Nigeria Content Online

Former Lagos State governor and Action Congress Party leader,
Bola Tinubu, opens up about the failed pre-election alliance talks with the CPC.
Exerpt:

Why, in your own opinion,
did alliance talks with the Congress for Progressive Change collapse?

The story is not different from what the national chairman has
said. It is very unfortunate that the two serious national parties could not solve
the problem earlier than now. We have been at it for quite some time now. You
all are aware of the National Democratic Movement, which Atiku was a member
before he moved back to the PDP. The movement was left with Bafarawa, Buhari,
and us. From that moment on, it would have been a good opportunity to form an
alliance. It is not about individuals, it is about the need to form a strong
structure. At that time, there was no CPC. What we had was TBO (The Buhari
Organisation).

Suddenly, CPC was registered. To me, at that state, instead of a
merger to form a unified platform, they started talking about alliance.
Alliance in a presidential system has never worked. You need to form a common
platform, with a common manifesto, to be able to work together and be able to
educate the people on the difference between the common platform and the
constituting parties. When the merger plan did not work, they dragged us back.

Though, I won’t lay blame but Buhari, as a leader who is highly
experienced, and has been a statesman and contested elections twice and has
complained of rigging and irregularities in court for a long time challenging
the process, he should have seen that it is not wise to bring CPC in at the
time we were rooting for a merger. But we still respected him and wanted to
continue with the merger plan, but he said he wanted an alliance.

So the merger was
suspended?

However, if you want alliance, instead of a merger, you must be
ready to negotiate and give and take and make sacrifices. But it is unfortunate
that we are so self-centred and selfish to the extent that it beclouds our
patriotic sense. They do not want to give, so they can take. We suspended the
alliance talk till after the National Assembly election, the result of which
showed that ACN has better strength and better spread than CPC. So we should be
the leader in the alliance. But they want to keep the presidential candidate as
well as the running mate, in an alliance where we should be the leading pack.

Now the alliance is not strong enough to produce the senate
president, neither can it produce the House of Representatives speaker, so what
are we going to get in return? I am ready to sacrifice my two legs to be
amputated but you are not even ready to sacrifice your index finger. They were
offering us cabinet positions which you can change your mind tomorrow and sack
at will. But we were still ready to go along with the plan, in the interest of
the nation only for us to discover that while we were negotiating the alliance,
they are also speaking with the Save Nigeria Group, to which they have conceded
the vice presidential slot. We accepted him but asked him to surrender the vice
presidential slot. If we don’t have that, our own platform, which we have
laboured so hard to build, will be in danger.

So we proposed a merger which will be implemented after the
election. We could not afford to jettison our symbol because it is the symbol
of economy, especially for the poor. But we were ready for a joint logo that
will show the broom on one side and Buhari’s pen on another side as a new logo
for the future. The negotiation went to that extent. Yet, they refused to
commit to that plan. At that point, it became clear that they are only after
using us to win election, without having any regard for our platform. We
decided at that point to cancel all suggestions and look at thing holistically.

Would you say the
formation of CPC was a fifth columnist act to stop the merger?

Let us finish the bleeding before the careful analysis and
post-mortem of the failure of the alliance will be done. But a leader must be
able to identify great opportunity and sit on it, hold on tight. No one can
mislead me easily because I examine facts, figure, and factors before taking
decision. So irrespective of how many columnists, why will a leader see that
opportunity and not seize it? I think is a question of the quality of
leadership ability.

The allegation about you
meeting with President Jonathan…

It was not true. He sought for my audience in Lagos not in
Abuja. I don’t need a presidential jet. I have been in presidential jet three
times since the return of democracy, twice with Abubakar Atiku en route Umrah
and my late friend, Yar’Adua was with us on one of the two occasions. The third
time was with President Yar’Adua.

We met at Kaduna and we flew together to Abuja. If they are sure
I flew in presidential jet to see Jonathan, let them produce the manifest of
that flight. It is amazing that blackmail thrives more than the truth in this
country. There are so many misleading stories that could easily be verified but
surprisingly end up being believed.

What is your view on
voter turnout?

This election has its own form, and next week’s governorship
will have its own form too. That is when this low turnout will turn to massive
turnout. All politics is local. We are all going to massively vote for Fashola.

The imperativeness
of a change of guard in the House of Representatives is gradually
emerging. The crashing out of the Speaker of the House, Dimeji Bankole
in the recent national assembly elections in his native Ogun State has
made it certain that the lower legislative chamber will be led by a new
set of leaders.

Mr Bankole, who ran
on the platform of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), lost in his bid
to return to the House to a relatively unknown candidate of the Action
Congress of Nigeria (ACN).

His deputy, Usman
Bayero Nafada who had earlier indicated his intention not to return for
the third time to the lower legislative chamber, had wanted to contest
the gubernatorial elections in that state, but withdrew at the
primaries when it became obvious that he wasn’t going to secure the
ticket.

Interestingly, the
Senate President, David Mark and his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu, won their
elections to return to the federal parliament.

The two positions
had been zoned by the PDP, which enjoyed majority in the House, to the
South West and North East geo-political zones, respectively.

Now that it is
clear that both Messrs Bankole and Nafada are not returning, the House
will be getting a new leadership from early June when the seventh
session of the National Assembly will be inaugurated.

However, the emergence of the leadership, like that of the Senate, will be determined by a number of factors.

Zoning policy

First is the policy
of zoning and rotation of offices adopted by the PDP. Between 1999 and
2003, the party zoned the presidency to the South West and the North
East, respectively. It also zoned the Senate President and Speaker of
the House to the South East and North West, respectively. The deputy
senate president and the deputy speaker were produced by the North
Central and South-South.

But in 2007, the
North West produced the president while the South-South produced the
vice. Similarly, the senate presidency went to the North Central, while
the South West produced the speaker while their deputies came from the
South East and North East, respectively. Although the PDP went into
these elections with the controversy over zoning of the presidency
still raging, it is not impossible that the leadership offices of the
federal legislature would be rotated among the different zones. At the
peak of the zoning controversy, Mr Jonathan alluded to the fact that as
spelt out in Section 7.2c of the PDP constitution, after the emergence
of the president and the vice president, the other key offices would be
zoned.

There is therefore
the likelihood that the offices of the presiding officers of the Senate
and the House will be re-zoned. In fact, it is almost certain that the
South West will not produce the next speaker due to the performance of
the PDP in the zone during the last parliamentary polls.

Earlier, the
decision by Messrs David Mark, Ike Ekweremadu and Bankole to re-contest
had thrown up a debate whether they would retain their positions in the
coming dispensation or become ordinary members in both chambers.

Ranking

Closely related to
that is the ranking factor. The issue of ranking became a major factor
in the emergence of the principal officers of the national assembly in
2003. In that year, lawmakers that served between 1999 and 2003 felt
that, as seniors, they should be the only ones to be considered for the
leadership positions in both chambers since those just coming in did
not have cognate experience.

Although elections
are yet to be conducted in 15 senatorial districts and over 40 federal
constituencies, it appears many of the serving lawmakers will not be
returning. So far, only about five members of the House from South West
succeeded in their bid to return. Assuming therefore that the position
of speakership is retained in the South West, the returnees likely to
jostle for the position are Ajibola Muraina and Adeniyi Busari both of
who are from Oyo State.

Those who would
have challenged Mr Bankole effectively for that position are not
returning. They include Wole Oke (Osun) chairman of defence committee
and Dave Salako (Ogun) chairman of communications committee.

If it is zoned to
the South East, the incumbent chief whip of the house, Emeka Ihedioha
may be a strong contender. Mr Ihedioha, who is coming for the third
time represents Ezihinitte/Mbaise federal constituency of Imo State. He
may be challenged by his predecessor in that position, Bethel Amadi,
also from Imo State. There are also Ogbuefi Ozomgbachi, chairman of
banking and currency committee and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, chairman of marine
transport committee, both from Enugu State.

If the position
goes to the North East, Yakubu Dogara, former chairman of the committee
on commerce from Bauchi State, will be a strong contender. He may be
challenged by Anthony Madwatte, a Christian from Adamawa State. If it
is zoned to the North Central, it will be a major fight among the
lawmakers from there because the zone is a stronghold of the PDP.

Presidential influence

Yet, the
personality of the president may also be a deciding factor on who
occupies which office in the National Assembly. In 2007, the PDP had
planned that the South East would produce the Speaker while the North
Central produce the Senate President. But in the build-up to the
inauguration of the legislature, former President Olusegun Obasanjo,
demanded that the speakership should not only go to his home zone,
South West but should be occupied by Ms Etteh, from Osun State.

In any case, all
these calculations and projections will depend on if the PDP is going
into any working alliance with the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).

Mr Jonathan who is
the candidate of the PDP was reported to have met with leaders of the
ACN, including Bola Tinubu recently during which he dangled some
carrots, as it were, before him. If both parties have a breakthrough in
their talks, analysts say it may result in the South West, the
stronghold of the ACN, producing the Senate President akin to the
NPN/NPP arrangement in the second republic. But the renewed alliance
talks between the ACN and Muhammadu Buhari’s Congress for Progressive
Change (CPC) ahead of Saturday’s presidential poll may endanger that
possibility.

The South-East is
one of the major political blocs that will decide who emerges
victorious in yesterday’s presidential election. Going by the recent
registration of voters conducted by the Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC), the zone, which comprises five states namely
Anambra, Enugu, Ebonyi, Abia, and Imo States, has a total voting
population of 7.1 million.

Although the
People’s Democratic Party (PDP) is the predominant party in the zone
judging by its strength, there is considerable presence of other
parties as well. These include the Congress for Progressive Change
(CPC), the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Labour Party (LP),
Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA), and the All Progressives Grand
Alliance (APGA).

The APGA, which
controls the government in Anambra, is still perceived in political
circles as a party for the people of the zone.

Of all the parties,
however, only three, PDP, ACN and CPC, presented candidates for
yesterday’s election, thus making their candidates, Goodluck Jonathan,
Nuhu Ribadu, and Muhammadu Buhari, the major contenders for the votes
of the people.

Mr. Jonathan, however, appears to be far ahead of his CPC counterpart in terms of popularity.

The reasons are not
far-fetched. First, four of the states, namely Enugu, Imo, Abia, and
Ebonyi, are ruled by the PDP while Anambra is governed by APGA, which
has since adopted Mr. Jonathan as its presidential candidate.

But secondly, and
far more important, is the eagerness of the zone to produce Mr.
Jonathan’s successor. The president, at the height of the zoning
controversy last November, pledged to spend a single term of four years
if the PDP wins the current race, although, in accordance with the
controversial zoning policy of the PDP, the national chairmanship of
the party was zoned to it in 2007.

Party leaders in
the zone are backing Mr. Jonathan in the belief that the zone will
produce his successor in 2015, when the president, if he wins the
current contest, is expected to round off his tenure.

This belief is
buoyed by the fact that 45 years after one of its own, Johnson
Aguiyi-Ironsi, was assassinated while in power as a military head of
state, no Igbo has ruled the country.

Non-partisan support

At a crucial zonal
meeting convened by the party in Enugu last Thursday to strategise for
the presidential poll, the vice chairman of the party in the zone,
Olisa Metu, reiterated the need to deliver over 85 per cent of Igbo
votes to Mr. Jonathan, stressing that it was only by so doing that the
zone would be relevant in the coming dispensation.

Those present at
the meeting, which lasted for about five hours, were former Senate
president, Anyim Pius Anyim; deputy Senate president, Ike Ekweremadu;
chief whip of the House of Representatives, Emeka Ihedioha; Ayogu Eze
and Uche Chukwumerije, senators; Enyinnaya Abaribe; Andy Uba, a
senator-elect; the minister of labour, Emeka Wogu, and his health
counterpart, Onyebuchi Chukwu, among others.

“As you are all
aware, the victory in the National Assembly election will be empty if
President Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan is not successful in the
presidential election on Saturday, the 16th of April,” Mr. Metu told
the meeting.

“This is why we
have come here today, to strategise on how best to galvanise massive
support for our president in the election. We must not only win the
entire south-east, we must win convincingly,” he added.

The national vice
chairman noted that following the acceptance of the PDP presidential
flag bearer in the southeast zone, the zonal chapter of the party will
have to ensure that voter apathy does not occur.

Mr. Metu also asked
party members to be vigilant and ensure that the atmosphere is devoid
of violence, in order to allow people to come out and vote. The message
was not lost on party faithfuls, who in turn assured him of working
hard to deliver the zone to Mr. Jonathan.

Interestingly, the
struggle for the Igbo to produce the next president has assumed a
non-partisan bent. The Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the main Igbo socio-political
organisation, for instance, has joined the fray. For over five months,
it has not only canvassed support for Mr. Jonathan, but also reportedly
held meetings with the PDP candidate, a development which at some point
threatened its unity.

In an advertorial
signed by its president-general, Ralph Uwechue, last week, the
organisation enjoined Ndigbo to vote massively for the PDP candidate.

“The die is cast.
D-day is Saturday 16th April, that is the day every eligible voter
nationwide is called upon to perform his or her patriotic duty in the
ardent quest for good governance, political stability, and sustainable
unity in our great country,” Mr. Uwechue said.

“Ndigbo are
requested to fully recharge our spirit of ‘Igbo Kwenu’ and with ‘Ofu
obi’. Vote Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan and Namadi Sambo as
president and vice president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, come
Saturday 16th April, 2011,” he said.

Batos Nwadike, one
of the four presidential candidates of Igbo extraction that withdrew
from the race to support Mr. Jonathan last Wednesday, said he was doing
so because of the call by the Ohaneze Ndigbo that every Igbo person
should support the presidential ambition of Jonathan.

“I cannot afford to be the odd one out,” he said.

The other three are
Peter Nwagu of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Godwill Nnaji of
the Better Nigeria progressive Party (BNPP), and Lawson Igboanugo of
the People’s Progressive Party (PPP).

The Igbo
organisation has expectedly also drawn support from other notable
organisations in the zone, including Aka Ikenga, Ndigbo Lagos, Izu
Umunna, and the South East leaders (SEL).

The most vociferous
is the SEL. Like Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the group has not only canvassed a
president of Nigeria of Igbo extraction, but the return of the
chairmanship slot of the PDP to the zone after the sudden resignation
of Okwesilieze Nwodo last January. This, it believes, can be achieved
if the entire Igbo back Mr. Jonathan in the presidential election.

Led by a former
governor of Anambra State, Chukwuemeka Ezeife, the group insists that
at any given opportunity the time is ripe for an Igbo to lead the
country since it has only done that once in the last 50 years of the
nation’s independence.

According to Mr.
Ezeife, the quest for a president from the zone has become a moral
issue which other zones should support. He explained that while other
zones of the country have produced former presidents and heads of
state, who ruled for many years, the only one produced by the south
east, Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, only ruled for six months.

“A south easterner
ruled this country for only six months and after he was killed, his
kith and kin were massacred in large numbers thereafter,” he lamented.

The former governor
also argued that if Nigerians truly believe in the unity of the
country, it is only logical to support the aspiration of the Igbo race
to produce the next president.

Game of numbers

Perhaps, all this
informed the large votes the PDP secured during the National Assembly
elections on April 9. The party won 13 out of the 15 senatorial seats
available in the five states of the zone, leaving only one, Imo East
for APGA, while the result of Anambra Central is still disputed. Even
so, the opposition parties are still crying foul that the PDP’s victory
is attributable to malpractices and vote buying.

But there are those
who believe that the fortunes of the Igbo will be brightened under Mr.
Buhari as president in the next dispensation. For those in this
category, it will also be practically impossible for Mr. Jonathan to
hand over to another southerner in 2015, assuming he keeps his promise
to leave after one term, when northerners are still ferociously
agitating to occupy the exalted seat.

CPC governorship candidate in Enugu, Osita Okechukwu, is one of these.

At a recent press
conference in Enugu, Mr. Okechukwu reminded his kinsmen that not only
will presidential power easily shift from a northern Buhari to a
southern Igbo man, after his (Buhari) single term in 2015, the problems
of the zone will be better addressed by the CPC candidate.

“To salvage lost
ground, there is an urgent need for Ndigbo to join others and deny the
PDP our votes in this Saturday’s presidential election,” Mr. Okechukwu
said.

“Ndigbo, in
thinking out of the box, we must critically assess all the options, who
among the candidates will best serve the core Igbo interest and indeed
that of Nigerians as a whole,” he further said.

The CPC
governorship flag bearer said Mr. Buhari is the best bet for the Igbo,
describing him as “a man of uncommon integrity, uncommon transparency,
and uncommon humility, who approximates more than any other candidate,
whom Ndigbo and indeed the progressive bloc, should conveniently align
with.”

Although he is currently working for Mr. Jonathan’s election, a
former president of the Senate, Ken Nnamani, who had backed the
ambition of former military president, Ibrahim Babangida, and later
that of former vice president, Abubakar Atiku, also was of the view
that the Ndigbo may have miscalculated as, according to him, Mr.
Jonathan is likely to hand over power to the north instead of to his
kinsmen in 2015.

One week after the
bomb blast that killed 13 people at the Suleja office of the
Independent National Electoral Commission, no arrests have been made.
The Niger State police command awaits the findings of the forensic
team, which came in the second day of the blast.

Almost every day
since the bombing, NEXT has called on the police to find out what
progress has been made, and has come to expect the stock reply, “We are
still investigating.” Yesterday, exactly one week after the bombing,
the state police public relations officer, Richard Adamu Oguche, said
that no real progress had been made in the case. “We have made no
arrests,” he said, matter-of-factly.

A few days ago, his
senior colleague Shola Amore, an assistant commissioner of police who
is also the force’s public relations officer, said he could not say
what progress had been made on the case because the case falls under
the jurisdiction of the Niger State police command. “Let me get back to
you after I speak to the police public relation officer in Minna,” he
said.

He didn’t, but that is not surprising since there was nothing to report.

Scene of the crime
There is none of the usual care which one has come to expect in a high
crime situation like this. When NEXT visited in the morning, although
there was a banner clearly demarcating the site where the bomb went
off, people were allowed to roam the grounds freely, effectively
contaminating evidence. Shoes, toothbrushes and even loaves of bread
merged with blood and sand.

A UN observer even
posed by the wall which was blasted when the bomb went off, and urged
his driver to take a series of photos of him, perhaps to send to his
sponsors in Europe as proof of his enterprise.

Asked what progress
had been made in the investigation, an assistant commissioner of
police, Kunle Asafa, who was there the following morning, replied, “I
am not an expert. The experts have come and gone,” he said.

The National Youth
Service Corps has also been circumspect. The NYSC coordinator in Niger
State, Dauda Daniel Dauda, recently said at a press conference that the
names of the 10 victims of the blast would be sent to INEC headquarters
for the payment of their indemnity. But he was also more concerned
about emphasising that two serving youth corps members died, because
the rest were no longer corps members since they had finished their
service and were only waiting to participate in the election as
officials.

The
director-general of the NYSC was similarly concerned enough to make
this distinction when he came to see the victims at the dilapidated
Suleja General Hospital where 39 people were rushed after the blast.
Muharazi Ismaila Tsiga told reporters that most of the dead were no
longer youth corps members as reported in the media. According to him,
“two of our serving members died and eight were injured.” He said the
rest were ex-service people.

Confusion
everywhere The impression that only two people died in the blast
worried reporters who have consistently reported a death rate of over
10. On the night of the blast itself, this reporter counted 11 dead;
the harried compound nurse, Martina Dawo, said that she saw 10 dead
bodies.

Mr Tsiga had not
visited the mortuary. Even as he spoke, the bodies of eight youth, six
of them female, were still lying on the mortuary ground, their noses
stuffed with cotton wool. The mortuary attendant, who reluctantly gave
us access, said they were listed as ‘corpers’.

The Suleja hospital
was a sight to behold on the day of the blast. The place is simply not
equipped to handle such a catastrophe. The few doctors there strived to
dress wounds but most of the trauma was beyond them. A young man with
shattered limbs, who was placed on a bed as hospital staff arranged for
ambulance, fell off and died. There were too few ambulances to take the
more seriously injured to the hospital in Abuja; vehicles arrived too
late for some.

A lab specialist at
the hospital, Chris Okuludo, who looked quite dazed by the scene that
day, said, “It is not that our doctors are not good. But we don’t have
the equipment to treat this type of cases. And because of other
reasons, the ambulances arrived two hours after the patients came.” He
was also here one month ago when a bomb went off in Suleja during a PDP
rally. “This is worse,” he said. “This is more.” The hospital could not
even cater for the dead. “We don’t have a functional mortuary. Our
light here is not stable. We have no facility to embalm the bodies,”
said a doctor who prefered not to be named. “We are planning to move
the bodies to Gwagwalada Specialist Hospital.” Whodunit?

A police officer,
who did not want to be named, explained his theory of what happened. “I
think that what happened was this: As the corpers gathered by the wall
to check their posting, the bomb man who must have been carrying a bag
and passing by the fence dropped the thing on the ground, [on] the
other side of the wall, and took off.” Pressed for more detail, he said
he was not connected with the investigation. He also said the corps
members could have been saved if they had not been sent out of the
office area where the list was originally pasted. “They became too
rowdy and so the civil servants took the board with the list here by
the gate to avoid the nuisance,” he said.

At the hospital,
many of the grieving relatives of the victims seemed to think that
politicians were responsible. One of the victims, 26-year-old Aminu
Mojid who is a serving corps member said, “If these politicians wanted
to kill themselves they should go ahead. But why involve us? We are
just here to do our duty.” Even the Niger State acting attorney
general, Abdul Bawa, seemed to believe the bombing, like a previous
one, was politically motivated.

“This power that we seek is only going to last a short while anyway.
Why would they kill all these young people just because of elections?
It is tragic.” ‘We will go on’ Nearly every victim who survived the
blast and was interviewed said they had no regrets serving this nation.
“I have no regrets at all,” said Haruna Suleman from his hospital bed.
“We are only praying that this sort of thing should not happen again.
We need reorientation in this country.” Asked whether it was proper to
keep using youth corps members for election duties, Mr Tsiga responded
“Yes, of course. We will never allow the enemies of progress to
distract us. Corps members are Nigerians and we must continuously give
them the opportunity to ensure that Nigeria remains united.”

The old man was
amusing us with stories of early 70s Lagos, the Volkswagen factory
where he worked, and the radiance of the Army officers who visited.

“You know that
engine oil that the Germans make? The one that drips in such clear
tones that you almost wish you could drink it?” he asked. Someone said
we sure did. “Well, that was how Babangida’s skin shone back then,” he
said.

He looked around
him, pausing, like a good storyteller, to gauge the reaction of his
audience. A woman sighed and said, “Na wa o.” The man had our
attention, all right. He continued. “The hairs on his hand were so
fine, and the skin so light, that you could see the veins,” he said.

More passengers
bent their ears towards the man. You wouldn’t think to look at his
spare frame, thick skin, and forsaken shoes. But he was someone
important once. He said while Volkswagen Nigeria existed, he was the
fellow you saw when the German manager was away. Or was too busy at the
Bar Beach. “The white man trusted me. He would say, ‘Tunde, take care
of everything, I am going to relax.’ And he would be off for the whole
day.”

I liked the way he
told his story, the lack of drama, in a gentlemanly sort of way. “The
day Babangida came, I was the most senior man around. I met him at the
gate and apologised for the absence of our manager, but IBB just smiled
and waved it away. ‘It’s okay,’ he said, real nice chap.” “What was he
at the time?” asked a banker who had just taken a call from his pastor
and couldn’t stop talking about the man of God. I tried to get the name
of this wonderful Christian but it was impossible without asking
directly. Besides, the story of how Volkswagen worked, the staff morale
and German efficiency, was riveting.

“Babangida was
commander of the armoured corps,” said our storyteller. “He was a
dashing young colonel. They were all so dashing then: Babangida,
Buhari, Yar’Adua. They all lived in Dodan Barracks. It was such a great
time to be in Lagos.” The banker nodded in admiration. “These people
have been enjoying for a long time,” he said. And then the talk shifted
to how the country had been ruled by the same group for too long; how
charmed their lives have been compared to our drudgery.

The conductor was
the only person who was not impressed. He had just parted with N50,
which the police insisted on collecting for no reason, so talk of
authority was hardly endearing to him.

“Dem be thief, all of them,” he said, looking directly at the storyteller, daring him to contradict his assertion.

The old man was
thrown out of his stride. Before now, the conversation had been light,
peppered with anecdotes. But the conductor’s tone had been hard, like
his stony face. Some of those who had listened to the anecdotes in rapt
attention suddenly withdrew, as if they had been caught doing something
shameful.

“I am not defending
anybody’s actions,” offered the man. “This talk is not about that.” But
the conductor was not interested in subtleties. He was like a dog who
had got hold of a good bone and was not about to let go. On the other
hand, the old man seemed to want to avoid any crudities; any talk with
someone so obviously disgruntled could not stick to the niceties of
polite conversation.

“Oga, you wey dey
talk about how another person skin dey shine like oil,” began the
conductor, spoiling for a quarrel, “You for follow thief money now make
your own skin too shine.” The banker fellow must have felt the old
man’s embarrassment. “No be everybody be thief,” he said to the
conductor. “We are even talking of the 70s when you had not even been
born.” The conductor sneered, “How you know when dem born me?” he
challenged.

At this point, the
old man rallied. “You know, the time I was talking about,” he said,
taking time to address his words to the young banker, “Babangida was
just a colonel. He had not become president then,” he said and the
banker fellow nodded in understanding.

He turned to the
conductor and said, lightly, “You see, no be your money make the man
skin dey shine,” he said, “Na nature.” The conductor had lost interest.
‘’Thief na thief,’’ he said.

The leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC)
in Oyo State has called for the prompt implementation of the new
minimum wage recently approved by the federal government.

The newly elected state chairman of the congress,
Bashiru Olanrewaju, made the request at the governor’s office in Agodi,
Ibadan, on Thursday, when he led other members of the new executive on
a courtesy call to Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala.

Other members of the executive in his entourage were
Ayobami Ajayi (vice chairman), Mrs. Agbaje (vice chairman), Edema
Olorunwa (secretary), Elijah Oluleye (auditor), Eniola Kolawole
(auditor), Mr. Adisa (ex-officio), and Modupeoluwa Arinola (ex-officio).

Mr. Olanrewaju praised the governor for offering to
pay the minimum wage of N18,000 to the state’s civil service. He
informed Mr. Alao-Akala that the state’s workforce shares his vision,
describing him as a worker-friendly executive.

According to him, the governor has worked to ensure
that development is spread evenly across the state during his first
term, particularly in the areas of road network development and
improved healthcare facilities.

The NLC boss also sought the governor’s intervention
to unify the labour unions in his domain, stressing that the effort
would benefit the workers and the government, and increase development
in the state.

A positive response

In his reaction, the governor, who congratulated the
new NLC executive, calling Mr. Olanrewaju a good crisis manager, hoped
that he would be able to achieve the needed unity among the unions in
the congress.

Mr. Alao-Akala said the new minimum wage has become a
law, which his government is willing to implement. He said his
government is always ready to attend to the welfare of its workers, but
offered that it could only act within the limit of its resources.

The governor then counseled the workers against
resorting unnecessarily to strikes every time they want the government
to fulfil their demands.

Free and fair
elections will elude the nation should political office holders
continue to depend on public funds for electioneering activities, the
national chairman of the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP), Ogbonnaya
Onu has said.

Mr Onu, who made
the remarks during a visit by a delegation of the National democratic
Institute (NDI) to the ANPP’s national secretariat, yesterday in Abuja,
said the act gives undue advantage to candidates who are still
occupying public offices.

“Like in the US, if
the president or a governor is going on any function that is not purely
for the benefit of the state; maybe it is for personal or political
purpose, such a leader will not use public fund. This is not what is
happening here and if election must be free and fair, you must have a
level playing field for everybody,” he said.

“This is very
disturbing because money was being freely given while on the queue in
the last election, especially in the South-East and South-South, which
is against the law. And quite often, this money is public fund which
should have been used for the development of the country.”

Speaking further on
last Saturday’s election, he said the party is worried that the
government is yet to organise elections that can really be said to be
free and fair in the country going by the party’s experience.

“The pre-election
conditions are very important because if you have so much insecurity
leading to intimidation, harassment, then you create a situation where
people will be afraid to participate fully in the process,” Mr Onu
said. “We had instances of a lot of insecurity before and during the
election itself. The level of insecurity is very worrisome even though
it has reduced.”

Objective report

Mr Onu urged the
NDI to ensure that its preliminary and final reports of election
monitoring exercise were objectively carried out to gain the public
trust.

The leader of the
delegation and former Prime Minister of Canada, Joe Clark, promised
that the institute will be impartial in its report, adding that it will
release an interim report on the presidential report next Monday.

“We will be objective,” Mr Clark said.

The Conference of
Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP), in Akwa Ibom State is advocating for
violence-free presidential elections devoid of political, ethnic,
religious or any other form of sentimental colouration that may plague
the election.

The group, which
is advocating that the people of the state and the South-South
geopolitical zone support the candidacy of President Goodluck Jonathan
by voting him back as president on Saturday, appealed to the electorate
to make their conscience their guide at the polls.

State chairman of
the CNPP, Prince Udofia in a statement in Uyo yesterday, encouraged
voters not to relent in their efforts at ensuring that the remaining
elections were conducted successfully.

Cautioning against
the attitude of making the elections a do-or-die affair, Udofia said,
“the conference appeals to all Akwa Ibom people, South-South
geopolitical zone and Nigerians that they should shun all political,
ethnic or religious sentiments in all its ramifications.

“That they should
vote for good performance, transformation and good governance in
Nigeria, and conduct themselves in a more proper and matured manner. So
the presidential election should be devoid of violence, political
sentiment and rancour.” The group also called on the electorate to
ensure that their votes protected.

The group’s call is coming on the heels of the ethnic tension that
has built up, especially among the Annang and the Ibibio where the
state governor and PDP governorship candidate, Godswill Akpabio and his
ACN counterpart, John Akpanudoedehe, hail from respectively.

It was a bad day
for the Labour Party in Oyo State on Thursday, as its candidate for the
office of deputy governor in the next election, Samuel Adejumobi,
dumped the party for the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).

Mr Adejumobi is
the majority leader of the Oyo State House of Assembly and was elected
to the house on the ticket of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

He led a group of
ten members of the legislative arm last year to seek the removal of
Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala, over alleged misappropriation of the
state’s funds. The attempt led to violence in the house, in which some
members of his group were wounded and were all later suspended.

Despite a court
order directing that they are re-absorbed and the arrears of their
entitlement paid them, the lawmakers are still being barred from
discharging their duties and the money is still not paid.

He, however hinged
his decision to join the ACN on the party’s showing in the last
parliamentary elections and consultation with “family, friends, opinion
leaders, students, market women and many other stakeholders”.

Stepping down

Mr Adejumobi
defected to the party along with six other colleagues at the state
assembly who were denied payment of their entitlements. These include
Kazeem Ayilara (deputy speaker), Mohammed Inakoju (chairman, house
parliamentary caucus), Michael Okunlade, Abiola Ayorinde, Tijani
Ademola Razak and Kayode Anumashaun.

Mr Ayilara, who is
contesting the seat in the Ibadan South West/Ibadan North West
constituency on the platform of Labour Party, has also offered to dump
his ambition and join the ACN.

Mr Adejumobi said
all other colleagues seeking to return to the state legislature on any
other platform other than the ACN, will step down for the contestants
in their new party. He said the state needed a new leader who will save
it from the backwardness the incumbent governor is leading it to.

“The results show that the ACN has the highest number of votes at
332,027 votes and careful analysis of the results show that the party
also has the widest spread in all the geo-political zones of Oyo
State,” he said while positing that Abiola Ajimobi, the ACN
governorship candidate, is better positioned to lead the state.

Five days after the
National Assembly elections, the Independent National Electoral
Commission has yet to release the official comprehensive results for
the polls, breaching its self-imposed deadline of 48 hours. Ahead of
the polls last Saturday, the commission announced it will push for a
prompt release of the total results within two days after balloting, as
part of a series of measures to shore up its commitment to the
transparency of the exercise before Nigerians.

In the commission’s
reckoning, a well-conducted election would remove delays with the
results and also curtail the propensity of multiple litigations that
have weighed on the outcome of past nationwide polls.

Yet, the complete
results have remained unreleased 120 hours after, and 24 hours to the
second in a series of national elections.

Officials have
struggled to justify the delay which has continued even after Tuesday’s
meeting between the commission’s leadership and the 37 Resident
Electoral Commissioners. They argue that though the results had not
been centrally released within 48 hours, they were announced at the
state level before 24 hours.

INEC is investigating

At Wednesday’s
media briefing, the Chairman, Attahiru Jega, said: “What is worth doing
is worth doing well. We do not want to make mistakes,” he remarked to a
question posed after the main telecast interview. He said with the
number of petitions and complaints from politicians reaching his
office, the commission chose to verify some claims-for instance, the
Anambra senate tussle between Dora Akunyili and Chris Ngige- before
making a final declaration.

Despite a near
certain prospect that whatever results is posted by the electoral body
will be contested in court as many aggrieved candidates have indicated,
he said the commission should better be certain of its result before
certifying one.

He assured that the
results should be uploaded to the commissions’ website on Thursday.
However, as of 6 pm yesterday, the document was yet to be placed on the
web.

Emmanuel Umenger,
the commission’s Director for Public Affairs said many of the states
had yet to fully transmit their results to the commission assuring that
the electoral body would not delay in making that public as soon as
they are received.

“It is a public
document and they will be made public,” he said yesterday. Mr Jega’s
spokesperson, Kayode Idowu, said the 48 hours earlier announced by the
commission was not to be regarded as a “dogma” but rather as a
guideline to result release.

Meanwhile, the
commission has reassured the last Saturday’ mode of voters
accreditation, which some international observers and political parties
say is rigorous, would not be suspended during the presidential
election tomorrow.

Modified open ballot continues

Mr Jega told a
delegation of the European Union Election Observation Mission to
Nigeria, that the Modified Open Ballot System will not be jettisoned.

He said since the
prevalent national mood was that the commission must not fail, it would
be unwise to adopt a new voting strategy midway into the general
elections. “In the meeting that we had on Tuesday, we paid a lot of
attention to strengthening the accreditation system, making it more
efficient, and also the voting procedure.

“With time when we
restore sufficient credibility to the process, then we can begin to
look at other ways of ensuring a more convenient procedure. But for
now, we will make do with the Open Modified Ballot System,” he said.

On preparations for Saturday, he said the needed materials are
already on the ground and have been distributed to the states and from
the reports we are getting, in many of the states, deployment to
far-flung corners had already commenced.”