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The office of the
acting national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said
yesterday that it has uncovered a plot by persons believed to be agents
of the opposition to use the press and social media networks to concoct
and disseminate spurious stories about the party’s current leadership.

The aim, it said is
to embarrass and tarnish the good public image of top leaders of the
ruling party. Emeka Nwankpa, media aide to the acting chairman of the
PDP, Haliru Mohammed, yesterday in Abuja said intelligence reports
available to the party boss, indicate that some opposition groups have
hired and commissioned certain newspapers, news magazines, social media
networks and fifth columnists to concoct and disseminate false claims
and allegations against leaders of the party to cause distrust,
discord, suspicion and disaffection in order to set them against one
another thereby creating internal discontent and disharmony.

“The office of the
acting national chairman of the party has viewed the situation and has
therefore alerted leaders, loyalists and supporters of the party to be
wary of false publications, alarming leaflets, text messages, rumours
and comments attributed to certain persons in the top hierarchy of the
party, as these are mere ploys to create division in the party,” the
statement said.

It also said that
with the conclusion of the general elections in the country, some
persons have shifted their conspiracy to the ruling party with the aim
of infiltrating it and sowing discord and inducing crisis in its fold.

Stating that the
party is handling the situation, the statement stressed that no amount
of smear campaign or conspiracy will stop Nigerians from keeping faith
with the party.

“For the avoidance
of doubt, no amount of smear campaigns, conspiracy or political
shenanigans will stop Nigerians from keeping faith with our party as
the outcomes of the recent elections have shown,” it said.

The office of the
national chairman also warned media managers not to allow themselves to
be used to cause disunity and disintegration of the country.

“The office
therefore states that it wishes to use this medium to caution owners
and managers of newspapers, news magazines and social media networks
against being used as tools by those it described as agents of chaos,
disunity and disintegration of the country masquerading as politicians.

“To the masterminds
of this wicked plot, the office wishes to admonish and advise them to
use their talents to build the Nigerian nation in response to the
repeated calls by the president-elect, President Goodluck Ebele
Jonathan that all Nigerians should endeavour to put behind them the
sentiments on the outcomes of the recent elections and come together to
build a nation that not only fulfils the dream of our founding fathers
but a nation that will be cherished by generations yet unborn.”

New opposition group

Meanwhile, some
politicians and opposition leaders in the country have commenced
consultations on the need to unify their ranks in the aftermath of the
botched electoral talks that polarized their movement, jeopardizing
their chances of winning the 2011 presidential elections.

The latest
intervention, opposition leaders have said, became necessary in the
light of what it termed unproductive cleavages arising from discord
over the 2011 alliance proposals, as against the urgent need to give
positive leadership to the mass frustration, which followed the 2011
elections. Olawale Okunniyi, spokesperson for the Progressive Summit
Group, disclosed this after holding preliminary consultation on the way
forward with Tunji Braithwaite, the leader of the National Intervention
Group, (NIG) at his Victoria Island residence in Lagos.

Mr Okunniyi, who
was the governorship candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change
in Ogun State in the April 26 elections, regretted the inability of the
progressives to strike an accord in the 2011 elections.

According to him,
the opposition would now have to learn their lessons the hard way but
was quick to add that with the growing frustration, impoverishment and
political impunity pervading the country, progressive forces will be
conditioned to come together shortly and reclaim their lost opportunity.

The Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) at the weekend said the decision of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to not declare the gubernatorial candidate of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), Rochas Okorocha as the winner of the election in Imo State, is part of a plot to hand over victory to Mr Okorocha’s Peoples Democratic Party counterpart and governor of the state, Ikedi Ohakim.

The group said Nigerians will hold the INEC chairman, Attahiru Jega responsible if any problem erupts in the state.

According to the results declared after the election last Tuesday, Mr Okorocha polled the highest number of votes and secured 25 percent in 18 out of the 27 local government areas in the state. However, INEC declared the exercise inconclusive and ordered fresh polls in three local government areas, namely the Ngor Okpala, Ohaji Egbema, Oguta, Mbaitoli and Orji wards.

The CNPP national publicity secretary, Osita Okechukwu said in Abuja that the non-declaration of Okorocha as winner is a tacit award of the governorship to Mr Ohakim.

The coalition of opposition parties argued that if it was the governor that polled the highest number of votes in the 22 councils where results were declared, the commission would have instantly announced him the winner of the election.

It said that INEC should have cancelled the controversial results of the affected areas and declared the rest of the results.

“We’re still as a loss on how INEC descended into the arena, instead of cancelling, as it did in Bauchi State, the controversial results of the affected areas and declared results, to accommodate the 30 days stipulated in the 2010 Electoral Act, INEC invented supplementary election, a stranger to the law,” the CNPP said.

“We have searched for the much-flaunted integrity of the new INEC leadership and their returning officers and by end of the day, it is becoming illusory as evidenced by the Imo State governorship confusion,” Mr Okechukwu said.

“We had thought that Professor Jega and co are in a better position to appreciate the danger of one-party state in liberal democracy and hence advance the frontiers of multi-party democracy. This is not the case, as they seem to have played into the hands of pro-one party state.”

The authorities of
the Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, at the weekend mourned
the death of one of its own, Kehinde Jehleel Adeniji, who was killed
during the violence that trailed the outcome of the presidential
election in the north.

Mr Adeniji, aged
26, an engineering graduate of the university, was one of the corps
members serving in Bauchi State murdered by hoodlums who staged a
violent protest after the April 16 poll. His body was returned to the
state at the weekend along with those of other victims of the riots.

In a statement
issued by its principal assistant registrar, Sola Imoru, the
institution said “the unwarranted and mindless killing of the young man
is unfortunate and condemnable.”

Mr Imoru added that
“the killing of the youth, while in the service of his fatherland, has
called into question the philosophy, intent and continued relevance of
the National Youth Service Corps programme.

“It is a crude
irony that a nation that is supposed to breed young leaders with
budding potential like Kehinde will watch hoodlums water its democracy
with their blood with impunity,” he said. “The Nigerian university
community is sick and tired of breeding talents that will end up as
targets of blood-thirsty hoodlums in a section of the country under
whatever guise. Countries across the world protect, educate, provide
for and consciously build their successor generation. We cannot
continue to kill our own and expect to grow and compete in the 21st
century world.”

Punish the killers

The leadership of
the university, while condemning the killing, urged security operatives
to rise up to the occasion and bring those behind the callous act to
book to end the impunity behind such actions.

The institution also prayed God to grant the family of the deceased the fortitude to bear the loss.

“The only service the nation can do to the memories of Kehinde and
the other fallen corps members is to find their killers and their
masterminds and bring them to justice as a way of stemming the tide of
mindless killings in the country,” Mr Imoru said.

Wife of the governor-elect of Ogun State, Olufunsho Amosun has called on religious leaders across the state to pray for the success of her husband’s administration.

She made the appeal while representing her husband at the second session of the 12th Synod of Egba Anglican Diocese held at the Diocese Multi-Purpose Hall, Bishop’s Court, Onikolobo, Abeokuta at the weekend.

“I urge people and clerics of all religion to pray for my husband and stand by him,” she said. “He cannot do it alone, we all have to do it together and no doubt we need prayer for the success to follow.”

Mrs Amosun said on assumption of office, she would render herself completely to the service of the residents and citizens of the state, adding that she would perfectly cope with the challenges of the office.

“I think God created ladies or women in a special way, we have always had to manage the homefront as well, even in the kitchen, it is administrative work. Even for house wives, when the husband gives money for the kitchen, you have to know how to administer it on food, children needs and entertainment,” she said. “So it is something that I believe, for women, it comes naturally to administer affairs and I pray to God that by His Grace, I shall do it successfully.”

On whether, she would allow official cooks to take over the role of feeding her husband, she said, “if that is what come with the job, one will have to cope. There have been people before him, and there will be people after him.”

Members of a gang of kidnappers who abducted a medical doctor in Edo State have called on members of the family of their captive to send them enough airtime to recharge their mobile phones to facilitate transactions on his release between both parties.

Cases of kidnapping, which seemed to have abated during the election, suddenly rose again as a retired permanent secretary in the state ministry of health, Momoh Daudu, was kidnapped over the weekend.

For this reason, the Edo State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) over the weekend called for a total overhauling of all security agencies in the state, saying it is apparent that they have failed in checking the rising spate of kidnapping and armed robbery in the state.

Family sources said that the abductors of the medical doctor are demanding for an undisclosed amount of money as ransom and also airtime with which to communicate with members of his family.

The Edo State chapter of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) has condemned the abduction of Mr Daudu. A statement signed by the state chairman of the NMA, Philip Ugbodaga, made available to NEXT, described his abduction as “one too many,” adding that the incident has again brought to the fore “the worsening state of insecurity in Edo.” The statement went on to call on the abductors of Mr Daudu “to immediately free him unconditionally,” saying that neither “the NMA nor the family of Dr Daudu is prepared to negotiate any payment of ransom for his release.”

Overhaul the system

The medical practitioners therefore called for “a total overhauling of the entire security network in Edo state and for improved funding and equipping of the relevant security agencies in the state for optimal performance,” in order to stem the rising spate of crime in the state.

As at the time of filling this report, it was not known if the family members of the abducted doctor have reached an agreement with the kidnappers on an amount as ransom money or sent recharge cards to them as demanded.

The spokesman of the Edo State police command, Peter Ogboi, could not be reached on his mobile phone for comment as it was said to be unavailable.

One of the foremost women’s rights
activist and politicians in Nigeria, Laila Dogonyaro, died on Thursday
at the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, Kano after a short illness.

Mrs. Dogonyaro, who was 67 years
old, was one of the founding members of Jam‘iyar Matan Arewa, the first
women’s group in the North which was established in 1963 to help the
less fortunate women in their community, with the assistance of Ahmadu
Bello, who was the Premier of the North.

The group later expanded to
establish a nursery, primary and secondary school, which is also a
centre for WAEC and NECO examinations.

She vigorously campaigned for
female child education and women’s suffrage. She also greatly encouraged
women participation in politics.

Described as the “Queen of Modern
Northern Politics”, when asked how people react to the fact that she is a
Muslim woman involved in politics, she responded: “What has religion to
do with it! Why should the fact that I am a Muslim woman surprise
anyone?”

Mrs Dogonyaro’s campaign on
sensitization and economic empowerment of women led to the establishment
of the Women’s Development Centre. She also held the position of
President of the National Council for Women Societies in 1998.

However, she was also very
traditional and held some pretty conservative views. For instance, she
opposed what she said was the show of nudity, the Miss World Pageant
which was supposed to be held in Nigeria, but was abruptly moved to
London in 2002 following protests over an article published by a
newspaper.

Laila Dogonyaro’s accomplishments
gained her the Nigerian Merit Award: Officer of the Order of the Niger
(OON) and a traditional title, Gakuwar Garki, among many other awards.

She was survived by her four
children: Mohammed Ahmed, Mairo Hassan Hussein, Binta Dogonyaro, and Isa
Dogonyaro and grandchildren.

She was buried in her village, Garki, Jigawa State, on Friday.

Standing on the edge
of a sun-scorched ridge overlooking her broken farm, 68-year old
Philadelphia native Norma Perchonoc–who has lived in Nigeria for all of
her adult life–sums up the personal impact of the ongoing political,
religious, and economic strife in the country’s heartland.

“Life is not easy,”
she says simply, in one of many understatements during a tour of her
farm, which she says has gone virtually bankrupt in the aftermath of
terrible intercommunal violence in January 2010 in the once-thriving
“Middle Belt” region of Africa’s most populous country.

The farm is tucked
between outcrops of stones and squat hills on an elevated, table-like
plateau that resembles the southwestern deserts of the United States but
boasts a Mediterranean-like climate. The tan soil is sandy and
stubborn, but the weather and a good water supply left over from
extensive industrial tin mining in the area made central Nigeria’s
Plateau State a veritable Eden where farmers and traders, locals and
expatriates, coexisted in what some called the “microcosm of Nigeria.”
Local farmers generally supported themselves growing Irish potato and
other subsistence crops. Perchonoc’s Zamani Farms grew a cornucopia of
specialty produce, from Chinese cabbage to butternut squash to rocket
lettuce to strawberries and mulberries, catering partly to the wealthy
diplomatic corps in the capital city of Abuja. The harsh soil somehow
sprung to life under the tender watch of Perchonoc and her dedicated
staff, yielding fresh produce the staff could be proud of–and earning
salaries they could support their own families with.

Now, on the brink of
bankruptcy, Perchococ’s farm–her “retirement project” after she spent
decades teaching anthropology at two universities in northern
Nigeria–is one of several commercial farms overrun with financial and
logistical problems–not to mention trauma–that have ensued in the
aftermath of the bloodbath that occurred on its doorstep.

“We have many
problems since the crisis. Things are not the way they are supposed to
be,” she said, leathery-skinned, work-weary hands on hips as she
surveyed the scenic and haunted landscape.

A bloody crisis

Locals use the vague
euphemism of ‘crisis’ to refer to a series of brutal tit-for-tat
massacres across the verdant plateau region early last year. In the
village of Kuru Karama, a five-minute walk from Zamani Farms, a gruesome
day-long killing spree left more than 150 Muslim residents–including
babies and women–dead, according to initial reports by Human Rights
Watch. The Red Cross later removed scores more corpses, some of them
burned or buried alive, from wells throughout the village.

Not a single Muslim
from the Hausa ethnic group remains in the village today, which was
formerly home to around 3,000 people, both Christians and Muslims, from
several ethnic groups. It is now little more than a burned down ghost
town where artisanal tin mining done by new migrants to the area has
sprung up on formerly residential land. Subsequent reprisal attacks by
Muslims on Christians rippled throughout the Plateau region, with
hundreds of Christians deaths between January and March last year.

It is another
understatement to say that the violence struck close to home for
Perchonoc and the 30 Nigerians who worked on her farm. About half of the
workers and their families were murdered or are now unable to live or
work in the area because of their religion or ethnicity.

Zamani Farms is a
half-living memorial to the violence, a hollowed out shell of a
once-prospering and promising business. The starkly beautiful land that,
though challenging, once held the promise of good crops and good
business, now harbors disturbing memories of massacres and family
members turning against each other, suddenly split along sectarian lines
too deadly to cross.

The farm’s only
van–used in the past to transport crates of fresh fruits and vegetables
twice weekly to customers in the Nigerian capital of Abuja–fell into
disrepair earlier this year. Perchonoc does not have the money to get
the vehicle fixed, and besides, she says, the car mechanics in the
nearby city of Jos have either fled the city or been killed. She
struggles to get manure to organically fertilize her strawberry fields
because the cattle herders that used to move through the area refuse to
come near the farm after their cows were slaughtered en masse during the
wave of violence, killed by the same armed young thugs rumoured to have
been hired by the local government to execute a planned assault on
minority populations in the state.

Ethno-religious rifts

Perchonoc says she
is unable to employ farm workers of the same caliber as her dedicated
staff who were massacred or forced to flee and, more than a year later,
fear returning to the area. “Some are in hiding from their own family
members, who have threatened to kill them,” she says, evidence of the
apartheid-like split between formerly integrated Muslim and Christian
communities that caused displacement and migration of whole communities
after last year’s violence.

“Before the crisis,
there were Hausa and Fulani workers on the farm, both Muslims and
Christians, and we had no problems,” says Abdullahi Hashimu, 46, the
short, muscular marketing manager of the farm whose house was burned
down in the violence and whose family ran for their lives. Hashimu had
been in Abuja delivering produce for the farm when the killing sprees in
the nearby city of Jos erupted and spread to villages including Kuru
Karama. “We are now living in an environment where Muslims don’t go to
areas where Christians are, even the markets,” he said quietly.

“Since [the
violence] last year, we are not back to normal on the farm,” Perchonoc
says. Work stopped completely at Zamani Farms for three months after the
massacre in Kuru Karama, as Perchonoc first attempted to help her
traumatized workers seek treatment for their machete-wounded children,
among other problems. Some of the crops such as the farm’s specialty
lettuce, which require daily watering and a labor-intensive irrigation
system, fell fallow in the meantime. In order to keep her customers, who
include the British High Commission and other embassies and the Hilton
and Sheraton Hotels in Abuja, she bought tomatoes and other produce from
other local farmers while she tried to pick up the broken pieces of her
own business. She remains in debt to these farmers, unable to pay more
than the salaries of her workers and petrol for her decrepit 4×4
vehicle.

Perchonoc and her
staff rightly call last year the worst of their lives. She and Gumbo
Adamu, the man she calls her “right hand” on the farm, were briefly
kidnapped in an incident related to the ongoing insecurity and local
tensions in the area. Everyday brings new challenges that did not
afflict the farm before violence began blazing through the Middle Belt
and tearing it asunder. Everyday brings rumours of “silent killings” or
planned attacks or new deals between selfish politicians rumored to be
perpetuating the crisis for their personal gain.

Adamu is a tall
gentle-looking man who saw his community and his years of hard work to
build Zamani Farms fall apart in one fell swoop. He blames the local
religious leaders for fanning the flames of the now intractable problems
between former neighbours.

“The pastors and the mallams are causing this crisis,” said Adamu. “When this crisis is over, we’ll prosecute all of them.”

There is a bomb explosion in Borno State
almost every day, according to residents. Sometimes, two bombs go off
in one day, and then there are the executions by guns. Last Saturday,
around 10.30am at the Kasuwan Shanu junction where officers of the joint
task force called Operation Flush have a checkpoint, a bomb went off,
and the officers had to dive into a gutter. The next day at Abaganaram,
Railway junction, a witness said two gunmen went into a Vitafoam
dealership shop and killed the owner, while one of them walked to a
drawer and removed a parcel. On the eve of the governorship election on
Monday, two bombs went off on the outskirts of the city. On Tuesday, at
Umarrari Street, Boko Haram reportedly executed a young man who claimed
to have removed their bomb. On Wednesday, after election results were
announced, Boko Haram reportedly burned down a security post at the
renovated prison. On Thursday, at Kaura Mela, there was a bombing and a
shooting.

“Nothing has happened this Friday yet,”
says a journalist who has lived in the city for 10 years. “But then the
day is not over.”

According to a source close to the police, most of the bombs are planted by young boys known as Almajiris.

“They are not educated, they are
gullible and they have nothing to lose,” he says. “It is a
bastardisation of the learning process enjoined in the Qur’an. Their
parents dump them with the mallams, who send them out to beg for food,
which leaves them open to strong influences.”

According to an officer at the police
headquarters, police are frustrated by the fact that the boys recruited
by Boko Haram have no addresses.

“When you arrest them and ask where they
are from, you hear things like, ‘They brought me here from Katsina,
they brought me from Yobe’, et cetera. Where do you go from there?” says
the state police commissioner. “Some of the boys arrested told me they
could manufacture the improvised explosives themselves. So I tell you,
if all these boys can manufacture explosives, then we are in trouble…
Maiduguri is a warfront.”

On where the Boko Haram recruits get
these skills, Mr Zuokumor says that he has his theories but no hard
evidence. “It all started with the establishment of Boko Haram, but I
cannot pinpoint where yet,” he says. NEXT has learnt from sources that
some of the killers that have been hired for high profile jobs have
largely come from Somalia and the Middle East.

Save for an intervention today, Imo State may be the first state
to face an emergency rule on account of a failure to meet the election
deadline. Under the amended constitution and the Electoral Act, all elections
must be completed one month before the inauguration date, May 29.

As at today, April 29, Imo State remains the only state yet to
conclude its gubernatorial election. Election was held on Tuesday in the state,
but the results were declared inconclusive by the Independent National
Electoral Commission, (INEC).

INEC said a rerun will be conducted in three local government
areas of the state before a winner can be determined between incumbent, Ikedi
Ohakim of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and front runner, Rochas Okorocha
of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA).

For a commission pressured with several deadlines after repeated
rescheduling of elections, conducting fresh polls in the affected areas of the
state today, just two days after the shift was announced, is “unlikely”, INEC
officials said yesterday.

If a winner does not emerge at the end of today, it will create
a “power vacuum” as INEC chairman Attahiru Jega put it last week when concerns
were raised about the possibility of concluding gubernatorial elections in
violence-hit Bauchi and Kaduna states. Mr Jega said the commission will do
everything to avoid an emergency rule in any part of the country but noted that
such efforts were limited.

INEC yesterday issued a statement urging calm while it consults
on the legal implications.

“In view of the difficulties experienced with the April 26, 2011
governorship and state assembly election in Imo State, which caused the
returning officer to declare the election inconclusive, the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC) has consulted with its lawyers for advice
on the next line of action.” read a statement signed by Kayode Idowu,
spokesperson to Mr Jega.

Mr Idowu said the commission is scheduled to meet today, Friday,
April 29, to take a final decision, he urged “everyone concerned to be patient
and await further directives which will be communicated as soon as a decision
is taken, and to be peaceful and avoid taking the laws into their hands.”

Tensed atmosphere

Following Tuesday’s stalemate however, some incidents raised
suspicion and set the stage for the tension in Owerri, the capital of Imo
State. At the INEC office, scores of youth congregated and prevented vehicles
from entering the premises to avoid the smuggling of material into the office.

The National Chairman of the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP),
Ogbonnaya Onu has said that the party would study the flaws and irregularities
that characterised the conduct of Tuesday’s gubernatorial and state Houses of
Assembly elections before making its stand on the election public. Mr Onu who
made this assertion in his Eze Adu country home in Uburu, Ohaozara Local
Government Area of Ebonyi State Wednesday, decried the level of intimidation of
opposition parties in Ebonyi State.

“It is left for the Independent National Electoral Commission
(INEC) to put things right where they were done wrong, because the law permits
the commission to cancel elections in areas where there are evidences of
malpractice.” He said.

Speaking on the conduct of the election generally, the ANPP
Chairman said, “It is very clear that in some parts of the country, there was
very reasonable movement away from what it used to be in the past, but in the
Southeast; there are records of vehicles and houses of members and supporters
of opposition parties burnt in order to intimidate them.” He said there was
“Monetary inducement, intimidation and indiscriminate criminal use of ballot
papers by agents and proxies of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to
stuff ballot boxes. In most cases, ballot boxes were highjacked while voting
was ongoing and brought back later, after votes meant for opposition parties
might have been removed and already thumb-printed ones stuffed inside before it
is restored to the helpless INEC ad-hoc staff.”

Electoral offences

The ANPP governorship candidate in the state, Julius Ali Ucha,
bemoaned the outcome of the upturned National Assembly election results in the
state. “The National Assembly election result as it affected Ebonyi State was a
sham and its effect on ANPP supporters who voted massively for the party led to
their scanty participation in the presidential poll. Imagine where records of
the outcome of the NASS election results were upturned and entered in Form EC8B
meant for results summary instead of EC8A meant for results sheets,” Mr Ucha
stated.

Recounting series of reports of manhandling and intimidation of
ANPP supporters, the opposition party’s gubernatorial candidate alleged that
“at Umuogudu Akpu Ngbo in Ngbo Council Area, six ANPP agents deployed to
different polling booths were stripped naked by soldiers but were rescued by
police team from zone six.

“At Ezzaagu ward II Ishielu, that is the stronghold of ANPP
where we have 16 polling units, electoral materials were supplied without voter
register until 5pm when voters had waited and dispersed. Is that a conspiracy
with the ad-hoc staff of INEC and the government of the day?” Mr Ucha pondered.

Reacting to Mr Ucha’s allegation, Nwoba Pius, the Supervisory
Presiding Officer (SPO) said that the voters’ registers were initially omitted
in the electoral material supplied to the Ezzagu Ward II but were made
available later excluding the three polling units at Agba Ugama Central School
in Ezzagu in Ezza North Local Government Area of the state.