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At 75, Sunday
Awazieama thought he had seen it all. Violence, after all, was not new
to the retired medical assistant, a survivor of the Biafra War.

But the events of the early hours of May 1 left him shaken.

At about 2 am,
several anti-riot policemen and soldiers accompanied by members of the
vigilante group popularly called the Bakassi Boys, invaded his village,
Umuuwaoma, along the Aba- Ikot-Ekpene Road, leaving destruction in
their trail.

“I was awoken by
the sound of gunshots. Before I could rise from my sleeping position,
they had broken my door and I was bundled out of my house like a common
criminal,” he said. His house was razed.

A similar fate befell other villagers, who barely escaped with their lives.

According to the
locals, the invaders then proceeded to rape young girls and women, some
in the presence of their husbands and children.

According to
Chinenye Emelogu, the counsel representing the villagers, this was a
clear case of reprisal attack on an innocent community.

“The police mounted
a checkpoint at a place called Umuibe, which is a few kilometres from
my clients’ community. While the police were there collecting their
bribe as usual, armed robbers engaged them in a shootout and, along the
line, a police constable lost his life. So in the night of the
incident, I learnt that the commissioner of police ordered the area
commander and the divisional police officer at eastern Ngwa to mobilise
the Bakassi people and the police in a joint taskforce and, in a
military commando style, they invaded that community.” It is, however,
interesting to note that the police did not make any effort to arrest
anybody while the ordeal lasted.

This is not the
only time the large retinue of policemen deployed in Aba, under the
guise of fighting kidnappers, will be accused of being engaged in harsh
tactics, extra legal activities.

In the same month,
the Anti Terrorists Squad of the police descended with all its might on
hapless civilians at Osisiomah Junction in the heart of Aba town, a day
after it was roundly defeated by a gang of armed robbers who killed one
of the policemen and took another hostage, injuring people in their
hundreds and killing some others.

The sin committed by the people was that the police alleged they cheered the robbers as they were attacking the policemen.

Ukpai Ukairo, the
legal adviser of the Peoples Democratic Party in the southeast, is not
surprised at the reaction of the police.

“It is in the
character of the Nigerian police to attack hapless citizens when they
fail in their duty to check robbery or kidnapping who otherwise had no
hand in the crime committed,” he said.

When asked about
extra-judicial killings and the destruction of property committed by
his men, Ebere Onyeagoro, the police commander of the Aba Area Command
did not deny it. He, however, tried to rationalise his men actions.

“It was a problem
of misplaced aggression and nobody could really say that it was all a
police affair. Certain problems may come up and the touts joined in
doing whatever thing,” he said.

Making matters worse

The heavy police
presence in Aba and environs, rather than ameliorating the already ugly
situation in the town, appears to be fuelling it, interviews over
several days with a cross-section of residents show.

Many of those we spoke to said they would rather see the number of policemen in the town reduced drastically.

“Since they brought
in more policemen, business has been very bad”, said Emeka Chijioke, a
commercial bus driver that plies the Aba- Ikot-Ekpene road. Mr.
Chijioke makes a total of N1400 on each trip. However, he spends about
N1000 bribing police at the numerous checkpoints along the road.

“The police are not schooled to check kidnapping or any sort of crime”, said Mr. Ukairo.

“Indeed if you were
to really enforce the law the way it is all the policemen now on the
roads in Aba will be in prison for sundry extortion. We abhor them. All
the policemen who take N20 is stealing and kidnapping with police
uniform and tax payers guns while the kidnappers is doing the same
thing through another mode.”

The police Area Commander’s explanation for the behaviour of his men was that this was done by the bad eggs within his ranks.

Nothing on the abductors

NEXT can also
confirm that contrary to police claims that they were conducting a
house to house search and closing in on the criminals in the wake of
the abduction of four journalists and their driver, no such thing was
being done.

The heavy police
presence was largely felt at the highways, where they extort from
commercial drivers. At Ukpakiri, the village where the journalists were
abducted, the only police presence was a checkpoint where passersby
where ordered to raise their arms. Some policemen were, however, seen
along the road searching through the pockets and phone of some youth.

Emeka Ogbonna, of
the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Popular Participation Front,
blamed sub-par performance of the police in getting the intelligence
needed to crack the problem on the inherent lack of trust of the people
in the police.

According to Mr.
Emeka, people who have allegedly given the police information in the
past have been singled out by kidnappers who, after abducting them,
will tell them the exact police unit they had approached to pass on
tips.

An area traditional ruler was a victim of this alleged complicity.
In 2008, Wilson Nna, the Eze of the Aba suburb of Abala, and his wife
were beheaded after allegedly alerting the police to the activities of
certain kidnappers in his community. Similarly, the Eze of Itungwa, who
later became a victim of kidnapping, has run away from his domain.
There was also Chukwuemeka Nwagwu, a police informant who was murdered
by kidnappers.

More than 600
kidnap suspects arrested by the police in various parts of the
south-east are being detained in different police cells in the zone.

The Inspector
General of Police, Ogbonna Onovo, said early this month during an
interactive session with traditional rulers and union leaders at the
Women’s Development Centre, Awka, as part of his tour of the states of
the south-east.

He expressed worry
over the increasing crime rate in the region, adding that he was deeply
disappointed with the activities of those he called his brothers, which
had brought shame to him and the nation. He then called for a special
court to try the suspects.

A visibly worried
Onovo, whose 24-hour deadline to the kidnappers of four journalists in
Abia State ended yesterday, recalled that kidnapping was only known
about 500 years ago during the slave trade era, but said that it was
regrettable that the ugly trend had resurfaced in Nigeria, especially
in the south-east zone.

“The Igbo people
were known as being very industrious all over the world, but today the
people are fast drifting as the arrow heads to kidnapping, fraud,
‘419’, drug and human trafficking.

“Does it mean that
contemporary Igbo people cannot provide leadership as Dr. Nnamdi
Azikiwe and Dr. Michael Okpara did? Why have we lost all the virtues we
are known for?” The police boss asked.

He revealed that
the greatest problems facing him as the nation’s police chief comes
from the south east, his region of origin. “Our children have done
unimaginable things. They have kidnapped priests in the church; they
have kidnapped lawyers, doctors, professionals, and others. They don’t
discriminate in their choice of victims. This is self-annihilation,”
Mr. Onovo warned.

Beyond the use of force

Mr. Onovo also
recalled the way groups like the Movement for the Actualisation of a
Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) had attempted to scuttle the last
national census exercise in the zone, pointing out that such action was
self-destructive, even as he condemned the attitude of institutions in
the zone which tended to honour rogues and dubious characters.

“The Movement for
the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) would not
allow the Igbo population to be properly determined during the 2006
census exercise and today, we are worst for it”, Mr. Onovo said.

He also explained
that the issue of fighting crime had grown beyond what the police could
handle with force, as doing so might endanger the lives of innocent
citizens, but assured that the police were working hard to arrest the
situation.

Part of such
efforts, he said, included the current registration of SIM cards which,
he explained, would help the law enforcement agencies to track
criminals.

Earlier, the state
governor, Peter Obi, represented by his deputy, Emeka Sibeudu, called
for fresh action against the criminals, since according to him, all the
previous efforts seemed futile. “It is our most profound position that
we draw a fresh plan and new strategies for killing of the evil of
kidnapping and violent robbery in our state,” Mr. Obi said.

Also, the Speaker
of the Anambra State House of Assembly, Anayo Nebe, said that the
topical issue in the zone was insecurity of lives and property, and
much had been done in the state to curb the problem with the passage of
a security trust fund bill; yet, the problem persist.

He argued that
whatever achievements the IG had recorded in the other parts of the
country would “pale into insignificance and nothingness” if kidnapping
and other violent crimes persisted in his zone.

Some of the traditional rulers and town union leaders present
alleged that some of the police personnel in the state were aiding and
abetting criminals. They claimed that many of the suspects arrested by
the police through information are usually released after a few days.
Others called on the National Assembly to enact a law prescribing death
penalty for anyone found guilty of kidnapping.

Florence Olawole was full of gratitude and relief, when she
found herself at the front of the queues at the Eko Free Health Mission;
gratitude to the state government for making her an owner of an insecticide-treated
net, and relief that she would be spending less on treating her two
grandchildren for malaria.

“I get net and medicine for the two of them. I thank the state
government for helping the poor people to get net because mosquito is too much
for our area, so this one will protect them against malaria,” said Mrs.
Olawole, a resident of Ijegun, a Lagos suburb.

According to a statistical data obtained from the Lagos State
government, more than 10,000 free insecticide-treated nets have been given out to
residents in the state since 2007. However, experts argue that without a
commensurate effort targeted towards improving the state of the environment,
the purpose of giving out the nets would not be achieved.

Mosquitoes and the
environment

“We cannot just start talking about using mosquito nets when our
environment is very conducive for the breeding of mosquitoes which is the major
vector for malaria. So if you ignore other factors, especially environmental
factors, there are very little you can achieve with the use of mosquito nets,”
said Edward Ndukwe, a Lagos-based general medical practitioner.

“Because the use of mosquito nets alone cannot be the major
weapon we have against malaria, considering that malaria is a tropical disease
and there are environmental factors. If the environment is not clean, if our
drainages are not evacuated, if they are silted and blocked, that will be a
very good breeding ground for mosquitoes that carry the parasite that transfers
it from one person to another,” he said.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO),
insecticide-treated mosquito nets, if properly used and maintained, can repel
or deter mosquitoes from biting or shorten the mosquito’s life span so that it
cannot transmit malaria infection.

“Our plan was to give out 1,000 nets every day. We have given
out 3,000 already. Our targets are pregnant women and children. Every household
is supposed to have at least two mosquito nets,” said Lagos State Health
Commissioner, Jide Idris, at the just concluded Eko Free Health Mission
exercise.

He said that there is a need to educate the people on the
lifecycle of mosquitoes, to help prevent their breeding and bites. Trials of
insecticide-treated nets in the 1980s and 1990s showed that ITNs reduced deaths
in young children by an average of 20 per cent.

Power situation worsens
it

With the frequent power outages, Dr. Ndukwe said, the fight
against malaria may not get the necessary fillip.

“For mosquito nets to be effective, one has to use it and cover
himself when you are sleeping. Knowing that this is a tropical area, our
weather is too hot and the use of mosquito nets encourages heat, it will not
allow for free flow of air in the night and now that even the power holding is
not reliable, you can imagine, in this area you see people cramping themselves
in small rooms; there is no light, and they don’t have fans. It is unlikely
they will still use nets to cover themselves.

“And before they go to bed, people normally sit outside;
children play outside, mosquitoes bite them. So after mosquitoes have bitten
people who were sitting outside in the evenings, and they go inside and cover
themselves with nets, nothing is achieved.”

Complementing the nets

The WHO Global Malaria Programme recommends Indoor Residual
Spraying (IRS), to reduce and eliminate malaria transmission as one of the
strategies for effective malaria control to be achieved by 2015.

According to Dr. Idris, to complement the use of
insecticide-treated nets in the fight against malaria, the state government
would also employ the IRS strategy. “We already have a pilot in two local
governments, and we intend to go round all the local governments,” he said.

“We need to determine the characteristics of these mosquitoes in
the various local governments. And also, to spray, we need to know how many
households, so we can know the amount of chemicals to buy.”

Mrs. Olawole, who works at the Isolo local council secretariat,
said that continuous assistance from the state government would help the masses
win the fight against ill health.

“Whenever they (her grandchildren) have malaria, I always carry them to
general hospital and I spend money. When I reach there, they can give one drug
out of five, the rest they will write it for me and I will go and buy outside.
Sometimes I spend N3,000,” she said.

“Since these
criminal elements have dared the might of the police and the might of
the federal government, it has come to a point where we have to pay
them in their own coins.”

“I deployed a
contingent to start combing the bush, house to house search and with a
charge to rescue the journalists alive because if there is
confrontation, we don’t know who will survive the assault.”

“The problem of
kidnapping has become so worrisome; the situation is really getting out
of hand. It has taken over the South-east. We must ask, why this menace
has become permanent in the South-east. Are these gangsters not human
beings? Are they ghosts? From available records, virtually all the
suspected kidnappers arrested across the country are Igbos.

“I will soon remove
the road blocks because the objective for which they were introduced
has been defeated. I don’t see what use and benefit they have achieved
other than the exploitation of hapless masses. The road blocks were
introduced to reduce crimes, check rampant spread of arms and
ammunitions, but I don’t know how many arms and ammunitions that have
been recovered in road blocks. Our men have failed woefully there but
if it is extortion of money, they have excelled and succeeded.”

“Israelis are not here as erroneously been discussed in some quarters.

“People are getting it very wrong, we have members of Interpol
working with us, they assist all police forces in the world, where you
have a problem, you can ask them to assist We do things together, their
is no question of Israelis out there. The white men with us are members
of the Interpol. They assist us in terms of equipment; we have not been
able to get a tracking machine, so they are here with it to help us.”

The members of the
House of Representatives committee on privatisation and
commercialisation took turns yesterday to criticise the operations of a
company owned by the former head of Interim National Government (ING),
Ernest Shonekan, which they alleged led to loss of revenue due to the
Nigerian government.

The operations of
AP Moller, the lawmakers said at a meeting in Abuja with players in the
port sector, also “create serious threat to security as a result of
threat to strike by agents ranging from allegations of multiple
charges, unnecessary delays in bookings for examination, very bad
working condition, and inadequate handy equipment for 100 percent
examination of containers.”

The lawmakers,
including Abass Braimah, Akinloye, Nkiruka Onyejiocha, Emmanuel
Adedeji, Faruk Abdullahi, and Mayor Eze, said the company’s operations
constitute a breach of the 25 years concessionary agreement entered
into with the federal government in 2005.

They regretted that
government does not have the political will to address the situation,
and accused the ministry of transport, the Infrastructure Concessionary
Regulatory Commission (ICRC), the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE),
the Nigeria Port Authority (NPA), and the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS)
of shielding AP Moller from punishment, even though the country is
losing money as a result of the company’s operation.

The lawmakers, who
were shocked when told that Mr. Shonekan is the chairman of AP Moller
and ICRC, said they will visit the company (AP Moller) to ascertain the
true situation of things in a few week’s time.

It is not true

But the management of AP Moller denied the claims, insisting that it has been keeping with the provisions of the agreement.

The committee
chairperson, Khadijat Bukar Abba Ibrahim, who noted that the meeting
was convened to get first hand information on the matter, said it
received complaints in the drop of custom duties running into billions
of naira at the port terminal, including the Kirikiri lighter terminal,
that depend entirely on transfers from the Moller Port of Apapa.

Ms. Ibrahim
reminded the stakeholders at the meeting that the objectives of port
reforms and modernisation, which culminated into the concession of port
terminal operations to private operators, were basically to reduce cost
of clearing goods by 50 percent of the pre-concession era and also to
make the process of clearing goods at the port effective and efficient.

The transport
minister, Yusuf Suleiman, told the committee that he was informed that
AP Moller produces its own power for 24 hours, and that the two sitting
tenants were yet to leave while government was yet to construct the
roads. He added that cargo charges were done based on fluctuating rate
of the dollars, noting that this may be the reason for the actions of
terminal operators.

Not met expectations

Mr. Suleiman
admitted that the operations of the Apapa Port had not met the
expectation of government, adding that it (government) has constituted
a committee to find out a way of creating one-stop-shop for goods
clearing at the port.

The minister, however, assured that the ministry would ensure that the company keeps its own side of the agreement.

I.I. Suleiman and
G.T. Aliu, both of whom represented the NCS, said though the service
has been facing some challenges, especially in the area of
accommodation since the concession agreement was reached, the
operations of AP Moller had not in any way led to loss of revenue to
the nation.

However, Mr. Aliu
later withdrew this submission when he was confronted with statistics
submitted two weeks ago to the house committee on customs and excise
showing that the country has been losing revenue.

Acting director
general of BPE, Bolanle Onagoruwa, regretted that there has been lack
of political will on the part of government to tackle the breach of
concessionary agreement by investors and to call the ports operators to
order.

These, she said,
may be the reason the port reforms will not be successful. She added
that some companies, such as Dangote Holdings and Sunflower Ltd., have
refused to move out of the port and that government appeared helpless
explaining. According to her, this must have made AP Moller to
unilaterally deduct some amount of money from the lease.

Ms. Onagoruwa also
said that the issue of multiplicity of agencies at the port is being
addressed so as to reduce the cost of doing business at the port. Aminu
Diko, who represented the ICRC, which is also chaired by Mr. Shonekan,
disclosed at the meeting that the organisation is carrying out its
activities effectively.

The managing director of AP Moller, Martins Dirss, insisted that the
company has not breached the concessionary agreement, even as he reeled
out statistics on its operation. He said the company is committed to
its investments and urged Nigeria to create and allow a conducive
environment for investment.

The Deputy Senate President, Ike
Ekweremadu’s decision to remove section 121 of the amended constitution
from the list of sections that were passed by the states was the cause
of discord in the senate yesterday, as senators roundly criticized him.

Section 121 was meant to put state
legislatures on first line charge of the states’ revenue and grant them
financial independence from the executive.

Although Mr. Ekeweremadu earlier
announced that the section was successfully amended after it supposedly
got the required 24 state votes, he later withdrew his comments by
saying a cross check of the resolutions revealed that Katsina, one of
the states believed to have voted for the clause, had two conflicting
versions and was therefore dropped.

Also, Kwara State which voted for the independence of the state judiciary was later found not to have voted for their autonomy.

“So as it stands now, section 121 was
not amended,” Mr. Ekweremadu told journalists late Wednesday. “We did
not want to go through any controversy so we decided to reject that of
Katsina for that reason. That leaves us with 22 states.”

The Katsina State House of Assembly had
allegedly sent two conflicting resolutions to the national assembly:
one dated June 30, where the section was passed and another one July 7,
where it said the section was not passed.

“I think you should reverse your
steps,” Lee Maeba (Rivers State) told the Deputy Senate president who
was presiding over the session. “You would have contacted the Committee
on Constitutional Review and discussed it or contact the Katsina House
of Assembly to know its position.”

George Sekibo (PDP Rivers State) also
argued that it was out of place for an issue to be altered when the
Senate had already taken its decision.

“It would be ideal for us to contact the Katsina state House of Assembly to know their resolution,” he said.

Subsequently, a majority of the senators clamoured for an overrule of the decision.

Although the deputy senate president
tried to offer an explanation for his action, the angry senators
shouted him down, leading to a call for a closed door session for the
day.

After the session, however, the Senate’s spokesperson, confirmed
that both the Katsina and Kwara legislatures did not pass Section 121,
adding that the argument erupted on the floor of the Senate because
senators were not intimated by the leadership of the Senate before
taking the decision.

The House of
Representatives has stopped the bid by the Nigerian Communications
Commission to spend N6.1b on the registration of SIM cards, saying the
exercise is the responsibility of operators in the telecoms industry.

Lawmakers dumped
the plan on Thursday, overwhelming Dave Salako, the Communications
Committee chairman of the House, who, last week, offered to raise the
amount and spent minutes justifying the sum during yesterday’s debate
on the commission’s 2010 budget.

At the sitting, Mr.
Salako was asked to explain his committee’s recommendation that the
commission proceed with the project, after many lawmakers argued that
the burden should be borne by the service providers.

He explained that
operators fear they lack the technical capacity to carry out the
registration and may not be able to complete the job on schedule.

He said the
decision, as reached by the both sides, was for the NCC to register
existing phone users while the providers register new ones.

The details
prompted members to condemn the plan, with the Speaker, Dimeji Bankole,
and the Deputy, Usman Nafada, reminding Mr. Salako of the powers of the
lawmaking body to decide, and not to be decided to.

“It is not a choice
for them to make,” Mr. Nafada said. “Even if they are not registering
existing lines, the National Assembly has the power to direct them to
do so.”

Mr. Bankole
advised, that, “We don’t want to put you in a difficult position so
that it does not look as if you are an advocate.”

The House voted overwhelmingly against that provision after series of consultations.

Mr. Salako’s
defence of the N6.1bn allocation, against the disapproval his
colleagues, has deepened the complexities surrounding the project meant
to curb kidnapping and extortion.

Vague issues

The Representatives
had recommended that the communications committee should disallow the
allocation on the grounds that, as a regulatory body, the NCC has no
duty registering phone users since they do not sell the SIMs.

But at last week’s
committee consideration of the N42.6b budget of the commission, the
chairman overruled that concern and offered to raise the amount if the
commission said N6.1bn would be insufficient.

The understanding
is that contracts for the job have already been awarded even before the
appropriation and the chairman himself pointed that out during the
budget defence session.

His insistence, backed Halims Agoda, and Austin Uchendu, is viewed as an attempt at properly retiring the contract claims.

Mr. Bankole vowed
to unearth the vague issues surrounding the project, and justified the
decision after Mr. Uchendu said it would work against the fight against
kidnapping.

“No member of this house will support of kidnapping, and nobody opposes this project,” he said.

“What we are saying
is that, in the process of doing this, we cannot do what will touch on
the mood of the public by appropriating money when money has already
been made available by the service providers.

“Therefore, we will get to the bottom of this matter without anyone playing on our intelligence,” he warned.

Mr. Bankole, however, ruled that the chamber’s position on the matter could be revisited through the House rescinding rule.

Former military president and presidential aspirant,
Muhammed Buhari, of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), has
expressed confidence about the Independent National Electoral
Commission’s (INEC) capacity to conduct free and fair elections in 2011.

Mr. Buhari stated this yesterday when he commissioned
the new party secretariat in Jos-Makurdi road in the Bukan-Sidi area of
Nasarawa State.

The general urged INEC to update the voter’s register
in preparation for the forthcoming general election. He warned against
disenfranchising the youth, saying that those who were 18 years and
older should be allowed to take part in the forthcoming general
election.

He asked Nigerians not to vote for corrupt leaders again because
they are criminals, and urged the large crowd who came out to welcome
him, to vote for people of high integrity. He noted that the money
current leaders had realized in the past ten years, was enough to cover
the cost of free education, health care and security.

Women, who do not
necessarily partake in conflict situations or the processes that lead
to them, are usually the most affected by the several ethno-religious
crisis that have hit Nigeria in recent times.

Several
professionals in Gender Studies and Women Affairs, who came to this
consensus during a conference on Women’s Human Rights and Religion, in
Abuja, organised by a non-governmental organisation, BAOBAB for Women’s
Human Rights, also advised women to be more proactive in their response
to conflict situations.

Aituaje Pogoson, a
senior lecturer at the University of Ibadan, said women and children
are more susceptible to unprovoked violence during and after conflict
situations. “Women who are not involved in the decisions that lead to
religious and ethnic conflicts usually bear the brunt of the
conflicts,” she said. “Women are more susceptible to harm in conflict
situations whether or not they are involved in the war or conflict
situation. The able bodied men go to war but the women are left
unprotected and to care for the children leaving them vulnerable to
attacks.”

Mrs. Pogoson advocated for an increased focus on how women survive during and after conflict situations.

In support, Doris
Onieje, who lectures at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, reiterated
that the coverage of the recent Jos crisis by the Nigerian media did
not draw much attention to the plight of women, some of whom were
widowed, raped, and killed during the course of the conflict. “The
media has failed to adequately capture the impact of the conflict on
women,” she said.

No security during conflicts

Vonke Dickson, a
participant in the conference, recounted a frightful experience during
the Jos crisis. Five days ago, Mrs. Dickson said she was alone in her
home with her two children, aged 10 months and 3 years. Not too far
away in a neighbouring village, Mahza, a fresh upheaval had just
occurred and she feared that her village would be next. Mrs. Dickson,
with her husband away, kept vigil from midnight till dawn with no way
to contact any emergency service. “I could do nothing but stay awake
and wish that there was an emergency number that I could call,” she
said. “Even if I could jump over the fence and run away, what about the
children?” Her story effectively re-emphasized the helpless state that
women, who are left to care for the children in conflict situation,
find themselves.

Some speakers urged
women who overhear plans by their husbands, brothers, or neighbours to
perpetrate violence, to alert relevant authorities so that future
conflicts can be prevented. “Women must learn to speak out and report
such plans which lead to conflicts,” Mrs. Obieje said, adding that more
women should “clamour for affirmative participation in policy making.”
Other speakers, however, rose in defence of women who keep silent in
conflict situations.

“Women should be encouraged to speak out. But we must realise that
keeping quiet is something that has been embedded in our subconscious
by the society because of cultural or religious reasons. Women are
usually expected to be silent,” Snow Ogunjimi, who is the Programme
Officer (Youth and Women Initiatives) in TY Danjuma Foundation, said.
Mrs. Pogoson agreed with Ms. Ogunjimi. “It may not always be deliberate
silence, but that which has existed over the years. Women need courage
to be able to report some of the things they may overhear,” she said.

Some Ondo State residents, yesterday, faulted the
deployment of former Ekiti State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Ayoka
Adebayo to Ondo State.

Mrs. Adebayo conducted last year’s contentious
re-run elections in the Ekiti State in a manner observers believed was
highly controversial. She initially refused to declare the result of
the election and went incommunicado for days until she surfaced in
Abuja and pronounced the Peoples’ Democratic Party candidate, Segun
Oni, winner of the polls. Sola Iji, the state Chairman of the Action
Congress, said there was no point retaining Mrs. Adebayo in INEC after
her performance in Ekiti State last year.

“I want to pass vote of no confidence on Ayoka
Adebayo to conduct flawless election in Ondo state,” he said. “Her
redeployment to the state at this auspicious moment was shocking.
Attahiru Jega (INEC Chair) should be held responsible for any debacle
in next year elections in the state. Redeployment of Mrs. Adebayo is a
wrong signal to the credibility of Jega’s led electoral body to conduct
generally acceptable polls.”

Also, an Akure based legal practitioner, Titiloye Charles, expressed
concern on the deployment of Mrs. Adebayo, saying “it is on record that
her controversial role in the disputed Ekiti re-run election is still
pending before the court of Appeal in Ilorin. We doubt her neutrality
in the face of threat by some individuals to capture the state in 2011.
Mrs Adebayo’s redeployment has cast a doubt on the ability of new INEC
boss to conduct fair next year.”