Still on the states and governors

                                                                                       TOLU OGUNLESI

I have decided to stay on the matter of Nigeria’s state governments for a second week, to surmount the temptation to write, at this time, about the election postponement and the accompanying mêlée.

Let me start with the clamour for more states, evinced by the recent proposal, following the 2014 National Conference, for the creation of an additional 18 states. It seems to be that new states are merely one of those compromise-arrangements that Nigerians are forever working out to temporarily assuage the ethnic aspects of the feelings of marginalisation embedded within our collective unconscious. States are in a way the snacks we hand out to keep various groups of Nigerians less unhappy as they wait for their turn to eat a proper meal at the kitchen table (Abuja).

Dasuki: Redefining NSA’s role in terror war

                                                                   National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki

BENT on deflecting the backlash from our feeble war against Boko Haram, the National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, has launched a campaign to douse the fire. In a tirade delivered last week, Dasuki blamed Nigeria’s failure to defeat the Islamists on the mass media and the international community. This is a red herring, a totally misplaced call from the NSA.

Pillorying the media and the international community for allowing “anything (videos) from Boko Haram to easily get online,” Dasuki, a retired Army colonel who replaced Owoye Azazi in June 2012, said Nigeria’s “soft approach” strategy against Boko Haram “is not being effective because we don’t have the media. The media is one of our major problems. Why the double standard from the international community? Nobody is talking of human rights violation in Syria and other places.” But this is just an excuse.

Osborne residents, FG tackle Fashola over jetty operation

                                                                               Governor Babatunde Fashola

Residents of Osborne Foreshore Residential Estate II, Ikoyi, Lagos are currently in court seeking to stop the construction and operation of a commercial jetty and ferry services in the area.

The Lagos State Government said it embarked on the project to deliver on its electoral promises to the general masses “to procure, maintain and sustain facilities to make water transportation workable in the state.”

The state government said the commercial jetty, when fully operational, would cater to the needs of a percentage of the estimated 1.8 million or more Lagosians who ride on the existing jetties monthly.

It is also part of the grand plan of the project awarded in March 2008 that shopping facilities and a major bus stop for BRT would be built.

Ticket: Lagos Assembly aspirant sues APC

An aspirant who sought to represent Lagos Island Constituency 1 in the state’s House of Assembly, Wasiu Sanni, has sued the All Progressives Congress for allegedly omitting his name in the final list submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission.

Sanni, who claimed to have won the party’s December 2, 2014 primary with 186 votes, is accusing the APC of transferring his mandate to the first runner-up in the said election, Hakeem Masha, who was said to have polled 70 votes.

Jonathan cannot suspend or sack Jega

                                                                               INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega

We must never permit a situation of having to lock the stable door after the horse had bolted. The constitution is clear and unambiguous: the process of removal of the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, according to Section 157 of the 1999 Constitution, starts from the Senate and ends with the President.

Reacting to the purported dismissal of Maurice Iwu by President Goodluck Jonathan in the Daily Independent in 2010 under the title, The collapse of the Rule of Law in Nigeria, I said inter alia: