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The Akure Township Stadium was established before
the creation of old Ondo State in 1976 by the then administrator of the
old Western region, Oluwole Rotimi, (a retired colonel) to boost
sporting activities in the state. Then, it was just an ordinary
training pitch before it was upgraded to stadium status by successive
governments.

For years, due to poor facilities in the stadium,
the state did not host any competition of international magnitude.
Unlike Oyo and Ogun States which had hosted sporting events like the
FIFA Women World Cup and Under-20 World Cup respectively, this could
not be said of Ondo State, even though it is an oil producing state.

In realisation of the need to establish a stadium
of international standard, the immediate past government of Olusegun
Agagu embarked on the construction of a befitting stadium for the state
in 2008. The contract was awarded at a cost of N3.7 billion to CCC
Construction Nigeria Limited. At the flag-off of the project, the
former governor promised the people of the state that the project would
be completed by April, 2010.

The contractor, Mr Agagu stated, was selected from
among 17 other contractors who expressed interest in the project,
adding that government was hopeful that the eventual winner would live
up to its internationally recognised reputation in the handling of the
project. At the function, a cheque of N1.8 billion was handed over to
the contractor as mobilisation fees. The fee represents 50 per cent of
the entire contract.

The main bowl of the stadium, when completed, was
expected to occupy a 15,000 capacity sitting terrace, other ancillary
provisions, which would include car park, training pitch, shopping
arena, medical centre, press gallery, and an ICT centre for easy
communication.

The project would also have tartan tracks of 10
lanes, flood lights, electronic score board, a befitting state box
(including VIP extensions), modern office accommodation, and a host of
ancillary facilities.

Below international standard

But five months after the contract was awarded,
there was a change of government. The law court judgement brought to an
abrupt end the rule of Mr Agagu in the state. The contractor had
already begun work on the site before the change of power.

Therefore, the contract was inherited by the new
administration of Olusegun Mimiko, which introduced additional changes
because of the capacity of the people the stadium could accommodate
during international sporting event. However, the contract has since
been abandoned, despite the fact that work had started on the site.

Explaining the rationale behind the termination of
the contract, the state commissioner for information, Ranti Akerele,
said the stadium was not well designed to meet international standard.

According to him, it was wrong for the Agagu-led government to propose a stadium of 15,000 capacity at this jet age.

“When people are planning big stadium that will
accommodate 40,000 people at a time, the then Mr. Agagu government
proposed a 15,000 seater capacity.

“The idea is not only crude but not fashionable.
Our government has begun the repair of the old stadium to make it more
attractive and befitting,” Mr Akerele said.

But John Ola Mafo, the commissioner who was in
charge of the sports ministry when the contract was awarded, described
Mr Akerele’s excuse as flimsy.

Mr Mafo, who had earlier handled the information
ministry under Mr Agagu, explained that the Mimiko-led government had
no good reason to stop the project when the previous administration had
paid 50 per cent mobilisation to the contractor handling the project.

“The excuse being given by the Mr Mimiko is not
genuine. Mr Agagu, while flagging off the project, said the contract
would be completed in 2010 after paying the mobilisation fees. It is
laughable that after the exit of Mr Agagu the project has been
abandoned.

“All over the world, stadium is upgraded at any
given point, so why is Mimiko’s government complaining? The stadium
project is just one of the few projects embarked upon by the
administration of former governor Agagu that have been abandoned by Mr
Mimiko,” Mr Mafo further said.

Five people were
arrested by the police in Masaka and Maraba area of Nasarawa State in a
vehicle with thumbprinted ballot papers.

A woman called
Godiya Sunday was also arrested in Akwanga with a thumb-printed ballot
paper. 252 ballot papers were for state house of assembly, 406 were for
governorship, and 140 were for the Labour Party repectively.

Briefing
journalists at the Independent Electoral Commission headquarters in
Lafia, the state police commissioner, Emmanuel Obiko, said the suspects
were arrested at about 10:30am by his men who were stationed at a check
point mounted to restrict movement of people.

He said the matter
is still under investigation and that nobody would be charged to court
until the police concludes its findings.

“If anybody is found guilty, that person would be charged to court for prosecution,” Mr Obiko said.

Although the whole exercise in parts of the state was peaceful and orderly, the scenario in some areas was entirely different.

There was a case of
ballot snatching by four men suspected to be PDP members in Angwan
Mangu polling unit in Ciroma ward of Lafia. Although 1289 were
registered in the unit, only 421 were accredited according to the
presiding officer, Friday Dirikumo. The arrival of security agents at
the polling unit prevented the situation from degenerating into crisis.

There was low
turnout of voters across the state. Some of the electorate blamed their
apathy on the post election violence that took place across the nation.
This made some of them to relocate from where they were staying to
their villages.

“We have been disfranchised during the last presidential election,” a resident says.

An INEC official,
Amina Zekeri, however, said the commission could not say there is low
turnout until the exercise comes to an end.

Also reacting to
the low turnout, the Senate elect for Nasarawa south, Suleiman Adokwe,
said this could be as a result of the bomb blast in the previous
elections across the country.

The Independent
National Electoral Commission said yesterday that its attention is
focused on verifying and authenticating the results of the state
governorship elections.

Opposition parties
who rejected the outcome of the presidential poll cited rigging and
other electoral fraud, criticising the commission’s oversight of result
collation during a protest that turned into riots in Kaduna, Bauchi,
Katsina, Kano, Gombe and Adamawa states.

The parties said,
in many states, their agents were shut off from collation points where
the results were allegedly doctored in favour of the ruling People’s
Democratic Party.

Since the
governorship and state assembly elections concluded yesterday, the
commission said, while results of the elections are expected, it has
placed greater attention on the collation of results in the 24 states
where the elections were held.

“The only thing
which we have done for today’s election differently,” said Solomon
Soyebi, INEC’s national commissioner in charge of information and
publicity, “is that we have shifted our attention more to the collation
centers. We are trying to make sure that whatever is done at the
collation centre is more transparent.”

An imperfect process

Election monitors
have also picked at holes in the commission’s multi-tiered election
collation process, which sends results from polling units to the state
collation centers through the wards and local government area collation
centers.

In its report after
the presidential election, the National Democratic Institute said this
approach created a tendency for “malfeasance and human error.” Speaking
yesterday on behalf of the chairman of the commission, Attahiru Jega,
Mr Soyebi said the electoral body has improved the way it monitors the
processing of results for the governorship polls.

“If there is any
party agent denied access to the collation center, he or she has our
hotline to call and that will be remedied,” he said.

Damage control

The commission also
acknowledged, for the first time, the challenge it faces with a large
number of its ad hoc staff – the corps members – withdrawing their
services in Kaduna and Bauchi where elections were moved to Thursday
due to the large-scale violence that hit the two states.

Mr Soyebi said that
while the fear about personnel shortage may not be so real in Kaduna
state, the situation in Bauchi was serious enough that the commission
planned to deploy its permanent staff for the exercise.

He said full-time staff in Bauchi and neighboring states and the
headquarters, as well as other trained ad hoc staff, are to be drafted
for the election if the youth corps members stay away on Thursday.

Fears over the
violence that followed the presidential elections led to a record low
turnout in most parts of the country during yesterday’s polls. The
gubernatorial/house of assembly elections, which formed the last in the
series of national elections that began April 9, ended in most states
on a peaceful note, but turnout was quite dismal. Although the
pervasive apathy was more notable in the northern states where youth
went on a rampage after the April 16 elections, even states where there
were no riots saw more voters staying home. The violence that
accompanied yesterday’s elections was minimal. A bomb blast in
Maiduguri, the third in the area since elections began, mercifully left
no casualties. Another exploded in Ogbe-Ijo, Delta state, injuring no
one, while police successfully defused another one in the same area.

A wary north

In Kano State, the
fear of violence saw middle-aged and elderly voters abandoning their
polling units and the youth were mainly the ones to be seen around.
Areas like Kawaji Jigirya ward, Fagge A and B Brigade, which had
recorded unusually high voter participation in the two previous
elections, saw low voter turnout for the gubernatorial elections. Kano
State governor and ANPP presidential candidate, Ibrahim Shekarau, who
voted at his Giginya ward, blamed the recent crisis.

“The low turnout
may not be totally disconnected from last week’s crisis that has
affected the turnout of women and the aged. But the security agents are
doing everything possible to ensure the peaceful conduct of the
election,” he said.

Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, who was the People’s Democratic Party governorship candidate in the state, agreed.

“We have been
receiving reports of low turnout probably because people are scared
because of last week’s violent protest,” he said.

In Adamawa,
Nasarawa and Katsina states, the story was the same. In Katsina, a
presiding officer at polling unit 13, Modoji Primary School, said that
of the unit’s 831 registered voters, only 384 were accredited and even
less came out to vote. He also said that the majority of youth corps
members who officiated the earlier polls shunned yesterday’s exercise.
The spokesperson for INEC in the state, Mohammed Musa, said turnout was
very low, “but the reason, I don’t know why”. In Lagos State, turnout
was so low in some areas that officials had to go door to door to urge
people to come out to vote.

Sore spots

In many states,
however, the elections were peaceful. Ondo state governor, Segun
Mimiko, who cast his vote with his wife, Olukemi, at unit 020 Lodosa,
said: “This shows that beyond permutation, speculations, we have a
reasonably satisfactory process.”

Still, there were a
few issues. In Oyo State, the senator representing Oyo South,
Kamorudeen Adedibu, was among 54 people arrested in the state for
various offences. Security operatives in Ondo State arrested 120 people
during the house of assembly elections there. The arrests were mostly
for disobeying the movement restriction order. However, at Akpala
polling unit, Uparama ward, hoodlums snatched a ballot box and shot
into the air. Calm was restored when Naval officers from Forward Base
recovered the box and arrested two of the miscreants.

In Nasarawa, five
people were caught with thumbprinted ballot papers — 252 of which were
for the state assembly elections while 406 ballot papers were for the
governorship election. The state’s electoral commissioner, Emmanuel
Obiko, said the suspects were arrested by his officers at about 10.30pm
and would be prosecuted soon. A corps member who served as presiding
officer in Obokun Local Council in Osun state was also arrested for
being found in possession of 50 thumbprinted ballot papers.

Violence is idiotic

A former head of state, Abdulsalami Abubakar, however condemned the recent violence.

“From what I have
seen, the turnout is less than what I saw in the previous elections,”
he said. “I believe people are very apprehensive and don’t want to be
caught up in any violence.”

Mr Abubakar who voted with his wife, Fati, along with former head of
state, Ibrahim Babangida and his family, said the violence following
the presidential election, “is the most idiotic thing to happen”.

The governorship
candidate of the Congress for Progressive change (CPC) in Enugu State,
Osita Okechukwu has said forensic examination of the ballot papers used
in the April 16 Presidential poll will expose the alleged massive
rigging of the election by the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in
the south east and south-south zones of the country.

Reacting to the
allegation that the CPC lost the election in the zones, Mr Okechukwu,
in a statement yesterday, said “Forensic test anchored on biometrics
technology, will expose the jumbo allocation of votes to the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) in the South East and south-South; characterized
by monumental ballot stuffing” .

“We are assembling
our evidence and will expose to the world the hitech-rigging which
polluted the presidential election. We are not crying wolf, where there
is none. We are not bad losers.”

The governorship
candidate, who is also the spokesperson for the Conference for Nigerian
Political Parties (CNPP), denied claims that intra-party crisis rocked
the party’s election in the zones, adding that no major political party
is free from such crises.

According to him,
the fractionalization of the CPC is not worse than that of the PDP, and
insisted that no hatchet or settled group should use intra-party crisis
as an excuse.

“Let them go in
peace with their loot; but they cannot stop us from presenting our
evidence in the Presidential Tribunal,” Mr Okechukwu said.

He recounted that
there was low turnout of voters in the five state that comprise the
south east zone during the presidential poll, which he said hovered
around 35 percent.

He said, “We
maintain that the low turnout at the presidential election, especially
in the South East, hovered between 30% and 35% and therefore the result
posted is untenable and outrageous.

“No electorate throughout history rewards a political party which
failed to provide common infrastructure like electricity; it will be
inconceivable that Nigerian electorate rewarded PDP for decade stretch
of failed promises. On Forensic Test and Biometric Technology we depend
to prove our case; not on propaganda.”

The Conference of
Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP) has called on President Goodluck
Jonathan to consider ability during the composition of his cabinet,
saying his appointments should be based on competence and integrity
instead of party affiliation.

The Secretary
General of the group, Willy Ezugwu said in Abuja yesterday that: “We
are very much aware that there are already talks of a government of
national unity; an all inclusive government; and a government that will
compensate those who worked for the emergence of President Jonathan.
All these less reasons are not enough as determinants of the people the
president should appoint,” he said.

The coalition said
it is on record that forming a government of national unity is usually
an excuse for the ruling class to appoint or nominate friends and
family members and, in some cases, outrightly incompetent cronies to
occupy public offices at the detriment of the people.

Competence needed

“Whether
considering his PDP members or members of any other party joining his
government, President Jonathan must remember that Nigerians voted for
him and not his party, which rates poorly among the populace anyway.
The least President Jonathan can do is to populate his cabinet with the
best brains Nigeria has to offer home and abroad as there is no short
supply of these.” The CNPP scribe said.

He said it is also crucial that the competent people who the president will appoint are shielded from the influence of the PDP.

“The election is over, party and ethnic considerations with other
forms of cronyism are done away with from this moment and should
instead be replaced by national interest,” he said.

Ahead of tomorrow’s
2011 gubernatorial election, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and
the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) in Jigawa State, have entered into
what they described as a “local” political alliance against the state
governor.

Speaking to newsmen
in Kano over the weekend, the Jigawa State ANPP governorship candidate,
Ibrahim Hassan, said the decision was reached, following an exhaustive
discussion between the two parties on how to defeat the ruling party
PDP in the state.

Mr Hassan revealed
that talks between the governorship candidates have been on for about
two weeks, pointing out that discussion with the Congress for
Progressive Change (CPC) is equally on, saying that an agreement would
be reached before the election on Tuesday.

A strong team

“Legally speaking,
based on the Electoral Act, most of the windows of alliances and
mergers have been closed as you are aware now it is not possible to
even substitute a candidate but what we have is a sort of political
understanding between us for the purpose of the election,” he said.

He said the
decision was taken after a thorough consideration of the outcome of the
previous elections, alleging that the ruling party, the People’s
Democratic Party (PDP) tilted the elections in its favour, despite the
assurance given by INEC that the conduct of the elections would be
credible.

He further lamented
that the PDP took advantage of the ignorance of the people, especially
those in rural communities through financial inducements, to win the
last National Assembly elections in the state, pointing out that such
intrigues by the ruling party would be tackled at the forthcoming polls.

He remained
confident that the inter-party political arrangement in the state, will
succeed, and would be extended to other opposition parties.

The Ekiti State
Police Command has mobilized 7,500 police officers that will work with
the State Security Service, Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps
and other paramilitary organisations during the elections in the state
today.

The spokesperson of
the police in the state, Jimoh Mohammed, who made the disclosure in a
telephone interview, said the officers have started displaying a ‘show
of Force’ to alert the populace that they are ground.

Mr Jimoh said the
officers will provide adequate security for election officials and the
electorate to facilitate the success of the polls.

He also said no
police orderly would be allowed to escort their principals to the
polling units during today’s elections in consonance with the
guidelines for the conduct of the elections

Also, the Resident
Electoral Commissioner in Ekiti State, Halilu Hussaini Pai yesterday
disclosed that all materials for the conduct of today’s National and
State Assembly elections have been distributed to the Electoral
Officers in the sixteen Council Areas of the State.

Mr. Pai in a chat
with journalists in Ado Ekiti, said the electorate would witness prompt
take off of the accreditation exercise and voting in all the 177 wards
and 2, 195 units across the State.

He promised that
the Commission will conduct free, fair and credible elections, advising
members of political parties to be law abiding and orderly during the
polls.

Mr. Pai called on
all the security agencies in the state to fully enforce the restriction
of human and vehicular movement tomorrow.

The governor of the
State, Kayode Fayemi, has threatened to deal with anyone who foments
trouble during the conduct of the National and State Assembly elections
in the state.

The governor, who
made the statement while distributing 100 motorcycles to some
commercial motorcyclists at the Government House yesterday, urged the
electorate to troop out en masse and cast their votes for the best
candidates.

Mr Fayemi assured
that all measures had been put in place to ensure the security of lives
and property during and after the elections.

He urged the people
to remain committed to the ongoing electoral process and eschew any act
that could disrupt the peace of the state.

Meanwhile, a
detachment of soldiers that were drafted into the state has taken
strategic positions in all the sixteen local government areas of the
state.

The police yesterday arrested some journalists during a morning raid on a printing establishment in Uyo, Akwa Ibom.

In what some people
have described as the effort of the state government to muzzle media
establishment known to be strong critics of government ahead of today’s
state elections, policemen numbering about 12 were said to have stormed
Aswill printing press ,located along Akpan Etuk Street, in Uyo at about
12am on Monday.

Managing Editor of
Pivot Newspapers, Clifford Thomas, who was one of the persons arrested
by the police at the printing press, said the men came in fully armed
and asked to see the manager and director of the establishment.

The manager, the
director and some other staff of the press were taken away by the
police. Mr Thomas and his staff were subsequently released when no
incriminating evidence against the government was found in their
publication.

During the raid, Mr
Thomas and his men were ordered to sit on the floor, their phones and
other communication gadgets were seized. Narrating his experience to
NEXT, Mr Thomas said the leader of the police team told him that the
deputy commissioner of Police instructed them to come to the printing
press and check for anything that might be construed as an attack on
the state governor.

“The police were
quite polite; they did not beat or harass anybody, except that the
experience of being taken off your work when you were progressing at a
speed and they stopped you was very traumatic,” he said. “The leader of
the police team informed me that he was acting on instruction. He said
the deputy Commissioner of Police instructed them to come to the
printing press and check those newspapers or anything that is an attack
on Godswill Akpabio.”

Gagging the media

“To swamp on a
printing press that was merely printing newspapers show that there is
no freedom of the press and the fundamental rights of people have been
breached. I don’t think they want democracy to survive. Democracy
thrives on free press,” he said.

Editor-in-Chief of
Insight Newspapers, one of the papers printed at the raided printing
press, David Augustine, confirmed that the printing press was actually
raided and that copies of Global Concord newspaper were taken away. He
however said his newspapers were not seized by the police.

“The target of the
raid was not myself or my paper,” he said, adding that he could not
ascertain the motive behind the raid as he was not there.

When the Police Public Relations Officer, Onyekaozuru Orji was contacted on the issue, he feigned ignorance.

About 200 corps
members of Ondo State origin who were evacuated from some northern
states arrived Akure yesterday. The corps members who converged in
Bauchi State before they were moved to Akure, were received at the
government house by the state governor, Olusegun Mimiko.

“Government must do
something for them,” he said. “Those who have completed their
programme, we will give them jobs. During the Jos crisis, we did
similar thing, they have been asked to come back on Thursday to address
their complaints.” Mr Mimiko urged indigenes of Ondo State not to allow
the incident to douse their sense of patriotism and remain committed to
fostering national unity and development.

“Every country
goes through her own difficult times, but I still encourage you to
still appreciate the fact that Nigeria is a wonderful country, a great
nation. Our manifest destiny is that Nigeria will be a leader of
nations,” Mr Mimiko said.

United Nigeria

While commending
President Goodluck Jonathan for the matured way in which he had been
handling the crisis, Mr Mimiko said, “no matter how insurmountable the
situation had been in the past, Nigeria had always come out more united
and strong and I believe this will not be an exception.” Fisayo
Ogunmola, who spoke on behalf of his colleagues, commended the state
government for its prompt response to the situation, a development
which he noted had further re-invigorated their confidence in the
government’s concern for the welfare of its citizens.

“We want to
appreciate the government’s quick response to our plight and the
demonstration of its caring heart posture which had saved our future as
the country’s leaders,” he said.

The state government, according to Ogunmola, provided logistic support for their movement to their various destinations.

Ogun State

Similarly, in
Abeokuta, state officials also received some 150 youth corps members
brought back to the state in two luxurious buses and taken to the
Moshood Abiola Stadium, before they later left to their various homes.

The Ogun State
Commissioner for Environment, Olukoya Adeleke-Adedoyin, who led an
earlier rescue mission during the crisis in Plateau State said the
state government will accommodate those who do not want to go back to
their station.

“The government must have a rethink about this NYSC scheme. People
who come from the North that are serving here, we don’t harm or kill
them. The journey was very terrible. No food, no water, nothing to eat,
they really suffered a lot.” He said.