Nigeria Content Online

The head of service
of Ondo State, Ajose Kudehinbu, national officials of the Nigeria
Labour Congress (NLC), and those of the Federal Ministry of Labour
narrowly escaped being hurt at the 2011 Delegate Conference of the Ondo
State council of the Nigeria Labour Congress, held in Akure yesterday,
after the event degenerated into a fight.

The union leaders
threw decorum and caution to the wind as they hurled sachets of pure
water, plastics, and stones around freely.

Some labour leaders
who were against the congress election also threw stones and other
dangerous weapons at the high table, where Mr. Kudehinbu, who
represented the state governor, Olusegun Mimiko, sat.

The governor’s aide
on labour and union matters, Dayo Fadahunsi, had announced the
postponement of the election due to what he said was a security threat.
This, however, did not go down well with some members of the union who
felt that government was trying to impose its candidate on them, with a
view to infiltrating them.

The leaders of
major industrial unions in the state held a meeting where they agreed
that the election must go on as scheduled because the purported
petition threatening the conduct of the election was copied to neither
the state nor the national headquarters of the labour movement.

But the tension
over the congress became apparent when the outgoing chairman of the
state, Momodu Braimah, called the house to order for the congress.
Since majority of delegates at the congress voted that the election
should hold, Mr. Braimah presented the agenda of the conference.

New leader emerges

The atmosphere
became tense when Mr. Braimah started reading his address and the
report. When it became obvious that the aggrieved parties were not
going to be cooperative, he declared the address published and
presented. The same thing happened to the address of the national
president of the union, Abdulwaheed Omar.

The aggrieved
delegates, however, displayed their determination to disrupt the event
when Mr. Kudehinbu was about to present the governor’s address. As soon
as he handled the microphone, the protesters started chanting various
abusive songs while hauling different missiles at the table occupied by
the officials.

The head of service
hurriedly declared the conference opened without the normal protocol,
packed his papers, and was escorted out of the Ondo State Cultural
Centre Hall, venue of the conference, in Akure.

Bosede Daramola was
elected chairperson of the congress, after scoring 499 votes, as
against 7 votes scored by her opponent, Sotikare Olusegun.

The Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) yesterday re-arraigned former
minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nasir el-Rufai, before
the Federal High Court in Abuja over allegations of fraudulent
allocation of land and abuse of office during his tenure as minister.

The court however granted him bail in self-recognition.

The Court had
recently ruled that an application by Mr. el-Rufai, seeking to stop his
arraignment by the Commission, lacked merit and that he should make
himself available for trial.

The trial judge,
Sadiq Umar ruling on a preliminary objection by Akin Olujimi, lawyer to
Mr el-Rufai, said the trial of the former minister should go ahead.

Mr. Olujimi, in the
preliminary objections, argued that the charges levelled against his
client had no legal bases, having been filed under a repealed law, the
ICPC Act 2003. He said under the repealed law, the FCT High Court
lacked the jurisdiction to entertain the matter and urged the court to
quash the charges and discharge the accused persons.

But Justice Umar
held that the EFCC had filed fresh charges based on the ICPC Act of
2000, and held that under the Act, the EFCC had the powers to amend the
charges against an accused before judgment is delivered.

“In this case, the
accused have yet to be arraigned to take their plea, so the court can
grant the EFCC leave to amend the charge as contained in the provisions
of the ICPC Act 2000,” he said.

The judge also held
that the EFCC, under provisions of section 46 of the act setting it up,
has the responsibility to investigate all economic and financial crimes
in the country.

A Federal High
Court in Abuja had, last year, thrown out the suit filed against the
former minister on the same issue. The presiding judge, Adamu Bello,
ruled that the charges had no legal basis, having been filed under the
Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission
(ICPC) Act of 2000, a law that has since been repealed.

The judge quashed the charges and discharged El Rufai.

The Federal
Government however responded to the dismissal of the charges by filing
fresh charges at the Abuja High Court. Mr El-Rufai and two others were
accused by the EFCC of illegally allocating land in the FCT to friends
and relatives, some of whom included: Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, the
daughter of former president Olusegun Obasanjo.

The other accused
persons are Altine Jubrin, former director general of the Abuja
Geographical Information System, and Ismail Iro, former general manager
of the agency. All three men pleaded not guilty.

Liberal bail condition

At yesterday’s
sitting, Mr Umar granted bail to El Rufai in self-recognition after the
former minister pleaded not guilty to the eight count charge, saying
that given El Rufai’s past service as a minister and his compliance
with the bail conditions previously imposed by the EFCC and the Federal
High Court, the court decided to exercise its discretion by granting
him bail in self-recognition.

He adjourned the matter till May 17, 2011.

El Rufai and two
others were arraigned on charges relating to the allocation of plots of
land in the federal capital. After the pleas were taken, Mr Olujimi
moved the application for bail, urging the court to grant it in very
liberal terms.

But counsel to the
EFCC did not oppose the application, citing the antecedents of the case
and the compliance of the accused persons to previous bail conditions.

Votes from last
Saturday’s aborted national assembly elections indicate that the
People’s Democratic Party (PDP) will probably lose elections across the
North and the Southwest.

According to
investigations by NEXT, even in such PDP strongholds like Kaduna,
Nasarawa, Jigawa, Bauchi, Gombe and Zamfara States, the ruling party
was behind the opposition parties of All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP),
Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and the Congress for Progressive
Change (CPC) in votes cast.

Voting was
concluded in many places where news that the election had been
cancelled did not reach the polling units on time. In many instances,
electoral officers in villages refused to stop the process, claiming
that they had no official notice to that effect. Party agents and
voters were thus able to note the number of votes cast and the voting
trend.

A former senator
from one of these states, who preferred not to be named said, “It was a
shock, really. In Nasarawa, CPC was first, ACN was second and ANPP came
third. PDP was fourth in all the centres. In Gombe, CPC, ACN and ANPP
were first, second, third while the PDP constantly maintained the
fourth position. In Zamfara, ACN and ANPP were first and second across
the senatorial zones while PDP constantly came third.”

The Intra Party
Advisory council had, in a statement signed by its chairman, Osita
Okereke, claimed that 16 million Nigerians voted before the election
was cancelled. INEC, however, would not confirm the igures. According
to the spokesperson to the commission’s chair, Kayode Idowu, “There
were no elections, so there could not have been votes counted.”

No home advantage

In Kaduna, the home
state of Vice President Namadi Sambo, which has a registered voting
population of more than four million people, sources said the PDP was
already losing the polls in Tudunwada and parts of Zaria before the
election was called off. “The vice president had earlier noted that
there was no hope for him at the regular polling unit in Kabala West
and directed that a new voting centre be opened for him at a nearby
mosque, called Camp Road,” said a nearby resident. “But that one did
not help him. The Imam made it a point during the five daily prayers to
stress the need to choose a better government.” Sources said that the
party had become so unpopular that when Mr. Sambo came for his
verification exercise, not one person went over to greet him.

“He was in that
queue for a while and when he finished he left. There was none of that
clamour to greet the big man. We were sure he would lose his ward,” the
resident added.

It is not clear if
Mr. Sambo was, indeed losing in his ward. But there is some evidence
that the party had a poor showing. One of the voters at Sabongari,
Zaria, who claimed to have witnessed the vote count and does not want
his name in print, said in his unit only three people voted for the PDP
out of a total vote cast of 60.

Mr. Sambo is being
relied upon to use his influence as vice president to deliver the
state, which has the third largest voting population, to the PDP.

Rethinking strategy

“PDP is finished
politically and they will lose woefully in Kaduna State and the whole
of the north because people are tired of the PDP,” said Hassan Mohammed
Jallo, a lawyer and political analyst.

Mr Sambo recently
relocated to Kaduna where he has held series of meetings since Monday
with party officials across the state. But there are doubts on his
ability to change the voting trend noted at last week’s cancelled polls.

“PDP will have to
pay the price for jettisoning zoning,” said Mr Jallo who is a supporter
of former military president Ibrahim Babangida.

In Kano State,
which has the second largest voting population after Lagos, the PDP
seemed to have held its own against the ruling ACN and CPC in the
villages where the election did hold. According to our source, although
the PDP may do well in the parliamentary election, the CPC is more
likely to win the state.

Mr Sambo reportedly
met with PDP governors, including the chairman of the northern
governors’ forum and governor of Niger State, Muazu Babangida Aliyu to
re-strategize on the polls.

When contacted, the PDP spokesperson, Rufai Ahmed Alkali said, “It
is not useful to go into speculation on an election that has already
been cancelled. Whatever happened last week is a foregone issue. We
want all our members to focus their minds on tomorrow’s election.”

The Court of
Appeal, Abuja yesterday indefinitely adjourned its deliberations on the
appeal filed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to
enable it conduct governorship elections in five states of the
federation.

A federal High
Court recently gave a ruling that stopped the commission from
conducting governorship elections in Kogi, Sokoto, Adamawa, Cross
Rivers and Bayelsa States.

The court held
that the tenure of the five sitting governors, Ibrahim Idris (Kogi);
Aliyu Wammakko (Sokoto); Murtala Nyako (Adamawa); Liyel Imoke (Cross
Rivers) and Timipre Sylva (Bayelsa) shall not expire until next year.

In his judgment in
the consolidated suit filed by the five governors, the presiding judge
Adamu Bello, held that the tenure of the governors legally started in
2008 when they took fresh oath of office and allegiance following the
nullification of their April 14, 2007 elections by the courts.

He said although
section 180 of the 1999 constitution was amended in 2010 by the
National Assembly and signed into law by the President, the amendment
has no effect on the five governors since their re-run elections were
conducted in 2008.

Not satisfied with
the judgment, the electoral body approached the appellate Court with
five separate appeals against the judgment.

Presiding judge,
Paul Galinje, who presided over the panel, said the appeals filed by
INEC so far were against Messrs Wamako, Idris and Nyako.

No polls

But at yesterday’s
sitting, the appeals were consolidated and the written argument adopted
by all the counsels to the governors and the commission. The judge
thereafter adjourned indefinitely for judgment, saying the date for the
judgment will be communicated to the lawyers.

NEXT had reported
exclusively that the Commission may not conduct governorship election
in about ten states in the coming April poll. The ten states are
missing from the commission’s website on the list of governorship
candidate to contest the coming election. Kogi, Sokoto, Adamawa, Cross
River, Bayelsa, Edo, Osun, Ondo, Anambra and Ekiti state are
conspicuously missing on the INEC website list of where elections will
take place.

Elections are not
expected to hold in Edo, Osun, Ondo and Ekiti states because their
state executives took office after the Court of Appeal voided the
election of previous governors.

The Oyo State
Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Ayo Adakeja, on Thursday, said
the people caught with electoral materials in Ibadan, the state
capital, on Wednesday, were working for the commission.

Mr Adakeja, who
spoke with journalists at the commission’s office in the state during a
meeting with heads of security operatives over Saturday’s National
Assembly election, said the national headquarters of the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC) was aware of the development.

His defence came
shortly after the state commissioner of police, Salihu Hashimu,
informed journalists that the suspects had been interrogated and found
not to have gone foul of any law.

The INEC chief
explained that the commission’s chairman, Attahiru Jega, gave the
printer the go-ahead to contract the printing of some electoral
materials to private hands to forestall the kind of crisis their
shortages caused in the botched national assembly election of last
Saturday.

He said the men
were detained by the police till evening and were only released after
he came to identify them. The six men were arrested in a hotel in
Ibadan in possession of a DDC machine and electoral materials.

Measures by INEC

Speaking on the
measures put in place to address the problems of missing names
experienced by eligible voters last Saturday, Mr Adakeja said they have
resolved to use manual register in addition to the electronic register
to ensure that no registered voter is disenfranchised for the elections.

He explained that
many of the problems came after the registration as some of the Direct
Data Capture (DDC) machines crashed and the information in them could
not be retrieved because there were no backup for them.

The REC also said the remaining ballot papers for the National Assembly elections are intact and in safe custody.

He said the
commission had used 277,787 ballot papers for the House of
Representatives election in the state during last week’s botched
ballot, adding that they are still left with a total of 2, 164,126
papers for this Saturday’s election.

For the Senate, Mr Adakeja said only 46, 219 ballot papers were
used for last week’s election, while 2,326,974 are still intact. Heads
of security agencies in the state, including the Army, State Security
Service (SSS), Police, Immigration, Customs Service, Prisons, Civil
Defense Corps and the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), were all in
attendance.

The Adamawa State
office of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has
distanced itself from the sample ballot papers circulating in the state
and bearing the INEC logo.

The Resident
Electoral Commissioner for the state, Kassim Gaidam, who issued the
disclaimer, said the ballot papers were designed by some political
parties.

He said the
circulation of sample ballot papers bearing INEC’s logo in the state,
printed by the political parties and showing a thumb print against the
party to educate voters “contravenes the electoral guidelines”.

“In as much as we support voter education, we should do it within the confines of the law,” Mr. Gaidam said.

Ready for polls

The Adamawa INEC
official also revealed that all materials for the election, both
“sensitive and insensitive,” are already on ground for the forthcoming
National Assembly election. He equally stated that all the personnel
for the elections are also in place and have received training for the
exercise.

Mr. Gaidam,
reacting to allegations that politicians have infiltrated some adhoc
staff of the commission in order to rig the forthcoming elections said
election officials are under oath to be fair and fearless.

“This is not the
time to make baseless accusation,” he said. “It is time to come forward
with proof so that those involved can be investigated and fished out.”

The Congress for Progressive Change in the state said yesterday it
had uncovered a plot by some politicians to rig the forthcoming
elections hatched in connivance with some INEC adhoc personnel which
the party said have already being compromised ahead of the polls. The
CPC, however, did not reveal the name of the political party allegedly
dealing with corrupt INEC staff.

The Secretary of the Peoples Democratic
Party, George Egu, has accused the deputy governorship candidate of the
All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), Jude Agbaso of jumping bail
while he was in the United States.

According to the originating summon
filed at the Federal High Court Owerri, on Tuesday, April 5, by counsel
to Mr. Egu, Mike Ozekhome, Mr. Agbaso committed an offence in New York
and jumped bail.

Mr. Ozekhome explained that a warrant
was issued for the arrest of Mr. Agbaso. The plaintiff further argued
that Mr. Agbaso by virtue of being a fugitive cannot remain the running
mate of Rochas Okorocha in the forthcoming governorship election in the
state.

Mr. Ozekhome stated that if Mr. Agbaso
was found guilty of the allegation then Mr. Okorocha will cease to be
the gubernatorial candidate of APGA as both of them run an inseparable
ticket.

Mr. Ozekhome also asked the court to
grant him leave to publish the notice in a national newspaper to ensure
that all the respondents get the notice. He also pleaded for
accelerated hearing of the case maintaining that time is of essence in
view of the forthcoming election.

The presiding judge, F. A Olubanjo
granted Mr. Ozekhome leave to publish the originating summon in two
national newspapers. It also gave the respondents seven days from the
date of publication to respond.

While denouncing the accusation against Mr. Agbaso as rubbish, a
chieftain of the APGA in Orlu local government, Dan Igwe, said that it
is the product of a party which is coming to terms with its
unpopularity and is employing desperate measures to stop the winning
run of his party.

All persons charged
with kidnapping and armed robbery in Edo State will hence forth, face
trial in the court without legal representation.

This is because the
state chapter of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), has decided to
withhold all appearances for such persons till further notice. This
decision was reached at the monthly general meeting of the association
in Benin City.

The lawyers, in a
statement signed by Ede Asenoguan, Secretary of the state branch of the
bar association, said this was because “legal practitioners and
judicial officers are now being targeted by kidnappers.” The lawyers
made reference to the recent kidnapping of the Chief Registrar,
Customary Court of Appeal of Edo State, Agnes Aigbaogu and Aliu
Okunega, a retired high court judge, who were both kidnapped in Benin
City recently.

Medical doctors in the state have also in the past, withdrawn services to protest the kidnap of one of their colleague.

But the bar
association said it has decided to write letters to the state
Commissioner of Police, the state’s Attorney General and Commissioner
for Justice and the Director of Public Prosecution that cases involving
kidnappers and armed robbers be treated with dispatch and advice given
promptly.

Provide security

The bar association established a committee mandated to work with the police.

“The Bar hereby
call on the government of Edo State to beef up security in Edo state
with a view to safeguarding lives and properties in Edo State,” the
association said.

The United States ambassador to
Nigeria, Terence McCulley, has revealed that his country, through the
U.S Agency for International Development (USAID), and the British
government, through the DFID, has committed $35 million (N5.25 billion)
to help support credible national elections through the provision of
technical support to INEC.

Mr. McCulley, who spoke at a forum on
democracy and good governance jointly organised by the US embassy and
its UK counterpart in Abuja, yesterday said free, fair, and credible
elections are an important part of the process.

He urged Nigeria to take the necessary
steps towards achieving its potential by embracing democracy and
strengthening the institutions, practices, and values of democratic
governance.

He, however, acknowleged Nigeria as an
emergent force on the world stage, demonstrating its economic capacity
and engaging the world as a leader in ECOWAS and at the UN.

“Democratically governed nations
deliver safer, more just, more prosperous lives to their citizens,
which if strong, are more likely to secure, deter aggression, expand
markets, promote development, and combat terrorism and crime,” he said.

He said his country is not seeking for
a particular formula for a democratic construct, because “democracy is
as diverse as the global community.”

Mr. McCulley, who noted the challenges
faced in the botched National Assembly elections, said the underlying
challenge remains to conduct peaceful, free, fair, and transparent
elections.

The ambassador, who said the national
elections present a golden opprtunity for Nigeria to demostrate lasting
commitments to democratic values and institutions, warned the political
leadership and all those who aspire to lead, to refrain from engaging
in inflamatory, rhetoric, or supporting acts of intimidation.

“Violence has no place in a democratic
society,” he said, calling on all political parties to respect the
results of these elections.