By OLAYINKA AJAYI

A ‘silver alert’ has been issued for Bolaji James Odubayo, a 20-year-old man, who was said to have left home  on Monday January 14, 2013 in Aguda, Surulere and has since not returned. What can possibly explain the disappearance of the Bolaji, a 400- level student of Igbinedion University, Okada, remains a mystery as he was said to have left his residence at No 107, Oshogbo Street, Aguda, Surulere, Lagos around 10am for his campus at Okada, Edo state.

According to the mother, Mrs Mercy Itohan Odubayo who narrated how Bolaji left home that fateful morning, “he left with a travelling bag and a shuttle bag wearing a white and green shirt atop a violet pair of trousers bidding farewell to his younger sister who was at home at the time he left.

He told me before I left home earlier that he was going to board a bus at Edegbe Line for Benin and I told him to call me immediately he gets to campus but he never did. “Although he was not having a cell phone with him, he had lost his phone before he arrived from school late in December for holidays. We never talked about a new phone before he left,” she stated.

*Bolaji James Odubayo

The middle aged widow and mother of four could not hold back tears while narrating  how she had gone to several places in search of her only son. “I have gone everywhere I know and contacted those of his friends I know. I have gone to Edegbe Line to ask whether he boarded any of their buses to Benin but they said no.

I requested for their manifest for that day which they provided the following day but with no trace of his name on it. I have also reported at Sholoki, Aguda Police station near our house. He was supposed to be writing his final exams now and all his friends at school also said they have not seen him. I also called one of his lecturers who also said the same thing. After making an entry of the case, the police only told me to go and pray over it.”

According to Madam Odubayo,  she lost her husband four years ago and she has been struggling to pay the school fees of their children two of whom are at the same university with the assistance of her husband’s relatives.

Madam Odubayo urged anyone with information about where her only son could be found to contact her on 08065264917 or Nina on 07054013462 or Nosa Ojo on 07030618904 or the nearest police station.

By Clara Nwachukwu

The West African Gas Pipeline Company (WAPCo) may record a gross loss of $2.4 billion (N384 billion) within four months if the vandalised sub-regional pipeline remains unrepaired by the end of this month.

This was disclosed by the Managing Director of the company, Charles Adeniji, who told journalists during a media briefing on the damaged pipeline, that the incident had resulted in a daily loss of between $500,000 to $600,000 to the company.

WAPCo’s  gas pipeline was breached in August, truncating supplies to Ghana’s power plants, a development in which the company is uncertain when it would resume flow of gas from Nigeria to neigbouring African countries.

The pipeline suffered a set-back in October when it experienced a fatal accident during the re-commissioning of the Takoradi Regulating and Metering Station in Ghana.

File: pipeline fire at Arepo, Ogun State.

The pipeline was shut down in August last year after experiencing a loss of pressure around the Lome segment of the facility.

General Manager, Corporate Affairs of WAPCo, Harriet Wereko-Brobby, had said in a press statement that the accident, which resulted to two fatalities, derailed the re-commissioning exercise.

WAPCo has faced serious challenge  trying to fix the pipeline, which resulted power outages in some parts of Ghana due to the shortage of gas to many power plants.

Ghanaian President, John Dramane Mahama, during his visit to Nigeria recently, appealed to President Goodluck Jonathan to expedite action on the resuscitation of the West Africa gas pipeline to enable Ghana enjoy regular power supply.

WAPCO resumed flows of Nigerian natural gas to Ghana two years ago, following a one-year outage caused by vandalism and fuel quality problems.

The volume of gas flowing was approximately 30 million standard cubic feet per day, which was enough to generate 110 megawatts of electricity

The resumption of flows on the line on March 20, 2011, allowed power plants in Ghana’s western port city of Takoradi to switch from the costlier light crude they had been using, to produce electricity since the shutdown last May.

Also, another major challenge facing the multi-million dollar gas project was the issue of encroachment on its by Right of Way (RoW) miners.

The company has asked the Federal Government to declare as illegal, mining activities on the company’s RoW as frequent encroachment on it poses a serious threat to the recently completed pipeline.

By Onochie Anibeze
There are three major qualities midfielders should possess. Coaches look out for these in them.

Marking abilities, creativity and passing. An addition is shooting. In some cases shooting may not be a must otherwise Mikel Obi will not be playing for Chelsea. It however depends on the approach or philosophy (apology Phillippe Trousier) of the coach.

There are midfielders who may not be good in creativity but they are ball winners. They mark very well and are usually a thorn in the flesh of attackers. They do the dirty job for the team and may not be noticed by those who look out for flamboyance. There are also those who can destroy opponents with their creativity. They have the skill to dribble their way through and lay assists that lead to goals. Sometimes they score too. Barcelona’s Xavi is an excellent example. There are also those who are great passers of the ball like our own Mikel Obi.

Changing Fegor Ogude and directing his players to mount pressure on opponents by going forward will change a lot in the team

I have not seen any of these qualities in Fegor Ogude. I’m scandalised that such a player found himself in the starting line of the Eagles of Nigeria. Mistakes have been made and if Stephen Keshi is still the Keshi that I have known all these years, Ogude will romance the bench today when we play Zambia.

There must be changes  in tactics and in selection for the match against Zambia whose strong point is in their ability to mark and just keep on attacking although the possession football of Ethiopia reduced the potency of their style last Monday.

Many have been harsh on the Stephen Keshi team since the 1-1 draw with Burkina Faso on Monday. The late equaliser, actually disappointed millions of Nigerians.

But I must admit that in that team I saw the fastest counter attack any Nigerian team has exhibited since the days of Clemens Westerhof.

They were quick in the counters. What surprised me was their inability to launch many counter-attacks. But they couldn’t have going by the way they passed the ball back even when there was no pressure on them to do so.

Eagles led 1-0 in the first half but failed to seal off the game even when the chances came. They failed to put pressure on the Burkinabes and preferred to pass the ball back for reasons you can’t defend in modern football. Their style made Burkina Faso to survive.

A lot of people have condemned them for conceding a goal in the last minute of the match. I will not. It happens in football. Would you say that the Brazilian team was not good in Atlanta 1996 when we equalised in stoppage time and went on to win?

Would you say that Bayern Munich were not good when Manchester United equalised in the last minute and went on to win the European Championship in 1999?

I’m more concerned about their total performance than the result. When I discussed the match with our Deputy Editor, Eze Anaba, he said Keshi needed to make one or two changes and the team would soar high. I agreed with Eze, an ardent follower of the game.

Changing Fegor Ogude and directing his players to mount pressure on opponents by going forward will change a lot in the team. Directing his players to be quicker on the ball and  stop shielding it just to show off the way Echiejile, Emenike , Mikel and some others were doing would help the team.

Directing his players to crowd around the ball and break away when necessary will give them greater possession which helps in opening up defences. Asking Ike Uche to play for the team rather than for self will help. Correcting  Yobo and Godfrey Obaobona, the two central defenders never to run flat by charging on attackers the same time will help. It happened about three to four times against Burkina Faso.

One of them must always withdraw for slips when one charges ahead. These were the flaws I noticed in the match against Burkina Faso and I strongly believe that if they are corrected Eagles may soar on in this competition for they have a blistering counter attack that must be commended. Nigerians are yet to realise the damage done to our football before Keshi and co came on board. It will take a long time to repair.

That’s what I have to say while commending Ethiopia for their good play. They went partying after a good outing against Zambia. If they keep their heads, they may be the team of the tournament even if they don’t win.

I wondered aloud the other day and asked Irvin – the cab man who insisted that he was helping me even when he got paid for driving me around – on why there were no pot-holes on the roads as compared to the roads in some other African countries.?

He looked at the rear mirror and our eyes met and he asked back; “do you prefer potholes on the roads?”. Not getting an answer from me, he fired again, are there potholes on Nigerian roads? “Not really, but…em except in some few rural roads”, I lied, defending my country.

Besides all the wide and marked roads, hardly can one see a road driving for a four-hour journey from Johannesburg to the province of Mpumalanga where the Eagles are grouped in the Nations Cup. The journey was swift and safe as the driver had a speed limit unlike the formular 1 drivers in Nigeria.

Irvin explained that traffic offence could lead one to jail as well as starving and depriving you from feeding your family. Cameras are mounted in all roads. Functional ones. And drivers driving long distances are mandated to stop and refresh two to three times before they get to their destination.

I thought about my country and remembered the torture we went through during the burial of our late ace photographer, Sylva Eleanya in Owerri. A journey that would have taken eight hours lasted for 12 hours with our legs swollen as if we were suffering from elephantiasis.

I thought about the suffering of my people on the East-West road in our country, with billions spent and contracts awarded and re-awarded. Irvin coughed to bring me back to life. “Here in South Africa, Government rewards any body who reports a pot-hole to the authorities. We are always on the lookout.

I have not been lucky but I know many who have been rewarded”, he said. I thought again that the opposite is the case back home.

Though there are no rewards but if there were to be, it would be rewards for anybody who sees a tarred road. We are used to potholes and would marvel to drive for 10 minutes without somersaulting. Yet again, Irvin’s cough brought me back from wandering far away.

This time, he asked me if Nigeria is like America or London. I became angry and asked if he had been to London or America. “I’ve been to Johannesburg a couple of times. I have never gone outside South Africa but I hear that Nigeria is so big and so rich and….cough cut him shot.

I told him to wind down the glasses for fresh air and offered Baba Blue I brought from Lagos. Before he continued his probing questions of whether Lagos is like New York and Abuja like Paris, I alighted at the Stay Easy Hotel of NFF. “Boss, your bill is three hundred Rands”.

I shouted, “what? He laughed and said “you can bring two hundred. Other Nigerians don’t argue over money.”

THE South African court that convicted Henry Okah of master minding the 2010 bombing of the Independence Day celebrations in Abuja would sentence him on 30 January.

The conclusion of the trial says something about Nigeria’s justice system.

Embarrassment from the bombing at the country’s 50th independence anniversary, the death of 12 people and more injured, would have been enough reasons for speedy trial of suspects in an incident that openly defied Nigerian authorities and put terrorism on another pedestal.

Challenges with the case began when the securities agencies accused “some big men” of sponsoring the bombing. There was apparently no evidence, leading a collapse of that approach.

The President seemed to have complicated matters by absolving the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND, from responsibility for the attacks without any investigations.

MEND claimed to be behind the attack and the trial in South Africa of Okah, who had links with MEND tallied with the claim.

Our concern is that while the trial in Nigeria is not making headway, South African High Court Judge Neels Claassen in convicting Okah on 13 charges said, “I have come to the conclusion that the state proved beyond reasonable doubt the guilt of the accused.”

Series of adjournments have put the Nigerian side of the case in the class of others put off for another day. One of the suspects died in detention, and it appears the prosecution lacks the type of evidence the South Africans used   to nail Okah in court.

The seriousness of the attack in Abuja was such that we expected the security agencies, which lost personnel in the blasts, would have had enough evidence to go through a speedy trial.

The initial distractions of searching for “some big men” to attach to the case appear to be one of the many obstacles to the prosecution’s case.

Will the prosecution depend on the conviction of Okah to push the case in Abuja? Can it produce independent evidence to convict the suspects?

This case may be in focus because of its prominence, but it is not the best example of how trials in Nigerian courts drag. A suspect in the 1995 “Otokoto” killings in Owerri has just been freed, after 16 years of appealing a death sentence.

Blames on the speed of justice in Nigeria, which results in a lot of injustices, are often heaped on the judiciary.

However, the arbitrariness of some of our laws, and an enforcement process that emphasises punishment of suspects, fill our prisons and detention centres with suspects who are held for years without a court appearance.

Suspects – in all cases – have rights to speedy trials.