MOSOP Condemns Military Invasion Of Ogoni Communities

Press Statement

The apex organisation of the Ogoni people, MOSOP, is outraged and condemns in strong terms the invasion of Ogoni communities by the Nigerian military and demand from government the immediate withdrawal of the invading soldiers.

Reports available to MOSOP have shown that rather than end the condemnable campaign, the military has this morning (23/2/2016) extended the violence to Bori, shooting indiscriminately and advancing into adjoining communities including Zaakpon. The shooting, which is on-going had saddeningly seen to the cold blooded murder of innocent persons, infliction of serious gunshot injuries on others, paralysis of activities in the Ogoni capital and its environs as well as arbitrary arrests thereby forcing natives and residents to flee to safety.

The soldiers had on February 22 violently invaded Yeghe community in Gokana local government area of Ogoni, Rivers State occasioning the killing of three (3) innocent natives including Saturday Gbarazia, inflicted severe gunshot injuries on other victims, whose health conditions are said to be very critical; destroyed properties and made arbitrary arrests.

Similarly, the military aided by one notorious Isaac Obe had raided Alode in Eleme local government area on Friday, 19th February, 2016 occasioning torture and arbitrary arrest of victims, destruction of properties belonging to Messrs. Ndo Chizor, John Saloka and others.

We consider as extremely disappointing and unfortunate these unprovoked military violence against our people, which betrays repressively sinister motive and reminiscent of our sad past. We find it difficult to rationalise the wisdom in this military campaign, cruelly motivated by hidden and evil intent. No matter what may be adduced to have informed this appalling military approach, violence in our view, cannot provide the necessary solution to civil issues but dialogue.

Insofar as we are concerned, we are not in a military state neither are we in a state of war that should warrant such degree of military violence. It is shocking and smacks of hate and callousness that in a democratic dispensation, which requires proper civil conduct on the part of all including the military, such level of military hardware including tanks will be deployed to purely harmless civilian communities in a matter that has not been well substantiated.

The military must therefore tread causciously and maintain its independence and professionalism as well as resist attempts by desperate politicians to drag them into the murky waters of politics including being used to commit human rights abuses.

Facts abound that Ogoni had made enormous sacrifices including paying the supreme price for the rebirth and sustenance of the current democracy. We have thus expected that we would be treated fairly and not turning our communities into theatres of violence and killing fields.

It appears to us that this devious campaign may be aimed at creating an unconducive atmosphere in the area to frustrate the planned Ogoni environmental remediation and restoration project billed to commence in the first quarter of this year.

We are therefore passionately calling on all men of goodwill including the international community to prevail on Abuja to withdraw soldiers from Ogoni and stop further violence against our people.

For obvious reasons, we would be protesting the unprovoked violation of the inalienable rights of our people including the right to life to the United Nations, the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation and Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission.

At this crucial moment, we call on the Ogoni people to remain calm and resist the temptation to take laws into their hands. We will continue to monitor the situation and report appropriately.

Signed:
Fegalo Nsuke
Publicity Secretary, MOSOP
23 February, 2016

The slaughter of kings

Sam Omatseye·

Thank God for democracy. Thank God for kings. It is a contradiction that works well here. No matter how avidly we proclaim our republican virtues, we are, at heart, all royalists.

The earlier we admit this to ourselves the better it is for us to make our so-called republic worth the while. Recently, a ranking of Yoruba monarchs stirred a little unease in some quarters. The Alake of Egbaland, Oba Adedotun Gbadebo, unveiled the hierarchy from his own point of view. He said the Ooni of Ife was numero uno, followed by the Alafin of Oyo and Oba of Benin respectively.

In a brilliant but characteristically unwieldy rebuttal, Odia Ofeimun harks back home and anoints the Oba of Benin on the prime spot. Ofeimun begins by disavowing any fidelity to kings, and apes the chic fashion of calling oneself a republican.

I am not interested in the hierarchy. But neither am I happy with the slaughter of kings. By the way, that phrase comes from the Bible where Abraham makes mincemeat of pagan kings.

Since the British slaughtered our kings metaphorically to make Nigeria a colony, we have pretended to have outgrown them. But the wise among us know better. So, they engage the royals. We can recall the recent spat between Oyo State Governor, Abiola Ajimobi and the Olubadan-in-council over the elevation of the irritant Ladoja and other chiefs without regards to due process.

It was billed as a standoff of two antipodal worlds. Modern versus ancient, republican versus royalist, bureaucratic versus traditional, the past versus the future, indigenous versus foreign.

But the cards lay in the governor’s hands. The law gives him the power. He held his grounds.

But some elders pitched in and they both etched peace and ended the furore. That was principally because the governor understood the intricacy of traditional mores. The matter was resolved with the understanding that their elevations held as long as they provided documents of their medical and security screening.

Gov. Ajimobi showed a hand of cultural nuance and maturity rather than a modern radical in power. He did not act like President Kongi in Soyinka’s bleak play Kongi’s Harvest, who places the king under lock and key.

But not long after, Ibadan tells us another story. The Olubadan dies and a transition beckons. But not to worry. There will be no night of long knives dripping with intrigues and backstabbing. No dark horses emerging, no permutations, no politicking, no underhand manoeuvres. Forget the tale of bribery from a chief. The rules shun the stealth of filthy lucre.

Ibadan has a smooth transition. The successor is known and he will step right on the throne of the fathers once all rites are fulfilled. Yet Ibadan history is rooted in the republican principle. Founded on a highland, it gathered migrants from the wars bursting all over Yorubaland. The new citizens made themselves a new society with kings not based on the old ways. It was a town of generals. The men who rose were not of the royal blood line. They were swordsmen who shed blood for the new land. The Ogunmolas and Latosas earned their epaulets by gallantry.

But the society has not ended up a democracy, but a feudal redoubt. That’s the irony. It is like Igboland, where kings are nothing, but it blends republican ethos with social rules that invoke a feudal milieu. In Ibadan, it is a sort of gerontocracy, where the oldest becomes king. It works and our politicians have called for a politics where rules work, not chaos. Not the power of the strong man. In Ibadan, they teach us the supremacy of the rule of law.

Unlike our politics where a transition leads to fear and trembling, and where in some kingdoms heads roll, Ibadan is easy. The departed Olubadan embodied the full persona of Nigerian power, and Gov. Ajimobi serenaded him as a soldier, politician, bureaucrat, king.

All of that is in us. We may say we are no royalists. But we show it everyday. We bow to the elder. In Urhoboland, the younger says migwo, (I am on my knees) to the older person. The Onyisi syndrome is alive and well in Igboland. The Yoruba still gleefully prostrate. In weddings, a 30-year-old suitor prostrates to a two-year-old in-law, at least in theory. The baba gan refrain riffs through the culture.Ranka dede, a northern term of obsequious subordination, only became temporarily antiquated in the last election cycle when Buhari’s fans chanted Sai Baba.

The top of all obeisance lies in the throne. It is the apex court of genuflection. It is only the king that cannot bow, a taboo that Soyinka hints at with revulsion in Kongi’s Harvest.

In my first visit to the United Kingdom, a hotel hand was cross at me for ruffling a British currency note with the picture of the queen. Oliver Cromwell who presided over the killing of Charles 1 was not bold enough to decree a farewell to the monarchy. Part of the sanity of the British democracy comes from the stabilising awe of royalty.

For all his republican craving, Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself king in Rome and his seductress and wife Josephine as queen. In the United States, we see the appetite of royalty. Once, the Kennedy family was their unofficial royalty. In their absence, we have all forms of royalty, high like the imperfect Bush family, or low like the Kardashians. It is probably the reason America is the celebrity capital. As men seek gods, societies seek kings and princes. In fact, some Americans wanted George Washington to be crowned king. Others wanted him to reign as president till death. It is not for nothing that this celebrity fascination has drowned the world. In his novel, The Prince and the Pauper, Mark Twain, an American, emphasised the integrity of royalty by showing that a prince could never act as a pauper, or vice versa.

In Yorubaland, a saying goes thus, “we cannot serve the father and also the son.” That has been used with the Awo clan. That is probably reinforced because the palaces in Yorubaland still retain a certain grandeur. We were all witnesses to President Jonathan’s peripatetic folly of begging about the palaces of the Southwest.

I know many who say bad things about royalty in a democracy. If, for instance, chieftaincy titles were stopped, they would be the first to cry foul.

Rather than disavow royalty, we should learn how to make it work. We already have it in the way we organise our families, villages, local government, politics, business, etc. Rather than deny, let us explore it and make something out of it as Governor Ajimobi did. We may devise a new society and ideology from it. Just maybe. We may call it royal democracy. As we have social democrats, Christian democrats, etc, we may have royal democrats. Rather than savage the kings, we could salvage a system.

- In Touch, The Nation newspaper,

Time to Beg Okonjo-Iweala to Come Back

  Femi Aribisala

In the 2015 presidential election, the APC was more prepared for defeat than for victory. The party did not expect to win and clearly had no agenda for victory.

In a 1972 Hollywood film entitled The Candidate, Robert Redford acts as Bill Mckay, a political neophyte who is drafted out of the blue into a race for the U.S. Senate. With no chance whatsoever of winning, Mckay is given a free hand to say whatever he likes on the stump. Therefore, he tweaks the political establishment at every turn.

However, as a result of a series of unexpected developments, he keeps rising in the polls. By Election Day, he is neck and neck with his more seasoned opponent and the race goes to the wire. To everyone’s surprise, he pulls off an incredible victory and is elected senator of the United States.

The last reel of the film is on the night of his election. On hearing he has won, Mckay becomes flustered and confused. Victory was certainly not part of the plan. As media men gather, eager to get his reaction to his famous victory, he pulls his campaign manager into a room and asks him in consternation: “Marvin, what do we do now?” Before he can answer, the media close in on them, drag them out of the room and the film ends.

The satire of the film, which received an Oscar for Best Screenplay of 1972, is that while Mckay might have succeeded in fooling the electorate to vote for him, he did not have a clue what to do as a United States senator. It was all a bit of a joke for him, but then the joke backfired. He never expected to win and had no contingency plan for victory.

Groping in the dark

The Candidate could easily have been a made-in-Nigeria movie in 2015. To all intents and purposes, the opposition APC won an implausible victory against all odds. But in the presidential election, APC was more prepared for defeat than for victory. The party did not expect to win and clearly had no agenda for victory. This is what accounts for the cul-de-sac we now find ourselves in Nigeria. If anything defines our current predicament, it is that we have a government that, in the middle of an economic crisis, does not have a clue what to do.

The APC did not plan to govern. The party-members told Nigerians what mayhem they planned to unleash should they lose and what parallel government they would establish. But concerning government, they proffered no solution on how they would address Nigeria’s urgent economic problems. On the contrary, they made wild unrealistic promises that were totally out of kilter with the situation on the ground; promising to do extravagant things that could not even be entertained by previous governments in more buoyant climes.

How else can one explain the fact that, in the context of a drastic economic downturn, the APC came out with a “Father Christmas” manifesto, loaded with such pies in the sky as paying unemployed graduates, or giving cash handouts to the poorest 25 million Nigerians? Foolishly, Nigerian voters failed to determine where APC hoped to get the money for such largesse.

Because the APC was not prepared to govern, no agreement was reached beforehand by the legacy parties of the coalition about how to distribute the spoils of office. This provided the basis for the free-for-all fights that ensued once the election was over.

Because the APC did not expect to govern and was not prepared to govern, it took President Buhari five months to choose his cabinet. Five months of squabbling and in-fighting, while pretending to Nigerians that the delay was needed to find technocratic saints and angels. But the saints and angels turned out to be the same old “devil you know.” While the president dawdled, the economy went from bad to worse and investors voted with their feet; leaving Nigeria in droves.

Nigeria in sick-bay

We are now confronted with the fact that there is definitely a technocratic deficit in the president’s new crew. Needing to make up for the time we lost while the president kept everyone waiting, we have now discovered that the people he laboured to choose bring little or nothing to the table in terms of their capacity to address expeditiously the grave issues currently confronting the country.

So what do we have now? Nigeria is a sick patient currently lying comatose in a hospital emergency ward. Her condition is critical. A surgical operation is urgently required. However, there is no doctor on duty. The night-nurse only works at the hospital in her spare time. In the daytime, she is the proprietress of a “mama put.” The other nurses are also part-time workers. They are a collection of cooks, tailors and groundnut sellers.

This raises grave concerns about the fate of the patient. What is going to happen to Nigeria? If we are not careful, this patient might not make it.

When President Buhari finally chose his ministers, he chose by his own account “noise-makers.” These turned out to be economic illiterates. Instead of putting together a coherent economic policy that will stop the free-fall of the naira and encourage monetary inflows to supplement the drastic cuts in our foreign exchange income, the government’s answer has been to do nothing but blame the past administration for everything. Its blueprint, if it has any at all, has been to ignore the economy and concentrate instead on anti-corruption propaganda while the president junkets around the world.

No economic blueprint

Before Lai Mohammed was appointed, Adams Oshiomhole was the self-appointed minister of Information. His job, was to attack Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the former minister of Finance, at every turn. This assignment involved re-writing the history of the Jonathan years.

Okonjo-Iweala is a seasoned economist with vast technocratic experience. At one time, she was in the running for President of the World Bank. As minister of Finance, she had an economic blueprint for addressing Nigeria’s economic morass; something sorely lacking in Oshiomhole and his colleagues today. Since leaving office, she has been snatched up as Senior Advisor at Lazard.

Okonjo-Iweala stressed the need to reduce Nigeria’s recurrent expenditure. She insisted Nigeria could not afford the petroleum subsidy. She wanted its trillion naira leakages plugged. But Oshiomhole and his former labour union colleagues would have none of that. They mobilised Nigerians against her; so the hemorrhage continued. Okonjo-Iweala wanted Nigeria to save for the rainy day by establishing an excess crude account and a sovereign wealth fund where incomes above budget estimates could be saved.

However, Oshiomhole and his governor colleagues would also have none of that. They insisted all extra money earned must be shared and spent and not saved. They even went to court to force the minister’s hand. Now that the national oil cookie has crumbled, the same Oshiomhole and his misguided colleagues are holding Okonjo-Iweala responsible for not building sizeable foreign reserves in times of plenty.

However, nothing justifies Okonjo-Iweala’s earlier postures more than Nigeria’s present predicament. Indeed, what Nigeria desperately needs today is Okonjo-Iweala or an Okonjo-Iweala. We need a seasoned and experienced economist to head a team of hard-nosed economists to work out an economic policy to get Nigeria out of the woods. No such team exists today in the Buhari government. Instead of constituting an economic team, the president is appointing social media aides to help launder his image.

As a result, the naira is in free-fall and nobody in government seems to know what to do. It is now 400 to the dollar and the president keeps saying he is against devaluation because it will affect the masses. Somebody needs to tell Mr. President that the masses are already adversely affected. Everybody is raising prices, using the free-falling naira as excuse. It is not inconceivable that by this week-end, the naira might be trading on the parallel market at 500 to the dollar.

Big government

In many respects, Nigeria’s economic situation today is god sent. It enables us to do what we failed to do when the oil market was booming – downsize the government and transform the economy away from oil dependency. However, the tragedy of today is that we are saddled with a government that refuses to face reality. It refuses to entertain the harsh adjustments that need to be made.

The first economic blunder of this government was to bailout the states with salary arrears. The bailout did not address the fundamental issue of the insolvency of those states. It just postponed dealing with them. Since the bailouts are not grants but loans, with repayments to be deducted from the monthly allocations of the states, it means even less money will be coming to them now that there is far less money to share.

The truth is that most of Nigeria’s states cannot survive without government handouts. Better now than later, we need to re-visit the issue of Nigeria’s unrealistic states structure and face up to the fact that we cannot afford 36 states. Neither can we afford a federal legislature that gobbles up over N100 billion per annum. In addition, we can no longer afford a situation where billions of naira is spent every year just catering to the president.

Padded budget

One of the strange things about this government is that it refuses to entertain the need for austerity in the context of our drastically reduced income. Instead, it comes up with a bigger budget than when our economy was far more buoyant. Nigerians refuse to see the 419 in this. If you were earning six naira and your income drops to four naira, you don’t then decide to spend eight naira. This is what the economic illiterates currently running our economy are proposing to do in 2016.

The APC refuses to accept that after 16 years in the political wilderness, it has to make do with lean resources now that it is its turn to be at the helm of affairs. Therefore, it decided to pad the 2016 budget by basing it on oil selling at $38 dollars per barrel; when the commodity has already dropped far below $30. It has also decided to pad Nigeria’s reduced income with borrowed money.

Sums are allocated for fake items, others are inflated beyond measure. Although civil servants have been made the sacrificial lambs for the budget mess, one wonders if a number of the inflated items were not camouflaged backdoor paybacks for APC’s dubious election campaign expenditures.

The hard choices we continue to refuse to make today will still come back to haunt us tomorrow.

Credits: Femi Aribisala, Premium Times

- See more at: http://www.bodedolu.com/14554-2/#sthash.XGRFUAi9.dpuf

POLICE POWERS AND DUTIES AND THE RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE CITIZENS

NoprinFoundation Nigeria

The Nigeria Police Force (NPF) is created and regulated by law. The powers, functions and procedures of the NPF are founded on Nigeria's 1999 Constitution, the Police Act and other regional and international legislations and norms.

POLICE POWERS AND DUTIES

The law confers the following powers and duties on the police:

1. Power to arrest any person suspected of having committed an offence. The offence must be known to the law.

2. The police may arrest a person for an offence without a warrant if the police officer sees the person committing the offence.

3. The police officer or officers carrying out the arrest must inform the person being arrested the reason or the offence for which he or she is being arrested and/or detained.

4. Power to investigate a crime without interference.

5. Power to grant bail to a person suspected to have committed an offence. Except in capital offences (that is offences carrying death penalty), such as murder and armed robbery, the police have powers, and are required by law, to grant bail to a suspect or charge him/her to court within 24 hours or 48 hours. The police have the responsibility to grant bail on simple offences. SUCH BAIL IS FREE!

6. The police shall bring a suspect to court within one day (24 hours) of arrest where there is a court within 40 kilometers from the place of arrest/detention. But where the distance is more than 40 kilometers, the person shall be brought before the court within two days (48 hours).

7. However, the police may refuse bail, if the suspect has no fixed address or is accused of or charged with a serious crime such as murder or armed robbery. In such case, the person must be promptly charged to court.

8. Police have no legal basis to refuse a woman to stand surety for a suspect. All persons are equal before the law.

9. Power to conduct a bodily search on any person suspected to have committed an offence.

10. The police can on reasonable suspicion conduct a bodily search on a person without a warrant, provided that the police officer carrying out the search must be of the same sex with the person being searched.

11. Power to search premises. The law requires a warrant to be shown to the owner of the premises before his/her premises may be searched. The warrant must also indicate the items to be searched for. The police can search premises only with a warrant signed by a superior police officer or a magistrate or a Justice of the Peace. The person whose premises are being searched reserves the right to insist on searching the police officer before the officer enters the house to conduct the search.

12. Power to maintain or enforce law and order and to use reasonable and proportionate force to prevent the breakdown of law and order.

13. It is the responsibility of the police to protect the identity of complainants, information and witnesses.

RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF CITIZENS

1. A citizen has the right to be told of his/her offence or the reason for his/her arrest and can insist on consulting a lawyer or other representative of choice before giving any information or making statements to the police.

2. A citizen has the right not to be tortured or forced to confess or admit an offence he/she has not committed, or knows nothing about. 

3. A citizen has the right to write his or her own statement personally, if he/she is literate.

4. A citizen has the right to have an independent person of his/her choice read the statement and interpret it for him/her if he/she is illiterate, before thumb printing.

5. A citizen has the right to refuse to sign a statement or even write one until he/she has consulted a lawyer or a human rights representative.

6. A citizen has the right to ask for police bail if detained or about to be detained.

7. A citizen, who is injured in the process of being arrested or detained by the police, shall have the right to report to a superior police officer in that same or another police station. He/she should also support his/her claim with a medical report obtained from his/her doctor, and photographs of the injuries sustained while in police custody. 

8. A citizen has a right not to be harassed, intimidated or physically assaulted, threatened or tortured by the police. 

9. If a police officer takes your personal effect such as money, wristwatch, or documents, you are entitled to being issued a receipt, and you have a right to insist on being issued with a receipt.

10. You have a right to be told the reason for your arrest and/or detention.

11. It is an offense for the police to demand bribe from you as condition to grant bail; it is also an offence for you to give or offer bribe or any form of inducement to the police. If any police officer demands or forces you to part with bribe, memorize or record the name and service number of the officer involved and report the matter immediately after you are released to a lawyer or to any human rights organization, or to a superior police officer in that same or another police station.

12. It is the duty of every citizen to assist the police in their work including by giving credible information to aid the detection, prevention and investigation of crime.

13. It is the responsibility of every citizen to give truthful and useful information to the police.

14. It is not right to be rude to the police, or assault a police officer or to prevent him or her from performing his/her lawful duties.

15. If you are invited by a police officer to report to the police station, you are under obligation to do so.

16. If you are required to appear in court on a date specified on the bail bond, your failure to appear in court may lead to the revocation of your bail and a bench warrant issued for your arrest. 

17. Every victim of crime is entitled to fair and humane treatment. A victim of gunshot is entitled to prompt and adequate medical attention without any more consideration than to save life first.

There is no law that requires medical personnel to have a police report before treating a victim of gunshot injury. Successive Inspectors-General of Police have clarified that police officers should not harass, intimate or arrest any healthcare giver or hospital staff that treat a victim or gunshot injury without a police report. If the hospital suspects a victim to be an escaped criminal, the hospital should commence treatment while taking steps to alert the police.

Any hospital authority or personnel harassed by any police officer for treating a victim of gunshot injury should report to NOPRIN or any other human rights organization.

PLEASE REPORT CASES OF HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSE BY THE POLICE OR OTHER LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES TO NOPRIN FOUNDATION.

NOPRIN Foundations’ Contact Information:

Address:

44, Alhaja Kofoworola Crescent

Off Obafemi Awolowo Way (Balogun Bus Stop),

Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria.

Tel: 234-1-7618925,

E-mail: noprin@noprin.org. Website: www.noprin.org

Contact Person:

Okechukwu Nwanguma

National Coordinator

Tel: 234 8064974531

Email: okechukwu@noprin.org

WONDERFUL PROFILE OF SENATOR OVIE OMO-AGEGE: A LIFE OF HONOR, ACHIEVEMENT & GREATNESS

ATTORNEY, POLITICAL LEADER, PUBLIC ADMINISTRATOR, CORPORATE EXECUTIVE, FEDERAL LAWMAKER, THOUGHT LEADER.

1.0. INTRODUCTION

1.1. Ovie Omo-Agege, a lawyer, consummate grassroots politician and mobiliser, public administrator, corporate leader and consummate thought leader on good governance and public service is a Senator of the Federal of Nigeria representing the Urhobo Nation and people of Delta Central Senatorial District of Delta State.

2.0. EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION

2.1. Born on 3rd August, 1963 into the famous Omo-Agege Family of Orogun in Ughelli North Local Government Area of Delta State, Senator Omo-Agege is the son of the erudite and incorruptible Nigerian jurist, Justice James Omo-Agege and Ms. Francesca Okwendo of the Wanogho Royal Family, also of Orogun. He studied at St. George’s Grammar School, Obinomba in Ukwani LGA, Delta State. He showed early signs of rare leadership traits and abilities at St. George’s by his diligence, smartness, dignifying comportment and an attractive power of personal discipline, moral character and firmness on issues and with fellow students. These fine qualities guided his study of Law at the University of Benin where he graduated in1985. He was called to the Nigerian Bar as a Solicitor and Advocate of the Supreme Court of Nigeria in 1986 after completing his professional legal training at the Nigerian Law School, Lagos.

3.0. WORK AFTER LAW SCHOOL

3.1. Omo-Agege had his compulsory National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) with the Directorate of Criminal Investigations and Intelligence of the Kwara State Command of the Nigerian Police Force in 1987. Thereafter, he commenced a law career in the private law firm of Pat Okupa & Co. Here, he cut his legal teeth as a litigation attorney in criminal, corporate, banking, and commercial law, amongst others. He acquired requisite expertise and vast experience during his practice at Pat Okupa & Co.

3.2. Buoyed by his achievements and rating at Pat Okupa & Co., he moved to Lagos in 1989 and co-founded Agege & Co, a private law firm with special interests in corporate banking and commercial litigation matters.

4.0. SOJOURN IN THE UNITED STATES AND FURTHER EDUCATION

4.1. In 1990, Omo-Agege moved to the United States of America. He immediately assumed the position of a Foreign Associate in the Law Office of Charles O. Agege in Los Angeles, California. As a Foreign Associate, he counseled foreign clients on Nigeria law and prepared litigation strategies for clients. He anchored an extensive portfolio of responsibilities in matters involving personal injury, breach of contract, fraud, securities, real estate, banking, letters of credit and other financial instruments.

4.2. In 1992, Ovie Omo-Agege was admitted into and remains an active member in good standing of the State Bar of California, United States District Court (Central District of California) and the United States Supreme Court, Washington, DC. Almost thereafter, he founded the law firm of Agege & Associates also in 1992 as a Senior Partner. By 1996, Agege & Associates became Agege & Esin through a partnership merger. The new firm was naturally broader in scope, with operational scope involving international wire transfers, insurance, professional malpractice, suits against foreign entities under the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act (FSIA) and Domestic International Commercial arbitration, admiralty and marine litigation practices, and extensive criminal defence litigation.

4.3. In furtherance of his pursuit of excellence, Omo-Agege enrolled in the post-graduate law degree programme at Tulane University Law School, New Orleans where he obtained an LLM (Masters of Law) degree with distinction in 2002.

5.0. PUBLIC SERVICE AND ADMINISTRATION

5.1. Armed with an impressive leadership account in law practice and desirous of continuing his family’s legacy of impacting the highest standard of excellence on society, Senator Omo-Agege effectively launched his political career in 2002 when he returned home from the United States. In that year, he sought to represent his people in the House of Representatives on the platform of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Though he did not succeed, he remained steadfast in his determination to contribute to the socio-economic development of his people.

5.2. With his fine repertoire of knowledge and huge experience in organised systems, he was appointed as the first Executive Assistant to the then Governor of Delta State, Chief James Onanefe Ibori in 2003. His responsibilities in this role included formulation, implementation, coordination of government policy, monitoring and appraisal of Executive Council decisions to ensure compliance with administration set goals, pre-qualification of and monitoring of state project vendors. He was also the Government’s Chief Liaison Officer to the Presidency and the National Headquarters of PDP where he developed a vast network of leaders across Nigeria and outside the country.

5.3. As a result of his stunning performance, capacity to navigate complex challenges with amazing ease, proven ability to multi-task in fast-paced leadership and governance environments, and generally demonstrated leadership strengths, he was elevated to the State Executive Council as the Commissioner for Special Duties in 2005. Here, he had additional responsibility to oversee the privatisation programme of the state government. He successfully supervised the privatisation of African Timber and Plywood in Sapele.

5.4. As Commissioner for Special Duties, Omo-Agege was credited with the development of a robust and dynamic policy in the area of conflict resolution. His unique ability to adapt to complex situations manifested in the prompt release of hostages and recovery of large catches of small arms from youths involved in communal conflicts in the state. Also, his proven ability to manage and complete projects to the highest standards ensured the successful completion of critical projects of the government.

5.5. In 2007, he became the Secretary to State Government (SSG). As SSG, Omo-Agege brought an unusual dynamism and developmental strides to Delta’s public governance space. He strengthened the Office of Project Monitors to ensure full execution of government projects. He designed an efficient implementation architecture for the Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission (DESOPADEC).

5.6. Buoyed up by his compelling leadership convictions and calls by a broad spectrum and critical mass of the people of Delta State to vie for the governorship office, Omo-Agege joined the race in 2006. He became a leading contender for the gubernatorial nomination of the PDP. He secured the highest delegates among contestants from his Senatorial district though Dr Emmanuel Udughan who later became the governor finally emerged as the party’s 2007 candidate. Omo-Agege also contested to be governor in 2011 but did not succeed.

5.7. Upon leaving government in 2007, Omo-Agege became the Chairman/CEO of Techsprings Limited, a dredging and oil services company based in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. He held this position until he was elected to the senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in 2015.

6.0. PHILANTROPY

6.1. Through the Ovie Omo-Agege Foundation, Senator Omo-Agege contributes to the upliftment of the human spirit and dignity. His imprints in the academic lives of Nigerian people, especially youths are better told by the people. To him, “I am just but God’s channel of hope to the wary in spirit to whom we owe our conscience and the Almighty God a duty to do our all to help whenever we can without discrimination.”

7.0.CONCLUSION

7.1. In recognition of his selfless service to humanity, Senator Omo-Agege has been conferred with numerous traditional titles including the Uvo of Mosogar, Obaisi of Ughelli, and Obaisi of Orogun. A confirmed Catholic, Ovie Omo-Agege, is happily married to Barrister (Mrs) Rosemary Omo-Agege and together, they have five children.