan Egba nation, to commit to writing, his life experience as a Nigerian veteran journalist who had passed through the mills of the “inky profession” and acquired varied experience from low and high positions. He had paid his dues.
Soniran took up the gauntlet to serve the public a teaser from his reservoir of knowledge in this book “Issues in the history of the Nigerian Mass Media” which though put together during his educational sojourn in far away Prague, Czechoslovakia some decades ago but with all the contents still as relevant, current and remain valid.
A Mass Communication expert who passed through the Lincoln University, Missouri, USA and University of 17th November, Prague, Czechoslovakia was a versatile reporter and sub-editor at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (now FRCN) where he also lectured at the Corporation’s Training School, IkoyiLagosbetween 1973 and 1977. He was later Chief Reporter, NBC Ibadan from where he became Editor in charge of NBC Abeokuta. Between 1977 and 1982, SoniranSowemimo had become the Principal Editor and Controller of News and CurrentAffairs in Ogun State Broadcasting Corporation (OGBC) Abeokuta.
Soniran’s success as Press Secretary to five governors of Ogun state in succession,Olabisi Onabanjo, (politician and an icon of the press) Oladipo DiyaOladapoPopoolaRaji Rasaki and Mohammed Lawal (all military officers) between1982-1989, can be aptly described as his exemplary acquisition of competence, credibility, confidence, courage and capability which made the governors and the governed to trust him so much. Judging from the divergence of styles, interests and ideologies of democracy and militocracy, the contending phenomena during his serving tenure, Soniran, as not only the spokesperson but the image maker of the government, obviously, was the flywheel between the two speeding forces, to strike the balance in the paradigm of governance and the governed.
Soniran was also appointed as Commissioner for Social Development, Youth and Sports in 1989 and Commissioner for Information and Culture in 1991.
Chief Soniran Sowemimo was the Akinpote of Egbaland and Babajo of Anglican Church, Oba-Erin, Abeokuta. He had also been a board member of the defunct Sketch Newspapers, Ibadan, Chairman, Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Abeokuta, Chairman, Ogun State Broadcasting Corporation (OGBC), Chairman, Ogun State NUJ as well as Chairman the League of Veteran Journalists in Ogun State.
Although he did not have the opportunity to draw a graphic account of how hemeandered through the labyrinth of administrative logjams and  the socio-economic melee that pervade the system, yet without losing his head, nor tainted the body of the profession of his heart, no doubt, his legacy as known to us would be unforgettable.
I thank God for giving s.o.s a wonderful and remarkable life worthy of emulation. I pray his amiable wife and good children continue to be blessed in all ramifications.




Buhari presents 2021 Budget to National Assembly

President Muhammadu Buhari Thursday , 8,October, 2020, formally tabled the Executive’s proposed budget for the 2021 fiscal year to a joint s...