Toke Makinwa Reveals Project Behind Her “On Becoming” Visual

Posted on November 10, 2016 by Staff Reporter

Marking her birthday few weeks ago, Media personality, Toke Makinwa, released a snippet titled ‘On Becoming’. The visuals gave a little insight about her life and struggles, aside issues that made her a topic of discussion in the public eye.

Today, Toke unveils a book cover carrying the “On becoming” title, indicating that she’ll be releasing an entire book soon. She said God told her she was going to write a book and even thought she avoided it, she eventually did it.

See her caption on Ig below:

Today is the most exciting day of my life. Today I Become ??… I hereby introduce you to #OnBecoming. At the beginning of last year (2015) when the lord told me I was going to write a book I was confused. Is it God’s voice, is it mine???? How will this work? I never planned to write a book, what I’m I supposed to write. I did what I had become used to, I ran. Just Like Jonah; I ran. I pushed it deep down and completely let it go. And then it began, God started sending people to me. Every time someone told me they thought I should write a book, I remembered my conversation with God in January but I was still unsure. (Fear maybe), I felt the idea was great but deep down I was not fully convinced. Then came June and my world fell apart. My world was crushed completely and in all of the pain I heard it again. This time, I knew what happened to me happened for a reason. I am a city set on a hill. My life will reflect God’s glory. I have been giving a platform to share and God was going to use my pain. In the pain there was a message and On Becoming was conceived.
On Becoming is My journey through pain to victory. I have Become and it is my prayer that God does what he planned from the start with this project. I can’t wait to put “author” in my bio. I wrote a book ya’ll. I did it ?????

Code Of Conduct Bureau Dumps N8bn Office Hqtrs Project

Posted on June 20, 2016 by Staff Reporter

After spending over N1billion, being part payment for the construction of office complex headquarters, the Code of Conduct Bureau has abandoned the project,

The Bureau, under the chairmanship of Sam Saba had opted to purchase a completed 9-storey building located in the central business district of Abuja just as the abandoned one is also located within the CBD of the city.

The abandoned project which dates back to 2008 was initially put at over N3billion before it was reviewed by the federal executive council in October 2012 to over N8 billion with more facilities .

It has now been abandoned by the Bureau, a development that has raised a lot of eyebrows.

The project was to be executed within 38 months.

The authority further gathered that although the Bureau had problems enlisting the project in the budget especially that of 2015, it curiously got the purchase of office building complex in the 2016.

The National Assembly appropriated the sum of four billion, four hundred and thirty million, one thousand one hundred and seventy nine Naira only(N4,430,001,179).

A request for guideline on purchase of office building made by the Bureau to the Director General, Bureau of Public Procurement, CCB told BPP that the amount has been appropriated for it in the 2016 budget for the project and sought professional advice on the steps to take.

It said ‘’In view of the above, I am to seek your professional advice and guidance as to the steps to take to fastrack the procurement process’’.

Reacting to our inquiry on the issue, the Deputy Director, Press and Protocol unit of the Bureau,Muhammad Idris said he was not at the Bureau when the 2016 budget was prepared. He however, admitted that the Bureau have appropriation to purchase a completed complex for office headquarters. Idris however, quickly pointed out that it was not a waste as the government of the day is very frugal.

Credit: Leadership

FG Launches N10 Billion Youth Entrepreneurship Support Project

Posted on March 17, 2016 by Staff Reporter

The Muhammadu Buhari administration, through the Bank of Industry, on Thursday formally launched a N10 billion Youths Entrepreneurship Support (YES) project to empower youth with loans to start businesses.

Speaking at the launch of the project in Abuja, the Minister for Industry, Trade and Investment, Okechukwu Enelamah, said his ministry would partner all agencies of government to create new jobs.

He said more than 40 per cent of Nigerian graduates had no jobs and that an average of eight million Nigerians entered the job market annually.

The minister said that the ‘YES’ project of BoI was part of the Federal Government’s youth employment scheme, saying that about 36,000 jobs would be created annually through ‘YES’.

He appealed to prospective beneficiaries to repay the loans for the success and sustenance of the project.

Waheed Olagunju, the acting Managing Director of BoI, said that a participant under the scheme could access up to N10 million loan with single digit interest rate and repayable over three to five years.

He said that an applicant must present NYSC or higher education certificate as collateral to qualify for the loan with two external guarantors.

Mr. Olagunju said that the bank was partnering 11 consultants across the country for the first phase of the project.

Afolabi Imokhuede, a Special Assistant to the Vice President, said job creation was at the heart of the current administration.

He said that government intended to create 3.5 million jobs in the next three years, adding that the ‘YES’ project was one of the programmes.

Mr. Imokhuede advised participants to take the ‘YES’ seriously as online courses were now popular means of job creation world wide.

Nasir El-Rufai, the Governor ok Kaduna State, said that the state was partnering with BoI on job creation.

He said that the state had been able to take controlling shares in Peugeot Automobile Nigeria with the assistance of BoI.

Credit: NAN

Obasanjo Awarded Abuja Rail Project Without Design, MOU- Senate Panel

Posted on February 16, 2016 by Staff Reporter

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo awarded the Abuja Rail Project in 2007 with neither a design nor a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), according to the Senate Committee on Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The then Minister of FCT and current governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, was said to have signed the contract based on an uncalculated estimate.

The revelation came as the committee discovered the contract, which stood at 60.67 kilometres, was inflated by $10 million (about N2 billion at N200 per dollar) per kilometre even as the length was later reduced to 45 kilometres without the refund of the cost for the 15.67 kilometres dropped.

To this end, the Senate committee, led by Dino Melaye has demanded the refund of the of $195,878,296.74 ( about N392 billion at N200 per dollar) being the amount for the 15.67 kilometres cut out from the Chinese Civil Engineering Construction Company (CCECC), handling the project.

The Project Manager of the company, Etim Abak, who answered questions from members of the committee when they undertook an oversight assignment to the project site, said the contract was signed by the then FCT minister without design and MOU, saying it was carried out based on what he simply identified as a conceptual design.

“The contract was awarded based on a conceptual design and estimates were not properly done. There was no formal design submitted and rail bridges and crossover bridges were not captured in the contract, “he told the committee.

According to him, the contract sum was $841.645,898 and project completion period was 48 months while the scope of work was 60.67km standard gauge, with double railway tracks and associated permanent way within FCT.

Melaye , who alleged the whole project may be shrouded in fraud, wondered why the project, whose length initially stood at 60.67 kilometres was later reduced to 45.245 without cut in the cost of the project initially paid for.

Credit: Guardian

World Bank Backs Nigeria’s Transparency Project

Posted on January 25, 2016 by Staff Reporter

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The World Bank has pledged additional support towards the President’s fight to entrench accountability and transparency across the country.

The Country Director for Nigeria and Coordinating Director for West Africa Regional Integration Programme, Mr Rachid Benmessaoud, spoke to journalists during a visit to the Minister of Science and Technology in Abuja.

“At the World Bank, we think the good government of Nigeria is taking the right step in dealing with governance issues.

“Our role is to support the government of Nigeria in its efforts at improving transparency and accountability or in the development programmes that we do. It starts with accountability and transparency,” he said, adding that conversation on areas to revamp in the country is ongoing with various ministries.

Mr Rachid noted that it would be aspiring to lend huge support in other sectors like agriculture, security, solid minerals as well as science and technology to assist in repositioning Nigeria as a global economic hub of Africa.

“We have heard from a number of cabinet ministers about the importance of diversifying the revenues away from the oil sector and we have been working with both the Ministry of Agriculture and (that of) Solid Minerals in this particular area.

“We have also looked into further support in the power sector. As you know, the power sector is a binding constraint to growth. Science and Technology plays an important role in all of our support because it looks at the aspect of efficiency and innovations.”

The Minister of Science and Technology, Dr Ogbonnaya Onu, commended the move, urging civil servants to work judiciously with the nation’s available resources.

Credit: ChannelsTv

Jonathan’s Centenary City Project Was ‘Fraud’, PDP Chieftain Insists

Posted on August 14, 2015 by Staff Reporter

he National Vice Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Southsouth, Dr. Cairo Ojuigbo, has questioned the integrity of ex-Goodluck Jonathan’s administration Centenary City Project in Abuja.

Ojuigbo, who spoke in Abuja through his lawyer, Kayode Ajulo, alleged that the integrity of the processes leading to the project was doubtful.

The party chieftain, who also chairs the Nigeria Export Processing Authority (NEPZA), was reacting to a report that former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Anyim Pius Anyim sued him for maintaining a similar position in media interviews.

Anyim, in the N1 billion libel suit filed by his lawyer, Mike Ozekhome (SAN), claimed that Ojuigbo’s position wasa slander on his person and could scare foreign investors.

Ojuigbo said had instructed his lawyer to file a counter-suit once he received the court papers.

The PDP chieftain, who expressed his determination to ensure that those behind the project, who acted unlawfully, were prosecuted, said he had petitioned the Inspector General of Police (IGP).

Ojuigbo, who maintained his position, insisted that the “processes leading to the Centenary City, were elaborate and conceived to defraud the government and Nigerians.”

Read More: thenationonlineng

National ID Card Project In Fresh Controversy, Over N121 Billion Wasted

Posted on May 27, 2015 by Staff Reporter

The expensive media razzmatazz and the glitzy photo ops with top politicians and other prominent Nigerians, these may just be a facade to hide the fact that the national identity card project currently lie in a legal limbo that may eventually cost the government as much as N44 billion of tax payers money in damages for an alleged breach of contract.

The current legal logjam hovering over the project was occasioned by what the Managing Director of Chams Consortium Limited, Demola Aladekomo, described as an abuse of office and executive highhandedness by the Director General of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Chris Onyemenam.

Chams, which was the initial concessionaires of the project, has therefore dragged NIMC to a Federal High Court in Abuja, seeking an order to stop further implementation of the programme. It is also asking the court to order the Federal Government to pay N44 billion in damages.

In interviews with PREMIUM TIMES, Mr. Aladekomo said his company was awarded the concession in a transparent bid process that involved 65 international companies in 2007, following the recommendations of a 2006 Presidential Implementation Committee, headed by the then Minister of Federal Capital Territory, Nasir El-Rufai, on how to deliver on a project that has gulped several billions but has remained largely in limbo for decades.

Other notable members of the committee were the Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, former Managing Director of Zenith Bank, Jim Ovia and Chairman of Heir Holdings, Tony Elumelu, Mr. Aladekomo said.

He said trouble soon started after Mr. Onyemenam started dilly-dallying in getting the concession agreement ready. He said it took the NIMC chief executive three years to prepare the concession agreement.

“Unfortunately for us, the DG NIMC just got a law degree a year before he was appointed,” Mr. Aladekomo told PREMIUM TIMES in his office in Lagos.

“He then used us as guinea pigs to practice his law. From May 24th when the contract was signed it took him to July 26, 2010 that he signed the concession agreement. He became more Catholic than the pope. He became more civil servant than the civil servant. He asked us to draft the concession agreement we drafted one and gave it to him. He appointed a law firm, Banwo Ighodalo and Co. He said what they drafted was not good. He now started to write the concession agreement himself in 2008 and finished in 2010.”

He explained that in-between that time the company had invested upwards of N7.1 billion into setting up the facilities for the kick-off of the project.

“Meanwhile, because we have promised the president that we were going to deliver in 2009 and he said ‘don’t wait for the concession agreement, start work’. We invested. We did an IPO, raised N8.4 billion, spent N7.1 billion on the project. One of the things we got out of the project was the Guinness World Record for the Chams City that we built. We built a switch that could handle 100 million Nigerians. We built a card plant that could produce 1.7 million cards a day in Abuja for national ID. We spent 7.1 billion of shareholders money preparing for the take off so that we can do consumer finance and credit bureaus, this man was busy writing concession agreement,” he explained.

Mr. Aladekomo said by the time the concession agreement was ready for signing, Mr. Onyemenam had another surprise waiting for Chams.

“By the time the concession agreement was ready we said let’s start he said. ‘No no no, I want to see all your designs, I want to see all your partners’. We gave him all our designs and showed him all our partners and had a big meeting in Abuja. We gave him our final design and showed him all our partners in 2012.

“The day we showed him all our partners and gave him all our design that was the last day he spoke to us. The same night we introduced our partners to him in Abuja he went to all their rooms in the (Transcorp) Hilton that they should be dealing with him directly,” he said.

When contacted Mr Onyemenam said he was not interested in engaging in media debate of the issue with Chams as it is a subject of an ongoing litigation.

“As of today I am under advise to not speak on the concession which has been cancelled and over which Chams has gone to court and the next hearing has been fixed for sometime in June 2015,” he said in an email.

Credit: premiumtimesng

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