The Ga Traditional Council has expressed concern over the unnecessary political interferences in the activities of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA).
“We are not happy with the frequent political interference and the political gimmicks that the AMA’s work is made to suffer,” the Council said.
They therefore demanded that the assembly be allowed to exercise its mandate.
At a news conference addressed on its behalf in Accra yesterday, by the Queen mother of the Ga State, Naa Dedei Omadru II, the Council said the demolition exercise embarked upon by the AMA with the aim of beautifying and raising the standard of sanitation in the capital city, were in the right direction and should not be halted to suit anyone’s parochial interest.
The Council called on politicians to allow the AMA Chief Executive, Mr. Alfred Oko Vanderpuije, to execute his programmes and activities to enable the capital city to meet the standard of other cities around the world. The Council said its support for the AMA boss was non-partisan and above political leanings, adding “it is about the survival of our city, it is about showing the world that 50 years on, we have moved up, not down”.
It advised politicians to avoid playing political gimmicks with the work of the AMA and support the assembly in its efforts towards the betterment of the capital city. The Council expressed support for the developmental agenda of government and advised that the Mayor be allowed to do his work without undue interferences. “The effort of the Accra Mayor is for the future improvement and development of Accra. If we allow politicians to interfere in his work, it will not get us anywhere,” it stated.
The Council referred to the recent demolition exercise embarked upon by the AMA at Odawna, near the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, and said it did not warrant the castigations Mr. Vanderpuije received from sections of the public because the action was in the supreme interest of the people themselves.
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan challenged the violent Islamist Boko Haram sect on Thursday to identify themselves and state clearly their demands as a basis for talks, while acknowledging that military confrontation alone will not end their insurgency.
In an interview with Reuters at the presidential villa in the capital Abuja, Jonathan said there was no doubt that Boko Haram had links with other jihadist groups outside Nigeria.
The sect killed more than 500 people last year and more than 250 in the first weeks of 2012 in gun and bomb attacks in Africa’s top oil producer, Human Rights Watch said this week.
Coordinated attacks in the northern city of Kano killed 186 people on Friday in its most deadly strike to date, prompting the president to visit surviving victims.
“If they clearly identify themselves now and say this is the reason why we are resisting, this is the reason why we are confronting government or this is the reason why we destroy some innocent people and their properties … then there will be a basis for dialogue,” said Jonathan.
“We will dialogue, let us know your problems and we will solve your problem but if they don’t identify themselves, who will you dialogue with?”
Jonathan, who won an election last year that observers said was Nigeria’s cleanest since the end of military rule in 1999, has been criticised for dealing with the insurgency in the north using purely military means.
But in this interview he pledged to bring development to remote, semi-arid corners of the country where high youth unemployment has provided easy recruits for extremists.
“Military confrontation alone will not eliminate terror attacks,” he said, adding that an “enabling environment for young people to find jobs” was also needed.
“Our commitment is to make sure our irrigation programmes are all revitalised so most of these young people are engaged in productive agriculture and … will not be free for them to recruit,” Jonathan said in an ornate diplomatic meeting room adorned with pictures of Nigeria’s heads of state since independence in 1960.
“WITHOUT A FACE”
As well as coming under fire for his handling of the crisis in the north, Jonathan suffered a week of vitriolic anti-government protests this month when he tried to scrap fuel subsidies, part of efforts to cut the fiscal costs, but was forced to partly reinstate it.
That prompted the oil ministry to announce a raft of measures aimed at defusing public anger about the extent of corruption and mismanagement in the sector, including setting up a new committee to hurry along the stalled Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB).
Jonathan said he was confident that a final version of the PIB, which aims to completely overhaul the country’s shambolic oil industry, would be put before the national assembly by the end of February.
Wearing a dark grey kaftan and his trademark fedora hat, the former zoology lecturer and governor of Bayelsa state in the oil rich Niger Delta said the Boko Haram crisis would be much harder to resolve than the southeastern Delta conflict, which was largely defused in 2009 under an amnesty he helped broker.
That was because the Islamist militants do not have a clear public figurehead or negotiable aims, he said.
“If anybody invited Osama bin Laden (to talks), he wouldn’t have appeared … Boko Haram, if you invite them, they will not come. They operate without a face, they operate without a clear identity, so it is difficult to interface with such a group.”
“That is the greatest difference between Boko Haram … and the Niger Delta issue,” he said, flanked by a larger-than-life portrait and Nigeria flags.
Boko Haram, whose name means “western education is sinful”, was formed in 2003 in the remote, northeastern city of Maiduguri. It launched an uprising against the government in 2009 that security forces crushed in days of fighting with the sect that killed around 800 people.
Its leader Mohammed Yusuf was captured and died in police custody during those battles, triggering vows of revenge from other members of the sect which they now seem to be honouring in attacks on security forces and authority figures.
The group’s members have said they want to impose Sharia law across Nigeria, although Jonathan doubted they had clear aims. “There is no clear thing to say: this is what we want,” he said.
LINKS TO AL QAEDA
Security experts say there is growing evidence the group, or some members within it, have received training and support from other jihadist groups such as al Qaeda’s north African wing.
Jonathan refused to be drawn on specific details on this.
“There is a lot of evidence there is linkages … no doubt about that. Meetings are being held in north Africa, the movement of people in these places have been monitored and noticed. The level of involvement and probably in terms of funding and equipment, I do not know,” he said.
The increasingly violence in the north, including a spate of high profile attacks on Christians, has led commentators like Nigerian author Wole Soyenka to predict a fresh civil war, 40 years after the secessionist Biafra conflict killed more than 1 million people and caused mass starvation.
“There is no way Nigeria will go into civil war. These are different situations,” Jonathan said, adding that violence in modern day Nigeria was conducted by “pressure groups” using it to intimidate and threaten rather than full blown armies.
Jonathan sacked his chief of police and six other officers on Friday because of a string of defeats against Boko Haram.
Security forces have come under fire for failing to protect civilians in the north and elsewhere.
Some question whether civilian Jonathan, who as vice president first took power in May 2010 when his predecessor Umaru Yar’Adua died, can lead Nigeria out of this crisis.
“They are trying,” Jonathan said, seeming relaxed throughout the interview. “Terrorism is new in Nigeria, and since its new, the security services have to change their methods. You cannot change methods overnight. But we will do more.”
Many Nigerians believe Boko Haram has become a cover for northern politicians disgruntled at the election of a Christian southerner to try to destabilise his government.
They note that Boko Haram stepped up its bombing campaign hours after he was sworn in on May 30.
He was northerner Yar’Adua’s running mate in a shambolic election in 2007, but his campaign to run himself after Yar’Adua’s death was controversial because of an informal pact within the ruling PDP party that the presidency should rotate between the north and the south.
Jonathan said there may be some northern politicians using Boko Haram militants for intimidation. He reiterated that there were sympathisers with the group at all levels of government.
“I will not rule out that maybe some politicians get close to some members of Boko Haram, but I will not say that Boko Haram is a political group trying to undo Goodluck Jonathan,” he said. “I cannot say it’s because a southerner and a Christian is president that the Boko Haram saga comes up.”
A week of protests against a hike in government subsidised fuel prices this month revealed massive public anger at endemic corruption, which has siphoned billions of dollars of the country’s oil riches.
Jonathan said reports of corruption in the oil ministry and elsewhere were being investigated but that he could not sack anyone in the ministry until he sees proof of misconduct.
“Nigerians are angry about certain things government has not been able to conclude very quickly … You cannot sentence a person without trial,” he said.
He said efforts were being made to hurry the PIB.
“I believe that before the end of February, I’m very hopeful, we’ll submit it to the national assembly … But of course … The president has no powers over the national assembly.”
Ivory Coast maintained their 100 percent record at the 2012 African Cup of Nations with a 2-0 win over Burkina Faso on Thursday.
The win guarantees Ivory Coast a berth in the quarter-finals in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, while Burkina Faso have been eliminated from the tournament after failing to secure a point from their opening two Group B matches.
Salomon Kalou scored the first goal for the Ivorians with a left-footed shot after a cross from Didier Drogba that was tipped forward by Yaya Toure on 16 minutes.
Chelsea striker Drogba beat his man on the right flanks and sent a dangerous ball into the area, which was touched on by Toure before Kalou rifled it home on the volley.
Burkina Faso had their chances to equalise, including striking the crossbar in the second half, but their good work amounted to nought when Bakary Kone’s attempted clearance in the 82nd minute went horribly wrong and ended up in the back of his own net.
Earlier, Angola maintained their unbeaten record in Group B after playing out a 2-2 draw with Sudan in Malabo.
Manucho twice gave Angola the lead, only for Mohamed Bashir to equalise on both occasions to keep Sudan’s slim knockout stage hopes alive.
The match was just starting to settle when Sudan defender Najm Eldin Abdullah took a heavy touch at the back and allowed Manucho to snatch the ball and drive forward before lashing a well-placed strike into the bottom left corner after five minutes.
Sudan recovered from the setback well, however, and were rewarded through a goal in the 32nd minute.
Mudathir El Tahir took advantage of acres of space down the right wing to drive forward and whip an excellent cross into the box, where Bashir shrugged off the challenge of two defenders to glance a header into the far corner.
The second half started in the same vein as the first period, with Angola grabbing another early goal.
Porto striker Djalma Campos showed impressive trickery to cut inside from the left, only to be fouled by the trailing leg of Hamad Nizar, and Manucho stepped up to dispatch the resulting penalty.
Sudan were not to be denied though, and a error from Angola defender Jose Vunguidica gifted possession to Bashir, who lashed home a half-volley from 10 yards out.
Ivory Coast lead Group B with six points, ahead of Angola (4), Sudan (1) and Burkina Faso (0).
Rapper Dmx was taken to hospital on Wednesday during a bad bout of food poisoning.
The hip-hop star tells TMZ.com he began feeling unwell after eating some “bad shrimp” shortly before boarding a plane from Miami, Florida to Charlotte, North Carolina.
He began vomiting during the flight and was immediately taken by limousine to Gaston Memorial Hospital in Charlotte upon landing.
DMX spent four hours receiving treatment in the emergency room before he was discharged and sent home to recover.
Twitter has refined its technology so it can censor messages on a country-by-country basis.
The additional flexibility is likely to raise fears that Twitter’s commitment to free speech may be weakening.
It comes as the short-messaging company expands into new countries in an attempt to broaden its audience and make more money.
But Twitter sees the censorship tool as a way to ensure individual messages, or “tweets”, remain available to as many people as possible while it navigates a maze of different laws around the world.
Before, when Twitter erased a tweet it disappeared throughout the world. Now, a tweets containing content breaking a law in one country can be taken down there and still be seen elsewhere.
Twitter will post a censorship notice whenever a tweet is removed.
Mariah Carey’s husband Nick Cannon is struggling to get back into shape following his recent hospitalisation for kidney failure after doctors advised the star his condition would make muscle-building difficult.
The TV star/actor fell ill during a family vacation in Aspen, Colorado in December and he subsequently underwent surgery after being transferred to a hospital in Los Angeles.
He was instructed by doctors to cut out all unhealthy foods from his diet in order to aid his recovery, and he’s finally been given permission to return to the gym.
Cannon is determined to regain his physique in time to host the new season of America’s Got Talent next month – but admits he’s got a tough job ahead of him.
In a series of posts on his Twitter.com page on Thursday, he writes, “My doctor said Today is the first day that I can work out again. I got to get back to fight weight! THE HULK is on his way back!
“Getting back in shape is going to be tuff (tough), the DR said because of my condition my body can’t process protein and that’s what builds muscle.
“Time to work smarter not harder… but I got to get right by the time America’s Got Talent starts! It’s going to be difficult to get my six pack back on this Renal Diet. No muscles, skinny with a gut is not fresh.”
The National Identification Authority (NIA) will begin a mass registration exercise in the Brong Ahafo Region next month after receiving GH¢2.5 million from the government.
The Deputy Director of Public Affairs of NIA, Bertha Dzeble told Joy FM that they will continue their field operations.
“This means that we can now continue with our field operations. Specifically, we will be doing the mass registration in the Brong Ahafo region,” Dzeble said.
She said the money would enable them also pay workers whose salaries are in arrears to enable them carry out their activities.
The Authority is expected to resume the distribution of cards to nationals.
She noted that: “We will be doing limited registrations in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions.”
Within the past three weeks, five persons including two children and an elderly woman have been killed on the spot by over-speeding vehicles plying the Accra-Kumasi Highway between Boadi Junction and KNUST Police roundabout. The accidents usually occurred in the evenings when workers and students cross the road to their homes or to board commercial vehicles to their various destinations. There are thousands of students and workers from Technology Senior High School (TECHSEC), St. Louis Senior High School, Mizpa Preparatory School, Ideal College, Wiweso Preparatory School and Christian Advantage College, who throng along the road every morning and evening.
Residents living in the towns along this part of the road including Kentinkrono, Nsenie, Oduom and Aprade have on several occasions made calls for intervention of authorities to save lives but to no avail. The Assemblyman of Kentinkrono, Thomas Acheampong, when contacted confirmed the accidents and blamed them on over-speeding and poor visibility.
According to the concerned Assemblyman, just three days ago, a school boy was killed instantly when he attempted to cross this stretch of the road.
He recounted another incidence involving a woman who was knocked down and killed two weeks ago on her return from an evening Church Service. With the support of the Assemblyman, the woman was admitted at Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital but died two days later. The sad aspect of these accidents is that, usually the drivers do not stop after knocking down their victims.
He indicated that due to the lack of street lights and the high speed of vehicles, pedestrians occasionally misjudge approaching vehicles resulting in accidents. He also bemoaned the attitude of some drivers who make U-turn at Silicon Junction on the same stretch of the road. He reported that recently a pick-up loaded with workers crashed at the junction leading to instant death of three passengers and several others sustaining serious injuries.
Responsible authorities including Ghana Highway Authority, Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA), KNUST and others are hereby called upon to come to the aid of residents, students and workers at Kentinkrono and its environs.
It is expected that installation of street lights and speed rumps on this stretch of the road, as a short term measure, would reduce drastically the rate of road accidents in the area. Furthermore, it is advised that, construction of highways through towns and cities would be coupled to creation of overpasses or underpasses for pedestrians.
The outgoing Upper West Regional Minister, Alhaji Isahaku Salia has observed that using computers in basic school is a basic requirement which will enhance teaching and learning in building the capacity of basic school children.
Alhaji Salia said this at a presentation of RLg laptop computers to over ninety basic schools in the region.
He described computer studies as the basis of the future for the children and called on them to take the study of computer seriously as that is the surest way to improve themselves and their country.
The Upper West Regional Director of Education, Iddrisu Mahama warned teachers in the region not to take the computers away from the pupils for their private use but instead make it available to them.
He called for proper documentation through procurement processes for the use of the computers so that whoever is using each computer at a time may be accountable for it.
Mr Mahama said each computer has battery duration of six hours but advised that it should be charged adequately for longer lasting period before using the computer.
He said the regional education directorate has a specialist who can be called upon in times of need for repairs.
The Head of Corporate Affairs of RLg, Sam Kwesi Fletcher said RLg now operates in some West African countries such as Mali, Gambia and Nigeria.
RLg started as a small project by somebody from the Northern half of the country and today it is serving a very useful purpose. He said twenty schools are involved in the distribution and each school is being given twenty four laptop computers.
He added his organization is targeting 60,000 computers to be distributed to basic schools throughout the country. This he said would soon be achieved when the government extends electricity to every part of the country.
The National Petroleum Authority (NPA), the regulator of Ghana’s downstream petroleum sector has announced that by February 1st Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), kerosene and premix fuel prices will increase to 46%, 93% and 151% respectively.
This is in accordance with the prevailing ruling of an Accra High Court on January 24.
The Chief Executive Officer of the NPA, Alex Mould, told journalists in Accra that the price increase is the best alternative for the NPA if it is to go through with the court’s option of seeking Parliamentary approval before imposing the ex-refinery differential margin as a tax.
He said “the only way we can be stopped to do this, if we review the price, is if there is a government intervention.”
Mr. Mould, however, said the regulatory body in the best interest of Ghanaians, and in consultation with the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), Bulk Distribution Companies, Government and the Association of Oil Marketing Companies, has decided to comply with the other option provided by the courts.
He said on January 13 2012, the Authority thus submitted a revised petroleum products pricing formula, which includes the ex-refinery differential margin, to be published in the gazette. He noted therefore that the decision was taken prior to the ruling of January 24th of an Accra High Court.
On the issue of the government subsidy, Mr Mould clarified that government had decided not to subsidise petroleum products from the previous price buildup of $92 to the current price buildup of $110 per barrel of oil.
The Ga Traditional Council has expressed concern over the unnecessary political interferences in the activities of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA).
