The Accountant-General of the Federation, Mr Jonah Oguniyi Otunla has lauded INEC over its decision to use Vice Chancellors of universities as returning officers in the 2011 election, saying that the idea was a brilliant one.

He said that the election was successful because the professors were not ready to compromise.

“2011 election was successful because of the employment of Vice Chancellors as INEC returning officers,” he said.

Otunla made this known yesterday, at Caleb University, Lagos that: “In 2015, if INEC has no better alternative, I think it is best to re-employ the service of Vice Chancellors because it has the best result on the 2011 election.”

According to him, judging by the calibre of people that were involved, it restored confidence in the electorates and gave credibility to the election. “So I wish the idea of INEC using them as returning officers should continue,” he added.

The financial expert who based his recommendation on the fact that the VC were empowered to announce the results of the election as given to them by INEC, said they did a nice job and were not manipulated, hence restoring the confidence of the electorates in election process.

Speaking on a lecture note entitled: “The impact of quality education on national development: where is funding situated?” Otunla dispelled the agitation from private universities that they should benefit from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) insisting that private universities are also profit making venture.

He said: “As private ventures or enterprises, private universities depend on income generated through a variety of sources. These according to him include; tuition fees, contributions from a variety of sources and income from investments.

Otunla enjoined private universities, which maintain academic standard, to continue in their good works, saying that “the public is watching, one day some one will come and assist financially, just as it is being done in the US and UK”.
“If you want quality education, you must be ready to pay for it. I have three children and non of them is in private university because I cannot afford it,” he said.

However, as part of his commitment towards education, Otunla has pledged N100,000 endowment fund for the best graduating student of accounting department of Caleb University effect from 2013.

Otunla who berated the manner with which teachers are treated said: Our country should celebrate teachers as it is done in overseas, reiterating that the teaching profession is more important than any other profession as all professions were taught by teachers.

He said: “The role teachers play qualify them to have a say in the national development as quality teachers will produce quality students who will drive the national economy. If you have a bad teacher, you cannot have a good student”

The Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, has blasted the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, for calling its Chairman, Chief Bisi Akande, an ex-convict.

ACN said it was unfortunate and shameful that the ruling party that professed being blessed with intelligent people in its fold, finds it hard to tell the difference between a political prisoner and a criminal convict.

In a statement issued in Abuja on Thursday by its National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed, the country’s leading opposition bloc stated that “any attempt to label Chief Akande an ex-convict in a pejorative sense will be an exercise in futility, because he was neither convicted for abuse of office nor for any corruption-related offence by a duly constituted court.”

Mohammed explained that “the Special Military Tribunal that tried and sentenced hundreds of politicians, including Chief Akande, in the 1980s cannot be a reason to label all those it tried and convicted criminal ex-convicts, reminding the PDP that the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) ordered its members to boycott the proceeding of the tribunal simply because it failed to meet the standard of a properly-constituted court.”

”If those who were tried and convicted by military tribunals are indeed deemed to have been properly tried and found guilty of the offences for which they were charged, many of them would not have gone ahead to hold important elective and appointive positions in the polity.”

“Outside Nigeria you have the global icon Nelson Mandela, who was tried, found guilty and jailed for life in 1964. Of course it will be laughable for anyone trying to denigrate Mandela to tag him an ex-convict, except of course that person is a member of the PDP!”

The spokesman noted that “Chief Bisi Akande, whom the PDP has chosen to pick on in its misguided mudslinging, is an embodiment of honesty, integrity, transparency and decency, who is more of a role model to our youth than most members of the PDP.”

“He served creditably in the private and the public sector, where he held many top posts including that of a Governor.”

“Today, at 74, those rare attributes that have come to define Chief Akande – honesty, decency, integrity and public service – have become synonymous with him. That is why we are proud to hold him up as our Chairman,” ACN said.

ACN admonished the PDP to devote its strength on its leaking tattered umbrella, instead of “trying to denigrate a man whom the people respect and hold up as a sharp distinction of mankind, at a time people are increasingly being defined by their vanities rather than the content of their character.”

”Well, we have got news for the PDP: While the legacy of Chief Akande is assured, that of the PDP is not. Therefore, we advise the sinking behemoth to turn its attention elsewhere, as it awaits its Waterloo,” the statement concluded.