The News (Lagos)
Isiaka Mustapha
3 December 2003
The Paris based Financial Action Task Force TATF has Nigeria on its burners and no one in Abuja is enjoying it. The Task Force's grouse is Nigeria's perceived slap-on-the-wrist treatment of perpetrators of advance fee fraudsters. Large chunks of the 419 tribe are incidentally Nigerians.
Early in November, OBJ wrote to inform the Senate of Nigeria's engagement with the FATF through its Africa and Middle East Review Group AMERG. At the heart of the talks is the government's plan to get Nigeria de-listed from the group of Non-Cooperative Countries and Territories NCCTS.
What President Obasanjo wants the Senate to do was for the legislature to amend the law on Money Laundering and the Economic and Financial Crimes Act to give the suspects a harder deal under the law.
Ambassadorial List of Controversy Given the controversy that attended the last confirmation hearings on ministerial nominees, it was hardly surprising that the Senate chambers erupted in anger when the long-awaited ambassadorial list went to the Senate.
First, it was the Senate President, Adolphus Wabara, mindful, perhaps of the N54 million-bribe saga, who warned the nominees never to lobby senators for their confirmation.
Then the list offended the sensibilities of some federal character buffs. The president's rationale was that "not less than two but not more than three per state". It didn't sail with many senators. How come the six South Western states had the full complement of three nominees but many other states had just two, many wonder.
Another group, distinct from the former, also said many of the nominees were not the men and women who worked to ensure the success of the PDP in the April polls.
Then the president himself added his own faux pas. Two nominees were hastily withdrawn. Reason? Ambassador Saidu Mohammed was ambassador to Indonesia and his performance was less than average and E.A Eni-Okoye was still in the lesser rungs of the civil service to deserve an ambassadorial appointment. The whole list has been sent to the Professor Jubril Aminu-led Foreign Relations Committee for vetting.
A Standard For Aviation Industry Disturbed by the seemingly poor state of manpower in the Aviation Industry, two members of the House of Representatives, F.A.B Fasinro and Durosimi Moseko, have jointly presented to the House a bill to establish the Chartered Institute of Aviation Management of Nigeria, which shall be primarily responsible for advancement of Aviation Managers and other related matters.
The objectives of the proposed institute, among others, include determination of the standards of knowledge to be attained by persons seeking to become registered members of the institute and reviewing those standards from time to time, building of a body of knowledge for the purpose of promoting the science and art of aviation, and establish management techniques in the promotion of aviation management principles. The institute, according to the Bill, which has scaled its first reading, will be headed by a Registrar, who will be its Chief Executive and Accounting Officer.
Defiant Parents Risk Jail Henceforth, defiant parents who flout the provisions of the just approved compulsory Free Universal Basic Education Act by depriving their child or ward the benefit of acquiring free and compulsory education to the Junior Secondary School level may be court jail term.
According to section 2 of the Act recently passed by members of the National Assembly, "a parent who fails to accord his or her child or ward the right to free compulsory and Universal Basic Education shall on the first conviction be reprimanded and on second conviction, he or she be liable to a fine of N2,000 or imprisonment for a term of one month or both".
On subsequent conviction, such a defiant parent "shall be liable to a fine of N5, 000 or imprisonment for a term of two months or both".
In the same vein, the Act also frowns at Education Administrators who might want to capitalise on the provision of the Act to extort money from pupils and parents alike. To checkmate this, subsection 2 of the Act stipulates that "A person who receives or obtains any fee contrary to the provision of this Act commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding N10, 000 or imprisonment for a term of three months or both".
The approved Act "the federal government intervention under this Act shall be of an assistance to the states and local governments in Nigeria for the purposes of uniform and qualitative basic education throughout Nigeria".
"Every Government in Nigeria shall provide free, compulsory and Universal Basic Education for every child of primary and Junior Secondary School age", section 1, subsection 2 of the Act stipulates.
It will be within the purview of the commission to receive block grant from the federal government and allocate to the states and local governments and other relevant agencies implementing the policies of the Act; formulating the policy guidelines for the successful operation of the Universal Basic Education programme in the federation and carry out in concert with the states and local governments at regular intervals, a personnel audit of teaching and non-teaching staff of all basic education institutions in Nigeria.
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