Tambuwal(Speaker house of rep.) under pressure to reject national honour

The Speaker of the House of Representatives,Mr. Aminu Tambuwal, is under pressure toreject the national honour of Commander of theFederal Republic bestowed on him by PresidentGoodluck Jonathan.THE PUNCHgathered in Abuja on Thursday thatthe development followed protests by manylawmakers, who allegedly described the title as“belittling” the position of the Speaker.Findings showed that the protesting lawmakershad asked Tambuwal to turn down the award.“They believe that it is belittling the office of theSpeaker to group him with serving ministers andother officials of the government who areordinarily answerable to the Speaker.“This is happening at a time when a contentiousaward of Grand Commander of Order of theNiger, has been given to a particularbusinessman.“That is the crux of the protest and the Speakerhas been under pressure from his colleagues toreject this title,” a National Assembly officialdisclosed to THE PUNCH.It was learnt that lawmakers were planning tomove a motion on the floor of the Houserejecting the honour but for the Sallah vacation,which prevented their sitting.Jonathan will present medals to the awardees onMonday, November 14, a day before thescheduled November 15 reconvening of theHouse.The Chairman of an influential committeeconfided in our correspondent that manylawmakers were unhappy with what they called“apparent lack of respect for the position of theSpeaker; the number four citizen of thiscountry.”The lawmaker added, “We are not happy; we areasking Mr. Speaker to reject this award; it isbelittling.”The Chairman of the House Committee on Mediaand Public Affairs, Mr. Zakari Mohammed,though denied knowledge of the protest,admitted that his colleagues were free to hold“divergent views.”Mohammed told our correspondent that in aHouse of 360 members, it was expected thatpeople would feel differently about issues.He said, “Our reactions are not expected to bethe same; it is a very large House and the beautyof democracy is that it admits divergent views.So, I am not aware of the protest.”The spokesman said the “official position” of theHouse was that it welcomed the honourbestowed on the Speaker.

NYSC BARS CORPERS FROM BORNO AND YOBE

The orientation course for Batch ‘C’ of theNational Youth Service Corps in Borno and Yobestates has been put off indefinitely in order toprotect corps members from Boko Haramattacks.The NYSC in a statement on Wednesdayannounced the indefinite suspension and askedcorps members already posted to the two statesharried by members of the violent Islamic sectlast Friday to remain in their homes to awaitfurther directive.The statement, a copy of which was madeavailable to THE PUNCH on Wednesday, reads,“Owing to security reasons, (the) orientationcourse WILL NOT hold in Borno and Yobe statesuntil further notice.“Prospective corps members posted there shouldawait further directives.“All serving and new corps members areSTRONGLY advised to strictly adhere to thecontents of the security tips distributed tothem.”According to the statement, registration for newcorps members begins on Tuesday, November15, 2011, the cut -off date for Registration is 12midnight Wednesday November 16, 2011 whilethe official closing ceremony is TuesdayDecember 6, 2011.Boko Haram, Friday night, bombed drinkingjoints, churches, mosques and police stations inboth Maiduguri and Damaturu, capitals of Bornoand Yobe respectively, killing about 150 people.Meanwhile the Federal Government onWednesday said it was on top of the securitysituation in the country.Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, atthe end of the weekly Federal Executive Councilmeeting in Abuja, told journalists that thegovernment had in fact recorded many “silentvictories” in the fight against the scourge of themilitant Islamic group.He, however, admitted that the operations of thesect posed a lot of challenges to securityagencies.He said, “All I can tell you for now are thatFederal Government is working round the clockto check the activities of Boko Haram and theresults will soon begin to show.“All of us know that wherever terror raises itsugly head it is not a conventional war, where themilitary of Nigeria will go one side and theterrorists group on the other side for aconfrontation.“Terrorists use undercover attacks, what youcall guerrilla welfare.“They do not operate under the light of self-proclamation of who their identities are. Thereare several countries like Algeria and Pakistanand several others that have come under terrorattack for almost over a decade and in thosecountries up till today, you still have isolatedattacks in spite of all the deployments that havetaken place.“Let me give an example, all those who carriedout the terrorist attack of October 1, 2010 havebeen arrested, all the vehicles they used, all thechannels they used, all the individualsassociated with it are in the custody of securityagencies and are being investigated.“You will also find out that in many places wheresimilar attacks have taken place earlier, arrestshave not been made even in countries that youcan say have greater sophistication in terms oftechnical capacity.”Meanwhile, soldiers have taken over security inand around the Abuja NYSC Camp in Kubwaahead of the commencement of the Batch “C”orientation camp for corps members.Vehicles going into and coming out of the campare thoroughly searched for weapons and othercontraband.Although none of the soldiers was willing tospeak on the deployment, a source in the NYSCconfided in our correspondent that the measurewas pre-emptive.The source pleaded for anonymity because hewas not authorised to speak to the media onsecurity issues.He said, “You know the situation in the country;management cannot leave anything to chance.“The safety of our corps members is of utmostimportance to us, especially in the light of theavoidable loss of innocent lives during the post-election crisis in the north.”In recent past, quite a number of serving corpsmembers had been killed in sectarian attacks inJos, Plateau State, and during the post-2011general elections violence in some parts of thenorthern region.But NYSC has continued to post corps membersto volatile areas of the north despite calls byconcerned Nigerians, especially parents, thatthe areas are not safe for the young graduates.PUNCH NEWSPAPER

PRESIDENT JONATHAN, TODAY, ADRESSED BOKO HARAM ISSUE

A message to you all from your dearpresident...he made this statement at thePresidential dialogue with Chief ExecutiveOfficers (CEOs) of global corporations onNigerian’s political leadership at the 17thNigerian Economic Summit (NES) in Abujatoday. Enjoy...Terrorism is a global phenomenon. We arevery much aware of what happened inEngland during the IRA uprising. We aredoing all we can to bring the issue to anend. The issue of Boko Haram that we areexperiencing today in Nigeria is nothingnew globally. Most countries of the worldhad experienced terrorist attacks in theirlong history. These are temporarychallenges we have and definitely we shallget over it.“Let me reassure Nigerians and indeed theworld in general that even with the limitedtechnology we have, the Nigerian securityagencies have done well. Look at theOctober 1, 2010 bombing experience, allthe people that were involved have beenarrested and prosecuted. Most of thecountries that are more sophisticated thatus have done nothing to that stage. “Yes we have the Boko Haram challengenow, but just like other terrorist attacks inother parts of the globe, we are working onit. It is not as if the security services andthe government are not doing anythingabout the situation, we are working roundthe clock to bring the issue under control.The challenge is only a temporary setbackand we shall get over it,”Please stand up and give your president aresounding round of applause. Wow!