African-American History Month Series: The Role of the StudentNonviolent Coordinating Committee

African-American History Month: The Role of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

Youth played a pivotal role in the civil rights and black power movements

By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire

It was on February 1, 1960, some five decades ago, that the student movement was initiated. On this date four youth were arrested for demanding service at a segregated white-only lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina.

When the Southwide Student Leadership Conference on Nonviolent Resistance to Segregation was held in April of that same year, at least 56 colleges in the region had participants linked to the so-called “sit-in movement.” These activists were spread out over 12 states and had links with students from 19 northern colleges and universities.

This gathering was sponsored by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) headed by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and under the executive director Ella Baker. The over 300 students who were delegates and observers to the conference walked away having witnessed the formation of a continuing Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) which would constitute itself later as a more structured organization with a headquarters as well as field workers.

With the intensification of the campaigns to abolish legalized segregation and to win universal suffrage for African-Americans in many areas of the southern United States, SNCC began to play an even more critical role in the Civil Rights Movement. In 1961, the “Freedom Rides” were launched by the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) resulting in the bombing of an integrated busload of freedom riders in Anniston, Alabama and the severe beating of persons by white racists in a Greyhound bus depot in Birmingham.

As a result of these actions carried out against the freedom riders, CORE called off the campaign aimed at outlawing segregated inter-state transportation facilities in the South. However, it was the student activists from SNCC based in the Nashville area, who pledged to continue the freedom rides until the segregation laws governing inter-state transportation in the South were overturned.

The SNCC activists in the area worked with the Nashville Christian Leadership Conference under the influence of Rev. James Lawson who taught seminars on nonviolent action protest methods.

Student activist Lucretia Collins summed up the sentiments within SNCC when she stated the following: “In Nashville, we had been informed that CORE was going to have Freedom Rides that could carry people all over the South and their purpose was to test the facilities at the bus stations in the major cities.

“Later we heard of the bus of Freedom Riders that could carry people all over the South and their purpose was to test the facilities at the bus stations in the major cities. Later we heard that the bus of the Freedom Riders had been burned on Mother’s Day in Anniston, Alabama, and that another bus had been attacked by people in Birmingham.

“CORE was discontinuing the Freedom Rides, people said. We felt that it had to continue even if we had to do it ourselves. We knew we were subject to being killed. This did not matter to us.

“There was so much at stake, we could not allow segregationists to stop us. We had to continue that Freedom Ride even if we were killed in the process.” (Statement published in “The Making of Black Revolutionaries,” by James Foreman, 1972)

After the continuation of the Freedom Rides by SNCC, the government was forced to intervene and repeal the segregation laws that regulated inter-state public transportation. This was only done after numerous activists were beaten, tortured and imprisoned on false charges in Parchman Correctional Facility in Mississippi.

SNCC, however, was not content to merely abolish the segregation laws, they recognized that political power being denied to African-Americans in the South would continue to perpetuate the system of oppression and inequality. Consequently, the organization took a great interest in developments in Fayette County, Tennessee, where the African-American community had suffered severe reprisals for their efforts aimed at registering to vote.

By 1963, the slogan “one-man, one vote”, became the cornerstone of SNCC’s organizational program. This slogan demanding the establishment of universal suffrage in the United States, paralleled the efforts taking place within the anti-colonial struggle in Africa.

When Oginga Odinga, the Home Affairs Minister of the newly independent government in Kenya, visited the United States in late 1963, Atlanta was his last stop on the itinerary. Several representatives of SNCC, which was headquartered in Atlanta, visited Odinga at his hotel in the city, where they presented him with gifts and exchanged solidarity greetings.

After the meeting with Odinga, SNCC members held a sit-in at a local segregated restaurant in the city resulting in the arrests of 17 of their members. This event prompted other protest activities against segregation in the city, where several hundred people participated and were arrested.

James Forman, the executive secretary of SNCC stated some years later that “All these activities, beginning with our visit to Oginga Odinga, must have made some people on a higher level squirm too. Here was a high-ranking foreign dignitary, on an official visit, commenting that the racial situation in the United States was ‘very pitiful’ and that the United States ‘practices segregation-which is what we are fighting in Africa.’

“The racist image of this country that SNCC’s work exposed was in sharp conflict with the picture of democracy at work painted by the bureaucratic beavers in Washington, D.C.” (Forman, The Making of Black Revolutionaries)

During 1964, SNCC embarked upon its most challenging effort with the Mississippi Summer Project that was launched in coalition with other civil rights organizations operating in the state. Under the direction of this alliance known as the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), nearly 1,000 volunteers were mobilized from northern universities and communities to travel to Mississippi that summer to organize an independent Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) and to register thousands of African-Americans to vote.

The state’s racists responded with the murder of several civil rights workers and the jailing and beating of scores of others. By the conclusion of the summer, the MFDP activists had attempted to unseat the all-white Mississippi Democratic party delegation to the national convention in Atlantic City.

Although the MFDP was never seated at the National Democratic Convention in 1964 and the federal legislation on universal suffrage would not be passed until after the Selma campaign of early 1965, the efforts of the MFDP and its SNCC supporters were successful in bringing broader segments of the community into the struggle for political empowerment and national recognition.

SNCC and the Global Anti-Colonial Struggle

As a result of the pioneering work of SNCC, they were invited to send a delegation to tour several independent nations in Africa during the fall of 1964. The group spent two weeks in the Republic of Guinea at the special invitation of the then President Ahmed Sekou Toure. After this, John Lewis and Donald Harris continued the sojourn in Kenya, Zambia as well as other countries, while the other members of SNCC returned to the United States.

Forman, who was a leading member of the SNCC delegation to Africa said in 1972 that “the trip for me was a culmination of my life in several ways. Africa as a black continent, as our homeland, had always been on my mind. The SNCC executive secretary went on to say that “I had also dreamed for years of helping to build an organization to achieve popular power in the United States and then to relate it with one or more African countries for common revolutionary purposes.” (Forman, The Making of Black Revolutionaries)

After 1966, SNCC would create an International Affairs section under the direction of James Forman, who would represent the organization at an international conference on settler colonialism in Southern Africa that was held in Zambia in 1967, as well speak before the United Nations Fourth Committee on Decolonization later in the same year.

The role of SNCC during this period illustrated the interconnectedness of the African-American struggle and developments on the Continent. This intersection between the history of Africans in various parts of the world would continue throughout the remaining years of the 20th century.

SNCC, Urban Rebellions and the Workers’ Movement

What distinguished SNCC from other civil rights organizations was its work within the cities, small towns and rural areas of the South where the development of local leadership was a key aspect of its political program. In 1965-66 in Lowndes County, Alabama, SNCC worked with farmers and youth leading to the formation of the original Black Panther Party.

Not only did the Black Panthers in Alabama push for the right to vote and the development of an organization that was independent of the racist-controlled state Democratic Party, it also advocated and practiced self-defense for the activists and the community as a whole. These efforts spread throughout the country and created the conditions for the founding of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, California in October 1966.

Between 1964-1968, hundreds of urban rebellions erupted throughout the United States. Chapters of the Black Panther Party grew rapidly between 1967-1969 all over the country. The FBI and local law-enforcement agencies responded to the upsurge in revolutionary activity by directly and indirectly murdering Malcolm X in 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, Fred Hampton and Mark Clark in 1969. Hundreds of members of SNCC and the Black Panther Party as well as other revolutionaries were harassed, imprisoned and driven into exile.

In 1968, African-American workers in Detroit began to engage in wildcat strikes demanding an end to racism and super-exploitation in the automotive industry. These struggles were soon linked to the efforts of community organizers and students who were waging battles around education issues, housing and police brutality.

The National Black Economic Development Conference was held in Detroit in April 1969 where the demand for reparations was put forward when James Forman issued the Black Manifesto calling for massive compensation for centuries of slavery and national oppression. Forman would soon join the League of Revolutionary Black Workers (LRBW), which grew out of the African-American independent labor struggles of the period in Detroit and around the country.

The students at Wayne State University in Detroit took control of the campus newspaper and turned it into the official publication of the LRBW. The daily newspapers published on campus were distributed at plant gates and within the African-American community.

These developments illustrated clearly the necessity for the student movement to merge with the broader movement of workers against capitalism and national oppression. The student activists of the present period must learn from the struggles of the 1960s.

By linking the cutbacks in education to the overall economic crisis of capitalism, students and youth can became an important force in the burgeoning movement against the most aggressive attacks against the working class since the Great Depression.

Today on New Scientist: 11 February 2010

All today’s stories on newscientist.com at a glance, including: how to close society’s health gaps, what NASA will do next, and the search for stable super-heavy elements

Plotting Darwin’s path out of Africa

Analysis of the DNA of Darwin’s great-great-grandson shows his ancestors left Africa for the Middle East about 45,000 years ago, says Wendy Zukerman

Release of Muslim Leader’s Autopsy Causes Shockwaves Throughout theWorld

Release of Muslim Leader’s Autopsy Send Shockwaves Throughout the World

Protest, press conferences demand justice for Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah

By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire

On Feb. 1 the long suppressed autopsy of slain Muslim leader Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah was released to the public at the Dearborn Police headquarters. Imam Abdullah was killed in Dearborn, right outside Detroit on October 28, 2009.

The autopsy reported that the imam was shot 21 times, with numerous wounds in the mid-section, waist and groin areas. At least one shot was through the back. There were also numerous lacerations on his hands and forehead, presumably from the attack dog that was killed during the FBI operation.

There was much anticipation in the Detroit area prior to the release of the autopsy report. The Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice (MECAWI) held a demonstration and press conference outside Dearborn police headquarters on the day of the release.

This demonstration and press conference was supported by the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality and was attended by the son of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah as well as members of his mosque, Masjid al-Haqq. At present ten members of the mosque have felony charges pending against them in connection with the FBI infiltration of the the Masjid al-Haqq.

MECAWI described the death of the imam as a “targeted assassination.” This quote was picked up by news agencies throughout the world including the Associated Press, UPI, Islamonline.net, Russia Today, among others.

The following day, Feb. 2, another press conference was held at the Michigan Bldg. in downtown Detroit. It was called by U.S. Congressman John Conyers, Jr., who issued a letter requsting an internal investigation of the actions of the FBI field office in Detroit.

Conyers wrote in the letter to Attorney General Eric Holder that “I write seeking your personal assurance that the Department’s investigation into the shooting death of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah in Dearborn, Michigan on October 28, 2009, will be appropriately rigorous, thorough, and –most critically–transparent. In addition, I call for the Department’s Civil Rights Division to conduct a separate, independent review of whether the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s use of confidential informants in our nation’s houses of worship may constitute a deprivation of protected constitutional rights under 42 U.S.C. 14141.”

At the Feb. 2 press conference called by Cong. Conyers, the widow of Imam Abdullah was present on the panel and it was revealed that federal immigration authorities are attempting to deport her from the United States. Amina Abdullah, a national of the East African state of Tanzania, has also been placed on a tether.

In addition to the harassment of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah’s widow by immigration authorities, one of the sons of Imam Abdullah, Mujahid Carswell, is a defendant in the Detroit 10 case. Members of the imam’s family and mosque were victims of the FBI infiltration of their group. The information supplied by the FBI lured the imam and his followers to the warehouse where he was gunned down by federal agents.

MECAWI told members of the international press on Feb. 1 that the assassination of Imam Abdullah represented a pattern of systematic harassment and persecution of Muslims in the United States and abroad. With the imam being African-American it must also be viewed within the context of the standard government policy to both neutralize and liquidate the effective leadership emanating from this oppressed community.

Goodluck Jonathan Made Acting President of Nigeria

Goodluck Jonathan Made Acting President of Nigeria

Written by AbdulFattah Olajide
Nigerian Trust
Tuesday, 09 February 2010 23:24

Vice President Goodluck Jonathan assumed office as acting president yesterday, following a National Assembly resolution asking him to take charge pending the return of President Umaru Yar’adua from medical trip to Saudi Arabia.

“The circumstances in which I find myself assuming office today as Acting President of our country are uncommon, sober and reflective,” Jonathan said in an address on national television, urging Nigerians to pray for Yar’adua’s recovery and return.

He said the leadership and members of the National Assembly have shown “great courage, statesmanship and patriotism” by empowering him through their resolutions.

While acknowledging that the absence of Yar’adua, who left for Saudi Arabia on medical trip 79 days ago, has heated up the polity, Jonathan said “the events of the recent past have put to the test our collective resolve as a democratic nation.”

According to him, “today affords us time to reconnect with ourselves and overcome any suspicions, hurts and doubts, which had occurred. In all these, there are no winners and no losers, because by the grace of God we have once again succeeded in moving our country forward. We have all shown that our unity as a people, our love for this country, and our hope for its great future cannot be shaken.”

He commended the nation’s military for not disrupting the current democratic dispensation “during this trying period.”

“Our security services also deserve our special commendation for their loyalty and devotion to duty during this trying period,” he said.

The Acting President said the Federal Government would take necessary steps to consolidate the gains of amnesty in the Niger Delta region and execute the promised post-amnesty programmes.

He therefore appealed to all stakeholders in the region to be patient, saying “there can be no meaningful development without peace and security.”

He said government would find a lasting solution to the recurring crisis in Plateau State, saying culprits in the recent killings would face the full weight of the law.

Lack of formal transfer of power had led to doubts over who was ruling the country, and prompted arguments about whether there was need to made Jonathan acting president.

Although the Federal Executive Council has previously opposed any formal transfer of powers, Minister of Justice Michael Aondoakaa yesterday said Jonathan had the government’s full support—suggesting that the council would not obstruct him from acting as president, Reuters news agency reported.

“The cabinet has already, since the president left, recognised the vice president as the leader of the country pending when Mr. President returns,” Reuters quoted Aondoakaa as saying, in reacting to the vice president’s declaration.

Yar’adua, 58, has been receiving treatment for a heart ailment in a Saudi hospital. His aides had at different times said he was recovering and would soon return to Nigeria.

Earlier on there were rumours that his health had deteriorated. On January 12, he spoke to the BBC radio, saying he was getting better but did not give a specific return date.

How National Assembly made him Acting President

Written by Abdul-Rahman Abubakar, Nasidi A. Yahaya & Turaki A. Hassan
Tuesday, 09 February 2010 23:22

A unanimous resolution by the National Assembly set the stage yesterday for Vice President Goodluck Jonathan to take charge as Acting President. The two chambers, apparently trying to break the political stalemate over President Umaru Yar’adua’s ill health, asked Jonathan to assume full presidential powers pending the president’s return.

Hours before Jonathan’s nationwide broadcast, in which he announced taking over powers as acting president, the Senate and the House of Representatives in separate unanimous resolutions asked him to assume office because the president is on medical leave.

The Senate resolution came after a motion on the state of the nation was moved by the Senate leader Teslim Folarin (PDP, Oyo Central), who argued that section 145 of the 1999 constitution which requires the president to transmit a letter to the National Assembly notifying it of his medical leave has been complied with since the president had on January 12 confirmed on the radio that he was ill and receiving medical attention in Saudi Arabia.

“On the 12th of January, 2010, His Excellency President Umaru Musa Yar’adua transmitted to the whole world through the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), a declaration that he is receiving medical treatment in Saudi Arabia and consequently will be unable to discharge the functions of his office until his doctors certify him fit to return to Nigeria to assume duties. The president of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives read the president’s declaration transmitted through the BBC and further published in several print media,” he said.

However, Senator Garba Yakubu Lado (PDP, Katsina South) raised a constitutional point of order, reminding his colleges that the president’s BBC interview was not independently authenticated and that some senators had earlier questioned authenticity of the voice in the interview. He said the interview should not be relied upon as a basis for the resolution.

Seconding the motion Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu said section 145 of the 1999 constitution did not in any way prescribe the manner and form in which the president is to transmit the letter of medical vacation to the National Assembly especially with the advancement in information technology.

Senate resolved thus: “The vice president Goodluck Jonathan shall henceforth discharge the functions of the office of the president, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

“That, the Vice President shall cease to discharge the functions of the office of the president when the president pursuant to section 145 of the 1999 constitution transmits to the president of the Senate and Speaker of the House of Representatives in writing that he has returned from his medical vacation.”

Briefing newsmen shortly after the yesterday’s session, vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Information and Media Senator Anthony Manzo (PDP, Taraba) said the vice president does not need to take an oath of office as acting president.

The House, after two consecutive closed door sessions, characterized by hot political debate and near-fisticuffs, also resolved that Jonathan should act as president pending Yar’adua’s return.

Lawmakers, who were to consider a motion on the matter, failed to do so and instead went into a closed door session at 12:16pm. They emerged after about 30 minutes without a unanimous decision, prompting Speaker Dimeji Bankole to order for another session.

When the House resumed plenary at 1:04pm, House Leader Tunde Akogun (PDP, Edo State) read the resolution: “For peace, order and good governance of the federation, and consistent with the judgments of the courts, the vice president, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, GCON shall assume full presidential powers, pending the return of the president, Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’adua, GCFR.”

After this, Bankole put the question and members unanimously replied “aye!”

Also yesterday, state governors under the auspices of the Governors’ Forum, led by Kwara State Governor Bukola Saraki, visited the House of Representatives to express their resolution to back Vice President Goodluck Jonathan.

In his response, Bankole said the House made its decision in the interest of the country.

He said: “Today, is another day where this House recorded democratic structure whereby the all country has come together: civil societies, elected officials and non elected officials to come to the sole agreement to rescue our nation problem.”

But the decision of the National Assembly is not contemplated in the constitution, lawyers said yesterday.

Yar’adua, who long has suffered from kidney ailments, left for Saudi Arabia on November 23 and was admitted to a hospital there for what his physician says is acute pericarditis, an inflammation of the sac surrounding the heart.

Why I was removed - Aondoakaa

Written by AbdulFattah Olajide
Nigerian Daily Trust
Thursday, 11 February 2010 05:17

Acting President Goodluck Jonathan flexed his political muscles yesterday by effecting a minor cabinet reshuffle which saw the redeployment of powerful Minister of Justice Michael Aondoakaa to the obscure Special Duties portfolio.

The controversial attorney-general of the federation, who rebuffed calls for ailing President Umaru Yar’adua to transfer full powers to Jonathan, lost his post to former Labour Minister Adetokunbo Kayode. The former Special Duties minister Ibrahim Kazaure moves to the Labour Ministry.

Fielding questions from newsmen after his removal, Aondoakaa said he was redeployed because of his earlier insistence that Yar’adua, who has been receiving medical treatment in Saudi Arabia since November, needed not transmit a vacation letter to the Senate before Jonathan could perform presidential duties.

The cabinet reshuffle was effected shortly before the commencement of yesterday’s Federal Executive Council meeting, presided over by Jonathan.

Aondoakaa said it would have been inappropriate for him to start defending Tuesday’s resolutions of the House of Representatives and the Senate, which mandated Jonathan to act as president, in view of his earlier stand.

“I have taken a position and in this life when you take a position and there is a change in the position you allow another person who will have a free atmosphere to defend the new position,” he said.

On why he insisted earlier that Jonathan must not be made acting president, he said, “No attorney- general worth his salt will go to the pages of papers and say there is a vacuum. We have to preserve executive powers until a leader is selected. A leader has been given by the National Assembly, we have recognised him.”

Aondoakaa, who wore a sombre look throughout his stay at the State House yesterday, said the acting president had earlier discussed his removal with him before it was made.

“First I had a discussion with the vice president. I think what we did was a collective decision. I and the vice president had a discussion in the morning, it’s a cordial arrangement.

“He had a discussion with me in the morning, how do I look at it? Well I am in the government, in the cabinet and I pledge my loyalty to the vice president, I’m the minister of special duties,” he added.

Asked how he took his new posting, Aondoakaa said, “When I go there the permanent secretary will brief me on what the special duties are and I will do the job.”

A mild drama had ensued shortly before the FEC meeting started. When Jonathan entered the Council Chambers where ministers were already waiting for the meeting, a protocol official promptly drew out his usual seat, but Jonathan ignored him and sat on President Yar’adua’s seat which was drawn out almost simultaneously by his ADC.

Some members of Yar’adua’s kitchen cabinet were apparently shocked by the incident.

Briefing newsmen after the FEC meeting, an apparently elated Minister of Information and Communications, Professor Dora Akunyili, said the council accepted “the resolution of the National Assembly that the Vice President, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, becomes the Acting President and Commander-in-Chief. Council commends the National Assembly for their action and pledges to support the acting president in his onerous responsibility of steering the ship of the nation.”

Beaming with smile throughout her presentation, Akunyili said her earlier memo in which she had demanded that Yar’adua must transmit a vacation letter to the Senate to enable Jonathan be acting president was not discussed at the meeting because it had been overtaken by events.

On the cabinet reshuffle, she said, “It is a presidential decision and he (Jonathan) has the power to move any of us.”

Jonathan: Lawyers Divided Over Senate Resolution

The Senate on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly on a motion that empowered Vice President Goodluck Jonathan to act as the President nearly three months after President Umaru Yar’Adua left the country for medical treatment in Saudi Arabian hospital. It was the height of a process of transferring executive powers to the Vice President after almost three months of political debacle that President Yar’Adua’s absence had thrown the country into. Many lawyers are, however, of the opinion that having Mr. Vice President become acting president through such a process, may bring him and the decision under intense legal scrutiny. According to them, such a motion by lawmakers is usually no more than a piece of advice and bears no compulsion of compliance. LAW EDITOR, Adam Adedimeji spoke to them.

Oluwarotimi Akeredolu (SAN), President, Nigerian Bar Association:

The Vice President does not need a resolution to act as President. All that is needed was a declaration from the President to the Senate to say that he would not be able to perform his duties and that his vice should act. But since the President has not done that, the Vice President does not need a resolution to act as President.

Is the BBC interview a declaration to them; that is not a declaration to them in law. To me, the premise on which they based their argument is very wrong; it’s not within the law.

The Senate should have passed a resolution that “we are now confirming that we have received a declaration from the President, then Jonathan can then act as President but he does not need their resolution to act. I do not think what they have done is in compliance with the constitution; they are not on a strong leg legally speaking”.

Fred Agbaje, Constitutional Lawyer:

The only constitutional means opened to the National Assembly in respect of the President’s abandonment of his office is premised on Section 145 of the Constitution. Section 145 says that “whenever the President transmits to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives a written declaration that he is proceeding on vacation or that he is otherwise unable to discharge the functions of his office, until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary such functions shall be discharged by the Vice-President as Acting President.” It is only when the President complied with this Section of the Constitution before the Senate can invoke its power under that Section.

What the Senate has done by their so-called resolution amounted to Constitutional heresy and a clear usurpation of Presidential power under Section 145 of the Constitution. It is only when the President transmits a letter to them but in the absence of transmission of such letter, both the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives are constitutionally impotent to pass any resolution asking Vice President Goodluck Jonathan to act as President.

The only thing the Senate can do now constitutionally is to impeach the President. They can pass a resolution to impeach the President because he has abandoned the country for more that the required period without complying with the Constitution. Even under the Federal Civil Service Rule, it is clear that the President has abandoned his duty even if its on health ground.

Absence from duty on health ground must not go beyond certain limitations, or they ask such civil servant to resign and if he refused to resign and stayed long like that of the President he can be dismissed. The President is guilty of gross misconduct.

They are not to pass resolution for the Vice President to act as President, that resolution lacked constitutional backing, it is an affront to the Constitution.

Niyi Akintola (SAN)

I think what the Senate did on resolution was a form of endorsement of doctrine of necessity in order to get out of political quagmire in which they found themselves. Initially, and abinitio, the Senate know that they have abdicated their responsibility in the sense that Section 143 gave them the leeway of what to do and they have all the time of this world to commence impeachment proceedings against the President. But they did not do it. Today, they acted on the BBC interview as tantamount to transmitting a letter. The question is when does it occur to them that the BBC interview amounted to notice?

The constitution says the VP can only assume the seat of the President trough : 1. transmission of a letter from the President to both houses informing them of absence or incapacity; 2. Declaration of the President as incapable of discharging his duties by reason of incapacity by the ECF and 3. impeachment by the both houses. So where is the place of a resolution by a senate?

Our legislative houses should credit Nigerians some intelligence and they should not play with our intelligence. By this resolution, they just found themselves an escape root out of the box which they had earlier boxed themselves into. On the legal implication of their resolution, like I said before, it is just a political solution, they can only give it a legal teeth by asking the Chief Justice of Nigeria to swear in the Vice President as Acting President. After all, he himself is a child of necessity.

Olisa Agbakoba (SAN)

Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Olisa Agbakoba, has said that the resolution of the senate mandating Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan to take over in acting capacity, is nothing but an opportunity for the country to move forward.

Speaking with the Daily Independent on Tuesday on the senate resolution, the senior lawyer argued that, “It is a clumsy way of resolving the issue, it is the most untidy, and I hope it would not be challenged in a court of competent jurisdiction.”

Mike Ozekhome (SAN)

Now, Section 145 of the Constitution says a written declaration should be transmitted by the President to the National Assembly so as to pave way for his vice to formally take over. President Umaru Yar’Adua has not been able to transmit the letter to the National Assembly because he is sick. I think members of the National Assembly are right to premise their resolution declaring Jonathan as acting President on the interview granted by Yar’Adua to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) because members of the National Assembly are part of the global community and they heard the interview Yar’Adua granted to the BBC.

The question is can it be rightly said that only the letter of the Constitution should be looked at? And I say no, the spirit of the Constitution should also be looked at. You see, under the doctrine of necessity, certain things can be done to save a country from collapse and this is one of such situation. Nigeria has been on a dangerous terrain.

It was Hippocrates, the father of medicine who once told us that desperate diseases require desperate remedy. This has been a desperate disease, which require desperate remedy and so, the Senate is right to make Jonathan the acting President so as to save Nigeria from perdition. As a matter of fact, Nigeria is greater than any individual.

Emeka Ofomata, Abuja-based lawyer

What are the statutory and constitutional requirements? Can they arrogate the power to authorise the VP to act to themselves? It simply has no precedent or constitutional support. I simply think that they are acting in a gutless manner. The right course of action provided in the constitution is for them to either initiate an impeachment proceeding against the embattled president or urge the FEC to act decisively as empowered in the constitution. This action would simply entrap the VP and my personal advice is for him to seek the advice of a constitutional lawyer. If he decides to upgrade his status to that of an acting President, then his actions would be contestable in the courts. The VP should toe the line of honour and not allow himself to be hoodwinked. This whole course would compound the situation and create an illegality. The constitution is clear on how to proceed and we should please prevail on our political class to rise to the call of duty. The whole charade continues. This does not augur well for our nascent democracy!!

Green Valentine’s Day gifts: Chocolates

It’s a favourite with all ages, it’s affordable and it’s readily available. What’s not to like about ethical chocolate?
Eco concerns• Pesticides. Like any food crop, the cacao plantations that provide our chocolate often use pestcides - Brazil uses them prolifically. Buy organic-certified chocolates to avoid pesticides.
• Pay. It’s no coincidence that Maya Gold Green & Blacks chocolate was the first official Fairtrade product in the UK, so look for the Fairtrade label or, as Seventypercent.com suggests, buy from brands that have a close relationship with growers.
• Carbon footprint. Most of the chocolate we eat in the UK is sourced from Africa, central America and southern America, so inevitably it clocks up carbon enroute. There’s not much you can do about this, until carbon labelling takes off in a big way; Cadbury, for example, has already measured the CO2 emitted from making a bar of its Dairy Milk.
Top 5 green choices
1. Malagasy - many of the co-operative growers supplying this British brand are certified organic, and the company aims to keep profits in the local Madagascan economy. Bars start at £3.25
2. Divine - a Fairtrade stalwart, Divine has plenty of gift sets that are perfect for Valentine’s. It’s not organic, but Divine point out that many of its Ghanian farmers use organic methods without certification. Bars start at around £1.25
3. Green & Blacks - a great staple with organic certification. From around £1.75 and upwards.4. Chocolala - a small Yorkshire firm that sources Fairtrade chocolate and local cream from a dairy down the road. The story of founder Niladri makes for interesting reading. Box sets from £25.5. Booja Booja - organic chocolates handmade in Norfolk. Lots of gift ideas, with a box of champagne truffles costing £7.29.

Britain is getting dirtier, finds Defra survey

Britain is getting dirtier with more graffiti and grime on the streets, according to the latest Government survey.

By Louise Gray, Environment CorrespondentPublished: 7:00AM GMT 11 Feb 2010
The inspection of thousands of parks and streets found a slight decrease in the amount of cigarette butts and food packets thrown on the ground.
But dog mess, tag graffiti and chewing gum stains on the pavements has increased over the last year.

The Keep Britain Tidy survey, funded by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), looked at more than 12,000 sites around Britain.
The biggest litter problem is detritus from smokers but the proportion of sites where cigarette butts were found fell slightly to just over three quarters. The amount of crisp packets and empty drinks cans littering the streets also fell.
However, dog mess was a problem for local people at 8 per cent of sites, compared to 6 per cent last year. Chewing gum spat out on the street had stained just under a third of areas, compared to a quarter last year. Tyre tracks or “staining” left by vehicles leaking oil was up and “tag” graffiti has also increased.
Overall the “cleanliness score” given by inspectors was down slightly from last year.
Environment Minister, Jim Fitzpatrick, said people need to take more responsibility for litter.
“It only takes a little effort to put our litter in the bin, but it makes a huge difference to our own well being and to the environment,” he said.

Green Valentine’s Day gifts: cards

Composing a poem or singing a song beneath a balcony may be the zero-carbon alternative to a greeting card on Valentine’s, but it won’t be for everyone. If you want to buy a card, make it one of these greener options
Making paper has a surprisingly hefty environmental impact - paper mills use a huge amount of water and discharge large quantities of chemicals. Recycling only goes so far, because the fibres that hold recycled paper eventually become too weak to be recycled again into virgin material. When paper ultimately ends up in landfill, it produces methane, one of the most powerful greenhouse gases.
So if you are going to buy a card, make it one of our top five green choices
1 M&S - a surprisingly wide selection of FSC-certified Valentine’s cards from the Plan A retailer.
2 Carve your own Valentine’s card - you could just find a piece of wood in a skip, but if that sounds like too much bother, Nigel’s Ecostore is selling this slab of soft FSC-certified wood that you can carve to create a leftfield Valentine’s card.
3 Jibjab - e-cards aren’t completely clean in terms of carbon emissions, but they are perfect for last-minute cards. Jibjab’s ’starring you’ video cards are a cut above most e-cards and put most ‘p-cards’ to shame in terms of the personalised touch.
4 Make your own - Sally Cameron-Griffiths has a great guide to making DIY cards by reusing old newspapers and magazines.
5 Shared Earth - there’s nothing especially green about these, but they are very pretty and are made to fair trade standards (not official Fairtrade) by long-standing ethical shop Shared Earth

Society ignores the oil crunch at its peril

Warnings of a crash in oil production are no longer limited to a prescient few individuals - major British companies and oil CEOs are now sounding the alert

Jeremy Leggett
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 10 February 2010 11.02 GMT
In the years approaching the credit crunch, whistleblowers were limited to a few insightful economists and financial journalists. Now whistles are blowing again about another grave threat to the global economy and the security of nations. They warn of an oil crunch: an unexpected crash in global production such that supply can no longer meet demand, even if China and India throttle back.
This time the warning is not limited to a prescient few individuals. Major British companies, led by Virgin, Scottish and Southern and Stagecoach, are flagging the danger, in today’s report from the UK industry taskforce on peak oil and energy security . So too are the CEOs of oil companies themselves, in the case of Total and Petrobras, and growing numbers of other senior oil industry figures, usually recently retired. Even the International Energy Agency is sounding the alert, in a coded sort of way.
With modern economies geared to their rivets on just-in-time supply of copious amounts of affordable oil, society surely ignores this risk issue at its massive peril.
But that is what BP, Exxon, Saudi Aramco and many other institutions of the hydrocarbon era would have us do. And theirs is the perceived wisdom. I do not know of a single company, outside the taskforce group, where peak oil is on the agenda as a serious risk issue. As for government, Whitehall’s official line is typical, as things stand: there is 40 years of oil supply, no need to worry, and certainly no crisis. To be fair, that view may be in the process of changing, in the light of recent events in the energy markets.
The taskforce report is the second such. The first, published during the financial crisis in October 2008, charted global production capacity coming onstream, factored in depletion, and found that overall global production would peak in 2013, and then fall rapidly while demand continued to rise. The taskforce worried that things could be worse even than this early peak in oil production, if other risks we are concerned about kick in: more giant-oilfield production collapsing in the manner of Mexico, flaws emerging in reserves estimates in Opec countries, and so on.
In 2009 came the recession, and a steep fall in global demand for oil. This has helped, in the narrow sense of that word. It may have bought us two more years. The new report projects production dropping in 2015, though the risks that it could be earlier remain.
The CEOs and chairmen of the taskforce companies have a simple message for government. This monster threat is very likely to descend on the next government in office, in their first term, and the nation needs to act now.
The stakes are arguably higher than with the financial crisis. The taskforce’s worst-case fear is that premature peak oil will involve not just global energy crisis, but potentially energy famine for some oil importing nations – including the UK.
During the financial crash the world went within weeks from a received wisdom that investment banks had squeezed risk out of complex derivatives, to a spiralling doubt, to a tipping point of disbelief and panic. With peak oil, officials around the world, corporate and governmental, would experience exactly the same collapse of confidence in their cosy cultural assumptions. A second giant industry would have been found to have its asset assessment systemically and ruinously wrong. The net impact would be that oil-producing nations would begin to husband their own resources: keeping exports back for use in their own oil-hungry multi-hundred-billion dollar-and-rouble infrastructure programmes.
This is a scenario that could lead to food delivery lorries failing to reach Tesco in time for Friday-night shopping.
The lessons from the financial crash ought to be stark. The prevailing culture mocked the disbelievers, ahead of the crash. Gillian Tett, capital markets editor at the FT, saw the crisis coming because she was a trained anthropologist and knew how to recognise a cult when she saw one. She was accused of scaremongering from the stage of the World Economic Forum. The pattern is the same this time. BP, in particular, has a tendency to mock the concept of peak oil and its advocates.
Meanwhile, as with the climate crisis, there is a general desperation to believe the comforting narrative ahead of the uncomfortable one. This is why it is so important that companies who understand risk speak out, as the taskforce companies have. It is why governments – who must lead in matters of national security – should listen to the uncomfortable arguments and, given the stakes, buy insurance against them.
History is going to judge us all on how we manage the risk of premature peak oil. And soon.
• Jeremy Leggettis the chairman of Solarcentury and SolarAid, and the convenor of the UK industry taskforce on peak oil and energy security

A (green) Valentine’s flower guide for helpless enviromantics

How can you reduce the environmental impact of your Valentine’s bouquet – and still pick the best of the bunch?
Greening up the most traditional of Valentine’s Day gifts is harder than you’d think, since most cut flowers are imported by plane at this time of year. Fortunately a number of specialist florists mean you can reduce the environmental impact of your blooms by buying locally-grown and Fairtrade options. I’ve rounded up five below.
Eco concerns
• The CO2 produced from transporting and growing flowers. British-grown flowers such as red tulips are theoretically the best way to reduce the CO2 emitted from growing your stems, but local doesn’t always mean low carbon: one study suggested roses grown in Holland had a carbon footprint 15 times larger than those grown in Kenya. Waitrose has a handy calendar that shows which British flowers are in season now.
• Like food crops, flowers are often grown with pesticides. Several reports have raised concern over pesticides, from the World Health Organisation highlighting toxic chemicals used on Colombian flower farms to one study finding DDT in Mexican hothouses. Sadly, organic flowers are hard to come by in the UK – Waitrose is the only supermarket to sell them, but it doesn’t stock any at this time of year.
• There’s also the ethical issue of low pay for the workers who grow our imported flowers. For a guarantee that a fair wage is being paid, seek out the increasing number of Fairtrade bouquets.
Top 5 green choices
1. Wiggly Wigglers: British-grown seasonal bouquets from £25. 2. Arena Flowers – a selection of flowers, including these £33 gerberas, certified by the Fair Flowers Fair Plants scheme.3. Scilly Flowers – seasonal bouquets from £25 and up, grown on the Isles of Scilly.4. The Organic Flower Company – despite the name, TOFC doesn’t stock organic blooms at this time of year, but it does have a ban on air-freighted flowers and is selling 50 red tulips for £40.5. Waitrose – lots of Fairtrade flowers, including sunflowers for £20 and pricier mixed bouquets for £39 and up.