Nigeria Decides - TAKING ON THE YOUTH DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGE.

The youths constitute critical elements in societal development.
Whatever the human and material resource endowments of any
geo-political entity, no serious Government can afford to
neglect or overlook the youths, who indeed are the foundation
for the future.

For a long period in the Nigerian experience, the youths [18-35
years age bracket] did not receive a fair deal in the
developmental scheme of things. From acts of omission and
commission, they suffered neglect, marginalization,
discrimination and even persecution.

This sorry state of our youths clearly poses threats to national
security, stability and sustainable development, which no
leadership worth its salt would treat with levity. In deference
to these realities, the Jonathan administration incorporated
that critical element into its programme of action.

The [Nigerian] National Policy on Youth conforms to the United
Nations’ guidelines and extends to Nigerian youths in the
Diaspora. It succinctly rates the youth among “the greatest
assets that any nation can have … They serve as a good
measure of the extent to which a country can reproduce as well
as sustain itself …”.
Under the present dispensation, quite a number of initiatives
and activities have come on-stream towards giving Nigerian
youths deserved places in the economy, polity and society.

The National Youth Employment Action Plan [NYEAP] is
anchored on diversification of the nation’s economic base
[particularly into agriculture and agro-business]; operation of
vocational/entrepreneurial/skills development centres for
tertiary level students and youth service members by the State
and FCT administrations; audit-evaluation/restructuring/
strengthening of such job creation agencies as the National
Directorate of Employment, National Poverty Eradication
Programme and Industrial Training Fund; and enhancing the
enabling environment for enterprise development.

Entrepreneurship Development Centres [EDCs] have been set
up in the six geo-political zones of the Federation to bridge
gaps in various elements of youth entrepreneurship
development. To date, over 200,000 youths have benefited
from the programme. The Federal Government is also setting up
Comprehensive Youth Centres in those zones to be operated
and managed under Public Private Partnership [PPP]
arrangements. Included in their schedules are demonstration
farms; standardized vocational training programmes; small
business bureaux for entrepreneurship training; referral and
counselling programmes for youth in conflict situations, those
afflicted with disease and the traumatized; and sporting &
leisure facilities. Such is the attractiveness of the youth centre
initiative that some of the State Governments are setting up
similar facilities to engage their youths constructively.

The Subsidy Re-investment and Empowerment Programme
[SURE-P] was inaugurated in the wake of the Federal
Government’s partial removal of oil subsidy in early 2012. Co-
ordinated by the Federal Ministry of Finance and managed by a
team of proven integrity, SURE-P is complementing other
development programmes of the three tiers of governance.

For Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises [MSMEs], a N200
billion Fund is operational to offer inexpensive, long-term
support for youth and women entrepreneurs; with foci on
credit, insurance, capacity building and interest draw-back.

The Youth Enterprise with Innovation in Nigeria [You WIN]
programme of the present dispensation provides one-time
equity grants of N1 million–N10 million to each of 1,200
selected aspiring entrepreneurs to start/expand their business
concepts and cushion start-up risks. The facilities are further
expected to generate some 110,000 new jobs for unemployed
Nigerian youths over a three-year period. There is also
provision for training 6,000 aspiring youth entrepreneurs as
well as business expansion, specialization& spin-offs, and
exposure to professional networks.

The administration remains committed to the Niger-Delta
Amnesty/Post-Amnesty programmes. Aside from investments
in the training of affected youths in various institutes across
the world, over 5,000 others are enrolled in formal
educational institutions and vocational centres locally and
abroad.

The NYSC Venture Price competition [operated by the Central
Bank of Nigeria] promotes the entrepreneurship spirit and
expertise in national youth service members; to encourage them
pursue self-employment options. Their exposure includes
rudiments of investment/feasibility reports, business start-
ups and expansion.

Even as the youth development programmes and activities of
the Jonathan administration are yielding positive outcomes,
there are challenges ahead. The populations of the unemployed
and unengaged youths are teeming, what with accumulated
neglect over the decades and increasing number of products
from the nation’s educational institutions.

Youth development in Nigeria poses a collective responsibility.
Governments at all tiers, their institutions, the private sector,
civil society organizations, donor agencies and endowed
individuals are all stakeholders. Youths are not some strange
elements in our midst, but catalysts for meaningful &
sustainable development and an assured future.

By Peter Obi.

Nigerians Decides - THE END OF APC'S FABRICATED MOMENTUM.

I HAVE news for APC stalwarts. You don’t win an election in
Nigeria by being the champion of social media. You don’t win by
renting crowds to fill up your rallies. You don’t win by putting
up your billboards everywhere while tearing down those of your
opponents. You don’t win by master-minding in the media a
false sense of the inevitability of your victory. When you do all
this successfully, you simply end up deceiving yourself.
You win elections by mounting an effective ground-game at the
grassroots level; designed to bring out the people on Election
Day to vote for you. Instead, APC strategy was to stampede
the electorate into victory. The design was to proclaim victory
even before the election, laying grounds for protests and
acrimony in event of defeat.

Attempted coup d’état

The APC blueprint is see-through. Present a new refurbished,
suit-wearing and church-visiting Buhari to the electorate
chanting a mantra of “change.” Give him a Teflon-coated
Redeemed pastor as vice-presidential running-mate. Shield him
from public scrutiny and debates to hide his weaknesses and
absent-mindedness. Gloss over his objectionable past and
pedigree. Mount an aggressive image-laundering social media
campaign.
So doing, before the PDP and the public would be up to your
game, the election would be over. Nigerians would wake up on
February 15th to discover to our cost that we had been
hoodwinked into handing over power to Buhari and the Tinubu
cabal.

The APC mechanism for perfecting this plan entailed bullying
the PDP into defeat. In the North, PDP supporters were
threatened and harassed. Some quickly packed their bag and
baggage and left town. Even Goodluck Jonathan’s convoy was
stoned by APC “democrats.” In Gombe, a suicide bomber paid a
courtesy call on the president’s campaign rally.
But the killer-punch was to be the disenfranchisement of
literally millions of PDP voters. With the complicity of Jega’s
INEC, APC strongholds were supplied with PVCs: while PDP
strongholds were denied them. Ghost-voters came out of the
woodwork by their hundreds of thousands in unlikely places
like the war-torn North-east to collect their PVCs. However, in
peaceful higher-population places like Lagos and Kano, non-
indigenes were denied their PVCs, suspected of being likely
PDP supporters.

It is telling that, in all the ensuing brouhaha over 23 million
people not yet receiving their PVCs seven days to D-Day, APC
remained resolute that the election should go ahead
nevertheless. This indicates that it knew the missing PVCs
belonged disproportionately to PDP supporters.
The denouement
However, the entire strategy of the APC met its Waterloo with
the postponement of the election. With the postponement, the
Buhari election-train came to a screeching halt. Some have
argued that the postponement was a military coup by Jonathan
and the PDP. However, a more truthful assessment is that the
postponement scuttled the APC plan to win the election by
subterfuge.

APC blundered because it refused to entertain the possibility
that the election could actually be postponed. As a result, it
did not plan for that eventuality. In this gaffe, it was carried
away by its own hyperbole. APC big-guns shouted themselves
hoarse warning all and sundry that the election must not be
postponed, or else. Worse still, they believed their own
rhetoric.
APC is used to making threatening noises. It is all stuff and
bluster. If it loses, the dogs and the baboons would be soaked
in blood. If it loses it would form a parallel government. If the
election is postponed, Nigerians would not stand for it.
Therefore, it expended all its political and financial capital on a
14th February election. When it finally dawned on it that the
election might be postponed, Buhari made an unusual visit to
the Council of State to mount a pathetic eleventh-hour
resistance.
But alas, the APC was completely outplayed. INEC succumbed
to the inevitable and the election was postponed, and for six
weeks no less. As a result, the APC stampede came to an end.

The orchestrated Buhari momentum came to a screeching halt.
Since then, APC pundits have been in shock; scratching their
heads because, in all their impetuosity, they had no Plan B.
The APC was banking on the element of surprise. That is now
gone with the postponement. It was hoping to win the election
by disenfranchising PDP voters. That is no longer possible. It is
now confronted with fighting an election it always knew it
cannot win because it does not have the appropriate structure
on the ground at the grassroots level.

PDP fight back

Sixteen years in power had made the PDP over-confident. It
seemed to have been caught unawares by the scripted APC
nomination of Buhari and the gimmickry of choosing a
Redeemed pastor as his running-mate. As a result, an election
that should have been a cake-walk for it suddenly turned into
a tight race. Part of this was self-inflicted. PDP had a bad set
of primaries; creating considerable dissension within its ranks.
Moreover, the PDP was bested in the public relations
department; allowing the APC to define the narrative of the
election on social media.

Had the election gone on as scheduled on 14th February, it
would have been close but Jonathan would still have won. But
with six weeks delay, the election will not even be close. Even
though it was ebbing discernibly, APC had momentum for the
14th February election. By 28th March, that momentum would
have dissipated and disappeared. Even now, the momentum is
no longer there. Buhari is in London on a dubious visit. APC has
run out of breath.

Make no mistake about it; the six week postponement of the
election has effectively crippled the APC. It is no wonder then
that the party has been grumbling non-stop. In the meantime,
PDP has been able to get a full measure of the APC. Putting all
its eggs in the 14th February date, which it insisted cannot and
must not be changed; the APC played all its cards. It put all its
eggs in one basket. However, PDP held some in reserve,
banking on the postponement of the election.

APC’s confusion

What happens now? APC is confused. It is stretched for funds.
It has lost its mojo, scrambling in panic mode to raise
additional 50 billion naira from donors. Speaking to APC
stakeholders at the party secretariat in Lagos, Bola Tinubu
said: “We have to re-strategise; all of you should go back to
your various constituencies starting from tomorrow.” This is a
belated acknowledgment that the party now likely to win the
election is the one best able to mount an aggressive and
effective nationwide grassroots campaign.

In that department, the APC is clearly second-best. The party
best positioned to mount an effective ground-game and
mobilize votes at the grassroots level is the PDP. It has been
around for 16 years. PDP local government councilors account
for nearly 70 per cent of all councilors in Nigeria, comprising
6,521 members, making it a truly grassroots-based political
party. The APC, on the other hand, does not have the
nationwide political structure to win the coming election. To
date, it is a newspaper and television political party. It has yet
to build a formidable grassroots support. It is a JJC party, a
little over a year old.
With all the noise about Buhari, it should not be forgotten that
the man chronically lacks skills at building political party
structures. In the APC presidential primaries, Northern
delegates did not even vote for him; preferring instead
Kwankwaso and Atiku. He was elected primarily on the
strength of ACN votes. PDP strength on the ground
everywhere in Nigeria explains why Jonathan was able to win
37% of the vote even in Buhari’s home-state of Katsina in the
2011 election.

While APC was busy stoking up the press to create its air of
inevitable victory, PDP was busy mobilizing its local
government councilors. Its Presidential Campaign Organisation
brought all its elected and appointed councilors from all over
Nigeria to Abuja to mobilize them to secure victory for the
party at the grassroots level. In what was captioned
“Operation Deliver Your Ward,” Professor Jerry Gana re-
fashioned them as political foot-soldiers and grassroots
mobilisers for the PDP, split into six groups according to their
geopolitical zones.

Resurgent PDP

Since the postponement, Jonathan is no longer the issue. It is
once again Buhari; the coup-plotting former dictator and
alleged ethnic and religious jingoist. Thanks to the
postponement, Nigerians can no longer be panicked into voting
for Buhari. We now have enough time to appreciate that he is
old, and completely bereft of ideas as to what to do when in
power. It is not enough to shout “change, change.” The
question is: change to what? To this question, Buhari provides
a deafening silence.

In the meantime, the true message of Jonathan’s considerable
achievements in office is now resonating. With the
commissioning of new power-plants, we are now generating
5,500 megawatts of electricity: a new Nigerian record. We now
know from PricewaterhouseCoopers that the allegation that
$20 billion is missing from NNPC accounts is one big fat APC
lie. The army is now fully-equipped for battle. For the first time
in a long time, the Nigerian air force has come into the fray.

The Boko Haram is being bombed to smithereens up North.
There is even talk of capturing Abubakar Shekau alive.
Within the next six weeks, all that is left is for the PDP to put
its house in order and APC will be toast. Since Buhari has
whipped up himself and his supporters into an unrealistic
psychological frenzy in this election cycle, it is certain he will
end up at the tribunal, when it finally dawns on him that, in
spite of all the bluster, he has lost again. The fate awaiting
Buhari brings to mind that of Mitt Romney who was so
deceived into believing he would be elected America’s next
president in 2012, he had only a victory speech on election
night when he was roundly defeated.

When the history of the 2015 presidential election is finally
written, it will be recalled that the postponement of the
election for six weeks was the final nail in the coffin of the

By Femi Aribisala.

Nigerians decides - Why Jonathan wins

I’m just as mad as the next man about the failings of the
Jonathan administration. Many a Nigerian has wondered how
he hired some of those people who work for him and why they
serve him so poorly and, worse, why no one does anything
about it when they fail him.

The job of the President carries strict liability. He must accept
responsibility for all happenings. When bad things happen, we
know it is because of the reign of a bad king, the President.
Rarely do good things occur, or they happen so grudgingly,
they are so few and far between.
In an era of ‘Ghana must go’ wallets, there is so much envy of
the rich. You can feel it. And the trouble with the Nigerian rich
is that they are mostly men and women who made hay while
the sun shone, which makes the envy worse. And all this envy
is taken out on the one man who is the symbol of everything,
good or bad, the President.

People sometimes look at me reproachfully when I publicly con­
fess that I am a fan of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the
Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance.
I quickly try to explain that she is one person among the high
and the mighty who speaks naturally and frequently about
income inequality in Nigeria, and the dangers of widening the
gap between the rich and the poor.

A fortnight ago she was speaking about how corruption
subsists and will fester because Nigeria does not yet have
adequate tools to fight it. H ow I wished t he A ll Progressive
Congress (APC) had drafted her or someone like her for
President. This campaign would have been a truly ‘change’ cam­
paign, a “change you can believe in” as Mr. Barack Obama pro­
claimed in 2008. But I digress.

The Jonathan administration can be infuriating sometimes. Its
first action which truly rattled me was the seizure of
newspapers and the prevention of the circulation of the papers
in several cities by military personnel. It went on for a few
days and, mercifully, stopped.

The military people said they were searching for terrorists’
bombs in the newspaper vans. The Presidency people said they
have nothing to say about it because it was a “security issue.”

For a newspaper man who experienced government
suppression of the Press first hand and in all its forms in the
triple tyrannies of Buhari, Babangida and Abacha I was about
to exclaim “there we go again.”

Now, an ‘O’ level student of Government doesn’t need to think
twice to know that what the military was doing was brazenly
unconstitutional. So, where was President Jonathan’s domestic
policy adviser, or his State House Counsel or, for that matter,
the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice to order the
soldiers to “cease and desist” on the very first day.

I had hoped the Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria
NPAN) would send a hefty bill to the Aso Villa for those
violations with an ultimatum, hoping the government would
ignore it so the NPAN can go to court to ask for declarations
and punitive damages for violations of Press freedom. I imagine
it all ended in a friendly ‘ol boy’ phone call to forgive and
forget. This kind of violation would be inconceivable in the
United States where respect for the Constitution is the
beginning of governmental wisdom.

Then there was the $9.3 million cash in the suitcase in the
plane from Abuja seized in South Africa. Had the South African
Customs not found and seized the cash what evidence was
there that the money wouldn’t have disappeared? The Ministry
of Finance didn’t know about the money, neither did Defense,
nor Foreign Affairs nor Department of State Security. Using
the office of the National Security Adviser to buy arms is a
double edged sword.
Trundling cash around the continent is not just illegal but
smelly. Whoever was responsible for that transaction made the
Jonathan administration look queer, inept if not corrupt. The
Igbos have a saying that if you are not a thief, never step on
the footprints left by a thief.

The phantom ceasefire with Boko Haram was the saddest of all
Jonathan Administration’s bunglings.It made many Nigerians
miserable. It was inexcusable. It marked the lowest point. The
Federal Republic of Nigeria, a victim of 419? Tell it not in Jos.
Publish it not in the streets of Ado Ekiti.

The above are the few that stick out with me above others.
Each is scandalous. None can happen in the United State where
there are layers of checks and balances to preclude their
happening. But if any of that happened, there would be hell to
pay.

The virtue of Jonathan is not that he is perfect. It is that he
knows that he is imperfect. So, he is bound to work harder,
read more, study issues more and be better informed. Because
he got there by fortunate occurrences, he wouldn’t have ar­
rived with a g rand vision. So, he would be open to whatever
works. Because he is an intellectual, he won’t be averse to
theories about anything. He wouldn’t have inferiority or Mr.

Know-All complex, or the Obasanjo complex also known as the
Messiah complex. He is not afraid of talented, accomplished
women as everyone can see.

He is a builder – 12 universities, 120 Al-Majiri schools. He plans
to build speed trains after reviving the snail trains and added
some standard gauge lines. How many power plants has he
built? Dozens. But certainly with the huge Gembu hydro under
construction, four coal plants being planned, and all the
integrated Independent Power Plants built and ready to go,
Goodluck Jonathan finally slew the power dragon, the
nightmare that had defied all administrations before his. Two
outstanding problems remain – gas and transmission. When
those are tied up Nigeria’s power problems would be history.

Jonathan’s body language is not that of a greedy, corrupt man.
Corruption in Nigeria is structural and, pessimists say,
Sisyphean. To make a dent on it, a sovereign national
conference needs to be convened. Nibbling at the edges is still
okay which is what the EFCC and ICPC do. The ICT tools like
IPPIS, electronic wallet to enable farmers access fertilizer
directly are all great. But as Chief Philip Asiodu, the ‘super
permanent secretary’ and statesman said a few weeks ago,
when a Nigerian senator earns four times the pay of an
American President, a clear case of unjust enrichment, how is a
president going to start a fight which would end with his
impeachment? Unjust enrichment is the beginning of all
corruption. Why has Gen. Buhari been quiet about the pay of
the National Assembly?

That Jonathan is a patient man is fairly obvious. He is
deliberative. He doesn’t rush to judgment. He doesn’t force the
process. He sometimes exhibits strength of character. He
defied the doubting Thomases and convened the National
Conference, one of the most momentous events of Nigerian his­
tory, in which thorny national issues were discussed candidly
in an atmosphere of freedom.

But above all, Jonathan wins because he has a democratic
temperament, a genial, non-threatening personality and a
sportsman-like spirit which made APC possible and created an
atmosphere of freedom and liberty unprecedented in Nigerian
history. He could have destroyed APC and squashed the party
if he were a typical Nigerian politician. But he is of a different
make-up.

The Action Group in the 60’s and the Peoples Redemption
Party in the 80’s were victims of political malevolence and ill
will. The APC would not have survived an Obasanjo regime,
much less threaten it. Jonathan guarantees democracy, his
opponent imperils it.

By Lewis Obi

Naira weakens further, sells at N224 to dollar at BDC

The Naira on Friday weakened further as it sold at
N224 against the dollar at the Bureau de Change
(BDC).

NAN reports that the Naira also exchanged against
the dollar at N220 at the black market.

But, the currency traded N199 to a dollar at the
Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

The currency, however, gained N2 against the
pound at the BDC, selling at N330, from N332 it
sold on Monday.

At the black market, however, the Naira remained
stable, maintaining N335 to the pound, which it
attained on Feb. 23. It sold at N307.59 to a pound
at the CBN.

Against the Euro at the black market, Naira sold at
N255 as against N235 it was sold on Monday.

At the BDC, it exchanged at N245 against the
Euro, increasing from the N235 it was sold on
Monday, while at the CBN, it sold at N226.7.

Your blackmail can’t stop Buhari from winning the presidential election – APC tells Fayose

The All Progressives Congress, APC, in Ekiti State
has said Governor Ayodele Fayose’s alleged
blackmail of its presidential candidate, Muhammadu
Buhari, cannot stop him from emerging victorious in
the March 28 election.

According to the APC, Fayose’s criticism of Buhari
is driven by self-preservation over the governor’s
past misdeeds and not in the interest of the nation.
The APC said Fayose is “fighting the battle of his
life” that runs contrary to the general mood of the
nation, and therefore advised him focus his energy
on how to ensure victory for PDP’s candidate,
President Goodluck Jonathan, instead of lecturing
APC on why Buhari shouldn’t be the party’s
presidential candidate.

The APC’s position was contained in a statement
by the state Publicity Secretary of the party, Taiwo
Olatubosun.

He said Nigerians had already made up their minds
to elect Buhari as their President on March 28,
adding that, “No amount of blackmail and rhetoric
fuelled by selfishness will change the course of
change sweeping across the country.”

Olatubosun, while reminding Fayose that APC was
different from the PDP, said, “PDP has an agenda
to kill all institutions of government as it is
currently doing and make corruption a creed. Never
in the history of this country have we recorded
cases of frauds and scandals as we have today in
Nigeria. These are the legacies that PDP can flaunt.
Unfortunately, Fayose is equating PDP with
Nigeria.

“Fayose has turned APC to a PDP affair. He said
former President Olusegun Obasanjo imposed a sick
man, the late Umaru Yar’Adua, on PDP in 2007
and President Yar’Adua died after two years in
office. The question is; is Buhari in PDP and is he
now being imposed by Obasanjo again? How does
Buhari’s old age threaten PDP’s bid to rule for 60
years?

“Again, Fayose said he had a vision that Buhari will
never be president. If he is sure of his vision, why
is he breathless about Buhari’s candidacy?”
Olatubosun also stated that Fayose was being
hypocritical in his criticism of Buhari and the
allegations he was raising over his health status,
noting that his actions pointed to the fact that
Buhari was the favored candidate majority of
Nigerians are clamoring for.

Please dissolve our one-week marriage, his manhood is too big, I can’t cope – Wife tells court

A Sharia Court in Samaru, Gusau, Zamfara State,
was thrown into laughter during the week, when a
housewife, Aisha Dannupawa, pleaded with the
court to dissolve her one-week marriage to her
husband, Ali Maizinari, because she could not cope
with the size of his penis.

When the case came up, Aisha told the court that
she married her husband after the failure of her
first marriage.

Aisha, who is a mother of three told the court that
before she packed into her husband’s house, as
the tradition demanded, she was invited into his
parents house, adding that “when he came, we had
sex but the experience was a nightmare. Instead of
enjoying the sex, it turned out to be something else
because his penis was too big.”

She also revealed to the court that after the
horrible experience, she took some medication,
which was given to her by her mother.

“I told my mother about the experience but she told
me to endure and that with time, I will be able to
cope. She then gave me some drugs,” she said.

She continued, “two days later when he came to
visit me, we had sex again, but the experience was
too much to bear. It was then I knew that I could
not continue with the marriage because of the size
of his penis.”

The husband, Maizinari, who did not deny the
wife’s allegation, told the court that he was willing
to divorce her only if she would pay back the
dowry and all that he spent on her during the
courtship.

When he was asked to state the total amount
spent, Maizinari said that what he expected from
her was N60,000.

However, the President of the court, Alhaji
Mamman Shinkafi, told the couple to try to reconcile
before their next date in court.

APC raise alarm over fresh plot by Jonathan, PDP to remove Jega next week

Members of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in
the Senate have raised the alarm over an alleged
fresh plot by the Federal Government to prevent
the Independent National Electoral Commission,
INEC, Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, from
conducting the forthcoming general elections.

The APC senators, led by George Akume, disclosed
this in a news conference in Abuja on Thursday.
They said a reliable source informed them that the
Head of Service would direct Jega to proceed on his
pre-retirement leave next week.

“We have received information from a very credible
source that next week, the Chairman of INEC will be
given a letter from the office of the Head of the
Civil Service to proceed on a terminal leave,” they
said.

According to the APC Senators, the Federal
Government was trying to use a circular from the
HoS dated August 11, 2010 to place Jega on
compulsory pre-retirement leave.

“Whether the letter emanates from the HoS office
or the Secretary to the Government of the
Federation, it does not make sense. Even if we go
by the terms of the Civil Service circular of August
11, 2010, (it) is not applicable whatsoever to the
INEC chairman,” they said.

The APC lawmakers said that the circular, with
reference number HCSF/CMO/1772/TI/11, talks
about clarifications on pre-retirement leave, which
is only applicable to tenured officers who are career
civil servants.

They explained that anyone who has spent 30
years in service or has attained 60 years of age
was bound to disengage officially from the service,
adding that the case of Jega, however, did not fall
into any of these categories.

The lawmakers alleged that Jega’s offence was his
readiness to conduct the elections when the
Peoples Democratic Party-controlled Federal
Government was not ready for it.

They also stated that using the issue of card
readers to discredit Jega would not work because
the National Assembly appropriated money for that
purpose.

They said, “We want a credible election but in a
situation where we are being informed that because
the postponement of the elections attracted no
reaction from the people, Jega could be removed
for a plan-less person who will do the bidding of
the government, doesn’t hold water.

“You cannot start a game which is about to end and
suddenly you want to change the goalpost. You
don’t want a referee that is fair to all. You want to
have someone who will subvert the whole system
for sinister, personal purposes.

“We will continue to say no to impunity. We will
continue to say no to any attempt to undermine the
credibility of the forthcoming elections.

“We therefore want to appeal to Nigerians to be
steadfast to keep watch so that their labour will
not be in vain. If Ghana and other countries can get
it right, Nigeria can also get it right.

“We are opposed to the removal of Jega because it
is criminal, illegal and unconstitutional. They want
to remove him through the back door.”

Akume, however, said that President Goodluck
Jonathan reserved the right to remove Jega but
that he could not unilaterally do so without seeking
the permission of the National Assembly through a
two-thirds majority.

The APC lawmakers also stated clearly that
Jonathan lacked the legal powers to suspend the
Jega under whatever guise.

They said, “Section 157(1) clearly states that the
president can only remove Jega with the vote of
2/3 majority of all senators. Under whatever guise;
whether suspension, retirement or voluntary leave
he cannot be removed.

“Section 157 (1) of the 1999 Constitution (as
amended), the President cannot remove the INEC
Chairman from office without getting approval of
the Upper Chamber.

“Section 157 (1) of the Constitution reads, “…a
person holding any of the offices to which this
section applies may only be removed from that
office by the president acting on an address
supported by two-thirds majority of the Senate,
praying that he be so removed for inability to
discharge the functions of the office.”

I have nothing personal against Buhari, but I won’t stop attacking him – Fayose

Governor of Ekiti state, Mr. Ayodele Fayose, has
said that he will not stop attacking the presidential
candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC,
Muhammadu Buhari.

Fayose, who spoke through his Chief Press
Secretary, Mr. Idowu Adelusi, in Ado-Ekiti on
Thursday, said he owed nobody any apology for
exposing “the alleged hypocrisy of the APC
leaders.”

He also accused them of placing personal interests
above national interest
The governor, who said he had nothing personal
against the APC candidate was reacting to
criticisms that had trailed his campaign for the re-
election of President Goodluck Jonathan of the
Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and his continuous
attacks on Buhari.

Fayose said the APC has not only packaged lies
and tried to deceive Nigerians, it had also
compromised the Independent National Electoral
Commission, INEC, to rig the election earlier
scheduled for February 14 in their favour.

He said, “I remember then as the ad hoc chairman
of the PDP committee to shop for the presidential
candidate to replace former President Olusegun
Obasanjo, a crop of suitable, brilliant, healthy and
competent northern politicians in the PDP were
shortlisted by me for Obasanjo to pick from, but he
overruled the list and asked me to contact the late
Umaru Musa Yar’ Adua because he preferred him.

“In fairness to the late President, he objected to
the offer on health grounds, but Obasanjo insisted
that he must be the President.”
Fayose also questioned why Buhari could not
appear at the APC organised rally in London on
Wednesday if indeed he was not on hospital bed,
adding that the much-talked about Chatham House
speech was “a face-saving measure” to cover the
true position of Buhari’s health.

The governor alleged that most of those attacking
him were doing so because he stuck out his neck to
expose the lies of the APC, explaining that after he
proved to the world that Buhari was interviewed in
Abuja and not in London, the party (APC) has
failed to prove him wrong.

PDP’s oath-taking allegation against Tinubu outlandish.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has said the
sickening and outlandish claim by the Jonathan
campaign Organization that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed
Tinubu plans to become Vice President through the
back door was designed to divert attention from
the runaway success of the APC presidential
candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, at the
Chatham House in London last Thursday.

In a statement issued in London on Saturday by its
National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed,
the party said the PDP and the Jonathan
Administration still do not have any answer to
what has now become an epochal moment that has
separated the wheat from the chaff.

”Our presidential candidate’s globally-acclaimed
outing has presented Nigerians, and indeed the
global community, with a choice between a
bumbling, ineffective, incoherent, clueless,
visionless and incompetent President and an
assertive, knowledgeable, dignified, purposeful and
principled President-in-waiting.

”Having failed to discredit that outing with a rented
crowd, some of whom confessed to have been paid
to carry placards they do not even understand, the
PDP and the Jonathan Administration have now
resorted to making nauseating claims that are
totally untrue, absolutely incomprehensible and
nothing but sheer bunkum,” it said.

APC said the claim is the latest in a series of
desperate moves by the PDP and the Jonathan
Administration since the emergence of Gen. Buhari
as the APC presidential candidate, and the clearest
indication yet that they have no answer to the
unstoppable momentum of a man of history.

”They have thrown everything imaginable at Gen.
Buhari, but he has continued to wax stronger and
stronger: They said he was not qualified, that he
was too old, then they fabricated a medical report
of an illness of their own choice, sponsored death
wish adverts against him and instituted a myriad of
court cases to stop him.

”After they failed to stop him, they went after the
election itself, using the PVCs as a tool to launch a
campaign for postponement and, when they realized
that would not work, came up with the bogey of
insecurity in the North-east to force a
postponement of the election, hoping they can buy
enough time to revive their electoral misfortune.

”With everything working against them, they
engaged in a show of shame at The Chatham House
that backfired badly, on the heels of their bare-
faced lies that Gen. Buhari was hospitalized in
London. The preposterous claim of a secret oath –
reminiscent of what they do in their own party – by
the apparently ailing spokesman of the Jonathan
Campaign Organization, Femi Fani-Kayode, is their
latest desperate act,” the party said.

APC said in as much as it has so far refrained from
engaging Fani-Kayode in his game of character
assassination, abuses and irresponsible name
calling, the party is becoming seriously concerned
that he may be caving in under pressure and
reverting to his undignified past of substance
abuse.

The party said it would be a real tragedy if the
obviously-disturbed spokesman of a doomed
presidential campaign will have to be rushed to a
back house in Ghana for therapeutics, hence the
need for his handlers to quickly put him on a leash
before it is too late.

The Certainty Of Jonathan's Victory

With the presidential elections four weeks away, Nigerians are
set for a spectacular déjà vu. The APC, despite the din of its
premature celebrations, is headed for a pasting. The reasons
are obvious. Take the APC hawkers and their ware, to begin
with. An Igbo proverb says that the eye eats before the mouth.
But the leading APC vendors happen to be Alhaji Tinubu and
Chief Obasanjo. Their mention is nothing to do with their
physical appearance. After all, neither created himself. It rather
has everything to do with the ugliness of their politics.

Obasanjo carries on, regardless. But he it was that wiped out
Odi and Zaki Biam with military expeditions, and he also
contrived a futile third term project that set off a hemorrhage
in the nation’s finances. Tinubu, for his unflattering part, is
fronting a campaign against corruption, a topic he has never
referred to in all the verbiage he has deemed fit to harangue
the wary and weary with. How, then, can the duo market a
product from which the masses, who remember, screen their
faces? It was Buhari, the military dictator, who cancelled the
Lagos Metroline Project conceived by Governor Lateef Jakande.
The spiteful action cost Nigeria billions, and continues to cost
Nigerians even greater billions in terms of endless traffic jams
and the daily loss of incalculable man hours. Yet, Alhaji Buhari
has never apologized for that unpatriotic action.

How does one expect this man in whose dictionary the word
compunction does not exist to be the harbinger of change?
Invited to the presidential debate, people hoped Buhari’s
participation would reveal whether or not he has progressed
from the stone-age policy of trade-by-barter (countertrade),
which his junta inflicted on the polity decades ago. He
demurred, citing negative press. People laughed who believe
that he ducked to mask his diffidence. But, where else in the
world would a presidential candidate with pretensions to
seriousness dodge an interlocution with colleagues? Rather,
Buhari headed for London in the teeth of winter, there to
confer with Mr. Tony Blair, a former Prime Minister who
vacated office nearly a decade ago!

Had Buhari’s handlers packaged his UK trip with a modicum of
honesty, some of his less alarming deficits may have been
overlooked. Instead, they posted 2013 pictures of the man in
London, in an untidy effort to deflect charges that he hit the
British capital for health reasons. Not only that, they
excavated pictures taken at the Transcorp Hilton, Abuja, and
claimed it was Buhari in London granting an interview. It all
brought to mind another of their disingenuous lies – the
posting of the photograph of a mammoth congregation at a
Reinhard Bonnke religious crusade which it named Buhari’s
Kano campaign. Why does the APC believe that Nigerians are
so gullible that they would confuse its penchant for mendacity
with the magic of change?

Despite the raggedness of its product, the APC managed a lot
of traction, it must be acknowledged. How the party contrived
this is not difficult to tell. Using huge sums of money the
source of which it dares not declare, the party engaged
lobbyists in America and Britain who influenced leading
Western publications into dishing out sawdust aimed at
demonizing President Jonathan and discrediting his
administration.

Back in Nigeria, the APC appropriated the social media, using it
to skew polls and promote a façade of Buhari invincibility. In
the wake of the media blitzkrieg, textbook Marxists,
Communists and Socialists around tertiary institutions who
previously speechified students on the fine points of
progressivism, shamelessly lined up behind stationary broom-
wielders with a fake promise of change on their tongue, vowing
to go blindfolded with them into battle! It didn’t occur to the lot
that, in the age of vacuum cleaners, the broom is anachronistic.
It all explains why, without realizing that a lot of these
“revolutionary” characters are actually anticipating another
Yar’Adua-out-Jonathan-in scenario, Buhari claimed victory well
before the first vote was cast! What if he lost, journalists
asked. “I will not answer that question because I cannot lose”,
he responded. But defeat already stares him in the face
because the people have seen through the hypocrisy of the
APC, a party so unpatriotic that it has, so far, contributed
absolutely nothing to the efforts to defeat Boko Haram.

Gallant and youthful Nigerian soldiers, with pluck and
gumption, are dying every day to save the country from the
blight of terrorism. The lines of their widows and the queues of
their orphans are lengthening by the hour. But whereas
Cameroonians, Chadians and Nigeriens are united in their own
countries against Boko Haram, the APC has nothing but
orchestrated blame and censure for the best efforts of our
Commander-in-Chief and our armed forces. That is not the way
to win elections. The APC already danced itself lame while the
music has just started. It since ran out of gas. And the ballot
is still four weeks away.

President Jonathan was asked what will happen if he lost. “I
will hand over power to the victorious candidate” he answered.
That is the real face of democratic change, which is self-
evident in his Transformation Agenda. He will not lose; he has
four more years of selfless service to render to his
appreciative countrymen and women.

By Chuks Iloegbunam.

Northern Christians Leaders Claim To Be Threatened For Dumping President Jonathan For Buhari

A group under the aegis of Northern Christian
Leaders Eagle Eyes Forum (NCLEEF) have alleged
that its leaders have been receiving death threats
since they endorsed the All Progressives Congress,
APC’s, presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari.

According to the chairman of the Forum, Pastor
Aminchi Habu, who addressed a news conference in
Kaduna on Friday, President Goodluck Jonathan’s
tenure in the past six years has been a huge
disappointment to Nigerians and the Christian
community in particular.

Pastor Habu said it was based on this that the
Christian Forum decided to dump Jonathan and
endorse Buhari who they believe could tackle the
problem of insecurity in the country.

“Our decision to endorse Buhari was informed by
our commitment to build a free, fair and a secular
society where the inheritance should be justice to
all.

“After the endorsement, our members, especially
the chairman of this forum, have continued to
receive threatening phone calls and text messages,
calling us a sell-out group who have abandoned a
Christian candidate in the person of President
Goodluck Jonathan,” Habu said.

Prominent Yoruba people have endorsed President Goodluck Jonathan for re-election.

The Yoruba leaders endorsed the President during a
summit held in Ibadan, Oyo State on Thursday.

The summit which was tagged “The national
conference, 2015 elections and the Yoruba Nation,”
took place at the Premier Hotel, Ibadan where the
presidential candidate of the All Progressives
Congress, APC, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari
(retd) was rejected.

They claimed Buhari did so many damages to the
zone during his tenure as head of state and that
they were not ready to forgive him.

The summit was organized by the Ondo State
Governor, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, and had many
prominent Yoruba sons and daughters in
attendance, including ; Chief Olu Falae, former
Presidential candidate of the Alliance for
Democracy/ All Peoples Party; Chief Reuben
Fasoranti, Leader, Afenifere; General Adeyinka
Adebayo (retd), leader of the Yoruba Council of
Elders; Senator Femi Okurounmu; Otunba Kunle
Olajide, former Secretary, YCE; Chief Shuaibu
Oyedokun, PDP leader; Archbishop Ayo Ladigbolu;
Otunba Gbenga Daniels, former Governor of Ogun
State; Otunba Adebayo Alao-Akala, former
governor of Oyo State; Mr. Peter Obi, former
Governor of Anambra State; Dr. Doyin Okupe,
Senior Special Assistant (Public Affairs) to
President Jonathan; Otunba Iyiola Omisore; Chief
Richard Akinjide (SAN), former Minister of Justice
and Attorney General of the Federation; and
Senator Lekan Balogun, a PDP chieftain.

Also at the summit were Oloye Jumoke Akinjide,
Minister of State, FCT; Prof. Wale Oladipo, national
secretary of PDP; Mr. Yinka Odumakin, Publicity
Secretary, Afenifere; Senator Teslim Folarin, PDP
governorship candidate in Oyo State; Otunba Gani
Adams, Oodua Peoples Congress national co-
ordinator; Prof. Temitope Alonge, Chief Medical
Director, University College Hospital, some
members of Accord Party and Labour Party among
others.
Governor Mimiko who organized the summit said,
“Today, the Yoruba people have marched out in
their large numbers to their political capital, Ibadan
to discuss and articulate once more, an issue which
for decades, has been considered to be the main
agenda for their race. You will recall that for
several decades, the Yoruba were at the fore front
of the agitation for the convocation of a National
Conference.

“I, therefore, congratulate the Yoruba Nation and
all Nigerians that finally, their dream of coming
together to dialogue how they should be governed
has come to reality.

“Let me salute President Jonathan for his bold and
momentous move as well as his focused leadership
which was demonstrated through his compliance
with the agitations by Nigerians to debate their
collective future. Convening the 2014 National
Conference was
indeed a historic assignment that we are proud of
and as a people, we must do everything possible to
ensure that the Confab recommendations get
implemented.

“The Confab Report when implemented, will create
room for each state to have its own constitution,
its own police force, its own prison service, can
create its own local governments, can build its own
airports, seaports and railways and in addition; in
the economic domain, solid minerals that had been
the exclusive
preserve of the Federal Government since
independence, have now been brought to the
concurrent list.
“States can now create employment and develop at
their own pace. With all that, it liberates
everybody, it opens up the political space.”