Paul Okoye, one of the P-square music icons, was at the Marriage Registry, Ikoyi, Lagos today to tie the knot with his love, Anita Okoye.
The ceremony was as simple as ever. It was bereft of all kinds of fanfare but well-atteended by family members, friends, colleagues in music industry and well-wishers. [myad]
Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, the sixth king of Saudi Arabia, has died at age 90, even as Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz has been appointed as the new king, the Saudi Arabian state television announced.
Thousands of Saudi Arabian citizens gathered in Mecca early this morning to mourn King Abdllah who was reputed to be a master politician that gained a reputation as a reformer.
The announcement of Abdullah’s death came several weeks after the state-run Saudi Press Agency said that he was suffering from pneumonia and had been admitted to the hospital..
Funeral is expected to be held in the afternoon today at the Imam Turki Bin Abdullah Grand Mosque in Riyadh, and many world leaders are likely to pay their respects.
Jordan’s King Abdullah cut short his visit to Davos, and is heading to Riyadh, according to a Jordanian government source.
“King Abdullah’s life spanned from before the birth of modern Saudi Arabia through its emergence as a critical force within the global economy and a leader among Arab and Islamic nations,” U.S. President Barack Obama said in a statement.
He praised Abdullah’s role in sponsoring the Arab Peace Initiative, which attempts to solve the long-simmering conflict between Israel and Palestine.
“This is a sad day. The United States has lost a friend, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Middle East, and the world has lost a revered leader,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement. “He was so proud of the Kingdom’s journey, a brave partner in fighting violent extremism who proved just as important as a proponent of peace.”
King Abdullah became king of the oil-rich nation, a key U.S. ally in the Middle East, in August 2005. But he had been running Saudi Arabia since 1996, after his half-brother King Fahd’s stroke.
In the context of the kingdom’s conservative circles, Abdullah was seen as reformer and often came up against the more hard-line clerics.
Since ascending to the throne, Abdullah took steps toward broader freedoms and invested some of the country’s vast oil wealth in large-scale education and infrastructure projects.
“He was really quite extraordinary figure. He was probably the most progressive and liberal minded king of Saudi Arabia since King Faisal, which is a long time ago, in the early 1970s,” CNN’s Fareed Zakaria said about Abdullah, who he described as “much loved.”
“I had the opportunity to meet with him once and what you got a sense of was somebody who really was determined to move his country forward,” Zakaria said. “It’s a conservative country and a conservative society — and he kept emphasizing that to me — but he was very clear in the direction he wanted to go.”
However, resistance from conservative factions hindered some of his efforts, leaving many women in particular disappointed by a lack of progress toward greater independence.
Under Abdullah’s leadership, the country slowly squashed al Qaeda, capturing or killing its leaders in the kingdom, forcing the remnants underground and sidelining radical preachers.
It also took a more prominent role in international affairs.
Last year, it became the lead Arab nation in a U.S.-led coalition to eradicate the ultraradical ISIS group in Iraq and Syria.
Analysts are predicting a smooth political transition despite the many challenges facing Saudi Arabia, including Iran, the rise of ISIS, the crisis in Yemen, and the drop in oil prices.
Saudi Arabia has 16% of the world’s known oil reserves, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The country is widely seen as the leader of OPEC and has a large influence on energy prices and political stability in the Middle East.
“Remember, the last time the price of oil fell like this, the Soviet Union collapsed,” said Zakaria. “That said, the successor is a very competent man.”
He added: “I don’t expect any major shift, but it marks a big change, and we’ll have to see what the new king is like.” [myad]
The Igbo Internet thugs who campaign for Goodluck Jonathan are an utter disgrace to humankind. They are, indeed, a strange species of homo sapiens. Maybe, they are a hybrid of homo erectus and home sapiens! Their actions are hardly compatible with those of people who have what the French call l’amour propre, self esteem or self worth.
A little over a year ago, Femi Fani-Kayode wrote a series of horrible articles well circulated in the media against the Igbo. Falling short of calling for Igbo extermination, Femi confessed his great admiration for Adolf Hitler’s Mien kempf, probably the most racist book in world history. All manner of people who called themselves Igbo Internet warriors were calling for his head. You would naturally expect them to kick against Jonathan’s recent appointment of Femi Fani-Kayode as the director of media and publicity of his reelection campaign, thus becoming the face and voice of the president, an Ijaw who has strangely been portrayed as an Igbo. But far from taking exception to this sacrilege, the self-styled Internet warriors, whom Oby Ezekwesili memorably calls Internet thugs, are rather now in cahoots with Femi! They quote him approvingly every minute. Why? Femi has a huge propaganda budget! Most of these Internet warriors are on his payroll, and their principal duty is to besmirch the integrity of Muhammadu Buhari, apart from raising cudgels, knives, daggers and guns against thoughtful Igbo people who raise questions about the propriety of their action. The Great Zik of Africa was fond of describing such irresponsible characters as knaves.
The knaves enthusiastically circulated a forged hospital document alleging that Buhari has prostate cancer. Just before this forgery, they reported online that Buhari had fainted at a campaign rally and was rushed to a hospital even when the same characters were commenting on Buhari’s ongoing campaign stumps in different parts of the country!
As Jonathan was about to visit Onitsha last week, they circulated a picture of a bridge under construction somewhere but mischievously claimed that it is the so-called Second Niger Bridge which becomes relevant to the president only during electioneering campaigns. The essence of circulating the false picture was to deceive their own Igbo people into believing that work on the mythical bridge had taken off in earnest. How some Igbo Internet fraudsters could have the courage to “419” or swindle their own people in broad daylight in order to please an Ijaw president and turn round to claim that they are the champions of Igbo interests remains one of the greatest mysteries of our time. It is revealing of the kind of ethics of the government in Abuja and their supporters all over Nigeria. It is also revealing of why some people in Nigeria and elsewhere think that the Igbo have too many Judas Iscariots, too many people eager to kill even their own family members for a mess of porridge.
On a personal note, I am deeply worried about the enthusiasm of a couple of professionals and Pentecostal pastors in this forum to indulge in this fraud in the name of politics. They need be reminded in public that certain actions of theirs do cause tremendous and eternal violence to their personal and professional reputations, to say nothing about their supposed religious callings. They are advised to read up the idea of the scandal of perception in Catholic theology. Put succinctly, their utterances and actions as ordained ministers of God or equivalent could cause some believers to lose faith in God.
C. Don Adinuba
cdonadin@yahoo.com. [myad]
The Director of Media and Publicity of All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council, Mallam Garba Shehu has said that the failure of President Goodluck Jonathan to deliver democratic dividends to Nigerians has been the root cause of the failure by the President and his Peoples Democratic Party to conduct the ongoing political campaign on issues-base.
Garba Shehu said that because the government of Jonathan had failed, he and his team made non-issues and abuses the order of the day.
The APC campaign spokesman, who spoke when he had an audience with members of the Guild of Corporate Online Publishers (GOCOP) in his office in Abuja, said: “Ordinarily, Jonathan’s campaign should have been based on his achievements. They are running against their own records.
“So it would have been for them to present their scorecards to Nigerians rather than attacking the presidential candidate of the APC, General Muhammadu Buhari, who has not attacked anyone.”
Garba Shehu said that contrary to the position being publicised by the PDP, Buhari would not tamper with the free speech of Nigerians, adding: “Men change. Buhari was a military man, but now he is a full democrat. He will not censor online. The censorship of online will come from the community of users itself.”
Garba Shehu said that APC will work with the online publishers to deepen online journalism.
This was even as a former Commissioner for Information in Lagos State and prominent member of the APC, Dele Alake, who was also at the meeting, thanked the online publishers for taking time out to visit the party.
Alake said the coming together of professional journalists to form GOCOP was a good development, adding: “It is a symbol of good things to come.
“Online journalism is the present and future of journalism.
“Most people of voting age are now on social media.
“So whoever takes online media for granted is undoing himself.”
Alake described Buhari as an acerbic leader, saying: “he (Buhari) has held plum positions and remains simple. He is a disciplined man.
“The fulcrum of the problem we have in this country is indiscipline. Now we have an epitome of discipline. What we need in this country at this critical juncture is someone who can extricate us from this abyss.
“Governance is not rocket science. In four years, we can get there. We can meet the basic needs quickly by providing low hanging fruits.
“From there, we can then move on to medium and long term policies, which can be considered as the high hanging fruits.
“Jonathan lacks the courage to rule this country and also none of his subordinates can look him in the eyes and tell him the truth. The country needs a drastic change. Especially for our kids.”
[myad]
Former Nigeria Minister of Education and presently the Deputy Director General of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Campaign Organisation, Professor, Tunde Adeniran, has said that PDP is ready to partner professional online journalists and publishers to enhance the re-election campaign of President Goodluck Jonathan and for the development of the nation.
Adeniran said this when he played host to members of the Guild of Corporate Online Publishers (GOCOP) in Abuja.
He described journalism as an impactful profession, adding that with the development of the online media, the expectation of the society from journalists has gone higher.
He said that in reaching out to Nigerians, both within and outside the country, the online media has become a critical factor.
He said the patriotic duty before the PDP requires that the party works with the online publishers in the bid to disseminate what the administration of President Jonathan has achieved.
Adeniran said that contrary to what the opposition had been disseminating, the administration of President Jonathan has performed creditably in all sectors.
According to him, what is required now is for Jonathan to be given the second term mandate to build on his achievements.
“Having gone through what we have gone through as a nation, what are the choices?
“We need to make the choices. We cannot afford not to be conscious of two things: this country belongs to all of us.
“We have to factor our various tendencies into all we do so we do not create more problems.
“You do not solve a problem by creating the ground for future battles. That is why people question the handling of issues by the President.
“It is simply because the President considers the future implications of any decision before taking it.”
Professor Adeniran said that the online media has a critical role to play in this regard, adding “the role of the online media should be to either assist or damage the move of the leader.
“And when the decision is to damage, it can be more damaging than even what external enemies will do.
“So, when we partner, it presupposes a meeting of minds.
“I have done sufficient homework to value partnership. We do not exist without having people value your contribution to the society.
“The interest of our country as partners should be paramount.”
Professor Adeniran expressed confidence that Jonathan will emerge victorious in the February 14 presidential election.
He said the President had performed exceedingly well to deserve a second term.
[myad]
President Goodluck Jonathan’s bid to seek the support of Bauchi people ahead of the February 14th Presidential election turned bloody yesterday.
Six operatives of the Department of State Security, DSS, were hospitalized after sustaining varying degrees of injuries from the fracas that ensued after the rally.
The President met a hostile crowd, with brooms and stones both on the road and at the rally venue.
The President landed at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Airport around 11am and went straight to the palace of the Emir of Bauchi, Alhaji Rilwan Suleiman Adamu to pay homage .
When the President’s convoy drove out of the palace, some youths displaced brooms and posters of APC candidates while some showed that of President Jonathan and his deputy.
While some of the youths hailed the President, some merely displayed brooms to show lack of support for the President and some went violent.
The situation however got worse as the President’s convoy entered the Ibrahim Babangida Square for the rally, the hostile youths started throwing stones at the convoy.
It took the intervention of security men on ground to chase the youths away and reduce the impact of their actions even though some vehicles in the convoy had little scars.
The atmosphere at the venue was tense as the rally had to be rushed.
The violent youths who had been chased out by security men, made their way back inside as the President’s convoy was leaving the rally venue.
They attacked the last bus on the convoy which contained the DSS operatives with a big stone which smashed the windscreen and caused injuries for the occupants.
Six of the occupants were rushed to a nearby hospital.
While four of them who only needed minor treatment were discharged immediately, another two, a lady and a man who had deep cuts on their heads which required bandages and other serious measures were still taking treatment at the time of filing this report.
Officials told our reporter on ground that the two seriously wounded officers will be flied back to Abuja for further treatment as soon as possible.
[myad]
The All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Organisation has made it clear that the party will oppose to the plot by the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to postpone next month’s general elections as is currently being canvassed by the National Security Adviser, Colonel Sambo Dasuki (retired).
In a statement signed in Abuja by its Director of Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu today, the APC Campaign said such a proposal as being contemplated is ill-advised.
“We smelt the plot that this unpopular PDP Federal Government would do anything to stay put in power, elongation of term had always been on the President’s agenda; no wonder he and his party want the election delayed or cancelled outright to effect and extension of their lackluster administration,” Shehu said.
“Gone were the days when a few persons can hold the destiny of our dear nation to ransom. In fact, Nigerians would have called for an early election than February, if our political system is parliamentary. For Jonathan’s government is worse than a rotten egg. It’s smelly, full of sleaze, neck deep in corruption and uncaring. Two vital organs of government have downed tools for nearly two months – the health and judicial sectors and he does not give a damn!
“The nation’s currency (naira) is daily plummeting in value, the oil sector in virtual comatose, the economy runs on deficit, unemployment skyrocketing, insecurity on the loose, decaying infrastructure and a loss of sound national image. Nigerians have never had it so bad. Hence, any delay or postponement of the elections amounts to testing the patience of the people. We are all tired of a corrupt government, one full of ineptitude, incompetence and lack of ideas. Nobody can scuttle our hard-earned democracy in Nigeria.”
[myad]
On Monday, Nigerians were treated to a political ad sponsored by the Ekiti State Governor, Ayo Fayose, where he tried to shoot down the All Progressives Congress presidential candidate, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), by warning us of the man’s impending “death”. The ad, without any attempt at subtlety avers: Buhari is old, will soon die and must not be voted into office so we can avoid the conundrum that usually accompanies the death of a President/Head of State.
We might have been used to Fayose and his excessiveness, political “rascality”, narcissism, and barbarity but with the ad, he overdid himself and wiped any doubt that he will be tempered by the ennobling culture of the office he occupies. Fayose’s efforts, let’s quickly remind ourselves, is not about the survival of the nation but his own survival in the political game. He pushed beyond the boundaries of ethics and morals for even a game of war like politics and also desecrated cultural values and social mores. For a superstitious society, the way we read the ad also winks at deep-seated beliefs about transcendental power of “ase” that exists in the atmosphere; how “ase” can compel things to happen when we wield words. There is no equivocation about it, what Fayose did is uncultured. But then, we should know it is not out of tune with his nature.
However, the “good” thing about the whole affair is that Fayose not only effectively conveyed the depth of his own desperation but that of his coterie as well. We know Fayose’s political future is largely dependent on the way the 2015 elections cookie crumbles. For a man who claimed he spent time in Nigeria’s political wilderness after he was impeached as governor, his political future is largely dependent on the Peoples Democratic Party presidential victory. It is therefore understandable why he has turned to the PDP’s lickspittle, the one who will run errands that even a night soil man will consider beneath his dignity. If the PDP loses the Presidency, he knows the ground beneath his feet will give way. Unless, of course, as is the wont of most Nigerian politicians, he quickly defects and becomes, of course a progressive! He would not be the last to make a quick rehash of being a broom-loving politician from a former umbrella holding one. Femi Fani-Kayode, the newly installed media and publicity honcho of the PDP has crossed and re-crossed several times that who he works for is a matter of what the clock says and whose house the party is taking place.
The “death-ad” may carry therefore Fayose’s name but one cannot rule out that he has the endorsement of the PDP even if the party has dissociated itself from it. His desperation is equally a reflection of how frantic the party is about which way the election will turn out. Far from the PDP’s executing its vaunted pre-2015 “issue-based campaign” and shorn of an agenda for the next four years, its manifesto can be summed up in one word: Buhari.
Since the campaign season started, Buhari has been its perfidious recurring decimal. He is their daytime nightmare and night-time wraith. They have practically abandoned the marketing of their own agenda to the reactionary task of discrediting Buhari. Try ask them what their manifesto is because you want to assess their plans for Nigeria post-2015 elections, or inquire about the content of the “continuity” agenda, you can be sure they will go to sleep only for them to awaken to another Buhari chant.
Even if Nigerians have been living under Olumo Rock all this while, the PDP can take it for granted we know all the antecedents of Buhari; we do not need charlatans to beat us on the head with it. Many “alawada” and other hustlers in the fold of the umbrella have been parroting the mantra of what their candidate has revived but can barely stay on that subject before mouthing Buhari. It is, always, Buhari did this and that; Buhari will do this and that; Buhari! Buhari! Buhari, as if bashing Buhari is what will increase the value of the naira or make our refineries work to full capacity.
I shudder to think what will become of us if a “moonslide” is once more foisted on Nigerians. To think they started campaigning six months ago and now that they need to prove themselves with far more urgency, they can barely articulate how they plan to consolidate on the gains they have made in the past five years in office. What Fayose did on Monday is to extend the edges of the PDP’s Buhari obsession. Suppose they have been campaigning based on issues that affect Nigerians, one would have exonerated them from the tactlessness exhibited by their boy Friday.
Fayose is not alone in parroting the nostrum of ageism in a manner that makes you wonder if they are taking the election seriously at all. The height of clowning is Fani-Kayode, who, rather than engage Buhari in a logical interlocution, asked the man to jog round a stadium! I was left to wonder if the talent deployed in his comedic anticlimax would not be best appreciated in a B-comedy; at least, that will be a more dignified way to earn one’s bread. To their shame, the PDP has besotted this campaign season with cringe-worthy pettiness such as the issue of Buhari’s “semi-illiteracy”, computer literacy, the expensive lifestyle of Zahra Buhari, a jog to nowhere and forgotten phone numbers.
Do not get me wrong, their strategy, obviously, is to damage the Buhari brand – something perfectly legitimate in a political contest – but they have expended much time and energy on Buhari that he overshadows the substance of their own candidate. If the incumbent can descend to pettiness as has been done in the past few weeks, it should be an indication of the vagueness of what they have to offer.
What should worry the PDP about Buhari’s surging popularity is how they themselves wilfully contributed to it. They have failed Nigeria so badly that a man like Buhari – who has been rejected thrice – now gathers momentum such that he looks new and shiny. The PDP should have known that their four years would be up someday and they would have to face Nigerians. When they had the chance, they took Nigerians for granted. Now that elections draw close, they want to scare the nation with the possibility of Buhari’s death.
Sorry, Fayose and the PDP, what is at stake now is no longer just about life and death but change. And for some people, even if the “change” is only change for change’s sake.
[myad]
As Nigeria approaches its most divisive and closely fought election since the end of military rule in 1999, its leaders are having to reassure voters that Africa’s most populous nation will remain in one piece.
The February 14 vote, pitting President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian popular in his southern oil-producing Niger Delta region and in the east, against former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari, a Muslim favoured in the north and religiously mixed southwest, is already proving violent, with the electorate in Africa’s biggest economy more polarised than for decades.
“Despite the much-vaunted fear that our nation may not survive the elections … I remain optimistic that we have … the maturity to rise above the challenges,” Senate President David Mark told parliament last week.
“Our nation will not disintegrate after the elections.”
Ever since 1914, when Britain carved Nigeria out of a swathe of West Africa that was home to diverse peoples speaking more than 500 languages, it has been dogged by the question of how viable it is as a unified nation state.
However, most analysts say that even if serious bloodshed follows the election, as many expect, the worst-case scenario of a break-up of a country of 180 million people remains unlikely.
“Nigeria has an enormous capacity to absorb risk,” the International Crisis Group’s Africa director Comfort Ero said. “While there are significant concerns about the elections, we are not predicting break-up.”
“WAITING TO EXPLODE”
However, she added that the republic was “in deep trouble, probably more than at any time since the end of military rule … or even the civil war.”
The last time a bit of Nigeria tried to secede, it triggered the 1960s Biafra civil war in which more than a million people died. After that it seemed Nigerians were better off together.
But as the election cycle has hotted up, some have floated the idea of division, and Boko Haram insurgents controlling territory the size of Belgium in the northeast are waging an increasingly bloody campaign for a breakaway Islamic state.
Separately, dozens of people die every month in ethnic violence in the Middle Belt, where the largely Christian south and mostly Muslim north meet across a patchwork of minority groups that are likely to be split between the two candidates.
“Nigeria is bursting at the seams with ethno-religious … problems waiting to explode,” columnist Bayo Oluwasanmi wrote in the African Herald Express, a local daily, last month.
“Competition in the coming 2015 presidential election could break the already tattered ties that keep Nigeria whole.”
That is probably hyperbole but there are signs the elections could trigger violence that may not be as easy to quell as in 2011, when Buhari’s loss to Jonathan triggered three days of riots in the north that killed 800 and displaced 65,000.
Besides regional and ethnic differences, Buhari is also a protest vote for many who say Jonathan has failed to tackle insecurity and corruption, Nigerians’ two biggest complaints, and who was seen as tough on both when he ruled in the 1980s.
The pair hugged as they signed a peace pact last week, but clashes between thugs from the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Buhari’s opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) have marred campaign rallies, and the rhetoric remains poisonous and sometimes tinged with religion.
Last year the PDP accused the APC of a “devilish plot” to impose an “Islamic agenda” on Nigeria, a dangerous appeal to religious sentiment, while Jonathan has played up his Christian identity, forging ties with hardline evangelical pastors.
PDP state governor Ibrahim Shema had to retract a speech in November in which he described APC supporters as “cockroaches” and urged the crowd to “crush them”, a chilling echo of Hutu militia radio broadcasts during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
On the other side, APC governor Rotimi Amaechi said this month that if the poll was not fair, the opposition would set up a “parallel government”, as happened after a disputed election in Ivory Coast in 2010.
“If they deny Buhari victory, it could mean civil war because both sides are so dug in,” prominent northern opposition politician Mohammed Junaidu told Reuters.
The 2010 Ivory Coast election did spark a civil war but the country was already militarily divided, which Nigeria is not.
In Kenya in 2007, a disputed election triggered three weeks of ethnic bloodshed that killed 1,200, a toll that would be far higher in Nigeria where there are many more people and weapons.
Ultimately what makes these polls so dicey is that they are a genuine contest, said John Campbell, a former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria and fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
By running in 2011 Jonathan broke an agreement with northern elites, in their minds at least, that it was the north’s ‘turn’ to field a president. Now such regional deals are in tatters.
“In the past there has been a kind of consensus among the people who run Nigeria … Elections at the presidential level were largely predetermined,” Campbell said. “What we are talking about now are real elections, with a polarised electorate.”
[myad]
Lagosians Must Keep An Eye On Officer Joseph Mbu, By Lauretta Onochie
Many Nigerians were appalled, to put it mildly, to see the Nigerian Army, an institution that was the pride of Africa but has been reduced to this sorry state, being dragged into partisanship by a selfish few. The reason for the constant desecration of the Nigerian Army under the present administration of President Jonathan, is unknown by watchers across the nation and the international community. Under this PDP-led government, our once gallant soldiers, who bravely defended our territorial integrity and shone in international assignments, have been reduced to a situation where dedicated Army officers, fund themselves to prosecute the war against terror within our shores.
The impunity and highhandedness of this administration should not be taken lying low. This is why we are concerned about this sudden redeployment of some Police Officers including the controversial AIG Joseph Mbu. Nigerians have not forgotten the role Mr Mbu played in the botched plan to scuttle the democratic establishments in Rivers State. The hard-working governor of Rivers state, Governor Rotimi Chibike Amechi, backed by the people of Rivers state and Nigerians, fought this battle Royale and emerged victorious. The scars of that war are still very fresh for all to see.
Having failed to deliver Rivers State to those who sent him on the sinister mission, Officer Mbu was redeployed to Abuja where, in the last redeployment of officers exercise, it was widely reported that all the PDP governors rejected the idea of having Mr Mbu as their states’ Police Commissioner.
We believe that this special redeployment of police officers, including the partisan Mr Mbu, days before an election in which the incumbent is expected to lose heavily, is politically motivated and planned to benefit the incumbent. As we are not unaware of the antecedents of Mr. Mbu, a police officer that at worst, should be facing trial for the atrocities he committed in Rivers state and at best, should have been retired, we are gravely concerned as to the brief that has been given to Mr. Mbu regarding the forth-coming elections.
It’s of great concern that Mr Mbu, who was reportedly rejected by all the PDP governors, is being foisted on Lagos state, an APC state, at this crucial time. We are hoping that Mr. Mbu and those he represents in his partisan capacity, are in the know that Nigerians, including Lagosians, are poised to recover their nation from the bandits that have held them down for sixteen years and no one is going to be able to stop them.
If this late redeployment, soon after we had one a few months ago, is aimed at scuttling the democratic process that will hand back Nigeria to Nigerians, then, those who are nursing such diabolical plans must think twice. Nigerians across the nation are waiting for this date with destiny, it’s the 14th if February. Nigerians would receive a love offering on this day as they head for the polls. Nigerians on this day, will also insist on their votes, counting.
It’s reassuring that the Abuja Accord is in place and we believe that Nigerians will abide by that accord. In order to support Nigerians to stand by their political leaders who signed the accord, we need to have free, fair and credible elections, devoid of intimidation and vote robbery. This is the only way Nigerians, who did not sign the Abuja Accord, will stand by the accord.
It will be beneficial for all Nigerians to be assured that officer Mbu and others that have now been redeployed will be acting in the interest of all Nigerians and not showing partisanship by taking sides. We need to know that they will work within the oath they swore as officers of the Nigerian entity.
Nigerians are no longer willing to see their votes disregarded. The Nigerian people, ordinary Nigerian people have a stake in this nation. They want to have a say in who runs the affairs of their nation. Previous elections have seen their votes disregarded by the few that have taken the collective destinies of Nigerians into their hands. But no more! Nigerians are the ones with the prerogative to decide who runs their affairs. Consequently, we insist on free, fair and credible elections devoid of bullying and intimidation.
Twitter: @Laurestar. [myad]