2009: It went by so fast!

Healthy or not healthy?

As the year comes to an end, and 34 days after President Umar Yar'Adua was admitted at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the controversy surrounding his health is far from subsiding.

Mr. Yar'Adua is still on admission at the hospital where he is receiving treatment for what his private doctor Salihu Banye called "acute pericarditis." He was admitted on Wednesday, November 23, making it the third time in four months that the president would be admitted in the hospital.

The president's illness is however not a recent one. NEXT, in its edition of December 6, had detailed medical conditions of the president -including when he was governor of Katsina State - and the hospitals he had been treated in. He has in the past had been treated for other ailments such as asthma and kidney problems. All, including acute pericarditis, are symptoms of Chaug Strauss Syndrome, which medical experts believe the president is actually suffering from.

Controversy has mostly trailed the fact that, each time the president has travelled, he has not handed over to the vice president as stated in section 145 of the constitution, thus creating a leadership vacuum which has stalled governance in some areas.

This inaction has led to calls by various individuals and groups that he should abide by that section of the constitution; while some, such as the G53, a group of elder statesmen including former speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Masari, and the Nigeria Bar Association have called for the president's resignation on health grounds.

This is an emergency

One of the cardinal promises of President Yar'Adua when he assumed office was that he would declare a state of emergency in the power sector. This he has not done.

The president promised improvement in electricity supply by the end of 2009, by increasing the power generated in the country to 6,000MW. Mr. Yar'Adua said this at different for a, including during his Democracy Day speech, that the nation would achieve the 6,000MW target.

This has however failed, as admitted by the president's aides, Tanimu Yakubu, the chief economic adviser; and Shamsudeen Usman, the minister of national planning, on Tuesday, December 15.

NEXT on Sunday, in its edition of December 20, showed how both men, alongside Rilwan Babalola, the minister of power, deceived the nation about the country's power generating capacity. It's the end of 2009 and the country is still generating less than 3,000MW of electricity - even though it requires 10,400MW for stable power supply.

Your sins are forgiven

On June 25, President Umaru Yar'Adua declared a 60-day amnesty for militants in the restive Niger Delta. The president made the declaration in a live press briefing after the Council of States consented to the proposal. The amnesty plan, which set off in a crawl due to the initial scepticism of the militant groups, eventually saw many of the groups laying down their arms to embrace the plan.

The government's amnesty programme eventually saw the release of the leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), Henry Okah, from detention on July 13 after the government withdrew its case against him. Other notable militant leaders such as Ateke Tom, Farah Dagogo and Government Ekumokpolo (also known as Tompolo) surrendered their weapons and embraced the government's amnesty deal.

You can bank on it

Perhaps the greatest issue that has reshaped the financial landscape of the country in the outgoing year is the August 14 dismissal of the chief executive officers and other top management of five banks by the Sanusi Lamido Sanusi-led Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). The banks are Union Bank, Intercontinental Bank, Afribank, Oceanic Bank and FinBank.

This initial move by the CBN was subsequently followed by the removal of the chief executive officers of another three banks. The banks affected by this second purge are BankPHB, Springbank and Equatorial Trust Bank.

The sacking of these bank executives started a chain reaction in the financial sector. The CBN audit that led to the sack of these bank executives also brought to the fore the rot in the sector. Most of the bank chiefs are now being prosecuted for financial misappropriation and money laundering. The reform in the sector also revealed the shady interplay between the major players in the stock market and top bank executives. Notable among them was Peter Ololo, also known as "market maker" by stock brokers. Mr. Ololo, it was revealed, owes the banks - through his companies, Falcon Securities Limited, Petosan Oil and Gas Limited, Petosan Property and Development Company Limited, Petosan Farms, and Resolution Trust and Investment company Limited - more than N200 billion.

Also, one of the accused CEOs, Erastus Akingbola of Intercontinental Bank, absconded to the United kingdom to avoid prosecution. He has been declared wanted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Gani makes a grand exit

On September 5, Nigerians woke up to the news of the death of prominent human rights and constitutional lawyer Gani Fawehinmi. Mr. Fawehinmi, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and former presidential aspirant, was known for his vehement opposition to Nigeria's oppressive military regimes. He died at 71 after battling with cancer for two years.

Gani's death elicited a wave of condolences from Nigerians from all walks of life including members of pro-democracy movements, civil society organisations, government officials, student bodies, and his colleagues in the legal profession. According to Rotimi Akeredolu, the president of the Nigerian Bar Association, "Gani will be larger in death than in life because there are many reasons to continue from where he stopped."

Even former Nigerian military ruler Ibrahim Babangida, whose government regularly detained Mr. Fawehinmi, expressed regret at the death of the lawyer. "When we want to take decisions while I was head of state, we always took cognisance of what Gani might do. Because he would tear it to pieces and charge up the people against us," he said.

Hitting the bribe button

Between 1994 and 2004, as reported exclusively by NEXT on Sunday in its May 1 edition, top government officials, including three former heads of state (Sani Abacha, Abdulsalam Abubakar, and Olusegun Obasanjo), allegedly received 180million dollars in bribe from a consortium, TSKJ, in order for the consortium to secure Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) contracts worth $6 billion.

Others who benefitted from the bribes were top officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) including its former group managing director, Gaius Obaseki; the Peoples Democratic Party; and former petroleum ministers.

TSKJ, which was formed solely for the purpose of the contract, was made up of four companies. They are Technip, a French company which operates in Nigeria as Technip Offshore Nigeria Limited; Snamprogetti, an Italian company which is a subsidiary of the French oil giant ENI; Kellogg Brown and Roots, which was then a subsidiary of Halliburton of the USA but is now an independent company called KBR; and JGC Corporation, a Japanese company.

Halliburton and KBR paid $579miilion to US agencies for the bribe payments made to Nigerian officials, while the other companies involved are being tried or investigated in their countries.

Jeffery Tesler, the Israeli-Briton lawyer through whom the bribes were paid, is also in police custody in the United Kingdom for the bribes.

Following public pressure, the federal government on April 21 inaugurated a five man committee headed by the Inspector General of Police, Mike Okiro, to probe the bribery scandal. The panel, which is now being headed by the new Inspector General of Police, Ogbonnaya Onovo, also has as members the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the head of the Nigerian Intelligence Agency, and the National Security adviser. It was given eight weeks to submit its report.

Upon expiration of the deadline, another eight weeks extension was granted the panel, which lapsed in August. The panel has, since then, not submitted its report; prompting some Nigerians to tag this as a plot to cover up the Nigerians involved in the scandal.

The last Nigerians have heard of the investigation was when the attorney general and minister of justice stated in a press conference on Tuesday, December 16 that the federal government was having difficulty translating witness statements they received from cooperating countries to English. The documents were in French.

The Wild, Wild West

The Court of Appeal in Ilorin, on February 17, annulled the election of Segun Oni, governor of Ekiti State, citing widespread irregularities in 10 local government areas, during the 2007 general elections, amongst other reasons.

Following this, a bye-election was held in the 10 local governments. The elections saw the deployment of over 10,000 police officers and a deputy inspector general of police, John Ahmadu. However, they yet could not ensure security as the voting was marred with violence and ballot snatching, particularly in the Ido-Osi local government where even election observers were manhandled.

The electoral violence which was widely condemned saw the state's resident commissioner, Ayoka Adebayo, absconding from the state citing "pressure from above". Mrs. Adebayo, who also allegedly resigned her appointment following the crisis, however returned and then accepted the disputed Ido-Osi local government results which helped Mr. Oni win the election again, by a margin of 4,000 vote, and then he was sworn in once more as the governor.

Kayode Fayemi, his opponent and candidate of the Action Congress, is still challenging the election at the election tribunals.

The original godfather

James Ibori, former governor of Delta State and one of the 13 national elders of the Peoples Democratic Party, was exposed as a convicted criminal in England.

Though rumours of his conviction had always been around, NEXT, in its edition of October 7, produced the evidence that Mr. Ibori had been convicted twice in England. The first was for theft and the second for possession of stolen property.

The convictions, which occurred in 1990 and 1991, were given during the period that the PDP chieftain was living and working in England. Lawyers were quick to conclude that, by virtue of his conviction, being an ex-convict, Mr. Ibori was in fact not eligible to contest the 1999 gubernatorial election nor any other executive position based on Section 182 of the constitution.

However, reprieve came the way of Mr. Ibori this month, who is being investigated in England alongside some of his associates for money laundering (some of his aides are already being tried), as the Federal High Court in Asaba presided over by Mercel Awokulehin, after a number of postponements, discharged him of any wrongdoing in the corruption case filed against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). The EFCC has however promised to appeal the ruling, delivered on Thursday, December 17.

And the winner is ...

On February 23, the Court of Appeal sitting in Edo State declared the governorship candidate of the Labour Party, Olusegun Mimiko,as the winner of the April 2007 governorship elections in Ondo State. The decision of the court followed the verdict of the election tribunal delivered on Friday, July 25, 2008.

According to the election tribunal, Mr. Mimiko scored 198,261 of the total votes cast against Olusegun Agagu's 128,669, therefore making him the authentic winner of the governorship election.

The election tribunal in its ruling had also nullified all votes cast in Mr. Agagu's home council of Ilaje local government and declared that Mr. Mimiko won two thirds of the total votes from the 18 local councils in the state.

Reacting to the judgement, Mr. Mimiko called it "a consolidation of the nation's democracy."

The new ‘industry'

2009 saw a wild upsurge in kidnap cases especially in the South Eastern region of the country.

Kidnapping became a national issue when Niger Delta militant groups resorted to the abduction of both expatriate and local employees of multinational oil companies, and it soon spread beyond the Niger Delta to various parts of the country, leading to cries that the cause of the ‘emancipation of the Niger Delta' was being distorted.

Some notable government officials and prominent Nigerians that were kidnapped during the year include the secretary to the Kaduna State government, Namadi Sambo; the Niger State permanent secretary for youth and strategy, Adamu Umar; the wife of Andrew Obayagbonna, the Edo State commissioner of works; veteran actor Peter Edochie and popular comedian Nkem Owoh of the "Osuofia in London" fame.

Expatriates were kidnapped in Rivers, Anambra, Ebonyi and Kaduna states, amongst others. Most of those kidnapped were eventually released after ransoms were paid.

Good people, Great nation

In March this year, the newly appointed minister of information and communication, Dora Akunyili, unveiled a new image campaign for the country tagged "Nigeria: Good people, Great nation." According to the minister, this was part of the nation's re-branding effort, intended to motivate and inspire the Nigerian people.

"Today, as a nation, we begin a new journey," she said. "We open a new chapter in our attempt as a people to take conscious steps at redefining our nation, re-examining our values and character and re-dedicating ourselves to the ideals of our founding fathers."

She inaugurated a re-branding committee, which described the project as a "rebirth for the country."

However, the re-branding project immediately became a flashpoint of controversy, with critics variously describing it as futile, wasteful or misguided.

Bode goes to jail

On October 28, an Ikeja High Court in Lagos convicted Bode George, the former chairman of the Nigerian Ports Authority, and five other former members of the board, on a 23-count charge of abuse of office. They were convicted of splitting contracts worth N84billion.

Mr. George, a former deputy national chairman of the PDP and a member of the party's board of trustees, was subsequently sentenced to two years in prison by the justice of the court, Olubunmi Oyewole.

The decision brought to an end the drama that attended the trial, where supporters dressed in uniform clothing (aso ebi) often took over the court premises singing his praises and assaulting perceived enemies. His request for bail was subsequently denied.