Nigeria Property

Sunday, April 5, 2015

How “unholy acts’ by Igbo PDP leaders robbed South East of Senate President, House Speaker slots – APC leaders

The governor of Imo State, Rochas Okorocha, on Thursday lamented the “unholy act” exhibited by political leaders in the South East zone during the National Assembly elections, saying it has now robbed the zone of the opportunity to produce either Senate President or the Speaker of the House of Representatives in June.

All Senatorial and House of Representatives candidate of the All Progressives Congress lost their elections in the elections held March 28.

The 15 senatorial districts in the five states, namely Anambra, Abia, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo were picked by the candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party.

With the victory of Muhammadu Buhari from the North and his deputy, Yemi Osinbajo, from the South West, the Senate President or Speaker of the House slots would have ordinarily gone to the South East but for the outcome of the elections.

Speaking in Owerri, the Imo State capital at a rally organised by the South East APC to celebrate Mr. Buhari’s victory, Mr. Okorocha said the zone should have elected a ranking senator or member of the House of the Representatives on the platform of the party to occupy either of the positions if PDP leaders from the zone had not engineered the rigging of the National Assembly election held the same day with that of the presidency.

He specifically noted that a serving senator and former governor of Anambra State, Chris Ngige or a former senator, Osita Izunaso, both of whom contested the election, would have been elected Senate President if they were not rigged out at the election.

He said, “The South East is entitled to either the Senate President or the Speaker of the Federal House. But as I speak to you now because of the unholy act of last Saturday they (Igbo leaders) have not been able to give us any ranking member of the Senate or ranking member of the Federal House.

“You cannot be a Senate President, you cannot be a Speaker unless you are somebody who has been there before. It is our plan that Osita Izunaso should go to the Senate, Ngige should go to Senate.

“Gentlemen, the truth is that one of them should have been Senate President of Nigeria. But our people, in their myopic thinking, in the smallness of their brain could not see the light and today this act of theirs has denied Ndigbo the Senate President, this act has denied Ndigbo the Speaker of the Federal House. I weep, I weep that this kind of thing can be allowed to happen here.”

Mr. Okorocha, who is a member of the APC, said political leaders in the North do not play the kind of politics being exhibited by South East leaders.

“This kind of thing could not happen in Kano, it could not happen in Sokoto,” he said.

“But here in Igbo land they use soldiers to kill their people. It is our political leaders who sponsored this unholy act and we shall hold them responsible for every blood dropped during this election.

“We know them and they know we know them. They can be having their children abroad and be killing the poor people here. We will resist it and we will say no. “

The governor alleged that the Igbo leaders that perpetrated the rigging plans wanted to allocate 1.3 million votes to Mr. Jonathan in Imo State “but for our resistance they could not do it”.

He stressed, “It is not true that anyone defeated Buhari in Imo State. He won this election in this state. The nonsense is over. We have the details of all that happened in INEC headquarters. It will be embarrassing if we show all that happened to the world.”

Speaking earlier, Mr. Ngige recounted how he was rigged out of the election in which he lost to a serving member of the House of Representatives, Uche Ekwunife, of the PDP.

He explained that one of his agents was kidnapped during the election and that the collation officers were not spared the ordeal.

He said although he lost the senatorial election, the emergence of Mr. Buhari as president-elect was a joy to him.

According to the former governor, “The only thing I want to assure you people is that you have lost nothing. General Buhari has won the election. APC will form the next national government. We are going to recover all these seats, all the allocation they gave to us. All the allocations they gave to us, they allocated to me 20 votes from Anambra Central and Buhari 17, 960 votes, for the whole of Anambra. Is it possible?

Mr. Izunaso, who is the national organising secretary of the APC, vowed to reclaim the mandate given to him by the people of Orlu Senatorial District but stolen by election riggers.

“We are not unmindful of that fact that what we produced in the South East was not a reflection of the votes of the people,” he said.

“I assure you that it is not going to take long before all those things will be corrected. Anambra results were rigged. For a man like Ngige to come third on the ladder, is this the correct result?

“In Abia, Ebonyi, Enugu, results were rigged, Imo results were rigged. But I can assure you that is the end. As for my people in Orlu Senatorial Zone who voted for me the victory that you gave me on Saturday must remain our victory.

“I am not going to let any criminal to go away with the mandate you gave to me freely. Out of 12 LGAs in Orlu Zone I won in 12 LGAs and there were no elections in three zones.”
Source

LWKMD! Ghana Drunkards Association (GDA) threatens strike over quality of drinks‎

Photos: President Jonathan at Good Friday service at the Villa yesterday

Oritsejafor prays for President-elect, Buhari’s administration

I won’t condone looting of public treasury —President-elect Buhari

Is it worth it to sacrifice your career to make a successful marriage? - Agata Amata

Je Suis Kenya !!! Touching Photos of family members as they ID the bodies of their loved ones

US Ambassador’s diplomatic gaffe (Miscalculation or Part of the Divide & rule Plan ?)

LAST Sunday’s visit of the United States Ambassador to Nigeria to the International Conference Centre, in Abuja, where the collation of results for the 2015 Presidential election was taking place, was a brazen breach of diplomatic protocol.

It was a visit that should be condemned for what it represents: an undue interference in a sensitive and important internal affair of this country.

James Entwistle, while at the ICC, was quoted as saying that the Permanent Voter Card employed in Nigeria’s 2015 elections, by the Independent National Electoral Commission, was of higher technological value than the one in use in his home state of Virginia in the US. “I think we need to come and study it so that we can use it in my country,” he said. Although seemingly well-intentioned and commendable on its face value, that statement, to say the least, was also patronising.

While it is sometimes permissible, and indeed acceptable, to prod a reluctant country into taking actions perceived to be beneficial to the country, there should be a time to draw the line, especially on matters that have to do with the internal affairs of a sovereign state. If there are international rules and conventions governing conduct among nation states, such should be respected and applied in all circumstances. Policy options, especially on the choice of a political, economic, social and cultural system, and the formulation of foreign policy, fall into the category of matters which each state is permitted, by the principle of State sovereignty, to decide freely. It will be unimaginable for the Nigerian ambassador in the US to behave in a similar manner during an election in his host country.

This brings to mind the ongoing spat between the White House and the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, following the latter’s recent visit to the US, on the invitation of the Congress. The visit was termed to be too close to the last Israeli election, and would be taken for an endorsement of Netanyahu by the American government, thus conferring an undue advantage on him over other candidates. For this reason, the American President, Barack Obama, had refused to accord him the courtesy of an official welcome.

Although there is no written law in America that says the president should not welcome a visiting head of government heading into a reelection battle, yet, there is a tradition to that effect, which Obama was not ready to break with – not even for the sake of an Israeli prime minister. So, if the Americans could go to such length to uphold their own tradition and convention, then they should also be able to respect the sensibilities of other people.

The use or non-use of the PVC attracted a heated debate before the election and it should not be an issue for diplomatic comments. Yet, it is obvious that the ambassador was only exploiting the weak institutions in Nigeria and the failure of governance to treat the country in such a disrespectful manner. Over the years, Nigeria has endured bad governance that has effectively retarded her growth and development. The country has been described as one with abundance of potentialities, but which have failed to translate into tangible benefits. A look at all the indices of development has seen Nigeria languishing in the lowest rungs of the ladder, contending with failed states such as Somalia, Afghanistan and Yemen.

Corruption has emerged as the bane of the country. Regrettably, more than two years after some Nigerians made away with over N2 trillion in an oil subsidy scam, not one person has so far been jailed. These are some of the shortcomings that countries like the US exploit to dabble in the internal affairs of Nigeria. But it should not be so.

Not surprisingly, attempts by American “experts” to analyse events in Nigeria have almost always brought out a warped and stereotyped outcome that stands facts on their heads. Their inability, or deliberate refusal, to situate the Boko Haram insurgency as part of a global terrorist and jihadist movement typifies this.

For instance, John Campbell, a former US ambassador to Nigeria, has spent a great deal of efforts misinforming the world that Boko Haram is a product of marginalisation, poverty and lack of education, despite abundant evidence to the contrary. Claiming to be an expert on Nigeria, he recently said, “Boko Haram insurgency is a direct result of chronic poor governance by Nigeria’s federal and state governments, the political marginalisation of northeastern Nigeria, and the region’s accelerating impoverishment.” He is wrong.

This is not only disingenuous, but a deliberate twisting of facts. In the first place, poverty is a common feature in almost all parts of Nigeria. Second, Boko Haram, in pursuit of its nihilistic mission like every jihadist terrorist organisation, has never mentioned economic deprivation as a grouse. Besides, in the past few years, sons of prominent Nigerians, with privileged backgrounds, have come out to openly identify with global terrorist movements, which rubbishes outright, any claims of poverty as motivation. Was it marginalisation for instance, that pushed the well educated Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, son of a multimillionaire businessman, into attempting to bomb an American airliner on Christmas Day of 2009? Was it also poverty that made the son of a former Chief Justice of Nigeria to travel all the way to Syria to join forces with the Islamic State terrorists? It is also on record that Buji Foi, a commissioner in Borno State, resigned his appointment to take up leadership position in Boko Haram. That certainly does not look like an action that was driven by poverty.

The French Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, was quoted as saying last month, “There are 3,000 Europeans in Iraq and Syria today. When you do a projection for the months to come, there could be 5,000 before summer and 10,000 before the end of the year.” Can Campbell in all honesty ascribe this to poverty and marginalisation? How come the actions of the three teenage schoolgirls that recently travelled from Britain to join ISIS were not attributed to poverty and marginalisation? Why should analyses of similar situations in different places produce different results?

False narratives such as Campbell’s explain why the US government does not consider Boko Haram terror as a security threat to Western countries. America’s position on this is summed up by the views expressed in January by James Marks, a retired major general and Executive Dean, College of Criminal Justice and Security at the University of Phoenix, who said, “The United States can do anything it needs to do to rid Nigeria of Boko Haram. It could be long term effort, but it can be done. The US has the capability, we have all the elements and power but it is not a priority.” This is regrettable.

Source