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The Seventh-Day Adventist Church has
appealed to the federal government to change the days of conducting the
forthcoming general elections from Saturdays to enable its members
participate, or else it will go to court.

Bassey Udoh, the president, Seventh-Day
Adventist Church, Eastern Nigerian Union, made the appeal in an
interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Monday, claiming the
change will enable his members to vote and be voted for. According to
Mr. Udoh, “Saturday is the day of our worship and more than five
million members of the church will worship in 3,500 branches.”

He said that if the appeal is not
considered, members of the church will again be disenfranchised, just
like in the past. He said that the church had made presentations at the
last National Assembly Committee on Constitution Amendment on the
issue. According to him, the church is already considering the option
of going to court if members are eventually disenfranchised this time
around.

“We want to go to court to defend our
rights. We have been suppressed, marginalised and disenfranchised for
so many years and we are saying, ‘for how long?’ We are citizens of
this country and we should not be disenfranchised. We have not asked
our members not to vote, that will be wrong, but by implication if
election is put on Saturday, it means you have disenfranchised us” Mr.
Udoh said.

The church members worship on Saturdays, which according to Mr. Udoh
is “not for personal reasons but Biblical, which are founded in the
scriptures and dates back to creation. We believe that Sabbath is a
Holy Day and should not be used for any personal, civil or public
business. And that is why we are badly disturbed that the federal
government that is preaching one man, one vote, wants to conduct
elections on Saturdays,” the cleric said.

Non-implementation of the approved
tariff for imported items recently removed from the banned list is due
to ongoing negotiations among stakeholders.

The Comptroller-General of Customs,
Abdullahi Dikko, made this known to the News Agency of Nigeria on
Monday, stating that the negotiation was between domestic manufacturers
and the federal government. Textile fabrics, furniture, certain
categories of vehicles, tooth picks and cassava were among items
removed from the list of items banned from being imported into the
country.

Mr. Dikko said that the delay in the
implementation of approved tariff was caused by the negotiation on
incentives between domestic manufacturers and the government.

“The matter is currently undergoing
some discussions among stakeholders. The manufacturers are saying that
if the bans are implemented, its effect on domestic manufacturers’
products will be devastating. They are, therefore, asking that there is
the need for some backings from the government,” he said.

He also noted that the Customs as a
body has, however, seen the need for such incentives and government has
agreed to it. He said that government is negotiating on the type of
incentives that will be adopted before rolling out the structure of
duties.

“I believe no government will implement a policy that will affect the wellbeing of its citizens negatively.

The Conference of Nigeria Political Parties in
Ekiti State at the weekend took a swipe at the former governor of the
state, Ayodele Fayose over his recent comment about the increasing rate
of insecurity in the state.

Mr Fayose recently raised an alarm over the
reported violence in the state during party primaries held last week,
saying politicians must learn to conduct campaigns and elections with
civility.

But the CNPP, through its chairman, Tunji
Ogunlola, said Mr Fayose lacked a moral justification to comment on the
violence allegedly unleashed by some contestants and their supporters
during the primaries and accused the former governor of trying to use
incidents of violence in party primaries to feather his own political
nest.

“Ekiti has been peaceful from time immemorial until Fayose’s entry into the politics of the state,

when violence, brigandage and mayhem became the order of the day,” the CNPP said.

Take the boys out

The group recalled the attack on Alliance for
Democracy leaders in Mugbagba, Ado-Ekiti in on May 28 which it said Mr
Fayose allegedly supervised, during which several vehicles were
destroyed and the violence that marred a councillorship by-election
same day in Ifaki-Ekiti, leading to the killing of Tunde Omojola.

“While our group is making efforts to ensure the
peaceful resolution of crisis arising from primaries conducted by the
various political parties, we are using this medium to appeal to Ekiti
people to discountenance Fayose’s statement on violence at the
primaries,” the CNPP said. “Fayose is a past leader in the state and it
is regretful that some of the boys he used then have now become
problems for the state and we thank the state government for making
efforts to provide employment and loans for those boys to discourage
them from being used as thugs.

“We frown on somebody trying to paint the image of the state black
because of his personal ambition. The CNPP wishes to advise Fayose to
concentrate on his senatorial ambition and let the electorate know what
he intends to do to take those boys away from the streets in the fields
of education and gainful employment, rather than whipping up
sentiments”.

A Lagos High Court,
on Monday, discharged and acquitted Lucky Igbinovia and Effong Elemi
Edu, standing trial over the 1995 murder of Pa Alfred Rewane, human
rights activist and a leader of National Democratic Coalition, after 15
years in jail.

Olusola Williams,
the presiding judge, held that the prosecution failed to prove its case
against the two accused persons beyond reasonable doubt. The court held
that the only evidence the prosecution relied on were the statements
allegedly made by the accused persons which the accused said they made
under duress.

The court added
that it was clear that the prosecution had nothing to support their
case as there was no evidence to support the charges levelled against
the two accused persons.

“I wonder what the
overwhelming evidence the prosecution referred to. The only things that
linked the accused persons to the alleged crime are the statements,
which they have denied. It is quite plain that there was nothing to
support the case of the prosecution. It appears to me that all what the
police did was to visit the scene of the crime and arrested workers of
late Pa Rewane,” said Mr. Williams.

The others

The defence team,
led by Moses Odiri, had earlier filed a no-case submission. However,
the court, in its ruling, only discharged Elvis Irenuma, a co-accused,
and held among others, that evidence by the prosecution could not link
him to the crime. Five other suspects: Sylvester Iyasele, Saturday
Egbeide, Ola Obanuso, Akeem Ali, and Sunday Obanobi had died in prison
custody while awaiting trial.

The accused persons
were arrested and charged for conspiracy and armed robbery. According
to the prosecution, they were accountable for the murder of Mr. Rewane
at his home, 100, Oduduwa Crescent, GRA, Ikeja on October 6, 1995.

One of the
defendants, Effong Elemi-Edu, during cross examination, told the court
that on the day of the incident, he left his house to buy Suya (grilled
meat) for his wife around 8.45pm.

According to him,
as he was about to reach “Mallam’s Sweet Suya Spot”, he heard sporadic
gun shots, and took cover. After the shots ceased, he decided to go
back home but suddenly from the dark, he allegedly heard a voice shout
“stop or I shoot!”

“In confusion, I stopped dead in my track. Then four men in mufti
pounced on me. I was screaming and wondering what would the robbers get
from me other than the N5 note I had budgeted for Suya? They ignored my
protests, rained more blows on me, and shoved me and a few other
persons into their van and drove to a place I later recognised as SARS
(Special Anti-Robbery Squad), at Oba Akinjobi Street, Ikeja,” he said.

The Conference of Nigerian Political Parties has condemned the presence
of the chairperson of the Independent National Electoral Commission at
the voter’s registration of the president in his hometown on Saturday.
The party, in a statement on Sunday, expressed its outrage at the
presence of the INEC boss Attahiru Jega, accompanying the president,
Goodluck Jonathan, during the latter’s voter registration at his
hometown Otuoke, Bayelsa State on Saturday.

The CNPP called on the
electoral umpire to ignore the style of followership practised by his
predecessor in office, calling on him to “wake-up, abandon the ignoble
cult followership, which converted former Independent National
Electoral Commission’s chairmen into puppets of former president, Chief
Olusegun Obasanjo and be on top of his duty post as an impartial
umpire.” “We had expected Professor Jega to be on top of his duty post
at INEC Headquarters Abuja; receiving reports of non-arrival and
late-arrival of officials and materials and the worrisome report of
malfunctioning DDC Machines, which has become the metaphor the
exercise,” the party said. The CNPP warned that “Nigerians do not want
the extension of the voters registration exercise under any guise.”

Saminu Turaki, a
serving senator and former governor of Jigawa State, has attributed the
recent spate of bombings in Nigeria to the failure of adequate
intelligence sharing among law enforcements agents in the country.

Mr. Turaki, during
an interview with journalists at the Murtala Muhammed Airport 2, Lagos,
over the weekend, said that it is time for the government to deploy
sophisticated equipment in its fight against crime, adding that Nigeria
has come of age to have state of the art technology. “What we require
is a very good intelligence system like using ICT and satellite so that
we can see what is happening.

“You know in this
era of technology we have to use technology and we need a lot of
intelligence. So, I think it is a failure of intelligence. We have to
change our intelligence gathering system, because to prevent terrorism
is very difficult but if you have very good intelligence then you can
do that, for it is a threat to the nation,” Mr. Turaki said.

Call for positive thinking

Mr. Turaki also
urged Nigerians to desist from negative thoughts and tendencies that
are capable of dragging the nation backwards, adding that citizens and
the government should plan for the future and break away from the
depressing events of the past.

“Government is not about personal thing and I think the biggest problem we have as a nation is that of planning.

“Strategically, you see every country come together to plan for the
next 20, 30, 40 years, but in Nigeria, all we are thinking is negative.
So I think the most important thing is for us to plan. Where will
Nigeria be in the next 50 years? There is a shift from resources
economy to knowledge based economy. But Nigeria is in the primitive
years of mono-culture economy, and it is said that the mono-technology,
molecular biology and others, each of them mono-technology, will be 30
times bigger than the telecom revolution we have today. So, I think we
should be thinking of the future, not the past. Our biggest problem is
that we are rooted in the past,” he said.

Two days into the
voter registration exercise, residents in many parts of Lagos State
have continued to experience slow-paced operation at the centres.

The exercise, which
commenced on Saturday nationwide, has been hampered by technical
hitches in Lagos. “This is not what I expect at all,” says Okechukwu
Johnson, a resident of Oregun, who came to register at one of the
centres in Alausa area of the neighbourhood, where registration has not
started as at 12 noon even though the registration officials arrived as
early as 9am. “I expect to see the same vigour with which [Attahiru]
Jega has been boasting in the media at the registration centre. But
imagine I have been standing here for almost two hours and I don’t even
know whether I will be able to register today because this machine is
not working.”

Problems with machines

A survey of most of
the centres revealed an impressive turnout of people interested in
registering. In some centres, people offered assistance to get the
exercise underway as early as possible. Officials of the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC), were noticed struggling with the
operations of some of the machines. According to Azeez Akinola, a
resident of Ikosi area in Ketu, the inability of the attendants to
operate the machines could disenfranchise many voters.

The situation was
the same in Ikorodu, Mile 12, Ketu, Ojota, Iyana Ipaja, Surulere ,and
many other parts of Lagos. The exercise was characterized by excessive
delay in the registration of each voter. Some of those who turned out
to be registered said it was taking between 30 minutes and an hour to
register a single voter with the Direct Data Capture machine. Sesan
Daini, a resident of Ikorodu, said that in Igbogbo area of Ikorodu
Constituency II, where there are five registration centres, only one
centre worked on Saturday. “It is a deliberate thing by Jega, I
believe,” he said. “I remembered Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN)
called Jega to use the Delta State gubernatorial election to test run
the DDC machines so that any unforeseen anomaly can be corrected. He
refused. If we cannot have proper registration exercise, how can we
have credible election?”

Wasiu Ogunrinde, a
civil servant, who lives in Mile 12, said that he was at the Omo-Banta
centre to register on Saturday but left without doing so after a
three-hour wait. One of the attendants told us yesterday that they had
technical problem and today the same excuse is being given as the cause
of delay.”

Improvement soon

Adekunle Ogunmola,
the Lagos State INEC Electoral Commissioner, however, assured Lagos
residents of an improved registration exercise as from Monday. “Let me
just tell you that we are busy in the office now rectifying the various
faults we have noticed,” he said. “As from tomorrow [Monday], I can say
that twenty percent of the centres will be able to register people in
less than five minutes.”

South Sudan’s
polling centres closed their doors on Saturday after a week-long vote
on independence from the north that could end a vicious cycle of civil
war with the creation of the world’s newest nation.

Former U.S.
president, Jimmy Carter, leading a mission observing the vote, said
turnout could reach 90 per cent and that it seemed likely the south had
voted for independence. Exhausted polling staff processed a straggle of
voters on the final day in the southern capital Juba. Some officials
were so tired they were sleeping behind their dusty stalls.

Final results are
due before February 15, but could be announced as early as the
beginning of next month. The vote caps a 2005 peace agreement that
ended decades of civil war between the mostly Muslim north and the
south, where most follow Christianity and traditional beliefs. Northern
officials have appeared increasingly resigned to losing the
oil-producing south – which makes up a quarter of the country’s land –
allaying fears conflict could reignite.

Mr. Carter, leading
one of the largest observation missions, told reporters in Khartoum a
handful of centres had reported 100 per cent turnout and were already
tallying the results. “We already know that in the south there’s been
about an average of 90 per cent (participation) from the stations we’ve
observed and I think they are representative,” Mr. Carter said.

In the few centres
where he had seen counting under way, he said, the votes “were
practically unanimous in favour of separation, with only a few ballots
to the contrary. “It’s highly likely that the referendum result will be
in favour of separation,” he said, but added that no one should
prejudge the outcome.

At least 60 per
cent of registered voters needed to take part for the result to be
binding. That point was reached just four days into the vote, according
to the organising commission. Mr. Carter also said the vote had
probably met international standards and Khartoum said it would
recognise the result, meaning all southerners must do now is wait to
celebrate their independence day, likely on July 9.

The former U.S. president played down threats of popular protests in the north following the vote.

“My hope is that
the opposition parties in the north will be brought into consultations
with President (Omar Hassan al-) Bashir’s party and that they will
prepare for modifications for the constitution,” he said.

Southern
independence campaigners have described the vote as a chance to throw
off decades of perceived northern repression. Mr. Bashir said in a
speech in Khartoum state that neither the north nor Muslims had ever
oppressed the south, but rather the divisions were the legacy of the
ex-colonial power, Britain.

“The south has been a burden on Sudan from independence until today,” he said on state television.

More than 182,000
exiled southerners have returned to the south since the end of October,
according to U.N. figures, many of them fearing repercussions in the
north after the vote. South Sudan’s government believes that figure
could rise to as much as half a million by the beginning of July, said
the U.N.’s deputy humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, Lise Grande.
“Services are already overstretched. With more people coming back there
will be tremendous pressures on agencies,” she said.

REUTERS