APC Accuses Broadcasting, Advert Regulatory Bodies Of Turning Faces The Other Way As PDP Stokes Violence

March 5, 2015

All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Organization has accused the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) and Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON), two regulatory agencies of broadcasting and print advertising respectively of encouraging and promoting violence and hate materials coming from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
APC said that by their inability to sanction erring radio and TV stations, industry players and groups who continuously breach extant laws and regulations governing activities of the agencies, the two organisations have given PDP the strength to get away with such bad habits.
In a statement, director of media and publicity for the Presidential campaign organisation, Garba Shehu, challenged the NBC to make good its threat to wield the big stick against erring broadcast stations by applying its Code to all industry players across board without fear or favour.
Garba Shehu made a particular reference to the assurances by the Director General of NBC that he would wield the big stick on erring broadcast stations that violates the Code, particularly when it comes to airing of political programs under the present political dispensation.
APC presidential campaign media chieftain said that the words of the DG of the broadcast regulatory body is heartwarming but that it must be matched with action if the NBC is not to be perceived as indirectly helping in promoting a culture of political violence in the country.
“The NBC has soon forgotten the role it played through its inaction against some TV Stations when they aired a dirty and false documentary on General Muhammadu Buhari, presidential candidate of the APC.
“The specific code that these TV stations have contravened is Section 3.1.2 of the NBC Code which states that “materials/statements likely to incite or encourage the commission of a crime or lead to public disorder shall not be broadcast.” This is a breach, which attracts severe penalty of suspension of license or outright withdrawal of the license of that station, but to the surprise of many industry observers and Nigerians, to date nothing has been done to the errant stations.”
Garba Shehu said that such actions or inactions of the NBC call into question the neutrality of many government regulatory bodies, especially in an election time like the nation is going through, where the incumbent President is on the ballot.
He condemned what he called “the seeming lack of free hand by various government regulatory bodies to call sanction breaches by the Jonathan government, his ruling PDP and groups associated with them.
Garba Shehu lamented that the situation is also the same with the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON), the regulatory body saddled with the responsibility of screening print adverts for publication and issuing certificate of clearance.
He decried a situation where the PDP and its numerous agents acting under a blanket cover of immunity or impunity, by-pass these steps and clearances to place their many abhorrent and hateful adverts in disregard of laid down laws and regulations. [myad]

Emir Of Gusau Dies At 88 With 37 Children, Jonathan Mourns

Greenbarge Reporters

March 5, 2015

Emir of Gusau capital of Zamfara state, Alhaji Muhammad Kabir Dan Baba who just conferred the traditional title of Garkuwan Manoman Zamfara on President Goodluck Jonathan during his visit to Gusau on January 19 this year is dead. The Emir died today at the age of 88 in a private hospital in Abuja, the nation’s federal capital territory.

The Emir died after a protracted illness and has been bedridden first, at Yariman Bakura Specialits Hospital, Gusau since last month and was transferred to a private hospital, in Abuja recently. He was survived by 37 children and many grand children
This was even as President Jonathan sent the words of sympathy to the government and people of Zamfara State for the loss of the Emir whom he said was “highly revered.”
The President said that late Alhaji Muhammad was one of the longest serving traditional rulers in Nigeria, having been appointed District Head of Gusau in 1984 before being upgraded to 2nd Class Emir in 1997 and 1st Class Emir three years later.
The President said that the late Emir would be greatly missed by the people of Gusau whom he ruled with great wisdom and understanding for more than thirty years.
He described the late Emir as just, fair-minded, pious, courageous and benevolent even as he asked members of his family and the people of Gusau to give thanks to God for his long and very fulfilled life of exemplary service to his people and country.
The President prays to God to grant Alhaji Muhammad eternal rest and bless the people of Gusau with a worthy successor to the late Emir who will build on the commendable legacies of progress and development. [myad]

Buhari Hails Obasanjo, Says He Tells The Truth Irrespective Of Who Is In Power

Greenbarge Reporters

March 4, 2015

Presidential Candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC), General, Muhammadu Bahari has described former President Olusegun Obasanjo as a courageous patriot who tells the truth to power when he is convinced leaders are going wrong.

In a congratulatory message to Chief Obasanjo on the occasion of his birthday, General Buhari said the former president is a nationalist whose commitment to democracy and good governance are worthy of recognition and praise.

He said that although Obasanjo is widely perceived as controversial, adding that such perception should not overshadow his patriotism and remarkable courage to speak up when things go wrong in the county.

According to Buhari, Obasanjo is a true statesman and nationalist who doesn’t abandon his country when it needs his voice to jolt the conscience of leaders to listen to those they govern.

In his glowing tribute, Buhari said statesmen are the voices and conscience of their countries, adding that Obasanjo has not disappointed him in this regard.

Buhari said that Chief Obasanjo is one of the most de-tribalised and broadminded leaders he has ever known, and that Obasanjo’s name would be cast in stone as one of those Nigerian leaders that served their country with passion. [myad]

Obasanjo Expresses Confidence Elections Will Be Held In March, April

Greenbarge Reporters

March 4, 2015

Former President of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo expressed confidence that elections would be held on March 28 and April 11 as re-scheduled even as he made it clear that the Presidential candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC), General Muhammadu Buhari would emerge as the next Nigerian President.

Obasanjo, who was responding a group under the umbrella of Concerned Citizens of Nigeria who visited him today at his Abeokuta country home said he has confidence in General Buhari because he was a trained military officer.

The former President allayed their anxieties, saying that the 2015 election will never be like the June 1993 election, adding: “You need not to worry about anything. There can never be any June 12 annulment again.

“Buhari is not Abiola, he is a trained and highly intelligent soldier. Oyegun is not Anenih, Osinbajo is not Kingibe. Jega is not Nwosu, Jonathan is not IBB and this time around, Obasanjo will not support any interim government. Obasanjo will rather support a free, fair and credible election.”

The group had called on the former President to intervene in the country’s looming political crisis before matters degenerate, saying:“We have come to express our deep concern over series of dangerous political miscalculations currently going on under Jonathan administration.

“We are afraid that crisis is seriously looming and it is like another June 12 crisis is on the way and it may be very tragic for the country. We want you to, as a matter of urgency, intervene into the matter before it is too late sir.” [myad]

Fani-Kayode Fumes, Says APC’s Allegations Are Paranoid Rantings Of Paranoid Little Man Working For Paranoid Party

Greenbarge Reporters

March 4, 2015

Director of media and publicity for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Campaign Organisation, Femi Fani-Kayode is obviously angry with the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), whose national publicity secretary, Lai Mohammed he said has made a series of absurd and clearly ludicrous claims and allegations against PDP.
“It is clear,” he charged: “that these claims and allegations are nothing but the paranoid ranting of a paranoid little man that is working for a paranoid party. Rather than trying to prepare his masters’ minds for the defeat that is coming their way, Lai Mohammed has come again with his verbal diarrhea.”
Fani-Kayode, who addressed newsmen today in Abuja said: “the truth is that we are not strategizing to shift the election dates. We are not trying to frame up Jega. We have no plans to plant any illegal substance in the bags of any of the leaders of the APC whenever they travel. We are not trying to compromise the telephone numbers of any of the INEC officials. President Jonathan is not planning to arrest opposition leaders before the elections. The Presidency has not retained the services of any foreigner to corrupt or compromise INEC computers on Election Day and we are not planning to do any of the other reprehensible things that they have alleged.”
PDP Presidential campaign spokesman imagined that if APC were to be in the position of PDP, these are the sort of sordid things that they would do, adding that such dirty things and filthy tactics are a way of life and an art with them. “But for us, such things are alien, perverse and unacceptable. The PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation is not surprised that the APC is resorting to peddling falsehood in order to gain public sympathy. For quite some time now, the party has been displaying its expertise in the cheap propaganda for which it is well-known.
“We take exception to their fiction and false claims and we will not take this matter lightly. These spurious allegations follow a well-documented pattern of lies that only recently saw them falsely claiming that an interview conducted by one of its sympathizers at the Abuja Transcorp Hilton Hotel was conducted by a so-called independent journalist in the UK. The whole world now knows that, on that occasion, as on many other occasions, the APC told a barefaced lie.
“This new smear campaign against the PDP-led Federal Government is clearly propelled by the fact that the APC knows fully that it has gone as far as it can go with its propaganda and deceit and that it will be thoroughly beaten by the PDP at the polls in the upcoming elections.
“The APC and its leaders are simply unraveling and falling apart at the seams. They are the ones who had perfected a plan to rig the forthcoming elections through the lopsided distribution of Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs). They were very comfortable with the fact that 34 percent of registered voters had not collected their PVCs as at February 14 just before the presidential election was postponed.
“The APC and its leaders said that they were ready for that election when it was obvious that the PVC collection rate in the north, comprising some of the traditional strongholds of their presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari, was higher than the collection rate in the south, the traditional support base of our candidate, President Goodluck Jonathan.
“We are happy that many eligible voters are now going out to collect their PVCs. We know that the APC and its leaders are not happy about this development because they had wanted to railroad themselves on the nation through a compromised and rigged election. How can they be happy when the advantage they obviously enjoyed before the postponement of the February 14 presidential election has now been removed?”
Fani-Kayode said that the PDP position on the card reader remains that the machine has not been tested in any election and there are bases for genuine concern over the use of the machine, for the first time, in a crucial election of this magnitude.
He said that PDP is aware of the plot by the APC, working in cahoots with some strategically placed and retrogressive elements, to use the card readers to frustrate accreditation in some parts of the country while not enforcing strict use of the machines in some other parts.
“The truth is that if they go ahead with that wicked plot, the APC and its collaborators will only be preparing the ground for mass resistance. They can be rest assured that we will not sit by idly and allow such a thing to unfold.
“The APC and its leaders are merchants of violence. They are creating laughable scenarios and possibilities that will feed into their agenda to cause chaos and violence before, during and after the forthcoming elections. This is why we insist on the deployment of soldiers in the forthcoming elections as it was done in the gubernatorial elections in Edo and Osun where APC won, in Ondo where Labour Party won, in Anambra where APGA won, and in Ekiti where the PDP won.” [myad]

Governor Uduaghan Expresses Concern over INEC’s Card Readers

Greenbarge Reporters

March 4, 2015

Delta State Governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan has expressed concern over the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) decision to use card readers in the conduct of the forthcoming general elections.
The Governor expressed the fear that should the card readers fail and or many people are unable to vote because of inability to collect their permanent voters’ cards, there would be confusion and a serious challenge for the country.
Speaking when the European Union (EU) Ambassador to Nigeria and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Mr. Michel Arrion paid him a courtesy visit in Asaba, the governor said that he had nothing against the use of the card readers but that it must be well tested to ensure that nothing goes wrong on Election Day.
“Delta state has 40 percent of what we call difficult areas to reach, meaning water and swamp and right now we know that INEC is in the process of using card readers and PVCs. We are not against the card readers but we also do not want it to be used in such a way that our people will not be happy at the end of the day. We think that enough underground work has not been done yet on the use of the card readers.”
He advised that the electorate should be properly sensitized and mobilized to ensure that they are carried along and that without hitches even as he noted that there has been noticeable improvement. He said however that the issue of permanent voters’ card is yet to be fully resolved.
According to him, if the elections had held on February 14, Nigeria would have been faced with serious challenges which may have resulted in confusion and chaos, adding that the postponement of the elections from February 14 saved Nigeria from embarrassment and crisis.
The governor advised the European Union in particular to work with the INEC for successful general elections.
“Our people need to be better educated on the use of the card readers if not it will turn out to be a mess. I can comfortably say that if that election on February 14th was held, Nigeria would have been in confusion. It is obvious from what we can see because we still have the challenge of people going to collect their permanent voters’ card.”
Earlier, Mr. Arrion who was accompanied by the EU Project Director, Mr. Temitayo Omole, told the Governor that he was on tour of states of the country, adding that the EU is interested in peaceful elections in Nigeria.
“We are very much involved in the electoral process, the EU is supporting INEC, we are also observing the elections,” he said, disclosing that the EU has 50 observers across the country and will stay back till May this year to monitor happenings before and after the elections.”
On the use of card reader for the general elections, Arrion disclosed that the EU was partnering INEC in carrying out technical stress-testing of the card readers and in the training of INEC staff.
He observed that energy is the major challenge of Nigerians, adding that the EU is also interested in food security, nutrition, good governance and the rule of law. [myad]

Dame Patience Is An Incredible Crude Woman, Says APC

Greenbarge Reporters

March 4, 2015

All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Organisation has described the wife of the President, Dame Patience Jonathan as “an incredibly crude woman” even as it praises Nigerians for putting up with her.
Director of media and publicity for the party’s Presidential Campaign Organisation, Garba Shehu, in a statement Abuja today, said that it is not only insulting for Dame Patience to describe the presidential candidate of APC, General Muhammadu Buhari as “brain-dead” it is also demeaning of her status as the First Lady.
He asked President Jonathan to call his wife to order, saying that it is discourteous and inexcusable for a wife of any president with a modicum of decency to make such a false and infantile pronouncement about the health status of another man on account of politics.
Garba Shehu recalled that in recent time, Dame Patience had made statements invoking violence, including the one she made in Calabar over the weekend when she urged PDP supporters to “stone” all those canvassing for change.
He said that it is below the standard of a wife of a President to stoop so low to call for violent attacks against members of the opposition even as he noted that while a good number of Nigerians are not taken by surprise by Dame Patience’s recent incredulous pronouncements, it is important for her husband to put her in bridles in the spirit of the Abuja Peace Accord.
Garba Shehu said that though the “indecent and disgraceful the outbursts of Mrs. Jonathan was in attempting to pull the wool over the eyes of Nigerians about her husband’s incompetence to lead the country, it is typical of the PDP’s modus operandi to confuse Nigerians with mundane issues instead of the issues of corruption, for which her husband has achieved an unbeaten record; his appalling lack of capacity to secure life and property of citizens and a glaring incompetence in dealing with the challenges facing the economy.”
Garba Shehu also condemned the desperate tactics of President Jonathan of using religion to gain sympathy and remain in office at all costs, saying that it is surprising why the President has turned worship centres into platforms for making official statements or announcing government policies.
He said that this absurdity defies the norms of government practices, and that the President is deliberately doing so “in the belief that the manipulation of religious sentiments would cover up the multitudes of his epic failures.”
According to Malam Garba Shehu, using worship centres as platforms for making major official statements could create precedents that the country could not handle in the future.
He said that if predecessor Presidents did not use the Mosques or Churches to make official statements of public importance, it is wrong for President Jonathan to start something that is already sending the wrong message.
He said with the exploitation of religion for political gains, President Jonathan and his PDP-led government have lost any basis to accuse its presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari of being a religious “bigot” or “fanatic”.
Meanwhile, the APC presidential campaign said it was scandalized by reports of money being allegedly shared to religious leaders by President Jonathan in order to buy their conscience.
It said that it is incredibly embarrassing about why a government would allegedly seek to bribe religious leaders in order to cover up its misdeeds and win re-election, despite its incompetence and non-performance.
It regretted that bribing religious leaders would not only bring them into disrepute but also make nonsense of President Jonathan’s claim to fight corruption. [myad]

Gas City Project: Ijaws, Itsekiris Forgive Each Other, Welcome Ground-Breaking Ceremony

Greenbarge Reporters

March 4, 2015

The Ijaws and Itsekiris in Delta state have resolved to forgine each other over the Gas City Project and appealed to President Goodluck Jonathan to fix a date for the ground-breaking ceremony.
Rising from a peace parley convened by the Delta State Governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, the two groups resolved in Asaba today, to make room for peace as well as ensure that the more than 16 billion United States dollars Gas City project takes off successfully.
Addressing newsmen shortly after the meeting, representatives of Gbaramatu, Ugborodo and the Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC) commended Governor Uduaghan for the intervention and that all the issues involved have been resolved for the project to come on stream.
Barrister Austin Oboroegbeyi who spoke on behalf of Ugborodo people said: “We agreed that the Gas Industrial City would be named after Ogidigben and the Deep Sea Port would be named after Gbaramatu. All parties agreed that because of the importance of the project the ground-breaking should be done as soon as the president and NNPC can work out a date, we also agreed to ensure peace within the area of the project so that the benefits can come to the communities.”
Chief Godspower Gbenekame who spoke on behalf of Gbaramatu people said: “We agreed that the Gas Industrial City would be at Ogidigben while the Deep Sea Port would be at Gbaramatu. When the President is ready for the ground-breaking, we are ready”, while the representative of the NNPC, Dr David Ige, Group Executive Director (Gas and Power), said: “We have an amicable meeting, the two communities agreed to make peace as a condition for the project.”
Dr. Ige added that the naming of the project has not changed anything as it concerns the original concept, stating: “they are inter-dependent projects, everybody is ready for when Mr. President agrees to come for the ground-breaking ceremony, we also agreed to work together to make the project a huge success as its impact would not only be on Deltans but, all Nigerians.”
Governor Uduaghan had stressed the importance of peaceful co-existence and collaboration of the Ijaws and Itsekiris in the area not just for the successful take off of the project but for the security of all in the riverine areas of the State and the economy of the country.
He said that the project was important not just to Nigerians but to the international community adding that President Jonathan was concerned and committed to peaceful co-existence and an economically buoyant nation.
According to him, the President had delayed the flag off of the project for the host communities to settle their differences so that the project would not be stalled.
“Mr. President did not come for the ground-breaking ceremony earlier scheduled not because, he was afraid of being attacked but because he wants the communities to resolve their differences so that nothing would stop the project after the ground breaking exercise.
“Mr. President is eager to do the ground-breaking ceremony but what is more important is for the project to come to fruition without hindrance as that is the only way we, our grand children and the future generation can benefit from it.” [myad]

APC Cautions South-West: Jonathan’s Promise Of Implementing National Confab Report Is Booby-Trap

Greenbarge Reporters

March 4, 2015

All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Organisation has drawn the attention the South-west to the booby trap embedded in the repeated promise by President Goodluck Jonathan to implement the report of the National Conference which it said contains nothing that approximates to their collective interest.
APC said that while it did not oppose to any group supporting any candidate for the forthcoming general election, but that a recent purported endorsement of Jonathan by former Confab conferees from the South-west was predicated on spurious and utterly dishonest reason.
“It is necessary to state that all points of the Yoruba agenda that could have favoured the South-West, including regional autonomy, restructuring, devolution of power and parliamentary system could not sail through at the conference. These people knew that though they deceived Nigerians, particularly the Yoruba people, with the ostensible reason, but the real reason for the endorsement was the because of their personal economy.
“Some of them have had their personal finances transformed by way of juicy but dubious security contracts and handsome cash largesse by the government of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan at the expense of Nigerian people.
“We consider it asinine that any group can predicate its support for Dr. Goodluck Jonathan on his promise to respect any agreement. The antecedents of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan speak eloquently of a serial promise breaker, unreliable keeper of gentlemanly agreement and unabashed turncoat! It would be recalled that the first real show of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan’s immense capacity for not keeping to pacts was when he, in 2010, conveniently walked away from his party’s North/South zoning arrangement, of which he was signatory to, with indescribable villainy. There is virtually a litany of reports from committees, which he empanelled, that have remained unimplemented in his four-year presidency thus far!
“Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, as President, who refused to assent to the Bill that will empower Nigerians with disabilities, is doubtful would ever contemplate supporting better life for Nigerians without disabilities.”
The APC, in a statement by Director of media and publicity for its Presidential Campaign Organisation, Garba Shehu said that of all the four hundred and ninety two (492) members of the National confab members, none was elected by the people.
“A comparison of this arrangement with that of the Constituent Assembly of 1977 revealed a conference that had most of the members elected by the people and which naturally brought on the 1979 constitution. We are appalled that despite the pretences of members of this group to democracy, they thought it fit to attempt to stampede a Nation to giving assent to a piece of document that bore the imprimatur of a negligible minority. Truth be told, the conferees of the Confab were not representatives of the people!”
APC said that it is on the basis of the foregoing that it saw the purported endorsement of President Jonathan by members of this group as “infernal, jejune, and meaningless. We urge the people of the South West to discountenance this as another distraction from the stable of the utterly despicable but desperate regime of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.” [myad]

Join Me To Blame APC For Myriad Of Nigeria’s Problems, By Bunmi Awoyemi

Greenbarge Reporters

March 4, 2015

APC is to blame for fuel scarcity.
APC is to blame for the kidnap of the Chibok girls
APC is to blame for 30 minutes per week power supply
APC is to blame for the fall in the value of the naira
APC is to blame for the missing $20b
APC is to blame for the loss of 500k barrels of crude oil and $50m per day to oil theft for 4 years when crude oil sold above $100 per barel
APC is to blame for the comatose state of Nigeria’s healthcare system
APC is to blame for the drastic fall in the price of crude oil
APC is to blame for the loss of over $54b to a so called power infrastructure development for the last 16 years
APC is to blame for the loss of N4.34 trillion out of N4.4 trillion of Nigeria’s defense budget of the last 5 years to corruption
APC is to blame for the failure of the government to arm the armed forces with modern weapons and military hardware.
APC is to blame for the failure to diversify the Nigerian economy for 16 years.
APC is to blame for the loss of over 25k people to insurgency.
APC is to blame for the displacement of over 2m people from their homes because of insurgency.
APC is to blame for the death of over 30 people at the NIS recruitment exercise of 2014 after over 600k unemployed graduates were charged N1k for the filling of 5k vacancies
APC is to blame for all the bad federal roads in Nigeria.
APC is to blame for the raiding of the Excess Crude account that dipped from $20b to $1b.
APC is to blame for the rise in the rate of unemployment from 24% to 65%.
APC is to blame for massive failures recorded in NECO and WAEC exams in Nigeria
APC is to blame for disobedience of court orders.
APC is to blame for the reduction of our Foreign Reserve from over $60b in 2008 to $32b today.
APC is to blame for the high rate of crime in the country.
APC is to blame for the fall in the standard of education in Nigeria.
APC is to blame for a Ministry of Water Resources that produces zero water and fails to encourage private investment in water generation and distribution.
APC is to blame for the dwarfing of our stature and status in the comity of nations.
APC is to blame for a situation where poor nations like Chad, Niger, and Cameroon are helping us to maintain our territorial integrity.
APC is to blame for the failure of the President to present evidence of his Ph.D degree and dissertation.
APC is to blame for all the ASUU strikes of the last 16 years.
APC is to blame for all the ASUP strikes of the last 16 years.
APC is to blame for Nigeria declining from a nation that sent troops to countries like Chad, Sierrea Leone, Liberia, Congo, etc to help end civil wars in their countries to a country that is now begging for other countries to rescue its crippled army from rag tag, school-boy insurgents.
APC is to blame for dashing of 10% of Nigeria’s territory to Boko Haram.
APC is to blame for the failure of the current administration to tackle insurgency for 6 years and for its magical ability to now crush the insurgency within 6 weeks.
APC is to blame for the continuous rise in the prices of essential commodities in the midst of the so called revolution in the agric. sector in the last 5 years.
APC is to blame for the failure of the President of Nigeria to address the international community on three different occasions overseas because he got himself drunk into stupor.
APC is to blame for the President’s decision to maintain 11 Presidential Jets when the Prime Ministers of Britain and Australia travel by commercial flights.
APC is to blame for the Presidency budgeting N5m per day for food.
APC is to blame for the presidency budgeting N17b for power generators.
APC is to blame for the loss of N30 trillion to corruption at the federal level in just 5 years.
APC is to blame for the failure of the FG to pay the salary of civil servants.
APC is to blame for 16>19, 7>19 and 6>19 political calculation.
APC is to blame for the forced shift in the date of the Presidential poll from Feb. 14th to March 28.
APC is to blame for INEC’s adoption of the idea of PVCs and card readers.
APC is to blame for the INEC Chairman’s insistence on conducting free and fair elections. [myad]

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