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]

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]

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]