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President Jonathan
Today, I commend Nigeria's Golden Eaglets due to their well deserved victory at the FIFA Under-17 World Soccer tournament in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, UAE.

The players played with great skill and projected the Nigerian can do spirit and the result is that Nigeria has become a four time champion. This may not come at an improved time seeing that Nigeria is on the cusp of celebrating our centenary as a nation.

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In February in 2010, the Super Eagles won the African Cup of Nations and now our youths are today the world's champions. That is no fluke. It's no coincidence.

It is really a reaffirmation of what I've always known; that excellence is really a Nigerian habit. I believe Nigerians are poised to give this habit to every facet of our national life. May God bless people and may God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria. GEJ

President Goodluck Jonathan finally broke his silence on Thursday on his rumoured second term ambition that could see him spend as much as 10 years in office as President of Nigeria. He said he is under pressure from over 1665 campaign groups who have volunteered to work for his re-election in 2015.

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But the leadership of the leading opposition, the APC, has reacted to the alleged pressure on Jonathan to run in 2015, restating its determination to wrest political power from the PDP.

This news headline is a joke and reflects the type of ambush politics played in Nigeria where politicians use anything useable, including the comical, to attack each other.


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President Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday ruled out payment of compensation to victims of terrorists attacks carried out by the Boko Haram sect and other groups in the country.

Receiving report from the Presidential Committee on Dialogue and Peaceful Resolution of Security Challenges in the North at the Presidential Villa, the President said the government will only look at ways to help the victims get back to their businesses.

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Despite the challenges faced by the committee at its inauguration, he said that it has laid the foundation for follow up action which would lead to the eventual control and end of the crisis.

Even with the progress made in the fight against terrorism in the north, he maintained that the war is not yet won.

He said:

“We also noted the suggestion about the victims’ support because that is one of the terms of reference; how will government help to see that we can assist. Government is not going to compensate. It is not an issue of compensation but how do we assist people who have suffered to get back to business one way or the other.

“Government will look into this and other recommendations in your report and see that the right decisions are taken.

“Incidentally, we have security council meeting because this committee was an offshoot of the security council and we will review some aspects of this report and probably set up a team to look at it and work out a planned programme in terms of implementation of the recommendations.”

On the challenging assignment, he said:

 “First, let me on behalf of government welcome you to the State House and indeed, thank you for accepting to serve for the period you have served. Even the day we inaugurated you, we noted that it was quite a challenging job. It is not a ballroom dance because you were asked to meet the kind of characters you cannot even predict their behaviour.”

Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers state was at the Port Harcourt International Airport to welcome President Goodluck Jonathan and later flew in the same chopper to Okrika town for the burial of the adopted mother of Mrs. Patience Jonathan.

These were joined on the trip by Bayelsa State governor, Seriake Dickson. This fuelled excitement within the political circles, with speculations that President Jonathan and Ameachi, both politically estranged duo will use the joint flight to truly have a heart to heart talk.

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Governor Amaechi and members of the state executive council had arrived Port Harcourt Airport and waited for the arrival of the President.

Supporters of Seriake Dickson, Nyesom Wike, the supervising Minister of Education, along with his political group; Grassroots Democratic Movement (GDI), along with members of the People's Democratic Party (PDP) in the state, all jostled for space and attention while also awaiting the president's aircraft since it touched down at the airport at about 1.40 p.m.

Okrika town and its environs were choked with soldiers, policemen, men of the Department of the Secret Service, Civil Defence Corps and Federal Road Safety Commission, all strategically positioned.

There have been several naval war boats patrolling the Okrika waterways.

There have been also military fighter helicopters on air surveillance, just as there clearly was an aerial camera bearing balloon, overlooking the perimeters of the area where in actuality the event took place in Okrika.

Mrs. Jonathan, was accompanied to the Port Harcourt Polo Club, venue of the service of songs, by the wife of the vice president, Hajia Amina Namadi Sambo.

Football and Nollywood stars were also at the service of songs to show solidarity with the First Lady.

All of the women clad in specially designed apparels for the occasion went right into a frenzy when Patience Ozokwu, made her appearance on a lawn of the Port Harcourt Polo Club.

Nollywood stars present were Zachee Orji and Kanayo Kanayo, the Akin and Paw-paw fame.

The folks of Wakrike, (that could be the Okrika people) used the opportunity of the burial rites of Madam Charity Oba, the adopted mother of the First Lady in Okrika to confer Chieftaincy titles on the President and his Wife.

Patience Jonathan's foster mum was buried today in Okrika in Rivers State. President Jonathan, VP Namadi Sambo, Governor Goodswill Akpabio, Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan, Governor Theodore Orji and several prominent Nigerians were at the burial.

ABUJA — President Goodluck Jonathan, yesterday, lamented that the crises in some parts of the country has slowed down economic development. He stated this while being presented with the 2013 Africa Peace Award from the United Religions Initiatives URI, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. According to the president, internal stability is essential for the development of the country saying that, “there can be no meaningful economic development where people are fighting.”

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Jonathan said: “Even when countries are fighting at the end of the day they will still come to the dialogue table to resolve. Problems could hardly be resolved through the barrel of the gun. Even if you have the most sophisticated weapon to fight, you will still come to negotiate otherwise you can never live in peace.

“If you go to the Southern part of this country you hear about kidnapping and if you go to the North you have the issue of Boko Haram. For us to develop our country we must all embrace peace. There is no way the government can perform magic when the people are shooting guns, because economic growth and development is in the hands of the private sector.”

The President added: “There cannot be economic development without peace. For you to develop economically there must be peace and political stability. So the leadership of African Union and ECOWAS have changed and we believe that we must help ourselves and help our states and govern our states the way it should be governed. If there are crisis we should intervene and that has been helping us significantly.”

The president who dedicated the award to Nigerians promised that he will continue to focus on providing the enabling environment in the country for businesses to thrive.

He said: “This award is dedicated to my people and my country Nigeria. We couldn’t have been qualified for this award if my people did not encourage me. In Nigeria God has given us that unique privilege to be fairly more robust than some of our African countries and we are one of the African countries that the whole work look up to, to assist in one way or the other. So this award is for Nigeria and not for Goodluck Jonathan.

“We would continue to do our best. For me as an individual, I will continue to play my role in spite of the challenges. Let me use this unique opportunity to call on all Nigerians and all the people of the world to embrace peace. You cannot talk about development when you are fighting,” the President emphasised.

The Regional Director of URI, Ambassador Mussie Hailu while presenting the award to the president said it was in recognition of President Jonathan’s immense contributions to religious harmony in Nigeria and peace keeping operation under the United Nations.

According to him, “we have been following with great interest the great role the President play in his country, West Africa and Africa as a whole since he took office as President of Nigeria. We commend his leadership qualities in West African sub region in particular as ECOWAS Chairman and also lauded the current transformation agenda of his administration.”

Vanguard

Many have written about the pros and cons of the national dialogue. The difference between the writers, however, does not lie in whether they think the national dialogue should go ahead or it should not, the difference has been in the intention of each writer.

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Some have taken an opposing stance on the issue simply because of the name of the man who proposed it, i.e. Goodluck Jonathan, while some are defending the national dialogue idea with all they’ve got because the proposal comes from the source where their bread is buttered. Whether or not the national dialogue goes ahead would not have any telling effect on the majority of Nigerians.

We know this except we choose to pretend about it. That we are where we are today is not because we have not had our own share of dialogue as a country; it is because all of us have been talking while none of us, it seems, is listening. If we really want change in the form of a dialogue, we need not release a new song into the long list of distraction tracks that this dialogue has come to be over the years. All we need do is take a look at the past. We have some answers to guide us.

The value of a promise is directly related to its source. If one’s father has a record of failing to do the things he promises to do, one would eventually learn to understand that the value of a promise from the mouth of such a father amounts to nothing but mere words. One would not know why some are opposed to the national dialogue because it was proposed by President Goodluck Jonathan, but if they need a reason apart from they just refusing to agree with whatever has to do with that name, there is at least one valid one: President Jonathan is not a man of honour, he does not keep his words.

There’d be no need to argue whether he promised to spend one term only or not; the President and his estranged political cronies will sort that out. One begins to wonder why politicians would go to the market screaming about one of them not keeping to his word when not keeping to one’s word is one of their brand identities. Politicians who keep to their word are the ones who break the code of politics the Nigerian way. So, this is not about the President keeping to that particular promise. That’s between him and his internal adversaries.

The President has incessantly broken his words with Nigerians. He cannot be trusted even when he appears live on national TV at 7am and greets, “Good Morning fellow Nigerians.” You should at that point doubt the time. A panel is not judged by its composition but by its results. The President has been an expert at constituting panels and committees and even a better expert at throwing their reports in the dustbin.

The Nuhu Ribadu Petroleum Revenue Special Task Force was one of the carrots dangled at Nigerians in the wake of the N2.6tn fuel subsidy scam. After months of toil and sweat, with Ribadu himself abandoning a consultancy job in Afghanistan, the report has since become history despite its findings and recommendations. The Muhammadu Uwais Panel report on Electoral Reform had some telling recommendations, one of which included the need to do away with a situation where a man gets to appoint the referee of a game he is also a participant.

The President who keeps mulling about building institutions obviously showed his gross lack of appreciation of that word when he chose to defy the recommendations on reforming our electoral system and instead chose to do things the very same way they used to be done before the Uwais Panel offered a way out. The report is somewhere gathering dust while Nigerians live on trusting that the President would continue to be unbiased in elections even though the system ties the successes and failures of the electoral process directly to him. The President appoints the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission. We’d not need a national dialogue to fix this anomaly and when we had a chance to fix it, President Jonathan sat on it.

SURE-P was supposedly set up to ameliorate the sufferings of Nigerians in the face of the increase in petrol prices. Today, SURE-P is equated with what some call “GEJ Alert.” This is a bank alert they get on their phones every month in the name of SURE-P. This was never the plan or purpose but since this fits the President’s 2015 agenda, it has since become the norm for SURE-P. The programme is a shabby response to demands from citizens who had complained about where the money to be removed from subsidy would go.

The only people who will say SURE-P has not failed are the people directly or indirectly benefiting from it. Dr. Christopher Kolade would not pick his Bible in a true church of God to swear that SURE-P has been everything they told him it’d be. SURE-P was a scam from the very beginning and it is very much in line with its origin as was intended by President Jonathan’s transformation agenda of corruption.

Before you start considering the national dialogue, kindly pay attention to these words:

“On assumption of office as President, I swore to an oath to always act in the best interest of the people”… 

“To save Nigeria, we must all be prepared to make sacrifices. On the part of government, we are taking several measures aimed at cutting the size and cost of governance, including ongoing and continuous efforts to reduce the size of our recurrent expenditure and increase capital spending. In this regard, I have directed that overseas travels by all political office holders, including the President, should be reduced to the barest minimum. The size of delegations on foreign trips will also be drastically reduced; only trips that are absolutely necessary will be approved”

“For the year 2012, the basic salaries of all political office holders in the Executive arm of government will be reduced by 25 per cent. Government is also currently reviewing the number of committees, commissions and parastatals with overlapping responsibilities.” 

These are the President’s own words delivered in a hurriedly put together National Broadcast on Saturday, January 7, 2012.

No doubt, the President was acting in the best interest of Nigerians when he travelled to Israel with the Minister of Aviation, Princess Stella Oduah, despite the damning allegations of corruption hanging over her head. You may have to read the words again to see that the President has gone back on every promise. As I write, we have more committees, salaries have certainly not been cut even by one per cent, and the travels have only increased. These are excerpts from a speech not the whole speech; these are not from his many speeches but just one of them, yet we can plainly see that words do not mean a thing to President Jonathan. He just utters them. He says them to fit his agenda and motives per time.

Is this the man Nigerians want to trust with the waste of several more billions on a supposed national dialogue? The dialogue will not be binding on anyone because it is not sovereign, so then this is just another political show with the sole purpose of getting the President some possible political goals as the politics of 2015 heats up the political arena. Will Nigerians be fooled again?

Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka has advised President Jonathan and the ruling elite to take into consideration some of the questions being raised about the National Dialogue exercise.

He spoke at a book launch in honour of the retiring President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Isa Ayo Salami. The book a compendium of Salami’s judgments, is authored by Mrs. Funmi Quadri.

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In his address entitled, “Justice is never siddon look,” Soyinka said there must be justice for all whether rich or poor.

He said: “I declare, I quote justice is the first foundation of humanity. At all times, law, even where it is temporary unskilled, emasculated, predominates, written or unwritten, law embodies the total will of the society Yes, law exercises an authority that transcends mere power. That is why we must task those whosoever is administrator of law with an ethical rigour, a measure that is paramount perhaps by only whatsoever the society expects of medical doctors who minister to the people’s physical and mental health or religious ministers who are preoccupied with the requirements of the spirit.

“Governors are blindly selective to what court orders they obey and President becomes completely deaf or blind to judicial orders.

“And that question is this: what is the role of the rest of us the in between humanity, Do we fold our hands and literarily siddon look? Most of the time it does appear that we have no option when justice appears to fail even his own immediate high echelon.”

He added: “Yes, many have warned, they have warned tirelessly and in various forms become deafened by the sound of their voice as it bounces back from the stones walls of a different complacency and sometimes criminality and complicity. The most notorious example of this today is of course the so called national conference.

“As many other propositions, the social context which is ever changing may provide avenue of fresh thinking but the stark truth is that all have been said cogently and relevantly.

“Those who think they can erect a future without first ridding the ground of the past debris flout against natural order or regeneration.”

The Nobel Laureate added: “Of all the conceivable negative baggage I can think of right now, the most pressing, I have always maintained, takes the form of a critical absence, subversion or suppression of – Justice.

“How have we fared, within this environment that most immediately sustains us – well, sort of? I shall evoke here one of the most notorious public profile cases of the serial degradations of Justice that seemingly shook this nation to its foundations. There are other cases we could cite – the murder of Dele Giwa for instance. Or Harry Marshall. Kudirat Abiola. Suliat Adedeji. A.K. Dikibo. Abukakar Rimi. Barnabas and Abigail Igwe, husband and wife, both officers of the law. Or Chief Dina – lest I stand accused of omitting my own homestead. Or indeed numerous others, so quickly relegated into the sump of unsolved cases. 

My choice today, the main reference point for our sobering retrospection is however singularly apt. Despite his terminal absence, that preeminent victim shares with our celebrant, albeit in a tragic mode, the ironic symbolism of ‘Justice in Denial’, a role that interrogates both the very concept and operations of Justice, and also, the main structure for its delivery, which is – the Judiciary. 

No one will question the seismic impact of the circumstances that took him from our midst, a dastardly deed which, as already claimed, shook the nation to its very foundations. However, the nation did not topple over – from all appearances. As we all know however, nations like the United States do not rest satisfied with appearances. Visible or not, internal damages – that very possibility – preoccupied the guardians of public monuments and safety.”

 PM News

Pro-government rallies, reminiscent of the Abacha era, are on their way back in the country. This time, they will be at the instance of Nollywood stars whose delegation met yesterday in Abuja with the National Chairman of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) ,Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, to work out the modalities.

The project is planned to include ‘peace’ rallies and concerts in the six geo-political zones, according to leader of the delegation, Emeka Ike.

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It is expected to be in collaboration with celebrities in the music industry and Nigerian footballers.
The organisers said the rallies would be geared toward addressing the drifting socio-political situation in the country.

Ike told the party chairman that the stars would mobilise Nigerian youths on the need for togetherness and peaceful coexistence in the country, most especially at the grassroots.

The artists said the planned rallies would also focus on the need for the PDP to resolve its internal crises so that the ruling party could focus on governance in the interest of the Nigerian people.

According to them, a module has been developed for infusing the culture of responsiveness and national interest in political office holders in the land.

The event, they added, would also feature renowned footballers like Celestine Babayaro and music stars like 2-Face Idibia.

The rallies will be preceded by a press conference in Abuja on Monday followed by mobilisation of Nollywood and football stars to Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, which has been the epicentre of the Boko Haram insurgency.

Ike said: “We would round off by mobilising the Nigerian youths, including Nollywood, football and music stars in our country to Maiduguri to campaign for peace”.

Tukur expressed delight in the move by the stars to champion the cause of peace and national reconciliation in the country and urged other Nigerian youths to join the train.

The party chairman said he was of the conviction that the stars could repackage Nigeria for a better image, stressing that the country was in dire need of such packaging at this point in history.

He encouraged the stars to embark on the planned rally and promised to lend the required inspiration towards the success of the rally.

“I am aware that you people have conquered Africa because your movies are being watched across Africa and the rest of the world. “Today, I want to encourage you to take ownership of your successes and move over to be global citizens,”the chairman said.

A pro-government rally took place on October 6 at the Murtala Muhammed Square in Kaduna to solicit support for President Goodluck Jonathan’s alleged bid to contest the 2015 election.

However, the gathering tagged Northern Youth Rally ended in chaos after the participants began demanding their “share of the money,” the organisers allegedly collected from the presidency.

Security operatives took away an official of the Northern Youth Forum (NYF) from the venue to prevent him from being lynched by the angry youths who threw sand, stones and sachet water at him.

The youths shouted: “Give us our own share, give us our own share.”

On August 25, the First Lady, Mrs. Patience Jonathan, locked down the Federal Capital Territory metropolis with what she described as a mass rally and carnival organised to take “stock of the gains recorded so far in the empowerment of Nigerian women and the quest for peace in the country”.

The rally was the brain child of the National Council of Women Societies (NCWS) in collaboration with the office of the First Lady of the Federation.

The programme was organised as part of the ongoing underground campaign for President Jonathan’s 2015 presidential ambition.

The women wore dresses with pictures of President Jonathan .

 Since inception, President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration has been accused of impunity, usually caused by decisions and actions of the President, including those of his ministers and close associates.

Most of the glaring cases of abuse of power including reckless spending of taxpayers’ money have been carried out by the women in Jonathan’s cabinet. These women have proven to be more powerful than the number one citizen of Nigeria because despite public outcries that greet some of their decisions, they go scot-free.

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Those who fall in this seemingly untouchable category are the First Lady, Mrs. Patience Jonathan; the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala; the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke; the Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Ms. Arunma Oteh; and the Minister of Aviation, Ms. Stella Oduah.

These powerful women have some things in common. They are all from the South-East and South-South geopolitical zones. Four of them had their higher education in the United States and two of them are daughters of traditional rulers. Needless to say they occupy some of the most strategic and ‘lucrative’ positions in the Federal Government.

PATIENCE JONATHAN

In Nigeria’s history, Patience Jonathan is believed to be the most powerful First Lady in terms of the amount of influence she has over her husband and his cabinet.

Mrs. Jonathan first gave a glimpse into the enormous power she wields in 2011 when she traversed the country, campaigning for her husband in a way that irked many Nigerians.

Several calls by individuals and groups to the President to restrain his wife yielded no result.

Also, in June this year, in apparent violation of the electoral act, Mrs. Jonathan reportedly started campaigning for her husband ahead of the 2015 elections.

Another show of impunity by the President’s wife is the way she cripples any town or city she visits with her long motorcade, including bulletproof limousines and scores of armed policemen.

She grounded Lagos in 2012 when she visited to say “thank you” to some women groups for their support in electing her husband.

Despite the protest by several Nigerians, who felt that their right to move freely in their country was violated by the movement of an unelected individual, the President’s wife was never cautioned, at least not publicly.

Instead, the Presidency rose to her defence, giving her the liberty to do more in other cities. Her visits and grounding of traffic in Port Harcourt and Warri were also greeted with wide condemnations.

To show how powerful she is, Mrs. Jonathan publicly admitted making attempts to dictate to the Governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi, a move that largely precipitated the ongoing political crisis in the state.

In Aso Rock, where she resides with her husband, the fear of Mrs. Jonathan is the beginning of wisdom as she leaves no one in doubt that she is in charge. There is always a retinue of favour seekers waiting to see her daily.

Mrs. Jonathan, a native of Bayelsa State, was born in Port Harcourt on October 25, 1957 and holds National Certificate of Education in Mathematics and Biology from the Rivers State College of Arts and Science, and a Bachelor of Education degree in biology and psychology from the University of Port Harcourt.

NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA

Right from when the negotiation to bring her from the World Bank started, it was obvious that Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was bound to wield so much power in Jonathan’s government.

With her position as the coordinating minister for the economy (a new position created for her) and Finance Minister, Okonjo-Iweala, who is currently 83rd on Forbes’ global list of powerful women, calls the shots as far as Nigeria’s economy is concerned.

While doing that, she has called the bluff of many including state governors and the National Assembly without any consequence.

The state governors, who have complained about the shabby way the minister treat them, have called for her removal while the Academic Staff Union of Universities has called her a ‘dictator.’ But no matter the protest, Okonjo-Iweala remains a darling of the President.

The sacking of Mr. Shuaib Yushau as the Head, Media and Information Unit of the National Emergency Management Agency, after he wrote what was considered a critical article against Okonjo-Iweala, further showed that the minister was not to be messed with.

The article entitled ‘Still on Okonjo-Iweala over Controversial Appointments’, published on March 6, called on the minister “to ensure that appointments into important positions should be done in credible and transparent manner that can withstand public scrutiny.”

Similarly, Mr. Lawrence Ani, was reportedly suspended indefinitely from his job as Saturday Editor of Thisday Newspaper for publishing a story that cited data that indicated a drop in Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product under Okonjo-Iweala’s watch.

In 2011, against the opinion of the majority of Nigerians, Okonjo-Iweala and the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, insisted on the removal of fuel subsidy, and literally ordered it on the outset of 2012, resulting in the Occupy Nigeria protest.

Okonjo-Iweala, who also served as finance minister and foreign minister under President Olusegun Obansanjo and as a Managing Director at the World Bank, was born on June 13, 1954 to Professor Chukuka Okonjo, who is the Obi (traditional ruler) of Ogwashi-Uku.

She graduated from Harvard University in 1977, and earned her Ph.D. in regional economic development from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981.

She is married to Ikemba Iweala from Abia State.

DIEZANI ALISON-MADUEKE

Virtually all sections of the Nigerian society have called for the resignation of the Petroleum Resources Minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, all to no avail.

Most of those who sought her removal had cited several allegations of corrupt practices under her watch as reasons for their demand.

After the revelation of massive fraud in the fuel subsidy administration to the tune of N1.7trn, many had thought that heads would roll, including that of Alison-Madueke, who supervised the rot.

Some heads did roll, but not that of the queen of the Nigeria oil and gas industry.

Till date, the Presidency has not queried or probed Diezani over allegations against her and the indictment of departments under her by several panels, including those headed by Nuhu Ribadu, Farouk Lawan, and Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede as well as the Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative.

Diezani has also not explained to Nigeria, whom she was appointed to serve, what role she played in the massive corruption that led to the loss of huge amounts of public fund.

Apart from the demands for the Alison-Madueke’s resignation and prosecution by civil society groups, who led the Occupy Nigeria protest, the House of Representatives also demanded her removal as minister.

Despite this, the President did not suspend her, and gave no explanation for that. This shows how powerful she is.

Alison-Madueke is the first woman to hold the position of Minister of Petroleum Resources in Nigeria, and in October 2010 she became the first woman to head a country’s delegation at the annual OPEC conference.

She was also the first female Minister of Transportation, and the first woman to be appointed to the board of Shell Petroleum Development Company Nigeria.

Alison-Madueke was born on December 6, 1960 in Port Harcourt.

She graduated from Howard University in 1992, with a Bachelor’s degree in architecture and returned to Nigeria to join Shell Petroleum Development Corporation.

About 10 years later, she earned an MBA from Cambridge University and was appointed as the first female executive director of Shell Nigeria.

In 1999, she got married to Admiral Alison Madueke (retd), one-time Chief of Naval Staff who was at different times military governor of Imo and Anambra states.

STELLA ODUAH

Not many are aware of the tremendous power of the Aviation Minister, Stella Oduah, in Jonathan’s government.

For her role in Jonathan’s 2011 campaign, she was reportedly rewarded with a ministerial appointment to the aviation ministry, even though she had no prior training in the field of aviation.

Many believe that the President feels indebted to her for her role as the Director of Finance and Administration of the Jonathan/Sambo Campaign Organisation and in the establishment of Neighbour-to-Neighbour outfit, which reportedly spent billions of naira on adverts and media propaganda in favour of Jonathan, especially while the Occupy Nigeria protest lasted.

Considering this relationship with Jonathan, it should not be a surprise that Oduah’s response to critics after the Dana and Associated Airlines crashes reeked of arrogance.

The latest revelation that she forced the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority to buy her bulletproof vehicles has again elicited calls for her removal and prosecution but considering the way the President has treated public outcries against these powerful women, Oduah is likely to remain minister till the end of Jonathan’s administration.

Princess Stella Oduah was born on January 5, 1962 to Igwe D.O. Oduah of Akili-Ozizor in Anambra State on January 5, 1962.

She got her Bachelor’s degree in accounting and MBA from American universities.

Oduah joined the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation in 1983 and in 1992, she established a petroleum products marketing company, Sea Petroleum & Gas Company Limited.

She was married to the former Minister for Works, Chris Ogiemwonyi.

ARUNMA OTEH
Through her battles, the Director-General of the Securities Exchange Commission, Ms. Arunma Oteh, has sufficiently earned the name ‘Iron lady’ even beyond her official sphere of influence.

When she clashed with the House of Representatives Committee on the Capital Market, it was the chairman of the committee, Mr. Herman Hembe, that got hurt.

The committee had accused Oteh of fraud and misappropriation of funds. She fired back, accusing Hembe of demanding bribe from SEC.

The SEC board suspended Oteh in order to investigate the findings of the lawmakers, who probed the capital market and indicted her. She immediately petitioned the President and Okonjo-Iweala.

After two months, the President returned Oteh to her position, following the auditor’s report that said her offence amounted only to ‘administrative lapses.’ The directors and staff of the commission, who had protested Oteh’s alleged high-handedness, were advised to calm down and obey their boss.

On the other hand, Hembe was arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and also stepped down as chairman of the committee.

The crisis led to an intense battle between President Jonathan and the House of Representatives. The House demanded the sacking of Oteh but Jonathan refused.

The passage of the 2013 budget was delayed because of the fight. Eventually, the lawmakers insisted on zero budget for SEC to force the President’s hand, but he did not budge.

Calls for her removal by civil society groups also fell on deaf ears.

Oteh, who is an indigene of Abia State, is also a British citizen.

She graduated with first-class degree in computer sciences from the University of Nigeria in Nsukka and earned her MBA from Harvard Business Schol