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Edo State chapter
of Action Congress of Nigeria is again passing through some trying
times as over 1000 female members of the party in Ekpoma protested the
stabbing to death over the weekend of one of their members, Josephine
Abhulimen.

Mrs. Abhulimen was
allegedly attacked and killed on the night of 7th January 2011, by
unknown assassins who stabbed her to death after several attempts to
shoot her failed. Police authorities confirmed that they found her dead
in a pool of her own blood at her residence in Ukpenu quarters of
Ekpoma.

The frontline
female politician was recently appointed a supervisory councilor in the
Esan West local government council under controversial circumstances.
She is believed to have met her death over political differences.

The protesters, who
were led by Mrs. Esther Abuedefe, marched in their hundreds through the
major streets in the town, dressed in tattered clothes, carrying leaves
and chanting curses on those behind the killing of the politician. They
said that they are afraid that those among them seeking political
positions could also meet a similar fate.

She said this is
because the development may force their spouses to ban them from
participating in the political process to help enthrone transparent and
accountable leadership in the country, on account of insecurity of life.

The women said that God and the ancestors in Ekpoma will not forgive
the murder of Mrs. Abhulimen whom they described as a person who would
not hurt a fly. They, therefore, called on the police to fish out her
killers.

It was two to one
victory for former vice president, Abubakar Atiku, and President
Goodluck Jonathan, as an Abuja High Court yesterday gave two judgments
in favour of Mr. Abubakar and one judgment in favour of Mr. Jonathan.

The judgement was
delivered on the issues of whether or not they are qualified to contest
the presidential primary election billed to take place January 13,
2011, under the constitution of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Ishaq Bello, the
presiding Judge, delivering judgment in the three different suits on
Monday, dismissed the suit filed by Sadiq Aliyu Jada, praying the court
to nullify the waiver granted Mr. Abubakar’s return to the party by its
national leadership, and for an order of injunction restraining the PDP
and other defendants in the suit from taking steps or further actions
towards recognising, screening, clearing, attending to and/or
considering him for the purposes of aspiring, contesting or standing
for election for the office of the President of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria or for any office whatsoever on the party’s platform.

Mr. Bello said that
the plaintiff has no locus standi (legal right) to institute the suit,
stressing that mere membership of the party does not in any way confer
legal right on Mr. Jada to institute the action, describing him “as
meddlesome interloper and a mere busy-body who will not mind his own
business but other people’s business,” and dismissed the suit.

Defendants in the
suit are the PDP national chairman, Okwesileze Nwodo, Abubakar Kawu
Baraje, the party’s national secretary, and former vice president,
Atiku Abubakar.

Also delivering
judgment in a suit filed by Atiku’s associates, Yahaya Kwande, Dubem
Onyia, and Lawal Kaita, asking the court to stop PDP and the INEC from
fielding and accepting Mr. Jonathan as the party’s presidential
candidate in the April 2011 presidential election, Mr. Bello dismissed
the suit on the ground that PDP has a zoning arrangement. According to
him, section 87 of the electoral act provides that only political party
candidates can seek redress or sue after the primaries, and dismissed
the suit, thereby paving way for Mr. Jonathan to contest the primaries.

Mr. Bello, however, said that the suit seeking to stop Mr. Jonathan
from contesting the said poll is different from an earlier suit filed
by Sani Aminu Dutsinma, who is also seeking to stop him based on the
issue of zoning, pointing out that the plaintiffs in both suits have
different characteristics, but also held that the plaintiffs are card
and financial members of the PDP and as such, have the locus standi to
seek redress in a court of law.

Banks and other
businesses were completely closed in the Jos and Bukuru metropolis
following the tension generated by Sunday’s burning of houses in an
alleged conflict in Angwan Doki and Kwata general areas of Bukuru in
Jos South Local Government Area. As early as 7:00am Monday, reports
made the rounds especially via text messages that there was another
crisis at the Bauchi Road and Laranto areas of Jos on Sunday night, and
it took intense shooting in the air to quell the situation by the
special task force officers. The text message alerts led to fear that a
renewed crisis might have sparked and degenerated into another
bloodbath, thus causing most workers and business owners to stay at
home. The Igbo community in Jos also directed that all its members stay
at home Monday, and not open for any business to protest the alleged
killing of their members allegedly by Hausa/Fulani Muslim youths, and
also the burning of a Yola-bound Marcopolo luxury bus at Zololo
junction last Saturday.

Frightened moves

An outbreak of
fresh violence in Anglo Jos and Kufan areas on Monday about 10am fueled
the crisis which saw houses going up in flames and led to barricades of
roads and arrests of youth in different parts of the town as
communities resorted to complement state security with self defense.
Meanwhile, the Special Task Force on Monday morning paraded four men
arrested in connection with the Sunday disturbances in Angwan Doki and
Kwata General in Bukuru. According to Charles Ekeocha, spokesperson of
the task force, the four arrested are Ubale Dauda, Ado Hassan, and Sani
Gambo. Mr Ekeocha named the fourth as Young Nwaogazi.

The Joint Task
Force said: “The suspects are under preliminary investigation before
they will be handed over to the Nigeria Police.”

The statement added
further that “The commander of the STF led the two separate operations
that brought the situation under control,” concluding that “aggression
patrol has been intensified and the situation is being monitored
closely.”

The items recovered included two pistols with magazines, one
locally-made single barrel, one Russian double barrel, nine knives, tw
spears, and several other high capacity ammunitions.

One month after
primary and secondary health care services in Akwa Ibom State came to a
halt, the situation remains so with the state government not making
little or no effort to resolve the crisis.

On December 8,
2010, all the health workers of government owned hospitals, including
all pharmacists, nurses, midwives, laboratory technicians, and
administrative personnel, embarked on an industrial action demanding
for the implementation of a salary structure approved by the National
Salary Income and Wages Commission late in 2009.

The Akwa Ibom State
chairman of the National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives
(NANNM), Udeme Ottong, said that the Godswill Akpabio led government
has refused to approve the new salary structure, the Consolidated
Health Salary Structure (CONHESS), after many months of negotiations.

“The CONHESS was
approved since December 2009. The strike started in June 2010. We
eventually suspended that strike in August because of the intervention
of his Excellency. He set up a committee to look into the matter. The
report was supposed to be ready in three weeks but the committee
eventually sent that report in October to the state executive council.
Since then, the state executives have refused to sign that document,”
Mr Ottong said in a telephone interview with NEXT yesterday.

He continued that
his association as well as the other health workers’ associations
embarked on the strike action after sending notices to the state
government without getting any response.

No medical services

The state chairman
of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Etiobong Etukumana, insists
that medical doctors in the state, who are still officially on duty,
are rendering health services to patients in the various clinics and
hospitals.

“All I can tell you is that my doctors are working to the best of their abilities,” Mr Etukumana said.

However, a Chief
Nursing Officer in one of the General Hospitals in the state, who asked
not to be named, told NEXT that no health services are being rendered
in any of the government owned hospitals in the state as it is
impossible for the doctors to work on their own.

“All the health
workers except the doctors are on strike and the doctors cannot work by
themselves. For example, the staff in charge of the medical records
have locked up the records office. The lab is locked. The pharmacy is
closed. The OPD [Outpatient Department] is not open because the nurses
are not available. So virtually everything is at a standstill,” she
said.

Government’s response

While he remained
unwilling to say when the state hospitals will be functional again, the
Akwa Ibom State commissioner for information, Aniekan Umanah, said the
state is currently carrying on several social services and cannot be
expected to yield to demands by every labour group.

“There is no salary
structure that is cast in iron. It is relative to the resources
available for social services. The state is already carrying out
several services such as the free education. The health workers should
show interests in the overall wellbeing of the state,” he said.

Mr Umanah said also that he hoped that the issue will soon be resolved.

“I am telling you that it will soon be resolved. I know that the
people in charge are discussing with the labour unions,” he said.

The Independent
National Electoral Commission has no plans yet to penalize any
political party on grounds of breaching sections of the Electoral Act,
a senior official of the commission told NEXT yesterday. With the
parties’ nominations at the state and federal levels in progress, and
the presidential primaries of the major parties days away, concerns
over adherence to the Electoral Act, by political parties have kindled
fresh debates.

In choosing flag
bearers, mainly for the presidential contest, the new amended Act
provides parties with options between direct and indirect primaries,
allowing their members to vote for each aspirant nationwide, or poll
through delegates at state congresses and later, convention, in an
effort to clamp down on the illegal consensus candidates. As of yet,
almost every party is opting for the second alternative for its
primaries — the delegate option.

Analysts have
warned of a ploy by the political parties to systematically disregard
the law governing the emergence of presidential flag bearers, by
passing a consensus arrangement for an indirect primary, citing the
emergence of the former military ruler, Mohammadu Buhari of the
Congress for Progressive Change (CPC).

They have called
for sanctions against such breaches, leading to speculations that Mr
Buhari’s choice maybe refused recognition by the electoral body.

“The position of
the law are very clear on the issue and what I know will/is happening
is that the political parties are going to hold primaries that will be
skewed to the advantages of some individuals, and they will insist to
INEC that they have held their primaries,” a former chairman of the
Nigerian Bar Association, Rotimi Akeredolu, said last week.

In an interview
with NEXT over the weekend, INEC acknowledged a “few” lapses in the
processes already held. Kayode Idowu, the media aide to the chairman,
Attahiru Jega said: “At the policy level, we are aware that there are
lots of lapses,” adding that the leadership of INEC has encouraged
officials of the commission concerned to point out those lapses and
draw the attention of the parties concerned to those errors. But a
senior official of the commission, who is knowledgeable about political
parties’ internal processes, said so far, the electoral body is
satisfied with the conduct of the parties with respect to laid down
rules.

“The CPC followed the Electoral Act and held congresses before the
convention, so we have no problem,” the official, who declined to be
named since there was no authorization for the remark. “However, they
are human beings, and we must expect some mistakes which we promptly
bring to their attention.” The early breach noticed, according to the
official, was that many of the parties insisted on staging consensus
primaries, which will lead to selected, rather than elected candidates,
against the Electoral Act. That plan was overruled by the commission,
the official added.

Two days to the
special national convention of the Peoples Democratic Party, a
presidential aspirant on the platform of the party, Atiku Abubakar has
vowed to demystify the incumbency factor by beating President Goodluck
Jonathan during the exercise. He was quoted as stating this while
inaugurating a 150-member Atiku Campaign Organisation Special
Convention Committee. Messrs Abubakar and Jonathan are among the four
presidential aspirants gunning for the ticket of the ruling party in
the 2011 election. Mr Abubakar said that history is replete with
instances where incumbency was rubbished in both Nigeria and other
African countries, adding that he would do same on Thursday during the
convention of the PDP.

“History has shown
that incumbency has never been a deciding factor both at home and
abroad. All those who have tried including Obasanjo had failed and his
present protégé will suffer similar fate,” he said.

He stressed that
Mr. Jonathan, like other incumbents before him is a beatable and
charged member of the committee to go into the race with that mindset.

“We will defeat the incumbent. I am very confident that we will give him a hiding like those before him,” he said.

The PDP
presidential aspirant said that there is no going back in his quest to
clinch the ruling party’s presidential ticket and therefore charged the
committee members to go out and give them (opponents) a knockout.

According to him,
“I don’t know how to pull back. Even if the convention is managed by
Jonathan’s camp, I am not the least disturbed by our chances of beating
them.”

The committee has
subcommittees such as Election, Strategy & Rapid Response,
Mobilisation, Accommodation & Transport, Security, Secretariat and
Media.

Media War

However, Sully Abu,
director, media and publicity, Goodluck/Sambo Presidential Campaign
Organization in a stement said that Mr Abubakar’s campaign group “is
increasingly resorting to desperate measures and deliberate falsehood
to foul the atmosphere and prepare the ground for them to dispute the
inevitable outcome.”

Mr Abu alleged that
in the past several days they “have resorted to copious advertising in
the media of a document which they falsely claim was authored by the
director of strategy of our campaign organization, Mike Omeri.”

He claimed that the unsigned and undated published document
attributed to Mr. Omeri “is obviously a rigged document by the known
past masters in rigging.”

The Ribadu Campaign
Organisation yesterday threatened to drag the Jonathan/Sambo campaign
organisation to court over its alleged gross violation of the
intellectual property rights of its campaign for Nuhu Ribadu, a
presidential aspirant on the platform of the Action Congress of Nigeria
(ACN). This is contained in a statement by Chido Onumah, head of media
and communication of Ribadu 2011 Campaign Organisation in Abuja.

The statement read;
“The issue in question is the slogan A NEW NIGERIA IS POSSIBLE, a
creation of the Ribadu Campaign Organisation that has been used in
various platforms, correspondences, media and publicity materials by
the campaign since its inauguration six months ago. In the last one
month, the Jonathan/Sambo campaign organization has persistently used
the slogan in its TV campaigns featuring President Goodluck Jonathan
and Vice-president Namadi Sambo.”

The organisation
said that it has written a letter to the director-general of the
Goodluck/Sambo Campaign Organisation, Dalhatu Tafida, in which it noted
that “the unauthorised use of the political slogan constitutes a
copyright infringement, which represents a serious breach on Mr. Nuhu
Ribadu’s exclusive rights to reproduce or to make derivative works of
this slogan.”

The letter, signed
by Mr Onumah himself added, “Nigerian law provides stern criminal and
civil liabilities for this type of transgression and I urge you to move
expeditiously to correct this infraction which, in an election year, is
obviously targeted to depress the stock of our principal, and the
viability of his campaign.”

Plea to ACN

Meanwhile, members
of the Team Ribadu USA and UK have written the leadership of the Action
Congress of Nigeria (ACN) asking it to adopt Mr Ribadu as its
presidential candidate if the party hopes to win the 2011 presidential
election. The ACN has fixed January 14 for its presidential primaries.

The two groups,
which wrote separate letters to the party leadership, warned that if it
fails to nominate the former chairman of the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission (EFCC) as its flagbearer, it will diminish its
chances of winning the presidential election.

“You will also
agree with us that the ACN has attracted more followership,
particularly among the youth of our country since Mr. Nuhu Ribadu made
known his intention to run on the platform of the party. There is no
doubt that the Team Ribadu phenomenon in our country (and abroad) today
has further popularized our great party, (ACN),” Bunmi Aborisade,
coordinator of Team Ribadu USA said in his letter.

“It is an
incontrovertible fact that many Nigerians flocked to our party because
of Ribadu’s anti-corruption records as the head of the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC). Nigerians want to see an
anti-corruption czar like Ribadu become the president of Nigeria so he
can sanitize the country.”

Mr Aborishade noted
that while Team Ribadu USA respects the integrity of the new ACN
national executive and the ability of the party’s leadership to make
the right decisions during its primaries, it was worried by the party’s
propensity for fielding presidential candidates from other political
parties.

“Our fears over any
alliance by ACN became more pronounced when we reflect on how past
alliances led to undeserved defeats,” he said. “You will recall the
alliance between the Alliance for Democracy, AD, in 1999 and the All
People’s Party, APP, which did not yield the desired results. There are
also some lessons to learn from the unholy accord between the
leadership of Action Congress, AC, and former President Olusegun
Obasanjo, which led to the defeat of the party in the Southwest. The
adoption of the former Vice President Abubakar Atiku of the PDP by the
AC as its presidential candidate and how the party lost the 2007
elections is still fresh in our memory. It is in line with the above
antecedent that we will like the ACN to limit its search for a
presidential candidate to the party to avoid losing the 2011
presidential election, which may spell doom for our country. What ACN
needs to win the 2011 presidential election is a credible candidate
that has good followership in all of the geo-political zones of the
country. We believe that Mr. Ribadu meets all of the requirements.”