Company promises to pay 2-year insurance proceeds to over 30 clients in Aba

March 25, 2019

By Ijendu Iheaka

 A & G Life Insurance Plc on Monday promised to start the payment of investment claims, which matured since 2017, to its clients in Aba, the commercial nerve centre of Abia, from the first week of April.

The Director of Operations of the company, Mrs Folashade Olafisoye, said this in an interview with our reporter at the Aba office of the company.

Olafisoye blamed the delay in the payment of the claims on some impediment arising from the challenges between the company and the insurance regulatory body.

She said, “From the first week of April 2019, the Aba clients of the company will begin to receive their policy proceeds without any further delay.”

She also said that the company was still settling the huge liabilities and financial challenges inherited by the company after acquiring BAICO Insurance in 2009.

She said that the “mix-up”, resulting in the delayed payment of some clients, including Aba clients, had been uncovered and being fixed to enable payment to begin.

A client of the company, Professor Harold Nwosu, had reported his disappointment over the delay in the payment of his children’s educational insurance policy that was due in 2017.

Nwosu said the company did nothing to clear his doubts or assure him that it would still pay him the insurance proceeds even two years after.

He demanded the payment of his first daughter’s policy proceeds and refund of his investment in other two policies for his younger children.

He said he abandoned two policies he took for his younger children, which came after his first daughter’s policy because the company could not pay for the one that was due earlier.

Meanwhile, it was learnt that no fewer than 30 other policy holders in Aba were being owed since 2017.

The company, which offers life and non-life insurance policies, was still collecting premiums for fresh policies.

It is the official insurer for Abia State Auto-Reg Vehicle Insurance policy.

Nigeria needs economic technocrat as Finance Minister to transform the economy - Industrialist

March 19, 2019

By Ijendu Iheaka

Nigeria needs an economically vibrant technocrat as Minister of Finance to put its economy on a sound footing, says an industrialist, Mr Imo Anasonye.

The industrialist made the disclosure in an interview with our reporter in Aba on Tuesday.

Anasonye, also the Director-General, National Association of Small Scale Industrialists (NASSI), Abia chapter, said: “We need an up to date, dynamic Minister of Finance.

“Somebody that is well abreast of the Nigeria’s economic situation and somebody that has within his or her reach, the solution to what is happening in Nigeria’s economic sphere now.

“We need a vibrant Finance Minister, somebody that understands the economic game and plays it well to turn around the economic fortunes of this nation, because if we don’t get that, we are sunk.

“We need someone who knows about pure economic planning because Nigeria cannot continue relying only on oil revenue which is dwindling by the day.

“We need to shore up the capacities of the real sector without further delay in a strategic manner.“

Anasonye said that the nation’s economy was having hiccups and needed proper economic planning to boost the real sector, the backbone of great economies.

He stressed that with a good economist grounded in economic planning, the real sector would be revived for the benefit of all Nigerians as the nation would depend less on oil.

The industrialist expressed concern that SMEs, which contributed much to the economy, were rarely captured in national and state budgets and cautioned that continuing in that direction would ruin Nigeria’s economy further.

Anasonye said that the only way to grow the economy fast in a big way was for governments to invest in SMEs through SME institutions like NASSI, Chambers of Commerce, among others.

He further suggested continuous dialogue between the government and SME operators and sincerity on the part of government in order to take the SMEs to the height desired in sustaining the economy.

“Let the SME institutions be included in the policies that affect them because.You cannot continue to separate the SME institutions from the economic management systems and expect things to be right, it cannot be right.’’

Anasonye said that Nigeria was bigger than a beggarly nation seeking funds from everywhere it turned into, adding that Nigeria needed to develop its rich economic capacities.

He noted that Nigerians were yearning for political offices because there were less jobs for people to engage in the real sector, but expressed optimism that with developed economic capacities, politics would become less attractive to people.

The industrialist said that solving Nigeria’s economic problems would not take rocket science but only required knowledge, courage and political willpower to accomplish, with the resources available.

RP candidate condemns INEC’s results declaration in Aba South State constituency

March 13, 2019


By Ijendu Iheaka

Goodluck Ibem, Restoration Party (RP) candidate for Aba South State constituency in Abia, has strongly condemned the declaration of a winner in the House of Assembly election for the constituency, by the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC).

Ibem also rejected results of the election, stressing that it was absurd for INEC to have announced a result when many polling centres in the constituency were deprived of voting.

Ibem in an interview with our reporter on Wednesday in Aba, said INEC erred in declaring Obinna Ichita the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) candidate winner of an election that should have been declared inconclusive.

“The commission has declared the APGA candidate for Aba South State constituency, Obinna Ichita, as the winner of Saturday’s House of Assembly election.

“It is wrong and totally unacceptable for INEC to declare a candidate winner when election did not hold in the 19 polling units in Ward 6 (Umuogele and Iheorji communities) and nine polling units in Eziukwu Ward 1were cancelled.

“What INEC did in Aba South, is grave injustice to the constituency. INEC favoured the APGA candidate.

“There is no election in Ward 6 and about 9 polling units in Eziukwu Ward 1 were cancelled.

“We are talking of about 30,000 votes in the two areas which are far above the total votes cast. What INEC ought to have done is to declare the election inconclusive, this is the law.

“My agents made our complaints known to INEC ad-hoc staff, but they ignored us.

“I don’t know who INEC is working for, but they should understand that they should not be seen to be favouring one party against the other.

“INEC should not be seen to be biased, but today, they are not neutral. Even the APGA supporters are telling me to go to court, because of INEC’s injustice. Democracy is dead in Nigeria. It is unfortunate,” he said.

The RP candidate called for the adjudication of all electoral petitions before swearing in of the winners of this election.

He said that the prevailing situation where candidates engaged in all sorts of electoral malpractices and were later declared winners should not be allowed.

“I am of the opinion that election petitions should be dispensed with before swearing-in, as this will serve justice to all parties.

“It is grave injustice to the people and other candidates to swear in a candidate who has engaged in all sorts of electoral malpractices to be declared winner.

“If sworn in, he will deploy government apparatus to keep his seat but if petitions are dispensed with before swearing in, it will help to reduce the desperation for political offices in Nigeria,” he said.

Ibem promised to do everything necessary to reclaim his mandate which he said was given to another person.

EEDC to complete distributor transformer metering by ending by March 31

March 13, 2019


By Ijendu Iheaka

Enugu Electricity Distribution Company (EEDC) on Tuesday said that it would hopefully complete its ongoing Distributor Transformer Metering of transformers in its domain by the end of March 2019.

The Head, Communications,EEDC,Emeka Eze disclosed this in an interview with our reporter in Aba.

Eze said the transformer metering exercise would ensure that transformers cut off  from power supply while their feeders are up and running do not get billed at the end of the period.

He noted that although the company had not abandoned customer metering, it was pursuing transformer metering also to ensure customers’ complaints of overbilling were checked.

“Now part of what we are doing is to meter open transformers.

“The whole idea is to zero down the cost of energy consumed per transformer so that energy consumed by customers through a particular transformer is now what will be used to bill customers.

“It is a strategy to address this complaint of overbilling as some people say they have not seen light for one year yet they get bills.

“So if a meter is on your transformer and it does not receive power supply, that meter will not capture anything and that means such customer will not be billed at the end of the period.

“We started metering transformers in February 2019 and I do not think there is any transformer in Aba that has been metered although we are metering all the public transformers and we call it Distributor-Transformer Metering”, he said.

Eze said that before this transformer metering exercise, EEDC was using feeder availability to bill customers.

He said that after the exercise, customers would no more complain of being billed without power supply as transformers whose feeders receive power supply, will have supply to it measured to ensure accurate customer billing.

He said that EEDC had metered over 260, 000 customers stressing that metering is not magic and cannot be done over night.

According to him, a new meter access regulation approved by the NERC which was to take effect from January 2019 has taken off and will take over the deployment of meters to customers.

He said that under the new NERC approved system, EEDC customers would have to be told who is the company’s meter provider, pay and buy pre-paid meters from them for installation.

“We are earnestly waiting for the NERC approval so that we will engage our customers. As at last year we published expression of interest asking companies that are grounded in the area of meter technology and deployment to indicate interest.

“And that has been put together and we submitted to the regulator, the regulator will now approve and come back to us.

“With that we will now get the dynamics and educate our customers on the dynamics and tell them who these people are and where they can access them. So it is the process that is now ongoing”, he said.

PDP urges opposition parties to join Gov Ikpeazu to rebuild Abia

March 11, 2019

By Ijendu Iheaka

The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Abia, has called on opposition parties in Saturday’s Governorship election to join the reelected Gov Okezie Ikpeazu to move the state forward.

Chief Don Ubani, Abia state Spokesperson of PDP gave the advice on Monday in an interview with our reporter.

Ubani, who was reacting to calls for the cancellation of the governorship election, said that such calls were not in the best interest of the state.

According to him, instead of rejecting Ikpeazu’s re-election, they should join hands with him to rebuild Abia state.

“But if they have decided as they did in 2015 to always bring confusion and take Abia backwards, they are free but they should remember that 2019 is not 2015,” Ubani said.

He thanked all PDP members and people of the state for contributing to the success of the party and promised that in this second tenure; Ikpeazu would make Abia better by working harder.

Dr Uche Ogah of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Dr Alex Otti of the All People’s Grand Alliance (APGA) call on INEC to cancel governorship election in Abia.

They alleged electoral result manipulation using same returning officer, Prof Benjamin Ozumba of the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) also allegedly used in 2015 by INEC to rig Abia elections in 2019 election.

Meanwhile, the Environmental Health Department of Aba South Local Government Area (LGA) on Monday celebrated Ikpeazu’s re-election with a march across some streets in Aba while exhibiting fireworks.

Mrs Onyinyechi Nwigwe, Director, Environmental Health Department, Aba South LGA said they were celebrating Ikpeazu’s re-election because Abia had a relatively peaceful election in 2019.

She expressed optimism that God would give Ikpeazu wisdom to do more, rebuild Obohia, Ohanku, Port Harcourt roads, and provide more roads, better health facilities and pay attention to workers welfare.

Mrs Chinazo Nwosu, a businesswoman in Aba said “It is good that the elections have come and gone and those who won have won, now let them face governance.

“We want to hear something different on radio, TV and in reality. We want to see the political leadership at all levels change the story and lives of the people. We are tired of politicking everyday”.

Fidelis Nwokedi, a resident said that whosoever won the election should be focused and create a better environment for business and living for Abians.

He expressed happiness over Ikpeazu’s victory but urged him to construct more roads, give the city pipe-borne water and create enabling environment for businesses to thrive  in the state.