Royal Fathers to AASDU Reps: Be good ambassadors - ITREALMS

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The Anambra State Traditional Rulers Council has charged town unions' representatives in the Association of Anambra State Development Unions (AASDU Lagos), to ensure cordial and peaceful relationships among themselves, and with their host - Lagos State.

They further asked AASDU to support government in the epic battle to rid the state of all forms of criminality.

Reps hold public hearing on bill for University of Agriculture, Awba-Ofemili - ITREALMS

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The Federal House of Representatives on Monday, April 11, 2022, held a public hearing on the proposed bill for an Act to establish the Federal University of Agriculture Awba-Ofemili in Awka North Local Government Area of Anambra State, reports ITREALMS.

The bill is being sponsored by Hon. Sam Chinedu Onwuaso, ITREALMS gathered, took another progressive turn as the House Committee on Agricultural Colleges and Institutions held a public hearing for the proposed bill in line with the processes of legislation.

More trouble for Gov. Ambode as LSHA, House reps align with APC leadership - ITREALMS

ITREALMS:

More trouble has come the way of the Executive Governor of Lagos State, Akinwunmi Ambode, as the Lagos State House of Assembly (LSHA) at the weekend, declared their support for Mr. Babajide Sanwoolu as the state gubernatorial candidate for All Progressive Congress (APC), reports ITREALMS.

Information reaching ITREALMS news as at last night, showed that the parliamentary meeting was held on Saturday, 29th September, 2018 at the Lagos State House of Assembly Complex in Alausa-Ikeja.

ITREALMS also reports that LSHA members unanimously resolved to support the position of the leadership of All Progressive Congress (APC) and the Governor’s Advisory Council (GAC) in Lagos State on the endorsement of Mr. Babajide Sanwoolu as the APC Gubernatorial candidate in the 2019 election.

The meeting, ITREALMS further gathered, was attended by 36 out of the 40 Honourable members in the House of Assembly, just as all Representatives at the Green Chambers of the National Assembly endorsed  Sanwoolu on Sunday.

Further endorsement was confirmed by the Babajide Olusola Sanwoolu (#BOS19) campaign team, which asserted on its Facebook page that “the entire APC members representing Lagos State in the Federal House of Representatives, led by the Majority Leader, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, were Sunday evening at the home of Babajide Sanwoolu to formally endorse him as the next Governor of Lagos State.

Ayo Midele/GEE

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Pix: APC members representing Lagos State in the Federal House of Representatives, led by the Majority Leader, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, endorsing BOS for 2019.

Dogara, Northern Reps reject bill to establish South-East Development Commission

ITRealms:

A bill seeking for the establishment of South-East Development Commission (SEDC) has suffered a setback, Thursday, with the rejection of majority of Northern members of the House of Representatives led by the Speaker, Mr. Yakubu Dogara, reports ITRealms.

The House rejection came at the second reading of the bill after it was put to a voice vote by the Speaker of the House, Mr. Yakubu Dogara, but reacting to the situation, Hon. Chukwuka Onyema representing Anambra-PDP, and who is the lead-sponsors decried the rejection, alleging a plot against the South-Eastern states.

Onyema said that the bill which sought to tackle the menace of poverty and ecological problems confronting the South East part of the country, stressing that it would receive and manage fund from allocation of the federation account for the development, restructuring and rehabilitation of roads, houses and other infrastructure in the region.

For the House Minority Leader, Rep. Leo Ogor (Delta-PDP), said the bill would address most of the issues affecting the region, asserting that this country cannot continue with the situation where everyone come to Abuja every month to share money.

“I think every zone deserves such commission because it will make everybody look inward. This nation needs to be restructured, we cannot continue the way we are going,” Ogor said.

Equally speaking, Rep. Sani Abdul (Bauchi-APC) said that the agitation to create the commission was as a result of government’s inability to address the socio-economic challenges in the country.

“We should look at it holistically in order not to have problems. We are worried, however, because the timing of the bill with the agitation for Biafra is suspicious,” Abdul said.

However, some lawmakers while opposing the bill, said the timing was not appropriate.

Rep. Sunday Karimi (Kogi-PDP) said that some of the South-East states were already captured in the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and “the creation of a South East Commission will be too much.”

Rep. Sani Zorro (Jigawa-APC) said not much consultation was done to ensure the success of the bill.

“I won’t be comfortable that at the end of the day we leave here with acrimony. In view of the debate we have had so far, I am of the view that the sponsors and supporters of this bill should make further consultations,” Zoro said

Uboshe Uboshe/GEE

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Telecom regulations: NCC needs Reps’ cooperation - Danbatta

ITRealms:

For effective telecommunications regulations in the industry, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), needs the cooperation of the members of the House of Representatives, says, the Executive Vice Chairman, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, reports ITRealms.

Speaking during an oversight visit of the members of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Communications, yesterday in Abuja, Danbatta stressed the need for striking a balance in satisfying diverse stakeholders in the industry the Commission regulates.

“We will still use this opportunity to seek you cooperation and understanding of delicate balance existing between the functions of regulators, and its many publics and stakeholders, including the legislature.

“These stakeholders have diverse but very important interest, which the regulator must satisfy. In the course of achieving an effective regulation for the benefit of all and in creating an enabling environment for growth, issues and challenges are bound to arise,” he explained.

As said by the Special Assistant on Media to the EVC, Yakubu Musa, the NCC boss also told members of the Committee that the Commission had recently won a European Award for Best Practices, in addition to emerging African Regulator of the Year at regional level.

Responding, Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Shaheed Fijabi, who said they were at the headquarters of the NCC to exercise their oversight duty, also commended the strides of Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF) in the country.

Earlier, the Director Public Affairs of the commission, Mr. Tony Ojobo, said that Commission has always enjoyed fruitful relationship with the committee, commended members for “the very matured way” they have handled it affairs.

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Zinox boss tells Reps: Nigeria is ripe for e-Voting

ITRealms:

The Executive Chairman, Zinox Group, Sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest integrated Information and Communication Technology (ICT) conglomerate, Dr. Leo Stan Ekeh has asserted that Nigeria is ripe for electronic voting (e-Voting), reports ITRealms.

Ekeh in a keynote address to the retreat organized by the House of Representatives Committee on Electoral and Political Parties Matter last Friday, at the Transcorp Hilton, Abuja, as part of programme to mark 17th Democracy Day anniversary, insisting that adopt of e-Voting would deepen democratic culture during elections.

The retreat led by the Speaker, House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara also has Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Prof. Mahmood Yakubu; Senate Committee Chairman on INEC, Senator Abubakar Kyari represented by Senator Abu Gumel; Chairperson of the House Committee on Electoral and Political Parties Matter, Hon. Mrs. Aisha Dukku as well as other distinguished members of the committee.

Ekeh, also disclosed that with the rapid pace of global technological advancements, Nigeria stands to reap a lot of benefits from the deployment of e-voting, stressing that the initiative will go a long way in reducing litigations and strengthening the faith of Nigerians in the electoral process.

In his paper entitled “New thoughts, ideas and innovations on use of ICT in elections” Ekeh affirmed that the gains recorded with the use of the card readers in the 2015 general elections goes a long way to show that with the adoption of e-voting, the country will take a huge leap towards sound democratic governance.

“In your life, there must be a little bit of disruption for you to move forward. The country is ripe for transition to electronic voting. A lot of us are in this business because technology does not lie – it’s either you are right or you are wrong. With the use of the card readers in the last general elections, we saw a significant reduction in electoral fraud and other electoral malpractices. However, a few challenges were also encountered as no technology can be said to be 100 per cent perfect,” Ekeh said.

The Zinox boss equally said that a country cannot move forward where the elected leaders who take decisions are not the choice of the people.

“It’s like running a company and you are a shareholder in that company. If your son is not qualified to lead, you will be destroying that company by manipulating the system to favour that son. So, this was the essence of our submission to INEC on the adoption of electronic voting – that things should be done professionally with your support and that of the entire nation,” he canvassed.

Today, he pointed out, there are about 774 local governments in the country and each one with about 10,800 polling units, some of which are in the riverine areas, stressing that even if INEC purchases 1,000 vehicles, it will still find it difficult logistics-wise to cover all the areas and this leaves the process open to manipulation by emergency contractors as INEC lacks the requisite man-power.

“If finally adopted and implemented, electronic voting will ensure that you now have reasonable infrastructure to handle this. While you have the mobile units and active screens at the polling units, the database of registrants or eligible voters is sitting at the national database of INEC. Once a voter’s number is entered at the polling unit, it pulls up the details of the voter from the list of registered voters,” he said.

For him, verification will no longer be a problem and during voting, once a voter clicks on the icon of a chosen party, the same information hits the INEC back-end.

“This will go a long way in reducing litigations as INEC can provide verifiable evidence in court,” Ekeh advised, emphasizing that with this technology in place, voters will no longer have to travel back to their wards to cast their votes.

INEC on the other hand, he said, could also monitor the entire process easily as each electronic voting device is equipped with a tracker and could be configured to shut down immediately voting ends.

Tracing the country’s march and transition towards electronic voting, the digital ICT entrepreneur examined the benefits and challenges of the Direct Data Capture (DDC) machines used during the 2007 elections and the painstaking process which eventually culminated in the use of the card readers for the 2015 general elections.

“When Prof. Jega came on board, a decision was made to do a proper data capturing of eligible voters. We started the process and I must thank the National Assembly as they supported us despite being a local company. We designed the technology and ended up working for everybody in deploying the Direct Data Capture (DDC) machines nationwide including the 600 servers. These helped promote the concept of one man, one voter card, streamlined the electoral process and also reduced multiple registration, ineligible and under-age registrants – we did a lot of these from the back-end. As a result, we were able to deliver a strong database which reduced arguments and other related issues,” he said.

It is from this point, Ekeh said, Nigeria moved to the use of card readers, underscoring the fact that back then, there were calls for proposals for electronic voting which the National Assembly to a large extent did not consider as the country was seen as not ripe to embrace the technology then, stressing that most of the issues encountered with the card readers had to do with the National Assembly and the budget for INEC as well as the late release of funds after election dates had been set, among other disruptions.

“So, INEC had no time to conduct a mock election using the card readers. I had recommended a regional mock then as this would have helped smoothen the process,” he said, pleading with the National Assembly to support INEC in its effort to adopt electronic voting.

“Until we embrace this disruption, the nation will not move forward in this regard because the government is the decider of the future of the people. If you appoint a CEO who cannot read a balance sheet, it’s impossible for that company to grow. This is the crisis the country is currently facing in the knowledge business,” he submitted.

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DMO deserves more powers - Reps

ITRealms:

The House of Representatives’ Committee on Aids, Loans and Debt Management has advocated for more powers for the Debt Management Office (DMO), Nigeria, saying the performance of the agency will increase, reports ITRealms.

Chairman, House Committee on Aid, Loans and Debt Management, Honourable Adeyinka Ajayi, gave this advocacy at a three-day retreat for them in Imo State capital, Owerri at the weekend, stressing that the mandate of the DMO should be strengthened to include monitoring the implementation of all projects of government that is financed with borrowed funds.

The Chairman of the House Committee on Aid, Loans and Debt Management, Honourable Adeyinka Ajayi, advocated for this position alongside other members of the Committee at a three-day retreat for member of the committee in Owerri, Imo State, over the weekend.

Ajayi, in his keynote address at the occasion, noted that it has become imperative for the DMO to be empowered to monitor the implementation of all projects financed with borrowed funds.

He pointed out that since it was the duty of the DMO to raise funds to finance budget deficit, “the body should be saddled with the responsibility of monitoring implementation”, noting that this would ensure compliance, transparency and accountability.

The Committee also commended the DMO management for coming up with the retreat, with the theme: Debt Sustainability and the Challenge of Financing Economic Recovery, adding that the retreat was timely, coming at a time the nation was facing some economic challenges.

Ajayi said the workshop is coming on the heels of concerns expressed by some Nigerians over the rising debt profile of the nation, acknowledging the prevailing economic challenges.

Further, Ajayi said, the committee will work with the Debt Management Office to ensure effective implementation of the 2016 budget, even as other members of the House Committee emphasised the need for the diversification of the economy especially in the areas of Agriculture, Solid Minerals and Manufacturing.

Earlier in his presentation, the Director-General of the Debt Management Office Nigeria (DMO), Dr Abraham Nwankwo, had affirmed government’s commitment to financing capital projects aimed at addressing Nigeria’s huge infrastructural deficit and repositioning the economy.

The DMO boss who spoke against the backdrop of the agency’s role in the implementation of the 2016 budget, said the nation’s long term debt financing of sustainable economic recovery and growth is feasible given its abundant ideal economic capacity.

Dr Nwankwo told members of the Committee that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has taken a bold step to stimulate the economy by making sure that the nation’s huge infrastructure gap was quickly closed through efficient and effective application of all borrowed funds into capital projects.

In a related development, Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State, has commended the Debt Management Office, Nigeria under the leadership of Dr Abraham Nwankwo for her forthrightness in managing the nation’s debt portfolios as assets for national growth.

Governor Okorochas made this commendation when members of the House of Representatives’ Committee of Aides, Loans and Debt Management; and management of the Debt Management Office paid him a courtesy call at the Government House, Owerri.

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Pix: Hon. Ajayi