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The majority leader of the Ondo State House of Assembly, Ifedayo
Akinsoyinu, has called on President Goodluck Jonathan to declare a state of
emergency in Plateau State as a way of taking control over the crisis in the
state.

Mr. Akinsoyinu, told reporters that with the crisis that had
engulfed Jos, the capital of Plateau State in recent times, there was no
alternative to the declaration of a state of emergency in the state.

The lawmaker, who described the continued crisis in Jos as
alarming and disgraceful, charged Mr. Jonathan to urgently find a lasting
solution to the problem in the area. Mr. Akinsoyinu, (Labour, Ondo West), said
leaders of various communities in Jos should be probed for the continuous
crises that have engulfed the ancient town in recent times.

“The crisis in Jos is fast becoming too many,” he said. “Government
must brace up and get to the root of the matter. There are many people who are
fueling the crisis that should be brought to book. The solution to the crisis
is in the region because some cabals are behind the crisis, it is only when
these cabals are probed that Jos will enjoy peace.”

The lawmaker also criticised the federal government for not
doing enough to find a lasting solution to the crisis, saying the government
has failed in its duty of providing adequate security for its citizenry.

Changed dressing

Meanwhile, residents of Jos have adopted various survival
strategies as the warring parties resort to secret killings in the troubled
city. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that one of the strategies,
known as ‘chameleon tactics,’ involved the usage of clothes deemed acceptable
to each of the warring territories.

“I wear my jeans trousers and T-shirt if I move to Christian
settlements and change to caftan, trouser and cap when returning to the areas
inhabited by Muslims,” Shehu Mohammed, an undergraduate of the University of
Jos said.

Mr. Mohammed, whose campus is in a Christian-dominated area,
resides at Bauchi Road, populated by his fellow Muslims.

“The dressing has helped me a lot. It helps me from attracting
the attention of hoodlums,” he said.

Another resident, Bulus Pam, told NAN that he usually changed
his dressing whenever he was going to the market to purchase meat and
vegetables.

“If I want to buy meat, I wear jumper, cap and trousers because those items
are sold in Hausa-dominated areas,” he said.

Five days after the
2011 voters’ registration exercise began nationwide, some registration
centres in Ganjuwa Local Government Area of Bauchi State are yet to
commence the exercise. This is due to the non-supply of the Direct Data
Capture (DDC) machines, which has crippled the exercise in these
centres.

The Administrative
Officer of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Bauchi
State, Aminu Bello told NEXT in Bauchi during an interview on the
on-going voter registration exercise in the state that delay in the
supply of the machines is affecting the work of the commission.

“This problem of
lack of supply of the DDC Machines is not only in Bauchi,” he said. “It
is all over the country. 89 registration centres in Ganjuwa Local
Government Area have not yet gotten the machines because they are in
short supply for now.” He however assured that even though the exercise
has commenced, no eligible voter will be left behind.

“All of them will be registered as soon as the machines are supplied to us because it is their right,” he said.

He pointed out that
the exercise has been going on smoothly in the state, except for some
hitches encountered at the start of the exercise.

“I know that there
is no way the registration exercise will commence on the 15th in all
centres all over the country as planned. In Bauchi, we encountered some
problems before the exercise began and the major challenge we faced was
that of logistics. We had the DDC Machines on ground but moving them
and the registration officers to the field was our great challenge,” he
said.

Projections from the INEC national headquarters indicated that over
2.4 million eligible voters are expected to be registered in Bauchi
State during the ongoing exercise, as against the over 2.1 million
registered in the state during the same exercise in 2007.

One of the ways the ongoing voter registration exercise can be
saved from collapse is for the Independent National Electoral Commission to
hand over its conduct to banks, a member of the House of Representatives, Uche
Ekwunife, has said.

Mrs. Ekwunife, who represents Anaocha, Njikoka, Dunukofia
federal constituency in Anambra State said yesterday in her Nri hometown where
she had gone to register that this had become necessary in the face of the
likelihood of many Nigerians not being registered because of the slowness of
the machines.

According to her, banks have the requisite equipment and
experience to do a better job and at less cost to the federal government.

“I believe the banks in Nigeria can handle what INEC is doing.
They have the experience, the security, uninterrupted power supply and they
open and close early,” said Mrs. Ekwunife, who is seeking re-election to her
seat on the platform of the All Progressives Grand Alliance.

She noted that 20% of the money spent in the current exercise
would have been enough to pay banks for their charges and still give the
federal government value for its money.

“All they need do is to send all the required data to the banks
so that people can register wherever they are,” she stated.

Mrs. Ekwunife who regretted the amount of time wasted in
registering people blamed it on the equipment being used and said a lot still
needed to be done by INEC to convince Nigerians they were serious.

Use the old register

She also suggested a return to the old voters’ register if the
current exercise proved too difficult to handle. She said those who did not
find their names in that old register could now come for update. Alternatively,
Mrs. Ekwunife called for an amendment of the Electoral Law in order to enable
INEC to adopt Option A-4 for the purpose of the April elections.

“INEC needs exactly one year to do registration if they must get
it right and we have just three months to go,” she stated.

She said the issue was not about extending the exercise but in
making sure the equipment worked well. Mrs. Ekwinife said even if the
registration exercise was extended, INEC would still need to add at least two
months to get enough people to register.

“It is either they do this or they will revisit the Electoral Act and opt
for Option A-4,” Mrs. Ekunife said.

The Oyo state government has reopened the murder charge against
Teslim Folarin, Senate majority leaders, and three others over the killing of
Lateef Salako (aka Eleweomo), factional chairman of the National Union of Road
Transport Workers (NURTW).

Justice Akintunde Boade of the Oyo state High Court, on
Wednesday, ordered the service of a suit filed by the state government on Mr.
Folarin and others accused persons.

After listening to H.F. Sule, Oyo state director of Public
Prosecution, DPP, who told the court that the state was not a party to the
release of the accused persons last Thursday, the judge fixed January 27 for
mention of the matter when they were expected to have been properly served on
the notice.

Before their release last week, Mr. Folarin and other accused
persons, Ramoni Jayeoba, Bankole Olaide Raji and Raimi Ismaila, spent nine days
at the Agodi prison where they were remanded on the order of the Ibadan Chief
Magistrate’s court over their alleged involvement in the killing of Mr. Salako.

The magistrate, Fatimat Badrudeen, struck out the two-count
charge of felony (conspiracy to murder) and murder preferred against the
accused persons and discharged them when the police formally withdrew the
charges for further investigation.

Effort by the counsel to the Oyo state government to stop the dismissal of
the matter were unsuccessful as the magistrate refused audience to the state’s
DPP, arguing that the police, who was the original prosecutor, had the right to
withdraw. Eleweomo was killed by yet unknown persons shortly after the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) congress held at the Ona-Ara local government area of
the state, late last year.

The court of appeal
sitting in Yola has fixed February 10 for its ruling on a 2007 election
related matter brought before it by Danladi Baido, winner of the PDP
governorship primaries in Taraba State, against INEC, in which the
appellant is asking the court to compel the electoral body to issue him
with the certificate of return issued to the state governor, Danfulani
Suntai.

The case, expected
to determine the fate of Mr Suntai of Taraba State, has been described
by counsel to the appellant as already running out of time. Falade
Bankole told the presiding judge of the appeal court that “time is of
an essence” after Zainab Adamu Bulkachuwa, who initially disqualified
herself from handling the case, was asked by both parties to continue
with the case at yesterday’s sitting because of time.

Mrs Zainab had
disqualified herself in apparent protest about the procedure of the
court after she discovered the other judges were in possession of
document missing in her own brief.

The case against Mr
Suntai has already thrown the governor’s camp into panic, said a
supporter of Mr Baido who said they were optimistic of favourable
judgement because of the precedent set by the appeal court ruling in
Rivers State, which is similar to that brought against INEC in Taraba
State.

Electoral watershed

The crux of the
matter, according to the plaintiff’s counsel, is that Mr Suntai was
illegally substituted as the PDP candidate for Taraba State and
presented by INEC with the certificate of return. Mr Baido,

who wants the court
to, among other things, declare him as the candidate for the 14th April
2007 governorship elections also wants the court to set aside the
purported change or substitution of his name as PDP governorship
candidate for Taraba State.

“The mandate won by the appellant was wrongly denied him by his party in collusion with INEC,” the plaintiff said.

But Mr Baido’s
resort to the law court, sources said, is not without its own riddle as
the appellant had agreed to a role in the Suntai administration as the
chief of staff before political disagreement reared its head. Some of
the governor’s supporters also claim that Mr Baido is being instigated
by a former governor, Jolly Nyame who is estranged politically from the
incumbent governor.

“The judgement on
the appeal court case reserved for the 10th of February is seen as one
of a few cases connected to the 2007 elections expected to be another
watershed in election jurisprudence,” Desmond Adebole, counsel to the
appellant, said.

The Osun State
Resident Electoral Commissioner, Oloruntoyin Akeju has attributed the
malfunctioning of some of the Independent National Electoral Commission
(INEC)’s Direct Data Capturing (DDC) Machines to the variation in the
weather condition of the country where they are manufactured and
Nigeria where they are being used.

Mr Akeju made the
disclosure while fielding questions from newsmen at INEC headquarters
in Osogbo yesterday when the zonal commander of the Nigeria Security
and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) in charge of Oyo, Osun and Ogun States,
Mudu Bunu visited him in his office during an inspection tour of the
state on the ongoing registration exercise.

The electoral
officer said the difference in the climate of the country where the
machines are manufactured is responsible to a large extent on why there
were some initial problems.

“The machines
originated from a temperate region where the weather was extremely cold
and with our own weather which is extremely hot, there are bound to be
this kind of initial problems,” he said.

Mr Akeju however
disclosed that the commission is gradually overcoming the initial
problem as majority of the machines are now operating at maximum
capacity.

“There is
improvement on a daily basis on the number of people we are able to
register. For instance on Sunday we registered about 60,000 voters
while the number had increased to 90,000 by Monday,” he said.

Responding on the
allegations of some pockets of crises in some registration centres
across the country, the NSCDC zonal commander said security will be
reinforced with security agents at all the centres in the country.

“We will seek the
assistance of our colleagues, the police and the SSS to help us secure
the safety of the machines and protect the lives of the personnel from
being attack by hoodlums,” Mr Bunu said.

Tough on the elderly

However, an INEC
registration official, Raphael Ezike, on Tuesday said that senior
citizens, above 60 years old, were mostly the ones that were having
problems being registered in the ongoing voter’s registration exercise.

“The scanners are
finding it difficult to recognise the finger prints of voters who are
60 years old and above, while those under 60 years have little
challenges,” he said.

The officer in
charge of Ward C, Alausa, Ikeja told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)
that while it took less than five minutes to register younger
Nigerians, those above 60 years took much longer.

“It takes us about
five minutes to register people under 60 years old while those above 60
years old take longer minutes with the Direct Data Capture (DDC)
machines,” he explained.

The INEC official attributed the low figure recorded at the centre to the lack of power supply to recharge the machines.

“Before now, we
used to charge the only battery at other wards where there is power
supply and during such time we did not register anybody,” he said.

He, however, said that with the provision of a back-up battery now, they will be able to register more voters.

The All Nigeria
Peoples Party (ANPP) has criticised the federal government for planning
to establish nine new universities instead of equipping and improving
the existing institutions.

The national
chairman of the party, Ogbonnaya Onu, who said this in Abuja, also
stated that the country may find it hard to develop if issues relating
to the improvement of the lives of the people are not addressed. The
federal government had recently awarded the contracts for the
construction of new universities in all the nation’s six geo-political
zones.

Mr. Onu, in his
reaction, regretted that none of the nation’s universities is ranked
amongst the top 3000 universities in the world. He also lamented that
out of 1.2 million students that apply for the Joint Admission
Matriculation Board (JAMB) examination, only 200,000 get admitted into
the 93 Nigerian universities annually.

“So far, the
federal government has not made any serious efforts to rebuild its
existing universities to even meet the standard of the poor,” Mr. Onu
said.

“The ANPP is
worried and indeed highly disturbed that if the right mix of policies
is not adopted, the sad experience of the past will be repeated. We do
not want a situation where the establishment of these nine new
universities would only end up in the diversion of resources away from
adequately maintaining existing ones,” he further said.

While receiving the
officials of the National Association of Niger Delta Students (NADS)
led by its national president, Lucky Emonefe, yesterday, the ANPP boss
affirmed that Nigeria would get sustainable development only if the
issues of the Niger Delta are finally addressed.

“We cannot talk of
development of Nigeria if we do not address the problems facing the
people of the Niger Delta and built their infrastructure,” he said.

Mr. Onu said that
if the ANPP forms government at the centre, the region would be given
commensurate priority. He advised the students to embrace peace, and
not be allowed to be used in political violence.

Mr. Emonefe, who
later presented the ANPP boss with an award for conducting primaries
devoid of violence, said the opposition party has given a lot of youth
in the Niger Delta the chance to contest on the party’s platform,
adding that many of them won the posts they contested for.

The gubernatorial
candidate of the United Nigeria Peoples Party in Ogun State, Jacob
Olurin Adeogun, yesterday called on the police command to provide him
adequate security, alleging that his life was under threat, after his
victory at his party primaries. Talking to NEXT in Abeokuta, Mr Adeogun
said he has become a victim of nocturnal calls from people he called
“suspected assassins”, who he claimed have continued to harass him,
intimidate him, and equally sending messages to his friends to advise
him to step down from the race. Mr Adeogun was recently elected as the
flagbearer of the UNPP.

Mr Adeogun who said
he brought the party to the state over 11 years ago and served as its
secretary before his victory at the party’s primaries for the oncoming
April poll, lamented that, “The situation he [was] facing [was]
pathetic” and called for police protection before it got too late.

“This is very
pathetic,” he said. “I now move from one place to another. I can’t go
home straight, I have to be moving round before getting to my house.
Attempt on my life has political colouration and undertone, my
underground political campaign has become a threat to my opposition,”
he further alleged. He therefore appealed to the police authorities to
rise up to the challenge of protecting his life.

“The police are paid to protect the citizens, and I am one of them,” he concluded.