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ANAC Representing Nigerians Abroad "The Indiana Strategy" Moving Forward
TTimes Africa International Report
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All Nigerian American Congress, ANAC the conglomerate organization
of all Nigerians abroad in a recent Board of Trustees meeting voted
to adopt their official tag line "ANAC
representing Nigerians in the International Community", and deliberated
extensively on the "The Indiana Strategy".
This as the first leadership meeting chaired by the newly elected executives
Chaired by Hon. Akeem Bello representing North Carolina, USA current Chairman
of ANAC, assisted by Hon. Martin Okafor representing Georgia, USA current Vice
Chairman and Hon. Colin Atobajeun representing Texas, current Secretary General.
The "Indiana Strategy" calls for
a full representation of the independent voice of Nigerians in the
International Community, in these days of improved Economic climate in
Nigeria.
The strategy also call for adequate fund raising to represent
the interest of Nigerians in the International Community, with full
inclusiveness of all Nigerian groups abroad without government
manipulation, so that Nigerians abroad can be the non corrupt,
independent, productive and respected partners with Nigerian government
in many areas of development in the progressive climate of economic
development in Nigeria today.
The vital part of the strategy is the
inclusive participation of the multiple Nigerian ethnic and professional
groups in the International Community in the leadership and rank and
file of ANAC as seen in the recent publicized partiipation in
Association of Nigerian Physicians (ANPA), leading the prayer session of
all different Nigerian groups.
The Strategy also includes the stride to
unite all Nigerians in the International Community under one independent
umbrella that can assist support the technological and socio-economic
development needs of Nigeria, with the exposure these Nigerians have
attained in the International Community which is vital and very useful
to the development needs of Nigeria.
ANAC will send a highpower delegation to the Zumunta Convention in Los
Angeles, California and begin arrangement to show a high level presence
in World Igbo Congress in August, Omo Egbe Yoruba Convention and South
South Niger Delta Congress Convention letter in the year.
The board also voted to recess their deliberaton on other vital
issues including the issue of extending paid membership to the different
Nigerian organizations in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa, while
absorbing as non paid members the entire membership of all such groups.
Also receesed were the issues of Travel expense payment of ANAC Executives
on official travel duties, Committee development issues, scheduled
meeting with ANAC State chair persons, house of delegates, stakeholders and
ANAC monthly new letters, all of which were to be continued on the ANAC
Board exclusive electronic deliberation medium, until their next month
scheduled meeting.
Sir Frederick Luggard's Diary on Northern/Southern Nigerian Protectorate
By Dshaikh Izuchukwu
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Los Angeles, California, USA- Excerpt from page 70 of the Dual Mandate, 1926, by Frederick John Dealtry Luggard (Governor General of Northern and Southern Nigerian protectorate, 1912-1919), expressing his belief that Britain, as an imperial power, was responsible for aiding in the socioeconomic and political development of it's tropical African dependencies.
http://www.encyclop edia.com/ doc/1G2-34047040 26.html
"In character and temperament, the typical African of this race-type is a happy, thriftless, excitable person. Lacking in self control, discipline and foresight. Naturally courageous, and naturally courteous and polite, full of personal vanity, with little sense of veracity, fond of music and loving weapons as an oriental loves jewelry. His thoughts are concentrated on the events and feelings of the moment, and he suffers little from the apprehension for the future or grief for the past. His mind is far nearer to the animal world than that of the European or Asiatic, and exhibits something of the animal’s placidity and want of desire to rise beyond the State he has reached. Through the ages the African appears to have evolved no organized religious creed, and though some tribes appear to believe in a deity, the religious sense seldom rises above pantheistic animalism and seems more often to take the form of a vague dread of the supernatural"
He lacks the power of organization, and is conspicuously deficient in the management and control alike of men or business. He loves the display of power, but fails to realize its responsibility ....he will work hard with a less incentive than most races. He has the courage of the fighting animal, an instinct rather than a moral virtue...... In brief, the virtues and defects of this race-type are those of attractive children, whose confidence when it is won is given ungrudgingly as to an older and wiser superior and without envy.......Perhaps the two traits which have impressed me as those most characteristic of the African native are his lack of apprehension and his lack of ability to visualize the future"
Dshaikh Izuchukwu
Africare-Whico Organization
P.O. Box 84480
Los Angeles, CA. 90073-0480
USA
Tell:1-310-999-9826
1-310-808-3100
Fax: 1-310-909-8696
Email: dshaikh@whico.org
Forgery - Court Orders Mbadinuju's Arrest
An Abuja High Court sitting at Gudu, yesterday, issued a bench warrant for the arrest of former Governor of Anambra State, Dr. Chinwoke Mbadinuju.
Justice A Talbir issued the order following a request by the police to enable him face a fresh two-count charge of conspiracy and forgery of police documents in respect to the murder of a one-time chairman of Onitsha Chapter of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Mr Barnabas Igwe and his pregnant wife, Amaka.
Mbadinuju's alleged accomplice and legal practitioner, one Obodo, was arrested and arraigned before the court yesterday.
Mbadinuju who is facing a two-count charge with him was absent in court yesterday and the police said his whereabouts was unknown.
But the former governor was sighted by Vanguard at the Federal Ministry of Justice where he had gone to complain about the conduct of the police in the entire case.
Mbadinuju protests
Vanguard gathered that at the time the bench warrant was being issued against him, he was in audience with the Attorney-General of the Federation, Chief Michael Aondoakaa (SAN).
Mbadinuju said a law court of competent jurisdiction had already discharged him of the offence of murder preferred against him by the police.
He said politicians who were behind his travails and the entire allegation of murder preferred against him were not happy with his discharge and had to push the police to prefer a fresh charge of conspiracy and forgery against him.
He said they were alleging that he forged the police report on the investigation of the murder of Igwes which formed the basis upon which he was charged to court for murder.
He said the police was unable to justify the allegation and that up till now, it has not been able to produce the original report it issued on the said investigation of the murder of the Igwes.
He said when the issue of forgery came up, the police came to his house to arrest him but that he refused to follow them because he had a court order stopping the police from further harassing him over the issue.
He said if this was a government which is truly based on the rule of law, he saw no reason why anybody must be harassing him in spite the order of the court discharging him.
According to the ex-governor, he knew that the police was not his problem but some powerful politicians in the state who wanted to run him aground politically.
He alleged that they had attempted to kill him in Onitsha prison where he was detained for about three months over the murder of the Igwes before he was released, alleging that the politicians who were after his life sponsored hoodlums into the Onitsha prisons to get him killed but that he escaped by whiskers through the grace of God.
He said the hoodlums set free over 3,000 inmates at the Onitsha prisons and even burnt some of the offices there where they felt he could be hiding at the time but that he survived the plan.
He said now that the court had discharged him of the murder charge, his enemies had now curiously found that he forged the police report which absolved him of the murder.
He added that he was at the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation to lodge complaint over the matter.
Denies forgery allegation
Mbadinuju had, about three weeks ago, denied the allegation that he forged the police report on the September 1, 2002 assassination of the ex-Chairman of the Onitsha Chapter of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Mr. Barnabas Igwe and his pregnant wife, Amaka.
Background of case
The background of the case is that Mbadinuju was said to have conspired with some criminals to arrange the death of the two lawyers. Late Igwe and his pregnant wife, Amaka were assassinated five years and eight months ago while on a visit to a family friend in Awada Layout, Onitsha.
According to reports, the former NBA boss (Igwe) and his wife were shot several times by gunmen in their private car.
After several gun-shots, the assassins allegedly moved closer to the dying couple and inflicted several machete cuts on them before using a vehicle to run over their bodies again and again to ensure that they did not survive the attack.
Canada apology for native schools
Canada has apologised for forcing about 150,000 aboriginal children to attend state-funded Christian boarding schools aimed at assimilating them.
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Prime Minister Stephen Harper made the apology in parliament in Ottawa, in front of hundreds of ex-schoolchildren.The schools operated from the late 19th Century until the 1990s, although most of them shut in the 1970s.
Accounts of physical and sexual abuse at the institutions, known as residential schools, have also emerged.The churches that ran the schools apologised in the 1980s and 1990s.Australia apologised for a similar policy in February.
'We are sorry'
Mr Harper said aboriginal Canadians had been waiting "a very long time" for an apology."I stand before you today to offer an apology to former students of Indian residential schools. The treatment of children in Indian residential schools is a sad chapter in our history."He said the system had been based on the assumption that "aboriginal cultures and spiritual beliefs were inferior and unequal". He went on: "We now recognise that, far too often, these institutions gave rise to abuse or neglect and were inadequately controlled, and we apologise for failing to protect you.
"The government of Canada sincerely apologises and asks the forgiveness of the aboriginal peoples of this country for failing them so profoundly. We are sorry."
The apology was quickly welcomed by Assembly of First Nations head Phil Fontaine, present with other aboriginal leaders in the chamber as Mr Harper spoke."We heard the government of Canada take full responsibility for this dreadful chapter in our shared history," Mr Fontaine said."Finally, we heard Canada say it is sorry," said Mr Fontaine, one of the first former schoolchildren to go public with his experiences of physical and sexual abuse at residential school.
Settlement deal
The federal government acknowledged 10 years ago that physical and sexual abuse in the schools was rampant. Many schoolchildren recall being beaten for speaking their languages, and losing touch with their parents and culture.The legacy of the system has been cited by aboriginals as the root cause of epidemic rates of alcoholism and drug addiction among their people.The apology is part of a C$2bn ($1.9bn; £990m) deal between the government, churches and the surviving former schoolchildren.Under the agreement, they have begun receiving financial compensation for their suffering.A truth and reconciliation commission has also been set up, which will be granted access to government and church records.
Asylum seekers 'abused' in Greece
With pressure building on the Greek government over the alleged violent abuse of asylum seekers, the BBC's Paul Henley speaks to a man who says he experienced the brutality at first hand.
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Allegations that Greek police are abusing, threatening and torturing asylum-seekers are clearly taken very seriously in Athens.
The man responsible for the treatment of immigrants, spokesman for the Public Order Department of the Interior Ministry, Athanasios Andreolakos, offers the BBC more than an hour of his time, is well-briefed with specific details to refute claims of mistreatment and is eager to defend his country's international reputation.
He denies any mistreatment took place - "there is simply no evidence to support this, the allegations are provocative to Greece" - before going on to admit that "no system can be perfect. Any allegations we will certainly pursue, we have zero tolerance for any abuses of this sort".
The allegations themselves are certainly serious.The Norwegian government is concerned enough by them to have stopped exercising its right to return illegal immigrants to Greece, if that was the European country they first arrived in.Human rights groups all over Europe are currently campaigning for other countries to take the same action, claiming that lives are being put at risk.In Oslo, I met one man who says his journey to asylum in Europe very nearly proved fatal.
Police custody
Rodi Suweini is from Baghdad. A serious gunshot wound to his chest and shoulder is testament to his narrow escape from civil war in Iraq.Other injuries to his face and neck are, he claims, a permanent reminder of his time in the custody of Greek police.
Having crossed the border from Turkey on foot, he was immediately captured and, he says, abused by officers who paid no heed to his claim for asylum.
"First, one of them kicked me in the stomach", he told me, "and then three of them continued beating me up.
"They hit me across the face, they put a wooden stick to my neck and started to strangle me.
"They accused me of being a people-trafficker. They tied my hands and my ankles with a rope and pulled me up so that I was suspended from the frame of a window and they left me there all day."
Mr Suweini told the Norwegian authorities - who, after a journey across Europe via Italy, Belgium and Sweden, granted him asylum - that he spent nearly six weeks on the floor of a hall in northern Greece shared by 600 people before being told to get out of the country for ever.
Torture
Berit Lindeman, who works for the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, one of the groups that campaigns on behalf of asylum-seekers in Greece, says she has visited "reception centres" in Greece like the one where Mr Suweini was held.
She describes conditions as "inhumane" and "appalling".
"What we saw in Greece", she says, "is the same thing that we see in other countries we would not want to be compared to.
"We are talking about regimes that torture people. We cannot accept this in the middle of Europe."
Ms Lindeman's claims are dismissed as "gullible" by the Greek authorities. But there are many in Athens who believe them.
Spyros Rizakos is an asylum lawyer who has worked on behalf of immigrants and an author of a report on their plight.
'Sinful policy'
He thinks it a ludicrous idea that his government does not know that some migrants are being mistreated. "Of course they know," he says, "because there have been so many reports from organisations like the UNHCR, from the Greek ombudsman and from NGOs like Amnesty and the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE).
"To ignore them is a sinful policy, something tragic. And I am doing my best to denounce it and to stop it."
What he is equally keen to denounce, however, is the impression that the problem is simply a Greek one.
"The asylum issue is a European one. As a continent, we create the idea of the so-called Fortress Europe.
"We must all bear some responsibility when it comes to violating refugees' rights", he says.
And there is no doubt that Greece - so close to the Middle East and with hundreds of thousands of kilometres of coastline impossible to patrol constantly - has to cope with more than its fair share of mass migration into Europe.
Mass emigration
Some figures point to a harder-than-average attitude to asylum rights, however. Fewer than 1% of those who apply for asylum there are granted it. In some Scandinavian countries, the figure is well over 80%.
Until relatively recently, Greece was a country of mass emigration.
It is only in the last 15 years or so that native Greeks have had to adjust to immigration on a scale long familiar in parts of Western Europe.
The transition has gone relatively smoothly in terms of public opinion.
But there has been some hostility to immigrants.
Maria Kagkelidou, a journalist for the Athens News newspaper, puts it bluntly. "Some people are inherently racist here", she says.
"Therefore, I would not say they would condone mistreatment of immigrants by the Greek police, but they would not be particularly surprised by it. And they would certainly not be up in arms about it."
Next month in the European Parliament, MEPs will be urged to join the campaign for fairer treatment of immigrants in Greece, to put pressure on their governments to follow Norway's example and stop sending asylum-seekers back to Greece, as is their right under EU legislation.
It may then become clear whether fears about human rights abuses in Greece are simply something troubling sensitive Nordic consciences, or a wider issue for Europe generally.
Classroom Shortages Threaten Primary Education Targets
The success of the Universal Basic Education (UBE) programme which aims to provide free education to every child in Nigeria caused the number of primary school leavers to more than double in 2007, creating a backlog that the secondary education system is struggling to cope with.
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Over 49,000 children in the northern Nigeria city of Kano who completed primary school in 2006 and wish to attend secondary school may not be admitted due to a severe shortage of trained teachers and classrooms, Kano government officials told IRIN.
In the past year the number of children leaving primary school in Kano city has increased from 46,460 in 2006 to 116,205 in 2007. In 2006, 42,000 of these students went on to junior secondary school, while in 2007 66,900 were admitted, according to local government statistics.
"We can accommodate only 60 percent of the pupils who are waiting to be admitted to junior secondary school, due to the shortage of classrooms we are facing in this state," said Musa Salihu, education commissioner for Kano State. "We are looking into the problem to see how we can overcome it."
Missed year
Those children who do not gain admission may face missing a year, while those who do are certain to face overcrowded classrooms with up to 150 children per class, according to retired teacher Ibrahim Adamu. This goes against a Ministry of Education 2001 policy limiting class sizes to 40 students.
UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson Christine Jaulmes said increased numbers are nevertheless a positive development. "In the past in northern states, sending children to school wasn't a priority, but now parents' attitudes have changed," she said.
Nigeria is part of the Education for All movement, initiated in 2000 under the UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), as part of which participants agreed to achieve six goals, one of which was universal primary education, later to become a 2015 Millennium Development Goal (MDG).
However, despite increasing numbers, still only 60 percent of Nigerian children attend primary school, according to UNICEF's 2007 State of the World's Children report, making the country off-track to meet these targets.
Keith Hinchcliffe, senior policy analyst on the Education for All global monitoring team, which monitors progress against the MDGs, said that given these figures, it is understandable that the focus and energy to date of a government like Nigeria's has been on achieving universal primary education, rather than secondary.
New policies, new money
The focus on primary education looks set to change. According to a November speech by Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, the Kano State governor, the Kano State government will earmark US$107 million - 18 percent of its 2008 budget - for education.
Almost half of this will go to secondary schools and almost a quarter to primary education.
According to Hinchcliffe, building and running secondary schools is more expensive than doing the same for primary schools, and the Kano figures reflect this: US$10 million of the secondary school budget will go towards rebuilding just six schools, while US$13 million will be spent on rebuilding 82 primary schools.
Education expert Ibrahim Bello Kano, said it is not just a question of building new schools, but of making sure their construction is of good quality.
"The problem with the [schools] the government erects is that they are sub-standard," he said. Because of this, many school buildings deteriorate after a few years, he said. "No matter the staggering amount of money the government budgets for education, as long as it is not used in the proper way, nothing will change the situation," he told IRIN.
Next step
The next step for the government will be instituting long-term plans, according to UNICEF's Jaulmes, who said the problem of attaining UBE can only be achieved if the government more accurately assesses the numbers of projected pupils and teachers and develops long-term plans to meet their needs in the future.
UNICEF and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) are working with six state governments, including Kano's, to develop 10-year plans to meet the increased numbers of primary school leavers.
Hinchcliffe urged a thorough rethink of the education model in Nigeria. He suggested stretching primary school from six to nine years by incorporating the first three years of secondary schooling.
"With the expansion in primary school attendance, governments need to think about the system much more comprehensively. What is necessary is that they recognise there are alternatives to dealing with this."Indeed, in 144 countries, according to Hinchcliffe, a "nine-year basic" is a legal requirement, with compulsory education incorporating both primary and the first few years of secondary schooling.
"One of the incentives for [children] not dropping out of primary school is to have a chance of going to secondary. To keep that motivation up you need to create a system that gives children the reward of secondary education places."
Chadian leader's son found dead
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Chadian leader's son found dead
ARIS, France (Reuters) -- Chadian President Idriss Deby's son Brahim, touted as a possible successor, was found dead on Monday morning in the underground parking lot of a building he lived in near Paris, police and court officials said.
Brahim Deby was seen as his father's choice of successor but was widely disliked even by some of his own family who viewed him as unfit to govern, causing a split within the ruling clan.
The president sacked Brahim as his adviser in June 2006 after the then 27-year-old was arrested in a Paris discotheque for possessing an illegal firearm and drugs. He was given a six-month suspended sentence by a French court.
Investigators at the scene in Courbevoie, west of Paris, found a wound on his head but have not yet determined the cause of death, a spokeswoman for the public prosecutor's office in the western suburb of Nanterre said.
"The body was found by the caretaker of his residence around 7 o'clock this morning in the area between the stairs and the underground parking lot. The time of death is unknown," the spokeswoman said.
An autopsy is due to be carried out by Tuesday.
A coalition of rebel forces have been fighting a hit-and-run guerrilla war against Idriss Deby's forces in eastern Chad, saying he was fraudulently elected and demanding the holding of free democratic elections to end his clan-based rule.
Makaila Nguebla, a Dakar-based spokesman for the rebel Union of Forces for Democracy and Development (UFDD), said Brahim Deby had been a key source of resentment who drove members of the president's administration to turn against him.
"He is at the root of all the frustration. He used to slap government ministers, senior Chadian officials were humiliated by Deby's son," Nguebla told Reuters.
"They had to leave the regime, go into the bush. They chose the military option instead of being humiliated inside Chad."
Nguebla said he believed Brahim's death would be a serious blow to his father's morale, particularly after one of his close nephews, the chief of Chad's armed forces, was killed in a clash with rebels last year.
"He was seen as a replacement for his father because (Idriss) Deby was often ill. If Deby had to be replaced it could only be him ... the morale of the family is completely destabilized," Nguebla said.
US Supreme Court Says You Dont Need Lawyer to Sue School
TTimes World Report
Parents of disabled children won a major victory in the U.S. Supreme Court, as the justices ruled unanimously that parents do not have to hire a lawyer to sue a school district over providing an appropriate education for a child with special needs.
The court's ruling came in the case of Jeff and Sandee Winkelman, whose son, Jacob, is autistic. When he entered pre-school, Jacob's tantrums were severe enough that the district placed him in a special school for autistic children.
But after two years, Mrs. Winkelman says, there was a changing of the guard, and new school administrators and school board members said Jacob had to attend regular public school.
Australia Seeking Skilled Migrants
TTimes World Report
Australia is to admit more skilled migrant workers to help ease its labour shortage while cracking down on firms which mistreat foreign staff.
An extra 5,000 places for skilled migrants were unveiled by ministers as part of the government's annual budget.
New powers are also being sought to fine firms which underpay workers or place them in unskilled jobs.
The commodities boom has boosted the economy, but a major drought, the worst seen in a century, has hit growth.
Growth this year is now expected to be 2.5% as opposed to the 3.25% previously forecast, with the farming sector particularly badly affected.
Despite this, employment remains at a 30-year high, resulting in shortages of skilled workers in certain industries.
Quotas levels for migrant visas will rise to 152,800 next year, with 102,500 places set aside for skilled workers.
But workers will have to prove they can speak reasonable English as well as take a new citizenship test coming into force later this year.
Australia's immigration policy is aimed at prosperity and cohesion
To help employers recruit staff quickly, companies which comply scrupulously with the migrant visa system will have their applications fast-tracked.
However, those firms which breach the rules will be subject to new audits.
Those found guilty of the most serious offences, such as not paying staff the minimum wage, could be hit with heavy fines.
John Howard's Liberal government, which faces elections later this year, also announced personal tax cuts worth 31.5bn Australian dollars (£13bn) over four years.
Treasurer Peter Costello said the measures were "responsible" and would "prepare Australia for the rapid changes of the future" while helping hard-working families.
But opposition politicians criticised the budget as a pre-election giveaway which offered too little for education and the environment.
"It is obvious the Treasurer is rolling in money," said Wayne Swan, treasury spokesman for the opposition Labor Party. "It has been raining gold bars thanks to the mining boom."
My Marriage Proposal
I was doing housework while my Romeo watched TV. During a commercial
break, he asked me to "fetch him another cold one." When I returned with his beer, he looked into my eyes and said, "How would ya like to do this full-time?"
"I never asked your mother to marry me. I merely wanted to know if she could marry a man like me. I didn't have the heart to tell her that she had misinterpreted my question, so I thought it best to go along with her."
We met on a blind date. We talked for hours, through a cruise on Boston Harbor and dinner. That evening he said, "Someone is going to marry you and it might as well be me."
He looked at me very seriously and asked if I wanted to get married. If I did, I could get an engagement ring; if not, he was going to get a new gun.
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